Shadowmoon clan

Full History

After the Horde’s armies were broken in Azeroth, Draenor did not become peaceful. The great clans remaining there had different chieftains, grudges, and ambitions. The Shadowmoon clan was exceptional because its leader, Ner’zhul, possessed an authority drawn from the older orcish spiritual tradition. A shaman could address warriors as someone responsible for their people’s relationship to the unseen world, even in an age when warlocks had corrupted that relationship. Ner’zhul used that position to command a new confederation from the surviving clans.

The Shadowmoon held the scattered clans together through Ner’zhul’s combined religious prestige and military force. Ner’zhul imposed his plans through intimidation and force. His great ambition was no longer simply the conquest of Azeroth. He sought artifacts and knowledge that would permit new portals to other worlds. That choice placed the Shadowmoon at the heart of a campaign for the Skull of Gul’dan, the Book of Medivh, and other objects whose power the clans could scarcely contain.

For the Alliance expedition, the Shadowmoon stronghold represented the command center of a war capable of spilling into yet more worlds. The fighting carried the Alliance armies beyond the Dark Portal into Draenor itself. The clan’s fate belongs to the same historical chain as the Second War, Ner’zhul’s desperate ambitions, and the shattering of Draenor. The Shadowmoon’s ascent was the last great attempt to bind Draenor’s rival clans before the world was torn apart.