Grommash Hellscream

With patch 6.2 just a day away, we're headed to Tanaan Jungle to face the rest of the Iron Horde -- or are we? Let's take a look at the story so far, and what you need to know in terms of what you'll be seeing in patch 6.2 lore, Tanaan, and Hellfire Citadel.

What was Kairoz looking for?

Earlier this week in Know Your Lore, I talked about why Grommash Hellscream should potentially stick around. I wasn't quite sure about his character after his Lords of War short, but what we've seen on Draenor kind of convinced me that I like the guy -- he's got potential.

It's not just Grommash's character we're looking at here -- it's the entire state of the Horde as we know it. Did the Horde need Garrosh Hellscream? Yes, it absolutely did, and now that he's gone, there's a void left behind that could be filled, oddly enough, by his father from another reality. But before you get me wrong here, I don't mean Grommash should fill that villain role. Far from it.

This is the story of an orc whose life played full circle, ending where it began -- before it began actually, in an odd twist of fate, time and a little bronze magic. It plays in counterpoint to the tale of Emperor Shaohao, who hid away his kingdom, so confident and prideful in himself and his people's abilities that he was certain they would thrive in abject isolation from the rest of the world. The orc, on the other hand, came from an absence of pride into a sudden and overwhelming abundance of it... and it slowly ate him alive.

A new short story has been released on the official website. The Code of Rule, by Ryan Quinn, gives us one of those chunks of lore we were missing from the development of Warlords of Draenor's story -- how exactly the ogres of Highmaul allied with the Iron Horde in the first place.

So far, we seem to be taking part in a weirdly cyclical version of history, where things happen out of place and out of order from the timeline we know. But there's an undercurrent of familiarity, as if time was attempting to reassert itself.

If you don't want more spoilers about patch 6.2 and the legendary questline, you should probably avoid this post.

When the opening came, she took it, becoming the latest Warlord of the Burning Blade and immediately setting to work to try and seal her place as the best and the brightest of the Iron Horde. And it worked, to a degree -- Azuka Bladefury may have had to prove her worth in a collection of more notable names like Blackhand or Kargath Bladefist, but she did so with swift and unerring efficiency.