Loremaster Innervate - World of Warcraft - Zone: Tirisfal Glades

Welcome back to Loremaster Innervate where every week we go through a piece of lore inside of the video game world. This week we move over to the Undead starting area of Tirisfal Glades to see what the mischievous walking corpses are up too.

As we learned in the Ghostlands blood elf area the High Elves of Kalimdor first made landfall in Tirisfal Glades after they were exiled by the Night Elves. After making camp they slowly began to go mad after a few months which caused them to move farther North into Eversong Woods. Tirisfal Glades has always been home to extremely powerful magics and before it became the home of the Forsaken it was once was a beautiful scene filled with towns and farmlands. When Arthas, the Lich King, marched on Lorderan and slaughtered the citizens to raise them as Scourge. Shortly after the Third War however, the Lich King began to lose power over the Scourge due to a spell cast by Illidan Stormrage. During this lapse of power, a band of Undead broke free of his control and formed the Forsaken which was eventually able to take back Tirisfal Glades and make it their main base.

You start off as an Undead being raised as by a Valk'yr under the orders of Sylvanas which changed in Cataclysm. There has been some speculation about Sylvanas having taken the shattered pieces of Frostmourne from the Frozen Throne when Arthas died and is using it to control the Val'kyr to raise more Undead since we currently aren't aware where the pieces of Frostmourne are. However, we quickly learn that since the Val'kyr have began to rise the new Forsaken that there are more and more that have left the Forsaken and there are a few reasons for this.

When the Scourge were originally risen and then broke free of the Lich King they had a common goal because they were angry at one person, the Lich King for killing them and the Lich King for raising them to kill others. Now that the Lich King is gone and Sylvanas is the one raising them now they have no one to be angry at except for her. Also, Sylvanas is raising her enemies such as soldiers of the Scarlet Crusade. When Undead that are sentient rise fully they will remember their lives they had before so when Sylvanas rises those of the Scarlet Crusade they instinctively want to rebel against her.

Sylvanas is raising Alliance war casualties from Southshore and other areas near Tirisfal that the Horde took in Cataclysm, even having them shipped in to be raised in Tirisfal and Silverpine Forest. It is not explained why exactly Sylvanas is bolstering her numbers so greatly in Tirisfal but we assume it is for the war against the Alliance. But knowing Sylvanas she most definitely has an ulterior motive. A motive that must matter enough if she is willing to risk having the new resurrected undead rebel against her.

And so begins the story of Lilian Voss whom we meet at the beginning of the area. Lilian Voss was raised and immediately ran from the surroundings, including when you show her her own reflection; screaming that she can't be an Undead. Humans that are raised sometimes rise without enough consciousness, which is when they become ghouls, or they rise and they had a predisposition against undead to not be able to cope with the fact that they are now risen dead. This can either cause them to rebel or go insane, the Forsaken refer to these individuals as sick. Lilian runs off and is not seen again until the end of the zone but she is mentioned when we are told that the Scarlet Crusade has a bounty on her head. We find a camp of dead Scarlet Crusaders and learn that Lilian Voss has been spending her time killing as many as possible after she returned to her father, the leader of the Scarlet Crusade, who then promptly wanted her executed. Lilian asks you to take her back to the hold where you slaughter an army and kill her father and his lieutenants. This ends most of the Scarlet Crusade in Tirisfal once and for all.

The other large plot to cycle through most of Tirisfal is that of the plague. Although we will go into more detail once we get to Northrend, the plague was used to slaughter both the Scourge and the living armies of the Horde and the Alliance by Professor Putress at the battle of Wrathgate (which subsequently allowed Bolvar Fordragon to be captured and tortured by the Scourge). Although it is a mighty weapon, for unknown reasons since this seems right up his alley, Garrosh has banned the production of the Plague. We learn however that the Forsaken are still making it and making it even more deadly than before.

Other Interesting Notes

• Gold is scarce in Lorderan in general and there are very few gold mines in the area to harvest from. Coincidentally, spiders love gold as every mine you come across is generally infested with them.
• You can chase tadpole Murlocs around until they are so scared they pass out.
• The Forsaken believe that they should be in control of all of Azeroth.
• Bolvar Fordragon (the new Lich King) is losing his grip on the Scourge. The Forsaken are theorizing that with enough experimentation it would be possible to completely break the hold of Bolvar.

The story of Tirisfal is not yet over as it continues next week with Silverpine Forest, which also continues the Alliance story of Gilneas oddly enough. And maybe next week I'll actually release it on Friday like I'm supposed too instead of Saturday.