World of Warcraft Gifts

First war –The Orc Invasion of Azeroth

The First War was fought between the Orcs and Humans following the arrival on Azeroth, through the First Dark Portal, of the Orcish Clans:-

Kil’jaeden, a lieutenant of Sargeras in the ranks of the Burning Legion, deceived Ner’zhul, a prominent Orc Leader, into believing the Draenei were plotting against them. He promised in return for serving the Burning Legion to give the Orcs the power to defeat their enemies. To receive this power the Orcs would have to drink the blood of the Demonic Pit Lord Mannoroth.

This act however put the Orcs under the Blood Curse, and with their aggression heightened and their spirits twisted by this, the once peaceful and honourable Orc tribes of the planet Draenor, turned on their neighbours the Draenei. The slaughter that followed united the Orcs under a single banner for the first time, and drove the surviving Draenei from their home planet.

Ner’zhul found out about Kil’jaeden’s betrayal and sought to free the Orcs from his grasp but his apprentice Gul’dan informed Kil’jaeden, who stripped Ner’zhul of any power and placed Gul’dan at the head of the Orc tribes.

The problem now for Gul’dan however, was that with no enemies left to fight the Orcs started to turn on each other. Gul’dan realized that unless he found a new enemy for the Horde, it would be in danger of destroying itself.

It was soon after this that Gul’dan was contacted by the powerful but corrupted and possessed human mage known as Medivh, he offered the Orcs a way to invade a world called Azeroth, which according to Medivh was ripe for the picking. The force that possessed Medivh was Sargeras a corrupted and disillusioned Vanir Titan and leader and creator of the Burning Legion, who wanted revenge on the humans of Azeroth for thwarting his previous attempts to conquer the planet.

Medivh with the power of Sargeras and the help of the Orc Shadow Council, created a Dark Portal connecting the two worlds of Azeroth and Draenor, the portal on Azeroth is located in Blasted Lands with the Draenor side in Hellfire Peninsula.

Once the portal was large enough, Gul’dan used it to usher his massive Horde army of Orcs through, along with the only loosely termed allies that the Orcs had at that time, the Ogres. This event heralded the start of the Hordes Invasion of Azeroth and the start of the First Great War.

Despite warnings from the Shadow Council of caution, the Orcs having encountered little resistance initially and under the influence of the Bloodlust expected an easy victory against a weak opponent. Led by Cho’gall and Kilrogg Deadeye they rushed to attack the fortress of the strongly garrisoned Stormwind Keep, but their vast numbers were no match for the Azerothian soldiers shield wall and then when the Knights of the Brotherhood of the Horse charged their flanks the Orcs, having never encountered cavalry before, broke and were routed and chased relentlessly by the Knights. The Orcs suffered a massive defeat with few surviving the initial battle, and the remainder were forced to flee back to Draenor.

After this defeat the Horde rallied under their Warchief Blackhand the Destroyer who was a great tactician and a respected warrior. Blackhand was egotistical and had a thirst for power this made him an easy target for Gul’dan and the Shadow Council to manipulate. Under Blackhands leadership the Orc Horde pushed forward again into Azeroth with renewed success until finally they were once again at the gates of Stormwind.

Just before the final assault took place, while Gul’dan was in a coma, having tried to penetrate Medivhs mind to find out the location of the Tomb of Sargeras as Medivh was killed by Lord Anduin Lothar. Orgrim Doomhammer one of Blackhands generals, took advantage of the situation to slay Blackhand the Destroyer and take control of the Orcs, he also broke the power of the controlling Shadow Council, killing most of them and declaring all Warlocks traitors.

Doomhammer led the Orc tribes in the attack on Stormwind Keep, this time the city struggled to hold off the full might of the Horde. During this second assault King Llane Wrynn I was assassinated by the half Orc Garona Halforcen, an act that signalled the fall of Stormwind. The Human Kingdom of Azeroth was almost completely destroyed, and the few survivors including the new heir to the throne Varian Wrynn, led by Anduin Lothar, were forced to flee north to Lordaeron where they sought shelter and aid from King Terenas Menethil II who was a long time ally of Stormwind.

Orc Crest - Icon Of Battle

After having written this blog it has re-ignited my passion for Wow Jewellery and the Warcraft Lore behind the designs so I have decided that I will post a complete set of all the WOW Racial Crests, with the intention that I will have designs for all of them sketched and made up into items for Warcraft Gifts in the future.

The obvious next one for me to do is the “Old Enemy” the Orcs.
The Orcs were born on the world of Draenor, they came to Azeroth through the Dark Portal and started the First World of Warcraft War against the humans while under the influence of the Burning Legion.

The Orcs were once a noble, shamanistic society on Draenor but were corrupted by the Burning Legion and used as pawns in the Legion’s invasion of Azeroth. The Orcs managed to rebel, however, and they were ultimately, during the Third World of Warcraft War, able to help turn the tide against their Demon masters. Led by the Warchief Thrall, the Orcs have reclaimed their strength and honour and have settled in Kalimdor where they have founded the nation of Durotar.

The concept of honour is the most important element of Orcish society for an Orc, honour is as important as his Clan, and most will die defending either Clan or personal reputation. Orcs now have embraced a life of wisdom, honour and the values embodied in the leadership of Thrall.

Now, the Orcs stand ready to fight not for the sake of conquest, but for their very right of survival in their new adopted world.

The Orcs racial crest is The Icon of Battle. The wolves represent the Frostwolf Clan, as well as the Orcs‘ kinship with wolves, and the crossed axes symbolize their skill in battle. The Symbol of the Horde at the centre of the shield represents the Orcs in the Horde Racial Crest.

The process of commissioning the Human Crest started with me speaking to a good friend of mine who is an excellent artist to see if she would do some scale sketches. As she also was a WOW addict she readily agreed, I will attach some of her sketches to future posts for you to see and link to her website for you to see samples of her work.

Night Elf Moonglaive

The next stage was for me to contact some of the companies I knew from my time in the Jewellery business and see if I could get one of them to do a one off Warcraft Gift as a favour to me without charging the earth for it. Once the sketches were completed I then sent these to the company that I had spoken to for them to assess. They came back with several queries over the size required and the weight, also on which areas of the Icon of Courage should be highly polished which should be darker etc, we finally decided on the details and they then produced a mould and from that mould they produced a sample Human Crest Pendant which they sent to me and I must say I was highly delighted with the quality and detail. The Icon of Courage, as with all Warcraft Gifts, is produced in .925 silver which is the sterling silver standard, and I wear it with a leather cord which has a sterling silver fastener.

Some friends, who also played WOW, have asked me from time to time if they could have a pendant made for them, either for their own use or as a Warcraft Gift for someone. If it was an item that the mould had already been made for it was easy, and the cost was kept down to a reasonable level. Occasionally they wanted a piece that I didn’t already have a mould for so this entailed having to go through the process of producing sketches and a new mould all over again, but even though it turned out fairly expensive for them they invariably still had the piece made. I suppose in relation to the hundreds of hours you commit to a character on World of Warcraft then the cost of a one off unique piece of Wowjewellery as a special Warcraft Gift doesn’t seem too bad.

Night Elf female

Over the next few years of playing World of Warcraft I have levelled every class to lvl 70 apart from a warlock and every race apart from a gnome to at least lvl 40, and now in WOTLK I have so far 3 lvl 80’s. I have at certain times during this period commissioned other pieces of Wowjewellery when it seemed appropriate to mark a particular event or the progress of a character.

The Lore behind the pieces of Wowjewellery was something I became very interested in as I researched the items I was having manufactured and, if you want to explore in detail the World of Warcraft Lore, I have researched and written an article where I have tried to pull together the main facts about the history and make up of the World of Warcraft world that we play in.

In my next posts I will list the items that I have had made, each one representing a particular milestone or event in my World of Warcraft journey, I have also put a brief history where applicable about the Warcraft Lore behind the item.