Project Lore

The Twilight's Hammer is encountered by players all over World of Warcraft. From ousting the cultists defending Aku'mai in the Blackfathom Deeps to skipping Jedoga Shadowseeker when farming heroic Ahn'Kahet, the cult has made their mark nearly everywhere in the world of Azeroth and beyond.

The Twilight's Hammer started out as an orcish clan. Before even the first war, the orcish warlock Gul'dan formed the Shadow Council, an organization bent on serving the Burning Legion and spreading the practices of various dark magics to all of the orcish clans. Most of the major orcish clans had allied under the banner of the Horde and began exterminating the draenei for conquest. The Shadow Council became a secretive organization that controlled the Horde behind the scenes - they appointed the Warchief and communicated directly with Kil'jaeden and other Burning Legion demons.

Gul'dan, practicing his dark magic, ran several experiments on the ogres native to Draenor. He created the two-headed ogres, and one of them, Cho'gall (left head Cho, right head Gall), became Gul'dan's apprentice. He was one of the first ogres to learn of arcane magic and became a powerful spellcaster. He was also insane, probably part of the side effects of having two heads and being able to command magic. Perhaps from brainwashing from Gul'dan, he believed Armageddon would soon arrive, and the Horde would bring it into fruition.

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Aaron Rosenberg, like many of the authors Blizzard has been hiring, has managed to write for some hot properties. The New York/New Jersey native's work spans StarCraft, Warcraft, Star Trek, Warhammer, and he also manages to design roleplaying games. Even with all of this material, I somehow managed to never read anything by him. That all changed due to my recent buying spree and trip to the Caribbean. On the culmination of those events, I had nothing better to do than leap into World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness as if it where my first teeth-mashing kiss.

Rosenburg's first crack at the Warcraft universe is a pretty solid starting point. The folks over at Blizzard allowed him to take control of numerous renowned characters including Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Orgrim Doomhammer, Gul'dan, Kurdran Wildhammer and everyone's favorite Archmage, Khadgar. Arthas' father, King Terenas, Champion of Stormwind Anduin Lothar, Zul'Jin and the brothers Blackhand also make substantial appearences. With all these characters entwined in the Second War, Rosenburg had the ability to drastically shape one's expectations for these key characters, while creating a sense of urgency, hatred and even betrayal.

Aside from giving this lore nerd more back story to the Second War, I absolutely loved the author's ability to describe the epic battles in all of their stages, from planning and tactics to execution. Without the move to more mature writing – the descriptions of battle become very violent and gory – I do not think the author would have been doing the struggle between the two factions justice.

We see the introduction of the Paladin class, lead by Uther the Lightbringer, and their antithesis, the first unofficial death knights, created by Gul'dan but lead by Teron Gorefiend. Not a single mention of the gnomes though - I guess Rosenberg overlooked them. Despite the slight to SolidSamm, I enjoyed the book from cover to cover and implore any and all lore nerds to pick it up. After all, it is one of the best WoW-branded novels.

Time to go Beyond the Dark Portal.

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