User:Hallu'kenara/Garrosh Expansion

Stormarage's Legacy
"The corruption of the land by the evils from beneath the earth have made my choice extrictly necessary, this is a farewell, my love. Forever." With this last words Malfurion Stormrage abandoned the world of mortals. He was going to an unending batlle against the Emerald Nightmare. He sat among the roots of Nordrassil in a deep state of meditation from which he shall never wake up. His corpse was soon eated by the great tree roots as he and Nordrassil became one.

Tyrande saw it in her dreams as a professy ages before, now that it happened she was broken. A former shell of herself, she became depressive, relusive, her iron fist that controlled the night elves reign for ten thounsand years had vanished upon the mists. Shandris and Jarod became the in fact commanders of Darnassus nation. The only one who could bring some joy to Tyrande's life was the young Kalo'thera, named after the greatest priestess of Elune, she was being raised and trained by Tyrande to become her sucessor after the high priestess death. Kalo'thera was the daughter that Tyrande could never give to Shan'do Stormrage, the archdruid saw great destiny, while he was still alive, in the young elf, she was trained by both to become a leader, a priestess and and a druid. "The healer of the wounds of a shattered world".

The expansion begins
The news spread to the continent as quick as a dwarf's bullet. Garrosh quickly heard of Malfurion demise, it was the perfect time for the orcish expansion to the north. Garrosh himself led a full army to Ashenvale, striking from south (Barrens), from east (Goblin Azshara) and from west (Zoram'gar). He easly captured Astranaar and destroyed it's surronding outposts. Hellscream's Watch was heavly larged and rebuilded to become a city even bigger than Orgrimmar itself. Grommashar was born.

Three factors explain the Horde's sucess in this second expansion, unlike the first failure. First, the Sentinels forces had great losses in the previous war and it's government was shattering, thus the forest defenses were weaker than before. Second, the economical "miracle" proporcionated by their new bilgewaters allys - wood, powder, silver and mithrill from Azshara Forest revamped the needs of the expanding belic society, the salt and iron from Durotar had their production duplicated by the goblin technology, as well the northern Barrens became a giant and productive pasture for pigs and bulls, the horde peons were finally satisfied by the new way of land allocation after two years suffering from the Cataclysm great famine, these once lazy and rebel peons were now (and this is entirely new in Horde history) productive - This economical miracle, not only made the expansion possible, but turn it necessary, the money needed to be invested, the workers needed more jobs and the economy engine needed to spin through the logics of pillage, "the war is industry". Third and last, in recent years the horde had an enormous demographic expansion - the orcs form Outland began the exodus from their dying lands, the Mag'har and the lethargic orcs from the defeated fel Horde had bowed themselves for the horde, a great road complexum connected Thrallmar, the horde conquered Dark Portal, Rockard, Stonard and Grom'Gol (which had became a giant port to lead the exiled orcs to the battlefields of Kalimdor). The horde was increased, organised and economically stable.

As his High General of Orgrimaar and Durotar lands, Garrosh leaves "Torturer" Bladefist. Bladefist alleged to be one of the many sons of the powerfull Kargath Bladefist and managed to gain official comand of the Shatterd Hand Clan of assassins, which Garrosh has made his personal web of spies and assassins. The nickname "Torturer" was granted to him while he was chief of internal seccurance and secret inteligence of the Horde and gained fame for his unmerciful tatics of retrieving information, his true name is unknown to everyone, even Garrosh, as his own politic. Garrosh Also named Urkran Sharktooth as his "Admiral of the seas of blood". Urkran is son of the Second War hero, "Sharkjaw" who was the great admiral of the old Horde and managed to flee from Crestfal before it was taken, and remained as a pirate captain of the "Black Sharks" a group of orc sea-raiders in the South Seas. After his fathers death, Urkran swore obedience to Garrosh and presented him with bloody warriors to discipline the sea dogs, and quickly gained the Warchief's favour.

The forest strikes back
The Grommashar dream didn't last long. In few weeks the roots and vines grew quickly through the city and damaged it's buildings, the forest rains flooded the garrison halls every two days and tropical diseases killed many of it's inhabitants. The troops were considering to abandon the city if the disasters don't stop. Garrosh told one of his trusted shamans that he had a vision of Broxigar, who told him that his expansion would bring only doom to the horde.

However, one day, the Kor'kron brought a captured coward night elf druid, he was tortured to say what was happening. He revealed that the forest itself was angry, and it won't stop till the orcs abandon it. He also told that the only way o stop it was destroying the Heart of Ashenvale, a pusing giant seed that was linked with every tree and plant of the forest, he told the location of the heart and fell dead after days of torture pain. Garrosh led his Kor'kron elite to destroy the heart. In the way they found Remulos, protecting the heart. An epic battle occured, which ended in every man exept Hellscream dead, and with a final blow of Gorehowl he killed the grove keeper, like his father did with Cenarius, and then destroyed the Heart. Grommashar was safe and reformed but the balance of nature began to rot.

To the South!
Garrosh didn't plan to stop after Grommashar, his next step was the expansion to south, as he believed that his destiny was to turn Kalimdor hole continent into the new Draenor. However, before sieging Theramore and it's vassals fortresses, he needed to isolate the two fronts, as he couldn't aford to let the night elves unify their armys with the human front. Using the "divide to conquer" strategy, he needed to strike Feathermoon Stronghold to prevent Theramore kingdom from getting armys and supplys.

Garrosh strategy proved to be genious but a faillure. He was fighting at too many fronts. He used his Warsong Marine to block Theramore from getting supplys from over the seas, he stablished a defensive army on Southern Barrens to separate the contact between Theramore and Feralas, and he led, with himself at the front lines among his ogre allies, a great army to besiege Feathermoon. Feathermoon resistance was attonishing, arrows came out from nowhere, the elves blade dancers were faster than any other enemy the horde encountered before, when the day was setting and the night striking, the orcs were doomed. At the end, Garrosh was hit in the left eye by one of Shandris's own arrows, the warriors were tired or dead, they were "fighting against ghosts". Garrosh called a withdrawal as he was half blind and loosing alot of blood. The elven stronghold survived, but with imense casualities.

Back to Orgrimmar, the half blind warchief began it's healing, he lost alot of blood and his personal healers were having dificulties. By that time, he marked an audience with Vol'jin to discuss the new taxes upon fish and mojo (alcoholic beverages in general), wich are the prime economy of the Darkspears. Vol'jin was reluctant but accepted, since the war demanded some extra money invested, after the meeting he ripped off his own eye, cast a voodoo spell on it and putted on the warchief eye hollow, immedeatly healling his wounds. "It's a gift, Warchief, you will heal now on, mine will grow back." Garrosh, at first didn't liked the idea, but he was dying, and wouldn't be abble to heal himself, he accepted the gift, thanking the old troll and saying that he "never saw the world so brightly and never felt better in (his) life." There was a big party comemorating the warchief health, the orcish-troll union and to honor the warriors who fell in battle.

Echo Isles War
Days later, the orcish nautical blockade on Theramore was defeated by an armada of Stormwind fleets, led by the 7 fastest ship, the Invisible. The SI:7 fleet tried, later, a siege upon Bladefist Bay, but failed. During the battle, Garrosh felt an imense pain in "his new" eye as it began to infectionate and cause serious wounds that deformed the warchief's face. The battle was won without him, at the cost of several men and ships, including Admiral Nazgrim. The warchief came back to it's chamber to be healed again, the first thing he did, however was signing an arrestment command on Vol'jin, accusing him of treachery and assassination attempt, and anyone who tried to oppose the Warchief's orders. He then began his slow healing process. The first scout army sent encountered great resistance and never came back. The warchief than sent his Kor'kron troops and, after days of conflict, they took the Echo Isles under direct Durotarian mandate and imprisoned Vol'jin and some of his loyal surving loyal Siame-Quashi and took them - with no trial - to the Warsong Prisons of Northrend.

However, Garrosh soon realised that the Echo Isles conflict was far from over. His first intervenor on the Darkspear's lands was assassinated and the civil war erupted again. The rebels demanded minor taxes and a troll of their own as an intervenor. Garrosh didn't listen to the rebels and sent another fleet to pacify the isles. Only to make things worse, the humans from Theramore tooked their opportunity to strike on the unstable and weakly protected isles. In the heat of battle, Rokhan rose to power reuniting an orc and troll army to repell the invaders. After the battles, the rebels ofered a trust to the Warchief if Rokhan was nominated as intervenor. Garrosh, who befriended Rokhan in a battle against a frostwyrm on Northrend, accepted the trust, and the isles were finally pacified.

Final Assault
At the "end" of his treatment, Hellscream was half blind, had lost almost half of his weight and his face was almost covered by the scars of Vol'jin's curse. He lost alot of his man and the pillage didn't covered the costs of the war and of Grommashar construction and reconstruction. He had no time to waste, his next target was Theramore. The fleets were rebuild, the armys reasembled, bilgewater cannons, armada and gunship were ready. The fleet took easly minor, but important, ouposts at bays and isles controlled by the humans. Tiragarde and Northwatch fell with some medium casualities.

The SI:7 master ship, the Invisible, and it's armada, caused some major problems. The horde's ships had a far better siege capacity, but were heavy and slow compared to the Alliance's. The Invisible was the fastest ship ever seen, and it's captain was the Great Admiral Taylor. Urkran Shartooth, gowever, proved himself a great strategist and lead the Invisble into a trap, the Alliance ship was surrounded and bombed, and Taylor set fire to his own ship to impede the orcs from taking it.

After the hazing of the SI:7 armada, Garrosh lead a final blow to Theramore, he managed to mantain the siege long enough for his skyship lauch a massive goblin bomb into the city, burning it to the ground, causing great casualities.

Continue Reading: Theramore Struggle and Jaina's Quest.