It doesn't. The Elves weren't a Titan creation.

This is a major gap in lore, as far as I am aware. The elves, tauren and a lot of minor races seem to have no relation at all to Titan creation legends at all.

It seems likely that the animal-based creatures like the quillboar, wolvar and furbolg are some manner of offspring of the mysterious Ancients. We know that the centaurs are the offspring of Cenarius or his sons. The Tauren claim they were created by the "Earthmother', whoever she was (possibly Elune).

That does still leave the kaldorei (or proto-kaldorei if you want them to split into troll and elf). Perhaps these are the only purely biologically evolved intelligent lifeform on Azeroth?

One thing that I still don't understand is how representations of night elves and tauren are so prominently on display in Ulduar..

That's the funky part. If you count dwarves as an evolution of Earthens, that makes the dwarves the oldest species on Azeroth by far, since they were actually around while the Titans were still creating the planet's eco-system. (possibly even gnomes....)

Nowhere, because trolls were an ancient race, being on Azeroth before the Titans came. There are -some- races like that, including taurens aswell. They were not shaped by the Titans out of some material, and they were not affected by the curse of flesh either. This is just the way they are.

@Camaris

"One thing that I still don't understand is how representations of night elves and tauren are so prominently on display in Ulduar.."

That is what I wanted to ask! Great article as always btw. :-)

Ulduar, by evidence of the road going south and disappearing into the ocean, is obviously pre-sundering created. But they show a lot of troll, elf, tauren and human(?) statues in them. So where exactly in the timeline do those statues fit in, obviously they prove that the troll and elf differences are old. But how does that fit in with the timeline overall? Were elves present BEFORE the titans came? Does that mean that they all were around during the reign of the old gods at one point?

My personal belief is that when the Titans were creating Ulduar, they included those sentient races which existed before their coming as well as their own creations as a way of honoring life in general.

I also believe that Night Elves "evolved" from Trolls, which could create an issue since there are Night Elf statues in Ulduar, which was created before the Night Elves came to be. The only way I have of resolving this is that the nomad Trolls had just begun settling near the Well of Eternity and the Titans saw that they would be mutated by the Well's energies, and decided to create Night Elf statues in anticipation (weak argument, but it's what I believe).

I figure that the "native" races that haven't been tampered with by the titans can be identified by the numbers of fingers they have. Trolls and Tauren only have two fingers with an opposed thumb. Humans, elves, dwarves and gnomes all have four fingers and a thumb. And what I have seen of the titans I think that is what they preferred. At least that is my theory.

So basically the curse of flesh thing doesn't come into play with elves.

@Camaris and Transit

Well no one said that the titans build those statues, sure they build the rest of it (as far as anyone can tell, more than likely they delegated it), it could be one of the "caretakers" the titans left behind, we don't even know when they were build, they might only be a few thousand years old. Who knows maybe Loken built it, apparently he's seen the rise and fall of empires and what not.

@Muse

Jip Dwarves are old (or atleast their ancestors), which is odd since Night Elf tradition states that they were the first race to 'awaken', although that lore dates back to warcraft 3.