Old Gods The Old Gods ( also known as the Dread Elders , the Elder Gods , the Old Lords , the Old Ones , and the Old Whisperings ) are chaotic , physical manifestations of the Void . They are nightmares incarnate : mountains of blighted flesh and writhing tentacles that grow like cancers within the worlds of the Great Dark . They live only to transform the worlds they infest into places of despair and death , serving the void lords . Composed of pure shadow energy , the void lords are monstrous entities . These beings are cruel and merciless beyond mortal comprehension . Driven by an insatiable hunger , the void lords seek to devour all matter and energy in the physical universe , including the energy of the Old Gods if they have any . Background . Before life even began , before even the cosmos took shape , there was Light . . . and Void . In the form of a boundless prismatic sea , the Light swelled across all existence . The ocean of Light was dynamic and ever shifting . Yet as it expanded , some of its energies faded and dimmed , leaving behind pockets of cold nothingness . From the absence of Light in these spaces , a new power coalesced and came to be . This power was the Void , a dark and vampiric force driven to devour all energy , to twist creation inward to feed upon itself . The Void quickly grew and spread its influence , moving against the waves of Light . The mounting tension between these two opposing yet inseparable energies eventually ignited a series of catastrophic explosions , rupturing the fabric of creation and birthing a new realm into existence . In that moment , the physical universe was born . The energies released by the clash of Light and Void raged across the nascent cosmos , raw matter merging and spinning into primordial worlds without number . Fel - Connected Worlds . The catclysmic birth of the cosmos flung shards of Light throughout reality . These shards suffused the matter of myriad worlds with the spark of life , giving rise to creatures of wondrous and terrible diversity . Composed of the primordial matter from which the universe , the titans are godlike beings who were uniquely susceptible to fel magic . Their spirits - known as world - souls - formed deep within the fiery core of a small number of worlds . For ages , these nascent titans slumbered , their energies suffusing the celestial bodies they inhabited . When the titans finally awoke , they did so as living worlds . With eyes that shone like stars , they observed the fledgling cosmos and became enraptured by its mysteries . They wandered the distant corners of the Great Dark , searching for others of their kind . This grand , far - reaching voyage would one day alter the course of creation and shape the destiny of all living things . The Birth of the Old Gods . From the moment the cosmos came to be , dark spirits within the Void sought to twist reality into a realm of eternal torment . These entities were known as the void lords , and they had long watched the Pantheon and their journey from world to world . Although extremely powerful , their power would drain quickly after entering the physical world . Envious of the titans , the void lords sought to corrupt one of the world - shaping Pantheon into an instrument of their will . To achieve this goal , the void lords struggled to manifest in the physical universe . Eventually , the void lords moved to exert their influence over a titan in its most vulnerable state : before it had awakened . The void lords did not know which worlds contained slumbering titan spirits . Thus they pooled their power and hurled dark creatures throughout the universe , hoping some would smash into a world - soul . An unknown number of the void lords ' creations hurtled through the Great Dark . They contaminated mortal world and everything they touched in their blind search for a nascent titan . In time , these wicked beings would come to be known as the Old Gods . The Coming of the Old Gods to Azeroth . In an isolated corner of the Great Dark , a miraculous new world was taking shape . Deep within this world ' s core , the spirit of a mighty and noble titan stirred to life . One day , it would be known as Azeroth . A group of Old Gods plummeted down from the Great Dark and slammed into Azeroth ' s surface , embedding themselves in different locations across the world . These Old Gods towered over the land , mountains of flesh , pockmarked with hundreds of gnashing maws and black , unfeeling eyes . A miasma of despair soon enveloped everything that lay in their writhing shadows . The Discovery of Azeroth . During his long and lonely journeys , the titan known as Aggramar sensed something extraordinary : the tranquil dreams of a slumbering world - soul , billowing across the cosmos . The song of life led him to a world that the Pantheon had not yet discovered , a world they would later name " Azeroth " . Nestled within the world ' s core was one of Aggramar ' s kin - one far more powerful than any yet encountered . The spirit was so mighty that Aggramar sensed its dreams even through the din of activity that rattled across the world ' s surface . Yet as Aggramar drew closer to Azeroth and beheld the world , horror seized him . Void energies shrouded the world ' s surface like a layer of diseased flesh . From the ruined landscape rose the Old Gods and their Black Empire . Miraculously , the nascent titan ' s spirit remained uncorrupted , but Aggramar knew it was only a matter of time before it succumbed to the Void . Aggramar sought counsel with the rest of the Pantheon , informing them of his discovery . Aggramar urged the other titans to take action with all due haste before Azeroth was lost forever . Azeroth was one of them - a lost and vulnerable member of their family . The Pantheon could not abandon their own sibling to the clutches of the void lords and they unanimously agreed to save Azeroth , no matter the cost . Aggramar formulated a bold plan of attack : all members of the Pantheon would travel to Azeroth and purge the Black Empire that had claimed it . They would not , however , take action directly . Due to their colossal forms , Aggramar feared the Pantheon would irreparably damage , or even kill , the world - soul . Instead , he proposed creating mighty constructs to act as the Pantheon ' s hands and prosecute their will against the Black Empire . Under the guidance of the great forger Khaz ' goroth , the Pantheon crafted an army of enormous servants from the crust of Azeroth itself : the aesir and the vanir . The aesir were fashioned from metal , and they would command the powers of storm . The vanir were formed from stone , and they would hold sway over the earth . Collectively , these mighty creatures would be known as the titan - forged . The members of the Pantheon imbued a number of their servants with their specific likeness and powers to lead the rest of the titan - forged . These empowered beings were called keepers . Though they would develop their own personalities in time , they would forever after bear the mark and abilities of their makers . Aman ' Thul gifted some of his vast abilities to Highkeeper Ra and Keeper Odyn . Khaz ' goroth bestowed his mastery over the earth and forging to Keeper Archaedas . Golganneth granted Keepers Thorim and Hodir dominion over the storms and skies . Eonar gave Keeper Freya command over Azeroth ' s flora and fauna . Norgannon lent a portion of his intellect and mastery of magic to Keepers Loken and Mimiron . Lastly , Aggramar imparted his strength and courage to Keeper Tyr , who would become the greatest warrior of the titan - forged . With this new army molded from the world ' s crust , the Pantheon went to war . The time to shatter the Black Empire and free Azeroth from its malign influence had come . . . The Fall of the Black Empire . As one , the keepers turned their righteous gaze on the heart of the Black Empire : the sprawling city built around the Old God Y ' Shaarj . By toppling the bastion on Azeroth , the keepers believed they could crush their enemies in one swift stroke . The keepers and their allies battled their way toward the mountainous form of Y ' Shaarj , who was more powerful than the keepers expected . It poisoned the minds of the titan - forged , drawing out their fears and darkening their thoughts . The Pantheon grew concerned that the Old God would overwhelm their servants . Despite the risk of harming the world , they decided to take direct action . Aman ' Thul himself reached down through Azeroth ' s stormy skies and took hold of Y ' Shaarj ' s writhing body . With a heave of his mighty arm , he tore the Old God from the crust of the world . In that moment , Y ' Shaarj ' s bulk was ripped apart . The immensity of the Old God ' s death rattle shattered mountaintops and obliterated hundreds of titan - forged where they stood . Y ' Shaarj was dead , but its tendrils had bored more deeply through Azeroth than Aman ' Thul had ever imagined . In excising the Old Gods from the world , he had ripped a wound in Azeroth ' s surface . Volatile arcane energies - the lifeblood of the nascent titan - erupted from the scar and roiled out across the world . Horrified by this turn of events , the Pantheon realized they could not risk killing the other Old Gods in such a manner . The malignant creatures had embedded themselves so deep into the world that tearing them out would destroy Azeroth itself . The Pantheon knew that the only course of action was to imprison the Old Gods where they lay and contain their evil forever . It would be a difficult task , but it would be possible with the aid of the keepers . At the Pantheon ' s behest , the titan - forged devised a plan to shatter the last vestiges of the Black Empire . They would battle each of the Old Gods directly . Once they had weakened the creatures , Archaedas would create subterranean chambers to contain them . Mimiron would then fashion colossal machineries to lock the Old Gods in place . When this work was done , Loken would imbue each prison with a great enchantment that would neutralize the Old Gods ' evil . The Flesh ' s Curse . Yogg - Saron had devised a plan to weaken its jailers and escape imprisonment . It would corrupt the Forge of Wills , tainting its creation matrix with a strange malady known as the curse of flesh . Any titan - forged created by the machine thereafter would fall victim to this affliction . Some would even spread it to previous generations of the titan - forged . The curse of flesh would gradually transform many of these infected servants into mortal beings of flesh and blood - beings who the cunning Old God knew could be easily killed . To implement this plan , Yogg - Saron turned to the Keeper Loken . Out of Ulduar ' s guardians , Loken had been the most troubled by the Pantheon ' s silence . Yogg - Saron assailed the keeper through fevered dreams , stoking the fires of his despair . Yet even in his disturbed state , Loken resisted the whisperings in his mind . Ultimately , his downfall would come from a much subtler place . As Loken drifted deeper and deeper into despair , he sought comfort from Sif , the mate of his brother , Keeper Thorim . Loken often met with Sif in private , telling her of his darkest fears . In time , a forbidden love blossomed between the two titan - forged . Yogg - Saron latched onto Loken ' s love for Sif and twisted it into a dangerous obsession . The relationship quickly soured due to Loken ' s behavior . Ultimately , she broke all ties with Loken , demanding that he leave her in peace . The thought of losing Sif drove Loken to madness . In a fit of anger and jealously , he lashed out at his love and killed her . Much to Loken ' s surprise , the visage of Sif forgave him . She also warned him of the need to act with haste , lest Thorim learn the truth . If he did , the titan - forged would descend into civil war , and every pledge Loken had made to the Pantheon would be broken . She convinced him to build an army of his own using the Forge of Wills , one large enough to protect Ulduar from the depredations of the giants . Eventually , Loken noticed something unsettling among his warriors . A dark affliction suffused their spirits . Loken called out to Sif again for advice , but this time , she remained silent . Dread overtook the keeper as he realized that her spirit had not existed at all . She was an illusion created by Yogg - Saron . The Shattered Realm of Draenor . In the Burning Crusade expansion , a group of Arakkoa known as the Dark Conclave attempted to summon an entity described as an " ancient and powerful evil " into Outland . It is nearly identical in appearance to the first named Old God , C ' Thun . This may indicate that at least one Old God landed on Draenor . Vessel of Destruction . According to Malfurion Stormrage , one of the Old Gods is behind the Nightmare corrupting the Emerald Dream . Although the Nightmare Lord in the dream turned out to be the Satyr Lord , Xavius , it is suspected that he was working for higher powers . This seems to be confirmed in Cataclysm later on ( see N ' Zoth ) . Characteristics . The Old Gods are characterized as the sleeping evil beneath the earth , whose telepathic whispers eventually become indistinguishable from one ' s own maddened thoughts . Beyond the things attributed to the Old Gods as a whole , individual Old Gods share some common factors between them . Both C ' Thun and Yogg - Saron are fought with a section of their bodies sticking out of the ground in the center of a room , with an unknown amount of their forms remaining invisible below . They both appear to have countless tentacles below ground , which can come to the surface to aid in combat . The battles with both Old Gods call for damage to be done to something within each Old God ' s submerged form to weaken or remove a shield : Killing a Flesh Tentacle in the Stomach of C ' Thun and weakening the Brain of Yogg - Saron in the Mind ' s Eye ( which may or may not represent physical places within the two Gods ) . The servants of C ' Thun and Yogg - Saron , the Qiraji and faceless one s respectively , are similar in a few ways . Faceless ones have similar posture and shape to qiraji gladiators ( Which may be due to recycling of wireframes , to some extent ) . Also , both groups have a general with vaguely similar names , General Rajaxx and General Vezax , and a religious leader , The Prophet Skeram and Herald Volazj ( Harbinger Skyriss too , but his affiliation is unknown ) . Named Old Gods . C ' Thun . C ' Thun , the final boss of the Temple of Ahn ' Qiraj , was the first of the four Old Gods to be named so far , having received that name from its creations ; the Qiraji . C ' Thun was struck down in Silithus during the dawning of the world , in a battle which may have also resulted in the defeat of a Titan . C ' Thun was believed to have been slain permanently , but the Old God resurfaced over the course of history as the driving force behind the Qiraji . It is trapped deep beneath the ruined temples of Ahn ' Qiraj , where it has exerted its will for thousands of years over its Qiraji avatars , who in turn command the Silithid swarm . , when asking players to bring him Elementium Ingot s , states that Elementium is an " element created by the volatility of " C ' Thun . Yogg - Saron . Described by the demigod Ursoc as " " the beast with a thousand maws " " , Yogg - Saron is only the second Old God to be explicitly named as such . The dire entity refers to itself in ways as " " the lucid dream " " , " " the god of death " " or " " the true face of death " " , and appears to secrete a substance named Saronite across Northrend which is capable of driving any that have been exposed to it to murderous insanity ( as may be the case with Garrosh Hellscream ) . Saronite is the dried blood of Yogg - Saron , which the mortal races eventually fashion into armor . Slinkin the Demo - gnome discovered shortly before his demise that a mysterious connection seems to exist between the Old God Yogg - Saron and the undead Scourge . In his final note , he claims to have overheard some undead uttering the name " Yogg - Saron " with a tone of tremendous hatred and contempt , and that this was usually followed by outbursts of rage from other undead . Yet , the Scourge appear to be mining for Saronite on an industrial scale . Yogg - Saron ' s underground prison extends through much of east - central Northrend ; his influence has been felt directly in the Grizzly Hills ( Vordrassil , the Grizzlemaw Furbolgs and Ursoc ) , Dragonblight ( , with faceless one s and a sect of the Twilight ' s Hammer dedicated to Yogg - Saron ) and the Storm Peaks ( Ulduar , and the corrupted Titanic guardian Loken ) . The Old God is located within his prison deep inside Ulduar , and is the final boss of the raid instance , much as C ' Thun was the final boss in Ahn ' Qiraj . N ' Zoth . The third named Old God is N ' Zoth , but has not appeared in game to date . N ' Zoth may be buried under the sea , although not confirmed , and is possibly related to the Faceless Ones . N ' Zoth was also mentioned by name as aiding Deathwing via his minion Warlord Zon ' ozz . The Puzzle Box of Yogg - Saron has some possible quotes that may be related to the Old God itself . Y ' Shaarj . The Titans slew Y ' shaarj , but with his dying breath he cursed Pandaria by infesting it with " shadows of his former self " . The 7 Sha are the physical manifestations of these " shadows " . In the Siege of Orgrimmar , it is revealed that Garrosh Hellscream found the heart of Y ' shaarj and used it to empower himself and rule the true horde . However , after the final battle of the Siege of Orgimmar , Garrosh himself was imprisoned , the true horde defeated , and the Heart itself destroyed . This reduced Y ' shaarj to a puddle , ending its influence , life and corruption once and for all . Old Gods and Twilight Worship . Until recently , only little was known about the Old Gods and their maddened worshippers - - practically none on Azeroth were truly aware of the existence of the Old Gods until C ' Thun made its ominous presence clearly felt within the depths of Ahn ' Qiraj . It is self - evident however the Old Gods possess worshippers across all the world ' s peoples and cultures somehow . The Old Gods are imprisoned and asleep deep beneath the earth , but their power is so vast that their maddening , destructive taint seeps from their prisons and appears to tear at the sanity of unknown numbers of Azeroth ' s inhabitants . To what extent sentient creatures can fall under the influence of the Old Gods in this manner is not well understood , but those who hear the Old Whisperings most clearly have joined together in a coalition that is known as the Twilight ' s Hammer . Many among these cultists and followers have lost every ounce of their sanity and have become completely unpredictable and malefic . Through the leadership of the ogre - mage Cho ' gall , a powerful servant of C ' Thun , the Twilight ' s Hammer has in recent times become the focal point for mortal worship of the Old Gods , and the cult ' s influence has since begun to increase alarmingly . Former members of both Alliance and Horde inexplicably flock to join in service and seek to assist in bringing about the final hour of mortal existence on Azeroth . Large groups of the Twilight ' s Hammer have been observed to settle at or near sites where they believe the Old Gods or their minions are sealed away ; many await C ' Thun ' s awakening in Silithus , while others appear to serve Ragnaros in the Blackrock Depths alongside the Dark Iron dwarves . The largest concentrations of the Twilight ' s Hammer , however , are located at Grim Batol and the Bastion of Twilight , which are located within a region of the Eastern Kingdoms that is now referred to as the Twilight Highlands . In some cases , evil but still sane individuals deliberately attempt to turn to worship of the Old Gods out of spite , when they feel that other , more mainstream powers have mistreated them . Anarchists also sometimes turn to worshiping the Old Gods out of a desire to destroy the world ; some believe that a new , better world will rise up in the wake of the destruction . In either case , these individuals are deluded or misinformed and any who do manage to make even the barest real contact with the Old Gods go hopelessly and irrevocably insane . C ' Thun created avatars from the silithid in its own image . These avatars , known as the qiraji , represent dark and powerful mockeries of life , and have served as the Old God ' s heralds for millenia . Likewise , Yogg - Saron is associated with the entities known only as faceless ones , which appear to serve the Old God as its heralds and avatars as well . Queen Azshara and the bulk of her Highborne people seem to have struck a pact with , or have fallen to , the power of the Old Gods , and have since become the monstrous naga . The naga have been seen in the presence of faceless ones in regions such as Vashj ' ir , suggesting that the darkest fears surrounding the changes which overcame Azshara and many of the Highborne indeed hold true . In " " , players who decide to quest in Vashj ' ir will first sail on a ship that will be destroyed by mysterious giant tentacles . There will also be strange tentacles in dark pools in the naga area on the Lost Isles . It appears that Stonetalon Peak is being attacked by an Old God or some of its minions . In Twilight Highlands , a minion of the Old Gods - Iso ' rath can be found . Speculation Section . Are Old Gods Demonic Or Demons ? Demons are evil immortals who feed upon life and magic according to the " Warcraft Encyclopedia " As such , Old Gods might fit that definition of demons and possess demonic qualities . However , the diagram of cosmic forces in " " shows us that the Old Gods are separate from the Burning Legion and hence not demons in the normal sense . Ultimately . the Old Gods are agents of Shadow . Do Old Gods contain , or relate to , Fel ? Whether retcon or not , the " " established Fel as cosmic force originated from Disorder ( aka chaos ) and gave rise to the Burning Legion . The Burning Legion is actually an instrument of Sargeras to oppose the Void Lord s and their primary servants , the Old Gods . So , it is extremely unlikely that the Old Gods contain Fel , but they are related in opposition to each other . Now proven misleading , the Twilight ' s Hammer clan believed the Old Gods are creatures of chaos and so the force of the Old Gods could be " of chaos " by extension . The primal force of chaos is fel and , as creatures of chaos , it was possible that the Old Gods contained fel . Fel can pool into a green goop when it ' s in physical form and when it does , it becomes a fel slime . As fel is entropic , fel slime is entropic and when the tree that the Old God Yogg - Saron corrupted was brought down , entropic slime s sprang from the earth . However , based on what we now know of cosmic forces , these slimes may have been a reaction to an Old God ' s presence and not emerging from the Old God . Trivia . Inspiration . The names and overall nature of the Old Gods are an homage to the various group of deities from the Cthulhu Mythos in the works of ( first stage ) , ( third stage ) , and the " Call of Cthulhu " RPG . At least in name , C ' Thun appears to be based on Cthulhu and Yogg - Saron appears to be based on the