Obsidian Warship

Biodata

Power Progression

Design and Construction

Obsidian Structure

• Reshapable hull: Earth Magic softens raw obsidian into a clay-like mass, allowing Herad to form frameworks and armor or enlarge an existing vessel 353.
• Modular interior: Energy, propulsion, weapon, and utility modules can be removed and reused. Major rebuilds therefore preserve intricate equipment while replacing the keel and armor 407 436.
• Tonnage-based strength: The quantity of obsidian determines the upper limit of energy absorption. A larger outline alone does not guarantee greater combat power 445 469.
• Initial material supply: Much of the first ship’s obsidian came from recycled Anubisath and Obsidian Destroyers rather than Night Elf production 353.
• Later supply network: Deepholm’s earth elemental creatures collected obsidian in exchange for points and trips to the Prime Material Plane. Delivered material could melt directly into the hovering ship 435 444.

Appearance

• Original vessel: Pitch-black and slightly elongated like an egg, resembling a short, stubby submarine 353.
• Thirty-six-cannon model: A broad deck carrying energy cannons, without a smokestack or island superstructure 377 378.
• Twelve-million-ton model: A smooth, submarine-like “big black fish,” with its cannons hidden beneath opening armor plates 407.
• Cannon-centered model: Initially resembled a black rod before Herad gave it a longsword-shaped hull 437 441.
• Planet Cracker model: A black greatsword exceeding 50,000 meters in length, with the main weapon firing from its tip 475.

Abilities and Systems

Energy Absorption and Conversion

• Absorption: Obsidian takes in incoming energy instead of relying solely on a shield to resist it. Demonstrated sources include fel beams, magical storms, Void attacks, and the explosion of Sargeras’s weakened energy clone 353 422 445 460.
• Energy recycling: Absorbed attacks become reserves for the ship’s own weapons, allowing enemy fire to sustain its counterattacks 356 430.
• Chaos Energy conversion: Energy stored in obsidian for more than three minutes changes into a chaotic mixture. Early attacks displayed frost, fire, and lightning effects 356.
• Charge indicators: Fel absorption turns the black hull progressively greener. Internal crystal gauges display the stored energy load 353 410 412.
• Corruption resistance: Obsidian cannot be corrupted by the Old Gods’ Curse of Flesh 445.
• Fel extraction: The ship can recharge inside a Fel Volcano, draining fel from magma and helping reduce the planet’s corruption 441.

Energy Cannons

• Origin: The cannons derive from Burning Legion Fel Main Cannons, improved through super magical computer simulations and testing 408.
• Range and power: The improved weapons outrange Legion ship cannons and can destroy enemy vessels before those ships enter effective firing range 408 409.
• Firing cycle: Normal operation permits another shot after two seconds. Rotating reserve cannons into use maintains a cooling cycle 356 410.
• Firing coverage: The original ship could release energy backward while retreating; later designs distributed numerous cannons around the hull for three-dimensional combat 356 406 407.
• Emergency discharge: Full-power volleys rapidly reduce dangerous stored-energy levels, though overheating forces a cooldown 407 410 412.
• Planet-Buster-Class Main Cannon: The enlarged main weapon blasted away half of Argus the Unmaker’s head during its first documented ambush against him 436 437.
• Planet Cracker: The later greatsword configuration could crush Void Lords through ramming attacks or blast them apart with its main gun 475.

Mobility and Spatial Travel

• Atmospheric and space flight: The first vessel completed takeoff and landing tests without causing Herad discomfort; its design specifications came from the Draenei 353.
• Shielded atmospheric entry: An active shield prevented violent atmospheric friction during its descent into a mountainous battlefield 382.
• Spatial jumps: The Scepter of Sargeras enables the ship’s spatial travel 436.
• Direct warping: Herad eventually abandoned portal-based transport in favor of direct jumps, which consumed comparable spatial energy but were faster and better suited to surprise attacks 445.
• Ramming: Powerful anti-gravity engines drove the ship into Mormont at a stated speed of light, dispersing his energy body in a massive explosion 469.

Autonomous Control

• Uncrewed operation: The intelligent ship can function without a crew 356.
• Target selection: Its Central Control System identifies worthwhile ground targets and directs bombardment 380.
• Independent raids: The system can assess surveyed Fel Planets, choose targets, and conduct low-intensity hit-and-run attacks 408.
• Threat response: It detects hostile magic, reports enemies to Herad, and executes authorized countermeasures 422 427.
• Emergency maneuvering: During the Void Lords’ mass attack, the program calculated the danger and began retreating before the incoming attacks struck 471.

Manaforge and Energy Supply

• Arcane Furnace: An internal energy source allows continued operation without relying entirely on hostile attacks 353 423.
• Arcan'dor reserve: Herad planted Arcan'dor in a botanical garden; its fruit could supply substantial energy in an emergency 423.
• Manaforge: Energy Collection and Conversion Towers linked by conduits continuously draw power from the Void World 476.
• Captured Void creatures: Creatures pulled into the Manaforge circulate through its conduits until their energy is drained 476.
• Forge of Wills: The modified installation purifies incoming Void-derived energy for storage and supply to the Pantheon 491.

Interior Facilities

• Botanical gardens: The kilometer-scale vessel contains multiple gardens; one hall devoted roughly 5,000–6,000 square meters to flowers and grass 379.
• Protective viewing areas: Obsidian armor can close over crystal curtain walls during combat 379.
• Entertainment systems: Its games impressed Alleria and Sylvanas despite their dislike of the hull. Herad used the onboard super magical computer to adapt forgotten Draenei games 407.
• Energy-weapons laboratories: Researchers develop arcane-powered weapons aboard the ship. Obsidian absorbs stray high-voltage arcs, reducing the danger of experimental accidents 408.
• Recoverable test energy: Weapon-test shots can be absorbed by the hull and returned to the energy supply, although some energy is lost 408.
• Large-weapon workspace: Ulthalesh’s anti-gravity arrays underwent limited ascent-and-descent tests inside the ship before outdoor testing at Antorus 451.

Operational History

Early Deployment

Herad built the first ship in secret and transported it through a hundred-meter portal to the outer region of shattered Mardum. After testing its armor against a Fel Death Star Cannon, he initially judged the surrounding fortified Fel Planets the safest area for it to operate 353.

Its first documented fleet engagement targeted more than a hundred Legion warships dispersed into small squadrons. Rapid fire and backward shooting let it destroy pursuers while avoiding their attempted ramming attacks. It subsequently bombarded demon strongholds and portals on a Fel Planet, leaving surviving demons for the Plant Army to eliminate 356 357.

Campaign Against the Burning Legion Fleet

The thirty-six-cannon vessel attacked Nasrei and other Legion-held planets. Alongside orbital bombardment, it scattered deadly spores and destroyed arriving reinforcements quickly enough to keep the local fleet below roughly five hundred ships 379 380.

Kil’jaeden later intercepted it with nearly twenty thousand warships. Herad moved into mountainous terrain, where obstructed firing angles, collapsing peaks, and smoke disrupted the encirclement. The Legion withdrew after losing fewer than a thousand ships, but the warship’s energy load had approached a dangerous level, prompting another search for obsidian 382 383.

After the twelve-million-ton rebuild, the ship broke a fleet numbering more than twenty thousand vessels. It pursued the flagship, exploited the rescuers’ fear of friendly fire, and shattered the formation blocking Spatial Magic. It then followed more than two thousand escapees to Argus and destroyed them there 407 409 410.

Argus and Sargeras’s Energy Clone

Argus the Unmaker nearly destroyed the twelve-million-ton vessel when a grazing black sphere overloaded its reserves. Emergency volleys and a retreat behind a moon saved it 412.

The cannon-centered rebuild reversed that imbalance: it absorbed Argus’s attacks, feigned withdrawal, and blasted away half his head. After further repairs and enlargement, it returned and shattered his body into seven or eight pieces 437 441 442.

Following another reinforcement in Deepholm, the billion-ton ship struck Eredath and Sargeras’s energy clone by surprise. It survived the wounded clone’s self-detonation by absorbing the blast, then continued toward Argus while Herad began harvesting the Titan’s remains 444 445.

Nazjatar Operations

While protecting Herad’s underwater mining, the warship fought Naga sea witches and intercepted Queen Azshara’s Ball Lightning. Its battle with the witches became a stalemate because their deep-water position protected them from its weapons 422 427.

Against N’Zoth, it repeatedly absorbed incoming attacks and returned their energy as cannon fire. The bombardment forced the Old God to request negotiations, after which Herad agreed to a ceasefire and withdrew the ship from Nazjatar 430.

K’aresh and the Void Lords

At K’aresh, the ship’s main cannon broke Dimensius’s shield and reduced his manifested form, but he escaped into the Void World before another shot. Later, repeated cannon fire and ramming attacks prevented Mormont from escaping; his death was confirmed afterward 460 469 470.

A coordinated assault by more than a dozen Void Lords nearly saturated the ship’s energy reserves and forced it to retreat. Herad subsequently used it to guide planetary fragments into K’aresh, turning the world into a burning Lava Planet and driving the attackers away 471 474.

Once the Planet Cracker configuration entered combat testing, it routed the Void Lords with cannon fire and direct collisions. The vessel thereafter guarded K’aresh, attacked returning Void Lords, and repeatedly used apparent absences to lure them into ambushes 475 476 490.

Pantheon Support

Herad planned regular recharging visits to sustain the Pantheon after Sargeras was subdued. Mimiron’s proposal to install the Forge of Wills gave the warship a dedicated means of storing and supplying purified emergency energy 490 491.

Limitations

• Finite absorption capacity: Incoming energy can exceed the obsidian’s storage limit before the cannons discharge it, causing a potentially fatal overload 353 412 471.
• Concentrated fire: Poorly coordinated attacks may recharge the vessel, but sufficiently large synchronized volleys remain dangerous 356 383 410.
• Weapon heat: Sustained or maximum-output fire requires cooling periods; during the fleet battle, one such pause lasted roughly a dozen seconds 407 410.
• Weak underwater engagement: The space-focused armament cannot effectively strike deeply submerged Naga, and chaotic energy conversion prevents reliable production of water-element shells 422.
• Configuration-dependent fragility: The Manaforge expansion left the outer shell thin enough to be torn apart by atmospheric wind. That configuration no longer landed on planetary surfaces 465.
• Exceptional enemy durability: Fully developed, planet-spanning Old Gods regenerate main-cannon wounds too quickly for repeated shots to finish them; Herad instead resorted to planetary reshaping and prolonged burning 465.
• Unproven survival against a full-strength clone explosion: The ship absorbed Sargeras’s wounded energy clone’s self-destruction, but the passage explicitly questions whether it could have survived the same attack at full energy 445.