Quick Overview
Before the Dark Portal opened, the orcs of Draenor lived among separate clans whose elders, chieftains and shamans shaped their loyalties. Gul'dan and the Shadow Council undermined that order. Thrall's rise offered a different answer to the clans' history.
Full History
Before the Dark Portal opened, the orcs of Draenor lived among separate clans whose elders, chieftains and shamans shaped their loyalties. Their spiritual traditions honored ancestral spirits and the powers of the elements. Those customs did not make the clans free of conflict, but they gave orcish life a foundation older than the Horde that later invaded Azeroth.
Gul'dan and the Shadow Council undermined that order. Warlock magic, demonic bargains and manipulation turned rival clans toward conquest, while many shamans lost the spiritual guidance they had once relied upon. The resulting Horde crossed the Dark Portal and carried its violence into the human kingdoms. In defeat, many orcs were imprisoned, and the political unity built through corruption disintegrated.
Thrall's rise offered a different answer to the clans' history. Under Drek'Thar's guidance he learned the shamanic practices that the warlocks had displaced, then sought to build a Horde no longer founded upon demonic servitude. Recovering those traditions was not a return to a world untouched by war, but an attempt to choose what kind of people the orcs would become.
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Through History
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