Five Dragon Aspects are empowered

Full History

After the titans had ordered Azeroth, its continued protection could not depend upon their constant presence. Among the greatest guardians of the world were five dragon leaders chosen and empowered for distinct responsibilities. Alexstrasza became associated with the preservation of life, Ysera with the dreaming realm of nature, Nozdormu with the flow of time, Malygos with magic, and Neltharion with the earth. The duties of these Aspects reached across the whole of Azeroth's history.

Their powers also meant that the dragonflights were not simply rival populations of enormous beasts. They possessed an inherited charge to defend and preserve aspects of the world against threats that mortal armies could scarcely comprehend. The green flight and the Emerald Dream, the blue flight and arcane magic, and the bronze flight's concern with time reflected very different forms of guardianship. These distinctions gave the Aspects separate importance in the ages that followed.

The greatest rupture came during the War of the Ancients. Neltharion, later known as Deathwing, used the Dragon Soul against fellow dragons after the weapon had been prepared for the struggle with the Burning Legion. The blue dragonflight suffered grievously in that betrayal, and the trust that had sustained the Aspects was broken. A safeguard intended for the defense of Azeroth had become an instrument of devastation in the hands of one of its own appointed protectors.

That failure did not erase the remaining Aspects' influence. Alexstrasza's enslavement and later liberation in the Second War, Ysera's association with the druids, and the lingering mysteries of the dragonflights all continued to shape the world. By the opening of the original World of Warcraft, the dragons represented both a living connection to Azeroth's oldest ordering and the lasting consequences of an ancient betrayal. Their history shows how the gifts intended to protect a world can also endanger it.