Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore.

In the past two weeks we've talked about the formation of the Old Horde on Draenor, and the resulting rise of the Alliance of Lordaeron to oppose them. Unfortunately we were forced to give the actual events of the wars slightly short shrift in the interest of being done someday. So this week, we cover the First War. (Note: there are spoilers for the original Warcraft game and several books and comic books contained in this post. Be warned if you continue to read it.)

When last we discussed the Old Horde, we mentioned that Gul'dan and his Shadow Council were feeling the strain after having been abandoned on a slowly dying world by Kil'jaeden after having apparently slain the draenei. As the demonic corruption slowly poisoned the land and turned the orcs (even orcs who hadn't partaken of the Blood of Mannoroth) a livid green color, two events occurred to forever change the fate of two worlds. The first was seemingly small: a plague known as the Blood Pox started spreading, forcing the establishment of a quarantine zone in Nagrand in the lands formerly held by the Frostwolf Clan. That clan, however, was no longer able to hold those lands due to the second and more immediately portentous event. Gul'dan was contacted by Medivh, the Guardian of Tirisfal and host to the essence of Sargeras himself, and offered to the dark orc warlock the one thing he truly craved.

Power.

It should be pointed out here that the timeline has seen some changes between the release of the original Warcraft game and World of Warcraft. I'm going with the most recent information I can, which means things like exactly when Blackhand became Warchief or how old Garona was may shift from what you remember from the RTS games. This is unavoidable, I'm afraid.

It is at this point that we must understand the nature of the two entities involved in this transaction, as it is their interaction here that fully changes the course of history for two worlds. Medivh was powerful, possibly more so than mortals can reckon even without the essence of Sargeras infesting him like a titanic parasite. He was intelligent, and tainted, seeing the very existence of the mortal races of Azeroth as an impediment to his quest for greater and greater understanding of magic. He believed he could manipulate Gul'dan into destroying the humans and other races of Azeroth by offering to the orc the location of the Tomb of Sargeras where his mother and predecessor Aegwynn had buried the corpse of the form Sargeras took to invade Azeroth a second time, in order to plant himself with Medivh (who was at this time unborn).

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