Arathor and the Troll Wars

For millennia the human tribes of the Eastern Kingdoms fought one another while Amani raiders struck from the north. Around 2,800 years before the Dark Portal, Thoradin of the Arathi tribe saw that a divided humanity would be destroyed. Through marriages, promises and conquest he united the tribes into the kingdom of Arathor and built its capital, the fortress-city of Strom, in today's Arathi Highlands.

The Amani, revived with help from the Zandalari, struck at Quel'Thalas in vast numbers. The elves turned to Arathor. In exchange for human soldiers, they agreed to teach magic to a hundred chosen humans, the first human magi. Elves and humans together crushed the Amani army at the foot of the Alterac Mountains, and the magi's fire scattered the trolls so thoroughly that their empire never recovered.

In gratitude, the elves of Quel'Thalas pledged loyalty to the bloodline of Arathor's kings. Strom flourished, and its people spread across the north. The Amani would rise again many times, and in the Hinterlands and the Arathi Highlands forest troll tribes still haunt the ruins of that old war.