The War Between the Titans and the Old Gods was a primordial conflict in the early history of the planet later named Azeroth, fought between the cosmic order-builders known as the Titans and the eldritch entities called the Old Gods along with their servitor forces. It marked a decisive turning point in the shaping of Azeroth’s primordial landscape, elemental hierarchies, and subsequent mythic history.
Prior to the arrival of the Titans, Azeroth was already inhabited by powerful supernatural forces. Entities referred to as the Old Gods—extradimensional beings created by enigmatic Void Lords to spread corruption and convert sleeping worldsouls into agents of the Void—fell onto Azeroth from the Great Dark Beyond and embedded themselves deeply within the planet’s crust. The Old Gods included Y’Shaarj, C’Thun, Yogg-Saron, and N’Zoth, each establishing vast domains that became the heart of what is retrospectively termed the Black Empire. In this era, the elemental forces of Azeroth—manifestations of fire, earth, air, and water—served the dominion of the Old Gods, and ordered resistance among these forces was minimal or absent. The Old Gods and their armies subjugated the elemental lords and their followers, consolidating control over the nascent world.
The Titan pantheon—colossal, semi-divine beings that traversed the cosmos in pursuit of order—became aware of Azeroth after sensing the presence of its dormant worldsoul. Alarmed by its corruption and the dominion of the Old Gods, they resolved to intervene to safeguard its potential for ordered evolution. The Titans did not initially approach Azeroth directly; instead, they forged the titan-forged, constructs and lifeforms animated from Azeroth’s own crust, to engage the forces of the Black Empire on the ground.
The war unfolded as a series of engagements between the titan-forged armies and the combined might of the Old Gods’ servitors, including enslaved elemental lords. Early battles were dominated by elemental counterattacks, as fire, earth, air, and water lords, acting under the influence of the Old Gods, threw their forces against the advancing titan-forged. This phase demonstrated the extent to which the Old Gods had reshaped Azeroth’s native powers to their service.
Despite these challenges, the titan-forged progressively defeated the elemental contingents, forcing the defeated lords into retreat. In the aftermath of their rout, the Keepers—leaders among the titan-forged created to steward Azeroth’s order—used powerful arcane rites to bind the elemental forces within a new cosmic prison known as the Elemental Plane. This act effectively removed the elemental threat as an independent force in the world’s surface history.
With the elemental forces contained, the focus of the conflict shifted to the Old Gods themselves. The most formidable among them, Y’Shaarj, proved exceptionally resilient in pitched battle. Fearing that the protracted war might irreparably damage Azeroth’s world-soul, Aman’Thul—the foremost of the Titan Pantheon—intervened directly and tore Y’Shaarj bodily from the planet’s crust. The Old God’s death unleashed a massive outpouring of arcane energy as the world-soul’s lifeblood surged from the wound, fundamentally altering Azeroth’s surface and laying the foundations for future mystical geography.
Recognizing that complete destruction of the remaining Old Gods would risk destabilizing the planet, the Titans opted for imprisonment rather than annihilation. The remaining entities—N’Zoth, C’Thun, and Yogg-Saron—were bound deep below the surface of Azeroth in separate, gnosis-sealed crypts. This containment ended open hostilities and fragmented the Black Empire’s influence.
The Titan-Old God war reshaped Azeroth on a planetary scale. The removal of elemental hegemony and the binding of the Old Gods enabled the Titans and their servants to reshape the world’s surface, seed ordered life, and establish arcane and cosmic infrastructure. The vast crater left by the fall of Y’Shaarj later stabilized into a vast reservoir of mystical energy, drawing arcane currents toward its center. Furthermore, residual energies from the conflict and the death of Y’Shaarj are linked in later mythic accounts to manifestations of emotional and psychic disturbances across Azeroth.
While the Old Gods themselves no longer walked unbound upon the surface after their imprisonment, their influence did not entirely cease. Whispers of their malice and agents loyal to their designs endured across eons, contributing to subsequent calamities in Azeroth’s long history.
With the conflict concluded and the elemental and Old God threats neutralized or contained, the Titans initiated a systematic process of ordering Azeroth’s interior and surface. This phase involved the construction of arcane, cosmic, and astral facilities; the establishment of wards against future corruption; and the empowerment of designated steward races collectively known as the Keepers. The infrastructure laid during this period would anchor the planet’s stability and define its primordial age prior to later historical cycles.