Earthen → Dwarf
Stone workers who slept in Titan vaults such as Uldaman woke in bodies of flesh and founded Ironforge in Khaz Modan.
Read the story →Lore · Interlude
Curse of Flesh
The Titans’ workers of stone and metal were trapped in bodies of flesh. This curse of the Old Gods gave birth to Azeroth’s most familiar peoples.
Into the story ↓- Source
- The Old Gods
- Target
- The titan-forged
- Change
- Stone and metal → flesh and bone
- Peoples born
- Dwarf · Gnome · Human
- Side effect
- The troggs
- Traces
- Uldaman · Ulduar
Chapter I · The curse
A crack in the perfect design
While the Titans ordered Azeroth, they left the heavy work to beings they made themselves: the stone earthen worked the depths of the mountains, the metal mechagnomes ran the Titan machines, the giant vrykul guarded the world. They are called the titan-forged. They did not age, sicken or tire.
But the Old Gods, whom the Titans had imprisoned beneath the earth, were not idle. The corruption they spread from behind their chains crept into the titan-forged like a slow sickness: the Curse of Flesh.
The curse did not strike all at once. Over generations the bodies of stone and metal softened; some changed while they slept in Titan vaults, others had children born of flesh. Fragile, mortal beings who made their own choices took the place of the deathless workers.
Titan
Architects of the world
Titan-forged
Workers of stone, metal and giant size
Curse of Flesh
The Old Gods’ corruption
Mortal peoples
Flesh, bone and free will
Chapter II · Peoples
The peoples it touched
The same curse had different results in different beings. As you scroll, the map shows each people’s road from its origin to the homeland it has today.
Mechagnome → Gnome
The metal workers designed by Mimiron became a fragile but curious people and founded Gnomeregan.
Read the story →Vrykul → Human
The small children of Northrend’s giant warriors were hidden from King Ymiron; their descendants spread south.
Read the story →Earthen → Trogg
The earthen the curse struck hardest lost their minds and became the primitive troggs that live underground. They were the ones who overran Gnomeregan.
- 1UlduarNorthrend, Storm Peaks. Home of Mimiron’s mechagnomes; the Old God Yogg-Saron lies beneath it
- 2UtgardeNorthrend, Howling Fjord. King Ymiron’s vrykul
- 3UldamanThe Titan vault in the Badlands where the earthen slept
- 4Khaz ModanHome of the dwarves and gnomes: Ironforge and Gnomeregan
- 5LordaeronThe lands the first human tribes spread across
- 6Ahn’QirajKalimdor, Silithus. The prison of the Old God C’Thun
Chapter III · Meaning
Curse or gift?
For the titan-forged the Curse of Flesh was a loss: they lost their immortality, their strength and the clear purpose the Titans had given them.
But the curse also gave them something the Titans never had: the freedom to choose their own way. Peoples who founded kingdoms, fought, invented and wrote their own history were born from those fragile bodies.
The traces of the curse still lie underground. The Explorers’ League digs the vaults of Uldaman, and in WoW Forever those who enter the Uldaman dungeon walk the halls where the dwarves’ stone ancestors slept.
Epilogue
Three peoples, one root
Stone, metal and giant blood. Keep reading the stories of the peoples the curse touched.
Note
The drawings are schematic illustrations made for this page; the markers on the game maps are placed approximately.
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