Grommash "Grom" Hellscream was the legendary chieftain of the Warsong clan, a powerful warrior, close friend, and greatest lieutenant to Warchief Thrall. He was the first orc who drank the blood of Mannoroth the Destructor,[6][7] thus binding the Horde to the Burning Legion — and he would eventually pay the ultimate price to free himself and his people from the Blood Curse.
Grommash serves as a supporting anti-hero in both Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, as well as a supporting protagonist in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. He also makes an unofficial appearance as a supporting character in Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans.
Biography
Early history
Grom was young for a chieftain, only a few years older than Durotan and Orgrim. There had been mutterings about the mysterious circumstances under which the former chieftain had died, but the Warsong clan did not challenge Grom's leadership. Upon his ascension to chieftainship, Grom's jaw had been ritually tattooed a uniform shade of black. At some point, Grom's mate Golka, bore him a son, Garrosh, though the exact date of his birth is unknown. After contacting the red pox young Garrosh was sent to live in Garadar, and Grom would never see him again.
Around 11 years BDP, Grommash led aggressive raids deep into ogre lands. When the ogres retaliated, they nearly destroyed the Warsong clan. Golka was critically injured during the battle and pleaded with him to finish her off. Disgusted at her weakness in calling for death instead of striving to live, Grom called her "a wolf with no teeth" and walked away, leaving her to suffer. He was similarly disgusted by the weakness of his other warriors who had "bent like weeds." In truth, however, he simply lacked the strength to take the life of the one he loved, and this weakness gnawed at his heart for years to come.
Grom quickly called upon his forces to hunt down the ogre raiders. However, it was a trap set by the ogre warlord and Grom was captured. The ogre warlord tried to break Grom's spirit by strapping him to a tree and taunting him over the course of many days. While his body withered and became emaciated, Grom's will never wavered. Declaring that "this wolf still has teeth," he finally bit and killed the ogre warlord when he came too close. Grom returned to lead the Warsong clan as "the Warlord with the Iron Will."
Grommash later had the tree transported to Grommashar to serve as his throne, hanging the head of his ogre tormentor from it.
Rise of the Horde
Grom was present at the Kosh'harg celebration in Nagrand. The orcs became increasingly aggressive under the secret control of Gul'dan and his Shadow Council. They constructed massive arenas where the orcs honed their warrior skills in trials of combat and death. During this period, a few clan chieftains spoke out against the growing depravity in their race. One such chieftain, Durotan of the Frostwolf clan, warned against the orcs' losing themselves to hate and fury. His words fell on deaf ears, however, as stronger chieftains such as Grom Hellscream of the Warsong clan stepped forward to champion the new age of warfare and dominance.
Prior to the creation of the Dark Portal, Grom Hellscream was the uncontested leader of the Warsong clan, marked by his slim build and black-tattooed lower jaw. Suspicions floated away the previous chieftain's death, giving rise to the notion that Grom usurped the position, rather than gain it though heredity like Durotan. Though he was stubborn, he was the first to give heed to the prospect of war when Ner'zhul warned the other clans of a "new old enemy": the draenei, and he was the first to drink Mannoroth's blood. He invaded Shattrath City against the draenei; he was described as being a tattooed, fiery-eyed massive orc carrying a wicked two-handed axe, with raven-hued hair, and his lower jaw had been colored as black as pitch. He fought against Nobundo; the vindicator managed to crush Grom's right-hand fingers and compromise his grip on Gorehowl, but Grom only smiled. He and the rest of the orcs succeeded in taking the city.
Consumed with the curse of this new bloodlust, the orcs sought to unleash their fury on any who stood before them. Sensing that the time had come, Gul'dan united the warring clans into a single unstoppable Horde. However, knowing that the various chieftains like Hellscream and Orgrim Doomhammer would vie for overall supremacy, Gul'dan set up a puppet warchief to rule over this new Horde. Blackhand the Destroyer, a particularly depraved and vicious orc warlord, was chosen to be Gul'dan's puppet. Under Blackhand's command, the Horde set out to test itself against the simple draenei.
Beyond the Dark Portal
The Warsong clan was spared the defeats of the Second War since Gul'dan manipulated Grom into staying behind on Draenor. The Horde was defeated by the Alliance of Lordaeron with Grom and his clan never having faced the humans or the Alliance in battle. Hellscream awaited a long time to venture into Azeroth and prove the dominance of his clan on the field of battle.Despite his distrust for the shaman, Grom was used with effectiveness by Ner'zhul in the aftermath of the Second War. He alongside Kargath Bladefist were summoned to join the reformed Horde. Grom was then sent to obtain the Skull of Gul'dan from Hurkan Skullsplinter. When the Dark Portal was reopened, Grom and Rexxar led the attack on Nethergarde Keep as a distraction for a team of orcs that were about to steal certain artifacts from Azeroth. When the artifacts were collected, Grom was said to remain in Azeroth and defend the portal. When the Alliance attacked the portal and entered Draenor an explosion was set to kill Grom and his clanmates but they were able to survive and retreated after their failure. Throughout the next months, he battled against the Alliance for the control of the Azerothian side of the Dark Portal, with it constantly changing hands. When the portal was destroyed by the Alliance, Grom was able to rally the Horde under his command and planned to find a new land for his orcs. At the same time while sad to leave him, Grom respected Rexxar's decision to leave the Horde.
Reign of Chaos
Grom and his Warsong clan were separated from Thrall's fleet and made landfall on Kalimdor first. Eventually, Grom and the Warsong were found by Thrall's forces as they were fighting humans. Reinforced by Thrall's forces and his Darkspear troll allies, Grom's forces managed to fend off the human incursion. Grom revealed to Thrall that the pass north through the Stonetalon Mountains were cordoned off by Alliance forces led by a girl named Jaina Proudmoore. Thrall thought it best to avoid conflict with the humans by having goblin zeppelins fly them over the pass. While Thrall and his forces went to secure the zeppelins, Grom could not contain his bloodlust and instigated attacks on the human encampments, despite being given explicit orders from Thrall to not harm the human forces. With no other choice, Thrall and his forces aided Grom in destroying all the human encampments. Grom was elated by the humans' slaughter and felt emboldened by the resurgence of the blood-curse. Thrall became concerned that Grom's bloodlust would prove to be a liability; and for disobeying direct orders from Thrall, Grom was given what was presumed to be an easy, if not orcishly demeaning mission to clear land and gather lumber for the new Horde's settlement.However, the night elves were angered when Grom's orcs began to cut down the trees in Ashenvale Forest and attacked without explanation. He received help from the goblin Neeloc Greedyfingers who gave him goblin shredders for killing a furbolg. The Warsongs under Grom managed to successfully defend themselves and kill their attackers,[22] but by doing so they caught the attention of the demigod Cenarius. Determined to avenge the deaths of the night elves who had fallen against the Warsong clan and protect the forest from what he saw as further desecration, Cenarius attempted to slaughter the orcs. Cenarius appeared to know something of the history of the orcs and was convinced they were "demon-spawned wretches" who deserved only death. In an exchange with the demigod during one skirmish Grom vehemently told him that the orcs no longer served any demons, but Cenarius didn't believe him and continued his attempts to kill them all. The orcs quickly discovered that Cenarius was invulnerable to conventional attacks. Death at Cenarius' hands seemed inevitable.
One of the troll witch doctors accompanying the Warsong clan told Grom he sensed strange energies nearby which might be able to aid them in defeating Cenarius. When Grom investigated he discovered a fountain of blood. This was the doing of the pit lord Mannoroth, who had originally enslaved the orcs after Gul'dan convinced them to drink his blood with promises of power. Mannoroth saw Cenarius as a formidable obstacle standing in the way of the Burning Legion, as he had been during the War of the Ancients. The demon poured more of his blood into the fountain on a suggestion from Tichondrius, hoping that the orcs would once again drink it and become sufficiently re-energized with demonic power to kill Cenarius. There was also another reason Mannoroth hoped they would partake of his blood...
When Grom brought his troops to the fountain, the witch doctor told him that he could sense that the fountain contained demonic energy. One of Grom's soldiers told him that if they drank from the fountain they would be going against everything they had been taught by Thrall. But to Grom, these things did not matter. Desperate to preserve his clan from this new threat, Grom drank from the fountain and either persuaded or forced those under his command to do likewise. Driven again by the demonic energies, Grom attacked the demigod Cenarius' forces. Even the demigod himself was killed by the demon-enhanced orcs.
After Cenarius fell, Mannoroth appeared. By drinking the Blood of Mannoroth, the Warsong clan was once again susceptible to the vile pit lord's control. When Mannoroth told him this Grom was horrified,[ but that horror was one of his final independent thoughts before Mannoroth exercised control and turned Grom and the rest of the clan into his slaves, causing them to despise Thrall and the rest of the Horde and make war on them and the humans, under Jaina Proudmoore, whom Thrall had since allied with. Determined to save his old friend, Thrall confronted Grom after fighting through the corrupted Warsong clan. When Thrall reached him, Grom told him the horrible truth of the demonic curse. The orc clan chieftains had willingly taken the bloodlust offered by the Burning Legion. They were not so much cursed as doomed by the willing choices made by their power-hungry leaders. Thrall (with the help of Cairne Bloodhoof and his tauren) managed to capture Grom and bring him to Jaina, who worked with other magic-users from both her forces and Thrall's to perform a ritual that would release him from his blood curse.