Origins of the Trolls
To understand the Amani, it's important to first understand their origins as Trolls. As one of Azeroth's oldest mortal races, the Trolls spawned from life surrounding the Well of Eternity, accelerated through their evolution by latent exposure to Azeroth's lifeblood. They quickly spread beyond its shores across Azeroth, congregating around places inhabited by their most sacred of gods: the Loa.

For trolls, a Loa can mean any number of things; a family can revere their ancestors, a city their bygone leaders, a nation their kings. The most prominent of the loa are the Wild Gods, spirits of nature that take the forms of massive animals. Wild Gods revered by the trolls as loa can be found across Azeroth, but one of their largest homes was a mountain range in the southern reaches of what was then the united continent of Kalimdor. Congregating around this mountain range, the trolls named the region Zandalar, and created a sprawling temple nation atop its peaks ruled by the Zandalari tribe.

In time, the trolls would expand beyond Zandalar, creating new tribes and adapting to the regions they laid claim to. In the north, they adapted to the cold and became the Drakkari ice trolls; in the south, they adapted to the jungle climate and became the Gurubashi jungle trolls; and in the east, they adapted to the lush forests and became the Amani forest trolls.

While the diverse tribes occasionally clashed over hunting grounds at the borders of their lands, conflicts between trolls were scarce and short-lived. With no other prominent races and a bounty of vast, untouched lands across Azeroth, the trolls were free to explore Kalimdor and claim all of it as their own... all except one place.

Kith'ix and the Aqir
Within the isolated depths at the base of Zandalar's mountain range, there stood a mysterious mound of black stone. Of all lands in Azeroth, this was the one place that the priests of the troll tribes were forbidden to travel to. For millennia, this restriction was adhered to, until the rise of a priest named Zan'do.

Once a powerful witch doctor of the Gurubashi tribe, Zan'do was outcast from his place of power, and spent years yearning to reclaim it. Eventually, he came into possession of a mysterious dagger called Xal'atath, who whispered to him with promises of the power he sought. Guiding him and his disciples to the mount of black stone, Xal'atath revealed to them the truth of the forbidden site: it was the resting place of Kith'ix, a dead C'thrax who served as a general in the armies of the Old Gods and their fallen Black Empire.

Sacrificing his followers in pursuit of power, Zan'do used Xal'atath to revive Kith'ix -- an act that resulted in Zan'do never being seen again. Still eager to serve the Old Gods, Kith'ix reached out and took control of the insectoid forces that slumbered beneath Azeroth's surface, the Aqir. Instructing them to build an empire of their own, Kith'ix guided the Aqir to war against the trolls on the surface, intent on wiping out their entire civilization.

While the trolls were strong fighters on their own, their scattered tribes did not have the numbers to put up a fight against the Aqir. As their forces were pushed back to their sacred mountains, the Zandalari chose to unite the troll tribes into one force: the Empire of Zul. Through fervent prayer, the Zandalari summoned their Loa to push back the Aqiri army, wounding Kith'ix in the process and forcing him away from Zandalar.

Following the commands of the Zandalari, the Gurubashi and Drakkari spread across Azeroth in what became known as the Aqir and Troll War, dividing themselves into smaller forces and taking the fight to Aqiri citadels such as Ahn'Qiraj. The Amani, meanwhile, took on the most dire of tasks: killing Kith'ix. Still wounded by the loa, Kith'ix had retreated into the northeastern woods of Amani territory, surrounded by his armies. Instead of dividing themselves like the other tribes, the Amani united as one single force, their entire tribe throwing themselves at the insectoid army. While most of their soldiers perished, the fight ended with Kith'ix dead at their feet and the trolls victorious.

In the wake of the Aqir and Troll War, the surviving troll tribes returned to their isolated lands, and while they would all remember the Zandalari for their leadership and esteem, the Amani would become renowned for their legendary fighting skills. Building a settlement atop the corpse of Kith'ix, the forest trolls created the temple city of Zul'Aman.

Fall of the Troll Empires
The trolls continued to enjoy an unprecedented control of Azeroth for centuries after, but their dominance over Kalimdor would eventually come to an end. Eager to see the power they had once held restored, the Zandalari entered into a pact with the Mogu and their Thunder King -- a pact that ended in disaster when their leadership was wiped out in one fell swoop by the tol'vir of Uldum.

Likewise, the trolls were no longer the only race on Azeroth that had sprung from the magic of the Well of Eternity. While most trolls had expanded out from the Well into Kalimdor's diverse lands, a small few chose to return to its shores, basking in its arcane power and transforming into Night Elves. Worshipping the power of the Well as a gift from their goddess Elune, the night elves would eventually come under the rule of the infamous Queen Azshara, who began expanding night elf lands into the Kaldorei Empire.

In time, the expansion of their borders brought the night elves into inevitable conflict with the troll tribes, and while the Empire of Zul still held power, it was a shadow of its former self in the wake of their alliance with the mogu. With no other way to retain control of their sacred lands, the Zandalari struck a deal with Azshara: they would stay in their mountain range, and allow the Kaldorei Empire to flourish.

With the increasing reach of elven rule, the troll tribes became even more scattered and isolated -- isolation made even worse by the eventual Sundering of the continent in the wake of the War of the Ancients. Separated not only by hostile land but by vast oceans as well, troll tribes like the Amani were left in their own corners of the world. It wasn't until millennia later that the Amani would come into contact with the rest of the world, with the arrival of the Highborne.

Quel'thalas and the Troll Wars
During the War of the Ancients, many Highborne night elves chose to side against Azshara and her demonic invasion, but despite this, they still yearned to wield the vast arcane power that they saw as their birthright. Unable to either condone such actions nor sentence their kin to death for it, the night elves exiled their magical kin across the sea, where they would eventually find the Eastern Kingdoms.

At that time, around 7,000 years prior to the modern era, the northern areas of the Eastern Kingdoms were inhabited by two main groups: the Amani forest trolls and the humans. While they had arrived long after the forest trolls, the humans primarily kept to the south of Amani lands, organized into scattered tribes and warring with each other as much as the trolls on their borders.

The arrival of the Highborne changed things. Cut off from their magic in Kalimdor, they transformed into High Elves, and began seeking out a land to settle in. Eventually, they chose to head north and settle around a great conflux of arcane leylines, creating a font of power known as the Sunwell on the northernmost island. Founding the kingdom of Quel'thalas, the high elves began to erect golden cities and arcane barriers to artificially transform the cold forest lands of the region into their ideal home.

Unbeknownst to the high elves, they had actually settled upon one of the Amani's sacred burial grounds, and had begun creating their kingdom despite the existing settlements inhabited by the trolls. While the trolls fiercely outnumbered the high elves, they had no response for the immense arcane power they wielded, nor for the enchantments they stole from the trolls to enhance their weapons as they battled with the Amani. Eventually, the Amani were forced to retreat to Zul'Aman, attacking the elves where they could and plotting their revenge in the following millennia.

Around 2,800 years prior to the modern era, that chance for revenge would come. Seeking to strengthen the troll tribes across Azeroth once more, the Zandalari journeyed from their now-island nation seeking to uplift the Amani. Trolls of all tribes had held a grudge against elfkind since the days of Queen Azshara, and while they held mighty magic, Quel'thalas was a far cry from the insurmountable power of the Kaldorei Empire. Promising to aid them with magic and loa alike, the Zandalari stoked the Amani into assaulting Quel'thalas, beginning the conflict known as the Troll Wars. The trolls quickly began to overtake the high elves, and victory seemed swift and certain.

Unfortunately for the Amani, the high elves would not stand alone for long. The scattered human tribes had recently been united into the Empire of Arathor, and knew the threat that an expanding Amani force would pose to their lands. Beseeching them for aid, the high elves struck a bargain with the humans: in exchange for the assistance of their armies, the elves would teach humans the gifts of magic.

Despite this alliance, the Amani did not seem phased by the war they now fought on two fronts. Content to wipe out the humans first before finishing the elves, the forest trolls pushed deep into human lands, before realizing that the high elven armies had pushed south to pin them in. It was then that the alliance of nations unleashed their greatest weapon; in a massive conflagration, the newly trained human mages unleashed a monstrous torrent of flame upon the Amani army, obliterating their leadership and their loa, and sending them fleeing back to Zul'Aman.

The Troll Wars ultimately ended not only with the defeat of the Amani, but a crippling of their forces in a way that they never recovered from. Their hatred for the high elves only festered in the millennia that followed, deepened further by their inability to truly act upon it -- at least not on their own.

Zul'jin and the Horde
In the centuries leading up to the modern era, a relative 'calm' had persisted across Quel'thalas. While the Amani had attempted many assaults and rituals alike against the high elves, few had ever been particularly effective. Despite their numbers recovering, the forest trolls were scattered into disparate tribes, and had little hope of uniting. It wasn't until Zul'jin came to power that they began to unite, with the Warlord winning the favor of their various leaders and bringing them back into the fold of Zul'Aman.

Seeking to dismantle the magical defenses that had long prevented the Amani from meaningfully infiltrating elven lands, Zul'jin kidnapped a number of elves of various stripes -- among them the priestess Liadrin, the ranger Lor'themar Theron, and the magister Dar'Khan Drathir. Zul'jin offered the elves a chance to give up the knowledge he required with no harm done, but they all unanimously refused. It was from there that he began to torture them, an act that allowed them to escape thanks to Dar'Khan's magics. While the event would ultimately result in little for Zul'jin, it was one that would never be forgotten by the elves involved.

The next time Zul'jin would have an opportunity to destroy Quel'thalas was during the Second War, when the Orcish Horde began invading the northern kingdoms. Zul'jin had been captured by humans amidst the rising military action, and upon being freed by the orcs, he struck a deal with them: the Amani trolls would join the ranks of the Horde, and together they would destroy Quel'thalas, allowing the Amani to reclaim their ancestral lands.

The Horde came close to destroying Quel'thalas, but thanks to the impregnable power of the barrier surrounding Silvermoon, they were unable to finish the job. Forced to retreat to salvage their army, the orcs abandoned the assault on the high elves, but Zul'jin and the Amani stayed. Taking advantage of the sudden shift, the high elves attacked the Amani in full force, defeating their armies and capturing Zul'jin in the process.

Led by the ranger Halduron Brightwing, the high elven Farstriders chose not to simply kill the troll warlord, but torture him for his past crimes. Plucking out his eye, they planned to bring him back to Silvermoon so that Lor'themar, a close friend of Halduron, could decide what to do with him. Unfortunately for the elves, that sadistic choice would prove their undoing, allowing Zul'jin to cut off his own arm in the dead of night to escape their clutches and return to Zul'Aman.

In the years to follow, Quel'thalas would see significant change. In the wake of its destruction at the hands of Arthas and the Scourge, the Amani took advantage of the chaos to launch attacks on the surviving elves throughout the land. Their assaults would not last long, however, when Prince Kael'thas rallied the survivors together -- now renamed as Blood Elves -- and moved to secure their borders. Kael'thas soon left Quel'thalas to find a cure for his peoples' addiction to magic, and while the troll attacks had been unsuccessful, Zul'jin now saw an opportunity brewing to make a decisive move.

The Gods of Zul'Aman

When the blood elves eventually allied with the orcs in the Horde, Zul'jin was furious -- the Alliance had aided the elves time and again in thwarting their attempts to reclaim their sacred lands, and now the Horde had joined hands with them as well. While both factions were busy on Outland, he made the choice to strike with the aid of his newest ritual: the infusion of their loa into living trolls.

Among the Amani, they have four primary loa: the eagle Akil'zon, the lynx Halazzi, the dragonhawk Jan'alai, and the bear Nalorakk. Inspired by the priests of the Zandalari and, ironically, the blood elves and their subjugation of the naaru M'uru, Zul'jin called upon Hex Lord Malacrass to attempt similar measures on their own gods. Taking the essences of their four main loa, Malacrass infused them into troll warriors, creation living troll embodiments of their loa. It was even rumored that Malacrass had infused himself with a fifth essence, one much darker than their loa...

Nevertheless, when the Horde received word of the Amani's plans, they sent their greatest champions, the player adventurers, back to Quel'thalas to make a quick and decisive strike at the Amani leadership. They wished to prevent their ongoing war from becoming a fight in Quel'thalas as well as Outland, and so the adventurers were directed to cut off the serpent's head, killing Zul'jin himself alongside his priests and preventing their assault on Quel'thalas.

Rise of the Zandalari
The Amani would make little effort to rise up again in the years following Zul'jin's death, but that would change when they were again approached by the Zandalari with promises of power. Led by the Prophet Zul, the Zandalari fleet had set out from Zandalar in the wake of the Shattering, intent on saving the trolls from their now-sinking homeland and reviving the ancient troll empire. He approached the leaders of Azeroth's disparate troll tribes, and while some like the Darkspear refused, most others eagerly accepted his offer -- among them the Amani.

Now led by a brutish warlord named Daakara, the Amani again performed the rituals to place the essences of their loa within living trolls, intent on conquering Quel'thalas. With the backing of the Zandalari, they were much more formidable than before, and it would take more than some Horde adventurers to combat their advance. In a unified assault between Silvermoon's new Ranger-General Halduron Brightwing, the Darkspear troll leader Vol'jin, and the leader of the high elven Silver Covenant Vereesa Windrunner, soldiers from both factions arrived to defend Quel'thalas from the rising troll empire.

Daakara and his loa-infused warriors were slain in the end, and while many Amani continued to follow Zul and his vision across the world, it ended in little more than failure. Entering into a pact with the mogu of old, the trolls attempted to resurrect the Thunder King and recreate the ancient Empire of Zul, but they were ultimately laid to rest at his seat of power along with the Thunder King himself.

What's Next: Midnight
In the years since their last major appearance, the Amani have entered into a period of quiet. Few attacks have been launched against blood elven lands, and beyond a few unruly soldiers seen during our time in Zandalar, they have scarcely made so much as an appearance. For the time being, it seems their dreams of reclaiming their sacred lands have been put on the back burner.

Now in Midnight, we are finally returning to Quel'thalas as Xal'atath mounts her invasion to claim the Sunwell, and amidst our fight we will be entering into the lands of Zul'Aman beyond the main city. In the modern day, the Amani are led by Zul'jin's granddaughter Zul'jarra, with his grandson Zul'jan as her second in command. While a tense stalemate has formed between the Amani and the blood elves since Cataclysm, the threat of the Void has demanded that Zul'jarra reach out for aid.

First among her solutions is attempting to reconnect with their loa. In the wake of their second ritual to bind their essences, the loa have abandoned their temples within Zul'Aman, and our task in the zone will be to find them and try to rekindle their bond with the native trolls. Among those travels, we will undergo a trial put on by the bear loa Nalorakk as one of our upcoming dungeons.

Likewise, as the return of the Twilight's Hammer Cult threatens their lands and desecrates their temples, we will aid the Amani in pushing back the threat of Xal'atath -- and hopefully gain their aid in turn. The Amani are some of Azeroth's foremost fighters against the Void, having defeated Kith'ix and the Aqir as the foundation of their modern society, and if the Twilight's Hammer seek to resurrect Kith'ix as they have with C'thraxxi in the past, we'll surely need their assistance.

However, not all of our allies will be pleased with these developments, Liadrin chief among them. As a young girl, her parents were killed by the Amani, and her torture at the hands of Zul'jin has likewise not left her mind. According to Blizzard, she will star as a prominent character in the Amani story as we grapple with the long-standing tensions between the two kingdoms. For the elven perspective on this conflict, check our our recap on the history of Quel'thalas!

too are having slight void problems, and they need some assistance. Needless to say, the Blood Elves are uninspired by that request, as they aren't on best of terms.

... does not have a strong liking for the Amani trolls, and that will become important.

Despite their sacred claim to the land, the Amani have historically only been treated as antagonists in the struggle for Quel'thalas. Midnight offers an opportunity to tell a new perspective for the native trolls, and a chance to reconcile some of the bloody conflicts with the elves as we unite against the threat of Xal'atath. Armed with the knowledge of their longstanding history, look forward to exploring Zul'Aman in full during Midnight!

Origins of the Trolls
To understand the Amani, it's important to first understand their origins as Trolls. As one of Azeroth's oldest mortal races, the Trolls spawned from life surrounding the Well of Eternity, accelerated through their evolution by latent exposure to Azeroth's lifeblood. They quickly spread beyond its shores across Azeroth, congregating around places inhabited by their most sacred of gods: the Loa.

For trolls, a Loa can mean any number of things; a family can revere their ancestors, a city their bygone leaders, a nation their kings. The most prominent of the loa are the Wild Gods, spirits of nature that take the forms of massive animals. Wild Gods revered by the trolls as loa can be found across Azeroth, but one of their largest homes was a mountain range in the southern reaches of what was then the united continent of Kalimdor. Congregating around this mountain range, the trolls named the region Zandalar, and created a sprawling temple nation atop its peaks ruled by the Zandalari tribe.

In time, the trolls would expand beyond Zandalar, creating new tribes and adapting to the regions they laid claim to. In the north, they adapted to the cold and became the Drakkari ice trolls; in the south, they adapted to the jungle climate and became the Gurubashi jungle trolls; and in the east, they adapted to the lush forests and became the Amani forest trolls.

While the diverse tribes occasionally clashed over hunting grounds at the borders of their lands, conflicts between trolls were scarce and short-lived. With no other prominent races and a bounty of vast, untouched lands across Azeroth, the trolls were free to explore Kalimdor and claim all of it as their own... all except one place.

Kith'ix and the Aqir
Within the isolated depths at the base of Zandalar's mountain range, there stood a mysterious mound of black stone. Of all lands in Azeroth, this was the one place that the priests of the troll tribes were forbidden to travel to. For millennia, this restriction was adhered to, until the rise of a priest named Zan'do.

Once a powerful witch doctor of the Gurubashi tribe, Zan'do was outcast from his place of power, and spent years yearning to reclaim it. Eventually, he came into possession of a mysterious dagger called Xal'atath, who whispered to him with promises of the power he sought. Guiding him and his disciples to the mount of black stone, Xal'atath revealed to them the truth of the forbidden site: it was the resting place of Kith'ix, a dead C'thrax who served as a general in the armies of the Old Gods and their fallen Black Empire.

Sacrificing his followers in pursuit of power, Zan'do used Xal'atath to revive Kith'ix -- an act that resulted in Zan'do never being seen again. Still eager to serve the Old Gods, Kith'ix reached out and took control of the insectoid forces that slumbered beneath Azeroth's surface, the Aqir. Instructing them to build an empire of their own, Kith'ix guided the Aqir to war against the trolls on the surface, intent on wiping out their entire civilization.

While the trolls were strong fighters on their own, their scattered tribes did not have the numbers to put up a fight against the Aqir. As their forces were pushed back to their sacred mountains, the Zandalari chose to unite the troll tribes into one force: the Empire of Zul. Through fervent prayer, the Zandalari summoned their Loa to push back the Aqiri army, wounding Kith'ix in the process and forcing him away from Zandalar.

Following the commands of the Zandalari, the Gurubashi and Drakkari spread across Azeroth in what became known as the Aqir and Troll War, dividing themselves into smaller forces and taking the fight to Aqiri citadels such as Ahn'Qiraj. The Amani, meanwhile, took on the most dire of tasks: killing Kith'ix. Still wounded by the loa, Kith'ix had retreated into the northeastern woods of Amani territory, surrounded by his armies. Instead of dividing themselves like the other tribes, the Amani united as one single force, their entire tribe throwing themselves at the insectoid army. While most of their soldiers perished, the fight ended with Kith'ix dead at their feet and the trolls victorious.

In the wake of the Aqir and Troll War, the surviving troll tribes returned to their isolated lands, and while they would all remember the Zandalari for their leadership and esteem, the Amani would become renowned for their legendary fighting skills. Building a settlement atop the corpse of Kith'ix, the forest trolls created the temple city of Zul'Aman.

Fall of the Troll Empires
The trolls continued to enjoy an unprecedented control of Azeroth for centuries after, but their dominance over Kalimdor would eventually come to an end. Eager to see the power they had once held restored, the Zandalari entered into a pact with the Mogu and their Thunder King -- a pact that ended in disaster when their leadership was wiped out in one fell swoop by the tol'vir of Uldum.

Likewise, the trolls were no longer the only race on Azeroth that had sprung from the magic of the Well of Eternity. While most trolls had expanded out from the Well into Kalimdor's diverse lands, a small few chose to return to its shores, basking in its arcane power and transforming into Night Elves. Worshipping the power of the Well as a gift from their goddess Elune, the night elves would eventually come under the rule of the infamous Queen Azshara, who began expanding night elf lands into the Kaldorei Empire.

In time, the expansion of their borders brought the night elves into inevitable conflict with the troll tribes, and while the Empire of Zul still held power, it was a shadow of its former self in the wake of their alliance with the mogu. With no other way to retain control of their sacred lands, the Zandalari struck a deal with Azshara: they would stay in their mountain range, and allow the Kaldorei Empire to flourish.

With the increasing reach of elven rule, the troll tribes became even more scattered and isolated -- isolation made even worse by the eventual Sundering of the continent in the wake of the War of the Ancients. Separated not only by hostile land but by vast oceans as well, troll tribes like the Amani were left in their own corners of the world. It wasn't until millennia later that the Amani would come into contact with the rest of the world, with the arrival of the Highborne.

Quel'thalas and the Troll Wars
During the War of the Ancients, many Highborne night elves chose to side against Azshara and her demonic invasion, but despite this, they still yearned to wield the vast arcane power that they saw as their birthright. Unable to either condone such actions nor sentence their kin to death for it, the night elves exiled their magical kin across the sea, where they would eventually find the Eastern Kingdoms.

At that time, around 7,000 years prior to the modern era, the northern areas of the Eastern Kingdoms were inhabited by two main groups: the Amani forest trolls and the humans. While they had arrived long after the forest trolls, the humans primarily kept to the south of Amani lands, organized into scattered tribes and warring with each other as much as the trolls on their borders.

The arrival of the Highborne changed things. Cut off from their magic in Kalimdor, they transformed into High Elves, and began seeking out a land to settle in. Eventually, they chose to head north and settle around a great conflux of arcane leylines, creating a font of power known as the Sunwell on the northernmost island. Founding the kingdom of Quel'thalas, the high elves began to erect golden cities and arcane barriers to artificially transform the cold forest lands of the region into their ideal home.

Unbeknownst to the high elves, they had actually settled upon one of the Amani's sacred burial grounds, and had begun creating their kingdom despite the existing settlements inhabited by the trolls. While the trolls fiercely outnumbered the high elves, they had no response for the immense arcane power they wielded, nor for the enchantments they stole from the trolls to enhance their weapons as they battled with the Amani. Eventually, the Amani were forced to retreat to Zul'Aman, attacking the elves where they could and plotting their revenge in the following millennia.

Around 2,800 years prior to the modern era, that chance for revenge would come. Seeking to strengthen the troll tribes across Azeroth once more, the Zandalari journeyed from their now-island nation seeking to uplift the Amani. Trolls of all tribes had held a grudge against elfkind since the days of Queen Azshara, and while they held mighty magic, Quel'thalas was a far cry from the insurmountable power of the Kaldorei Empire. Promising to aid them with magic and loa alike, the Zandalari stoked the Amani into assaulting Quel'thalas, beginning the conflict known as the Troll Wars. The trolls quickly began to overtake the high elves, and victory seemed swift and certain.

Unfortunately for the Amani, the high elves would not stand alone for long. The scattered human tribes had recently been united into the Empire of Arathor, and knew the threat that an expanding Amani force would pose to their lands. Beseeching them for aid, the high elves struck a bargain with the humans: in exchange for the assistance of their armies, the elves would teach humans the gifts of magic.

Despite this alliance, the Amani did not seem phased by the war they now fought on two fronts. Content to wipe out the humans first before finishing the elves, the forest trolls pushed deep into human lands, before realizing that the high elven armies had pushed south to pin them in. It was then that the alliance of nations unleashed their greatest weapon; in a massive conflagration, the newly trained human mages unleashed a monstrous torrent of flame upon the Amani army, obliterating their leadership and their loa, and sending them fleeing back to Zul'Aman.

The Troll Wars ultimately ended not only with the defeat of the Amani, but a crippling of their forces in a way that they never recovered from. Their hatred for the high elves only festered in the millennia that followed, deepened further by their inability to truly act upon it -- at least not on their own.

Zul'jin and the Horde
In the centuries leading up to the modern era, a relative 'calm' had persisted across Quel'thalas. While the Amani had attempted many assaults and rituals alike against the high elves, few had ever been particularly effective. Despite their numbers recovering, the forest trolls were scattered into disparate tribes, and had little hope of uniting. It wasn't until Zul'jin came to power that they began to unite, with the Warlord winning the favor of their various leaders and bringing them back into the fold of Zul'Aman.

Seeking to dismantle the magical defenses that had long prevented the Amani from meaningfully infiltrating elven lands, Zul'jin kidnapped a number of elves of various stripes -- among them the priestess Liadrin, the ranger Lor'themar Theron, and the magister Dar'Khan Drathir. Zul'jin offered the elves a chance to give up the knowledge he required with no harm done, but they all unanimously refused. It was from there that he began to torture them, an act that allowed them to escape thanks to Dar'Khan's magics. While the event would ultimately result in little for Zul'jin, it was one that would never be forgotten by the elves involved.

The next time Zul'jin would have an opportunity to destroy Quel'thalas was during the Second War, when the Orcish Horde began invading the northern kingdoms. Zul'jin had been captured by humans amidst the rising military action, and upon being freed by the orcs, he struck a deal with them: the Amani trolls would join the ranks of the Horde, and together they would destroy Quel'thalas, allowing the Amani to reclaim their ancestral lands.

The Horde came close to destroying Quel'thalas, but thanks to the impregnable power of the barrier surrounding Silvermoon, they were unable to finish the job. Forced to retreat to salvage their army, the orcs abandoned the assault on the high elves, but Zul'jin and the Amani stayed. Taking advantage of the sudden shift, the high elves attacked the Amani in full force, defeating their armies and capturing Zul'jin in the process.

Led by the ranger Halduron Brightwing, the high elven Farstriders chose not to simply kill the troll warlord, but torture him for his past crimes. Plucking out his eye, they planned to bring him back to Silvermoon so that Lor'themar, a close friend of Halduron, could decide what to do with him. Unfortunately for the elves, that sadistic choice would prove their undoing, allowing Zul'jin to cut off his own arm in the dead of night to escape their clutches and return to Zul'Aman.

In the years to follow, Quel'thalas would see significant change. In the wake of its destruction at the hands of Arthas and the Scourge, the Amani took advantage of the chaos to launch attacks on the surviving elves throughout the land. Their assaults would not last long, however, when Prince Kael'thas rallied the survivors together -- now renamed as Blood Elves -- and moved to secure their borders. Kael'thas soon left Quel'thalas to find a cure for his peoples' addiction to magic, and while the troll attacks had been unsuccessful, Zul'jin now saw an opportunity brewing to make a decisive move.

The Gods of Zul'Aman

When the blood elves eventually allied with the orcs in the Horde, Zul'jin was furious -- the Alliance had aided the elves time and again in thwarting their attempts to reclaim their sacred lands, and now the Horde had joined hands with them as well. While both factions were busy on Outland, he made the choice to strike with the aid of his newest ritual: the infusion of their loa into living trolls.

Among the Amani, they have four primary loa: the eagle Akil'zon, the lynx Halazzi, the dragonhawk Jan'alai, and the bear Nalorakk. Inspired by the priests of the Zandalari and, ironically, the blood elves and their subjugation of the naaru M'uru, Zul'jin called upon Hex Lord Malacrass to attempt similar measures on their own gods. Taking the essences of their four main loa, Malacrass infused them into troll warriors, creation living troll embodiments of their loa. It was even rumored that Malacrass had infused himself with a fifth essence, one much darker than their loa...

Nevertheless, when the Horde received word of the Amani's plans, they sent their greatest champions, the player adventurers, back to Quel'thalas to make a quick and decisive strike at the Amani leadership. They wished to prevent their ongoing war from becoming a fight in Quel'thalas as well as Outland, and so the adventurers were directed to cut off the serpent's head, killing Zul'jin himself alongside his priests and preventing their assault on Quel'thalas.

Rise of the Zandalari
The Amani would make little effort to rise up again in the years following Zul'jin's death, but that would change when they were again approached by the Zandalari with promises of power. Led by the Prophet Zul, the Zandalari fleet had set out from Zandalar in the wake of the Shattering, intent on saving the trolls from their now-sinking homeland and reviving the ancient troll empire. He approached the leaders of Azeroth's disparate troll tribes, and while some like the Darkspear refused, most others eagerly accepted his offer -- among them the Amani.

Now led by a brutish warlord named Daakara, the Amani again performed the rituals to place the essences of their loa within living trolls, intent on conquering Quel'thalas. With the backing of the Zandalari, they were much more formidable than before, and it would take more than some Horde adventurers to combat their advance. In a unified assault between Silvermoon's new Ranger-General Halduron Brightwing, the Darkspear troll leader Vol'jin, and the leader of the high elven Silver Covenant Vereesa Windrunner, soldiers from both factions arrived to defend Quel'thalas from the rising troll empire.

Daakara and his loa-infused warriors were slain in the end, and while many Amani continued to follow Zul and his vision across the world, it ended in little more than failure. Entering into a pact with the mogu of old, the trolls attempted to resurrect the Thunder King and recreate the ancient Empire of Zul, but they were ultimately laid to rest at his seat of power along with the Thunder King himself.

What's Next: Midnight
In the years since their last major appearance, the Amani have entered into a period of quiet. Few attacks have been launched against blood elven lands, and beyond a few unruly soldiers seen during our time in Zandalar, they have scarcely made so much as an appearance. For the time being, it seems their dreams of reclaiming their sacred lands have been put on the back burner.

Now in Midnight, we are finally returning to Quel'thalas as Xal'atath mounts her invasion to claim the Sunwell, and amidst our fight we will be entering into the lands of Zul'Aman beyond the main city. In the modern day, the Amani are led by Zul'jin's granddaughter Zul'jarra, with his grandson Zul'jan as her second in command. While a tense stalemate has formed between the Amani and the blood elves since Cataclysm, the threat of the Void has demanded that Zul'jarra reach out for aid.

First among her solutions is attempting to reconnect with their loa. In the wake of their second ritual to bind their essences, the loa have abandoned their temples within Zul'Aman, and our task in the zone will be to find them and try to rekindle their bond with the native trolls. Among those travels, we will undergo a trial put on by the bear loa Nalorakk as one of our upcoming dungeons.

Likewise, as the return of the Twilight's Hammer Cult threatens their lands and desecrates their temples, we will aid the Amani in pushing back the threat of Xal'atath -- and hopefully gain their aid in turn. The Amani are some of Azeroth's foremost fighters against the Void, having defeated Kith'ix and the Aqir as the foundation of their modern society, and if the Twilight's Hammer seek to resurrect Kith'ix as they have with C'thraxxi in the past, we'll surely need their assistance.

However, not all of our allies will be pleased with these developments, Liadrin chief among them. As a young girl, her parents were killed by the Amani, and her torture at the hands of Zul'jin has likewise not left her mind. According to Blizzard, she will star as a prominent character in the Amani story as we grapple with the long-standing tensions between the two kingdoms. For the elven perspective on this conflict, check our our recap on the history of Quel'thalas!

too are having slight void problems, and they need some assistance. Needless to say, the Blood Elves are uninspired by that request, as they aren't on best of terms.

... does not have a strong liking for the Amani trolls, and that will become important.

Despite their sacred claim to the land, the Amani have historically only been treated as antagonists in the struggle for Quel'thalas. Midnight offers an opportunity to tell a new perspective for the native trolls, and a chance to reconcile some of the bloody conflicts with the elves as we unite against the threat of Xal'atath. Armed with the knowledge of their longstanding history, look forward to exploring Zul'Aman in full during Midnight!

Origins of the Trolls
To understand the Amani, it's important to first understand their origins as Trolls. As one of Azeroth's oldest mortal races, the Trolls spawned from life surrounding the Well of Eternity, accelerated through their evolution by latent exposure to Azeroth's lifeblood. They quickly spread beyond its shores across Azeroth, congregating around places inhabited by their most sacred of gods: the Loa.

For trolls, a Loa can mean any number of things; a family can revere their ancestors, a city their bygone leaders, a nation their kings. The most prominent of the loa are the Wild Gods, spirits of nature that take the forms of massive animals. Wild Gods revered by the trolls as loa can be found across Azeroth, but one of their largest homes was a mountain range in the southern reaches of what was then the united continent of Kalimdor. Congregating around this mountain range, the trolls named the region Zandalar, and created a sprawling temple nation atop its peaks ruled by the Zandalari tribe.

In time, the trolls would expand beyond Zandalar, creating new tribes and adapting to the regions they laid claim to. In the north, they adapted to the cold and became the Drakkari ice trolls; in the south, they adapted to the jungle climate and became the Gurubashi jungle trolls; and in the east, they adapted to the lush forests and became the Amani forest trolls.

While the diverse tribes occasionally clashed over hunting grounds at the borders of their lands, conflicts between trolls were scarce and short-lived. With no other prominent races and a bounty of vast, untouched lands across Azeroth, the trolls were free to explore Kalimdor and claim all of it as their own... all except one place.

Kith'ix and the Aqir
Within the isolated depths at the base of Zandalar's mountain range, there stood a mysterious mound of black stone. Of all lands in Azeroth, this was the one place that the priests of the troll tribes were forbidden to travel to. For millennia, this restriction was adhered to, until the rise of a priest named Zan'do.

Once a powerful witch doctor of the Gurubashi tribe, Zan'do was outcast from his place of power, and spent years yearning to reclaim it. Eventually, he came into possession of a mysterious dagger called Xal'atath, who whispered to him with promises of the power he sought. Guiding him and his disciples to the mount of black stone, Xal'atath revealed to them the truth of the forbidden site: it was the resting place of Kith'ix, a dead C'thrax who served as a general in the armies of the Old Gods and their fallen Black Empire.

Sacrificing his followers in pursuit of power, Zan'do used Xal'atath to revive Kith'ix -- an act that resulted in Zan'do never being seen again. Still eager to serve the Old Gods, Kith'ix reached out and took control of the insectoid forces that slumbered beneath Azeroth's surface, the Aqir. Instructing them to build an empire of their own, Kith'ix guided the Aqir to war against the trolls on the surface, intent on wiping out their entire civilization.

While the trolls were strong fighters on their own, their scattered tribes did not have the numbers to put up a fight against the Aqir. As their forces were pushed back to their sacred mountains, the Zandalari chose to unite the troll tribes into one force: the Empire of Zul. Through fervent prayer, the Zandalari summoned their Loa to push back the Aqiri army, wounding Kith'ix in the process and forcing him away from Zandalar.

Following the commands of the Zandalari, the Gurubashi and Drakkari spread across Azeroth in what became known as the Aqir and Troll War, dividing themselves into smaller forces and taking the fight to Aqiri citadels such as Ahn'Qiraj. The Amani, meanwhile, took on the most dire of tasks: killing Kith'ix. Still wounded by the loa, Kith'ix had retreated into the northeastern woods of Amani territory, surrounded by his armies. Instead of dividing themselves like the other tribes, the Amani united as one single force, their entire tribe throwing themselves at the insectoid army. While most of their soldiers perished, the fight ended with Kith'ix dead at their feet and the trolls victorious.

In the wake of the Aqir and Troll War, the surviving troll tribes returned to their isolated lands, and while they would all remember the Zandalari for their leadership and esteem, the Amani would become renowned for their legendary fighting skills. Building a settlement atop the corpse of Kith'ix, the forest trolls created the temple city of Zul'Aman.

Fall of the Troll Empires
The trolls continued to enjoy an unprecedented control of Azeroth for centuries after, but their dominance over Kalimdor would eventually come to an end. Eager to see the power they had once held restored, the Zandalari entered into a pact with the Mogu and their Thunder King -- a pact that ended in disaster when their leadership was wiped out in one fell swoop by the tol'vir of Uldum.

Likewise, the trolls were no longer the only race on Azeroth that had sprung from the magic of the Well of Eternity. While most trolls had expanded out from the Well into Kalimdor's diverse lands, a small few chose to return to its shores, basking in its arcane power and transforming into Night Elves. Worshipping the power of the Well as a gift from their goddess Elune, the night elves would eventually come under the rule of the infamous Queen Azshara, who began expanding night elf lands into the Kaldorei Empire.

In time, the expansion of their borders brought the night elves into inevitable conflict with the troll tribes, and while the Empire of Zul still held power, it was a shadow of its former self in the wake of their alliance with the mogu. With no other way to retain control of their sacred lands, the Zandalari struck a deal with Azshara: they would stay in their mountain range, and allow the Kaldorei Empire to flourish.

With the increasing reach of elven rule, the troll tribes became even more scattered and isolated -- isolation made even worse by the eventual Sundering of the continent in the wake of the War of the Ancients. Separated not only by hostile land but by vast oceans as well, troll tribes like the Amani were left in their own corners of the world. It wasn't until millennia later that the Amani would come into contact with the rest of the world, with the arrival of the Highborne.

Quel'thalas and the Troll Wars
During the War of the Ancients, many Highborne night elves chose to side against Azshara and her demonic invasion, but despite this, they still yearned to wield the vast arcane power that they saw as their birthright. Unable to either condone such actions nor sentence their kin to death for it, the night elves exiled their magical kin across the sea, where they would eventually find the Eastern Kingdoms.

At that time, around 7,000 years prior to the modern era, the northern areas of the Eastern Kingdoms were inhabited by two main groups: the Amani forest trolls and the humans. While they had arrived long after the forest trolls, the humans primarily kept to the south of Amani lands, organized into scattered tribes and warring with each other as much as the trolls on their borders.

The arrival of the Highborne changed things. Cut off from their magic in Kalimdor, they transformed into High Elves, and began seeking out a land to settle in. Eventually, they chose to head north and settle around a great conflux of arcane leylines, creating a font of power known as the Sunwell on the northernmost island. Founding the kingdom of Quel'thalas, the high elves began to erect golden cities and arcane barriers to artificially transform the cold forest lands of the region into their ideal home.

Unbeknownst to the high elves, they had actually settled upon one of the Amani's sacred burial grounds, and had begun creating their kingdom despite the existing settlements inhabited by the trolls. While the trolls fiercely outnumbered the high elves, they had no response for the immense arcane power they wielded, nor for the enchantments they stole from the trolls to enhance their weapons as they battled with the Amani. Eventually, the Amani were forced to retreat to Zul'Aman, attacking the elves where they could and plotting their revenge in the following millennia.

Around 2,800 years prior to the modern era, that chance for revenge would come. Seeking to strengthen the troll tribes across Azeroth once more, the Zandalari journeyed from their now-island nation seeking to uplift the Amani. Trolls of all tribes had held a grudge against elfkind since the days of Queen Azshara, and while they held mighty magic, Quel'thalas was a far cry from the insurmountable power of the Kaldorei Empire. Promising to aid them with magic and loa alike, the Zandalari stoked the Amani into assaulting Quel'thalas, beginning the conflict known as the Troll Wars. The trolls quickly began to overtake the high elves, and victory seemed swift and certain.

Unfortunately for the Amani, the high elves would not stand alone for long. The scattered human tribes had recently been united into the Empire of Arathor, and knew the threat that an expanding Amani force would pose to their lands. Beseeching them for aid, the high elves struck a bargain with the humans: in exchange for the assistance of their armies, the elves would teach humans the gifts of magic.

Despite this alliance, the Amani did not seem phased by the war they now fought on two fronts. Content to wipe out the humans first before finishing the elves, the forest trolls pushed deep into human lands, before realizing that the high elven armies had pushed south to pin them in. It was then that the alliance of nations unleashed their greatest weapon; in a massive conflagration, the newly trained human mages unleashed a monstrous torrent of flame upon the Amani army, obliterating their leadership and their loa, and sending them fleeing back to Zul'Aman.

The Troll Wars ultimately ended not only with the defeat of the Amani, but a crippling of their forces in a way that they never recovered from. Their hatred for the high elves only festered in the millennia that followed, deepened further by their inability to truly act upon it -- at least not on their own.

Zul'jin and the Horde
In the centuries leading up to the modern era, a relative 'calm' had persisted across Quel'thalas. While the Amani had attempted many assaults and rituals alike against the high elves, few had ever been particularly effective. Despite their numbers recovering, the forest trolls were scattered into disparate tribes, and had little hope of uniting. It wasn't until Zul'jin came to power that they began to unite, with the Warlord winning the favor of their various leaders and bringing them back into the fold of Zul'Aman.

Seeking to dismantle the magical defenses that had long prevented the Amani from meaningfully infiltrating elven lands, Zul'jin kidnapped a number of elves of various stripes -- among them the priestess Liadrin, the ranger Lor'themar Theron, and the magister Dar'Khan Drathir. Zul'jin offered the elves a chance to give up the knowledge he required with no harm done, but they all unanimously refused. It was from there that he began to torture them, an act that allowed them to escape thanks to Dar'Khan's magics. While the event would ultimately result in little for Zul'jin, it was one that would never be forgotten by the elves involved.

The next time Zul'jin would have an opportunity to destroy Quel'thalas was during the Second War, when the Orcish Horde began invading the northern kingdoms. Zul'jin had been captured by humans amidst the rising military action, and upon being freed by the orcs, he struck a deal with them: the Amani trolls would join the ranks of the Horde, and together they would destroy Quel'thalas, allowing the Amani to reclaim their ancestral lands.

The Horde came close to destroying Quel'thalas, but thanks to the impregnable power of the barrier surrounding Silvermoon, they were unable to finish the job. Forced to retreat to salvage their army, the orcs abandoned the assault on the high elves, but Zul'jin and the Amani stayed. Taking advantage of the sudden shift, the high elves attacked the Amani in full force, defeating their armies and capturing Zul'jin in the process.

Led by the ranger Halduron Brightwing, the high elven Farstriders chose not to simply kill the troll warlord, but torture him for his past crimes. Plucking out his eye, they planned to bring him back to Silvermoon so that Lor'themar, a close friend of Halduron, could decide what to do with him. Unfortunately for the elves, that sadistic choice would prove their undoing, allowing Zul'jin to cut off his own arm in the dead of night to escape their clutches and return to Zul'Aman.

In the years to follow, Quel'thalas would see significant change. In the wake of its destruction at the hands of Arthas and the Scourge, the Amani took advantage of the chaos to launch attacks on the surviving elves throughout the land. Their assaults would not last long, however, when Prince Kael'thas rallied the survivors together -- now renamed as Blood Elves -- and moved to secure their borders. Kael'thas soon left Quel'thalas to find a cure for his peoples' addiction to magic, and while the troll attacks had been unsuccessful, Zul'jin now saw an opportunity brewing to make a decisive move.

The Gods of Zul'Aman

When the blood elves eventually allied with the orcs in the Horde, Zul'jin was furious -- the Alliance had aided the elves time and again in thwarting their attempts to reclaim their sacred lands, and now the Horde had joined hands with them as well. While both factions were busy on Outland, he made the choice to strike with the aid of his newest ritual: the infusion of their loa into living trolls.

Among the Amani, they have four primary loa: the eagle Akil'zon, the lynx Halazzi, the dragonhawk Jan'alai, and the bear Nalorakk. Inspired by the priests of the Zandalari and, ironically, the blood elves and their subjugation of the naaru M'uru, Zul'jin called upon Hex Lord Malacrass to attempt similar measures on their own gods. Taking the essences of their four main loa, Malacrass infused them into troll warriors, creation living troll embodiments of their loa. It was even rumored that Malacrass had infused himself with a fifth essence, one much darker than their loa...

Nevertheless, when the Horde received word of the Amani's plans, they sent their greatest champions, the player adventurers, back to Quel'thalas to make a quick and decisive strike at the Amani leadership. They wished to prevent their ongoing war from becoming a fight in Quel'thalas as well as Outland, and so the adventurers were directed to cut off the serpent's head, killing Zul'jin himself alongside his priests and preventing their assault on Quel'thalas.

Rise of the Zandalari
The Amani would make little effort to rise up again in the years following Zul'jin's death, but that would change when they were again approached by the Zandalari with promises of power. Led by the Prophet Zul, the Zandalari fleet had set out from Zandalar in the wake of the Shattering, intent on saving the trolls from their now-sinking homeland and reviving the ancient troll empire. He approached the leaders of Azeroth's disparate troll tribes, and while some like the Darkspear refused, most others eagerly accepted his offer -- among them the Amani.

Now led by a brutish warlord named Daakara, the Amani again performed the rituals to place the essences of their loa within living trolls, intent on conquering Quel'thalas. With the backing of the Zandalari, they were much more formidable than before, and it would take more than some Horde adventurers to combat their advance. In a unified assault between Silvermoon's new Ranger-General Halduron Brightwing, the Darkspear troll leader Vol'jin, and the leader of the high elven Silver Covenant Vereesa Windrunner, soldiers from both factions arrived to defend Quel'thalas from the rising troll empire.

Daakara and his loa-infused warriors were slain in the end, and while many Amani continued to follow Zul and his vision across the world, it ended in little more than failure. Entering into a pact with the mogu of old, the trolls attempted to resurrect the Thunder King and recreate the ancient Empire of Zul, but they were ultimately laid to rest at his seat of power along with the Thunder King himself.

What's Next: Midnight
In the years since their last major appearance, the Amani have entered into a period of quiet. Few attacks have been launched against blood elven lands, and beyond a few unruly soldiers seen during our time in Zandalar, they have scarcely made so much as an appearance. For the time being, it seems their dreams of reclaiming their sacred lands have been put on the back burner.

Now in Midnight, we are finally returning to Quel'thalas as Xal'atath mounts her invasion to claim the Sunwell, and amidst our fight we will be entering into the lands of Zul'Aman beyond the main city. In the modern day, the Amani are led by Zul'jin's granddaughter Zul'jarra, with his grandson Zul'jan as her second in command. While a tense stalemate has formed between the Amani and the blood elves since Cataclysm, the threat of the Void has demanded that Zul'jarra reach out for aid.

First among her solutions is attempting to reconnect with their loa. In the wake of their second ritual to bind their essences, the loa have abandoned their temples within Zul'Aman, and our task in the zone will be to find them and try to rekindle their bond with the native trolls. Among those travels, we will undergo a trial put on by the bear loa Nalorakk as one of our upcoming dungeons.

Likewise, as the return of the Twilight's Hammer Cult threatens their lands and desecrates their temples, we will aid the Amani in pushing back the threat of Xal'atath -- and hopefully gain their aid in turn. The Amani are some of Azeroth's foremost fighters against the Void, having defeated Kith'ix and the Aqir as the foundation of their modern society, and if the Twilight's Hammer seek to resurrect Kith'ix as they have with C'thraxxi in the past, we'll surely need their assistance.

However, not all of our allies will be pleased with these developments, Liadrin chief among them. As a young girl, her parents were killed by the Amani, and her torture at the hands of Zul'jin has likewise not left her mind. According to Blizzard, she will star as a prominent character in the Amani story as we grapple with the long-standing tensions between the two kingdoms. For the elven perspective on this conflict, check our our recap on the history of Quel'thalas!

too are having slight void problems, and they need some assistance. Needless to say, the Blood Elves are uninspired by that request, as they aren't on best of terms.

... does not have a strong liking for the Amani trolls, and that will become important.

Despite their sacred claim to the land, the Amani have historically only been treated as antagonists in the struggle for Quel'thalas. Midnight offers an opportunity to tell a new perspective for the native trolls, and a chance to reconcile some of the bloody conflicts with the elves as we unite against the threat of Xal'atath. Armed with the knowledge of their longstanding history, look forward to exploring Zul'Aman in full during Midnight!

Origins of the Trolls
To understand the Amani, it's important to first understand their origins as Trolls. As one of Azeroth's oldest mortal races, the Trolls spawned from life surrounding the Well of Eternity, accelerated through their evolution by latent exposure to Azeroth's lifeblood. They quickly spread beyond its shores across Azeroth, congregating around places inhabited by their most sacred of gods: the Loa.

For trolls, a Loa can mean any number of things; a family can revere their ancestors, a city their bygone leaders, a nation their kings. The most prominent of the loa are the Wild Gods, spirits of nature that take the forms of massive animals. Wild Gods revered by the trolls as loa can be found across Azeroth, but one of their largest homes was a mountain range in the southern reaches of what was then the united continent of Kalimdor. Congregating around this mountain range, the trolls named the region Zandalar, and created a sprawling temple nation atop its peaks ruled by the Zandalari tribe.

In time, the trolls would expand beyond Zandalar, creating new tribes and adapting to the regions they laid claim to. In the north, they adapted to the cold and became the Drakkari ice trolls; in the south, they adapted to the jungle climate and became the Gurubashi jungle trolls; and in the east, they adapted to the lush forests and became the Amani forest trolls.

While the diverse tribes occasionally clashed over hunting grounds at the borders of their lands, conflicts between trolls were scarce and short-lived. With no other prominent races and a bounty of vast, untouched lands across Azeroth, the trolls were free to explore Kalimdor and claim all of it as their own... all except one place.

Kith'ix and the Aqir
Within the isolated depths at the base of Zandalar's mountain range, there stood a mysterious mound of black stone. Of all lands in Azeroth, this was the one place that the priests of the troll tribes were forbidden to travel to. For millennia, this restriction was adhered to, until the rise of a priest named Zan'do.

Once a powerful witch doctor of the Gurubashi tribe, Zan'do was outcast from his place of power, and spent years yearning to reclaim it. Eventually, he came into possession of a mysterious dagger called Xal'atath, who whispered to him with promises of the power he sought. Guiding him and his disciples to the mount of black stone, Xal'atath revealed to them the truth of the forbidden site: it was the resting place of Kith'ix, a dead C'thrax who served as a general in the armies of the Old Gods and their fallen Black Empire.

Sacrificing his followers in pursuit of power, Zan'do used Xal'atath to revive Kith'ix -- an act that resulted in Zan'do never being seen again. Still eager to serve the Old Gods, Kith'ix reached out and took control of the insectoid forces that slumbered beneath Azeroth's surface, the Aqir. Instructing them to build an empire of their own, Kith'ix guided the Aqir to war against the trolls on the surface, intent on wiping out their entire civilization.

While the trolls were strong fighters on their own, their scattered tribes did not have the numbers to put up a fight against the Aqir. As their forces were pushed back to their sacred mountains, the Zandalari chose to unite the troll tribes into one force: the Empire of Zul. Through fervent prayer, the Zandalari summoned their Loa to push back the Aqiri army, wounding Kith'ix in the process and forcing him away from Zandalar.

Following the commands of the Zandalari, the Gurubashi and Drakkari spread across Azeroth in what became known as the Aqir and Troll War, dividing themselves into smaller forces and taking the fight to Aqiri citadels such as Ahn'Qiraj. The Amani, meanwhile, took on the most dire of tasks: killing Kith'ix. Still wounded by the loa, Kith'ix had retreated into the northeastern woods of Amani territory, surrounded by his armies. Instead of dividing themselves like the other tribes, the Amani united as one single force, their entire tribe throwing themselves at the insectoid army. While most of their soldiers perished, the fight ended with Kith'ix dead at their feet and the trolls victorious.

In the wake of the Aqir and Troll War, the surviving troll tribes returned to their isolated lands, and while they would all remember the Zandalari for their leadership and esteem, the Amani would become renowned for their legendary fighting skills. Building a settlement atop the corpse of Kith'ix, the forest trolls created the temple city of Zul'Aman.

Fall of the Troll Empires
The trolls continued to enjoy an unprecedented control of Azeroth for centuries after, but their dominance over Kalimdor would eventually come to an end. Eager to see the power they had once held restored, the Zandalari entered into a pact with the Mogu and their Thunder King -- a pact that ended in disaster when their leadership was wiped out in one fell swoop by the tol'vir of Uldum.

Likewise, the trolls were no longer the only race on Azeroth that had sprung from the magic of the Well of Eternity. While most trolls had expanded out from the Well into Kalimdor's diverse lands, a small few chose to return to its shores, basking in its arcane power and transforming into Night Elves. Worshipping the power of the Well as a gift from their goddess Elune, the night elves would eventually come under the rule of the infamous Queen Azshara, who began expanding night elf lands into the Kaldorei Empire.

In time, the expansion of their borders brought the night elves into inevitable conflict with the troll tribes, and while the Empire of Zul still held power, it was a shadow of its former self in the wake of their alliance with the mogu. With no other way to retain control of their sacred lands, the Zandalari struck a deal with Azshara: they would stay in their mountain range, and allow the Kaldorei Empire to flourish.

With the increasing reach of elven rule, the troll tribes became even more scattered and isolated -- isolation made even worse by the eventual Sundering of the continent in the wake of the War of the Ancients. Separated not only by hostile land but by vast oceans as well, troll tribes like the Amani were left in their own corners of the world. It wasn't until millennia later that the Amani would come into contact with the rest of the world, with the arrival of the Highborne.

Quel'thalas and the Troll Wars
During the War of the Ancients, many Highborne night elves chose to side against Azshara and her demonic invasion, but despite this, they still yearned to wield the vast arcane power that they saw as their birthright. Unable to either condone such actions nor sentence their kin to death for it, the night elves exiled their magical kin across the sea, where they would eventually find the Eastern Kingdoms.

At that time, around 7,000 years prior to the modern era, the northern areas of the Eastern Kingdoms were inhabited by two main groups: the Amani forest trolls and the humans. While they had arrived long after the forest trolls, the humans primarily kept to the south of Amani lands, organized into scattered tribes and warring with each other as much as the trolls on their borders.

The arrival of the Highborne changed things. Cut off from their magic in Kalimdor, they transformed into High Elves, and began seeking out a land to settle in. Eventually, they chose to head north and settle around a great conflux of arcane leylines, creating a font of power known as the Sunwell on the northernmost island. Founding the kingdom of Quel'thalas, the high elves began to erect golden cities and arcane barriers to artificially transform the cold forest lands of the region into their ideal home.

Unbeknownst to the high elves, they had actually settled upon one of the Amani's sacred burial grounds, and had begun creating their kingdom despite the existing settlements inhabited by the trolls. While the trolls fiercely outnumbered the high elves, they had no response for the immense arcane power they wielded, nor for the enchantments they stole from the trolls to enhance their weapons as they battled with the Amani. Eventually, the Amani were forced to retreat to Zul'Aman, attacking the elves where they could and plotting their revenge in the following millennia.

Around 2,800 years prior to the modern era, that chance for revenge would come. Seeking to strengthen the troll tribes across Azeroth once more, the Zandalari journeyed from their now-island nation seeking to uplift the Amani. Trolls of all tribes had held a grudge against elfkind since the days of Queen Azshara, and while they held mighty magic, Quel'thalas was a far cry from the insurmountable power of the Kaldorei Empire. Promising to aid them with magic and loa alike, the Zandalari stoked the Amani into assaulting Quel'thalas, beginning the conflict known as the Troll Wars. The trolls quickly began to overtake the high elves, and victory seemed swift and certain.

Unfortunately for the Amani, the high elves would not stand alone for long. The scattered human tribes had recently been united into the Empire of Arathor, and knew the threat that an expanding Amani force would pose to their lands. Beseeching them for aid, the high elves struck a bargain with the humans: in exchange for the assistance of their armies, the elves would teach humans the gifts of magic.

Despite this alliance, the Amani did not seem phased by the war they now fought on two fronts. Content to wipe out the humans first before finishing the elves, the forest trolls pushed deep into human lands, before realizing that the high elven armies had pushed south to pin them in. It was then that the alliance of nations unleashed their greatest weapon; in a massive conflagration, the newly trained human mages unleashed a monstrous torrent of flame upon the Amani army, obliterating their leadership and their loa, and sending them fleeing back to Zul'Aman.

The Troll Wars ultimately ended not only with the defeat of the Amani, but a crippling of their forces in a way that they never recovered from. Their hatred for the high elves only festered in the millennia that followed, deepened further by their inability to truly act upon it -- at least not on their own.

Zul'jin and the Horde
In the centuries leading up to the modern era, a relative 'calm' had persisted across Quel'thalas. While the Amani had attempted many assaults and rituals alike against the high elves, few had ever been particularly effective. Despite their numbers recovering, the forest trolls were scattered into disparate tribes, and had little hope of uniting. It wasn't until Zul'jin came to power that they began to unite, with the Warlord winning the favor of their various leaders and bringing them back into the fold of Zul'Aman.

Seeking to dismantle the magical defenses that had long prevented the Amani from meaningfully infiltrating elven lands, Zul'jin kidnapped a number of elves of various stripes -- among them the priestess Liadrin, the ranger Lor'themar Theron, and the magister Dar'Khan Drathir. Zul'jin offered the elves a chance to give up the knowledge he required with no harm done, but they all unanimously refused. It was from there that he began to torture them, an act that allowed them to escape thanks to Dar'Khan's magics. While the event would ultimately result in little for Zul'jin, it was one that would never be forgotten by the elves involved.

The next time Zul'jin would have an opportunity to destroy Quel'thalas was during the Second War, when the Orcish Horde began invading the northern kingdoms. Zul'jin had been captured by humans amidst the rising military action, and upon being freed by the orcs, he struck a deal with them: the Amani trolls would join the ranks of the Horde, and together they would destroy Quel'thalas, allowing the Amani to reclaim their ancestral lands.

The Horde came close to destroying Quel'thalas, but thanks to the impregnable power of the barrier surrounding Silvermoon, they were unable to finish the job. Forced to retreat to salvage their army, the orcs abandoned the assault on the high elves, but Zul'jin and the Amani stayed. Taking advantage of the sudden shift, the high elves attacked the Amani in full force, defeating their armies and capturing Zul'jin in the process.

Led by the ranger Halduron Brightwing, the high elven Farstriders chose not to simply kill the troll warlord, but torture him for his past crimes. Plucking out his eye, they planned to bring him back to Silvermoon so that Lor'themar, a close friend of Halduron, could decide what to do with him. Unfortunately for the elves, that sadistic choice would prove their undoing, allowing Zul'jin to cut off his own arm in the dead of night to escape their clutches and return to Zul'Aman.

In the years to follow, Quel'thalas would see significant change. In the wake of its destruction at the hands of Arthas and the Scourge, the Amani took advantage of the chaos to launch attacks on the surviving elves throughout the land. Their assaults would not last long, however, when Prince Kael'thas rallied the survivors together -- now renamed as Blood Elves -- and moved to secure their borders. Kael'thas soon left Quel'thalas to find a cure for his peoples' addiction to magic, and while the troll attacks had been unsuccessful, Zul'jin now saw an opportunity brewing to make a decisive move.

The Gods of Zul'Aman

When the blood elves eventually allied with the orcs in the Horde, Zul'jin was furious -- the Alliance had aided the elves time and again in thwarting their attempts to reclaim their sacred lands, and now the Horde had joined hands with them as well. While both factions were busy on Outland, he made the choice to strike with the aid of his newest ritual: the infusion of their loa into living trolls.

Among the Amani, they have four primary loa: the eagle Akil'zon, the lynx Halazzi, the dragonhawk Jan'alai, and the bear Nalorakk. Inspired by the priests of the Zandalari and, ironically, the blood elves and their subjugation of the naaru M'uru, Zul'jin called upon Hex Lord Malacrass to attempt similar measures on their own gods. Taking the essences of their four main loa, Malacrass infused them into troll warriors, creation living troll embodiments of their loa. It was even rumored that Malacrass had infused himself with a fifth essence, one much darker than their loa...

Nevertheless, when the Horde received word of the Amani's plans, they sent their greatest champions, the player adventurers, back to Quel'thalas to make a quick and decisive strike at the Amani leadership. They wished to prevent their ongoing war from becoming a fight in Quel'thalas as well as Outland, and so the adventurers were directed to cut off the serpent's head, killing Zul'jin himself alongside his priests and preventing their assault on Quel'thalas.

Rise of the Zandalari
The Amani would make little effort to rise up again in the years following Zul'jin's death, but that would change when they were again approached by the Zandalari with promises of power. Led by the Prophet Zul, the Zandalari fleet had set out from Zandalar in the wake of the Shattering, intent on saving the trolls from their now-sinking homeland and reviving the ancient troll empire. He approached the leaders of Azeroth's disparate troll tribes, and while some like the Darkspear refused, most others eagerly accepted his offer -- among them the Amani.

Now led by a brutish warlord named Daakara, the Amani again performed the rituals to place the essences of their loa within living trolls, intent on conquering Quel'thalas. With the backing of the Zandalari, they were much more formidable than before, and it would take more than some Horde adventurers to combat their advance. In a unified assault between Silvermoon's new Ranger-General Halduron Brightwing, the Darkspear troll leader Vol'jin, and the leader of the high elven Silver Covenant Vereesa Windrunner, soldiers from both factions arrived to defend Quel'thalas from the rising troll empire.

Daakara and his loa-infused warriors were slain in the end, and while many Amani continued to follow Zul and his vision across the world, it ended in little more than failure. Entering into a pact with the mogu of old, the trolls attempted to resurrect the Thunder King and recreate the ancient Empire of Zul, but they were ultimately laid to rest at his seat of power along with the Thunder King himself.

What's Next: Midnight
In the years since their last major appearance, the Amani have entered into a period of quiet. Few attacks have been launched against blood elven lands, and beyond a few unruly soldiers seen during our time in Zandalar, they have scarcely made so much as an appearance. For the time being, it seems their dreams of reclaiming their sacred lands have been put on the back burner.

Now in Midnight, we are finally returning to Quel'thalas as Xal'atath mounts her invasion to claim the Sunwell, and amidst our fight we will be entering into the lands of Zul'Aman beyond the main city. In the modern day, the Amani are led by Zul'jin's granddaughter Zul'jarra, with his grandson Zul'jan as her second in command. While a tense stalemate has formed between the Amani and the blood elves since Cataclysm, the threat of the Void has demanded that Zul'jarra reach out for aid.

First among her solutions is attempting to reconnect with their loa. In the wake of their second ritual to bind their essences, the loa have abandoned their temples within Zul'Aman, and our task in the zone will be to find them and try to rekindle their bond with the native trolls. Among those travels, we will undergo a trial put on by the bear loa Nalorakk as one of our upcoming dungeons.

Likewise, as the return of the Twilight's Hammer Cult threatens their lands and desecrates their temples, we will aid the Amani in pushing back the threat of Xal'atath -- and hopefully gain their aid in turn. The Amani are some of Azeroth's foremost fighters against the Void, having defeated Kith'ix and the Aqir as the foundation of their modern society, and if the Twilight's Hammer seek to resurrect Kith'ix as they have with C'thraxxi in the past, we'll surely need their assistance.

However, not all of our allies will be pleased with these developments, Liadrin chief among them. As a young girl, her parents were killed by the Amani, and her torture at the hands of Zul'jin has likewise not left her mind. According to Blizzard, she will star as a prominent character in the Amani story as we grapple with the long-standing tensions between the two kingdoms. For the elven perspective on this conflict, check our our recap on the history of Quel'thalas!

too are having slight void problems, and they need some assistance. Needless to say, the Blood Elves are uninspired by that request, as they aren't on best of terms.

... does not have a strong liking for the Amani trolls, and that will become important.

Despite their sacred claim to the land, the Amani have historically only been treated as antagonists in the struggle for Quel'thalas. Midnight offers an opportunity to tell a new perspective for the native trolls, and a chance to reconcile some of the bloody conflicts with the elves as we unite against the threat of Xal'atath. Armed with the knowledge of their longstanding history, look forward to exploring Zul'Aman in full during Midnight!