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Know Your Lore: The VanCleefs, the rise of the Defias, and Westfall
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Hope? Is that what I was supposed to feel when I saw my father decapitated by your henchmen? Hope is a cruel joke, played upon us by a harsh and uncaring world. There is no Hope, there is only Vanessa. Vanessa VanCleef. A little girl watches her father's demise, manages to escape, survives, and then dedicates her life to rebuilding everything her father stood for. It sounds like the sort of story heroes are made of, doesn't it? Ordinarily it would be, but the villains in this particular story are the nobility of Stormwind, including its king, Varian Wrynn -- and heroes just like you. The story of the Defias Brotherhood begins during the First War, when the orcish Horde first burst forth from the Dark Portal into Azeroth with the help of Medivh. From there, they launched an assault on the kingdom of Stormwind. With the help of a cleverly mind-controlled assassin, the Horde took out King Llane Wrynn, and with his death, the city crumbled. Lord Anduin Lothar, forced to make a decision, led the people of Stormwind and young prince Varian Wrynn north, retreating to the kingdom of Lordaeron to recoup and grieve. The once mighty city of Stormwind lay in pieces.
