Frostmane tribe

Full History

To an adventurer beginning in Dun Morogh, the Frostmane may look like another menace in the snow. Yet their history extends beyond the valleys surrounding Ironforge. The original Blizzard Troll Compendium links them to the ice-troll peoples descended from the northern nation of Zul'Drak. At an unknown point, their ancestors reached the Eastern Kingdoms, where mountain weather offered a new home that resembled the cold they knew. The route and timing of that migration are not securely recorded; they should not be filled with an invented expedition or royal decree.

The Frostmane became a smaller community than their towering northern relatives. Their tribal traditions persisted while other peoples expanded through the mountains. Much of the tribe's surviving territory lies close to dwarven settlements and the routes used by travelers entering the great dwarven kingdom.

The dwarves of Ironforge consider Frostmane attacks a threat to settlements and trade. Frostmane warriors in turn continue to press into lands they regard as their hunting and living ground. At launch, the conflict is neither an ancient war that has definitively ended nor a great empire trying to reclaim an entire continent. It is a violent and continuing contest between communities whose homes now overlap.

The Frostmane occupy caves, slopes, and remote places that dwarven patrols have difficulty securing. The name of Great Father Arctikus belongs to the tribal leadership documented in the Compendium, although the precise date of every later named leader must be distinguished from the original-era record. The Frostmane are a living social group, not a label for unrelated monsters found wherever snow falls.

Dun Morogh also contains the consequences of discoveries that released troggs into dwarven territory. Their attacks threaten the same roads and settlements already contested by trolls. That does not establish a secret pact among every enemy of Ironforge. The Frostmane can benefit from chaos without being the masterminds behind it. If the troggs push dwarves out of one stronghold, that may change local advantage while leaving the tribe's older dispute unresolved.

The northern Drakkari story gives the Frostmane a wider family history. The appearance of ice trolls near Ironforge, however, does not make Northrend a playable launch area, nor does it place the later Gundrak dungeon into the 2004 world. What the starting player sees is one branch of an ancient people attempting to survive beside a rapidly growing dwarven kingdom. The snow hides a much older political map beneath the one drawn by Ironforge.