The fifth, yet unnamed Old god. Creator of trolls?

[Golden Yak]

Nice post Guldtasken, some interesting speculation.

Wanted to point out a bit here:

The reason being that when C'thun broke through his prison to influence the land, he took contact with the ancient Aqir or well the remnants of it. Where he transformed the hive mind dumb Silithids into intellectual beings of Qiraji.

Unless it's getting changed (and we all know it could at any moment), the current lore indicates that the aqir became the qiraji, and then spawned the silithid. The silithid did not become the qiraji under the influence of C'Thun. In fairness this does contradict even earlier lore that hints at the silithid becoming the aqir/qiraji.

This doesn't really interfere with your theory vis a vis the trolls, just an FYI.

We really need that Warcraft lore book detailing the Old God's reign to come out and clear some of this stuff up.

Re. your other points, I'm only speculating here myself, but the trolls seem to have a strong connection to the world in its natural state - their loa spirits, their animals gods, their witch-doctors and druids and shaman, etc. Nature without the influence of the Old Gods, as well as the spirits born from nature and their own people, seem to be the focus of their worship and faith.

It's perhaps this mentality that makes the trolls resistant to the chaotic influence of the Old Gods. A sort've evolved natural resistance to it - while the faceless ones, the aqir, and the other races served the Old Gods, the trolls over time built up an immunity by worshiping other powers opposed to the Old Gods.

Obviously it's not perfect since there are troll worshipers of the Old Gods in the Twilight Cult, but perhaps the race overall has a greater resistance to them than others.

[DeadmanWalking]

Wow mythology is pretty much a straight up flip of greek mythology.

In greek Mythology the Titans ruled and the Gods revolted and after a war some of the Titans joined the Gods to overthrow and imprison the Titans and those betrayers became part of the Gods. Chronos is chopped up and his pieces thrown into various deep ends of the underworld, Atlas has to carry the world on his shoulders, ect. Aphrodite helped the Gods and became one of the pantheon.

In WoW the Old Gods rule Azeroth and the Titans overthrow the Gods and imprison them.

In Greek Mythology, as with any mythology with several gods, there are always good gods and bad gods, usually more good gods than bad.

In WoW the Old Gods are as far as we know all evil.

In the Well of Eternity books the first time we meet Tyrande she is studying to be a priestess in a Temple to Elune, of which has a mural which depicts Elune standing between 4 others, two on each side, whom are nondescript. You can’t tell who the other 4 in the mural are.

So if you look at it as a flip of greek mythology then The Old Gods were mostly evil but a few were good. The Titans overthrew the Old Gods with the help of an Old God, the Old Gods were imprisoned but not the one who helped the Titans. Under these descriptions one could infer that Elune was the only good Old God and helped the Titans overthrow and imprison the Old Gods and thus was allowed to remain free. She then picks up the Trolls and reshapes them with the Well to be in her image as Night Elves.

Elune is the fifth Old God.

[jjuice32]

According to latest Lore the Aqir were created by the Old Gods by some unknown race on Azeroth. Eventually the Aqir was defeated and split into three: Qiraj, Mantid and Nerubian. Silithid is up in the air right now with a couple different theories.

Also Tauren were on Azeroth before the arrival of the Titans and so were many other species.

Wow mythology is pretty much a straight up flip of greek mythology.

A lot of the Old God stuff is based on the H.P. Lovecraft books.

[Deleted]

It's obviously C'thulu

[Vasaru]

I hope that if we get to kill it in a raid its adds will yell "Fake! Lol! U mad bro?"

I mean.. Creator of trolls.

[ChairmanKaga]

Wow mythology is pretty much a straight up flip of greek mythology.

Elune is the fifth Old God.

Very nice. I like this theory.

A lot of the Old God stuff is based on the H.P. Lovecraft books.

Blizz references names and general tentacle-y aesthetics but none of the story of WoW's Old Gods remotely resembles Lovecraft's original stories.
It does somewhat resemble August Derleth's posthumous reworking of Lovecraft's stories into the "Mythos" of a simpler Good gods (Elder Gods ala Nodens) vs Bad gods (Great Old Ones) dynamic. Later Sandy Peterson's Chaosium work was built upon Deleth's meddling/reworking which has been repeated in many games since.

[Thekri]

We will see where blizzard goes with it, I don't think they have actually figured out what old gods are yet themselves. I don't remember them existing in Warcraft at all until WoW, when C'thun was introduced as a plot device behind AQ. Sometime in the development of WotLK they decided Old Gods were a thing, starting hints that there was a group of them. Before then I think C'thun was supposed to be more or less along the same line as the Darkshore corpse, Haakar, some of the really big skeletons, and other stuff that was put in to show how messed up Azeroth used to be.

To be honest I am not too confident in my timeline, does anyone remember when Old Gods starting being referred to as a plural, rather than C'thun being just an "Old God" in the literal sense?

[jjuice32]

Blizz references names and general tentacle-y aesthetics but none of the story of WoW's Old Gods remotely resembles Lovecraft's original stories.
It does somewhat resemble August Derleth's posthumous reworking of Lovecraft's stories into the "Mythos" of a simpler Good gods (Elder Gods ala Nodens) vs Bad gods (Great Old Ones) dynamic. Later Sandy Peterson's Chaosium work was built upon Deleth's meddling/reworking which has been repeated in many games since.

True, but not much different than a comparison between Greek Mythology on how the Titans were overthrown by the Pantheon.

Titans themselves are greatly influenced by what Norse Mythology and Greek aren't they?

It's an interesting theory Deadmanwalking although I do not remember the said Mural you are talking about. If you happen to remember where in the book or a general idea I'd love to go through and see it.

- - - Updated - - -

We will see where blizzard goes with it, I don't think they have actually figured out what old gods are yet themselves. I don't remember them existing in Warcraft at all until WoW, when C'thun was introduced as a plot device behind AQ. Sometime in the development of WotLK they decided Old Gods were a thing, starting hints that there was a group of them. Before then I think C'thun was supposed to be more or less along the same line as the Darkshore corpse, Haakar, some of the really big skeletons, and other stuff that was put in to show how messed up Azeroth used to be.

To be honest I am not too confident in my timeline, does anyone remember when Old Gods starting being referred to as a plural, rather than C'thun being just an "Old God" in the literal sense?

They were talked about or something in WCIII. That's how we know there are at maximum 5 of them chained below Azeroth.

[Deleted]

Very nice. I like this theory.



Blizz references names and general tentacle-y aesthetics but none of the story of WoW's Old Gods remotely resembles Lovecraft's original stories.
It does somewhat resemble August Derleth's posthumous reworking of Lovecraft's stories into the "Mythos" of a simpler Good gods (Elder Gods ala Nodens) vs Bad gods (Great Old Ones) dynamic. Later Sandy Peterson's Chaosium work was built upon Deleth's meddling/reworking which has been repeated in many games since.

They do, they're creature we can't understand anything about, we don't know what is their purpose and where do they come from. They seem to exist in different realities, they seem to be mortal and immortal at the same time. They exceed our comprehension as Lovecraft's gods which are the personification of the universe.
As the obscenes gods from H.P Lovecraft's pantheon, they're nonsensical being from a mortal point of view.

[DeadmanWalking]

True, but not much different than a comparison between Greek Mythology on how the Titans were overthrown by the Pantheon.

Titans themselves are greatly influenced by what Norse Mythology and Greek aren't they?

It's an interesting theory Deadmanwalking although I do not remember the said Mural you are talking about. If you happen to remember where in the book or a general idea I'd love to go through and see it.

Its in the first well of eternity book, Malfurion and Illidan are coming to visit her and Broxigar is in a cage. She is only a minor priestess at this point. You can also do a wowiki search for Elune and near the bottom it mentions the mural.

[jjuice32]

Its in the first well of eternity book, Malfurion and Illidan are coming to visit her and Broxigar is in a cage. She is only a minor priestess at this point. You can also do a wowiki search for Elune and near the bottom it mentions the mural.

The problem is wowwiki is very unsupervised and many pages has a lot of made up facts so I don't generally trust that site. Wowpedia has become the go to for everything Warcraft related.

Plan to search the book though to hopefully find it.

[DeadmanWalking]

The problem is wowwiki is very unsupervised and many pages has a lot of made up facts so I don't generally trust that site. Wowpedia has become the go to for everything Warcraft related.

Plan to search the book though to hopefully find it.

I was just mentioning it to prove I didnt make it up, misread it or confuse it with another fantasy setting book.

[jjuice32]

"Here, in intricate mosaic work, the formation of the world by Elune and the other gods was depicted, the Mother Moon of course illustrated most dominantly. With few exceptions, the gods were vague forms with shadowed faces, no mere flesh creature worthy of envisioning their true images. Only the Demigods, children and assistants to their superiors, had definite visages. One of those, of course, was Cenarius said by many to be perhaps the child of the Moon and the Sun. Cenarius, of course, said nothing one way or another, but Tyrande liked to think that story was true"

Sounds kind of like the Titans.

[bionics]

Because Trolls are, and have always been, filthy, dark-voodoo worshiping, cannibalistic savages.

Don't let Vol'jin hear you talking like that. Sinner.

In terms of the Old Gods, does anyone think they'll ultimately be the final enemies over someone more obvious like Sargeras? Or perhaps we'll need to side with the Titans to overcome them?

[Yarathir]

Don't let Vol'jin hear you talking like that. Sinner.

In terms of the Old Gods, does anyone think they'll ultimately be the final enemies over someone more obvious like Sargeras? Or perhaps we'll need to side with the Titans to overcome them?

Dunno, actually. But I don't think the Titans would be our buddies. More of a 'the enemy of my enemy' if the Titans accept our help. From what we currently know, Titans are real dicks and give only about Order. It's why they almost wiped clean Azeroth entirely.. multiple times now?

[Golden Yak]

Wow mythology is pretty much a straight up flip of greek mythology.

A lot of the Old God stuff is based on the H.P. Lovecraft books.

Funnily enough, the notion of old gods dwelling within the earth and having hideous, monstrous forms, a major element in Lovecraft and other mythos works, does come from ancient greek myth - the titans were often described as having hundreds of hands and heads, misshapen limbs, and being chaotic and monstrous. The 'root' term of names like Cthulhu and Cthun likely comes from the word 'cthonic', referring to deities and powers of the deep earth.

[jjuice32]

Dunno, actually. But I don't think the Titans would be our buddies. More of a 'the enemy of my enemy' if the Titans accept our help. From what we currently know, Titans are real dicks and give only about Order. It's why they almost wiped clean Azeroth entirely.. multiple times now?

They didn't wipe out Dwarves or those effected by the Curse of Flesh when it went against their plans.

The Titans don't just wipe everything clean if it goes against their grand design. They seem to have some sort of respect for natural life. I mean they obviously left Trolls, Tauren and whatever other species on Azeroth before the ordering alive.

[Yarathir]

They didn't wipe out Dwarves or those effected by the Curse of Flesh when it went against their plans.

The Titans don't just wipe everything clean if it goes against their grand design. They seem to have some sort of respect for natural life. I mean they obviously left Trolls, Tauren and whatever other species on Azeroth before the ordering alive.

The Reorigination? The whole thing that made it a necessity that Algalon had to be defeated? :P

[jjuice32]

The Reorigination? The whole thing that made it a necessity that Algalon had to be defeated? :P

The Reorigination is a last ditch effort to clean up the corruption. That doesn't prove they aren't friendly. It proves they are smart to implement something like that when a planet has 5 of some of the most powerful and evil beings contained in it.

[Yarathir]

The Reorigination is a last ditch effort to clean up the corruption. That doesn't prove they aren't friendly. It proves they are smart to implement something like that when a planet has 5 of some of the most powerful and evil beings contained in it.

.. Yes, by wiping out all life on Azeroth. That means that they'd kill us all if they felt the need. That pretty much makes them the enemies of everyone on Azeroth. Every villain so far has become that way because they threatened the lives on Azeroth, so.. yeah.