Great Dark Beyond

Great Dark Beyond, also called the Great Dark, is the vast cosmic expanse associated with the innumerable worlds of the universe. Worlds such as Azeroth and Draenor exist within or are scattered throughout the Great Dark Beyond, while the Twisting Nether has been described separately as an extra-dimensional realm connecting those worlds.

Nature

Early accounts describe the Great Dark Beyond as the mysterious expanse beyond individual worlds. Aegwynn spoke of the ethereal powers of the Great Dark Beyond and the mysteries of the Great Dark, while Medivh explored its secrets through astral travel and discovered a world beyond Azeroth.

Gul'dan likewise sought to fathom the mysteries of the Great Dark Beyond. Through the teachings of Kil'jaeden, he learned that worlds without number were scattered throughout the darkness beyond the sky.

Later cosmological accounts describe innumerable worlds scattered throughout the Great Dark Beyond. The Titans travelled among these worlds and brought order to many of them, while the Burning Legion later carried its wars across the universe.

Worlds and the cosmos

The Great Dark Beyond encompasses a cosmos containing vast numbers of separate worlds. During the earliest ages, the Pantheon was said to have brought order to a hundred million worlds scattered throughout it. The Burning Legion later launched its armies into the Great Dark and destroyed worlds during its wars across the universe.

The Great Dark Beyond may also serve as a destination into which beings are cast.

Cosmological models

Scholars have proposed different models for the place of the Great Dark Beyond within the cosmos. Khadgar distinguished physical worlds such as Azeroth and Draenor, the Elemental Plane, the Twisting Nether, and the Great Dark Beyond as separate parts of a larger "world of worlds".

Another scholarly conception treated the Great Dark Beyond less as a defined physical region and more as the unknowable remainder of the cosmos. In this model it begins somewhere beyond the chaotic fringes of the Twisting Nether and has no definable end. Any portion of the Beyond that could be reached and defined would cease to be part of the unknown and instead become its own plane.

This conception was not always followed consistently. The Great Dark Beyond has also been spoken of as a place in which identifiable beings may reside; Kil'jaeden, for example, was once described as waiting "out in the Great Dark Beyond".

Relationship with the Twisting Nether

The Great Dark Beyond and the Twisting Nether are closely associated, but are not consistently described as the same place. One cosmological account describes the worlds of the universe as scattered throughout the Great Dark Beyond, while the Nether is an ethereal, extra-dimensional realm of chaotic magic connecting those worlds.

Accounts of the War of the Ancients also distinguish the two. The reckless use of magic around the Well of Eternity sent ripples of energy outward into the Great Dark Beyond. Those ripples then streamed into the Twisting Nether, where they attracted the attention of Sargeras.

The distinction has not always been expressed with strict precision. Older descriptions sometimes use terms such as the Great Dark, the Beyond, astral space, and the Nether in overlapping ways, while individual understandings of the cosmos have varied. Nevertheless, descriptions that place worlds throughout the Great Dark Beyond and describe the Nether as connecting or separating them indicate that the two terms need not be synonymous.

Terminology

Both "Great Dark" and "Great Dark Beyond" have been used for the cosmic expanse. References merely to a "great beyond", however, do not necessarily refer to the Great Dark Beyond. The expression is also used in a more general sense for death, the afterlife, or an unknown destination.