Loken

For information on how to defeat Loken in the Halls of Lightning, see Loken (tactics).

Loken
Title	Prime Designate, Keeper
Gender	Male
Race	Titanic watcher (Giant)
Affiliation(s)	Iron army, Ulduar, Old Gods' forces
Former affiliation(s)	Pantheon of Order
Occupation	Prime Designate of Azeroth, Keeper of Ulduar, Servitor of Yogg-Saron
Location	Various
Status	Deceased (lore) Killable
Relative(s)	Odyn (father), Thorim (brother), Sif (sister-in-law and lover)

“My master has shown me the future, and you have no place in it. Azeroth will be reborn in darkness. Yogg-Saron shall be released! The Pantheon shall fall!”

— Loken

Loken was one of the titanic keepers tasked by the Pantheon of Order to watch over Azeroth in their absence. He betrayed his fellow keepers after becoming corrupted by the Old God Yogg-Saron, who was imprisoned in Ulduar. His first kill, his brother Thorim's wife Sif, was accidental, but his efforts to cover up the incident—and then to cover up the cover-up—ultimately spiraled out of control. Loken's trickery left most of the other keepers incapacitated or dead, unwittingly released the curse of flesh upon the titan-forged, and allowed him to seize the title of Prime Designate (which had previously belonged to Odyn) and take control of Ulduar. Desperate to prevent the titans from discovering his crimes, he attempted to cover up his actions and made it impossible for anyone to contact the Pantheon's watcher, Algalon; only Loken's own death would summon Algalon to Azeroth.

Millennia later, during the war against the Lich King, Yogg-Saron increased its power over the keepers in Ulduar and commanded Loken to create an iron army from the Forge of Wills, with which he worked to undermine the titans' creations across Northrend and attempt to free Yogg-Saron from its prison. He was killed by mortal adventurers in the Halls of Lightning.

Biography

Ancient history

Loken was one of the keepers created by the Pantheon of Order to lead the titan-forged armies in the war against the Old Gods' Black Empire. Loken and Mimiron were both created by Norgannon and empowered with a portion of the titan's intellect and mastery of arcane magic. During the keepers' battles with the Elemental Lords, Loken and Mimiron used their wits to outmaneuver Neptulon the Tidehunter and his water elementals to prevent them from coming to the aid of the other lords. Loken used his arcane power to freeze and destroy the elementals, and Mimiron crafted bonds to imprison Neptulon himself. When the keepers defeated and imprisoned the Old Gods, Loken enchanted the prison structures that Archaedas and Mimiron had crafted in order to neutralize the Old Gods' evil. In the final battle against Yogg-Saron, the titan-forged were nearly overwhelmed by the C'Thraxxi, until Odyn ordered Loken to cast an illusion spell to confuse the enemy and allow Odyn to cut them down, ensuring victory.

Loken and Mimiron created the Discs of Norgannon to commemorate the Pantheon's departure at the end of the Ordering of Azeroth. Loken was one of the keepers who participated in the uplifting of the Dragon Aspects, during which he asked his creator Norgannon to bless Malygos with arcane power.

According to an earthen legend, Loken once led a group of keepers to investigate the source of a mysterious thunderstorm that had filled the sky for weeks. They traveled south until they discovered that the storm was caused by nothing more than Thorim hunting dinosaurs with his rifle Titanstrike.

Corruption and betrayal

Loken corrupted by Yogg-Saron, as depicted in Hearthstone.

After the titans of the Pantheon were killed by Sargeras, their disembodied souls traveled to Azeroth and slammed into their keepers, who experienced an influx of power and fragmented memories but failed to understand what had happened. The keepers tried to contact the Pantheon for answers but never received a reply. Loken was the keeper most troubled by this silence. Yogg-Saron, who was imprisoned in Ulduar, took notice and decided to use the keeper to escape its prison and spread the curse of flesh among the titan-forged, initially by stoking Loken's despair through dreams and whispers. Loken grew close to Sif, the wife of his brother Thorim, and often met with her in private to tell her of his deepening worries. In time, the two fell in love and began an affair. Yogg-Saron twisted Loken's thoughts and turned his love into obsession. Loken began to suggest that he and Sif should make their relationship public, something that Sif refused. She eventually broke her ties with Loken and told him to leave her in peace. Afraid of losing her, Loken lashed out and killed her.

As Loken scrambled to cover up Sif's death, her spirit appeared before him. To his surprise, she forgave him and told him to hurry, lest the titan-forged descend into civil war. Unbeknownst to Loken, the spirit was actually an illusion created by Yogg-Saron. On "Sif's" suggestion, Loken dragged her body into the Storm Peaks and tricked Thorim into believing that she had been killed by Arngrim, the king of the frost giants, thereby triggering a war between them and Thorim's storm giants. Sif's false spirit continued to guide Loken, instructing him to create an army of earthen with the Forge of Wills to protect Ulduar from the giants. She also told him to berate Thorim for starting the war and tell him that his wife would've been ashamed of him, a condemnation that caused Thorim to fall into depression and go into self-exile at the Temple of Storms. Loken then used his new army to end the war between the giants, only to notice the curse of flesh spreading among his warriors. He called out to Sif for advice, but this time she remained silent. Loken realized that Yogg-Saron had tricked him in order to plant the curse of flesh in the Forge of Wills, a discovery that destroyed the last vestiges of his noble heart. From that point onward, Loken became obsessed with covering up the evidence of his crimes, even if it meant having to embrace Yogg-Saron's power to defeat the other keepers.

First, he neutralized Odyn with the help of the latter's adopted daughter, Helya, who resented Odyn for having turned her into a Val'kyr against her will. Loken broke Odyn's magical control over Helya and convinced her to rebel against him and trap him and his Valarjar in the Halls of Valor. Loken then returned to Ulduar and arranged the death of Mimiron, which he made look like a lab accident, though Mimiron's mechagnomes saved their master's life by placing his soul in a mechanical body. Loken and his army then battled and defeated Freya at the Temple of Life and Hodir at the Temple of Winter, trapping them inside Ulduar and corrupting them into complacency with Yogg-Saron. Two of the remaining keepers, Tyr and Archaedas, hid in the Storm Peaks with their friend Ironaya. Loken assumed they'd fled the region and took sole control of Ulduar, altering the city's machineries and using them to anoint himself the new Prime Designate of Azeroth, a title previously held and abandoned by Odyn. Loken then disabled the corrupted Forge of Wills, banished many of his servants to the Storm Peaks, and sealed off Ulduar. He expected the final keeper, Ra, to come from southern Kalimdor to investigate, but Ra had disappeared after privately discovering that the Pantheon was dead. Loken sent some of his army to Uldum to look for him, unwittingly spreading the curse of flesh to the southern titan-forged races in the process. For ages thereafter, Loken languished within Ulduar, ever fearful that the Pantheon or their watcher, Algalon the Observer, would return to Azeroth and discover his crimes.

The Discs of Norgannon

Loken at the Temple of Wisdom in World of Warcraft.

Following the Winterskorn War, a titan-forged conflict caused by Loken's creations Volkhan and Ignis, Keeper Tyr and his allies concluded that the titan-forged would remain divided as long as Loken was in control of Ulduar, but in order to undo the damage he'd done they first needed information about his activities. Tyr's champion Yrgrim used the shield Truthguard to investigate the cause of Loken's betrayal and exposed his corruption by Yogg-Saron. Tyr subsequently went to the gates of Ulduar and demanded that Loken give up control of the city, which tricked the fallen keeper into emerging and entering an argument with Tyr. Meanwhile, Archaedas and Ironaya snuck inside and stole the Discs of Norgannon, which had been recording everything that happened on Azeroth, including the details of Loken's betrayal. Tyr and his allies then fled south with the discs and large numbers of titan-forged. Loken panicked since he knew that his life would be forfeit if the discs were presented to Algalon or the Pantheon. He excavated the prisons of two C'Thraxxi, Zakajz and Kith'ix, and sent them to kill Tyr and his allies. He also captured Jotun, another of Tyr's friends who'd stayed behind to mask his allies' escape, and punished him by placing a curse on his mind that forced him to roam the land and destroy destroy anything associated with Tyr. Zakajz and Kith'ix caught up with Tyr in what is now Tirisfal Glades, but he sacrificed his life to stop the creatures, allowing Archaedas and Ironaya to escape to Uldaman with the discs.

The C'Thraxxi's failure made Loken even more desperate. Since he couldn't reach the discs in the easily-defensible Uldaman, he tried to replace them by creating his own archive, the Tribunal of Ages, whose records he adjusted to cover up his crimes. However, the Tribunal's archive proved to be flawed and the histories within were warped even beyond Loken's understanding. Among other falsehoods, the Tribunal claims that it was the Pantheon themselves who had designated Loken the supreme sentinel of Azeroth. Finally, Loken altered the communication devices in Ulduar to prevent Archaedas, Ironaya, or any other living creature from contacting Algalon, meaning that only Loken's own death would summon the Observer. Loken assumed that his death would come at the hands of Archaedas and Ironaya, and that if so, Algalon would avenge him by re-originating Azeroth and wiping out all of its inhabitants.

Wrath of the Lich King

This section concerns content related to Wrath of the Lich King.

An image of Loken addressing the iron dwarves in Baelgun's Excavation Site.

For millennia, the imprisoned Yogg-Saron's grasp on Loken and the other keepers remained tenuous. Attempts to convince them to directly help the Old God had proven fruitless. In 26 ADP, Cho'gall infiltrated Ulduar and weakened the chains in the Prison of Yogg-Saron, greatly strengthening the Old God's control over the keepers. The entity commanded Loken to use the Forge of Wills to create an iron army of bloodthirsty iron dwarves and vrykul to fortify the lands around Ulduar. These new creations drove the remaining earthen and mechagnomes from Ulduar. During the war against the Lich King in 27 ADP, Loken commanded iron dwarves in the Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord to enslave local stone giants and march them north so that they could destroy Ulduar's defenses and free Yogg-Saron, and to make war on the stone giants who resisted so that they would not interfere. He also sent iron dwarves led by Valduran the Stormborn on a campaign to destroy the earthen exiles who'd sheltered at Bouldercrag's Refuge in the Storm Peaks.

Loken dominating Thorim during the confrontation at the Temple of Wisdom.

For millennia, Keeper Thorim had remained in a stupor at the Temple of Storms while his vrykul servants, the Hyldnir, continued to war against the frost giants of the Sons of Hodir in the Storm Peaks. Loken sought to lure Thorim away from the safety of his temple and disguised himself as Lok'lira the Crone, a vrykul illusionist held captive by the Hyldnir in the Forlorn Mine. In this form, he tricked adventurers into entering and winning the Hyldnir's competition, the Hyldsmeet, so that they could rally Thorim to retake Ulduar from Loken. In the process, Lok'lira gave the adventurers a strand of hair implied to have belonged to Sif. The adventurers met with Thorim, and their words and the hair strand motivated the keeper to finally avenge Sif's death by reconciling with the Sons of Hodir and leading them and the earthen to retake the Terrace of the Makers from Loken's forces. He then went with the adventurers to confront his traitorous brother at the Temple of Wisdom. Thorim would normally have killed Loken in a fair fight, but since he'd left his own temple where he was strongest and instead came into proximity to Loken's own master, Loken was able to use Yogg-Saron's power to overpower Thorim. Loken left the adventurers alive as thanks for their unwitting aid, then brought the captive Thorim and his drake Veranus into Ulduar. Yogg-Saron took control of Thorim's mind using an illusion of Sif, while Loken instructed Ignis the Furnace Master to transform Veranus into the plated monstrosity Razorscale. Loken also instructed Ignis to create the giant Kologarn to guard Ulduar's inner sanctum.

Loken himself retreated to his sanctum, Ulduar's Halls of Lightning, where he was guarded by his iron army as well as air elementals he'd recruited to be his personal defenders. Jokkum, king of the Sons of Hodir, sent Stormherald Eljrrin to take the fight to the keeper's forces. The Kirin Tor feared that Loken was capable of destroying Azeroth and wanted adventurers to defeat him and bring back his ruby ring as proof. Ultimately, while Alliance adventurers helped Brann Bronzebeard defeat Loken's servant Sjonnir and shut down the Forge of Wills in the Halls of Stone, Horde adventurers invaded the Halls of Lightning and killed Loken in the Terrestrial Watchtower. With his last words, the keeper gave a cryptic warning: his death would herald the end of the world. His killers tore out his tongue as proof for Stormherald Eljrrin. As Prime Designate, Loken's death triggered the Algalon Failsafe, the emergency signal that summoned Algalon the Observer to Ulduar to analyze whether the planet was in danger of Old God corruption and in need of re-origination. Contrary to Loken's plans, however, mortal adventurers defeated Algalon and convinced him to spare the planet from destruction.

Locations

Locations
Zone	Level range	Reaction	Notes
Storm Peaks[34.6, 33.6]	25-30 Elite	Alliance Horde
Halls of Lightning	22-32 Boss	Alliance Horde	As the final boss.

Objective of

•  A Time of Wrath

Quotes

Quests

Main article: The Delicate Sound of Thunder#Notes

Main articles: Put on Your Best Face for Loken#Notes, Loken's Orders#Notes

Main article: The Reckoning (Storm Peaks)#Notes

Halls of Lightning encounter

Main article: Loken (tactics)#Quotes

Notes and trivia

• The Hyldnir refer to the jormungar worms as "children of Loken". It's unclear how literally this is meant to be taken.
• Loken is rumored to have created the Earthen Amulet, a relic collected by Neltharion in his lair.
• In the Halls of Valor, Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire can tell priest characters to ask Odyn if he's considered the last words Loken said to him. If they do so, Odyn replies: "How would... You dare mock my imprisonment? Then receive Loken's punishment in his stead!", before instantly killing them.
• Hugh Glass, a madman in the Grizzly Hills, claims to be familiar with Loken and specifically that the keeper is one of the people who are "out to get" him, saying: "You never know which tree he's hiding behind!"
• During the Purge of Dalaran, Archmage Lan'dalock summoned images of various Wrath of the Lich King-era bosses, Loken among them, to fight for him against the Horde.
• In Wrath of the Lich King, both the in-universe Tribunal of Ages and out-of-universe sources stated that the Pantheon had appointed Loken as the Prime Designate, the leader of the keepers, and the head guardian of the Prison of Yogg-Saron. Chronicle Volume 1 and Legion retconned this by revealing that the role had originally belonged to Odyn and that Loken had only usurped it.
• Loken appears as a legendary warlock minion in the TITANS expansion for Hearthstone. His title is "Jailer of Yogg-Saron", and his flavor text reads: Really great at his job! - Yogg-Saron
  • In addition, one of the weapon buffs that can be chosen from Ignis, the Eternal Flame's effect is named Deceit of Loken.
• Loken is voiced by Joe J. Thomas in the Halls of Lightning.
• Loken's name is a reference to Loki, a morally ambivalent trickster god in Norse mythology. Although friendly to the other gods in many stories, Loki is imprisoned after engineering the death of Baldr, and ultimately breaks free to lead the jötnar in battle against the gods during Ragnarök.
  • Loken's aforementioned connection to the jormungar is a reference to Loki fathering the world-serpent Jörmungandr.
  • During the Wrath of the Lich King beta, Loken was also refererred to as Kronus, which is similar to the Titan Cronus in Greek mythology.

Gallery

• 

  A mural depicting Loken's corruption in Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr.
• 

  The corrupted Loken and his army of iron vrykul, as depicted on Encroaching Insanity in Hearthstone.

Patch changes

• Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14): Added.
  

External links

Wowhead WoWDB	Wowhead WoWDB	Wowhead WoWDB