Tainted Forest

Tainted Forest lumber camp — The remains of the Iron Horde lumber camp.

The Tainted Forest is an expanse of the revitalized area in the Tainted Scar, created thanks to the efforts of a worgen druid named Marl Wormthorn.

At the time of the Cataclysm, Wormthorn created the great tree Maldraz with his immense power and managed to reclaim and bring back the Tainted Scar to its former, greener self. At first, it was a success and the forest was restored, allowing the refugees to build Surwich where the Tainted Scar was once present.^[1]

However, the residual demonic powers left on the land began to take their toll, and while Wormthorn's attention was drawn to fighting back the demonic taint, the nathrezim who had formerly resided there took the opportunity to infiltrate Maldraz. Once inside, they corrupted Wormthorn's trance, making him lose his mind in the process, and used his body as a weapon to corrupt the great tree and the forest.^[2]

At some point, fel-corrupted fungal giants started to appear from a small pool (beginning to form large mushrooms for unknown reasons), possibly due to the demonic energies left by the Tainted Scar.^[3]

Interested in the demonic artifacts once hidden in the Tainted Scar, the leader of the Sunveil Excursion, Rohan Sunveil, led his subordinates of the Reliquary to practice an archaeological study in the Tainted Forest, where they focused their work in the acquisition, cataloging, and preservation of any and all magical artifacts.^[4] However, the unnatural forest threatened the Reliquary excursion's progress, as its trees' roots broke their picks, its moss grew over their excavation sites, and its animals attacked their men.^[5]

In order to halt the corruption, both the worgen of Surwich and blood elves of the Sunveil Excursion sent adventurers to reduce the number of demons,^[6]^[7] and to kill the corrupted druid.^[8]^[9]

Years later, when the Ironmarch entered Azeroth through the Dark Portal, the orcs of the Iron Horde began to claim the wood from the forest, but were eventually repelled along with the rest of their army by the Alliance and the Horde, leaving their lumber camp abandoned.