The Prison in the Ice

Escaping the destruction of Draenor did not free Ner’zhul. Kil’jaeden captured the fleeing shaman and destroyed his body, keeping his spirit alive to face a new form of servitude. The orc who had tried to find a way out of disaster became the instrument of another invasion.

Confined within the Frozen Throne in Northrend, Ner’zhul could reach beyond his prison with his mind. He began gathering the dead into an army and spreading the plague that would make fresh victims into servants. The Lich King was a captive, but his confinement did not prevent him from conquering the lands around him.

The War of the Spider

Beneath Northrend, the nerubians of Azjol-Nerub resisted the growing Scourge. Their living bodies resisted the plague, and their underground kingdom gave them tunnels and strongholds from which to fight. This was a people defending its home, not an undead army waiting to be discovered.

That resistance could not protect their dead. The Lich King raised fallen defenders and turned them against their own people. Anub’arak, once their king, was killed and compelled to serve the power he had opposed. Each defeat therefore cost the living more than territory: it gave the enemy more soldiers.

The kingdom fell, but its people were not entirely extinguished. Living survivors continued to resist in its ruins. The surviving nerubians faced undead enemies who wore the shapes of their former kin.

The Voice from Northrend

Kel’Thuzad followed the distant summons of Ner’zhul into Northrend, seeking powers his fellow mages had rejected. What he found was more terrible than a new school of magic. The undead kingdom demonstrated how death itself could become captivity.

His desire for knowledge did not spare him fear when he saw the plague at work. By the time he understood the cost of serving the Lich King, escape was beyond him. Kel’Thuzad pledged himself to his new master and returned south to prepare the way for the Scourge.

The Cult of the Damned gave the invasion willing servants among the living. Recruitment and concealed preparations preceded the open catastrophe in Lordaeron. When Arthas began investigating the plague, he was confronting the result of a campaign already underway.

The Plague of Undeath

A plague spread through Lordaeron, turning its victims into undead. Arthas and Jaina investigated its source and confronted Kel’Thuzad. The crisis was larger than a local outbreak: the Scourge was undermining the kingdom from within, confronting the prince with an enemy that grew with every death.

The Culling of Stratholme

At Stratholme, Arthas learned that infected grain had already reached the population. He ordered the city purged before its people could rise as undead. Uther refused, and Jaina left him. Arthas continued without them, making the destruction of Mal’Ganis his overriding purpose.

The Prince Returns

Arthas returned to Lordaeron bearing Frostmourne and murdered his father. The kingdom he had sworn to protect became a target of his undead campaign. Now serving the Scourge, he also killed Uther while seeking the remains needed for Kel’Thuzad’s resurrection.

The Fall of Quel’Thalas

Sylvanas Windrunner met the Scourge as Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas. Each defensive line bought time, but the enemy could turn the fallen into more soldiers. Barriers that had protected the kingdom before could not stop Arthas’s advance.

He killed Sylvanas and denied her the release of death, raising her as a banshee under his command. The defender of the kingdom was forced into the army destroying it. Her awareness of that destruction made the captivity part of the punishment.

At the Sunwell, Arthas used the elves’ sacred power to raise Kel’Thuzad. The invasion’s immediate objective was fulfilled, but its consequences were only beginning: a ruined kingdom, a corrupted font and a former ranger whose eventual freedom would be inseparable from the desire for revenge.

The Fall of Dalaran

Arthas and Kel’Thuzad attacked Dalaran, overcoming its magical defenses. The fallen city became the staging ground for Archimonde’s arrival. The Scourge’s campaign had opened the way for a demonic invasion, extending the disaster beyond the kingdoms Arthas had already destroyed.

The Forging of Ashbringer

The dark crystal recovered by Alexandros Mograine during the Second War remained dangerous long after the battlefield fell silent. As the plague spread through Lordaeron, he brought it before fellow paladins at Southshore. Their Light did not destroy it: the crystal absorbed that power and became radiant. What had injured Alexandros could now be used against the undead.

At Ironforge, Magni Bronzebeard forged the crystal into Ashbringer. He had received word that Muradin had died during Arthas’s expedition. Although that report was mistaken, his grief accompanied the making of the weapon. Alexandros returned to a kingdom falling before the Scourge, carrying a blade that reduced the undead to ash.

The Betrayal of Alexandros Mograine

Alexandros Mograine became one of the Scourge’s most dangerous enemies. Yet the betrayal that ended his life came from within his own family. Under Balnazzar’s influence, Renault Mograine turned against his father and lured him into an ambush near Stratholme.

After Alexandros fought through the undead, Renault took his father’s sword and murdered him with it. The weapon became corrupted. Kel’Thuzad later raised Alexandros as a death knight in Naxxramas, placing a former enemy of the undead among the Four Horsemen. For Darion, the loss of his father was only the beginning: neither the man nor his blade had found peace.

The First Battle for Light’s Hope

Darion returned to the defenders of Light’s Hope Chapel with the corrupted sword. The Scourge sought more than a military victory: the remains of Lordaeron’s fallen champions rested beneath the chapel, beyond its grasp. The defenders could not hold indefinitely against the approaching army.

Remembering Tirion’s counsel, Darion drove the blade into his own heart. His sacrifice freed his father’s soul and awakened a devastating response from the champions buried beneath the chapel. The defenders survived, but Kel’Thuzad recovered Darion and the still-corrupted weapon. Darion was raised as a death knight.

A World Under Siege

Across Azeroth, adventurers confronted threats from Blackrock Mountain to Ahn’Qiraj. The Scourge also returned in force, with Kel’Thuzad’s Naxxramas looming over the Plaguelands. Even as other enemies demanded attention, the undead remained a threat to lands still bearing the wounds of the Third War.

Victory Without an Ending

Above the Plaguelands, Naxxramas brought the surviving kingdom’s enemy into a single fortress. Kel’Thuzad commanded the necropolis, while its four quarters trained soldiers, maintained monstrous constructs and turned disease into a weapon. The Cult of the Damned helped sustain the power that had already ruined Lordaeron.

The assault passed through the Military Quarter and its Four Horsemen. The original roster included Alexandros Mograine and Sir Zeliek, whose forced service showed what the Scourge could make of its former enemies. Beyond the wings stood Sapphiron, guarding the route to the lich.

The attackers defeated Kel’Thuzad, but his body was not the whole of his existence. A surviving phylactery left the apparent victory dependent on what happened to the object carried out of the fortress.