Early humans

“Long ago humans were warring tribes of barbarians, slowly being exterminated by the trolls ...”

— King Thoradin

The Arathi warlord Thoradin, who united the human tribes into the empire of Arathor.

The early history of humanity stretches from the emergence of the first humans as cursed descendants of the Dragonflayer vrykul in around 15,000 BDP, to their unification into their first civilization of Arathor in 2,800 BDP. During this period, humans were primarily a scattered and tribal people who lived as hunter-gatherers across the northern Eastern Kingdoms, practiced animistic beliefs, and cultivated the knowledge passed down to them by their vrykul forebears.

History

Children of giants

Progenitors of humanity: a vision of two ancient vrykul parents and their cursed newborn.

“Where are the titans in our time of greatest need? Our women birth aberrations - disfigured runts unable to even stand on their own! Weak and ugly... Useless... [...] And now my first decree upon the Vrykul! All malformed infants born of Vrykul mother and father are to be destroyed upon birth! Our blood must remain pure always!”

— King Ymiron condemning the malformed vrykul children

Humans are descendants of the vrykul, a race of barbaric half-giants. Originally an iron-skinned race of titan-forged, the vrykul were turned to mortal beings by the curse of flesh. Circa 15,000 BDP, the curse took another turn and caused women of the Dragonflayer clan to begin giving birth to small, weak, malformed children. King Ymiron blamed the keepers, whom the vrykul worshipped, for the curse and ordered all of the infant "aberrations" to be killed at birth in order to preserve the clan's purity. The parents who refused were taken to Gjalerbron for execution, and those who sheltered their condemned children were relentlessly hunted down by Skadi the Ruthless.

While many of the Dragonflayers obeyed Ymiron's orders, some instead decided to save their newborns by traveling south and hiding them in the Tirisfal Glades, a mythical land where a lost clan of vrykul had journeyed with the keeper Tyr ages prior. Most of the Dragonflayers who set out for Tirisfal were never heard from again, but some managed to reach their destination, where they provided their offspring with limited supplies and scrolls of tales from vrykul society (most notably the legend of Keeper Tyr and his silver hand) before leaving them in the care of Tirisfal's vrykul population. In the ages that followed, the afflicted children and their offspring continued to degenerate into mortal beings called humans.

In time, Tirisfal's iron vrykul slowly died off as they succumbed to the curse of flesh. One group lasted longer than the others and formed a secret order, Tyr's Guard, to protect the Tomb of Tyr that had given Tirisfal Glades their name. Knowing that they would not live forever, they inducted some of the fledgling humans into their ranks and taught them the history of Tyr and the truth of what lay in the tomb: the bodies of both the dead keeper and his final foe, the C'Thrax Zakajz the Corruptor. Eventually, the last vrykul of the human lands died out.

Encounters with the high elves

Circa 7,300 BDP, when the exiled Highborne who would become the high elves arrived in Tirisfal, they encountered primitive human tribes who hunted throughout the ancient forests. Initially, the humans rarely interacted with the Highborne, but eventually began to tell the newcomers legends about Tyr. The Highborne detected potent ley lines in the area, whose energies the humans could not detect, and decided to settle in the forest. However, after a time, Void energies radiating from the buried Zakajz caused some of the Highborne to go mad. They began to argue that the humans had built their settlements atop the region's strongest ley lines, and that the Highborne should either force them to relocate or conquer them outright. The Highborne's leader, Dath'Remar Sunstrider, did not wish to war against a people who posed his kind no threat and instead chose to lead the Highborne away from Tirisfal and continue further north.

Circa 6,800 BDP, the traveling Highborne became trapped in a series of mountain passes for nearly a month by a brutal winter storm. Only the compassion of some humans living in the mountains kept the entire expedition from starving to death, allowing them to continue north and eventually create the kingdom of Quel'Thalas.

Founding of Arathor

Main article: Arathor

The Empire of Arathor in 2,800 BDP.

Humanity continued to proliferate in the forests and hillocks of the Eastern Kingdoms for thousands of years. Despite the existence of Amani forest trolls, high elves, and other potential threats, humanity's greatest enemy proved to be itself: the tribes constantly warred with one another and raided each other's settlements in pursuit of land and power. Circa 2,800 BDP, increased aggression from the trolls caused the Arathi tribe and their warlord, Thoradin, to realize the error of their ways, and they set out to unite humanity under a single banner. Over the course of six years, Thoradin and the Arathi brought the other tribes to heel through political marriages, promises of wealth and land, or (in the case of especially violent tribes) conquest. After each victory, Thoradin offered the conquered people peace and equality and elevated the tribal leaders to his honored generals, thereby winning their loyalty. This strategy was a new one among humans, a testament to both the youth of their race and their willingness to gain strength through clear-sighted pragmatism.

Once the tribes were united, Thoradin named his nation the Empire of Arathor and founded a capital, Strom, in the Arathi Highlands. The founding of Arathor changed the course of history for both humanity and Azeroth; humans went on to ally with the high elves against the trolls during the Troll Wars in exchange for being taught arcane magic, and in the centuries that followed, their civilization continued to expand across the Eastern Kingdoms, laying the foundations for the Seven Kingdoms of the modern day.

Culture

Strom'kar, the Warbreaker, an ancient human weapon.

Early humans were a people of nomadic hunter-gatherers. They were taught the ways of foraging, masonry, smithing, and warfare by their vrykul parents. As their society evolved and advanced, they gathered in an array of different tribes led by warlords, including:

• Arathi — A warlike tribe that lived on the northeastern borders of the human lands and often skirmished with the Amani Empire. In 2,800 BDP, under the leadership of Thoradin, they united the other tribes into the Empire of Arathor.
• Alteraci — A tribe of courageous warriors that inhabited the slopes of the Alterac Mountains. They were considered uncouth and savage by humans from other regions. At the time of the Troll Wars, they were led by Ignaeus Trollbane.
• Unnamed tribe — A powerful tribe from Tirisfal Glades. They were deeply religious and were considered more refined than the Alteraci. At the time of the Troll Wars, they were led by Lordain.
• Several other tribes in Tirisfal Glades.
• Many other tribes across the northern Eastern Kingdoms.

Legends and folklore

The vrykul passed down various scrolls telling of ancient heroes and leaders to their human descendants. One of these stories was that of the keeper Tyr. In the legend, Tyr was remembered as a great hero who had sacrificed his hand in a battle against a great evil and subsequently replaced it with a fist of pure silver, thereby impressing on his followers that true justice can only be accomplished through personal sacrifice, before ultimately sacrificing himself to kill another monstrous foe in Tirisfal Glades. Tyr's silver hand was a common symbol for human tribes that inhabited Tirisfal. It appeared on clothing and pendants, worn to ward away disease and evil spirits and to protect warriors in battle.

By Thoradin's lifetime, the vrykul of the human lands had long since gone extinct and themselves passed into legend. The tribes had many folktales about a race of giants (known under many different names) who had once walked among the humans and watched over them, like parents watching over their children. Weapons left behind by the vrykul were treated by the humans as sacred heirlooms and tribal symbols.

Early human warlords held their swords and axes sacred, since many believed that the spirits of their ancestors lived on in their weapons. During the formation of Arathor, Thoradin cunningly took advantage of this fact by convincing all of the tribal leaders to lend him their weapons, after which Arathi blacksmiths added shards from each one to Thoradin's own sword, Strom'kar. This secured the eternal loyalty of the tribes, since none would dare rise up against Thoradin and risk striking the sword that contained their own ancestors.

The powerful and unyielding white stallion features heavily in the myths of ancient human tribes.

Magic

Each of the human tribes practiced animistic belief systems that incorporated simple nature magic, mainly crude forms of druidism and shamanism. The arcane magic of the high elves was legendary among the early humans, but up until the Troll Wars they had never learned its secrets. They also had no knowledge of the Holy Light, as it was only after the Troll Wars that they were introduced to it by the naaru. The introduction of the arcane and the rise of organized religion such as the Church of the Holy Light after the Troll Wars quickly supplanted the humans' original nature-based traditions, with the exception of a surviving remnant in Gilneas' harvest-witches.

In the RPG

This section contains information from the Warcraft RPG which is considered non-canon.

Humans called the Azotha appeared between 14,000 and 10,000 years before the present day. At this time they were nearly as savage as their foes among the trolls, and both groups wandered the land battling each other while trying to plant the seeds of their cultures. The trolls actively hunted nomadic human tribes. Like the dwarves, the humans were awed by the civilization of the night elves, and their early histories depict the night elves as shadowy, perfect figures with godlike powers. For centuries prior to the War of the Ancients, the Ancients Ursoc and Ursol befriended many generations of humans and night elves, and were beloved by them in turn.

At the start of the War of the Ancients, the humans retreated deep into the wild to escape the Burning Legion's onslaught. During the war, groups of endangered humans or night elves were occasionally guided away from the doomguard by the Ancient Aviana disguised in mortal form.

For millennia after the Great Sundering, the human tribes teetered on the brink of extinction. Their numbers were winnowed by an ever-increasing struggle to gather what was needed for survival, and they wandered ever further afield in search of game, wood, and refuge. Finally, the sun returned and greenery once again sprouted across the plains. The human tribes sent out bands to explore the revitalized world, establish trade routes, and find their long-lost brethren. However, the trolls had also survived and emerged to harry the human travelers and merchants. They soon grew bold enough to raid settlements and steal slaves and fodder for their rituals. Though they had not yet been introduced to arcane magic, the humans of this period may have had access to divine magic through worship of the Old Gods or early cults that would become the Church of the Holy Light.

The high elves learned of humans after settling in Quel'Thalas, but left them to their own crude culture for some time. The humans continued to live a nomadic life for many years until the strongest tribe, the Arathi, gathered the other tribes under their rule over the course of a few years and established the empire of Arathor. Though some tribes chafed when their destinies were bound together, the Arathi assured them the land would always belong to all peoples and named the land as a whole in homage to their ancient ancestors: Azeroth.

Notes

• According to Medivh, the ancient night elves enslaved nascent humans and other races to build their empire after they were corrupted by Sargeras. However, when Rhonin was sent back in time to the War of the Ancients, none of the night elves of the time (including Malfurion Stormrage, Captain Varo'then, or even Queen Azshara) recognized his race or knew what a "human" was; studies by the Moon Guard instead indicated that he was simply an unusually tall earthen.
• The back cover descriptions for the novels Day of the Dragon and The Last Guardian vaguely describe how elves, dwarves, and other magical beings peacefully walked among the "tribes of man" prior to the War of the Ancients.
• Taran Zhu once told Vol'jin that it's possible that some humans and trolls fought with the pandaren during their revolution against the mogu empire in 12,000 BDP. Vol'jin found this unlikely since humans were "unrefined" at the time and the Zandalari trolls still viewed the mogu as allies, but Taran pointed out that there are always exceptions in every population.
• Human ghosts called Ancestral Guardians appear in the Chamber of the Moon, a titan-forged structure in Uldum. Their origin is not known.