Peace through Dominion

Thousands of years ago, an aristocratic group of Highborne Night Elf sorcerers nearly destroyed the world by allowing the Burning Legion to access the Well of Eternity, an artifact that sustained their arcane powers. Various Night Elf factions went to war against the Burning Legion, driving them back through the Well to whatever hellworld from which they had departed, but the
sudden collapse of the Well's power had caused a geological rift that split the pangaea of Kalimdor into three continents. The Highborne city of Suramar sank beneath the new sea in a magical Maelstrom that would last for millenia.

Thousands of years later, the Guardian of Tirisfal, Aegwynn, would do battle against the Enemy of All Life, Sargeras, possibly destroying him entirely. She took his body deep into the sea, burying it inside the drowned city's Temple of Elune. There, it rested for decades, only a few of the most powerful people in the world knowing its true location. The scholars of the world had long suspected that the Burning Legion would return in force to retake their master's corpse and reshape the world in their hellish image, but they had anticipated an army of demons, not Orcs.

Deep inside the mind of Medivh, whose mother was Aegwynn, the orc warlock Gul'Dan discovered the secret tomb of Sargeras. However, mere moments later, Medivh was killed by agents of the Alliance for bringing the Horde into the world, and Gul'dan was rendered comatose for months. The entwining of two such powerful minds caused a shockwave that rippled throughout Gul'dan's soul, causing his own psyche to nearly pass beyond the gates of death as well. When the warlock awoke, it was to a very different Horde than the one he had secretly commanded.

The Blackhand, who had been Gul'dan's puppet, had been slain, and his murderer, Orgrim Doomhammer, had taken control of the Horde. Doomhammer was a cunning strategist, and he carried a deep distrust for Gul'dan and the Shadow Council. Unlike many of the Orcs, Doomhammer had not drank the Blood of Mannoroth, and so his mental and physical faculties were uncorrupted by the demon's bloodlust. When he found out that the Shadow Council was secretly controlling events throughout nearly the entire Horde on Gul'dan's behalf, he rounded up all those he could find and slew them without mercy. Although a few escaped, Gul'dan's power base was broken, and the Horde was fully under
Doomhammer's control.

It was a stunning setback for Gul'dan. Although Doomhammer respected the warlock's considerable abilities, he hated the actions that Gul'dan had taken. Gul'dan knew that he would have to gain the Doomhammer's trust if he was going to be able to restore his political influence within the Horde. A few were still loyal to him. The Stormreavers, though small in number, still revered Gul'dan, and the Twilight's Hammer – led by the utterly insane Ogre-Mage Cho'gall – held his vision of destruction sacrosanct. The orc warlock still had some friends, but they were of low station.

He used them to the best of his ability. During much of the Second War, Gul'dan was stationed in Stormwind to develop magics that would bring victory to the Horde. Gul'dan was rarely successful in these efforts, but he found information that would help to accomplish these tasks. The Stormwind scholars kept highly detailed records, including information on powerful runestones and artifacts in the Elven lands. Eventually, he was able to convince Doomhammer to allow him an army to command so that he could take these runestones and use them for his own devices. Throughout the Horde's campaign into Tirisfal Glades and Quel'thalas, Gul'dan acquired these powerful artifacts, with which he created the Death Knights and increased his own destructive powers.

These vile pursuits availed him little in the battle of Silvermoon, but they did allow him and the two clans under his control to escape the field of battle. By using the chaos of the Horde's retreat from Lordaeron as cover, both the Stormreavers and the Twilight's Hammer clan were able to flee nearly to Kalimdor in pursuit of Gul'dan's ultimate goal: the Tomb of Sargeras.

Was the Horde's loss at Silvermoon a ruse? Did Gul'dan intentionally fold on the cusp of victory at the ancient Elven stronghold just so he could have an excuse to flee to the Tomb? It is possible. Had he achieved victory at Silvermoon, he and his forces would have been stuck there, mired in the sorcerous research that Doomhammer surely would have required of them. His clans would have grown frustrated, and he would have grown old and worthless, looking through old elven files on old elven magics. He wanted the power of a god that was promised to him by Kil'jaeden in return for freeing Sargeras. He had no desire to spend the rest of his days rifling through moldering notes on Lordaeron's magical history. Did he throw the Battle of Silvermoon to avoid that fate? Anything is possible.

Across the sea, the Stormreavers and the Twilight's Hammer sailed to find Gul'dan's target, the Tomb of Sargeras. The Stormreavers revered Gul'dan, almost worshiping him as the god they hoped he would become, but the Twilight's Hammer were a different sort. Cho'gall had essentially been created by Gul'dan, who had imbued the double-headed ogre-mage with all of his arcane powers, and that close personal bond between the two kept the two clans together. However, it was not just that friendship that caused Cho'gall to cross the sea with Gul'dan. No, he was the most vile kind of nihilist. He found it to be his sacred duty to bring about the destruction of whatever world he was on. He had infected the Twilight's Hammer clan with a belief system that valued chaos and apocalypse, the end of all things. At all times, the end of the world was on his mind. He dined on eschaton and bathed in the fires of doom. So, to him and his clan, the idea of bringing about the resurrection of the Enemy of All Life was a very inspiring enterprise, not something he could pass up.

Gul'dan fled the war against the Alliance, betrayed the Horde that required his powers and leadership and left them to die. Gul'dan had no intention of ever returning to the war against humanity. He wanted to become a god, and he was ready to do whatever it would take to do so. Roughly a third of the Horde's active army went with him, an act that sealed the Horde's fate in Azeroth.

Ponder the Horde's position for a moment. Days before, they had been in a position of total victory over the Alliance. To the Horde strategists, the great cities of the north were ruined, the Alliance armies were scattered and near defeat, and Silvermoon was ripe for plucking. All they had to do was take the Quel'Thalas capital, and the entire elven supply lines would dry up, essentially suffocating the rest of the Alliance as the Horde slowly closed their hand over Lordaeron's mouth. Yet, with one battle, the entire layout of the war changed. The Horde forces were broken, two large Alliance armies chasing them across Lordaeron to Hillsbrad and trapping them against the sea. The ever-raging battle at the Thandol Valley had been lost by the Horde, and the Thalassian navy had entered the sea, locking Doomhammer from sending any reinforcements to help his beleaguered forces in Hillsbrad. On top of all of that, Gul'dan had fled across the sea with two full clans. Doomhammer could not allow this betrayal to stand.

Once again, Urok the Scratcher was called upon. Brought back to the Horde's command center in secret, Urok was interrogated about his failure to take Silvermoon and then dispatched with a large army to find and destroy Gul'dan. It was no great secret that the warlock was searching for the Tomb of Sargeras, and the Scratcher had a reasonable idea of where the Tomb itself could be found. Itching to prove his worth to Doomhammer and lusting for vengeance against Gul'dan, the Scratcher agreed to lead an army to destroy the warlock and his clans.

Across the sea, they chased the Stormreaver's scent, eventually finding the betrayers at a set of islands off the coast of what we now call Azshara. Yet, all was not calm within the seas. The Orcs on the ships watched as the ocean roared, and a Temple once thought lost to the ages rose again under Gul'dan's command. The dark magics that the warlocks commanded intertwined with those shamanistic magics that a few Orcs were able to summon, and the seas parted for the ascension of the Temple of Elune.

The seas eventually settled, and Urok was quick to establish a beachhead on one of the outlying islands. His army, consisting mostly of Black Tooth Grin and Blackrock orcs, quickly built a ramshackle settlement and then began preparations to battle the betrayers. Cho'gall knew that his enemies within the Horde were preparing to go to war with his clan, and he readied his fortifications. Although his small clan was outmatched by those under the Scratcher's command, he was not afraid to bring death to his former allies.

Next week, we discuss the events inside of the Tomb of Sargeras, and
we'll see what's left of the world thereafter.

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