Stranglethorn Vale

Full History

The dense jungles of Stranglethorn are much older than the human kingdoms that border them to the north. For ages the Gurubashi trolls held power here, and ruins scattered among the canopy testify to a civilization that once claimed a far wider realm. The Sundering reshaped Azeroth and severed many old lines of travel, but the trolls endured. Their great city of Zul'Gurub remained a symbol of that history even as authority fragmented among settlements and competing traditions.

The memory of Hakkar casts another shadow across the Gurubashi past. Old accounts tell of priests who turned to a bloodthirsty power during an era of hardship, and of resistance that followed within the troll peoples themselves. The struggle did not erase Gurubashi culture, but it changed the way later generations understood their sacred ruins. The original patch 1.1 archive must distinguish this preexisting history from the later Zul'Gurub raid campaign, which had not yet begun in the starting world state.

Other peoples came to Stranglethorn for reasons that had little to do with preserving ancient shrines. Goblins made Booty Bay a bustling southern port for trade and dangerous bargains. The Horde established interests around Grom'gol, while Alliance-connected expeditions, hunters, and prospectors ventured into the interior. Venture Company operations and the remains of human ventures under Colonel Kurzen added new rivalries to the jungle. Nor were these arrivals free to ignore its oldest inhabitants: troll settlements and sacred places still lay along the routes that newcomers hoped to control.

Stranglethorn's story is therefore not simply one of treasure hunters entering a wild rainforest. Ancient Gurubashi claims, faction outposts, goblin commerce, and the lure of buried wealth all collide in a place whose history has never been cleared away. The living jungle keeps its secrets, and the ruins cannot be treated as empty scenery. At the original World of Warcraft opening, the peninsula remains a dangerous region in which many stories have begun but very few have been conclusively settled.