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| - During the final days of the Second War, as the Horde's victory over the Alliance seemed almost assured, a terrible feud erupted between the two most powerful Orcs on Azeroth. The nefarious warlock Gul'dan, master of the clandestine Shadow Council, led a number of renegade clans against the might of Orgrim Doomhammer, the Warchief of the Horde. As Doomhammer prepared his final assault against the Capital City of Lordaeron, an assault that would have crushed the last remnants of the Alliance, Gul'dan and his renegade clans abandoned their posts and set out to sea. The bewildered Doomhammer, having lost nearly half of his standing forces to Gul'dan's treachery, was forced to pull back and forsake his greatest chance at victory over the Alliance.
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| abstract
| - During the final days of the Second War, as the Horde's victory over the Alliance seemed almost assured, a terrible feud erupted between the two most powerful Orcs on Azeroth. The nefarious warlock Gul'dan, master of the clandestine Shadow Council, led a number of renegade clans against the might of Orgrim Doomhammer, the Warchief of the Horde. As Doomhammer prepared his final assault against the Capital City of Lordaeron, an assault that would have crushed the last remnants of the Alliance, Gul'dan and his renegade clans abandoned their posts and set out to sea. The bewildered Doomhammer, having lost nearly half of his standing forces to Gul'dan's treachery, was forced to pull back and forsake his greatest chance at victory over the Alliance. The power-hungry Gul'dan, obsessed with obtaining godhood itself, set out on a desperate search for the undersea Tomb of Sargeras that he believed held the secrets of ultimate power. Having already doomed his fellow Orcs to become the slaves of the Burning Legion, Gul'dan thought nothing of his supposed duty to Doomhammer. Backed by the Stormreaver and Twilight's Hammer clans, Gul'dan succeeded in raising the Tomb of Sargeras from the sea floor. However, when he opened the ancient, flooded vault, he found only crazed demons awaiting him. Seeking to punish the wayward Orcs for their costly betrayal, Doomhammer sent his forces to kill Gul'dan and bring the renegades back into the fold. For his recklessness, Gul'dan was torn apart by the maddened demons he had set loose. With their leader dead, the renegade clans quickly fell before Doomhammer's enraged legions. Though the rebellion had been quelled, the Horde was unable to recoup the terrible losses it had suffered. Gul'dan's betrayal had afforded the Alliance not only hope, but also time to regroup. . . and retaliate. Lord Lothar, seeing that the Horde was fracturing from within, gathered the last of his forces and pushed the Horde south, back into the shattered heartland of his homeland, Azeroth. There, the Alliance forces trapped the retreating Horde within their volcanic fortress of Blackrock Spire. Though Lord Lothar fell in battle at the Spire's base, his lieutenant, Turalyon, rallied the Alliance forces at the eleventh hour and pushed the Horde back into the abysmal Swamp of Sorrows. Turalyon's forces succeeded in destroying the Dark Portal, the mystical gateway that connected the Orcs to their dark, red homeworld of Draenor. Cut off from its reinforcements in Draenor and fractured by incessant infighting, the Horde finally buckled in upon itself and fell before the might of the Alliance forces. The scattered Orc clans were quickly rounded up and placed within guarded internment camps. Though it seemed that the Horde had been defeated for good, some remained highly skeptical that peace would last. Khadgar, the former apprentice of Medivh, convinced the Alliance high command to build the fortress of Nethergarde that would watch over the ruins of the Dark Portal and ensure that there would be no further invasions from Draenor.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)