| abstract
| - For untold millennia, the titans scoured the cosmos for signs of more beings like themselves; slumbering world-souls that would one day grow into titans in their own right. One titan in particular, Aggramar, discovered Azeroth during his long journeys across space in his hunt for agents of the Burning Legion. He sensed the power of the spirit within, and discovered that if brought to full maturity, Azeroth's power would dwarf even that of mighty Sargeras. To his horror, he discovered that the Old Gods had arrived before him and were laying waste to the world, having already enslaved the Elemental Lords. Though Azeroth's spirit was not yet corrupted, it was only a matter of time. Aggramar returned with the rest of the Pantheon, though it was agreed that the titans could not intervene directly, lest their sheer power destroy the planet. The Pantheon forged an army of powerful beings, called titan-forged, to make war on the Old Gods instead; the Aesir and Vanir. They also charged a select group of their servants with the power to lead the armies of the titans, and aid in the protection of Azeroth; the keepers. These keepers were Ra (later known as Ra-den), Odyn, Archaedas, Thorim, Hodir, Freya, Loken, Mimiron, and Tyr. The war raged for many years, but it was soon determined that even the vast armies of the titans would have trouble defeating Y'Shaarj, the most powerful of the Old Gods. In desperation, Aman'Thul himself reached down onto the planet and ripped Y'Shaarj from the surface. Though killed, the Old God had burrowed very deep into the planet; a great hole remained, leaking Azeroth's lifeblood onto its surface, and pieces of the Old God's body rained down, spreading evil where they landed. Unable to repeat that act without killing Azeroth, the titans turned their plans toward sealing the Old Gods in underground prisons. The titan-forged armies attacked the Old Gods directly. Once weakened, the remaining Old Gods were sealed deep underground, their evil contained for the time being. The Elemental Lords were sealed in alternate planes of the titans' devising, ending their threat as well. The titans and their keepers turned their attention to the new hole in the center of Kalimdor. The keepers labored for a long while, but succeeded in crafting powerful magical wards to contain the rift's powers and prevent Azeroth from almost literally bleeding to death. All that remained was a great lake of scintillating energy, which the keepers dubbed the Well of Eternity. The Well's potent energies would nurture the bones of the world and empower life to take root in the land's rich soil. Over time, plants, trees, monsters, and creatures of every kind began to thrive on the primordial continent. As twilight fell on the final day of their labors, the keepers named the continent Kalimdor: "Land of Eternal Starlight" in their language. With time, that landmass became home to a number of disparate races and creatures, all vying for survival among the savage elements of the waking world. 10,000 years ago, while the War of the Ancients was raging on, Sargeras' failed entrance through the Well of Eternity caused the unstable vortex within the Well's depths to explode and ignite a catastrophic chain of events known as the Great Sundering. The massive explosion sent massive quakes ripping through the tortured earth and the surging Well of Eternity buckled in upon itself and collapsed. The resultant catastrophic explosion shattered the earth and blotted out the skies. As the aftershocks from the implosion rattled the bones of the world, the seas rushed in to fill the gaping wounds left in the earth. Nearly eighty percent of Kalimdor's landmass had been blasted apart, leaving only a new, raging sea surrounding a handful of major continents and scattered islands: the Eastern Kingdoms, Kezan, Pandaria, Northrend, the broken isles and the remnant still referred to as Kalimdor. The ancient landmass known as Kalimdor would be called a supercontinent since all known lands on Azeroth were once a part of it.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)