User:Minionman/Blood Elf history

(This starts around the time of the Frozen Throne expansion.)

Aftermath of the Scourge
The scourge invasion devastated Quel'thalas. The high Elve's sunwell has been corrupted and was now useless, most of the population had been killed, the undead had corrupted much of the land, including a path leading to Silvermoon, and had left many fighters in Quel'thalas that prevented the remaining Elves from resettling.

After the invasion, many Elves had followed the leadership of Kael'thas, a son of the previous king. Under Kael'thas, the Elves burned much of Southern Quel'thalas's forest to deny its resources ot the scourge, and other joined Kael'thas in Dalaran fighting against the scourge. Kael'thas left Lor'themar Theron in charge of Quel'thalas.

Unfortunately for the Elves, the alliance forces in Dalaran were lead by Garithos, a very bigoted leader, who disliked all non-humans, and especially disliked the Elves, who he blamed for leaving the alliance and weakening it against the scourge. Garithos often ordered the elves into much more dangerous situations than his human soldiers, and gave them fewer supplies. While Garithos most often directed his dislike towards Kael'thas's warriors, he also directed hatred against Elven enchanters and other Dalaran workers who had remained in the city.

In Quel'thalas, the Elves under Lor'themar Theron found that the burning of Quel'thalas had little effect. The undead could survive quite well on few supplies, and although Quel'thalas was considered an unimportant section of scourge controlled territory, there were still enough scourge to outnumber te elvesand force them deep into the forests.

Dalaran mutiny
One day, Garithos's hatred of the elves reached a low point. Garithos ordered Elves under Kael'thas to fight off an attacking group of undead, and when Kael'thas used help from Naga to fight and win the battle, Garithos used it as a pretext to order all the Elves executed. Elves under Kael'thas were imprisoned, but escaped with Naga help and travelled to Outland. Garithos sent forces throughout Dalaran to find elves and arrest them.

These arrests were unpopular throughout Dalran. Some alliance soldiers held a similar opinion as Garithos about the elves, but many had been fighting for many months against the elves, and saw them as valuable fighters, if nothing else. Some soldiers reluctantly turned the elves in, these elves were freed and traveled with Kael'thas to Outland. Other elves hid, while fellow non-elf soldiers diverted the arresting soldiers elsewhere.

The reformed Kirin Tor mages flat out refused to hand over the elves among them. The Elves were among the best mages in the Kirin Tor, had loyally stayed with the mages and defended against the scourge attack, and included much of the important healers in Dalaran. On hearing the news, Garithos was outraged, and considered arresting the members of the Kirin tor, while spreading a story of their betrayal, but was convinced not to do so by other soldiers. After a few more battles, Garithos lefvt Dalaran and was captured by Detheroc, and the Kirin Tor took over the defense and rebuilding of their own city.

Another large group of Elven forces guarded several enchanters and other magical craftmen. Thy were lead by the spellbreaker Dilas Thren. When Garithos's soldiers arrived, Thren ordered his archers and spellbreakers to form up for a fight, than had Garithos's soldiers bound while he organized the elves under his command. When his soldiers, enchanters, and other craftsmen were fully organized, Thren took them outside the city, into the forests surrounding Dalaran. When Garithos's soldiers finally freed themselves and told of these events, Garithos was angry, but assumed that the elves would be discovered and killed by the scourge. The Krin Tor mages were disappointed, however, to loose much of their enchanters and craftmen.

Journey to Quel'thalas
Thren's forces moved slowly, he had to avoid being spotted by the undead, while finding enough food for around 200 enchanters and soldiers. Fortunately, Thren had under his command many rangers from Dalaran, who could hunt and scout the terrain, and Thren himself was an experienced soldierwho understood how to organize his elves and keep them together.

Thren did not know, however, where he would take the elves. The closest places to go were the human towns of Hillsbrad and Tarren Mill, but to reach these town he would have to travel in the open, and from the information his scouts gave him, Thren figured that the scourge had travelled to the South. Thren decided instead to follow the forest to the east, to hopefully reach Aerie Peak or Elven settlements in that region, which were well defended from the scourge and could be reached through forest.

Thren's journey took several months and mostly went uneventfully. However, as Thren approached the southern plaguelands, his scouts began to see undead moving much more often than usual. Thren, worried about a potential attack and desperate for more news from the outside world, sent his scouts to follow some of the necromancers. Thren learned little about why the necromancers were moving, but did learn that they were raiding villages for corpses to build up the scourge army.

Soon, Thren's forces came upon a village under attack. Thren could do little to help, as the number of undead attackers far outnumbered his own fighters, but he did learn that the undead were building up their forces to attack somewhere in the east.

Within a few days, Thren's travels brought him to an undead corpse caravan, and than to another village. While Thren again was in a poor position to defend the village, he was convinced by the undead activity that a major attack was going to occur somewhere, and decided it was his responsibility to do what he could to weaken the undead to help protect whoever it was to be attacked.

The villagers were taken to an undead sky barge near a forest and guarded by a large number of ghouls and three necromancers. Thren sent his rangers to attack the undead and pull some of the ghouls away from the sky barge. When the undead force had been reduced enough, his spellbreakers and mages attacked, easily destroyed the ghouls and necromancers, and freed the villagers. Thren than placed flares on the sky barge, used other flares to tell his rangers to break off and meet back with his force. When the undead returned from chasing the rangers, they entered the sky barge and attempted to find the escaped villagers, but the flares on the sky barge set it on fire in the air, and the undead inside were destroyed.

Thren discovered from the villagers that the undead were building up forces to attack either "traitors". Thren travelled with his recently freed villagers through the plaguelands, destroying corpses in a mass grave, freed two more groups of villagers from undead, and helped some rebel paladins in what would become the argent dawn against scourge and more violent scralet crusaders. Over this time, Thren learned that the scourge were building up forces to either attack "traitors" or "drealords". Unknowingly, he had stumbled into the scourge's building up of forces to attack the undercity. Thren did not particularly care for dreadlords, but figured that any reduction in the scourge's forces was a good thing, so continued to disrupt the scourge and save villages. He also saw that this attack would be the main focus for some time, so formed a plan in his mind to free Quel'thalas, while traveling there through the plaguelands.

The reconquering of Quel'thalas
Lor'themar Theron's rangers quickly discovered Thren's elves moving through the Quel'thalas forests. The two leaders discussed Thren's information and the situation in Quel'thalas, before finally settling on a plan to free the region.

The main fighting would be done by rangers, ambushing and sniping undead patrols in the forest paths. When the undead in an area were weakened sufficiently, the Elves would attack in an open battle, using fighting methods learned in Dalaran.

The elves travelled north through quel'thalas, killing small groups of undead until they reached a small, abandoned arcane sanctum, where they killed several necromancers leading the undead in the South (Battle of the Sanctum). After this battle, the Elves moved north to small river separating the burnet forest from the more healthy areas ot the north. At the main bridge of this river, the Elves won a second battle against the scourge, killing many of the ghouls and necromancers in that area as well (Battle of the Bridge).

At this point, the Lich in charge of the scourge in Quel'thalas moved his undead away from the forest to an open area in front of Silvermoon. The Elves moved north towards Silvermoon, destroying any undead too slow to reach the Lioch's area, and finally killed most of the remaining the remaining scourge (including the Lich) in a major battle in front of Silvermoon (Battle of the courtyard). After winning this battle, the elves moved into Silvermoon itself, killing any undead stragglers, and recapturing the city.

Rebuilding and Diplomacy
Once Silvermoon was recaptured, the Blood Elves travelled back through Quel'thalas, destroying any remaining scourge, and finding hidden pockets of elves to bring to Silvermoon. In Silvermoon itself, the Elves focused in defense, rebuilding walls, barracks, and other military structures. Fortunately for the Elves, the scourge had left much of the city intact, and it was quickly reinhabited. The one new building to be built was a large spire, used both as a palace, and as an observatory, based on the ones used in Dalaran, that would watch Quel'thalas and the surrounding ocean for future invasions.

The Elves also found as many healthy dragonhawks as they could find, and sent riders south to spread the news, and find out what was happening in the rest of the world. These riders reestablished contact with the humans of Stromgarde and the Dwarves of Aerie Peak. They also found the forsaken in Tirisfal glades, after some forsaken mistakenly captured a dragonhawk rider who they assumed was attacking. The humans were suspicious of the Elves, as Garithos's version of events had spread more quickly than other versions had. The forsaken, however, pursued an alliance with the Blood Elves, and when the elves agreed to work with the forsaken, the humans to the south distructed them even further.

Soon after these negotiations, Elves arrived from outland. They had reactivated the portal in Dalaran for a short time before destroying it, found out from Dalaran that Quel'thalas had been reconquered, and quickly traveled to Silvermoon using zeppelins. The Elves brought news of demonic magic as a source of power, a number of Outland creatures that could store magical energy, and a captured Naaru, among other things. Magister Romnath, the leader of the outland Elves, also told of the conquering of outland, and the use of demonic magic to feed the elves. While the blood elves were wary of some of these teachings, the mere fact that the Blood elves looked up to Kael'thas while he taught such dangerous ideas was enough to scare most potential human allies away.

When the Kalimdor races came into contact with the Kalimdor races, the Blood elves assumed that their natural allies would be the night elves. The Night Elves had worked with the blood elves somewhat in Lordaeran to track down illidan and carry supplies to Dalaran. However, The teachings brought from outland horrified many night elves, reminding them of the ancient practices of Aszhara's highborne that attracted the Burning legion. Night Elf leaders (such as Furion Stormrage) who would normally have given the Blood Elves a second chance were discouraged by the Blood elve's working with the forsaken.

Surprisingly, it was the blood Elve's old enemies, orcs and trolls, who offered an alliance. The Kalimdor horde was having difficulties with the night elves and humans as well, and was looking for potential allies. Sylvanus windrunner, the forsaken leader, pressed for an alliance with the orcs, and wanted the Blood Elves to join as well. A group of diplomats from the fortsaken and Blood elves took a zeppelin to Orgrimmar to negotiate with the Kalimdor Horde.

The negotiations with the forsaken went well, but negotiations with the Blood Elves went poorly. The blood elves, despite changes in orc culture, assumed that the orcs were the bloodthirsty, barbaric, supposedly simpleminded creatures they had fought in the second war, and offered the orcs "safe haven" in Silvermoon to practice "dangerous magics", barely able to hide their feelings of superiority. They also offered the orcs "plunder and blood" if they would travel to Lordaeran and unleash their fury on the scourge and humans in the region. The Kalimdor leaders were not impressed, the the orc commander Nazgrel offered to plunder the Elf leaders themselves, and other leaders did not support an alliance either. The Elves failed to impress the orcs over the next few days, some supposedly well trained spellbreakers lost in weapon duels (Duels of weapon skill similar to fencing.) and other contests of fighting ability to the orcs. (These contests were not to the death, but instead to be the first to knock down, score more points, or reach a position to make a killing blow).

The trip to Orgrimmar did have some use to the elves, hoever, as the elves had a chance ot sample some orc metalwork. Some of the Elves bought orc equipment and took it back to Silvermoon for enchanting, the first zeppelin metalwork to be produced in the horde. The Alliance between the forsaken and Orcs also opened up trade with the blood elves. This trade, plus military concerns, would encourage the Blood elves to build a teleporter between the Undercity and Silvermoon.

Relative Calm
For most of the next four years, the blood Elves rebuilt Quel'thalas, attracted high elves to Quel'thalas, trained new soldiers, enchanters, and others, and continued ot deal with enemes in Quel'thalas.

The blood elves had cleared the undead quite effectively from northern Quel'thalas, but in the sourhern, burnt section, many pockets of scourge remained. These scourge, as well as some from the plaguelands, began travelling north along the dead scar, and the blood elf army routinely sent soldiers to clear it. These dead scar attacks, fortunately, were relatively weak, and the undead on it were regularly used for training recruits.

Of more concern to the Blood Elves were the wretched. Many enchanters, magical crafters, and other mages were loosing their sanity to their magical addiction, turning into violent, mindless creatures. These creatures would often attack other elves, destroy and steal sources of magic, and otherwise cause trouble for the elves. Many wretched traveled to western Silvermoon, and soon made that part of the city so dangerous as to be uninhabitable. While the elves over time learned to avoid becoming wretched, those that had already fallen remained a problem for many years. Blood elf soldiers were often sent to clear out the wretched, but often more could return quickly, and soon the elves simply focused on keeping central paths through western Silvermoon clear.

Forest trolls, the old enemy of the elves, saw a chance in the recent chaos to try and recapture their ancestral home, and get revenge on the elves for defeats inflicted in the past. The trolls were not powerful enough to threaten Silvermoon directly, or any of the marger blood elf towns, but could raid eastern Quel'thalas.

The Elves and forsaken began to work more and more closely during this time. Forsaken travelled to southern Quel'thalas to assist against the scourge, elves assisted forsaken mages and enchanters, while helping the forsaken defend themselves in the second undercity siege.. Sylvanas also continued to push for the orcs to allow the Blood elves to full join the horde. The increased trade between Quel'thalas and Kalimdor had softened the orc leaders somewhat, but they were still suspicious of the Elve's use to the horde, and did not offer a full alliance.

The blood elves had hoped to stay friendly with the races of the alliance, but an attempted sabotage by several night elf spies and an Ironforge ambassador quickly destroyed those hopes.

Dark Presence
While the scourge mainly focused on fighting the Scarlet crusade, forsaken, and argent dawn in the plaguelands, one of their leaders was able to take control of some forces from Northrend and the Plaguelands, and moved into Quel'thalas. Dar'khan Drathir, who had betrayed the elves and wanted the Sunwell's power for himself, entered Quel'thalas from the plaguelands and took over the old village of Quel'din, and turned it into a fortress, now called Deatholme. He also raised elven corpses, and Elven spirits, to add to his forces.

It took some time for the Blood Elves to discover this new scourge invasion, but soon the undead began taking over villages in southern Quel'thalas. The blood Elves and forsaken in the south retreated to the village nad Tranquillien and harassed the undead attackers when they could, but were unable to do much against the new undead attackers. They sent messages warning of trouble to the south, but blood elf leaders in Silvermoon assumed that these messages were just the usual warnings of undead attacking through the dead scar, and ignored them.

The chaos created in the undead invasion also attracted other enemies. Trolls from Zul'aman took over the southeast, and night elf spies entered the Ghostlands to spy on and sabotage the Blood Elf magical structures if possible.

Soon, several villages in southern Quel'thalas were attacked heavily by scourge. The blood Elves fought off these attacks, but the attacks convinced blood elf leaders that something was happening to the south. The bloodelf leaders turned their attention south, and sensed dark magic. Viewing southern Quel'thals through their observatory, they detected far more undead than normal in the forest, and the presence of Deatholme. The leaders sent several scouts to Tranquillien for more information, and when the news returned, a group of soldiers was sent south to stop the undead attacks if possible.

Fighting the Scourge
The Elves sent south were far outnumbered, as the leaders in Silvermoon still did not realize how large Dark'khan's force was, and had sent a very small force. Fortunately the elves were led by Thren, the spellbreaker who had planned Quel'thalas's reconquering. Thren first attacked several villages to the north, clearing the scourge from the villages, letting them be recaptured, than killing the scourge again, all the while asking for more fighters. Thren was somewhat more effective at getting attention in Silvermoon, and more soldiers arrived in the ghostlands, and established themselves at an old tower.

The blood elves had planned to first repel the scourge invasion, than deal with other enemies, but the Night Elves and trolls had taken over much of the central ghostlands, and were attacked next. The Night Elves were skilled at fighting in the forests, and proved difficult to track down, frustrating the blood elves in ghostlands. The trolls were relatively quickly pushed back to the Southeast, but the Night Elves took several weeks to weed out and capture or kill.

The blood Elve's attempts to find the groups of Night elf spies further degraded Niht Elf and blood Elf relations. While experimenting with and developing different possibilities for using magic, Blood Elf priests had developed effective techniques to tell if a person was lying or telling the truth, as well as techniques to cause strong feelings of pain in a person's mind. Some thought that other techniques, such as using priests to tell lies from truth, combined with clever questions, should have been used, others suggested using the pain techniques to torture the Night Elves. At first the Blood elves used simpler techniques, but as the fighting continued, switched to more violent techniques as they became more desperate the find the Night Elves, to the point of torturing and killing prisoners until the other ones would give useful descriptions. Eventually, the Blood elves captured a scrying device connected to other night elf scrying devices, and quickly rounded up the remaining spies with little trouble. The torturing and killing of night Elves remained a source of hatred between the two races until the end of the fighting in Outland.

User:minionman/Night Elf torture

As the Night Elves were being removed from the Ghostlands, Dar'khan Drathir moved more undead into the southern Ghostlands. When the Night Elves were defeated, he again attacked to the North, but the Blood elves fought them off in several battles. After these battles, the Elves moved south, destroying undead as they went. At this point, the leaders in Silvermoon fully accepted Dar'khan as a threat, and sent several magisters, as well as about half of the soldiers remaining around Silvermoon, into the ghostlands. These fighters quickly defeated the remaining undead outside Deatholme, and magisters discussed Dar'kahsn's motivations and likely abilities.

The Kalimdor horde had also learned of the war in Quel'thalas, and sent observers to see how the blood elves handled themselves in a fight. This time, the Blood Elves impressed the orcs with their fighting abilities, organization, stamina, and ability to win even when outnumbered by the undead.

The Elves had difficulty, however, capturing Deatholme. Sieging Deatholme in the usual way would take far too long, as the scourge needed to eat very little and needed few other supplies. Several attempts to capture Deatholme failed, until the Blood elves were able to trick most of the undead inside to chase a group of rangers, while most of the other fighters waited and broke in afterwards. The scourge remaining in the city were quickly destroyed, Dar'khan Drathir was killed in how tower by spellbreakers, and when the undead who had left the city came back, they were easily destroyed.

Diplomacy
The orc observers quickly took news of the victory to the Undercity and Kalimdor. While the blood elf leaders were simply happy to have fought off an invasion, Sylvanas saw the defeat of Dar'khan as a chance to finally bring the Blood Elves into the horde. She encouraged Blood elf leaders ot travel to Kalimdor and present their case to Thrall, and even included a letter containing her own arguments for the Elves joining the horde.

Thrall himself needed little convincing. He had accepted that the blood elves were capable of defending themselves, and could contribute to the horde in ways besides trade. The Blood Elves had learned their lessons from the previous diplomatic gaffe, and negotiated successfully with the horde leader. Thrall did have two expectations of the blood Elves: that they would avoid dangerous magic such as demonic magic and necromancy, and that they avoid future situations similar to the torturing of Night Elves.