Blasted Lands

Full History

The Blasted Lands were not always a desert. Their desolation is bound to the Dark Portal, the gateway Medivh and the orcish warlocks helped bring into existence at the beginning of the First War. Energies unleashed through that portal and the wars surrounding it altered the southern Black Morass beyond recognition. Red dust, cracked earth, and scattered demonic forces stand where marshland once reached. The landscape is inseparable from the moment two worlds were joined, and from the invasions that followed. At the original World of Warcraft starting point, the ruined portal is a monument to those catastrophes, not an open travel route to a playable the shattered remains of Draenor.

Following the Second War, the Alliance established Nethergarde Keep to watch the site. The fortress serves as both warning station and defense against remaining threats, its garrison confronting wandering demons and ogres in terrain ill suited to ordinary settlement. Dreadmaul ogres inhabit parts of the waste; further south the Tainted Scar shelters dangerous Burning Legion servants. Lord Kazzak belongs to the original game's demonic dangers, but his later activities and the reopening of interworld travel do not. The garrison's presence also preserves the memory of Khadgar and the Alliance campaign that followed the Second War.

Every major landmark here derives meaning from an earlier conflict. The Dark Portal recalls the Old Horde's arrival, Nethergarde the Alliance response, and the Altar of Storms the dangerous ritual power wielded by orcs and their allies. The near absence of peaceful towns underlines how thoroughly those struggles transformed the land. The Blasted Lands are therefore a place where a traveler can read the first chapter of the modern wars directly in geography.

Although the portal's older history connects this desert to Draenor, knowledge of its distant side is not the same as access to it.