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humblewordsmith · 6 years

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World of Warcraft: The Story So Far

An expansion on something I wrote last year in a fit of procrastination, dealing with the story up until now of World of Warcraft, written in broad strokes:

The Burning Crusade A large group of draenei escapes from Outland by breaking a wing off of the flying fortress called Tempest Keep, with the assistance of a race of crystalline, Light-using creatures called the Naaru. The wing, renamed the Exodar, crash-lands on a mostly-uninhabited island off the north coast of Kalimdor. Over the course of cleaning up after themselves, the draenei meet the night elves and a handful of shipwrecked Alliance troops. At the same time, they have to defend themselves against an attack from a division of Kael'thas Sunstrider's blood elves, who are led by an eredar. Having done so, the draenei join the Alliance.

Meanwhile, in Silvermoon City, a new generation of blood elves are doing their best to rebuild after the Scourge invasion that killed 90% of their race. With the Sunwell extinguished, the survivors are satisfying their cravings for mana with fel crystals, which has tinted blood elves' eyes green, rather than high elves' blue. More importantly, the elves' ruler Kael'thas managed to capture a Naaru, and has set that Naaru up in Silvermoon as an unwitting magical battery. The elves empowered by this Naaru's stolen Light are called the Blood Knights, a new order of quasi-paladins.

The elves quickly discover several Alliance spies over the course of defending Silvermoon from the leftover forces of the Scourge. That, and assistance from their Forsaken neighbors to the south, convinces them to approach the Horde about potential membership. The blood elves join as a means to an end. Kael'thas has taken many of their troops with him to Outland, and the remainder would like nothing more than to join him there.

The Alliance and Horde are subsequently forced to cooperate to defend Azeroth from the Legion, which has reactivated the Dark Portal and is using it as a potential invasion route. When we go through to the other side, we discover what's been going on in Outland, the planet formerly known as Draenor, over the last twenty years.

The members of Alliance's old Draenor Expedition have founded settlements throughout Outland. Khadgar turns up in the draenei city of Shattrath, learning and studying alongside a Naaru named A'dal; Turalyon and Alleria have disappeared, but left behind their son Arator; and Danath and Falstad both lead their own forces. (None of the people memorialized in the Valley of Heroes in Stormwind are actually dead.)

Shattrath City itself is the focus of a bizarre power struggle. A group of draenei named the Aldor have sworn to defend the city, while a second group, the Scryers, is comprised of renegade blood elves. Their leader had a prophetic vision that their future, if they were to have one, lay with A'dal, so they betrayed Illidan and changed sides. Day to day life in Shattrath is defined by the conflict between the Aldor and Scryers, jockeying for the favor of the Naaru. The Naaru and their immediate defenders are known as the Sha'tar, who came to Outland specifically to fight against the Legion's intrusion.

West of Shattrath, in Nagrand, Horde players find the home of the Mag'har, the last orcs who are untainted by Mannoroth's blood. Among them, we meet Geyah, Thrall's long-lost grandmother, and a young, depressed orc named Garrosh Hellscream. Horde players and Thrall convince Garrosh that he's capable of living up to his late father Grom's legacy, and thus screw everything up for everyone for years to come.

The biggest problems we encounter in Outland (along with the Legion, the local ogres, occasional skirmishes with the time-traveling Infinite Dragonflight, and in-fighting between tribes of alien ethereals) come from Illidan, Kael'thas, and Lady Vashj, who are working to conquer Outland. Vashj is our first problem, as her naga are enslaving the locals and attempting to steal control of Outland's entire water supply. We first run into her forces in Zangarmarsh, while we're working on behalf of Cenarion druids who are trying to figure out what's going on. Eventually, we break into Vashj's lair underneath the Coifang Reservoir in Zangarmarsh and take her out.

Kael'thas is a bigger problem. He's fully gone over to the Legion (although the Exodar draenei have known this for quite a while, due to captured intelligence in their starting zone), and his forces are working alongside demons throughout Netherstorm to mine it for mana. Kael'thas himself is pursuing the Cipher of Damnation, the spell that Gul'dan used to blow up Draenor in the first place. We keep him from getting it, with the help of the ex-warlock Oronok Torn-Heart and his sons, then break into Tempest Keep and defeat Kael'thas. Despite appearances, we don't quite manage to kill him.

During all of this, Illidan has been more of a constant background presence than a threat. His armies include fel orcs, turned red and driven insane by exposure to the blood of the pit lord Magtheridon; a force of elves who call themselves the Illidari, which includes numerous apprentice demon hunters; and the Ashtongue, a tribe of Broken draenei under Akama's command. From the outside, Illidan's armies are a major threat, working to conquer or destroy all other forces on Outland; later work will establish/retcon that Illidan is monomaniacally focused on attacking the Legion homeworld of Argus. He's let his subordinates get away with a lot and has gone back on several of his agreements.

Specifically, the Ashtongue and their leader, Akama, teamed up with Illidan in order to reclaim and rebuild what used to be the city of Karabor, one of the holiest sites on Draenor, and which is now known as the Black Temple. When Illidan refuses to return the Temple to the Ashtongue, Akama allies with us and Maiev, who Akama's been keeping locked up nearby. With the help of a distraction by the Sha'tar, Akama helps us infiltrate the Temple via its drainage system and we work our way up to its roof.

Just before we bust into Illidan's brooding post, he sends the best of his squad of Illidari to the demon world of Mardum, where they reclaim a relic called the Sargerite Keystone. By the time they make it back, Illidan has fallen, courtesy of us and Maiev. She imprisons the surviving Illidari in stasis in the Vault of the Wardens.

Subsequently, a maimed Kael'thas, his surviving force of Sunfury blood elves, and a bunch of demons overrun Silvermoon City, kidnap M'uru (again), and take control of the Isle of Quel'danas, the former site of the Sunwell. Kael'thas's plan is to use the remnants of the Sunwell to summon one of the Legion's primary leaders, Kil'jaeden, directly to Azeroth.

The Aldor and Scryers form a joint task force, the Shattered Sun Offensive, and set out to retake the Isle. With our help, they gradually reclaim much of the lost territory. We corner Kael'thas in the Magister's Terrace north of the Sunwell, and this time, we make sure he's dead.

The bulk of Kael'thas's remaining forces are holed up inside the Sunwell Plateau, where the Legion is calling in the big guns to keep the Sunwell chamber undisturbed. We go in and plow through elite blood elf troops, a cadre of demons, a mind-controlled Kalecgos, and M'uru itself; it's "died," entering the dark side of a Naaru's life cycle, and is reborn as the hostile "void god" Entropius. In the end, however, we arrive just in time to see Kil'jaeden begin to make his way into Azeroth. With Kalecgos's help, as well as the self-sacrifice of Anveena Teague (she's from a manga; don't ask), we beat Kil'jaeden back through the portal and shut it behind him.

Velen shows up afterward and uses Entropius's corpse to reignite the Sunwell, which saves the blood elves from having to find some other source for their mana jones. The blood elves' cadre of paladins are inspired by Velen and the revived Sunwell, giving up their stolen powers in favor of getting them the old-fashioned way, through faith and service. Apparently this was M'uru's plan all along; it knew it was dying, and let itself be taken in order to play the long game.

Before Wrath of the Lich King Due to events in the official comic book, Varian Wrynn reappears and takes up his old job as the King of Stormwind. (Canonically, Varian killed Onyxia.)

In a different official comic book, Darion Mograine joins the Argent Dawn, intent upon finding out what really happened to his father Alexandros. He and a few volunteers break into Naxxramas looking for answers, and end up in a fight with the Four Horsemen. Everyone is killed except Darion, who escapes with the corrupted Ashbringer. When he brings it to his brother Renault, Darion learns that Renault, bitter over what he saw as years of their father's favoring Darion, had murdered Alexandros. Alexandros's vengeful spirit emerges from the sword and decapitates Renault.

Darion subsequently sacrifices himself to defend Light's Hope Chapel from an army of the Scourge. Kel'thuzad makes him into a new Horseman to replace his father.

Wrath of the Lich King The Lich King wakes up and attacks the rest of the world with a fresh plague, which turns those who catch it into ghouls. The Alliance and Horde object to this and send troops to Northrend to stop him.

Particularly notable groups in the Northrend assault include a battalion of Warsong Clan orcs led by Saurfang, with an increasingly bloodthirsty Garrosh Hellscream as Saurfang's lieutenant; the Alliance's 7th Legion, under the command of Bolvar Fordragon; the Argent Crusade, which initially sneaks in undercover via the Alliance's settlements; the Scarlet Onslaught, which makes landfall on the northern and southern coasts and proceeds to hassle the Forsaken; and the Hand of Vengeance, a faction of Forsaken so bent on revenge against Arthas that they're willing to kill anyone else they encounter just so they won't get in the way later.

Around the same time, Arthas makes a new breed of death knights from the corpses of particularly strong-willed, fallen soldiers of the Argent Dawn. Their first mission is to polish off what's left of the Scarlet Crusade; the death knights do a lot of damage, but the Crusade's higher-ups manage to escape to Northrend, renaming themselves the Scarlet Onslaught. Next up, the death knights besiege Light's Hope Chapel, empowered by the Lich King and led by the undead husk of Darion Mograine, who's still equipped with his father's sword, the corrupted Ashbringer.

Tirion Fordring shows up, purifies the Ashbringer, and drives Arthas off. This also breaks the hold Arthas had on Darion and the new death knights, many of whom opt to serve the Alliance or Horde, with Tirion vouching for their loyalty. Tirion vows to bring the Lich King to justice, and founds the Argent Crusade there on the spot, assembled from what's left of the Argent Dawn and the Brotherhood of the Light. Likewise, Darion gathers the remaining death knights under the banner of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

When we get there, Northrend turns out to be a hellhole. Both factions' forces have been infiltrated by the Cult of the Damned and/or the San'layn, a group of high/blood elf vampires; the Scourge's floating necropolis Naxxramas has been recalled to the Dragonblight in central Northrend, where it threatens the dragons' sacred burial grounds; the Grizzly Hills are infested with feral worgen courtesy of the sorcerer Arugal; the coastlines of Northrend are defended by incredibly cruel not-Vikings called the vrykul, who worship the Lich King as a god; the local ice trolls, the Drakkari, have been driven almost to extinction by the Scourge's invasion of their territory, and the most dangerous among them have thrown their lot in with the Lich King; there's a twilight dragon named Sartharion who's set up shop underneath the dragons' sacred Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragonblight, and who appears to be doing unpleasant things to the dragons' eggs; the Scarlet Onslaught is out to "purify" everyone except themselves; there's a quiet, unresolved war going on underground, between the last uncorrupted remnants of the nerubian race and their undead brethren, who serve Arthas; and last but nowhere near least, Malygos, the leader of the blue dragonflight and the Aspect of Magic, has decided the mortal races need to stop using magic entirely, and has declared all-out war on the mage population.

The first major battle in the Northrend campaign is fought in the Dragonblight, at Icecrown Citadel's Wrath Gate. Bolvar Fordragon, alongside his own troops, Saurfang the Younger, and a division of Horde soldiers, besieges the Citadel and challenges Arthas directly, who emerges to confront them. Both sides are suddenly ambushed by the Royal Apothecary Society, who carpet-bomb the area with a powerful new variant of the Forsaken's Plague, which drives Arthas away and kills everyone else. The Plague is only stopped when Alexstrasza intervenes directly, sterilizing and purifying the area with her dragon's fire.

The Society then makes a big power grab and takes over the Undercity, led by Grand Apothecary Putress and the dreadlord Varimathras, finally pulling the trigger on his inevitable betrayal. Both the Horde and Alliance invade the Undercity on separate sides, killing off the Society's mutineers. When both sides reach the Royal Quarter, Varian makes it clear that as far as he's concerned, Bolvar's death means the Alliance's period of tolerating the Horde has come to an end. He's only prevented from attacking Thrall and Sylvanas there and then by Jaina teleporting him and the Alliance forces out. The "cold war" between the Alliance and Horde has just gone hot again, and the two factions repeatedly clash as both invade Icecrown.

We subsequently kill Malygos with the help of Alexstrasza, the Aspect of Life; Kalecgos is subsequently appointed the head of the blue dragonflight. Sartharion and Arugal are likewise dealt with. We clean out Naxxramas, though Kel'thuzad's phylactery is still MIA, and the Ebon Blade hires us to deal with what's left of the Scarlet Onslaught. It turns out that the Onslaught is, as is traditional, being manipulated by demons; this time it's Arthas's old rival Mal'Ganis, who escapes when confronted.

In a rare bit of good news, Alliance players encounter a tribe of local dwarves called the Frostborn, living in a village in the Storm Peaks. Their leader turns out to be an amnesiac Muradin Bronzebeard, who remembers his true identity when he meets Brann.

As we explore the mountains of the Storm Peaks in Northrend, they and much of the rest of Northrend turn out to have been built as part of a single Titan complex, the sealed city of Ulduar, which was constructed as a prison for the Old God of Madness, Yogg-Saron. It's been able to extend its reach beyond that prison for millennia, has subtly influenced much of Azeroth's history, and has tricked the Titans' surviving Keepers into neglecting their duties. Most notably, Yogg seems to be responsible for something called the "Curse of Flesh," which transformed its prison's stone golems and mechanical workers into the first dwarves, gnomes, and vrykul, and which may have further warped some of the local vrykul's offspring into the first humans.

Eventually, with the help of Brann Bronzebeard and the Kirin Tor, we bust through the prison's defenses, slap some sense back into the prison's ancient Keepers, dispatch some Twilight's Hammer cultists that are trying to sneak in and free Yogg, and defeat Yogg itself, although it may be impossible to actually kill it. Most importantly, we stop the prison's final failsafe, a "re-origination" device that would destroy Azeroth before recreating it, by fighting its activator, Algalon the Observer, to a standstill. He gives us the means to broadcast a return signal off-world from Dalaran, preventing the Titans from destroying Azeroth.

In an attempt to refocus the Alliance and Horde on the Scourge, Tirion and the Argent Crusade set up a tournament in northern Icecrown, offering prizes and renown on the field of honorable combat while pitting challengers against the Lich King's forces. Tirion's plan is to train up a small, elite strike force via the tournament in order to attack Icecrown Citadel with as few troops as possible, to avoid giving Arthas more corpses to raise. This doesn't really work, and the tournament ends up leaving the faction divide as strained as ever. The Lich King himself shows up to challenge us for the final round of the tournament, and drops us into an underground cavern where we face off against and kill his buddy Anub'arak. (Again.)

While the troops trained through the tournament don't end up amounting to much (they're unceremoniously killed off about ten minutes after we breach the Citadel), we're able to break through the Lich King's defenses and besiege Icecrown Citadel itself. In this, we're assisted and led by Tirion and Darion, who have unified their forces into a single group that calls itself the Ashen Verdict.

In the upper reaches of the Citadel, in the Halls of Reflection, we confront many of the souls that Frostmourne has taken over the years. The only one that isn't hostile is Uther the Lightbringer, who tells us something important: without someone at its head, the Scourge will go berserk. We can't just kill Arthas; someone has to take his place or things will get even worse. Before Uther can expound further, Arthas interrupts the conversation and forces us to retreat.

When we and the Verdict bust through the Citadel's front door, we also discover that the Lich King has reanimated the late Bolvar Fordragon. Bolvar is still glowing red-hot from Alexstrazsa's fire breath and has managed to resist Arthas's attempts at conversion until now. We can hear him screaming all the way from the bottom of the Citadel.

We fight our way towards him, dealing with the leaders of the Scourge, an incursion force sent by the opposite faction, the death knight version of Saurfang the Younger, the frost wyrm Sindragosa, and the Blood Queen of the San'layn, before finally coming face to face with Arthas himself. Our battle with him is hard-fought and utterly pointless; when he reaches 10% health, he kills us all. He's been putting up with us for so long because he wanted to raise us as his newer, better champions, then send us after Tirion as an ironic twist of the knife.

As he's raising us, however, he's interrupted by Tirion, who shatters Frostmourne with the Ashbringer. This releases all the souls that Frostmourne has taken over the years, including that of Arthas's father Terenas. He resurrects us and we beat Arthas to death. Bolvar sacrifices himself to keep the Scourge in check; he puts on the Lich King's helm and sits on the Frozen Throne, telling us to tell the world that he's dead.

In the aftermath, a lot of the leftover elements of the Scourge end up working for Sylvanas Windrunner, including the valkyr, which are capable of resurrecting the dead and turning freshly-slain humans into Forsaken. Right about now, Sylvanas's tactics start looking a lot like Arthas's used to.

before Cataclysm The Alliance and Horde both return from Northrend badly bloodied, with heavy casualties on both sides. The official estimate given for the Alliance, in one of the novels, is around 50,000 dead.

Just the same, both sides undertake new operations: the Alliance assists the gnomes as they make additional headway into the irradiated tunnels of Gnomeregan, and the Horde kicks in to help the Darkspear trolls retake their homeland in the Echo Isles. This leads into their new starting zones in the next expansion.

Cataclysm We last saw Deathwing in The Day of the Dragon, when he retreated into Deepholm to recuperate. While he was there, the Twilight's Hammer cult worked to forge Deathwing an impenetrable suit of elementium scales.

Finally, the Old Gods' constant whispering drives him into a frenzy and Deathwing explodes out of Deepholm, causing the event known as the Cataclysm. This reshapes coastlines, wrecks landmarks, and drives elementals insane all over the world. Most notably, it sinks the island of Kezan, home of the goblins' Bilgewater Cartel; seemingly destroys the island of Zandalar, home of the previously-friendly Zandalari trolls, with their Emperor disappearing in the upheaval; and causes the corrupt elemental lords and the Twilight's Hammer cult to take a fresh swing at destroying Azeroth. This includes Ragnaros, who turns a massive chunk of Hyjal into a volcanic hellscape. Deathwing steals the bodies of Nefarian and Onyxia, rezzing Nef so Nef can reconstruct Onyxia as an undead taxidermy project; Stormwind's entire park district is turned into a crater (this isn't fixed until years later); and due to rampaging elementals, a big part of Orgrimmar burns down.

Thrall steps down as warchief of the Horde to take up a job as the World-Shaman, leader of the Earthen Ring, and to court and marry a Mag'har orc named Aggra. Despite the advice of literally everyone around him, Thrall appoints Garrosh Hellscream as the new warchief. Immediately after the Cataclysm, Garrosh rebuilds Orgrimmar into a nest of black iron spikes, then starts something like seven separate land wars in a bid to claim new resources and land for the Horde.

Cairne Bloodhoof challenges Garrosh for the warchief spot, but their duel to the death is interrupted when they discover that Magatha Grimtotem has poisoned Garrosh's axe. Cairne dies, the Grimtotem are put firmly on everyone's shit list, Magatha is exiled, and Cairne's son Baine succeeds him as the leader of the tauren.

One of Garrosh's new offensives pits Sylvanas and the Forsaken against the isolationist nation of Gilneas, which was already having trouble dealing with a plague of lycanthropy. Long story short: as per the Curse of the Worgen comic, the druidic wolf form was created and promptly forbidden during the War of the Ancients, and its feral, nearly-mindless practitioners were sealed up inside a tree in the Emerald Dream. Come the modern day, that tree's Azeroth equivalent is in Gilneas and it's leaking. King Greymane's personal alchemist creates a potion that restores the infected Gilneans to sanity, if not humanity, and they form the backbone of the fight against the Forsaken.

Sylvanas is here to conquer the place on orders from Garrosh, in order to get the Horde an ocean port in the Eastern Kingdoms. Eventually, she gets annoyed enough with the resistance to simply blight the city with the Plague, leaving most of the peninsula as an unusable ruin. The surviving Gilneans, most of whom are worgen at this point (notable exceptions include Lorna Crowley and Tess Greymane), escape across the ocean with help from the night elves and join the Alliance.

Many Gilneans will return with Alliance support to form the Gilnean Liberation Front, harrassing the Forsaken's lines in Silverpine Forest. Their efforts to reclaim their nation end in an effective stalemate, which costs the lives of both Prince Liam Greymane and Sylvanas herself. She is subsequently resurrected by the sacrifice of several of her valkyr, but her short time spent dead convinces her that she has to do whatever is necessary to keep herself from dying again.

Shortly after Thrall steps down, he's captured by (what purports to be) an Alliance naval fleet. The battle is witnessed by a ship full of the newly-homeless goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel, who escaped their island before it sank but ended up getting enslaved by their leader. The Alliance's captains try to sink the goblins' ship to eliminate all witnesses, but the goblins survive and free Thrall. He destroys what's left of the Alliance's fleet, then sponsors the Bilgewater goblins as the newest entrants into the Horde.

Elsewhere, the Alliance takes heavy losses from Garrosh's offensive, including the outright losses of Southshore and Silverwind Refuge. Magni Bronzebeard tries to figure out what's happened by using ancient rituals, but instead ends up as a petrified diamond statue in a cavern beneath Ironforge. After his "death," Muradin, Magni's renegade daughter Moira Thaurissan, and Falstad Wildhammer form the Council of Three Hammers to rule Ironforge, unifying the dwarf clans for the first time in centuries.

With new allies on both factions' sides, we begin the work of cleaning up after Deathwing. In Hyjal, we disrupt the Twilight's Hammer cult as it attempts to burn down the countryside; in Deepholm, we work with the Earthen Ring to reassemble and repair the broken World Pillar, which Deathwing smashed on his way out the door. Nefarian has holed up in Blackrock Mountain again, while Cho'gall is running his cult from the Twilight Highlands, near the ruins of the city of Grim Batol; we take them out, as well as what's left of Deathwing's consort Sinestra.

In southern Tanaris, we investigate an ancient gate that was smashed open in the Shattering, and discover the hidden land of Uldum. It's inhabited by a race of cat-people called the tol'vir, who live and work among yet more Titan ruins. This includes another "re-origination" device like the one we barely kept from being fired in Ulduar, but this time Brann Bronzebeard is able to shut it down with a lot less trouble.

The tol'vir were created as animate statues and were also subject to Yogg-Saron's "curse of flesh." The corrupted Elemental Lord of Air, Al'Akir, has enticed a number of tol'vir to his side by lifting the curse, and attempts to destroy the tol'vir who refuse. We help to organize the tol'vir against Al'Akir's armies, saving the tol'vir's civilization, before confronting A'Akir himself on the elemental plane of Skywall. His post is left temporarily vacant.

A new threat arises shortly thereafter from the surviving Zandalari, who attempt to unify the disparate tribes of trolls into a single empire with themselves at its head. Most of the hostile troll tribes--the Gurubashi, Drakkari, Amani, etc.--take them up on their offer, but Vol'jin refuses on behalf of the Darkspear. He proceeds to enlist whoever he can find in attempts to oppose the Zandalari. On Vol'jin's behalf, we reenter Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman and take out the forces gathering there, preventing the Zandalari from creating a beachhead for empire in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Shortly thereafter, Ragnaros attacks Mount Hyjal in earnest, aided by a renegade order of druids headed up by Fandraal Staghelm. They're opposed in Hyjal by a druidic force that calls itself the Molten Front Offensive, working to keep Ragnaros's forces sealed up inside the Firelands. With Malfurion, Hamuul, and Cenarius, we enter the Firelands, kill Staghelm, and put a final end to Ragnaros himself.

Finally, the surviving dragon Aspects, with Thrall standing in for the Aspect of Earth, come up with a plan to deal with Deathwing. They're going to need the Dragon Soul to so much as scratch him, but it was destroyed a long time ago. We need to go back in time and "borrow" it from near the time of its creation, during the War of the Ancients.

When Nozdormu tries to send us back, however, we're instead sent to a possible future, the End Time of Azeroth, where Deathwing has gotten everything he wanted. Azeroth is a smoking cinder, the only survivors are a handful of dragonkin and angry ghosts, and Deathwing's corpse is impaled on the peak of Wyrmrest Temple.

We pick our way through the ashes and find the entity responsible for bringing us here: Murozond, a version of Nozdormu who's been driven insane by a vision of his own eventual death, and the progenitor of the infinite dragonflight. He attacks, ranting that this future is a mercy compared to what's to come, and dies at our hands. This was the vision he saw that drove him mad; the infinite dragonflight's efforts up until now have been an attempt to make sure the End Time comes to pass, and now it never will.

Nozdormu sends us back to the Well of Eternity during the War of the Ancients, where we fight alongside the young Illidan, Tyrande, and Malfurion. We quietly make off with the Dragon Soul, pausing to help Illidan win against Mannoroth, and rendezvous with Chromie to get sent back to our time.

We meet up with Thrall in the Dragonblight, near Wyrmrest Temple, and play bodyguard for him. We're intercepted by multiple squads of Twilight's Hammer assassins, but we win through and get Thrall where he needs to be. The Dragon Soul is in place with the Aspects, and now, all they need to do is to figure out how to use it.

Rogues are quietly approached at this point by agents of Ravenholdt, who are working in conjunction with a black dragon who calls himself Wrathion, the Black Prince. Wrathion is the last black dragon on Azeroth (that he knows of) who's untouched by Deathwing's corruption (cf. a quest in the Badlands, where we and a red dragon conspire to keep an uncorrupted egg safe from Deathwing), and he's decided his father's got to go. Rogues are tasked with eliminating various agents of the black dragonflight, in the ruins of Gilneas and the caverns under Karazhan, in exchange for a pair of daggers that Wrathion gradually upgrades.

At this point, the Twilight's Hammer hits Wyrmrest with everything it has left, which mostly consists of the Old Gods' minions; we arrive just in time to keep the Temple's guards from being totally overrun. The assault culminates in Deathwing unleashing the twilight dragonflight--viciously warped versions of red dragons--and its most powerful member, Ultraxion, which is basically a dragon-shaped suicide bomb. Secure behind our lines, the Aspects use the Eye of Eternity to empower the Dragon Soul with their essences.

Thrall blasts Deathwing with the Soul, which wounds him and forces him into a headlong retreat, and we give chase by airship. We parachute onto Deathwing's back and pry off more of his elementium armor plates; underneath it, Deathwing is little more than a seething mass of corruption. Without his armor, Deathwing is vulnerable to a second strike from Thrall, and lands in the Maelstrom itself. We, Thrall, and the Aspects finish him off, and Nozdormu goes so far as to ensure our victory here is a multiversal constant. There is no alternate timeline where Deathwing won and destroyed Azeroth. This fight always happened, we always won it, and no amount of time manipulation can undo this result.

This fight costs the Aspects dearly, however. They're all still dragons, with all the capabilities that implies, but they no longer have the specific Titan-granted powers that made them the Aspects. The Age of Mortals has begun.

before Mists of Pandaria In the events of the "Theramore's Fall" scenario and the novel Tides of War, Theramore is destroyed by a full-scale Horde assault, culminating in the detonation of a "mana bomb" that levels most of the city. The Alliance loses many of its highest-ranking military officers (if you're wondering why there's a new guy sitting in Stormwind where Marcus Jonathan used to be, that's why), and Jaina herself only lives because of the self-sacrifice of Rhonin, head of the Kirin Tor.

Jaina goes mad with grief and is about to level Orgrimmar with a tidal wave, but Thrall holds her back while Kalecgos talks her down. She turns herself in to the Kirin Tor, intending to have them punish her for almost losing control; instead, on the basis that she didn’t lose control, they offer her Rhonin's former position.

Mists of Pandaria For millennia, the continent of Pandaria was hidden by banks of magical mists, placed there for protection by the great Emperor Shouhao. The outside world thought it was a legend if they knew about it at all, including the small population of pandaren who lived on the Wandering Isle, a forest and village situated on the back of a constantly moving turtle.

The mist was one more thing wrecked by the Shattering. Pandaria stays undiscovered until the day when the Horde and Alliance fight a massive naval skirmish nearby. One airship, full of Alliance troops and Horde prisoners, crashes into the side of the Wandering Isle. Some of the local pandaren decide to follow one faction or the other back to the mainland, forming new societies there; the Tuishi join the Alliance under the leadership of Aysa Cloudsinger, and the Huojin, led by Jin Firepaw, join the Horde.

A flagship, this one carrying Prince Anduin Wrynn, ends up wrecked on the coast of Pandaria itself. Varian sends Alliance troops in the Skyfire to rescue him. When Garrosh learns about it, he dispatches his own forces to "paint the continent red."

Garrosh, incidentally, has recruited several formerly-outcast clans such as the Blackrock to bolster the Horde's forces, and has been getting progressively more belligerent and warlike as his reign as Warchief has continued.

When we arrive on Pandaria, we find the other faction's survivors from the original skirmish have erected fortifications in the Jade Forest, and act to deal with them. As it turns out, this was a bad move; Pandaria itself is infested with monsters called the Sha, a corruptive force that feeds off of negative emotions, with the most powerful Sha embodying feelings such as Despair, Anger, Depression, Fear, and Hatred. The entirety of pandaren culture is a 10,000-year-old defense mechanism to avoid releasing the Sha back into the world.

When the Alliance and Horde show up in full war mode, their emotions over the conflict blow many of the Shas' prisons wide open, who run rampant across most of the continent. The good news is that when we fight the Sha, they die. The Emperor was only able to seal the worst of the Sha away, but we're very good at killing by now and can destroy them outright.

The Alliance pursues Anduin across Pandaria. When they catch up, it's as he's playing peacemaker and diplomat between the Alliance and the locals. Alongside the tauren paladin Sunwalker Dezco, Anduin helps to convince the August Celestials, four animal spirits that guide and protect the pandaren, to open the sealed gates to the sacred Vale of Eternal Blossoms. There, both the Horde and Alliance take up residence in local shrines.

While we're exploring, we also run into Wrathion. He maintains a network of spies throughout Pandaria, and recruits us for various missions of his own. In exchange for various artifacts and the occasional odd job, he's able to provide us with certain upgrades, such as a powerful meta-gem called the Crown of Heaven. Wrathion keeps his true motivations under his belt, but as a rule, he seems to be supportive of the faction of whoever he's talking to, and encourages us via quests to prove our faction's greater strength.

One of the stranger side effects of our arrival on Pandaria takes place in the Dread Wastes, on Pandaria's west coast. Pandaria's history has been punctuated by battles with an insectoid race called the mantid, which try to overrun the rest of the continent every hundred years. They're typically beaten back by the pandaren, who have established multiple fortifications for this specific purpose. The mantid regard this conflict as an aggressive form of natural selection.

The Sha's appearance has forced the swarm to start early, as the mantid's Empress has fallen under the corruptive sway of the Sha of Fear. We investigate and become acquainted with the Klaaxi, the elders of the mantid race, who managed to avoid being corrupted due to being in stasis at the time. We work to overthrow the Empress with their aid, and as a sort of reward, the Klaaxi let us in on one of their secrets: they worship the Old Gods and await their return. They advise us to do the same.

Another problem develops on the northern shore of Kun-Lai Summit, where a mixed council of trolls have made landfall. While the Gurubashi, Drakkari, and Amani try to establish a beachhead by overrunning a pandaren village, the Zandalari exhume a series of ancient crypts in the mountains nearby.

Millennia ago, Pandaria was ruled by animate statues called the mogu, which were led by the Lightning Emperor, Lei Shen. Lei Shen unified Pandaria under his command, enslaving the other sentient races, but was eventually killed by the tol'vir when he tried to invade Uldum.

The mogu were allies of the Zandalari back in the day, and the Zandalari still know how to reanimate the mogu. Before we can stop them, they resurrect Lei Shen himself. The plan is that, in accordance to an ancient compact, the Zandalari will help the mogu reconquer Pandaria in exchange for carving off a piece of the continent as their new homeland.

As a side note, we find an ancient mogu crypt called Mogushan Terrace in Kun-Lai Summit. It's inhabited by a who's-who of mogu spirits and ancient guardians, which are in place to defend what turns out to be a Titan complex, complete with a deactivated guardian called Elegon and a device that manufactures new mogu right there on the spot, much like what we found in the Halls of Stone back on Northrend. The mogu began as a race of Titan servants, just like the dwarves and gnomes did, but if they ever had a Keeper, he's nowhere to be seen.

Our next challenges take place in the Heart of Fear in the Dread Wastes, the Sha-corrupted mantid hive where the former Empress now rules, and the pandaren's Terrace of Endless Spring, a shrine that's now the home of the freed Sha of Fear. We kill both the Empress and the Sha in turn, returning control of the mantid to the Klaaxi and purifying the shrine.

Shortly afterward, the Alliance and Horde arrive on the shores of Pandaria in force, building settlements on the southern coastline. Anduin meets his father there and keeps playing diplomat, but Garrosh has learned about an ancient mogu super-weapon called the Divine Bell. Blood elf archeologists dig the Bell up for Garrosh, but the Alliance makes off with it before he can use it; the Horde promptly breaks into Darnassus to steal it back. Garrosh tries to use the Bell to create a new breed of super-orcs without success before Anduin destroys it, which nearly kills Anduin.

The theft of the Divine Bell has other consequences. Jaina Proudmoore, now head of the Kirin Tor, has been trying to get her head together since the destruction of Theramore. Just as she's returning to her previous peace efforts, she discovers that the Sunreavers, a faction of blood elves within the Kirin Tor, went against her orders and helped the Horde steal the Divine Bell. (We later find out, out of game, that the leader of the Sunreavers had to make a call between pissing Jaina off and pissing Garrosh off, and he chose Jaina.) Jaina promptly goes on a rampage alongside Vereesa Windrunner, Rhonin's widow, and they kick the blood elves and Horde out of Dalaran entirely.

Jaina and Vereesa reestablish the Kirin Tor as an explicitly Alliance-aligned force, while Lor'themar Theron and the Sunreavers regroup to oppose her. Both organizations take the lead as their respective factions move to invade the Isle of Thunder, where the Zandalari and mogu are gathered under Lei Shen's command. We break into Lei Shen's ancient fortress, the Throne of Thunder, to find that Lei Shen's not taking us particularly seriously; he dumps us into his castle's sewer system and we're forced to fight all the way back up to him.

We defeat Lei Shen, wiping out the last of the Zandalari's unified troll forces along the way. Both major factions end up with something else in the end; the blood elves learn the secret to creating the mogu's anima golems, which become a fixture of their war efforts from here on out, while Jaina uses her staff to absorb power from the fallen Lei Shen.

Wrathion also asks us to perform a task for us while we're in the Throne of Thunder: bring him Lei Shen's heart. Wrathion eats it in front of us, which prevents Lei Shen from ever being resurrected again, and it puts him into a fugue state. Wrathion says aloud that "we must rebuild the final Titan," but remembers nothing afterward.

Finally, there's one last secret in the Throne: a hidden prison. The mogu were created to assist Ra-den, one of the Titans' Keepers, but they rebelled against him, stole his powers, and chained him up down here for millennia. He's understandably angry when we let him out, and initially intends to go on a rampage across the planet, but we hold him back long enough for him to come to his senses.

Meanwhile, Garrosh's run as warchief has made him plenty of enemies. The pursuit of the Divine Bell killed a lot of the blood elves' archeologists, Vol'jin has never really cared for him, and Garrosh killed Baine's father Cairne. When Garrosh tries to have Vol'jin quietly assassinated, it spurs the beginning of what becomes the Darkspear Revolution. Vol'jin's Horde and its supporters in the Alliance attack and harrass the camps and supply lines in the Barrens, attempting to isolate Garrosh's forces in Orgrimmar.

Garrosh decides to pursue a new tactic, and has some goblins dig up the sacred Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria. They quickly discover the source of the whole "Sha" problem: the heart of the dead Old God Y'shaarj, held in an ancient Titan vault. Garrosh claims the heart as his own, and in so doing, releases a wave of Sha power that blows up a big part of the Vale, kills many of its protectors, and corrupts the magical water that fuels Pandaria's agriculture. This is the last straw for the pandaren; they're only kept from exiling the Horde from Pandaria by some fast talking from Dezco.

After we deal with the various monsters that now inhabit the Vale, including the Sha of Pride, we besiege Orgrimmar. This means carving up Garrosh's retinue of Dragonmaw orcs, im-7-ported Kor'kron, a handful of ride-or-die loyalists like General Nazgrim, the Klaaxi (who regard Garrosh's possession of the heart or Y’shaarj as proof that he's on their team), and the Blackfuse Company, a high-tech group of goblin mercenaries.

Garrosh himself is holed up in a chamber underneath the city, waiting for all comers to try to take him down. He initially defends himself with goblin technology and orc reinforcements, but as the fight wears on, he repeatedly siphons power from Y'shaarj's heart, employing it to summon Sha and turn his angry outbursts into reality. This culminates in a fight where we literally battle Garrosh inside a vision of his ideal future: the burned-out wreckage of Stormwind Harbor, besieged by a True Horde navy, with all of Garrosh's enemies impaled atop its walls.

When we defeat him, it also renders Y'shaarj's heart inert; Garrosh drained all the power it had left to fight us. Thrall is about to kill Garrosh when Varian steps in to parry the blow, saying that Garrosh deserves to face a trial for his crimes. Garrosh is placed in the custody of the Shado-Pan, Pandaria's martial order of monks. Despite Jaina's urging, Varian leaves the Horde alone at this point, refusing to launch a decapitation strike while the Horde is weak; their cooperation for the sake of the rebellion, he says, has earned them that much goodwill.

When he hears about it, this infuriates Wrathion. His whole plan, as it turns out, was trying to force one side or another to win the war and unify Azeroth under a single banner, because that's what it will take to protect Azeroth when the Burning Legion returns. He pitches a fit and retreats behind the scenes.

before Warlords of Draenor While we were besieging Orgrimmar, we also happened to find a place called the Timeless Isle off the coast of Pandaria, where time itself seems to stand still. A new organization called the Timewalkers, mortals who're trying to take up where the bronze dragonflight left off, has set up shop there alongside a bronze dragon named Kairos. We collect a particular kind of stone for Kairos from the Isle as part of a weekly quest, and Kairos uses those stones to empower a relic called the Vision of Time, which gives us glimpses of the near-future.

Garrosh's trial takes place in the novel War Crimes. A completely unrepentant Garrosh is about to be convicted of all charges when Kairos attacks the trial, sending in a mixed force of Dragonmaw orcs, hired mercenaries, and dark alternate-universe versions of Thrall, Vol'jin, Baine, and Anduin. The attack doesn't go well for Kairos's side, but he's able to escape with Garrosh and Warlord Zaela.

Warlords of Draenor One day, the Dark Portal changes color and a bunch of brown, technologically-advanced orcs, calling themselves the Iron Horde, come storming into the Blasted Lands. They destroy Nethergarde Keep, but are repulsed before they can cause too much additional damage. A detachment led by Warlord Zaela gets as far as the ruins of the Blackrock Spire before it's pinned down and wiped out.

Khadgar reappears on Azeroth to help us deal with the Iron Horde. He leads a small force of Thrall, Vindicator Maraad (the draenei paladin from the [i]Burning Crusade[/i] intro movie; Garona Halforcen's uncle), us, and a few dozen redshirt adventurers back through the Dark Portal.

This leads us back and sideways in time, to a version of Draenor as it was 30 years ago, before Gul'dan blew up the place and turned it into Outland. It's not a perfect 100% matchup with the events of our own timeline--some characters who had died are inexplicably alive (Ner'zhul's wife Rulkan), and some were never born (Garrosh himself)--but the broad strokes are there.

The Iron Horde consists of the unified and industrialized Blackrock, Shadowmoon, Bleeding Hollow, Thunderlord, Burning Blade, and Shattered Hand clans, backed up by what's left of the Blackfuse Company from our timeline and enslaved Draenor locals. They're led by the old orcish Warlords: Blackhand, Grom Hellscream, Korgath Bladefist, Orgrim Doomhammer, Killrogg Deadeye, and Ner'zhul.

We emerge from the Dark Portal into Tanaan Jungle, the verdant wilderness that would eventually become Hellfire Peninsula, and end up face-to-face with a massive army of Iron Horde soldiers. As our redshirt crew fights a desperate holding action against them, we search for a way in which we can close the Dark Portal for good.

Unfortunately, the first step towards doing so is to free the three Shadow Council warlocks who were being used as the Portal's power source: Teron'gor, Cho'gall, and Gul'dan. They make a break for it as we escape into the jungle with Khadgar, Thrall, and Maraad, one step ahead of the Iron Horde.

We subsequently find and free two important characters from the Iron Horde's slave camps. One is Yrel, a young draenei who takes up a weapon for the first time to help free herself; the other is Ga'nar, Durotan's brother, who's being forced to muck out the Iron Horde's latrines. Ga'nar will sacrifice himself later on, as Horde players fight to save the Frostwolf clan from the Iron Horde; Yrel goes on to rapidly climb the ranks of the Vindicators, and is eventually appointed as an Exarch of the alternate draenei.

In the end, we manage to destroy the Dark Portal on this side by turning the Iron Horde's own weapons against it, then steal a couple of battleships from the harbor to make our escape. The Alliance makes a trip to the alternate Shadowmoon Valley, where draenei civilization is at its height, and meets the alternate Velen; the Horde hole up in Frostfire Ridge, home of the stubbornly independent Frostwolf Clan, and save it from being crushed beneath the Iron Horde's heel.

We establish a garrison with a skeleton crew (a process which is supposed to take several months in-game), then set about the business of dealing with the Iron Horde. Our local allies include the Frostwolves, the Laughing Skull clan, the local draenei, and the maimed, outcast arakkoa.

Some of the biggest threats we face come from Draenor itself. The planet is overrun with lethal wildlife, mind-control spores, poisonous flora, the hostile plant-men known as botani, and savage cat-people called saberon. The Spires of Arak, a mountain range to the south of Shattrath City, hosts a violent power struggle between the winged arakkoa and their outcasts, with the winged arakkoa's leader Viryx attacking the outcasts' settlements from their flying citadel of Skyreach. Gul'dan probably did the universe a favor by blowing this place up.

Now that we're here, however, the Iron Horde turns out to be something of a paper tiger. We make substantial gains against them, though it costs us and our allies dearly. Orgrim Doomhammer turns on Blackhand as they besiege Shattrath City; Blackhand kills Doomhammer and Vindicator Maraad, but is fought to a standstill by Yrel and Durotan. Khadgar subsequently blows up Blackhand's flagship with him on it, which doesn't kill Blackhand, but which does halt the Iron Horde's offensive in Talador.

We finally catch up to Garrosh in Nagrand, who's crippled from his defeat underneath Orgrimmar, but he's still become a high-ranking leader in the alternate Warsong clan. Thrall shows up to steal the kill, challenges Garrosh to a duel to the death, and takes him out with a bolt of lightning.

We also dispatch Ner'zhul in the ancient Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, as he's continuing the process of weaponizing his clan's ancestral spirits; Kargath Bladefist and the alternate Cho'gall are killed as we invade the city of Highmaul, dismantling the ogres' Gorian Empire, which eliminates one of the Iron Horde's most powerful allies; and Blackhand dies as we bring down the Blackrock Foundry, which tears the heart out of the Iron Horde's war production.

An additional complication arises in Talador, in the ancient draenei city of Auchindoun, which is a repository for the spirits of their dead. The first thing Teron'gor did upon being freed was to call in the Legion to help him besiege the place, and the draenei have pulled most of their forces back to deal with that. We're able to drive the Iron Horde back into the jungles of Tanaan, but the Shadow Council--Gul'dan's organization of assorted warlocks--retains hold of Shattrath's lower city.

Worse news, the Auchenai who guard the interior of Auchindoun have been heavily infiltrated by the Sargerai, renegade draenei who have turned against Velen and entered the Legion's service. We enter just as they show their hand, which gives Teron'gor a chance to enter the city and siphon power from the fallen draenei's spirits. We give him everything he wants by throwing him off a ledge into the depths of Auchindoun, seemingly killing him via spiritual overdose.

Meanwhile, Khadgar has been investigating Garrosh's time skip, as well as chasing the conspicuously absent alternate Gul'dan. With Chromie's help, we find out Kairos's plan: he used the Vision of Time to find a specific alternate universe, then brought himself and Garrosh into it at an earlier point on its timeline. Garrosh was able to stop Grom and the other orcs from drinking Mannoroth's blood, then talked his way into a position as a war leader and prophet. With his gifts of technology from modern Azeroth, Garrosh worked to unify the orc clans into a single, overwhelming force. He's been working on this for a few years.

Kairos wanted to use Garrosh's uncorrupted, modernized and unified Horde as a vanguard against the Burning Legion, pulling in yet more troops for it from other alternate timelines: an infinite Iron Horde to oppose the infinite Legion. Garrosh wasn't interested in being Kairos's pawn, however, and stabbed Kairos to death with a shard of the Vision of Time.

Khadgar continues to pursue the alternate Gul'dan, employing us to bring him relics and supplies with which to overcome Gul'dan's wards against detection. Gul'dan reacts by dispatching the alternate-universe version of Garona Halforcen to kill Khadgar; she initially fails, and is chased off by Khadgar's bodyguard, the Warden Cordana Felsong. Garona's second attempt is more successful, but he's saved by our intervention. We capture Garona, but interrogation proves pointless due to Gul'dan's control over her.

At Khadgar's request, we steal an artifact called the Orb of Dominion from the Shadow Council, which he uses to break Gul'dan's conditioning on the alternate Garona. Khadgar entrusts the Orb to Cordana for disposal.

With Garona's help, we finally track down Gul'dan, just as he's offering a fresh dose of demon blood to what's left of the Iron Horde. The lone holdout against this plan is Grom Hellscream, who ends up as a captive; the rest of the Iron Horde takes Gul'dan's offer. Tanaan Jungle rapidly turns into a fel-corrupted hellscape, surrounded by encampments of demons, corrupted orcs, and traitorous draenei. We build a shipyard in our garrison to make a naval invasion possible, then establish beachheads nearby and go on the offensive.

The Iron Horde's final stand takes place at Hellfire Citadel, where we have to go through the newly corrupted orcs, the last of the goblin mercenaries that Garrosh brought with him, a division of the Sargerei, and a heavily mutated Teron'gor, who's gotten fat and sassy off of Auchindoun's souls and now calls himself Gorefiend. We find Grom along the way, who's being tortured by demons in the citadel's upper floors, and free him.

One of Khadgar's incidental requests for us, while we're burning down Hellfire Citadel, is to find a series of spellbooks called Tomes of Chaos, which Gul'dan's using to train up the next generation of warlocks. When we collect the set, we're sent to Cordana Felsong for help disposing of them, only to find out that Cordana has changed teams. The Orb of Dominion played upon the doubts she already had about Khadgar and convinced her to join Gul'dan. We fight her briefly, destroying the Tomes of Chaos in the process, before she escapes through a portal.

When we finally reach Gul'dan, he throws a resurrected Mannoroth at us, then ducks out and finishes what he started: bringing Archimonde himself to Draenor. With backup from Grom, Yrel, and Khadgar, we engage and kill Archimonde on even terms in the Twisting Nether, because we've gotten [i]that much[/i] more powerful, but before he drops, Archimonde tosses Gul'dan through a portal. The Iron Horde is gone; this version of Draenor is free; Archimonde may be dead for good, since there's only one Twisting Nether; and we inexplicably do not throw Grom Hellscream down several flights of stairs.

before Legion The alternate Gul'dan ends up on present-day Azeroth with Kil'jaeden's voice in his head. With his directions, Gul'dan dodges Khadgar and Maiev Shadowsong long enough to reach the Tomb of Sargeras on the Broken Isles. Gul'dan almost screws over Kil'jaeden and the Legion to take the power of the Tomb for himself, but decides he'd rather not face Azeroth's adventurers without the Legion at his back. Gul'dan then enables the Burning Legion's third invasion of Azeroth by tearing open the Tomb, while Khadgar and Maiev escape to tell the rest of the world what's just happened.

While he's in the Broken Isles, Gul'dan and the Legion besiege the ancient city of Suramar. He offers its ruler, Empress Elisande, a deal: let their defenses down and let him have access to the Nightwell, or eventually get crushed underneath the Legion's heel. Elisande and company decide to throw in with Gul'dan and drive any dissenters into exile, which opens Suramar's walls for the first time in millennia. The exiles, deprived of the energies of the Nightwell, slowly become mindless Withered, wandering the countryside looking for mana to feed upon.

Gul'dan also has the corrupted Cordana Felsong let him into the Vault of the Wardens. Maiev lets out the imprisoned Illidari in order to repulse Gul'dan's forces, but it's not enough to keep him and Cordana from stealing the corpse of Illidan Stormrage.

The Alliance and Horde dispatch all the forces they can muster to the Broken Isles. We discover on arrival that the Legion isn't scraping by with its usual handful of local traitors and summoned demons; it's actually here in force, reinforced by giant fel-powered ships, and has established a beachhead on the Broken Shore.

We were beaten here by a division of the Argent Crusade, led by Tirion Fordring; most are dead or permanently mind-controlled, and Tirion himself is mortally wounded before our eyes. When we confront Gul'dan, he responds by summoning a who's-who of former raid bosses and a virtually infinite army of demons. The Alliance takes him head-on, with the Horde watching its flank from a nearby cliff.

The Horde's position is quickly overrun by demons. Vol'jin is mortally wounded, and his last order is to Sylvanas, telling her to sound a general retreat. From the ground, it appears as if the Horde simply and quietly withdraws from the battlefield, which enrages Genn Greymane; this isn't helped when, seconds later, Varian Wrynn sacrifices himself to give the remaining Alliance forces a chance to escape.

(Rogues will later discover that the Alliance’s intelligence service SI:7 is heavily infiltrated by the Legion, thus explaining the lack of diplomatic solutions here.)

Upon our return to our respective capitals, the Alliance and Horde have lost much of their remaining military in the failed attack. Anduin is appointed the King of Stormwind, and a dying Vol'jin selects Sylvanas to replace him as the Horde's Warchief. At Varian and Vol'jin's funerals, the Illidari introduce themselves to our faction leaders and expose a frankly ridiculous number of Legion infiltrators in the surrounding area. With their help, we act to repel a series of Legion invasions throughout Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, thus power-leveling our alts.

Khadgar attempts to negotiate with Jaina to allow the Horde back into Dalaran, and Jaina loses the ensuing vote in the Council of Six. She angrily steps down and leaves, while Khadgar quietly takes her former position.

Magni Bronzebeard suddenly wakes up, now animate but still carved from living diamond. We, Khadgar, and Brann follow him to Ulduar, where he tells us what he's learned. Magni is now the Speaker for Azeroth itself, and a non-trivial amount of everything that's happened so far is because Azeroth itself is a sleeping, baby Titan. If the Legion can corrupt or destroy it, that's going to be the end; it's going to win.

We and Khadgar go to Karazhan to find an old book about five ancient artifacts called the Pillars of Creation, which can be used to close the Tomb of Sargeras again and drive off the Legion. All five are found somewhere in the Broken Isles.

Legion Khadgar and the rest of the Council of Six teleport Dalaran to the skies south of the Broken Isles so we can use it as a staging ground for our expedition.

As we arrive, we're approached by representatives of our various classes. We are placed in charge of our classes’ various order halls, because we're astonishingly powerful veterans of multiple campaigns, and sent in search of various artifact weapons that we can use against the Legion.

Noteworthy artifacts here include the Ashbringer, which retribution paladins receive upon rescuing a dying Tirion from the dreadlord Balnazzar; the Scythe of Elune, taken from the Dark Riders in Duskwood and used to empower balance druids; Garona Halforcen's daggers, the Kingslayers, which she gladly gives to a deserving assassination rogue; the Blades of the Fallen Prince, which frost death knights forge from the remaining shards of Frostmourne; and the Blade of the Black Empire, a dagger that whispers in the ears of shadow priests, who are suddenly using a lot more explicitly Old Godly power than they used to be.

Thus equipped, we investigate the various Broken Isles in search of the Pillars of Creation, which Khadgar lets us stow safely in the Hall of the Guardian in Dalaran.

The Tidestone of Golgonneth Azsuna is covered in night elven ruins, and the Legion has claimed significant territory along its coastlines. We initially enter the zone as reinforcements for the Illidari, but as we investigate further, the island is heavily contested. The southern coast is home to a band of pirates, as well as hostile makura and gilbins; Queen Azshara has sent a battalion of naga in an attempt to conquer the island; the Vault of the Wardens is on an island to the southeast, and is still heavily besieged by powerful demons, which are barely kept at bay by the Wardens; and Azsuna is home to Senegos, one of the surviving elders of the blue dragonflight, who's trying to keep what could be the last generation of blue dragons safe from a bizarre, mana-feeding group of elves that's preying on them.

Most importantly, the central ruins are inhabited by the ghostly Court of Farondis, a group of Highborne night elves who were condemned to undeath by Queen Azshara millennia ago, when their eponymous leader made the mistake of disagreeing with her. They've kept one of the Pillars of Creation, the Tidestone of Golgonneth, safe all this time, locked inside the ruins of their magical academy and "guarded" by ghostly teachers who still think class is in session. When we play along with the ghosts to get the Tidestone, we're jumped by naga who steal it from us, and are freed from capitivity by Farondis. We pursue the naga to another island, the Eye of Azshara, and interrupt them before they can use the Tidestone to summon an elemental called the Wrath of Azshara.

The Tears of Elune The practice of druidism began on Azeroth in the forests of Val'sharah, which is also the birthplace of Illidan and Malfurion Stormrage. Malfurion greets us on arrival, where we discover that Ysera, the former Aspect of Nature, has been bound into magical sleep by an unknown force. We investigate, and discover that many of the druids' encampments throughout Val'sharah have been destroyed or besieged by the Legion. This is all at the direction of the satyr Xavius, who's also stolen the Tears of Elune--one of the Pillars of Creation--from the temple where they were being kept.

We rescue who we can, and the remaining druids are able to awaken Ysera. Unfortunately for all involved, Xavius abducts Malfurion, then uses the Tears to corrupt Ysera, forcing the druids and Tyrande Whisperwind to kill her. Elune takes pity on the fallen Ysera and turns her into a constellation. Xavius goes into hiding thereafter, but we face his Shade in the nearby Darkheart Thicket, slaying it, reclaiming the Tears, and rescuing Malfurion.

Xavius holes up in the Emerald Nightmare via the corrupted world tree, Shaladrassil. Alongside Malfurion, we give chase, and are forced to fight several former guardians of nature who Xavius or the Nightmare have managed to taint. Eventually, we face off against Xavius and kill him, turning him back into a night elf and ending the Emerald Nightmare for good.

Also, before we even got to Val'sharah, Gul'dan performed a ritual in Black Rook Hold that separated Illidan's soul from his corpse, and had Helya stow Illidan's soul in Helheim. A side effect of the ritual was reawakening the spirits of the dead night elves that used to inhabit the fortress back during the War of the Ancients, most of whom do not recognize that time has passed, and who are striking out into the countryside to harrass the nearby village of Bradensbrook. We go ahead and clean that up while we're at it; as it turns out, the spirits aren't entirely to blame, as they're being manipulated by Legion infiltrators.

The Hammer of Khaz'goroth In Highmountain, the ancient home of the tauren, we meet Mayla Highmountain, the brand-new chieftain of the assembled tribes. Due to her inexperience and the imminent threat of the Legion, the old tribal alliegiances have crumbled. We go out on Mayla's behalf to play peacemaker, assisting each tribe in turn with its local problems and convincing them to once again commit to Mayla's council.

Along the way, we discover one of the most closely-guarded secrets of Highmountain: Mayla's advisor Ebonhorn is secretly a black dragon, who was purified of Deathwing's taint by one of Mayla's ancestors. The Highmountain tauren have been allowed to believe that Ebonhorn's family line advises the chieftain, when in fact it's been the same guy for centuries.

By the time we get around to attempting diplomacy with the Bloodtotem tribe, we find out the Legion beat us to it. The Bloodtotem are now the Feltotem, who are being instructed in the finer points of demonology by Legion mages. We also discover that the Pillar we're here to find, the Hammer of Khaz'goroth, is in the hands of the Underking, who rules the drogbar, a species of cave-dwelling humanoids who are the local tauren's traditional enemies. Our first few encounters with the Underking go poorly, as he seems to be unstoppable as long as he's got the Hammer, but we soon find out that his lust for power has turned many of his own people against him. We make an alliance with a splinter group of drogbar, bringing them onto the tribal council of Highmountain in the Bloodtotem's place.

With the drogbar's help, we're able to force the Underking and his allies back into their caverns, in an underground tunnel system called Neltharion's Lair. There, we face and defeat him, reclaiming the Hammer.

The Aegis of Aggramar Stormheim is the home of several tribes of vrykul, who have built a culture amongst the local titan ruins. At the behest of Havi, a friendly older vrykul, we set out to pass a battery of Titan-devised tests to prove we're worthy of the Aegis of Aggramar. We win through, but end up in contention for the Aegis with the vrykul God-King Scovald, whose entire tribe, the Tideskorn, has thrown in with the Legion. The final tests for the Aegis are conducted in the Halls of Valor by Odyn, one of the Titans' Keepers, and pit us against vrkyul elders, val'kyr sorceresses, and Odyn himself. Scovald tries to swipe the Aegis, but we beat him down and claim it for ourselves.

Sylvanas Windrunner has also come to Stormheim on business of her own. Anduin makes his first big kingly mistake by sending Genn Greymane and Captain Amelia Rogers aboard the Skyfire to Stormheim on an "observation" mission; he's either ignorant of or has forgotten that both Genn and Rogers have specific grievances with Sylvanas and the Forsaken. Genn and Rogers start a fight immediately; most of the Forsaken's ships get sunk, but they retaliate and destroy the Skyfire.

Sylvanas's business in Stormheim involves an attempt to press new Val'kyr into service, starting with their goddess Eyir, and an unspecified deal with Helya. Whatever her plan was, Genn Greymane scuttles it by freeing Eyir, though he’s wounded in the process.

A Falling Star Khadgar asks us to investigate a bizarre meteorite impact off the coast of Suramar. When we go out there, we find an odd Light-attuned crystal. Returning it to Khadgar causes it to play a message intended for him, from "High Exarch" Turalyon of the "Army of the Light." It's crucial to the fight against the Legion that we bring this object to Prophet Velen immediately

Khadgar teleports us to the Exodar, which has come under direct attack by a battalion of the Legion. The draenei are losing, and Velen has been forced to go on the defensive, keeping the civilian population safe behind a dome of light. We even the odds for them by destroying the Legion's portal system, cutting off the Legion's reinforcements, and have a quick talk with Velen. The object we found is called Light's Heart, the core of a prime Naaru, which can only be reactivated by the touch of another Naaru in its line of descent. O'ros, the Naaru who lives in the heart of the Exodar, is the last living Naaru who fits the bill. The Legion also knew that, however, and their entire attack on the Exodar was to get at O'ros. We arrive just before Rakeesh, the Legion's field commander, kills him.

With backup from our class halls, we engage Rakeesh, who prepares a self-destruct system that will wipe the Exodar and everything in it off the map. We manage to kill him before it goes off, but not without opposition from Velen himself, who realizes something at the last second. He had a vision of this moment a long time ago, which he'd thought was irrelevant until now; Rakeesh is Velen's son, corrupted, groomed and sent here specifically by Kil'jaeden as an act of revenge against Velen.

We teleport back to Dalaran with Light's Heart, but not before overhearing Velen give a command to his lieutenants. They're to prepare the Exodar for launch. The draenei are going home.

X'era With O'ros dead, Light's Heart theoretically cannot be activated at all, and we stow it in our order halls for safekeeping. Eventually, we decide to try using the Tears of Elune as a makeshift activator. The ensuing backlash knocks us out for the better part of three days, during which time we speak to the Prime Naaru, X'era. She's received a prophecy about a "Child of Light and Shadow": Illidan Stormrage.

She sends us to several locations to witness key scenes from Illidan's life, including his birth, his death, and his first questionable life decision, where he won a battle in the War of the Ancients (with special guest stars Rhonin and Broxigar) by draining the lives from his Moon Guard to empower himself.

X'era thinks that Illidan must be reborn in order to stop the Legion, and has us gather materials to construct a prism that can hold Illidan's soul. Allari the Souleater, one of the Illidari, tells us that Illidan's soul is in Helheim, in the possession of the renegade valkyr Helya, while Illidan's body is with Gul'dan in the Nighthold.

As luck would have it, Odyn has decided to conduct yet another one of his "tests," the Trial of Valor, which sends us into Helheim in pursuit of Helya. We take her out, which has the useful side effect of freeing Odyn from her curse, and retrieve Illidan's soul. At X'era's request, we hand it over to Khadgar for safekeeping.

Insurrection The final Pillar of Creation, the Eye of Aman'thul, is in the possession of the Grand Empress Elisande: ruler of Suramar City, master of time magic, and Gul'dan's unwilling confederate. She used the Eye centuries ago to create the Nightwell, the font of magical energy that has nourished and protected the Nightborne for all this time. Elisande maintains power in Suramar City by leveraging her control of the Nightwell, as all Nightborne require regular doses of its energy to stay sane and healthy, usually delivered through glasses of arcwine. Loyalty to Elisande is rewarded by ample supplies, while civilians are placed on short rations and troublemakers are exiled or imprisoned.

Safe inside Suramar City, Gul'dan is using the Eye to put a portion of Sargeras himself into Illidan Stormrage's corpse, which will allow an Avatar of Sargeras to walk Azeroth once more. Once again, this would mean the end of the world.

We first investigate Suramar at the behest of the former First Arcanist of the city, Thalyssra, who contacts Dalaran looking for assistance. We help her get to safety in Meredil, a set of ruins north of the city. At her direction, we track down her remaining allies, most of whom have been exiled; the exception is Lyneth Lunastre, who helps us construct a magical disguise that lets us infiltrate Suramar City. This forms the nucleus of a revolutionary movement against Elisande, which uses the image of a Dusk Lily as its name and symbol. With intelligence from Thalyssra, we begin to chip away at Elisande's power base, while scavenging mana from Suramar to help Thalyssra survive.

While we're exploring Suramar, we also happen across an object called an arcan'dor, and nearly get it stolen by the local spider-elves. We recover it, aided and annoyed by the arcan'dor's keeper, and return it to Meredil. There, we discover what it is: the seed of a magical tree. If it can be coaxed into growing and bearing fruit, it may serve as an answer to the exiled Nightborne's withdrawal pangs; they're staving off the Withering process by gorging on whatever bits of mana they can find or steal, but that's a stopgap measure at best. We work with Oculeth, the exiled "telemancer" of Suramar, to redirect ley lines throughout the island so the arcan'dor can grow. The project is a success, giving the Nightfallen a new lease on life and freeing the Nightborne from having to rely on the Nightwell.

This proves to be the beginning of the end for Elisande. Thalyssra puts out a call for aid which is answered by the night, high, and blood elves: the Silver Covenant, a division of Blood Knights, and Darnassian sentinels led by Tyrande Whisperwind. We spearhead their forces and punch through Suramar's defenses, all the way up to the gates of Elisande's fortress, the Nighthold. Elisande responds by catching most of the elves' forces in a time lock, leaving them frozen in place.

We're forced to recruit our usual raid group and find another way into the Nighthold. As is now traditional, we end up sneaking in through the basement, where the Nightborne keep all their failed experiments. The Nighthold itself is packed fat with demons, fel-infused elves, and the most insane mages among the Nightborne, which is actively saying something.

Elisande herself is finally forced to confront us. As she explains, she didn't throw in with Gul'dan because she wanted to, but because she felt she had to. She looked into the future and could not find a single timeline in which the Nightborne were able to survive against the Legion.

Her precognition apparently has limits, however, as she also could not find a single timeline in which we fought her and won. When we defeat her, it means all her searches are now in question. Elisande is left as an echo in time, a fragment of herself, and she decides to change teams.

Finally, we confront Gul'dan on the Nightspire, the highest point in the Nighthold, as he's completing his ritual. Even with what's left of Elisande on our side, he's still a force to be reckoned with. We hold him and his summoned demon allies at bay while Khadgar tries to disrupt Gul'dan's ritual. After a pitched battle, Gul'dan loses his grip on the spell, and Illidan's own soul is crammed back into his body. In an ironic mirror of how Gul'dan finished off Varian Wrynn, a resurrected Illidan disintegrates Gul'dan.

We return to Meredil as heroes, then revisit the Nightwell alongside Thalyssra. The Nightwell is dying, sucked almost dry by Gul'dan, and Thalyssra decides on the spot to let it happen. They're no longer dependent upon the Nightwell for sustenance, and it's time for the Nightborne to chart a new path.

The Tomb of Sargeras Back in Dalaran, Khadgar holds a meeting of our various class orders' commanders, to talk up our successes and figure out our next move. That meeting is spied on by Kil'jaeden himself, who reacts by stepping up the Legion's offensive; not only do the various Broken Isles come under heavy direct attack, but the Legion hits the Broken Shore with its full might, doing all it can to keep us away from the Tomb.

Our orders and forces are rebranded as the Armies of Legionfall, and alongside us, Khadgar, Velen, Maiev, and Illidan, they attack the Broken Shore and create a beachhead there. We make incremental progress against the demons that have colonized the place, hitting them from every direction: the shamans summon elemental lords, the death knights call in aerial bombardments from frost wyrms, the paladins try (and repeatedly fail) to consecrate the area where Tirion fell, etc.

Our first order of business takes us to the Cathedral of Eternal Night, a place of worship that goes all the way back to when the Tomb of Sargeras was a temple to Elune. The Legion currently holds it, and according to Khadgar's research into Aegwynn's tenure as the Guardian, the Aegis of Aggramar can be used in the Cathedral as a "failsafe." Placing it atop the Cathedral should reactivate Aegwynn's wards.

The Armies of Legionfall run interference for us so we can slip into the higher levels of the Cathedral, but by the time we reach the top, they're forcibly pushed back out. It's down to us and Illidan against a dreadlord, and if we didn't have the Aegis with us, we'd have lost the fight.

Placing the Aegis causes an echo of Aegwynn to manifest in the Cathedral. She explains to us that the Pillars of Creation can be used in the Tomb of Sargeras, pushing back against the Legion and eventually severing their connection to Azeroth.

That ends up as our plan. We invade the Tomb, though our ground troops get unceremoniously wiped out in the lobby, and fight past a retinue of Legion forces and deceived ghosts. We install the remaining Pillars of Creation at Aegwynn's anchor points, which shuts down Gul'dan's beacon. The Legion is still a threat, but no longer enjoys infinite access to its forces.

Kil'jaeden is waiting for us in the depths of the Tomb, where we have to face the corrupted Maiden of Vigilance, one of Aegwynn's surviving guardians, and what's left of the defeated Avatar of Sargeras. The Avatar nearly destroys the Tomb itself while we're fighting it, but it falls, and Kil'jaeden hastily ducks through a portal rather than deal with us. To everyone's surprise, Velen gives chase; he's done running.

Kil'jaeden has retreated to his flagship in the Twisting Nether, where he's protected by a who's-who of elite Legion troops. We plow through them with Velen and Illidan, and fight Kil'jaeden himself.

During the battle, while we're wrapped in an unnatural field of darkness, Kil'jaeden gives the order to take his ship to the Legion's homeworld of Argus, far from Azeroth. There, he unleashes the last of his power. The way he sees it, even if he loses, we'll end up marooned on the Legion's homeworld with no way home.

As it turns out, he's wrong. Kil'jaeden falls, but before Velen puts Kil'jaeden out of his misery, Illidan opens a portal back to Azeroth with the Sargerite Keystone. Khadgar teleports us through it and to Azsuna as Kil'jaeden's flagship explodes.

When we recover, we find that Illidan's portal is apparently permanent and hundreds of miles wide. Argus is now visible in the skies of Azeroth with the naked eye.

Shadows of Argus Velen's draenei have built a new spaceship called the Vindicaar, which Velen intends to use to travel back through the rift to Argus. We join him, alongside a force of Exodar vindicators, Illidan, the Nightborne Sigryn, and most of the higher-ups in the Silver Hand.

We make landfall on what's left of Argus, where we discover the Legion, even though it's been effectively decapitated, still has significant defenses in place. The Army of the Light arrives at roughly the same time we do and encounters those defenses first, losing its flagship, the Xenedar, in the process.

On the surface of Argus, we meet its last remaining uncorrupted natives, a tribe of Broken called the Krokul, who've lived for milennia under the Legion's nose. With their help, we rescue as many survivors as we can.

This includes the long-absent Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner. They've been fighting the good fight alongside the Army, in the depths of the Twisting Nether where time and space get a little elastic; as far as they're concerned, it's been a thousand years since they've seen anyone from Azeroth.

With Turalyon, we brave the crash site and rescue the rest of Xe'ra. When reunited with Light's Heart, she awakens, back at full strength... and immediately tries to force Illidan to turn into the "Child of Light and Shadow" she's been babbling about. Illidan, to everyone's surprise, fights back and kills her outright, shattering Xe'ra into bits.

Velen incorporates what's left of Xe'ra into a device called the Netherlight Crucible, designed to empower our artifacts; Turalyon is about to kill Illidan, but is talked down on the basis that the mission is what's important right now. (There's also a fair bit of evidence that X'era might have gotten into Turalyon's head, as his eyes are golden when we meet him and turn brown when Xe'ra dies.)

Unsure as to whether or not we'll be able to win without Xe'ra, we continue our assault on Argus regardless. Magni shows up at one point to help us commune with the world-soul of Argus, which is in tremendous pain. Like Azeroth, Argus contains a sort of baby Titan; unlike Azeroth, Argus has spent millennia being warped and abused by fel energies. The Legion's ability to infinitely bring its troops back from death is due to power they've drawn from Argus himself.

One of Magni's visions from Argus gives us a warning: Sargeras has dispatched the fallen Titan Aggramar to deal with us directly. As we bring down the fortified stronghold of Destiny Point in Krokuun, Aggramar catches up to us and immediately attacks. We're only rescued from death by a timely teleport from the Vindicaar.

Velen proposes a plan. In the Mac'Aree region, which holds the ruins of the former capital of eredar civilization, including its old magic academy the Conservatory of the Arcane, he hopes to find the other two pieces of an old artifact called the Crown of the Triumvirate. It's our best hope for being able to survive against Aggramar.

One of those pieces is found in what's left of the Conservatory, which is still populated by malfunctioning vigilants (the souls of dead draenei, now housed in large suits of armor; we saw and fought a few on Draenor) and old ghosts. One of the former, Quoram, has fallen into disrepair over the years, but can still be reactivated, and he snarkily allows us access to the school grounds. After a battery of tests, we're put up against a ghostly reflection of a young Archimonde, and success lets us walk away with the Sigil of Awakening.

We catch up to Velen shortly thereafter as he and several of the Army of the Light are searching for the Crest of Knowledge, the final piece of the Crown. We rendezvous with them and end up in a fight with Talgath, an eredar huntmaster and the guy who found Velen's people on Draenor back in the day.

Talgath's final words, before Velen finishes him off, give us a clue as to where the Crest might be found. The Naaru L'ura fought on Velen's side during the draenei's escape from Argus, but in the intervening milennia, she's fallen into shadow, just as M'uru did. As we explore the western side of Mac'Aree, we discover that much of it hasn't been fel-corrupted, but instead, has fallen into Void. It's driving the wildlife mad and attracting ethereals who wish to exploit it, and it's all coming from L'ura.

We and Alleria set out to explore the ruins of Oronaar, where we find a number of Krokuul, who have survived but have been driven mad. We also run into an ethereal named Locus-Walker, who has a history with Alleria; he is able to use the Void's power without succumbing to it, unlike most of his people. Locus-Walker guides us past and into several confrontations with them, towards the demi-god Nhal'athoth, a void creature that the ethereals are attempting to summon. We weaken it, but Alleria is able to finish it off.

Alleria moves on with Locus-Walker to the Seat of the Triumvirate, where we end up fighting against the ethereals more directly, including their leadership. We win past them and to L'ura, reclaiming the Crest of Knowledge. When it's placed with the other two parts of the Crown, it empowers the Vindicaar, turning it golden and surrounding it with a powerful shield.

Magni provides us with another vision shortly thereafter, sent to him via his link with the world-soul of Argus. Sargeras has managed to subvert, depower, or corrupt many of his fellow titans with the notable exception of Eonar the Life-Maiden, who's on the run. If we're going to succeed here, we need to find Eonar first.

#world of warcraft #plot summary #corruption for days

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