Badlands Wars

The Badlands Wars, also known as The Prospector's War and the Truesilver Wars, were a series of minor conflicts and skirmishes in the region of Khaz Modan known as The Badlands, taking place almost ninety years before the Orcish arrival on Azeroth (89-72 BOA). Enterprising Dwarven, Gnomish, and Goblin prospectors were drawn to the region following a quick succession of large Truesilver and Gold vein discoveries in parts of the Badlands. An armed expedition organized by the Venture Company entered the area almost immediately and continued to operate until its withdrawal in 72 BOA. Though the Venture Company's official withdrawal is often noted as the proper end of the Wars, conflict between miners and bandits would continue for nearly a decade after.

Veinstrikes (89 - 87 BOA)
Prospectors had been drawn to the Badlands for many centuries prior to the Wars for its rich mineral content and notable presence of gold and truesilver veins. Primarily Dwarven and Goblin origin, the prospectors were mostly loners who sought the company of the empty landscape and the sound of potential riches being drawn from the earth. Eighty-nine years before the opening of the Dark Portal, known infamously as the Year of the Lucky Strikes, six large truesilver and gold veins were struck by prospectors in a two month period. Word spread quickly and the claims were soon opened up as full-scale mining operations.

Eventually they would be known as: Though two of the claims (Fuull and Hredd) were sold to the Kingdom of Ironforge, two truesilver claims were bought by the Venture Company of Kezan. Quick to jump at the potential financial gains, the Company sent in a Legion to guard their mining operations and soon began to muscle their way into the other large veins. Eventually, the Legionnaires began to harass and even kill lone prospectors who were in potential profitable areas. Friction was immediate but without an organized front the prospectors suffered the harassment for a time.
 * Mine Dwallen (Gold) (Venture Company)
 * Mine Gida (Truesilver) (Venture Company)
 * The Fuull Claim (Truesilver) (Ironforge)
 * The Hredd Claim (Truesilver) (Ironforge)
 * Feller's Mine (Gold) (Unsold)
 * The Backlands Trap (Truesilver) (Venture Company)

Nearly two years passed after the Venture Company's arrival in the Badlands before the prospector's friction towards the Company boiled over into conflict. As they expanded their reach, forcing prospectors to work for them or be removed forcibly from their claims, more prospectors began to band together for safety from the Venture Company thugs. Resistance was purely done in self-defense until the brutal slaying of a respected Dwarven prospector named Midden 'Old Middy' Slammerhand.

Assault on Mine Gida (87 BOA)
Mine Gida was the first large truesilver vein discovered and the second major claim in the Year of the Lucky Strikes. Struck by Old Middy (and named after his deceased wife), he sold it to the Venture Company for a handsome profit but remained in the region hoping to serve as a voice for the other prospectors to the Company. His death at the hands of Gida's overseer, Tobin Gearflank, sparked a conspiracy to avenge Old Middy's death. One-hundred prospectors, mostly Dwarves but numerous Goblin, Human, and even Gnome prospectors stood with them and attacked the mining operation at Gida.

Destroying mining equipment, picks, setting fire to the Company's buildings, and stealing cartloads of truesilver ore, the prospectors assaulted the mine and surprising the Venture operation. Rifleman shot from the ridgeline and picked off Bruisers from a distance while homemade mortars launched smoke grenades onto the site. Eventually running off the mine workers and cornering Tobin, the prospectors hung the overseer from the mine's entryway. His body was left to hand for several days and the dead left to rot in the dry sun while vultures and coyotes picked at their corpses. The workers returned with more Venture Company Legionnaires several days later expecting a fight with the prospectors only to find Gida abandoned, save for the corpses of the fallen Company workers including Tobin. The mine began operating again that evening after new equipment was brought in.

The aftermath of this was increased tension between the prospectors and the Company. More lone prospectors were indiscriminately harassed in an attempt to learn the identities of Gida's assailants. Increasing numbers of prospectors found beaten and half-dead caused alarm for loners out in the hills. Though some joined the Company's employment, many sided with Prospectors. Several prospectors returned to Ironforge to lobby for the Kingdom's official support in removing the Venture Company from the Badlands but Senatorial bickering (and in one scandal, Venture Company bribery) left the region under-supported. Citizens of the Kingdom, hearing the plight of the prospectors, began to ride to the Badlands to assist the beleaguered miners against the Venture Company through force of arms.

Rise of Lethlor Camp (86 - 85 BOA)
As the Venture Company fortified its position in the far western portion of the Badlands, the prospectors began to flock to the eastern ravines for protection. One major ravine known as Lethlor became a major tent city for the prospectors and the newly arrived gunslinging 'newbeards' from the Kingdom of Ironforge. The 'newbeards' became the backbone of the Badlands militia, defending the prospecting groups from Venture Company thuggery and organizing the defense of Lethlor. However, with the arrival of the newbeards came a new wave of bandits. While bandits had been a burden to the prospectors for years, the Lucky Strikes attracted them in greater droves. Some opted for employment with the Venture Company while many simply assaulted miners on their own at opportune moments. Lethlor Ravine's growth attracted them in great numbers for the anonymity and easy areas to slip away into the crags.

Lethlor Camp was prone to fires. The dry weather, heavy sunlight, and general drunkenness that followed after a hard day of work was often the cause of burning tents and burning beards in Lethlor, though the bandits were known to set fires themselves to steal away goods, ore, nuggets, and ingots in the confusion. Lethlor Camp would persist as a tent city for over a decade after the Venture Company's withdrawal from the Badlands in 72 BOA. It would slowly become less populated until finally ceasing to exist in the mid 50s BOA. Some hovels had been carved into the Ravine's walls and would persist for many more decades until the Cataclysm, which saw many of the Badland's southern craglands and ravines crumble. These hovels collapsed in on themselves in the upheaval, leaving little evidence behind.

Venture Expansion (85 - 82 BOA)
While the company's assailing of prospectors continued, overseers and the Company's own miners sought own new claims of their own, expanding all along the western edges of the Badlands.

