The War of the Three Hammers

Beneath the snows of Dun Morogh the dwarves carved Ironforge, a kingdom of stone and craft that traced its roots to the titans' earthen. Three clans shared it uneasily: the Bronzebeards, the Wildhammers and the sorcery-loving Dark Irons. When High King Modimus Anvilmar died, some 230 years before the Dark Portal, their rivalry exploded into civil war.

The Bronzebeards won and drove the others out. The Wildhammers built Grim Batol to the east, and the Dark Irons founded a kingdom of their own to the south, in the Redridge Mountains. Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan could not accept defeat. He struck at both rivals at once, but his armies were broken, and his wife Modgud fell at Grim Batol.

In desperation Thaurissan reached for a greater power and summoned Ragnaros the Firelord, an elemental lord the titans had imprisoned. The Firelord's arrival killed the thane, tore the land into the Searing Gorge and the Burning Steppes, and raised Blackrock Mountain, where the surviving Dark Irons became his slaves. The Wildhammers abandoned cursed Grim Batol for the Hinterlands. Their gnome neighbours, whose city of Gnomeregan lay close by, became Ironforge's firm friends.