Stranglethorn Vale

Stranglethorn Vale is a vast, steaming jungle at the southern tip of the Eastern Kingdoms, crowded with tigers, raptors, apes and panthers, and with the ruins of a fallen empire. This was the heart of the Gurubashi trolls, whose capital, Zul'Gurub, still stands deep in the north-east. About fifteen hundred years before the Dark Portal, their priests summoned the blood god Hakkar the Soulflayer, and a civil war tore the empire apart. The Zandalari trolls helped bring Hakkar down, but his priests survived, and today his followers are working to bring him back. The Zandalari have returned to stop them.

The jungle has been carved up by newcomers ever since. On the southern coast, the goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel took the port of Booty Bay from the trolls long ago and turned it into a neutral pirate haven, now under threat from the Bloodsail Buccaneers. The Venture Company mines and logs the jungle around Lake Nazferiti, and in the north, Colonel Kurzen's expedition has gone rogue in its compound while those who refused to follow him hold the Rebel Camp. The great hunter Hemet Nesingwary has set up a camp to hunt the jungle's beasts, and in the middle of the vale the Gurubashi Arena draws fighters from across the world.

The Horde keeps Grom'gol Base Camp on the western coast, a landing for zeppelins from Orgrimmar and a base against the Bloodscalp and Skullsplitter trolls who still hold the old Gurubashi ruins.

Written for this site from the game's lore. Further reading: Stranglethorn Vale on Warcraft Wiki.