by Blizzard
In the end, the vote was unanimous. Durotan himself begrudgingly cast his lot with Blackhand, whom he saw as a tyrant. The Frostwolf chieftain feared that if he were the only voice of dissent, he and his clan would face dire consequences from the Blackrocks.
The Horde now had a fierce and unbending leader: Warchief Blackhand. Under his guidance, the orcs would no longer fight in disarray. They would strike with purpose and precision. They would grind the draenei to dust and sweep their remains from the world.
For the ancestors. For the clans. For the Horde.
Warchief Blackhand set out to unify the clans and forge the Horde into a proper fighting force. He ordered his Blackrock masons to construct a new capital in western Tanaan Jungle. This imposing stronghold would become known as the Citadel. It would act as neutral ground for the clans, a place where chieftains could meet and strategize about battles to come.
The Citadel would also house the Horde’s warlocks. Within the fortress, they could hone their abilities and tutor apprentices in the ways of fel magic. Gul’dan and his Shadow Council would use the Citadel as their new headquarters. Very few orcs would know of this, not even warlocks outside of the order. The Shadow Council would blend in with the stronghold’s other inhabitants, secretly watching over them and reporting all that they saw to Gul’dan.
As masons laid the Citadel’s foundations, Blackhand instituted new rules to structure the Horde. Thus far, the clans had launched attacks against the draenei with reckless abandon. Blackhand would not stand for such disorder in his ranks. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of the clans, and he gave them each a specific role in the Horde.
The smallest and most mobile clans would act as scouts, raiders, and auxiliary forces that could quickly move from one region of the world to another. These clans included the Bleeding Hollow, the Dragonmaw, the Shattered Hand, the Thunderlords, the Shadowmoon, and the Bonechewers.
Blackhand also formed a new clan called the Black Tooth Grin. Composed of soldiers handpicked by the warchief himself, it would serve as the scouting arm of the Blackrock clan.
The rest of the clans made up the Horde’s main fighting force. They would lead direct assaults on draenei settlements, and they would form the backbone of the orcish army. Chief among these clans were the mighty Blackrocks, Warsongs, and Frostwolves.
At first, not all clans accepted Blackhand’s orders willingly. Many orcs bristled at the thought of an outsider commanding them in battle, even one who bore the title of warchief. Blackhand won the support of some orcs with offers of power, but more often than not, he relied on violence to secure their obedience. The new warchief was a tyrant, and he did not accept insubordination. Not from his own clan. Not from any member of the Horde.
Blackhand publicly executed anyone foolish enough to speak out against him. He threatened entire clans with annihilation should they try to resist his will. With the Blackrock clan at his disposal, the warchief had the power and means to make good such threats. Begrudgingly or not, the clans gradually accepted Blackhand’s rule and settled into their roles in the Horde.
To maintain order and discipline in his armies, Blackhand surrounded himself with mighty lieutenants. The greatest of them were Eitrigg, Orgrim Doomhammer, and Varok Saurfang. Each of these orcs would have made a successful chieftain in his own right.
Orgrim and the other lieutenants oversaw the Blackrock war machine as it churned to life. Smiths slaved away at their forges in Gorgrond day and night. Plumes of thick smoke blotted out the sun. The Blackrocks crafted thousands of new weapons, armor, and siege engines for the clans.
For Warchief Blackhand, armaments were only one part of his plan to strengthen the Horde. To increase the number of soldiers at his disposal, the warchief offered ogres and mok’nathal a place in his armies. He also sent his most powerful warlocks to the other orc clans. They would use their fel magics to imbue adolescents with the strength and fury of adults.
Nearly all of the orc chieftains embraced this new technique, seeing it as a way to bolster their clans’ forces. Durotan was the exception. The thought of subjecting young Frostwolves to the warlocks’ strange magics unsettled him, but he had no choice. Blackhand had made it clear that anyone who resisted his command would suffer, as would their entire clan. Durotan placed the safety and security of the Frostwolves above all else. Before his eyes, the Blackrock warlocks flooded his clan’s youths with their green magic, warping them into hulking, bloodthirsty warriors.
This brutal empowerment technique was not the only thing that troubled Durotan. The rampant use of fel magic was changing the orcs. Their brown skin was becoming splotchy and green.
Though Durotan didn’t know the exact cause, he suspected that the warlocks’ magics were to blame. The shift in skin color was a dire sign. It only affirmed his belief that the power wielded by the orcs had sinister origins.
The rest of the orcs were not troubled by this transformation. If a change in skin color was the price they had to pay for fel magic, so be it.
While the Horde was rising, the Pale flourished in catacombs beneath Nagrand. Generations ago, this society of exiles had tapped into the Void energies emanating from K’ure, the decaying naaru contained within Oshu’gun. Their dark power rivaled even fel magic in potency.
Rumors of the Pale and their otherworldly abilities eventually reached Gul’dan. Though the warlock paid little heed to the stories, Kil’jaeden was intrigued. The demon lord pressed Gul’dan to ensure victory over the draenei at any cost. That meant investigating the Pale and determining whether their magic could strengthen the Horde.
Gul’dan sent his apprentice Cho’gall to learn more about the Pale. If the exiles proved as mighty as the rumors claimed, he commanded the ogre mage to bring them into the Horde.
Cho’gall threw caution to the wind and stormed into the Pale’s underground caves. The ogre mage expected a fight, but he found none. The Pale did not resist his intrusion. They were eager to share their prophecy of doom, which they called the Hour of Twilight. The Pale saw this as a time when shadow would envelop the universe and snuff out all life in existence.
Cho’gall had little interest in this Hour of Twilight. Far more intriguing to him was the Pale’s shadow magic. He had never experienced its like, and he knew it would serve as a potent weapon for the Horde.
To win the exiles to his side, Cho’gall used their beliefs to his advantage. He claimed that the Horde was a means to an end—a weapon by which they could bring about the Hour of Twilight. The Pale reveled in this opportunity to serve as agents of apocalypse. They committed themselves to the Horde and formed a new orc clan known as the Twilight’s Hammer.
As he learned to master shadow magic, Cho’gall also began to see truth in the Pale’s prophecy. It would take him many years, but the ogre mage would eventually devote himself to their quest.
Under Warchief Blackhand, the Horde launched a coordinated offensive against minor draenei settlements and outposts across the world. Armed with mighty siege engines and new weapons, the orcs toppled their enemy’s defenses and razed stronghold after stronghold.
As these battles progressed, draenei morale foundered. It was not the defeats alone that wore away at their spirits, but the startling revelation that the Burning Legion was influencing the orcs.
The signs were now all around the draenei. Some orcs had become warlocks, and their rampant use of fel magic was taking its toll on Draenor. Forests were dying. Streams and rivers were drying up or becoming polluted with foul energies.
No one was more shocked by this than Velen. His ability to reliably foresee the future had almost returned, but it did not matter anymore. The discovery that the orcs had become tools of the Legion had taken the draenei by surprise.
Velen and the exarchs long debated what to do. They had no means of escaping Draenor. Their only chance of survival was holding off the Horde’s onslaught and hoping the Legion did not follow up with a full-scale invasion.
The draenei leadership kne
w they could no longer defend their outlying settlements from the Horde. They ordered their forces to withdraw to Shattrath and the Temple of Karabor. Fortifying these two cities became their most pressing goal.
The draenei were not the only ones to notice the effect of fel magic on Draenor. For years, these energies had dampened the power of elementals and thrown them into turmoil. Yet as the warlocks’ magic began killing Draenor, something changed in the world’s native spirits. They rallied together, vowing to destroy the orcs and stop their desecration of the land. The elementals pooled their dwindling strength and fused into a single mighty being.
Its name was Cyrukh the Firelord, and it would shatter the Horde forever.
After much of Draenor had fallen under the orcs’ control, Blackhand commanded the clans to gather near the Temple of Karabor, the spiritual heart of draenei society. The assault would be the largest ever conducted by the Horde thus far. Blackhand believed that by destroying Karabor, the orcs could break the draenei’s morale. This would then make conquering the heavily fortified capital, Shattrath, all the easier.
The Horde met little resistance as it approached Karabor. All seemed well as the orcs camped near a volcano outside the temple. Then, without warning, the mountain erupted in fire.
Cyrukh took form in the heart of the volcano. The Firelord unleashed his elemental wrath on the orcs, and a roaring firestorm swept down the mountain and tore through the Horde’s ranks. Cyrukh’s appearance stunned and terrified the orcs, especially former shaman. Many of them saw the attack as a sign that they had angered the elements by embracing fel magic.
Gul’dan scrambled to forestall catastrophe. If the warlocks abandoned the Horde, the orcs would never conquer the draenei. In Cyrukh, Gul’dan saw a golden opportunity. The elements had gathered all of their power in one place. They had made themselves vulnerable. Gul’dan would make them pay for that. He would steal Cyrukh’s power for himself and for the rest of the Horde, and he would destroy the connection between the orcs and Draenor’s elementals once and for all.
Gul’dan gathered his Shadow Council followers on the volcano’s slopes. None of them—not even those who had once been shaman—hesitated to perform the task at hand. The Shadow Council warlocks had given themselves entirely to the pursuit of fel magic. Together, they wove an immense spell that flooded Cyrukh with fel power and shattered the being’s physical form. The mountain roared in protest. Chasms tore through the earth and spewed forth rivers of fel and elemental energies. Gul’dan and his warlocks used these energies to infuse the other orcs with strength.
Gul’dan had succeeded. The Horde’s soldiers were now more powerful than ever before, and the last connection between the orcs and the elemental spirits had been severed. The fel volcano in Shadowmoon Valley would come to be known as the Hand of Gul’dan.
GUL’DAN DESTROYS DRAENOR’S ELEMENTAL MIGHT
For weeks, Prophet Velen and the exarchs had watched the massive Horde army march through Shadowmoon Valley, trampling everything in its path. The draenei did all they could to prepare for the siege. Artificers strengthened the temple’s defenses. Vindicators and Rangari from Shattrath City streamed into Karabor’s harbor, eager for battle.
When the volcano in Shadowmoon Valley erupted in a gout of fel energy, fear raced through Karabor’s defenders. Many draenei had heard that the orcs were in league with the Burning Legion, but few had actually seen evidence of it. Now, the proof was right before their eyes.
Velen walked among Karabor’s draenei, imbuing his people with the Light and inspiring them with courage. Even as the Horde reached the stronghold and unleashed its siege engines, he remained on the front lines.
The Horde’s bombardment was relentless. Siege engines hurled boulders imbued with fel energy against the temple’s walls until they crumbled. Thousands of howling orcs stormed through the breaches and clashed with Rangari and heavily armored Vindicators. Karabor’s defenders fought with a ferocity that the orcs had never witnessed in the draenei before. Against all odds, Velen and his outnumbered forces pushed the Horde back and held the army at bay.
For a moment, victory seemed within reach for the draenei. Then it slipped away.
Behind Horde lines, Gul’dan and his Shadow Council had found a way to break the stalemate. They had turned their attention to the Dark Star that drifted over Shadowmoon Valley. Unbeknownst to the orcs, this strange celestial object was the decaying naaru named K’ara. The being had succumbed to shadow, and its body exuded potent Void energies.
The Shadowmoon orcs had long known that the Dark Star pulsed with extraordinary power, and they had treated the object as sacred. For generations, the clan forbade anyone from tapping into its energies. Gul’dan and his warlocks cared little for such ancient laws.
As one, the Shadow Council conducted a ritual that drew out the Dark Star’s power and channeled it on Karabor. A pillar of Void energy ripped through the heavens and slammed down atop the draenei positions in the temple. Many of the defenders died instantly. Others were driven to madness by the waves of shadow magic that engulfed the city.
Calling on every ounce of his willpower, Velen narrowly held the Void at bay. He rallied what survivors he could and led them on a daring escape toward Karabor’s harbor. As the Horde renewed its assault on the temple, the Prophet and his people sailed out of harm’s reach.
Though Velen survived, Karabor was lost. The influx of Void energy forever darkened the once-glorious stronghold. It would become known as the Black Temple.
The victorious Horde stormed through Karabor’s streets and celebrated its triumph by desecrating the draenei’s holy relics. The orcs rooted out the defenders who remained. Few were shown the mercy of a quick death. The Horde took many of them prisoner.
Gul’dan immediately claimed the Black Temple. Publicly, he stated that it would serve as a fortress to hold draenei prisoners, where he and a handful of warlocks could interrogate the captives. In truth, the Black Temple would act as a new base of operations for the Shadow Council. Gul’dan convinced Blackhand that separating his clandestine order from the Citadel would allow the Shadow Council to remain unseen by the rest of the Horde. The reality was that Gul’dan also wanted to distance himself from the warchief so that he could work free from Blackhand’s ever-watchful eyes.
Gul’dan and his Shadow Council took charge of the draenei prisoners. They subjected the captives to brutal torture to gather what information they could about Shattrath’s defenses. In time, they discovered much about the city. Shattrath boasted a larger garrison than Karabor, and it would be much harder to conquer. It would be the greatest challenge the Horde had ever faced.
Kil’jaeden was pleased with the Horde’s victory, despite Velen’s escape. He would have preferred to see the Prophet dead. Better yet, he would have preferred to see Velen captured so that the demon lord himself could humiliate and torture him.
But it was only a matter of time before the Prophet met his end. Of greater concern to Kil’jaeden was the task of conquering Shattrath. The Horde had seized Karabor, but only by harnessing the Dark Star’s power. That was a trick they couldn’t use again. Moreover, the warlock technique of infusing young orcs with fel magic to make them more powerful was not as promising as it had once seemed. Kil’jaeden knew that Gul’dan and his followers needed something more—something greater—if they were to take Shattrath.
Gul’dan and his warlocks had previously empowered their kin with fel energies, but this process only granted them limited strength. Drinking the blood of a demon was a far superior method that would give the orcs otherworldly power. This act would also complete their corruption and shackle them to the Burning Legion’s will forever. Kil’jaeden revealed these plans to Gul’dan, reminding him of the power he would be granted if he continued loyally serving the demon lord. The warlock had not forgotten that promise. Orchestrating the corruption of his race was a small price to pay for godhood.
Gul’dan convinced Blackhand to arrange a gathering of t
he clans atop a mountain near the Citadel, where he would empower the orcs. He never told Blackhand what the source of this power would be; he told him only that he had discovered a new way of wielding fel magic.
As Blackhand ordered the clans to assemble, Kil’jaeden called upon his great power and opened a temporary gateway to the Black Temple. Through it, a pit lord known as Mannoroth the Destructor emerged. This monstrous horned demon was one of the Legion’s greatest generals, and he had led countless assaults against its enemies. Mannoroth radiated a power and malevolence that Gul’dan had never experienced. Even the warlock, who feared little, cowered in the demon’s presence.
Gul’dan went to great lengths to keep Mannoroth a secret, informing only his most trusted Shadow Council warlocks of the demon and the reason for his appearance on Draenor.
Yet Ner’zhul learned the truth. In their arrogance, Gul’dan and his Shadow Council had often kept the elder shaman close by so that he could witness the gradual corruption of his race. They believed he was too broken and cowardly to ever act on what he saw. They were wrong.
Ner’zhul had spent years lost in the depths of self-loathing and regret, but when he discovered the plans to have orcs drink demon blood, something changed. If he didn’t act, he knew that his entire race would be doomed. Ner’zhul mustered his courage and set out to warn someone about Gul’dan’s intentions. He was aware that most of the orc chieftains would ignore his words. They were too loyal to Blackhand and the Horde, too drunk on the intoxicating might of fel power.
However, there was one who was not like the others: Chieftain Durotan. He’d become increasingly reluctant to wage war against the draenei, and this news had reached Ner’zhul. If there was anyone who would heed the shaman’s warnings, it was the Frostwolves’ noble leader.