So after the War of the Ancients the Dragon isles supposedly went dormant. The Sundering apparently drained all life from the land. Given this the isles were basically dead this entire time. How did the Centaur, Tuskar, and Gnoll civilizations continue to survive? The Centaur even talk about how the tribes continued to grow over the years with all of the dragons gone.
1 Like
I think you found a plot hole.
3 Likes
Actually it was Elemental Energy that was drained from the land.
The Dragons were too Elemental it seems…
1 Like
The Dragon Isles went on after the dragons left, it was the draconic power that went to sleep, not life itself. Moreover, the Sundering was 10k years ago, and as we can see on the rest of Azeroth, life did recover in spite of the insane level of damage. All life getting drained out still means that what remained had centuries upon centuries to get back up to par.
10k years is an absolutely huge span of time. The Isles could have been a harsh wasteland for 6k years and then recovered over the course of 2k years and then been what we see for another 2k years, and that final portion would still be the equivalent of ancient Rome to modern day in terms of time passing.
So it’s not really a plot hole, the Isles just took a big hit but eventually recovered.
4 Likes
I guess Blizz felt that the Nightborne had already cornered the market on the “Wait - the rest of the world survived the Sundering? We thought you all died!” story, but now I’m suddenly interested in what the setting would’ve been like if the dragonkin on the Isles believed that the dragons had all perished in the Sundering rather than just left.
1 Like
Probably still endlessly tending abandoned gardens, patrolling abandoned cities and marching in formation.
They don’t strike me as real free-thinkers, those Drakonids.
3 Likes
So if water elemental energy was gone no rivers or rain, no earth energy no plant life, no air energy no airflow. I.E lifeless rock. Life is still an element in the WoW universe, if not why do so many life being refer to life as elemental magics? Freya, Eonar, Wild Gods, Ammunae
I just think of the Dragon Isles like the Forgotten realms from Spyro 3. Once the dragons left and never returned all the elemental energies dried up. Like how the magic in the Forgotten realms dried up after the Sorceress kicked the Dragons out. Despite that detail in Spyro 3, societies in the Forgotten realms continued to exist.
I wouldn’t say these societies are actually thriving. They don’t seem to have changed in ten thousand years. Why are there revolts only now against the flights. Surely that should have been done and dusted along time ago. Possibly a generation or two in.
“Ok the dragons aren’t coming back, time to start thinking for ourselves.”
Maybe with an unlikely sense of loyalty and duty you could stretch that out to couple of hundred or even 1000 years for an extreme stoically staunch conservative culture, but not ten thousand unless the whole place was in a coma.
2 Likes
I think that’s generally how the setting handles incomprehensibly large time gulfs.
coughs in Long Vigil
3 Likes