I mean, other than as an obvious hamfisted justification for Alterac Valley, why did Drek’thar move his entire clan back to the Eastern Kingdoms to continue living in contested lands instead of settling in the new orc nation of Orgrimmar (“The New Horde”) in Kalimdor?
It doesn’t seem to make any sense to me whatsoever.
According to WoWpedia, the clan never actually left the Valley.
After Thrall united the orc clans, the Frostwolves chose to remain in the valley they had for so long called home rather than join Warchief Thrall in Orgrimmar (though Drek’Thar and Nazgrel were both present in Durotar during Orgrimmar’s construction).
Source:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Frostwolf_clan#Alterac_Valley
Yeah, I’m aware, but that was invented to justify Alterac Valley. It’s obvious that this was a retcon since originally all of those orcs went to Kalimdor.
I’m not questioning that it was written. I’m questioning it’s plausibility. And curious to hear thoughts.
Sure it is a retcon.
Regardless, it wasn’t contested till the Dwarves turned up. The Frostwolves had been living there alone for years.
Other than Winterspring and Northrend, it’s probably the closest the Frostwolves could get to their original homeland.
The Dwarves really like to poke their noses where they don’t belong, just for some artifacts. They’re willing to war with anyone for it, too.
I feel like this side of the Dwarves should be explored more. What they did to the Frostwolves and Tauren is pretty morally bankrupt.
Those were both back in vanilla when the alliance wasn’t a pure force for good in shining armor. Which is to bad. Things like those and the history of the Defias brotherhood made the alliance much more complex and interesting than they are currently.
Sure it’s possible. Thrall and his Horde were about to embark on a harrowing trip across the ocean to find Kalimdor because of a vision Thrall had. Assuming they even survive the boat trip, they still had no idea what kind of threats they would be dealing with when they got there.
So it makes sense that some of the Frostwolves chose, or Thrall ordered, to remain behind in case the Horde was never seen or heard from again.
The Barrens was neutral territory so… They have as much right to be there as anyone. The treaty in, ‘Cycle of Hatred,’ didn’t prohibit archaeological digs as far as I know. The slaughter of the Tauren Tribe I will give you as wrong, but whether the tribe was there when the dig began or not isn’t something I believe has been touched upon before. After all, Tauren are a nomadic people.
In the case of Alterac, that territory was Alliance territory. The Frostwolves were basically squatters, and lest we forget the finer details, the Frostwolves attacked unarmed archaeologists upon first seeing the dwarves. So, not only did the Dwarves have the right to be out there (Alliance territory), they were also dishonorably murdered by the Frostwolves as well.
When it comes to Mulgore, yeah, the Dwarves had no right to be there or dig without permission.
My memory is pretty hazy but I don’t remember it being that clear cut. Each side pretty much blamed the other as the aggressors.
Also pretty hypocritical for the Dwarves to cry foul there since at the same time the Dwarves in the southern Barrens literally wiped out a Tauren tribe, man, woman and child, because they tried to stop the Dwarves using explosives in their lands to excavate.
It was. It was the traditional lands of the Tauren. Nomad doesn’t mean they don’t revisit the same locations. Nomads usually simply move between different sites at different parts of the year. All it means was not sitting in the one spot all year round. Considering these Dwarves were looking to build a military outpost to support the ‘Ironforge Imperial Agenda’ I don’t think we can call their intensions innocent.
Also it was in territory no member of the Alliance had been in decades at least and the territory it was in had been pretty much abandoned by the Alliance when the lands north of Thandol’s span had fallen. Hell, I don’t think anyone of note in the Alliance even had claim to the lands of Alterac since its royal family had been dissolved when they turned on the Alliance in the 2nd war and the only survivors were part of a criminal organisation hostile to the Alliance.
The military outpost was there during Cycle of Hatreds, and it’s continued presence was legal as per the treaty. The Barrens was neutral territory, something a lot of Horde players never realized because the book was never really referenced in the game.
But again, the Dwarves could’ve built and excavated while the Tauren weren’t there. That’s what I was talking about. We don’t know if the Tauren tribe was present and slaughtered, or if they were no where to be seen and the dwarves built on what was open land and then the Tauren demanded they leave.
Gann said the tauren were there but the dwarves kicked them off;
Many innocent tauren lost their lives or were forced off their ancestral birthplace when the dwarves of Bael Modan arrived. My land must be reclaimed!
Your mixing up the fort in the northern barrens that is a Theramore base near Ratchet with the Dwarven fort above their digsite. I am pretty sure that fort isn’t referenced at all in Cycle of Hatred. Infact I don’t think Dwarves in the Barrens was mentioned at all.
As for what happened with the Dwarves we know exactly what happened. The Dwarves built their fort next to the tauren’s camping grounds. The Tauren at first were ok with them being there but objected when they started using explosives to excavate the sight due to it upsetting he spirits. The Tauren attempted to negociate but were ignored and so the Tauren attempted to destroy the dwarves supplies of explosives and in return the Dwarves wiped out the tribe with only one survivor. They literally chased them down in there plane while the Tauren attempted to flee, gunning them down as they ran.
The Barrens was shared territory but that didn’t mean the Alliance could just start building military bases anywhere in the barrens they liked. That was part of the reason there were new people in Theramore in the book who found that frustrating as they wanted access to the wealth of the barrens that the horde had claim to.
Ehh… I’m not sold. I mean, it’s plausible, even likely, but I’m not sold on the idea either. That could be read as the Tauren lost their lives and were forced off the land when the dwarves arrived, but that the Tauren weren’t there to die just yet. A more convincing dialogue would have been, “The dwarves arrived while we were there, and drove us off, killing many of the tribe, preventing the survivors from returning to their ancestral birthplace.”
Gann is the last living member of his tribe.
I sorry, but Gann says right there “when the dwarves of Bael Modan arrived”.
It doesn’t imply it happened after the dwarves had established themselves, but when they arrived.
To me, the situation you are suggesting isn’t supported. The dialog says it happened as they arrived, but you’re trying to suggest there’s room for it to have happened afterwards, but I don’t agree that there’s space there for that. The story as presented here is that the dwarves drove the tauren off as they arrived to the region.
The dialog places the tauren as already being there when the dwarves arrived, and the dwarves drove them off of their ancestral land to dig there.
How could they be Dwarves of Bael Modan if they hadn’t established Bael Modan before arriving? That’s like saying the humans of Stromgarde were Lordaeron humans, before Lordaeron had even been constructed. This is why the wording seems vague to me.
From what I can see from the wiki, Bael Modan was established by the Alliance when Jaina arrived on Kalimdor during WC3. Mind you, that’s inferred from the RPGs which are non-canon but its all I can find for when the fortress was built.
Well, now that those pesty NEs are out of Ashenvale, the Frostwolves should move to Winterspring!
From the wowpedia article of the Stonespire Tribe.
Bael Modan was once a part of the lands that served as home and provider to the Stonespire tribe. It was the ancestral birthplace of many of them. Then the dwarves of Bael’dun came and began their disruptive excavation operations, forcing the tauren out and killing many innocent who opposed. The tauren tried to approach the dwarves to reach a diplomatic resolution, but it failed.
The dwarves didn’t care who was there, they felt that were titan artifacts present and felt entitled to the land as a result. And they decided no one was going to stand in there way.
The official Blizzard description of the Alterac Valley battleground
Long ago, the warlock Gul’dan exiled a clan of orcs called the Frostwolves to a valley hidden deep in the heart of the Alterac Mountains. The Frostwolf Clan eked out a living until Thrall triumphantly united many of Azeroth’s orcs. The Frostwolves, however, chose to remain in the valley rather than joining Thrall in Orgrimmar – and their relative peace has since been challenged by the arrival of the dwarven Stormpike Expedition. The Stormpike Expedition’s desire to mine and plumb the underexplored caves for relics has invited conflict with the Frostwolf Clan, but opinions are divided on who struck first. Were the dwarves who arrived in the valley peaceful explorers who were massacred by the orcs, or did they plan to poach and conquer?
As you can see the original description left it ambiguous. And speaking to NPCs for their perspective reveal their own bias and interception. However even though the Alliance Brigadier Generals do promote the idea that the Dwarves were attacked first, they also flat out say that Alterac Valley was Frostwolf land.
He’s not. There’s Auld Stonespire, who was in Thunder Bluff in vanilla, can be found in Razorfen Kraul and Alto Stonespire who was added in Cataclysm to Brackenwall Village in Dustwallow Marsh.
The dwarves were infinitely more interesting back then. Brann found evidence of their Titan heritage, so Magni drastically cut the military industrial complex’s funding so that they could begin aggressively setting up dig sites. The senate(remember when Ironforge had a senate?) hated Magni for it, because selling munitions and arms filled their coffers to the brim, and started trying to undermine him.