Recommended Game Story · Warcraft Part 26

The Last Days of Stormwind · A Kingdom Across the Sea

This episode covers the final phase of the First War in the original timeline, Garona's assassination of Llane, the fall of Stormwind, the exodus led by Lothar, and the crisis conveyed to the northern kingdoms. It includes major conclusions and details regarding war and death. It was written by cross-referencing the official timeline, modern retrospectives, and the Warcraft II manual. Old character retrospectives regarding Garona and Orgrim distinguish between their perspectives and setting changes. The official short story 'Blood of Our Fathers' was used to verify the later memories of Varian, and nightmare scenes are not translated into records of the actual assassination. The film version is separate from this chronicle.

Chapter 1 · The Guardian is Dead, but the War Lives On

Even after Medivh fell in Karazhan, the Horde remained on the lands of the southern kingdom. The death of the mage who brought them across did not take away the warriors who had already crossed. The people lost by the villages, the burned fields, and the war on the roads did not return to their previous state. Discovering the secret of the passage that threatened the kingdom and saving the kingdom were not the same event.

The leadership of the Horde had changed. Orgrim Doomhammer, who challenged Blackhand and won, became the new Warchief. Although he was a leader who did not blindly follow Gul'dan's control, he did not disband the invading army. The question of how the clans that entered Azeroth would live in the future and what he would command remained tied to the war against the human kingdoms.

Stormwind was a city that had withstood previous major attacks. Under the command of Anduin Lothar, the humans showed that they were an enemy the Horde could not easily conquer. However, the victory of the first defensive battle was not a promise that they could win until the final attack. The enemy retreated and regrouped, and the kingdom was already paying the price for a long conflict. The place the defenders had to protect was not just the walls of the capital. The surviving settlements, the people, the roads of the kingdom, and their lives were all within that fight.

The Horde, moving again under Orgrim, aimed for the capital. Modern official retrospectives distinguish between the first attack and the subsequent siege. Even if the same war seemed to repeat before the same walls, the conditions inside and out had changed. The old days when Medivh could be trusted were over, and the Horde's leadership, which had only moved under Gul'dan's shadow, had also changed. However, for the people standing at the end of that change, what mattered was the question of whether they could protect their homes today.

The first war, which began at the Dark Portal, now gathered at the heart of the kingdom. Llane, Lothar, and the nameless defenders had to bear the consequences left by the conspiracy that ended at the Guardian's tower. Even after the cause was removed, there was a time to fight the consequences.

Chapter 2 · Garona Between Two Factions

Understanding Garona is more difficult than looking at a military banner and choosing a side. The official timeline briefly conveys the connection that she helped human champions and then killed Llane. Modern official retrospectives explain that behind that betrayal were the orders and control of Gul'dan's Shadow Council. The earlier cooperation and the later murder exist within the actions of the same person.

Because of this, if one describes her only as a person who deceived the enemy of her own will from beginning to end, the confirmed issue of control is erased. Conversely, one should not erase the events she actually committed for the sake of explaining the control. The tragedy of the First War forces us to look at both facts together. There was a power that sought to turn a person into a weapon, and that weapon eventually killed the king to whom she had gained close access.

Later official short stories describe her as a person with both Orc and Draenei origins. The simple 'half-orc' label of the old games or the different lineage of the film version are not merged with this setting. The detailed background of her birth, upbringing, and method of control is an area to be contrasted in the character section. Here, we follow the role and results confirmed in the First War.

Garona could have been a bridge between the Horde and the humans, but the Shadow Council used that bridge in a different way. While the army tried to break the walls, one person's hand could reach the king. The external invasion and the internal assassination moved separately, only to aim at the survival of the same kingdom.

Since the reader knows the later results, it is easy to interpret even the earlier cooperation as a lie from the beginning. However, to properly understand the event, one must separate what the humans knew at the time from what was revealed later. If one judges every moment of trusting the other as simple foolishness, the role of the power that used that trust to exercise control becomes blurred. Llane's death contains a form of destruction different from a military defeat.

Chapter 3 · The Moment the King Vanished

While the Horde besieged the city, Garona assassinated Llane Wrynn. This is the decisive event of the First War confirmed by modern official retrospectives and the timeline. Here, we do not include the scene from the film version where Llane orders his own death to save others. If one mixes dramatic scenes from different works, the meaning of the control and betrayal exercised by the Shadow Council in the First War also changes.

The king was not just one of the warriors guarding the walls. The fact that he was alive was the center to which the kingdom's orders and the people's expectations could cling. The reason the defenders could endure tomorrow and the promise of governance that would continue after the war were connected to that position. Therefore, the king's death spread wider than the loss of one person.

Official retrospectives convey that after Llane's death, the morale of the Stormwind army collapsed and the city fell to the Horde. Of course, this does not mean that every defender dropped their weapons at the same moment. One cannot create a narrative without reading the final actions of nameless individuals and the precise order of battle. What is confirmed is the result that the kingdom lost the center to maintain its defense and subsequently could not protect the city.

For Lothar, this death was not just a loss in the war's command structure. Medivh and Llane were names that had existed since childhood. He had to face a friend first, and now he had to lead a country that had lost its king and friend. The task of how to save the living people came before the time to fully accept the personal loss.

Even without embellishing this end with new dialogue, the weight of the relationships remains. People who seemed as if their old friendship would become the order that protected the world collapsed one by one amidst invasion, control, and war. The responsibility of the surviving Lothar was not to end their story, but to find a way for the people they tried to protect to continue living.

Chapter 4 · The Decision to Abandon the City and Protect the People

Stormwind fell. The name of the city refers to a powerful kingdom in later times, but at this point, there was no promise of victory. The streets where people had lived since before the war were no longer safe paths, and the mere fact that there were walls could not protect the people inside. The collapse of the capital is the disappearance of the standard of life for the people.

Aegwynn's retrospective in the official manual explains Llane's death and the fall of the kingdom, then connects it to the fact that survivors were able to escape thanks to Lothar's command. Modern retrospectives also summarize that Lothar acknowledged the defeat and crossed the ocean with the remaining people. Saying one abandoned the castle and saying one abandoned the people do not mean the same thing here.

A military leader acknowledging defeat can be a simple surrender, or it can be a choice of greater responsibility. If remaining in the collapsing capital to die until the end consumes the last life of the kingdom, retreating has a different purpose. For the country to continue to exist, there had to be living people outside the crown and the walls.

The escape route and the position of the soldiers drawn in the illustration are a reconstruction based on the confirmed situation of the evacuation. It is not indicated that official records were checked for which gate was passed with whom. The harbor district of later Stormwind or the statues of heroes were not brought to the location at the time of the initial fall. We distinguish between what was built as times changed and the capital that was collapsing at the time.

However, one does not need to know all those placements to feel the meaning of the evacuation. The path of taking care of the remaining people before the remaining objects, and the moment the goal of defense shifts from walls to survivors, are within the results conveyed by the materials. As long as there are those who left alive, the fall of Stormwind does not end all the future of that country.

Chapter 5 · The First War Left to the King's Son

Llane was the father of Varian Wrynn. The monarch the kingdom lost, a child lost as a father. Even after Varian became the King of Stormwind again in later years, that death does not remain only in the past timeline. The official short story 'Blood of Our Fathers' shows Varian after the Cataclysm facing his father's death and Garona in a nightmare.

One should not read that nightmare as a record of the assassination scene itself. If one transfers the twisted images appearing in the dream and the words of the dying father into the actual dialogue of the First War, one turns a literary device that expresses memory and fear into a historical record. What is needed in this episode is not a reproduction of that scene, but the fact that the old loss remains in the life of the later king.

For Varian, Stormwind was not a safe home that never changed from the beginning. Through the loss of his father and the collapse of his country, a history remained that even a home could disappear if not protected. When reading the story of the Wrynn dynasty and the choices of the Alliance later, one sees what was lost in the First War together.

It is not only the king's wounds that remain in this history. The lost homes and families of each refugee, and the lives they could not return to, belong to the same war. Not every person's name remains in the materials, but the group led by Lothar was not a force composed only of troops. The people of the kingdom were together. Therefore, their movement was a military strategy and, at the same time, an event where the life of a country moved to another place.

The later events of this short story and the destruction of the city in the Cataclysm are not included in the current war. Only the connection that the reconstruction not yet achieved and another disaster would awaken the memory of the First War in the distant future remains. The time of Warcraft does not erase the previous war when the next one begins. The new king and the new generation also judge based on the wounds already left behind.

Chapter 6 · A Kingdom Continued Upon the Sea

Lothar led the survivors across the Great Sea. The northern kingdom of Lordaeron was a place where they could seek help. The evacuation at this time was not fleeing to a separate world without the Horde. It was a movement to convey to another kingdom on the same continent what had happened in the south and the fact that it could also befall the north.

In the official illustration, Lothar does not stand as the protagonist of a glorious triumph. Ships carrying refugees and a burning city are seen together. Although I created a new drawing for this episode by checking his appearance and equipment, I do not try to prove details such as the exact number of ships or the route with that drawing. The important connection is that the fallen capital, the surviving people, and the leader leading them arrive in the next era through the sea.

The danger conveyed only by words to those who hear the news of the war, and the existence of people who arrived having lost their homes, approach differently. Modern official retrospectives explain that the refugees were evidence that made it impossible to deny the threat of the Horde. It was difficult to dismiss it by saying the southern kingdom fought poorly. They were people of a country that once had a capital and a king, and that country could no longer protect them.

The old manual introduces Lothar as a regent leader leading the survivors of the kingdom. After the king's death, what was entrusted to him was not just the command of the remaining warriors. It was the task of representing the lost country and requesting help. The leader who holds a sword on the battlefield and the leader who seeks a joint response before another king had to be the same person.

The path across the ocean was not the end of victory but an extension of responsibility. Even as the ship moved away from the southern coast, the problems of the kingdom left behind did not disappear. To create the conditions to return someday, he now had to move relationships outside his own country. The defeat of the First War pushes Lothar into the center of wider politics and war.

Chapter 7 · Survivors Before the Northern King

Lothar and the survivors of Stormwind sought help from King Terenas Menethil II of Lordaeron. In that meeting, the defeat of the south becomes the choice of the north. If the Horde had brought down one human kingdom, could other kingdoms wait, trusting only their own walls? The issue of accepting refugees and the issue of fighting together soon interlocked.

Terenas called the leaders of various human kingdoms to discuss a response. Modern official retrospectives summarize that in this process, seven nations gathered under one banner and the Alliance of Lordaeron was formed. However, the various leaders did not have the same purpose and fear from the beginning. The manual also conveys that they agreed to command the army together only after disputes and arguments. Identifying a common enemy and agreeing on common action were different stages.

The subsequent alliance is not completed only with nations of the same race. The dwarves of Khaz Modan, the high elves of Quel'Thalas, the technology and magic of various nations, and forces moving on the sea are connected. Old promises, individual crises, and distrust of other kingdoms move together. Lothar's request for an old covenant through the bloodline of Arathi also lies within that connection. The background continues from the human and elf history of parts 18 and 19.

Also, the question arises as to how priests should fight in this war. Alonsus Faol and the future Order of the Silver Hand become the core of the next main volume. The experience of the First War demands a new organization, regarding what protective measures the power to care for villages and the sick must have in the face of the violence of war. The institutions of the next era are born from the defeats of the previous era.

At the end of this episode, the Alliance is not yet a community that is forever of one mind. It is an alliance that still needs to connect the purposes of each nation and determine military and leadership. The nations that will break away in the future and old grudges also exist within the current cooperation. If one erases that complexity, it becomes difficult to understand the victory of the Second War and the post-war division as the same history.

Chapter 8 · Gul'dan Found a Way to Survive

Within the Horde, choices to prepare for the next war also continued. Orgrim was not a person who would leave Gul'dan and the Shadow Council to manipulate the Warchief's power again. In the Warcraft II manual, Gul'dan recalls that the location of the council was revealed through Garona, and Orgrim attacked the base of the warlocks. The brutal control and power struggles in this section break the idea that the Orc leadership had only one will.

Gul'dan's perspective, which greatly promotes his own abilities, remains in that retrospective. Therefore, one does not conclude that every word he uses to explain his survival is the same as the details of modern canon. The connection also confirmed in modern official retrospectives is the fact that Gul'dan, who woke up from a coma, made a deal with the new Warchief to survive and gained the opportunity to organize his own clan.

Even though Gul'dan lost power, he did not abandon the goal of seeking power. Orgrim, while suspicious of Gul'dan, tried to utilize the power that would be helpful to the Horde. One person commands the war, and the other continues to prepare his own goals within that war. That uneasy cooperation has a decisive influence on the later Second War.

The first death knights, who combined the bodies of dead human knights with the souls of Shadow Council warlocks, are also connected to this next phase. One should not think that they have the exact same origin as the death knights created under the Lich King later. The necromancy of the early Horde, Gul'dan's survival deal, and the forces needed by the new Warchief interlock. The concrete formation of this organization and weapon will continue in the next main volume and setting section.

The fall of Stormwind was not a victory that resolved all internal conflicts of the Horde. Gul'dan's ambition, the Warchief's suspicion, Blackhand's sons, and the power issues of various clans remained. When a new alliance was being formed in the north, the invading army in the south was also preparing for the next attack while harboring unstable relationships within itself.

At the end of the First War, one king died and one capital fell. However, there were people who survived on the sea, and there were choices that continued before another king. The story now expands from the destruction of one country to a war where many countries face it together. What can people who remember what Stormwind lost do so that the loss is not repeated in other homes? The war of the next era begins with that question.

Reading by Names and Relationships

Llane Wrynn: King of Stormwind and father of Varian. Garona's assassination and the fall of the kingdom form the conclusion of the First War.

Anduin Lothar: A leader who defended the capital and, after defeat, led the survivors to request help from Lordaeron. He represents the people who lost their kingdom.

Garona Halforcen: A person who has both the record of helping humans and the assassination of Llane. We examine her by distinguishing between the control of the Shadow Council and the lineage supplemented in later times.

Varian Wrynn: Son of Llane. The later king's memory and the actual events of the First War are connected, but we do not transfer the dialogue and images of the nightmare into historical records.

Terenas Menethil II · Lordaeron: The king and country from whom the survivors of the southern kingdom sought help. He leads the discussion of human kingdoms for a joint response.

Alliance of Lordaeron: An alliance where various human kingdoms and other races gathered their strength against the Horde. The members of the Alliance in all eras were not the same from the beginning.

Orgrim Doomhammer · Gul'dan: The new Warchief and the warlock who survived and tried to recreate his own power. It is a relationship where joint war and individual ambition collide.

First Death Knights: Early undead forces that combined the bodies of human knights and the souls of Horde warlocks. We distinguish their origin from the later Death Knights of the Lich King.

Related Public Episodes

The Dark Portal and the Death of the Guardian: /ko/community/tm-warcraft-saga-part025-20261008

The Orcs' Blood Pact and the Draenei's Exodus: /ko/community/tm-warcraft-saga-part024-20261008

The Old Alliance of Arathor and the High Elves: /ko/community/tm-warcraft-saga-part018-20261008

Background of the Split of Human Kingdoms and the Growth of Dalaran: /ko/community/tm-warcraft-saga-part019-20261008

From Story to Game

You can experience the First War game directly in the human and orc campaigns of 'Warcraft I Remastered'. Read the conclusions of the initial campaigns of each faction and the results that led to the later canon by distinguishing them. Check the supported languages, operating systems, and Battle.net account requirements on the official page.

Official Download/Purchase Page: Warcraft I: Remastered — official Battle.net purchase page

Official Materials and Verification Scope

Verification Date: October 8, 2026 (UTC). This was written based on settings and events confirmed in the official public materials below. Public samples and setting introductions were checked only for their public scope, and it is not indicated that the entire book was read. Illustrations are AI reconstructions, not official images.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

Warcraft III: The Story So Far

Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition — Official Manual

Varian Wrynn: Blood of Our Fathers

Warcraft I: Remastered — official Battle.net purchase page