Azeroth: The Silent War and the Illusion of Peace [Warcraft AU Worldbuilding]

[Kylia Quilor]

Mathias Shaw: Chancellor, I understand the House of Nobles is your bailiwick, but Defias sympathizers are mine, and Lord Vestergaunt is in possession of correspondence with Van Cleef himself. So yes, we're going to arrest him when he shows up for the session of the House of Nobles that starts in two hours.
Katrana Prestor: If you start sending in your goons into the House we'll have a revolt on our hands, Shaw. No armed retainers of the Crown are allowed in the House unless they're members of the Royal Guard in the presence of the King or a member of the Royal Family.
Mathias Shaw: My people don't need weapons to arrest someone, Chancellor. Something to remember. In case this sort of situation arises again, of course.

There is something rotten in the state of Stormwind.

It isn't anything so obvious.

One of the defining facts of the Ghostlands Pact is that the dysfunction endemic to all four members is on full display - in Quel'Thalas golems walk the streets reminding everyone of the draconian laws in place while magisters openly discuss controlled breeding programs (even if the Lord Regent has yet to support such measures). In Lordaeron, Queen Sylvanas is practically an object of worship by many, and the Kingdom invest vasts sums of resources in it's military while the domestic sides of the government scramble for every scrap they can get. In Alterac, rebels and dissidents are put on display outside of the cities and towns. Gibbets with prisoners left for a week or more at a time as penalty for minor crimes, heads on pikes weeks on end for those who really piss off the occupiers of Hillsbrad. Even Jintha'alor, with it's fractious, barely stable politics is quite obvious about what's wrong.

In Stormwind, the veneer is still there.

In Stormwind Keep, in the beating heart of the Kingdom, everything seems fine. The House of Nobles meets and debates, ruling in concert with the King. The King may be still mourning his wife, but he is a vigorous and active man, and while he enjoys his pleasures - a good hunt, a nice feast, a good bout of drinking - nothing is to excess while people starve in the city below - indeed, starvation isn't a significant large-scale problem for the Kingdom as a whole or any large segment of it at the moment. The Kingdom has a large standing army, the largest of any human power these days, and the economy bustles. Stormwind is free of large portions of it's debts, and their remaining creditors have little reason to want to press Stormwind hard.

And yet.

There is something rotten in the state of Stormwind.

King Varian, though he still can be seen regularly hearing cases, and he maintains an active management of the social life expected of a King - feasting, inspecting the troops, going on hunts with favored courtiers, touring the capital city to oversee various projects, making speeches from the Royal Balcony or at the House of Nobles, and other visible duties of the Crown.

Still, it is well known that Varian rarely bothers himself with the actual details of governance. While he is not the first king to primarily rule by delegation, Varian is notable for just how checked out he is from overseeing the day to day management of the realm - none of his forebears in the Wrynn Dynasty have ever been so detached. In a few matters, mainly related to Stormwind's relationship with the other member sof the Alliance, Varian takes a direct hand, but otherwise, he trusts the Royal Administration to see to most matters, and rarely attends council meetings. He even rarely bothers to actually affix the Royal Seal to most things.

Of course, he doesn't actually need to, thanks to Katrana Prestor.

The Royal Administration, a catch-all term for the non-military, non-SI:7 domestic administration of the Kingdom, is led by the Keeper of the Second Seal, a position defined entirely by the King trusting the holder of the Second Seal with said seal. Under Stormwind Law, any document relating to any matter relating to the non-military domestic affairs of the Kingdom that possesses the Second Seal shall be treated as having the force of the Royal Seal unless overridden by the King.

Historically speaking, the Second Seal was created to address the growth of the Royal Administration as the kingdom grew larger, and management of Redridge, Duskwood and the Gnoll Marches added new layers of complexity to the bureaucracy. It was no longer practical to require the Royal Seal to go on every document, but no king would be so foolish as to just hand the Seal off to anyone.

But it was always meant for mid-level things, nothing truly important.

Under Varian, that has changed - the vast, vast majority or edicts, laws, declarations, decrees and rulings issued from Stormwind Keep bear the Second Seal, and the bearer of that Seal very rarely has to worry about being overridden by the King, because she is not just trusted with the Second Seal.

She is trusted in the King's most intimate moments... being that the Keeper of the Second Seal is Katrana Prestor. And Katrana Prestor, in addition to also holding the title of Chancellor and Speaker of the House of Nobles, is King Varian's all but officially acknowledged mistress.

To wear so many hats, to be given such extensive authority over the domestic affairs of the Kingdom and management of Stormwind's foreign relations, would normally be unthinkable. It's certainly never happened in the history of the Kingdom, and it's even more unthinkable that the woman would also be elected leader of the House of Nobles, and yet.

Katrana, vivacious, clever, beautiful, patron of the arts Katrana wears all three hats and more. The Nobles don't object to her centralization of power, as they largely like and trust her as their voice to the Crown. Varian certainly holds no issue, trusting her completely. And even most at court have been bent to her side, or hold their tongues in the face of her popularity.

Always seeming to know the right thing to say at any time, Katrana is beloved by many of the Stormwind Court, hangers on and holders of real positions alike. Her monopolization of power does lead to some resentments, but she has done much to sooth wounded egos where she can, and affords honors and titles to those who might have had a shot at either of her bureaucratic jobs, but can't because she holds them both.

Very little happens in Stormwind Keep that she doesn't hear about, and she is a regular at parties and galas across the city, easily taking center stage, controlling any conversation she steps into. While it would be wrong to say she gets people eating out of her hand, she certainly sometimes seems like she is doing just that.

Even those who don't personally find themselves swayed by her appeal, have to admit that when you talk to her, the intensity of her personality is hard to resist. She seems to have a unique ability to use her words to transport those who listen to her to another world, as it were, convincing even skeptics that she may have a point - those who disagree with her usually find themselves doing so only when they've had some time to reflect away from her.

Or so the stories bandied around court say.

And to further silence her detractors, Katrana manages her hats well. Few would call her the greatest to hold any of them, in the history of Stormwind, but she has hardly failed or fallen flat on her face in the process of performing her duties.

As Speaker of the House of Nobles, Katrana has done much to help keep the Crown's agenda on track, passing various easements of trade laws in line with the renewal of the Alliance, supporting the formal repudiation of debts owed to the Bank of Lordaeron, and expanding the Navy. She has also served to block several measures that the Crown opposes, like ones to redistribute tax burdens in ways that don't suit the Crown's needs (those are perennial favorite in the House, as the Nobles are always trying to find ways to reduce how much they pay, but it usually involves one group of nobles trying to foist the taxes on a different group) or attempts by the Redridge and Duskwood Nobles to reduce the ability of the Crown to provide proper oversight over them.

She has had some notable failures as Speaker, however - several laws that would expand the remit of SI:7 to allow them to better deal with the Defias Brotherhood have failed1​, as have several attempts to expand the army, acquire funding to test new weapons and the maintenance of certain roads used only by the Army has gotten shockingly lax in recent years.

At least there has not yet been any failure to properly pay the Army in full and on time - even the most tax averse nobles are unwilling to take that risk while the Dark Horde lurks to the north.

As Chancellor, she has managed to step between Varian and foreign ambassadors when the King lets his emotions get the better of him - especially with the Gurubashi League and the Horde, but also with Theramore (the one member of the Alliance where Varian's hands-on approach with the Alliance creates more problems than solutions).

On the other hand, Katrana has been unable to actually get the Gurubashi League to agree to move their troops back from the Border (freeing up troops that could be moved to deal with the Dark Horde) without ceding more of the Gnoll Marches than Stormwind is willing to agree to, despite extensive negotiations over the last year and change, and both Lordaeron and Alterac have nearly withdrawn their embassies entirely as a result of meetings between Katrana and the ambassadors. In both cases, Katrana has successfully blamed the recalcitrant and uncooperative Alteraci and Lordaeronic ambassadors, rather than any failings of herself, but not everyone agrees - Katrana's opinions of both Alterac and Lordaeron are well known, even if she supposedly doesn't bring them up around those embassies or their members.

As Keeper of the Second Seal, Katrana has probably the most middling record. She, like most Keepers, staffed various openings with people that now owe her for their positions, and she has had no major failures in either her appointees or her actions. And yet, it would not be wrong to say she has had no major successes. Katrana can point to failures on the part of various infrastructure projects, internal trade and the Marshalls as being the fault of the Defias rather than anything that is her fault. And there is truth to that, but when it comes to the domestic side of things, Katrana seems to both lack imagination, and lack a willingness to let her subordinates handle things without micromanagement. While no major issues have arisen, it has led to delays and misdirected orders here and there, as the left and right hands find themselves acting in opposition.

Katrana has managed to keep her detractors at bay through accurately pointing out all the things working against her, and reminding them that she has the trust of the King, which is something few have, and cutting down the prospects of her potential opposition. And, despite any flaws and failings, she remains such the belle of the court in Stormwind Keep that forming any large scale coherent faction against her has proven to be very difficult.

Of course, even Katrana's detractors can only argue that she is a social climber that has gotten well over her head, taking more duties and responsibilities than she can or should. They think, at worst, she's ambitious and perhaps seeks to bear Varian an heir that can she can replace Anduin with. While she is a skilled politicker who earned the position as Speaker of the House of Nobles, and even the role of Chancellor is one she's largely managed well (largely), the Keeper of the Second Seal is a job that her detractors most want to see her driven out of.

Unfortunately, they haven't managed to push her out yet.

The person with the best chance to convince the King to have her removed from the job is also the one person who no one else in Stormwind's court would ever voluntarily ally with, of course, and that is Mathias Shaw.

A common-born man of unknown origins (there are as many stories about his past as there are rooms in Stormwind Keep, and if even half of them are true, Shaw had quite the eventual twenty years in his first ten years of life) the head of SI:7, Spymaster of Stormwind, is a man who is only rarely seen at Court, though with his distinctive beard and moustache, along with that particular shade of red hair, Shaw is quite distinctive.

When he wants to be.

Reputed to be a master of disguise as well as everything else, some members of the House of Nobles live their lives in semi-constant paranoia that one of their servants is Shaw in disguise, and SI:7 in general has a reputation for placing agents within the 'invisible' segments of society, including the serving staff. Of course, how much of that reputation is spread by SI:7 is an open question.

Whatever his past and the true scope of his operations, no one has been able to argue - with evidence, at least - that Mathias Shaw is anything but a loyal, dutiful and intensely capable Spymaster for Stormwind. Though his failure to pin down Van Cleef or the other key leaders of the Defias Brotherhood has been a consistent stain on his reputation, his known success in preventing repeated attempts on the life of Varian or other key figures as well as other significant acts of sabotage (such as a splinter cell of the Brotherhood trying to destroy the gunpowder depot for the Royal Navy) or the like, and his consistent success against mid and low-ranked members of the Brotherhood have proven his ability and loyalty to those within the King's inner circle, largely.

Like he does with Katrana, Varian trusts Shaw implicitly, and while he doesn't always take the man's advice to heart, he does throw his weight behind Shaw when the Spymaster asks for such assistance to barrel through whatever bureucracy and issues he must. Shaw only asks but rarely, preferring to rely on subtlety.

With the resources of SI:7 at his fingertips, Shaw commands the best intelligence network in the Alliance, with the possible exception of the Gnomeregan Covert Ops Division. In addition to managing Stormwind's spies and agents across the world (though with a major focus on the Eastern Kingdoms, as one might expect), he is of course dedicated to rooting out internal treachery within the Kingdom. Of late, the Defias Brotherhood has absorbed more and more of his decision bandwidth, and he has found it maddening how often the final arrest has to be made in conjunction with the Marshalls or the local city/town guards - organizations that have a much higher risk of Defias penetration than SI:7 (officially, no member of SI:7 has ever been found to be a Defias loyalist undercover, unofficially, there have been a few rumors, and SI:7 keeps all records entirely in-house, as one would expect)

For all that Shaw's loyalty is broadly unquestionable, and his competence is only on trial in the eyes of a few extreme detractors, Shaw has few friends at court. This is not only due to his common origins, but also because as a Spymaster, nobody trusts him. Every noble at court believes that Shaw almost certainly has something on them (or can invent something convincing if he really had to) and Shaw has done little to make friends, preferring to be mysterious - if a bit dashing - and keep to the fringes. He has some allies, but even his allies are distant. He rarely attends Council meetings, instead preferring to meet with Varian in private (the same with any other minister or official he must speak with), and is believed to have an intimate familiarity with the secret ways in and out of Stormwind Keep.

Shaw is known to not be one of Katrana Prestor's admirers - and it speaks to his confidence in Varian's belief in him that he has been able to say as much, practically openly to Katrana's face. He holds her failure to be more indicative than her successes, and Katrana has publicly - or at least, at a Royal Council meeting - accused him of trying to blackmail enough members of the House of Nobles into voting her out as Speaker (a charge he didn't actually deny)

Beyond these two poles of the Stormwind Court are a gaggle of functionaries, nobles, hangers-on, knights, clergy, court mages, servants, bureaucrats and other officials. Many have some sort of job title, and many others are merely there because they are important enough ot well-connected enough to be allowed to hang-around.

Feasts and balls are common at Stormwind Keep, when Varian isn't out hunting, but the King is not so tone-deaf as to do so during food shortages in the Capital (not that any food shortage has lasted more than a few weeks at most, yet), but these events dominate the social and political life of the Court, and it is during those events that the politicking happens. With both Shaw and Katrana secure in their positions, unassailable, it is for the myriad of minor titles, or just the sheer game of it all that the courtiers plot, scheme, ally and backstab, sometimes all at the same time and with the same person.

The Court is it's own little, sometimes self-contained world. It would be wrong to say that the Court drums while Stormwind burns2​, as Stormwind's problems are very much not that bad, and yet...

In the Court, the problems posed by the Defias, by the concerns about the Dark Horde, or even worries regarding the Horde across the sea, are almost matched in importance by concerns over who has this or that bureaucratic posting, who got invited on the latest hunt with King Varian, how much the dress Duchess so and so wore to the Count of such and such's latest ball. Petty backbiting and gossip is the lifeblood of the Court.

Still, the House of Nobles is busy - less gets done than anyone would like, with the House deeply divided between competing factions, fighting over things both important (legal reforms, tax proposals, budgetary authorizations) and unimportant (pointless and empty remonstrances about long decided legal questions, the awarding of certain honors the House has the exclusive right to pass, and of late, several attempts to pass sumptuary laws restricting the conspicuous consumption of wealthy common-born merchants have been made). At any given minor session, however, many seats are vacant - it is only for the major sessions, where important matters are voted on that every noble that has a seat and can physically attend (or has a proxy they can send) actually attends the House.

Stormwind Keep and the building where the House of Nobles meets are joined by a small handful of other buildings, where important administrative work is done. Where exactly SI:7 works out of is an open question. Officially, the head of SI:7 has an office in the same building as the Lord Director of the Marshalls, the Chairman of the Customs Board and the Chief Land Assayor, but in practice Shaw has never been seen there, and a minor functionary in the intelligence service occupies the office and accepts intragovernmental mail there.

Varian, when he's not hunting or feasting, or performing his duties as a court of last resort, spends most of his time in the training yards, or with his son, or just staying in the Royal Residences. He does of course make the occasional speech to the House of Nobles, and visit places in the city when appropriate, but the friendly, highly-gregarious young Man Stormwind knew before Tifflin's death is... muted. Varian is still friendly, still likes to spend his time surrounded by others, but there's always a distance to it, a detachment.

Stormwind, like so much of the world, sits on the edge of a knife. The only major difference between Stormwind and the nations of the Ghostlands Pact, in this case, is that for members of the Pact, the wrong twitch of the knife would lead to absolute destruction.

For Stormwind, the wrong tip of the knife would only take them to the sort of bring of destruction that the Pact has been living on for five years.

---

1: SI:7 was originally created to police the nobility, (and prevent costly blood feuds within the nobility, which is why the House supported it's creation) before it also absorbed the foreign intelligence arms of the Kingdom. Its ability to police the common people or the middle class is actually quite limited in practice, forcing them to work through the Marshalls or city/town guards when trying to root out leading members of the Brotherhood, which is often cumbersome. Many Nobles have resisted reforms that would change that, usually claiming that it infringes on their own right to police the peasants and commoners on their land or in their domain.

2: Refers to an old Gurubashi legend about an Emperor of the Gurubashi Empire. It's obviously the equivalent of 'fiddling while Rome Burns'

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Alteraci Ambassador Agnes Dornbath: Pathetic, really. If you didn't know better, you could look around the city and see almost no sign that the orcs destroyed it less than thirty years ago. And the House of Nobles actually quibbled with paying Van Cleef the price he demanded?
Lordaeronic Ambassador Valerian Menkari: As you say, pathetic. But then, that is Stormwind for you. What's the old saying you said your father was fond of? What's the The only think more stupid, petty, venal and corrupt than a Stormwind Noble?
Agnes Dornbath: Why, two Stormwind Nobles!
Jinthite Ambassador Gue'zhalla: Apologies for being late, what did I miss?
Valerian Menkari: Just the usual mocking of Stormwind. Besides, until the new Thalassian Ambassador gets here, you're hardly late. You haven't heard anything about who Lor'themar is sending, have you? I'm rather shocked we haven't caught their name, even if their ship arrived this morning.
Gue'zhalla: No, not a whisper. Am I smelling - Ah, you had your cook make that fried eel again! I will finagle that recipe out of you one day.
Valerian Menkari: Probably the same day you manage to bluff at cards to save your life. How can you be a successful liar in diplomacy and not at the card tables?1​

There is always a complicated relationship between a capital city, and a feudal monarch.

On the one hand, it's the heart and soul of the Kingdom, the centerpiece of the realm, home to the palace, the royal administration, whatever form that takes, the local Estates-General or equivalent, and so forth. The Monarch and the whole government is right there.

On the other hand, it's a city. It's a city full of middle-class merchants, bankers, common laborers, trade magnates, guildsmen and beggars, among others. Citysfolk rarely get on with Great Feudal Magnates, and is not a King merely the Greatest Feudal Magnate of them all?

Thus, Kings tend to have a fractious relationship with their own capitals, and it has not been unknown for the primary purpose for a Royal Palace's walls to be the defense of the King against the capital itself.

But even in times of good relations, there can be a certain patchwork of jurisdictions over the city - cities are governed under their own charters, with their own (usually wealth-based) metrics for citizenship and the franchise, their own laws and ordinances and their own local guards. On the other hand, a capital is of crucial importance to a whole Kingdom, and must be overseen by the King. Throw in a few layers of customs authority, tax assessment and countless nobles with personal residences inside the Royal Capital and relations can only get more fraught.

Such was the case with Stormwind the City and Stormwind the Kingdom. The Charter of Stormwind was never as permissive as Moonbrook's or Raven Hill's, but it still afforded great freedoms and rights to the city in matters of self-governance. As would be expected, the city was dominated by the merchant middle classes, especially those with interests in the greatest industries of the city - fishing, shipping, and food preservation. There were a whole host of ancient rules and limitations on both the King and the city when it came to interacting with each other - the King could not enter the Alderman's House, where the city Aldermen did their business with the Mayor - without express invitation, the Aldermen in turn were expected, according to ancient law, pay the King a sum of 1 silver penny on the anniversary of the King's coronation, in an elaborate ceremony reaffirming the city's loyalty to the Crown and the renewal of all the oaths and contracts between City and Crown.

In the modern age... none of that remains true for the city.

Before the First War, the three major factions of the city's government were the Oranges, dominated by the professionals in the crafting guilds, the Whites, dominated by the bankers, clerical professionals (lawyers, accountants, etc), and the Reds, dominated by the merchants, fishers and shipwrights. The swing votes tended to be those in the salt-related industries, as well as tavern owners and other wealthy enough citizens who didn;'t fall into one of the other three groups.

During the last days of the First War, the Reds were in power in the Aldermen's House, and they were also the first to take advantage of the ships they owned to flee - the leaders of the Oranges were among those who boldly stayed behind the longest, many of their number, like Varian's mother, not being able to flee at all before the orcs breached the gates.

When the city was being rebuilt at first, there was simply no need for the elaborate governing strictures binding the Monarchy with regards to the city - indeed, with the Crown and the House of Nobles paying for the reconstruction of Stormwind (since few of the surviving wealthy elite of the city had the money to be taxed to pay for it), there was just no way to keep them in place. A surviving rump of the Aldermen voted to suspend the Charter shortly after the end of the Second War.

And the Charter has remained suspended ever since.

And despite what some in and outside of Stormwind have thought, that hasn't actually posed much of a problem as of yet.

While Stormwind's elite and wealthy citizens - especially the Reds and Whites - managed to escape the city before it fell, not all of them ever returned to their old home. Some resettled in Lordaeron, Stromgarde or Kul Tiras. In the case of the former two, some were able to then flee back to Stormwind after the fall of Lordaeron, but many more died.

And of the common people of Stormwind, many who came back to the city had never really been represented by the oligarchic Aldermen anyway, and found the paternal regime of the Crown far more appealing. Especially with all the work available as the Kingdom rebuilt itself.

Indeed, even allowing for the fact that so many of the city's population was unable to escape before being slaughtered by the orcs in the First War, large portions of Stormwind's population, regardless of wealth, are people from other parts of the Eastern Kingdoms, or even other parts of the Kingdom of Stormwind. They have no real attachment to the old Charter, and Varian is happy to keep it suspended. Those among the elite who disagree with the status quo are bought off (if they're willing to be bought) or find themselves in a shrinking minority.

The House of Nobles, being dominated by aristocrats, hates the granting of city Charters, given the way they create independent revenue streams for the Crown. And Varian, after his experiences with Van Cleef and the Defias Brotherhood, is suspicious of any sort of mobilization of the commons, even the wealthy commons. The fact that Van Cleef, as leader of the Stonemasons, was more than wealthy enough to be not just a voter in the Alderman elections, but to serve as an Alderman himself, hasn't helped Varian's mood on the subject.2​

An outside observer would be forgiven for thinking that this has caused problems for Varian and his regime in the city, but in fact, it as done the opposite. The royal officials in command of the Capital have tended to be from the professional classes, or nobles themselves, yes, but they are not from the wealthiest slice of the city, which makes them more popular with the masses of Stormwind the City (who hate the wealthiest 1% of the commoners more than they do the nobles).

The Elites, though cut out of office, largely, still have a great deal of behind the scenes influence, given their role in the economy of the city and the Kingdom, and their continued extension of loans to the King. But they remain content with the status quo. Some because they are true Monarchists in their heart of hearts, some because they fear Defias agitation more than royal dictates, some because they profit from the current system.

And it is indeed that last matter of self-interest that keeps Stormwind the city as perhaps the most loyal part of the Kingdom, even in the face of muttering dissent from the nobility on one side, seditious regionalism from Duskwood and outright revolutionary treason from the Brotherhood. It's not that the city of Stormwind is perfect - occasional food shortages hit the city, though the King has managed to handle them with relative skill, toning down the luxury at the Keep during those crises, opening the royal food stores and subsidizing grain purchases.

The city's government, royally appointed as it is, is hardly free of corruption, though it is probably the least corrupt section of the Royal Administration, with SI:7 policing it quite well. And SI:7's efforts in the Capital have meant that large-scale, organized Defias sentiment has been entirely excised from the city - the Brotherhood has agents in the city, no doubt, but their ability to coordinate for more than spying and the occasional run of basement propaganda pamphlets is far less than they'd like (though the large numbers of Defias prisoners in the city's Jails have had an impact on the dynamics of those prisons).

But the truth is, the economy of the City of Stormwind is booming, and it owes much of that to the Alliance. And as long as Varian represents the continuation of Stormwind in the Alliance as it stands...

The modern Alliance is primarily a military defense pact, but it is also full of interlocking trade and financial treaties, and the role of Stormwind as the major port of the Kingdom means that much of that trade passes through the city, enriching the wealthy, yes, but also the common laborers. Being poor is always unpleasant, but as long as one is able to work, one will almost certainly find a job in the boomtown that is Stormwind.

The common people, reasonably well fed, employed, and free of the Alderman's snobbery, are happy. The middle-class of the city, those who might make enough to vote but not to run, don't feel they've lost much through the loss of the Charter, as long as the local royal appointees continue to do their jobs, and they owe their present livelihoods (and defense against the rabble) to the Crown anyway. Royal Propaganda has not entirely managed to obscure the causes of Van Cleef's original grievance, but it has managed to give the Crown and the House of Nobles credit for the rebuilt city, with Van Cleef cast as always trying to undermine the work, despite his hard working stonemasons wanting to do what the Kingdom needed them to do.3​

The elites of the city too, have been mollified with higher positions in the Royal Administration than should be possible for men and women of their class (the fact that Katrana Prestor is the one appointing them now sees these officials quite loyal to her), by the economic boomtimes, and by the King being willing to hear them out in court more than he might have under other circumstances. Not as much as they might like, but still. Varian has also tended to appoint city officials that, while unwilling to kowtow to the elites, are at least able to make them feel heard.

Stormwind's primary businesses remain as they long have been - import/export, fishing and salt production. But with the influx of the Kirin Tor into the city, as well as many High Elves, the city has also seen a whole segment of the city, a growing network of streets and alleys, where arcane magic and related industries rule. The Harvester Golems that have made Westfall able to increase their farm yields year over year, are made by those mages here, as are a whole bevvy of potions, alchemical creations, enchanted items, and arcane theory. These mages, High Elf and Kirin Tor alike, are also quite loyal to the King, given that Varian is the one who gave them these new places to live, and Varian (and the Alliance) represent the Kirin Tor's best chance for getting Dalaran back.

Stormwind, unlike much of the rest of the Kingdom, is a fairly calm and peaceful city that is under no significant threat, right now. Crime and spies from other realms are a concern, and there are the occasional Defias sympathizers, but overall, the city itself is a loyal cog in the Kingdom's politics and economy - the army has many of the tough, adventurous youths of the city in it's ranks, the city provides much revenue to a consistently cash-strapped realm, and it's people are quite content with things as they stand. The immigrants and refugees from the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms may have largely made Stormwind their home now, but they are still fierce partisans for the Alliance.

And Varian, for all his flaws, is still a usually genial man in person when not drinking too heavily. He has been able to use strategically timed and arranged visits to the city proper, tours of the streets and businesses, and audiences with the common people - even if they're usually very carefully managed by the Court - have further buttressed the position of the Crown with the city.

And further enhancing the loyalty of the Crown is the fact that many of the caravans that get hit by Defias-affiliated bandits, even when carrying perfectly innocent goods, are either on their way to Stormwind or ultimately owned by Stormwind Merchants. With SI:7's presence in the city so well positioned, Defias Propaganda has much less reach in the city itself, so the Defias's arguments about how the King has 'pushed' them into these tactics have less presence. Every periodic - and brief - food shortage, legitimately or not, is pinned on the Defias's actions, further undermining them in the city.

Stormwind as a whole may be teetering on the edge of a knife, but the City is far more secure. And yet...

If the rest of the Kingdom did implode, or at least get worse, then...

Well, there is that old saying - a riot is just three missed meals away.

---

1: In case the words didn't make it clear, this is a private monthly dinner between the Ghostlands Pact ambassadors to Stormwind. They aren't openly mocking Stormwind in public, except in carefully crafted diplomatic doublespeak. Every veteran ambassador to anywhere does that at least once in a while.

2: There were two classes of citizenship in Stormwind the City under the old charter - those who made enough to vote, and those who made even more, who got to actually hold office. The actual pool of potential officer holders for all the offices of the city's government was only about 1,000 people give or take. Strictly speaking, Van Cleef's personal wealth (because he was an unusually modest guildmaster, one of the things that made him very popular with the journeymen and apprentices) would have only qualified him to vote, but the way the Charter worked, guildmasters were able to - for the purposes of citizenship status - include the wealth of the whole Guild in counting their wealth. This was to make sure the Guilds were properly represented as institutions.

3: Making this propaganda work better is the fact that there were several slow downs and delays during the process. These were not all the fault of Katrana Prestor, but several were, her intention mostly just to waste the Kingdom's time and money. She really had no idea how things would get out of hand once she decided to trick the House of Nobles into stiffing Van Cleef (i.e. she didn't expect Tifflin's death or the formation of the Defias Brotherhood, etc), but she certainly considers it very useful for her goals. Other causes of delays and such were just the usual shit that comes up on any project - over budget and behind schedule is pretty much to be expected, after all, but it does make this line of attack hold some merit.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Deputy Willem: I've got Kobolds overunning Echo Ridge Mine, the Defias are targeting the local vintners and I've got half the men I should because some noble halfway across the Woodlands is seeing shadows behind every corner. Excuse me if I don't have time to deal with a stolen book!
Brother Paxton: This is not just some mundane tome, Deputy. It is a book of dangerous magics, kept in the abbey, and if the Defias Brotherhood is able to sell the book to the sorts of foul cultists who would seek it-
Deputy Willem: Yes, yes, dire consequences. I'll put it on the list, Brother, but I can make no promises.

The Elwynn Woodlands - called the Elwynn Forest by ignorant outsiders - is in many ways, the most prototypical region of the Kingdom of Stormwind. It's what someone thinks of when they think of the Kingdom, outside of the capital.

It is a land of forests, carefully maintained not out of a love for nature, but out of a need to keep a regular supply of new wood for ships, construction and export. Much of the Kul Tiran Navy, for instance is made from wood originally sourced from Elwynn, especially the spars and masts, for which the pines of the slopes of the Stormwind Mountains are perfectly suited.

In the earliest days of Stormwind, securing control of the Woodlands had been vital, given the economic role fishing and salt production (which required burning a lot of wood to evaporate the brine) played in the Kingdon's life, and as the Woodlands were claimed and cleared, more and more land was freed up for farms. And yet still, the forests of the region are hugely important. They were badly ravaged during the fighting in the First War, especially the Mobile Campaigns and the Orcs were not kind to the forest either during the second, showing little interest in the careful long-term thinking that has largely defined the forest management of Stormwind and the nobles of the region. Many areas are thus full of newly planted trees, the project of generations to rebuild the stocks. While other areas are now being opened up for more exploitation.

All of this, however, is made worse by the Defias Brotherhood, which has made it's mark on the Woodlands with aggressive raids on caravans and even attacks on the estates of a few nobles. They claim they only target caravan transporting luxuries for the nobles or transporting arms and armor for the Kingdom, and the like, but in practice, that's not true, and even the Brotherhood's propaganda can't pretend otherwise, often trying to frame it as all the King's fault for forcing them into this, or claiming false flag, or mistaken identity.

Despite these attacks, which have hurt people across the Woodlands, regardless of class, there are still supporters of the Brotherhood. Most especially in the most remote and neglected rural villagers, who may only see a wandering merchant once or twice a year at most, who barely ek out a living hunting and farming (with the rights to cut wood very carefully restricted to preserve the trees for long term use) on the mountain slopes, in the deep woods, only accessible by dirt roads barely wide enough for a tinker's cart.

It is these rural communities that serve as the backbone of the Defias in the region, and it is a result of the Defias's willingness to work with bandits that brought it about.

After the First War, many of these remote communities were able to survive even in the face of the Horde ruling the Kingdom thanks in large part to bandits. These bandits gave shelter to those fleeing - often in exchange for the labor, or other exploitation, but how was that different than the nobles? The bandits at least were still here when the nobles fled with all the cityfolk and townsfolk.

These bandits are in some cases motivated by legitimate localized grievances. In some cases, they're just thugs. Some started as thugs and have become motivated by the rhetoric of the Brotherhood as the two groups become more entwined, while others in the Brotherhood have begun to let the thuggishness of these bandits infect their tactics.

Trade in the forest has hardly shut down entirely - the main roads tend to mostly secure most of the time, and mercenaries hiring on to caravans as guards are able to name their price. In an effort to have greater collective security, more and more merchants, especially those heading to or from Stormwind itself are linking up into larger and larger caravans - it increases shipping security, but leaves the smaller villages more and more out in the economic cold. Which does make some less fond of the Brotherhood and their banditry, but makes others double-down on it, relying on the Brotherhood's raids and attacks to provide them with goods they need and want - after all, the bandits sell their ill-gotten gains to these rural villages, or trade them for food and shelter.

The bandits further endear themselves to many by attacking tax and rent collectors, or those who might try to enforce various hunting and forestry laws on villagers who care more about keeping their lives going than they do about the rights reserved to nobles or the long term economic viability of the forests.

But in the towns and of course on the noble estates, the Brotherhood has their supporters too. Some nobles are particularly rapacious and cruel to their tenants, especially in the current times, jacking up rents and making greater demands on their time and resources. On the other hand, some have responded to the Brotherhood's popularity by lowering rents, or being more forgiving about late dues or the like, hoping to kill interest in the Brotherhood and their ways with kindness.

The towns - primarily Goldshire and Westbrook, but also Northshire and Ridgepoint - are all just that, towns, smaller than Moonbrook, Lakeshore, Raven Hill or Brightshire. They have some degree of local governance, but not to the degree of the cities.

The townsfolk of Elwynn are often derided by the residents of the larger cities, seen as being too parochial, too small-minded, and unsophisticated. There is some truth to that, as the Elwynn townsfolk tend to be more concerned about their own local concerns than larger issues, but then, larger issues don't matter to them, while say Moonbrook's entire economy can crater if the price of grain in Kul Tiras drops a few silvers per bushel unexpectedly. Equally, the towns, being smaller, tend to lack the crowded, frantic, frenetic energy of the cities, slower-paced, save for the monthly market days - of course, in the last year, the number of market days in Ridgepoint and Northshire dropped from the normal 12 to just 8, as the grouping caravans meant that there were less merchants gathered in the city as much as often.

Economically, the Elwynn Woodlands lack the major resources of Redridge or Westfall, or the trade prospects of Duskwood and the Gnoll Marches. One of the few things that the region exports in large numbers beyond the limited number of hardwoods, is the wine. Grapes in Elwynn are one of the best ways for a farmer to make it rich, if they are lucky enough to grow something that makes for good wine. Nobles, always looking for a new taste for their palettes, and merchants, always looking for more wine to export, will pay a premium for new grapes, and multiple major vineyards and most minor ones, even if now bought up by nobles or major merchant concerns got started as some local farmer getting lucky.

Of course, this has been a double-edged sword for the region, the Kingdom, and Stormwind - the Defias Brotherhood has recently begun hitting the vineyards and the wine merchants bringing goods to the cities and the noble estates of the Kingdom harder and harder of late, killing or abducting or 'liberating' workers, attacking caravans, even burning a few smaller noble-owned vineyards to the ground, extinguishing whole kinds of wine from existence forever.

Of course, with the towns in particular linked into the wine trade (making the various tools and items used in the production, storage and shipping of wine) this may stand to hurt the Defias Brotherhood in the long term, as their attack on this economic artery of the towns could have major spillover effect into the villages - perhaps not the most remote ones that serve as the basis of Defias support, but many others are linked into this trade in one form or another.

Facing off against the Defias Brotherhood in Elwynn Woodlands, not counting SI:7, are the local town guards, the Stormwind Marshalls and the various armsmen of the local noble estates. The Marshalls do their best to police the roads, hunt down Defias hideouts and round up their affiliated bandits, pushing the authority of the Kingdom into remote parts of the Woodlands that rarely saw it before. Of course, doing so is dangerous in ways it never was before, requiring Marshalls to travel in larger numbers than before, with greater concentrations of force... and they are forced to react far more than act, as Defias strikes from every direction make them reactive. The Marshalls are also obligated by various laws to provide aid to local nobles - and when a noble feels paranoid because his men have found some Defias literature in their servants' quarters...

Compared to the much more severe situation in Westfall, Elwynn seems positively peaceful by comparison, and in many ways, it is. With Van Cleef putting more of his energy into Westfall, and the Redridge Mountains preventing Dark Horde raids from hitting them, the Defias threat in Elwynn, while real and annoying, isn't existential in the way other concerns facing Stormwind are.

And so, the Woodlands continue to be the somewhat sleepy, backwater towns and villages - but like the rest of the Kingdom, this serenity masks the roiling ocean underneath.

If the Defias Brotherhood isn't stopped, their attacks will grow stronger, and the people will demand more response from Stormwind. And if that happens... open warfare instead of low-burn clashes may once more return to the region, with armies marching into the deepest woods and hunting down bandits - and all who provide them with succor and shelter.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Bolvar Fordragon: What exactly is the Westfall Brigade, Captain?
Captain Junius Alpert: Well... it's like this, sir. The're a lot of people who aren't happy with the way things are going in Westfall, what with the nobles being harsher about rents and fees, and the mechanical harvesters driving grain prices down. But... they're no traitors. Defias tries to get them to defect, to join up, support... they don't like that either. So some local village militias got together, and the Blacks and the Greens in Moonbrook decided to pony up some money, and... and now there's the Westfall Brigade.
Bolvar: And what exactly do they stand for?"
Alpert: Begging your pardon, sir, we stand for the King letting us fix things in Westfall for him, rather than some outsiders coming in and failing at it.
Bolvar: If I were a different man, I could have you arrested and court-martialed for taking part in an unauthorized military unit.
Alpert: If you were a different man, sir, then we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
Bolvar: True enough. I will not stop you or your Brigade, and I will transmit your desires to his Majesty. But I must demand that as long as you serve in this 'Westfall Brigade', you suspend your commission. You cannot be an officer in the Royal Army and some other group at the same time. You will retain your pension and your existing seniority, so long as you remain loyal to the Crown, but your salary will not be paid during your suspension.

In Stormwind City, at the Royal Court, the Kingdom can mask it's many problems with relative ease. In Elwynn, if one keeps to the towns, the main trade road, you might even be able to convince yourself that the Defias Brotherhood is merely a function of bandits and malcontents, little more.

In Westfall, no such pretense can be made. In Westfall, the streets of Moonbrook run red with the blood of the Defias Brotherhood and their victims. In Westfall, Harvester Golems are alternately hijacked or trashed by Defias fighters, while wheat rots in the warehouse because the windmills in or near a village have been damaged too badly to use. In Westfall, bags of flour can be turned into flaming weapons in the hands of a terrorist, as Edwin Van Cleef strives to starve Stormwind the City - to no success yet, but the Kingdom's grip on the farms and roads seem to grow weaker by the month.

In Westfall, the so-called Westfall Brigade fights in the name of the King against the Defias Brotherhood, but in stark opposition to the nobles, under the leadership of village elders and by the financing of Moonbrook merchants. The Westfall Brigade organizes to protect communal land in the villages, hold back against encroaching noble landlords and Defias attacks. The Westfall Brigade launches their own attacks on Defias strongholds - and launches witch hunts to root our Defias sympathizers and members hiding amongst the people.

In Westfall, the commoners are squeezed ever harder, worked harder, pushed off their land when they can't pay rising rents - because, after all, if they leave, you can just buy a harvester golem. Freeholding landowners find themselves bombarded by offers to sell - and harassment if they don't. Consolidation of farms into larger and larger estates, to make the most use of these new golems, to meet the massive demands for food in Stormwind the City, and the Alliance as a whole.

Westfall Grain feeds Ironforge, Kul Tiras and Stromgarde. It is economics of volume on the grossest and most basic scale. One bag of flour is cheap. Hundreds or thousands of bags of flour is not. The entire region of Westfall, known for it's fertile soil since time immemorial, is dedicated pretty much exclusively to the growing of wheat and the export of wheat-products. Windmills are everywhere in the land, when working, grinding the grain down. Some of the resultant flour is packed up and sent elsewhere for sale, but even more of it is gathered into Moonbrook, where vast bake-ovens work day and night producing a variety of breads with long shelf-lives, including the dreaded Hardtack, bane of sailors in every navy in the Alliance, and indeed, most navies throughout history.

With so much of the prosperity of Westfall built up around the grain trade, Westfall is highly sensitive to even the slightest of price shocks. Competition with the corn being grown in Mulgore could threaten the entire system, but given the layers of trade barriers and political realities, corn is unlikely to penetrate deep into Alliance markets, outside of Theramore any time soon.

Westfall has always been a region riven in twain by the conflict between Moonbrook, perhaps the single most independent minded city in Stormwind Proper (i.e. outside the Gnoll Marches) and the nobles of the region. Granted a particularly generous city charter over eight hundred years ago, Moonbrook has jealously guarded it's privileges and institutions more than any other city. Even Raven Hill, which retains it's charter (unlike Stormwind) has adapted to the times, but Moonbrook stubbornly holds out, using creaking, ancient institutions to govern their city, a series of adhoc patch jobs keeping the Lunar Council (as the leadership body of the city is called) functioning in something resembling effective status.

Due to this, for instance, anyone of legitimate noble birth may not enter the bounds of Moonbrook under any circumstances unless expressly invited by the city's leaders, leading a small cottage industry of bastard born children, often of collateral branches of various families, representing their kin in Moonbrook, a Westfall aristocracy in miniature, complete with local dynasties and marriage alliances of their own.

Moonbrook's four political factions are, unlike those in other cities, defined less by their economic incentives - since everyone is incentivized to grow and maintain the trade in grain - and more by ideological propositions, and quite honestly, personality fights and centuries old grudges. Loosely speaking, the Moonbrook Silvers, the smallest faction in the city, are hardline Royalists, who would seek to grow royal power over Moonbrook - not to the extent of betraying the city's ancient rights, but as a further weapon to bludgeon the nobles with. They are also the most militant of the factions, those who ideologically support war for its own sake, or for the gains to be won. The faction contains many families that have waged grudge matches against neighboring nobles for centuries in some cases.

The Greens and Blacks have long dominated the city, and the two factions are two sides of the same coin, similar, and yet different. The Blacks are a stodgy, conservative old-boys club that love to grease palms, keep things the same as much as humanly possible, and if change must happen, it must happen as slowly as humanly possible.

The Blacks, while no more fond of the nobles than any good Moonbrooker, are more interested in - in an ideal world anyway - fighting the old fight with them through the courts, enforcing Moonbrook's ancient rights to the fullest extent of the law and ancient contracts, as well as forcing legal decisions that expand those rights in measured, careful ways in line with existing traditions.

The Greens could be terms the faction of 'new money'. This is of course not entirely true, but they do tend to have people newer to wealth, or even citizenship, and are outsiders to the sort of 'wink nudge say no more' old-boys club mindset that dominates the Blacks. Notable for turmoil in their leadership as persuasive leaders rise and fall within the faction, the Greens are also the most fiercely anticorruption within Moonbrook and beyond, taking even Royal Officials to task for the most basic and understood of routine corruptions, the expected little fees that make life easier for everyone. In the eyes of many, it makes the Moonbrook Greens something of a damned nuisance, sanctimonius and annoying. Obtaining a job in the Royal Administration isn't always cheap, requiring various fees and expenses (some legal, some... less so), and unless one is either independently wealthy or in a very high-level position, the salary may not always be enough. So even if one isn't rapacious and greedy, with bribes an expected and normal part of business...

Woe to the underpaid bureaucrat assigned to Westfall that attracts the ire of the Greens.

The Greens are also more fond of change than the Blacks. Certainly, change must be targeted, useful and practical, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of small-scale experimenting to see what works better. The Greens have over the centuries repeatedly managed to lower the income requirements for the franchise - never by a lot, never including too many at once, but often as a practical measure, a safety valve to let off popular pressure, or to expand the voter rolls if the concentration of wealth leaves the city with too few voting citizens.

The Greens preferred tactic for fighting the nobles has always been new laws - passing new laws in Moonbrook that thumb their noses at the nobles and their powers and privileges, as well as lobbying the king and the House of Nobles to do the same. The Greens are not above cutting deals with nobles from every other part of the Kingdom to restrict the rights of the Westfall Nobles, local concerns well above any notion of ideology.

The final faction of Moonbrook, and like the Silvers, one prone to being on the outside, are the Yellows. The Yellows are those who have never met a new idea they didn't embrace. The Yellows love the new Harvester Golems, and they gleefully embrace innovations in every field. They are iconoclasts about sacred cows and longstanding custom, and radical in their politics. They have promoted expansion of the franchise radically, especially in light of Theramore's universal suffrage, pushed for the same in Moonbrook. In the past, the Yellows have pushed to extend citizenship to village and town elders in the rest of Westfall, granting those communities some of Moonbrook's rights and privileges in a technically legal under the most literal reading of he laws end-run around noble privilege. Also like the Silvers, they have a more militant approach towards the nobles, seeking confrontation in every quarter.

The Yellows have also been the home of those most critical of the Crown. Especially in the last five years. Exploiting the privileges and protections that Moonbrook citizenship affords, the Yellows have danced along the lines of open support for treason and indisputable sedition for quite some time, critical of Varian for just about any reason - not reigning the nobles in enough, but then for also reigning them in too much, in the wrong ways, or in the wrong placed. He is both too militant and not militant enough, he is a spendthrift and a miser, he is weak and he is oppressive. The Yellows are no fonder of Katrana Prestor, and spare her no mercy in their criticism either - but like with Varian, Katrana just can't win with them.

Due to their anti-royal, iconoclastic and radical programs, the Yellows are often accused of being puppets of the Defias Brotherhood - this is of course silly, as the Yellows predate Van Cleef and his organization by centuries. But it is hard to say that the Yellows and the Defias have no links at all. Moonbrook's rights and privileges being what they are, SI:7 cannot do more than spy, at best, and they can draw many connections between the Yellows and known Defias operatives, ideological and financial. How much those Yellows know of whom they're working with is an open question.

Outside of Moonbrook, the region is something of a constant, low-burn war, as the Westfall Brigade clashes with noble armsmen and with the Defias Brotherhood, as harvest golems, the backbone of a new, mechanized/magical economy in Westfall, go rogue or are hijacked with alarming regularity - and yet nobles keep bringing them in because they are so cost-effective. The Defias don't operate openly and publicly, but to anyone native to the region, you quickly learn that some villages, some sections of Westfall are just not safe for enemies of the Defias Brotherhood to wander in anything but large groups.

Nights in Westfall are the most dangerous, as these are when the Defias launch their raids on farms, on patrols, on depots. Nights are when the Westfall Brigade drags those their believe (or know) are Defias members or sympathizers or allies out of their homes and into the streets. Some they hand over to the Royal Authorities... later.

Some are given justice right there in the streets, in the dark of night.

The Westfall Brigade, for it's militancy and penchant fpr picking fights, for holding back progress of the Harvester Golems in many cases, for it's wild disregard for things like due process and rights, is probably the only thing holding the Defias back in the region. Pressed for manpower and resources across the Kingdom, were it not for the people of Westfall fighting back, even as it risks watering the fields with lakes and rivers of blood, even as it risks alientaing those who are falsely accused or worse. Even as it risks creating parallel command structures, and pisses off nobles.

Protecting the grain from the Defias is the most important thing in Westfall, and for now, the Westfall Brigade is the thing that likely stands between Stormwind the city, and starvation.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Rend: Stormwind is weak, and fights itself! You say that Varian's Chancellor serves you, but Fordragon continues to hold powerful forces in Redridge. Every day we wait is another day for the Gurubashi and Stormwind to come to terms. If we strike now, then the Gurubashi will attack to reclaim the Marches, or more. I will not suffer your demands for delays much longer!
Nefarian: You are a fool, little orc!1​ You exist here, in Blackrock Mountain, on my sufferance. Your army maintains its alliance with the Shadowforge, on my sufferance. Your army exists here, on my sufferance. Destroying kingdoms is not an act done hastily, as your father learned, as his successor learned.
Rend: There will come a time when the Horde will not need you, Dragon.
Nefarian: When that day comes, I welcome you to try it, little orc. Until then, you will refrain from doing more than increasing the pace of your raids into Redridge! I do not need you - your idiot brother can keep your men in line, and your unusually wise sister can keep him in line, should I find the need to dispatch you.

In Stormwind, both the city and palace, the thin veneer that everything is fine, everything is good, remains. It's an obvious veneer, but one that still covers everything up.

In Elwynn forest, the veneer is in place, but the holes in it are obvious and visible, outside the large towns.

In Westfall, the veneer was tattered to pieces long ago.

In Redridge, the veneer was never in place to begin with.

Not, as one might expect judging from Westfall or Elwynn, because of the Defias Brotherhood, however.

It would be a lie to say that the Defias Brotherhood has no presence in Redridge. Their literature can be found posted up in back alleys in Lakeshire, and gnolls and bandits affiliated with the Brotherhood can be found in the countryside, waylaying the occasional unwary traveler.

But compared to the open warfare in Westfall, or the low-burn guerilla banditry in Elwynn, the Defias Brotherhood in Redridge is positively docile, with most incidents nonlethal and sometimes even nonviolent, seemingly as much about the Defias Brotherhood reminding everyone they exist.2​

The reason for the Defias being relatively low-key in Redridge is the reason why the veneer never existed in Redridge:

The Dark Horde.

Looming over Stormwind from the Burning Steppes and Blackrock Spire, the Dark Horde, under the leadership of Rend, Maim and Griselda, the children of Blackhand, waits. Powerful enough to even have a mighty black dragon - possibly a son of the legendary Deathwing himself, though reports are confused - at their beck and call, though he is seen but rarely, suggesting perhaps the control is not total.

But the Dark Horde, made up of recalcitrant orcs, renegade forest trolls and resurgent ogres, along with various demons, and closely aligned with the Shadowforge Empire, remains a threat. Skirmishes along the border are constant, the Dark Horde has send penetrating raids into Redridge and is believed to operate a base somewhere in a remote canyon in the mountains, and the threat of them reenacting Blackhand's brutal destruction of Lakeshire's population all over again hangs over everything.

To meet this challenge stands half the Stormwind Army. Enough to mostly hold the line, but not enough to drive the orcs back and go on the offensive. Raid and counter raid define the frontier, while the people of Redridge work to rebuild their homeland.

The mountain passes between the Steppes and Redridge were never all that fortified in the days before the Second War. The Shadowforge were never particularly fond of Stormwind, but they had little desire to attack the humans to their south, and the humans, once the Burning Steppes became the Burning Steppes, had nothing to gain with an attack. A few minor border posts for customs check served all that was needed. Lakeshire was more fortified than the border was, thanks to concerns about the gnolls, and bandits, and internal fighting.

During the Second War, Ogrim did order some fortifications built as things started to turn against him, but that proved to be far too little, too late, and the turning point at Blackrock Spire rendered them irrelevant anyway, largely.

But once word of the Black Tooth Grin clan's presence in the Steppes reached Stormwind, the fortifications began.3​ And the Dark Horde did the same. Both sides engaged in an almost comedic effort to claim the best positions in the passes for fortresses, leaving the effective border looking like a strange zig-zag pattern.

The comedy is ruined somewhat by the dead now resting in those passes, from the constant fighting during construction and fortification.

The Royal Army in Redridge is bolstered by the levies and men at arms of the local nobles - under normal circumstances, people like the Duke of Lakeshire would be far less willing to work alongside the Royal Army, given Redridge's historical independence from the crown, but given the situation...

They still don't take orders from Royal Generals, apart from Bolvar Fordragon - only he can be trusted to bridge the gap between Royal and Redridge, without any desire to advance some other interest. The ghost of Llane's early politicking during the First War still haunts Redridge, which arguably suffered the worst out of any part of the Kingdom, and even today, remains a shattered, hollow, depopulated shell of itself.

The people of Duskwood could flee south into the Gnoll Marches and the Gurubashi League, and the people of Elwynn and Westfall fled to Stormwind, when the war turned against Stormwind.

Redridge never had that opportunity. Blackhand managed to capture most of the region fairly early in the Mobile Campaigns, only taking Lakeshire at the tail end of that phase of the First War, and brutally murdering most of the inhabitants as revenge for the defeat at Crystal Lake, and while Blackhand didn't massacre the residents of the rest of Redridge during earlier battles out of hand, he wasn't gentle to them. Ogrim, once he took control, force-marched the people of Redridge out of the region, towards Stormwind, but between the fighting, the occupation, the destruction of Lakeshire and the fact that Redridge had always had the lowest population of the 5 Regions (Elwynn Woodlands, Westfall, Duskwood, Redridge and the Gnoll Marches) and the casualties during said force march...

Certainly, it's not as if all the population of other areas survived - but they benefited from significant immigration. After the Second War, there was a great deal of unused land to be bought or rented at bottom prices, and there were jobs needing to be filled. Wages in Stormwind, even for menial laborer tasks, were higher than in any of the Northern Kingdoms, and so, people moved south. They moved into Westfall. They moved into Elwynn - they even moved into Duskwood, which had the most survivors of any of the regions that were occupied, given their option of fleeing into the Gnoll Marches and the Gurubashi League.

Redridge did get immigrants, but it didn't have as much to offer. Elwynn offered land, or farms to work, or urban jobs. Westfall offered land, farms to work on, and urban jobs. Duskwood offered hunting, herbalism, woodcutting, trade, farming jobs.

Redridge? The biggest thing Redridge had to offer to immigrants was tough, long, and dangerous work in the mines and quarries.

Stormwind was never as mineral rich as Ironforge, Shadowforge or Gnomegeran, but Redridge did have many veins of useful minerals, quantities of useful stone. But even with dwarvan and gnomish consultants often hired in as much as practicable, human mining work will never be as safe or worker-friendly (not that working in the mines as a dwarf isn't backbreaking and occasionally dangerous, but human mining jobs are moreso). And while the mines offered wages even higher than farm labor, the risks turned off many. And so even know, Redridge is depopulated compared to the rest of Stormwind. Gnolls have moved into more of the mines than ever before, as have bandits and the Defias Brotherhood (and those two groups, as always, have very fuzzy lines distinguishing them).

Even Kobolds, rare in Redridge on the surface, have been seen more and more in some mines, usually bringing up minerals from the deep to sell to the Gnolls - and from there, the Gnolls often sell large chunks of that on to the Defias Brotherhood through bandit connections. It's hard to say how much of the Defias revenue stream comes from this kobold-gnoll-bandit-brotherhood network, but it is a substantial amount.

And, even with reduced output from the region - legitimate or otherwise - Redridge is vital to the Kingdom. Losing it would once more expose Elwynn to invasion, since the passes from Redridge into Elwynn haven't been fortified well in centuries (and the House of Nobles, despite petitions from some of the more defensive-minded generals in the Royal Army, has refused to authorize the development of a second line of fortifications at the Redridge-Elwynn border, citing the admittedly massive expense that would require. Stormwind isn't exactly swimming in spare money these days.

And so, Redridge is defended by as much as the Kingdom can spare, and then some. Bolvar Fordragon is an itinerant commander, moving between fortress to fortress practically every day, as well as making use of teleportation to visit the Palace for consultations with King, as well as checking on the other major concentrations of the Army - the Capital and the Gurubashi border being primacy focuses.

Fordragon does not like or trust Katrana. Like many who are not in her camp, he thinks she wields far too many titles at once, and while he can't point to anything specific that she's done wrong, the mistakes in army requisitions that pass through offices under her authority add up, as does the fact that despite her claims of 'best efforts' no reasonable terms have been cut with the Gurubashi League in a way that would allow a portion of the thousands of men stationed in the Gnoll Marches to move north to Redridge.4​. And the House of Nobles may authorize the salary of the army in full, and on time, but so many of the secondary things that need doing get hit with a serious budgetary axe, even when Katrana should be able to usher them through with relative ease (or so Bolvar thinks. Katrana always has a ready and plausible-sounding explanation, which does make him second guess himself).

Is Katrana a traitor? A self-aggrandizing woman unable to accept she can't do all her jobs? Is she embezzling? Taking bribes? Is she just bad at everything but self-promotion and leading Varian around by his dick?

And more than anything else, something does not sit quite right with him, whenever he's in a room with her. He has never been able to put a finger on it, and he tells himself it's just because she's the King's mistress, and he's worried about what danger she might pose to Anduin's position as heir.

But regardless, there's not much he can do about it. He has allies in the army, yes, but it's not as if every general or officer is a partisan of his at court - the ones that he trusts the most are mostly out in the field, and so less available to back him up there. And like him, even when they are at court, the fact they're gone for much of the time makes it hard to form a coherent faction.

Fordragon also doesn't really trust Shaw - not that he thinks Shaw is disloyal to Stormwind, but he's actually convinced that Katrana and Shaw are allies of convenience at court - to what end, he doesn't know, but he thinks their apparent enmity is an act, because if Shaw actually believed Katrana was a danger, he could find evidence to get rid of her? And Fordragon is sure that evidence exists...

So if Shaw hasn't produced it (because he knows Shaw is too good at his job for someone like Katrana to hide something from him) then it must be because he has a reason to hide it...

And so, rather than allying with the one man who might be able to help him push out Katrana, Bolvar works against him, trying to lock him and SI:7 out of any role in Redridge. He has quietly been trying to develop what some in his inner circle have been calling 'the Phantom Regiment' or the 'Ghost Infantry'. In short, they are spies, former soldiers all, that are focused on military matters, that know proper military matters enough to be able to know what to make of the information they discover. It has been slow going, especially since he's trying to hide this project from Shaw and Katrana, which means he can only do so much to develop it. He's taken inspiration from the Kul Tiran '17th Fleet', an entirely on paper military unit that serves as the intelligence arm of the Kul Tiran Navvy.5​.

The truth is, for all the fears that everyone in Stormwind, and especially in Redridge have, for the prospect of the Dark Horde going on the full offense, they have yet to do more than raid, skirmish, attack and retreat. They create problems, kill and sabotage, undermine the frontier, but... nothing more.

Bolvar theorizes either they're waiting for cracks to form in the Alliance (not wanting to risk drawing the full weight of the Alliance on their heads all at once), for the Alliance to be distracted with another war, or simply waiting a generation to rebuild their populations. The Dark Horde is, after all a patchwork cobbled-together force of shattered bits and pieces of various clans that gathered together after the Second War, orcs escaped from Internment camps over the years, a few troll tribes and ogre clans, and other odds and ends, and they aren't exactly swimming in spare population any more than anyone else in Azeroth is.

But attrition is a thing, and Bolvar cannot just sit and wait. Neither can Ironforge. But if open war breaks out at the wrong time...

Doom could come to Redridge again, and thence to Stormwind.

---

1: Imagine Nefarian breathing a blast of lava right past Rend before he says this. He's rather punctuating his ability to kill Rend if he wants to.

2: There wasn't a good place to fit this into the narrative, but basically, there actually are some more violent Defias attacks, but they come in the form of outside members of the Brotherhood (usually at the indirect behest of one of Onyxia's many identities) taking action, usually against the Royal Army or their supply lines. This is very much not appreciated by the local Defias cells. Van Cleef, while not as sympathetic to the locals as they'd like, doesn't want to risk alienating them (the last thing the Defias Brotherhood needs is a People's Front of Judea situation, or losing the money from the Brotherhood cells in the region), so he tries to keep things under control on that front.

3: The expense of these fortifications is one of the reasons the House of Nobles balked at Van Cleef's bill for his work. Basically, the final cost for all those fortifications had arrived at the House a month before Van Cleef presented his bill for his work, and that went over like a lead balloon. Combine that with anti-guild mentalities in the House, and Katrana's meddling slowing the process down (and increasing the cost) AND the standard 'behind schedule and over budget' problem that happens in even the best managed such projects, and the House's position, while stupid, does make sense in context. Had Van Cleef waited a few months - though granted, it wasn't as though he could wait - things might actually have gone over just better enough.

And so, the fate of history turns on such random things as when the bills arrive.

4: Bolvar is convinced - not inaccurately - that if he could just get about 2/3s of the man currently occupying the Gurubashi Border, or the equivalent scraped together from the Capital, Elwynn, Duskwood or Westfall garrisons, then he could go on the offensive against the Dark Horde and push them back a good ways from the Redridge Border (possibly all the way to Dreadmaul Rock ), especially if he acts at the same time Ironforge pushes against the Shadowforge. But between the Defias Brotherhood and the fact that a formal and secure Non-aggression Pact can't be arranged with the Gurubashi League, freeing up that many extra troops is... hard. And Stromgarde refuses to contribute any men to the effort unless the Dark Horde actually makes a concerted push into Redridge (perhaps for understandable reasons, but still) and only Kul Tiras has the men to make that difference (Gnomegeran, Theramore and the Wildhammer perhaps understandably simply don't have the spare population to offer enough troops to make that difference), Daelin and Bolvar both know that the Kul Tirans would be well out of their depth in an offensive out of Redridge, so they're holding off on that for the moment. Just a few more divisions of men...

5: I.e. this is, in essence, the Kul Tiran Office of Naval Intelligence. Bolvar, not trusting Shaw, but needing the services of spies in the war effort, is essentially trying to create a military intelligence agency (i.e. the distinction between the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency in the US, et cetera) as a distinct entity from a civilian one. This is a concept that is only in it's infancy in Azeroth - multiple intelligence organizations is not unknown in the Eastern Kingdoms, but the divide was never military and civilian.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

King Varian Wrynn: And you're positive Morbent Fel wasn't working with Lordaeron?
Mathias Shaw: My men on the ground found no proof of affiliation, and given that his skeletons and ghouls were mindless slaves...
Varian: Even the Banshee Queen would not truck with that. And he wasn't a servant of the Scourge either?
Shaw: It would seem he was entirely home grown. According to his brother, Morbent was always something of a bastard. He spent time in several prisons as a teenager for repeated assaults, and there was a price on his head for murder under the name Vaspian Kal in Moonbrook. Regardless, thanks to the efforts of my men, and the Order of the Silver Hand, Morbent Fel is dead. By all accounts, he was attempting to turn himself into a lich, but the Order is convinced he had not completed the process as of yet.

Duskwood.

Even in the glory days of the Gurubashi Empire, the trees here were taller, older, thicker. The ground underneath sometimes never did see sunlight, leaving the land plunged into perpetual twilight.

Even the roads that the Gurubashi carved through the region were still quite dimly lit, the forests cleared around the roads, and the tree canopy overhanging, blocking most light. The region seemed determined to keep the land blanketed by night, or close to it. The Gurubashi themselves never had much interest in the region, merely posting a few military forts, trade outposts and the like along the roads, and leaving the rest to gnoll vassal tribes - as long as the tribute came in, who cared.

After the Gurubashi Empire shattered, the gnolls were given free reign in the region for several centuries - far enough from the coast and the centers of human power, and far enough from the Gurubashi city-states, at least in the immediate aftermath of the Empire's fall, that they could operate with some freedom. Unfortunately, the gnoll packs and tribes tended to fight each other - it was ritual, ceremonial combat, but unity amongst the tribes was not common, and though they did adapt their tactics and technology to better compete with the humans and trolls, they did not so so fast enough, or with enough co-ordination to allow them to stem the tide. More and more, the tribes of Duskwood became subjugated to the trolls - used to fight eachother in proxy wars.

The humans ended up proving both succor, and damnation - human money and weapons helped the gnolls resist the Gurubashi after they unified into the League. But human nobles, ignoring the commands of the kings in Stormwind, would push and poke at the Gnolls, driving them off their lands, clearing whole sections of forest for farmland - but even so, those clearings were islands in the sea.

Eventually, the gnolls abandoned Duskwood for the Black Morass, for Redridge, for the remotest frontiers, under the demographic disaster that was the War of the Morass, and their attacks from the Trolls and humans, leaving the humans to the entire region. But the unruliness of the nobles remained - Duskwood, perhaps even more than Redridge, refused to be chained to the throne by anything but the most strictly negotiated of contracts, leaving little room for the King to demand much. They were left with free reign to make use of Duskwood as they saw fight, and so continued to grow their estates and their lands by chopping trees, planting crops, and more.

But even still, their estates were but islands, in a sea.

And even today, though those islands are much larger, the Duskwood remains a land dominated by its mighty trees. Even just a stone's throw from Raven's Hill or Brightshire, the trees remain tall, and many of the roads of the region remain plunged in twilight. The fringes of noble estates hang in shadows, even as the centers remain dominated by apple orchards, berry bushes and the like. While grain for local use is grown in Duskwood, it is fruit that remains the primary food export of the region, as well as mushrooms (some gathered wild, some farmed in sheds filled with manure) and of course, wood. Less concerned about maintaining the trees for long term use, given how many of the damn things there are, the nobles can chop, chop and chop. However, the trees of Duskwood are not as useful for ships or building as those in Elwynn, and the logistics of getting them to market means that trees are usually only clear-cut en masse when needed for clearing more land for farming.

The primary feature of life in Duskwood, outside the cities and towns, is the power of the nobles over the lives of their tenants. Serfdom proper is no longer practiced in Stormwind, but Duskwood, many remnants linger - tenants must use the lord's bake-ovens, buy from the lord's markets, they owe him free labor in certain situations and contexts... though, despite the regular rumors that continue to make the circuits among gossips and rumormongers, noblemen and women do not exercise the right of 'first night' - which was never actually a right ever legally practiced anywhere in the post-Arathor states, or even during the empire.1​

One would think that the oppressiveness of the local lords would make the peasants of Duskwood fertile recruiting ground for the Defias Brotherhood, but that tends not to be true. For centuries, the Crown was the one peasants could turn to to reign in the nobles. While actual successful instances of the Crown affecting real change on the life of the peasants are rare, the threat of crown interference in local affairs - even if only within the rights allotted to the crown - is enough to get some lords to reign themselves in, for a time.

With how militantly anti-Crown the Defias Brotherhood is, the peasantry in Duskwood, with their very long history of loyalty to the Crown, has proven to not be fertile recruiting ground. There are certainly those who have turned away from the Crown and towards the Defias, deciding that the King is not the 'good father to his people' that they believed he was. Some have been swayed by argument, or propaganda, some by mere grievance.

Defias efforts in the region have, in an odd way, found more purchase with the nobles of Duskwood than with the peasants.

Just as love of the Crown is nearly universal (in theory, if less so in practice) among the peasants of Duskwood, hatred of the Crown is nearly universal (in theory, if not quite as much in practice) among the nobility of the region. The grievances the Duskwood nobles have with the Crown are many and varied, and some families, like the Counts of Haln and the Lords of Borgrave maintain actual records of every little slight they feel the Crown has given them and their families, meticulously maintained and copied down through the ages - in the case of both families, these records were among those taken with them as they fled the orcs during the First War.

Duskwood nobles, with their penchant for rapacious cruelty and oppression - even if it is overblown to some extent - make for a strange bedfellow with the Defias Brotherhood, to say the least. Van Cleef does carry certain anti-peasant attitudes, born of his life as a city-dweller and guildsman, but he certainly has more reason to side with a peasant than with a snotty noble.

There are, broadly speaking, two breeds of Duskwood Nobles working with Van Cleef and the Brotherhood, though this is an oversimplification.

The first type is exactly what you'd expect - cynical conservative reactionaries, aiding revolutionaries like Van Cleef merely to spite the King, fully intending to backstab the Brotherhood a 'the right moment' in order to garner the prestige for bringing down such a threat, proving just how useless the Crown is - and thus, why power should be devolved even more to the nobility. They hold their nose as they provide succor, aid and political cover to the Brotherhood, slyly suggesting in the House of Nobles or in various social events across the Kingdom that maybe the Defias Brotherhood has just a tiny bit of a point, despite being rabble-rousing unwashed masses: Maybe the problem really is the King...

These conservatives tend to also be among the poorer and less landed nobles - still wealthy by most standards, but with but one or maybe two estates to their names, and not always particularly valuable ones at that.

The second group is... also what you'd expect. Well-meaning, well-intentioned radical nobles. Usually young (20s and early 30s), often very religious and deeply faithful about the teachings of the Light, but in more reformist strains. They care deeply about the plight of the commoners, in theory, and in practice... well, most of them spend more time in the intellectual salons of Raven Hill rather than back at their estates, leaving their peasants to be overseen by cousins, distant relations or castellans, who tend not to share their bleeding hearts.

When they do get directly involved in the management of their estates, they can be inconsistent, doing things like reducing work times, or mandating safer construction of homes and buildings, but not lowering rents enough to make that practical. Or they tear down their Lord's ovens (no longer requiring their tenants to use their public ovens for a fee) but fail to notice there are now no other ovens for people to use to bake their bread. They tend to be tone deaf in their radicalism, often proposing more rationalized tax schemes that will end up hitting the peasants worse in the short term, even if arguably better for them long term. They propose an end to various alimentary systems that nobles are obligated to provide for their peasants - and yes, they want to match them with reforms to make those handouts unnecessary, but...

These radicals want to see an end to the Monarchy, and a new, representative order... but they do tend to believe, that at least at first, they'll be the ones in charge - after all, they may not actually be better by birth (this set does not tend to believe that nobility means they're actually better than anyone else) but their wealth and status has afforded them better educations that make them better able to steer the ship of state in the immediate aftermath of a revolution.

These two groups make even stranger bedfellows with each other. There are some nobles from outside Duskwood who have aligned with the Defias for reasons of ideology or cynicism, but Duskwood does seem particularly rife with them.

Van Cleef is certainly planning to backstab the conservatives just as much as they are planning to backstab him - captured Defias correspondence and an interrogation of a conservative Defias-ally by SI:7 make that clear.

The Defias plans for the radicals are... unclear. At the very least, the radicals are not planning to betray the Defias, and if Van Cleef is planning to betray them, he's not written anything of it in anything SI:7 has captured. Some fringe elements of the Brotherhood Van Cleef tries to clamp down on hard have expressed certain opinions on the radicals - some, loathing all nobles, plan to strap them to cannons and fire, come victory, and others, who argue for a strict meritocracy (without much truck for elections) find the radical nobles to be an example - in theory - of the meritocratic class they want to foster, or at least a reasonable first draft.

In Raven Hill and Brightshire, the Brotherhood has more success, mostly with middle-class townsmen and lower class laborers who find themselves interested in one or another of the Defias Brotherhood's ideas. But in terms of active Defias operations, Duskwood is not an area of major focus - recruiting, information gathering, blackmail/theft/smuggling and other fundraising operations, and the like. The occasional assassination of a royal official, army officer or the like, but compared to both Elwynn and Westfall, the Defias Brotherhood remains content - for now - to be low to the ground in the region.

Beyond the Brotherhood, Duskwood was harried by the undead forces of a necromancer named Morbent Fel for most of the last year, a career criminal who was kicked out of the Kirin Tor at the age of 16 (but not before absconding with forbidden books of necromancy). Despite accusations, Lordaeron was not involved with Fel at all, and he appears to have had no direct connection with Scourge, though Cult of the Damned Literature was found in his hideout in the caldera of the dormant volcano that sits near the center of Duskwood. SI:7, working with the Order of the Silver Hand, tracked him down from the raids of his undead a month ago and dealt with him, destroying most of his research - though rumors persist that a double-agent in SI:7 may have passed some of it on to Lordaeron - and handing the rest over to the Kirin Tor for tactical assessments.2​

Recently, reports of strange, wolflike humanoids in the remotest parts of the Duskwood have reached the Marshalls , though they remain unconfirmed at this time.

Like most of the rest of the kingdom, Duskwood is not exactly a stable region, with unhappy nobles (treasonous or otherwise) resisting even reasonable royal edicts - the tax revenues (for instance) from the region are even lower than normal, proportionally, as more and more nobles hold back monies using every loophole they can get away with (even ones that aren't actually legal) while they make it harder for any of their peasants to sign up for the Royal Army, while often refusing to bear the expense of growing the number of their personal armsmen. And the ancient trees of Duskwood, which have borne witness to so many wars and battles, from the glory days of the Gurubashi Empire to the First War, hide many secrets, new and old.

---

1: a noble lord or lady raping a peasant under their power of course does happen, and while this is illegal, a peasant in Duskwood has less recourses for reporting it than elsewhere in the Kingdom. But some sort of widespread systematized thing like the Right of First Night - which appears to have never been a thing IRL - is not present in Duskwood, despite it being a common feature in folk stories and yes, even romantic novels for the middle class (with it either being practiced by the cruel, evil noble that stands in the way of the young couple, or it's a situation where it's used more romantically, to get the couple together)

2: i.e. the same way a lab will keep samples of a deadly disease or bioweapon on hand for the purpose of making cures, vaccines, countermeasures, etc. That's the only (official) reason the Kirin Tor - in any incarnation - ever had texts on Death Magic or Fel Magic or artifacts of such magic, and it was kept in secure vaults so only the trusted could get it. Fel was a thief, while Kel'Thuzad was trusted enough to have had access to those vaults before he got caught.

Of course, some members of the Kirin Tor, for reasons of curiosity, pride or a belief that there's no such thing as evil knowledge, kept some books/artifacts that should have been destroyed because if there's one thing you can count on mages to do, it's keep dangerous knowledge around.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Ambassador Jartha Tin'zali: Come now, Councilman. Surely you can see that the League has more to offer you and Zul'Hiram, than Stormwind. Especially with Varian on the throne. He's a loose tiger after eating a gulapua fruit1​.
Hiramsfort Councillor Baro Kin'toza: I don't think you appreciate how things have changed, since the last time the Gnoll Marches changed hands, Ambassador. Stormwind isn't alone, or with one ally at best. Stormwind may not be what it was, Varian may be a massive shit, and Stromgarde may be a rump of its former self, but Ironforge and Kul Tiras are as strong as ever. If we defect to you, then next time a war comes, the old gentlemanly fights and contests will be a thing of the past. I can't say your offer isn't tempting, but the Gurubashi League needs to find itself allies before I'll be convinced you're the winning horse.

The hilly country between Duskwood and the Stranglethorn Jungles is uniquely blessed with mineral wealth. Or at least, silver. The veins were first tapped by the Gurubashi Empire in it's glory days, when the Kobolds were still slaves. They're still producing silver now, thousands of years later (though it helps that they didn't really start getting exploited again until a few hundred years ago), and that silver is one reason the region now known as the Gnoll Marches are so valuable.

The other, of course, is the overland trade routes.

While shipping from various Gurubashi ports is possible, the stretch of coastline that the League commands is dotted with dangerous reefs, deadly storms and other hazards to travel that make it a business for the experienced or the thrill seeker. The Bloodsail Buccaneers and the Steamwheedle Cartel also make it harder to conduct naval travel in the region. Still, of course, ships leave the ports of Mizah, Bal'lal, Zuuldaia and Yojamba every day, loaded to the gills with spices, coffee and chocolate.

But for more inland cities, it is often more economical, or more practical, to just load up goods on caravans and ship them into Stormwind - passing through the Marches. The cities, towns, fortified strongpoints and crossroads stops have finely honed, over the centuries, the careful art of shearing the sheep that pass through their domain, rather than skinning it - exactly small fees that add up by volume, providing food and supplies, fodder for animals, stabling costs, nights at the inn, entertainment (of multiple types) reliable caravan guards, and more. No other region in the known world (even Theramore) has managed to strike such a perfect balance that allows them to exact maximum wealth from merchants crossing their domain without decreasing the volume of trade passing through even a little.

It is that careful balancing act the locals have developed that has led to the odd game of chess that serves as war in the Marches.2​ No one wants to risk destroying the ecosystem that produces so much wealth, creates so much tax revenue. Sure, there's the mines, but the locals have managed to run the trade routes that export the silver and supply miners with food and supplies such that to disrupt the merchant trade up from the League would disrupt those routes as well.

The local elites of the Marches, be they merchants, nobles or both, do not want to see their wealth destroyed by the petty warfare of Stormwind or the Gurbashi League. In most places at most times, making the source of your wealth so very fragile, making it so your entire region could easily be rendered poor, starving and destitute just by someone looking at it funny would be a bad move, to say the least.

In the Marches... it is the best move possible. In the Marches, everything is a carefully managed ecosystem of trade, money and travel, and to damage it would be to destroy all value in claiming the region.

And so, for centuries, Stormwind and the League have danced a careful dance. Sieges are usually casual affairs, at best, more symbolic than anything else. Battles can be real and bloody, and anyone who dies or who is maimed for life in one is still dead, or maimed, but they are as often or not nearly bloodless affairs of manuever and thrust. Even when blood is spilled, the battles are careful, gentlemanly affairs. No ambush, no tricks below the board - generally - and prisoners are taken and treated remarkably well.

Usually.

Sometimes, of course, some officer from elsewhere in wither Stormwind or the League will be transferred to the Marches and not really understand things. They will be a bull in the glassmaker's shop for a while and either be assassinated (as much by their own side as anyone else, or by the locals), transferred back, or they'll adapt.

And thus, is the modern Marches. Despite being part of Stormwind, it doesn't (mostly) share in Stormwind's problems. Beyond a handful of people engaging in covert fundraising, illicit purchasing and some recruitment here and there, the Defias Brotherhood has no presence in the region. Katrana Prestor's micromanagement has no real foothold in the region, since the locals have many rights to their own bureaucratic postings. SI:7 does have a role in maintaining the loyalty of the local elites and checking to see if any are considering switching sides, but you can't really arrest someone in the Marches for pondering that, just prepare for it. As long as you're not actively making war against the Kingdom or the like, it's not really treason, in the Marches.

The Marches themselves are a patchwork of city-states, noble fiefdoms, small towns and little freeholds, sometimes with the most unusual borders3​ in the known world. Exclaves and enclaves, bits jutting out in weird thin strips, two parts barely connected by a tiny sliver of land.

And these lands to change hands. Intermarriage, sale, division of estates, land lost on bets and bankruptcy, and more. Assassination is the closest to war the various territories get to fighting with one another to death. Occasionally bully gangs of thugs will be dispatched, but the fights are never to the death, and the fights are uncommon to begin with.

Exactly who the most powerful of these territories changes based on accumulated wealth, favors from whoever the overlord is, the terms of most recent side-switch, the vagaries of trade and a thousand other things. At this point, the five most important are:

• Hiramsfort (Zul'Hiram to the Gurbashi), a city-state dominated by the merchant-noble oligarchy, which includes Trolls and Humans, with the Gurubashi or Stormwindian leanings and culture entirely independent of race. Possesses a mine with - for now - some of the purest and easiest to refine silver in the Marches. It is also centrally located in the southern third of the Marches.
• The Count of Midsilver, ruled by a family of trolls ennobled and given special associated privileges 153 years ago in exchange for switching sides then. Despite their race, the family is mostly Stormwindian in culture regardless of who their overlord is. Unusually for the Marches, the current Count has an unusually disciplined and well trained force of armsmen.
• Yurijio, another city-state, mostly dominated by ethnically Gurubashi human merchants, but close to the border of Stormwind proper. Known for their exceptionally spicy food even by Gurubashi standards, they export pickled chillies to both Stormwind and the League, made to a well-guarded recipe and process.
• The Baroness of Goi'yambo, the family was ennobled 102 years ago, and was originally human. However the current Baroness is a bastard born half-troll who was the only viable heir after a series of accidents and sicknesses that can't be proven to have been carefully arranged assassinations. The Baroness has been accused of being a Hakkar cultist, a servant of the Burning Legion, a follower of the Old Gods or a servant of the Scourge. SI:7 has deemed these accusations just jealous and prejudice, or possibly fear if she really did kill everyone who stood in the way of her succession (which they can't prove). The Baroness has begun staffing her (small) bureaucracy with other half-troll bastards from across the Marches.
• Old Hrel', a fortified township in a fairly remote part of the Marches has risen to recent prominence after the opening of several new silver mines in the area, allowing them to export vast quantities of silver, boosting their wealth significantly. They have, however, been quite selective in allowing new labor to migrate in, preferring to keep the work 'in the town' as much as possible. This has raised questions about how they can export so much silver, just from a pure labor standpoint.

Culture in the Marches is a mishmash of local customs that have emerged, Stormwindian and Gurubashi. You're as likely to see a troll at a chapel for the Light as a human at a temple to one of the Loa, and even more likely to see the same person do both. The food, music and art is a fusion and a hybrid, though some elements lean more towards one side or the other in various places.

The region is dominated by the elites, with the common people not having that much direct power - but they have been able to mobilize themselves for mass walkouts, protests and strikes, and the local elites don't have the same options to use force that someone in Stormwind or the League would. Weaker, smaller and less well trained forces of armsmen and soldiers and guards, generally. Plus, the organizers of these efforts know that if things get too violent, too many laborers die, the fragile economy falters and then it's open season on the Marches for their neighbors.

These tactics rarely manage to achieve the total changes desired by any given effort, as group cohesion and unity can be shattered once selective concessions are given, but it has allowed the common people in the marches a standard of living higher than anywhere else in the Eastern Kingdoms in the last few centuries, barring Moonbrook (sometimes) and Quel'Thalas during it's height (when abundant magic allowed for the even the meanest of elven commoners to have standards of living well above any human in the Eastern Kingdoms...provided they weren't social pariahs and outcasts.

Racism is effectively unheard of between humans and jungle trolls in the Marches, except when some outsider moves in. Every now and then, outsiders, either lower class people looking for work, middle-class professionals seeking their fortune, or rich merchants looking to make more money, and if they fail to adapt and hold onto old prejudices, they'll quickly find social barriers inhibiting any progress economically.

For a Marcher, a troll is a troll, a human is a human, but the difference is basically one has tusks and purple skin and the other doesn't. That is an oversimplification, but it remains true nonetheless. The one exception is half-trolls.

Sexual relations between humans and trolls are not unheard of, but they are rare, mostly because it is uncommon for a human to be attracted to a troll or vice-versa, as the beauty standards between the races, both culturally and physically, tend to diverge quite a bit. But it does happen. It isn't exactly taboo, but it isn't considered part of polite society.

When these unions produce a half-troll, however, racism can be seen. It is a quiet racism, not one backed by law, but half-trolls are shunned, forced into the worst jobs, and rarely get a chance to marry or have children (except, of course, with other half-trolls, creating half-trolls who are the children of half trolls who may be the children of half-trolls.) It does happen, again often covertly and bastard born, but not always that way. Some of the prominent merchants in Hiramsfort may well have mixed blood in their ancestry, going back a few generations, or they may not. Sometimes hard to tell.

The prejudice against half-trolls can vary based on the social status of the half-troll's family - a nobly born half-troll, or one with wealthy parents, may get away with more - at least publicly - than a poor one will, though they will still very much be the black sheep of the family.

The source of the racism is hard to pin down, and has become part of the cultural makeup of the Marches. It could just be revulsion at the implications of their existence - for most humans, and most trolls, the idea of having sex with a member of the opposite species just isn't that appealing, or actively discomforting. It could be how disquieting some half-trolls can look, with skin of an unusual shade of light blue in most cases, their limbs never seeming the right length for their body (either the limbs or the body often seems too long), the differences in hair growth patterns, and more. It could just be that many people need someone to hate, and half-trolls are convenient. It could be (as some fringe Defias-associated philosophers have suggested) that the prejudice was created so half-trolls could serve as a permanent underclass for the worst and most unpleasant jobs, especially since they could breed true.

The Gnoll Marches have, overall, had a blessed existence since their formation. They have been largely free of the harsher wars and conflicts of Azeroth, and rode out the First and Second Wars entirely, even as they happened on their doorstep. They had no direct connection to the Third War, beyond, of course, losing markets with all those people dying, and while they did lead to some economic dislocation, it didn't destroy the region, not even close.

But things are at risk of changing for the Marches. Varian is not like his father or grandfather, and imbibed many anti-troll sentiments of the northern Eastern Kingdoms during and after the Second War, and while he understands the way things are supposed to be done in the Marches, he doesn't really internalize it.

Basically, the elites are afraid that Varian, or Katrana, may start impinging on their traditional way of life. They fear that the world has changed enough that perhaps they just can't continue as they were.

They fear that if war comes to the Marches again, Varian will inevitably call in the rest of the Alliance, and Kul Tiras and Ironforge especially, being powerful in numbers and resources still, will not fight the chess-game battles of before.

They fear that defecting now may start that war, despite the fact that many do like the idea of changing sides to the League... sort of.

They fear that the Marches blessed existence has ended, that it may be time to pick a side, and stick with it.

They fear that the unity of the Marches will be destroyed, the unity of their cities and domains and towns will be lost.

They fear that the new resources of Kalimdor could cut into the profits of Stranglethorn goods, if given time.

They fear, they fear, and they fear.

The Gnoll Marches are perhaps a relic of ages past, they fear.

Some now look to the League, some look to Anduin, hoping against hope that he will be better than his father (and in fairness, he does seem to be, by what reports exist, far less steeped in anti-troll attitudes than Varian).

The Baroness of Goi'yambo, and a small circle around her, human, troll and half-troll are rumored to be discussing the prospects of an Independent Marches, free of the see-saw back and forth, free from the exactings of the League, and of Stormwind. The Marches are both and neither, and something new altogether, and it is time, some day, that they embrace that.

And some suggest that the Marches may have lost all purpose entirely, that it is time they be divided, and divided up for good. Perhaps it is time to kill the goose, and collect that last golden egg, and reevaluate.

The Gurubashi League looms on the southern frontier, not eager for a war, but eager to take back the Marches, or at least a large chunk. Stormwind just needs to free up just some troops for Redridge, just enough...

And yet, the League demands more than Varian is willing to pay. And so, the Marches remain in abeyance. The Chess game grinds on, but the board shakes and rocks, and if a major city defects? With Varian as King? With the rest of the Alliance looking on? With the rest of the world watching?

No one knows, and so...

They fear.

---

1: A fruit (that I made up, not canon) that is hallucinogenic.

2: To clarify what I mean here - allow me to quote one of my favorite books Blizzard ever paid someone to write (showing that once in a while, Blizzard does know what they're doing. Seriously, if you like Starcraft at all, I highly recommend the book) the Starcraft book "Liberty's Crusade":

Spoiler: Liberty's Crusade, Chapter 11

"The Comparison has been made between war and chess," said Arcturus Mengsk, forking his knight to threaten both Mike's queen and his bishop.

"You're very good at both," said Mike, moving his queen to take Mengsk's rook.

"Actually, I find the comparison to be false," said the terrorist, moving his knight to take the bishop. "Checkmate, by the way."

Mike blinked at the board. Mengsk's strategy was obvious now, in the same way that it had been totally opaque mere seconds before. The reporter mentally kicked himself and reached for his brandy snifter. In the background, the lost tunes of ancient Miller and Goodman warbled out of the comm unit. The ashtray to one side of the board was filled with butts, all of them Mike's. They smelled faintly of cat urine.

They were on board the Hyperion, resting in a hidden hanger on Antiga Prime. Duke was off
reorganizing the rebel troops into something that was more Confederate in nature. Raynor was off trying to keep Duke from making a complete mess of things. Mike had no idea where Kerrigan was, but that was normal for Kerrigan.

"Chess is not like war?" Mike asked.

"Once, perhaps, it was," said Mengsk. "On Old Earth, back in the mists of time. Two equal opponents, with equal forces, on a level playing field."

"And that's not the case. Not anymore."

"Hardly," said the terrorist, warming to his own discussion. "First, the opponents are hardly ever truly even. The Confederacy of Man had Apocalypse-class missiles and my homeworld did not; the Confederacy played that card until Korhal IV was a blackened glass sphere hanging in space. Hardly even. Similarly, our little rebellion seemed at first to be undermanned and underfunded, but with each new revolt the Confederacy loses more of its will to fight. It is ancient and rotten, and all it needs is a good push to cave it in. You don't see that in chess.

"Second," Mengsk continued, "is the idea of equal forces. I mentioned the missiles, so effective in my father's time, yet mere pinpricks in the light of the forces being wielded today. Forces continue to evolve—nukes, telepaths, now Zerg being raised by the Confederacy."

"War is supposed to increase development," said Mike.

"Yes, but most people use the guns and armor analogy: one side gets a better gun, the other side gets better armor, which inspires a still better gun, and so on. The truth is that a better gun inspires a chemical counterweapon, which then inspires a telepathic strike, which then brings about an artificial intelligence guiding the weapon. The pressure of war does bring about growth, but it is never the neat, linear growth that you learn about in the classroom."

"Or read about in the papers."
Mengsk smiled. "Third is the idea of a level playing field. The chessboard is limited to an eight-by-eight grid. There is nothing beyond this little universe. No ninth rank. No green pieces that suddenly sweep onto the board to attack both black and white. No pawns that suddenly become bishops."

"A pawn can become a queen," Mike noted.

"But only by advancing through all the spaces of its row, under fire the entire time. It doesn't suddenly blossom into a queen by its own volition. No, chess is nothing like war, which is one of the reasons I play it. It's so much simpler than real life."

3: Like some of the borders of the Holy Roman Empire, but not quite as bad as some of the worst examples there.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Spoiler: Administrative Note

Because I can't justify continuing to pay for a game I don't currently want to play right now, my WoW Subscription has lapsed. Unfortunately, it has been quite a while since I did a circuit of Ironforge, or anything like that, so I'm working mostly from the wiki here, without much memory to draw from. Characterization of some people may be a bit off, especially Magni, since I really only remember the BfA version of him. Corrections on if you think I'm getting anything wrong will be considered and listened to. Unlike with some of the factions we've explored so far, and will going forward, I don't actually enjoy spending time in and around Ironforge, so... less exposure to begin with.

Senator Barin Redstone: Your majesty, I am simply asking for more time! Stormwind has gotten nowhere with negotiating with the Gurubashi, we cannot force the advance on Shadowforge City alone!
High King Magni Bronzebeard: And we won't! Aye, we may have to make the first move, but Varian won't be standing still when there's orcs Stormwind can kill.
Senator Redstone: Without the additional men from Stormwind's south-
King Magni: They won't be able to do as much, but we'll just have to step up. The Gnomes and our own engineers have some new machines that will even the odds. The Dark Iron have spent so much time on their arcane magic they've forgotten how dwarves win wars, Senator: Engineering, Machines and Iron Discipline!

If there was a realm that could be said to have been virtually untouched by the Three Wars, then Ironforge would be it. Even Kul Tiras suffered more at the hands of the Horde, given the losses and battles at sea, the attacks on some of the outlying islands belonging to the Admiralty.

Of course, Ironforge did not sit out the Second War entirely, and could very well have joined in the First War, had things gone differently. Magni had strongly considered sending aid to Llane Wrynn, but a resisting Senate, the fact that Stormwind didn't seem - at first - to really need all that much aid, and a host of other concerns kept Magni from pressing the issue. It is a fact that has haunted him since the sack of Stormwind. When the orcs boiled north, they did give him the chance of submission, but he didn't take it, spitting in the face of the Horde's envoys.

Unfortunately, satisfying though that might have been, it ensured that the orcs would lay siege to Ironforge, driving all the dwarves underground, or into only the most secure of the hidden valleys and strongpoints on the surface of Dun Morogh. The Kingdom was left besieged and barricaded off until the last days of the Second War, but Magni and the Ironforge Senate were quick to join the Alliance. And in the Alliance, Ironforge has remained.

Of course, the history of Ironforge did not start with the First War. It began, thousands of years before, with the emergence of the former Earthen, from deep within the earth. The Dwarves, of course, did not know of their titanic origins for many millennia, their birth from deep within the earth something of a mystery. Predominant theories had it that their people had lived far deeper underground without written record for many millennia, and that some unspecified disaster had driven them to closer to the surface.

Regardless of what it was, dwarves and gnomes rose closer to the surface more than 3,000 years before the opening of the Dark Portal They soon made contact with one another, and Ironforge was the first and greatest city of the Dwarves. In time, the dwarves organized themselves in clans, based on kinship - both familial and conceptual - and from among those clans rose the Anvilmar to eventual kingship. But that Kingship didn't emerge until after the wars between the dwarves and the Gurubashi began, starting in -2,300 and ending, essentially, with the fall of the Gurubashi Empire in -1,511.

The dwarves and trolls warred many times in that span, and time and again, the dwarves more robust and efficient economy, especially when paired with the gnomes inventiveness, allowed them to push the trolls back. But by the -2,000s, things had stalled. The Senate, representing the leaders of the clans, had bogged down in mutual recriminations, and nobody wanted to be the one to bear the burden for costs without getting their 'share' of the reward. And no one wanted to be the one to make a decision that could lead to the deaths of thousands.

And no one wanted to risk letting someone else get the glory.

It was in this space that Muradin Anvilmar, a general and smith without peer in that generation, rose. With his own fortune, he raised a new force of soldiers and pushed forward against the entrenched Gurubashi in and around what is now Blackrock Spire, seizing the fortress after a two year siege following a clever assault at the weakest points. Hailed by his soldiers, by his allies in the Senate, and by the people at large, Muradin Anvilmar was voted - by a slim majority - to be the first King of Ironforge. The title was borrowed from the Gnomes, but the dwarves did not grant the same powers to their King. The King was afforded a great deal of control over the armies of Ironforge, but succession remained firmly in the hands of the Senate, as did matters of mining grants, and taxation.

But the centralization of authority proved to be more than enough to give Ironforge renewed prosperity and power. Success against the Gurubashi, and in skirmishes against the crumbling Arathi Empire in the Wetlands would eventually see Ironforge (in partnership with their much smaller ally, Gnomegeran) the effective ruler from the edge of the Redridge Mountains, all the way to the gap that would one day host Thandol Span. With the Arathi driven out of Khaz Modan, relations with the humans, especially the realms further from Strom, proved to be lucrative and friendly, overall. The Dwarves were secure in their power, selling weapons and tools and devices of all sorts to the world at large, even to the post-Gurubashi city-states. The Dwarves were, for a time, the dominant power in the Eastern Kingdoms - as the Arathi Empire broke up, it was dwarven money (and the occasional dwarven mercenary force - while Ironforge took no sides in any human war, many dwarves were happy to take human coin and fight. A dwarven phalanx was a deadly force on the battlefield, for any kingdom or noble willing to pay their often exorbitant prices.) that greased the sinews of war between the states that arose, as the consolidation into the four kingdoms of the north - Lordaeron, Stromgarde, Alterac and Gilneas. Kul Tiras and Stormwind were of course regular features in the rotating cast of wars fought amongst those four as well, all for advantage and for prestige, while Dalaran began to expose the dwarves to arcane magic in ways they'd not truly used.

It was not that dwarves lacked arcane magic, or lacked familiarity with it - gnomes had been members of the Council of Tirisfal from the start - but for the longest time, dwarven magic was enchantment and runes, improving items, rather than with spells. It was seen to be a cheat to cast a spell of fireball on your enemies - there was no true skill there. Skill was in imbuing your sword or axe or hammer with the essence of fire itself. It was using magic to make your blade strike with an edge sharper than it could normally be, never growing dull except if faced with greater magic.

But not all dwarves agreed. Some, those that dwelt in the deepest parts of the Kingdom, or who lived underneath the slumbering giant that was the volcanic Blackrock Mountain, found themselves drawn to the power of the Arcane. Those who lived in the deepest, darkest levels of the earth found scraps and fragments of their history, suggesting arcane origins for themselves and for the gnomes, that arcane magic was perhaps a legacy for them all their own.

Among the leaders of this movement were the Dark Iron Clan, becoming known for their socerous ways, and their command of the finest gem mines in the Kingdom. How much of their reputation for scheming and treachery even this far back is genuine, and how much is a later invention, is unclear. The Dark Iron, and those clans that followed them into the arcane, were often met with disdain and distrust by their fellows, and it is possible that the only became schemers and intriguers to the extent that they were - because dwarven society was hardly free of such machinations before - because others expected it of them.1​ Or perhaps power corrupts. Or both.

But even as some clans turned to the Arcane, others saw a different path - there were some clans that lived on the surface. Some dwarves, for all their origins, found the underground stifling, claustrophobic. At least as a constant state. Many dwarves did business on the surface, but some truly found their homes there. And while on the surface, they grew more in touch with the currents of the natural world.

Had any Night elves been present in the Eastern Kingdoms, it's quite plausible the Wildhammer Clan, and other surface clans may well have adopted Druidism. Instead, they turned to Shamanism. It's not clear where they learned the art, or if they developed it entirely on their own. Kobolds, deep underground, and Gnolls practiced it, as did a few other, even more reclusive races, but there's no evidence the Wildhammer picked it up from them. But Shamanism has been developed independently more than once - the ancient humans before the Arathi Empire practiced it, for instance, and they did not adopt it from the gnolls or kobolds. And they, of course, had to develop it at some point.

However it came to me, the surface clans, many of them anyway, developed bonds with griffons, and other surface dwelling animals, and started to shun some of the more extreme examples of industry and artifice that made the main body of the dwarves who they were. They developed shamanistic magic, and became semi-nomadic to some extent, but certainly far less prone to setting down permanent roots.

The main body of the dwarves, of course, remained largely unchanged. The most traditional of the traditional were the Bronzebeards. When the worship of the Light spread to the dwarves, it did find much purchase among traditional dwarvges, it's values in line with their own, but the Bronzebeard quite notably were not so interested in it, at the time. But the worship of the Light didn't penetrate as far into the arcane-using clans, nor the surface-dwelling ones.

These three forces were a tension in dwarvish society, but as long as the Anvilmars had a lock on the succession, there was no need for it. Generation after generation, the Anvilmars were able to secure the succession in the Senate, King after King. The traditional minded clans always had the majority of the Senate, but they were often divided, disagreeing. So the Anvilmars were often able to cobble-together votes based on the deeper or surface clans when it came to the succession especially. The Bronzebeards in particular made multiple bids for the throne over the years, but never managed it.

Generations passed, and then, 230 years before the dark portal operned, it all exploded. The King, Modimus Anvilmar, died. He had previously voted his eldest son to be heir, and secured that from the Senate.

Unfortunately, the reason Modimus had died was a heart attack, on the shock that his son had died at the hands of his wife, revenge for an affair. So there was no named heir elected, and for the first time since the Kingship had been created, the succession was wide open.

The Bronzebeards made their play, but they weren't - at first - able to get enough of the traditionalists onside to push through. The Dark Iron did the same, and they got some traditionalists, but not enough, and the surface dwellers and Bronzebeards united against them. The Wildhammer made their play, and the same happened in reverse. None of the other clans even had the smallest chance, but unless all the traditionalists coalesced behind the Bronzebeards...

What happened next is a matter of much dispute. Even though the Bronzebeards and Wildhammer would later become friends and allies, at this point, they were as much enemies as the Dark Iron and the Bronzebeards, or the Wildhammer and the Dark Iron. The historical record of all three clans is divergent, and none of the eyewitness accounts that come down to us can be trusted. There is one account, recorded by the Gnomish ambassador to Ironforge that might be objective, but on his death 190 years before the Dark Portal opened, he had his personal journals locked up behind a combination of magical and mechanical locks that would stop them from being opened for 500 years after his death - and if the locks aren't deterrence, there's the fact that his will expressed the same desire, and Gnomegeran law requires that will be respected. So no one's tried to force the locks, yet.

Left with biased and incomplete accounts, the best conclusion outside historians can draw is that in an effort to rally the traditionalist clans to all back them for the Kingship, the Bronzebeards appear to have promised them something that went beyond the norm, and pissed off the deep-dwelling clans around the Dark Iron, and the surface-dwelling clans around the Wildhammer.

What that is remains impossible to say for sure. But it was more than just not being elected that drove the Dark Iron and Wildhammer to lead their allies in revolt, but a fear of what the Bronzebeards would do that led to it.2​

Whatever happened, on the eve of the vote that would secure the Bronzebeards the Kingship, both the Wildhammers and the Dark Iron, joined by their allies, officially broke with the Senate, broke with the traditionalists, and threw down the gauntlet of civil war. Attacked the Senate building even as they and their own allies left it. Only by the bravery and skill of Madoran Bronzebeard's defense of the Senate building was that attack repulsed, but Ironforge, the kingdom, and the city, now stood divided, openly at war with itself.

The fighting only lasted for a year, but it was a brutal, bloody, monstrous year. The surface clans blockaded the passage of food into the city and the rest of the Kingdom, save for themselves (and at a high markup, their nominal Dark Iron allies, quickly souring their alliance of convenience), and deaths by or related to starvation mounted. Brother did not (much) slay brother, but dwarf fought dwarf in a way that had never happened before. Ambush, execution of prisoners, torture, and all the sins of civil war mounted. And both the Dark Irons and the Wildhammer sought to position themselves to rule in the aftermath, position the other to take greater losses. Even as the Wildhammer starved the Dark Iron by inches rather than the miles they did the Bronzebeards, the Dark Iron collapsed Bronzebeard tunnels and caverns... but in such a way that caused avalanches and collapses on the surface, taking a few Wildhammer settlements with them.

The Bronzebeards were the worst in handling prisoners, seeing all their enemies as the basest of traitors, not even dwarves anymore. They kept meticulous records of the forced labor - prisoners would die in weeks at the pace, forced to build defensive works. They kept vivid details of the tortures they inflicted.

But the war only lasted a year. Because in the end, the Wildhammer and the Dark Iron, and their allied clans, couldn't work together. The number advantage of the Bronzebeards, their mastery of machinery and smithing, and the fact that they were the only clan that had a chance of winning the support of the Gnomes (the Gnomes remained neutral throughout, but all three sides courted them) meant that they always had the best chance of victory anyway. But the cracks in the anti-Bronzebeard alliance were exploited to the hilt, and in the end, the Wildhammer, the Dark Iron, and all their allies were driven from the city, and from the core areas of the Kingdom.

The Wildhammer fled to Grim Batol, an old fortress that had been build to defend against Arathi or later Stromic attack on the Wetlands. Though built into the mountain, it wasn't much underground, compared to Ironforge, and the Wetlands were strong with the natural spirits of the world.

The Dark Iron fled to Blackrock Mountain, which had already been a bastion of arcane-using clans to begin with, thanks to the fire of the volcano and the lure of the power of arcane flame that had been strong for the clans there.

The Bronzebeards and their allies tried to push further, to bring the Dark Iron and Wildhammer to heel - or maybe to kill them and the allies for good - but they couldn't. They could take back the core of the Kingdom, but their enemies were entrenched now, and the Bronzebeards spent. But the Dark Irons and the Wildhammer and their allies had no chance of pushing forward. Especially as any attempt for united efforts quickly broke down in mutual accusations and recriminations.

And so, in the end, all three sides agreed to what was assumed to be a temporary summit, a temporary ceasefire, a pause. None truly conceded anything, but it was agreed that the vast territory of Ironforge would be divided up, in what has since become known as the Treaty of Three Hammers, giving the preceding war it's name.



Everyone assumed war would resume, soon, once everyone had licked their wounds, and possibly found allies among the humans. Human records of those emissaries approaching them remarked at the irony that after so long of the dwarves being one of the Kingmakers of northern politics among the humans, they were now the ones looking for someone else to play Kingmaker for them.

But in the end, the war resumed sooner, and in ways never expected, and Arkador Thaurissan, later to become the First Emperor of Shadowforge, Sorcerer-Thane before the war, would accomplish the impossible: Make the Wildhammer and the Bronzebeard become friends.

---

1: In other words, a case of Then Let Me Be Evil
2: The dominant explanation among the Dark Iron is that the Bronzebeards promised to outlaw the teaching of arcane magic to dwarvish children, even ones with the talent and the desire to become apprentices. The Wildhammers say that the Bronzebeards proposed to re-evaluate the wealth rules around Senate membership in such a way that would have favored smithing, mining and other metal-crafts related work, which the Wildhammers et al were not as involved in, rendering them disenfranchised on the national level. The Bronzebeards deny all such charges, and claim both the Dark Iron and Wildhammer were just greedy bastards, but on this, and little more, the Wildhammer and the Dark Iron agree wholeheartedly: The Bronzebeards drove them to revolt. Other sources from other clans, of all affiliations, present their own versions.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Emperor Dagran Thaurissian: You can bluster all you want, Envoy, but the Shadowforge Empire is under no obligation to open it's doors to you just because you demand it.
Gnomegeran Special Envoy1​ Bannydill Finewrench: I wasn't aware that I was blustering. Gnomegeran is the only nation apart from your orcish allies to be willing to even entertain the concept of diplomatic relations with the Shadowforge, I merely advised that you bear that in mind.
Dagran Thaurissian: Please. We both know that when Magni the Magnificently Stupid finishes lathering up his people to support him in his war of aggression, Gnomegeran will march right alongside Ironforge.
Bannydill Finewrench: And we both know that the reason you're not willing to let us look for Moira Bronzebeard is because you have her and want to keep preteding you don't. Unfortunately for you, I'm the only gnome in Gnomegeran who hates playing word games.
Dagran Thaurissian: Good. Then get out. Bring your war - it will be your people, and Bronzebeard dwarves that die by the score. The Dark Iron will make you pay rivers of blood for every inch of land. Even Ironforge does not have that many people to spare. And your people certainly don't.
Bannydill Finewrench: Bold words, Dagran. I recall reading that one your ancestors said much the same thing. I don't recall his ambitions working out for him either.

The War of the Three Hammers left no one satisfied. The Bronzebeards who had nominally won the war found the victory a bit hollow. Yes, they'd taken control of the core areas of the Kingdom, and won the allegiance of the most clans, with more population and wealth than those who had fled with the Wildhammer and Dark Iron, but they'd lost half the territory of the Kingdom in the bargain, and the Dark Iron and Wildhammer both still claimed that the Bronzebeards had no right to the throne.

Of course, if the Bronzebeards found their victory hollow, both the Wildhammer and the Dark iron found their defeat infuriating. Neither clan nor their allies liked the new reality, and both wanted to resume the war as soon as they were ready, to take what was rightfully theirs. Unfortunately, though both sides tried to resume their old alliance, recriminations, mistrust and accusations back and forth quickly destroyed such efforts - less than a year after signing the Treaty of Three Hammers, the Dark Iron and Wildhammer severed relations with one another. Ultimately, it was pride - neither side was willing to let the other one be king, once the war was over. They'd managed to set it aside during the first war... not so now, it seemed.

Still, even as Arkador Thaurissian and his wife Modgud plotted to achieve victory over the Bronzebeard, the original plan was to save the Wildhammer for last. The Wildhammer and the Bronzebeard hated each other too much for the Wildhammer to leap to their aid. Not until it was too late.

And that plan might have worked. But in their search for greater arcane power so they might win against the Bronzebeards, the arcane-wielding clans delved too deep.

Literally.

In Azeroth's past and on countless worlds beside, those who delved too far into the arcane invariably found the Fel. They moved from the orderly magic, the blues and purples of the Arcane, to the far more powerful, destructive and unstable green fire of the Fel.

But not the Dark Iron. Instead, they found, in the deepest parts of Blackrock Mountain, an area where the walls between the Firelands and Azeroth were thinnest - where conjuring elementals of flame was barely any expenditure of energy at all. Keeping them, and commanding them remained a drain of mana, but the calling was always the easiest part.

But as the Dark Iron quickly tried to make up their numbers with masses of fire elementals, they drew the eye of Ragnaros. Showing an almost uncharacteristic subtlty, Ragnaros tricked the Dark Iron into what he called an Alliance, but what he most certainly did not see as one. He helped them on conjuring and in commanding their bound elementals, but the real danger he created lay in the second thing he told them.

The Dark Iron had found scraps and inklings of their Titanic origins, but there was so much they didn't know. Ragnaros, being a being as old as Azeroth itself, fed them an elaborate series of lies about the birth of the Dwarves. Even Arkador Thaurissian assumed that Ragnaros's claims that the Dark Iron clan were the 'purest' form of the original dwarves was nonsense, but it perhaps tricked him into thinking he'd found the flattery and he believed much of the rest. The Dark Iron did not summon Ragnaros to Azeroth yet, but their efforts only thinned the walls more, and let Ragnaros's influence slip into the world more and more.

But the rewards... the soldiers, the fires of the forges burning hotter than ever as their soldiers were armored in armor of the strongest steel, as they blacked their weapons with flame to bind the heat of Blackrock Mountain's depths into their hammers and axes and swords...

They listened to Ragnaros. He had an ulterior motive, he wanted to spread the power of his fire, True Fire throughout Azeroth once more. And the Dark Iron were more than happy to oblige.

And so when Ragnaros told Arkador and Modgud, and their inner circle, that a weapon created by the powerful beings that had shaped the dwarves from rock and dirt and given them life lay within their reach, sealed away in an ancient trollish tomb by Gurubashi many thousands of years ago...

Well, Xal'atath wasn't a particularly dwarvish name for a weapon, but it rightfully belonged to a dwarf, not sealed away by trolls that couldn't use it and had been scared of its power.2​

It was, of course, all lies. Xal'atath quickly got it's hooks into Modgud, and through her, into Arkador. Arkador's son and heir, Caladon was less enticed, but he found himself more and more shut out of discussions the more he voiced that opinion.

What exactly Xal'atath whispered in Modgud's mind is unknown, but it was those whispers, and the assurances Modgud gave that made the Dark Iron decide to rework their plans.

They would not launch all their forces against the Bronzebeard first. For had not the Wildhammer starved the Dark Iron, during the war? Had they not pulled their forces away from critical positions, at critical moments? The Wildhammer were just as much to blame for their loss in the war as the Bronzebeard, weren't they?

It took three years for the Dark Iron to be ready - even the most generous timetables had assumed it would take ten for them to be even slightly ready to launch a new war, before they 'found' Ragnaros, and Xal'atath. But greed, and pride, and ambition and the power they believed they had at their hands...

The Wildhammer and Bronzebeard had of course not been still or silent in those three years, but they too had planned for a longer time to get ready. Even the more populous and wealthy Bronzebeards and their allies had expected to take at least ten years - they had planned from the start to attack both the Wildhammer and Dark Iron together.

The Wildhammer's plans extended to little more than blockading Ironforge and the rest of the underground cities into submission. They saw no need to go back into the tunnels. They would claim the surface, and spend a generation or two starving the Brozebeard into submission.

But they too knew that such a plan required preparation. And the Dark Iron would need a different solution, as their command of the arcane would make blockade less effective.

Instead, of course, without formal declaration of the resumption of hostilities, Arkador and Modgud Thaurissian attacked the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer simultaneously - quite literally, they used magic to ensure that they communicated right up until the last moment. Soldiers, mages and elementals swarmed over the outer defenses of both their rivals - the Wildhammer were quickly overrun, and soon Grim Batol was already under siege. The Wildhammer ace in the hole, their griffons, proved to be useless against flying fire elementals, and massed mages ready to burn or blast anything with feathers from the skies.

The Bronzebeard proved to be a harder nut to crack. Though unprepared for the Dark Iron attack, and without shamanistic magic to at least provide some counter to the fire elementals swarming against their lines, the Bronzebeard had numbers, they had money, and they had the key defensive positions. Time and time again, the Dark Iron forces threw themselves at the Bronzebeard defenders. Time and again, they would succeed, pushing the enemy back - but only at great cost. They could always summon more fire elementals, but it took time, moving them from the depths of Blackrock to the front, and of course, they could hardly replace soldiers so fast.

Things seemed poised to be a failure - the Dark Iron strategy had assumed quick victories with overwhelming force. But then, calling on the magic of Xal'atath, Modgud was able to make the very shadows themselves attack the defenders of Grim Batol from within - this allowed her to break open the gates and lead her forces into the battle. The ensuing fight was bloodier than even the battles of the First Three Hammers War, but what little first hand records we have make it clear the balance of the atrocities were committed by the Dark Iron forces - the Wildhammer did massacre some captured prisoners, or the like, but either out of lack of opportunity, or lack of prediction, they committed far fewer sins.

The Wildhammer fought well, and they could hold in most places. But anywhere Modgud and her cursed blade arrived, the battle quickly turned, and though she could not be everywhere, she could be at just the right place...

But for some reason, at the last minute, as Khardros Wildhammer, in a desperate gamble, led his vanguard straight for Modgud, Xal'atath vanished, or failed Modgud, or even betrayed her. The details are disputed. What is known is that the shadows she had conjured fell upon the Dark Iron forces, and she fell to Khardros's strike. With her last breath, she conjured her considerable arcane might and laid a curse on Grim Batol - it took time for it to take effect, and be realized, but after the war, the Wildhamer found that Grim Batol was poison to any dwarf that tried to sleep within it's walls. And to this day, no dwarf has called Grim Batol home.

By the time word of his wife's death reached him, Arkador had managed to push all the way to the city of Ironforge itself. But by now, his forces were sapped. He could push no further. Where was Modgud? The Wildhammer were supposed to be beaten first, she should be here with her forces...

Word of her death broke Arkador, and word that the Wildhammer were coming with vengeance in their eyes, that all the forces sent to Grim Batol were dead...

He sounded the retreat. The Dark Iron fled, leaving their fire elementals behind to cover their retreat.

Khardros and Madoran met on the battlefield, destroying the last of this rearguard. In a famous moment immortalized in a dozen statues, poems, songs and even a famous painting (done by a High Elf artist) that hangs in the Ironforge Senate Chambers, the two leaders shook hands, surrounded by the disappointing husks of fire elementals.

There was bad blood, between the Bronzebeard, and the Wildhammer. But after the brutal surprise assault launched by the Dark Iron, there was a greater foe.

Arkador tried to make peace - he swore that if the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer tried to attack him in Blackrock Mountain, or his new capital of Thaurissian, they would pay a dear price for every inch. That his forces' magic would bleed them dry. He even offered to formally surrender any claim to the throne of Ironforge, and even the land that would become the Searing Forge, if he was left to independence and peace.

Of course, this was not taken. And despite his boasts, against the combined arms of the Wildhammer and the Bronzebeard, and all their allied clans, the Dark Iron were pushed back constantly.

And so, in a desperate gamble, Arkador gathered his greatest mages in Thaurissian, the heart of his power, the center of his magic. With a conduit to the Blackrock Depths at hand, Arkdador and his mages did the one thing they'd refrained from doing so far:

They conjured Ragnaros to this world to defeat their enemies.

To his credit, the Lord of Flame did indeed destroy the attacking Bronzebeard and Wildhammer forces. But first, he killed Arkador, and destroyed Thaurissian. Claiming Blackrock Mountain as his own, he completed the oath extracted from him when he was summoned (Arkador had not extracted an oath to not kill him or his people), by the expedient of making Blackrock Mountain erupt.

Madoran and Khandros escaped with their lives, as did a small number of the attacking Bronzebeard and Wildhammer forces, but most died, buried under ash or burned by lava. The Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge were born.

A new peace was born. The Bronzebeard could not attack the Dark Iron - not over terrain so hostile, not for land so useless... not after all they'd lost. And the Wildhammer soon found that Grim Batol was lost to them. But showing a remarkable restraint, with both Arkador and Modgud dead, it was perhaps the case that revenge had been had. Khardros hated the Dark Iron, but he saw no need for vengeance. Not when it would cost his people even more.

Madoran did, but he could do nothing about it, and he failed to pass that burning, personal hatred onto his successor. There was little love lost between the Bronzebeard and Dark Iron forever more, and to today, but revenge over old slights is a Dark Iron obsession more than an Ironforge one, at this point.

The years between the end of the Second War of Three Hammers - which wasn't formally ended until fifteen years later, when Madoran's barely adult grandson succeeded him - and the First War were... well, hardly uneventful, but not noteworthy. By now, the Wildhammer had ceded the Wetlands back to Ironforge, but maintained an independence, as many of them moved north, to Aerie Peak.

The Kingdom of Ironforge prospered, renewing old relationships, though the title of 'greatest power in the Eastern Kingdoms' slipped from their grasp and into Lordaeron's. A succession of capable Bronzebeard kings ruled until Magni came to power a few years before the Dark Portal opened.

When word of the strange invasion reached Ironforge, Magni was the ruler who came the closest to offering Stormwind aid. And unlike Terenas Menethil, it was not an advisor with honeyed words that stilled him, but the Senate of Ironforge.

With Stormwind not outright asking for help, with other matters closer to home seeming more relevant, the Senate was unwilling to simply throw men and money at the problem. Stormwind seemed to think they had it handled, and so if they needed help, they could ask. Magni didn't entirely agree with that logic, but in the end, he decided to save his political capital for other things.

Word of the Sack of Stormwind would, of course, leave him to regret that. He spat in the face - literally - of the orcish ambassadors that offered peace for submission, and fought on the front lines to prevent the orcs from breaking into the Kingdom's core areas - the Wetlands and Loch Modan may have fallen, but neither Ironforge itself, nor Dun Morogh was ever truly in danger, the orcs simply not prepared for what it took to break through dwarven defenses When the Second War turned, Magni joined the Alliance enthusiastically, and Ironforge forces fought all the way to the end, and the Kingdom contributed men to the expedition beyond the Dark Portal.

In the wake of the Second War, Magni, learning his lessons from the First, pushed through new laws through the Senate that allowed him far more freedom with the Kingdom's military and foreign policy - never again would be let 'the Senate would make it too much trouble' stop him from acting when he felt it necessary. He did have to make a number of concessions in domestic authority, but it was acceptable.

His daughter, Moira, did not agree, and their shouting match was the talk of the city for weeks afterwards - Moira actually moved out of the Royal Palace at that point, to a manor of the Bronzebeard royal line on the outskirts of the Capital, and quickly began gathering a faction around her - those who saw the Senate as a drag on Ironforge, or had any other issues with the cultural orthodoxy in power in Ironforge (including dwarves who had an interest in the arcane, which was slowly growing again among a counter-culture in Ironforge society).3​

Muradin and Bann, brothers to Magni for their part, took advantage of the new peace, and the opened lines of trade and knowledge offered by the Alliance to form the Explorer's League. A longtime ambition of both brothers had been to explore the furthest reaches of the world. Find the lost magics of ancient times, knowledge of the world before the modern races emerged. An endeavor like this would be most expensive, and so they set their sights smaller, to start. Something simple, but flashy, to attract attention, perhaps something they could sell.

This legendary runeblade, detailed in a book recently uncovered in the darkest parts of the Royal Library of Lordaeron seemed like a good place to start. Countless human noblemen would pay through the nose for an enchanted sword with the pedigree of this Frostmourne, right? It wasn't where they really wanted to go, but it seemed a good start. With that money, they could convince the Senate and investors from all over the Eastern Kingdoms to fund them more.

While Bann remained behind to continue to gather more funds, potential targets and research, Muradin took as many men and supplies as he could afford north, to the frigid continent at the end of the world.

When word of undead in Lordaeron reached Magni, he used his new power to dispatch many soldiers and war machines north, to every cause he could. To the aid of first Arthas and his effort, then to Terenas in trying to restore order, then to Jaina to defend and evacuate her refugees, and then finally to Garithos. News of Muradin's death was a tragedy, and he would later use that grief to forge Ashbringer, during this time.

But the Senate, despite having given him the power to do this, kept jostling his elbow. Perhaps he was being a bit too quick, to throw men and materiel at everything? Garithos was a racist and seemed to be fighting a losing battle, always going on the offensive and - did he just order the execution of Prince Kael'thas? And all of his soldiers?

Even that was too much for Magni - he had no specific love for the newborn Blood Elves, though he certainly felt for their tragic loss, but Garithos's choice to execute Kael and his men over what appeared to be nothing worth it was unconscionable and more importantly - stupid. Unfortunately, by the time he could send orders to his men fighting alongside Garithos to withdraw unless Garithos was removed from leadership, Detheroc had already enslaved the entire force to his will... eventually, once they were freed, and the capital retaken, the dwarves largely returned home. Garithos was dead, and while Sylvanas didn't say their services were no longer welcome, it wasn't as if they were thrilled to fight alongside this undead elf, even if increasing numbers of surviving Lordaeronic humans were (though as noted before some of Garithos's men did flee east, eventually forming a key part of the Scarlet Crusade's forces).

Things stabilized, for now. Moira continued to gather the discontented around her, but she posed no real threat to Magni, and he remained certain that if he gave her time, she'd grow past this youthful rebellion.

The Alliance was reforged, and Ironforge renewed it's oaths and memberships - and with the Dark Horde and Shadowforge allies, it seemed all too likely that someday, war would come anew between the two cousin branches of dwarvenkind. Magni did not great the idea with much love - he even entertained hopes he could convince the Dark Iron to break from the Dark Horde. He did not love the Dark Iron, but they were dwarves. The Dark Horde deserved no such consideration - still proudly waving the bloody banner of the same Horde that had slaughtered Stormwind (even if they had no great love for the architect of that slaughter, Ogrim) - they didn't even deserve the cautious 'I'm fine with them as long as they stay far, far away' that Magni had for the Horde in Kalimdor.

But still. There was no urgency. There were skirmishes between Stormwind and the Dark Horde, but nothing truly serious, yet.

And then, when travelling near the Searing Gorge with her inner circle, likely looking for weaknesses she could use to try to score political points against Magni and the senate, Moira Bronzebeard was attacked. Their guards were slain, and her and her entourage taken captive. Investigation soon made it clear where she was, despite Dagran's repeated protestations of innocence:

She was in Shadowforge City, the heart of the Shadowforge Empire, and he would get her back.

The timetable for war had just moved up.

Perhaps Madoran had been right, to burn to one day bring justice to the Shadowforge.

Perhaps Magni could be the one to do just that.

---

1: Because of the current state of alliance between the Shadowforge Empire and the Dark Horde, no nation other than the Dark Horde has official relations (or embassies) with the Shadowforge. Unofficially all three goblin cartels have relations, and course they're happy to buy and sell from the Shadowforge and Dark Horde. Additionally, while Gnomegeran has never had *great* relations with the Dark Iron since the end of the Second War of the Three Hammers, relations always existed even during the Shadowforge's most isolationist periods. While Gnomegeran does not currently have any sort of embassy with the Shadowforge Empire or vice-versa, they do maintain certain backchannel communications, which is what this 'Special Envoy' is a part of.

2: Xal'atath being involved in this is seventeen different kinds of nonsense, but it is canon. I debated just removing it, but I can at least use this nonsense to explain another nonsense (namely, the Dark Iron dividing their forces to attack Ironforge and Grim Batol at the same time).

3: I'm borrowing a page from ganonso 's book here, and squaring the circle of the shitty writing wrt to Moira and her 'abduction' by having her be an anti-Senate radical reformer, who basically wants to go the Absolute Monarchy route. There is a difference here in that in this 'verse, rather than being abducted five years ago and falling for Dagran in that time, she ended up falling for Dagran (and vice-versa) over the course of many years during a covert correspondence that began as a means to use Dagran against her father in some way. The 'abduction' was arranged for her to be taken along with her inner circle (all close allies that see things her way) so she and Dagran could finally marry. Dagran is counting on Ironforge and Stormwind to attack to rid him of the most Ragnaros-loyal soldiers and officers (who he is staffing the front lines with) and the Dark Horde, while he wraps up his plan to deal with Ragnaros once everyone is distracted by the war. He actually does have a good plan, and has already made contact with the Hydraxian Waterlords through Goblin Intermediaries. He just needs to get rid of more of the Ragnaros loyalists in a deniable way.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Grand Mason Vardok Marblesten: I'm not saying the Kingdom should stop preparing for war, Light knows those Dark Iron bastards deserve a good thrashing, but it's mighty stupid of the Senate to keep moving back when I can present my petition. The Royal Stonecutter's Union can't just be ignored!
Senator Mehr Stonehallow: Aye, you're right there, but Magni will hear of nothing else but preparations for war - he holds his seal hostage on all sorts of measures so the Senate mines to his drum.1​
Grand Mason Marblesten: That is - it's mad! Mad and stupid! And not how the laws are supposed to work!
Senator Stonehallow: The Senate is usually supposed to hold their votes hostage until the King sees to their needs, true.

The Kingdom of Ironforge is, like many Kingdoms in the modern era, defined by it's capital city.

Sort of.

It would be wrong to ignore the import of cities like Menethil Harbor or Thelsamar or Kharanos. Or all the hinterland in the Kingdom, where crops are grown, animals are herded and resources mined.

And yet, as turns Ironforge, so turns the Kingdom.

Ironforge is, in terms of total area, the largest city in the world, a sprawling mass of tunnels and chambers and caverns underneath Dun Morogh, all the way up to connecting to the surface, and extending deep below the ground. While the largest caverns are the most notable, housing the major buildings of the city's government and business, and even the homes of most people in the city, the various tunnels and off-shooting caverns that extend from the city are occupied. The lowest tunnels are home to the slums of the city, the poor, the outcasts, the criminals. It is from these tunnels, and secret pathways connecting all levels of the city that the monolithic criminal organization known as the Hidden Circle operates.

Dwarves, despite their reputation for order, are as prone to criminals as anyone else, and once, crime was divided between many gangs and cartels and syndicsates, but over the recent decades, they became more and more consolidated as assassinations and gang wars in the lowest levels of Ironforge have brought them all under the control of the Hidden Circle. It is said that even the lowest of pickpockets must pay the tax to the mysterious leaders of the Circle, and that if a beggar steals a single hardtack biscuit from a store that's paid it's protection to the Circle, the Circle will take the beggar's hand before the Ironforge Guard knows there was a theft.

The power and reach of the Hidden Circle is of course, exaggerated, but it does speak to the problems in Ironforge. The city's focuses remain outward, on the coming war with the Shadforge, or on mining more and more to fuel the Kingdom's hunger. It focuses on the Explorer's League, and their search for the ancient mysteries of Azeroth's past, on claiming the artifacts and relics for Ironforge.

But Ironforge itself, at least those parts not dedicated to fueling the engines of wealth and war? Neglected, underserved, abandoned. Wealth concentrates more and more in the hands of noble families at the top of clans, or in the hands of large cooperatives like the Miner's League and the Stonecutter's Union - groups that serve to represent the common dwarf amidst the titanic power of the clan nobility, but does so through enforcing uniformity among it's members to ensure proper collective bargaining.

It would be wrong to compare Ironforge to the basket case that is Stromgarde, or the veneer of prosperity covering dysfunction that defines Stormwind. Because outside of the city of Ironforge, the Kingdom prospers far more, for now, with far less problems... mostly.

The Kingdom of Ironforge has always been a net food importer. While animals can be herded on the slopes of the mountains, including several species of goat and sheep, and hardy relatives of the common cow, providing meat and milk, the only areas Ironforge had that could grow much food was the area around Loch Modan. But that could never be enough. Food importation for Ironforge long came from Stormwind or from Lordaeron, but the longest time, the dwarven aversion to sailing prevented them from making much use of water transport - instead, goods would come overland, from Thandol Span, or across the lands that would become the Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes.

This of course made food expensive, but Ironforge could afford it. Apart from their besiegement during the Second War, Ironforge has almost always been a net exporter, accumulating vast gold and silver reserves from other lands, used to purchase metalwork, jewelry, enchanted items (dwarven enchantments rival those of Dalaran at it's height, at least on metal and stone), worked stone, sculptures... and of course, especially of late, the services of dwarven labor. The Stonecutters Union in particular has seen much wealth come it's way, as fellow members of the Alliance have made use of their services to build defensive fortifications. Recently they completed an expensive set of expansions and improvements to the walls of Strom, with Galen Trollbane wanting to have the ultimate impregnable city.

Usually, in these cases, a contract is worked out in advance, half payment provided up front, and then the dwarves - skilled experts in their craft - go to whatever nation they are hired for, with their maintenance (food, lodging and a suitable amount of ale being the most common) provided by their hosts, in most cases. The dwarves may work for whoever hired them, but whatever clan or organization they contract to is the one that pays them, most often (only rarely does an individual dwarf contract individually)

Even the Ghostlands Pact has hired dwarven experts for some tasks, though always with some caution, and never for military needs. But several projects by Alterac to rebuild damaged roads or other infrastructure has benefited from hiring a few dwarven advisors or specialist workers, for instance.

The dwarves, of course, are not stupid. Many times in their history, food importation has slackened, or slowed, and the dwarves are masters of food preservation. Canning, jarring, pickling, salting and more, all means by which the dwarves seek to store food away for lean periods. This served them well during the Second War, among other times.

Of course, these days, thanks to Menethil Harbor, food tends to arrive there, and then come to Ironforge, faster and cheaper than the entirely overland options.

However, that is no longer so simple. Once, it was straight forward, to travel from the Harbor, to Dun Algaz, to Ironforge and thence the rest of the kingdom. But during the most successful Dark Horde military action to-date, when elements of the Dragonmaw Clan that embraced their demon overlords once again invaded Loch Modan and pushed forward to Thandol Span, Dun Algaz fell to the forces of the Dark Horde. They fell short of Thandol Span, but they continue to squat in and around Dun Algaz, unable to break free, and running short on supplies. They will be starved out within a year, even with Dun Algaz's captured extensive food reserves, if the insects and other wildlife of the Wetlands (which even the Dwarves must combat regularly) don't get them first.

Unfortunately for Ironforge, the second most efficient path for transit from Menethil Harbor is also no longer an option. When the Dark Horde blew through the defenses around Loch Modan, they created an open space for the Loch Modan coalition, an odd collection of Gnolls, Murlocs, Troggs and Kobolds that came out of the woodwork and the underground, uniting in common interests. The Mosshide Gnolls do most of the interfacing with outsiders, and their stated ambition is to secure the entire Loch Modan for themselves, as a homeland for their people, safe from the predations of the great powers of the world.

Suffice to say, Ironforge is having none of it, but as long as the Stonewrought Dam and Thelsamar remain secure - which they are - Magni considers the Shadowforge and Dark Horde a greater threat and dealing with the Loch Modan Coalition risks exposing the flank. So far, the problem has been outsourced to mercenaries and adventurers, with bounties placed on the heads of known leading chieftains and others in the Coalition, and other payments for clearing out locations of the 'savage' races therein.

Magni can take this detached approach because there exists a third way to move goods to and from Menethil Harbor. It is more expensive and slower, requiring travel over rough terrain and bending, twisting tunnels, but it has not become so cumbersome that Ironforge is in any danger of starving or being unable to export their product. Once, all three routes were used, but with two unavailable, the last now serves all needs, creating slow, backed up traffic, but a boon for those small towns and villages that service the travelers along this single road

But the price of food is higher than it has been since the end of the Second War.

The Senate has tried to resolve this issue by improving the road and tunnels in question, but they can't risk shutting the trade down during the process, and Magni, in an effort to bring the Senate to heel on the preparations for war, has held hostage a number of bills designed to address these problems.


The route marked in Red was the primary artery for trade from Menethil Harbor to Ironforge, while the route marked in Orange is the second most used one, but now passes through territory controlled by the Loch Modan Coalition. The one marked in Pink remains open, but is now clogged with many times more traffic than it's used to and the prices of bringing goods through that route is not cheap.

But it would be wrong to overstate Ironforge's woes. Compared to Stormwind and Stromgarde, and of course, Gnomegeran, Ironforge is thriving. It gears up for war, but it can do so without risk of bankruptcy. And there are still many young dwarves, and old warhorses eager for a fight, so manning the expanding military is not hard. But there are many demands on Ironforge's resources - the Shadowforge/Dark Horde axis is the biggest, but the Loch Modan Coalition and eventually the need to help the gnomes take back their city will have to take priority (though until the gnomes can deal with the radiation issues, a mass movement of soldiers into the city is ill-advised).

In Ironforge itself, people buy and sell all manner of goods, priests of the light debate with historians who find meaning in the scraps of lore about the ancient origins of their kind, and for many of the noble clans and major organizations, business remains as usual. Weapons are forged, machines of war are made according to gnomish designs, and bankers count their gold. Loans flow out of the city like water, extending across the Alliance, while the interest payments flow back in, just as freely, though in many cases, the money stays in Ironforge the whole time, with loans made to buy things from Ironforge itself.

Sometimes, it's as simple as literally grabbing a few gold bars and just carrying them from one vault to another.

Ironforge is a bustling city, and though the Hidden Circle is powerful, they prefer to keep business running. Murder and theft are much reduced, with illicit gambling and protection rackets forming the bulk of criminal enterprises. Of course, a dwarf that tries to flip on their criminal patrons, or makes too many waves will still end up dead, their body chopped up and left to decompose in the mushroom fields, where mushrooms as tall as small trees are grown, and harvested to form part of the diet of the Kingdom.

Compared to many of its peers, Ironforge is thriving.

Unfortunately, that very prosperity may carry the poison pill that destroys Ironforge. For Ironforge's very prosperity marks it out. It survived the depridations of the First, Second and Third Wars. Only small portions of their population have actually fought in the fights during and after the Third War, and only a slightly larger portion have actually been to the lands far beyond Ironforge.

For many who never leave home, or rarely do, the success and continued prosperity of Ironforge isn't because of the luck of geography, the accidents of history or even the generally capable leadership of the Bronzebeard Kings and the Senate (even Magni, for all his recent shenanigans, is a conscientious ruler by Eastern Kingdom standards).

No.

Ironforge has prospered due to the intrinsic qualities of the dwarven people. Hard work. Industriousness. Thrift. Collaborative organization. Long-range planning (but with focus on the now, too).

And certainly, the dwarves are industrious, thrifty hard workers. But it is impossible to claim they have a monopoly on those, or that greed and sloth and short-sighted idiocy have no home among the dwarves.

And yet these thinkers and speakers, believers and dreamers think that there is something elevated of the dwarves - the good dwarves, anyway, the ones that stayed loyal to Ironforge (Dark Iron and Wildhammer need not apply after all) - something that makes them special. Better. It is still nebulously articulated, for now, but the root of it is that Ironforge prospers because the Dwarves are just... smarter. More moral. Blessed. Chosen. By the Light, or the Titans or the impersonal forces of the universe. The Dwarves are superior... and perhaps that superiority should be reflected in the order of things more generally, no?

Humans are foolish. elves, hopeless addicts. Gnomes can't fight for their own homes properly. Trolls are decadent, squabbling and weak. Orcs are savages, and everything else, little more than beasts.

Dwarves?

Dwarves are perfect.

This mindset may not be the dominant one, or even close but the undercurrent has spread, and is primed to play right into every bias and preconception many dwarves have. Magni and most of the Senate know better, and yet.

And yet.

Magni remains focused outward, and the Senate keeps having their attention dragged with him, even as they'd like to deal with the domestic issues that are their remit. They ceded all this authority to Magni in favor of a freer hand domestically, and yet, Magni doesn't seem to have really accepted that memo.

Ironforge prospers, but if the price of food continues to mount to unsustainable levels, if enough loans default, if the coming war turns south, if the Loch Modan Coalition takes Thelsamar....

To say Ironforge balances on the edge of a knife would be wrong. The fact is, those ifs are exceptionally unlikely. Already, some merchants in Ironforge have reached out to Mulgore, seeking to add Tauren corn to their food imports (primarily as feed for their goats sheep and cows, but still), or even to Durotar for their pigs. Sure, the orcs are savages and the Tauren not much better, probably, and even those with less racist outlooks aren't fond of the Grand Confederation, but food is food, and money is money.

The Loch Modan Coalition has almost no chance of taking Thelsamar, and the coming war... it may not be easy, but the odds are, in the long term, stacked in Ironforge's favor.

And as for defaulting loans? Well, yes, if enough loans default, it could be an issue, but Kul Tiran have capital as well, if Ironforge ones need a quick cash infusion, and at most, it will likely just be economic dislocation - as after all, so much of the loaned money remains in Ironforge anyway. Some may lose their fortunes, but not enough to cripple trade entirely.

Ironforge is by no means flawless, and like the rest of Azeroth, the compound stresses of everything the world has gone through in recent decades strains at it - but with Dun Algaz locked down, and the Shadowforge in no good position to hold back a concerted Alliance assault...

Ironforge may have the most secure future in the Alliance, as things stand now.

Then again.

Three Wars have shown how quickly fortunes can turn, in the modern age.

So perhaps you shouldn't place your bets with Hidden Circle bookmakers any time soon.

Then again, still good odds.

---

1: the Dwarven equivalent of 'Dances to his Tune' - dwarven miners use drums to keep working in time, and metaphors about mining and drums are common in general in Dwarven (Ironforge dialect) as well as Dwarven (Shadowforge dialect). The Wildhammer have most lose these idioms, of course.