Hello everyone!
Last week we covered the story of the Eastern Plaguelands which houses Stratholme, a place
that deserves its own time in the spotlight as it played such a critical rol in the story.
This city was once considered to be the jewel of northern lordaeron, the largest city of
the kingdom.
It even housed a zoo!
With all the different shops and places to check out, you could easily compare it to
one of the major capital cities like Orgrimmar or even Stormwind.
The regional government was centered around this city and like I mentioned last week,
it was one of the oldest and most revered holy sites.
No surprise that Archbishop Alonsus Faol decided to have this city serve as base of operations
for the paladins added to the alliance ranks during the horde’s first invasion of Azeroth.
A new order known as the Knights of the Silver Hand.
Right here in the city at Alonsus Chapel the organisation was formed with its first members
being Turalyon, Dathrohan, Gavinrad the Dire, Tirion Fordring and Uther the Lightbringer.
They made all the difference in the war against the Horde.
Their Light piercing the darkness and chasing away the shadow, but troubled times would
come to their order and the city of Stratholme.
It was here where Tirion Fordring was placed on trial for saving the life of Eitrig as
Eitrig had saved his life in turn and showed him honor.
The old orc was tired of fighting, just wanted to live out his days, but some would not let
go of the events of the past.
So it was that tirion was given a choice between duty and honor and he chose his honor.
Out of respect for his sacrifices and long record of duty towards the alliance, they
gave him the oppertunity for a full pardon.
All he had to do was to disavow his oath to the orc and reaffirm his commitment to the
alliance.
“I will remain commited to the alliance until my dying day.
OF that, have no doubt.
But i cannot disavow the oath i took.
To do so would be to betray everything i am and everything we, as honorable men, hold
dear...”
Honor, it meant the world to Tirion so with no other choice, Uther stripped him of his
titles, his rank amongst their order, his lands and even the right to live amongst them.
His future would be to live in exile away from his family.
He accepted the punishment, but couldn’t leave Eitrig to his fate so he snuck back
into Stratholme to save the orc from the gallows.
Thrall and his newly formed horde also arrived to save their lost brother.
While they fought with the cities defenders, Tirion carried Eitrig away.
Shortly after, Thrall and his forces showed up to take Eitrig with them, leaving Tirion
behind to live out his days.
Stay alive and keep an eye on his family, like his son that was accepted at the chappel
into their holy order, just like his father.
Another to join their ranks and probably have the most profound impact on Stratholme that’s
of course Arthas Menethil, crown prince of Lordaeron.
In the time where the plague was spreading, he together with Jaina proudmoore, investigated
what was going on.
Soon enough they discovered Kel’thuzad and his cult of the damned.
Their plans of infecting the grain and not only murdering the citizens of lordaeron,
but also having them come back as the mindless undead.
“Listen Uther, there’s something about the plague you should know...”
“Oh no.
We’re too late.
These people have all been infected!
They may look fine now, but it’s just a matter of time before they turn into the undead!”
“What?”
While jaina was trying to come up with some way of fixing this, to fight back, find a
solution...Arthas bluntly and brutally stated’
“This entire city must be purged’
He thought that this was their only option to save them, but Jaina argued that they didn’t
even know how many had eaten it, how many had taken a lethal dose or what a lethal does
was yet.
They knew so little and can’t just slaughter them like animals out of their own fear.
But what of those that ARE effected?
Theylll kill the children all the same, they’ll try to kill them, and spread out from here
and keep on killing.
Theyre going to die regardless, and when they rise, theyll do things that in life they would
never, ever have wanted to do.
Wouldnt you rather die now than die from this plague?
Die a clean death as a thinking, living human being rather than be raised as an undead to
attack everyone, everything you loved in life?
In all honesty, that would have been Jaina’s personal choice, but they couldn’t make
that choice for all of them.
Arthas saw it differently.
They needed to purge this city.
It’s the only solution to stop this plague right here, right now, dead in its tracks.
They don’t have time to gather the kirin tor and figure out a sollution.
They had to act now or it would be too late.
“You’ve just crossed a terrible threshold arthas.”
“Jaina?”
“I’m sorry arthas i cant watch you do this.”
The thought came to him, brief and bright and sharp; was she right?
No.
No, she couldn’t be.
Because if she was right, then he was about to become a mass murderer, and he knew that
wasn’t who he was.
His forces, those that had stayed with the prince, backed him up.
They’d rather be hacked into a thousand pieces rather than turn into one of them undead.
The ones that had risen were easy.
They were the enemy; human no longer, but vile caricatures of what they had once been
in life, and smashing their skulls or slicing their heads off was no more of a hardship
than putting down a rabid beast.
The others – They looked up at the armed men, at their prince ,in first confusion and
then in terror.
At first, most of them didnt even reach for weapons; they knew the tabards, knew that
the men who had come to kill them were supposed to be protecting them.
They simply could not grasp why they were dying.
Pain clenched arthas’s heart at the first one he struck down – a youth, barely out
of puberty , he absently realied that his hammer was no longer radiant with the Light.
Perhaps the Light, too, grieved the dire necessity of its actions.
He thought it would get easier.
It didn’t.
It just got worse, but Arthas refused to yield.
The men looked to him for an example; if he wavered, they would too, and then Mal’ganis
would triumph.
So he kept his helm on so they would not see his face, and he himself lit the torches that
burned down the buildings full of screaming people locked inside, and refused to let the
horrible sights and sounds slow him.
It was a relief when some of the citizens of stratholme began to fight back.
Then the self-defense instinct kicked in.
They still did not have a chance against professional soldiers and a trained paladin.
But it mitigated that horrible sensation of – well, as jaina had said, slaughtering
them like farm animals.
How long it took to slaughter every living – and dead – person in the city, Arthas
would never be able to tell.
But at last it was done.
Malganys still waited for him, taunting him to follow to Northrend and that’s exactly
what the prince did.
Three days later, Jaina walked the streets of what had once been a proud city, the glory
of northern lordaeron.
Now, it was the stuff of nightmares.
The stench was almost unbearable.
Fires that ought to have consumed themselves, or have abated at least slightly from lack
of fuel, continued to rage at their full height, telling jaina that some dark magic was afoot.
They lay as they had fallen, most of them unarmed.
Tears welled in jainas eyes and slipped down her cheeks as she moved as if in a trance,
carefully stepping over the bloated bodies.
A soft whimper of pain escaped as she saw that arthas and his men, in their misguided
mercy, had not even spared the children.
Would these bodies, lying still and stiff in death, have risen to attack her if arthas
had not slain them?
Perhaps.
Many of them, certainly; the grain had indeed been distributed and consumed.
But every single one?
She would never know, nor would he.
And of course this lead to arthas following malganys to Northrend, pick up the cursed
blade frostmourne to claim his vengeance but also become an agent of the Lich King.
While Jaina took the survivors of Lordaeron and eventually met up with Thrall to save
the world, Arthas returned home and murdered his father.
Now working for the very thing that he so desperatly tried to fight against.
The plague had only been the beginning as the scourge washed over their lands.
That’s how Stratholme turned into what we know it as and even to this day, people are
still discussing if Arthas made the right call or not.If they had left Stratholme alone,
would Lordaeron have fallen to the army of undead marching out of its gates instead of
Arthas returning home?
Would the prince have made a different in the war against Archimonde?
It’s very difficult to predict how such things would turn out.
We do see in a later campaign that the kirin tor has come up with a way of creating an
aura that would only hurt the undead and not the living.
Imagine them creating such an aura around Stratholme while evacuating its citizens.
At the end of the day, not even Arthas was certain about his choices and that doubt is
reflected in the Light not fully coming to his aid.
Interesting stuff to debate about, but all the same, Stratholme was purged while Arthas’
choices lead to a whole bunch of death and destruction.
He would merge with the Lich King and time would play out the way that we know it.
That’s why it’s interesting to see that apperantly the infinite dragonflight wanted
to stop him...for whatever reason they might have.
Their motivation is not fully explained in detail, but what we do know is that the Infinite
dragonflight is a corrupted version of the bronze dragonflight.
The guardians of time, meant to make time flow as it’s supposed too, their corrupted
counter parts have tried to mess with certain events.
For example they tried to stop Medivh from opening the dark portal, they tried to stop
Thrall from escaping Durnholde and here they’re trying to stop Arthas from going to northrend.
One possible explenation could be that without Thrall there wouldn’t be a Horde to stand
with the alliance against threats like the old gods or the Legion.
Despite the death and destruction Arthas would bring, without his actions there wouldn’t
be survivors of Lordaeron to stand with the Horde against Archimonde.
The flow of time and ripples that caus change are hard to predict, but we know for certain
that the infinites tried to stop the Prince.
That’s why we teamed up with Chromie to make sure events played out as they were supposed
too.
If you check out the inn you can actually find quite a lot of fun cameos.
Fras Siabi, forresten, Postmaster, even Pamelas family is staying here for a bit until their
tragic fate at Darrowshire.
The infinites have made illusions to prevent corrupted grain from being detected.
We use our Arcane Disrupor to dispell it and make sure that Arthas has plenty of reason
to purge the city.
Then we move in together, purging as we go.
None of the undead nor infinites will stand in our way of getting Arthas where he needs
to go.
An amazing chance to see this critical moment of Warcraft 3 play out in wow.
With Stratholme abandoned, the mindless undead and fires now ruled the ones busy streets.
It was a dark time for lordaeron, a time in which amazing heroes rose up to try and make
a stand.
Heroes like Alexandros Mograine and his legendary blade ‘Ashbringer’.
Named for its ability to slaughter the undead and leave nothing but ash in its wake.
While the Legion was eventually defeated at Mount Hyjal, the threat of the undead was
not so easily vanquished.
One day Alexandros, Dathrohan and several others they made their way into stratholme
to cleanse it, but the undead were waiting for them.
In the struggle, Dathrohan was seperated from his comrades and fell right into the hands
of the Dreadlord Balnazzar.
He did not just kill Dathrohan, he took over his body and maskt himself to infiltrate their
order and manipulate it from within.
This is how their organisation got infiltrated.
How the scarlet crusade was pushed further and further.
He also set to work on corrupting Renault Mograine, turning the son of Alexandros against
his father.
There was already a rift between them since his father favored Darion, his youngest, and
Balnazar prayed upon that darkness within Renaults soul convincing him to betray his
father in exchange for great power and prestige.
So it was that Renault convinced his father that Darion had been kidnapped by the undead
and taken to Stratholme.
With all haste Alexandros rode to the city right into a trap.
Countless undead were waiting for them there.
Mograine kept slicing them down until countless turned into only a few and even those few
fell before the Ashbringer.
The battle had been endless, Mograine was tired and he had dropped his weapon.
This was the oppertunity his son had been waiting for as Renault appeared, picked up
his fathers blade and stabbed him in the back.
Alexandros was betrayed by his own blood leading to him becoming one of the 4 horseman and
his son commander of the scarlet crusade.
“Invidels, they must be purified!”
The organisation would claim a portion of the fallen city meaning that it was seperating
our dungeon adventure between scarlet and undead side.
Now i was planning to cover all of stratholme into one single, but to my surprise thare’s
just so much to talk about...
We’ll continuie the story next week.
Pick up reight where we left it.
Enter stratholme and talk abotu the events of classic, cataclysm, some of the side events
that took place here.
But for now thank you very much for watching everyone.
I am curious though and i even check my wc3 lets play, it was suggrested back then...I
am cuious whaty you think.
When it comes to the choice arthas made about pruging stratholme.
Do you believe, with the info you have now, do you beleive he made the right call?
Do you believe he had any other option but to purge the city?
Could something with the kirin tor, could somethng have been done if they waited?
Or was lordaeron doomed to begin with, i really really would like to know.
So by all means leave your thoughts, leave your opinions in the comments down below.
As for me, you could decide to subscribe if you like my cideos.
LEave a like if you enjoyed this one...and until next time...see ya!