Quot capita, tot sententiae sed unum luminum.

"So many heads, so many opinions, but only one light."

It is not strange that the first words written in this book are these. While we all live to be vessels and servants of the ever shining light we are not always on one line while doing so. Civil war, theft, murder and senseless accusations are what even this day the world is home to. Stormwind is no exception nor was Lordaeron.

To get to the core of these problems we have to get to the core of light worshipping and I will begin as far back in time as I can possibly know. I speak of the Church of the Holy light in Lordaeron, a church actively recruiting light followers throughout the continent of Lordaeron and Quel'Thelas, naturally the southern lands also had their Church of the holy light. In fact the whole known world at that time was covered by said churches and it was generally known that all the nations now known together as the Alliance were devout followers. But the first sign of different worshipping throughout the world did not appear during the rise of the light, instead the signs appeared not too long ago, when it was almost consumed by the shadows of our world.

An Interlude to "The Light's musings" by Grand Crusader Dathran Eranor

The Knights of the Silver Hand.

The Church of the Light gave birth to an order that would carry the light as their guidance and weapon, an order that has existed for many years while it lived to rid the world of darkness and to protect it's people. I write of course of the Silver Hand: Created after the First war by Uther the Lightbringer and Archbishop Alonsus Faol. Many do not know however that the order found it's true birth before the First War. Alonsus Faol had earlier created the holy order of Northshire Clerics unfortunately this order was devastated during the first war. The Order was reformed as the Silver Hand with the following core members: Uther, Turalyon, Saidan Dathrohan, and Gavinrad the Dire, who was recommended by Sir Anduin Lothar.

We all know what turned out to be the sole destruction of this holy order and I will not press that matter further. The true point of the story is the following: After the destruction of the Church of Light and the Silver Hand the beliefs in the light began to become more diverse and different in several orders that came to existance.

The first order that of course was formed was the Scarlet Crusade, having many old paladins of the Silver Hand and other people willing to fight the scourge in it's ranks. The Crusade quickly began to grow a certain form of paranoia after they found out that even the most healthy man could turn into a brain eating ghoul in merely two hours. While the ways the Crusade dealt with possible plague bearers is still frowned upon by many, they did do what had to be done to defend their own. The peaceful ways of the light however began to disappear and it soon had become more of a weapon then a guidance.

The second order that was formed was the Argent Dawn, betraying their brethren of the Scarlet Crusade because of their weak stomach they turned to every other race in the world to once more strengthen their ranks and continue their fight for Lordaeron's freedom. Throughout the years however the order has shown to lack the strength to fully purge Lordaeron and has now ended up sailing to Northrend as the Argent Crusade leaving Lordaeron behind for the remaining Scarlet Forces to take care of.

While both of these orders use the light as weapon aswell as guidance, the balance between the two differs. The Scarlet Order has always been more direct and seems to take the fastest way to their goals, whereas the Argent Crusade is full of old men who aim to take no risk and wish to spare as much men as possible, while the risk that they're too late to take out the Scourge in Northrend becomes only larger.

While this is of course not an order, there's also a third stream of the light. I've seen this exist mainly in Stormwind but I have not been here too long myself, it however seems that the light is seen as some sort of God, no longer an element or guidance in life. I still do not know what I have to think about said matter, but I'll make sure to write more on the subject when I can.

Chapter 1 "The light's devotees" of "The Light's musings" by Grand Crusader Dathran Eranor