Kargath Bladefist

Full History

Among the clans of Draenor, the Shattered Hand was feared for a warrior's rite that demanded the mutilation of the very hand used to wield a weapon. Those who rose within the clan could replace ruined flesh with an implement of war. Kargath Bladefist carried that custom to its most formidable expression: a bladed weapon in place of his severed hand, and a reputation for aggression that established his chieftainship.

The Shattered Hand's brutal discipline offered little of the shamanic wisdom that had once helped hold the orc clans together. Kargath's authority rested on courage, pain and relentless demands upon his warriors. The clan's reputation was not a mere display intended to frighten outsiders. It shaped the way its members understood loyalty and strength, rewarding those willing to sacrifice their bodies for standing among their peers.

The first orcish invasions of Azeroth transformed clan feuds into the campaigns of a great Horde. But the Second War ended in disaster for many orc armies, leaving the surviving clans divided by defeat and by the machinations of warlocks. Kargath remained one of the violent chiefs whom Ner'zhul could hope to draw into a renewed struggle. The shaman's plans for the reopened Dark Portal promised opportunities for conquest, though not every chief shared his secret purposes.

When Ner'zhul gathered support on Draenor, he required warriors able to impose obedience on rival clans and fight the armies that might oppose his search for magical artifacts. The Shattered Hand's strength made Kargath a formidable presence in that struggle. He was not the architect of the sorcery intended to open gateways between worlds. His role was the brutal force that commanders could summon while others pursued the plans that would determine the fate of Draenor.

The campaign proved the limits of that alliance. Ner'zhul sought a passage beyond Draenor, while the Alliance followed the renewed invaders through the Dark Portal to prevent another catastrophe in Azeroth. The shaman's use of stolen magical power tore the land apart. The strength of a single clan could not protect its people from a disaster brought on by those who treated the entire world as something to abandon.

Kargath's early story is the story of an orc chieftain whose reputation was forged in the customs of his clan and carried into the wars of the Dark Portal. The Shattered Hand's mark remained recognizable among orcs long after the great wars, a memory of how fierce the old Horde's clans had become. His notoriety speaks to the violence of that era without requiring a later account of where every survivor eventually went.