The Defias menace persists in Westfall

Full History

Stormwind had endured invasions, exile, and reconstruction, yet the restoration of its walls did not restore peace throughout the kingdom. Westfall's farms and villages faced an organized enemy in the Defias Brotherhood, associated with Edwin VanCleef and entrenched within the Deadmines. The existence of such a movement near the capital showed that the kingdom's troubles were not confined to foreign armies or the ruined north.

The Brotherhood's strength drew upon grievances within the kingdom as well as its ability to use isolated terrain and abandoned industrial spaces. Westfall was a necessary agricultural region, and disorder there put pressure upon a realm still dependent on its surrounding people. VanCleef's organization became a challenge to the restored government, combining threats to settlements with the ability to defend an established underground base.

The Defias also belonged to a larger picture of uncertainty within Stormwind. Powerful interests within the capital were entangled in political manipulation, while the kingdom's armies could not be everywhere at once. The men and women of the countryside encountered the consequences directly. The conflict was therefore as much a sign of troubled civil order as a contest with a band of armed outlaws.

At the beginning of World of Warcraft, VanCleef and his followers remained active adversaries rather than figures whose defeats had already become history. Westfall's unsettled condition preserved one of the clearest connections between the consequences of rebuilding Stormwind and the dangers facing its ordinary inhabitants.