According to some sharp-eyed forum posters (The original thread got deleted. It was brought to my attention by @GontierWoW), as of 5.3, a red dragon by the name of Andrestrasz was quietly added to a small cave no one knows about on the backside of the Ahn’Qiraj outside zone. The cave used to be part of a larger abandoned Tauren-style farm on the coast before the Cataclysm changes, but now is the only thing that remains. So why was a level 5 red dragon, who for all intents and purposes seems to be asleep (with the occasional silent yawn) stuck into a locale in the ass-end of Silithus that no one goes to, let alone knows about? There’s been some early speculation and I’ve been racking my brain to come up with answers. Let’s run down some theories, far-fetched as they may be, for why that dragon might be there.
Andrestrasz is Rhea’s last egg, all grown up.
- This was my initial thought moreso than any other theory. The world seems to be populated with the other dragon involved in that questline, so why not Rhea’s kid too? What wouldn’t be explained though is why he’s big enough to be a full-grown dragon (even if he’s level 5) and why he’s all the way out here.
He has to do with future legendary quests.
- Interesting for the same reason my initial theory, but possibly not the case for the same reasons I outlined. The legendary quest thus far has been restricted to Pandaria content, if not the main continent itself. Going to the back-end of Silithus makes no sense for this theory.
He’s a tribute to a player.
- All player tributes (usually who are deceased) have usually been in some way public – either as NPCs with flavor text, parts of questlines or with their own marker somewhere. A dragon with no notation or gossip option in a cave no one knows about would be kind of a terrible tribute.
Andrestrasz might have something to do with Caelen and Ahn’Qiraj lore.
- This is another theory I came up with – the last time red dragons had a presence at the ruins was during the time of the Scarab Gate. Caelestrasz was one of the protectors of Ahn’qiraj before the gates were opened but moved onto Cataclysm content, meeting his untimely death at the hands of Sinestra. Could Andre here be a replacement? That doesn’t explain why he’s not at the actual gates or inside the raids, however.
If he’s not guarding Ahn’Qiraj, what is he guarding?
- The red dragonflight are historically known as guardians and protectors. What would a red dragon be guarding in an entirely empty cave (save for some skeletons)? There has never been anything in that cave whatsoever. It didn’t even have a name, unlike the weirdness with random Ortell’s Hideouts there’ve been.
All in all, this poses a significant mystery to those of us who have been puzzling and speculating about things for years. Players have also been trying to evoke a reaction out of the dragon or change, perhaps to chase some origin out of him. There’s no change to the dragon whatsoever if you are alive or a ghost. He does not react to the legendary rogue daggers, Dragonwrath (I tried this myself), Runesword of the Red, having a Crimson Whelp out, or Archmage Vargoth.
Perhaps he’s just an Easter Egg dropped there by Blizzard to reward explorers like myself, like another mob in the area. Maybe he’s integral in larger plans in the future, who knows! I just hope we find out before the curiosity eats me alive. The WoW world has felt mostly examined and solved for a while now and this introduces some un-datamined mystery back to the world.