From the very beginning of World of Warcraft: The War Within, you'll be exposed to the threat of the Nerubians, a race of spider-like creatures that have lived in the darkest corners of Azeroth for centuries.

In the early stages of the new expansion, players will learn more about the Nerubian civilization before entering the first raid of The War Within: the Nerub'ar Palace, where a battle with their queen awaits.

The Nerubian race was described as a "superpower of Azeroth" by WoW director Ion Hazzikostas in a developer update released earlier today. The game's story designers are doing everything they can to ensure the Nerubians live up to that designation.

“We did a lot of early visual exploration to see how we wanted to push them or modernize the look for this group of Nerubians,” WoW lead visual development artist Gabriel Gonzalez said of the race. “One of the nicknames for the flavor that we use is ‘dark elegance,’ and there are a lot of interesting, beautiful elements of their culture and architecture that make them feel unique and distinct from other evil or darker cultures that we’ve fought in the past, but still have that edge and that ‘cool’ factor.”