Orgrim Doomhammer

Orgrim Doomhammer was the Warchief of the old Horde through the end of the First War and all of the Second War, and the mentor who passed the Horde to Thrall. He seized power from a corrupt warchief, tried to purge the warlocks who had poisoned his people, and died freeing orcs from human prison camps. He does not appear in Classic as a living character, but his name is everywhere: the orc capital, Orgrimmar, is named for him, and Thrall wears his armor and carries his hammer.

Biography

Blackrock lieutenant

Orgrim grew up in the Blackrock Clan on Draenor. As a boy he met Durotan of the Frostwolf clan at a festival of the clans, and the two became lifelong friends. From his father he inherited the Doomhammer, a huge warhammer that had passed down his family line, along with an old prophecy that the last of his line to carry it would bring doom to his people. Orgrim hoped to escape that fate.

He rose to second-in-command under the warchief Blackhand and followed him through the war on the draenei and into Azeroth, though he grew to distrust the fel magic that Gul'dan and his warlocks were feeding the Horde. When Durotan, now an exile, came to him in secret with proof that Gul'dan's Shadow Council was steering the Horde for its own ends, Orgrim believed him. He sent guards to escort Durotan's family home safely, not knowing they were loyal to the Shadow Council. The guards murdered Durotan and his mate Draka, and Orgrim believed their infant son died with them.

Warchief

Late in the First War, with Gul'dan in a coma after the death of Medivh, Orgrim challenged Blackhand to a mak'gora, a duel to the death, and crushed his skull with the Doomhammer. As Warchief he banned fel magic, hunted the Shadow Council down at Blackrock Spire, and led the final assault that sacked Stormwind.

In the Second War he took the Horde north. He won over Zul'jin and the Amani trolls, drew the Alterac traitor Lord Perenolde into a pact, and drove deep into Lordaeron. At the moment of the main attack on Lordaeron's capital, Gul'dan's followers abandoned the Horde and sailed south to raise the Tomb of Sargeras. Orgrim had to divert forces to destroy them, and the weakened Horde fell back to Blackrock Spire. In the final battle there he killed Anduin Lothar, the Alliance commander, but the Alliance under Turalyon broke the Horde and Orgrim was captured.

The internment camps

Orgrim was kept as a curiosity in Lordaeron's capital, but escaped and wandered into the internment camps where the surviving orcs had sunk into lethargy. Hearing of a young orc living with the Frostwolves in the Alterac Mountains, he went to see him in disguise. The young orc was Thrall, Durotan's son. Impressed, Orgrim revealed himself and joined Thrall and Grom Hellscream in freeing the camps. At the fifth camp, mounted knights struck. A knight's lance took Orgrim from behind, and as he died he named Thrall Warchief and gave him his black armor and the Doomhammer.

In World of Warcraft

Doomhammer is dead by the time of World of Warcraft, but players meet his legacy in several places:

• Orgrimmar, the Horde capital in Durotar, is named in his honor, just as Durotar is named for his friend.
• The camp where he died is now the Horde town of Hammerfall in the Arathi Highlands. There, the broken old orc Gor'mul still relives the day in Hammerfall: he remembers Doomhammer in his midnight plate and the cowardly blow from behind. Tor'gan explains that Gor'mul was a prisoner in the camp and was left behind when the others escaped.
• Thrall wears Doomhammer's armor and carries the hammer. When players bring him the Head of Onyxia in Victory for the Horde, the quest text says the Doomhammer was nearly unsheathed.
• Blackrock Spire, Orgrim's old fortress, is now held by the Dark Horde of Rend Blackhand, son of the warchief Orgrim killed.

Later history

• Thrall burned Orgrim's body on a pyre and has kept his armor and weapon ever since. In Warlords of Draenor, players meet an alternate-timeline Orgrim on Draenor.
• In Dragonflight, Orgrim's spirit appears among other famous orcs during the Kosh'harg festival offering at Razor Hill.

Trivia

• Orgrim led the orcs in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995), and his story with Thrall is told in the novel Lord of the Clans.
• A Horde gunship in Icecrown in Wrath of the Lich King is named Orgrim's Hammer.

Sources

• Orgrim Doomhammer - Warcraft Wiki
• Hammerfall (quest) - Warcraft Wiki