- This page is about the planet. For other meanings of "Azeroth", see Azeroth (disambiguation).
Azeroth is a planet within the Great Dark home to many races and nations throughout its four major continents. The planet houses the titanic world soul of the same name, which is why it has been the target of multiple existence-threatening invasions carried out by the Burning Legion under lead of the dark titan Sargeras.
Azeroth has existed for over 25,000 years. In pre-ancient times, it was home to the four elemental armies of earth, water, fire, and air, who fought each other in constant chaos. The Pantheon of Titans eventually came to bring order to the planet, which included merging all of its continents into one landmass, Kalimdor. In its ancient period, a catastrophic explosion known as The Sundering caused them to be divided into four continents: Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, Northrend, and Pandaria, which remain to present day.
History[]
Pre-Sundering[]
In a time period over 25,000 years ago, the Elemental Lords Therazane of earth, Neptulon of water, Ragnaros of fire, and Al'akir of air, and their elemental armies, were constantly at war with each other over the dominance of their element. After this war raged on for an unknown period of time, the giant Old Gods came down to the planet and planted themselves on the surface, battling and soon enslaving the elementals. The Old Gods took over the planet and established the Black Empire, alongside the n'raqi and insectoid aqir.
The Pantheon of Titans, traveling throughout the cosmos for worlds to order so that they may develop, came to Azeroth and fought the Black Empire, the Old Gods, and their elemental slaves. The titans' might was unmatched, and they imprisoned the Old Gods deep beneath the earth. With the elementals free of their enslavement, the titans created the Elemental Plane which was made of four realms for each element, and banished them to their respective realms of Deepholm, the Abyssal Maw, the Firelands, and Skywall to prevent another war over the elements. The titans left their own engineered constructs to watch over within secret cities, created the draconic Great Aspects, and reordered the continents into the supercontinent of Kalimdor, whose center bore an enormous lake known as the Well of Eternity, an incredibly powerful source of magic that helped evolve Azeroth's primitive life forms.
The planet's first major mortal race to develop were the trolls. The trolls' various tribes worshipped the loa, a pantheon of gods representing various forces and powers. Within the sacred Zandalar mountain range (where many of the loa had resided), the largest tribe called the Zandalari established a central troll civilization, its capital the temple city of Zuldazar. Splinter groups of trolls developed, however, and warred with the Zandalari to establish the Gurubashi and Amani nations. The aqir rose up and formed the empire of Azj'Aqir, threatening the mighty troll states which forced the Azj'Aqir to shatter into the qiraji, nerubian, and mantid kingdoms.
A subrace of trolls, the dark trolls, were drawn to the center of Kalimdor and re-discovered the Well of Eternity after their ancestors. A tribe of dark trolls living on the well's shore evolved into immortal and magically-attuned beings later called the night elves, or "kaldorei." The night elves, over time, established their own Highborne Empire ruled by Queen Azshara and the upper class Highborne. Addicted to their powerful magic, the night elves were reckless in its use. This attracted the chaotic Burning Legion, whose leader Sargeras contacted them. Azshara, believing he was a great being that would better her empire and be worthy to serve as her consort, summoned him into the world with the Highborne. So began the War of the Ancients, between the demonic forces of the Legion and those of the queen, and the Kaldorei Resistance, assisted by the Wild Gods and dragonflights. This war resulted in the Resistance forcing the implosion of the Well of Eternity, creating a world-shattering explosion historically known as the Great Sundering that broke Kalimdor into four continents: "Kalimdor" to the west, the Eastern Kingdoms to the east, Northrend to the north, and Pandaria to the south.