To Azeroth and Beyond!

The Light (also known as the Holy Light, Holy Light of Creation, and light of Creation) is a mysterious and benevolent force in the universe. Residing in every living being, in every heart and soul, this positive energy is everywhere, binding all sentient beings together as one. Along with the Void, the Light is one of the two most fundamental forces in the universe, and one cannot exist without the other.

The Light is the source of all life in the cosmos. Pure Light dwells in a realm outside the borders of reality, but can manifest in the physical universe as holy magic.

Summoned by willpower or faith in the ability to do so, the Light can be harnessed to heal, cleanse, and protect. Most of its practitioners are either priests or paladins, devoted to cleansing the universe of darkness.

Learning to wield this healing force takes years of discipline. The Naaru, enigmatic beings composed of pure energy, taught the use of the Light to the Draenei race, but other races have come into the study and practice of Light-based magic of their own accord.

Hello all and happy holidays where ever you might be!

I don't mean to spam up your beautiful dashes with my nonsense, so I will make this short and sweet.

I would like to continue doing collages. In fact, I will probably work on collages for Alliance-side races today.  HOWEVER, I'm a little stumped. You see, I wish for every piece that I do to be unique to that particular race.  BUT, there are many parallels between some of the alliance and horde races - especially between gnomes and goblins.  I've already worked on the goblin collage, and now I am out of ideas for the gnomes.  

SUCH a tragedy, I know! That is why I need your help!

I ask that, if you see an image that reminds you of your gnome/gnome friends, you submit it to me, tag me in the image, etc. 

It would be immensely appreciated!

Happy Holidays! 

The savage trolls of Azeroth are infamous for their cruelty, dark mysticism, and seething hatred for all other races. Yet one exception among the trolls is the Darkspear tribe and its cunning leader, Vol’jin. Plagued by a history of subservience and exile, this proud tribe was on the brink of extinction when Warchief Thrall and his mighty Horde forces were driven to the trolls’ remote island home in the South Seas during a violent storm.

Led at that time by Vol’jin’s wise father, Sen’jin, the Darkspears abandoned their prejudices and worked together with Thrall’s orcs to defeat a group of humans encroaching on the jungle isle. With unparalleled bravery, the trolls fought side by side with the Horde to secure victory, but tragedy befell the Darkspears soon afterward. Intent on appeasing a mysterious sea witch, a frenzied band of murlocs captured the isle’s defenders. Although a number of the imprisoned orcs and trolls managed to escape, the noble Sen’jin was slain by his captors.

In Sen’jin’s honor, Thrall welcomed the Darkspears into the Horde and offered them sanctuary in a new kingdom that he planned to create across the Great Sea. The trolls accepted Thrall’s offer, and Vol’jin eventually led his tribe to the vibrant jungles of the Echo Isles located just off the rugged coastline of Durotar.

Not long after they settled on their new home, the Darkspears suffered a terrible betrayal from within. Driven to insanity by the dark powers under his control, the witch doctor Zalazane began enslaving his fellow tribespeople and amassing an army of mindless trolls. For a time, Vol’jin and other uncorrupted Darkspears fled to Durotar’s coast and established Sen’jin Village. From this crude settlement, the trolls struck at Zalazane’s forces, hoping to win back their home at any cost. The Darkspears’ efforts, however, failed to drive Zalazane from the Echo Isles.

Following the victory against the Lich King in the frozen continent of Northrend, Vol’jin renewed his bid to defeat Zalazane and launched a brilliant assault on the isles. With the help of the tribe’s ancestral loa, the courageous Darkspears killed the maddened witch doctor and seized their embattled home.

Of late, political changes within the Horde have sparked fears among the Darkspear tribe regarding its future. Vol’jin’s close ally Thrall recently named Garrosh Hellscream temporary Horde warchief. Thus far, the brash young orc has put the Darkspear leader and his tribe on edge, causing many trolls to leave the Horde capital, Orgrimmar. Although spirits are high among the Darkspears after Zalazane’s fall, tension lingers concerning what place the trolls will have in Garrosh’s Horde.

The peaceful tauren—known in their own tongue as the shu’halo—have long dwelled in Kalimdor, striving to preserve the balance of nature at the behest of their goddess, the Earth Mother. Until recently, the tauren lived as nomads scattered throughout the Barrens, hunting the great kodo beasts native to the arid region.

Although split into different tribes, the tauren were united by a common enemy: the marauding centaur. These primitive horse-men terrorized central Kalimdor, leaving only death and suffering in their wake. Although the tauren tribes struggled valiantly for survival against their foes, the relentless centaur attacks continued. Over time, the centaur wiped out the area’s wild game, threatening starvation for the beleaguered tauren. During the Third War, the mighty chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof had a chance encounter with the orcish Horde that would alter the destiny of the tauren forever. After befriending Warchief Thrall, Cairne and his Bloodhoof tribe were able to fend off the centaur as they journeyed to the fertile lands of Mulgore. Owing a blood-debt to the orcs for their assistance, the tauren joined Thrall on Mount Hyjal to defend Kalimdor from an invasion by the demonic Burning Legion.

Following the Legion’s defeat, the tauren who helped defend Hyjal returned to their new home in Mulgore. Ruling from the majestic capital of Thunder Bluff, Cairne welcomed tauren of every tribe to this secure refuge. Many tauren who traveled to the capital were content with Cairne’s vision of a peaceful and harmonious future, but at least one tribe felt otherwise. The stern Grimtotem tribe looked upon Kalimdor’s other races as inferior and believed that its matriarch, Magatha, was the only one fit to rule the tauren. Although Magatha constantly disagreed with Cairne over the direction of their nation, the elder crone nonetheless coexisted alongside him in Thunder Bluff without major incident. The Grimtotem tribe did not, however, join the Horde along with Cairne and the tauren under his rule.

For years the tauren flourished throughout Mulgore, but tragedy befell the noble race following the campaign against the Lich King in Northrend. Believing that the reckless new warchief, Garrosh Hellscream, would lead the Horde to ruin, Cairne challenged the young upstart to a duel. The tauren high chieftain fought with a ferocity that belied his age, but an act of betrayal had sealed his fate before the battle had even begun. Unbeknownst to either of the duel’s combatants, Magatha had poisoned Garrosh’s blade. After Cairne was wounded by the tainted weapon during combat, he was immobilized by the poison, and Garrosh was able to slay him.

Following the high chieftain’s death, Magatha’s Grimtotem agents stormed Thunder Bluff and seized the tauren capital as their own. They had also hoped to murder Cairne’s son, Baine, but the young tauren managed to elude his would-be assassins. After formulating a strategy to exact retribution upon Magatha, Baine launched a counterattack and wrested Thunder Bluff from the hands of the treacherous matriarch. Ultimately, rather than spill further blood, Baine banished Magatha and all other Grimtotem who still supported her from tauren lands.

Despite the deadly encounter between Cairne and Garrosh, the tauren have not abandoned their place in the Horde. While many chaotic events have transpired in recent months, Baine has bravely taken up the mantle of tauren leadership and is now focused on ruling just as his wise and benevolent father would have.

Couched in myth and legend, rarely seen and even more rarely understood, the enigmatic pandaren have long been a mystery to the other races of Azeroth. The noble history of the pandaren people stretches back thousands of years, well before the empires of man and before even the sundering of the world.

Denizens of a wondrous and fertile land, the pandaren once labored under the oppressive thumb of a monstrous race of ancient warlords known as the mogu. Through tenacity, diplomacy, and a unique form of unarmed combat, the pandaren staged a successful revolution that deposed the mogu and established a pandaren empire that would prosper for thousands of years.

Honorable and filled with a love of good company, good food -- and every now and then, a good friendly brawl -- the pandaren have been content to live in seclusion, allowing their culture to flourish and thrive away from the influence of the outside world. However, every now and then, a pandaren is born with a thirst for adventure that rivals his or her thirst for a strong drink, and he or she strikes out to explore beyond Pandaria’s shores. One of the most famous such wanderers was the brewmaster Chen Stormstout, who set out looking for exotic ingredients for his special ale and wound up an integral part of the founding of the Horde.

During the bleak days that preceded the sundering of the world, when demons flooded onto Azeroth and threw the entirety of the mortal realm into jeopardy, the last Emperor of the pandaren discovered a way to protect his land from the devastation. His deal with fate shrouded his land within an impenetrable mist for ten thousand years, but the nature of his transaction has left Pandaria haunted ever since.

Unlike the other races of the Horde, orcs are not native to Azeroth. Initially, they lived as shamanic clans on the lush world of Draenor. They abandoned their peaceful culture when Kil’jaeden, a demon lord of the Burning Legion, corrupted the orcs and used them in his vengeful plot against the draenei, who were exiles from Kil’jaeden’s homeworld.

Because of the demons’ manipulation, most of the orc chieftains drank the blood of a Burning Legion pit lord, Mannoroth the Destructor. This act infused the orcs with power, but at a great price: they were now enslaved to the Legion. Constant exposure to fel energies turned the orcs’ naturally brown skin to a sickly green, and the orcs’ usage of fel magic caused their ancestral lands to wither and die.

As Kil’jaeden had planned, the orcs succeeded in killing most of the draenei population. Now Kil’jaeden was ready to test the orcs’ effectiveness against another old enemy. Thousands of years before, the demons had launched an invasion of Azeroth that had ultimately failed, but this time the orcs could fight in the Legion’s stead. To that end, the corrupted human archmage Medivh contacted the orc warlock Gul’dan. Together they constructed the Dark Portal, which allowed the orcs to travel to Azeroth.

After their arrival, the orcs crushed the unsuspecting human kingdom of Stormwind. The mighty orc armies, known as the Horde, then pressed north through the Eastern Kingdoms, and their victory was nearly assured for a time. Eventually, however, internal conflicts resulted in the orcs’ defeat, and those who did not die in battle were rounded up and placed in internment camps. But a young slave named Thrall managed to escape from captivity and join a liberation force consisting of Warchief Orgrim Doomhammer and other free orcs. When Doomhammer fell in combat, Thrall became the new warchief of the Horde and the inheritor of Doomhammer’s namesake weapon.

Thrall and his people later journeyed across the sea to the distant continent of Kalimdor. Within the forests of Ashenvale, the warchief and his mentor, Grommash Hellscream, confronted Mannoroth. In the end, Grom gave his life to kill the pit lord and remove the blood-curse from the orcs forever. A new chapter began for the orcs: war was no longer the driving focus of their culture, and they settled the land along Kalimdor’s eastern coastline, which Thrall named Durotar.

Years later, the warchief and many others returned to the remnants of Draenor, now known as Outland, to prevent another attack from the Burning Legion. There Thrall met Garrosh, son of Grom Hellscream, and convinced him to join the Horde and return to Azeroth as an advisor. Garrosh was a leading commander during the battles against the Lich King in Northrend, and also gained popularity for his fiery personality.

In addition to his commitments as leader of the Horde, Thrall was a dedicated shaman with close ties to the elements. When he noticed severe disturbances in the elemental spirits, Thrall knew that he had to step down as warchief in order to investigate the situation lest all of Azeroth fall into chaos. Given his options, Thrall believed that Garrosh was the clear choice for warchief. But the impulsive young Hellscream is much more aggressive than his diplomatic predecessor. With the equally tempestuous King Varian Wrynn back on the throne of Stormwind, it seems likely that the orcs will need their famed strength now more than ever.

Originally the slaves of jungle trolls on the Isle of Kezan, goblins were forced to mine kaja’mite ore out of the volcanic bowels of Mount Kajaro. The trolls used this potent mineral for their voodoo rituals, but it had an unexpected effect on the slaves who were in constant contact with it: kaja’mite generated a startling new cunning and intelligence in the goblin race.

Crafting powerful artifacts of engineering and alchemy in secret, the goblins soon overthrew their oppressors and claimed Kezan for their homeland. The mines that had once been the goblins’ prison, their slave camp, and the base of their rebellion now became the city of Undermine. Weaving through the heart of the island in a dizzying network of tunnels, vaults, and lava tubes, Undermine epitomized the goblins’ complex, unpredictable mindset. It was there that they built the foundations of an empire, and the natural elements of craftiness (some would call it duplicity) inherent to the race were honed to a razor edge. The goblins’ inventions would help them rule the world—or at least own a profitable percentage of it.

To the goblins’ great dismay, the effects of the kaja’mite began to wear off, and their intelligence waned. Even worse, the ore itself became harder and harder to find. Supplies dwindled. Desperation ensued. The goblins’ once-brilliant inventions started to look haphazard and makeshift (a look that has become synonymous with the term “goblin-made”), and Kezan’s native swindlers soon realized that they would need to find other ways to supplement their avarice.

The goblins’ remaining craftiness (coupled with undiminished natural greed) soon lifted the race to preeminence as masters of mercantilism. Prominent trade princes rose to power during the First War as the cleverest goblins took advantage of the strife. Great fortunes were amassed, and the Isle of Kezan became a hub for fleets of goblin trading ships. One of the more ambitious trade princes agreed to lend his cartel’s services to the Horde in the Second War. Following the Horde’s defeat, the goblins learned from that trade prince’s failed example, realizing that their profits could double if they weren’t stuck in a restrictive relationship. By the end of the Third War, goblins were providing weaponry, vehicles, and devious services to both the Horde and the Alliance. But the gravy train wouldn’t last forever…

Recently, the Bilgewater Cartel—the goblin faction centered in Kezan—has found a new enemy in the Alliance. Unexpected and unprofitable encounters with the secretive SI:7 branch of King Varian’s forces have driven Trade Prince Gallywix from his comfortable neutrality. Reforging old pacts with their colleagues’ one-time allies, the goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel have been welcomed into the Horde with open arms.

Death offered no escape for the scores of humans killed during the Lich King’s campaign to scour the living from Lordaeron. Instead, the kingdom’s fallen were risen into undeath as Scourge minions and forced to wage an unholy war against everything… and everyone… that they once held dear.

When the Lich King’s grasp on his vast armies faltered after the Third War, a contingent of undead broke free of their master’s iron will. Although this freedom seemed to be a blessing at first, these former humans were soon tormented by memories of the unspeakable horrors that they had committed as mindless Scourge agents. Those who did not descend into madness were faced with a chilling realization: the entirety of Azeroth sought their destruction.

In their darkest hour, the renegade undead were rallied together by the former ranger-general of Quel’Thalas, Sylvanas Windrunner. Defeated during an attack on her kingdom and transformed into a powerful Scourge banshee, Sylvanas had also regained her freedom from the Lich King. Under their new queen’s guidance, the independent undead – known as Forsaken – established the Undercity beneath the ruins of Lordaeron’s capital. While some Forsaken feared Sylvanas, others valued the security she provided. Many of the free-willed undead, however, found a purpose to their cursed existence through the banshee queen’s burning desire to destroy the Lich King.

Despite not being affiliated with the Scourge, the Forsaken came under threat from humans who were dedicated to eradicating all Forsaken. As a means to further her own goals and protect her budding nation, Sylvanas sent emissaries to various factions in search of allies. The kind-hearted tauren of Thunder Bluff proved to be the most promising contact. Specifically, Archdruid Hamuul Runetotem saw the potential for redemption in Sylvanas’ people, even though he was fully aware of the Forsaken’s sinister nature. Thus, the tauren convinced Warchief Thrall, despite his misgivings, to forge an alliance of convenience between the Forsaken and the Horde. In the end, the Forsaken’s chances of victory against the Lich King were bolstered, while the Horde gained an invaluable foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Ultimately, the Forsaken assisted the Horde with a massive offensive against the Lich King’s power base in Northrend and exacted vengeance upon their hated enemy. The victory, however, was not without its hurdles. During the invasion, Grand Apothecary Putress unleashed a new plague that killed friend and foe alike, while his traitorous counterpart, the dreadlord Varimathras, seized the Undercity in a coup that nearly killed Sylvanas. The usurpers were slain for their vile deeds and the Forsaken capital was restored, but the debacle created suspicion among the Horde regarding Sylvanas’ loyalties.

Now, along with being mistrusted by her own allies, Sylvanas recognizes that many of Azeroth’s other inhabitants still see her people as a threat, even after the Lich King’s defeat. As their numbers dwindle by the day, the Forsaken have begun fortifying their holdings around the Undercity, working to prove their loyalty to the Horde’s cause even as they ready themselves for any future attacks.

For nearly 7,000 years, high elven society centered on the sacred Sunwell, a magical fount that was created using a vial of pure arcane energy from the first Well of Eternity. Nourished and strengthened by the Sunwell’s potent energies, the high elves’ enchanted kingdom of Quel’Thalas prospered within the verdant forests north of Lordaeron.

During the Third War, however, the high elves were nearly scoured from Azeroth. Led by the death knight Arthas, a Scourge army stormed into Quel’Thalas, slaughtering almost ninety percent of the kingdom’s population. Arthas then used the mystical Sunwell to resurrect the fallen necromancer Kel’Thuzad, irrevocably tainting the fount in the process.

Fearing that the befouled well would obliterate his dwindling race, Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider gathered a group of Quel’Thalas’s defenders and destroyed the fount to avert catastrophe. Although the high elves were spared from continued exposure to the Sunwell’s dark energies, in the fount’s absence they suffered terribly from withdrawal. As a result, Kael’thas desperately searched for a means to help his people—whom he had renamed the blood elves—and thus he set out for the shattered world of Outland. There he allied with the renegade demon Illidan Stormrage in the hopes of finding a cure for the blood elves’ crippling withdrawal.

Kael’thas had assured his people that one day he would return to Quel’Thalas and lead them to paradise, yet time revealed that his promises were nothing more than lies. On Outland, the prince became twisted due to his reliance on fel energy, the dark and corrupting essence wielded by the demonic Burning Legion itself. Unbeknownst to Illidan, Kael’thas also came under the sway of the Legion’s commander, Kil’jaeden.

At the bidding of his new master, the wayward prince eventually returned to Azeroth and seized the site of the Sunwell, hoping to use the fount as a means to usher Kil’jaeden into the world. Ultimately, Kael’thas was slain before his recklessness could bring ruin to Azeroth. In the wake of Kil’jaeden’s defeat, the draenei prophet Velen purified the Sunwell with the Light-infused heart of a fallen naaru, transforming the fount into a source of both holy and arcane energies.

Inspired by the Sunwell’s rebirth, the blood elves have since entered into a shining new era in their ancient race’s history. Although some elves remain hesitant to abandon their dependence on arcane magic, others have embraced change for the betterment of Quel’Thalas. Yet only time will tell if the blood elves can avoid repeating the tragic mistakes of their past.