Alterac Mountains

Full History

Snow lies over the ruins of Alterac, but the country's destruction began in politics rather than weather. During the Second War, King Aiden Perenolde betrayed the Alliance of Lordaeron by aiding the Horde. After the Horde's defeat, his kingdom lost the protection and legitimacy that had sustained it. Its shattered capital and abandoned villages became reminders of a human nation that chose survival through treachery and paid for it with its sovereignty. The mountains rise over the greener Hillsbrad foothills and encircle routes through central Lordaeron, once offering the kingdom natural security and now isolating the rival powers that contest its remains.

The most visible claimants are not restorers of the old kingdom. Crushridge ogres occupy the former capital, while the Syndicate—an organization associated with dispossessed nobles and their followers—seeks to regain power through intimidation and brigandage. Their feud makes Strahnbrad, the ruins of Alterac, and the upland roads dangerous long after the Second War has ended. Archimonde destroyed the city during the Third War, leaving the Kirin Tor to defend and rebuild around the devastated site. In the original game's landscape, Dalaran is not a later floating city, and the barrier around its location must not be confused with an event introduced in a later expansion.

The mountains also frame the conflict between Frostwolf orcs and Stormpike dwarves in Alterac Valley. Both groups have reasons to value the passes and their ancestral or strategic claims; the valley should be treated separately from the rivalry between ogres and Syndicate in the ruined human country. The whole region is a palimpsest of broken allegiances: betrayal in the Second War, devastation in the Third, and small armed groups living among the wreckage.