Ragnaros

Full History

Long before the rise of Ironforge or the first wars of the dwarven clans, Ragnaros ruled the elementals of fire. He was no mortal sorcerer or creature born within the mountains of Khaz Modan, but an ancient force whose power had once threatened the young world. The Titans banished the Firelord when Azeroth was still young, separating him from the lands that later became the kingdoms of dwarves, humans, and elves. His return would not come through an elemental conquest. It would come at the call of a desperate dwarf.

Centuries later, the death of High King Modimus Anvilmar broke the fragile peace among the Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron clans. The struggle for Ironforge became the War of the Three Hammers. Driven from the mountain, the Dark Irons established their own city in the southern Redridge Mountains under Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan. Defeat hardened into revenge. Thaurissan attacked Ironforge while his wife, Modgud, led a second Dark Iron army against the Wildhammers at Grim Batol. Both assaults failed. Modgud fell, the Dark Iron armies were broken, and the victorious clans advanced toward Thaurissan's stronghold.

Facing ruin, Thaurissan attempted to summon a supernatural servant powerful enough to annihilate his enemies. Instead, he called Ragnaros back into Azeroth. The Firelord's arrival unleashed a cataclysm that destroyed Thaurissan and shattered the surrounding mountains. A vast, burning volcano rose at the center of the devastation: Blackrock Mountain. The lands to its north and south became the scorched Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes. The Bronzebeard and Wildhammer leaders abandoned their advance rather than challenge the inferno, bringing the War of the Three Hammers to a sudden and terrible end. The Dark Irons survived, but not as victors. Ragnaros and his elementals bound them to his rule.

In the generations that followed, the surviving Dark Iron dwarves carved out a realm beneath Blackrock Mountain. Their capital, Shadowforge City, lay deep within Blackrock Depths, where their rulers lived under the shadow of the being their ancestor had unleashed. Emperor Dagran Thaurissan commanded the Dark Iron kingdom, but Ragnaros remained the overwhelming power beneath it. The Firelord's servants held the volcanic depths while Dark Iron armies, sorcerers, and smiths carried the clan's ancient hatred into the surrounding lands. What had begun as a dwarven civil war had left a lasting elemental tyranny at the heart of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Blackrock Mountain became contested ground for more than one power. The Blackrock orcs and the dragon Nefarian entrenched themselves in the upper reaches, while the Dark Irons and fire elementals held the lower depths. Beneath them lay the Molten Core, the place of Ragnaros's summoning and the fiery heart of the mountain. There the Firelord rested amid a lake of flame connected to the elemental plane of fire. His lieutenants, including Majordomo Executus and mighty elemental guardians, protected his domain. Ragnaros's servants also worked to create armies of living stone, giving his power a reach beyond the molten caverns.

At the opening of the age chronicled by World of Warcraft, Ragnaros remained one of the most dangerous powers hidden beneath Azeroth's surface. The scorched country surrounding Blackrock Mountain, the subjugation of the Dark Iron clan, and the rivalry for the mountain's heights all bore the mark of his summoning. The Molten Core was not merely a place of fire and monsters: it was the surviving center of a catastrophe that had remade dwarven history and left a lord of living flame enthroned below the world.