Lore

Looking to learn more about the dwarven king who inspired Hearthstone's new hero portrait? Read up the history of Magni Bronzebeard here.

What does Wrathion want with Draenor, why is he there to begin with, and why did he ally with Kairoz and help Garrosh Hellscream escape? I think the answer to that question may very well have been staring us in the face all along, and it's been staring us in the face since the end of Mists of Pandaria.

The fallen Titan unleashed the Burning Legion and sent them across infinity, devouring worlds like cosmic locusts, rendering them lifeless. A nearly unstoppable army of demons under his banner finds worlds and unmakes them, and so far only one planet has held out against the onslaught of Sargeras and his Burning Legion. But who is Sargeras? What motivates this being? What drives him to seek the unmaking of the entire universe?

In a little over a year, we're going to see a third iteration of Orgrim Doomhammer in the Warcraft movie. Maybe not exactly the orc we know from history, but another representation. Which leads most people to ask a natural question: Is Orgrim Doomhammer a good guy, or a bad guy? The most truthful answer I can give you is "Yes."

One of the things I've loved this expansion is playing a draenei in it. Getting to see what Draenor looked like before the orcs committed genocide on the draenei has been awesome, and the draenei story in Shadowmoon Valley and Talador (including Auchindoun) was one of my favorite parts of any expansion. In fact, some of my disappointment with the game's max level content has been a lack of continuation of that very story. We got to see Yrel become an Exarch, and that I was happy about, but aside from that I've really felt like we've missed out. I wanted a raid where I helped the Sha'tar retake Shattrath, for example. I wanted to get to see what's going on up at Farahlon. I'm hopeful we'll still get to see this stuff, because for me all the quality story beats in Warlords of Draenor have been the draenei

What I really enjoyed about Welcome to the Machine is that for a moment it took you out of that role of adventuring hero, and put you in the NPC position. It was an amazing, wonderful, weird quest, and I still consider it one of the highlights of the Cataclysm expansion. As much as I love the quest, though, I didn't really want an entire expansion of it.

From this whirling nightmare, this bloated ruin of the first evil's corpse crawled the demons. The Burning Hells could in a real sense be said to be the blackened corpse of Tathemet itself, and at the center of the Hells lies the Black Abyss, from which rose the Great Evils. Essentially birthed from the seven heads of Tathemet, there were the three Primes -- Mephisto, Baal and Diablo -- and the four Lessers.

What was Kairoz looking for?

The barbarians of Sanctuary are called this by those who do not understand them or their ancient culture, which was a casualty of the schemes of Baal and the actions of Tyrael. In destroying the Worldstone, they destroyed Mount Arreat and with it the very vigil that the barbarians maintained for countless eons.

You know, we spend a lot of time talking about the various Warlords of Draenor as they're presented in the latest expansion's version of history. Lords of War was supposedly Maraad's tales of these old warlords, but the stories were pretty specific. And in some cases -- like Kilrogg's vision of his death -- they seemed like a direct reference to the alternate version of Draenor's warlords, rather than our own.