Know Your Lore

Warlords of Draenor plays with time and space in ways that aren't as obvious as the initial step through the Dark Portal. One of these includes the means by which we recruit Archmage Vargoth to be our follower. One of the strangest is the Cowled Ranger, because while she appears to be a simple night elf on a mission, things get complicated once she reveals what that mission is - the Cowled Ranger is attempting to answer a question players have asked since The Burning Crusade came out.

This is the story of an orc whose life played full circle, ending where it began -- before it began actually, in an odd twist of fate, time and a little bronze magic. It plays in counterpoint to the tale of Emperor Shaohao, who hid away his kingdom, so confident and prideful in himself and his people's abilities that he was certain they would thrive in abject isolation from the rest of the world. The orc, on the other hand, came from an absence of pride into a sudden and overwhelming abundance of it... and it slowly ate him alive.

Despite the presence of Uldyssian and his followers, it was merely a chapter, a small one in a saga that links us from the creation of the world of Sanctuary to the present day. One cannot discuss the Sin War without discussing nephalem, for in a way, the nephalem are far more important to the cosmos than Sanctuary, Inarius or Lilith. More important than the Archangels or Prime Evils.

So far, we seem to be taking part in a weirdly cyclical version of history, where things happen out of place and out of order from the timeline we know. But there's an undercurrent of familiarity, as if time was attempting to reassert itself.

Warlords of Draenor ushered our characters back to the world of Draenor -- a slightly altered, different version of Draenor, but Draenor nonetheless.

Because I promised you some Diablo Know Your Lores, today we're looking at the origins of the world of Sanctuary, the mortal realm that has seen the machinations of the Prime Evils as well as near-extinction at the hands of Malthael, the former Archangel of Wisdom and current Angel of Death.

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