Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play.

Put simply, the Knights of the Ebon Blade are traitors to the Scourge. Like the Forsaken, they've broken free of the grasp of the Lich King due to the intercession of an external source - Sylvanas and the Forsaken escaped the Lich King's grasp when he was weakened due to the crack in the Frozen Throne and had to recall Arthas to Northrend, while the Knights were more autonomous than the average Scourge and regained their freedom following the events at Light's Hope Chapel. At LHC, the Knights were freed due to the actions of their Highlord, Darion Mograine.

If you played through the events of the Death Knight starting area, you already have a basic idea of the origins of the order, especially if you ran around Acherus reading books like I did. Some are funny, some are meaningful, and from them we can glean certain information about the history of the order before the events leading up to its break from the Lich King. If you've read the Ashbringer comic series, you're of course informed of some of this anyway. But there's still devils in those details for us to discuss.


Basically, Alexandros Mograine found a crystal object at the battle of Blackrock Spire in the hands of an orc warlock. We know from Christie Golden's Rise of the Horde that it was most likely one of the fragments of the Ata'mal Crystal captured by the orcs when they slaughtered the draenei. (Possibly Leafshadow, the crystal used to hide the Horde's attack on Shattrath until it was too late for the draenei to defend themselves, although this isn't confirmed.) Whatever the crystal was, in the warlock's hands it was so suffused with evil fel energy that touching it destroyed Mograine's hand. Years later, casting holy magics in an attempt to destroy the crystal instead purified it, making it a beacon of the Light itself. So inspired, Mograine left for Ironforge, where Magni Bronzebeard himself forged a sword out of the crystal for Alexandros: both the sword and its wielder would become known as Ashbringer.

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