Editing World of Warcraft (section)

==Setting information==
[[File:Warcraft magic.jpg|thumb|How the setting's planes and forces connect ([[Retcon|according to the Titans]])]]
===Light and Void===
<s>The two primary forces in the setting.</s> Retcon time!  Two of a myriad of forces, <s>these two were nailed down as the Big Bang of Warcraft.</s> MORE RETCON TIME! The six forces in the image may be equal with Death as the top dog. In earlier versions of the plot, the Void also used to be called the Shadow, and was a part of the Twisting Nether. The Holy Light of Creation is drawn to and bolstered by faith and positive feelings, not inherently good (despite human religion thinking of it as a god; however in the RTS games the Light '''was''' the big-G God, maybe even the Judeo-Christian God.  Retcons strike again), now it's an unspecified holy power which can be called upon if you assume that you can and grants courage and willpower (unless you're drawing on another power besides Arcane). The Void eats things and can turn you insane, yet also grants creativity to living beings. Both can give prophecy and visions of the future, but neither has the full picture (the Light causes zealous certainty while the Void causes maddening doublethink).  

Originally the Light vs Void conflict was Good vs Evil, but Blizzard made some of the Light's followers ruthless and having people listening to the Void fighting its corrupting influence.  Despite Blizzard bending over backwards to try and give the Light a bad side, the Light is still much better than the Void (Light nurtures while Void consumes, the Void's endgame is to corrupt a Titan and destroy everything else while the Light at worst just wants to stabilize and rule everything).

====Naaru====
The angels of the setting and Vorlon knock-offs, the Naaru are glowing windchimes/energy beings with crystal "bodies".  Their mission is to keep the other cosmic forces in check and bring hope, they are (supposedly) powerful and (mostly) benevolent but do not do much.  Their names all have apostrophes in them.  Despite the Light's primary enemy being the Void, the highest-ranking Naaru encountered thus far, Xe'ra, concentrated her efforts on fighting the Burning Legion until her story turned to [[Skub]] and she was jobbed to shill Illidan (more on him below).  They can also reproduce somehow and some have genders.

Most of them try to heal worlds ravaged by the Legion or the Void, with the ones encountered so far helping or assist the player characters and heroic factions.  When a Naaru dies or gets infused with Void, it becomes a void god and starts eating things, unless it is completely destroyed (since Xe'ra didn't turn into a Void God during or after her jobbing death) or can be reset to being a Naaru if they're not killed.  A Void Naaru that's killed goes to the Void.  Naaru can build crystalline spaceships, which the draenei then crash.

Originally the Naaru were all good except when they got void-infused, but Blizzard decided they needed an edgelord retcon and suddenly undermined their [[Lawful Good|good guy status]] to make some "Extreme order/religious extremist" villains ([[Lawful Neutral]] but the story treats them like [[Lawful Evil]]; pay no attention to their valid complaints, such as the Iron Horde or Old Gods) because it wouldn't be a Blizzard game without [[Edgy|a force of Order getting the villain bat]] (they set up the Titans for this in Wrath, then the Naaru in Legion, though the Titans are getting it again in Dragonflight).

====The Old Gods====
Giant Cthulhu space cancer sent by the Void Lords to consume planets and find and corrupt a Titan worldsoul. They corrupt everything they touch and that serves them. In older lore they acted on their own, but they go retconed into being creations of the Void Lords. Their primary purpose is to corrupt a titan world-soul and become unstoppable universe-eaters. Chained beneath Azeroth due to presumed indestructibility (and the very bad side effects if they are killed) by the Titans. They are breaking out one by one. The four Old Gods (on Azeroth) are:

* C'Thun - Imprisoned in a massive desert in the southwest of Azeroth, this Old God commands an army of insect creatures that infested the research station that was built around its body (it had arachnid minions, but they were separated during a war and became atheists before they all died; Northrend's Nerubians are descended from them). It consists of a fleshy body covered in eyes with a mouth on top and tentacles everywhere. Feigning death after a battle with a titan, it was able to heal enough to pose a threat yet again until it was killed once again.
* Yogg-Saron - Imprisoned in the far north of Azeroth, this Old God corrupted the leadership of the remaining titan minions on Azeroth before almost breaking out. It was only imprisoned because at that point the Titans learned killing Old Gods had very bad side effects for the world, so it was imprisoned and its power contained. Its body is covered in mouths, even where it looks like there should be eyes, and it also has a tentacle theme going. Its blood can be strip-mined and made into decently powerful things. This stuff, called Saronite, on the other hand is one of the most corruptive substances on the planet and only the Undead can actually use it safely, due to the Lich King overriding Yogg-Sarons whispers. Claims to have invented Death, and was implied to be fighting the Lich King for control of the Scourge (or subtly drove Arthas down his road when he was in Northrend, it's not really clear). Has minions called the faceless ones (think Illithid, but with no mouth).  Killed during Wrath, but Legion hints it's either making a comeback or manifesting something like the Sha.
* N'Zoth - Imprisoned somewhere under an ocean, this Old God corrupted the Emerald Dream into the Emerald Nightmare and commanded Deathwing to blow up Azeroth. Has different faceless one minions. Looks like a multi-eyed octopus with a crown of teeth around its head. Also invented Naga and worked with Azshara to escape his prison.  Raised the city-throne of <s>R'yleh</s> Nya'lotha (by summoning it to the past from a future where he had already built it) and started driving people around the world insane for a few hours, only to get promptly Kamehameha'd by the player.  
* Y'Shaarj - The former Old God king. Got one-shot by Aman'thul, the leader of the titans, leaving the Well of Eternity as a bleeding wound in the world. "Imprisoned" in the center of Pandaria, this Old God died in the war with the titans, leaving only its heart instead of a giant mass of flesh embedded into the planet. Had some bro-ish mantis minions. Its death caused negative emotions in Pandaria to turn into monsters that look like spiky tentacle monsters covered in oil. After the destruction of its heart, it went from dead-dead to dead-dead-dead.
* Something somewhere - There used to be a fifth Old God, but Blizzard seemed to have decided/realized they had no plans for it so they retconned it out of existence. It might have been Xal'atath, who was an Old God that got eaten except for a single claw that became a dagger her essence inhabits. May have originally intended to be Azeroth itself (check the name; Azeroth -> Azathoth).  Later retconned to be G'huun. 
** G'huun - After trying to make a substance that kills the Old Gods without harming their surroundings (see Y'Shaarj), the titans ended up accidentally making a fifth one, themed after rot, so they put the facility into lockdown to keep it contained there.  Imprisoned in the swamps to the north of the Zandalari Empire, a corpulent slug with stubby legs and a lamprey-like mouth. He teaches the secret of Blood Magic, and had corrupted several of the titan's creations.

====Voidlords====
The Voidwalkers are void-elementals that act like demons but are not. 

It turns out that the voidwalkers, with their secret leaders called the 'Voidlords', are now part of the primary evil force in the setting. Not just the Void being the source of metaphysical evil, but the Voidlord leadership disturbing Sargeras into creating the Burning Legion in order to stop them, and inventing the Old Gods as planet-eating, people-corrupting probes.

Even less is known about the Voidlords themselves, though according to Xal'atath (so already dubious), the "faintest echos" of one of them led to the destruction of the Space Mummies' (Ethereals') planet. Major deal danger until the next retcon.

===Twisting Nether===
Basically the [[Warp]], but much less inherently evil if you factor out the locals. The line between the flow of the Light and the ebb of the Void. Full of demons, ones that are actually flesh and blood rather than ethereal-turning-temporarily-corporeal monsters. Also full of magic that nearly all generic magical spells use. There's even only one instance of the Twisting Nether in the Warcraft multiverse, just like the Warp (maybe).

===The Titans===
Heavy-metal terraformers. [[Lawful Neutral]] beings that benevolently order planets to promote life throughout the cosmos, these metallic space-giants are based on the Norse and Greek pantheons (with a little bit of Egyptian, and an even smaller bit of Chinese). Born from planets with souls, those planets eventually hatch (without destroying the planet) and the titan goes off and does whatever. Their creations tend to either be apathetic or outright [[Lawful Stupid]] (their highest-ranking servant Exterminatus-ing a 'million million' lives [or one trillion for a better idea] because they were flawed), but they usually mean well ('flawed' can mean being eaten by giant sentient space cancer; see above). The Titans themselves can grow large enough to wield blades that cleave planets in half. In earlier lore they were still running about, but in the current they are all dead at the hands of their champion turned traitor Sargeras (who was killed during the War of the Ancients due to a portal closing on either his main body or his primary avatar, but his soul survived).  

The Titans souls survived, dwelling in the Titanic watchers of Azeroth for a time until Sargeras got the Burning Legion to capture the other Titans' souls.  He had already turned the unborn Titan Argus into fuel so the demons can come back from things that would otherwise permanently kill them.  Legion revealed that Sargeras' master plan was to restore the Titan Pantheon to their full power with the others under his control - he succeeded in turning his former understudy in demon-killing - Aggramar, birth the Titan Azeroth, [[/d/|make her his consort]] and finish his work of killing everything in the universe.  The Nathrezim had also subverted Sargeras' plans and corrupted Argus to use his soul as a weapon against the Arbiter in the Shadowlands.

===Elune===
Elune (or Mu'sha, as she is called by the tauren) is the primary goddess of the night elf pantheon and a major goddess of the Tauren. She is associated with the larger of Azeroth's two moons, the White Lady, and is widely considered to be the mother of Cenarius, the forest lord and patron god of all druids.  Speculation about what Elune is and her nature abound throughout the lore and the fandom (the most popular fan theories call her a Naaru or another name for the titan Azeroth).  Confirmed miracles include protecting Tyrande from Archimonde, empowering Moonwells and purifying Ysera's spirit and the Tear of Elune. 

Recent lore indicated that Elune made the Naaru and is connected to the Light.  Khadgar states it as a theory, the Tear of Elune unlocks Light's Heart and the Prime Naaru Xe'ra stated she and other Naaru were made during something called "the Ordering of the Cosmos", making Xe'ra at least as old as the Titans.  This could make Elune either the Light-based counterpoint of the Void Lords or the Warcraft universe's version of God.  Interestingly, in Warcraft 3 Elune was referred to as Azeroth's "only true deity", at a point when the Light was already part of the setting and she was introduced alongside the Titans, the Tauren's Earth Mother and the Wild Gods like Cenarius... until that lore was retconned too.

Leaks from Shadowlands suggested that Warcraft would go the DnD route with levels of gods, and Elune is a god - known as one of the "First Ones" - who's ranked just below the ultimate big-G God of the setting.  This seemed further reinforced when Elune's champion Tyrande soundly defeated the Jailer's champion Sylvanas.  Then she was revealed to be the sister of the Shadowlands entity the Winter Queen, making Elune just a "Life Titan" (which raises more questions than answers).

===The Wild Gods===
Eventually, a planet with life on it will just start producing giant immortal animals. If they hang out with night elves, they are Ancient Guardians. If they hang out with trolls, they are Loa. If they hang out with pandas, they are August Celestials. Their children can either be [[beastmen|humanoid animals]] or just intelligent animals. On Azeroth, the servants of the titans connected them to the Emerald Dream and taught some of them to talk.

===The Emerald Dream===
Basically the [[Feywild]], despite possibly pre-dating it.

The Emerald Dream is an unchanging copy of Azeroth's natural world, untouched by civilization. It serves as the afterlife for plants and animals. It is a universal force, but the titan's nailed down Azeroth's after the Old Gods messed with it, making it somewhat separate. Through the surreal Dreamways, this blueprint is connected to the subconscious mind of every living thing on the planet. It exists so that if the Old Gods break out and Azeroth goes to shit, it can be copy-pasted onto the world via the Re-Origination procedure, completely wiping out all previously existing life on the planet.

A force called the Nightmare emerged after the Third War to mess things up and make the entire dream twisted and surreal, driving wildlife and green dragons insane, promoting deviation and mutation in lifeforms, and severing the souls of sleeping druids from their bodies. The responsible party turned out to be Xavius working for the Old Gods.

===The Shadowlands===
Basically the [[Shadowfell]], despite possibly pre-dating it. The Shadowlands are a grey echo of the living world as it is, inhabited by the ghosts of intelligent creatures and the spirit healers (feral titan creations who send back souls that died before their time). That is i- 

''Suddenly, '''RETCON VIA EXPANSION PACK!!'''''

Oh wait, it is actually a series of floating afterlife-continents that souls are sorted into. Also contains a whirlpool/black hole called The Maw, which is Warcraft's equivalent of hell. All other places in the Shadowlands give the dead soul an afterlife where they will be transformed into a part of that afterlife, though it may not happen quick - as in, within the first two millennia of you being there. All of it is supposedly created by [[Old Ones|"The First Ones"]] who predate even the Titans.

In the metaphysical middle of the deathly pea-soup is the Oribos, a floating city-tower/airport where souls are sent to be judged before being sent off to the appropriate afterlife. It's the "city" of the Shadowlands expansion.

===The First Ones===
Remember the Titans above? These long-dead gods have their whole deal but one metaphysical level higher. From their HQ under the Shadowlands, they mixed the six forces of the universe in a giant factory and built the six planes and reality in the center. Afterlives are smelted in a big ball and sent off to float wherever. Then they 3D-printed the gods of the Shadowlands and had some secret plan that we don't know. The Jailer thought that plan was doomed to fail for reasons we don't know, so he tried to break the system through unspecified means.  For his actions, the other secretly robotic gods subdued him, evicted him and locked him in the Maw.

===The Burning Legion===
A militarized demonic army created when Sargeras, a titan tasked with defending creation, saw the ever-respawning, ever-dickish, and ever-hungry nature of demons and went nuts to embrace nihilistic violence.  Now they systematically unmake the multiverse to undo the metaphysical flaw that allowed them to exist in the first place. Azeroth is the only known world where they failed.

The aforementioned flaw turns out to be the Void, but demons were a secondary problem, not the problem: the Old Gods corrupting fetal titans was. Now the universe has to be unmade without the Void, but Light + Void = matter with fel as a by-product of that, but demons hate the Light too so no idea how that works.

Azeroth is so far the only world to ever withstand one of the Burning Legion's invasions. They did not take well to this and have been plotting to get even, but since just marching in failed they made plans to create another army to soften up any defenses that could impede them. '''Revenge Plan A''' was the Orc Horde, which nearly worked until the Orcs lost, and settled down and became among the defenders of the world they were supposed to destroy. Oops. '''Revenge Plan B''' (their second invasion) was the Undead Scourge, led by the Lich King, which succeeded in obliterating the human kingdoms of Lordaeron and Alterac; almost obliterating the elf kingdom of Quel'thalas; corrupting the Sunwell; forcing the human kingdoms of Gilneas, Dalaran, and Kul Tiras into hibernation; sapping Stromgarde's military forces just enough for it to be destroyed by ogres; and generally making a mess of the only organized military force in the eastern hemisphere. By the time they were done, Stormwind was the only human kingdom (out of the original seven) still in existence and in contact with the outside world. This plan hit a snag due to three factors: an extremely large faction of Scourge, led by Sylvanas Windrunner, broke free from the Lich King's control, signed a pact with the Horde, and became a resistance force just as powerful as the kingdoms it replaced; Lich King freed from its prison after Illidan (who was forced to re-fulfill Kil'jaeden's request to destroy the lich king after his first failure) beaten in a duel against Arthas and allowed him to merge and become the Lich King's host; The Invasion of Kalimdor was going well until in the final phase when Archimonde the defiler was met with the combine forces of night elves, humans and orcs, who were buying time for Malfurion to dealt the final blow against Archimonde and made the invaders run between their tails with their leader dead. '''Revenge Plan C''' was to funnel their forces through Outland, which became a portal hub when Ner'zhul made it into one to escape the Alliance. Retroactively, this is not seen as an invasion because they never made it to Azeroth in force. '''Revenge Plan D''' was just to show up again using the Tomb of Sargeras (a second portal was buried there and sealed, and they went through one of two Gul'dans before they managed to open it).

Also, for another retcon, one of the higher-ranking types of demon in the Burning Legion, the Nathrezim, turn out to "actually" be the agents of a death titan-equivalent who's playing 5d chess trying to infiltrate and defeat the other cosmic forces and screwed some of them over.

===The War of the Ancients===
The most important event in the backstory. Exactly 10,000 years before the Dark Portal opened and the orcs invaded Azeroth, the night elf empire ruled nearly all of the old super-continent of Kalimdor. Their leader, Queen Azshara, was the most vain, egotistical jerk that you can imagine, but her public face was that of the perfect queen. Wanting to kill off everything that was ugly, not an elf, or poor and become queen of everything forever she and her chief advisor Xavius found Sargeras and she decided that a massive omnicidal giant of molten bronze would make a good husband. She helps the demons invade and many heroes are killed. A resistance movement forms, mostly Night Elves and dragons but there are other participants, that eventually blows up the Well of Eternity. The aftereffects were many: The super-continent was split into <s>two</s><s>three</s>four smaller continents and some islands that all lost contact with each other, Sargeras essentially died, Queen Azshara and her servitors became the naga, Xavius' followers became the satyr, the black dragonflight turned evil, and the remaining night elves became druids and left their old cities to rot and went from a nepotistic monarchy to a meritocracy/theocracy combo society. Also, the Old Gods tried to break out by first rewriting history to make sure that they never lost to the titans in the first place (which they failed at, but fixing that took the bronze dragon leader Nozdormu out of the war), and then by redirecting Sargeras' summoning portal to their prisons (which almost worked, and nearly happened again in ''Legion'').

===The Undead Scourge===
An army of undead made by the Burning Legion to act as a replacement for the orcs.  The demon Kil'jaeden, second in command of the Burning Legion under Sargeras, made this army when he took an Orc named Ner'zhul and used unholy tortures to force him into forming this undead force.  After Ner'zhul agreed to serve Kil'jaeden again, his disembodied soul was put into a suit of armor frozen in a block of ice known as the Lich King.  During this time he experimented with dark magic and plagues, his main creation being a magical plague that turned creatures (mainly humans) into undead minions that were telepathically controlled by the Lich King.  After warring with some spider-people called Nerubians, he turned many of them into his undead minions and adopted their architectural style for the Scourge.  From then on he sent forces to Lorderaen.  There the plague was distributed by Kel'Thuzad, a mage from the human kingdoms who was fascinated with necromancy, went mad with power and made a deal with the Lich King that led to him becoming a lich.  They took over Northrend and Lordaeron. 

They were also kept on a short leash serving the Burning Legion by a subfaction of demons called the Dreadlords, since Ner'zhul was helping the Legion under duress and knew they considered him expendable.  He made an escape plan, using Arthas, a former human prince and paladin turned into an undead [[Blackguard|Death Knight]], as a pawn/host.  After helping Kel'thuzad and Ner'zhul uphold their end of the deal serving the Burning Legion, Ner'zhul got the Scourge to indirectly undermine the Legion.  With the dreadlords focused on helping their fellow demons and not paying attention to the undead, the Scourge went AWOL and started doing their own evil things.

After the Burning Legion's second defeat, Kil'jaeden was mad at the Lich King for going rogue so he looked for someone to kill him.  He eventually found and gave the task to Illidan Stormrage, a roguish Night Elf and light BDSM enthusiast, now turned to a renegade half-Night Elf, half-demon light BDSM enthusiast. (Though Illidan had no stakes in this game, this task was of the "offer you can't refuse" variety, the deal sweetened by Kil'jaeden offering to feed his magic crack addiction) Illidan gathered up his followers and used an artifact to melt the Lich King from two continents away, but Illidan was stopped halfway when his brother Malfurion <s>beat him up</s> nicely asked him to stop. Illidan was now forced to go to Northrend and finish the job in person, but he got his ass handed to him by <s>Spiderman</s> the undead leader of the spider-people and Arthas, now the Lich King's champion and the protagonist of the Undead campaign.

During all this, the Lich King's ice had cracked open and he wasn't feeling too well. Because he wasn't in top shape, about half of the Scourge woke up and threw off the Lich King's control, becoming a new faction called the Forsaken. The Forsaken took control of Lordaeron and would go on to do lots of evil of their own, but would maintain the image of being the edgy, morally-ambiguous faction. The Lich King got better by getting himself a new body by possessing/fusing with Arthas.  Arthas then preceded to beatdown Ner'zhul's spirit so he was calling the shots instead.  Though he would have to consolidate, this whole fiasco was more or less over, and the Lich King decided he needed some rest and took a nap for several years.  Though they were mostly quiet until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the Scourge continued actions to keep their hold on their half of Lordaeron, occasionally made some noise to remind the player base that they were still a thing, and also expanded to include such things as undead dragons and elf vampires.  

By the time the  Burning Legion showed up in... ''Legion'', the Lich King was now a former paladin named Bolvar, and he made an alliance with the Death Knights of the Ebon Blade (now led by the player characters) and has started to bolster his forces (angering the Red Dragonflight and stepping on the toes of the Paladin order in the process) to fight the demons.  However, there were rumblings that Lich King Bolvar wouldn't keep the Scourge passive for much longer, but these have been waylaid as Sylvanas made a deal with a major death entity and her Grim Reaper sugar daddy gave her powers that allowed her to plot armor her way to victory over the Lich King.  He was last seen chained up on Icecrown while Sylvanas shattered the helm, destroying the Lich King as an entity but still keeping undead Bolvar as the Scourge boss-man.

===Dragonflights===
On Azeroth, to counter the five Old Gods, the titans empowered five colors of dragons each lead by an Aspect to watch over various things on Azeroth. The God-Aspect relationship is not 1:1.
* Reds led by the Dragonqueen Alexstrasza the Life-Binder protect life, and generally only kill mortals when the Reds are enslaved or acting as giant 'keep out' signs when the mortals are doing something stupid. Tied with Greens in terms of how much they suck at their job, being subjugated, corrupted and killed at every turn for the PC to step in and save the day. 
* Greens led by Ysera the Dreamer watch over a giant blueprint of the planet called the Emerald Dream, which is an alternate plane or even a series of planes tied into the planet. They are more savage than the reds, but also sleepier.  Mercy killed by Tyrande and the Night Elves after infected with the Emerald Nightmare by Xavius, but Elune cleansed her soul which resides in the purified part of the Emerald Dream.
* Blues led by Malygos the Spell-Weaver protect mortals from magic, and magic from mortals. After getting slaughtered in the War of the Ancients, Malygos went crazy and into a deep depression, which kept him from doing his job for about 10 millennia. With time travel fixing their numbers and some delicious nether dragons fixing their unstable leader, Malygos decided to make up for lost time by killing all mortal spellcasters and blasting all magic into space (which is bad).  Killed in Wrath by the player characters and red dragons on the orders of the remaining Aspects after failing to show up for his trial.  
* Bronzes led by Nozdormu the Timeless One keep time from being altered. They are nice enough, but their primary character trait of "stoicism" tends for them be pretty boring as individuals, then the one who wasn't like that turned out to be an idiotic megalomanic who was quickly killed off.  Norzdomu's still alive, but fated to turn evil and die in the future.  
* Blacks led by Neltharion the Earth-Warder to keep geology stable. Having a sucky job that was right next to the Old Gods caused their leader to go insane and become Deathwing, the Aspect of Death and a Saturday morning cartoon villain. He was actually a plenty good schemer until he got made so powerful in the Cataclysm expansion that the only thing keeping him from winning was that he just... didn't get around to doing it.  Killed by the combined efforts of the players, the Dragon Aspects and Thrall.  Only two uncorrupted black dragons remain in Azeroth (not counting player mounts and pets) are Wrathion and Ebyssian (both of who were purified of Old God influence by the power of the Titans).  
** Chromatic dragons are evil mixtures of all types of dragons, made by Deathwing's eldest son Nefarian.  Chromatus was a five-headed example and the most powerful one produced, nearly defeating the Aspects themselves in battle; he was eventually incapacitated and his body locked in a magic vault since his artificial nature and combined draconic powers have rendered him unkillable (enough magic will turn him on again).
** Nether dragons are black dragons corrupted by the Twisting Nether which turned them into weird ethereal dragons made of magic, though they turn sane (feral at worst) at the cost of their lifespan. Mostly there to be used by evil forces but the player characters can befriend some. Led by Neltharaku.
** Twilight dragons are any color infused with nether dragon essence and the energies of the Old Gods. Replacements for the chromatics. Dargonax was the first, Ultraxion was the biggest and strongest, but they work directly for Deathwing.  Some of them got infused with even more Void power and became Void dragons, who have tendrils on their heads and radiate Void energy.  The most powerful Void Dragon was Vexonia, who wanted to make all dragons serve N'Zoth and was worshipped by a cult as a demigod under N'Zoth.
In a particularly derp moment, it turns out that the Aspects knew little of the Old Gods, and were created based on a vague vision of a single break-out attempt (via Deathwing, who only came to power via the vision). After Deathwing was extinguished, the Aspects became mortal and [[Rage|all dragons became '''somehow''' incapable of reproducing]].