The history of the Crusaders:
Thousands and thousands of years before the first warcraft, the burning legion, led by Sargeras the corrupt Titan, conquered many planets, destroying everything in their path. They would corrupt any valuable creatures they could, and move on, becomming stronger and stronger.
Eventually, they discovered a planet known as Ronin. Ronin was similar to the planet that warcraft takes place, it had a variety of climates, large landmasses and giant oceans, and a large and diverse group of life. The legion, realizing the potential in the creatures of this planet, decided to corrupt one creature from each of the three continents.
The first continent was investigated by Tichondrious, the Dread Lord. Tichondrious scoured the entire continent, and eventually decided that the dominant race were the creatures known as the Rurouni. The Rurouni were the fairly small in comparison to the other humanoid members of the legion (about the size of humans), and their nomadic lifestyle limited their abilities, but even still they had a wonderful sense of architecture, and were brilliant weapons designers. The Rurouni lived in tribes, and in each tribe there would generally only be one occupation. However, each tribe would interact with the others, so that they all recieved what they needed. Occasionaly they would fight, sending their samurai into battle, or hiring ninjas to kill off important people, but they were usually peaceful.
Tichondrious first met with the tribe of architecture, realizing their buildings would be their most valuable skill. He offered them strength beyond their imagine so that they could create buildings that would otherwise be impossible, and he would make them thrice as smart, allowing them to advance their architecture and give up their nomadic ways. The Rurouni, like humans, were very susceptable to greed, and fell for Tichondrious' trap easily. Tichondrious used his warlock magic to give them knowledge of chaotic magic and other such things to help improve their architecture, while also making them bloodlusted and corrupt. He then turned their skin to bronze, allowing them to increase the productivity of their achievements. This new tribe, now calling themselves the Osirians, bloodlustedly attacked all of the other tribes, and both the samurai and ninja armies fell quickly to the Osirians. Only a few tribes remained, staying in hiding from the Osirians.
The second continent was investigated by Mannaroth the Pit Lord, and Archimonde the Eredar Warlock. The two demons watched as a war between two powerful races occured. The first were the Rurouni, similar to the Rurouni of the first continent. The second race was the Manticores, giant lions with scorpion tails. Originaly the Rurouni were no match for the Manticores, however, as time went on, the Rurouni developed weapons that allowed them to fight off, and even take an advantage, over the Manticores. The Manticore were a proud people, but their lack of a humanoid body disabled them from building towers and creating weapons.
The two demon lords realized this was their perfect opportunity. They approached the Manticores, offering to create for them humanoid bodies so that they could create weapons to fight off the Rurouni. The manticore were intelligent, and knew that the demons were up to something, but they had no choice, and they agreed. First archimonde used his warlock magics to change the bodies of the Manticore, so that they were giant, furry humans, with a lion head and a scorpion tail. Then Mannaroth gave them his blood, so that they would become bloodlusted and more powerful than ever before. The new creatures, known as the Sphinx', used their new powers to crush the Rurouni, until, just like the first continent, only a few tribes remained in hiding.
The final continent was investigated by Kil'Jaedan, the most powerful of the Eredar Warlocks. It was easy for him to discover the dominant race of this continent. They were Rurouni by day, and wolves by night. They called themselves the Lycanthropes. The lycanthropes were much more aggressive than the Rurouni, and were even more susceptable to corruption by the legion. Unlike the Rurouni, the tribes of the Lychanthropes were constantly at war, though the 'victor' usually only lasted so long before being attacked again.
Kil'Jaedan searched for the 'underdog' tribe, the one who currently held the least power. Kil'Jaedan offered them a way to be both man and wolf at once, and twice as powerful as either one. The underdog tribe easily accepted. Using his warlock magics, Kil'Jaedan first bronzed their skin by day, turning them into Osirians. By night, he changed their wolfen form into a less hairy, thinner, black dog, known as a Jackel. Then, at the moment in between night and day, Kil'Jaedan fused their two forms together, turning them into jackel-men, which he named the Anubites. The anubites, being capable of great strength while at the same time holding some humanity to stay in control, and to create buildings and weild weapons, easily whiped out the all of the other lycanthrope tribes.
The demons then created dark portals on each continent linking to the others, each race still war-hungry.
First the Sphinx reached the Osirians. Due to both races corruption, they warred at first, however they soon grew to like eachother, realizing they had much to gain by an alliance. The Osirians were brilliant architects and had much more intracite hands, allowing them to create greater societies for the Sphinx, and the Sphinx brute strength was much better for protecting the Osirians than wasting as much time on weapons technology.
It took the Anubites longer, but eventually they met up with the new alliance. Just as had been done before, the alliance and the Anubites warred, but the Osirians realized that the sheer numbers, and stealthy capabilities of the Anubites would be valuable for the Alliance's plan. The Anubites were reluctant to join, only because they realized they could not afford to continue a war with this alliance; to this day the Sphinx and the Anubites greatly dislike eachother.
The legion, having assembled the three races, decided it was time to bring them into the legion, but at the last minute Sargeras stopped the other demon lords. He decided that these creatures had great potential on their own, and it'd be better to let them advance their technology and society on their own. Sargeras realized that this alliance was potentially even more powerful than the current legion.
Meanwhile, without interruption, the alliance was constantly advancing. They even re-created the legions dark portals, sending them to random planets across the galaxy. The alliance now called themselves the crusaders, because they traveled from planet to planet across the galaxy, doing just as the legion had done, taking whatever was useful, and killing everyone else.
With time, the Crusaders began to lose their bloodlust, it had been thousands of years, and they became peaceful. They still conquered planet after planet, they would allow all non-intelligent lifeforms to live, and they would keep the ecosystems fairly intact. This was perfect for the remaining Rurouni tribes, who would settle in to the abandoned planets and take over as the dominant species. Originally the crusaders attempted to stop this, but the Rurouni bravely and skillfully held off against the Crusaders, and eventually the Crusaders gave up, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two societies.
The Crusaders continued like this for thousands of years, until one day, the legion returned. This was after Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, and almost the entire legion was destroyed, Kil'Jaedan being the only surviving demon lord. Kil'Jaedan returned, and was instantaneously amazed at what he discovered. The Crusaders were easily more powerful than the legion had ever been, with technology that in many ways far surpassed that of the gnomes and goblins.
Despite it having been over 10,000 years, the Osirians had kept up with their history quite well, and realized Kil'Jaedan was the creator of the Anubites. Kil'Jaedan took advantage of his 'god-like' position, and ordered the crusaders to attack the planet that held the creatures who nearly destroyed the legion. The Crusaders were reluctant to do it at first, however Kil'Jaedan bribed them by explaining the technologies of the goblins and gnomes, and of the power that the humans, orcs, night elves, and all the other races of the planet held, even of the scourge and the forsaken. At this point, the Crusaders were excited, and followed Kil'Jaedans portal to the planet.
They reached the planet, however they were at the far north, in a cold climate. Cold climates had always been a weakness of the Crusaders, their homeworld Ronin had only one cold area, which they never invaded (explaining how the Rurouni managed to survive early on). Fortunatly, the Crusaders discovered a race of spider creatures who were willing to help in teaching the Osirians what was necessary to survive in the cold, so they could build shelters that were proper for the climate. In return, these spider creatures, known as the nerubians, asked that they help destroy the scourge, which had killed and corrupted a large portion of the nerubian society not long ago. The Osirian warlocks used their magic to turn the Nerubians Carapace to gold, and their skin red with demonic power, and the Osirians also used their technology to increase the power of many of the Nerubians wings, giving them flight. These two new breeds of Nerubians were renamed the Scarabs.
********************
Well that is pretty much everything leading up to where the campaign would take place. in the next post, i'm going to create a basic techtree and a gameplay summary page, similar to whats on battle.net.
.
