World of Warcraft: Chroniken Band 2

World of Warcraft Chronicle #2

by Blizzard Entertainment, Andreas Kasprzak (Translator), Tobias Toneguzzo (Translator)

Blizzard Entertainment and Dark Horse Books are thrilled to present the next installment of the wildly popular World of Warcraft Chronicle series. Volume 2 will reveal more sought-after details about the game universe's history and mythology. Showcasing lush, all-new artwork from fan favorites such as Peter Lee, Joseph Lacroix, and Alex Horley, this tome is sure to please all fans--casual and collector alike.

Genres: Fantasy, Warcraft, World Of Warcraft, Fiction, Video Games, Games, Gaming

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 14, 2017

About the author

Blizzard Entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard.

The company is well known for creating the Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch franchises, and regularly publishes related novels, comics, and art books.

Reviews

[Monsour · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book for the Lore fan

Chronicle Vol. 2 starts in the origin of Draenor, from its creation until its desolation. We get introduce to the Evegrowth and to the giants. To the evolution of Arrakoa, Ogre's and Orcs, until to the settlement of Draenei from the planet after their fall and the rise of the horde. We also get introduce to the events of the first Horde Invasion of Azeroth(Warcraft I) and second where the battle gets to the eastern seas until to the battle beyond the dark portal(Warcraft II).

The book is mostly about the Horde which I like but their are even more stuff here which not worth spoiling to everyone because if you read alot of warcraft novels and fan made wiki's you actually get this stuff already but the book gives you a proper explanation throughout the beginning to the end.

The illustration is topnotch for a warcraft book and the only thing I get disappoint with this is the limitation of the art. I expected more actually( Like dude where is Ogrim Doomhammer)

Here are some examples I found on google:

Horde army vs Draenei resistance


First generation of Death Knights:

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Have not read the Volume 3 so far, but I think this will be my favorite out of the 3 volumes. Even though I rated it the same as the Volume 2 this one was much more interesting, maybe because I grew up playing Warcraft 2-3 and this one mentions events and characters from that era.

If you're a fan of the games/comics/books this one is a must. It may very well be one of the top fantasy lores created out there.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, like the first, to have a definitive version of the history of Warcraft. Illustrations amazing as always.

[nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This part of the narrative, in my opinion, fell flat. I grew very frustrated as, in comparison to the first book, the motives and the presence of certain characters was heavily confusing. Sargeras, although successfully planting his seed of corruption into the orcs of Draenor, for some reason became completely uninvolved in the latter part of the destruction of Draenor as a whole, although arguably the orc race was his ultimate plan at invading and corrupting Azeroth once and for all. On the other hand, Deathwing, whom I believe to be one of the most one-note villains you could read about, took a much more important role. Where I take issue with Deathwing's role, however, is that he seems to arbitrarily posses powers that are extremely convenient for his evil plans. This is done arbitrarily and it always seems to have the upper hand to the rest of the 4 dragonflights who play almost no part in the story at all. It is explained very briefly that the red dragonflight was recovering from the previous experience of being targeted by Deathwing, the blue dragonflight was almost extinct, the bronze dragonflight was protecting time and the green dragonflight was protecting the emerald dream. However, although this is used to explain why they weren't involved as a group, it doesn't explain why they weren't involved separately. Azeroth's Black Morass region, known after the creation of the portal as Blasted Lands, had a massive loss of life due to the magic energies seeping through and destroying the earth. Ysera, as the green dragon aspect, is meant to protect life through the emerald dream, yet she failed to do so or to become involved in this loss of life. It just all seems to be too convenient for the one-note villains developed in the story and is completely unsatisfactory for me as I am not interested in reading that coupled with endless copy and paste descriptions that write something of in the variety of 'the two masses of the horde and alliance clashed on the battlefield.'

[Keith Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chronicle Vol. 2 starts with the origins of life on Draenor and continues through the Second War and the Alliance Expedition. Like anything to do with Draenor, the most interesting parts are about the arakkoa and the least interesting are the orcs, so of course the book is mostly about the orcs. The orcs are divided into dozens of clans with names like the Rotten Teeth and the Mad Dogs. They revere nature and violence, although not in that order. They are forced to invade Azeroth after utterly ruining their native world.

This last detail reflects a disturbing pattern in World of Warcraft. In chapter after chapter, every noble and beautiful thing eventually gets corrupted, everything gets ruined. We see this with individuals, races, factions, nations, even entire planets. It makes me wonder what the game designers ultimate endgame plan for WOW is. Is it just a series of small victories against a backdrop of inevitable failure?

I do not need a fantasy game to remind me that we live in a world where the forces of greed, ignorance, and cruelty are growing stronger every day. It is easy to be cynical and say the entropic plot of WOW is realistic. I choose to believe that society as a whole is capable of progressing as long as compassion and knowledge are valued above immediate self interest. It is a hard sell, but worth it in the long term.

[scafandr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Первый том я прочитал почти сразу, как он появился в магазинах. Каждый день перед сном читал по паре страничек и получал удовольствие. Хотя не могу сказать, что первый том был сильно увлекательный. Он всё-таки больше про мирозарождение, мифологию, что-то космическое. Как мифы Древней Греции, только в рамках Варкрафта=) А вот второй том - это уже самые что ни на есть настоящие первые части части компьютерной игры.
Хоть я в первые два Варкрафта не играл, но было очень интересно читать про первые атаки орков на мир людей. В книге просто огромное количество базовых вещей, которые потом стали классикой в третьей части или ВоВ - портал, Гул'дан, Чернорук, Оргрим, Ринн, Андуин, даже Тралл мелькнул. На фоне того, что читаешь, вспоминаешь то, что знаешь о Варкрафт, как о компьютерной игре, и становится немного смешно, во что превратилась идея просто сделать игру, в которой орки сражаются с людьми. Потому что почти ничего этого, что есть в книге, в играх не было=) Историю насыщали по мере популяризации Варкрафта. Пришлось придумывать, как орки оказались в Азероте, почему хотели захватить новый мир и т.д.
Книга невероятно увлекательная, но будет интересна прежде всего тем, кто знаком с компьютерной игрой. Авторы детально расписали пошагово все основные события, которые творились в первых двух частях игры. Всё это сопровождается красочными большими иллюстрациями.
Восторг. 10/10.

[Parry Pardun · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pursuit of weaving stories from dozens of different writers developed over decades into a comprehensive time line is great. However, there are many muddled, undeveloped concepts and instances of saving characters just to repeat plot lines over again (because after all they are video game assets) that it is painfully obvious the story of WoW never had a grand architect. It's a shame that some of the bad writing wasn't retconned out of existence and instead supported in this book.

[Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

really great, definitely my favorite of the trilogy. the first half is Draenor which has always been a cool and atypical fantasy world, which benefits a lot from having its history much more constructed from the ground up than Azeroth. the second half is the first two Warcraft games which is just the opposite, extremely classic fantasy stuff but it's like my favorite part of the whole history.

[Petra · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second volume of the World of Warcraft chronicles is again full of lore information that can answer many questions the players might have about various characters, locations or events they meet in the game.

Volume 2 starts with the history of Draenor and we learn about origins of various species, of arrakoa, ogres, orcs and more. Then we follow eredari on their way to this world and see how the Burning Legion corrupted orcs and used them to destroy Velen and his people and then invaded Azeroth. The book then chronicles wars between the Horde and the Alliance and shows how Deathwing and the Old Gods were pulling strings behind many of the events.

I higly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Azeroth and its history. As with the first volume, this book helped me create a more concrete picture of various causes and events and I'm looking forward to the Volume 3.

Again, the only bad thing about this book is the Czech translation, which is very inconsistent with its dealing with names, sometimes it translates them, sometimes don't and so on, it spoils the reading experience.

[Anna Obertan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kniha obsahuje záživnější část dějin světa Warcraftu, hlavně otevření Temného portálu a První a Druhou válku.. Přesto se asi nejvíc těším na příští díl kroniky 😬

.. A taky bylo málo obrázků!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second volume of the lore collection for the World of Warcraft videogame focuses on the First and Second War, so basically the stories of the first two RTS games Warcraft and Warcraft II. In retrospect it's quite amazing to see how rich a story they weaved from games that were actually so low on actual story and plot. I never played Warcraft, but I played the original campaigns of Warcraft II, and I mostly remember the amazing music and the silly voice lines of some units, plus I loved the name Khaz Modan.

The Chronicle begins with a detailed backstory of Draenor, which I thought was probably the best element of the book. It managed to explain so much about AU Draenor from the Warlords of Draenor expansion that I never managed to figure out just from playing the game alone (which is a problem that Warcraft lore has in general), like the Evergrowth, and the Apexis civilization, the ogre empire, etc.

Furthermore, we learn of the noble savage orcs, who were led astray by the Burning Legion's corruption, the opening of the Dark Portal by a Sargeras-controlled Medivh, and the two wars the Horde led against the newly-formed Alliance. The Chronicle ends with the events of the Beyond the Dark Portal expansion of Warcraft II and explains how Turalyon, Khadgar and Alleria ended up on ruined Draenor.

As mentioned above, I love all the background lore of Draenor, and enjoyed meeting the movers and shakers of the Horde and Alliance. There was a lot of ground to cover. I got a bit bored once the Dark Portal was open, because there's only so much you can do with a historical re-telling of two games that were focused on battles, not so much on plot. Hence only 4 stars for me.

If you enjoy Warcraft lore in-game at all, I think the Chronicles series are pretty much a mandatory read. Beautiful books, and I am looking forward to Volume 3 which will probably dig deep into Warcraft 3's story.

[Kris Veldhuizen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume picks up from the first in all the good ways. There’s even a bit of a twist from the very beginning where you expect to just pick up chronologically from the first volume, but we actually go back in time, way before the Dark Portal, and follow the history of Draenor, until both that history and Azeroth’s converge, with the opening of said Portal.

Again, lots of “oh cool!” moments; the name Draenor actually having been given to the planet by the Draenei who crash-landed there; the way and reason both the Horde and the Alliance were formed; how the orcs turned green; how the Black Temple used to be the Temple of Karabor, a Draenei city, and how the Undercity used to be Capital City, the human hub; the stories behind the First and Second War; the destruction of Draenor, and the consequent disappearance of the Alliance heroes who fought there, who ended up being given statues at the entrance of Stormwind... and so on and so on!

There’s an incredible amount of background and history here, also, and it never gets boring or overwhelming. In fact, what I worried about after the first volume was the sheer amount of information provided and being able to retain all that while reading the second book. However, whenever in this volume a continuation of a situation or character’s history is discussed, it is always preceded by a short summary of what came before, and this in such a way that it is incorporated into he story. This made the book all the more enjoyable to read.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very satisfying lore read for an old World of Warcraft player. While the first volume assembled the deep lore of the game world in a coherent way only hinted at in the game, the second volume serves the same purpose with a slightly different structure. The first half lays out the deep lore of Draenor, a different planet than the central setting of Azeroth, but an important one nonetheless. In other words, it covers the deep lore of the world central to two of the MMO's expansions and the original RTS games. The second half of the book, however, basically retells the plots of the first two RTS games. Since I never played those games, it was nice to be able to read the lore in a consolidated form versus what I had gleaned from scattered references in the MMO.
Also, as I referenced in my review of the first volume (I think), it is a gorgeous volume that any lover of Blizzard's flagship IP should be happy to have on their shelf.
I expect Volume III to cover the plot of Warcraft III, the MMO itself, and it expansions up to the current releases (through "Legion"?... we'll see). For me that will be a retread and probably not provide much additional insight from what I already know, but I have no doubt that I will still enjoy it. I do love lore and world-building no matter what!

[Efe Karabulat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first thing i noticed were retcons, just the sheer amount of them are eye-watering. It's kinda expected though.

After a quick read of first and second chronicles, it's becoming somewhat tiresome because the concepts (some malevolent force slipping into our heroes' minds and ever so subtly twisting them) and their implications (not really corrupting them but influencing their choices via preying on their negative emotions, such as fear, jeaolusy etc.) are being so repetitive and unimaginative. For instance Deathwing did the same thing over and over again for the entire book because "it served him well the last time". Plans never work or works "because of a miracle/element of surprise", which is disappointing and again, repetitive.

The best part was the political aspect. Characters using each other to their end, entities serving both camps, using enemy forces against them are all nice and well-thought. For me it's disturbingly reminiscent to Syrian civil war. Maybe it's just the true nature of war and as we all know, war never changes.

A fun and relaxing read, nonetheless.

[Tomáš Kratochvíl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say I enjoyed the second Chronicle even more than the first one. Although the story of the Second War is as boring as in the novels Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal (well, maybe at least a little bit less boring, but definitely not as entertaining as the games themselves). Nonetheless, the story of Medivh and Khadgar is well-written. The background story of Draenor is veeery interesting. And all of it makes sense once again. I also enjoyed the little easter eggs throughout the book.

What I did not like was the pathetic behavior of some characters. Sometimes they did not seem to behave like that should. And one cannot forget that the remaining plotholes and Orgrim's weird responses to changes of the tides of war.

Altogether, the book is something every WoW fan should read. I liked reading it. I loved translating it to Czech. And I am looking forward to the next volume of the Chronicle.

[James Howlet · Rating 5 out of 5]

My gosh!!!
This is just getting better and better!!!
I am a super fan of the game. Not only World of Warcraft, but Warcraft itself. I never played the first one because back then I didn't have a computer, but later I was able to play from Warcraft two until WoW Legion and I just love the series. Right now I'm not playing anymore because there are more important things in life, but I really would like to go back and play again and complete the quest in all the areas in all the worlds.
The story of Warcraft is just amazing.
If you don't know anything about the game then the Chronicles are a very good start. I must warn you that the stories presented in these books don't go so deep as in some other books, but they give you the foundation to truly understand everything and all the important characters; their personalities, their motivations, and their hopes and fears.
I just finished the second book and I couldn't wait to start with the third. So here I come again Azeroth!!!

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

It stalled me my first attempt because expectation after Volume 1 was to step into the First War. It turns out they needed to give you the history of Draenor. I understand the move and important details are conveyed, but it is a momentum buster. However the second half is the First and Second Wars with a Beyond the Dark Portal addendum. And stitching those stories together is making sense of lore and characters with which I grew from my youth.

All this to say, the necessary legend of Draenor is less compelling than Azeroth, but worth the payoff as both worlds come into conflict by the end.

It (sadly?) tickles my fancy for the novelization of Beyond the Dark Portal as I always wanted to immerse myself in that but that expansion was painfully hard. It was at least a guilty pleasure to hear a higher level overview.

[Beau · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was way better than I had expected it to be. My first experience with this universe was with Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, so most of this was ancient history that I only learned about piecemeal through those games. And 13 years on from World of Warcraft, a lot more stuff has been retroactively added to the past of the gameworld, and these books do a good job of making it all one coherent story with a compelling narrative.

This is written like a textbook, not a novel, but it's still surprisingly engaging for all of that, much moreso than similar efforts from other gaming companies over the years. Looking forward to reading the next volume in the spring.

[Josip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! Summary of events that lead to opening portal from Dreanor to Azeroth and battles before Warcraft 3. There are some lore discrepancies between earlier released novels and the book that was predlude to the movie (Durotan). Also, plot of the movie is slightly different. But nevertheless this was pure joy. Good reminder of characters and events which are later playing major role in World of Warcraft and its expansions.

But, this make wish to play original Warcraft and Warcraft 2 once again :D

[Alexx Tsuki · Rating 4 out of 5]

En este libro nos adentramos en el mundo de Draenor, su formación y las diferentes criaturas que lo habitan a lo largo de los años, conociendo interesantes historias y sus desenlaces. Encontramos seres de gran relevancia en la historia, como los orcos, los cuales se ven corrompidos por la magia vil, formando así a La Horda, que terminaría en una lucha traspasada a Azeroth a través del Portal Oscuro, desatando dos grandes guerras, que dio pie a la unión entre humanos, elfos y enanos conocidos como La Alianza, para vencer a este potente enemigo.

[Emmanuel Manolidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets into the origins of both the horde and the alliance. I like how it follows all the well known characters and for someone who was a little too young for Warcraft I & II this is a great way to catch up on the backstory of current WoW. We get to see a lot of important events, like the dark portal and meet a lot of characters like turalyon, a young varian on the alliance side, and orcs like guldan, nerzhul, doom hammer and gromm on the horse side. This book does a good job of showing the story in more of a grey area as opposed to horde bad, alliance good.

[Peter Caputo · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Chronicle I, these are the go to for all lore in the Azeroth / WoW universe. It is very detailed, beautifully written offering the best in detail and easy reading. There is an economy here that is unmatched and necessary in order to bring this whole world to not only seasoned WoW players but someone that has never delved into the game. I have all three and I always go back to them to fill in the timeline details and how everything is weaved together in past, present, and future activities within the game. Beautiful binding, paper, and they feel good to handle.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love World of Warcraft and the lore, but man this book was so dry. It took me nearly all month to read just 200 pages, and I only finished it while playing the actual game and waiting for events to spawn (yay for pre-patch events).

The artwork is lovely, of course, and I had enough interest in the world and characters to perservere, but I'd only recommend this to die-hard fans of the game, and I'd probably recommend reading the actual proper books before reading this series of chronicles.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic volume. I knew most of the story of the 1st war but I didn't all of the background that took place on Draenor. It is extremely sad. I knew basically nothing about the 2nd war or the initial journey of the alliance through the Dark Portal. Each of these Volumes is stunningly beautiful. Obviously the artwork is amazing but I also love just the ordinary pages. They have a nice "old tome" kind of feel. I can't wait for volume 3.

[Enrique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buen libro si uno se está adentrando en la saga. Es como un rejunte de Rise of the Horde, The Last Guardian, Tides of Darkness y Beyond the Dark Portal. La info adicional sobre los Breakers y los Primals, la civilización Apexis y todo es bastante interesante, así como unos gaps entre la Primera y Segunda Guerra. El resto ya se infería de las distintas fuentes, como los libros mencionados antes, los juegos y la película.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading this as I'm a big fan of the lore of the game. This gives a nice synopsis of a lot of the early events in the Warcraft universe. I'm not sure that someone that hasn't played the game would really enjoy it (nor would I expect them to do so). That being said the storyline that has developed out of this game has become pretty convoluted---nice to have this to document where it has been.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of history about Draenor and the various Orc clans. This leads into the opening of the Dark Portal and the Orc invasion of Azeroth. Just like in the first volume there is lots of lore and background information on various things found in the game. I had no idea about the first Death Knights and how different they are from my little Draenei Death Knight who runs around with her ghoul. Great artwork continues in this volume. Highly recommended for people like me who skip quest text.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like this moved at a better pace than the first one. Perhaps because the first one spent a lot of time laying down the foundation, introducing us to important characters, their races, their cultures, etc. This one was able to delve into the story and had a lot of more action. Still not the most entertaining book I’ve ever had in my hands but it’s definitely better than the first one and I’m looking forward to the last one which I am picking up next.

[Cihan Koseoglu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievable story. Although I was not a stranger to Warcraft Lore, Chronicles I and II really capture every single detail in the history of this fictional universe. The characters, each possessing a different aspect/personality are very well written and some of the great hero/anti-hero s of all time are in this franchise. Simply amazing.

[Fernleaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent follow-up to the first chronicles and I can't wait for the third. Especially helpful after playing through Warlords this clears up the timeline for how everything on Draenor panned out and lets you really see where things deviated in the alternate timeline. And invaluable resource for those of us steeped in decades of Blizzard lore.