The Second War had just ended. Owing to Edwin VanCleef's skills, the Chief Architect of the Stonemasons Guild, Stormwind City was rebuilt sooner than one could expect. When he demanded the gold promised for the construction of the city, the House of Nobles offered him only a position in the government. He laughed in their faces and spat on the ground. Turning his back on the nobles, he decided his next step as he walked out of the Stormwind Keep.
Long had Edwin deemed House Wrynn weak. Under King Llane's reign, the Stonemasons grew in power tremendously for their work on fortifications. Worse still, his mistrust in the Orc envoy Garona led to his own assassination. Edwin had been calling him The Toothless Lion, mocking the golden lion sigil of House Wrynn, yet King Llane merely laughed it off when he heard the name. King Varian's succession was not an easy one. The nobles barely regarded him as king. The rumors of Prince Anduin being a product of the incestuous affairs between Queen Tiffin and her brother was like salt on a wound.
The Stonemasons worshipped Edwin like a lord, for he gave them their tools of the trade. All things considered, Edwin led an open rebellion against House Wrynn. He chose Deadmines, where the gold and silver reserves were enough to rival the riches of House Wrynn before it dried up, as their base of operations. Above the mines was Edwin's hometown Moonbrook. The Stonemasons were now renamed as The Defias Brotherhood, a name that would be feared in all of the kingdom of Stormwind, or so Edwin thought.
Unbeknownst to Edwin, King Varian had prepared for this. He mobilized the entire Stormwind garrison upon hearing the reports of the first raids across the farms in Westfall. The ranks of King Varian swelled with every town he passed by. Upon hearing that King Varian's host was marching on the Deadmines, Edwin hastily sent his untrained yet eager bandits to intercept the army on the open fields of Westfall. The inexperienced Defias Brotherhood could not match the might of the Stormwind army and were quickly routed back to the Deadmines. There were some that surrendered who thought King Varian would show them mercy. He did, in a sense. They were beheaded instead of flayed alive.
Edwin knew the numbers and combat skills of King Varian's soldiers would do little in the narrow passages of Deadmines, so he withdrew all his men from the surface to the underground. He sent another man to negotiate with King Varian, offering their loyalty as long as Prince Anduin remained a hostage in Deadmines, or they could settle this conflict by a duel. King Varian refused both, and ordered his men to seal all entrances and exits of the Deadmines with mud and rocks, then diverted a nearby river to the Deadmines. The Defias Brotherhood was never heard of again, except for the everlasting screams lingering at the entrances of the Deadmines. King Varian also ordered Moonbrook be burned and left in ruins for eternity as a reminder for those who wished to challenge the reign of House Wrynn. Lord Bolvar, standing next to King Varian as they watched Moonbrook burn from afar, remarked "The lion has awoken."
Lady Katrana Prestor, whose house was seemingly disloyal to King Varian after his sucession, bent her knee to the king when he returned, and presented him the song "The Cliffs of Deadmines", immortalizing his victory over Edwin VanCleef.