Never really paid much attention to their lore but I’m like 100% positive I remember seeing that Blood Elves sabotaged the Exodar which is how they landed on Azeroth.
Now first question…how? How did Blood Elves get there to sabotage them? Were they part of Kael’thas’ groupies when he followed Illidan into Outlands (Draenor)? If so how come Draenei look all nice and thicc and not like the hunch back of Notre Dame Draenei that Illidan and Co. meet in Outlands?
I know from WoD they originally fled Draenor to get away from bloodthirst Orcs (Whod of thunk?)
Yes, that is basically it. They were Kael’thas troops who where already in the Netherstorm and chased the Draenei where they crashed into Azeroth
2 Likes
The Broken were exposed to a weaponized version of the Red Pox but survived the Horde’s attack. The Draenei were those that escaped the Horde’s massacre entirely and weren’t ever exposed.
3 Likes
Not all draenei were mutated at Shattrath by the orc’s plague. Many escaped and survived in hiding, these are the normal draenei. Illidan’s crew came across the broken ones.
After years of hiding right before BC they reached out to the Army of Light who sent Tempest Keep and a bunch of naaru to help them. But Illidan’s forces already had an iron hold over Outland. The blood elves under Kael’thas were already there and quickly captured the fortress for themselves.
Velen led a group who managed to steal the Exodar wing from them so they could escape, but the blood elves messed it up and caused it to crash land on Azeroth.
2 Likes
Incidentally, this is also how the Belfs caught a Naaru, shipped it to Silvermoon, and used it to make their first paladins (one of which was mine! She STOLE the Light, goshdarnit! And her pally horse, too! Muhahaha!)
1 Like
So then who are the Broken Draenei in Swamp of Sorrows?
Some of the broken crossed over through the Dark Portal during the First and Second Wars. When the portal was destroyed they were stranded here, that’s who those are.
Some managed to hold on and survive, the friendly ones we talk to, but others lost their minds from it and turned hostile.
2 Likes
They are the broken Draenei that came through the Dark Portal.
Those particular ones on the brink of insanity though. Poor things.
You space goats are all over the place in lore…
We are!
Actually way back when, we were actually such an evil force that we corrupted Sargeras himself. That’s been retconned a long time back and now we’re the good guys! 
That decision ultimately made us playable so no regrets.
3 Likes
Kael’thas groupies sabotaged the Exodar. The playable Draenei weren’t corrupted like the Broken were.
The blood elves that were in dalaran after the scourge invasion fled with Kael’thas and Lady Vashj to outland to join Illidan.
As the draenei were starting to flee outlands, Kael’thas raided the Tempest Keep and captured it, as well as its satellite installations.
The draenei were able to seize back one of the satellite installations, the Exodar, and used it to flee, but not before its dimensional engine was sabotaged by the blood elves, causing it to hurtle uncontrollably through the twisting nether and eventually out into regular space until it crash landed on Azeroth.
The Draenei that look all hunched over are the Broken. During the orcs siege of Shattrath, they deployed a fel-based mist which mutated the draenei within the city and completely severed all connection they had to the light.
This also caused their minds to start to break down, and it was Nobundo that ended up saving the remaining Broken by learning the ways of Shamanism, and passing it on to them. As the elements had restored his mind and senses, and halted his mutation from progressing further. So they didn’t become Lost Ones.
1 Like
Basically their leaders sold them out. Velen took the survivors and didn’t hire a very good pilot.
They crashed and the Legion found them and made the indigenous orcs turn them into pavement. Velen fled with his ace pilot again and crashed on Azeroth. The end.
Ours is truly a tragic tail
(hehe… see what i did there?)
1 Like
One word: Retcon.
The Draenei were originally just another race of farmers that lived on Draenor. Warcraft 2 states that they worked on their farms & fields for nearly five thousand years, before the Orcish Horde, bloodthirsty for conquest, decided to slaughter them. WoW retconned that into where they had only been on Draenor for maybe 200 years, at best. And it also made them alien to the world.
Warcraft 2 also describes them as a weak people, hardly even worth the effort. But WoW has also retconned that making them a warrior people, with their Vindicators and such.
On another note, Warcraft 2 stated that the Orcs were surprised by the mounted combat techniques of the Humans, or at least that’s how it looked to me. If that is the case, the Draenei also using mounted combat techniques should have prepared the Orcs for the same sort of thing. But that could just be an interpretation of the words, which I admit might be incorrect that the Orcs were surprised by it, rather than it just being a statement that it is what the Humans used. They use the words “Surprisingly” and then talk about the Knights “mounted upon beasts of muscle and sinew to devastate our troops.”
But that’s all in the past now. The future is all retcons.
