LoreReadsWhich Warcraft novels and comics to read between expansions, and why.
Blizzard started Warcraft in 1994 as a strategy series about orcs invading a human kingdom, and it grew, through Warcraft III, into World of Warcraft, which has carried the story ever since with a new expansion every couple of years. Azeroth's history is long, and the games tell much of it in passing, through quest text, raids and cinematics.
The books fill the gaps. Most expansions have a novel that leads into them, and a few books after explain what changed. Others go back in time: to the orcs' homeworld, the night elves' first war with the Burning Legion, or the dragons' prehistory. They share the games' continuity and often decide what happened to characters between one expansion and the next.
If you play World of Warcraft and want one book, read Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. If you want the background to the current story, start with Before the Storm and read each expansion's lead-in from there. Blizzard's illustrated Chronicle volumes are the quickest way through the whole history.
The games come in release order, since that's how the story was told, with Forsaken Kingdom right after The Frozen Throne, where its story sits. Each book follows the game it builds on or comes just before the expansion it leads into, so there's something to read between almost every pair of expansions. The War of the Ancients trilogy waits until after Warcraft III because its present-day frame assumes it, and each Chronicle volume comes after the last game it summarizes. Optional books are placed where they connect, so skip whichever you like. It suits anyone playing through or catching up one expansion at a time.
The orcs of the Horde come through the Dark Portal into Azeroth and go to war with the human kingdom of Stormwind. It's an early real-time strategy game with a campaign for each side, covering the First War from raids on farmland to sieges of castles. The story is told almost entirely through mission briefings, so the characters later games made famous are mostly names.
The young mage Khadgar is sent by the Kirin Tor to the tower of Karazhan to become apprentice to Medivh, Guardian of Tirisfal and the most powerful mage alive. Medivh is brilliant, moody and often gone for days. As Khadgar settles in, orcs are raiding the borders of Stormwind, and he starts to suspect his master knows more about them than he admits.
This is the story the 2016 film was built on, and the history Karazhan's ghosts replay in The Burning Crusade. You meet Khadgar decades before he's Legion's gray-bearded archmage, along with Medivh, Garona and Anduin Lothar, and you learn how the Dark Portal came to be. Grubb writes a tight, sad book that works even if the First War is ancient history to you. Of the early novels, it holds up best.
With Stormwind in ruins, the Horde pushes north, now joined by trolls, ogres and dragons. The surviving human kingdoms band together with dwarves, gnomes and high elves as the Alliance of Lordaeron. Two campaigns cover the Second War on land and at sea, and many names you know from World of Warcraft first show up here.
The Horde has burned Stormwind, and its survivors flee north to Lordaeron under Anduin Lothar. The human kings agree, grudgingly, to an Alliance with Lothar in command and the young paladin Turalyon and the high elf ranger Alleria Windrunner at his side. On the other side, Orgrim Doomhammer leads the Horde north with new allies.
Warcraft II's briefings only sketch the Second War, and this tells it from the ground. It turns Turalyon and Alleria into people, which matters now that both are back in the games from Legion on, and it shows Orgrim Doomhammer as a leader, Gul'dan's scheming and where the first death knights came from. The prose is plain and the battles pile up, so read it for the history rather than the writing.
An expansion to Warcraft II. After the Second War, what's left of the Horde gathers under the old shaman Ner'zhul and opens the Dark Portal again, and the Alliance sends an expedition through it into Draenor, the orcs' homeworld. Its campaigns follow both sides beyond the portal, with Khadgar, Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner among the Alliance's commanders.
After the Second War, the Alliance keeps the captured orcs in camps and guards the Dark Portal. On Draenor, the old shaman Ner'zhul and the death knight Teron Gorefiend gather what's left of the Horde for a new plan. When the portal opens again, Turalyon, Alleria, Khadgar and the Alliance's best follow the orcs back into their homeworld.
It retells the Warcraft II expansion and gives the Alliance expedition faces, which pays off in Hellfire Peninsula, where Honor Hold's soldiers are what's left of it, and again when Legion brings its leaders back. You also see Ner'zhul's side, an early chapter in the Lich King's story. Like Tides of Darkness it's functional rather than memorable, and it follows straight on from that book.
Blizzard's own illustrated history of the Warcraft universe. The first volume starts with the creation of the cosmos, the titans and the Old Gods and runs through the night elves' empire, the War of the Ancients and the rise of the human kingdoms, ending just before the orcs arrive.
Blizzard wrote this series to settle decades of contradictory lore, so where it disagrees with an older novel, it wins. You get the cosmology behind Legion and Shadowlands in one place: the titans, Sargeras's fall, the Old Gods and the forces of Light and Void. It's a history book, heavily illustrated, so expect summary rather than scenes. Start the series here.
The second volume turns to Draenor, from its primal past of gronn, ogres and arakkoa to the orc clans and the draenei who settled among them. It then covers the orcs' corruption, the First and Second Wars on Azeroth and the Alliance's expedition through the Dark Portal, ending with the fate of Draenor.
The official version of the first three games' story, and the cleanest way to get it if you'd rather not play 1990s strategy games. Draenor's ancient history, with the gronn, the ogres and the arakkoa, is good background for Warlords of Draenor. Like the first volume, it overrides the older novels where they disagree. Read it after Volume 1.
Two years after the Second War, the young mage Rhonin is sent by the Kirin Tor into Khaz Modan, where the Dragonmaw orcs still hold the red dragon queen Alexstrasza captive at Grim Batol. With the high elf ranger Vereesa Windrunner and the dwarf Falstad Wildhammer along, he soon finds the mission is about much more than one queen.
Rhonin, Vereesa and the mysterious mage Krasus become recurring faces, from the Kirin Tor's Dalaran in Wrath to the War of the Ancients trilogy, which follows on from this. It also lays out the five dragonflights and their Aspects, which you'll want for Cataclysm and Dragonflight. Knaak loves dragons and cliffhangers and his prose can get overheated, but it's short and it moves.
Thrall has been raised as a slave and gladiator by Aedelas Blackmoore, a human lord who wants an orc of his own to lead his armies. Taught to read and fight in Durnholde Keep, he knows nothing of his own people. When he finally gets out, he goes looking for the orcs who are left, from listless prisoners in the camps to clans still free in the mountains.
Thrall's whole story starts here, and Warcraft III picks him up where it ends. You meet Grom Hellscream, Orgrim Doomhammer and Taretha Foxton, and you see Durnholde, which The Burning Crusade's Old Hillsbrad dungeon lets you visit. It began as the story of a cancelled Warcraft adventure game and reads like one: brisk, simple and a little earnest. If you care about the Horde, read it.
Over a decade after the Second War, the young warchief Thrall has freed the orcs from their internment camps, and visions urge him to lead them across the sea. In Lordaeron, Prince Arthas and the sorceress Jaina Proudmoore look into a plague spreading through the northern villages. Four campaigns, human, undead, orc and night elf, tell one connected story.
An expansion that picks up right after Reign of Chaos. The warden Maiev Shadowsong hunts Illidan Stormrage across the world, the undead of Lordaeron start to fracture, and Arthas hears the Lich King calling from Northrend. A separate orc campaign follows Rexxar, a half-ogre beastmaster, through Durotar, the orcs' new home.
A new campaign for Warcraft III: Reforged, set in the last days of Lordaeron. Garek Bandarion is a lieutenant of the capital's city guard when the kingdom falls to the Scourge, and the story follows him and the dark ranger Anya among the undead who break free under Sylvanas Windrunner. A linear prologue leads into a looser campaign in the style of Rexxar's.
Ten thousand years ago, Queen Azshara and her Highborne court are drawing deeper and deeper on the Well of Eternity, and something beyond the world is listening. The young druid Malfurion Stormrage, his twin Illidan and the priestess Tyrande are swept up in events when strangers out of time arrive among them: the mage Rhonin, his mentor Krasus and an orc veteran named Broxigar.
This trilogy is where Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan begin, and so do Azshara, the Highborne and the Burning Legion's first invasion. Legion, Battle for Azeroth's naga and Cataclysm's Well of Eternity dungeon all lean on it. Knaak stretches his battles across chapters, which wears by the third book, but no other fiction shows the ancient night elves this closely. Read Day of the Dragon first.
Demons are pouring through the portal in Azshara's palace, and the night elf armies are losing ground. Malfurion and Tyrande try to rally them while the three strangers from the future look for a way to turn the war, and the dragonflights, still young and powerful, start to take an interest in the fighting.
The middle book, and the one that matters most for the dragons. The Demon Soul, later called the Dragon Soul, is made here, so this is the background to Cataclysm's last raid and to much of Dragonflight. Broxigar, an old orc soldier stranded among night elves, gives the book its heart. It's long and ends on a cliffhanger, so have The Sundering ready.
The war against the Burning Legion comes down to the Well of Eternity itself. Azshara's Highborne are close to bringing the Legion's master into the world, and Malfurion, Tyrande and their allies have to find a way to stop them. Rhonin and Krasus, meanwhile, still don't know whether they can ever go home.
Here's where the old night elf world breaks apart, and it's the origin of the Maelstrom, the naga and the high elves. Illidan's choices in this book explain how he's treated for the next ten thousand years, which pays off in Warcraft III and again in Legion. The last third is the strongest stretch of the trilogy. Read the three in order.
Tirion Fordring, a paladin of the Knights of the Silver Hand, has spent his life fighting orcs. On his lands in northern Lordaeron he comes across an old orc warrior, Eitrigg, living in hiding, and an unexpected act of honor from the orc forces Tirion to choose between the law he serves and what he thinks is right.
A novella you can read in an evening, and the first Warcraft story published as a book. It gives you Tirion's past, his son Taelan and Eitrigg, all three of whom turn up in the original game's Eastern Plaguelands quests, and Eitrigg stands beside Thrall in Orgrimmar for years after. Tirion leads the Argent Crusade in Wrath, so it keeps paying off. Metzen's writing is rough in places.
A few years after the Third War, Thrall's orcs in Durotar and Jaina Proudmoore's humans in Theramore keep an uneasy peace. Then a run of attacks on both sides threatens to start the war again, and Thrall and Jaina have to find out who is stoking it before their own people force their hands.
The bridge between Warcraft III and the original game, and the reason the Barrens and Dustwallow Marsh feel so tense when you get there. Thrall and Jaina's friendship is at its best here, and Durotar and Theramore get some life. The plot is thin and you won't miss much without it, but it's short and catches the mood of early World of Warcraft.
Four years after the Third War, Azeroth is split between the Alliance and the Horde, and their truce is wearing thin. You create a hero, pick a side and quest across the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, from Elwynn Forest to the deserts of Silithus. The story lives in thousands of quests and dungeons rather than one plot, with old threats from Warcraft III resurfacing.
After the Third War, the blue dragon Kalecgos wanders the ruined north in human form, as Kalec, tracking a powerful magic that has surfaced. He meets Anveena Teague, a farm girl with a secret, and the two are soon hunted by Scourge forces led by Dar'Khan Drathir, the elf who helped Arthas into Quel'Thalas.
A three-volume manga, collected in one book, that introduces Kalecgos, a major character from Cataclysm on, and Anveena, whose story runs into the Sunwell Plateau raid at the end of The Burning Crusade. It's also an early look at the Ghostlands and the elves' state after Arthas. Knaak keeps it quick and simple. Read it before you reach the Sunwell Plateau.
Long before the Dark Portal, the orcs of Draenor are a shamanistic people living in clans, and young Durotan is heir to the Frostwolf chieftaincy. Their neighbors are the draenei, exiles from another world. When the elder shaman Ner'zhul starts receiving visions he believes come from the ancestors, Durotan and his friend Orgrim watch their people begin to change.
If you play the Horde, this isn't optional. It shows how the orcs fell to demon blood, what that did to the draenei and why Thrall's father matters. The Burning Crusade's Outland and Warlords of Draenor's alternate Draenor both make far more sense afterwards, since many of their characters appear here first, from Velen and Kil'jaeden to Blackhand and Gul'dan. It's dark, and Golden makes it hit hard.
The Dark Portal opens again, and the Alliance and the Horde push through it into Outland, the broken remains of Draenor. Illidan Stormrage has made himself its master, the Burning Legion still has a foothold there, and two new races join the factions: blood elves for the Horde and draenei for the Alliance.
A warrior with no memory washes up on the coast of Kalimdor and is thrown into the gladiator pits under the name Lo'Gosh. Fighting beside the blood elf rogue Valeera Sanguinar and the night elf druid Broll Bearmantle, he sets out to learn who he is, while far away in Stormwind, the boy-king Anduin's court has problems of its own.
The first half of the story behind Varian Wrynn, the king who leads the Alliance through Wrath and Cataclysm, and it introduces Valeera and Broll, who turn up later in Stormrage and Hearthstone. Walter Simonson writes a straightforward adventure comic, light on deep lore and heavy on fights. Read Book One and Book Two together; the story only finishes in the second.
Lo'Gosh now knows he is Varian Wrynn, Stormwind's missing king, and he heads home with Valeera and Broll to take back his throne. But Stormwind's court isn't what it seems, with Bolvar Fordragon ruling as regent and young Anduin at its center, and a well-informed dwarf named Thargas has warnings of his own.
This finishes the Lo'Gosh story and settles the Onyxia plot that the original game's Stormwind quests began. Chronicle later treated this version as what really happened. By the end, you'll understand the angry Varian who storms through Wrath of the Lich King, and why Anduin is so wary of him. Read it right after Book One.
Years after Day of the Dragon, something has taken root in Grim Batol, the fortress where the red dragons were once held captive. Dragons are disappearing, and the mage Krasus and the blue dragon Kalecgos go to investigate, while a draenei priestess named Iridi crosses the sea on an errand of her own. Inside, Deathwing's consort Sintharia is breeding something new.
This is where the twilight dragonflight begins, and it becomes a major enemy in Cataclysm, where Sintharia also turns up as a raid boss. Rhonin and Vereesa have parts too, settled and older. It's Knaak at his most dragon-obsessed, with plenty of shapeshifting battles and not much else. Read Day of the Dragon first; this builds on it.
Arthas Menethil is the only son of King Terenas of Lordaeron, trained as a paladin by Uther the Lightbringer and drawn to the young sorceress Jaina Proudmoore. The book follows him from boyhood into the years when a plague begins spreading through his father's kingdom. Short interludes set much later, as the Scourge stirs again, frame his story.
If you read one Warcraft novel, make it this one. It retells Arthas's part of Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne from his side, fills in his childhood, his horse Invincible and his years with Jaina, and turns Wrath's villain into a tragedy. Golden is at her best here. It's the natural thing to read between The Frozen Throne and Wrath of the Lich King, and it gives both games away, so play them first if you plan to.
As the plague of undeath ravages Lordaeron, a blade is forged in secret and given to Highlord Alexandros Mograine, a paladin of the Silver Hand. The comic follows Mograine and his sons, Renault and Darion, through the war against the Scourge and the rise of the Scarlet Crusade, as the sword earns its name.
If you ran Scarlet Monastery, chased the Ashbringer in the original game or started a death knight in Wrath, this is the story behind all three. It explains the Mograine family that the death knight starting zone is built around, and the Scarlet Crusade's leaders get faces. Four issues, so it's a short read. Save it for just before Wrath and the death knight intro lands harder.
The Scourge strikes at the cities of both factions, and the Alliance and the Horde sail for Northrend, the frozen continent where the Lich King waits in Icecrown Citadel. Death knights become playable, starting as the Lich King's servants in the Plaguelands, and the zones between the coast and Icecrown are full of old Warcraft III faces.
The Emerald Dream, the druids' spirit world, is being swallowed by the Emerald Nightmare, and people across Azeroth fall into a sleep they don't wake from. Tyrande Whisperwind sets out to find Malfurion Stormrage, whose spirit has been lost in the Dream for years, with the druid Broll Bearmantle and the tauren Hamuul Runetotem fighting the Nightmare at home.
It covers what Malfurion was doing between the original game and Cataclysm, and it's the fullest backstory for the Emerald Nightmare, which Legion turned into a raid. Night elf and druid politics get plenty of room. It's long and the dream battles get repetitive, so it's one for druids and night elf players more than anyone else.
After the war in Northrend, Thrall leads a Horde that's cracking at the seams, and Azeroth's elements are going wrong: tremors, storms and drought. As he turns to his shamanism for answers, he has to decide who runs Orgrimmar in his absence. On the Alliance side, Anduin Wrynn clashes with his father and goes to Ironforge to live with his grandfather, Magni Bronzebeard.
Cataclysm changed the world in ways the game never fully explains, and this book covers them: how Garrosh ended up as warchief, why the tauren and Ironforge have new leaders, and what happened to the Undercity and Darnassus on the way. If you came back for Cataclysm and felt you'd missed a chapter, this is it. Golden ties a lot of threads together and it reads quickly.
A run of savage murders hits the walled kingdom of Gilneas, and the famous detective Halford Ramsey sets out to find who, or what, is behind them. The search takes him back through the history of Gilneas and of his own family, to night elf druids who ran with wolves long before humans built the Greymane Wall.
The worgen's origin story: the druids of the Pack, the Scythe of Elune and how the curse reached Gilneas, all of which Cataclysm's Gilneas starting zone and its Darkshore and Ashenvale quests draw on. Genn Greymane plays a part. It's a five-issue horror mystery, so a quick read. Read it before you roll a worgen.
Deathwing breaks out of his prison deep in the earth and tears Azeroth apart. The old zones of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are rebuilt around the damage, new ones open at the edges of the world, and goblins and worgen join the factions. With Thrall stepping away to help heal the elements, Garrosh Hellscream leads the Horde.
Having left the Horde in Garrosh's hands, Thrall is studying with the shaman of Nagrand in Outland, and finds he can no longer reach the elements the way he used to. When the dragonflights, shaken by Deathwing's return and quarreling among themselves, ask for his help, he's pulled into their troubles alongside Alexstrasza, Ysera and young Kalecgos.
Thrall's own Cataclysm story, and the reason he's at the Aspects' side in the Dragon Soul raid. It also introduces Aggra, who matters to Thrall for the rest of the series, and spends real time with Kalecgos. It lives inside Thrall's head a lot and the plot wanders, so it's optional unless you're invested in him or the dragons.
The worgen of Gilneas have lost their homeland and want to join the Alliance, and Varian Wrynn has to decide whether to trust Genn Greymane, the king who walled his country off from everyone. As the Alliance's leaders gather in Darnassus, the night elves are fighting a Horde that's pressing harder into Ashenvale.
Varian gets his best showing outside the comics here, and Genn Greymane, Anduin and Tyrande come into focus too. You get the politics behind the worgen joining the Alliance and the fighting in Ashenvale that Cataclysm's quests show only in pieces. Knaak overdoes the action and the mystery is slight. Best read after Cataclysm's worgen starting zone.
The third volume runs from Warcraft III through Cataclysm: the Third War, the new nations the orcs and the humans founded on Kalimdor, the return to Outland, the war against the Lich King in Northrend and Deathwing's return. Like the earlier volumes, it pairs a written history with maps and full-color art.
The official summary of the World of Warcraft years, and it fixes which version of events counts, including some the original game left to the player, like the comics' account of Onyxia's end. It's handy as a refresher if you're coming back after years away. It summarizes, so read the novels for the scenes, and save it for after Cataclysm since it covers that expansion's ending.
Jaina Proudmoore still runs Theramore as a place where humans and orcs can talk, even as Garrosh Hellscream's Horde grows more aggressive. The blue dragon Kalecgos comes to her for help tracking a stolen artifact of his flight, and when the Horde starts to move against the Alliance in Kalimdor, Theramore is the first thing in its path.
Mists of Pandaria's war begins with an event the game covers in a single short scenario, and this book is the full account. It changes Jaina more than anything else in the series, and what she feels here drives her for years, through Battle for Azeroth. Garrosh, Baine, Kalecgos and Varian all have big parts. It's one of Golden's best, and right before Mists it gives the expansion's war real weight.
Li Li Stormstout, the restless niece of the brewmaster Chen, has left the Wandering Isle to find her uncle and see the world, and a pandaren named Bo has been sent to bring her home. Their trip runs into naga, pirates and the legend of a pearl from Pandaria, years before the mists lift.
A light, funny comic that introduces Li Li and gives the Wandering Isle, the pandaren starting zone, some history before you play it. Chen is here too, before he becomes a fixture of Mists of Pandaria. There's little in it that changes how you see the game, but it's a quick, warm read and a nice way into the expansion's tone.
Alliance and Horde fleets, already at war, run aground on Pandaria, a continent hidden in mist for ten thousand years. The pandaren join both factions and monks become playable, while the fighting spreads across a peaceful land and Garrosh Hellscream's rule over the Horde grows harsher.
Vol'jin, chieftain of the Darkspear trolls, is left for dead after an assassination attempt in Pandaria. The brewmaster Chen Stormstout carries him to the Shado-Pan monastery in the Kun-Lai mountains to recover, where he finds himself sharing the place with a human soldier. Meanwhile, the Zandalari trolls are moving on Pandaria with an army.
It picks up from the in-game scenario where Vol'jin is attacked and sets up the Isle of Thunder patch, and it shows you the Zandalari long before Battle for Azeroth takes you to Zandalar. Chen gets a more serious side. Stackpole writes it as a slow, reflective martial-arts story, which some readers love and others find dull. Read it while you're playing Mists of Pandaria.
The age of dragons is over. Kalecgos and the other leaders of the dragonflights have lost their powers as Aspects, and Kalecgos, the youngest of them, is struggling to find a new purpose. When an artifact turns up in Pandaria that shows him the distant past, he relives the time of Galakrond and the proto-dragons who would become the first Aspects.
The dragons' prehistory: Galakrond, the proto-dragons and how the five flights got their leaders, which Wrath's Dragonblight and much of Dragonflight draw on. The present-day thread with Kalecgos is slighter. It came out as a five-part e-book serial and still reads in episodes. Worth it if Dragonflight made you curious about where the Aspects came from.
After the Siege of Orgrimmar raid
With the war in Pandaria over, Garrosh Hellscream stands trial in the Temple of the White Tiger, and the bronze dragons let the court watch the past through visions. Leaders of the Alliance and the Horde, and people Garrosh wronged, give testimony, and each of them is tested by what they see. Not everyone wants the trial to end the way the law says it should.
The bridge from Mists of Pandaria to Warlords of Draenor, and the opening of Warlords makes far more sense after it. The visions replay big moments from across the series, so it also works as a recap from the characters' side, with Jaina, Tyrande, Baine and Anduin each getting a turn. Golden handles a huge cast well. Read it after the Siege of Orgrimmar.
An Iron Horde of orc warlords, from a Draenor where the clans never drank demon blood, marches through a new Dark Portal into Azeroth. You follow it back to that untouched Draenor, build a garrison and fight the warlords one by one, meeting many characters the early games and novels had long since killed off.
Cast out by his own people and hunted by the warden Maiev Shadowsong, Illidan Stormrage gathers fel orcs, naga, blood elves and demon hunters in Outland for a final confrontation with the Burning Legion. Nobody, not even his followers, knows what he's planning, and Maiev won't rest until he's in her custody or dead.
Written as Legion's lead-in, this is the book that makes Illidan a person rather than a boss. It covers his years in Outland from his side, including the demon hunter training that Legion's starting zone turns into gameplay, and runs up to the Black Temple raid. Maiev and Akama get room too. Some readers find it slow. It's best between The Burning Crusade and Legion.
The Burning Legion invades Azeroth in full force through the Tomb of Sargeras on the Broken Isles. The Alliance and the Horde take up artifact weapons and go after the Pillars of Creation to hold the demons back, and Illidan's demon hunters join as a playable class.
With the Burning Legion defeated, Azeroth is wounded, and a powerful new substance, Azerite, is surfacing in Silithus. Anduin Wrynn, now High King of the Alliance, believes he can reach Sylvanas Windrunner, warchief of the Horde, and arranges a meeting. Sylvanas has her own plans for Azerite and for the future of her Forsaken.
Battle for Azeroth opens with a war, and this is the run-up to it. Anduin's attempt at peace and Sylvanas's thinking about death and the Forsaken start here and drive the whole expansion, along with a few faces it keeps coming back to. It has the best Anduin and Sylvanas scenes in any book. Read it between Legion and Battle for Azeroth; much of the expansion assumes you know it.
With the Legion beaten, a powerful substance called Azerite starts welling up from the wounded world, and the Alliance and the Horde go back to open war over it. Each side looks for allies across the sea: the Alliance in the human kingdom of Kul Tiras, the Horde in the troll empire of Zandalar.
After the Fourth War, the Horde is run by a council rather than a warchief, and Thrall, Baine, Lor'themar and Thalyssra try to make that work while Sylvanas's loyalists remain at large. When someone tries to kill Talanji, the Zandalari queen, the council sends the young troll shaman Zekhan to help her find out who.
The lead-in to Shadowlands, and mostly a Horde book. It sets up the Horde council, introduces Zekhan and explains why some of Shadowlands' early characters are where they are when it starts. Talanji and Thalyssra get far more to do than the game ever gave them. Roux keeps several threads going at once and they don't all land. Read it after Battle for Azeroth.
Sylvanas Windrunner tears open the veil between life and death, and the souls of Azeroth's dead start flowing into the Maw, a prison in the afterlife. You cross into the Shadowlands yourself, work with the covenants that run its zones and try to learn what Sylvanas wants and who she answers to.
After the Shadowlands campaign
In the Maw, Sylvanas Windrunner holds King Anduin Wrynn prisoner and has to break his will for the Jailer. To do it, she tells him her own story: her family, her years as Ranger-General of Silvermoon, her death at Arthas's hands and the founding of the Forsaken.
Her whole life in one book, from childhood with her sisters Alleria and Vereesa to Shadowlands, and it answers most of the questions the games left about why she did what she did. The present-day part runs alongside Shadowlands and gives its later story away, so finish the expansion first. If you only know her as Battle for Azeroth's warchief, the early chapters in Quel'Thalas are a real change of view.
The fourth volume picks up where the third stops and covers five expansions: Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, Legion, Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands. Each gets its own chapter, from the rediscovery of Pandaria to the descent into the afterlife, with maps, family trees and charts of the cosmos.
If you lost track of what happened in Battle for Azeroth or Shadowlands, this is the fastest way back in before Dragonflight. It puts five expansions of story in order in one place, which the games themselves never quite managed. Treat it as a refresher, not a replacement for playing, since it gives away the end of every expansion it covers.
When Azeroth was young, five primal dragons helped the keeper Tyr bring down the monstrous Galakrond and were made the first Aspects. Not every dragon wanted the titans' gifts. A band of rebels led by Iridikron take the world's elemental power for themselves and become the Primal Incarnates, and Alexstrasza tries to hold on to her friendship with one of them, Vyranoth.
Dragonflight's villains, Raszageth, Fyrakk and Iridikron, get their history here, and Vyranoth, whom the game only touches on, gets a whole arc. It explains why the Incarnates hate the Aspects and how they ended up imprisoned, which is exactly where the expansion starts. It needs no other book. Read it before or during Dragonflight.
The Dragon Isles, the ancestral home of Azeroth's dragons, wake from a long sleep, and the leaders of the dragonflights come back to reclaim them. You explore on a dragon of your own while the primalists work to free the Primal Incarnates, elemental dragons locked away long ago. The dracthyr join both factions as a new race.
Six short stories set in the quiet before The War Within, each following one of its central characters. Anduin is still wandering after the Shadowlands, Thrall is watching his son grow up, Alleria is trying to reach Arator, and the goblin Gazlowe takes on a struggling goblin city. Far below the surface, a voice is starting to call.
Five of these were posted free on the World of Warcraft website before the expansion, so this is the only place to get all six, including one written for the book. They're character pieces rather than plot, and they show you where Anduin, Thrall and Alleria's heads are at when The War Within starts. A quick read between Dragonflight and The War Within.
Xal'atath, a herald of the Void, strikes at Dalaran and draws Azeroth's heroes down to Khaz Algar, a continent of earthen dwarves and buried cities. Below the surface, the nerubians of Azj-Kahet are on the move. It's the first part of the Worldsoul Saga, a story planned across three expansions.
After The War Within's main campaign
Novellas and short stories set after The War Within's main campaign, with Xal'atath still at large. Thrall and Jaina, the SI:7 agent Renzik the Shiv, Faerin Lothar, Alleria and the Locus-Walker each get a story, set in the gaps between the expansion's updates.
Like The Voices Within, it collects stories Blizzard put out online during the expansion, here in print together. They fill the gaps between The War Within's patches, including the Locus-Walker's tale of K'aresh ahead of the update that took players there, and Thrall and Jaina's Heartlands, the longest piece. Read it after the campaign; the stories assume you've seen it.
Arator, son of Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner, grew up without parents who spent a thousand years fighting the Burning Legion and came back barely older. Now, after the events in Khaz Algar, he goes to investigate a strange glow at a long-abandoned Legion base, and his parents insist on coming along.
Midnight's prequel novel, and mostly a family story: Arator trying to understand parents he barely knows, and they him. If Turalyon and Alleria have felt like strangers since Legion, this gives them depth, and Arator walks straight from it into Midnight's opening. Golden handles the family tension better than the demon plot. Read it between The War Within and Midnight.
Xal'atath sends a Void army against the Sunwell, the source of the blood elves' magic. Lor'themar Theron and Lady Liadrin hold Quel'Thalas with help from Turalyon's Vanguard of the Light, and you fight from Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman into the Voidstorm itself. It's the second part of the Worldsoul Saga, and it brings player housing.
Last reviewed October 11, 2026