Hur-Arthas Menathil IV.

Arthas Menathil is the son of Tenamil, and Lianne Menathil making him a member of House Menathil. Arthas has two siblings in the form of Calia, and Talia Menathil of which Calia is a very important and beloved figure in the city of Lorderon, and Talia Menathil is married into the core of Lucerne and thus has become drifted from her once close relationship with Lorderon and now lives in the Port of Stormwind. Since the annexation of Lorderon by the Kingdom of Lucerne he has become the Lord of Lorderon which is a very important figure in Lucerne.

On the surface Arthas appears to be the same kind and intelligent man he has become known as, but underneath and to many of the closest to him his change is dramatic. The death of his father clicked something in his brain, and where once he rejected the violent thoughts in his mind, he now is becoming open to listening.

Arthas was born a boy with a lot of potential to be a great prince for the Kingdom of Lorderon. All of this potential wouldn't make him vain or arrogant either and he became extremely popular amongs the population of Lorderon and many waited patiently for his coming to power. When he fifteen though he was cursed by Kel'Thuzad with a curse that made him begin to suffer voices in his mind that were dark, and violent in their point of view. In Arthas's growing madness he has began reading through the private Menathil library for clues towards how to escape his madness. In this search he has uncovered a book that may change the foundation of Europe.

Early History

 * "The birth of Arthas Menathil was heralded throughout the Kingdom of Lorderon by trumpets and crying women in the streets. Upon his birth all the fears that the Kingdom would end were gone, and people obsessed over how good a King he would be when he grew up. In the end he would sell us to Lucerne and then spark a civil war that nearly destroyed us."


 * -Blain Vandertest

Arthas Menathil was born in Lorderon proper to his loving parents who were the King and Queen of Lorderon. Arthas was born a boy with a lot of potential to be a great prince for the Kingdom of Lorderon. All of this potential wouldn't make him vain or arrogant either and he became extremely popular amongs the population of Lorderon and many waited patiently for his coming to power.The young man would gain nothing but confidence as he grew older. His confidence could at sometimes go a little to far and many spoke of his arrogance, but overall there were very little complaints about the direction that the prince was going. At the age of fifteen he was involved in a series of conflicts against the forces of Valeria of whom the Kingdom of Lorderon was always at odds against. During this time he came to meet House Proudmoore during the fighting and the Lord of this House would introduce him to his baby daughter. Jaina Proudmoore.


 * Arthas_and_Jaina.jpg"She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. Her eyes sparkled at me in a way that I could never quite shake. It was in that moment that I fell in love with Jaina, but it would be years before I saw her again, and when I did she was no longer a baby."


 * -Arthas Menathil


 * It would be years before he saw her again, and during this time he had gained even more renown for his fighting, and leadership skills. Jaina watched silently from the background as the stories about this man increased, and even though she was a babe when he had seen her for the first time she loved him. When she turned fifteen her father finally allowed her to travel to Lorderon, and once there she joined the Kirin Tor, where she believed she could catch his eye through her skill. For two years she trained extremely hard in Magi, and when she finally believed she could impress him she saught him out while he was south of the city defending a village against bandits. In this first meeting since she was a babe, he recegnized her immediatly, and simply walked up to her and caressed her cheek which she responded to by leaning into him.



Kael'Thuzad
See Also : Kael'Thuzad

"It was as if one day I was a free man, and then the next I was plagued by a mind that was no longer free. The voices plagued me on a daily basis, but I was smart enough to know what happened if you were to tell anyone that you heard voices and I was arrogant enough at the time to believe I could fight past them."

-Arthas Menathil

Underneath this aura of arrogance was a young man who was struggling with voices in his mind, that told him to do some truly evil things. While he always rejected what they said, he found as time went on the voices were harder and harder to ignore. He had unknowingly become cursed by a powerful Kirin Tor mage named Kael'Thuzad, who was a servent of Sauron and wished to create another bastion of Mordor above the already weakening Gondor. This curse caused him to have an ever increasingly violent and sadistic voice in his mind that made him want to do dark things with his life, instead of the nobility that once filled the people's heart with hope for the future.



Uther Lightbringer
See Also : Uther Lightbringer

In the hopes of changing this growing personality trait his parents brought in a man with a lot of experiance in training young knights. They hired for a full year the assistence of Uther lightbringer. Uther was a paladin from Arnor, and while he wasnt a top level commander of the Silver Knights which are the paladin order in Arnor, he was a noteable paladin. With Uther as his trainer, the arrogance that Arthas had appeared to disipate, and at times just appeared as overconfident. With the complete 360 accomplished Arthas's parents prepared for the release of Uther with a confidence they hadn't known in years. This farewell would be tempered when Uther came to see them first. The public, and for that matter noone outside of the three of them heard the conversation, but Uther told them of his fear for Arthas's sanity.

"Your boy is going to be a great man. And in my brief time here I have grown to love him as if he was my own son. But saying this I must make you aware that young Arthas has a very high tendency for violence against though's he percieves as his enemies. Now while he could foreceivably control this and only use it with his logitim enemies. I forsee a darker path."

-Uther's farewell

To say the King and Queen were shocked was an understatement. The two quickly asked Uther to leave the Kingdom, of which he did the next day.Arthas was beyond confused why Uther had left before his time was done, and when after months of trying to get the anwsers from his parents he finally lost his inner control, and ran away from Lorderon and headed north to Arnor



Arnor
The Road Arthas had wanted to travel alone, but Jaina refused to let him go without her, so the two travelled the road and were at this point completely in love with eachother. Jaina had fears that Arthas was becoming evil, but this man she was with appeared fully in control, with no hints of the violence he had told her about before Uther.

"That was the longest trip of my life. The whole time she's smiling at me with pure love in her eyes, and all I can hear in my head is the voice wondering what her face would look like without lips."

-Arthas Menathil

Galheim
After a week of travelling on the road northward the pair finnally reached the city of Gallheim and were met by a party of Empire soilders who happened to be led by a priest of Sigmar. The priest is said to have littarly recoiled in fear of the evil he felt in front of him, and the priest quickly forced the pair to move past Gallheim towards their goals.

Arriving in Talheim
Arriving at Talheim should have been a moment of joy for Arthas but the voices in his head were pounding him with violent images, and eventually his mind became so overwhelmed that he passed out and had to be carried for nearly a mile by Jaina. When they finally reached Talheim



War with Valeria
Main Article : Munchen War

With Arthas's return to Lorderon and his convincing his parents and others of his sanity, and renewed faith to the Kingdom, Arthas quickly turned the military of Lorderon towards the coming conflict against the Empire of Valeria. The prince of Valeria in Kevin Zegers had attacked and attempted to rape Natalie Portmane who was a servent of the royal family. This was a large diplomatic problem in that the Valerians had disrespected the borders of Lorder and commited violence on Lorderon soil. With this act the forces of Lorderon alligned with the forces of Arnor west and prepared to invade the Empire of Valeria.

Arthas was placed in charge of the campaign and he marched his forces northwards towards the port of Yune where they used the ferry to cross the Rhine and meet with the Arnor forces.



Diane Portmane
See Also : Diane Portmane

Following his conflict with the forces of Valeria Arthas felt a sence of failure that he had never known before, and his strained relationship with Jaina wouldn't allow him the support that he needed in this time. This support became filled with one of his mother's handmaiden's in the form of Diane Portmane. The two begin engaging in a sexual affair which Arthas came to rely on as a means of getting his stress out.

For Diane she saw that her entry into the Menathil court was complete and she understood that she was one step closer to her goal of meeting the other side of her family. With Natalie in Arnor, and James very diligant with his training she has a one track mind towards rejoining the family she feels she was robbed of. As she grew closer to Arthas and they continued their romantic affarir, she became pregnant with his child shortly before the death of his father, and when she told him she menipulated him into accepting this child and he was preparing to leave Jaina when she miscarried the child. With the blackmail she was using now gone she was cast away from Arthas, and she found herself on the outs in the court.

Crossroads
Following the death of his father Arthas understood that his Kingdom was going to fall on its own. Whether it was annexxed by Arnor, Bolten, or bought by The Empire it wasn't going to be independant anymore so he had to make some changes. Arthas refused the customary crowining of the new King and instead stood as the prince apparent for nearly two months as he decided on what to do.

At the end of this the moment came where he prepared a series of visits to surrounding Kingdoms in order to decide which one he would become a part of.

Arnor
Main Article : Arnor

The Empire
Main Article : The Empire

Gondor
Main Article : Gondor

Kingdom of Bolten
Main Article : Kingdom of Bolten

Conflict with Bolten
Main Article : Kingdom of Bolten




 * "It was all gone. Everything that had once been true was a lie. I knew now that the world was wrong. It was only in its destruction that it could be reborn anew. And in that rebirth everything that was wrong would be made right."


 * -Arthas Menathil

As his mind completely drifted out of its old self he began to dress himself in a suit of armor that he fashioned for himself. The armor was extremely dark, and as he became more and more seen with this new darker armor the people amongst him became very conserned about him. He disregarded these worries and used this Lord powers to create himself a powerbase at the top of the Lorderon leadership. Those with morals, and quams about the way Lorderon was run found they were pushed out of their positions. As of this point the Dragon Orders of Lucerne had not yet been given the commendations to enter Lorderon until two more years had passed so for this reason Arthas was able to create a goverment run by himself and his cronies in little less then a month.

Westros
In the preview chapter the POV character of Marcel Lovie II. is laying in the ruins of Frostmore while he discusses in his last minutes how the city fell, and what transpired to leave him broken and near death in some Arnor City. As he nears death he is found by Arthas Menathil who at first appears to help him, before stabbing him in the chest and then moving his forces onwards.
 * I lay broken on the ground, and the pain in my abdomen was more then I had ever felt before. I tried to get myself off the ground, but when I attempted to raise myself I realized my left arm wasn't there anymore. Feeling hopeless I slumped down more and for a moment I tried to imagine that this was how it would end. I turned my head to the right and saw several of the Valerians laying dead nearbye, and slumped against a wall to my right was Orton Vonder with a spear through his chest. Looking at the dead eyes of a man I had known for more years then I can count. The eyes of a man that had gaurded me since birth. It was more painful then I would have ever thought looking into his eyes would ever be. It was in that moment I knew it was all over. My eyes were just so heavy. Everything around me seemed to just quiet down as if it knew this was the end, and it wanted me to have peace in this place. As I closed my eyes I felt a force pull me upwards, and as I opened my eyes I saw Arthas Menathil and behind him several of his men. "Arthas...how did you get here..."
 * He looked at me perplexed for a moment before smiling a bit, before anwsering me. "The call went out that you were besieged here. I'm only sorry that we didn't arrive in time."
 * "Are any of my men still alive?" I had hoped that he would give me some kind of reprieve but as he anwsered there was just nothing in his eyes, and in my periferal vision I saw what appeared to me to be a man of Lorderon but his face was dead. He was a skeleton, and as I turned to look at the other men I saw now that their armor was ripped and they stood now as the dead. "What madness is this...Arthas what have you done?" He looked at me for a moment before simply dropping me to the ground and staring at the sky.
 * "This world is something that has always perplexed me young noble. People sway, and they move as if they have some kind of control over what happens. You came here thinking that this would go the way it always had for people such as you. You were wrong young Marcel, and now you pay the ultimate price for your mistakes. I'm going to burn the world to pieces. I'm going to tear down everything and leave this world a ruin. Goodbye young Marcel." And the moment he said my name he pulled a sword from his side and before I could say another word he stabbed the sword through my chest. God didn't give me the fortune to die in that moment and as the life faded from me he pulled himself closer to my face and stared me directly in the eye. I wanted to make him leave. I didn't want it to end this way, and I sqeaked out with what little strength I had left
 * "William help me..." He laughed at me before twisting the knife in me, and the moment he did a strange thing happened. It all just went away. The clouds seemed to part...the pain went away, and his face blurred into nothingness.

Jaina Menathil
See Also : Jaina Menathil

Jaina Menathil was everything for Arthas Menathil, and Arthas was everything for Jaina. This relationship was one that for the two of them couldn't have been more perfect, and for many years it was just this.

But underneath the calm and cool exterior of Arthas was a growing darkness, that was only accelerating with the interferance of Kael'Thuzad. This darkness begin to effect their love, and during their lovemaking he begin to become forceful, and sometimes near violent. This scared Jaina, and although he hid it well, it scared Arthas as well.

Despite everything that has happened between the two, they both still love eachother with everything in them

"I love Jaina with everything in me. I just wish the voices in my head would stop telling me to kill her."

-Arthas Menathil



Diane Portmane
See Also : Diane Portmane

Diane Portmane has engaged in a torrid affair with the young prince for the better part of 4 years. She has no emotional reaction to the prince whatsoever but she knows the only way to return home is if she is a valuable member of Lorderon. She knows perhaps better then anyone elce how far morally Arthas has fallen, as she is the one that has to endure it as his sexuality becomes more brutalized and violent.

The two once spoke before, during, and after their sexual times together, but now its become almost a routine for them, and they now barely say anything to eachother. Diane too obsessed with leaving that she ignored the fall, and Arthas to in love with the Chaos to care.

With the coming of Andrew and the annexation of Lorderon, Diane left Lorderon and now lives in Lucerne. She and Arthas have not spoken since, and since she got what she wanted he was just a pawn anyway.