Lore

For other uses, see Lore (disambiguation).

Lore in the Warcraft series of games is a term used for "background story". The use of the term stems from Blizzard's snippets of "lore" for many of the multiplayer maps in their Warcraft RTS games, although how much of it has a relationship to the main Warcraft universe storyline is unclear.

Major areas

Articles

• Timelines
• Retcons – changes in lore
• Locations
• Organizations, clans, factions, etc.
• Religions
• Magics
• Technologies
• Class lore
• Languages
• Sources

See also Portal:Warcraft universe.

What is "canon" lore?

Canon is a term oft-used by Warcraft fans regarding official lore, specifically the fictional accounts in the Warcraft universe. It is used to define which lore should be considered a genuine part of the universe's history.

The Warcraft 'canon' comprises those works and sources of information considered to be authoritative and representative of the 'true' or official history of the Warcraft universe. 'Canon' or 'canonical' lore is therefore that which is part of this body of work, and is thus considered part of the true history of the Warcraft universe.

In contrast, 'non-canon' information, while often containing characters and depicting events from canon sources, is not necessarily a reliable source of official information regarding the Warcraft universe. An example of non-canon lore might be a piece of fan fiction which introduces new characters or events, or expands upon the background of a known character such as Thrall.

Characters, events and items from non-canon sources do not necessarily exist in the official Warcraft universe, and non-canon versions of known events may differ substantially from official sources. Non-canon sources frequently feature characters from canon lore, but their exploits in these sources are not considered canon.

Note that even canon lore is sometimes contradictory (or retconned), often representing the beliefs or perspectives of an individual or group, rather than any absolute truth. Nonetheless the beliefs themselves can be considered a genuine part of the Warcraft universe as flavor lore, regardless of their accuracy.

Which sources are canon and non-canon?

Canon

• Everything released by Blizzard except mods and the table-top RPG is considered canon. This includes games, novels, short stories, manga and comics. History of Warcraft and game manuals are also considered canon but in some cases they are overwritten / modified by novels (eg. history of eredar retconned in Rise of the Horde, War of the Ancients and its aftermath slightly altered by the novel and Dawn of the Aspects revealing the true history of the Aspects instead of a legend told in the History chapter).

Non-canon

Blizzard have stated that the RPG books are not considered canon:

Q: Are the Warcraft and World of Warcraft RPG books considered canon?

A: No. The RPG books were created to provide an engaging table-top role-playing experience, which sometimes required diverging from the established video game canon. Blizzard helped generate a great deal of the content within the RPG books, so there will be times when ideas from the RPG will make their way into the game and official lore, but you are much better off considering the RPG books non-canonical unless otherwise stated.

Wowpedia's position on canon lore

Wowpedia strives to have a neutral point of view on official lore due to it being rarely discussed by Blizzard, although examples exist:

• Chris Metzen has stated that some things are less canon than others, but he wants everything as integrated as possible:

...yeah, the novels are pretty much considered canon, ahm, the funny thing is that some things are less canon, you know, but we shoot for canon... that's a strange statement... we shoot for canon... but yeah, typically the characters in novels are canon.

A lot of times... depending on when one thing gets started during another, we happen to be in the middle of the game, or doing the manga thing for instance or this comic series specifically, we try to engineer as much inner play as possible. Like characters in the manga series showing up in Netherstorm and we are doing stuff like that, so we want to make everything feels as continuity friendly and as integrated as possible. Cause that would make it cool as if all its moving, right.

• Creative Development Blog explains some of the hazards of game writing:

...As more content is added to a given universe, by different teams, there is always the danger of unintentionally contradicting existing lore. But we have never intentionally done it. When something goes out the door at Blizzard—in a game, a novel, a manga, or anything other than mods or the table-top RPG—it's canon. This can be quite unwieldy; someone may have made a decision 12 years ago that was a well-reasoned, smart choice back then, but boxes us in today… but that's the hazard of game writing. We have to find a way to live with it and still tell our story.

Sometimes there is an area where we haven't established exactly what happened, and we have room to define it at need. When we do this, some think that we've "retconned" it, but it's only retconning if we actively contradict known lore, not if we elaborate on something that was not defined.

While we cannot stop the use of the term "canon" in talk page discussions, the term is not allowed in articles. The only exceptions are when one is denoting RPG information, or when verifiable public quotes from actual first-party Blizzard employees (such as Chris Metzen) are allowed in articles, and then only if there are direct links to the sources of the quotes.

For more on Wowpedia's lore policy, see Wowpedia:Lore policy.

A library full of lore.

See also

• The Lore chat modification
• Lore links - external lore sources.
• In-jokes and references

External links

Scrolls of Lore - A lore site and forum.

BlizzPlanet - Lore, interviews, news, and forum.

WowInsider Know Your Lore - Has a weekly lore feature.

da:Lore