Hello everyone! With wrath of the lich king classic coming
out, i’ve had a fair few of you ask if I could talk about the story of the expansion. It’s most peoples favorite, chuck full of
lore and revelations. Could be fun to do like a global overview,
a this is what’s going on, but since there’s so much going on..I’ll probably wont be
able to cover all of it. Going to do my best though so lets begin with
the set up since warcraft 3 is a while ago. “Im sorry arthas, i cant watch you do this.” We have Arthas Menethil, a paladin and future
king of Lordaeron. In his time a plague spread across the lands,
pushed by the archmage Kel’thuzad and the cult of the damned. A plague designed to not just kill their citizens
but also turn then into the undead. With his mentor Uther the Lightbringer and
beloved Jaina Proudmoore at his side, Arthas did his best to save his kingdom but his quest
for vengeance pushed him further and further into darkness just as the Dreadlords and the
Lich King had planned. Mal’ganys taunted him to follow to the cold
lands of Northrend where our prince ran into his old friend and childhood mentor Muradin
Bronzebeard. A warm reunion in the cold, but the prince
would not let go of his mission. Not when his father told him to come back. He just burned the ships and made it so that
nobody could go home until the mission was done. Not when the powerful weapon they were after
to slay malganis turned out to be cursed... “I would gladly bear any curse to save my
homeland. Leave it be arthas. FOrget this buesiness and lead your men home. Damn the men! Nothing shall prevent me from having my revenge,
old friend. Not even you. Now I call out to the spirits of this place. Iw ill give anything, pay any price, if only
you will help save my people. GROTPIJGJPIGPJIJGIJIG}W{R He just left Muradin for dead, all so that
Arthas could claim his vengeance upon Malganys and then spend his time listening to the whispers
of the Lich King Ner’zhul. You can actually see the broken vessels and
the spirits of the forgotten troops within Dragonblight. Go a little bit further north and you’ll
run into the cave where he exchanged his Light’s Vengeance for Frostmourne, the old hammer
can lead you on a legendary quest to forge Shadowmourne. Echoes of the past reveal that Muradin’s
story didn’t end here. Instead of being slain, he was knocked out
cold and woke up with amnesia. Being the bad ass bronzebeard that he is,
he would run into the local Frostborn dwarves of the Storm Peaks and eventually become their
king...because that’s how bronzebeards do. So back to Arthas. next time we see him, he has transformed from
paladin to death knight. Murdered a whole bunch of his troops and converted
some into death knight’s aswell. His ever loyal captains Falryc and marwyn
forever at his side. “This pear, so delicious.” What was begun with the plague in lordaeron,
Arthas finished with his scourge. He murderd his father, brought the high home
of the high elves low murdering all that stood in his way including their king and ranger
general sylvanas windrunner. She was brought back as a banshee while the
remaining high elves would now call themselves blood elves in honor of those who had fallen
to the scourge. Eventually the Lich King’s powers would
weaken and he called his champion to Northrend to merge with him. This gave Sylvanas the oppertunity to set
herself free, grab her body and nearly stop Wrath of the Lich King from ever happening. Arthas wouldn’t go down that easily though,
not with allies like the now lich Kel’thuzad or the nerubian king Anub’arak at his side. The race was now on to reach Icecrown Citadel
first. A race against Illidan, Kael’thas and Lady
Vasjh. It would be a 1 v 1 duel deciding the future
for all of Azeroth. Illidan was left behind to die in the snow
while Arthas climbed to top of Icecrown and claimed his destiny.... “Now we are one.” And that’s where we left it, Arthas freezing
his butt off on the frozen throne while the world kept on turning. He might have proclaimed that they were one
but that’s not exactly true. The entity known as the Lich King, the Ner’zhul
part was kinda in conflict with our Arthas. Then there was the former good part of him,
his humanity, now sickly and neglected and finally a third influence. One not of this world but lurking in the darkness
of the Shadowlands where they would stay hidden and not actually play an active part during
Wrath of the lich King. Arthas would spend his time reflecting on
his life, his road of damnation and eventually come to the conclussion that he didn’t want
to play ball with Ner’zhul...so he stabbed him. In his mind but still. Also his childlike good side was stabbed,
he’d even carve out his own heart after his fight with illidan, no longer wanting
that piece of humanity weakening him. What awoke on the frozen throne was something
else then when it had gone to sleep. No one would tell him waht to do. The power was his and his alone. “Now there is only I. I am the Lich KIng. And I am ready.” “Should he rise again from the frozen north...all
of his Azeroth will face his wrath.” Doing this whole transformation thing took
a bit of time Even though the Lich King was immobile on his frozen throne, his units and
champions still worked on increasing their territory, fortifying their defenses and adding
to their units. Just imagine being a poor little tuskar trying
to survive in the lands so incredibly cold and overrun by the undead. But they would not shiver out of cold, not
the tuskarr, they would shiver with fear. For when he dreams they knew, the storms would
be more than just storms, more than just natural. The influence of the Lich king touched nearly
all of Northrend, spreading out from the frozen throne which was improved upon with Saronite. Saronite being the blood of the old god yogg-saron
imprisoned within the titan complex Ulduar. There were hints and speculation back in the
day about yogg-saron’s blood and influency potentially having its effect on Arthas and
the undead, but they’ haven’t gone further with that. We do see a connection between yogg-saron
and the lich king through the Nerubians. They evolved under its influence, worshipped
it, but being turned into undead means you have no choice but to serve a different king. The Lich and Anub’arak. The old nerubian kingdoms and tunnels spread
far and wide undernearth Northrend, while their living kind still fight their war to
reclaim what was lost. Like C’thun before him, Yogg-Saron has been
trying to break out of his prison. He’s already been busy putting his plans
in motion, like infecting the titan forged with the curse of flesh. This curse as the name implies litteraly gave
them flesh, weakening them and making them more volnerable to the old gods corruption. That’s how for example the mecha gnomes
turned into gnomes or the earthen turned into the dwarves or the vrykul into the humans. “I hate your damn gods.” Some of those vrykul would eventually curse
their titanic gods for letting them be corrupted like this and ally themselves to the Lich
King. Meanwhile the defenses of Ulduar are weakning
and its keepers, those left behind to keep yogg-saron locked away are corrupted aswell. That’s why you’ll see remnants of earthen
and stormgiants fighting in massive wars. Loken...aka loki fighting against his brother
Thorim, aka thor. A lot of that mythology is used right here
in Ulduar and by the time that we show up in Northrend, we’d make sure that nothing
would escape Ulduar. ‘The time to strike at the head of the beast
will soon be upon us.” From the Vrykul, the lich king had learned
about the val’kyr and after a few failed attempts, managed to make his own variation. Amongst vrykul culture, some began to see
it as a great honor to be transformed into these spectral beings, able to travel beyond
the veil. They would judge those among their own people
and transform those worthy to join their ranks into Ymirjar and those unworthy into the Vargul. His unit production cranked out more like
massive skeletons, constructs and frostwyrms. Even the once mighty blue dragon Sindragosa,
consort to Malygos who had died over 10.000 years ago, was brought back by Arthas and
added to their ranks. When Kael’thas Sunstrider and his blood
elves tried to claim vengeance upon Arthas, stop him from reaching his destiny and failed... they left quite a few bodies behind. As reward, he took their dead and transformed
some of them into the vampiric San’layn with blood queen Lana’thel to lead them. Adventurers lucky enough might find a battered
hilt and reforge her legendary sword Quel’delar within the sunwell itself. “My son...the day you were born, the very
forests of Lordaeron whisperd the name....Arthas. Wakey wakey Arthas.” So yeah, as you can tell, while the world
of Azeroth kept spinning and we went through our adventures of classic and the Burning
Crusade, Arthas the Lich King was growing in power. They already poked at us with Naxxramas during
classic, poked at Light’s hope chappel and the plaguelands but heroes ventured through
its halls and got rid of Kel’thuzad. Not permenantly unfortenatly. Their heroic greed allowed his phylactery
to escape, giving him another chance to strike out. They weren’t ready to give up on conquering
the holy place of Light’s hope though. Any of you that have gone through the death
knight starting campaign, you’’ll know that the Lich King put you on the task of
claiming the land for him starting with pushing out the Scarlet Crusaders. They would set sail to Northrend before us,
form the scarlet onslaught and try to bring victory to the cause. Unfortunately, as so often happens with the
scarlet crusaders, they were infiltrated from within by a dreadlord...non other then Mal’ganis
himself. Arthas striking him down didn’t exactly
end him for good and Mal’ganis wasn’t going to let that go. Once we reached Northrend, we uncovered his
infiltration and stopped him. The dreadlord promised us that we’d never
win our war against the Lich King without him, but sadly he never showed up for the
finale. After getting rid of the crusaders, the death
knights focused on efforts on the chappel again. Not to win as it turned out. The Lich King didn’t particularly care what
happened to his death knights aslong as they would draw the legendary paladin Tirion Fordring
out of hiding. A great ally to the Light and a foe that Arthas
quickly wanted to remove from the board. He should have been a bit nicer to his death
knights though as being thrown away like that did not sit right. Darion Mograine, wielder of the corrupted
Ashbringer, threw it at Tirion, who’s touch cleansed it, restoring it to the pure holy
weapon it was when Darion’s father wielded it. One strike was all it took to show arthas
that retreat might be the better option. “On this day i call for a union. The argent dawn and the order of the silver
hand will come together as one. We wil lsucceed where so many before us have
failed. We will take the fight to arthas and we will
tear down the walls of icecrown. The argent crusade comes for you arthas!” And so the death knights of the ebon blade
joined either the alliance or the Horde while Tirion lead the argent crusade and we finally
set off into Northrend to see with our own eyes what Arthas has been up too. You get to pick from which zone you want to
invade, but lorewise the alliance came in from the howling fjord while the horde went
through borean tundra. Aka Boring tundra as most call this zone and
honestly, not without reason, but it has its moments. I do still love the fact that as an alliance,
they recognise your previous accomplishments by letting you skip the sign up line. On the horde side you get a glimps at Kel’thuzad
and some awesome dialogue between Varok Saurfang and Garrosh Hellscream...if you stick around
for it you’ll learn more about what life has been like for the orcs, life after demonic
blood. But it doesn’t really compare to what goes
down in the Howling Fjord. There we see the Forsaken hard at work at
testing out and perfecting their blight. Their banshee queen, Sylvanas WIndrunner,
has brought them all together with a singular goal in mind...claim vengeance for what Arthas
had done to them. For that goal, she has given Grand Apothecary
Putress permission to do what they do best and design a weapon that would not only hurt
the undead but also the living. The perfect weapon against the Lich King,
but little did she know...betrayel was looming in the shadows. As their campaign proceeded, the alliance
and horde grew a bit closer again as fighting against a commen enemy does. As they pushed into Dragonblight and tried
for a quick strike through the Wrathgate, Bolvar Fordragon lead the alliance while Dranosh
son of Varok Saurfang lead the Horde in a combined strike. “I was wondeing if you’d show up. Couldnt let the alliance have all the fun
today.” That’s when Putress saw his oppertunity
and they let the blight fly, causing massive damage to Arthas but also creating many casualties
amongst the alliance and the Horde. Dranosh was one shotted by Arthas, his soul
claimed by Frostmourne. Bolvar died to the blight, but the red dragonflight
isn’t quite finished with him yet...more on that later. Meanwhile back home, sylvanas had lost her
undercity to the betrayel of Putress and the dreadlord Varimathras. It was the combined efforts of the Horde and
the Alliance that gave her the city of Lordaeron back, but as you can imagine... they didn’t exactly leave things on friendly
terms... “ At th wrathgate, the hordes partnership
killed more of our men then the scourge. I am done with your horde.” But don’t worry, cooler heads will prevail
and keep their eyes on the real threat, like Tirion who has also made landfall in the Howling
Fjord. He’s on an undercover mission, seperated
from his beautiful Ashbringer to keep a low profile. The plan nearly backfires as the courier falls
to the undead and we nearly lose the artifact with it. Tired of playing games, tired of trying hide,
Tirion steps up and marches to Icecrown, having to fight for every bit of land that we claim. Once there he nearly makes the ultimate sacrifice
as he strikes down Arthas’ heart which does deal quite a bit of damage to the Lich King. Not enough to finish the job though. That was going to take the united might of
the world, but who to bring? Against a foe like the Lich King, any that
fall in battle rise up and become your enemy. Only the finest could be allowed to venture
into icecrown so to figure out who was ready and worthy.... Tirion would hold a little tournament. Before we find out the winners and move on
to strike at the heart of Icecrown, lets take a step back and not forget about the other
stories and raids we went through. Like I said, a lot going on. In Stormpeaks we found Muradin again and we
met up with the keepers of Ulduar, dealing with the corruption inside despite the factions
being at war and making sure that the planet would not be purged. “Citzens of dalaran, raise your eyes to
the skies and observe.” In Dragonblight, we learn that the bones of
Galakrond, progenitor of all dragons, rest here and the Lich King wants to bring him
back in undeath. Atleast that’s how they sold it back then. Dragonblight is still the dragon graveyard,
the place where dragons want to go when they die. They did clarify that Galakrond was not the
progenitor of the dragons, rather he was the first threat that the aspects had to unite
against and in exchange, proving their worth and showing that the world could use defenders
like them, they and many of their proto dragon kind were transformed into the first dragons. Wyrmrest temple was crafted to serve as the
heart of the dragons' culture, a sanctuary where they could gather and discuss their
activities. You can also find entries to their hatcheries
on the lowe levels but above all, Wyrmrest Temple would stand as a symbol of
their unity. Sadly that unity would not last forever. Over at the Nexus there lives Malygos, the
blue dragon aspect and guardian of magic. He’d gone insane but recently got his sanity
back. Looking around he realised that mortals had
been abusing magic and that hte best course of action would be to take the magic away. Drawing it all into the Nexus which is why
the magical city of Dalaran actually went to Northrend, to fight in this so called Nexus
War. Getting acces into the nexus and confront
malygos wasn’t going to be as easy as just stepping inside. We were going to need a key, a key in the
possession of a blue dragon. A blue dragon like Sapphiron, the same sapphiron
resurrected by Arthas during Warcraft 3. They stand guard within the floating citadel
of Naxxramas so while we were in there, we ofcourse took care of the threat as we did
back in classic. With the key in hand and Queen Alexstraza’s
aid, heroes managed to stop the threat of Malygos, slaying her fellow aspect and leaving
the blue dragonflight without a leader. Worries for later, for now we got a lich king
to deal with. In nearly every zone we’ve felt his influence. Sometimes just litteraly showing up and taunting
us. He could finish us off right now, but he’s
just not going too. He has plans, edging us on to meet him at
the top of icecrown. Even the argent tournament wasn’t safe,
but with our champions selected, it was time to knock down the doors of icecrown. Jaina and Sylvanas made use of the oppertunity
and lead a small party through the frozen halls in a desperate attempt to seperate the
lich king from frostmourne. His powers had grown immensly though and they
just barely managed to get out alive. This was not going to be done by sneaking
around, it was time to show Arthas what we got. ”Look now to your defenses my son for the
champions of justice gather at your gates. Ow yea? Well...guess it’s time to have it out. Guess its time to win... Let them come frostmourne hungers.” With a
bonus mission added to it all. Turns out that bolvar fordragon was brought
back to life by the dragonsflames at the wrathgate and has been enjoying the lich kings company,
or torture as some would call it. He’s stil lholding on though, imagine what
rescueing him would mean for the factions. They were so desperate to reach the top first
and make things right that they started shoot eachother from their airships. I guess their heart was in the right place. Sadly, Dranosh’ soulhad been claimed by
frostmourne and already converted into a death knight. With heavy hearts we ended his suffering,
ended all the most powerful units that the lich king had to throw at us. Tirion with his mighty Ashbringer in handed
challenged Arthas who said no... I’m not interested. You sit in your block of ice as I test these
champions of yours one last time. The greastest fighting force Azeroth had ever
known brought right to his doorstep...and he won. He one shotted every single one of us and
was just about ready to bring us back into his service. “Light...grant me one final blessing. Give me the strength to shatter these bonds. HEre comes the light awww poor arthas, he’d
won and then he didn’t. Bit of a shame that. Light works in wonderous ways. Impossible.... No more Arthas! No more lives will be consumed by your hatred. Free at last. It is over, my son. This is the moment of reckoning. Rise up champions of the Light! And now we strike him like an undead piniata. Now I stand, the lion before the lambs...and
they do not fear. They cannot fear...” The Light found Tirion in his darkest hour,
shattering Frostmourne and releasing the thousands of souls trapped inside, including that of
his father who brings us all back to life. While the spirits hold him up in the air,
we finally put a stop to the wrath of the lich king. Bolvar Fordragon took up the charge to sit
on the frozen throne and keep the undead in check and that’s pretty much what goes down
during wrath of the lich king.... atleast some of the major parts as I haven’t even
spoken about every single zone or every little creature or the raids under wyrmrest. This expansion packed a punch and once you
actually pay attention to the quests given in the zones, you’ll see how much lore they’re
handing out. This is the expansion that got me into the
lore all those years ago, or more specificly, that Wrathgate cutscene sparked an interest. Wanting to know what the heck was going on
and before I knew it, we were deep in the scrolls of lore. It’s hard to convey how awesome it was to
deepdive with brann bronzebeard and learn more about the origins of the dwarves or the
curse of flesh and the evolution of humans. These days we got the chronicles to fall back
up on, but these were still the building days and man... I havent been overly invested in the classic
expansions... This one might be different though...will
see... Right that’s neither here nor there and
I think we’ve been going on for long enough now. Hope I was able to give you a good run down
of the story that goes on in wrath of the lich king. If you want more details, check out the realted
wowhead article i nthe description down below. Subscribe if youl ike my videos, leave a like
if you enjoyed this one aaand until next time...see ya!
