The Role of the Warlords

Warlords of Draenor obviously has a big rogue's gallery of major figures who will play an important part in the game's story. I wrote an article not long after the announcement of the expansion speculating on the roles each Warlord would play, and while the flood of information I was hoping for last weekend has been more of a light shower, we do know a little more about some of them:

Blackhand, who in our timeline was the first Warchief of the Horde, will be the final boss of Blackrock Foundry. Blackhand was never really any more than a puppet of Gul'dan, and seems to be basically a dumb brute. That said, the Blackrock Clan has essentially become the industrial wing of the Iron Horde, quickly transforming their native Gorgrond into the Iron Horde's arms-making factory.

Just as an aside here, many of the famous members of the Horde are Blackrocks, such as Varok Saurfang, Eitrigg, and Orgrim Doomhammer. If we encounter any of these, I'm skeptical any except perhaps Eitrigg would be all that friendly. Saurfang and Eitrigg lived long enough to regret the brutality of the old Horde, but this would be the time of their youth. Doomhammer was free of demonic corruption, but like Garrosh, this did not stop him from leading the Horde in brutal conquest.

Onto the other confirmed leaders:

Ner'zhul will be the primary antagonist of Shadowmoon Valley's quests, and will be the final boss of the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, one of Warlords' dungeons, where he retreats after a shocking event that I will not get into here for the spoiler conscious (it's also pre-Beta, and some might recall how there were sound files in 5.1's PTR where Anduin was killed by Garrosh, so... nothing's set in stone yet.)

It's unclear whether Ner'zhul's alternate fate of becoming the original Lich King will be touched on here, but they seem to be playing up his "speaker to the dead" angle, and given that we face him in something called "Burial Grounds," I could imagine dealing with some kind of necromancy.

Gul'dan is the most intriguing. In fact, my previous article describes how he may not even be an enemy (or at least we might not fight him.) Frankly, there are two ways I would go with Gul'dan, and they are not mutually exclusive. First is that he takes the place of Wrathion as the expansion-spanning Legendary chain guy. Sure, that establishes a weird pattern of having only the sketchiest people doing Legendaries (though arguably, with Wrathion having two legendary chains and everything about Shadowmourne being a bit unsettling, this isn't really anything new.)

The other option would be to have Gul'dan as the final boss of the expansion. If the Iron Horde falls apart, Gul'dan stands to benefit, and the Orcs of alternate Draenor - at least some of them - might turn to the blood of Mannoroth out of desperation, much as they did in Ashenvale during the Third War.

Finally, Durotan is going to be playing the role of the leader of the Frostwolves, who will be the main Horde faction. While I won't rule out some twist where he turns bad, I think it's most likely that Durotan will simply be the "good Warlord" out of the headlining seven.

So that leaves Kilrogg, Kargath, and Grommash.

This is pure speculation, but I could imagine Kilrogg and Kargath as being antagonists in Tanaan Jungle and Spires of Arakk, respectively. They could wind up as dungeon bosses (which would make Kargath's second, after Shattered Halls) or we might even defeat them in solo questing (or solo scenarios) at the end of major quest chains.

And of course, then there's Grommash. Admittedly, if you just watch the trailer, Grom seems like the obvious final boss, but given that his son, another G. Hellscream was the final boss of Mists, I hope that they do something different with him. What that is, I really can't imagine.