Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part IX

CHAPTER IX - WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY, WE CAN REBUILD HIM

For a lot of players, mostly those who are familiar only with the Arthas story that started in WarCraft 3, the game was basically over at the end of Wrath and there was no more storyline to follow. For those who were aware of older events however, there were still more bad guys to fight. One of the biggest and baddest was Deathwing.

Deathwing, aka Neltharion the Betrayer, the Destroyer, the Worldbreaker, the Aspect of Death, the Unmaker of Worlds, was originally known as Neltharion the Earth-Warder. This was the title granted to him by the race of Titans long ago, when the dragons were guardians of Azeroth, and he was put in charge of the land and caverns and deep places of the world. He used his power to create mountains and rivers for the benefit of the little mortal races, and they loved him. He and Malygos (the dragon in charge of magic) were good buddies.

Everything was fine for a long time, and then the Old Gods whispered their corrupting voices into his mind and promised him power beyond imagining (because making mountains and rivers gets boring, I guess - let this be a lesson for you Minecraft players!) The Old Gods convinced Neltharion, with the help of the Goblins, to create the Dragon Soul. The Dragon Soul was a gem-like disc made out of Neltharion’s blood, shielded with magic so its nature could not be determined, and contained some corruption of the Old Gods.

When the Burning Legion arrived during the First War, Neltharion captured some of the demons and added their powers to the Dragon Soul. Then he went to his buddy Malygos and got him to convince all the dragon aspects to contribute some of their powers to the Dragon Soul too. He said it could be a great weapon to use against the Burning Legion. When the time came to fight, Neltharion used the Dragon Soul to destroy thousands of demons in one swing (along with a good bunch of unfortunate night elves).

Horrified, the other dragons and their dragonflights tried to take the Dragon Soul from Neltharion and reason with him, but with a single swing he destroyed the entire blue dragonflight. Then he paralyzed all the other dragons and proceeded to smash and scatter most of them. The remaining dragon aspects ran away and hid themselves from detection with magic.

But wielding this enormous power came with a price. The growing corruption tore at Neltharion’s body and he began taking on a demonic appearance. His body started tearing apart at the seams until even his burning heart was exposed, and fire and lava flowed from his wounds. They started calling him Neltharion the Destroyer, and the Dragon Soul became the Demon Soul.

His body was coming apart, and he needed some rest and some major league first aid, so he retreated underground to where goblin craftsmen were able to forge armor plates out of admantium to attach to his body to hold it together. If they hadn’t been able to cage his body within the admantium plates the power of the Demon Soul would have torn him apart completely.

While he was underground getting repairs, Malfurion used the Emeral Dream to locate his lair and stole the Demon Soul and escaped. Illidan and Azshara’s guards captured Malfurion and took the Demon Soul to Mannoroth the pit lord, and they used it to power up the portal that would bring Sargeras into Azeroth.

Neltharion made one last attempt to recover the Demon Soul while it was being used by both Sargeras and the Old Gods and actually succeeded in reaching it. He was almost destroyed in his attempt and he grabbed it and a power surge made him drop it and knocked him back. The dragon aspects and Malfurion recovered it and closed the portal (with a bang!) and then cast a spell on the Demon Soul so that Neltharion could never find it again.

He was pissed, and vowed to destroy all life in return. Neltharion caused volcanoes all over the planet to rise, and combined with the destruction of the Well of Eternity, most of Kalimdor sank under the ocean. After this he started calling himself Deathwing.

Legends have it that when Neltharion was a peaceful dragon aspect he made mountains between peoples to keep them from fighting with each other, and he made rivers to keep the land fertile. Now that he was insane and hateful he lowered the mountains and turned lush lands into deserts to make the world hostile.

10,000 years later (hmm, familiar number) Deathwing discovered the location of the Demon Soul. Although he couldn’t use it because of the magic the other dragons used on it, he convinced the Dragonmaw Clan of orcs to do it for him. The warlock Nekros Skullcrusher figured out how to use it enough to enslave Alexstraza to breed dragons for the Horde. In return for getting dragons for the Horde, Deathwing used Ner’zhul’s portal to stash some dragon eggs on Draenor.

Then, Deathwing devised a cunning plan and disguised himself as the human Lord Prestor. He managed to make friends with King Terenas and the other Alliance leaders and was able to influence affairs of state. He started a campaign to pit the human kingdoms against each other, specifically against the mages of Kirin Tor, who had used their magic to determine that Lord Prestor was a non-human being in disguise.

He then got greedy and tried to steal the rest of Alextrasza’s eggs to raise as his own, but the orcs fled Grim Batol and the mage Rhonin stole the Demon Soul from them and found a weakness in it and destroyed it, releasing the powers of the dragon aspects back to them. With the other dragons back at full strength, Deathwing had to flee and went into hiding in one of the dark places under the world.

With some more goblin repairs Deathwing emerged a few years later and in doing so broke the World Pillar that held up Azeroth’s crust and kept the oceans from spilling into the underworld. The crash of the pillar was so destructive that it created earthquakes world wide, and triggered volcanoes and giant floods. It reshaped the surface of the world. And Deathwing was free from his lair to fly about the world and occasionally burn young adventurers to a crisp.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part VIII

CHAPTER VIII - THE BETRAYER TOTALLY FEL FOR YOU 

Malfurion and Illidan were twin brothers. If you’ve read the stories above you know that Malfurion’s claim to fame is in the War of the Ancients when he helped stop Azshara from opening a portal to let Sargeras into Azeroth. At that time Illidan was pissed off for ‘stealing away’ the sexy pocket healer Tyrande and instead of helping in the fight he was taking water out of the Well of Eternity and filling up vials with it. He really didn’t like the idea that the source of the elves’ power and immortality was going to be destroyed.

The satyr Xavius was helping to poison Illidan’s thoughts at the time. Tyrande was never really interested in Illidan, but Xavius manipulated Illidan into making him jealous, and he also made some pretty good sales pitches for the Burning Legion. Illidan got the idea of stealing the Demon Soul from Deathwing to close the portal that was threatening the Well of Eternity. Sargeras discovered Illidan’s plan and from his place out in the nether he decided to give him a “gift” by burning out his eyeballs. In their place were placed orbs that could see all forms of magic, and his body was covered in magic tattoos. But I mean, seeing magic is a nice trick, but OMG. EYES. BURNED. OUT. Be thankful you’re not on his Christmas list.

So Illidan told everyone about his idea, and they liked it, and Broxigar, Korialstrasz, and Malfurion stole the Demon Soul, but Azshara captured Malfurion and there was a big fight and the spell blew up and the Well of Eternity was destroyed and Malfurion and the four remaining dragon aspects cast a spell on it so Deathwing could never find it again.

After the big-badda-boom that destroyed the well (and a good portion of the planet’s surface), Illidan went to Mount Hyjal and poured three of his seven vials into a lake, creating a new Well of Eternity. Malfurion was really pissed off and threw Illidan into a prison under Hyjal for ten thousand years, guarded by Maiev and her soldiers.

When the Burning Legion returned and the scourge started invading Tyrande busted Illidan out of prison to get him to help stop them. Malfurion was pisssed again, but Illidan wanted to prove he was a good guy so he went to Felwood to fight the demons. There he met up with Arthas, who had the sword Frostmourne and was busy killing everything and turning them into scourge. The two of them fought to a draw. Illidan wanted to know why Arthas was there, and he told him about the Skull of Gul’dan, which was somewhere in Felwood corrupting it.

Illidan took the bait and went to find it, and it was guarded by a demon gate. So he’s fighting an endless stream of demons and he figured the only way to win is to use the Skull, so he broke the seal on it and absorbed its powers and turned into a demon himself. Illidan destroyed all the demons and their leader Tichondrius. Malfurion was even more pissed at Illidan for corrupting himself and he banished Illidan from the woods.

Feeling totally unappreciated, Illidan left and teamed up with the naga to raid the Tomb of Sargeras and find the artifact known as the Eye of Eternity. Maiev tried to stop him but Illidan used the Eye to collapse the Tomb on top of her in revenge for being imprisoned for 100 centuries in Hyjal. He missed, she escaped. Then he and the naga general Vashj were confronted by Maiev, Tyrande, and Malfurion, and they crushed the naga armies and Illidan had to run away.

Then Illidan sailed to Lordaeron and went to Dalaran and started to use the Eye of Eternity to break apart the glaciers in Icecrown to destroy Ner’zhul’s frozen throne, but Malfurion and Maiev interrupted him again and the spell failed. Both of the brothers were pissed at each other because Malfurion thought Illidan was trying to tear the world apart and Illidan thought Malfurion was protecting the frozen throne, and both of them thought that their sweetie Tyrande had been killed by zombies.

Illidan took the naga to rescue Tyrande and Malfurion was grateful, and the two brothers decided that they should stop fighting each other, and Illidan was like “fine, whatever” and popped a portal to Outland and left Azeroth. Maiev continued to chase Illidan because she was a tenacious bitch and her purpose in life was to put Illidan back in prison. Illidan was captured, but then rescued by Vashj and Kael’Thas, the leader of the blood elves. Illidan ran around closing most of the demon portals in Outland and then together they kicked the pit lord Magtheridon out of the Black Temple and Illidan threw him in in jail under Hellfire Ciadel.

Then Illidan and his naga and Kael’Thas’ blood elves marched on Northrend to face Ner’zhul. While he was fighting the undead insect armies of Anub’arak, Ner’zhul used the opportunity to summon Arthas to him and they joined together in one body/soul to create the Lich King. Then when Illidan showed up the Lich King royally kicked his ass. Vashj and Kael said “ok maybe this is a bad idea”, so they retreated to Outland and took Illidan with them... where he sat in his castle and waited for 25 prepared adventurers to storm it and kill him for lewt.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part VII

PART VII - ICE ICE ARTHAS, or; CHECK OUT MY PLAGUE WHILE K’T EVOLVES IT

During the Second War the human kingdoms united with dwarves and elves for the first time to create the Alliance. The kingdom included the humans of Lordaeron, Gilneas, Alterac, and Stromgarde, the dwarves of Ironforge, and the elves of Quel’Thalas, as well as the mages of Dalaran, the armies of Lothar, and Archbishop Faol of the Church of the Light. And they had the gnomes too, so.. yeah.

So right now if you roll a new human character you start out in Elwynn Forest and you run to Goldshire (and try to avoid the people ERPing upstairs in the inn) and bam, right there is Stormwind at the heart of the human empire. Well, back at the end of the Second War if you’d have rolled a human you’d have spawned in the Tirisfal area because Lordaeron wasn’t Undercity yet, it was the thriving human capital of the Alliance.

The head of the Alliance was the King of Lordaeron, King Terenas. He had a son named Arthas who was a pasty, blond waifish kid. He wasn’t really the athletic type and didn’t have any physical skill. When the Alliance was formed to defend against the Horde invasion, Lordaeron took in many people fleeing the invasion, and that included a young Varian, son of King Wrynn of Stormwind. Varian was a strong kid, so he and Muradin Bronzebeard taught Arthas to fight and toughened him up a little.

After the Second War was over (score so far, Horde: 1, Alliance: 1) the Burning Crusade wasn’t happy. Even though it was Gul’dan’s fault for running away and trying to find Sargeras’ Tomb, Sargeras’ recruitment officer Kil’jaeden blamed his puppet, the former orc warchief Ner’zhul. Kil’jaeden captured Ner’zhul and destroyed his body and tortured his soul until he agreed to serve the Burning Legion again. Then he encased Ner’zhul’s spirit in a suit of armor and trapped him in an icy prison in Icecrown and set him to work on developing chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, young Arthas grew up and joined the Knights of the Silver Hand and learned the ways of being a paladin from Uther the Lightbringer (a paladin is brave, courageous, and knows his place in a raid – it’s at the back, healing!) Around this time Arthas met a young magician from Theramore named Jaina, and the two of them were sorta almost romantic, but Arthas kept getting cold feet (FORESHADOWING) and all Jaina really wanted to do was study anyway. But they were very close. Mostly it was one of those things where they considered each other their romantic interest, but only insomuch as it was an excuse to not be distracted while they pursued their career goals. Being a long distance relationship made it even easier for them to find reasons to put off getting serious.

Around this time the young Warchief thrall was visited by a magic bird (Medivh) who told him that serious shit was about to go down and they should avoid it by sailing west to the continent of Kalimdor. Thrall believed him, so all the orcs fought their way through the Lordaeron forces to the coast and went west to Durotar and founded Orgrimmar. The humans were like ‘good riddance’ and were happy the orcs were gone.

Back in his cave in Icecrown, Ner’zhul had developed a super awesome badass chemical weapon called the Plague of Undeath. It was so nasty that he could manipulate it to kill people and animals and shit and use his mental powers to make slaves out of them. One of these slaves was a mage that Ner’zhul mentally lured to Northred named Kel’Thuzad. Kel’Thuzad took the plague with his demon assistant Mal’Ganis to the kingdom of Lordaeron and started poisoning people. Kel’Thuzad manipulated it into nasty, nasty shit. It was like Agent Orange crossed with bath salts. It killed vegetation and scorched the ground, and turned all the humans into undead zombies under Ner’zhul’s control. These zombies and undead things became known as the Scourge.

This time the magic bird flew to Lordaeron and turned into the wizard Medivh, and he warned King Terenas that they needed to leave too or they were doomed. There were rumors that a plague was spreading in the north, and it might be related. But where the orcs listened, the humans didn’t. The humans were all like ‘but this is my home and I can’t leave it’ and figured that if they could fight off the orcs and Burning Legion, they weren’t afraid of anything. Instead, the king decided to send Uther, Arthas, and the visiting scholar Jaina to investigate.

They only got as far as Brill (I know, right?) when they discovered poisoned grain from Andorhol, a major grain distribution point. They rushed to Andorhol to find it devastated, and they blamed Kel’Thuzad for the carnage. But the sly dog said “hey, I’m just doing what Mal’Ganis made me do” and he got away and they went off in pursuit of Mal’Ganis at the city of Stratholme.

When they got there the discovered that the people of Stratholme had already started using the grain and were already poisoned. So instead of USING HIS FREAKING CLEANSE SPELL, Arthas decided that everyone who had eaten grain had to die before they would turn into zombies, and thus the Paladin Ret Spec was born. Arthas ordered Uther and his paladins to burn the town and kill everyone, but Uther refused, so Arthas disbanded the Knights of the Silver Hand. Jaina was horrified (although even though he was murdering thousands of people she didn’t officially break up with him) and ran away with Uther, while Arthas stayed to slaughter the town.

Arthas raced from one end of the town to the other killing everyone, while at the other end Mal’Ganis corrupted people with the plague and turned them into zombies – the scourge – for his army. Finally when there was no town left to destroy Arthas demanded a duel with Mal’Ganis, but the demon said “suck it” and used a portal to escape to Northrend, inviting Arthas to come visit him some time.

He did. He grabbed a bunch of troops and sailed to Northrend in pursuit of Mal’Ganis. When they landed Arthas met up with Muradin Bronzebeard, a dwarf explorer who was looking for a sword he had heard of named Frostmourne. They had just established a beachhead and had a couple of skirmishes with the scourge when an elf arrived and said “lulz, your girlfriend went to the king and had him order your troops to come home.” Naturally, Arthas burned the ships they arrived in so they couldn’t go anywhere.

So they stumbled around Northrend for a while and at one point Mal’Ganis even appeared to them long enough to tell Arthas he was going to die. Then they found a portal that led them to the cave where Frostmourne was kept. Despite ancient elemental spirits warning him about the nature of the sword, and the big writing on a sign that said “WARNING - EVIL SHIT” Arthas took the sword anyway and chased after Mal’Ganis.

He ended up destroying Mal’Ganis’ castle and confronting him, but at that point his soul had been drained away by the sword. He was now a death knight of the scourge. So he went completely bad and killed all his troops and turned them into zombies and sailed back to Lordaeron (presumably on new ships they built) and he marched into the throne room and stabbed his father/the king in the chest and let loose his scourge army on the city, and Jaina was really, really happy that she hadn’t married him.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part VI

PART SIX - THRALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

So the orc leaders and other soldiers and captured orc-folk were being held in internment camps in Hillsbrad, and in at least one timeline you are there to help a young warrior named Thrall escape. What you didn’t know was that the warden of the camps was Aedelas Blackmoore, and he was interested in Thrall and raised him as a special slave. He taught him about combat and philosophy and gave him somewhat special treatment, hoping to use him as a weapon. Thrall decided this was shit, and escaped.

He hid out and secretly visited other internment camps and found the remaining orc prisoners lethargic, their pride broken. Thrall decided to find the only unconquered clan left, the Warsong. It was constantly hunted and on the run, and led by the undefeated orc chieftain, Grom Hellscream. Thrall was inspired by Grom’s idealism and got misty eyes thinking about the glory of warrior tradition.

Inspired to find the truth of his own origins, Thrall traveled north to find the legendary Frostwolf Clan that he was descended from. Thrall discovered that Gul’dan had exiled the clan long ago because they weren’t keen on associating with demons, and had his father, the clan leader Durotan, assassinated. While there Thrall met the shaman Drek’Thar and he studied the clan’s ancient shamanistic practices, which had been shunned and forgotten during Gul’dan’s rule. Over time Thrall became a powerful shaman and took his rightful place as chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan.

Empowered and with purpose, Thrall set off to free what orc captives he could and to cure the demonic corruption that Gul’dan had wrought on the Horde. During his travels Thrall discovered an older Doomhammer living like Dennis Hopper in the woods. Doomhammer had been a friend of Durotan, and decided to give up his hermitage to follow the young Thrall and aid him.

Supported by many of the veteran chieftains and champions they freed, Thrall began to revitalize the Horde. To symbolize his people’s rebirth, Thrall returned to attack Blackmoore and Durnholde Keep. They won, but victory came at a price, and Doomhammer was killed in battle. Thrall looted him and put on his black armor and warhammer. Together with his best friend Grom Hellscream, Thrall emptied the prison camps and promised that his people would never be slaves again.

Every new land is someone else’s old land, it seems. Thrall brought his people to Kalimdor, and renamed the area they settled Durotar, after his father. The Quillboar were already there and they probably called it East Quillboria or something, but we’ll never know because nobody speaks quillboar and we don’t really care because they’re not a playable race and Green Jesus needed a place to build his spankin’ pad. So it becomes Durotar, and the city the Horde found is named Orgrimmar, after Orgrim Doomhammer, the first Warchief of the Horde.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part V

PART FIVE – THAT WAR THING WAS AWESOME LET’S DO IT AGAIN

After the First War both the Horde and their human enemies went through many changes. King Terenas enlisted the support of the kingdoms of Gilneas, Stromgarde, Dalaran, alterac, and Kul Tiras. He also managed to gain the support of the Dwarves of Ironforge and Aerie Peak, and the Gnomes of Gnomeregan. He also asked the High Elves to join, but they said suck it and only sent a couple guys to watch. These groups banded together under one banner and were known as the Fellowship of – er, The Alliance.

Meanwhile, Orgrim Doomhammer took control of the Horde from Gul’dan and the Shadow Council and reinforced their ranks with orcs and ogres from beyond the dark portal. The Goblins saw that the Horde was mighty but dumb, so they joined in to provide some vital services for hefty profits. They also used the Demon Soul to enslave Alexstrasza and the majority of the red dragons. Gul’dan wasn’t happy about not being in charge, but he contributed also, creating the first Death Knights in service of the Warchief.

Six years after the end of the war the Horde got bored and decided to PvP. First they attacked from Blackrock Mountain to the dwarves in Khaz Modan, and secondly they launched naval attacks against Zul’dare, Tol Barad, the Wetlands, Arathi Highlands, and the southern coast of Lordaeron. They attacked Southshore, Tarren Mill and Hillsbrad with the aid of maps from the nation of Alterac.

Zul’jin and his champions were discovered in a prison near Tarren Mill, and Doomhammer had them rescued. In return the trolls offered to help the Horde take Lordaeron and reclaim their ancestral forests from the High elves.

The Horde crushed Loch Modan and pushed the dwarves back to Ironforge, but they couldn’t really do anything against a city inside a mountain, so they kept going north and invaded the Wetlands. There they established a base of operations at Grim Batol, and converted Dun Algaz and Dun Modr into Horde bases. Grim Batol also became a hatchery for the enslaved red dragons. At the northern shore of the Wetlands many battles were fought on the Thandol Span (big bridge).

Finally, after diverting Lothar’s army at Aerie Peak, the Horde succeeded in invading Quel’Thalas by going through the mountains (of what we know now as the Eastern Plaguelands) and got as far as Eversong Woods before Alliance forces arrived.

This pissed off the elves, so they finally joined the Alliance for real. They pushed the Horde back to shores of Hillsbrad, but not before Gul’dan could plunder elven runestones that he used to make Ogre-Magi for the war effort. Lothar split his army to push on two fronts. One half stayed in the Hinterlands to fight the trolls and destroy the Horde still camped there, and the other half cleared out the elven forests. The armies of Lordaeron and Quel’Thalas swept through the Arathi Highlands, pushing the Horde back to the Thandol Span. They pushed south and retook Dun Algaz, but were unable to siege Grim Batol. Even so, their offensive shattered the Horde armies and caused them to retreat from Khaz Modan.

After the defeat at Khaz Modan there was a brief cessation of fighting, during which the Alliance decided to rescue Lordaeron, so they called on Uther Lightbringer and his Knights of the Silver Hand to rescue survivors (at this point Paladins were mainly healers and didn’t have Ret or Prot spec yet). While there they discovered that Lord Perenolde of Alterac had been giving information to the Horde, so they arrested him and imprisoned him in Stromgarde.

Perenolde’s treason had led the Horde all the way to the walls of Lordaeron, and they started attacking the capital. Troops from Stromgarde cut off the roads south, and the whole Alliance army converged on the Horde, but they were unable to defeat them at first. Then Gul’dan, like an idiot, took the Stormreaver and Twilight Hammer clans with him to find Sargeras’ Tomb. They found it, but it was empty, aside from a bunch of imprisoned demons that tore them all to shreds. They all died, including Gul’dan, and they kept his skull as a souvenir for their dark rituals.

Doomhammer facepalmed and tried to stop Gul’dan and the clans from running away. The Alliance were like “LOL!” and used the opportunity to kick the Horde’s ass and retake Lordaeron. Doomhammer’s forces and the red dragons caught up with the traitors, and killed the ones that hadn’t already been slaughtered by the demons from the Tomb.

So with the Alliance crushing the Horde armies and the Horde factions killing each other, the Alliance facerolled them all the way back to Blackrock Mountain. The Horde defended it, with Doomhammer killing Lothar in a titanic duel that everyone forgot to Fraps. Turlyon took command and won the day, taking Doomhammer prisoner, and the orcs retreated to the dark portal. There the final battle took place, and a ragged Horde army was defeated by Alliance forces, with Horde commanders carried away in chains.

Khadgar, with an escort of brave warriors, destroyed the dark poral, officially ending The Second War.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part IV

PART FOUR – ORCS ARE LIKE APPLES: THEY GO FROM BROWN TO GREEN TO RED

So the orcs are this peaceful, shamanistic race of brown people living in quiet and simple prosperity on Draenor, right? Well Kil’jaeden apparently sees them as a useful tool, so he contacts the shaman Gul’dan and fools him into thinking he’s a nice spirit with lots of power. Kil’jaeden slowly teaches him how to be a warlock. At first he’s all enthusiastic, but then he realizes what’s going on and refuses Kil’jaeden’s command to make the orcs drink demon blood. Kil’jaeden gets all pissed off and uses Gul’dan’s assistant, Ner’zhul, instead.

Ner’zhul doesn’t have any of Gul’dan’s cumbersome conscience or compassion, so he makes a great pawn. He convinces the orcs to drink the blood of Mannoroth the pit lord, and they all get corrupted and turn green (extended exposure and continued corruption turns them red, an irreversible condition). The orcs, along with their only allies, the ogres, attack and overwhelm the Draenei. This attack is the spark that unites the orcs under one banner, and the Horde is born.

Gul’dan is a power-greedy bitch, so in addition to manipulating the Horde he founds the Shadow Council, a who’s-who of the baddest of all warlocks. Together they manipulated the Horde completely. At this point the blood and fury of the Horde was rising and Gul’dan realized that they needed a new enemy or else the Horde would end up destroying itself in its bloodlust. Conveniently, he was contacted by Medivh, and together they opened a portal to Azeroth, and the orcs came through looking for new cultures to encounter and discover, interact with, and disembowel. The warchief of the Horde at this time is Blackhand, but the Shadow Council is manipulating everything.

First contact with humans provided easy victories, and bolstered the orcs’ sense of superiority. The orcs had expected every human settlement to be armed but found little resistance, so Gul’dan had them march on Stormwind to crush the human kingdom. For the first time they met resistance, but forced their way into the city – too late to realize it was a trap, and the human cavalry overran them. Using mounts in combat was completely foreign to the orcs and they were outmatched. The orcs were defeated so badly that the Horde might have been destroyed if not for a fog that Gul’dan conjured to hide their retreat.

Worried by this new threat to their existence, he mages of the Kirin Tor and the priests of Northshire added their power to the human army. They had the orcs on the run, but General Lothar disappeared, getting captured while trying to infiltrate the Deadmines, which was controlled by orcs. It took 20 months for him and his men to escape. While he was gone the human forces lacked leadership and retreated to Stormwind. Lothar then went with Khadgar and the orc Garona to kill Medivh, and while he was dying Gul’dan tried to grab the secret of Sargeras’ Tomb from his mind but failed, and suffered a mental backlash.

After Garona helped Lothar sneak into Karazhan she went to Stormwind and assassinated king Llane, and the humans were all sad and depressed, and Stormwind fell to the orc armies. Llane grabbed his men and retreated to Lordaeron, and the orcs won what has become known as The First War.

Orgrimm Doomhammer was an orc warrior who discovered that the Shadow Council was manipulating the Horde, so he killed Blackhand and claimed the title of Warchief, and led an assault on the castle where the Shadow Council was. They killed most of the warlocks and Gul’dan awoke from his trauma at Doomhammer’s mercy and was forced to swear fealty to the new Warchief.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part III

PART THREE – EVERYONE GETS LAID AND KILLS EACH OTHER

For the first time, Sargeras’ mission to burn the Titans’ works had been thwarted. He didn’t have time to be pissed about it because he was in the middle of the portal when it imploded, so he imploded with it and ceased to be. But apparently if you are a Titan in charge of the largest army in the universe and you cease to be, you can still scheme and manipulate and mess around with shit… and get chicks pregnant too.

About 9,000 years later, Sargeras notices Aegwynn hunting down his demons remaining in Azeroth and destroying them. Sargeras lures her into a pretty pointless combat by attacking some dragons, but in the process they discover a rift that the Burning Legion’s agents had used in the Storm Peaks to infiltrate Azeroth. Using this portal, Sargeras used part of his soul to create an avatar of himself to enter Azeroth. Aegwynn attacked and defeated him, but Sargeras’ spirt left his avatar and hid inside Aegwynn’s body.

So eventually Aegwynn was asked to step down as Guardian of Tirisfal and pick her successor from one of the Dalaran mages, but she wanted her successor to be someone from her bloodline. So she hunted down the powerful mage advisor to King Llane, Nielas Aran, and seduced him, and got pregnant. Sargeras was like “I’M TOTALLY GONNA DOMINATE THIS FETUS” and entered the mind of Aegwyn’s unborn son, Medivh.

When Medivh hit adolescence his inherited powers as a Guardian put him into a coma for 20 years. While he was sleeping, Sargeras was tapping into the Guardian power and taking control of Medivh. Using this new body Sargeras/Medivh made contact with the orc Gul’dan, on the planet Draenor, one of the many worlds that his recruiting officer Kil’jaeden had discovered. Medivh/Sargeras went to the Black Morass in the Swamp of Sorrows and opened the dark portal that allowed the orcs to swarm into Azeroth.

Eventually, Aegwynn (who was banished for disobeying the Order of Tirisfal) figured out what Sargeras had done to her and got into contact with King Llane. Llane sent Lord Lothar to destroy Medivh. Together with the Orc assassin Garona and with the help of Medivh’s assistant (Khadgar), Lothar infiltrated Medivh’s castle (Karazhan) and killed him. Garona was a double-agent for a while there, long enough to have a son with Medivh named Med’an. She was also controlled by Gul’dan into killing King Llane with young (future king) Varian watching.

With Medivh dead, Sargeras’ soul/spirit vapored back into the Twisting Nether, and now he has no tangible body or spirit, but is still “out there” somewhere planning his eventual reconstitution and destruction of the universe.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part II

PART TWO – MY BOYFRIEND LEFT ME AND I GOT TURNED INTO A FISH

So, Sargeras and his armies are burning their way across the universe and they notice Azeroth blinking at them, because the Elves were splashing around like drunken fools in a big lake of arcane magic called the Well of Eternity. Rather than destroy Azeroth, Sargeras’ armies hung out in the ether while Sargeras started charming the elf queen Azshara and she totally fell for it and thought he might end up marrying her (not!) so she allowed him entrance to Azeroth.

Sucker! Archimonde and Mannoroth tore apart Kalimdor while Azshara build a portal strong enough for Sargeras to enter Azeroth. It was almost done when the night elves (Malfurion & Illidan, Tyrande, etc.), with the help of Cenarius’ hippies and Alexstrasza’s dragons, rebelled against Azshara and the high elves, and attacked Azshara at the Well of Eternity to stop the demons from pouring out of it.

This was a massive battle, at the center of which was the biggest spell ever cast, to open a portal large enough for Sargeras to wiggle his epeen through. Malfurion and Azshara fought each other, and Tyrande was Malf’s pocket healer. Illidan, suffering corruption from using demonic power to fight demons, was pissed at his brother taking Tyrande away, so while this battle for the whole world was taking place he was ignoring it and sneaking water from the well, because he knew when the well was destroyed that all the elves would lose their immortality.

Tyrane was badly wounded but Malfurion beat Azshara and the spell the high elves were casting went haywire and blew up – an explosion that sunk the continent that the well of eternity was sitting on and ripped a hole in the world. In its place is now the big ‘ole twirly on the world map known as The Maelstrom. 80% of the world’s land mass was destroyed but somehow the elves survived.

Even more unlikely, somehow Azshara and the high elves survived too – but the broken spell splashed back on them and sucked them down into the Maelstrom and turned them into the Naga. At the bottom of the Maelstrom, under the ocean, they built the city of Nazjatar and stayed there for 10,000 years while Azshara cried over being separated from her crush, Sargeras.

This whole affair is referred to as the War of the Ancients.

Warcraft Lore for Dummies, Part I

VANBRACKEN'S WARCRAFT LORE FOR DUMMIES

The purpose of this series of posts is to give people as much of the basic facts of what's going on in the universe they are busy pwning and lewting with most of the crap cut out.

PART I: SARGERAS IS THE UNIVERSE'S BIGGEST EMO

So, in the beginning, a group of Titans called the Pantheon created the WarCraft universe and shaped the worlds in it. Individual members of the Pantheon granted some of their powers to different dragons. Aman’Thul for example, the Highfather of the Pantheon, bestowed some of his cosmic power to Nozdormu to guard Time and the pathways of destiny.

The Titans’ greatest warrior was named Sargeras. He was a good guy, but had a shitty job – he had to fight off hordes of demons from the Twisting Nether for millennia. Eventually he had to confront and defeat the Nathrezim, a race of vampiric demons. These demons would corrupt entire populations and use them to spread hate and wage war on each other and against the Titans. Sargeras defeated them easily enough, but witnessing their acts made him very depressed.

All the other Titans tried to cheer him up and tried to keep him optimistic, but he lost faith in their mission and gave up on the idea of an orderly universe. He left the Pantheon and was replaced by Aggramar, and everyone was sad as Sargeras set off to find his own place in the universe.

Eventually Sargeras came to believe that the Titans themselves were responsible for creation’s failure, and thought that their work to shape the universe was a mistake. He decided to undo their works throughout the universe. He resolved to form an unstoppable army to aid him in this task called the Burning Legion.

At first he roamed the Twisting Nether and released demons to aid him, but none of them were suitable to act as his lieutenants. Although the demons were cunning and capable of great malice, they weren’t really officer material. He needed tacticians and commanders, and he found them on the planet Argus – the home world of the Eredar.

The Eredar were highly intelligent beings with a natural talent for magic. So Sargeras went to the three strongest leaders of the Eredar and tried to recruit them. Kil’jaeden and Archimonde said OK, but Velen ran away with his followers, who became the Draenei.

So now Sargeras was ready to work. Kil’jaeden became his recruiting officer and sought out the darkest races in the universe to help them, and Archimonde led the armies into battle against anyone who would defy them as they marched across the universe undoing the Titans’ works and destroying worlds the Titans had created.

Azeroth is one of those worlds, and that’s where we play. So Sargeras sees it as his purpose in life – his place in the universe – to destroy the planet we live on. That’s what makes him the ultimate bad guy, and everything else we deal with is in some way the result of it.