Arathi Basin

Long before the Third War, the basin's fields, mills and mines fed the realm of Stromgarde, heir to ancient Arathor. When Lordaeron fell and Stromgarde crumbled, the valley was left almost undefended, its farmsteads and workshops still standing. Whoever holds them now holds grain, timber, iron and gold, the stuff that keeps an army in the field. That makes the quiet valley one of the most fought-over places in the highlands.

The League of Arathor is an Alliance company of Stromgarde's survivors and their friends, backed by Stormwind and working out of Refuge Pointe, sworn to reclaim the lands their forebears built. The Defilers are the Forsaken's answer: hardened troops of the Undercity under the watchful eye of Varimathras, operating alongside the Horde at Hammerfall. Their aim is to strip the basin of its riches and sever the road that ties the northern humans to the dwarves of the south.

Five strongpoints decide the battle: the farm, the stables, the lumber mill, the blacksmith and the gold mine. Each side races to raise its banner over them and defend what it takes, because every strongpoint held adds to its store of resources. Raiders slip between them to steal a point while the enemy is busy elsewhere, and the side that gathers enough resources first wins the basin, for a time.