World of Warcraft
Every story has a beginning. Births and deaths, every shattered continent in World of Warcraft history leads back to one single event.
The War of the Ancients.
This story is the “Genesis” of the Warcraft universe as we know it. Before the Horde, before the Alliance, and before the Scourge, there was a golden empire, a magical well, and a Queen who loved herself a little too much.
I’m traveling back 10,000 years to witness how the world broke apart. Welcome to Part I of how the Azeroth we know today was shaped.
The Empire of Light
Long before Azeroth was a war-torn map of factions, the Night Elves (Kaldorei) ruled almost everything. They had it good. Almost everything they dreamt of was theirs.
Their capital, Zin-Azshari (“The Glory of Azshara”), was a paradise built on the shores of the Well of Eternity. Not your average lake, it was a wound in the world’s titan soul, bleeding pure arcane energy. The Night Elves used this energy for everything. It made them immortal, beautiful, and incredibly powerful. There was no sickness, no hunger, and no war. But as the old saying goes, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The upper caste of society, the Highborne (Quel’dorei), began to hoard this magic. They believed they were superior to the common folk, and at the center of this golden cage sat the most beautiful and terrifying woman in history: Queen Azshara.
A Call from the Dark
Here is the thing about Azshara: She wasn’t “evil” in the traditional sense like your classic villains. She was simply a narcissist of cosmic proportions. She believed she was perfect, and her people loved her for it (literally, she was magically charming them).
When the Highborne recklessly experimented with the Well of Eternity, their magic sent ripples through the Twisting Nether. Something or someone noticed.
Sargeras, the Fallen Titan and Lord of the Burning Legion, felt that power. He reached out to Azshara. But he didn’t threaten her. He didn’t say, “I will destroy your world.” He played her perfectly. He told her that he was a god, and that he wanted to come to Azeroth to “purify” it, to remake the world in a way that was worthy of her perfection. The titan made promises of making her his bride (It would be hard. Proportionately…). Azshara, believing that only a Titan could be her equal (sorry Night Elf guys), accepted. She rolled out the red carpet for the world-ender.
She wasn’t alone in this madness. Her chief counselor, Lord Xavius, played a crucial role. While Azshara was admiring her reflection, Xavius was the one dealing with the logistics of the end of the world. He convinced the court that this ‘Sargeras’ was a benevolent god and acted as the bridge between the Queen’s vanity and the Legion’s cruelty. Without his contribution, perhaps even Azshara might have hesitated.
The Party Crashers
The invasion did not start with a big bang. It awakened quietly inside the palace. Azshara and her Highborne (including a young Lady Vashj) began summoning demons through a portal in the Well of Eternity.
At first, it was just “counselors” like Mannoroth the Destructor and Hakkar the Houndmaster. They walked through the palace gardens, and the Highborne were too blinded by their Queen’s orders to question why giant, green, fel-spewing monsters were stomping on their flowers. After some time, the order came from the big bad: “Cleanse the unworthy.”
The portal widened. Thousands of demons poured into Zin-Azshari. The “cleansing” was a slaughter. Felguards and Infernals tore through the city, butchering the lowborne civilians whom Azshara deemed “imperfect.” The Golden Age ended in a single night of fire and blood.
It was a betrayal of trust. The scene looked like this: Highborne nobles raising glasses of wine to their new ‘allies’, only to be cut down by a Felguard’s axe the next second. And the worst part is, some of them died believing it was a test of loyalty. They didn’t fight back because they couldn’t conceive that their beloved Queen would betray them. That is the true horror of Azshara’s rule.
The Resistance Rises
While the Queen was busy selling her planet to the devil, not everyone was blinded. This is where our familiar heroes step onto the stage, but they were very different back then.
Malfurion Stormrage, a young scholar who rejected the arcane magic of the city and learned Druidism from the demigod Cenarius. He was the first to realize that the Well was the problem, not the solution. He was joined by his lover, Tyrande Whisperwind, a novice Priestess of Elune, caught between her duty and the horrors she witnessed in the streets.
Lastly, Illidan Stormrage, Malfurion’s twin. He was fighting two wars. One against the Legion, and one against himself. With the Well of Eternity effectively ‘turned off’ for the Resistance, he was suffering from magical withdrawal. Fighting demons was a way to prove his love to Tyrande and flex his powers. That he didn’t need the Well to be the strongest (he totally did).
The trio (love triangle) rallied the survivors. They formed the Kaldorei Resistance. It was a desperate war: Sticks and stones with primitive druid magic, against the infinite technology and numbers of the Burning Legion.
Three people cannot fight an army alone. The Resistance needed a stronghold, and they found it at Black Rook Hold. Lord Kur’talos Ravencrest, a noble who wasn’t blinded by Azshara’s madness, took command. He was the old-school military general type. Tough, skeptical of magic, and surprisingly tolerant of a certain hot-headed sorcerer named Illidan. Malfurion brought the nature magic, but Ravencrest brought the steel.
A Hopeless War
The war continues and the situation is grim. The Resistance is fighting a losing battle. The demons are infinite, pouring from the Well like water. The Night Elf civilization is burning.
Malfurion realizes that they cannot win with mortal armies alone. They need help. They need the ancient guardians of the world. They need the Dragon Aspects and the Wild Gods.
But unknown to them, the corruption of the Legion runs deeper than they think. While Malfurion looks to the skies for salvation, a certain Earth-Warder dragon is hearing whispers in the deep… But that is a story for Part II.
