Warden Maiev Shadowsong, along with her younger brother Jarod Shadowsong, played a key role in the battle against the Burning Legion during the War of the Ancients. In the aftermath, Maiev asked to be and was appointed the jailer of Illidan Stormrage and took on the mantle of leader of the Watchers. After Illidan rose to power in Outland, Maiev was imprisoned at the Warden's Cage in Shadowmoon Valley, where Akama and his Ashtongue Deathsworn served as her jailers.
Maiev allied with Akama and snuck into the Black Temple during a Sha'tari attack, where she joined Akama and the adventurers he had rallied in the final battle against Illidan. Fuelled by the desire for vengeance, Maiev struck the final blow that ended the Betrayer's life...but instead of relishing in her victory, she became a shell of her former self, admitting that with Illidan now dead, she was nothing.
Maiev is voiced by the actress Debi Mae West in both Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. She appears to be alive in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and is under the service of Akama. On the other hand, the loading screen image might only reference tribute to her achievements alongside Akama in the Black Temple, and does not insinuate her being alive or dead. Maiev's alliance with Akama seems shady overall as she does exclaim "Curse you, Akama! I am not a pawn in your game...my will is my own. When I unleash my wrath upon Illidan it will have nothing to do with your foolish scheme!" after a player completes the Burning Crusade pre-BT quests Quest:Akama.
Biography
The War of the Ancients
Maiev was originally a young priestess of Elune during the War of the Ancients. She was stationed at the Hajiri temple in northwestern Kalimdor just before the War of the Ancients. Like the rest of the sisterhood, Maiev took up arms against the Burning Legion at the start of the invasion, joining the resistance under Kur'talos Ravencrest. She could do little but observe the destruction, and witnessed demons slaughtering her family and friends. She was horrified.[1] When Tyrande was declared the new High Priestess, a disgruntled Maiev raised an opposition, though she knew better than to deny Tyrande's power. Following Tyrande's disappearance and the death of Marinda, Maiev was elected High Priestess by default. This reunited her with her estranged brother Jarod.
Maiev was an opponent of the leadership of Desdel Stareye, but took no action for fear of dividing the troops. She urged Jarod to do something, but her brother wouldn't listen. After Stareye fell in "combat", and Jarod was recognized commander of the host, Maiev neglected to say, "I told you so". Maiev continued to serve with distinction, and grudgingly relinquished the office of High Priestess back to Tyrande. Having miraculously survived the War of the Ancients, she was certain that arcane magic was a horrid, filthy power that had brought doom to the world.[1] Maiev was selected as Tyrande's second in the sisterhood, and accompanied the leaders of the night elf survivors to their inspection of a water source upon Mount Hyjal's summit. There they discovered that a pristine lake had been transformed into a new Well of Eternity by Illidan Stormrage.
Outraged, the night elves hastened to apprehend the traitor. During Illidan's capture, he unleashed an arcane attempt to resist arrest that nearly claimed the lives of all in the party, rendering Dath'Remar Sunstrider and Jarod comatose. Only the efforts of Tyrande, Shandris Feathermoon, and Dath'Remar's wife ensured Illidan's capture and the heroes' survival.
Knowing full well where Illidan's ruthless schemes would eventually lead, Illidan's brother Malfurion decided to deal with his power-crazed brother once and for all. With Cenarius's help, Malfurion sealed Illidan within a vast underground barrow prison, where he would remain chained and powerless until the end of time.
The second Well of Eternity's creation shocked Maiev, and she was glad when Malfurion imprisoned Illidan beneath the earth. In fact, she approached the druid and demanded that she be allowed to watch over him, ensuring that he never escaped to wreak his evil. The young elf's zeal and skills impressed Malfurion, and he appointed her Illidan’s eternal jailer.
Thus it came to pass that Maiev led the Watchers, a specialist sect of night elves who were not Sentinels, dedicated to the imprisonment of the Betrayer and the upkeep of the Barrow Deeps. Though her primary charge was Illidan Stormrage, Maiev, as senior warden, also served as bounty hunter and assassin of enemies and escaped criminals.[2] Cenarius stationed Califax and a number of tamed beasts to aid them in their task. Maiev served well for 10,000 years, training constantly.
After The Third War
After ten thousand years of security, the Barrow Deeps were raided by Tyrande Whisperwind, who recklessly murdered many of the Watchers and Califax, and then released Illidan from his prison, hoping to use him to defeat the Legion. However, when he absorbed the Skull of Gul'dan, he was banished from Ashenvale. Despite Illidan's major contribution to the war effort by slaying the dreadlord Tichondrius, Maiev concluded that the Skull of Gul'dan made Illidan even more unstable (the truth of the deduction has yet to be established). She resolved to hunt him down and lock him away again.
With her lieutenant Naisha at her side, Maiev pursued Illidan throughout Kalimdor. With his impromptu force of satyrs and other corrupt creatures, he managed to keep her at bay, but to her credit, Maiev stayed close to him as he fled.
Finally, Maiev closed in on him in Queen Azshara's former provincial holdings, now on the coast of Kalimdor, where he had destroyed many fishing villages and left nothing but mutilated bodies and flaming footprints in his wake. But Maiev found some tracks which she could not identify...
Maiev soon found the creatures who had made the tracks. They identified themselves as the naga, and professed servitude to Illidan. Maiev defeated them, but was troubled that they were burning boats, and thought that perhaps Illidan meant to flee across the ocean. Maiev took to the port of Nendis, where she found Illidan stealing away in a transport. The naga began to destroy the ships, but Maiev killed them before they completed their task. Maiev quickly found some transport ships, and took the Watchers across the sea.
They stopped unexpectedly soon when they came across some islands which were not on their maps, but Maiev knew where they were, as she had once spent a great deal of time there. The Broken Isles were the remains of Suramar. As she established a base camp, Maiev found landmarks she recognized from the ancient, ruined city, such as the library of Izal-Shurah, and the Boughs of Azshara. Naisha realized that the city must have been raised from the seafloor for some sinister purpose, and Maiev commented that few powers were capable of such a thing.
Maiev found the answer when she came across Drak'Thul, a former warlock of the Stormreaver Clan. Drak'Thul told her that he was hunted by ghosts, and that if Maiev rid the island of them he would tell her his tale. The warden later found the ghosts of which he spoke: animated orcish corpses fighting one another, as if reliving a battle fought in their former lives (in fact they were former members of the Blackrock Clan, the Twilight's Hammer Clan and the Stormreaver Clan). Maiev destroyed the summoning pits that kept bringing the dead orcs back to repeat the cycle of battle and death and then returned to Drak'Thul to inform him that the dead would no longer trouble him. Drak'Thul then told her his tale as promised. He recounted how he had been a disciple of Gul'dan, the warlock who raised the islands twenty years before to search for the powers of the Dark Titan. Gul'dan hoped to gain power, but instead he and the rest of his Stormreaver clan unleashed crazed demons who slaughtered all but a handful of the warlocks, Drak'Thul among the survivors. He had lived on the island since, haunted by the ghosts of his dead comrades. Maiev told him that he deserved a far worse punishment than that for what he and the Stormreavers had unleashed. Troubled by the news, Maiev suspected that the Tomb of Sargeras was Illidan's goal here, as well. After battling through his ample forces of naga, Maiev and Naisha chased Illidan into the Tomb itself.
While there, Maiev read magical orcish runes Gul'dan had created to relate his tale. It continually referenced an "Eye," which seemed to be an artifact, and Maiev guessed that this was what Illidan sought. Maiev and Naisha realized that the Eye must have been tremendously powerful for Gul'dan to have been lured by it so potently. It was never revealed how Maiev gained the ability to read orcish runes.
Maiev soon had a run-in with the leader of the naga, Lady Vashj, who told her that the night elves' justice had no place in the Broken Isles. Maiev asked Vashj what she knew of their justice, and Vashj replied that she was once a night elf herself, and that the explosion of the Well of Eternity had transformed them into the naga. She may have actually recognized who Vashj was from Tyrande's accounts of the events at Zin-Azshari.
Maiev, however, displayed a simple revulsion for the Naga, and chased Illidan into the central chamber, where he had already found the Eye of Sargeras. Since Illidan had been confined by Maiev for ten thousand years, he felt that trapping her in the tomb (alive or otherwise) was the least he could do to repay her, caving in the Eye Chamber before teleporting himself out. Naisha and the Watchers were stranded, but Maiev, using her abilities, teleported through the temple and reluctantly left her forces to die in the dark tomb.
Maiev battled an army of naga as she sent a runner out to sea to get a message to Malfurion Stormrage to plea for assistance. She was being attacked by a large naga force led by Serena Scarscale. After a desperate battle, the runner was away, and Maiev quickly returned to her base to defend her Watchers.
After taking heavy damage, on the island of the Broken Isles south of Izal-Shurah, Maiev was finally reinforced by Malfurion, but was displeased to find that Tyrande had come along as well. She snidely proclaimed that Tyrande deserved to be locked in a cage just as Illidan was, to which Tyrande fired back that she was doing what was right at the time. Before they could come to blows, Malfurion told them to let it be for now and focus on the matters at hand, namely winning the battle against the naga forces led by Lady Serpentra. After they defeated the naga, however, Illidan took to the sea and fled once again. The three heroes were quick to follow.
They arrived upon the shores of Silverpine Forest in Lordaeron. After Malfurion left them to commune with the forests, Maiev bowed to Tyrande's greater knowledge of the Alliance and Tyrande met Kael'thas, the prince of the blood elves. When told of Illidan, Kael thought that perhaps that was the reason that the undead were so agitated in Dalaran. Maiev wanted to get back on the hunt as soon as possible, but Tyrande wished to help Kael; Maiev's objections were silenced when Kael agreed to help them fight Illidan. The two warriors escorted Kael's caravan to Pyrewood Village, where they were suddenly ambushed. Kael and Maiev saw his caravan across the river while Tyrande held the line on the bridge. When she called down the stars of Elune to destroy the undead, Elune's fury was unleashed. The bridge, unable to stand the weight of a fully armored night elf on tigerback, crumbled beneath Tyrande, and she was swept down the river.
Kael was about to attempt to save her when Maiev stopped him. She knew that time was growing short, and that Illidan had to be stopped, and insisted that Tyrande had been prepared to make the sacrifice if needed. She demanded that Kael help her find the demon in return for her assistance protecting his caravan. Kael helped her track Illidan to Dalaran's ruins, where they met up with Malfurion, who had felt the land being torn apart and saw in a vision that it was Illidan's doing. He suspected the worst and feared for the fate of the world itself. Maiev told Malfurion that Tyrande had been torn apart, and that his only recourse was to gain revenge on Illidan. Maiev reminded Malfurion that Tyrande would never have come to Lordaeron and met her alleged death if not for Illidan's actions, and thus he was to blame. Malfurion's grief and anger made him completely focused on stopping and punishing his brother, just as Maiev had hoped.
With the help of Kael and a paladin of the Silver Hand — Magroth the Defender — Maiev and Malfurion pushed back Illidan's naga on the Dalaran ruins and destroyed the Naga Summoners casting spells around the Eye. Cornering Illidan with the night elf and Alliance forces, Malfurion grimly told his brother that for what he had done this time confinement would not be sufficient and that he was to be put to death. Maiev enthusiastically volunteered to execute him personally. Illidan explained that his spell had not been meant to harm anybody but the Lich King at Northrend and his undead servants, their common enemy. His spell had been specifically targeting the area where the Frozen Throne was based. Not placated, Malfurion raged that Illidan had given no thought to the cost of his actions and that Tyrande had died because of him. Illidan was shattered by this statement, since he had never wanted anything to happen to the woman he loved and had even tried to dissuade her from following him to Lordaeron since he was concerned for her safety. Then Kael spoke up, and told Malfurion that Tyrande may still be alive, as she was only swept downriver. Maiev told him to be silent. But Malfurion had heard all he needed and was understandably furious with Maiev for her lies. Maiev tried to justify her actions, stating that capturing Illidan was their primary concern. Malfurion bitterly asked her who the "betrayer" was now. He then entangled her.
They found Tyrande in Silverpine Forest, now with more hope, Illidan was quick to volunteer the services of his naga who could scour the river and reach Tyrande faster than the night elves. Malfurion, while initially hesitant about trusting his brother with the rescue operation, saw its practicality and accepted his offer, and they were able to save Tyrande.
When Maiev finally did get free (exactly how she did and why it took her so long isn't explained), she tracked down Malfurion, and found him allowing Illidan to go free. Furious at his apparent folly, she took what Watchers would follow her and pursued Illidan into the portal he had formed, ignoring Tyrande's insistence that Illidan was no longer a threat. Malfurion explained to Tyrande that Maiev had become vengeance itself, bound forever to the hunt. All they could do was hope that in her pursuit, she didn't cause even more harm than Illidan did.
When she arrived on the other side, she found herself in the ruins of the orcish homeworld, Draenor. Now, though, without his servitors to protect him, Illidan was easy prey. Maiev and her followers pursued him long and hard in the desolate, broken wasteland, and eventually, she caught him and imprisoned him under a magical sedative.
As she was escorting him back to her base, however, Maiev was ambushed by Vashj's naga, and — to her shock — Kael's blood elves. The Watchers fought Illidan's forces back and forth for control of Illidan's prison wagon, but eventually Kael and Vashj were victorious, and the wagon was secured at his base. There have been rumors that an unidentified pandaren assisted in the rescue, but these have been neither confirmed nor disproved (see "Appearance in The Frozen Throne campaigns" section of Pandaren Brewmaster).
