Warglaives of Azzinoth

I

Taken from a Demon

The blades first belonged to Azzinoth, a doomguard commander of the Burning Legion. During the War of the Ancients, ten thousand years ago, Illidan Stormrage slew him and took his twin warglaives.

That origin gives the weapons their name and their central irony. Illidan did not receive them from a mentor, recover them as a sacred inheritance, or forge them for a chosen purpose. He took them from an enemy. The first act in their known history was therefore an act of reversal: a weapon of the Burning Legion passed into the hands of someone who would spend his life claiming that only the Legion's own power could defeat it.

Blizzard has never told the duel in complete detail. Hearthstone's Demon Hunter Prologue presents Illidan's memory of the encounter: he fights Azzinoth beside Kur'talos Ravencrest, promises himself the demon's glaives when he sees them, and becomes fascinated when the doomguard casts fel magic. It is a remembered version rather than a full historical account, but it captures the attraction the blades held for him from the beginning.

The trophy was more than proof of a kill. By keeping Azzinoth's name attached to the weapons, Illidan carried the identity of the defeated commander into every battle that followed. The demon disappeared from the centre of the story; his blades did not.

II

Mastering the Twin Blades

Taking the weapons was only the beginning. Illidan trained himself to use them until he became exceedingly skilled with the unusual pair. Their crescent shapes demanded a style unlike the swordsmanship of his people, and their ability to change configuration made them as much a test of control as of strength.

The warglaives were usually connected into a single weapon, but they could be separated so that Illidan could fight with one blade in each hand, then joined again. That transformation is essential to their identity. As one weapon they create reach, symmetry, and a circular silhouette; divided, they become the twin blades most closely associated with Illidan's relentless close combat.

Ancient soulbinds also linked Illidan to the glaives and allowed him to summon them back to his hands. The limits of that bond are unknown: the surviving accounts do not establish whether he could call them from anywhere or only across a shorter distance. What matters is that possession became something deeper than simply carrying the weapons. They could be displayed, withheld, or moved away from him, yet the bond remained.

That relationship helps explain why later demon hunters adopted paired warglaives even when they did not carry Azzinoth's originals. The form expressed mobility, aggression, and the willingness to master a dangerous weapon rather than fear it. Illidan turned a captured design into a discipline.

III

Blades Beside the Prisoner

For his betrayal, Illidan spent ten thousand years imprisoned. His weapons were not destroyed. During his confinement, the Warglaives of Azzinoth were paraded near his cage, the blades of the Betrayer kept visible but apparently beyond his reach.

The gesture turned the glaives into part of the punishment. They represented movement to someone held underground, battle to someone denied a battlefield, and the identity of a warrior to a prisoner reduced to a warning from the past. Keeping them near him asserted that his captors controlled not only his body but also the symbols of the life he had lived before the cell.

Yet this display misunderstood the bond between weapon and bearer. The soulbind meant the warglaives were not merely confiscated property. Once Illidan was free, the blades that had been shown as trophies could answer his call again. Their return did not begin a new chapter with a new owner; it restored the same dangerous partnership that imprisonment had interrupted.

The episode also deepened their legend. A sword locked in an armoury can be forgotten. The warglaives remained present throughout the long sentence, witnesses to the attempt to erase their wielder from the world. When Illidan returned, they returned with him.

IV

Against Magtheridon and Frostmourne

In Outland, the pit lord Magtheridon proved no match for the wielder of the Twin Blades of Azzinoth. His defeat gave Illidan control of the shattered world. Once again, weapons taken from a Legion commander were turned against another of the Legion's greatest monsters.

The victory marked a change in scale. Azzinoth had been the owner from whom the blades were claimed; Magtheridon was the ruler displaced by the warrior who had mastered them. The warglaives were no longer only reminders of an ancient duel. They had become the weapons through which Illidan imposed his will on Outland.

Illidan then carried them into battle against Arthas Menethil and Frostmourne. Two of Warcraft's most recognisable legendary weapons crossed in the same fight: the fel blades of a demon hunter against the runeblade of the future Lich King. In Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, Illidan splits his weapon during the duel and fights with a blade in each hand.

The encounter endures because the weapons make the rivals instantly legible. Frostmourne is singular, heavy with domination and stolen souls. The warglaives are paired, mobile, and bound to a fighter who built his identity around using the enemy's power without admitting that it owned him. Arthas won the duel, but the clash fixed both silhouettes in Warcraft history.

V

The Black Temple and the Demon Hunter Legacy

In The Burning Crusade, players faced Illidan in the Black Temple. The two warglaives dropped separately from the encounter, and equipping both earned the Feat of Strength “Warglaives of Azzinoth.” They were the first legendary weapons to come as a set and the first permanent legendaries that did not require a quest.

Their separation made the reward mirror the lore. A player could possess one blade without completing the image; only the pair recreated the weapon associated with Illidan. That structure made completion visible. The achievement was not simply owning a legendary item, but reuniting two drops into the unmistakable matched set.

When demon hunters became a playable class in Legion, the Twin Blades became the class's defining symbol. Demon hunters can unlock their appearance through “Arsenal: The Warglaives of Azzinoth.” Illidan himself is seen with the Twin Blades after his return in the Nighthold, though in later appearances he carries the Twinblades of the Deceiver instead.

They are probably the most famous warglaives, but not necessarily the strongest. The Aldrachi Warblades and the Twinblades of the Deceiver were described as potentially more powerful. Fame, however, is not determined by power alone. Azzinoth's blades were present at the beginning of Illidan's transformation and remained attached to the image by which players recognised him.

That is their lasting achievement. The weapons outgrew the doomguard who named them and even the raid encounter that made them obtainable. Their crescent shape, fel glow, and paired movement became a visual shorthand for the demon hunter itself. Every later warglaive is understood in conversation with them.