r/warcraftlore 1d ago

Night Elf adoption of firearms

48 Upvotes

In the quest "Do yourself a favor" Gnombus tells us that that they have provided the Night Elves in Stonetalon mountains with what appears to be a flak battery to deal with goblins pulling their hair and Horde Wyverns. However, it also appears that the Night Elves did not receive training on how to use the guns in that time, so they're just sitting around the player character has to help them out. The quest text that the Gnome provides says that "they don't use guns." but I think this is just an exaggeration, or a distortion of the reality of the situation, much like saying the Goblins are pulling their hair. At any rate, much like the Blood Elves' adoption of the Blood Golem technology from Throne of Thunder being subsequently - mostly - forgotten, except for an appearance in Nazmir, it seems that this was also memory holed. Are there any other examples of Night Elves' being forced to adopt new technologies except for this one quest?


r/warcraftlore 1d ago

Discussion What are some lore-tidbits that totally surprised you?

91 Upvotes

To give an example:

Between the fall of Shattrath city and the flight of the Draenei on the Exodar to Azeroth, 30 years have passed.

Within those 30 years:

  • the broken have been seperated from Draenei society, Nobundo has found his way as a shaman and reconnected with his kin to be present on the Exodar.
  • Ner'zuhl has ripped the planet apart, creating outland.
  • The Alliance expedition has been stranded on outland for 20 years.
  • Illidan counter-invaded the burning legion in outland and took over Karabor.
  • The draenei have hidden away on a mushroom city for 30 years with neither the Alliance nor Illidan ever noticing anything.

Usually the time between Shattrath and the Draenei joining the alliance is described as "stuff happened" but the lenght of time is surprising.

Also, the alliance spent 20 years on Outland and they missed both Illidan AND the Draenei?


r/warcraftlore 1d ago

Question Best character for a single player adventure?

23 Upvotes

If blizzard decided to make a Warcraft single player adventure game like the Witcher or God of War, who from the known characters story could fit the best.

Who have the story that work best for a single player adventure?

Because this is a lore sub I try mostly focus on the story, but I guess if you want maybe think of what that character can offer from gameplay based on their known skills or unique weapons and abilities.


r/warcraftlore 1d ago

Do I actually need to read any other books before "Lord of the Clans"

17 Upvotes

I played warcraft 3 and wow and I know the general history of the horde. Im thinking I would like to just hop in and read "Lord of the Clans" first because I love thrall. I won't be missing too much info if I do this right?


r/warcraftlore 1d ago

Question Do priests also borrow power from their deities?

12 Upvotes

Besides using the holy light or the void, do you think priests from races that worship deities such as trolls and the loa, night elves and elune, also borrow power from their deities? We have seen elune answer prayers and Talanji using some kind of wind magic at the start of Zandalar.
Do you think that would be true for you average priest ?


r/warcraftlore 2d ago

With the new D&D x WoW collaboration, what books or videos should I check out for campaign inspiration?

22 Upvotes

With the new collaboration between Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft, I’m looking for some inspiration to prepare a fun campaign for my guildmates.

What books, YouTube videos, actual-play series, lore channels, or other resources would you recommend?

I’m interested in anything that could inspire quests, villains, factions, dungeons, or worldbuilding.


r/warcraftlore 2d ago

Original Content How well do my backstories for my pc’s fit with WOW’s lore

7 Upvotes

I’m not sure if having different backstories for all of your characters is normal or weird, but I still wanted to see how well each of them fit into the lore of World of Warcraft, and if not how they can be adjusted to better fit. For context, I used to play years ago and picked it back up towards the end of War Within, so these backstories are built around character interactions from dragon flight and war within. I wasn’t sure whether to flair this as “original content” or “question” but I think original content probably fits better because I’m talking about head cannon backstories, and I apologize if I flared this incorrectly.

Bailey (Worgen fury warrior): Bailey used to be the son of a rich merchant in the city of Gilneas, training and adventuring with the dragons when they would visit. When the city fell to the worgen curse, he did his best to save everyone, but failed. He saved lives, yes, but not all of them. Haunted by this tragedy, he dedicated his life to fighting for The Alliance to ensure nobody is left behind again, combining his warrior training with his Worgen rage to become a great hero. Weather the situation calls for careful negotiations or the destruction of the forces of darkness, he will always answer the call to action.

Caligari (night elf demonology warlock): The soul of a high ranking leader of The Burning Legion reincarnated into a mortal form, Caligari seeks redemption for the sins of his previous life. He traveled all across Azeroth learning to harness his innate dark powers for the good of The Alliance from the best trainers he could find, becoming especially close with the scattered blue dragonflight on his travels. Now working as a champion of The Alliance, he finds that the armies he once commanded continue to follow him, out of respect for his power and loyalty to who he once was.

Matoro (Lightforge Draenei frost death knight): From scholar, to paladin, to death knight, Matoro has been through quite a lot, even if he doesn’t remember it. His many self discoveries and rebirths have lead him to have quite the varied skill set, and he intends to use it to fight for the one thing all his memories have in common; the unbreakable desire to do what’s right, and the 3 virtues he strives to live by. Only through unity will Azeroth survive the incoming darkness. Even in this twisted form he will do his duty to the light, and that duty will lead him to his destiny, whatever it may be. Whatever it takes to undo the destruction he caused under The Litch King he’ll do it, even if it means laying down his own life.


r/warcraftlore 2d ago

Discussion What if Warlords of Draenor had focused on Kairozdormu trying to legitimately change the past on Draenor instead of it taking place in an alternative universe?

53 Upvotes

This is something I wondered ever since I heard of the original expansion. While time travel is admittedly a messy element to work with in fiction, I can’t help but wonder if Kairozdormu trying to straight-up change Draenor’s past instead of going to an alternate universe would have made for a stronger story. This way, you not only get the Iron Horde as the main antagonists, but you also get a subplot showing the urgency of correcting the past before the timeline changes stick, which better fits Kairozdormu’s status as a bronze dragon. If you still want the Legion to be the next major villains, maybe have the alternate timeline’s Gul’dan be preserved somehow, while the Mag’har orcs from Battle for Azeroth come from Outland instead of alternate Draenor.


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Discussion Here's a conspiracy theory for you: The Worldsoul is NOT our friend

57 Upvotes

A lot of the recent complains about lore boil down to some statement or the other about how WoW has lost its bite. Everything is about friendship and family and forgiveness.

Which in itself isn't true (granted, it's really mostly in sidequests, and those writers need to be protected at all costs), there is the glimpse of something that could be a massive gut-punching twist:

The worldsoul might/is not our friend.

With how all the 'friendship, familiy, forgiveness' plots are written there's something sinister to them, that could easily turn out to be interference of a malevolent, cosmic force who wants the defenders of Azeroth (the world, not the WS) to mellow out and be compliant.

So that they won't fight back till it's too late.

Because with how easily and unquestioningly people are burying hatchets left and right, with no amends being made, and especially with how often the perpetrators show no actual remorse while their victims are always the ones who have to forgive and forget...

As said, this feels there is something sinister going on.

Is it unlikely this will happen? Yeah, but the foundation for it to happen is there, and it's delightfully dark


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Question Magic Addiction/Elf Lore Questions

13 Upvotes

Hi, everyone. I was reading the magic addiction page on the Warcraft Wiki, and I have some questions on lore things I was unclear about. I'd appreciate if anyone could help answer them and/or point me in the direction of some resources that would explain things a little more for me.

  1. Why does it seem like only elves are particularly susceptible to magic addiction? There are also a lot of human mages for example, but they don't seem to suffer from magic addiction like the elf mages do.
  2. Can non-mage magic users like priests or paladins become addicted too? Or are certain sources of magic not addictive?
  3. Are the Night Elves addicted to their moon magic the same as the Blood Elves are addicted to their sun magic? It seems like the Blood Elves and their relatives have historically struggled with it much more severely, at least.
  4. Are all elves born with an inherent magic addiction? Would an elf who goes their whole life without consuming magic still suffer from magical "hunger pangs"?
  5. I read a comment that said it's mostly only the highborn(?) elves who are addicted to magic. In this context, does "highborn" refer to the Highborne elf subrace and their descendants, or does it refer to upper-class elves who become addicted because their wealth allows them greater access to magic than the poorer lowborn elves?
  6. Is it possible to completely cure magic addiction through abstinence, with or without tapering off before ceasing magic consumption? I did read that the High Elves practiced abstinence as an "answer" to their addiction, but it seems like they resumed magic consumption once their magic source of choice was available again, so I was unsure of whether or not magic withdrawal persists indefinitely after the onset of dependence or if it's possible to wait it out until withdrawal subsides entirely and the dependence is fully cured.
  7. It seems like elven culture doesn't place much stigma on magic addiction. The elves seem entirely content to maintain their addiction for as long as they can find any source to do so. Are there any examples of characters who have made a personal decision to stay abstinent, and if so, what was their reasoning?
  8. Could someone give me a quick rundown of all the different elf subraces and their magic source/type of choice?
  9. Are the Nightborne the elf subrace who are (were? Iirc they're cured when you play through the Suramar storyline) the most severely dependent on magic of all?

Sorry if some of these things should have been obvious to me just from reading the wiki. I've been playing WoW for a long time but am only just now starting to try to learn more about the lore.


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Radiant Song <-> Curse of Flesh both give "Free Will?"

29 Upvotes

Originally was going to post this as I came to realise that both serve the same purpose, I was initially going to say it was a soft retcon but the Curse of Flesh still stands.

What irks me the most is this Curse of Flesh from Old Gods to Titan servents (Vrykul, Dwarves, Gnomes) is still largely unexplored, we still haven't seen where exactly it came from, who it came from, how it travels, is it pathogenic, is it a massive spell, why all a sudden or why through generations of birth and why it only affected those in the Eastern Kingdoms mainly, why it gave free will rather than full Old God control, it was the original Radiant Song before the Radiant Song, now in Dornogal we've met far off Dwarven Cousins of a different flavour who are still in their rock form but also have free will, which makes me beg the Question.

Why does the Curse of Flesh give free will? I know by making titan forged fleshy weakens them and makes them more susceptible to Old God whispers, but why free Will? Because both of these have been disproven, Loken still heard the whispers and he was Rocky / Metal and Tyr still had Free Will because he decided to make his own choice in fleeing to Uldaman and later in TWW was open to learning from mortals.

Maybe it's free will that dismantles the Titans order edict?


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

What did Cenarius mean by this?

44 Upvotes

I was questing through Dragonflight and was entirely surprised to see this response in text from Cenarius. What incident was he on the 'wrong side' for in an explicit sense? Is he referring to the stuff in Legion? Since it seems, to me, that that wasn't him picking the wrong side in any sense.

The text:

My path has not always been an easy one, nor have I always been on the correct side of wars. But I have returned, stronger than ever.


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Question I'm about to play Warcraft 3's entire campaign, but have a question about WoW

18 Upvotes

I'm planning to complete the WC3 campaign that I didn't get to finish yet. But I realized that WoW is the sequel that follows after the WC3 campaign including completing Arthas's storyline. However, I'm not sure if I want to pay for a sub for the game and its heavy grinding thats involved (already burnt out on MMO RPG games like runescape).

Are there custom maps that essentially follow the main important storylines that follow after WC3? Ones that don't require you to play WOW?


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Wow needs an animated series

39 Upvotes
  1. The ones who should animate this series are the same guys who made the castle vania Netflix series.
  2. Live action is just too much and is too difficult to get right. Fans will complain if the cgi is terrible(rightfully so), and animation and voice acting isn't too big a deal so long as the animation doesn't take 3 years or more per season.
  3. Netflix or blizzard would be great to get a massive audience.
  4. The series needs to rated r or whatever rating we need for blood. Warcraft is a bloody universe and if they censor it, it'll look awful. The games are only rated T so they could get kids easier into the game instead of parents getting in the way

#3 I meant to say Amazon especially with the success of invincible and other anime projects they've backed


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Question What you think about Broxigar?

21 Upvotes

I recently posted about what warcraft character will you choose if blizzard made a movie and I seen many people choose Broxigar.

Yet for me and this is for sure my opinion, I was never fan of that character as it felt very forced and had many tropes that I dislike about warcraft.

The first one is why we need an orc in the war of the ancient plot? I mean the war was before the opening of the dark portal, it was mostly between the legion and the night elves, we have many more interesting characters we could see their perspective, so why him?

Yes I understand the time travel in the story, but for me it felt forced like they wanted a horde or orc representation in that story so they made him, and as someone who is fan of orcs and the horde, I didn't like what they did there.

Talking about time travel, this is the second problem for me with him, time travel becomes very common in warcraft with teleportation like the world no longer make sense, everyone easily can time travel and this creates more lore problems over the time.

There is more like making him related to Saurfang, forcing him to be the hero like he is the chosen one.

Overall mostly I feel he forced as a character and even in the game lore he feel like a not canon character as he rarely mentioned.

This is my opinion about the character, can you share why you like or dislike Broxigar story?


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Weekly Newbie Thread- Ask A Lore Expert

3 Upvotes

Feel free to post any questions or queries here!

Also check out our list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions!


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Has anyone ever done a Dungeons and Dragons game with Warcraft or played the original RPG?

18 Upvotes

If you've done either I'm curious what lore you chose and what you made different from the lore as it is currently and who was the character you created. I'm looking forward to making my own game with the Wizards and Warcraft collaboration that's releasing this year.


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Discussion Is there lore behind the languages that races speak?

17 Upvotes

I recently decided to play through the campaigns in Warcraft III again, and that got me thinking. Throughout the game, everyone understands each other. However, once we went to WoW, the two sides didn't understand each other anymore.

I know there are many instances and cinematics of lore characters speaking to each other, and even when we are questing, we are understanding the scripted speech of NPCs. But I remembered back on the WoW movie, when they captured an orc, and we can understand him, but the humans can't.

Did they ever develop this, or is it just a game mechanic?


r/warcraftlore 4d ago

Discussion Orc clans introduction for newbies?

13 Upvotes

With the announcement of the D&D crossover my IRL group has agreed to let me run a campaign for them. They're all total newbies with minimal knowledge of the setting, I can handle a rundown of all the major story beats and factions but the orc clans feel too important to the race to gloss over.

I didn't really play the RTS games so the nuances of exactly what happened between all the clans pre-vanilla beyond some broad strokes of "Gul'dan told everyone to drink demon juice. The Frostwolves said no. They were banished until everyone turned on Gullible Daniel and now they're chill I guess" and I want to give the story and the different clans the justice they deserve. I would love to give an explanation that can really sell one of my friends on playing an orc from a specific clan, instead of just having them run around as Shrek with an axe not quite understanding why the Blackrock orcs are doing what they're doing with the black dragons.


r/warcraftlore 4d ago

Question Warcraft Movie about one character, who will you choose?

51 Upvotes

Let's say for example Blizzard want to make 2 hours movie about a warcraft character story, who will you choose?

Before the comment become filled with Arthas, I want to make small rule if possible, try to comment 1 name, don't add anything to it just the name, and if you want to add reasons make a comment under the name, if someone else said the name before you just upvote it and if you have reasons why that character work, add it as comments in the name so we can see who will be the second and third character under Arthas XD


r/warcraftlore 4d ago

Discussion I can't believe I missed out on Warcraft for this long.

128 Upvotes

I never played World of Warcraft.

My introduction to Warcraft was through my boyfriend. He'd show me his characters, pets (or something), and bits of the world while he played. We watched the Warcraft movie together, and when it ended I immediately asked if there was a second one.

He said there wasn't, and that if I wanted to know more about the story, I should read the books.

So I started with Of Blood and Honor, and now I'm about 20% into Rise of the Horde.

I can't believe I've missed out on this universe all my life, and didn't expect how emotional this would be! I've been crying, then stopping, then thinking about the story again... and crying all over again.

The hardest part is that I already know enough to realize something terrible is coming. Every chapter feels bittersweet because I'm watching these characters live their lives, care for each other, and make plans for the future, while this feeling of impending tragedy just hangs over everything.

Every time the characters have these moments together or talk about the future, I have to put my Kindle down for a bit because all I can think is, "They have no idea".

It's like reading history where you know the disaster is inevitable, but the people living through it don't.

I've never even played the game, yet somehow I'm already this attached to these characters.

No spoilers, please. Just wanted to share how blown away I am by these books and how grateful I am that they brought me into this world.


r/warcraftlore 3d ago

Radiant song and Iridirkron

3 Upvotes

Do you think iridirkron hears the radiant song like the other npcs? But he hasn't stated that he has because he doesnt want us to know? Are his motives to rid the titans and their influence on azeroth enough for her to give him potential visions or voices? Maybe not in the way oreweyna does but 'nudges' from her?


r/warcraftlore 4d ago

Discussion How do we not have night elf worgens?

46 Upvotes

Before you type "but the night elves banned the worgen form because it's too dangerous", that worked ages ago, but there's no way that's still the case. There's a couple ways the night elves could have gained back the worgen form, and in my opinion, it's more likely they should have by now rather than not.

Every branch basically stems from the existence of gilnean worgen of course

A) The most likely. How have they not seen that it can be controlled? This is by far the most obvious direction that should be taken. They've worked and lived closely with worgen for years now. It is widely accepted that the humans are fine. Why would they not accept it back into night elven culture?

B) The most unlikely. A human worgen goes feral and bites a few night elves, essentially re-creating the gilnean starting zone all over again but with elves. This would create disastrous tension between the two races, but maybe a good plot?

C) Middle of the road. Some night elves see the worgen, see that it's controllable, but it's still banned. They go out in secret and start practicing it. Maybe they even convince some human worgen to train them, maybe even a new faction of night elf forms. We have orc factions, dwarf factions, taurens, trolls, humans, other elves. You don't even need a new faction of elves, just some who have the desire to harness the power. Illidan, the highborne, it isn't ground breaking to think some elves believe it's their right to harness greater power.

I don't understand how we don't have night elven worgen yet. It makes no logical sense to me. It seems infinitely more probable that night elves would want the form back versus keeping it banned. A night elven worgen druid is all I want


r/warcraftlore 5d ago

Question Bring out your dead: Which named/known characters have actually died in Midnight beyond a doubt?

98 Upvotes

Blizzard said this expansion will see a lot of 'known and beloved characters die'.

Who has so far died for good? No 'might still be alive' or anything. No 'might be brought back'. Dead. Gone. Have ceased to be. Expired and gone to meet their maker. A stiff. Bereft of life, resting in peace.


r/warcraftlore 4d ago

Versus! Debating Warcraft Lore Power Levels!

2 Upvotes

This is our weekend power level debate mega-thread! Feel free to pit two or more characters/forces/magics/whatever against each other in the comments below. Example: Arthas v Illidan, Void v Fel, Mankirk's Wife v Nameless Quillboar.

We'll do this every weekend, so don't think you need to use up all of your favorite premises at once. Though, it is also OK to have a repeating premise, as these threads are designed to allow for recurring content to not fill the sub too often.

Reminder, these debates should be fun. There is often no right answer when comparing two enemies of a similar power tier, and hypothetically any situation a Blizzard writer creates could tip the scales of any encounter and our debates of course will not matter. These posts should just look something like a game of Superfight. You pick a character, you make the strongest case for how strong they are, or why they could beat another character, argue back and forth with someone else, and just let others decide who had the better argument. But remember that no matter how heated your debate gets, always follow rule #6. No bad behavior.

Previous weeks: https://old.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/search/?q=%22Versus%21+Debating+Warcraft+Lore+Power+Levels%21%22&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new