The Formation & Ideologies of the Holy Orders of the Light
The Church of the Holy Light
Humanity’s foremost religious organization, the Church of the Holy Light, was formally established in the heart of Lordaeron many centuries ago.
The spiritual teachings that gave birth to the church, however, date back much further to the time of the Troll Wars when a human warrior named Mereldar began having visions of beings made of the Light. Those strange holy lifeforms – known as naaru – taught her and others about the wisdom of virtues such as protection, justice, retribution, holiness, and compassion – all tenets that would later be embodied and espoused by countless paladins and priests of the church. Enlightened, Mereldar and the others set out to write down the beings’ teachings in a series of books that quickly sparked the formation of a significant religious movement in the Eastern Kingdoms.
The Church of the Holy Light, as it would come to be known, eventually expounded all sorts of other virtuous ideals, but its core principles – the five tenets put forth by Mereldar – would always remain unchanged.
The Holy Order of Northshire Clerics
Sometime well before the First War, a few members of the Church of the Holy Light moved south and established Northshire Abbey on the outskirts of Stormwind City. Because of their great skill in the healing arts, the clerics of the abbey typically accompanied Stormwind’s soldiers in times of war and mended their wounds whenever needed.
Unfortunately, they were targeted by the orcish horde during the First War for the very same reason they were lauded by their brothers and sisters in the Alliance - their prowess with the Holy Light. Many of the clerics – unarmed, untrained, and unable to defend themselves – were massacred when the horde razed Stormwind City, although some survived and fled to Southshore with other refugees.
Though the clerical order was all but wiped out in the First War, their demise paved the way for a new, more powerful holy order in the coming years known as the Order of the Knights of the Silver Hand.
The Order of the Knights of the Silver Hand
Formed by Archbishop Alonsus Faol shortly before the Second War, the Knights of the Silver Hand were mostly born of a need for more capable warriors and leaders on the battlefield.
Distraught at what had happened to the Northshire clerics, the Archbishop proposed the idea of training a small group of priests and knights to wield the Light in battle.
Just as Mereldar before him, Faol believed the core traits of the Silver Hand to be retribution, holiness, protection, justice, and compassion, each of which was embodied by a founding member of the order.
Although initially small, this branch of the Church would grow quickly in size after the Second War, with notable paladins like Arthas Menethil and Alexandros Mograine joining its ranks. The original organization, however, was rather short-lived. After Uther refused to join Arthas in culling the infected civilians of Stratholme, the prince suspended the paladins from service – something which he technically did not have the power to do.
Nonetheless, the order fell apart not too long after when irreconcilable ideological differences between its members caused it to fracture, leading to the formation of the Argent Dawn and the Scarlet Crusade.
It was not until after the Third War that the Knights of the Silver Hand reformed, this time with the help of renowned paladin Tirion Fordring.
Unfortunately, the holy order would dissolve yet again a couple years later – absorbed into the newly-formed Argent Crusade at the start of the war against the Lich King – only to be revived for one final time following Tirion’s death at the Broken Shore in Legion.
Of the many different holy orders existing today, the Knights of the Silver Hand likely resemble the core Church most in their principles and beliefs. All paladins who join the reformed Knights of the Silver Hand must swear an oath to protect the weak, uphold what is righteous, fight against injustice, and act honorably.
The Brotherhood of Northshire
Although he spearheaded the formation of the Knights of the Silver Hand, Archbishop Faol also took it upon himself to reform the Holy Order of Northshire Clerics after the Second War as a new religious organization known as the Brotherhood of Northshire.
The Scarlet Crusade
While the Scarlet Crusade was not officially founded until after Alexandros Mograine’s death, the xenophobic ideology that ultimately led to their split from the Knights of the Silver Hand began to emerge approximately a year earlier – around the same time Prince Arthas culled Stratholme.
It started when the Knights of the Silver Hand, lacking the sufficient numbers needed to stop the Scourge, moved to recruit from other races. Some prominent disciples of the organization, believing that “lesser” races such as night elves, dwarves, and gnomes would pollute the order, refused to include any non-humans in their ranks despite the pleas of their compatriots that such a thing was necessary if they were to put an end to the Scourge threat.
Disgusted at his comrades’ racist beliefs, the paladin Maxwell Tyrosus took many of his followers and left the Knights of the Silver Hand. Those remaining, including the likes of Saidan Dathrohan, Renault Mograine, and Brigitte Abbendis, went on to form the Scarlet Crusade.
Although they started out thinking of other races as simply “unclean,” the Scarlet Crusade would grow much more dogmatic in their beliefs over time. They rationalized that because the Scourge had no restraints on their tactics, neither should they if they intended to triumph over them.
As a result, the Crusade eventually came to believe that all outsiders were potential carriers of the plague and thus had to be destroyed.
The Argent Dawn
Following his departure from the Knights of the Silver Hand, Maxwell Tyrosus formed his own order that, unlike the Scarlet Crusade, would continue to preach the values of the Holy Light and accept all races. This new religious organization was known as the Argent Dawn.
Though the Dawn sought to adhere to the ideals of the Church of the Holy Light in a way that their compatriots in the Scarlet Crusade did not, the non-canon RPG asserts that they still strayed from the church’s established teachings in a notable way. Similar to, but far less fervent than the Scarlet Crusade, the Argent Dawn maintained that the church’s methods of dealing with their enemies was insufficient. They were convinced that since evil constantly changed, so too must the forces of good change to deal with them.
Many holy organizations – namely, the Knights of the Silver Hand and the Scarlet Crusade – survived time and time again despite incurring heavy losses and undergoing massive restructuring. The Argent Dawn, however, ceased to exist as a faction entirely following its assimilation into the Argent Crusade during the war against the Lich King.
The Brotherhood of the Light
The Brotherhood of the Light has existed for some years now, but its origins and why it was established are somewhat unclear. An old and likely outdated quest implies that the organization was formed prior to the Argent Dawn, whereas more recent sources claim that the sect was formed afterward and is in fact an offshoot of the Dawn.
While not canon, it may be worth adding that the RPG asserts the Brotherhood of the Light was formed a few years after the Third War, suggesting that it was indeed established after the Argent Dawn’s inception.
Nevertheless, the Brotherhood was founded by a group of priests and paladins who, much like the Scarlet Crusade, held ideological beliefs that put them in contention with other sects of the Church. Where the Argent Dawn traditionally adhered to a strict code of morals and ethics, the members of the Brotherhood of the Light shirked such restrictions and did not consider themselves held in check by human emotion.
While that makes it seem as if their ideals aligned with the Scarlet Crusade’s, the Brotherhood actually found the Crusaders to be without reason and overly zealous in their cause.
The Argent Crusade
After the events at Light’s Hope Chapel that culminated in many death knights gaining independence from the Lich King, Tirion Fordring took it upon himself to merge the Argent Dawn and the second iteration of the Order of the Silver Hand into a new order known as the Argent Crusade.
Although the Crusade would carry out many additional tasks in the coming years, it was initially founded with the express purpose of putting an end to the Lich King.
The Scarlet Onslaught
Not dissimilar to the Argent Crusade, the Scarlet Onslaught was also primarily established to go north and obliterate the Scourge once and for all. The idea of a “Scarlet revival” made from an elite cadre of the Crusade’s most faithful remaining in the Eastern Plaguelands was first proposed by a man known as Bishop Street. It was only when the Crusaders arrived in Dragonblight, many months after their departure from New Avalon in the Plaguelands, that their leader High General Brigitte Abbendis officially sanctioned the Scarlet Onslaught.
Although Abbendis and the rest of the Onslaught’s leadership were killed partway through the war against the Lich King, the organization continued to persist well into Legion.
