Botaan

Botaan
Race	Sporemound
Affiliation(s)	Evergrowth
Location	Farahlon (body)
Status	Deceased

Botaan was the last of the three final Sporemounds faced by Grond, the other two being Naanu and Zang. It was covered with primal forestlands.

Biography

After both Zang and Naanu had fallen to Grond's attacks, the giant was weakened and scarred by the battle. Botaan sensed its opponent's weakness, but would need more power to defeat the giant. It leeched the life essence from the bodies of Naanu and Zang, absorbing the energies and growing to a monstrous size. It eventually managed to defeat Grond by entangling him in thousands of small vines that gradually burrowed into the cracks on his skin until they tore the wounds open, killing the giant.

During the battle between Grond and the Sporemounds, pieces of their bodies had fallen to the earth and given rise to new types of creatures. From the seeds and roots of Zang, Naanu and Botaan, many unique beings sprouted, the greatest of which were the genesaur, while from the largest boulders that had toppled from Grond, the colossals arose. Much of the stony debris that had fallen from the giant also contained the elements of fire, air, earth and water, leading to the birth of myriads of elementals. Aggramar, Grond's creator, was confident that the colossals would be able to destroy Botaan and bring balance to Draenor, and to aid them he crafted great discs inscribed with titan runes from the body of Grond and fused them to the colossals, creating armor that granted them strength and resilience. In the meantime, Botaan and the genesaur had begun to retake lands Grond had taken from the Evergrowth. As Aggramar unleashed the colossals against Botaan, he felt a constellar dying somewhere in the Great Dark Beyond and left to investigate with the promise he would return one day. He never did.

The colossals would never know of Aggramar's ultimate fate and fully expected their master to return. They were determined to bring balance to Draenor before that happened, but it was an enormous task, for the Evergrowth had enveloped much of the world and Botaan now eclipsed Grond in size. It would have to be drawn away from the Evergrowth if the colossals had any chance of succeeding, and so they drew its ire by hacking way at the forests at the Evergrowth's edge. Botaan rallied the genesaur and they stormed toward the colossals, which retreated into barren ravines and hills that would give them the advantage. Botaan followed them as it saw the colossals as only pale imitations of Grond, and when it left the borders of the Evergrowth the colossals attacked with their full might. The ensuing war shook Draenor for thousands of years, with control of the world constantly moving back and forth between the two forces.

The battles over time took their toll on the colossals. Just as they had broken off from Grond, pieces of their bodies that broke off came to life as the magnaron. The colossals called on the magnaron to fight the Evergrowth, but they did not obey. Some did indeed battle the forces of Botaan, but not out of loyalty to the colossals, and others simply left the battlefield to seek out areas of volcanic activity. The colossals' numbers were dwindling and they had to take drastic action or they would fail. The titan discs that made their armor contained immense power, and that power would stop the Evergrowth. The colossals piled onto Botaan and unleashed the energy in unison, creating a massive explosion. It shattered the bodies of Botaan and the colossals and sent the pieces all across Draenor. Botaan's death rattle blazed through every root and leaf in the world, causing lush tracts of forests to wither and instantly killing hundreds of genesaur where they stood. For one brief moment, the entirety of the Evergrowth trembled with the shared agony of Botaan's death. Then there was silence. Botaan's demise had destroyed the communal sentience of Draenor's wilds. Unlike the fallen colossals, Botaan's body still contained potent life energies. Wherever fragments of the being fell to the earth, forests and jungles arose, while the bulk of its body formed a vibrant region later known as Farahlon.

Taala

Main article: Taala

Many years later, a treant called Gnarlgar began to see the arakkoan Apexis civilization as an immense affront to nature and an even greater threat to the primals than the breakers. Gnarlgar departed its home in Talador in search of a weapon to use against the Apexis, and discovered a massive fossilized root - one of the last remaining intact pieces of Botaan's body. The treant returned to Talador and rallied the botani, telling them that they would use the root to craft a new Sporemound, greater than any that had come before it, to cast the Apexis from their lofty spire. Using a great ritual and thousands of botani sacrifices, the enormous Sporemound Taala was born, but it was eventually destroyed by the arakkoan superweapon known as the Breath of Rukhmar, forever extinguishing the Evergrowth.