How Tanaris Turned Into The Most Dangerous Desert?.

Tanaris is an arid desert and one of the most dangerous places to be around on Azeroth. If the terrifying beasts don't get you, the absolutely horrific weather, the lack of water and the bandits will. While appearing as a plain inhospitable desert, Tanaris should be a synonym for mystery.

Why is that so and how did the zone become this way? Long ago, before the War of the Ancients, all the continents were part of a single landmass. The Gurubashi Empire was one of the most dominant forces on Azeroth and the Razorbranch, a tribe living on the edge of the empire made their home in what we know today as Tanaris.

As jungle trolls, they obviously lived in a jungle and from what few sources we have many millennia ago Tanaris was a very lush jungle akin to Un'goro crater.
However 10 thousand years in the past when the Sundering hit the planet, everything had changed.

The Razorbranch have split away from the Gurubashi and they had to learn to fend for themselves. We don't know what exactly caused the jungle to turn into a desert but seeing as there are mysterious energies around and we know that un'goro crater the zone next door had well of eternities powers it isn't too outrageous to say that these zones were hit the hardest when the Well blew up.

Suddenly everything changed and those that survived had to either adapt or die. The Razorbranch over time became known as the Sandfury tribe and the trolls started resembling their jungle troll brethren less and less as they had adapted to the arid wasteland that was now their home.

They still maintain their home in the far north, around the city of Zul'Farrak but in the most recent times, they have only become weaker and weaker. Aside from just trolls this land hid much more than was on the surface. First of the titans had a presence here and they had hidden the zone of Uldum which is one of the most significant titan possessions if not the most significant one.

Seeing as that land is right next door and that it also turned into a desert as it was scorched in the battle against Lei-Shen you can speculate that Tanaris could have also been effected before the Sundering although none of that is confirmed. What is certain is that Tanaris is surrounded by dangerous and mysterious forces and energies.

First the titan city, then the silithid and the qiraji - Old God forces and ultimately the Caverns of Time. No one really knows how these caverns of time were created, why Tanaris exactly and why Nozdormu and the bronze dragons made this their home but there must be something incredibly powerful going around here for them to choose the area.

It is possible that Nozdormu picked Tanaris in order to not be disturbed by random humanoids because few want to settle in an area as arid as the desert is. Still, there are mysterious forces around as from this particular spot alternate timelines coalesce.

A side from the Caverns of Time tunnel networks are everywhere, most of them we don't even know about and some speculate that there is more to Tanaris below the ground than there is above. The silithid maintain a presence here and they are definitely responsible for some of these underground dwellings but for others we don't really know.

In terms of geography, Tanaris is best described as a dangerous place to be in, to put it lightly. As opposed to many rocky wastelands most of Tanaris is just sand dunes and not really much else. Many dangerous beasts live in this place, the hyenas, scorpions, basilisk - the most resilient monsters around.

However the danger of Tanaris doesn't come mainly from sentient beings but from the lack of water, there is barely any drinkable water that can be found which is crucial for logistics. Ogres and trolls control the few wells that are around, the pirates supply themselves and the goblins and gnomes arrived here to exploit this situation, particularily goblins that sell the water and control the logistics.

Aside from water, the weather is almost unbearable and if you think you can just go around at night you might be mistaken as due to the sand dunes and the fact that there are no clouds you can easily be spotted across the plains from quite a distance and the most dangerous beasts come out at night.

An additional threat would be the bandits and the pirates. The bandits raid the water supplies and caravans while pirates control sea access. In the recent time,Cho'Gall made his base of operations here together with his cult. So if you haven't figured it out by now Tanaris is one dangerous place, but the question arises why would anyone even want to go to the desert? I'm guessing this is the logic used by Nozdormu but the reality is that due to so many unexplored tunnels, titan influence, alternate realities the entire place is like a magnet for adventurers, bandits, raiders and the like.

While there are many like Brann Bronzebeard that are seeking to learn more about Azeroth there are also many that are searching for power and loot. So much like most zones on the planet, there is usually a lot more beneath the surface than what you can actually see.

Tanaris still remains largely unexplored and outside of the small Legion invasion that happened recently there isn't much going around with the zone if you discount the Caverns of Time. With the possibility of another shattering type revamp event it is entirely possible that new content might be added to Tanaris and that the mysteries will begin to unravel.