Tanaris

Full History

Tanaris lies south of the great canyons of Thousand Needles, a wind-scoured desert whose roads connect scavengers, merchants, pirates, and ancient troll communities. The goblin settlement of Gadgetzan is a practical center of trade in a region where shelter and supplies are precious. Goblin neutrality is commercial rather than innocent: the Steamwheedle interests will deal with rival travelers whenever profit and survival permit. Along the eastern coast, Southsea pirates operate from coves and fortified positions, making the desert's edge part of a wider maritime conflict.

Long before the goblin merchants arrived, the Sandfury trolls held the city of Zul'Farrak. Their ruins preserve a distinct branch of the old troll peoples, who survived in the desert after the rise and fragmentation of great troll powers. The trolls' ancient magic, the priesthood of their city, and the monstrous creatures revered or employed within it belong to the original world's histories. Zul'Farrak should be told as a living troll stronghold and historical site, not solely as a dungeon that later travelers clear. The Wastewander bandits around Gadgetzan demonstrate that the most immediate threats to the trade routes are sometimes mundane raiders rather than ancient magical powers.

At Tanaris's eastern and southern edges lie still older mysteries. The Caverns of Time are associated with the bronze dragonflight and the guardianship of history; at the 2004 endpoint, they are a known site rather than a set of playable time-travel instances. The great gates toward Uldum should not be turned into the fully explored later-expansion region. The desert connects to Un'Goro Crater, where strange life flourishes, and to the Shimmering Flats across the northern pass. Tanaris's history is therefore layered: ancient trolls, dragons concerned with time, goblin commerce, human banditry, and the ruins of civilizations whose secrets have not yet been uncovered.

The Sandfury inhabitants also prevent the desert's history from being written only through goblin outsiders. Their ancient city represents continuity across a vast span of troll history, even as the arrival of mercenaries, traders, and dungeon expeditions brings increasing pressure. The dunes hold both an old homeland and a new marketplace.