Somethings been bugging me. When was the first canonical reference to Azeroth the Worldsoul? Not the literal idea of a Worldsoul, but the idea Azeroth had a soul. It was, as with many things Thrall.

A few weeks ago I posted the story of our Worldsoul, tracking the progression of the very idea of Azeroth from a piece of land Orcs and Humans fought over in Warcraft 1, to the living and personality driven Worldsoul that dominates Warcraft’s next big arc.

Over that time, the very idea of Azeroth developed, and it wasn’t until Chronicle 1 released in 2016 that her being a well… her, was confirmed. That's when she canonically became a Worldsoul. But if we look back, we can see early events alluding to Azeroth being something other than a planet, like Yogg’saron calling her a seedling. Like she’d grow into something one day. But looking back, I think I’ve discovered the first reference to Azeroth as a personality. 

Ok, cOnTeXt TiMe…

Don’t You Dare Touch My Tauren!

After the second war, the Alliance of Lordaeron, not knowing what to do with all the Orcish prisoners they had, put them all into prison camps. One young Orc was taken into the camps as a baby and knew nothing of the old horde. He’d eventually escape, finding his people, the Frostwolves, in the Alterac mountains and getting in touch with his shamanistic roots. We’re talking about Thrall, of course.

Two major things happened after he freed the Orcs from those camps. First, he decided he was going to make a new Horde, one that represented the true principles of the Orcish people as given to him by Drek’thar and Grom Hellscream. He added a pinch of personal compassion and kick started the Horde we know today. The other big thing was that some mad human named Medivh was going around telling everybody who would listen (or not) that a great calamity was about to befall Azeroth and that any who wanted to survive needed to sail west. Cue the Burning Legion’s arrival. Anyways, Thrall is actually one of the few that’d listen, so stole loads of human ships from Lordaeron and set sail west.

Thrall and the boys washed up on the shores of a desolate land. Barrens. They trekked for days, fighting Quilboar and drinking stagnant water. Until one day they heard the rumbling of hooves in the distance. They followed in the wake of what looked like a huge army, and many massacres. Thrall came to a cliff edge, and looking down into a valley was horrified to see a stampede of half men half horses, gnarly centaur's bearing down on something, or someones, with the might of the Mongolian Horde. 

Unbeknownst to Thrall, deft trackers had been tailing the Horde, and noticing the honour and bravery the Orcs fought with, decided to step forward. That’s when Cairn Bloodhoof and Thrall first met. Cairn asked Thrall for help. That centaur horde was coming for the Tauren, and after a long and brutal conflict, the Centaur were about to claim ultimate victory, wiping the Tauren from the planet. It was grim stuff, not even the might of the fledgling Horde could withstand them. 

Thrall, Cairn, Orcs, Trolls and Tauren marched through the Barrens, hounded constantly by centaur raids. The casualties were mounting and it genuinely seemed like all hope was lost. Now, here’s another dank layer of context. Even back then, the Tauren had been around for a long time. Kalimdor was an ancient land with old secrets, and the Tauren had an ancestral homeland in this fertile valley named Mulgore. It's where they were going. 

The Tauren's Goddess is the Earth Mother. She was the strength, wisdom and compassion of our world. A literal being that existed within and around the Tauren, someone to call on for strength in times of need and to venerate in ritual. 

As the Horde got to Mulgore and were on the home stretch, the Centuar horde finally caught up and it seemed like it was game over. But Cairn invoked the Earthmother, calling on her fury. He stomped the ground and she responded, shaking the earth until it filled in the valley separating the Centuar from the Horde.
This, in my (mostly researched) opinion, is the first reference to Azeroth as a personality, and as this lore developed in the modern era, this was the first notion we had of there being a Worldsoul. Yea, there’s no way the writers could have known about a Worldsoul at the time, but this is the earliest thread that will one day weave into the Worldsoul Saga. 

Ok, now we have all that dank context, let’s talk about that Earth Mother

We're All Kinda Her Kids?

Cut to Shadowlands and this whole idea of Azeroth as a personality has evolved from random spirit invoked in the barrens, to nascant Titan, to intrigue of the First Ones, the centre of reality and the font of all creation. Or something.

That idea of some omni-diety at the centre of creation has always been the thing the Tauren have been invoking when they talk about the Earth Mother, even if they didn’t know it. The whole idea of the Shu’halo, a progenitor race to the Tauren, who lived in some antediluvian time of peace alongside the Earthmother, was introduced in vanilla, a lore book named Sorrow of the Earth Mother. The story goes that she created An’she and Mu’sha, the Sun and Moon, to protect the children of the planet from the many evils that beset it.

That story was massively fleshed out in Eyes of the Earth Mother. That was 2021, when this Worldsoul lore was shaping up into its final form. Funnily enough it led to a disagreement with Nobble. I pushed the idea that Eyes of the Earth Mother was a thinly veiled allegory and we could actually read a lot into the deep history of Azeroth and the Cosmos with it. Following the madness we were getting from Firim at the time, I’d speculated the whole thing meant that Azeroth was a creator deity, and way more important than a Titan. That she was literally the seventh, binding force, that Firim was talking about. Then Sepulchre opened and it was revealed that the Jailer’s whole plan was to dominate Azeroth because she was the central point in a cosmic locus that, if dominated, would dominate the central core, or Zereth, of every other cosmic force etc etc. Could go in circles with that stuff. Bringing it back! Point is, the Tauren know Azeroth is their creator deity. The thing they don’t know is that she’s likely the creator deity of the whole damn cosmos! Ok, back to earth, I promise. 

Hamuul Runetoten called on the Earth Mother in Cataclysm, sending forth a river from the land. The thing about invoking the Earth Mother is, it's like you're invoking all four Elements at once, which, as per Azeroth/Earth Mother creating and naming the Elements in Tauren mythology, is true. The Tauren have long been practitioners of Earth Mother magic. They’ve been calling on the power of our Worldsoul for a long time and the first time it happened canonically is in Warcraft 3. 

So, what do you think? You can hit me up on the member discord! If anyone can find earlier references, particularly from the Richard A. Knaack books that released around the same time as WC3 (Or even better, something from the Warcraft Adventures. I’d buy you a beer for that reference! 

Come back Thursday when we’ll being going through the back end of Anduin’s life, from pacemaker to Warlord to traumatized chad chilling in Silithus.