Editing World of Warcraft (section)

==Factions and races==
In WoW, you have the option of siding with either the Alliance or Horde. The different factions have different races available to them. Everything else is 'other'.

===Alliance===
[[File:Elfbutt Gnome.JPG|thumb|right|300px|The main draw.]]
The Alliance are portrayed as the "more-civilized-than-thou" faction in the game. While they have a lot of the same bigotry as the Horde, Horde bigotry leads to threats and murder while in the Alliance its segregation and insults. Despite this the Alliance remains the more united faction, and the general theme is races trying to reclaim what was lost (always at the hands of the races of the Horde, leading to the question of forgiveness or justice as the way to move forward). 

====Humans====
Your bog-standard humans. As far as it's known, humanity worships a vaguely defined entity comprised of collective will called the Holy Light (which may or may not be an actual sentient being). Pre-WoW continuity was basically Catholic, later continuity made their faith extremely vague with suggestions that they had a polytheistic background that became godless. Humans originally came from 7 kingdoms, although by the time of WoW all but two (one of which is comprised of Elves and Gnomes as well) have been destroyed with very few survivors. Humans are descended from robots created by the Titans, which later became fleshy viking Giants who started giving birth to tiny and softer-skinned children that were the ancestors of mankind. Apparently, many humans share a sever case of inward directed victim blaming. Thanks, Chris.  Other species like to complain about humans not doing enough for them, humans like to be a hero wherever possible, and they're kinda like sand in an Anakin Skywalker way.  Given this, you won't be surprised to learn the humans created the first paladins in Azeroth.
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====Dwarves====
They're [[Dwarf|Dwarves]]. They like shooting with guns and hitting stuff with hammers. They've also perfected steam technology, bringing tanks onto the battlefield for the Alliance. Dwarves come in three subraces; Bronzebeard Dwarves, Dark Iron Dwarves, and Wildhammer Dwarves. This mattered a great deal early on in Warcraft, but after a series of events all three have finally united into one race again. Originally a race of robots designed to keep the world being shaped into the designs decided on by the Titans, they gradually turned fleshy until going dormant and waking up not knowing who or what they were while in an underground cavern. The city they turned the cavern into became their holiest site, Ironforge.

They are ruled by three major clans:
* '''Bronzebeards:''' The primary playable and standard Warcraft Dwarves that neatly fit the standard Dwarf archtypes, save for their love of technology (especially ''guns'') and archaeology. As the name suggests, they have a tendency towards brownish-gingerlike beards although all beard colors are found in the commonfolk of the Bronzebeards. They used to own Ironforge and ruled it alone until Cataclysm, when King Magni accidently turned himself into a giant living diamond and in the power vacuum the Dwarf Council was formed with the two other clans, uniting the Dwarf race for the first time in most of recorded history. These guys are the clan that actually has alliances with the rest of the Alliance; the two others are mostly just in it with them. Their current leader is Muradin Bronzebeard, Magni’s brother. 
* '''Wildhammers:''' Aesthetically knock-offs of [[Slayers]] from [[Warhammer Fantasy]] although it can be argued that Wildhammers have even more development than their inspiration, they are barbarian dwarves that fly griffons into battle, wield Stormhammers (a WARCRAFT DORF version of Mjolnir), and they also get cool blue tattoos. They are so Scottish their accent actually is fitting, and their homes resemble Hobbit Holes. Their skin tends to be ruddier and they have a fair amount more red hair than the other Dwarves. They live in a mountain carved like an eagle, and are not fond of staying inside mountains, weirdly. The Dorfs got Shamans when they reconnected with the Wildhammers, who have a more natural affinity for the world around them. Their main emissary is Falstad Wildhammer - they might not actually have leaders per se.
* '''Dark-Irons:''' Once the token EVIL dorfs, they used to scurry inside Blackrock Mountain and were controlled by [[Archomental|Ragnaros the Fire Lord]]. These days many of them are reformed and are part of the Alliance with the rest of the dorfs, and during the Draenor expansion they show that they are pretty cool people (even pranking Yrel). They like magic and even teach new dwarves how to be Warlock and a Mage (or at least used to, until the players learned to do that by themselves). They have [[Salamanders|charcoal-black skin and burning red eyes]], giving them a sort of demonic look. Their leader is Moria Thaurissan, once a Bronzebeard princess who was thought to have been kidnapped by the king of the evil Dark Irons Dagran Thaurissan. Turned out she actually went of her own will and was legit in love with him... Kinda sucked that we killed him, then. Moira is technically regent, ruling until her infant son can take the combined Bronzebeard/Dark Iron throne. When evil they tended to be dirty slavers lead by a refined aristocracy and insane cultists, the ones who have sided with the Council tend more towards aristocrats and tradesmen. 

There are also many varieties of Iron Dwarves, the pre-flesh robot form of Dwarves scattered throughout the world. Some have personalities and cultures, others are mere robot slaves to their programming. 
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====Night Elves====
Purple-skinned [[Elf|elves]]. Their ancestors were [[Troll]]s, who discovered a massive source of magic - the Well of Eternity - and lived near it so long that it turned them into the first Elves. The nobility became hedonistic assholes who suckled the arcane magic, while the peasant classes tapped into the magic of nature and the priesthood that worships the moon goddess Elune discovered Light magic. Their [[Morathi|queen, Azshara, became drunk on power and hubris]] and hatched a plan to tap the Well of Eternity for enough mojo to wipe out the other races. Drawing all that power drew the attention of the Burning Legion, who started sweet talking Azshara into letting them in to do the job for her. Azshara accepted, and she would become infatuated with the Legion leadership, deluding herself that she was betrothed to Sargeras.

The rest of the Night Elves, who were still sane and also seeing that they weren't on demons' "do not kill" list, united with the other races and started a civil war, which would later be known as the War of the Ancients. The leaders of the sane side were: a young elf named Malfurion Stormrage, a student of the demigod Cenarius and the first Druid; Tyrande Whisperwind, the high priestess of Elune, and Malfurion's lover; and Illidan Stormrage, Malfurion's brother and a magic-addicted douchebag mage.  Despite fighting for years against endless hordes of daemons, the Azerothian races realized they would need to invade the old Night Elf capital and destroy the Well of Eternity to beat back the daemons permanently. In this time, Illidan would defect to the nobility's side; originally it was due to his magic addiction/obsession and envy of his brother, then [[retcon|he was trying to bring down the Legion from the inside as a double-agent without telling anyone, then the latest retcon merged the two; he went to join the Legion for real out of envy and addiction but had a last-minute change of heart and worked to bring them down]].  In every version Illidan also wanted to close to the Well of Eternity to bottle some of its waters to keep for himself.  Eventually the Azerothian side reached the well, and a climactic fight between Malfurion and Azshara ended with the spellworks summoning in the demons to implode and cause a chain reaction which was going to destroy the Well.  The Azerothian forces fled for as long and as hard as they could before the Well exploded, ripping the world into four continents and leaving a gaping hole in the planet in the middle.

As for the nobility, during this time they'd been slowly whittled down by the war, but were relatively untouched enough that they evenly divided into three general groups. The first group had realized that Azshara was well and truly fucking everybody with her vanity and hubris, and defected to the other side; after the war, their views on aristocracy and the commons - plus their addiction to arcane magic - would force them to split with the surviving elves again, and they sailed East and would become the ancestors of the High Elves. The second group would be founded by Xavius, Azshara's chief mage who was killed and resurrected by the Legion as a demonic Satyr, and he would seduce Azshara's other minions into Legion service exclusively and corrupt them into other Satyrs. The third group was lead by Azshara, who survived her duel with Malfurion, but refused to abandon her palace as it survived the Well collapsing and started to fall into the new ocean. Azshara got a bit of divine help again, but from an old god who refused to see her potential go to waste, so kept her and her followers alive as the Naga.

After the war, the Azerothian side split into separate peoples again, and the Night Elves opposing the Legion would form their own society in the forests of Kalimdor. Illidan - who survived and managed to get back into his brother's good will but not off the shit list - took three of the vials from the Well of Eternity and dumped them into a lake to try to remake the Well.  While having the Well in the first place is what drew the demons, Illidan said they would need arcane magic again should the demons come back (and while he did kind of have a point, everybody could see that the bigger factor in his decisionmaking was that he was a junkie trying to get his fix, which was even clearer when he killed some of the people who tried to stop him). For being an idiot, a murderer and a traitor, they put Illidan in jail for an Eternal Sentence.  Not letting a good catastrophe go to waste, the Night Elves and the dragons planted a tree over the new well as a means of protection, making them immortal again so long as the tree stood. In the new society, the male Night Elves became druids who would go into hibernation to protect the spiritual side of the world called the Emerald Dream (more accurately, they did this when needed and most recently was hundreds of years ago, not millennia), while female Night Elves became rangers and clerics who stayed behind to guard the world (meaning staying in their forest doing nothing and then attacking humanity for trying to save the world purely because they believed only Night Elves can do that among other nonsensical reasons). Because this state of affairs wasn't friendly to MMO character creation, it was eventually retconned that gender roles weren't so strict or segregated, and only all the male Druids went to hibernate, while everybody else stayed awake to watch over their ass.

The first time they appeared in WarCraft III, they were a more hardcore version of Amazon/Celtic [[Wood Elves]], to the point that Grom Hellscream was delighted in fighting them due to their savagery and determination (and got something of a WhyBoner watching them kill his men). Yes. [[AWESOME|The Night Elves used to be hardcore, savage, moon-worshipping, druidic elves with bitchin leather, cool weapons, sweet powers, and would royally obliterate your ass with nature's wrath if you so much as sneezed at a tree in their home that is Ashenvale Forest]]. 

As of Battle for Azeroth's War of Thorns, the Night Elves' tree house burned down by the superweapons of an undead edgelord and humanity welcomed them into their homes.  Then many elves went to retake their lands and Darkshore along with their Gilnean allies while complaining about Stormwind doing nothing to help them (rather purposely ignoring the fact that they were well busy fighting the Horde on other battlefronts).  They still manage to have a presence in other battlefields, though.

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====Gnomes====
[[Gnome]]s are basically shorter, more agile dwarves, with voices as if helium was their only source of air. They're Alliance's resident Tech-heads, being paired with their more drunken brethren responsible for the faction's overall technological progress, often tending towards weird Science-esque inventions like shrink rays, death rays, mind control helmets, [[what|robot ostrich mounts]], and [[awesome|spider tanks]] [[fail|which you never get to use]], as opposed to more practical steampunkish shit their dwarf relatives pack. Blizzard is notorious for sweeping Gnomes under the rug, leaving them with next to no lore or culture besides standing in the shadow of other Alliances races, metaphorically and literally. 

While they get to appear quite often, its almost always just for a tech-related fetch quest and little else. [[Derp|That might, JUST MIGHT be due to all the tanks, walkers, attack choppers armed with actual machine guns and missile launchers, bombers and a freaking power armour that these guys make in no small quantities, which the Alliance NEVER use against the Horde (or anyone else, for that matter, other than making VERY occasional short cameos in some quests and cinematics), FOR SOME REASON.]] Because magic beats technology - tanks, machine guns and power armor aren't effective against beings who can summon volcanoes (shaman), tsunamis (mage), or meteor showers (mages and warlocks) at will. Well that is until the plot needs technology to beat magic and then a laser or supertank tears through everything in its path or some device basically just materializes whatever's needed just like magic.

Anyway... in yon olde days of classic WoW, gnomes were the power-gamer PvP choice.  They had a racial root breaker, and they were short enough that they could literally hide in the underbrush in Stranglethorn Vale like short, cute Vietcong before hitting you with a PoM-Pyroblast and making half your health disappear in a second.  
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====Draenei====
[[Draenei]] are squid-faced, holier-than-thou hippie space goats who worship angel-equivalent aliens made of pure light called Naaru. Technically called Eredar, two thirds of their race joined the Legion as Manari (corrupt) Eredar and became the leadership of the Legion after Sargeras' "death", the Draenei (exile) Eredar have been fleeing from the Legion and trying to combat the forces of evil in between ever since. Have been slaughtered by just about everyone they've met in their history. The exception was the Alliance who welcomed them at the behest of the Night Elves, making them extremely eager and friendly members, though they had to clear up a case of mistaken identity since many Eredar serve the Burning Legion. Speak in vaguely Russian accents. Technically the most scientifically advanced race who can produce electricity, holograms, instant communication, teleportation, and even what can generously be called computers using their crystal magic technology (all of said technology is actually magic and so doesn't remotely count as scientific advancement), although they've lost so much over the many holocausts they've suffered that little of it remains. You'd think this would give them plots with the Gnomes, but Draenei are the single most forgotten race in Warcraft to the point that a story involving a meeting of all the racial leaders of the Alliance left out the Draenei completely, which Metzen later had a good laugh about and added references to it later. 

Confused?  Okay.  The reality is that the Draenei are a fantasy adaptation of the Protoss aesthetic from Blizzard's other franchise ''Starcraft''.  They'd had Eredar and Broken as far back as ''Beyond the Dark Portal'', but they'd never fleshed out a visual style for their stuff.  All their technology, buildings, weird crystal shit, etc, is pretty much just Protoss in a "I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens" kind of way.  

One should note that [[neckbeards]] get [[Slaanesh|ROCK HARD]] over [[Monstergirl|Draenei]] [[-4_Str|women]], and would give up all of their [[dice]] and their favorite [[40k]] army to fuck one. Often said to possess [[Dickgirl|massive horse cocks]], but these rumours tend to originate from [[/d/]] (in particular the MASSIVE amount of futanari porn that has been produced for them, which was probably inspired by the fact that they have hooves instead of human-like feet).
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====Worgen====
Cockney [[werewolf|werewolves]]. While the image of Michael Caine transforming into a dire wolf sounds awesome, it's more along the lines of Dick Van Dyke's chim-en-ney sweep with some fur glued on. Formerly humans of Gilneas, their kingdom was ravaged by a bunch of werewolves, then conquered and occupied by the Forsaken of the Horde being warmongering assholes, causing them to join up with the Alliance, after the successful reclamation of the capital city of their nation resulted in Sylvanas killing the king's son and shit-bombing the entire kingdom with so much of her New Plague that it has made the place uninhabitable even by Forsaken standards. Taught to connect to Druidism by Night Elves to control their werewolf side, they've reclaimed their monocle+top hat and blunderbuss+hound ways and even enlisted feral Worgen into their faction as well as some remaining human populace of Silverpine and Hillsbrad - apparently being a Big Bad Wolf with little to none shortcoming, strong enough to rip orks to pieces and beat his tauren friend to death with the meaty chunks, and nigh immune to the Plague of Undeath is quite an enticing idea when you live in a country infested with undead who'd like nothing more than to test some of their new and exiting stamms of chlamydios shit on you only to raise you from the dead for their army when you finally die. Currently, full speed ahead on becoming furry Night Elves themselves, at least culturally, embracing druidism and often abandoning the Church of Light altogether in favour of mixed Elune and Goldrinn worship.

Their king, Genn Greymane (named thus back in the days of Warcraft II, when worgen did not yet even existed, ironically), formerly one of the loudest decriers of the Alliance of Lordaeron, has become one of the most stalwart supporters of the Alliance of Stormwind (basically during the course of a short story and some of the books) and, due to the aforementioned events, is not at all fond of the Forsaken and especially the Banshee Queen (to be fair, Sylvanas did kill his son and mock him about it).  Since then Genn strived to ensure Sylvanas' timely arrival on a date with Arthas in that special place in hell/the Maw, ever more vehemently with Varian's death and the Burning of Teldrassil, quickly earning the admiration and ire of the respective fanbases (sorta, even Horde players fantasize about brutally torturing Sylvanas to death for being a total fucking monster).

 [[/d/|'''The''' most popular characters of shorstories involving any sort of befriendment of female elves (even surpassing the previous holder of that title that were the orcs).]]

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===The Horde===
[[File:Warcraft Horde.jpg|right|thumb|300px]]
Despite what some people believe, according to devs there is (dubiously in the case of many Forsaken plotlines) no evil playable faction. [[DERP|Which is why half the Horde chiefs went mad with power and go full genocide while the Alliance has at best been harsh]]. The Horde is in some ways as good or bad as the [[Grimdark|sometimes racist and oppressive Alliance]], although the Horde tends to have the most bad seeds in their faction due to poor writing and character handling. The general theme of the Horde is races that have lost a great deal, usually to those within their faction who have also fucked the Alliance, causing them to stop and re-evaluate themselves while building an entirely new path forwards while dealing with the partially justified and partially overzealous vengeance of the blue faction. 
 
====Orcs====
The [[orc]]s of Warcraft are shamanistic warriors who live in the city of Orgrimmar and greater savanna region of Durotar and who, unlike [[Warhammer Fantasy|Warhammer]] or [[Warhammer 40000|40k]] [[Orcs & Goblins|Orcs]]/[[Ork|Orks]], are not entirely made ta fight an’ win, with the added benefit of primary (and not-so-bad-either secondary) sex characteristics, which means they have to reproduce by methods other than scratching their asses. Basically all that "Storm, Earth, and Fire" shit combined with "Victory or Death" mentality. They tend live in edgy and spiky all over black metal buildings with red lighting. The backstory for their place in the world is that their planet was like Vietnam hatefucked death metal album art, then some douchebags in their race sold them out to Demons and tricked them into wiping out every race they encountered before leaving the next generation to pick up the pieces and deal with those among them that have decided being a dumb asshole is a cultural value. Brown-skinned Orcs are natural untainted Orcs, Orcs with grey skin are a subrace of brown Orcs and tend to be highly aggressive (an alternate universe where formerly brown Orcs have grey skin instead of the green they got in the main timeline suggests this isn't a natural occurrence), Orcs with green skin have been exposed to a large amount of Demon magic, Orcs with red eyes and green skin are currently empowered by Demon magic, Orcs with red skin have consumed Demons and are becoming Demonic themselves. 

Ever since their first attempts to make friends have been misunderstood for an attempted genocide by the Alliance races, have been chased down by said Alliance races to be properly forgiven for that. Still trying to vehemently befriend everyone around them, but get promptly forgiven time and time again, so it's cool.

Most of their history was retconned in the shitfests known as ''Mists of Pandaria'' and ''Warlords of Draenor'' to make them more [[Grimdark|evil]], then zig-zag on this depending on which part of the fanbase whines the loudest.  In a manner of speaking.  Them being genocidal monsters has always been canon.  The only point of contention is them ''choosing'' to continue being mass-murdering monsters.  But Horde players who actually ''[[Heresy|read the quest text]]'' as they level throughout the game will notice that the Horde quests get more and more vile and less and less justifiable until by the end the Horde quests are often just evil just because they think its funny.  Some players might see this as a new Horde adventurer gradually having his eyes opened that although he is a noble savage who believes in the Horde's redemption, '''[[Grimdark|the Horde might not]] ''[[Grimdark|want]]'' [[Grimdark|redemption]]'''.

 [[/d/|'''The''' most popular characters of shorstories involving any sort of befriendment of female night elves (<s>projection much? eww. just eww. you sick Horde! you fucking sick.</s> <span style='color:purple;font-size:100%'>PROCEED...</span>). Scratch that, Tauren and worgen are more popular for that nowadays]]
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====Tauren====
Fairly peaceful [[Minotaur]]s that were in a losing war for existence with Centaurs until the Orcs took them on as a welfare case, helping them establish their own land as Mulgore and their capital city of Thunder Bluff which sits on top of massive plateau connected by rope bridges and elevators. Basically HUEG beastly, American-Indian bulls and cows who walk on two legs. Unfortunately, have an ''extremely'' passive outlook in the Horde, which has grown even more so ever since the cool old guy Cairn Bloodhoof kicked it after loosing the election to national-socialist candidate and being poised by some douche named Magatha. His son [[Fail|only exiled her]] allowing and has since been a worthless self hating leader in between exiling his people for attacking military targets, breaking his oaths to the Horde and declaring tauren towns devoid of military forces worthy targets for firebombing by the Alliance. Its widely considered tauren lore died with Cairne. A good way to describe Tauren is they were initially just there to serve as fucking MASSIVE sidekicks to Orcs, inviting all sorts of Forsaken out of the goodness of their hearts into the fold (even though even the super racist Alliance military leader in Warcraft III joined forces with the Forsaken and the monster murdered him and his men once they took Capital City and went to the Horde because they feared the Alliance wouldn't accept them...because they murdered an Alliance army that ''had'' given them the benefit of the doubt.  [[Horus Heresy|Surely this could never possibly go wrong for the Horde]].) and not much else, then afterwards functioning only as pawns for Baine's pining for humanity.  Not helped by the fact other lore suggested the Tauren originally wanted help from the Alliance but was busy not being murdered by the Horde and so had to settle for accepting the Horde's help with the Centaurs ([[Derp|instead of joining the Alliance in exchange for protection from said centaurs just like they did with the Horde who was also in the same war the Alliance was]]).

The Tauren used to be different. Back in WarCraft III they were the "good is not soft" type. Sure, they were peaceful already back then, but if you threatened their home and their allies then you'd be pulverized so hard with their fancy totems that not even bone chunks would be left after you.

====Forsaken Undead====
Mostly the humans of the kingdom of Lordaeron and the Elves of Silvermoon, plus others that fell to the Undead Scourge Plague since then, which were originally mostly just mindless zombies or ghosts. After Illidan began a spell to weaken and destroy the Frozen Throne and trapped spirit of Ner'zhul while Arthas rushed to save him (before they merged into one being), Sylvanas and the undead Elves regained their free will and used it to start a rebellion, eventually freeing many Undead and returning their souls to them resulting in them going from mindless zombies back to ordinary undead people. 

Among the gray area morality of the races in the game (the humans for enslaving the omnicidal monsters that tried to exterminate them, the gnomes for being short, the Night Elves for being psychopaths, the High Elves for being sociopaths, the dwarves for not being dwarfs, the orks for being mass murdering monsters unwillingly and later eagerly, the tauren for being couch-potatos, the trolls for being tall), Forsaken come furthest on the 'evil' end of the spectrum (due to being more evil than the ''[[Dark Eldar]]'') as either through damage to brain/soul, the traumatic unlife they've had or the fact that they were evil people in life, many have become psychopathic sadists. They would be counted still on the grey spectrum were it not for an utterly [[Skub]]tastic minor faction called the Royal Apothecary Society, basically a bunch of completely monstrous [[Fabius Bile]]s of Warcraft.

Said society has a fully funded mad scientist corps devoted to creating a 'perfect plague' as well as perfecting and exercising already existing ones; among its other duties, performs numerous, horrific experiments (Mengele spectrum) on enslaved POW's (this includes a mind-broken (''"A little torture, a pinch of magic, and an ample helping of invasive surgery. She was conscious, of course."'') human slave named Theresa that wanders the city doing the errands of a minor mad (fucked-up is a better description) scientist, just to show off his "talents"), dissecting living Alliance prisoners, turning them into monsters, and trying to perfect a particular plague formula that will render their enemies into undead like themselves with no side effects (although this last one was considered by some Forsaken to be a means of "reproduction" of sorts to keep up their fight against the Lich King, while it lasted). 

Even at the early game content, said society had quests like "shackle the human farmers and drag them to Hillsbrad Fungus Plantation" where they'll be worked to death and made torture subjects for plagues, which the players gladly took to drag refugees to their certain doom in chains. (See Sylvanas' character story below)

As a result of these atrocities, the Forsaken are on the back foot, being at war with just about everything (including a militant priestly organization that represented the last living Lordaeron humans left in their homeland called the Scarlet Crusade) that wasn't the Horde and smack dab in the middle of all invasion routes back then, which was often used as justification for your daily dose of nightmare fuel both in and out of universe. Undercity has basically a population of slaves being experimented upon, tortured and killed slowly for years with no attention from any Horde leader, each arguing about hating the alliance and extolling "honor" while ignoring an ongoing atrocity Thrall would be horrified of.

The aforementioned mad scientist organization turned against Sylvanas (allegedly) and into the ranks of the Burning Legion (she kept a demon around as an advisor who unsurprisingly was waiting for the chance to turn on her) in a short one-battle civil war that destroyed any hope for peace between factions left at the time as Varian Wrynn, by sheer coincidence - the King of Stormwind, saw their fucked up experiments done under his childhood home away from home, and were put onto probation as a race by the rest of the Horde up until a change of Warchief (and the following untimely demise of all Kor'kron overseers, presumably - due to the fatal overdose of the Audrey's Thrice-Spiced Crunchy Stew) unwittingly resulted in a green flag to do whatever the fuck they wanted. With the Lich King dead and the Scarlet Crusade mostly wiped out, the Forsaken were left free to explore their new and wonderful nature as undead, sliding ever further into the 'evil' side of the spectrum as they plotted against the rest of the whole world of living and waged open war on neutral factions, and generally kept their sick experiments on enslaved POW's.

Their initial (dubious) claims that as the last humans of Lordaeron they rightfully inherit the kingdom and that the humans down south had no right to conquer and purge them suddenly became "let's claim the entire northern continent, supposedly minus the Blood Elf parts (definitely plus surviving High Elf lodges on the southern borders of aforementioned parts, regardless of their affiliation (or lack thereof) with the Alliance), and just fuck up humans in ways many and hilarious wherever they are to be found." 

That isn't to say that all Forsaken by definition are evil bastards, non-Apothecary aligned Forsaken are socially between a grungy Goth and a metalhead, and are generally loyal to the Horde. The player character is generally left up to the player to decide as far as alignment goes beyond some basic quests pushing you in the general direction of your faction story (that any player on your faction can do), as well as an occasional Forsaken NPC who isn't a complete fucking asshole appear throughout the game, a notable example would have been Leonid Barthalomew, an ex-Paladin (a Warrior, actually, but good luck convincing the fandom) who didn't put up with the bullshit of the Forsaken faction and became a ranking leader in the Argent Crusade - the amalgamation of various "Holy Orders" (such as Argent Dawn and parts of Scarlet Crusade) as well as formerly independent champions of the just, currently devoted to the restoration of the Plaguelands and, amusingly, "watching" Sylvanas (Mission Accomplished!). While Horde Forsaken became more evil as a group, more Forsaken were depicted as relatively friendly to both factions in NPC organizations (although this is true of all races; organizations that were previously filled with the races that wore the hat the proudest now have any race than can be that class popping up, plus Goblins for everyone). 

Forsaken have long been hated in the Alliance community for the fact that they were a favored race for PvP (immunity to fear has often been criticized as being [[Cheese]]), [[Edgy]] botched writing that makes them come across as dickheads who never suffer any kind of karmic payback for their actions, and their lore is the most openly aggressive towards all <s>non-Night Elf and</s> non-Draenei factions (Pandaren not being tied to anyone's story but their own and a vague connection to the Alliance and Horde as a whole). However, there's also a great deal of skub regarding the direction of their story and the reason (neckbeards and fangurlz) obsessing over their faction leader Sylvanas), which we absolutely refuse to speak of here because dumbasses think this article is a good place to argue about it. 

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====Trolls====
No, no, not the [[Troll (Internet)|internet kind]], the mythical [[Troll]]s. Very tall, have two toes and three fingers, have large tusks that come in different shapes and come from the back of their mouth like boars or the front of their mouth like Oni, tend to favor a mohawk or dreadlocks as a hairstyle, have a dewclaw, and their skin differs from subrace to subrace because their bodies are adaptive and become anything from treebark-like to full of magic to covered in a soft and almost invisible velvet (all of which basically just gives them a different color). Are into Voodoo and worship Loa, tend towards being Mesoamerican in culture even if they come from an Egypt or Black Forest expy. The Darkspear tribe aka the Horde trolls sound like they have bad Jamaican accent, while the other tribes seem to prefer Cuban. Used to be allies of the Old Horde (there was a time before Green Jesus...), sharing the orcish worldviews regarding their neighbours and dreaming of the rebirth of their once world-spanning empire, presumably to fuck shit up for everyone once again with their... enthusiastic approach to the worship of their gods. During Green Jesus's Exodus, the Darkspear tribe became the Horde's first official allies, being another charity case Orcs took up in order to gain a race of sidekicks. Has been almost-but-not-quite as passive as Tauren in their overall relevance to the plot up until the time when their leader took over the Horde for a whole expansion. Then said leader died in an idiotic way, the more you think about it, and with him - the hopes of ever being relevant again, as trolls of all colours are being excluded from the plot and placed into pandaren limbo, alone and forgotten by devs...

Until Battle for Azeroth.  Their patron god of death is now the king of all Loa and the coolest NPC in the game, Bwonsamdi.  And yes, he is literal Troll Baron Samedi... and he's a total troll too.  He'll bring you back from the dead and make your wildest wishes come true, for a price.  
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====Blood Elves====
As already mentioned, Night Elves are [[Wood Elves]] and the Blood Elves are straddling the midpoint between [[High Elves]] and [[Dark Elves]] without the matriarchal or BDSM undertones. They had a culture-wide addiction to arcane magic thanks to their ancestors leaving the Night Elves over the banning of non-hippie magic and all the generations since being bathed in constant magical radiation from a gigantic well of energy in their capital city. The Horde nearly exterminated them once or twice or something.  Then they began hating humans because the Alliance more or less abandoned them when Arthas came knocking. Makes more sense when some human captain can command their fucking leader and his retinue to go die on the frontlines.  Once that was done (as well as roughly more than half of their race killed or otherwise... "indisposed", supposedly only one percent of their entire species still exist.), they split into those that figured that Kael'thas idea of consuming Demons to sustain their magic fix or else the withdrawal turns them into an Elf version of a meth addict in short order was fucking ingenious, the ones that that didn't think that munching on demons was healthy for their perfect skin, hair, and eye colour and the ones that got hippie all the way, mirroring their ancestors. The former majority, now calling themselves Sin'dorei, gradually became more and more evil out of desperation and supposed betrayal by their twice former allies (first when a High Marshal decided their Prince fighting beside Naga, who had been pillaging and destroying human villages and ships for years, was really fucking suspicious, probably because the Naga were in zero danger from the Scourge so it looked like the High Elves were in cahoots with them, the second time was when the Alliance supposedly sent agents to sabotage the High Elves' defenses while also negotiating for them to rejoin the Alliance even though said Alliance had negative numbers of reasons to even considering any actions against them...or maybe they figured the elves basically becoming a bunch of warlocks and demonic magic addicts was not k) and the aforementioned remaining percentage of the populace (that were '''very''' not chill about the whole demonic blood margaritas and allying with the people who were gleefully slaughtering them just a decade prior and mostly left Quel'Thalas in self-imposed (or forced) exile, usually ending up under human protection and almost invariably casting away everything from their culture to their clothing to willfully become basically point-eared humans and notable for their almost fanatical devotion to said species, which is hilarious considering normal elf relations with humans in fantasy), even keeping an abused angel in the basement they'd molest for paladin powers. After The Burning Crusade expansion, said Naaru was destroyed after being corrupted and restored their magical well with its goodness thereby turning the well into a font of both arcane and holy energy the elves feed on; their paladins are now able to draw power from the Light directly like everyone else and the Blood Elves are returning to being a dickish but generally decent (more or less) race that for some reason is still loyal to the Horde even though the lore heavily implies the whole reason for that was because their fel magic addiction had made them just shy of evil and so now they don't even have a reason to be in the Horde (and they mind-controlled nay-sayers in their populace to sing the Horde's praises and hate the Alliance). While they remain mostly Caucasian with blond hair, the Demon-suckling has turned the eyes of their race permanently green (except now with the holy light in their well they feed from, players can choose gold glowing eyes instead of green glowing eyes for their Blood Elf characters). However, due to their lands still being extremely vulnerable to the undead invasion (courtesy of Arthas), be it by remaining Scourge or Forsaken forces, their leader, the self-proclaimed Regent Lord Lor'themar Theron, is forced to play Sylvanas' sidekick and expected to act accordingly, which he's not happy about, but won't do anything about it either, other than attempted defection to the Alliance that failed because eldar don't have a standing monopoly on status quo (their attempt was ruined due to an attack on Darnassus enabled/executed by a faction of Blood Elves in Dalaran which made Lor'themar's attempt at defection seem like a trick/trap at worst or like he couldn't control his own subjects and therefore his nation couldn't be relied on at best). Amusingly, over 50% (closer to 70% on RP servers) of the Horde population on most servers goes to this guys, despite Horde fandom claims to the contrary and overall standing on their hat, and not just because their story occasionally progresses forwards (''unlike certain others''), mind you.
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====Goblins====
[[Goblin]]s are basically [[gnome]]s, but green and Swiss capitalist and with a [[Skaven|general disregard for the safety of whoever's using their creations (including themselves)]]. To make the obligatory comparison to Warhammer, they are basically a fluffy hybrid of [[Skaven]], [[Orcs & Goblins|Plains Goblins]], and [[Ork]] [[Mekboy|Mekboyz]] all rolled into one with their minds only revolving around money/gold, excitement, and sex (usually in that order), that is never the less still more stable then its component parts. Technically as a race they're free agents that refuse to ally with or against any of the superpower factions, but the Horde happens to be the highest bidder usually and the Alliance doesn't usually want them when they already have one race of technologically inclined midgets in the Gnomes (who have a rivalry with Goblins based on engineering philosophy although how violent this rivalry depends on the individual since they've been seen both engaging in attempted genocide, or working together to create a fucking permanent podrace track in the middle of the desert (which after being flooded became about hovercraft races)). They're also WAAAAAAAAY too into holidays, either because its a great money maker or because they're just obsessive and things like <strike>Christmas</strike> Winterveil lights and fireworks make their (usually short) lives worth living. 

The Goblins that joined the Horde are only a part of their race called the Bilgewater Cartel who tend to be New Jersey expies complete with bad pop culture and a combination of 1800's industrialization and 1980's pop culture living in a fantasy world. 

In the short-lived RPG, [[hobgoblin]]s were goblins transformed into giant, super-strong but dimwitted purple-skinned versions of themselves through alchemy. Of course, the transformation killed them after, like, 3 years, but their goblin masters didn't see the downfall in that.

There was a plotline involving the goblins basically having gained sapience and genius-level intelligence from a chemical when they used to be monkey-like critters that the troll empire used as slaves, but now the chemical that gave them their brains is all running out because they've squandered it, but it was dropped.

Goblin women are one of the foundations of the [[shortstack]] meme.
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===Allied Races===
Introduced in BFA, Allied Races are lesser races that joined the Alliance and Horde during the Fourth War. Most are based on previous races or a variant of them.

====Alliance-Aligned====
*Dark Iron Dwarves: As described in the above sections, the Dark Irons formerly got introduced to the game. [[Salamanders|Darker skinned with flaming hot eyes]] and hair, they joined with their own personal drill transports, magma monsters and eternally cool dark iron armor and weapons (with other surprisingly advanced technology). Technically joined all the way back in Cataclysm where they were present as NPCs, but the canon explanation for them being playable only with BfA was that with all the shit going on at the time with Deathwing (and with everyone expecting the Dark Iron to backstab them at the first opportunity) [[Derp|no one bothered to actually fully officialize their joining]] until BfA. Led by Queen Moria Thaurassian-Bronzebeard.
*Void Elves: A small cult within the Blood Elves who researches [[Chaos|Void-related stuff]] and got exiled for their troubles when they nearly corrupted the Sunwell by accident.  They turned to Alleria and the Alliance took them under their wing. Seem to be the Alliances long-term solution to what will become of high elves, as they are currently getting new recruits from both high elves and even blood elves that wish to embrace the void.  At least they got shiny purple tentacle hair out of it... Led by Magister Umbric. Canonically, there numbers are relatively small though gradually growing, but that hasn't stopped blizzard from giving millions of players access to them, while still [[FAIL|remaining notoriously iron-fisted about players wanting to make proper High Elf characters for no particular reason.]]
*Kul Tiran Humans: Again as described above, portly humans a few feet taller than their cousins. Come fully equipped with sailor gear, cool mustaches and one hell of a right uppercut.  Led by Katherine Proudmoore, then later Jaina Proudmoore.
*Mechagnomes: Sadly not fully robotic Gnomes. Magitek-esque cyborg gnomes who loves progress and science and resisted their insane king, who attempted to [[Necron|remake the entire world in metal]].  Led by Prince Erazmin of the Rustbolt Resistance, later the Kingdom of Mechagon. Notable for having one of the more interesting racial capitals.
*Lightforged [[Draenei]]: Originally made from Draenei soldiers given a Light supercharge by the naaru Xe'ra millennia ago (side effects include glowing tattoos and immortality), they formed a [[Space Marines|spacefaring holy army]] and spent 25,000 years fighting the Burning Legion and helped defeat them in the final battle.  Led by Xe'ra, then by High Exarch Turalyon (a Lightforged Human originally from the Alliance), with the highest-ranking Draenei being Captain Fareeya, because of course millennia old Draenei need to be overshadowed by decades old humies.  Currently controlling the single greatest military asset on Azeorth, the Vindicaar - a magic spaceship with a magic laser and teleportation... which the writers swept under the rug because otherwise the Alliance would ROFLstomp the Horde.

====Horde-Alligned====
*Highmountain Tauren: An offshoot of the tauren race living in the Highmountain region of the Broken Isles. Moose-headed instead of cow-headed.  Divided into three tribes (formally four), they are based more off tribes from the Pacific Northwest.  In Legion both Alliance and Horde and quest for them, but join the Horde at the urging of their Mulgore cousins. Haven't done much lore-wise lately but have apparantly been stealing some thunder from the common tauren among the player base who like their look.  Lead by High Chieftain Mayla Highmountain.
*Nightborne Elves: An offshoot of the Night Elfs, these guys are like what the Night Hippies were like in the golden age of their empire.  Duing the War of the Ancients they locked themselves behind a magic shield and stayed their for 10,000 years until the events of Legion.  Players will join and build up a rebel group lead First Arcanist Thalyssra, who was exiled for a previous rebellion.  After saving them from their magic addiction and withdrawal induced zombiefication, they join the Horde out of gratitude and protection from vengeful Night Elves, who made no secret how they felt about their cousins due to most Nightborne leaders signing on with the Burning Legion......Though beyond that it was a bit of stretch of them joining the horde completely since most memebers of the alliance not really minding them (but horde needed more Elven races so there it is).  Lead by First Arcanist Thalyssra.
*Mag'har Orcs: Refuges from alternate Dreanor.  Many of them used to be part of the Iron Horde - [[Ork|a militarized empire of Orc supremacists who wanted to conquer or kill everyone else]] - while some never joined.  They were forced to flee alt-Draenor after the Draenei there somehow became Lightforged fanatics killing those who would not convert to Light worship [[Skub|and the writers pretend the anti-Draenei Iron Horde never happened]] to push [[Edgy|yet another ham-fisted "dogmatism bad" story]].  Alternate Grommash Hellscream sacrificed himself giving them time to escape.  Lead by Overlord Geya'rah, the alternate universe sister to Thrall.
*Zandalari Trolls: The first trolls they once had the greatest empire on Azeroth, but have fallen hard from the glory days.  Initially lead by God King Rastakahn, his death at the hands of the Alliance during the Battle of Dazar'alor is what led the Zandalari to formally join the Horde, now led by his daughter Queen Talanji.  The Zandalari live very close to their Loa (gods), because most of them are huge, intelligent magic people or animals who hang out down the street.  Bwonsamdi, Loa of Death, is the current patron loa of the Empire, due to their former patron loa Rezan getting killed/banished and a secret bargain struck between him and Rastakahn. 
*Vulpera: A race of goblin sized fox people(For those who like both [[Furry|Furries]] and [[Shortstack]]s, but don't like the Sonic The Hedgehog fandom.) native to the deserts of Vol'[[Dune|dun]], they make a living traveling in caravans across the sands scavenging and trading relics from the many ruins that dot the landscape.  Friendly to the Horde after their race is saved from slavery and stew pots belonging to the serpentine Sethrak, they are pushed closer to the Horde after Alliance invasions of Vol'dun lead to vulpera thrown in cages and their caravans got burned by Alliance "heroes". A bit of a stretch in all honesty on the behavoir on the alliances part, not that the Alliance are always the good guys but it was a little forced just to justify them joining the horde, still a cute race in the horde isn't necessarily a bad thing. Furry Jawas, expect [[PROMOTIONS]].

===Pandaren===
Introduced in the Mists of Pandaria were the Pandaren, who uniquely get a choice on if they want to be Alliance or Horde since until then they had been neutral to the conflict between the two factions. The Pandaren perform the double duty of being a Far East analog and a race for furries who didn't like wolves or cows.

A hyper-evolved version of Furbolgs, a bear-like primitive race that's friends with the Night Elves. Pandaren live on their own highly magical (thanks to many MANY Titan creations) continent alongside fishmen called Jinyu who are hyper-evolved Murlocs, and Hozen who are somewhat evolved monkey people. A small number of their race, which all of the player character (but not all since Pandarian Pandaren later join thanks to the players) Pandaren come from, live on the back of a gigantic turtle who was the companion of the last Pandaren Emperor. 

Pandaren are culturally incentivized to be ''fucking chill'' at all times, which reflects in all they do; brewing, cooking, farming, travelling and that dumb smile on their faces. Though few of them know it, this idea comes from centuries of living with the Sha (embodiments of dark emotions) below them at all times, and any time a sour emotion breaks out, you suddenly have a few blobby nightmares to deal with. Don't mistake their relaxed nature and fat asses for complacence; all of them know some sort of martial arts and their lands are invaded by giant sapient insects that want to eat all other life about once every hundred years, so they tend to be sharper than they look.

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===Dracthyr===
Le new scaly bois