Hashladûn, Daughter of Crota

Hashladûn, Daughter of Crota
Biographical information
Other name(s):	The Inundated
Species:	Hive
Faction:	Spawn of Crota (formerly) Blood of Oryx (formerly) Hidden Swarm
Rank:	Ultra
Class:	Wizard
Gender:	Female
Combat information
Mission:	The Scarlet Keep
Abilities:	Darkness Blasts High Durability Rapid Flight Immunity Shield Summon Hive Knockback Rune

"Do you feel it as I do, Guardian? A hatred as pure and potent as sunshine, soaking through your skin? Hashladûn knows what you are. What you've done. She watched as her lineage fell, one after another; Crota, Oryx, Omnigul. And she is eager to return that pain. "

— Eris Morn to the Guardian

Hashladûn, Daughter of Crota (also known as the Inundated) is an Ascendant Hive Wizard and the eldest of the Daughters (herself, Besurith, Voshyr, and Kinox) of the Hive god Crota, Son of Oryx and Omnigul, Will of Crota, as well as granddaughter of Oryx, the Taken King. She is the leader of the Hidden Swarm and architect of the Scarlet Keep, harnessing the Nightmares of the Pyramid that lies beneath for her schemes in vengeance against the Guardians.

Hashladûn would meet her end by the Guardian at the top of the Tower of Woe as part of her revenge against them, only to be killed by their fireteam.

Biography[edit]

Inundation[edit]

"Let this one be inundated in the old way of floods; let her greatness be reduced to only what is greatest, for she has an excess, and excess is the capacity to be stringently purified."

— Crota

Hashladûn began as an abnormally large and strong Thrall, "huge of crest and thick of arm". Viewing this as excessive, her father Crota ordered her ritually mutilated "in the old way of floods" in order to reduce her to a normal size and strength, and sent a hundred Thrall, ten Knights, and an Ogre to retrieve her. Hashladûn fought off the entire force, but was left exhausted; after that, Crota himself came for her, impressed but unrelenting, and took her to a floodplain deep within the Ascendant plane, where she was impaled and exposed to the paracausal tides of the Sea of Screams, flooding her body five times with caustic and harmful substances.

After the five inundations, Hashladûn broke free from her impalement, starving, wounded, and much reduced in form. On witnessing her crawling back to his throne world, Crota stated: "You are great now, and you cannot love Me. For the parts of you that were Mine have been taken from you; the parts that were His remain." With all ties to Crota severed by the floods, and therefore rendered closer to Oryx, Hashladûn had ascended into her grandfather's court much to her father's joy and grief; knowing that she can never set foot in his court again. She was then sent forth to Oryx's side by her father, who cut a rift through space-time to an unknown destination.^[1]

It is largely unknown what role Hashladûn played in her grandfather's court but she was presumed dead by the Guardians since Crota's fall.^[2]

Inquisition of the Damned[edit]

"Seek your forebears in those ethereal shapes. For, while I could tell you such a path leads to disappointment, you must see for yourselves. Such is the need of Daughters desperate to impress their fathers."

— Savathûn

Following the Taken War, Hashladûn hid beneath the Lunar surface alongside her sisters Besurith, Kinox, and Voshyr, and plotted their revenge against the Guardians for the deaths of her immediate family. Unable to accept a world without their King, Hashladûn and her sisters enacted a plot to recreate their deceased grandfather in the form of a phantasmal Nightmare; a necessary violation of the Sword Logic since the Taken King was never succeeded by his killers. They also believed that Oryx might yet be truly resurrected, having been defeated before and returning to life through sheer will and tribute in his name.^[3]

As the coven of sisters worked to enact their sinister plot, they were still left to deal with conspirators and contenders for the vacancy of a champion left by their late father. Many of the Hive that still held to the old beliefs in the Sword Logic gave way to gladiatorial combat in the Pit beneath the Keep, though none of the sisters believed any were worthy of their father or grandfather's succession. Hashladûn and her sisters attended the Pit to witness the gladiatorial games, and silenced Besurith and Voshyr as they expressed doubts about the fighters when the games began.^[4]

Of the greatest contenders was the Knight Zulmak, whose triumphs in the Pit threatened to upend Hashladûn's plans if anointed a new Hive champion by the majority of the Swarm. Hashladûn judged Zulmak a great warrior but lacking the cunning of Crota and Oryx and turned to leave the Pit alongside her sisters, which prompted much of the congregation to do the same.^[5] They were forced to return for a third fight, as Zulmak's performance had persuaded many that his strength as a warrior made him a worthy successor under the Sword Logic. This belief disgusted Hashladûn, who noted that Zulmak's opponents were not impressive, as most of the Hidden Swarm's greatest warriors had been slain by Guardians already.^[3] However, Zulmak's reign was cut short by the Deathsinger Azavath, whose body had merged with the essence of her Knight brother Akrazul and went on a blind massacre with the royal congregation. Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, Hashladûn and her sisters assassinated their perceived enemies, leaving the Akrazul-possessed Azavath to take the blame and none left to challenge them.^[6]

As the coven of sisters made ready to leave, Hashladûn glanced once more into the pit and was greeted by the whispers of a fellow schemer: their great-aunt Savathûn. She encouraged her nieces to seize control of the Hidden Swarm themselves and be the strength the Hive needed to challenge the Light with a mighty new fortress. Additionally, she offered a boon in the essence of the fallen Zulmak, to be raised as a puppet champion for the Swarm. Intrigued but weary of her aunt's schemes, Hashladûn questioned what role the heretic Azavath-reborn Ir Airâm, Deathsinger would play, as they killed their maddened brother Akrazul with the Deathsong. Savathûn offered her as a second boon as the head of the reformed Choir, a legendary group of Deathsingers to be used as another weapon in their upcoming battle against the Guardians.^[7]

The Scarlet Keep[edit]

"Potent energies are gathering above you. A burning anticipation. Hashladûn yearns for your arrival."

— Eris Morn

With their control over the Hidden Swarm secured, the Daughters of Crota rallied the remaining Hive on the Moon and began construction of the Scarlet Keep, acting as an amplifier of their magics and to ward themselves of the Pyramid's influences with the forbidden Cryptoglyph.^[8] While the Hive were unable to conjure Nightmares, they instead bade their time for the one behind Oryx's killers to be their catalyst, manipulated of her curiosity by the Witch Queen herself.^{[9] [10]}

After Eris Morn's discovery of the Pyramid unleashed its phantasmal power, Hashladûn utilized the great tower of the Scarlet Keep to channel its energy for their experiments, which helped the Hive summon Nightmares of great power near the Keep based on the fears and past foes of the Guardians, including one of her late father.^[11] Using the Cryptoglyph, Hashladûn experimented with the creations of the ancient Pyramid and found no hope of truly restoring Oryx and Crota through their power, as their essences had truly disappeared. However, she and her sisters embraced Savathûn's gifts and began crafting what remained of Zulmak into a fearsome champion of their own design and under their control. Through her experiments, Hashladûn distilled the primordial essence of terror and contributed it to Besurith and Voshyr's reshaping of Zulmak's husk.^[12]

When the Guardians invaded the moon to challenge the Hive's resurgence and the appearance of the Nightmares, Hashladûn personally encountered the Guardian who slew her father, mother, and grandfather at the bridge to the Keep. Retreating to the top of the spire, Hashladûn lures the Guardian and their fireteam to her position to finally claim her revenge for her ravaged lineage. Having gathered potent energies to amplify her powers, the Inundated summons waves of Hive reinforcements to swarm her enemies and use her magic in several attempts to knock them off the tower. In her quest for vengeance, however, Hashladûn met her demise in flames much like her family. From her remains, the Guardians found a tablet containing evidence of the Cryptoglyph hidden at the bottom of the Hellmouth.^[2]

Gameplay[edit]

Hashladûn is the final boss of The Scarlet Keep Strike. While she is encountered several times throughout the activity, she is always invulnerable and will retreat soon after. When the Fireteam reaches the top of the Keep, Hashladûn will come out of a gate after her guard Wizards have been slain, and become vulnerable after reaching the center of the room. She will not move much from there, only entering the forward balcony if players are in the plaza or a different section of it. Hashladûn attacks by firing highly damaging streams of Darkness Blasts and invoking Knockback Runes that do little damage but fling targets high in the air. Throughout the battle, Hashladûn will summon hordes of reinforcements as she takes damage, which will flood in from the many doors scattered in it. Particularly large waves will appear around every third of her health when she wraps herself in an immunity shield, and she will remain invulnerable until all her subordinates are slain.

During Nightfalls, all the Knights, Wizards and Ogres will gain a rank, with at least one of the Ogres becoming an Unstoppable Ogre depending on the selected difficulty.

Personality and traits[edit]

"Let us make a manifest our crimes. Let us not offend Oryx King with the contempt of rhetoric. Let our transgressions be known through our actions. Let our crimes be implied by the result, as the wound remembers the shape of the weapon. Aiat!"

— The Daughters of Crota^[13]

Much like her sisters, Hashladûn lacks the brute strength of her father to wrestle the gifts presented by the Sword Logic. Instead, they make up for it in ambition and cunning much like their great-aunt Savathûn, preferring to manipulate the Hive from the shadows with rumors, conspiracies, and lies.^[4] Unlike the other Hive that adhere to the logic, Hashladûn and her sisters value the legacies of her father and grandfather to the extent of preservation from enemies looking to unseat their family's royal status, especially Zulmak, whom she considered a tool in disgust.^[3]

Unmoored from the foundational tenets of their grandfather's Sword Logic, Hashladun had faith in the belief that Oryx was not truly vanquished but could be remade from death like his sisters before as mentioned in the Books of Sorrow.^[9] She reasons that challenging the dogmas of the Logic in fact adhered to the Logic itself, as by questioning Oryx's legacy the Hive purify those aspects of it which cannot withstand so that only that which is perfect and unchallengeable would remain.^[14] Her obsession with keeping her forefathers’ legacy alive was, however, considered foolhardy according to Kinox, and in fact blinded her to the reality of the Swarm's spiraling failure.^[15]

Family[edit]

Other potential members of the Pantheon include Mysik, Zyrak, Thyshik and Urrox. However their names may be honorary titles, as their is no further mention of a relationship to the Pantheon.

Xavan, Tir Balok, and An Ragaar are also potential members of the Pantheon; apart from their names, there is no other reference, so their inclusion is for the sake of completion.

Trivia[edit]

• As Hashladûn's health bar nears empty, the green light of her helmet changes to a fiery orange.
• Hashladûn's death animation is similar to the death of Nokris, Supplicant to Savathûn.
• Hashladûn is the third largest Wizard the players have encountered, the first being Nokris and the second being Dûl Incaru, the Eternal Return.
• It is unknown if Hashladûn has a throne world or not, so it's not known if her fate atop the Scarlet Keep is permanent. Malkanth remarks how the Daughters' family ties to Crota "mark them as candidates for Ascension, but such is not granted freely,"^[16] which may hint to their ambition not yet being fulfilled at the time Inquisition of the Damned takes place.
  • However in the Hope Weblore entry, it is stated that she was capable of entering into the ascendant plane during her inundation and even entering into her father's throne world.^[1]
• Hashladûn was mentioned through idle dialogue from Rasputin during Season of the Worthy. However, due to veteran player reports and Russian translators from r/raidsecrets on Reddit, most if not all, of Rasputin's ambiance from Warmind appeared in the API prior to its release.^[17]
  • Whether the dialogue was released during Warmind expansion or not, it may hint towards Hashladûn's first mention in Warmind.

Gallery[edit]

• 

  Hashladûn at the entrance of her Keep.

• 

  Hashladûn in-combat

List of appearances[edit]

• Destiny 2: Shadowkeep (First appearance)
  • Season of the Worthy (Mentioned only)
  • Beyond Light (Mentioned only)

References[edit]