Legends of Warcraft #5: the evolution of Azeroth

June 29, 2026•Lore•Brendo Arruda

"Legends of Warcraft" series — Legends #5. The prehistory of Warcraft in order, from the creation of the universe to the last Guardian of Tirisfal. The episodes are listed in order at the end of the post.

The ancient races of Azeroth were born from two opposite sides. The titans created peoples of stone and metal to look after the world, such as the earthen, the mogu, the vrykul and the tol'vir. The Old Gods created the aqir, insects that served the Black Empire. Over time, a corruption called the Curse of Flesh turned the titans' peoples into beings of flesh and blood, and from it come the dwarves, the gnomes and the humans.

The peoples created by the titans

During the Ordering, the titans and the Keepers created several races, each with a task:

Earthen: beings of stone who shaped the caverns and protected the underground facilities, such as Ulduar and Uldaman.
Mogu: stone guardians in the south of the continent, where Pandaria would one day be.
Vrykul: warrior giants of Northrend, tied to the Keeper Odyn.
Tol'vir: guardians with the body of a lion, who watched over the titan facilities in Uldum.
Giants: of stone, sea, frost and storm, each type tied to an element and to a Keeper.
Mechagnomes: small mechanical constructs, assistants of Mimiron.

They were all immune to ordinary death and to time. They were tools of the titans, not free peoples.

The aqir, insects of the Old Gods

On the other side were the aqir, a race of intelligent insects that had served the Old Gods since the Black Empire. Even after their masters were imprisoned, the aqir lived on, building hives and spreading across the continent.

The aqir would give rise to three peoples the player knows well:

the nerubians, the spiders of Azjol-Nerub, in Northrend;
the qiraji, the insects of Ahn'Qiraj, in southern Kalimdor;
the mantid, of Pandaria, tied to the Old God Y'Shaarj.

The Curse of Flesh

The Old Gods were imprisoned, but not silent. The most cunning of them, Yogg-Saron, imprisoned beneath Ulduar, created the Curse of Flesh. It attacked the titan-forged little by little: generation after generation, stone turned into flesh, metal turned into bone, and the immortals began to age and die.

The curse was not just a punishment. The Old Gods wanted to weaken the world's guardians, making them mortal and easy to corrupt.

Who was born from the Curse of Flesh

The curse created many of the peoples that make up the Alliance and the Horde today:

| People of stone or metal | People of flesh | |------------------------|---------------| | Earthen | Dwarves | | Mechagnomes | Gnomes | | Vrykul | Humans (descendants of vrykul who were born smaller and frailer) | | Flawed earthen | Troggs, a degenerate and wild version of the earthen |

This means that dwarves, gnomes and humans are, at their origin, creations of the titans that the Old Gods changed. The dwarves discover this truth in WotLK, with Brann Bronzebeard reading the titans' discs.

The evolution that didn't depend on the titans

Not every people of Azeroth came from the titans or the Old Gods. The trolls appeared on their own, tied to the wild spirits of the world, the loa. They became the first great mortal civilization, and they are where the next episode begins.

Who's who in this episode

| Name | Who it is | |------|--------| | Earthen | Beings of stone created by the titans. The Curse of Flesh turned them into dwarves. | | Vrykul | Warrior giants of Northrend. The first humans were born from them. | | Mogu | Stone guardians of the south, who later enslaved the pandaren. | | Tol'vir | Lion-bodied guardians of the facilities of Uldum. | | Aqir | Insects of the Old Gods, ancestors of the nerubians, the qiraji and the mantid. | | Yogg-Saron | The Old God imprisoned beneath Ulduar, creator of the Curse of Flesh. |

Where to see it in WotLK

Halls of Stone, in the Storm Peaks: Brann Bronzebeard reads the titans' discs and discovers that the dwarves came from the earthen.
Howling Fjord and the Storm Peaks: the vrykul, still giants, with Ymiron and the Valgarde quests.
Azjol-Nerub and Ahn'kahet, in Dragonblight: the kingdom of the nerubians.
Uldaman, in the Badlands: the troggs, the earthen and the Keeper Archaedas.
Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, in Silithus: the qiraji and the Old God C'Thun.