The story of Arathi Highlands.
The Arathi Highlands are rolling hills and rocky farmland in the middle of the Eastern Kingdoms, and the birthplace of humanity's first kingdom. Nearly three thousand years ago, Thoradin united the human tribes here into the empire of Arathor and founded Strom, the first human capital. He built a great wall to hold back the Amani trolls; Thoradin's Wall still runs across the land, though it has long since fallen into ruin. When Arathor's nobles moved on, the families who stayed founded the kingdom of Stromgarde, and the Trollbane line fought the Witherbark trolls for generations.
Those days are gone. After the Second War, the village later called Hammerfall was turned into an internment camp for captured orcs, and the orcs' liberators later struck it to free them. After the Third War, Stromgarde Keep fell to the Syndicate and the Boulderfist ogres, and Prince Galen Trollbane's surviving soldiers fled north to a canyon now called Refuge Pointe.
Today the Highlands belong to no one. The Alliance holds Refuge Pointe, the Horde has made Hammerfall its own, the Syndicate and the ogres squat in Stromgarde's ruins, and the Witherbark trolls haunt the hills. In the middle of it all lies Arathi Basin, a valley rich in gold and timber that the League of Arathor and the Forsaken Defilers fight over without end.
Written for this site from the game's lore. Further reading: Arathi Highlands on Warcraft Wiki.
