I think that it’s worth pointing out that some narratives and aesthetics are definitely more in line with one faction in particular, rather than both of them.
For example, in the case of Anduin, despite the fact that he’s a neutral character now who is no longer associated with the Alliance and is just one of the generic Avengers of Azeroth, his story of renewing his connection to the Light while assisting the Arathi with the defending of Hallowfall against an endless tide of vile enemies felt very Alliance, in terms of both aesthetic and narrative. I was able to appreciate it and enjoy it even as a Horde fan, because of all of the love that’s clearly gone into Hallowfall, but it undeniably feels like an Alliance story to me.
The brief adventure of Lilian Voss, on the other hand, felt very Horde from my perspective, not only because it featured a primarily Horde character but because it also had a very Horde message about overcoming curses and making the best of a grim situation. It’s a good story, only marred by the jarring past of Lilian Voss as a character.
Sometimes there is overlap and it’s difficult to define what sort of stories are clearly Alliace-themed and which stories are Horde-themed, but hopefully you can see why some of us consider this expansion very Alliance-centric, even though a lot of the cast are now technically neutral Avengers of Azeroth.
I wonder out of all the infinite timelines out there, if there is one where we have Warchief Garrosh Hellscream of the Horde duking it out with High King Othmar Garithos of the Alliance…
Shog here, alt-posting because it refuses to let me post otherwise.
The recent short stories covered by Heartlands are relevant to this topic. Lots of lore developments relating to faction tension in there, and a lot of information very important to Stromgarde RP. A few key details:
Summit at Boralus
In the absence of Danath Trollbane, his niece, Marran Trollbane, is in charge of Stromgarde and has called upon the aid of the 7th Legion Auxiliary.
Drawn to the Arathi Highlands because of its similarities to Nagrand, Geya’rah has led the Mag’har to Hammerfall.
Under her command, the Kor’kron now train at Hammerfall. No mention of their previous war crimes.
Hoping to call upon these forces to aid in the battle for Khaz Algar, Jaina and Thrall go to meet with Geya’rah and Marran.
They discover that a skirmish has occurred, with some of the Kor’kron being ambushed by the 7th Legion Auxiliary, though both sides incur losses, six dead humans, six dead orcs. A human ambusher manages to shoot Thrall with an arrow before fleeing.
Echoes of the Past
Jaina is outright denied entry into Stromgarde as long as she’s with Thrall. He eventually leaves to go and speak with Geya’rah.
Jaina is viewed with suspicion by the people of Stromgarde. When she talks to Marran, Marran believes that Jaina will take the 7th Legion Auxiliary away, leave Stromgarde vulnerable and allow the Horde to bring ruin to Stromgarde.
Still wounded, Thrall passes out on his way to Hammerfall but is located by an orcish patrol.
Bloodlines
Thrall wakes up at Hammerfall and meets with Geya’rah, Talgar, the Kor’kron general, and Eitrigg. Eitrigg wants peace, but Geya’rah insists that under Marran, Stromgarde has become more aggressive.
Geya’rah believes that Stromgarde wants to claim Go’Shek Farm, and in return she wants to raze Stromgarde.
Thrall apparently doesn’t know about Geya’rah being an AU version of him, though Geya’rah does and so does Aggra. Bit dumb.
Jaina had sent a letter to Danath, but it’s intercepted by an archer under Marran’s orders.
Marran skins a Kor’kron wolf while speaking with Jaina and declares that the Arathi Highlands belong to humanity and humanity alone. When Jaina disagrees, she has her archer - Zatacia, who shot Thrall and intercepted Jaina’s messenger - knocked out Jaina with a poisoned dart.
Marran’s Choice
Geya’rah and Thrall bond and make up and he tries to convince her to pursue a more peaceful path, but they’re interrupted by a Stromic offensive.
Jaina recovers from the poison far sooner than intended and is able to teleport away.
There’s a pitched battle, Mag’har and Kor’kron versus Stromic forces and 7th Legion Auxiliary.
Jaina tries to use a water elemental to disrupt the battle, but Geya’rah sees her as aiding the Alliance and tries to attack her, only to be swept away.
Battle of Go’Shek Farm
Gey’arah is swept so far away that she ends up at a human farm, where she is viewed with fear and seen as a bloodthirsty raider due to Marran’s propaganda. Geya’rah realises that stooping to Marran’s level would perpetuate a cycle of hatred.
The Mag’har and Kor’kron are clearly winning the battle and Jaina confronts Marran. However, Geya’rah returns in time to call for a ceasefire and peaceful coexistence. The battle ends.
Marran swears to keep on fighting for humanity, but Danath Trollbane returns and has her incarcerated. Horde and Alliance both meet inside Stromgarde and prepare to send aid to Khaz Algar.
However, Thrall fears that while the Horde and Alliance are off fighting Xal’atath and her minions, the seeds of hatred will continue to grow in the Arathi Highlands and that Marran’s supporters still remain and still share her views.
Zatacia, the spymaster who was able to severely wound Thrall and incapacitate Jaina, was also able to escape, but Danath will try to hunt her along with Marran’s other supporters.
Generally an enjoyable read, that confronts a lot of my issues, even if it’s in third party media.
Good to see a story in which Thrall deals with issues other than elemental incompetence.
Good to see a story in which the Horde heavily features and that acknowledges the Horde’s issues.
Good to see a story in which the wrongs of Alliance characters are acknowledged and not just brushed under the table.
Good to see that while skirmishes still occur, they aren’t met with outright approval and the powers that be do try to shut them down.
Not so sure about the Mag’har deciding to settle in the bloody Arathi Highlands of all places.
It’s a shame that they don’t explore what happened with the Kor’kron and why it’s back to being an elite military organisation.
The situation was resolved a little too neatly with Geya’rah drinking the coexistence Kool-Aid a little too quickly for my taste, especially since this is supposed to take place before the reinforcements arrive at Khaz Algar and when she arrives, she’s rather combative towards the Alliance.
So, not a perfect story but a step in the right direction, for a lot of reasons.
Thrall was dumb enough to go “a barren desert, this is where the Horde needs to be!” but thankfully his AU version was smart enough to see the value in arable land.
Arable land in the ancestral homeland of the most widespread and influential race in the setting who have historically harboured a rather negative attitude towards the Horde.
Not all that wise. They could’ve followed the Windtotem tauren to the Ohn’ahran Plains instead.
It does feel a tad bit contrived. I’m torn because I do want the faction war - or at least skirmishes - to return but orcs once again intruding on territory that doesn’t belong to them just makes them into the instigator.
Let’s just lay out the facts here, the Arathi Highlands have been divided between the Alliance and the Horde ever since World of Warcraft first came out, with a lot of back and forth across the game’s history.
A balance between Refuge Pointe (and the League of Arathor) and Hammerfall (and the Defilers) for the first three expansions.
Leaning in the Horde’s favour from Cataclysm to Warlords of Draenor, with Galen Trollbane conquering Stromgarde for the Forsaken from Galen’s Fall and the Alliance making no major gains in the region.
With Legion, Galen Trollbane declares an independent undead Stromgarde which is quickly dismantled by the Deathlord of the Ebon Blade.
Battle for Azeroth has the Alliance claim Stromgarde while the Horde founds the settlement of Ar’gorok, which is razed after the Fourth War is over.
Ever since then, the layout of the Arathi Highlands has been the Alliance owning Refuge Pointe and Stromgarde and Dabyrie’s Farmstead, while the Horde owns Hammerfall and Go’Shek Farm.
Based on the information provided by the story, the Mag’har are not seizing new territory, they’re just inhabiting Horde territory in the Highlands, which has been Horde territory for around twenty IC years at this point. They operate from the settlement of Hammerfall and they defend Go’Shek Farm.
The Mag’har are only intruding on Alliance territory if you sympathise with Marran and believe her claims that the entire Arathi Highlands belong to humanity by default and that the Horde must be expelled from the region.
It’s a bit questionable of the Mag’har to intentionally settle in such a heavily contested region, but they do have the right to exist and live in Horde territory in the Highlands.
Considering that the kingdom of Stromgarde dissolved and the majority of the region was lawless for at least a decade, I wouldn’t call the Horde’s presence in the region ‘occupation,’ at least not in a negative sense.
If I want to be cheeky, I can even state that Hammerfall was originally an internment camp, established by the Alliance itself as a legal settlement intended for the housing of orcs, so it’s just being used for its original purpose.
It’s a little different when one group seizes the territory of another group that is still extant. Hammerfall and Go’Shek Farm were just the Horde taking advantage of free real estate in the absence of any authority in the region, while the Stormpike Clan wanted to take Alterac Valley from an active Frostwolf Clan and Tiragarde Keep was intentionally established as a foothold within Horde territory.
It’s a case of squatters’ rights, essentially. Hammerfall and Go’Shek have been Horde territory for long enough that an entire generation of orcs have probably been born, raised and came of age in the Arathi Highlands. The presence of the Mag’har is more questionable, but I’d say it’s morally wrong to expel the orcs who have been in the Highlands for decades, and maybe for their whole lives, because Marran believes that the entire region is Stromic property, despite Stromgarde not really existing as a political entity for around fifteen years.
Ok, I get what you’re saying, but the Kingdom wasn’t non-existent, the League of Arator still fought for Stromgarde, even if they lost the capital for a while.
The Kingdom of Gilneas didn’t cease existing after the Forsaken drove them out either.
And I know the situation isn’t entirelly the same, but the Stromic were pushed out of Stromgarde (and large parts of the Arathi Highlands) by the Horde mostly, no matter if Galen declared independance aftewards!
It’s also why Galen Trollbane rejoined the Alliance, the pressure from the Horde, Syndicate, Boulderfist and forest troll attacks.
Also, I really should reread Exploring Azeroth EK and that Before the Storm book!
The Horde didn’t have a significant presence in the Arathi Highlands to begin with. Like the rest of the northern half of the continent, it was lawless and effectively post-apocalyptic. The Witherbark, Boulderfist and Syndicate played a much larger part in the destruction of Stromgarde as a kingdom than the Horde, that’s why all of those groups had a presence in Stromgarde and multiple settlements throughout the zone, while the Horde just had a repurposed internment camp and a farm.
Let’s also not forget that the biggest factor of Stromgarde’s fall was Galen killing and usurping his father. There’s very little to suggest that the Horde played any part in the destruction of this kingdom, they just settled one corner of the region after Stromgarde had fallen. All that was left of the kingdom were the remnants that occupied Refuge Pointe and later became the League of Arathor, and Galen’s besieged enclave in the city itself.
The truth of the matter is that both sides have valid points.
The Arathi Highland is not only the ancestral home of the humans, but for many humans who are still alive, it is the home where they were born and raised and where they once lived before circumstances forced them out.
The Arathi Highlands is also the abode of plenty of Horde, mainly orcs, who have lived there for an entire generation and consider the region their home. It’s not just a military occupation, a lot of them probably feel like they belong there.
The Mag’har have less right to be there than the long-term Horde residents of the Arathi Highlands, but the people of Hammerfall and Go’Shek are free to invite others to live alongside them, as long as they don’t use it as justification for expansionism.
It’s a complicated situation and the only sensible and sane solution is peaceful coexistence, it’s just a bit of a shame that Geya’rah arrived at that conclusion so quickly, as it douses the potential conflict and intrigue that could’ve come from this scenario.
No point in arguing “who belongs there more,” the estranged natives who have now returned and consider Stromgarde their ancestral home, or the settlers who arrived twenty years ago in the absence of the natives and made homes and families together in that time frame.
No matter what conclusion you come to, both groups now have a right to exist in the Arathi Highlands to some degree and it would be morally wrong to try and remove either of them.
Honestly my one gripe. I wish they used Eitrigg or something, he’s an Orc with a tie to the Humans through Tirion but he’s also experienced and knows the concentration camps the Orcs and their children were kept in. Gey’arah’s political gambit of a ‘land claim’ is quite silly to pull during a peace treaty period (unsure if this is canonical political stupidity on her part or if they just thought land claims were something you can just [do]).
Invoking a claim to land is a very perilous and tense political maneuver that, almost always, results in significantly increased hostilities and tensions between the feuding states and it has lingering effects for generations to come afterwards (Europe still has many land claims dilemmas going on!).
Eitrigg (or other Orcs perhaps raised in Hammerfall) making the case instead that they required the land and it was appropriate reparation for the (essentially) enslavement of their people would’ve been a much more deft political option. There’s a lot more capacity for interpretation and discussion and open communication over such a claim, and it allows for a greater degree of diplomatic interaction between states.
The Mag’har are really just a big oddity here, they have none of the history, ties or baggage. They’ve been here 5~ years, 2 of which they tried to help burn Arathi to the ground. It just feels a bit odd. The Arathi Highlands being noted as geographically similar to Nagrand is also…weird? Because it’s a highlands, I live in a Highlands and I wouldn’t really say Nagrand is geographically similar in… many, if any, ways.
Concept Art Outland Nagrand? Maybe, there’s some rocky similarities, sure.
But rolling flat greenery and wheat-fields as far as the eye can see Nagrand from Safe Haven? Definitely not.
Not fully related to the current conversation, but it was interesting to read in the latest book that Alliance players’ experience of Brennadam is canon (Horde murdering defenceless farmers), while Horde players’ experience of Sagehold is canon (It was taken over by Void when the Horde attacked).
