So you're new to WoW and want to know what's going on. Or you're just trying to figure out which Horde you're a part of. Here's the entire history of Azeroth in 23 minutes. Way back at the start of the universe there were Titans Which are gods born out of planets (kind of). The titans formed of Pantheon, which went around looking for more, baby Titan-planets called World Souls. One of these planets was named Azeroth, currently inhabited by a bunch of elementals. A mysterious group of beings who wanted to kill the Pantheon named the Void Lords were also looking for world souls and sent their servants the Old Gods to go find and corrupt them. Some Old Gods found Azeroth off and started bleeding bugs on everything. The Pantheon eventually finds Azeroth too and they start fighting everyone first the elementals, then the Old Gods. The Titans win, but they can't can kill the Old Gods without killing Azeroth so they build prisons instead. They leave behind a bunch of metal guys and also some dragons to look after Azeroth and guard the prison in their absence. Off in another section of the universe the Titan Sargeras learned to be old gods could corrupt Titan planets and decides the only reasonable solutions is to kill all life in the universe. So he starts building a massive army called the Burning Legion by corrupting inhabitants of Titan planets. The Pantheon isn't happy that all their plants are being corrupted so they try to calm Sargeras down, telling him that the army is pointless because they found a world soul strong enough to defeat the Void Lords. Sargeras responds by killing the pantheon and imprisoning their spirits and sets out to find and destroy Azeroth, fearing what would happen if a Titan that powerful was corrupted. Unfortunately Sargeras forgot to ask where Azeroth was first so he has to start looking for it. Another powerful World Soul is Argus, a planet inhabited by the Eredar who are led by Archimonde, Kil'Jaeden and Velen. Sargeras wants to corrupt Argus and approaches the three rulers in disguise. Offering them immense power with no strings attached Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden accept the power like suckers and most of the Eredar get corrupted, but Velan realizes it's a trick and refuses. Velen prays for guidance and a race of sentient Chandeliers called the Naaru hear him and send a spaceship which Velen and the remaining uncorrupted Eredar use to flee Argus. The uncorrupted group changes their name to the Draenei which means "the exiled ones". Kil'Jaeden is angry about their escape and vows to hunt them down. Sargeras corrupts the world soul of Argus and uses it to build a machine that lets him regenerate anyone in his army, making them effectively immortal. Meanwhile back on Azeroth the imprisoned Old Gods drive their guards crazy and make a curse that turns stuff into meat meaning these guys turn into these guys. A big magic pool called the Well of Eternity that was left behind by the Titans starts hyperevolving deer and squirrels into a race called Trolls. The Trolls dub themselves the Zandalari and form the Zandalari empire, which has a strict caste system. The lowest caste decides that being in the lowest caste sucks and leaves to form their own empires One of these Empire settles by the Well of Eternity and evolves even further, transforming into Elves. These newly formed Elves create the Kaldorei Empire. Led by Queen Azshara They use the Well of Eternity to gain magical and technological superiority, allowing them to swiftly defeat the Zandalari and take over Kalimdor. The Kaldorei's excessive use of the Well of Eternity lets Sargeras magically access Azeroth, but he still has no idea where it is in physical space so he needs to rely on opening portals to invade. Since he needs a powerful mage to open the portal Sargeras reaches out to Azshara and offers her a place at his side. Azshara agrees and uses the Well of Eternity to summon to Burning Legion into Azeroth. The dragons and an elf rebellion led by Tyrande Whisperwind and brothers Illidan and Malfurion Stormrage fight to stop Azshara in the War of the Ancients. Attempting to gain power against the Legion Illidan pretends to join Azshara's forces. Sargeras is so grateful he stabs out Illidan's eyes and gives him cool demon vision. This allows Illidan to see the true power of the Burning Legion and he begins to fear that their defeat on Azeroth will ultimately be pointless. One of the five aspects named Neltharion is driven mad by the Old Gods, who convinced him to steal the other Aspects' powers by making a weapon called the Dragon Soul under the guise of fighting the Legion. Once the weapon is built Neltharion blows everyone up with it. He changes his name to Deathwing to show off how edgy and cool he is. Malfurion steals the Dragon Soul and hides it. Deathwing is sealed in Deepholm, a big cave at the core of Azeroth. The rebellion shuts down the portal and stops the Legion. But the Well of Eternity is destroyed in the process which causes a big magical explosion called the sundering that breaks Kalimdor into a bunch of little pieces. As the Kaldorei capital sinks into the ocean the Old God N'Zoth turns Azshara and her followers into fish. Obsessed with the power of the Nightwell and fearing another Legion invasion, Illidan uses water he'd stolen from the Well of Eternity to make a new well in Mount Hyjal. The other elves are angered by this and throw Illidan in jail for his actions. The remaining elves fight over wherever to use last of the well and break into two factions. The Night Elves stay on Kalimdor and the Highborn travel to the Eastern Kingdoms and make a new font of magical energy called the Sunwell. They rename themselves to the High Elves. The children of some Vrykul in Northrend are being born mutated. These mutated children are ordered to be killed but some are snuck to the Eastern Kingdoms instead. Here they form tribes and call themselves Humans. One group of humans called the Arathi Tribe begins to unite the other groups under one banner, forming the kingdom of Arathor. Eventually the kingdom of Arathor grows so large that several of its biggest cities declare independence and break off into the kingdoms of Gilneas, Alterac, Dalaran, Kul Tiras, Stormwind, and Lordaeron. The high elves ally themselves with the humans to fight the trolls living in the Eastern Kingdoms while the night elves and dragons fight the Old God bugs and lock them in the Titan prison of Ahn'Qiraj. The high elves teach the humans magic and some of the humans start to accidentally summon demons and elementals. To protect against the threats created by humans having magic the leaders of Dalaran decided to give one human a whole bunch MORE magic. This person is called The Guardian and they pass their power on to the next person the council chooses when they retire. Sargeras, who still has no idea where Azeroth is physically, is currently trying open another portal to invade through. But opening an army-sized portal requires a lot of magic. So Sargeras can only open up small portal and send a less-powerful mini version of himself called an Avatar through. His Avatar then proceeds to start eating dragons in order to gain more magic. The dragons aren't a fan of being eaten so they ask for humans for help and humans send the current Guardian, Aegwynn, who goes to Northrend and kills the avatar, sealing its body in the Tomb of Sargeras so it can't be resurrected. Unbeknownst to Aegwynn the portion of Sargeras' soul powering the avatar jumps into her when she kills it and proceeds to hide there. Aegwynn decides that someone else getting to choose who gets her powers is lame so she goes into hiding. Remember Velen and those goats on the spaceship that weree fleeing the Legion? They just crashed onto a peaceful planet called Draenor and made friends with the Orcs, a race of shaman who are happy to share their planet. Everyone is friendly and these two races are sure to be lifelong pals. Back on Azeroth the dwarves are living inside a mountain when their King dies and suddenly everyone wants to be the new leader. The War of Three Hammers breaks out and the dwarves split into the Bronzebeard, Dark Iron, and Wildhammer clans. The Bronzebeards win and take over Ironforge Angry over losing the war, Dark Irons try to summon elementals to kill the other clans. But they do too good a job and accidentally summon Ragnaros the Firelord, who traps the Dark Iron dwarves inside of Blackrock Mountain and forces them to act as his slaves. Aegwynn is still in hiding and just had a child named Medivh! Unbeknownst to her the latent fragments of Sargeras' soul jump into Medivh and hide inside him. In a stunning display of nepotism Aegwynn gives her infant child the powers of a guardian. The human Kingdom of Stormwind goes to war with the Gurubashi Trolls. During a troll attack on Stormin city the now adult Medivh uses his powers as the guardian to obliterate the trolls and save the city. He's heralded as a hero and welcome as the new Guardian. Sargeras remains undiscovered inside of him. On Draenor Kil'Jaeden has tracked down Velen and the Draenei. He reaches out to an orc shaman named Gul'Dan, offering him power if he helps turn the orcs against them. Gul'Dan agrees and proceeds to frame the Draenei for attacks on orc villages. The orcs respond by banding together to stop the Draenei. Gul'Dan forms a cool new group called the Horde! (and the secret ingredient is fel magic) He convinces the Horde to drink the blood of the demon Mannoroth, which has the side effect of turning their skin green and also enslaving them to the Legion. He installs the bloodthirsty Blackhand as a puppet warchief. This new fel-crazed Horde slaughters the Draenei who flee into the forests led by Velen. Under warchief Blackhand the Horde is reckless and destructive. Quickly they eat all the food on Draenor and need a new place to live. Sargeras sees this as an opportunity to have his avatar freed from the tomb and tells Gul'Dan about a lush planet the Horde can invade called Azeroth. Back on Azeroth Sargeras begins to corrupt Medivh from within. Eventually convincing him to help Gul'Dan open the Dark Portal, a massive gate that connects Azeroth to Draenor. The orcs pour through marking the beginning of the First War. The First War rages on for three years between the Horde and the kingdom of Stormwind, led by King Llane Wrynn. The kingdom of Stormwind still believes Medivh is their ally and he continues to act as the Guardian. An orc named Garona meets and befriends Medivh and his apprentice Khadgar. Garona abandons the Horde and sides with the humans Together Khadgar and Garona discover that Medivh is responsible for opening the portal and team up with General Anduin Lothar to kill Medivh. Orgrim Doomhammer is upset by Blackhand's brutality towards his own soldiers and challenges him to a Mak'Gora for leadership of the Horde. Orgrim wins and kills Blackhand. Garona returns to Stormwind to deliver her report of Medivh's death. Well informing King Wrynn of the situation Garona is possessed by Horde warlocks and assassinates the King against her Will. Without its leader Stormwind falls to the Horde, ending the First War. The survivors of Stormwind flee north to the Lordaeron where Anduin Lothar convinces the other kingdoms to assist. Together they begin to plan the Second War against the Horde and unite into the Alliance of Lordaeron. Meanwhile Doomhammer's Horde marches north from Stormwind towards Ironforge to get resources. The Horde fights the dwarves and gnomes, leaving them trapped in their cities. The Horde continues north towards Lordaeron, but it's too well defended so they head past it and poke at the High Elves in Quel'Thalas for a bit before turning around. Gul'dan betrays the Horde and leaves for the Tomb of Sargeras with some soldiers. Then he betrays Sargeras and ignores orders to open a portal, instead planning to steal the power of the tomb for himself. Sargeras doesn't like being betrayed so demons eat Gul'dan. Orgrim Doomhammer is unaware of Gul'dan's desertion and begins a siege of Lordaeron. Originally successful, Doomhammer had been counting on Gul'dan's forces to bolster the assault and when he learns they have abandoned the Horde he's forced to undergo an incredibly costly retreat to Blackrock Mountain. Unaware that Gul'dan is already dead, Doomhammer dispatches the sons of the former warchief Blackhand, Dal'rend and Maim along the contingent of orcs to slay Gul'dan. The pursuing human forces free the besieged dwarves and gnomes who pledged their service to the Alliance. The severely weakened Horde makes their final stand at Blackrock Mountain. Orgrim Doomhammer kills Anduin Lothar to break the human's spirits. Only for him to be replaced by the paladin Turalyon, who captures Doomhammer and rallies the Alliance into pushing the Horde back through the Dark Portal. Khadgar deactivates the portal, closing the gateway between Azeroth and Draenor and ending the Second War. Rend, Maim, and their contingent of orcs arrives at Blackrock Mountain after the Alliance departs and occupy the fortress for themselves. Fortifying the keep from attackers they create the cool new Dark Horde! (and the secret ingredient is dragons) The victorious Alliance rebuild Stormwind, naming the adolescent son of Lane Wrynn, Varian, as king. The Alliance also puts the orcs they captured into internment camps. Orgrim himself is sent to one such camp. The high elves, feeling that the protection of Lordaeron was prioritized over their capital of Quel'thalas, leave the Alliance. Back on Draenor the orc shaman Ner'zhul finds himself leading the remnants of the Horde on a still dying world. He plans to open portals to other planets to plunder their resources (because it worked so well last time). But to do this he needs to steal magical artifacts from Azeroth. So he reopens the Dark Portal (great work Khadgar) and sends a small group of soldiers through to retrieve the artifacts. They succeed! But the Alliance decides to go on the offensive, electing to send a group of soldiers led by Turalyon, Khadgar, and some other people into the dark Portal in order to end the Horde once and for all. Corrupted by the power of the artifacts Ner'zhul opens a massive number of portals at once, tearing apart the fabric of Draenor and abandoning the Horde. The planet is destroyed and pulled into the twisting nether, forming a floating landmass called the Outlands. In order to save Azeroth from the might of the now-stranded Horde Khadgar collapses the dark portal, trapping himself and the Alliance Expedition in the Outlands. Presumed dead, statues of the leaders of the expedition are erected in the newly rebuilt Stormwind. Angered by Ner'zhul's betrayal of the Horde Kil'Jaeden turns him into an evil hat and a sword called Frostmourne that have the power to raise the dead. Then he drops him on Azeroth in order to weaken the human kingdoms in preparation for a Legion invasion. He also gives Ner'zhul a few demons called dreadlords to help speed things along. In the orcish internment camps a young orc named Thrall befriends Doomhammer and together they rally the orcs into rebellion and escape the camps. They build a cool new Horde!
(and the secret ingredient is friendship) But Orgrim is killed naming Thrall the new warchief. Thrall leads the orcs to the lost continent of Kalimdor in order to escape the humans. During the voyage they meet with the Darkspear Trolls and the Tauren, both of whom joined the Horde. Ner'zhul (now called The Lich King) has had a few years to get ready and he's starting to build a following. He needs powerful magic bois to open a big portal, So he recruits the wizard Kel'Thuzad and together they make a plague that kills people and turns them into zombies. They release it into the northern cities of Lordaeron via infected grain and the Third War begins! King Terenas Menethil hears rumors of a plague to the north and sends his son Arthas and the mage Jaina Proudmoore to investigate. They find that Kel'Thuzad has poisoned a recent grain delivery to the bustling city of Stratholme with a plague. Arthas kills Kel'thuzad and they head to Stratholme to stop a grain shipment. The duo is too late to stop a town's folk from eating the grain and with no cure for a plague Arthas decides to kill the infected before they're turned into mindless undead. Jaina is aghast and abandons Arthas. Arthas purges of the city and meets the dreadlord Mal'Ganis who taunts the prince, telling him to find him in Northrend. Arthas becomes obsessed with taking revenge on Mal'Ganis and follows him to Northrend, discovering the sword Frostmourne along the way. The sword consumes his soul and Arthas is corrupted by the will of the Lich King. Becoming an undead soldier called a death knight. Now a minion of the Lich King, Arthas returns to Lordaeron and murders his father King Terenas Menethil while his forces destroy the city. The Lich King still needs Kel'thuzad to summon Archimonde so he orders Arthas to stuff the dead wizard chunks in a jar. In order to raise Kel'Thuzad as a lich Arthas needs the power of the Sunwell, so he marches his forces north to Quel'Thalas. Along the way he captures the ranger general of Silvermoon Sylvanas Windrunner who he kills and raises as Banshee. The scourge storm Silvermoon and slaughter the High Elves raising Kel'thuzad as a lich and corrupting the Sunwell in a process. With Kel'thuzad resurrected the scourge return south and raid the city of Dalaran for a magic book. Once they have it Kel'Thuzad summons Archimonde, who builds a sand castle and punches it...
which destroys Dalaran... (I don't get it either) Remember that second Well of Eternity Illidan made in Hyjal? Archimonde needs it to someone to Legion. So he and the gang head west to Kalimdor. Also a big tree called the World Tree grew in it and it made the elves immortal. Jaina and Thrall are both met by the ghost of Medivh who says they need to stop Archimonde at Mount Hyjal or Azeroth will be destroyed. Jaina leads the alliance to Kalimdor. On Kalimdor the spooky Medivh ghost meets Jaina and Thrall again and tells them the Alliance and Horde need to work together. But one group of orcs under Grommash Hellscream gets tricked by Mannoroth into drinking more demon blood and become servants of at Burning Legion again. Jaina frees Grom who kills Mannoroth. Freeing the orcs but killing himself in the process. The night elves find out that the Legion is invading again and join the fight. Tyrande, now the leader of a night elves, orders Illidan to be released from jail to help fight demons. Illidan promises he's done consuming demonic power to stop the Legion. Illidan then promptly consumes more demonic power to stop the Legion, eating the skull of Gul'dan and using the powers to blow up a dreadlord. Tyrande and Malfurion are furious and banish Illidan, who runs off and sulks. The ghost of medivh tells everyone that he's manifesting because he feels bad for opening the Dark Portal and wants to fix his mistake. The three armies pledge to stop the Legion and build a series of base camps in Mount Hyjal to prevent Archimonde from reaching the well. Archimonde completely bulldoze through these base camps and reaches the well. So the ancient spirits of the night elves (called wisps) turn themselves into a bomb and blow Archimonde and his army up. They also accidentally blow up the World Tree so the night elves stop being immortal, but at least the Third War is over! Thrall heads south into the deserts of Kalimdor and founds the Horde capital of Orgrimmar named after Orgrim Doomhammer. In the ruins of Quel'Thalas Prince Kael'Thas Sunstrider destroys The Sunwell so it doesn't corrupt his people. Without the Sunwell the High Elves go into magic withdrawal and most rename themselves to the Blood Elves. About 10% continue to call themselves High Elves and break off to rejoin the Alliance. This schism becomes a single largest point of contention among the WoW player base. Illidan, still angry about being accused of serving demons, agrees to serve Kil'Jaeden by hunting down and killing the Lich King, who's gone rogue. He teams up with some Naga and Prince Kael'Thas and cast a spell which severely injures the Lich King. Ner'zhul the hat realizes that unless someone puts him on he will die from his injuries, so he recalls Arthas to Northrend. The Alliance rallies under Grand Marshal Garithos to push the undead out of ruins of the kingdom of Lordaeron (now called the Plaguelands). Due to the Lich King being weakened Sylvanas breaks free from his control and works alongside them to retake the capital city. However, once the scourge is defeated she turns on her living allies and slays them. Claiming Lordaeron for herself she unites the undead freed from the Lich King's control into the Forsaken. Arthas leaves Kel'Thuzad to command remaining scourge in the Plaguelands and returns to Northrend. Illidan battles Arthas in a final attempt to prevent him from saving the Lich King but Arthas wins and puts on the hat, merging his soul with Ner'zhul and being frozen in a block of ice. Illidan retreats through a portal to the Outlands with Kael'thas and some of the Naga. Fearing the Alliance will attempt to retake Lordaeron from her Sylvanas and the forsaken join the Horde, hoping their military might will deter the Alliance. The Horde now consists of Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and Forsaken. With the loss of Lordaeron the recently rebuilt city of Stormwind becomes the new seat of the Alliance. Which consists of Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves, and a few remaining High Elves. The city of Dalaran gets rebuilt and they put it under a dome. A night elf named Fandral Staghelm decides to grow a new World Tree called Teldrassil so the Night Elves can keep being immortal. It doesn't work but the night elves decide to live on it anyway. While traveling to a diplomatic meeting with the Horde King Varian Wrynn is kidnapped. His ten year old son Anduin is named leader of Stormwind with Bolvar Fordragon acting as Regent Lord. This marks the beginning of World of Warcraft! The armies of a Horde and Alliance have been greatly weakened by the Third War So both factions begin to recruit new soldiers from among their citizens to depopulate the local wildlife. These citizens become known as the Champions of Azeroth and are the player characters in WoW. In Blackrock Mountain Ragnaros starts summoning elementals. So the champions of a Horde and Alliance banish him back to the Firelands. Then they go upstairs and kill Rend Blackhand. On Kalimdor C'Thun and all the bugs break out of jail so the Alliance and Horde build a stick and use it to break INTO bug jail to kill C'Thun. We can kill old gods but the Titans can't because reasons. Off in the Outlands Illidan and Kael'Thas steal a floating chandelier-ship called Tempest Keep. Velen and the surviving Draenei steal a piece of it and fly off into space. Kel'Thuzad builds a big floating box called Naxxramas that he's ruling the Plaguelands from. The champions of Azeroth break in and kill him. The remaining demons in the Outlands reopen the Dark Portal in order to invade Azeroth. They are beaten up immediately and Azeroth decides to invade the Outlands to teach them a lesson. This marks the beginning of the Burning Crusade Kael'Thas discovers that fel energy is a substitute for the Sunwell and joins the Legion. Blood Elves start doing fel magic and their eyes turn green. Some are upset about this and join the Horde. The rest continue to follow Kael'Thas. The Draenei crash land on Azeroth and join the Alliance because it's the side that doesn't have orcs. The Alliance find Khadgar, Kurdan, and Trollbane alive and operating in the Outlands. Alleria Windrunner and General Turalyon are still missing. Thrall meets Garrosh Hellscream, the son who Grommash Hellscream left behind on Draenor. The two become friends and Garrosh joins the Horde. The champions of Azeroth beat up Illidan and send him to jail. Then we beat up Kael'Thas and he gets really big and dies. Kael'Thas gets resurrected with fel magic and decides to use the Sunwell to summon Kil'Jaeden to Azeroth. The Alliance and Horde lay siege to the Sunwell. Kiling Kael'Thas again and stopping Kil'Jaeden before he can enter Azeroth. Velen purifies the Sunwell by throwing a dead chandelier into it so Blood Elves don't die of withdrawal. This marks the end of the Burning Crusade! In Northrend Malygos gets mad about how much magic people are using and decides "no more magic for anyone". He begins to slurp up all the magic on Azeroth, which angers the Kirin Tor of Dalaran since without magic wizards are just frail nerds. They teleport Dalaran to the skies above Northrend and team up will the other dragon aspects in order to fight Malygos. Varian Wrynn is rescued and returns to Stormwind to take his place as high king of the Alliance. The new-and-improved Lich King Arthas wakes up and decides to conquer Azeroth. He sends infected grain to the capital cities of the Alliance and Horde which kills some citizens but mostly just angers for two factions, who team up and send an expedition to Northrend
to stop the Lich King. They're joined by the Argent crusade, a group of paladin's devoted to stopping the undead. Some of Arthas' death knights rebel and join the Alliance and Horde. The Lich King resurrects Kel'Thuzad again and moves Naxxramas to Northrend in order to fight the Argent Crusade. Kel'Thuzad is killed almost immediately. Also the dragons kill Malygos so he stops eating all the magic and another dragon named Kalecgos replaces him as the aspect. Some of the forsaken betray everyone and release of plague on a bunch of Alliance and Horde soldiers, including Bolvar Fordragon. Alexstrasza tries to save him by setting him on fire with questionable results. Yogg-Saron wakes up inside of Ulduar so the champions of Azeroth kill him before he drives everyone insane. The Argent Crusade hosts a big joust to decide who gets to kill the Lich King. The winners get to storm Icecrown Citadel! It's discovered of that the charred but still-alive Bolvar is being held by Arthas. Led by the Highlord of the Argent Crusade, Tirion Fordring, the best jousters in Azeroth march on Icecrown Citadel and kill the Lich King, shattering Frostmourne in the process. The spirit of King Terenas Menethil is released from Frostmourne and tells Tirion that someone needs to put on the evil hat or the undead will start killing everyone. The walking charcoal briquette that is Bolvar calls dibs and becomes the new Lich King, getting frozen in a block of ice. The war of the Lich King ends. Remember Deathwing? The Old Gods been whispering to him for 10,000 years so he's even crazier than before and he just woke up on the wrong side of a bed and broke out of Deepholm. Blowing up a lot of Azeroth in the process. Now everything is on fire and fantasy Utah got flooded. The king of the dwarves, Magni Bronzebeard, tries to research how to stop Deathwing from blowing up Azeroth and accidentally turns himself into a giant diamond. Now Ironforge doesn't have a king and the three dwarf clans fight over who should lead. They wind up deciding to just make a council. Gilneas gets overrun by a furry convention and the forsaken invade and try to plague them. The Alliance shows up to help but Sylvanas destroys Gilneas anyway. The wolves want revenge so they rejoin the Alliance. A bunch of goblins that live on an island almost die in a storm but Thrall saves them so they join the Horde. The dragon aspects team up to stop Deathwing, but they can't form Captain Planet without the aspect of rocks. So they recruit Thrall because he's good at talking to rocks. This means Thrall has to retire from the Horde. So he appoints Garrosh the new warchief. Deathwing decides he isn't burning things fast enough so he summons Ragnaros (who has legs now). The druids storm into the Firelands to keep Ragnaros from burning down their trees and kill him for real this time! The aspects realize they can't stop Deathwing without using the Dragon Soul. So Nozdormu goes back in time and steals it. Then Thrall blows him up. Using with Dragon Soul to blow up Deathwing used up all the dragon aspects' power so they aren't as powerful anymore. The Cataclysm ends. Garrosh likes war so he decides to start one by blowing up the Alliance city of Theramore. Jaina goes crazy and most of her hair turns white. Anduin is on a boat that gets chased by the Horde and crash lands on an uncharted island called Pandaria, a mystical land inhabited by talking pandas. The Pandaren tell the Alliance and Horde they need to stop fighting or they'll wake up the angry old gods spirit that haunts their land. The two factions proceed to fighting even harder and the old gods start corrupting everything. Anduin asks Garrosh to help him save Pandaria. Garrosh responds by dropping a bell on him. Some of the Horde leaders get upset with Garrosh for declaring war on literally everything so Garrosh declares war on them and forms a cool new Horde! (and the secret ingredient is racism) The rest of the Horde splits off under the troll Vol'jin. Garrosh sees how powerful the Old God spirits are and decides he wants to eat one. He starts researching how and learns that the heart of an Old God is buried in a sacred Pandaren mountain. He digs up the heart and throws it in a lake. Corrupting all of Pandaria. At this point Garrosh has declared war on literally every major faction, all of whom team up and storm Orgrimmar to kill him. Garrosh's Horde is defeated and Garrosh is captured and put on trial for setting the world record for most war crimes, ending Mists of Pandaria. While on trial Garrosh escapes with the help of an evil bronze dragon and goes back in time to Draenor before the first Horde drinks the blood of Mannoroth. Luckily for this video, going back in time creates a little pocket dimension instead of rewriting the entire history of WoW. In this pocket dimension Garrosh tells his dad that drinking the blood will enslave the Horde to the Legion. So they kill Mannoroth, capture Gul'dan, and form a cool new Iron Horde!
(and the secret ingredient is goblin technology) They still decide to invade Azeroth, though. So they build a new Dark Portal and plug Gul'dan into it
like a 9-volt battery. Somehow this allows their portal to hijack into our portal and suddenly the Iron Horde is pouring into present-day Azeroth. The Alliance and Horde team up with Khadgar, the resident expert at closing the Dark Portal and send a strike force called the Iron Vanguard through the portal to turn it off. They do this by unplugging Gul'dan and...
just letting him walk away for some reason. Then since people keep reopening these things we blow up the portal with a cannon. The iron vanguard goes around killing the various warlords of clans. Thrall challenges Garrosh to an honorable orc duel, but then he loses so he just kills him with lightning instead. Without 90% of its leadership the Iron Horde gets absolutely bulldozed, at which point Gul'dan shows up with a cooler of that tasty demon blood and the Iron Horde orcs all join the Legion anyway. Gul'dan summons Archimonde, who's still alive because it turns out that the demons that have been getting killed have to be killed in the twisting nether or their souls just go back to Argus and reform. Also this is the same Archimonde who fought in the Third War because despite this being a pocket dimension, there's only one burning legion somehow. Look WoD is a REALLY confusing expansion. Anyway, the Iron Vanguard teams up with the remains of the uncorrupted Iron Horde because apparently war crimes are okay if other people commit MORE war crimes. They kill Archimonde for real this time, but not before he picks up Gul'dan and throws him into space. The Iron Vanguard declares victory and goes home. Ending the Warlords of Draenor. The Burning Legion sends alternate universe Gul'dan to Azeroth in order to open the Tomb of Sargeras and let the Legion invade, and this time he actually does it! He also steals Illidan's unconscious body from jail to use as a vessel for Sargeras. The Alliance and Horde and team up to stop the Burning Legion once and for all on the Broken Shore and they get absolutely obliterated. Tirion gets melted, Vol'jin is mirked by a random demon, and Varian gets disenchanted by Gul'dan. For reasons unclear to everyone including Vol'jin he decides Sylvanas should be the next warchief and then promptly dies. Anduin is now high king of the Alliance and also kind of hot. Remember at dwarf king who got turned into a rock? He woke up and he can talk to Azeroth now! Also a fat goat turns Ysera crazy so the Champions of Azeroth kill her. Lich King Bolvar wakes up and he starts making death Knights to fight the Legion also he's on our side now! The Legion is still primarily located on the Broken Isles so Khadgar teleports Dalaran there to fight them. The Alliance and Horde free Illidan, who disenchants Gul'dan. The Burning Legion is starting to lose so Kil'Jaeden plans to use the Tomb of Sargeras to make an even bigger portal so the Legion can bring more troops from Argus. But we storm the tomb and kill him first, for real this time! Illidan then opens the portal anyway because he wants to fight more demons. The armies of Azeroth all pile into a spaceship and fly to the planet Argus to kill the Titan Argus. They find Alleria and Turalyon, who are on a space crusade. The gang finds out Sargeras is holding the souls of the Titan Pantheon prisoner and free them. Then they kill Argus which means the demons can't respawn anymore. Meanwhile Sargeras finally has a portal big enough to pass through so he heads to Azeroth to destroy it. The Pantheon stops him and puts him in bad-titan jail, but not before Sargeras impales his sword into Azeroth in a last-ditch effort to kill the world soul. The Legion is defeated and Illidan stays behind to bully Sargeras. Back on Azeroth the Titan world soul is bleeding to death because it has a big sword stuck in it. The blood is good at making bombs so everybody wants it. Sylvanas is angry that an elf was mean to her so she burns down Teldrassil. The Alliance retaliates by storming Lordaeron so Sylvanas blows it up. Anduin captures High Overlord Saurfang, Who feels bad about burning down a tree full of defenseless civilians. The Champions of Azeroth get a fantasy phone call from Magni. Azeroth is going to die unless they cram a lot of her blood into a magic necklace so they started doing that. The Alliance and Horde go to Kul Tiras and Zandalar because they need boats. Saurfang still feels bad about committing genocide so Anduin lets him go. Saurfang rallies the rest of a Horde behind him because they also feel bad about committing genocide. Saurfang and his no-genocide Horde team up with the Alliance and go to Orgrimmar to stop Sylvanas and her pro-genocide Horde. Saurfang decides at the last minute to challenge Sylvanas to an honorable orc-duel instead and Sylvanas agrees. Saurfang is about to win so Sylvanas just insta-kills him, tells the Horde she never liked them anyway, and flies off. Everyone feels bad that the pro-genocide Horde's mom just left so they forgive them for all the genocide immediately and the Fourth War ends. Things are starting to wind down when the Champions of Azeroth accidentally set N'Zoth free because a knife tells them to. Then they kill him with a magic necklace and nothing of consequence changes. Sylvanas flies to Icecrown Citadel, beats up Lich King Bolvar, and steals his hat. Then she breaks it which makes the sky explode and also probably kills Ner'zhul? Now the afterlife is connected to regular-life,
which is bad. So everyone is about to kill themselves in order to beat up the grim reaper. And that's the history a WoW. Thanks for watching! I hope you liked the episode, and I'm glad you're using closed captions on this video because otherwise I spent four hours typing them out for nothing. Also, fun fact, before I went through and fixed the subtitles YouTube's auto detector
wrote Gul'dan as "cool Dan"
Ive been playing wow for 15 years and i even i learned quite a lot in this video.
Namely the start, with the old gods, first and second war.
It now all kinda makes sense.
Khadgar is a pretty shit wizard.
That was a banger !
This was amazing.
Fantasy Utah lmao
Thank you!!! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while
Thought I knew a lot about the lore, but this filled in loads of gaps. Was funny, too. Great work!
Great video!! Totally answered so many questions I’ve had. Thank you!! I love the fast paced but easy to understand details.
The parts that threw me off were the time jumps. I couldn't follow them.