All of the new dungeons and raids in World of Warcraft: The War Within

No World of Warcraft expansion is complete without a variety of dungeons and raids to kick things off with a bang, and The War Within certainly provides. Right off the bat, The War Within has eight new dungeons and a brand new raid available for players. Additionally, we’ll be seeing the continuation of follower dungeons — a feature introduced in Dragonflight — right away in patch 11.0, which also enables Blizzard to weave dungeons directly into the storyline of each zone, rather than saving them to be a sort of an optional capstone on a zone quest. (Of course, you’re also free to do dungeons with other people, as usual!)

Here’s a rundown of all of the dungeons and raids coming to WoW in The War Within.

Leveling dungeons in The War Within

There appears to be one level-up dungeon in each zone:

• The Rookery is the first available dungeon, where the Earthen hatch and raise their gryphons, and it features enemies I’m sure we’ll get to know in the first zone, the Skardyn. These appear to be void-infused Earthen, although in the novels they were a cursed offshoot of the Dark Iron Dwarves. Maybe, like so many of WoW’s earth-aligned figures, these folks have spent too long listening to mysterious whispers from the deep.
• The Stonevault, in the Ringing Deeps, is a dungeon we don’t know a lot about yet, but the Dungeon Journal mentions more Skardyn being repelled by a machine — although it seems like they’re defending it from us too.
• The Priory of the Sacred Flame in Hallowfall is another one we don’t know much about, but between the Light-empowered defenders and the general zeal of the Arathi, it’s giving big Scarlet Crusade vibes.
• City of Threads is in the Nerubian-dominated zone of Azj-Kahet, and you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be swarming with Nerubians — or, if you flip on arachnophobia mode, crab people.

Dungeons available at level 80 in The War Within

Much like how there’s one level-up dungeon per zone in The War Within, there also appears to be one max-level dungeon per zone:

• Cinderbrew Meadery is presumably in the city of Dornagal, and I have two words for its contents: fire bees. Also, the second boss is a living IPA — shades of Stormstout Brewery.
• Darkflame Cleft is in the Ringing Deeps, and it turns out that, after all these years, we’re still trying to take candle: this dungeon features kobolds and their leader, the Candle King.
• The Dawnbreaker is our Hallowfall max-level dungeon, and once again, I have two words to describe it: airship dungeon!
• Ara-Kara, the City of Echoes (formerly known merely as “Old City”), is down in the deeps in Azj-Kahet, and I bet you can guess who lives there. That’s right: it’s spiders. These Nerubians seems a little more…. void-y than usual.

The War Within’s first raid: Nerub’ar Palace

Finally, Nerub’ar is home to the biggest bad of the first patch, the Nerubian queen herself: Queen Ansurek. She’s allied with the big baddie of 11.0, Xal’atath, and you know we can’t let that stand — so we have to take down the paranoid spider queen and her legion of foes in a dungeon that has been repeatedly described as “vertical” in Blizzard interviews. Expect a lot of stairs, or maybe an elevator that kills you.

These are the bosses in Nerub’ar Palace:

• Ulgrax the Devourer, driven mad by his endless hunger, is the protector of the Queen’s court and the first boss of the raid.
• The Bloodbound Horror, coagulated from the blood of the Old Gods in the pits below the palace, attempts to pull everything in its path into The Unseeming. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds bad.
• Sikran, Captain of the Sureki, is a Nerubian noble and an arrogant duelist who has never known defeat. Luckily, we’re pretty good at fixing that by now.
• Eggtender Ovi’nax is a gross worm thing, experimenting with Nerubian eggs by regurgitating the Black Blood of the Old Gods onto them. Blech.
• Nexus-Princess Ky’veza is a new arrival to Nerub’ar Palace, establishing herself as the Queen’s confidante and definitely harboring no secrets or ill intent at all. Just ignore the fact that she has abilities with names like “Queensbane” and “Regicide.” Wait, why isn’t she on our side?
• The Silken Court includes two more of Queen Ansurek’s most trusted advisors — Scarab Lord Anub’arash and Skeinspinner Takasj — but they hate each other almost as much as they hate us. It sounds like they’ll be fighting us and each other, for an interesting twist on a council-style fight.
• Queen Ansurek herself waits at the end, and after uncovering traitors in her palace she’s naturally paranoid — and in her hurry to eradicate us herself, she may tap into dark powers beyond her control.