Ner’zhul’s rituals shatter Draenor

Full History

Draenor had already suffered deeply during the rise of the Horde. The orcish clans' corruption, warfare, and the ambitions of the Shadow Council had transformed its societies. After the defeat of the Old Horde on Azeroth, Ner'zhul sought a means to carry his followers beyond the failing prospects of their homeworld. He gathered powerful magical artifacts to create new portals through which the orcs might reach other realms.

The ritual was not a simple reopening of the familiar passage to Azeroth. It involved multiple gateways and forces of a magnitude that Draenor could not safely contain. As the portals opened, the world's fabric was torn apart. Land broke away, the sky and the horizon changed, and Draenor ceased to exist as the intact world known by the orcish clans. The remains became the shattered remains of Draenor, a broken realm suspended amid the Twisting Nether.

An Alliance expedition had crossed into Draenor to prevent these events. Turalyon, Khadgar, Alleria, Kurdran, Danath, and their soldiers faced the consequences when the ritual began to destroy the world. Khadgar's response was to close the Dark Portal from the Draenor side, protecting Azeroth from the advancing catastrophe. The choice cut the expedition off from home and left its surviving members amid the ruins.

The destruction of Draenor is the culmination of a chain that began with the Horde's demonic corruption. The world whose clans had sought conquest through the Dark Portal was itself destroyed by a plan to exploit still greater magical power. Its condition was not the result of that later struggle, however, but of the portals created by Ner'zhul after the Second War.