The Scars of Velious · December 5, 2000
Kerafyrm, the Sleeper
Beneath the Eastern Wastes, four dragons stood watch over one that was never supposed to wake. Every server knew the rule: kill three Warders and come back next week. Kill the fourth, and Norrath changes forever.
The Sleeper’s Tomb
The Scars of Velious brought the frozen continent of Velious on December 5, 2000, with giants, dragons and a level cap of 60. Its deepest secret was Kerafyrm’s Lair, better known as the Sleeper’s Tomb: a dark dungeon beneath the icy wastes, used by the First Brood to imprison the dragon Kerafyrm. Its entrance sits in the Eastern Wastes, and the monsters inside start around level 55: ancient sentries, aged caretakers and tireless servitors, golems and gargoyles left to tend a prison.
You could not simply walk in. The way in ran through the Dragon Necropolis, where the shade of the dragon Jaled Dar asked adventurers to bring a talisman from one of the five surviving dragons who had sealed the tomb (Sontalak, Lendiniara, Klandicar, Yelinak or Zlandicar), or a shard of Hsagra’s Talisman from the top giants. In return he made a key, to be used at a great dragon statue in the Eastern Wastes.
Sources: Wikipedia: EverQuest expansions (Velious, Secrets of Faydwer) · Project 1999 Wiki: Sleeper's Tomb · Allakhazam: Key to Sleeper's Tomb
- You have entered Eastern Wastes.
- Jaled Dar`s shade says 'You must wake The Sleeper. He is our salvation, he will restore a new golden age to Norrath.'
- Jaled Dar`s shade says 'Kerafyrm, the best of us, what we should be. We imprisoned him in a timeless slumber aeons ago.'
- LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
- Woe unto you, pitiful ones, you are about to release something that you cannot comprehend or withstand. The world itself is in peril now.
NPC lines as transcribed on Allakhazam; the zone warning as quoted by Fandom.
The four Warders
| Warder | What it was | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hraashna the Warder | Lava dragon, level 70 | Casts Stream of Acid and rampages |
| Nanzata the Warder | Lava dragon, level 70 | Casts Frost Breath |
| Tukaarak the Warder | Elemental warder dragon | One of the four set to keep the Sleeper asleep |
| Ventani the Warder | Elemental warder dragon | One of the four set to keep the Sleeper asleep |
The lore remembers them as the most powerful elemental dragons of their time. Their drops were some of the best gear in Velious, which is why top guilds usually killed three, waited a week for the respawn, and left the fourth alone.
Sources: Project 1999 Wiki: Sleeper's Tomb · Library of Erudin: Sleeper's Tomb quest texts · Giant Bomb: Kerafyrm's Lair
Who is Kerafyrm?
In the lore, dragons of different elements were forbidden to mate. From one such union came the first prismatic dragon. Kildrukaun, Arch Priest of Veeshan, condemned the parents and made himself custodian of their son. He named him Kerafyrm, usually translated as “prophetic savior” or “almighty son,” and taught that he fulfilled a prophecy of Veeshan, the dragon goddess.
Kerafyrm rose to general among the Claws of Veeshan, but his hunger for destruction frightened the Council of Elders, who ordered him imprisoned in an endless slumber with four Warders to guard it. Kildrukaun and Kerafyrm’s other loyalists fled Velious to wait. Jaled Dar, in his shade’s own words, came to regret the sealing: “It was a terrible mistake to subdue him, jealousy and envy led us to do it.”
Sources: Library of Erudin: The Claws of Veeshan · Library of Erudin: Sleeper's Tomb quest texts · Project 1999 Wiki: Sleeper's Tomb · Allakhazam: Key to Sleeper's Tomb · Fandom (2019): How to Drain Your Dragon
One time only, on every server
Waking the Sleeper was a one-time event for each server. Kill all four Warders and a zone-wide warning went out; Kerafyrm then woke, slaughtered whoever was in the tomb, and rampaged out across the frozen wastes toward Skyshrine, after which he was gone for good. He had two death-touch attacks and resisted nearly every spell, and estimates of his hit points ran into the hundreds of millions. Players on every server came to believe he could not be killed.
According to Giant Bomb, the first guild to wake him was Blood of the Spider on The Rathe, in the summer of 2001. On many servers, guilds agreed to farm only three Warders; a server’s Sleeper usually woke when someone broke the agreement, and getting your guild’s name on the list of those who woke the Sleeper became a prize in itself.
Sources: Giant Bomb: Kerafyrm's Lair · Fandom (2019): How to Drain Your Dragon · Kotaku (2016): The death of EverQuest's 'unkillable' dragon
Rallos Zek, November 2003
By late 2003, Rallos Zek, a player-versus-player server, was the last place where Kerafyrm still slept. Three rival guilds, Ascending Dawn, Wudan and Magus Imperialis Magicus, had kept him asleep under a truce. When word spread that another player planned to wake him, they decided to try to kill him themselves.
- : roughly 165 to 200 players killed the four Warders and fought Kerafyrm for over three hours, dying and being resurrected in waves. With the dragon at about a quarter of his health (accounts say 25 to 27 percent), a GM despawned him. Sony Online Entertainment first called it a bug.
- SOE then apologized, restored the fallen players, and respawned the Warders with the Sleeper asleep again.
- : the guilds came back with around 200 players. After roughly three to four hours and, by reports, close to 1,000 resurrections, Kerafyrm died. A Dark Elf wizard named Trylun landed the final blow. The dragon dropped no loot, and his corpse vanished within moments.
The debate never fully ended. In 2007 an SOE employee wrote that the attack came after a patch that had broken NPC health regeneration, and that the Sleeper’s normal regen made him “essentially unkillable.” Most people just remember a few hundred enemies on a PvP server who teamed up and killed a god-tier dragon on 2003 internet.
Sources: Kotaku (2016): The death of EverQuest's 'unkillable' dragon · Massively OP (2022): When players killed the unkillable Sleeper · Fandom (2019): How to Drain Your Dragon · Giant Bomb: Kerafyrm's Lair · EQ Board thread, Nov 16–17, 2003
The Awakened, after Velious
Kerafyrm’s story did not end in the tomb. EverQuest’s lore says that once he woke, his followers led him to Crystallos, a keep built by his four most loyal ancient dragons: Kildrukaun the black dragon prophet, Tjudawos the golden arch mage, Zeixshi-Kar the silver general and Vyskudra the storm dragon. Kerafyrm the Awakened planned to remake Norrath for dragonkind, sanctifying stolen eggs with his prismatic breath. Crystallos and Kerafyrm became encounters in Secrets of Faydwer, released November 13, 2007.
The lore goes on to describe his Awakened Legion attacking the Temple of Veeshan, and his elemental wurmkin destroying the Western Wastes rather than lose the battle to the Claws of Veeshan. Meanwhile, in the tomb itself, the Warders are gone, and ancient dragons who once followed Kerafyrm now stand where he slept.
Sources: EverQuest.com (2007): Secrets of Faydwer lore, Crystallos · Wikipedia: EverQuest expansions (Velious, Secrets of Faydwer) · Library of Erudin: The Loss in Western Wastes · Library of Erudin: Sleeper's Tomb quest texts
The Sleeper on Project 1999
Project 1999 recreates the Velious era, so its Sleepers can wake too. According to the Project 1999 Wiki, Kerafyrm was awakened on the Blue server on and on the Green server on . On both, the Warders no longer spawn.
Sources: Project 1999 Wiki: Sleeper's Tomb · Project 1999
Remember when…
- Your guild killed three Warders and spent the week wondering whether someone else would take the fourth.
- Word went around your server that a guild was in the Sleeper’s Tomb, and everyone wanted to know whether the fourth Warder was next.
- Hearing that the Sleeper was awake meant one thing: stay out of the Eastern Wastes and away from Skyshrine.
- The first time you saw the blue-white ice of Velious after years in the old world.
Those are the feelings, not the facts. The facts are in the sections above, each with its sources. More classic moments are on Remember When, and Velious sits in the expansion timeline.
More “remember when” → Expansion timeline
The crystal dragon, ice crystal and snowfall are original CSS and SVG art made for this site. The illustration is original fan art. None of it comes from the game.