No I just have over 15 years of WoW experience.
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There’s still something that’s missing from all this, as I brought up earlier. From what I can tell, these are the significant dates:
-1X,000 Humans settle in Tirisfal Glades
-16,000 Troll Empires with Map
-15,000 Night Elf Empire with Map
-10,000 Sundering with Map - Zul’Aman displaced further northeast.
-7,300 Highborne land in Tirisfal - only interact with Humans
-6,800 Founding of Quel’Thalas
-2,800 Troll Wars with Map
I’d like to make special mention of the Troll Empires and Night Elf Empire maps, though. Because neither of them take into account that the Humans were at Tirisfal Glades. Here are the maps overlapped to show where the Night Elf Empire had pushed the Trolls out of:
As we can see, the Amani had actually lost the land around and west of Lordamere Lake, which would be Tirisfal Glades, to the Night Elves before the Sundering even happened.
Yet there is no mention of what happened to the Humans here during that time. However, after the Sundering, the Humans were still there, as the Highborne encountered them when they landed there some 2,700 years after the Sundering.
The two ways I see this, either the maps are just not taking the Humans into account at all, and this is a considerably oversight in Chronicle, or in the 4,000 years between the Founding of Quel’Thalas and the Troll Wars the Amani had actually invasively expanded into Tirisfal Glades again.
And yet, notably, even in year -2,800 Humans were still living in Tirisfal Glades, as one of Strom’s generals was described on Chronicle: Volume 1, Page 127 as the following:
- Thoradin’s other favored general was Lordain, who hailed from the heart of Tirisfal Glades. He and his regimented warriors were considered more refined than Ignaeus and the other mountain folk. Knightly in appearance and mindset, Lordain’s forces thoroughly patrolled the edges of Arathor’s norther boarders. On the rare occasion that Amani raiding parties approached the kingdom, Lordain put them to the blade.
Both Lordain and Ignaeus often returned to Strom with tales of a horrific conflict brewing between the Amani and the high elves far to the north. There were also whispers of something else stirring in the darkened forest–tales of strange voodoo rituals and supernatural beings prowling in the dead of night.
Though the reports unsettled them, Thoradin and his generals agreed that they would not risk their own kind or send any aid to the reclusive high elves. For the time being, they kept the bulk of their forces behind Strom’s massive ramparts, confident they could withstand any foe.
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There is a third option, though.
When the planet broke the kaldorei simply lost control of Tirisfal because… Well. The continent broke and the Kaldorei Empire quite literally crumbled into the sea.
Keep in mind Azshara didn’t really need the troll lands. She just took it to more or less humiliate them. it is entirely possible that she controlled those lands without there being any substantial elven inhabitants in the region.
Night elves by and large preferred to live near the Well of Eternity. I don’t see them setting up large populations on the outskirts of the furthest reaches of their empire.
As for the humans, the fact that every single map ignores their presence either means they weren’t factored in when drawing the maps or that the humans simply lived there while another nation technically owned the land. Basically making them squatters or perhaps an unaware vassal.
Basically what I am saying is that the humans tribes were so small they couldn’t actually exert any kind of political authority over the land while the Amani, then Kaldorei, then Amani again had ownership of it.
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thats assuming you dont know the numbers of the humans and if your gonna get all legal about this, the old gods owned everything first so the trolls are the squatters
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The Elementals were there first.
All land is Ragnaros land
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ah true true
Night Elves strangely did abandon the eastern continent after the Sundering, except for when Fandral went back over to plant the great trees. But that wasn’t my point. My point was even with the Amani claiming those lands, and then the Night Elves claiming those lands, the Human were actually there before either, left alone, and they had stayed there undisplaced for basically the entirety of history.
And honestly, from the time the Highborne landed in Tirisfal to the Troll Wars, it does not sound like there were any Trolls in Tirisfal. The Highborne travelled for 500 years before arriving in the northern tip of the continent and attacked by the Trolls there at. If the Trolls had been in Tirisfal they would have probably attacked the Highborne the moment they landed, not 500 years later.
And then we also know that the Amani only started attacking the Humans 4,000 years after that, after Thoradin gathered the Humans all together in the fear that the Amani were going to attack.
It doesn’t sound like the Trolls just left the Humans alone for 13,200 years. It sounds more like the Amani weren’t ever actually in Tirisfal.
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This entire line of discussion is made of assumptions, Kat. We straight up don’t know why the maps don’t account for the humans and Tirisfal so we’re theorizing.
But this wouldn’t really make any sense. Zul’Aman was adjacent to Tirisfal originally and present-day Tirisfal was in the very heart of the Amani Empire prior to the Sundering. Why would they simply avoid a huge chunk of territory that the maps claim to be theirs?
I think the most likely explanation is that the human tribes at the time were treated the same as the Wolvar tribes in Northrend. We know they are there. They just aren’t on the political maps because they aren’t politically relevant forces in the world.
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Except we do have that answer before the Sundering. That border as made by the Night Elves, and the Amani didn’t cross it after the Zandalari made their agreement with Azshara.
Your point might stand about the Night Elves leaving the Humans alone, though.
However, after the Sundering Zul’Aman was reestablished far more the northeast, which could explain why the Humans were still left alone after the Sundering.
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I find it odd that the Amani wouldn’t cross into “night elven” territory even after the Sundering. I can’t really see them respecting a border made by a now deposed leader who’s capital just sank into the sea. Though I guess you could argue they didn’t know Azshara had been over thrown.
Which actually makes them attacking the high elves more warranted if they saw it as a full fledged invasion that was in violation of the old treaty.
I wish we had a bit more information to go on. I think I stand by my theory that the Amani controlled that land and maybe used it for hunting and just didn’t mind the small human presence, though. After all, if the land was supposed to be “unclaimed” the map should have shown it. Instead the map says Tirisfal was Amani controlled.
That or, of course, the maps are just unreliable. Maybe the Titans are really bad at drawing up political maps.
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Oh, no, I don’t think the Amani were trying to uphold the Night Elf border after the Sundering. If the Night Elves were gone, I don’t think the Amani worried about that any more.
Rather, I think they ended up pushed so far to the northeast after the Sundering and had to rebuild and recover after the Sundering that it ended up leaving the Humans alone over to the west, and then the Highborne showed up and came to the Amani, keeping the Amani busy and in turn the Humans just left alone until -2,800.
Ahhh, I see what you mean. I could see that being a thing. Maybe the Amani established control over Tirisfal after the Sundering and just left the region mostly vacant because they were busy establishing themselves in the east and trying to rebuild after the Sundering.
So it would be technically Amani territory but not really lived in.
Plausible, but if they did that, it would have been a pretty empty claim, if they just left the Humans alone enough that the Humans were able to build up their forces enough to establish their own borders and protect them.
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I wasn’t really debating whether or not the Amani have strong or weak land claims to Tirisfal. Though I’d argue they definitely have the best claim to the modern day Plaguelands, the vast majority of which was taken to make Lordaeron.
Honestly the fact the Amani were willing to mostly leave Tirisfal to the human tribes is just proof to me that the Amani aren’t the genocidal maniacs people tend to try and paint them as.
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The Plaguelands I definitely could consider as having been part of the Amani territory. Though it might have also been mostly uninhabited, if the Highborne were able to walk through it without any real conflict while heading north. But yes, as far as Tirisfal Glades’ borders they definitely sounded like, before the Troll Wars, they were before what we know as the Plaguelands now.
However, I don’t think the Amani were willing to leave the Humans alone. The Amani had historically attacked everyone they had ever encountered. They attacked the Zandalari before being fended off. They attacked the Night Elves before being fended off. They attacked the Highborne before being fended off.
The Humans united as one because they became worried that the Amani were going to come attack them next. And the Humans guessed correctly, as the Amani came to attack them just when expected.
That’s what leaves me to believe that the Amani were never actually in Tirisfal Glades. By historical precedence, they would have attacked the Humans and the Highborne there if they had been.
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The Highborne were actually being fought as they made their way out of Tirisfal and through what is now the Plaguelands/Ghostlands. They were fighting the trolls for years before they actually arrived at where they’d build Quel’thalas. Then they settled there and had to fend off an even bigger attack but used their magic to stop them.
After that we wait the bizarrely long 4,000 years until the Troll Wars kicked off.
I’m not sure the Highborne were attacked in the Plaguelands. It sounds like they were attacked after they had passed through the mountains and arrived at what is now the Ghostlands.
Maybe? I imagine the forest trolls didn’t have many settlements built around the peaks of mountains though, so that isn’t really indicative that they didn’t populate the Plaguelands proper.
That’s true. The Trolls could have very well have lived in the Plaguelands. And if they did, the Humans definitely took that after the Troll Wars.
I believe these are more accurate depictions of what territory was like before and after the Troll Wars:
This second map matching the territories established in the Chronicle: Volume II map of the Eastern Kingdoms, with the expansion of the Humans into the Eastweald (now known as the Plaguelands) and the High Elves expanding their territories further down south (into what is now known as the Ghostlands).