The Cult of the Damned

I played Warcraft 3 as a teenager, but I didn’t pay much attention to the human campaign. Because the Scourge invading Lordaeron is a pretty standard zombie apocalypse story. Also because the Paladin is the lamest hero.

Many years later, I was reading through the Warcraft Wiki, and I was like, hold on. So not all of the Undead Scourge are mindless zombies or skeletons. At least the Cult of the Damned cultists aren’t. They’re (mostly) humans. Living humans serving the Lich King. What?

This is Mr. Kel'Thuzad, the guy who founded the cult. When the picture was taken, Mr. Kel'Thuzad was very much alive. Not only alive, but he was smart, too. So why did such a smart guy decide to turn people, including himself, into undead?

(Spoiler alert: he got a bit too much into this new technology called necromancy and went crazy.)

So he went around telling people, come join me, join me and you will live forever. *quieter* Live forever as the Lich King’s slave. And… people joined. What. How. Why. Zombies I understand, zombies can’t choose. The cultists can.

Maybe they heard about this Scourge thing from Northrend, and they thought it was going to win. And if they joined the Scourge and the Scourge won, that meant they won too. But it’s not like joining the Scourge makes you a shareholder. You don’t own the Scourge. Kel'Thuzad doesn’t really own it either. The Lich King owns the Scourge.¹

You’re just a guy in a robe, very excited about a future. But that future has no room for you in it. Unless you want to count being a ghoul. I didn’t understand it back then. I still don’t understand it now. But looking around the tech industry today, at least I know these people actually exist.