The Amani Homeland and the Second War

Full History

The forest trolls of the Amani never regarded the great forests of the northern Eastern Kingdoms as empty territory waiting for newcomers. Their ancestors had ruled there before the high elves raised Quel'Thalas, and the conflict over those lands became one of the most enduring rivalries in Azeroth. The Amani empire was weakened by the Troll Wars, but defeat did not convince its survivors that their claims had ceased to matter. Centuries later, the forest trolls remained both inhabitants and defenders of a landscape that had become home to other peoples.

The Second War seemed to offer an opportunity to reverse that loss. When Orgrim Doomhammer's Horde advanced into the north, its leaders saw a potential ally in Zul'jin and the warriors who followed him. Zul'jin was no creature of the orcs: he had his own cause, his own followers, and a hatred of the high elves that predated the Dark Portal. The alliance was therefore strategic. Troll fighters would aid the Horde's campaign, while the Horde would help bring war to Quel'Thalas.

This bargain should not be confused with the later Horde founded by Thrall. The Old Horde's campaign pursued conquest under leaders shaped by the Second War, and the Amani's goals did not include friendship with every orc or troll thereafter. The fighting brought ruin to elven lands and drew the high elves more deeply into the human-led Alliance. When the Horde was defeated, forest-troll hopes of overturning the northern order collapsed as well.

After the war, Zul'jin disappeared from the center of public events, but the tribes did not all choose the same future. Some maintained hostility toward the elves and humans; others lived farther from the old frontiers and made different local arrangements. The Revantusk's place among the trolls associated with the Horde shows the diversity of those choices. Calling all forest trolls Horde allies because Zul'jin once fought beside Doomhammer would erase their competing loyalties.

For the Darkspear, the comparison is revealing. Their joining of Thrall's Horde began with rescue, exile, and the search for refuge, not a promise to destroy Quel'Thalas. Both peoples are trolls, and both have suffered dislocation, yet their political identities were shaped by different wars. The playable Darkspear therefore have an ancestral connection to tribes who may stand against their chosen allies.

By the beginning of World of Warcraft, the Amani remain a force rooted in the grievances of an ancient forest kingdom, and the consequences of the Second War still shape their relations with surrounding peoples. Their story explains why a Horde character cannot assume that shared ancestry or an old battlefield alliance will always mean friendship.