So where exactly is the Un'Goro World Tree?

Community General Discussion
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So the Emerald Dream is an “Exact Copy” of Azeroth. It was designed to be a perfect world of nature, unspoiled by civilization.

This is where things get a bit weird. In the Emerald Nightmare raid, there’s the boss Il’gynoth. He’s best known for his puzzling whispers that people think drop hints for the future. However, anyone who reads his description in game (and the map) should catch something else:

Nightmare Un'goro Crater: A darkness grows in the middle of the jungles of this titan-shaped crater, the heart of corruption known as Il'gynoth beats from within a Nightmare-twisted world tree.

What should you get from that? Well, the last two words really. See, as of now, there’s only 4 known World Trees in Warcraft:

  1. Nordrassil - Hyjal - the “original”* World Tree. It was devastated during a Burning Legion invasion, but it has regrown since then. *Was originally said to be the original, but now we don’t know because Shaladrassil’s timeline throws that into question now, as Shaladrassil’s keeper mentions he was watching Shaladrassil before Nordrassil was even around.

  2. Teldrassil - Darkshore - the “newest” World Tree and only other world tree to receive any of the Dragon Aspect’s Blessings. Planted by Malfurion after Nordrassil’s “destruction” in an attempt to return the Night Elve’s immortality (failed as it never received the Bronze Aspect’s blessing). Destroyed by Sylvanas and the Horde in BFA.

  3. Andrassil / Vordrassil - Grizzly Hills - Grown by Staghelm to stop the spread of Saronite in Northrend. It failed, and they were forced to cut it down fearing it would be corrupted without the Dragon Aspects Blessings, renaming it Vordrassil. However, its roots had already pierced Yogg Saron’s prison, giving the Old Gods access to the dream to create the Nightmare.

  4. Shaladrassil - Val’Sharah - Not much is known about it, as it was introduced during Legion, and was already fully corrupted by the Emerald Nightmare by the time we arrived, and that as stated above, it’s possible it was the original World Tree, but the Night Elves for some reason didn’t know about it.

So, what’s the issue then? Well, Il’gynoth is located in the Emerald Dream equivalent of Un’goro Crater.

What isn’t located in Un’goro Crater? That’s right. A world tree. But what do we see when we fight Il’gynoth in the Nightmare, which is literally the Emerald Dream? That’s right… A world tree. He’s literally sitting inside of it. (When you do the intro quests for the druid class hall, you see that the nightmare is literally just the dream corrupted. They don’t add extra stuff to the dream.)

So, the question beckons - Where is the World Tree that supposedly exists in Un’Goro Crater?

Although Hearthstone is not canon to Warcraft, Tortollans did come from Hearthstone, and in Hearthstone, Tortollans came from Un’Goro. Is it possible that Tortollans are protecting the World Tree in Un’Goro, similar to how the Night Elves are the protectors of the other World Trees? We’ve seen they have scrolls that do many things. Is it possible they have scrolls that can render a world tree invisible and intangible?

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Or maybe Blizz messed up their lore again. There are a lot of unfinished stories and inconsistent details in WoW, most of which will never come to light… Best to just leave it be.

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Probably died long ago on azeroth like G’Hanir but lives on in the emerald dream

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Except it’s not.

The Emerald Dream is a vast, ever-changing spirit world, that exists outside the boundaries of the physical world… The Emerald Dream represents how the world would have been, if intelligent beings had not altered its surface.

Because the titans invested a great deal of work in perfecting their design of Azeroth, the Emerald Dream is not one a single perfect vision of what Azeroth would become. The finished design of the planet was the product of many previous flawed or unfinished models. The Dream therefore has multiple layers, one for each of these earlier incarnations. These older layers of the Dream are often incomplete and therefore limited in scope, relative to the finalized Dream.

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SPOILER ALERT!!!

The new lore book for 10.2 states that a world tree was planted by Eonar using a branch of G’hanir, then ripped out by Aman’Thul, leaving a crater. Un’goro is a “Titan-shaped crater”. It’s pretty safe to assume that there was in fact a world tree in Un’goro crater at one point, which I think would have been the second world tree, and a new lore book adding clarity to what we saw in the nightmare means we will probably get even more in game lore about it in the coming expansions.

Odd though, didn’t Aman’Thul rip something else out of Azeroth?

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Rasing a thread from five years ago, how did you find it.

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You’ve just ruined my head canon that a giant meteor slammed into the desert and made Un’Goro like Land of the Lost.

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Honestly this is a rare good necro because it’s actually answering an old question with new information.

Pretty sure he ripped Y’shaarj out of the planet, before they realized that was a bad idea.

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Maybe it was swallowed up in the volcano that Baron Char used to spawn on.

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I was just on the prowl for confirmation of this sort of thing, myself - an excellent necro, considering the current times and the question at hand, here.

I thought we’d been told what tree used to be in Un’goro, but all I can come up with so far is that there WAS one there - so it does tend to make you think that’s where the ripped out tree would have been. Nice to see that plot point come back around…

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It couldn’t have been in Un’goro though, because the book goes on to say that Eonar wept bitter, powerful tears into the wound, implying that became the Well of Eternity, which further implies Elun’Ahir may have been the same entity as Y’shaarj. I just don’t see Aman’thul ripping out two different unrelated entities in the same manner, yielding similar results both times.