Battle for Hillsbrad (Southshore-Tarren Mill)

The Battle for Hillsbrad (or the Battle of Hillsbrad) was a long-standing grudge war between the Horde and the Alliance in Hillsbrad Foothills.

=History=

Arch Lord Varimathras had sent his agents to spy on the humans of Hillsbrad for some time When the time was right, Varimathras had High Executor Darthalia wage war on the humans of Hillsbrad so that they could quell humanity and buy their apothecaries enough time to develop the new plague. Darthalia began her offensive by targeting the northernmost farms of Hillsbrad Fields, especially the farmers, farmhands, and landowners. After the attack shook up the humans, the Forsaken began murdering the Hillsbrad peasants. With the Hillsbrad humans reeling from these assaults, the Hillsbrad townspeople began to organize themselves into a militia. Darthalia had Horde agents slay the Hillsbrad blacksmiths, and steal their Shipment of Iron to hinder their proliferation of weapons. She also put a bounty on prominent Hillsbrad humans who have proven themselves formidable enemies of the Forsaken. Afterward, the Horde began to attack the Hillsbrad leadership and their mining operations in Azurelode Mine. With Hillsbrad crippled, the Horde then purged Dun Garok of their dwarven forces.

The Battle for Hillsbrad eventually escalated into a battleground between the towns of Southshore and Tarren Mill. Alliance adventurers from Southshore and Horde adventurers from Tarren Mill frequently clashed in full-blown skirmishes in this notorious conflict. This can be seen with Novice Thaivand who directs adventurers to resurrect Helcular, who proceeds to battle the inhabitants of Southshore before either being driven off or fleeing from the town.

Cataclysm
The Forsaken forces later marched onto the town of Southshore and annihilated most Alliance life within the region by deploying a potent strain of the New Plague. Magistrate Henry Maleb led the ones who managed to escape Southshore and fled to Fenris Keep. The Ruins of Southshore is left inhospitable and will be so for several decades. The ramifications of the Forsaken Blight forced the high echelons of the Horde to reconsider the free use of such a potent weapon. Instead, the Horde has issued a diluted version of the Forsaken Blight for the Forsaken to use. Some Hillsbrad humans fled either to the Arathi Highlands — in which they ended up slaughtered before reaching Thoradin's Wall — or north into the Silverpine Forest — where they found sanctuary in Fenris Keep and eventually joined up with the worgen.

The town of Hillsbrad Fields was later finally destroyed by the Forsaken, concluding the Hillsbrad Foothills campaign initiated by Varimathras years ago. A few Hillsbrad residents and Magistrate Burnside stayed behind and led a resistance but were eventually defeated and imprisoned by the Forsaken war machine. Those who stayed to defend Hillsbrad eventually became prisoners in what is now known as the Sludge Fields, a Forsaken prison where the mad Warden Stillwater cruelly experiments on his prisoners and even fellow Forsaken.

After years of battle, ranging from player-guerilla warfare to all-out raids, to simply individual murders, the Tarren Mill-Southshore conflict finally reached its conclusion. The Forsaken would see Southshore drenched in blight and rendered annihilated - for all intents and purposes, uninhabitable for a long while to come. With that, the legendary battles in Hillsbrad came to a complete end.

Several of Southshore's inhabitants were able to flee, including its leader Magistrate Henry Maleb, though many were killed. All that remains of Southshore is a blighted wreck; Helcular himself stands victorious near its ruins.

Tarren Mill itself has been fortified, and the presence of the powerful High Warlord Cromush serves as a deterrent for the hit-and-run killings once witnessed in the region.

Despite the Forsaken eliminating the human presence in the region and claiming former Alliance towns, there is frequent guerrilla warfare with the Bloodfang Worgen of the Bloodfang pack and their leader.

=Legacy=


 * As Kingslayer Orkus fondly recalls, the wars and conflicts of Hillsbrad were 'glory days' that came and passed all too quickly.
 * With that, the Tarren Mill-Southshore conflict has become a part of Warcraft history.

See WoWPedia