The First Paladins

The First War had shown the danger faced by the servants of the Light on a battlefield. Alonsus Faol helped answer that loss by forming an order whose members could wield weapons as well as holy power. The Silver Hand made protection a fighting vocation.

Its first paladins were Uther, Turalyon, Tirion Fordring, Saidan Dathrohan and Gavinrad. Their induction at Alonsus Chapel in Stratholme established the generation from which the order’s later traditions would grow.

The same fellowship would be tested by more than battles against the Horde. Its members would eventually face the question of whom their duty required them to protect, and what remained of that duty when their kingdom fell.

The Price of Honor

Near Hearthglen, Tirion fought an orc he initially knew only as an enemy. When the ruined tower collapsed around them, Eitrigg pulled him from the wreckage. The rescue left the paladin with a debt that the laws governing their peoples did not recognize.

His defense of Eitrigg led to disgrace and exile. Even then, Tirion returned to prevent the orc’s execution in Stratholme. An attack by Thrall’s forces gave him the chance to free the prisoner.

Outside the city, Tirion called upon the Light to heal Eitrigg and found that it still answered. He had lost office and home, but the act that had condemned him had not made compassion impossible. Eitrigg returned to his people; Tirion faced the life of an outcast.

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 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 Face Beneath the Crusader

The ruined streets of Stratholme led into two hostile centers. Rivendare held the undead side; the Scarlet Bastion offered a different enemy under the apparent leadership of Saidan Dathrohan. The paladin’s identity concealed what the crusaders served.

Adventurers pushed through the bastion and confronted its Grand Crusader. The encounter forced Balnazzar to abandon his disguise. The trusted figure had been a dead man’s body used by a dreadlord.

This was not the culling Arthas had carried out years earlier. It was a later struggle over the city’s surviving strongholds, revealing that opposition to the Scourge did not by itself make the Scarlet leadership safe to trust.