Kingdom of Lordaeron

Full History

Lordaeron rose among the human kingdoms that followed the breaking of ancient Arathor, and its northern capital became the heart of a powerful realm. Under King Terenas Menethil II, the kingdom gathered allies against the orcish Horde when the refugees of ruined Stormwind warned that the invasion would not end in the south. The Alliance of Lordaeron defeated the Horde in the Second War, leaving Terenas to face the costly task of imprisoning captured orcs and holding together kingdoms with different ambitions.

The peace concealed a new danger. The Cult of the Damned and the Scourge spread a plague that changed the dead into weapons against the living. Prince Arthas and Jaina Proudmoore investigated the corruption, but the prince's determination to destroy it drove him toward increasingly ruthless choices. His campaign carried him to Northrend and to the cursed sword Frostmourne. The heir who returned to the capital was no longer the defender Lordaeron had sent away.

Arthas murdered his father and shattered the kingdom from within. Its soldiers, villages and religious orders were torn apart as the dead overwhelmed the north. Survivors fled or formed rival resistance movements, while some of the undead later broke free of the Lich King's will. Lordaeron's fall was more than a conquered capital: it was the destruction of the political heart that had once united much of the human world.