Five dragon lairs? The red, green, and black dragonflights do not have ancestral homes. The reds did, but its location was unknown, and it got Sundering'd.

Why would four rival empires make their capitals into a square? I would expect them to make their respective capitals in a random place, and then expand.

Why would the titans make their cities into a triangle? Also, consider their several minor facilities, and the difference in size between the three main cities.

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...what just happened?

it could be that the titans were monitoring from the three corners of the world, the path leading out from ulduar throughout Northrend(lots of the more visible part in dragonblight) seems to show that it went from the center(well of eternity),out the the far rim of the continent.

Though it's a bit odd that no parts from the roads leading to the other 2 parts(Uldum/Uldaman). For Uldaman it's understandable that maybe, they didn't want anyone to find their failed creations, though Uldum seems rather peaceful.

After looking at the maps a bit more, the triangle thing could work for Ulduar/Uldum, but Uldaman seems way out of place, it's in the middle of eastern kingdoms (I know triangles only require any 3 points, but it would leave the south-east side uncovered)


The square formed by the 4 major empires was likely just a way to avoid constant wars between them, staying far away from eachother so all the empires get to grow, not being in eachother's way.
They basicly grew like that when both split in 2 seperate empires( Jungle trolls -forest trolls & Aqir - nerubians)

The only thing that I read that was pushed down was the Well of Eternity, or the center of the Well more likely when the lake contracted into itself. It wasn't even like an explosion like a meteor hitting or else the Highborne at the least would have been killed. The Well just expanded outward causing some land to crack ahead of it and everything to fall into the now expanding lake. It reminds me slightly of The Neverending Story. I don't even know how any ruins survived the sinking, except for Zin-Ashari of course, since the Well is described as if it is devouring the land and sucking it into the black waters. The lake finally expanded to a certain limit, maybe it had traded all of the depth of the lake for length by now, and started contracting. When it got back to the original size of the Well of Eternity, it didn't stop there. It started siphoning itself into the center of the lake where it then punched a hole into the "earth". Now there was a huge void that the lake had carved out, and the seas came crashing into it creating the Great Sea.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

I'm just curious about the Thousand needles being swampland. It's extremely deep at the past (now present, come Cataclysm) salt lake in the Shimmering Flats which would mean not only little area for life to live, but the salt content would keep a lot of life from living there, and the area seems to be missing any foliage; a past swamp would've left behind a rich stew of nutrients and decaying carbon materials for future growth. Instead, we don't see any rich soil or plants. The soil seems to contain less organic content than Desolace. Rather, the land seems to be mineral-rich (red/orange dirt suggests iron ore). That would mean the place was recently (on a geologic time-scale) carved out, and has had little time to develop.

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How about where did the earthen go after the WotA?

Moved to http://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums/...t=5760&page=22.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

Though I could imagine Uldum and Silithus having been deserts at that time given that they're separated from neighboring climes by large mountains, the sand trolls' origins in the Troll Compendium indicate that Tanaris became a desert after the Sundering, which then prompted the formerly Gurubashi trolls at Zul'Farrak to undergo the physiological adaptations that now set them apart from normal jungle trolls, in order to better survive in their new environment.

It really might not be that hard to imagine Tanaris having once been a jungle, given the evidence of massive and ancient kodo-like skeletons there as in the Desolace (though obviously not the dragon bones, which likely date back to the dragons' involvement in the War of the Shifting Sands), since such massive creatures wouldn't really be expected to reasonably thrive in a desert.

Personally, I sort of imagine the ancient Barrens, Thousand Needles, Tanaris, Dustwallow, Desolace, Feralas and everything east of them to Stranglethorn and the Swamp of Sorrows having been lush jungles and forests, perhaps having "radiated" out of Un'goro as the crater's developing primordial life spread beyond the borders of the biological Petri dish that the Titans made there. Then the Sundering essentially ripped everything in half while submerging much of the middle, and the jungles and forests in what would become Tanaris, the Barrens, Durotar and Westfall rapidly died out from the massive climate upheaval and subsequent rearranging of weather patterns resulting from there suddenly being an ocean in the center of the former supercontinent.

There are indications in the Barrens that rather than introducing a lush explosion of new life at the Wailing Caverns, Naralex and co. were in fact restoring the same kind of life that used to be abundant there, which would mean that the Barrens could have been a jungle at one time. Similarly, previews of the Desolace in Cataclysm show an explosion of plantlife that wouldn't seem out of place in Feralas, raising the possibility that Desolace might have originally been a forest like the lands to its south. Like in Tanaris, Desolace is host to the petrified remains of gigantic beasts that dwarf the largest of kodos in modern Azeroth, and in addition it possesses clusters of fossilized trees, further rasing the possibility that there might have once been a great many more like them in ancient times.

Also, it could be worth noting that Feralas, a land of extensive woodlands, shares a similar latitudinal placement with Stormwind and Duskwood, both of which would likely be dense, unbroken woodlands without the presence of roads and human settlements. That might suggest the possibility of southernmost reaches of ancient Kalimdor being dense, sweltering jungle, abutted by forests to the north.

Of all the places, only Silithus stands out to me as coming across like it may have always been a desolate wasteland, not only because it seems rather appropriate for such a place to have predominantly spawned insects, which are one of the few complex animals so capable of breeding in massive, concentrated numbers in regions that lack abundant surface water, but also because the region is devoid of any remains of ancient flora and fauna like other dessicated lands possess. Silithus literally has no visible evidence of any past in which it differed from its current climate.

Of course, there's always the chance that Silithus used to be full of myriad life a really long time ago, and then the Qiraji or the Aqir before them did such a bang-up job of purging everything but themselves and the other bugs in their own backyard before they started harassing the trolls that no non-insect life has managed to get a foothold in Silithus ever since.

I've always kind of imagined ancient Kalimdor as being predominantly jungle and forest since the Kaldorei, despite their more advanced technology and magic compared to the trolls, still seemed to build their empire among the trees, even as they strayed in ways from their earlier sylvan roots until the War of the Ancients. Like some gargantuan melting pot of primordial plants and animals that had spread outward from Un'goro and Sholazar (and perhaps other such places if they exist, or used to exist). Then the Legion came, the landscape was scorched, and before it could recover the Sundering occurred and entire swathes of what had been rich, lush forests and jungles faded as newly created shorelines allowed ripping ocean winds to blast away at the regions until only the woodlands shielded by mountains and the like were able to endure, and the gigantic creatures that used to live in them died out to be replaced by smaller descendants that could survive in the less abundant food and shelter in their new environment.

Kind of tricky to figure how Stranglethorn would have withstood those changes while other places didn't, but there's always the possibility that it could involve all that nasty voodoo the Gurubashi were tossing around while making their deals with Hakkar to save their empire. It is indicated that while everyone else in Azeroth went through a more prolonged recovery, the jungle trolls underwent a sudden rebound once they started working with Hakkar (only to pay dearly for it later, of course). Maybe they used the Blood God's boons to spare their lands from more gradual destruction that ravaged other suddenly coastal lands for centuries after the Sundering.

Though it seems reasonable to assume that most of Northrend was probably cold and desolate in parts even then, due to the glacial climate of Icecrown and the frozen mountains of the Storm Peaks, along with the Dragonblight's treeless central plain. The implication is that the Vrykul settlements throughout the north were still there waiting for them when they woke (After thousands of years. Either that cold preserved it all realy well, or those those northrend trees have some damned good wood in them.), so judging by that I suppose even back during the rise of the night elves and the War of the Ancients, the various regions of the north aside from Sholazar, Borean Tundra and the Dragonblight were still dotted by Vrykul towns and fortresses (and perhaps even more existed farther south and southwest of the Howling Fjord). It might be that the Borean Tundra had woodlands more akin to the Grizzly Hills in ancient Kalimdor, if things like the swamps and hot springs didn't take over the landscape until after the Sundering.

I agree about Tanaris. The Gurubashi Empire is said to have been situated in the "southern" area of Kalimdor. The area they lived in I believe was said to be all jungle. The sand trolls were part of the Gurubashi Empire – sort of the farthest western part of their empire. So the area the sand trolls lived in was therefore jungle before the Sundering. The Gurubashi Empire, at least in one direction, stretched from Stranglethorn Vale to Tanaris. Un'Goro Crater's climate remained the same I think and was probably not under any group's influence. When you reach Silithus that was qiraji territory – where they ran to after being defeated by the twin troll empires – somewhere more north I am guessing. "Southwestern" Kalimdor if I remember was said to be the Aqir Empire's location. I am not sure where that puts the Zandalar. Some land that jutted out south of the Gurubashi Empire, encircled by the Gurubashi Empire, or north of the Gurubashi Empire? If we put them too north, they will be at the Well of Eternity though so I am not sure if that is where they lived. It would be interesting to know how close the forest troll territory was to the jungle troll territory though since they fought the qiraji together. Another interesting note. Why have we not been told anything about if night elves survived in the Eastern Kingdoms? They ran in every direction when the demons invaded. We know about the night elves that survived in Kalimdor because they are the main characters in all the stories. Yet I don't think I have seen anything about what happened to the night elves that ran/fleed/escaped/got isolated in the north, south, or east.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

The thing is, any night elves stranded in the newly formed eastern landmass probably wouldn't have done too well. They not only wouldn't have the Well or the World Tree, but they'd be many years away from Dath'Remar and his followers showing up to create the Sunwell. That means no way to get their arcane fix. It's pretty likely that they'd have descended into violent withdrawal and, being stranded in a hostile wilderness far from the rest of their people, probably died without anything to treat them.

But the night elves didn't plan on the Well, or the World Tree that followed. So without Illidan doing all that crazy stuff they would not have survived? Also your average night elf, or even Highborne, did not have an arcane addiction I thought? They would just have to survive the elements, not worry about a Well or arcane addiction. Plus we have the Dire Maul elves who were able to get around all that – unless there weren't any "Dire Maul" type places in the new land to the east.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

One should note that the true depths of the elves' racial addiction to magic didn't become evident until the high elves started to suffer from withdrawal. The night elves weren't all using magic actively, and neither was your average high elf civilian. That didn't stop the high elves from all becoming hooked to the stuff though.

Still, it's best not to hijack Lon-ami's thread any further. It's not even a dozen posts in, after all. Let's stick to the Geography of Old Kalimdor at least a little bit longer, shall we?

Moved to http://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums/...t=5760&page=23.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

Various explanations:

-Triangle of titan cities: I think the titans could have built a triangle in purpose. After all, they can place their cities where they want, and they'd probably want to monitorize everything better, as Reyson said.

-Square/Hexagon of troll/aqir cities: I believe each one was in a corner of the continent.

-Pentagon of dragon lairs: We only know about 2 lairs, bronze and blue, but I'm able to speculate the location of the others without problems:
--Green: Northern Kalimdor
--Red: Lordaeron/Quel'Thalas
--Black: Azeroth/Khaz Modan
-This theory is partly based on the tilesets from Warcraft 3.

Also, consider I'm not taking the exact coordinates here, it's more about the region/territory.

More stuff:

-About Thousand Needles, I don't believe it was a jungle, just the start of it. Shimmering Flats was the main lake from which almost every river came. Then, Thousand Needles could be a huge waterfall zone, similar to the Iguazu Waterfalls.

-As for Zandalar and other South Seas Isles, I think they were in the middle-eastern part of the continent and that with the explosion, they were carried out towards the Maelstrom.

More questions, just ask . Great to see people interested in this topic .

Thanks xDDD.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Right now I am "studying" Ancient Kalimdor and trying to find as much information as I can to solve this puzzle (it is very interesting actually, who knows maybe we will have a CoT: WotA expansion some day) and there is one thing about the Trolls that really, really confuses me.

The Shatterspear Tribe.
I thought they were an off-shot of the old Amani Empire and settled in what is now northern Kalimdor before the Sundering.
But the official site states that these were once jungle trolls of the Gurubashi Empire and after Hakkar had been "defeated" the first time (after the Sundering), they packed their bags and settled down in Darkshore. On the other side of the world. O.o
So they sailed away across the entire Great Sea, sailed around Kalimdor and settled down in the mountains above Darkshore.

edit: About Tanaris. While the old RPG states that it has been a desert forever, more recent information from the Official Troll Compendium states that Tanaris turned into a desert and the former jungle trolls there were forced to adapt and became Sand trolls.

Quick Pre-Sundering Kalimdor map with the three Titan facilities (Uldaman/Ulduar/Uldum) in a triangle with the Well at the centre.

My opinion was that the continents hadn't moved due to the Sundering but instead were what was left above water. Magical exploding lakes aside continents (on Earth) don't move too much over 10,000 years.

The most comparable thing to happen on Earth would be a meteor impact so if the Well imploded and the surrounding land forced below sea level the edges of the landmass could be forced up into a kind of rim which would be what is left as Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, Northrend and the various remaining islands.

Side effects of this would be new young mountain ranges on the remaining landmasses and global sea level rises due to large parts of Old Kalimdor new being underwater which would have resulted in chages to the Western shore of Kalimdor and the Eastern Shore of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Yeah, good to see I'm not the only one who finds this interesting .

About the Shatterspear, I wouldn't give them too much attention. Their moving happened after the Sundering, and it was probably just like the highborne's: they sailed towards the opposite side searching a new home.

Eventually, I would like to be able to draw a nice map respecting my theory with all the settlements active back then. I love maps, and having one of Old Kalimdor, no matter be it fanmade, would be awesome.

Seriously, I think pre-WotA is an age full of possibilities and cool storylines. Were it me, I would develop it enough to make it a setting as awesome as the current one or more.

For parts of my ideas on this age, see:

-CoT zone idea, focused on past-pieces of that particular age: http://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums/...ead.php?t=5758

-Azj'Aqir fanfic timeline: http://www.wowwiki.com/User:Lon-ami/...the_Azj%27Aqir (didn't find it in the forum, but had a copy at WoWWiki )

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I'm just wondering about the salt in the lake. Wouldn't that inhibit life from growing in Ferelas if it poured out there?

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Maybe there was a large lake in Feralas and then that river led into a small salt sea in Ancient Kalimdor?

However, my favorite idea is this.
In Ancient Kalimdor, the sea level was so high that it strecthed up to the cliffs in Feralas today and than the Thousand Needles worked like a channel that led water from the Veiled Sea in the west to what is now the Shimmering Flats in the east.
However, this does not make sense since the salt at the Shimmering Flats is said to be ten times the amount of the ocean.

*cough*



This was the original WarCraft 3 world map. Obviously it was changed, but it contains "sunken Kalimdor" which might help.

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I do not think we can rely on that map since it is so old and goes against a lot of newer information regarding how Old Kalimdor might have looked like. Ancient Kalimdor was defintly much larger than that.

Not if the salt came in very small amounts.

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...what just happened?

It is said to be ten times saltier than the ocean so I think that the area just around the old salt lake was pretty dead.

I think we're talking at waterfall rates, though. That's kinda steep.

The way a salt flat forms is when there is an area, such as a bay, that is ocean. The ocean recedes, and the lake left behind is extremely salty as a result. No idea how all that water could escape to carve out the needles without going into Ferelas and killing everything.

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...what just happened?

Here I made my first map ever on a computer and with paint so yeah, it is not the best quality and I will update it in the future.



So what we can see here is that the ancient Kaldorei had very high prescense in the west but not much lower prescense in the east.
This could be explained with that what is now only Kalimdor pretty much only contains primtive races such as Quilboar, Centaur and Tauren so it was easily to settle there while both the big Troll empires were in the east plus Dun Morogh in the center of the old EK.

I based the shape of the Well of Eternity on The Rifts appearance under the Maelstrom.

The river is mostly fictional and was added to add flavor to the map. The original thought was that Orgrimmars valleys must also have been carved out by water but it was very hard to make that look good on the map so I just drew an extended Southfury River.

The two mountain areas in Central Ancient Kalimdor are supposed to be Zandalar and Tel Abim. I guess I could have included Kul Tiras and Plunder Isle too.

The lake and river near Eldre'thalas is supposed to be the Thousand Needles.

The Gurubashi and Amani were separated by Vashj'ir and probably several other Kaldorei outposts there. It was impossible for them to unite and pose a threat to the superior Kaldorei.

The Vrykul stretched over Northrend and down to parts of Ancient Kalimdor. They might have fought both the barbaric Drakkari and Amani.

AQ and AN are on completly different parts of the map. The trolls also suspected that the old Aqiri had colonies underground though.
If such colonies existed, most were probably destroyed by the Sundering.'

Anything I should add to this map?