Lore

For other lore-related sections, 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

Why don't we use the word "canon"?[]

Canon is an oft-used term by Warcraft fans regarding official lore, specifically the fictional accounts in the Warcraft universe. This type of lore can be referred to as "canonical" lore.

WoWWiki 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 the games themselves are considered the benchmarks for information, with the MMO setting the standard. Other sources of lore fall just under the games; "Ya, the novels are pretty much considered canon, um, the funny thing is some things are less canon, we shoot for canon. Typically the characters in novels are canon..."[1][2]

Because the use of the term is rare, and as calling something "canon" often precludes the possibility of discussion about validity and "truth", we avoid using this term to describe lore in the WoWWiki articles in order to keep a neutral point of view. It is also useful to note that Blizzard does not usually use the term "canon" for similar reasons.

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