After delivering a daring attack into the heart of the Loyalist camp, the Holy Order prepares to settle in for a relaxing evening of watching the southern flank, whilst their allies deal with a Scourge problem. Something tells me they won’t be able to find that rest tonight, however…
Final day of the campaign in Northrend, after that, it’s back to the EK for us!
And tonight was a fateful finale for us. While our allies went to bring justice upon the Darkbringer, we stood back to defend Valiance Keep, and our fears became true as our long-hated enemies, the Rotgarde and Grim Gest invaded the Keep, and we had an amazing restricted RP PvP with them!
Thanks to Nathanael, Ortellus and all others who hosted the cool events of this campaign! As well as all the guilds and people we fought and organised the other side of them.
The Holy Order has returned to the city of the Stormwind to rest and recover over the Winter Veil(Holiday) season. If you see us about feel free to approach and strike up a merry conversation!
I hope everyone reading this wherever you are has a nice Christmas/Holidays!!!
As it’s now crested over to the 25th, we here at the Holy Order of Lordain wish everyone a very merry christmas! 2021 has been a great year for us, and we’re giving ourselves some time to breathe and spend it with family/friends. Expect more out of us in the new year!
I too wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy new year ahead for everyone, on behalf of myself and fellow Ordersmen!
We had a fine Christmas break, but more events and stories are ahead! Can’t wait to see what fate has in it’s sleeves for these devout followers of Divinity…
"Reth! Reth! Reth!"
The trogg writhed beneath the acolyte's grip, black blood and scintillating ash smearing across its boil-ridden hide. It protested fiercely but uselessly against the scalding dragonhide, against the fiery doom that awaited it. Dragged from the gloom of the holding pen and towards the infernal precipice into Azeroth's molten depths, the screeching creature was drowned out beneath the hoarse chanting of dwarven acolytes and the hissing of noxious gases that would greet it moments before the end.
"Reth! Reth! Reth!"
The unfortunate creature's wordless pleas, punctuated by broken phrases in the common tongue, fell upon deaf and uncaring ears. Its fate was sealed long ago, when the black iron fist connected with its thick, but breakable, skull. It was sealed when it awoke, bound by the legs, dragged through the subterranean field of its own kind, taken to be branded with the sigil of Sulfuron. From then, the nameless trogg, and dozens more of its kind, were little more than disposable vessels of soul and blood. The Living Flame demanded it be so.
"Reth! Reth! Reth!"
And it would be appeased, in vast and splendorous displays, distantly borne in the twilight days of the world's waking and brought into the molten light of dwarven caverns by the prowess of Thaurissan. Perched upon an aerie of steel above the fuming, molten maw of sacrifice, the Ninth Thane of Kol Ungor watched and listened and waited. With every snarling, thrashing trogg that plummeted into Azeroth's fiery underbelly, the tides of magic swelled to greater heights.
"Reth! Reth! Reth!"
Unseen they rose, breaking in waves against the crumbling, charred edges from which robed acolytes hurled fuel onto the fire. Even they, the sorcerous cabalists of the Firelord's devoted, recoiled in fear of the power that was waking in the depths, and retreated to the warded safety of their bunkers.
"Reth! Reth! Reth!"
Around his feet, the welling arcana pooled, and like liquid flame ignited the runes of warding that decorated the fingertip of dark iron. His hands rose, and the flames rose with them, quaking the deep mountain cavern with the fury of fire and rock entwinned.
"Burn! Burn! Burn!"
The Living Flame awoke at his command, rewarding the sacrifice of he and his with the unbridled fury of the mountain. Plumes of magma rocketed high into the towering magma tube, and pellets of basalt drew blood from he who stood, arms outstretched in triumph, in mindless adoration of the being, the entity that emerged from the sulfurous and steaming vapours. Pitiless eyes of embers formed to meet his gaze, and beneath their wrathful stare the Ninth Thane prostrated himself, for none may challenge the Living Flame...
To start off the new year, the Holy Order of Lordain journeyed into the Burning Steppes, searching for a strange ritual, alongside looking for a missing paladin and squire. Having recovered the paladin and an encrypted orcish letter, it looks like the Order gets closer and closer to tackling the orcish threat head on!
A month before the turning of the year, the Order, freshly returned from their victories over Diathonix, prepared to embark upon the time-honoured tradition known as the Trial of Piety. Starting from the abbey of Northshire, the knight-aspirants and followers of the Order would walk bare-foot to the Path of Uther, consecrating graves forgotten and cherished along the way.
Before they embarked upon this pilgrimage, however, they encountered a handful of orcish scouts on the edges of Elwynn Forest, each of which carried an obsidian pendant with the image of a mountain crossed with spears on them; a source of great confusion and frustration, for no records existed of such a clan or tribe in both Northshire and Stormwind. High and low, the Order searched for some indication as to who this enigmatic foe was, consisting of orcs and trolls, yet apparently owing no allegiance to the Horde, unless cleverly disguised.
Weeks passed with little word on the matter, and the orcs were assumed to belong to some fringe warband. The Order travelled to Northrend and did battle with the Horde proper there, and with the loyalists of the Banshee Queen, and afterwards returned to Stormwind for a much-needed rest of the Winter Veil festival.
* * *
Shortly before the dawn of the new year, the Order approached a blacksmith in Stormwind that was known to them - a Dark Iron, no less. Presenting the pendant to the blacksmith, and with a little coin to grease the cogs, Calaghan Cokefist reluctantly answered the questions of one of the Order's rangers, directing them towards an ambassador of the Dark Irons in Ironforge. He would not speak any further on the matter of the pendant, nor the icon that he clearly recognised, for it was not his place to do so.
Untrusting of this ambassador, Kurhrim, the Order attempted to glean what information they could from the official, but found the task to be difficult. Three of the Order's knight-aspirants were dispatched to speak with Kurhrim, who, upon finally being shown the obsidian pendants, sent them to deliver a cryptic letter to an associate of his elsewhere in the city.
Unbeknownst to the knight-aspirants, they had been sent on a trial. The ambassador's associate, a skull-keeping warlock by the name of Pyrox, immediately turned upon them, flying into a rage after reading the letter and theatrically cursing the ambassador of sending goons to retrieve his own head. Quickly subdued before he could put up a proper fight, the knight-aspirants attempted to interrogate the dwarf, who refused to speak on where his allegiance lay, or if he or the ambassador were in league with the orcs that had been seen near Northshire.
While Pyrox was quietly smuggled out of the city by one knight-aspirant for further questioning, the remaining two returned to Kurhrim, who duly informed them that he was aware of his sorcerous associate's whereabouts and all else that transpired in the skull-adorned storehouse. They were subsequently dismissed, told only that they would be contacted soon...
* * *
Returning to the Kingdom of Stormwind to join the rest of the Order in Lakeshire, the knight-aspirants went empty-handed, save for the subdued Dark Iron. It wasn't long before they were contacted, as Kurhrim promised, though the method of communication was far from a welcome one. The next day, the militia approached the Order to inform them of a trogg - of all things - requesting them across the bridge, whose life was only spared by the militiamen by virtue of the fact that it carried a letter and wore a belt with the sigil of Shadowforge City emblazoned upon it.
Reluctantly obliging by the instruction on the letter, merely "Follow", the Order trailed after the trogg into the hills to the south of Lakeshire, where at last their questions would be answered.
Atop the ridgeline, the Ninth Thane of Kol Ungor awaited them, clad in seething dark iron plate. Named and styled Angrune the Blackener, he at last revealed that the warband the Order sought was no other than the Charspear Legion, the unlawful inhabitants of the thane's own ancestral home of Kol Ungor. To the Order, he offered a deal - that they would aid him in ridding the dwarven hold, deep in the bowels of Blackrock Mountain, of this orcish menace, in exchange for leaving the spoils of war solely to him.
What lay in Kol Ungor, the Blackener did not say, but he was adamant in the knowledge that only he possessed the knowledge of how to reach the subterranean stronghold. First, they would need one of the runic keys to bypass the stronghold's defences, however, and that would require them to catch the Charspear Legion out in the open, in the ashswept wastes beneath Blackrock itself...
An order of knights that are blast to fight with whenever we can see them. We wear more gold though. Great to rp with!
An order of Knights, with the power of the Light behind them.
Not nearly as cool as necromancy, plague, ice and blood behind knights… But if they fall, they can join us in arms.
A few days after their meeting with Angrune, the Order rode northwards to investigate Blackrock Pass, where reports of strange lights at the border had reached them in Lakeshire. Just beyond the blackened gates, they encountered an injured paladin and his quarry, a trio of slain orcs, among which was found an encrypted orcish message, and the now-familiar pendants of the Charspear Legion.
Though it took some days for the message to be decrypted, the Order did not stand idle. In the ashen wastes, they encountered the vanguard forces of the Charspear Legion in earnest - orcs, trolls, goblins and even tauren numbering among their scouting parties. Other than their pendants, there was little to identify their forces; their armour was mismatched, ranging from everything from the armour and colours of the Kor'kron to those of the Warsong Expedition, and to less identifiable, more generic garb.
The Order was unsuccessful in finding one of the runic keys that the Blackener had told them of the week before. Among the belongings of the Charspear were merely fragments of dull yellow gemstones and rocky shell-like fragments, but nothing of dwarven design. Their battles were not entirely without intrigue, however, as once the letter had been decrypted they were presented with the opportunity of interrupting a parley between the forces of the Charspear Legion and remnants of the Dark Horde.
Taking the opportunity, the Order crushed the orcs and trolls present at the parley, sparing the last remaining warlock of the Blackrock delegation for a few moments to question him. The warlock revealed to them that the Charspear Legion served a would-be-warchief named Drok Charhide, who in turn had long since refused to serve the the successors of Thrall.
Searching those that had attended the parley, the Order learned of a stronghold on the slopes of a mountain east of Blackrock itself, and a day later they assaulted the stronghold's gates. Finding it surprisingly empty therein, and with no commanding officer present, the Order's trail seemingly came to a dead end that night, though the absence of the Blackener over the week would not be without reason...
This Order of Holy Knights, is a damn blast to fight against every time.
When you see them coming ahead, you know that you are in for an energetic and fantastic fight!
And I hear they are a pretty based spot for all want-to-be-knight Roleplayers!
So definitely check them out if you are looking for that!
The Order is back on the road after our small campaign in the deep places of Blackrock, currently we’re around Dun Morogh and Ironforge if seeking us out is what you want!
The guild name is a subtle joke. The shop is called Holy Order of Lordain after “Lordain’s Feed & Seed”, where feed and seed both end in the sound “-eed”, thus rhyming with the person of legend. The sign says that the shop was “Formerly Chuck’s”, implying that the two words beginning with “F” and “S” would have ended with “-uck”, rhyming with “Chuck”. So, when Chuck owned the shop, it would have been called- well, you don’t need me to break ToS.
While the Order returned to Lakeshire to partake in a tournament, to further their image and cause, the Ninth Thane of Kol Ungor did not rest. His cabalist allies tracked the five orcs which had departed the Charspear stronghold on the mountain slopes, and he personally descended upon the ashen wastes to send them to their vile makers. The day after the tournament had finished, the Order was once again approached by Angrune, who brought with him one of the runic keys of his ancestral home, taken from the bodies of the orcs that had been tracked.
With the key to Kol Ungor in the possession of their Dark Iron associate, the Order traversed the fiery cavern of Blackrock Mountain and made for a secluded crag on its northwestern slope. Fighting their way through the Charspear Legion's scouts, they came upon the entrance to the Blackchar Caverns, a system of winding, deep lava passages running to the roots of Blackrock itself.
Angrune led the way through those passageways, recalling better times when they would be travelled, and soon the blackstone tunnels led to a wider and more open expanse, situated outside a solid stone bunker. Here the Order rested, but not before encountering a citrine fury of the earth itself, a towering, monolithic elemental of granite and crystal-stone. With its defeated, they stood at the brink of Kol Ungor - a short distance from the outer reaches of the stronghold, where it was unknown what would lie in wait for them...
After a short side story with Angrune, the order is back on track for an epic story with plenty of friends involved! All this, on this season of “Crusading with the Order!”
After a short rest, the Thane once again led the way into the blackstone caverns, winding ever deeper into the roots of Blackrock Mountain. In the dim light that they cast upon the walls, the Order spotted the wrought iron cages as they passed - hundreds of them, line along the walls and hanging from the ceiling of the cavern. A reminder of the dark past of the Dark Iron dwarves, and an indication of the one that led them onwards.
In time, the Order stepped into an arena, whose spectator ring above was warded by pilfered dwarven magics. This, Thane Angrune told them, was at the outer edge of the stronghold of Kol Ungor, and here they caught a glimpse of its inhabitants - the orcs, trolls, tauren and goblins that they had slowly be whittling down over the prior weeks. Among them, the dark, tall and foreboding figure of their leader, Drok Charhide, stood upon the spectator's ring, issuing his taunts to the dwarven thane that had fled his home so many years ago.
With little choice but to fight, the Order came face-to-face with a captured yeti, some fifteen feet tall, whose icy breath was no less deadly in the depths of the volcano than it was on the slopes of Dun Morogh. After dispatching it, Stone Guard Brukkor, an ogre adjutant of the Charspear warlord, personally came to dispatch the Order, with the aid of the legion's warshaman to flood the arena with magma.
The ogre, instead, met a fiery, ugly end in the magma, and the Order were quick to exploit the open passageway to the spectator's ring. While they did battle with the unsuspecting occupants of the bunkhouse adjacent to the gladiatorial ring, the Ninth Thane called upon the Living Flame to incinerate those that were readying their weapons on the spectators ring above.
After a short rest, the Order set out once more, across the spectator's ring and the carpet of blackened, charred bodies left in the wake of the Thane's sorcery. Just beyond, they came upon the vast chasm that led to the stronghold proper, the bridge upon which the Thane and the Warlord had last done battle. As they approached the gates of Kol Ungor, their foe came to meet them, with the warlord at their head. A vicious battle ensued, but as the battle raged on it became evident why Drok Charhide had managed to best the acolytes of the Living Flame before.
Casting Angrune aside, Drok turned his attention to the Order proper. The orc held a fierce sway over the elements, and the mountain trembled at his asking; the fiery depths beneath the span of granite upon which they stood roared in defiance of the pests that trod upon it. With just moments to spare, the shaman-warlord of the Charspear Legion was slain. For Angrune, retribution had come at last. Aided to his feet by a knight-aspirant of the Order as the warlord was brought low, the dwarven thane mustered his strength and charged the orc down. The Blackener, the ancestral warhammer from which the Thane drew his name, blazed with a dark fury, and as the last hammerblow was dealt the Warlord was instantly reduced to a glassy black fragments, stretched out some twenty feet along the causeway.
With the death of its warlord, the Charspear Legion was no more. What few remained in Kol Ungor, that had not been slain by the Living Flame or during the battle outside its gates, fled from the mountain. Whether they were slain by the Dark Iron patrols was unknown to the Order. The scavenge of the upper levels of the stronghold was left to those that had aided the Ninth Thane.
Among two decades of loot and plunder was an old elven blade, which was taken by one of the Order's rangers. Another found a particularly interesting ingot of metal - arcanite, no less, which the Ninth Thane demanded to be handed back to him, but eventually relented as payment. And lastly, a letter, written in the final days of Charhide's life of war and raiding, addressed to a junior orc of the Charspear Legion and imploring them to leave the mountain, to take 'the Scion' elsewhere, across the sea. Who this Scion was, where it was to be taken, or if the orc had even made it out alive remained unknown.
The Order’s long since left Blackrock Mountain and Kol Ungor behind (I’m just behind on writing up the details - things happen very quickly!). Now we’re on the war path, back in the northern reaches of the Eastern Kingdom, with our eyes set on all of our many, many enemies, most of all the heretical Blood Knights of Silvermoon. There really is no better time to join the Order!
I saw those guys staying close to Uther Tomb… They looked like they had some beef with the undead following the Banshee Queen. I hope they broke their legs.
While the upper levels of the stronghold remained secure, the lower levels of Kol Ungor and the state they lay in were still unknown. The Great Hall lay below them, wherein the Ninth Thane's treasury was also expected to lie in wait. After gathering their strength and reforging the rune-keys that controlled the doors of the great dwarven fort, they Order set off with Thane Angrune at the helm, down into the depths of the hold.
Through the dark and lifeless slaveforged halls of Kol Ungor the Order traversed, until at least they came before a great iron door. At the Thane's command, the doors to the Great Hall swung open, and revealed to them the fiery secret that the Charspear Legion had enchained there.
Towering high over their heads, the black wyrm Apocion, the Wyrm of Kol Ungor, reared back, and at the onset of battle the Order was awash in dragonflame. Without pause for thought nor safety, the Order - from sworn crusaders to newcomer-followers - charged forth to meet the chained wyrm. The battle raged on with greater ferocity than the Order had faced yet, matching even the great magics of Kelmir and the demonic fury of Diathonix, for this was a black dragon and a commander of flame and earth.
As Apocion's fury grew, magma spilled into the Great Hall, covering the floor of the dwarven hall and forcing the Order to high ground. The wyrm weakened nevertheless, assailed by the Holy Light, even in the darkeest depths of Blackrock Mountain, until the ground hardened once more in the advent of its last stand. The heat of the dragon's flaming hide was so intense that many of the Order slipped into unconsciousness in its presence, yet, finally, the last of the Charspear Legion's great powers, and secrets, was laid to rest.
It was in the hall of his forefathers that Angrune, once more the Thane of Kol Ungor, finally conceded - beyond his stubborn dwarven pride and quiet resentment of surface-dwellers - that he needed the Order's aid. As such, he departed a portion of his wealth unto the Order, at the requests of those who were present for the death of Apocion. For most, powerful enchantments and works of dwarven craftsmanship were needed. Others received unfinished works - weapons and armour only lacking in finishign touches. And for one elven ranger of the Order, an ancient, petrified leaf of great natural potency; a mystery yet to be unravelled.
Thus the quest to destroy the Charspear Legion was at an end, and the dwarven fort of Kol Ungor was returned to its rightful owner - for better or for worse. By the Light, it was so.
Thus concludes the story of Kol Ungor, a mini-campaign hosted at the start of the month, in between larger and longer plots. We’re already well underway with our next storyline, the next step on a years-long epic that began at the end of BfA, and one that’s certainly going to be FLAMING hot 
Join today to get involved in what promises to be one of a battle!
The Order’s been on the road ever since Kol Ungor, travelling further and further north. We’ve clashed with the loyalists twice now and it’s been a blast, can’t wait to see what’s in store for this next month!