Freedom Rises

''During the busy bustling of the market afternoon, covered caravans make their way into the crowded market centers of the major towns and cities of the Eastern Kingdoms: Stormwind, Ironforge, Stromgarde, Hearthglen, Dawnhaven and numerous others. Moving quickly, the men inside are quick to exist and distribute their precious cargo of pamphlets and handbills. ''

Distributed on the 4th of March, 623 K.C.



People of the Stromgarde, of Stormwind, of Khaz’Modan, of Lordaeron, of Blackmarsh, cast your eyes upon these words and heed them, for today they carry unto you a message unlike those cast previously thine eyes. Today I call upon you to entertain a new notion in our great struggle, a notion that we must win the case for freedom and equality on the merits of our actions, not the rousing tenor of our speech.

Comrades, today I say unto you that we all must shoulder a great burden for it is our duty to cast the first stone in dismantling the fabricated chains that have, for so long, imprisoned us all. We must enable the peoples of Azeroth to look past the glittering lights of the Church, beyond the showmanship of the corrupted nobility, and to the harsh reality of this unfair world, to the hard truths that stand before us as towering and stagnating monoliths. Well shall break this illusion and we shall do it not with speeches that ring pleasing in the ear, but with words that are true, good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with words that will rouse people to their senses. It is our duty; it is our destiny, to make the people of these Eastern Kingdoms hear our cries of plight and sorrow, to make them understand our anguish. We must convince them that we don't have to settle for this pitiful caste system that has been forced upon us; this duplicitous lie told to supplicate the honest people of this world. No, we must convince them that that we can have something greater, something beyond the tyranny of the nobility, the confusion of the Church, and the slavery of this broken system of governance, we shall tell them that we –can- stand indivisible, that –we- can be the shining beacon for all of the people, that we can –defeat- the corroded and decaying temple to avarice erected as our prison.

Now, my fellow men and women of the world, we should not be embarrassed or dismayed or chagrined if the process of unifying the downtrodden has proven difficult, even wrenchingly painful at times but we must understand their shiftlessness and hesitance, for it has been but recently that they have felt the cold sword of tyranny against their throats. Indeed, many of you, as have I, have been cornered and bullied by the agents of tyranny, threatened with my life should I not cease my activities; but I shall not yield to agents of a narcissistic Queen.

We must remember though, that, in addition to the coercive cruelty of the governments, before us we face the supposed colossus of tradition; the proxy of tyranny. To wee people of modest means, this giant can seem insurmountable, indestructible, unstoppable. I am here to tell you that this leviathan, this false idol, this fetid corpse, is not anything but a rotted and bloated shell. A thin layer of decaying brass upon which our so called rulers pray and bite upon their fingernails, hoping with all hope that one day we people do not wake to see their idol for what it is; a hollow and empty threat.

Remember comrades of Arathor, siblings of the Eastern Kingdoms, that unlike any other movement, we embrace men and women of every nationality, every philosophy, and every economic class. In our great family we have gathered everyone from the abject poor of Stromgarde to the enlightened and affluent of mighty Stormwind. It is in between these extremes that there exists also the heart of our grand revolution: the middling classes. These are those people who are not rich enough to be emancipated from the complete slavery of gold, silver and copper, but also those not poor enough to be forced at sword point to pour their sweat, tears and blood into the hard earth of the tenement farms in Blackmarsh, Loch’Modan, and Seastone. This is the artisan class, those people who work for a living because they have to, not because some priest told them it was a convenient way to fill the interval between birth and eternity.

<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">We speak for the impoverished youth of the peasantry who demand an education and a future, a future that the Regent Brisby has offered to the young of Arathi, a future that, through the propagation of her enlightened ideals, shall spread to the children all over the globe. We speak for the thousands of oppressed men-at-arms who are scrounged up from the lands to serve as fodder for the war-games of bickering nobles. We speak for reasonable people who are fighting to preserve our very existence from a macho intransigence of the monarchy of the north, and the dwarfish triarchy of the south that refuses to make intelligent attempts to discuss the possibility peace with our enemy. They refuse. They refuse, because they believe we can pile swords, pikes, munitions, and cannon so high that they will pierce the clouds and the sight of them will frighten our enemies into submission. They refuse because to them, this all-consuming war is but a game of favors and titles, a chance to ride in grand cavalry charges, a chance for them to win glory and riches; not a fight for survival.

We people, we commoners, still have a dream. We still believe in this world’s future. And this is our answer to the question of our future:

We believe in only the government we need, not the government we are –told- we need.

We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and transparency, fairness that goes beyond platitudes, that doesn't distort or promise to do things that we know it can't do.

We believe in a government strong enough to use words like "love" and "compassion" and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities instead of damning us to lives predetermined by birth.

We believe in encouraging the talented and helping the weak; a government where the wealth of the land is not hoarded in tall castles but given to the people who built them.

We believe that a world as rich and lush as ours, one not shattered such as the Outland, that is as affluent and filled with opportunity, need not be led by those who would cast aside whole fortunes of gold and silver on vast armies erected for the purpose of glory;   not protection.

We believe that those riches ought to be used to assist the people in their struggles,   that those less fortunate ought to be able to find work, that there should be shelter for the homeless refugees of a war torn land,   that there should be care for the elderly, for those with child, and hope for the destitute.

We believe in firm but fair law and order.

We believe in a government that is open and just in its affairs.

We believe in civil rights for everyone, from the lowest peasant to the loftiest of monarchs; we believe in human rights.

We believe we must be the family of this torn world, that we must recognize that we are bound one to another, that the problems of an elderly school master in Ambermill are our problems; that the future of the poor peasant child in Stromgarde City is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Dawnhaven, a man whose leg was rended from his body during a forlorn charge ordered so that the vanity of a Queen could be filled, to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a forgotten woman in the shattered land of Loch Modan is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.

That struggle to live with dignity is the real story of the eternal struggle of we people of the lower classes. And it's a story, ladies and gentlemen, that I didn't read in a book, or learn in a classroom. No, it is a story that I heard from the mouths of our new champions, our new heroes, our great saviors in this time of uncertainty.

It has become apparent, even back in Arathi, that there are those who would see the homeland of Freedom stripped of its birthright, those who would seek to undermine our shining city within the Highlands so as to undermine your own destinies. Those men are the wretched Count Manstein and the despicable Baron Garibald. These foul men, paragons of a spiteful church and a avaricious nobility stood up and opposed the just Regent Brisby in her most recent effort to bring freedom to our world. Through her magnanimous rule, she allowed the nobles to meet, she allowed them to realize their false visions and come peacefully to the correct doctrine of equality. Standing beside her, as an agent of the most righteous character and alliance, was the Countess Seastone, the Lady Melysa Marwyn, who, as a true voice of the people, proposed that we be given our lawful and inalienable rights. Unfortunately for our great scions, our revolutionary leaders of Brisby and Marwyn, did the worm of the Church and the coward of Hasic endeavor to filibuster the proceedings and render our reform inert. I tell you now great people of the Eastern Kingdoms, these people are our enemy, they are the puppeteers of your enslavement and their masters in Stormwind and Blackmarsh shall continue to oppress you through their proxies so long as you remain content to cower and simper at their every threat.

Let these foul provocateurs and their masters know your justice.

Now, it will happen. It will happen if we make it happen; if you and I make it happen. And I ask you now, comrades, brothers and sisters, for the good of all of us, for the love of this great nation, for the family of this world, for the love of those faithful souls who would lead us from perdition: Please, make this world, this shattered and broken world, remember. MAKE THEM REMEMBER HOW FUTURES ARE BUILT!

The most humble servant of the people,

Champion of Brisby, Herald of Marwyn,

Ranves Darn