Quick Overview
The Dreadmaul are ogres who established strongholds in the Blasted Lands after crossing from Draenor in the wake of the old Horde. Their occupation of the region placed them near the ruined Dark Portal and the Alliance's fortress of Nethergarde. Some of their power became entangled with the demon Razelikh and the forces still operating in the Tainted Scar. Their history shows that the destruction of the original portal did not end the dangers brought through it.
Full History
The first opening of the Dark Portal changed more than the fate of Stormwind. Armies from Draenor crossed into Azeroth, bringing orcs, ogres and warlocks into a world that had never confronted a force quite like the Horde. Even after the campaigns of the First and Second Wars ended, surviving invaders remained scattered across the southern Eastern Kingdoms. The Dreadmaul ogres were among those who endured in the land around the great gateway.
That land had itself been transformed. The region once connected to the Black Morass became the Blasted Lands, a place where the magic of the portal left the earth scarred and nearly lifeless. When the original portal was destroyed at the end of the Second War, the wasteland did not recover. The Dreadmaul lived among its barren ridges and established strongholds such as Dreadmaul Hold, occupying territory whose strategic value outlasted the armies that first crossed through it.
The Alliance maintained an armed watch through Nethergarde Keep. The fortress existed because the portal's destruction did not remove every possibility of demonic or orcish danger from the region. For its defenders, the Dreadmaul were an immediate and physical enemy, capable of striking the keep and the roads that sustained it. Their presence ensured that guard duty on the former invasion frontier could not be reduced to watching an empty ruin.
The ogres' story also connects to a deeper evil in the south. The Tainted Scar sheltered remnants of the Burning Legion, while the demon Razelikh the Defiler exerted influence over servants in the Blasted Lands. Grol the Destroyer, a powerful figure associated with the Dreadmaul, became bound to that demonic order. The precise extent of every ogre's loyalty should not be presumed, but the region brought survivors of the old Horde into dangerous proximity with forces willing to use them. In the Blasted Lands, a defeated invasion and a lingering demonic presence could reinforce one another.
At the beginning of World of Warcraft, Nethergarde continues to watch the desolation and the Dreadmaul remain established nearby. This is not a tale in which their holdings have been erased or their demonic patrons conclusively defeated. It is the unfinished aftermath of the Dark Portal: the gateway's opening remade the land, and the creatures who followed the Horde across it became enduring neighbors of the defenders who were left to guard the scar.
The Living Archive · Subject Chronicle
Through History
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