The Mysteries of Khaz Algar: Elun'Ahir and the Great Roots
What are the Great Roots of Azj-Kahet? The lore of Elun'Ahir, the first World Tree, the Haranir who guard its roots, and the payoff in Midnight.
By:
John Langan
Key Takeaways
- The Great Roots beneath Azj-Kahet are the surviving roots of Elun'Ahir, the first World Tree, not ordinary plant life.
- Eonar the Life-Binder grew Elun'Ahir from a branch of G'Hanir that Elune gifted her, raising it as a bastion against the Black Empire's corruption.
- Aman'Thul uprooted the tree, but its roots stayed buried in Azeroth, kept alive by Eonar's grief.
- The Haranir, a hidden guardian race led in Azj-Kahet by Orweyna, watch over the roots and hold back the Black Blood seeping toward them.
- The lore reads as resolved rather than speculative now: the Haranir arrive as a playable allied race in the Midnight expansion, the payoff this story was building toward.
- An Arathi airship, the Reckoning, first stumbled onto the root sanctuary after the roots pierced and drained the Ruptured Lake.
Khaz Algar hides plenty of secrets, but few run as deep as the towering roots in the dark below Azj-Kahet. Here is what the game has actually shown about them.
The Great Roots of Azj-Kahet
Early in the Azj-Kahet campaign you meet Orweyna, who leads a band of scouts from a hidden race called the Haranir. She is fighting a quiet war against the Black Blood, the corrupting ichor of the Old Gods, which is creeping toward the enormous roots her people guard. Those roots, she explains, are not botanical curiosities but relics of immense significance, and the Haranir have built their camps beneath them to keep their secret safe.
The sanctuary is strangely peaceful for a place so close to such a threat, which is exactly what unsettles the Arathi crew of the airship Reckoning when they find it. Deeper in, near the Whispering Chasm, an ancient root-being named Goehi keeps the roots' memory and hands over a relic, Goehi's Root, whose growth rings are too many to count. A drained basin nearby, the Ruptured Lake, was emptied when the roots pierced it during a long-ago upheaval, a hint at how old and how powerful these roots really are.
The legend of Elun'Ahir
The roots belong to Elun'Ahir, the first World Tree. According to the Emerald Dream's own histories, Elune gifted Eonar the Life-Binder a branch of G'Hanir, the great tree of the Dream, and from it Eonar grew Elun'Ahir as a living bastion against the corruption of the Black Empire.
The plan did not survive the politics of the titans. Aman'Thul, judging the act an overreach, tore Elun'Ahir out of the ground, and the deed was thought to be done. What he missed was the root system, still woven deep into Azeroth and kept alive by Eonar's tears. Over the ages those surviving roots reached Khaz Algar, and a new generation of guardians, the Haranir, took up the duty of protecting them.
| Figure | What they are | Role in the story |
|---|---|---|
| Elun'Ahir | The first World Tree | Source of the Great Roots |
| Eonar | Titan keeper, the Life-Binder | Grew Elun'Ahir; still nurtures its roots |
| Orweyna | Leader of the Haranir scouts | Holds back the Black Blood in Azj-Kahet |
| Goehi | Ancient root-being of the Whispering Chasm | Keeps the roots' memory; gives Goehi's Root |
With the cast in place, the danger circling the roots comes into focus.
The threat of the Black Blood
The peace around the roots is fragile. The nerubians have been digging into deposits of Black Blood throughout Azj-Kahet, and Orweyna fears that if it reaches Elun'Ahir's roots, the very corruption the tree was made to resist could finally take hold in them. That is why the Haranir fight to contain every seeping vein, and why the roots matter far beyond their size: they are one of the oldest wards Azeroth has against the Black Empire, and losing them would be a victory for the Old Gods.
Why Elun'Ahir matters now
When this lore first surfaced, much of it was guesswork pieced together from quest scraps and a single Dragonflight lore book. That is no longer the case. The Haranir have stepped fully out of the shadows as a playable allied race in the Midnight expansion, with their home of Harandar opened to players, and the Great Roots tie the underdark of Khaz Algar directly into the night-elf and Elune threads that Midnight explores. The "mystery" of the roots turned out to be a slow-burn setup, and the payoff is one of the headline features of the current expansion.
FAQ
What is Elun'Ahir in World of Warcraft?
Elun'Ahir is the first World Tree, grown by Eonar the Life-Binder from a branch of G'Hanir that Elune provided. It was meant to stand against the Black Empire's corruption before Aman'Thul uprooted it, leaving only the roots now found beneath Azj-Kahet.
Who planted Elun'Ahir?
Eonar the Life-Binder planted it, using a branch of the Emerald Dream's great tree G'Hanir that Elune gifted to her. Eonar's grief over its destruction is what kept the buried roots alive.
Who are the Haranir?
The Haranir are a hidden guardian race, "not quite elves, not quite trolls," who protect the Great Roots. Led in Azj-Kahet by Orweyna, they become a playable allied race in the Midnight expansion, with their homeland Harandar.
What is the Black Blood threatening the roots?
The Black Blood is the corrupting ichor of the Old Gods. Nerubians excavating it in Azj-Kahet risk letting it reach Elun'Ahir's roots, which is the threat Orweyna and the Haranir work to contain.
Why did Aman'Thul uproot Elun'Ahir?
Aman'Thul judged Eonar's creation of the World Tree an overreach and tore it from the ground. He believed the threat was neutralized, not realizing the root system survived, woven into Azeroth and sustained by Eonar's tears.
Is the Great Roots story still just a theory?
No longer. What began as speculation around The War Within's Azj-Kahet content is now resolved in the live Midnight expansion, where the Haranir and their connection to Elun'Ahir are front and center.
Last reviewed 2026-06-23 against Patch 12.0.5 Lingering Shadows — Maintained by WowCarry's WoW team.