Quick Overview
The Black Tooth Grin arose from a struggle over the leadership of the old Horde. During the Second War, the clan held a duty crucial to the entire invasion: guarding the Dark Portal in the Black Morass. When the Horde was defeated, its clans faced captivity, flight or renewed war among themselves.
Full History
The Black Tooth Grin arose from a struggle over the leadership of the old Horde. Rend and Maim, sons of the fallen warchief Blackhand, separated their followers from the Blackrock clan after Orgrim Doomhammer overthrew their father. They did not immediately revolt against Orgrim. Instead, the brothers built a force whose loyalty lay first with their own claim and whose members knocked out one of their teeth as a mark of belonging.
During the Second War, the clan held a duty crucial to the entire invasion: guarding the Dark Portal in the Black Morass. Control of that passage tied the Horde's armies in Azeroth to their ancestral world and to further reinforcements. The Black Tooth Grin consequently occupied a place of great responsibility while retaining a grievance against the very warchief whose campaigns they served. Their soldiers' mutilated smiles proclaimed unity within a divided Horde.
When the Horde was defeated, its clans faced captivity, flight or renewed war among themselves. Rend and Maim's rivalry with Doomhammer did not vanish merely because the Alliance had won; Blackrock Mountain and the surviving orc strongholds provided a new arena for competing loyalties. The brothers' story illustrates how the old Horde carried the seeds of its eventual fragmentation into battle, even at the height of its strength.
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