Duskwood

Full History

The land now called Duskwood was not always a place of shuttered windows and watchmen bearing torches. Human settlements flourished in the southern reaches of Stormwind's forests, and travelers could pass through the region without expecting to meet an army of restless dead. That older country survives only in fragments: ruined homes, abandoned farms, and memories of towns that once belonged to a brighter landscape. At the original World of Warcraft opening, the forest is steeped in a strange gloom that has not been conclusively explained by a single cause.

One chain of testimony begins with the Scythe of Elune. Velinde Starsong, a night elf, carried this mysterious weapon into the region while seeking answers to the worgen menace. Its trail leads toward Roland's Doom, where the frightened human Jitters encountered the weapon and unleashed a terrible attack by wolf-like beings. As he fled, the pursuing creatures became entangled with another horror: mysterious Dark Riders who came from the direction of Deadwind Pass. The riders massacred Sven Yorgen's family. What precisely became of the scythe, and how the different strands of darkness are connected, remains a subject of fear and uncertain knowledge among the living.

Darkshire, formerly Grand Hamlet, stands against the decay. The Night Watch, led by Althea Ebonlocke in the original story, organizes patrols and relies on outsiders who will confront the creatures beyond the town's lamps. Raven Hill Cemetery has become a lair of necromantic activity associated with Morbent Fel. Rotten orchards and abandoned estates shelter spiders, undead, and worgen; the village of Raven Hill is no longer a dependable neighbor. Other dangers in the woods cannot be reduced to one master or one sorcerous explanation.

Duskwood's historical tragedy is the collapse of ordinary rural life under pressures its defenders do not fully understand. Stormwind's attention is divided among Westfall, Redridge, and the northern frontiers, so local people confront the threat with little help. A traveler crossing into Darkshire sees a kingdom still nominally intact, but one whose reach thins at the edge of the lamplight. This is the Duskwood preserved for patch 1.1: the mystery remains open, the Night Watch remains at its posts, and the curse has not been resolved by later events.