User:Minionman/Scourge history

(This scourge history starts after Arthas and the Lich King merged into one being.)

Aftermath of Illidan's Invasion
The Lich King's loss of power stopped when Arthas and Ner'zhul merged into one being. as the Lich King rebuilt his power, masterless undead throughout the plaguelands began rejoining the scourge in large amounts. Over the next several months, these creatures traveled to scourge outposts, and were organized.

The scourge at this time controlled about 19,000 undead. 10,000 were in northrend under the Lich King's direct control, with Anub'arak as the main leader underneath the Lich King, 7,000 were in the Plaguelands, under Kel'thuzad, and about 2,000 under Raas Frostbite. The scourge considered Quel'thalas a backwater, but wanted to keep control of the plaguelands and use it as a base to attack the humans to the South.

The scourge did not know whether Kil'jaedan would send any more attacks, so began raiding surrounding troll and furbolg villages, and sending scourge to nerubian areas, to build new forces should an attack come. In the Plaguelands, Kel'thuzad first took stock of the situation in the plaguelands, than began attacking human outposts to build up forces for a series of attacks to destroy the forsaken, Argent dawn and Scarlet crusade, and than attack to the south. In Quel'thalas, Raas Frostbite organized his forces to patrol the forests, and kill remaining pockets of elves hidden throughout Quel'thalas.

Defeats
Kel'thuzad's build up of forces went successfully. The scourge, over a period of about two months after the Lich King's merger, had captured about 3,000bodies, loosing only about 200 undead in the process, most of these were killed by Elves who were traveling through the plaguelands at the time. Kel'thuzad felt he had enough fighters to attack the undercity, he would send 5,000 to attack, and keep 5,00 in the plaguelands to protect his bases. The attack would be sent once the ghouls from the bodies were completed.

Raas's attempts to kill the remaining Elves were mostly unsuccessful. His scourge had difficulty even finding elves, and was only able to kill about 10, with his scourge loosing about 10 fighters as well. While he was searching for elves in Quel'thalas, the elves in the plaguelands arrived, and with the Elves from Quel'thalas, attacked the scourge to drive them out. the elves recaptured the ghostlands using mostly hit and run attacks, destroying most of the necromancers there in the Battle of the Sanctum. the elves than travelled towards silvermoon. Scourge tried to stop them in the Battle of the Bridge, but failed. Raas himself was killed in the Battle of the Coutryard, as well as much of the remaining scourge in Quel'thalas.

The Lich King was tremendously angry at Raas's death, and put pressure on Kel'thuzad to succeed in his own attack. Kel'thuzad could do little, his plan was already moving as fast as it could, and there was little he could change. when his large force was ready, he sent it to the undercity to conquer the forsaken, and either kill or regain control over its leader Sylvanas Windrunner. The scourge expected an easy victory with their overwhelming numbers of fighters compared to the forsaken. The First undercity Siege, however, went poorly for them, resulting in the death of its Death Knight leader, all the necromancers and nerubians, and the capture of several abominations and most of the ghouls sent to attack.

The Lich King did not know fully of this defeat for several weeks, he had felt the killing of the Death Knights, necromancers, and nerubians, but still felt that the ghouls were fighting. Scouts, however, confirmed that the scourge had no more fighters left attacking the undercity.

The Scarlet Crusade
With this second defeat, the Lich King and Kel'thuzad abandoned further plans to expand in the plaguelands. They might have sent forces from Northrend, but the elves and forsaken had shown that they could win against, and utterly destroy, much larger scourge armies, and even if the northrend fighters had one, the scourge would likely loose a large fraction of their remaining forces. Instead, the scourge in Northrend continued to raid villages, slowly increasing their forces there to 13,000 over a few years. the scourge in the plaguelands continued to raid scarlet crusade and other human outposts, slowly building up their forces again.

Like the Blood elves and forsaken, the scarlet crusade and argent dawn had learned fighting technigues for killing much larger numbers of scourge. Unlike the forsaken and blood elves, the two groups were dispersed, with no strong fortresses, and in the middle of the main undead presence on azeroth. The scourge, over a period of months, overwhelmed and destroyed small groups of scarlet crusade and argent dawn, reducing the group's presence in the plaguelands to occasional moving camps in Thick forests. The scourge were also able to capture several villages, rebuilding their forces in the plaguelands.

By this time, the different continents and races of the world had come in much closer contact, and the scarlet crusade and Argent dawn had begun recruiting from the humans nations of Stormwind, Stromgarde, and theramore, lands not directly south of scourge controlled areas. The Argent dawn allowed other races to enter, bringing in volunteers from all throughout the new horde and alliance to fight the scourge.

Kel'thuzad was not worried about these new volunteers, seeing them simply as new sources of undead to build up the scourge armies. The new volunteers did allow the scarlet crusade and Argent Dawn to defend some plaguelands villages, but mostly the scourge's large numbers prevented the groups from making too many gains in the plaguelands. the scarlet crusade, however, was becoming far more fanatical, a fanaticism that gave them great strength and energy in battle. The argent dawn had not become fanatics, but had been learning new combat techniques from throughout the world, and had learned to effectively combines the different fighting styles into an effective fighting combination. The Argent dawn also benefited from cooperation with other alliance and horde nations, they were able to coordinate somewhat with the forsaken as the forsaken took over the tirisfal glades.

Second Undercity Siege
The scourge in the plaguelands had built up their forces much faster than expected, and Kel'thuzad began to see an opportunity to attack some of his surrounding enemies. In addition, he had learned by this time about the first undercity siege, including how the forsaken had defeated his army the first time. Kel'thuzad decided to attack the undercity again. He asked the Lich King to send nerubians from Northrend, brought abominations from Northrend as well, and taught his scourge leaders to better avoid the forsaken Death Guards. Kel'thuzad sent about 7,000 total fighters, leaving about 5,000 to guard the plaguelands as with the first undercity siege.

User:Minionman/Second Undercity Siege

Unfortunately for Kel'thuzad, he had not considered the full ramification of the alliance and the Horde working together. The Blood Elves sent mages and archers, who easily killed most of the scourge leaders, nerubians, and abominations, and once again the forsaken captured most the scourge ghouls and converted them into free undead.

After this point, Kel'thuzad gave up the idea of attacking the forsaken directly. Instead, the scourge would build enough forces to take over the argent dawn, and look for other methods to fight the enemies surrounding them. The forsaken gained enough new forces to take the Tirisfal glades as their own.