Balnazzar

Full History

For much of the Third War, the people of Lordaeron were caught between enemies they barely understood. The Scourge raised their dead into an army, while the Burning Legion sought to direct that army toward wider destruction. Among the Legion's most practiced agents were the dreadlords, demons skilled in corruption, concealment, and the manipulation of mortals. Balnazzar joined Varimathras and Detheroc in trying to preserve control over the kingdom's ruined heart after the battle at Mount Hyjal shattered the Legion's invasion.

The dreadlords' position was weaker than it appeared. The Lich King was losing hold of servants such as Sylvanas Windrunner, who refused to return to slavery under another master. She gathered the Forsaken and began eliminating the rival powers that occupied Lordaeron. Balnazzar opposed her, but his allies could not maintain a united defense. Detheroc fell, Varimathras was forced into Sylvanas's service, and the remaining dreadlord's claim to the capital stood increasingly alone.

Balnazzar's defeat involved the bitter politics of the surviving human army as well. Grand Marshal Garithos still fought for control of the lands from which humanity had been driven. Sylvanas used the humans' enemies against them and promised cooperation long enough to overthrow the dreadlords. Varimathras was made to turn against Balnazzar, a cruel reversal for the brothers who had expected to rule undead and mortals alike. The collapse of the dreadlords' open dominion did not, however, end Balnazzar's ability to threaten the living.

A different conflict was growing in the Scarlet Crusade. Formed by survivors who hated the Scourge, the Crusade gathered paladins, soldiers, and priests into fortified camps and monasteries. Fear of infection and betrayal hardened its discipline into suspicion of outsiders. To a dreadlord, such fear offered fertile ground. Under the guise of Grand Crusader Saidan Dathrohan, Balnazzar became a commanding presence within the movement he should have been one of its most hated enemies.

In Stratholme's Scarlet Bastion, the disguised Balnazzar stood amid warriors convinced that they were defending the Light from the Scourge. The terrible truth lay behind the robes and title of the grand crusader. Scarlet soldiers who devoted themselves to rooting out hidden corruption were being led by a creature whose greatest strength was hidden corruption. The deception also helps explain why the Crusade's ferocity could serve causes very different from those professed by its rank and file.

Balnazzar's story binds two apparently separate struggles into one history. In ruined Lordaeron, a dreadlord failed to hold power openly against Sylvanas. In the Scarlet Crusade, the same sort of demonic cunning found another route into the affairs of the living. The lesson was grim for a land seeking rescue from undeath: armies that spoke most fiercely about purity were not immune to the darkness they vowed to destroy.