Quick Overview
Sargeras created the Burning Legion after rejecting the Pantheon he had once served. Its commanders used both demonic armies and corrupted mortal servants to bring worlds under attack. Azeroth resisted the Legion during the War of the Ancients, but the same enemy later manipulated the orcish Horde and helped create the Scourge. The invasion led by Archimonde in the Third War ended at Mount Hyjal, leaving the Legion’s long campaign marked by another costly defeat.
Full History
The Burning Legion began with Sargeras’s break from the titans. Once charged with combating demons in the Great Dark, he came to command them. His new host united terrible beings beneath leaders whose methods differed. Kil’jaeden sought to corrupt and recruit peoples who might serve the Legion, while Archimonde directed invading armies. The pit lord Mannoroth and the dreadlords became instruments of that larger design. The Legion could therefore weaken a world through manipulation long before its armies crossed into open battle.
Its first great attempt upon Azeroth came during the ancient night-elven civilization. The magical power of the Well of Eternity attracted Sargeras, and Queen Azshara’s Highborne court helped open a portal for his servants. Demons invaded Kalimdor, fighting the resistance organized around Malfurion Stormrage and his allies. The gateway meant to admit Sargeras was destroyed when the Well collapsed. Azeroth escaped the intended conquest, but the Sundering remade its land and destroyed the old night-elven empire. The Legion had failed to claim the world and nevertheless caused a catastrophe whose consequences lasted for millennia.
A later strategy turned toward Draenor. Kil’jaeden manipulated Ner’zhul and Gul’dan, and Mannoroth’s blood bound much of the old Horde to demonic influence. Orcish invasion brought that corruption to the human kingdoms of Azeroth, but the Horde did not complete the Legion’s purpose. Kil’jaeden then reshaped Ner’zhul into the Lich King, creating the power behind the undead Scourge. The Scourge devastated Lordaeron and prepared the return of Archimonde, revealing how the Legion could turn even defeat into the beginning of another threat.
In the Third War, Archimonde entered Azeroth at Dalaran and led the assault toward Mount Hyjal. There a rare coalition of humans, orcs, and night elves delayed his forces until Malfurion could summon the wisps that destroyed him. The Legion’s history at the original-world endpoint is thus a succession of assaults by armies and proxies, each leaving immense damage but failing to end Azeroth’s resistance. Its threat is measured as much by the peoples it corrupted as by the demons who marched beneath its banners.
The Living Archive · Subject Chronicle
Through History
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