New War Within Creature Models: Candles, Kobolds, Nerubians

Key Takeaways

• The War Within's alpha datamine (April 2024) previewed four families of new creature models, and nearly all of them shipped when the expansion went live on August 26, 2024.
• The internet's favorite was the "swolebold," an upright, muscular kobold rebuild. Blizzard classifies the big variant as a Swolbold, and their ruler is the Candle King in the Ringing Deeps.
• The candle theme runs from Beledar, the giant crystal-candle lighting Hallowfall, down to the darkflame candle golems of the Darkflame Cleft dungeon.
• The nerubians of Azj-Kahet anchor the launch raid, Nerub-ar Palace, led by Queen Ansurek and the experiment-warped horror Rasha'nan.
• The Isle of Dorn added a menagerie of earthen fauna: Ramoliths, Shale Spiders, Stagshells, Skippers, and Cinderbrew bees, most of them new tameable hunter pets.
• These models were previews at the time of writing; everything described here has been live in the game since the 2024 expansion launch.

Here is a category-by-category look at the creatures that headlined the expansion's art update and where you actually run into them.

Chad Kobolds and the Candle King

Kobolds have skulked through Azeroth's mines since vanilla, always hunched over with a candle strapped to their heads. The War Within threw that out. The reworked kobolds of The Ringing Deeps stand tall, broad, and muscular, and the community immediately christened the largest one the "swolebold." Blizzard leaned into the joke and formally classes the big variant as a Swolbold. The models are heavily componented, meaning separate body parts recombine into a huge range of individual kobolds.

Their ruler is The Candle King, a kobold empowered by a darkflame candle that made him bigger and smarter, and a boss of the Darkflame Cleft dungeon. The Ringing Deeps storyline follows a Quickwick-clan kobold named Skitter, who leads a rebellion, recovers the stolen Candle Crown, and allies the kobolds with the Earthen. If you fell for the meme, Blizzard even made it collectible: Coppers the Kobold is a companion battle pet you can pick up in the expansion.

Candle Creatures of Hallowfall

The candle theming stretches well beyond the kobolds. Hallowfall, the sunlit cavern zone, is lit not by a sun but by Beledar, an immense crystal candle hanging from the ceiling that cycles between Light and Void in an event the locals call Beledar's Shadow. Around that central idea the alpha datamined a family of wax-and-flame constructs: a small candle beastie, a hulking candle golem, and a humanoid candle figure, all elemental creatures built from living wax and flame.

The Candle King in the Darkflame Cleft is the crossover point between the candle monsters and the chad kobolds, since he is both. He hurls darkflame and raises wax statues during the fight, which made him one of the more memorable dungeon bosses of the launch lineup.

Nerubians of Azj-Kahet

The spider-folk of the deepest zone, Azj-Kahet, got the widest spread of new models, and they carry the expansion's headline raid. Their queen, Ansurek, betrays her people and turns the underground kingdom into the launch raid tier. Players who want to see the roster in action can clear the Nerub-ar Palace raid, where the queen's court shows off the full range of the new nerubian art.

The standout model is Rasha'nan, a proud nerubian twisted by Ansurek's experiments into a winged, monstrous horror, a flying raid boss that is the real version of the "experiment-warped creature" earlier previews only half-described. Ansurek's two most trusted and mutually hostile advisors, Scarab Lord Anub'arash and Skeinspinner Takazj, round out the named bosses. Out in the open world, ordinary Azj-Kahet nerubians, plus Mad and Confused variants driven feral by the queen's corruption, use the same componented model system as the kobolds. The full Nerub-ar Palace lineup showed off just how much the spider-folk art had advanced since Wrath of the Lich King.

Earthen Animals of the Isle of Dorn

The surface starter zone, the Isle of Dorn, is home to the Earthen, the dwarf-like titan-forged allied race added in the expansion, and it came stocked with a matching set of stone-and-nature beasts. The signature model is the Ramolith, the rocky rams of Dorn: moss-covered stone rams that come in six colors and joined the game as a new tameable hunter pet family. Alongside them the alpha added Shale Spiders (stone spider models), Stagshells (armored beetles with four color variants), and Skippers, the mudskippers that Petopia fans quickly voted the most adorable creature in the expansion.

The rest of the earthen menagerie fills out the biome: Cloudrooks wheeling overhead, several new crab models in the caves, foxlike Thorntails, and the Cinderbrew bees whose honey is brewed into the Cinderbrew Mead that later gave a whole dungeon its name. Together these fauna made the Isle of Dorn feel like a living titan-forged ecosystem rather than a backdrop.

From Alpha Datamine to Live Game

When this roundup was first written, every creature here was an alpha preview and might have changed before release. It did not. The War Within launched as expansion patch 11.0.2 on August 26, 2024, and the swolbolds, candle monsters, nerubians, and earthen fauna all shipped essentially as datamined. One point worth correcting from the early coverage: the nerubians live in Azj-Kahet, not in Dalaran. Dalaran was destroyed in the opening hours of the expansion, when Xal'atath brought the floating city crashing down over the Isle of Dorn, so it spends the entire expansion as a ruin rather than a place you fight through.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a "swolebold" in The War Within?

It is the community nickname for the expansion's rebuilt kobold models, which stand upright and muscular instead of hunched. Blizzard formally classifies the largest variant as a Swolbold, and the most famous one is the Candle King, ruler of the kobolds in The Ringing Deeps.

Where do the new nerubian creatures appear?

The nerubians are the spider-folk of Azj-Kahet, the deepest zone of Khaz Algar. Their most detailed models headline the launch raid, Nerub-ar Palace, including Queen Ansurek, Rasha'nan, Scarab Lord Anub'arash, and Skeinspinner Takazj.

What is Beledar?

Beledar is the enormous crystal candle in the ceiling of Hallowfall that acts as the zone's inner sun. It periodically shifts to a Void state called Beledar's Shadow, and it anchors the whole candle-and-flame theme that also produced the darkflame candle golems in the Darkflame Cleft dungeon.

Are the earthen animals tameable by hunters?

Many of them are. The Ramoliths (rocky rams), Shale Spiders, Stagshells, Skippers, and several other new Isle of Dorn models joined the game as tameable hunter pet families, giving beast masters a fresh set of stone-and-nature companions.

Did all these datamined models make it into the game?

Nearly all of them did. The models previewed in the April 2024 alpha shipped when the expansion went live on August 26, 2024. The candle monsters, chad kobolds, nerubians, and earthen animals are all live content, not cut previews.

Which patch added these creatures?

They arrived with the expansion launch, patch 11.0.2, on August 26, 2024, with early access from August 22. The models were first seen in the alpha build several months earlier in April 2024.

Last reviewed 2026-07-19 against Patch 11.0.2 The War Within. Maintained by WowCarry's WoW team.