Azeroth, a world embroiled in conflict. The Horde and The Alliance locked in a constant state of war, with skirmishes occurring every day in contested areas. But to fight a war, you need soldiers. To fight a war across a continent, you need a lot of soldiers. And a lot of soldiers means you need a lot of food and supplies. To get those supplies to distant battlefields requires caravans and guards to ward off bandits, plus repairs to ships and wagons. All these things cost coin, and a lot of it.
That was a lesson the Alliance, and especially Stormwind, learned the hard way. In the year 7 ADP (After Dark Portal), directly after the second war and the reconstruction of Stormwind, the kingdom swelled its military and sent them far and wide. Not just across their lands, but to other Alliance states as well. This massive campaign drained the Stormwind coffers, but the pressure from the Horde forced Stormwind to keep expanding. For years a financial crisis brewed in the vibrant manors of the noble district, one that threatens to topple not just the kingdom of Stormwind, but the Alliance as a whole.
The territory of Westfall was a symptom and cause of this financial crisis. Once called the breadbasket of Stormwind, Westfall was deemed of little strategic importance and troops were pulled out to be sent to contested areas. With the lack of organized resistance, a group of criminals and cutthroats called the Defias Brotherhood moved in with a cruelty unseen before in these relatively peaceful lands. They would slaughter families, burn crops, and even salt the earth to scare off the Westfall farmers. To make matters even worse, bands of gnolls started roaming deeper and deeper into previously human territory, attacking and eating caravans of fleeing peasants.
The nobles of Stormwind learned about the rise of the Defias Brotherhood in Westfall fairly quickly from refugees flooding into Elwynn Forest. But they dismissed the threat and decided to refrain from sending soldiers to protect the territory. They believed it would be a waste of resources, and that once they were done with the bigger threats, they could send a sizable force to retake Westfall. Only when the food shipments dwindled and ceased completely did they realize what had happened. Now they were facing the prospects of famine in Stormwind, and the Defias were too deeply entrenched to dislodge with anything less than a full-scale invasion, something they could not afford to do. As children cried and farms burned, the nobles could do nothing but regret.
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But to the murlocs of Westfall, life was good. They were left alone along the shores to hunt and live in relative peace. Since their arrival many years ago, they had expanded along the Longshore coast, establishing new villages and offshoot tribes.
The expansion had brought them into conflict with a few gnoll packs, but they had moved further inland to find weaker prey. Left to their own devices, the murlocs lived for a generation in relative peace. Their population boomed until they had expanded along the entirety of the Longshore coast.
It is with one of those murlocs that our story begins, in the year 12 ADP.
In one of the newest villages, established just 4 years ago, half buried in the sand, and egg shakes. As cracks start to form on its shell, an elderly murloc slowly comes out of the water and makes its way over to the egg.
It took a couple of minutes for the eggshell to be fully broken. Once it was, the elder carefully picked up the baby and cradled it in its arms as it started to walk over to the village proper. By the time they had reached the outermost building, his arms had begun to feel weak. With a large, toothy smile he spoke to the baby in his arms.
“You are big, young one, big for a tadpole at least. Now let us find your mother.”
During the ride, the baby murloc managed to open her eyes. As she took in the world for the first time, there was only one thought on her mind.
“What the hell happened?”