Quick Overview
The orcish Horde's use of dragons during the Second War was built upon the captivity of Alexstrasza, not a willing alliance with her flight. The Horde's dragon roosts turned that suffering into military power. Alexstrasza's imprisonment at Grim Batol eventually became the center of the struggle to free the dragonflight.
Full History
The orcish Horde's use of dragons during the Second War was built upon the captivity of Alexstrasza, not a willing alliance with her flight. The Dragonmaw clan held the Dragonqueen under magical compulsion, using the Dragon Soul to threaten her and her young. What appeared to the Alliance as a terrifying new weapon in the skies was the result of coercion at the heart of the red dragonflight.
The Horde's dragon roosts turned that suffering into military power. Eggs and young dragons were raised under the supervision of orc handlers, and mature dragons were sent against enemy armies and fortifications. The same creatures that might have served as protectors of life became instruments of devastation. Even commanders who depended on the mounts could not fully control beings so powerful, making the arrangement cruel and unstable.
Alexstrasza's imprisonment at Grim Batol eventually became the center of the struggle to free the dragonflight. The liberation of the Dragonqueen exposed how the Horde had obtained its aerial advantage and stripped away the pretense that the dragons served from loyalty. The roosts remain a reminder of a war in which conquest extended beyond mortal kingdoms into the forced service of an ancient guardian of life.
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