Sign inEdwin VanCleef
Edwin VanCleef is the leader of the Defias Brotherhood and the final boss of The Deadmines, the first dungeon most Alliance players ever run. A master stonemason who rebuilt Stormwind after the First War, he turned to banditry when the city's nobles refused to pay his guild. His story, told across a long Westfall quest chain, is many players' first look at how the Alliance's politics are rotting from the top.
Biography
After the orcs burned Stormwind in the First War, the kingdom hired the Stonemasons' Guild to rebuild it. VanCleef led the guild, and under him the masons raised the new city that players know. When the work was done, the House of Nobles refused to pay what it owed. The guild protested, the protest became a riot in which Queen Tiffin Wrynn was killed, and the masons were outlawed and driven from the city.
VanCleef led his followers to Westfall, where they became the Defias Brotherhood. They took over farms, drove off the farmers, and set up a hidden base in the old Deadmines under Moonbrook. There they used goblin engineers and kidnapped workers to build a juggernaut warship, meant for revenge on the kingdom that had betrayed them. Some of the nobles who had cheated the masons were themselves secretly working with the Defias.
In World of Warcraft
The quest chain
Westfall is overrun with Defias thieves and highwaymen in red bandanas. At Sentinel Hill, Gryan Stoutmantle of the People's Militia runs a long chain called The Defias Brotherhood. It sends the player to an informant in Moonbrook, to Master Mathias Shaw of SI:7 in Stormwind City (who explains in The Defias Brotherhood who VanCleef was), and to a captured Defias traitor who leads the player to the hideout. The last part, The Defias Brotherhood, asks for VanCleef's head.
Other Westfall quests feed into the same story. Scout Riell wants Red Silk Bandanas,.
The Deadmines
The entrance is in the ruined town of Moonbrook. Inside, players fight through goblin foundries and Defias miners led by Rhahk'Zor, Sneed, Gilnid, Mr. Smite and Captain Greenskin, then climb aboard the juggernaut ship in a hidden cove. Edwin VanCleef waits on the top deck with his guards.
He is a level 21 elite who calls Defias Blackguards to his side when he is losing. He is a tough fight for a group in their late teens and low twenties, and many players first learned about pulling guards one at a time here.
Loot
| Item | Type |
|---|---|
| [Cruel Barb] | One-handed sword |
| [Cape of the Brotherhood] | Cloak |
| [Corsair's Overshirt] | Cloth chest |
| [Blackened Defias Armor] | Leather chest |
| [Head of VanCleef] | Quest item for The Defias Brotherhood |
His body also carries [An Unsent Letter]. The letter, addressed to the Stormwind city architect Baros Alexston, starts The Unsent Letter, which leads to Bazil Thredd in The Stockade and an investigation into which nobles were behind the Defias. Eventually it leads to Lord Gregor Lescovar, and the chain closes with An Audience with the King, a report delivered in Stormwind Keep to Lady Katrana Prestor, better known as Onyxia.
Later history
In Cataclysm (2010), Westfall was reworked. VanCleef's daughter, Vanessa VanCleef, who had witnessed her father's death as a child, rebuilt the Defias Brotherhood and led the new version of the Deadmines as its final boss.
He has also appeared in Hearthstone as a rogue legendary card and as a hero in Hearthstone Mercenaries.
Trivia
- VanCleef's death closes a story that begins with the player's first visit to Westfall at around level 10.
- In Classic, Horde players can also reach the Deadmines, but the trip through Alliance territory makes it rare.
Sources
Categories: Characters
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