The new World of Warcraft Alliance race are the Draenei

World of Warcraft Expansion: Burning CrusadeThe NY Times reports that Blizzard has slated the Draenei to be the new Alliance race in the up-and-coming Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft.

In the Burning Crusade, much of the action will take place on a planet called Draenor. The Draenei are the remnants of a once-thriving culture there that was mostly destroyed by orcs after the orcs were corrupted by the demons of the Burning Legion, the big bad guys in the game, who oppose both the Alliance and the Horde. Here’s some footage direct from E3, wich also shows the Bloodelves:



In a twist, the Draenei are descended from the same demonic race, the Eredar, that produced some of Warcraft’s most fearsome foes, like the demon Archimonde.

“Lots of players have wanted to play demons, and Draenei are the closest you can get to looking like an Eredar,” Jeff Kaplan, one of the game’s top designers, said in an interview. “They have these cool forehead features, and one of the customization features is switching around these facial features and the tendrils hanging beneath the chin and so on.”