The Thunder King was a tyrannical Mogu warlord who united the Mogu factions at some point in the distant past and became the first emperor of the mogu in Pandaria. The Thunder King rose to power “the mogu way”; namely, by eliminating his rivals one by one. According to legend, he was able to accomplish this with the help of a mysterious artifact that he found in the depths of a mountain. After his rise to power, he built the Mogu'shan Vaults to contain and protect this secret and converted the surrounding structure into a sort of shrine dedicated to the mogu empire.