Lorewalker Mo' - World Trees

The corruption of the emerald nightmare is being spread into the waking world through the world tree Shaladrassil. There are now four world trees in the waking world that we know of, where do they come from and why were they made?

As the titans set about reshaping the surface of Azeroth, it was Freya’s job to spread life across the new land. Firstly she moulded Azeroth’s dreams into the emerald dream; both as a place to control nature from and as the growing titan’s link to the surface world. The first life she seeded was the first tree: G’Hanir.

G’Hanir was empowered with the healing and balance of nature magic, and new life flourished around the tree. As the wild gods arose, Aviana came to call the tree home. She imbued the tree with some of her power and the tree became a haven for all winged creatures. The tree survived until the war of the ancients.

While life flourished around the tree and spread far across the world, it only produced a seed of its own kind very rarely. The first of these was planted in Valsharah, the home of the demigod Cenarius and the centre of druid learning. The tree was named Shaladrassil, crown of the night. The land around it would remain verdant even after the sundering split the area into the broken isles.

As the war of the ancients began the wild gods got involved, including Aviana. Aviana was killed in battle along with many other gods. The deaths shook the emerald dream, and G’Hanir withered. The tree became barren and lifeless; the druids who tried to save it eventually discovered a branch with a healthy acorn.

This seed was used to plant Nordrassil, crown of the heavens, at the peak of mount Hyjal. The tree was used to empower the night elves with immortality and druidic powers; in exchange the elves were entrusted with defending the wilds. While most of the druids performed their duties of conservation conservatively, one archdruid had other ideas.

Fandrel Staghelm had a proactive stance when it came to protecting the wilds; he saw the world tree’s connection to the dream as an ideal tool to spread the balance of nature. Taking branches of the tree he propagated great trees at key locations across the land, including Feralas, Ashenvale, the Hinterlands and Duskwood. He also planted Andrassil, crown of snow, in Northrend from Nordrassil’s seed.

Andrassil’s roots pushed too deep into the earth and hit the prison of an old god, Yogg-saron. The conduit of life from the dream into the waking world became a conduit of the void into the dream. The druids were forced to cut the tree down to try and stop the corruption, but the damage was done. Andrassil became Vordrassil, the broken crown.

Apparently not learning his lesson, Staghelm also planted a world tree seed off the shore of Kalimdor: Teldrassil, crown of the earth. This tree was grown without nature’s blessing and so it quickly became corrupted. Since the fall of Staghelm the tree was purified by the aspects and is now healthy.

World trees are a link between the emerald dream and the waking world, but that link can work both ways. Just as Andrassil was used to funnel void energy into the dream, Shaladrassil is now being used to funnel that corruption back into the world.