Just a quick bulletpoint: this could have easily referred to the Death Knights and Skeletons in the Horde during the Second War.

It doesn't have any impact on your overall questions. I'm just throwing it out there.

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The Curse of Monkey Island - Part III

He does, howeer, make a point out of the fact that they are ruthless killing machines, and that they lack both emotions and compassion. I must admit I can't identify the context, but it seems an odd thing to mention if he have fought them simply as part of the Orcish horde who, in themselves, were seen as demonic and brutal.

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It wasn’t 20 years before the Scourge claimed Lordaeron. Blizzard always flubs the timelines a bit, but Old Hillsbrad was supposedly 7 years before TBC - which is shortly before the events of WCIII.

Its pretty clear that they are talking about having fought the undead in the Second War and were generalizing about what undead, as a whole, are like.

Having cities does not in any way imply that “the entirety of Northrend” was colonized by humans. That’s a huge leap in logic to make.

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Plus there's the fur traders and places like Wintergarde which it's doubtful based upon their total size that they were built right away. It's extremely unlikely that (based on the forgotten shore) fleets that Arthas had at his disposal would have had such numbers/resources/time to have established themselves. Not to mention the number of standard human undead in Northrend itself being of an unrealistically high number. It's believable that a group settled there before the third war perhaps even before the first. Ship technology isn't exactly new to the world nor is long distance trade to the human nations.

So it's probable that northern humans if they were there colonized it independently and were involved in open trade at some point. As they were far off from the conflicts and issues of Lordaeron (the continent) to begin with. Certainly Strathholme once being a trade capitol and center of trade vesicles for human nations supports this with it's proximity to Northrend. It's actually even more likely that the settlers came from there, thus contact was largely cut off when the city burned, meaning it's ties to the main land were severed. As most humans these days come from Stormwind, these distant northern settlements would have been mostly forgotten to the southerners.

If anything, this in theory does solve some large logistical issues with Northrend. Not to mention many of the things going on in Northrend itself are recent. Yogg corrupting Loken, The Vrykul reawakening, The Scourge. The Nerubians and Blue dragons likely kept to themselves.

Good find.

Northrend was probably colonized for a while, with most of the settlements probably falling to the Lich King's early expansion. There may have been some recolonization after Lorderon fell (maybe some of the refugees ended up there).

The men from Grizzly Hills are at least implied to have been there long before the Alliance came in Wrath.

Oh? How can you tell? The presence of the scarlet crusaders as young children, for one thing, throws me off the track.

Why is this "clear" ? Am I missing something obvious?

Perhaps. But the fact that he states that "Northrend is lost" and that "Cities" (rather than settlements, villages or towns; and also implying more than one city) having gone missing makes the scope of colonization appear, at least to me, rather large. You'll notice that in Azeroth, cities rarely lie near each other. They are often surrounded by farmland/forests that divide them from each other.

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I think you're indeed giving too much of a time gap. It's definitely closer to seven years than twenty.

Northrend before the Third War... various points and quests in Northrend point to unorganised settlements and colonies in Northrend. Some Grizzly Hills inhabitants seem to have a culture of their own, so they may be Northrend natives and descendants of humans who never left the continent after the events of Anguish of Nifflevar questline (I refer to the time the visions take place in). There doesn't seem to have ever been a kingdom up there, however.

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I think to some extent whats being suggested is that, in a pre Warcraft 3 Northrend human colonists wouldn't have to deal with TOO many threats. Who knows what sort of relationship they had with Drakkari, it might have been peaceful it might have been minor skirmishes. This could also explain why so many Northrend native races were willing to become "mercenary" to Arthas in Warcraft 3. Iron dwarf stuff, not an issue. The Taunka, their nomadic tendencies could go either way. The blue dragon flight likely largely ignored the humans and certainly the Nerubians were content to remain hidden below. Vrykul remained slumbering and potentially did the Gargoyles. Tuskar are also rather accepting of these "strange" creatures from the south, as if this wasn't new to them.

So from a human nation stand point... yeah... the important parts of Northrend were likely "human territory" just as I'm sure they would argue many other parts of Lordaeron were despite the presence of other civilizations/sentient species. They would have had little urge to go to the colder more dangerous places like Icecrown, which was likely greeted with "It's cold... and icey... why bother. Stormpeaks likely has a similar issue. I'm sure some went up there but maybe never returned. Sticking to the more climatized environments (even including Dragon Blight in that) would be not only more hospitable but also more profitable for resources like food, fur, mining and even limited agriculture, which we see in Wintergard. Obviously Wintergard isn't a major city (assuming it existed before hand) but it would have been to the locals. I mean... weren't there tombs for nobility and what not obviously they would have been there before the war effort.

This is indeed true.

The Lich-King tested his plague on local villages/towns IN NORTHREND.

Stormwind attempted to recolonize places like Grizzly Hills and Dragonblight in WotLK, so it's possible that the cities were Stormwind aligned.

Especially considering Stormwind is the only kingdom with a legitimate excuse to not respond to entire cities being destroyed by undead at the time (Onyxia.)

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"Noble countrymen, evil is upon us. Darkness has befallen our shores. Rise and slay thy enemies… strike, strike so others shall live. The meek shall not fade into the night… live my brethren, live." - King Terenas Menethil II

Humans probably had settlements and a few small "cities" in Howling Fjord (Valgarde), Grizzly Hills and the Dragonblight (Wintergarde).

I know it's lolnotcannon anymore, but Lands of Mystery rpg books talked about a good majority of Howling Fjord being colonized with farmlands even after the rise of Arthas, so it's pretty reasonable that there was a pretty sizeable population of humans if even Arthas there's still farmlands and all that jazz.

But alas, non cannon.

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I've won hundreds at the track

But I'm not betting on the afterlife

I thought most undead forces from Northrend in WC3 were undead Vrykul.

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I think Wintergarde is big enough to be called a city, and I somehow doubt a place with that many civilian homes was necessary for either Arthas' expedition or the Alliance's.

And then Grizzly Hills has all those hunting towns, of course.

History of Warcraft: Icecrown and the Frozen Throne

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Not from what was utilized or represented in most to all aspects of the expansion. Certainly there were giants and Vrykul in the Scourge forces but the "human" undead, including in substantial numbers: Ghouls, Deathknights, the cult of the damned, zombies, abominations (admittedly could be made out of anything as blizzard is too lazy to make unique models) and Human sized skeletons. To a lesser extent we see Vrykul and Giants utilized.

This isn't to say many others. Hell, even the cinematic depicts thousands upon thousands of human skeletons in Icecrown. Vrykul were a recent procurement when we reached Northrend, they seemed to act as Arthas's vanguard of sorts.

Northrend is massive, at least 2/3 as large as the two major continents. Human colonization could've come in waves for centuries and still not penetrated past the coasts of the Dragonblight. Between a harsh climate that isn't suited to large scale cities and denizens that are extremely difficult to deal with (hostile magnataur, inquisitive nerubians, and of course the wildlife), it's not a big leap to say that the few who did survive up there wouldn't be given significant credence.

But for the sake of argument, let's ask ourselves where would humans have settled consistently given the landscape? Most likely it would've been in Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills. Anywhere further than that and you run into cannibalistic trolls and the wastes of the Dragonblight (a place that's obviously not growing enough to sustain any real population). This is probably why you see Wintergarde on the edge of the Dragonblight, it marked the official frontier, the point at which you send expeditions, not settlers, out. On the northern border, the Furbolg would likely have been the buffer point between Zul'drak and any human settlements. This again coincides with ruins and structures associated with the areas (the broken tower off the coast of Grizzly Hills, dwarven settlements taken over by the Iron Armies in the south, and the various forts of the Fjord).

What this denotes most of all however is that Icecrown and the War of the Spider would have been fought without any of these settlers knowledge. This means that when Ner'zhul finally did strike out against any settlers, they would've been caught completely by surprise. More importantly, given the areas former denizens (Vrykul), Ner'zhul would've been expecting a much fiercer resistance than he encountered, thus making it likely that few if any survivors reached Lordaeron or Quel'thalas.

With that all stated, there are obvious plot holes that come with inventing a new race in an old area, specifically who and what the Vrykul were considered to be before they awoke. While their wooden settlements were obviously built within the last 15 years, it's Utgarde Keep that must have fascinated the former colonists, as well as the surrounding crypts that held the sleeping giants. Whether they initially saw this as a place of shelter, or a giant warning sign we can't know, but it's obvious the colonists did not see it as a place of safety and security (no human or dwarven settlements or ruins near to the southern half of the Fjord until WotLK).

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

Except in the History of Warcraft series, Icecrown and the Frozen Throne, which details the Lich King's integration of the Northrend humans into the Scourge, occurs prior to the War of the Spider.

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Given that the story was made up as it went along don't look for structure. Look for what works.

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Ehhmm, the Southshore conversation was retconned in the Ashbringer comic.

There it happened during the human campain of WCIII, only days after the Culling of Stratholme.

The whole section about the Northrend settlements were omitted in the new conversation, also Tirion is not present and Abbendis was replaced by her father.

I'm holding a nice big book that has plenty of information on Northrend and its history but none of that counts anymore.

I could've sworn that the War of the Spider ingame book discusses how Ner'zhul used already-present humans turned undead to fight the Nerubians.


What I want to know is if the Grizzly Hills trappers are Vrykul-descendants or Lordaeronian colonists. The presence of unique names (kind of Russian) lead me to believe they've either developed in isolation from Lordaeron long enough to develop distinct culture or they were humans hidden on Northrend rather than going to what would later be the eastern kingdoms.

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The story is like an amorphous blob reforming to what it suits best. (⌐■_■)

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I must be invisible.

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