Quick Overview
The Burning Steppes were remade when the Dark Iron sorcerer-thane summoned Ragnaros and raised Blackrock Mountain in the aftermath of the War of the Three Hammers. Later the Old Horde used the mountain as a military stronghold. In original WoW the surrounding region remains divided among hostile Blackrock orcs, ogres, black dragons, and Dark Iron powers.
Full History
Long before the armies of the Horde marched north, the land that became the Burning Steppes formed part of the mountain country bordering Redridge. Its great transformation came through a dwarven civil war. Driven from Ironforge after the War of the Three Hammers, the Dark Iron sorcerer-thane Thaurissan sought supernatural power with which to answer his enemies. His summoning instead brought Ragnaros, the Firelord, into the world. The eruption raised Blackrock Mountain and scorched the surrounding countryside, destroying Thaurissan's ambitions and binding his surviving people to a far more terrible master.
Centuries later the mountain drew another conqueror. The Old Horde used Blackrock Spire as a strategic bastion during its wars against the human kingdoms. Its volcanic approaches offered natural defenses and a position on the road between southern Azeroth and Khaz Modan. Near the end of the Second War, the fate of Anduin Lothar and the Alliance's advance became bound to the battles around Blackrock. The war moved on, but the fortress remained a symbol of orcish power and a refuge for forces that did not follow Thrall's later path.
At the original World of Warcraft opening, no single ruler controls the entire mountain and its neighboring steppes. Rend Blackhand and the hostile Blackrock forces cling to the old military tradition. Fire-Gut ogres contest stretches of the wilderness, while black dragons associated with Nefarian occupy the upper reaches of Blackrock Spire. In the depths, Dark Iron dwarves serve powers tied to Ragnaros and the molten heart of the mountain. Morgan's Vigil is one of the few outposts from which Stormwind's allies watch this threatening frontier.
The Burning Steppes illustrate how separate eras of Warcraft history remain entangled in a single place. The dwarves' ancestral feud created the volcano; the Old Horde turned it into a war fortress; and dragonflight intrigues complicate the unstable balance that followed. The only reliable passage north is consequently an exposed corridor beneath rival hostile strongholds. In patch 1.1 the region is not pacified, and its conflicts are not the same as the later campaigns that adventurers may remember.
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