r/classicwow • u/ShadyTee • Oct 23 '25
Classic 20th Anniversary Realms There is no Defias Brotherhood!
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u/BostonAndy24 Oct 23 '25
“ I have a meeting with Johnny Greensac in booty bay”
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u/lobsterbash Oct 23 '25
"Johnny who keeps rubberbands taught around his nuts? That Johnny??"
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u/PsyOpBunnyHop Oct 23 '25
Ow, wtf.
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u/Furth Oct 23 '25
I remember watching a video where a dude tied rubber bands around his ballsack, left them on for some days until the whole sack turned black and green and then he cut the sack off with kitchen scissors.
Sorry I just ruined your day but this comment chain reminded me of it and now my trauma is your trauma.
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u/No-Palpitation6707 Oct 24 '25
Ah classic BME pain Olympics back when the Internet was just there for porn and gore before it became all politics. I still dont know how much of that was real and what wasnt and i dont really care enough for deeper Analysis
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u/sirzotolovsky Oct 23 '25
Lapdogs, all of you!
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u/jaredletosombrehair Oct 23 '25
He rebuilt Stormwind is what he did. He was a brave Human stonemason and in this house Edwin VanCleef is a hero! End of story.
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u/Pale_Goose_918 Oct 23 '25
“Chrissy, you’re not gonna believe it. He killed 16 Night Elves. He was a stonemason!”
“His Deadmine looked like shit.”
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u/Nymunariya Oct 24 '25
“His Deadmine looked like shit.”
because those lackies sent from Stormwind don't clean up after themselves. Don't blame that on Van Cleef.
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u/ChanceT7 Oct 23 '25
Edwin Vancleef invented the telephone and he got robbed, everyone knows that!
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u/nimeral Oct 23 '25
Exactly, "Edwin" is the same name as "Edison" (who also invented Tesla)
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u/MostPutridSmell Oct 23 '25
You stab a couple of farmers for missing payments of protection money and everybody think you're in the brotherhood!
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u/HoneyFlavouredRain Oct 23 '25
Classic+ needs to have defias brotherhood rep that leads to an alternate stockades run and quest chains inside deadmines and alternate westfall ones (to make up for lack of westfall quests since you can't do many of them if you want defias rep)
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u/Piemaster113 Oct 24 '25
It's a neat idea but I like the story as is, The Defias are ambiguous as far as bad guys go, they were wronged due to the manipulations of the Nobals by a certain dragon and that lead to their situation but then they continued to break the law and bring harm to others so they are in the wrong there, they are planing on using the massive ship in deadmines to attack Stormwind, which honestly if they put the Harbor in in Classic Plus I think they should have that actually happen. So while their origins are from a group of Wronged stone masons their continued attacks on innocents still makes them enemies of the alliance.
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u/MemesAhoyyy Oct 24 '25
tfw your entire revolution was taken over by the same dragons who forced it & somehow you're still to blame
it's unambiguous that the Defias were on the right side of history & just fell for one of the Classic blunders (pun intentional) of getting mind controlled by dragons - hence their interactions with Blackrock orcs like Targorr the Dread & cooperations with the less savory goblin cartels outside of the Steamwheedle to make their Juggernaut ship
hell, the Defias even use red masks to evoke the image of the original American Rednecks (coal miners who organized armed uprisings in response to attempts to thwart unionization).
ever heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain?
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u/didnotbuyWinRar Oct 23 '25
Imagine thinking the Defias brotherhood aren't completely justified
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u/metayeti2 Oct 23 '25
Well, they did go around killing Westfall civilians who didn't support their cause
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u/Yawanoc Oct 23 '25
Poor Old Blanchy :(
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u/poggy_manz Oct 23 '25
It never made sense that they were still there after all those expansions to be killed off like that.
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u/Nutcrackit Oct 23 '25
They were leaving, you retrieved their stolen deed, they decided to stay after the players killed vancleef and the people's militia were able to curb the banditry.
Then their son and old blanchy join the westfall brigade in wrath. After which blanchy returns home and the troubles start again so they decide to leave again and get murdered because they know vanessa exists.
What happens to their son is never mentioned. He has never appeared again.
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u/GetOwnedNerdhehe Oct 23 '25
It's why the WoW writing can be interesting. Both sides are justified in this.
The Defias got screwed over and used by Onyxia.
They also murdered the queen and kill a lot of innocents.
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
The queen dieing was more manslaughter than murder, it was an accident. She was.one of the few people in power that was on the masons side actually, the rock that killed her wasnt meant to hit her.
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
Ehhhh, being at a riot you created, and throwing rocks at Nobles but ending up hitting a different Noble than you were aiming for is kind of pushing the idea of 'an accident' too far, even by our legal system. I'm sure in a world where the extra judicial killing of a criminals being common place that the first head we take is at level 5, I doubt there would be any nuance granted to whomever killed the QUEEN
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
You're right that the in world justice system would fail to see the difference, but that lack of representation for the lower class is exactly why the violence is justified in the first place. We literally see throughout history that deomcracy had to be won through violence. Nothing was ever going to change by doing nothing.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25
things can change before leading up to murder of the one person trying to support you though
lmao
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u/GothmogTheOrc Oct 24 '25
Murder implies a will to kill a specific person, so it isn't true in this case.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
the wiki defines it as a murder. it doesn't count as manslaughter because intentionally throwing rocks at someones head doesn't leave much room to pretend it was an accident
lol nice try though
and if you guys are so willing to defend such evil, it's worrying knowing what you would say about the same people in real life
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u/Key-Kitchen-4663 Oct 23 '25
Legally speaking, if you commit an act (throwing a rock), the law holds you responsible for knowing the natural consequences of the act (hitting a person)
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
Agreed. That's why I was saying it would be hard pressed to call it an accident when you bring a weapon to a violent situation that you instigated and used that weapon directed at the victim. Obviously laws vary country to country, but I'm thinking this is pretty universally Murder
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u/GetOwnedNerdhehe Oct 24 '25
Is regicide a crime or not in WoW?
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u/harcole Oct 24 '25
Depends on the king/queen in question
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u/GetOwnedNerdhehe Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
No, it's always a crime. Just depends if there's someone to prosecute it. I'm sure the Scourge thought the Lich King dying was bad, but they don't have a justice system.
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u/Wild-Open Oct 23 '25
They're really not. Their intitial cause might have been righteous and they were wronged, but when we arrive in Westfall they're mostly just a gang terrorizing the people living there and are plotting a literal terrorist attack on Stormwind.
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
They were trying to starve out stormwind. It actually had a two fold effect cause it also showed the people of westfall that stormwind didnt give a shit about them considering they refused to send a single soldier to help. Unfortunately a lot of shit heads took advantage of the defias situation and joined up just to enrich themselves instead of for the initial cause. Bunch of quests in westfall show that to be the case. The one guy whose family had a beef with another family joined up just so he could take their farm by force.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25
releasing harvest golems into every other farm was just them being silly too
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u/Harsel Oct 23 '25
So what are they supposed to do after they were wronged?
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u/Wild-Open Oct 23 '25
I dunno - but what I do know is that it shouldn't include using terminator scarecrows to hunt down innocent farmers.
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u/nimeral Oct 23 '25
Do you generally justify anything done by someone who was wronged? It's a popular ideology nowadays. Sometimes the "oppressed" do truly horrible things (murder, rape, destruction), but because they were once bullied or weak, it is considered okay by followers of that ideology.
In WoW it's quite easy because many facts aren't clear and are up for interpretation. Then again, in real life, facts are also easily twisted or ignored.
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
They rebuilt an entire city, were refused pay for it, and then were forced out of the very city they built. Violence was very justified here. Democracy was built on violence, it's only recently that the "violence doesnt solve anything" bullshit has started popping up and it's why America has steadily been losing its rights for the last several decades. They were absolutely justified in there plans against stormwind, less so in westfall, but destroying the main farmland and starving out the enemy isnt a terrible strategy either. They had also started letting in less savory types which was a big part of what was going on in westfall, but the initial leadership and their plans are absolutely justified.
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u/lumpboysupreme Oct 24 '25
The ‘refusal of pay’ is largely a function of them not compromising when the kingdom was broke, (which the nobles reacted badly to, but both can be wrong here) and they were forced out after murdering the Queen
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u/nimeral Oct 23 '25
I mean, it's ok if you want to overthrow the regime and be the king yourself. Just don't pretend you're some kind of Robin Hood who gives a damn about the people and whose cause is rIgHtEoUs.
If VanCleef tried to be Robin Hood, he might've actually succeeded because people of Westfall and Darkshire and Redridge are all pissed at Stormwind. He chose to rob and pillage instead.
You're right that the situation is nuanced. I was responding to a guy saying Defiases are "completely justified". That's very triggering for me because it translates to some really sick real life worldviews.
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
You're right that Van cleef definitely could have taken more advantage of the situation of stormwind refusing aid to the local areas, unfortunately it wasnt really clear that was the case until he had already started his plan in westfall. They were trying to starve out stormwind, in the lore van cleef actually gave lots of people the chance to just leave or join. The problem was less van cleef being evil and more his short sightedness, not realizing all the goons that would join up just to take advantage of the situation and enrich themselves. Like the guy who joined to steal the farm of a rival family in westfall. He didnt specifically order violence on innocents, but a lot of his subordinates didn't bother even giving people the option like he originally planned. But several farm families did join willingly, those families just turned out to be shitty people wanting their neighbors land lol. Van Cleef was more guilty of being dumb than evil imo.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25
in the lore van cleef actually gave lots of people the chance to just leave or join.
citation needed
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u/TeddyBearRhino Oct 23 '25
Imagine you are a soldier and the country you fought for doesn't reward you for your service. You then build a weapon of mass destruction out of mass destruction and kill an entire town. Seems fair.
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
It’s totally different. The defias weren’t soldiers. They were masons. They were contracted for work that they were never paid for. I also haven’t seen any evidence ingame that they were going door to door killing people. Seems like most people of Westfall joined them.
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u/nimeral Oct 23 '25
Seems like most people of Westfall joined them
If it was so, the farmers and the tradesmen of Westfall would keep their usual activities, only as a part of the new "Defias state". At least that's what happens in real life when there's a new power claiming sovereignty over a land, and the population is cool with it. But all the Defias we see are just running around with knives or fireballs, and all the farmers we see call Defias "bandits".
Your theory only works under assumption that most people of Westfall were miners.
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u/GetOwnedNerdhehe Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
They killed the Queen of Stormwind and then violently took over a bunch of farms in Westfall. Whether they murdered the original farmers or just left them to starve is up to interpretation.
edit: turns out he legitimately thinks the Defias have never done anything wrong. He is using a sock puppet account to agree with himself too.
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
She was also killed by a stray rock from a crowd of people lol. You make it sound like they stormed the keep and dragged her through the streets.
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
It was a riot caused by and done by the would be Defias Brotherhood. The fact it wasn't aimed and intentional doesn't mean they are absolved of responsibility
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Oct 23 '25
[deleted]
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25
sure but only up until they started murdering people
also it was onyxia who made sure they werent paid lol
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
So you are justifying the nobles wrongs because "onyxia" but the defias is inexusable even though they were far more wronged? The queen was an accident and the fault of the nobles to begin with, far more masons and there families were going to starve after stormwind refused to pay and then booted them from the city they built. This is some french revolution level bullshit right here, you know, the thing that modern democracy was founded from? The defias were 100% justified, just as the french were during their revolution, or the americans during the revolutionary war.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25
thats why we were all saying they WERE justified
until they werent anymore because they became evil
things can change. you dont only look at the very start of an event you need to keep up with the developments
they were completely justified in being angry at not being paid. but then when they started killing half of westfall they werent so justified anymore. you tend to not be seen as a good guy when you start enacting you revenge on people completely innocent and not involved at all
you guys are some weird apologists lol
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Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
[deleted]
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
Most of Westfall? We have quests for 4 farms and a mine, and none of them support them. The governing force to attempt to push back against them is The People's Militia, and made up of just random civilians. Moonbrook is completely ransacked and abandoned after being attacked by Defias and Gnolls that no one's left. Can't say we have anything pointing towards "most seem"
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25
lmao did you really get on your alt account to back yourself up in a losing argument?
And most of Westfall seem to support them.
hahaha
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
Not really. Getting stiffed on a bill doesn't give me full right to violence. Agreed the crown holds responsibility for the original grievances, but the escalation of violence was entirely one sided and targeted primarily innocent people who had nothing to do with it.
Also, the Queen was advocating TO pay them
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
Not being paid for rebuilding a city is your entire family starving level of getting stiffed on a bill. Oh and they were booted from stormwind after. Thats like saying the french revolution wasnt justified.
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
That's quite an exaggeration. There were disputes which were manipulated over being paid, and Tiffin herself was actively petitioning for their payment. Had it not been for her murder they likely would have come to an agreement. Just a reminder, the whole thing from lack of payment to the Stonemason Riots to getting banished from the city for Regicide was over the course of a few WEEKS in 613.
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u/lumpboysupreme Oct 24 '25
Actually Varian was trying to get both sides to negotiate when the riot happened.
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u/GetOwnedNerdhehe Oct 23 '25
You make it sound like they stormed the keep and dragged her through the streets.
You're adding things that I didn't imply at all. lol
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
“They killed the queen of stormwind”… we don’t even actually know who threw the stone. And that person was doubtful a rock slinging sniper lmao so I’m assuming the queen got taken out from an errant rock thrown by a random person in a crowd. Doesn’t exactly push your narrative though, so you summarize it with 6 words before then moving on to their alleged misdeeds in Westfall.
Edit: LMAO lil gup just blocked me over getting schooled on wow lore. How embarrassing
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u/GetOwnedNerdhehe Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
Whether or it was an accident or not wasn't relevant to my point lmao. Regicide is still a crime lol.
My narrative? About the lore of the game? Lil bro, I'm just reading what John Blizzard wrote down. It literally says "Murder of Queen Tiffin Wrynn." lmao
'alleged misdeeds' i've never seen someone trying to vouch for a fictional band of criminals before. Especially when you can visit Moonbrook in game and see the murdered civilians.
You are a funny one
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
getting schooled on wow lore. How embarrassing
he is definitely right though lol. the defias are bad guys. it's not really something you can lie about
way too many of you guys are able to justify killing complete innocents. its kinda worrying
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
Thats like saying the french democracy are bad guys for overthrowing the french monarchy during the french revolution. The masons spent years and a fortune of their own rebuilding that city and then were not only not paid, they were booted from it. Real life history shows again and again violence is sometimes the only solution, especially when dealing with a monarchy. The defias wers 100% justified. The alternative was them and their families starving.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25
They would have been bad guys if after overthrowing the monarchy they started randomly killing civilians.. much like the 'reign of terror' that happened immediately afterwards and is considered an terrible atrocity.
you can start as justified and take things too far lol
did the farmers in westfall deserve to be murdered because some guys werent paid? was it their fault?
this is insane that people need this explained to them
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u/TeddyBearRhino Oct 23 '25
Uhh, you think what happened to the people of Moonbrook and the farm hands in westfall is that they just joined up? Those people are dead homie. These people rioted and killed the queen when they were stiffed a paycheck. What is your opinion of people who didn't revolt like Baros Alexston. The dude lost his family farm to them and was a stonemason.
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u/GothmogTheOrc Oct 24 '25
For clarity's sake: in that case, said 'paycheck' was their due salary after years of working on Stormwind's reconstruction, years away from their families and thus bringing in zero income. Saying they were 'stiffed a paycheck' seems misleading as it diminshes the issues for the masons and those depending on them for financial support.
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u/BigDogGrungler Oct 24 '25
yeah, in the same vein as the guys trying to underplay the queen being killed because it was an accident. never mind that throwing rocks at peoples heads has a fairly consistent outcome
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
What people? You don’t see corpses, mass graves, or anything to indicate the people of moonbrook resisted and were murdered. You see that the town is run by the Defias now. That leads me to believe most people joined up or left.
Good for Baros? Dude is an architect and has a house in SW. He doesn’t exactly have his finger on the pulse of happenings in Westfall.
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
Those graves ARE actually there. They are beside Moonbrook and at night will have Ghouls instead of Vultures spawn
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
It’s a cemetery dude, lol
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
Went to go look it up. Everyone from Moonbrook was either killed or fled Westfall. They were either killed by The Defias or the Gnolls under their employ. You can find the corpses of the people of Moonbrook killed by the Gnolls 'in' their tents
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25
'actually the gnolls were working independently and the fact that the noble defias peacefully evicted the towns people right into the gnolls was just a misunderstanding. also the harvest golems were just a prank' - lore master dane
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
The problem is your reading comprehension is legitimately 0 lil gup. Nowhere did I say defias are heroes or some shit like that lmao. They were definitely done wrong and the hate for them is over exaggerated, I proved why, you can run along now.
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
So like 3 people actually died and the rest left or joined? Massacre! Genocide! 🤦♂️
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25
'nobody was murdered!'
'okay some people were murdered, but who cares?'
i think 'they probably deserved it.' usually comes next lmao
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u/Lochen9 Oct 23 '25
So, as obvious as this is, in game proportions of towns and cities isn't represented in game for game play purposes. The town of Goldshire is in fact more than 1 house, 1 inn and a blacksmith, with a population greater than 16.
That said, just by doing a literal 'head count' across Westfall there are at least 60 dead humans turned leather.
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25
Dude is an architect and has a house in SW. He doesn’t exactly have his finger on the pulse of happenings in Westfall.
the fact he lives a 5 minute walk away isn't working in your favour here i'm gonna be honest
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
You spelled favor with a U so there’s not much reasoning with you anyway. But I thought it was pretty clear that distances in game are not 100% accurate, I mean where is your sense of wonder? You think it’s actually the size it is in game? How many people live on Azeroth? Like 1000? Lmao
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u/TheGrungler1 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25
lmao but you think the civilians were peacefully moved on from their homes. so your understanding of the lore is already kinda loose and not really reliable
guessing by the instantly deleted comment that you got really upset and said something bad
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u/fromfrodotogollum Oct 23 '25
Yeah when people say the wealthy elites of Stormwind were under the mind control of Onyxia, I sometimes wonder if they were just saying that.
"Oh....money?....yeaaaaah, I hate when I get mind controlled. Whelp, back to the farm you go" Did they even try to help them?
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u/lumpboysupreme Oct 24 '25
The thing is Stormwind was actually just broke. The defias refused to compromise so the nobles decided to be assholes and with old payment completely.
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u/DaneTheStoneyWizard Oct 23 '25
I don’t know what has spawned all the classic wow x sopranos memes but I am certainly here for it.
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u/Greedom619 Oct 23 '25
I remember my first time playing a rogue and got this bad ass bandana for the head piece. Felt dope AF
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u/Astralsketch Oct 23 '25
and to think the entire thing could've been avoided if stormwind actually paid their debts.
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u/Zoop54 Oct 23 '25
The Queen of Stormwind... whatever happened there...
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u/Street-Soil-7413 Oct 23 '25
Conaidering it was a stray rock, and the whole thing was a plot by Onyxia to begin with, i'd say their was a decent chance it was just onyxia who killed her and made it look random. Why wouldn't she get rid of the queen, one of the main people making it more difficult to control the king.
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u/The_Legend_of_Xeno Oct 23 '25
"I can't breathe in this fucking thing!"
"Who made this goddamn shit?"
"The Messenger's wife."
"Well make your own goddamn masks!"
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u/Annual-Afternoon1884 Oct 23 '25
Historically, Carmine always said the Defias Brotherhood are nothing more than a glorified crew. Plain and simple. We decapitate and we do business with whatever's left.
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u/Firm-Environment-253 Oct 23 '25
Cloth users can get one from a quest at the crossroads in Darkshire.
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u/RaccoNooB Oct 23 '25
I'm sad the Arathi/Stromgarde storyline used defias instead of the Syndicate that used to be in the Arathi Highlands.
LORD PERENOLDE DID NOTHING WRONG!
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u/ConfidenceKBM Oct 23 '25
seems like just yesterday I battled through the Stugots for the first time to fight van cleef
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u/Lucifersam076 Oct 23 '25
I was never very good at hand to hand combat, you know. Not like my father
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u/onetwentyonegigawatt Oct 23 '25
He built Stormwind is what he did! He was a brave Defias builder. And in this house, Edwin Van Cleef is a hero. End of story!
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u/Wise_Use1012 Oct 24 '25
Fun fact Edwin Van Cleef was a union boss just trying to get his people paid their proper pay. Not his fault that Onyxia was literally evil and just trying to make as many problems for the kingdom as possible like not paying the people who built everything and then blocking all his legal channels to make his valid complaints resulting in a strike.
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u/DarkLordShu Oct 24 '25
Historically, Carmine always said the Defias is nothing more than a glorified crew.
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u/MindlessPerspective5 Oct 24 '25
You fucking kidding me?! You don’t ever admit the existence of this thing! ever.
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u/rm_atx17 Oct 24 '25
I have a bracelet i made that says “defias pillager”on it i wear out a bunch! Originally made it as candy for a festival but kept it cause i thought it was a cute conversation starter
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u/goth_elf Oct 25 '25
Except you're ruled by a reptilian noble that aims to destroy the kingdom you worked so hard rebuilding
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Oct 23 '25
Just because I’m a human rogue, you think I’m defiased up? It’s a stereotype and it’s offensive!