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Thrall (birthname Go'el), son of Durotan (born the year 0 ADP), was the Warchief of the restored orcish Horde and ruler of the red land of Durotar in Kalimdor. Before the Cataclysm, he was Warchief of all the Horde, but temporarily gave leadership to Garrosh Hellscream in order to lead the Earthen Ring's effort with Farseer Nobundo against the Twilight's Hammer cult and elemental imbalance afflicting Azeroth caused by the awakening of Deathwing.After Garrosh's tyranny was overthrown, Thrall renounced his claim on the title of Warchief and instead gave the position to his close friend and ally, Vol'jin.
Personality
Despite Thrall’s open acceptance of visitors into his society, the orcs have not yet relinquished all of their old hatreds and preconceptions about other races. Still, they honor his leadership and will treat visitors to Durotar fairly, albeit somewhat roughly. He takes individuals at face value and treats them with respect until their actions prove that they should be dealt with otherwise. Even when crimes are committed, the harshest punishment that Thrall will mete out is exile — banishment into the almost lifeless wastelands of the Barrens, where the elements judge who lives and who dies. However, if someone under his leadership causes dishonorable and unnecessary bloodshed, or worse, consorts with demons, Thrall's policy is clear: a death sentence carried out with the help of the Doomhammer.
To friends, Thrall is warm and generous, freely swapping stories and information. Hospitality is extended to everyone, but Thrall expects all visitors to contribute in some way to Orgrimmar’s survival. Visiting hunters often bring meat or fur in exchange for refuge from the elements, and human traders from Theramore Isle periodically bring casks of salt ale and seed for crops. While in Orgrimmar, visitors are under Thrall’s protection and he will not tolerate any threats or violence against them.
Thrall is a natural-born leader. He is rarely alone, and in battle often spends much of his time directing his troops. In solo combat his tactics are subtle. He mixes a judicious amount of melee with powerful spellcasting to great effect.
Biography
Thrall is the son of Durotan, former chieftain of the Frostwolf clan, and Draka. As a baby, he was found amongst the bloody bodies of his murdered parents by Aedelas Blackmoore, commander of the internment camps which held orcs after the end of the Second War. Blackmoore gave him the name Thrall, which was another word for "slave" in the human tongue. Blackmoore returned with Thrall to his fortress, Durnholde Keep, raising him as a gladiator with all the savagery of an orc, but with the keen strategic intellect of a human. He was trained and taught by many, wet-nursed by a human woman, and grew to befriend her daughter, Taretha Foxton. Thrall proved to be an excellent student and a phenomenal fighter.
He was clever, quick, and enormous even by orc standards. However, Blackmoore's abusive beatings both in and out of the ring began to take its toll. Taretha wrote Thrall letters and secretly delivered them to him in his cage within books, and he wrote back to her. Eventually, he wrote to Taretha that he wished to escape.
Taretha assisting Thrall as depicted in Warcraft Legends 2
Taretha created a diversion inside Durnholde Keep which allowed Thrall to escape from his cell unnoticed. They met outside the fortress by a cave, where Taretha gave him provisions and supplies. He then left Durnholde, hoping to never return.
Thrall was later captured and taken to an internment camp run by Lorin Remka. It was here that he met an old orc with glowing red eyes named Kelgar. Kelgar told him of the corruption of Gul'dan, and how the old ways had been so much better for the Horde. He told Thrall that the only one still thinking of embracing this was the undefeated Grom Hellscream, Chieftain of the Warsong clan. When another prisoner told Thrall that Blackmoore had arrived at the camp looking for him, Thrall escaped again and searched for Grom Hellscream.
The orcs
After finding Grom Hellscream and proving himself, Thrall was taken under Hellscream's wing and taught the Orcish tongue. Grom revealed to him that Thrall was part of the exiled Frostwolf clan, as evidenced by the tattered swaddling cloth Thrall showed him. After spending some time with Hellscream, Thrall decided to depart and search out his roots in the Alterac Mountains.
After trekking to exhaustion, Thrall was rescued by the Frostwolves and taken to their camp. There he met Drek'Thar, who told Thrall that he was the son of the chieftain of the Frostwolves. After finding his place among the Frostwolves, Thrall was taught the old ways of the Horde by Drek'Thar, as it was before Gul'dan's corruption. Soon Thrall was accepted as a member of the clan. A frost wolf named Snowsong eventually chose Thrall as her companion. It was some time after that choosing that he was called away by Drek'Thar, and came upon a quiet place where he had never been or seen before. Here he was to be initiated.
In one of the most spiritual experiences of his life, Thrall befriended the spirits of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and the Wilds. He became the first new shaman since Gul'dan's vile corruption of the Horde. He returned to the camp a new orc and became fully immersed in the old ways of the shaman and his clan, embracing his role as son of the chieftain. This was a significant and symbolic event, since Thrall was the first shaman to be accepted by the spirits since Drek'Thar's time. Not only did this mean Thrall would be destined to be one of the greatest shamans in orcish history, but it also meant that the spirits finally forgave the orcish race for consorting with demonic powers, and deemed Thrall as the first of a new generation of shamans.
The camp was soon visited by a wandering stranger. At first, Thrall spoke pleasantly with him, but began to grow angry when the stranger accused the Frostwolves of hiding away in the mountains. His fury and orcish pride growing within him, Thrall informed the stranger that he would join with Hellscream and the Warsong and lay siege to the encampments. The stranger dismissed Hellscream as a "demon-ridden dreamer", and said that the humans were not worth fighting. Enraged, Thrall challenged the stranger to single combat. The stranger threw aside his cloak to reveal well-worn black plate armor and a massive warhammer.
After a short but brutal contest, Thrall managed to disarm his foe, but was prevented from throttling the stranger by some of his clan. It was then the stranger revealed himself as Orgrim Doomhammer, the Warchief of the Horde. Doomhammer had been contacted by Drek'Thar about the return of the son of Durotan. The Warchief decided to provoke Thrall into a fight to see if Drek'Thar's praise was deserved, and it was. Not only was Thrall able to challenge Doomhammer's strength, he also was able to best him, a feat only once before accomplished by Thrall's father.
Liberation
Doomhammer named Thrall his second-in-command and explained his strategy for liberating the encampments. Per Doomhammer's plan, Thrall infiltrated the camps masquerading as one of the downtrodden, lethargic prisoners, and then riled the orcs up with shows of his shamanistic powers. With the downtrodden orcs revitalized by their restored heritage, they quickly overran the encampments. On the first three encampments, this proved to be an effective tactic. On the fourth, Thrall was too easily recognized, and thus they had to resort to the numbers of the new Horde — and the shamanistic powers wielded by Thrall — to liberate the encampment. At the fifth, however, the enemy was even better prepared. Knights from Durnholde had been stationed at the remaining encampments. During the liberation of this encampment (now the Horde outpost of Hammerfall in the Arathi Highlands) Doomhammer was killed, impaled from behind by a knight's lance. With his dying breath, he gave Thrall his black plate and warhammer, and named him Warchief of the Horde.
Thrall's first action as Warchief was to attack Durnholde in an effort to dismantle the entire internment camp system. He secretly met with Taretha, asking her to leave Durnholde with her family, but she refused, hoping it would never come to battle and fearful of the consequences if Blackmoore noticed her missing. Since Thrall's departure long ago, Blackmoore had taken her as his mistress, though it was an arrangement she had never been happy with. When Thrall arrived at Durnholde with the Horde at his back, he confronted a drunken Blackmoore and asked for a peaceful parlay in order to prevent useless bloodshed. Blackmoore went through a plethora of emotions, from amusement at Thrall's rise to power, anger at what the Warchief was demanding, and grief at how Thrall had supposedly betrayed him. Once again Thrall demanded that Blackmoore surrender. The master of Durnholde gave his response by tossing the severed head of Taretha Foxton into the courtyard, screaming that this was what he would do with traitors.
Thrall cried out in rage and grief, the elements echoing his fury, and he gave the command to attack. During the siege, Thrall cornered Blackmoore in his hidden tunnel and tossed a sword at the traitorous man's feet. Blackmoore had sobered enough to hold his own against the Warchief, who had been holding back to allow Blackmoore a fighting chance. When Blackmoore tried to explain his actions and asked for Thrall's aid to help him subjugate the Alliance, the Warchief's rage at Taretha's fate broke all barriers, and struck Blackmoore down. As he lay dying, the master of Durnholde expressed pride in what Thrall had become, what Blackmoore claimed credit for making him into.
Thrall emerged shaken from the castle to find his orcs victorious. Thrall gave a message to Blackmoore's second-in-command, Lord Karramyn Langston, to take to his superiors: free the remaining orcs and cede land for their use. If the Alliance would let them be, they would not trouble them and would be willing to engage in cooperation and trade. If the Alliance chose to fight them, they would make an enemy the likes of which had never been seen before, making the old warlock-controlled Horde shrink to insignificance. He then left Durnholde after allowing the Sergeant and surviving humans to walk away unharmed. When they were gone he called upon the Spirit of the Earth to destroy the keep before leading his people to freedom.