Lothar

In the original, tragic timeline, Lothar, the Lion of Azeroth, was destined to fall. And the cruelest twist of fate? The very instrument of his demise would be the sword he trusted above all others, the blade that had been his constant companion through fire and blood!

This wasn't just any shiny piece of steel. This holy sword, often mistaken by the masses as the ancient Sword of the King, passed down through generations from Emperor Thoradin himself, was far, far more. Or, to be more precise, the "Sword of the King" paraded before the public was merely a flimsy cover, a cleverly woven tale to conceal the true, cosmic identity of the blade.

Cast your minds back, if you dare, a staggering twenty-five thousand years. The primordial blade, the Dark Judge, was torn asunder, split into two searing fragments after the cataclysmic betrayal of the rogue Titan God of War, Sargeras. One piece, Tish'arak, found its way into the mighty grasp of Aggramar the Avenger. The other, Gorimbol, became the grim possession of Sargeras the Destroyer.

As Sargeras, consumed by his destructive ambition, moved heaven and hell to reclaim Tish'arak, intending to fuse it with Gorimbol into the monstrous Gor'thrak – a weapon capable of summoning the full, terrifying power of the Dark Judge to obliterate the Pantheon – Aman'thul, the All-Father, proposed a desperate, audacious counter-measure: to forge a weapon capable of standing against Gor'thrak itself.

But this was no mere blacksmith's task. This would be a feat of cosmic proportions, fraught with impossible difficulty. The Dark Judge was a terrifying fusion of good and evil, light and shadow. What, then, should its newly forged counterpart embody? Pure, unadulterated light. Absolute, unyielding goodness.

Golganneth the Thunderer scoured the very cosmos, unearthing the most pristine, potent casting materials in the universe. Khaz'goroth the Forger, with the might of a thousand stars in his hammer, began the arduous task of shaping this divine blade, a sword of unimaginable power. Norgannon the Dreamweaver, the very essence of arcane knowledge, poured almost every ounce of his boundless strength into its intricate enchantments. And finally, Aggramar the Avenger, with a sacrifice that echoed through creation, infused his own noble soul into the nascent blade. They named it: Eskani, the Punisher.

Just as the sword was on the cusp of completion, disaster struck. Sargeras the Destroyer, leading the infernal might of the Burning Legion, launched a full-scale assault on the Pantheon. The gods, fighting with every fiber of their being, managed to complete the weapon in a desperate, last-ditch effort. But the sheer, explosive power unleashed during the interrupted forging process ripped the newly completed blade from the Pantheon's grasp, flinging it across the nascent cosmos to land on the newly formed world of Azeroth.

Though the gods yearned to reclaim their masterpiece, the Burning Legion, a relentless tide of demonic fury, demanded their immediate attention. The search for the sword was put on hold, and over the long, agonizing eons, the incident faded into the forgotten annals of cosmic history.

More than twenty thousand years later, three intrepid travelers, on a journey that would forever alter the fate of Azeroth, stumbled upon the weapon in a desolate, forgotten cave. They were none other than young Prince Llane Wrynn, the enigmatic Guardian Medivh, and the valiant Sir Anduin Lothar.

Only a soul of the purest, most unblemished character could wield such a blade. Fortunately, among these three, one possessed that rare, invaluable quality: Anduin Lothar.

And here lies the cruel twist, the divergence from the history Duke knew like the back of his hand: the very instant the sword recognized Lothar as its rightful master, it didn't just appear in his hand. No, it merged with the humble, ancestral Sword of the King that Lothar had carried for generations.

Most of the time, the blade appeared as a thin, exquisitely crafted one-handed sword, unassuming and elegant. But when Lothar needed to fight, when his very will commanded it, the sword would erupt in a blinding flash of golden light, transforming into a colossal, two-handed broadsword. The sacred aura radiating from it was so potent, it could send any evil it encountered straight back to whatever hell-hole it crawled out of.

The enigmatic Guardian Medivh, with his vast knowledge of ancient lore, bestowed upon this magnificent blade a new name: Quel'Zaram, which, in the melodic tongue of the High Elves, meant "the Noble Sword."

The sword, awakened from its twenty-five-thousand-year slumber, became Lothar's unwavering companion. Anduin Lothar would later wield it to carve a bloody path through Karazhan itself. By some stroke of sheer, improbable luck, Duke also gained a brief, fleeting recognition from the sword, using its power to plunge it into Medivh, who was possessed by Sargeras, and banish Sargeras's vile soul back into the abyss.

However, this magnificent blade, forged in the fires of cosmic conflict, possessed a fatal, ironic flaw: it simply refused to be used against individuals of truly noble character. When its wielder dared to raise it against such a person, its immense power would simply… vanish, leaving it as nothing more than a glorified butter knife.

And here's where the cosmic joke truly landed: no one, not a single soul in the Alliance, had ever in their wildest dreams imagined that the brutal, bloodthirsty leader of the Orcish Horde, Chieftain Orgrim Doomhammer, the architect of countless massacres across Azeroth, would actually be deemed a "noble" man.

Yes, it's true! Though Orgrim had orchestrated untold slaughter, the driving force behind every single one of his savage actions was, in his twisted mind, the sheer, unadulterated continuation of his own race. And as a result, Quel'Zaram, the Noble Sword, with its infuriatingly high moral standards, directly judged him as a noble individual and, at the most critical moment of Lothar's fierce duel with Orgrim, refused to unleash its indestructible, divine power.

You could say that for Lothar, his nobility was his triumph, and his nobility was also his downfall.

Lothar's pure character allowed him to master Quel'Zaram. He had led his army through the blood-soaked battlefields of Silverpine Forest, an unstoppable force, an invincible champion. With the sole exception of Grom Hellscream, wielding his monstrous Gorehowl, no one could stand against him.

But then, in the heat of his fateful duel with Orgrim, Quel'Zaram, the Noble Sword, was suddenly downgraded to the equivalent of an ordinary iron skillet. And in that agonizing instant, it was shattered to pieces by Orgrim's semi-artifact, the mighty Doomhammer. This hammer, this cursed, legendary weapon, not only obliterated Quel'Zaram's physical form but also slammed into Lothar's chest with the force of a thunderclap.

Anduin Lothar, the Lion of Azeroth, died an utterly unjust death, a victim of cosmic irony and a very large hammer.

In this life, nine times out of ten, things don't go your way. The longer Duke lived, the more he felt the crushing weight of missed opportunities, the sting of countless regrets. After being flung through time, Duke found the very thought of any familiar face, any ally he'd come to care for, passing away forever, completely unacceptable. And the hero he respected most, the legendary Anduin Lothar? That was simply unthinkable.

From the moment Duke arrived in this world, penniless and powerless, to his meteoric rise, Llane and Anduin had been his rock. They had given him unwavering support, never once holding him back, always pushing him forward. Even if Llane hadn't died in this timeline, thanks to Duke's meddling, Anduin wouldn't have had to kiss King Terenas's ring, begging for a glimmer of hope for a fatherless Varian. Nor would Anduin have had to fight alone on the front lines, accumulating a glorious record for the Alliance. None of this, however, diminished Anduin's truly noble character.

Since taking the reins as the Alliance's commander-in-chief, Anduin had never once, not even subtly, favored any single nation's army in any military operation. Those who had the chops rose to the occasion; those who didn't, well, they found themselves at the bottom of the pile. Even when King Terenas had hinted, more times than Duke could count, that he hoped Lordaeron's army might get a cushier mission, Anduin had simply ignored him, like a buzzing fly.

It was his unwavering fairness and justice that set a shining example for the entire Alliance, creating a truly egalitarian atmosphere where merit, not political favor, reigned supreme.

Therefore, from every conceivable angle, Duke had absolutely no reason, no excuse, to let Anduin Lothar die at the hands of Orgrim Doomhammer.

And here's where the real head-scratcher came in.

If they wanted to seize this last, golden opportunity to cripple the Horde, they had to move now. Slaughtering the Horde, however, was a dishonorable act in the eyes of most knights, and it was bound to clash head-on with the upright, principled stances of Anduin and his ilk. If that shining nobility was tarnished, then Anduin Lothar would no longer be the Anduin Lothar Duke admired.

On the other hand, if Duke chose to save Anduin's life, then given Lothar's unwavering moral compass, even if he survived, when that scoundrel Orgrim Doomhammer chose to surrender for the sake of his orcs' survival, Anduin would never, in a million years, allow Duke to simply butcher him.

And then, years down the line, a whole new generation of orcs, fattened on the Alliance's coffers, would rise up and shout that classic, infuriating phrase: "Orcs will never be slaves!" This, Duke knew, would absolutely chap his hide.

So, what in the blazes could he do to have his cake and eat it too?

Duke's cunning plan began by using the raw, visceral hatred of the people to deliver a gut-punch to the hearts of Anduin and Llane. Then, he invoked the revered name of Emperor Thoradin, systematically lowering their psychological bottom line as much as possible. And finally, he prepared to unleash his ultimate, devastating move against the orcs…