A comprehensive chronicle of the cosmic wars, ancient betrayals, and shifting alliances that shaped the world of Azeroth.
Cosmic Origins and the Ordering of Azeroth
The universe began with the Titans, god-like beings born from the souls of planets. The Titan Pantheon traveled the cosmos searching for others of their kind, eventually discovering a nascent world-soul named Azeroth. However, they were not the first to find it. The Void Lords, entities of pure shadow, had dispatched the parasitic Old Gods to infect and corrupt world-souls. By the time the Titans arrived, the Old Gods had already entrenched themselves, enslaving the planet's elementals. The Titans defeated the Old Gods but found them too deeply rooted to kill without destroying the planet itself. Instead, they imprisoned the entities deep underground and left behind mechanical servants and Dragon Aspects to guard the world.
The Rise of the Burning Legion and the Sundering
While the Pantheon ordered Azeroth, the Titan Sargeras succumbed to nihilism. Convinced that a corrupted universe was worse than no universe at all, he formed the Burning Legion to scour all life from existence. His crusade eventually led him to Azeroth, though he lacked its physical coordinates. He manipulated Queen Azshara and her Highborne elves, who were tapping into the magical Well of Eternity, to open a portal for his demonic army. This triggered the War of the Ancients. A resistance led by the night elves Malfurion and Illidan Stormrage eventually succeeded in closing the portal, but the resulting magical backlash—the Sundering—shattered the single continent of Kalimdor into several smaller landmasses and sent the Well of Eternity into the depths of the ocean.
The Dark Portal and the First Two Wars
Thousands of years later, Sargeras found a new way to reach Azeroth. He corrupted the orcs of the planet Draenor through his lieutenant Kil'jaeden and the warlock Gul'dan. By possessing the human Guardian Medivh, Sargeras opened the Dark Portal, allowing the blood-crazed Orcish Horde to invade the Eastern Kingdoms. This began the First War, which saw the fall of the human kingdom of Stormwind. The survivors fled north to Lordaeron, forming the Alliance of Lordaeron to strike back. In the Second War, the Alliance successfully pushed the Horde back through the portal to Draenor. The mage Khadgar eventually closed the gateway, though the unstable magic used by the orc shaman Ner'zhul destroyed Draenor, leaving behind the floating remnants known as Outland.
The Scourge and the Third War
Following the Horde's defeat, Kil'jaeden transformed the spirit of Ner'zhul into the Lich King, a master of the undead designed to weaken Azeroth's defenses. The Lich King unleashed a plague of undeath upon Lordaeron, corrupting Prince Arthas Menethil, who eventually murdered his father and led the Scourge to destroy the high-elven kingdom of Quel'Thalas. This Third War forced an unlikely alliance between the remaining humans under Jaina Proudmoore, the new Horde led by Thrall, and the night elves. Together, they made a final stand at Mount Hyjal to defeat the demon lord Archimonde. In the aftermath, the world was left fractured: the Forsaken undead broke away from the Lich King to join the Horde, and the night elves joined the Alliance, setting the stage for the modern era of World of Warcraft.
The Era of Mortal Champions
As the major powers recovered from the Third War, a new class of 'Champions'—the players—emerged to handle emerging threats. These heroes defeated the Old God C'Thun and eventually traveled back to Outland to confront the exiled Illidan Stormrage. Shortly after, the Lich King Arthas awakened in Northrend, prompting a massive expedition that ended with his death and the ascension of Bolvar Fordragon as a 'jailer' for the leaderless undead. This period of relative stability was shattered by the Cataclysm, when the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing erupted from the earth's core, permanently scarring the landscape of Azeroth and forcing the mortal races to once again defend their world from total annihilation.
The Siege of Orgrimmar and the Iron Horde
Internal political strife soon eclipsed external threats. Garrosh Hellscream, the new Warchief of the Horde, embraced a philosophy of conquest and racial supremacy, leading to the destruction of the city of Theramore and a global conflict. A joint force of Alliance and rebel Horde soldiers eventually laid siege to Orgrimmar and deposed Garrosh. However, Garrosh escaped into an alternate past of Draenor, preventing the orcs from drinking demon blood and instead forming the 'Iron Horde.' This necessitated another invasion by Azeroth's champions, which ultimately resulted in the death of Garrosh and the accidental summoning of an alternate-universe Gul'dan to the present timeline.
The Legion's Fall and the Sword of Sargeras
The alternate Gul'dan successfully orchestrated the largest demonic invasion in history, leading to the deaths of King Varian Wrynn and Warchief Vol'jin. In response, the Alliance and Horde traveled to the Legion's home world, Argus. With the help of the resurrected Pantheon, they finally defeated the Burning Legion and imprisoned Sargeras. In his final moment of freedom, Sargeras plunged his massive sword into Azeroth, mortally wounding the world-soul. The resulting struggle over the planet's lifeblood, Azerite, ignited the Fourth War between Sylvanas Windrunner's Horde and Anduin Wrynn's Alliance. The conflict ended when Sylvanas abandoned the Horde, shattered the Helm of Domination at Icecrown, and tore open the veil between the world of the living and the Shadowlands.