To start, we're introduced to Tichondrius and Mal'Ganis (who was conspicuously
absent from the last campaign, doing Light-knows-what). There's a little bit of chit-chat between those two and Kel'Thuzad, but it's nothing terribly important. Bloody, who is classified as a "Demon Knight," and Uther, who's a
different kind of Death Knight from "Evil Arthas," both arrive and greetings are exchanged, then the two groups go on their separate ways which leads into the first mission… "
Blackrock & Roll, Too!"
No, really. The first mission of this Custom Campaign is a
complete duplicate of the 6th
Reign of Chaos Undead Mission, except that instead of Arthas, you get to control a modified Tichondrius who has Archimonde's "Finger of Death" ability repurposed as a Chain Lightning spell. And, once again… I have to ask what the point of doing things "differently" is when the end result is going to be the same. But, never mind.
While the dreadlord and lich do their thing, Mal'Ganis does what he promised to do in the cutscene: find any lingering humans and
kill them. Rather than just erase them from existence, though, he gets up to his old tricks and decides it would be more fun to turn them into zombies. So, basically, it's The Culling, but
the player takes the role of Mal'Ganis and there's no rival to fight. Well, no
mandatory rival. The Scarlet Crusade is kicking about which is…
surprising. But, as the campaign doesn't specify how much time passed between the last (Arthas) Human Campaign mission and this one, it's as likely as anything that the Scarlet Crusade – which is made up of Silver Hand remnants – already took control of Vandermar Village "in the name of Lordaeron." (Uther's fall was, technically, what sparked that uprising, in the main timeline.)
In any case, Mal'Ganis goes on a little spree and converts 100 humans into zombies, then sends them away for later use. Meanwhile, Kel'Thuzad wanders down south to re-enact the
Reign of Chaos Undead finalé, "
The Destruction of Dalaran." Just like Mission 01, this is a complete copy-and-paste job. And, just like with Mission 01, the part of Arthas is played by Tichondrius. Nothing much to say, there, I guess.
Once Archimonde is summoned, he proceeds to wrecks Dalaran City. A little later on, Tichondrius calls Kel'Thuzad to an undisclosed location to bring something to his attention. It turns out that he's been spying on Mal'Ganis… and for good reason. Mal'Ganis was formulating plans of his own, keeping them secret from his brethren and allies. What is he planning? Why is he keeping secrets from the Legion? We'll come back to that, later. For now, let's shift focus onto our two
bosomest of fallen paladin buddies!
During all the brouhaha in Lordaeron, it seems that Bloody and Uther were sent up to Northrend, by Kel'Thuzad, to look for some kind of artifact. Shortly after arriving at
Daggercap Bay The Forgotten Shore of Dragonblight (again, reused loading screen assets…), they were met with resistance in the form of the Bronzebeard Dwarves! Just as the two get a handle on that situation, though, their base camp comes under attack by none other than those
nastiest of nasty beasties of the frozen north… the
Green Dragonflight!
… insert beat for cough, here.
Alright, so I had initially written a big thing about how "against lore" it was for the peace-loving Green Dragons of the Emerald Dream, who are
rarely seen on the physical plane of Azeroth, to have an entire "base" in Northrend – especially when Dragonblight is known to be well within the
Blue Dragonflight's sphere-of-influence.
However. Upon further research, I learned of a little location called the
Emerald Dragonshrine… which is directly
west of the Forgotten Shore. (New Hearthglen would be between the two, in the future.) And, upon even-
further research, it would appear that this particular branch of the Green Dragonflight is
openly hostile toward anyone not directly associated with them – ie, everyone
but themselves, thanks to a miscommunication between Nishera the Garden Keeper and a Nightmare-addled Ysera.
Buuut… upon
further-further research… the only (conscious) dragon stationed at the Emerald Dragonshrine is Nishera, herself. Otherwise? It's full of owls.
Really nasty owls. So, yeah. No dragons. Not even drakes.
I'd also like to point out that, at the beginning of the mission, Bloody makes this gem-of-a-statement: "There's no telling what's waiting for us in the dead land." Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but ten years before the Third War, Ner'zhul was fighting the
War of the Spider against the nerubian empire and
won! This…
after he had already taken
majority control over Northrend and its inhabitants, which is why the Undead Scourge has nerubian Crypt Fiends to work with, in the
first place. So,
Bloody… what
waits for you in the "dead land" of Northrend is more-than-likely
allied zombies and
other such minions of the
Lich King!
Geez…!
Okay, so. Bloody's forces wipe out the dwarven expedition and move ahead… only to be stopped by
more of Muradin's forces. Anyway, Bloody's forces move in. The dwarves seem to be playing things defensively, but the threat of the green dragons continues to hang over his undead head, bolstered by Nishera, herself, in Night Elf form. She, uh, also has some Dryads and Druids at her disposal, for some reason? And actually, there were a couple of Night Elf settlements scattered around with one, in particular, blocking the waygate to
Frostmourne Cavern the location of the artifact. Now, I'm not saying that it's
impossible for there to have been Night Elf settlements in Northrend before or during the time of the Third War… but, I'm kind of leaning toward it being
unlikely? There's no reason for Night Elves to be up there in any great number. Then again, green dragons shouldn't be up there,
either. However, after I thought about it for a good, long while, I actually
did come up with a theory as to why the dragons, dryads, and druids are up there. Or rather,
how they got up there.
The Emerald Dreamway. Hear me out.
In
World of Warcraft: Legion, Druids of the Cenarion Circle can enter The Emerald Dream through giant waygates found all across Azeroth. Yes, there's even one in Northrend – specifically, at in the Grizzly Hills. Now, at the time of this game and campaign, Ysera is asleep in The Emerald Dream – likely being tormented by The Emerald Nightmare, in fact. It could be possible that somehow,
someway, possibly through Ysera's dream-sleep, the druids made some sort of
artificial portal that links from The Emerald Dream to the Emerald Dragonshrine, thus giving Nishera a near-infinite supply of druids, dryad, and if they could swing it, green dragons.
Now, this would actually be a pretty sound theory… were it not for the fact I mentioned, earlier: green dragons are
peaceful-by-nature. That, and the whole "attack anything that isn't part of the Emerald Dragonflight" thing I also mentioned. And,
honestly? I… think I might have put more thought into this than Sagi5533 did. So… yeah. Bad writing leading to
significant inconsistencies with established lore. Again. But, hey. I
tried to salvage it, Sagi! I really
did!
Anyway, the next day at Arthas' Bloody's base camp– oh, for the love of… Yes,
really. The next mission is a modification of yet
another Reign of Chaos mission! This time? Human Mission 08:
Frostmourne. But…
but! But, unlike the
last two modifications… this one is actually
significant!
Just like with Human Mission 08, the player's attention is split between defending the base and guiding Bloody to the artifact which… if the title of the mission didn't clue you in… is Frostmourne. But, unlike Arthas' journey, there are Dwarven Expedition units sprinkled in between Bloody at the artifact. They're easily dispatched, but once Bloody reaches the cursed runeblade, he's confronted by Muradin Bronzebeard, himself! Then, after a violent battle… he
(maybe-)dies to a chunk of ice ripping through his spleen, just like in the main timeline, and Bloody claims Frostmourne, transforming into… something that actually looks pretty awesome, if I'm being honest? I mean, he's still just a flaming skull-head, but… his armor turns
pitch-black and his flames go
searing-white. He also gains some brand new (overpowered) abilities.
So, you might have noticed I didn't mention Uther, yet. Where did Uther go? Apparently, he just randomly wandered off, leaving the base to fend for itself. Where did he wander
to, though? Turns out, he was following Bloody the whole time and, under the gentle influence of the Lich King, decided it would be a good idea to attack the
other fallen paladin. It, uh… it doesn't go well for him.
With the traitor out of his way, Bloody brings down the
full force of his new powers down on the Green Dragonflight and Dwarven Expedition, then decides to head back to Lordaeron to secure victory – but not before raising Uther as his personal zombie. Uther vanishes, after this point, but I suppose he'll be back, later on?
While that's happening, Arthas and a party of knights have arrived in Lordaeron, desperately searching for Uther and King Terenas. Eventually, one of the knights finds the defiled corpse of the former king and… then the game tries to play a cinematic from
World of Warcraft. Badly. No, seriously. From what I can gather, Sagi5533 recorded audio from the opening cinematic of
Wrath of the Lich King and remake the dream sequence in
Warcraft III. It looks fine and makes sense in the context it's given, but… the audio sounds like it was recorded using a two-dollar microphone, then edited in Microsoft Sound Recorder. Also, there's some rock 'n roll song playing in the background. It's weird and I badly-done.
Meanwhile, Mal'Ganis mounts an attack on Stromgarde after infecting them with tainted grain. Like Stratholme. Again.
Yay? I think this mission is supposed to be one of those "build up and have fun" missions. Very low-intensity and a nice break from the
last three missions that overwhelm the player with
air raids. So, that's perfectly fine. I just don't have much to say about it since the story just seems like more "Mal'Ganis is a sneaky jerk" stuff. He goes in, fights the Syndicate…
knights (what), clears out the Boulderfist ogres, and prepares to set up shop… until Bolvar Fordragon, Galen Trollbane, and Falstad Wildhammer all come in,
literally from out of
nowhere, and wreck the joint. It threw me, I have to admit, and I'm sure this would have had more of an impact on me if I knew the significance of this union, but for the most part, it just felt like it was tossed in for the sake of randomness? Or, like, the creator just
really likes dumping on Mal'Ganis or
really wanted to bring back Stromgarde and "Old" Arathor? I genuinely have no idea…
The final mission is a simple task: kill Mal'Ganis. I say "simple" because I feel like Bloody could probably do it single-handedly, after his power-up… but, I know that's not true. You get a small regiment of troops to escort him, as well as the company of Kel'Thuzad, either way. At least until Kel'Thuzad decides the two of them should split up with one going north and one going south. I'm not sure it makes any difference which way Bloody goes because he ends up fighting Mal'Ganis one-on-one, either way. Even with the power of 100 ghouls pouring into his body, he no match for the wielder of Frostmourne.
You'd think that'd be it, but nope. Mal'Ganis was holding some random lady captive, the whole time. Well… not so much "random" as "specific." Specifically-speaking, he was holding
Bloody's mother captive! He, uh… seems
nonplused by the whole thing, to be honest, but it does give us a
little emotional drama and intrigue with the lady realizing her son has become this flaming, undead
beast, I suppose.
It's also worth noting that if you beat that mission on Hard, you get a bonus epilogue/preview of the next campaign. I think… that it's exactly what was missing from the Human Campaign.
Humor. The kind of humor that doesn't detract from a good story.
Reign of Chaos and
The Frozen Throne both had it. And, thanks to this little unlockable thing? So does Arthas Campaign.
It, uh… it does go on for a while, though…