Ruins of Isildien

Full History

Isildien belonged to the night elves who settled and built throughout ancient Kalimdor before the Great Sundering. Its stonework came from a civilization whose cities and temples were tied to powers, customs and territories that later generations inherited only in fragments. When the War of the Ancients shattered the world, the fortunes of old settlements such as Isildien changed irrevocably. The rulers and builders who had once given the place its purpose no longer commanded it.

Feralas remained green while much of the old empire disappeared beneath the sea, but surviving walls did not guarantee the survival of the people who raised them. Later, Gordunni ogres occupied parts of the ruined site, using the broken elven buildings to establish their own hold over the surrounding region. Their arrival belonged to a very different period of conquest and migration than the disaster that first ended the city's old life.

Two histories therefore meet at Isildien. The older one concerns the collapse of a night elven world that had stretched far beyond any single forest. The newer one concerns ogres making use of places they did not build. The ruins endured, but the succession of peoples within them showed how a landmark can outlive the civilization that first made it important.