I personaly think that warcraft story is more epic then LOTR, but maybe thats just my way of thinking or just maybe the warcraft story is not so known like LOTR one is, so people never heard or red it. I'll try to give you short hints and story whats warcraft all about if you already don't know :)

Warcraft story

Uhh, it will be hard to shape a short whole story becouse I have no intention to write everything, its simply too long. So I'll just give you the start of lore :)

There is a race of Titans who are the gods of the The Great Dark Beyond (Universe) and they are ruled by a sect called Pantheon. They exlpored the Great Dark and shaped the worlds. They were charged with bringing order to the chaos of the universe. Their task was to create a hundred million worlds and with help of primitive races they empowered they kept the order on those worlds. The only threat to their work were the dimensional entities from a Twisting Nether. The Nether was an ethereal dimension of chaotic magics inhabited with all sorts of demonic beings who wanted to destory life in any form.

Over time demons found their way to Titan's world so Pantheon elected their greatest warrior Sargeras to fight the demonic beings and keep the world safe from them. A noble giant of molten bronze, Sargeras carried out his duties for countless millennia, seeking out and destroying these demons wherever he could find them. Over the time of fighting Sargeras encountered powerful demonic races. They all left their mark on him and the nobel giant fell into a brooding depression. Despite his unease he traped every demonic race he encountered in the corner of Twisting Nether.

While his confusion and misery deepened Sargeras encountered the race of powerful demons - the Nethrezim. They were the dark vampiric demons known as dreadlords who conquered the dozens of populated worlds by possessing the people and turning them to the shadow. They put hatred into people and turned them on each other. Sargeras also defeated these easily, but their corruption hurt him deeply. As doubt and despair overwhelmed Sargeras' senses, he lost all faith not only in his mission, but also in the Titans' vision of an ordered universe. His fellow Titans tried to persuade him of his error and calm his raging emotions, but he disregarded their more optimistic beliefs as self-serving delusions. Storming from their ranks forever, Sargeras set out to find his own place in the universe. Although the Pantheon was sorrowful at his departure, the Titans could never have predicted just how far their lost brother would go.

After time madness corrupted the once noble heart of Sargeras and he now saw the Titans as enemies and he wanted to undo their creations so he decided to form a vast army that swept accross the universe destroying the worlds the Titans had created. He went to the corners of the Twisting Nether and set free the demons he had put to prison himself. Sargeras then visit the world of Argus, homeland of peacful but powerful sorceros Eredars and offer them great power if they join him in his mission. Most of the naive population of Argus took the offer to become stronger sorceres. From the ranks of Eradar, Sargeras picked three champions and offer them great power, Kil'jaeden, Archimonde and Valen. Valen was the only one who refused becouse he sensed the evil in Sargeras and gathered the uncorrupted eredars and left the Argus. Kil'jeadan the Deceiver got the task of searching throughout the universe for races that would join the army. And Archimonde the Defiler was chosen to lead the army into battle.

Kil'jeaden's first move was to enslave the dreadlords Nethrezim and they served as his personal agents. The best agent was dreadlord Tichondrius the Darkener and he served as a perfect soldier to Sargeras plans. The mighty Archimonde also empowered agents of his own. Calling upon the malefic pit lords and their barbarous leader, Mannoroth the Destructor, Archimonde hoped to establish a fighting elite that would scour creation of all life.

Kil'jeaden never forget the Valens departure and decided that he will hunt them until they are alive. After thousands of years traveling through the universe Valen and the rest of eredars found the peaceful world they will call Dreanor and themselves, draenei. They found in this new world a race of peaceful and shamanic orcs with whom they lived in peace for many years.

Now the Sargeras have finaly formed the army strong enough to destroy worlds and he sent them to the Great Dark in their mission. He called the army Burning Legion and the mission, Burning Crusade.

Titans unaware of Sargeras crusade continue to shape the worlds. They came to a small world, later to be know as Azeroth. The world was under control of Old Gods and their lieutenants. After a long battle the Titans imprisoned the Old Gods deep under the surface and sent back their elemental lieutenants to the Elemental Plane. Then they shaped the lands and life, and when they finished they put a large lake of power in the middle of a single continent of new world, and named the world Kalimdor. The lake was a source of life to whole Kalimdor and they named it Well of Eternity. They also formed races to keep the order in earth and water. The race of dragons that was most powerful of all races was given the mission to be the guardians of the world. They took five dragons and granted them unique powers for themselves. Nozdormu of the bronze flight became the guardian of time, Alexstrasza of the red flight became the life protector and also because of her life loving heart the leader of all dragons, Alexstrasza's younger sister Ysera of the green flight became the guardian of nature and sent into the plane known as the Emerald Dream to watch for nature from there, Malygos of the blue flight became the guardian of magic and the strongest of them all mighty black dragon Neltharion with noble heart became the guardian of earth known as Earth Warder. They became the Five Aspects.

After thousands of years life in Kalimdor was changing, the humanoid race drawn to the shores of Well settled there and started to change under the influence of magic. They grew bigger, intelligent, wise and immortal. They ambraced the name for their new homeland and called themsleves Kaldorei, also known as night elves. They moved north and started to get closer with the nature under the learnings of the demi god Cenarius whom they met. But they also mastered the magic from the Well sources. Over the years they built the great kingdom ruled by the beautiful queen Azshara. The queen was also very interested in magic from the Well so she made a group of her close followers to study the magic deeper. They became the Highborne and they found the magic to be very addictive and they started to change. The rest of her people were disinclined to trust them. Queen Azshara didnt care for that but unaware of potential danger continued to draw more power from the Well. The power was sensed by the Sargeras army...

Here starts the period called War of the Ancients, first encounter with the Burning Legion that will change the world forever, give birth to heroes and new powerful enemies...

War of the Ancients Triology - Story is set ten thousand years before game story so if you love good fantasy book with epic battles and great story don't skip this even if you never heard of warcraft
Well of Eternity Richard A. Knaak	Demon Soul Richard A. Knaak	Sundering Richard A. Knaak