On Friday, August 3rd, Blizzard announced to a packed auditorium that the second expansion to World of Warcraft is in development. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King takes players back to the frozen lands of Northrend.

Northrend is home to the Lich King, the leader of the scourge and the most fearsome evil in lore of Warcraft. Fans of Warcraft 3 will developers turned back to the real-time strategy for inspiration when designing the massive amount of new content for Wrath of the Lich King expansion and Northrend, which offers a level 80 cap, a new profession: Inscription; and a new villain to defeat: the Lich King.

Northrend's frozen wastes are home to the Viking-like Vrykull, 13 foot tall "bad-asses" according to Corey Stockton, who lead the panel discussion about the expansion. The Vrykull hail from Ulgaar and have always been evil - their allegiance with the Lich King comes as no surprise.

Above: Chill out with this shot of the cool new continent in Blizzard's next WoW expansion

Also in Northrend are the insidious Naga, who are busily attempting to melt the frozen lands for their own secret purposes in Borean, one of the many new areas in Northrend. Also in Borean are the Tusker, a walrus like race of fisherman. Borean is the entry point closest to Kalimdor, one of two - a new addition Blizzard, who seems to have learned from the soul-crushing mess of the Outlands single entry point.

The Furbolg, who hail from Northrend, reside in Grizzly Hills, which reminded us of the Sierra Nevadas, with tall redwoods abounding. Grizzly Hills is the second entry point to the new continent.

Other areas include Dragonblight, which is the seat of the Dragonflight. This is where dragons go to die, and from the snatch of video we saw, the landscape seems ghostly and haunted.

The new home base for all races will be Dalaran. Yes, Dalaran. Apparently as danger from the Lich King increases, the mages decide to up and move Dalaran to a whole new continent. We're sure Blizzard will come up with a good story to explain it, they always do.