How I finally got revenge on World of Warcraft’s Mor’Ladim… and it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped

In the first part of this defining gaming moment story, Death in Duskwood, I shared how World of Warcraft’s Mor’Ladim seemed to make it his personal mission to obliterate my poor Alliance character—who was just trying to finish a few simple leveling quests in Duskwood.

When Mor’Ladim killed me what felt like an egregious number of times — often seemingly going out of his way to do it — I was absolutely incensed.

But time, as it so often does in World of Warcraft, marched on. The creeping dread that once accompanied every cautious step I took through Raven Hill Cemetery as a low-level Alliance warrior gradually faded. What once felt like a death sentence with every pull slowly became just another memory in the Alliance leveling journey.

Of course, staying the hell away from Mor’Ladim and Raven Hill Cemetery—and leveling elsewhere—definitely helped.

Yet even as I ventured beyond Duskwood—battling Blackrock orc shadowcasters in the Redridge Mountains, wrestling crocolisks and slipping past ghostly pirates in the Wetlands, and braving the wilds of Stranglethorn Vale—one memory refused to fade: Mor’Ladim. The level 35 elite who presided over Raven Hill Cemetery like the grim reaper of trolling lowbies. He hadn’t just defeated me—he planted me face-first in the cemetery dirt with a kind of malicious gusto that felt deeply personal. Again and again.

So what was the first thing I did when I hit Level 60 (the level cap back in vanilla World of Warcraft) and geared up with such impressive end-game items as the two-handed Arcanite Reaper axe and the golden Lionheart Helm?

I went back to Duskwood to find Mor’Ladim. To teach him a lesson in revenge. And pain.

I spotted him—just like always—patrolling the gravestones in Raven Hill Cemetery, his aggro radius stretching halfway to Darkshire. Mor’Ladim.

I hung back, waiting. It wasn’t long before some poor, unsuspecting level 20 dwarf—beard-deep in zombies for a Duskwood quest line I knew all too well—wandered a little too close to the skeletal scoundrel’s path.

That was my cue. I stepped in, Arcanite Reaper drawn.

“Remember me?” I said, channeling the cold satisfaction of Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo, finally delivering justice to the one who had once cut him down.

I struck him down with a cackle—so full of twisted glee it almost startled me. Then, without hesitation, I /spit on his crumpled pile of bones.

The dwarf beside me who I’d saved looked awestruck. “By Magni’s beard, you saved me from that monstrosity,” I imagined him saying. “Thank you, traveler. Who in the seven kingdoms are you?”

I turned slightly, letting the moonlight catch the edge of my axe.

“Just someone who remembers,” I said, my voice more gravelly than Christian Bale’s Batman.

I returned to Raven Hill again and again, driven by a single purpose: to exact my revenge on Mor’Ladim. Each time he rose, I was there, ready to slice him to pieces with my axe.

It became a ritual. I hunted him at all hours, day and night, cutting him down without hesitation, saving low-level adventurers before they even knew the danger they were in. I moved with purpose, precise and unrelenting. Even when no one was there to witness it — no emotes, no whispers of thanks — I still bowed quietly after each fight, a small acknowledgment to myself.

During one of my bloodthirsty missions for revenge, something unexpected happened. I was moments away from cleaving Mor’Ladim in two—again—when I noticed he had stopped. He stood silently before a gravestone, gazing at it as if lost in remembrance.

So I struck him down anyway.

But afterward, curiosity got the better of me. I approached the grave to see what had caught his attention.

The stone was dusty, weathered by time, and bore a single name: Morgan Ladimore.

If that name sounds familiar, it should. Morgan Ladimore is the real name of Mor’Ladim, before he was turned into an undead skeleton doomed to patrol Raven Hill Cemetery.

Upon completing a quest chain initiated by discovering Morgan Ladimore’s tombstone, you learn the story of Ladimore through a book which tells his tragic tale, The Story of Morgan Ladimore.

Perhaps in another reality, I read The Story of Morgan Ladimore before ever setting foot in Duskwood—before I stumbled upon what seemed like a relentless spirit of vengeance in Mor’Ladim. Maybe, if I had read it first, things would’ve felt different. Maybe I would’ve been different.

Because The Story of Morgan Ladimore is one of the most disheartening tales in all of Azeroth, and for all the tragic figures in World of Warcraft, that’s saying a lot. It’s the heartbreaking tale of a noble knight of the Silver Hand—a man who fought alongside legends like Uther the Lightbringer during the Second and Third Wars. A man whose only wish, after enduring the unspeakable horrors of war, was to return home to his wife and children.

This passage from the story hit me right in the chest:

The years passed and the war dragged on, and Morgan would witness many horrific events, including the disbanding of the Paladins of the Silver Hand, the death of Uther and the spread of the plague. The only thing that kept him from the brink of madness was the knowledge that he would someday be reunited with his wife and children.

But fate had other plans.

Morgan would eventually return to his homeland, but find it nothing like how he remembered it. The once verdant forest was corrupted and teemed with the undead and other dark forces.

When he asked about his family, Morgan was met with silence. No one had answers. Desperate and hoping for the best, he turned his horse toward nearby Lakeshire, convincing himself they might have found refuge there during his absence.

But on the way, he passed through Raven Hill Cemetery—and made the mistake of stopping.

It was there he saw them: a small, neglected plot tucked away among the others, marked by three modest gravestones. A chill crept down his spine as he approached. His heart pounded. Kneeling, Morgan brushed the dirt from the most prominent marker, praying it belonged to no one he knew.
But the name carved into the worn stone shattered him:

His worst fear had been waiting for him all along.

Morgan collapsed the moment he saw the gravestones, the names etched into the weathered stone confirming the nightmare he had hoped to avoid. He fell to his knees, wracked with grief, and wept for hours beneath the shadowed canopy of Raven Hill.

But sorrow did not remain sorrow for long.

Grief gave way to fury. With trembling hands, Morgan drew his blade and turned it on the gravestones—striking them over and over in a blind, desperate rage.

The outburst did not go unnoticed. A trio of cemetery attendants, alarmed by the commotion, approached cautiously and attempted to restrain him. But in his blind rage, Morgan lashed out and struck them all down where they stood.

Later, when the rage had passed, realization crept into Morgan’s mind, and he saw his bloody sword driven into the chests of one of the attendants. Driven to the brink by his emotions, he removed his belt knife and plunged it into his heart.

Because of the nature of Morgan’s death, the innocent blood he’d spilled and the intense grief had had for his family, Morgan became Mor’Ladim.

Finding this out after so many encounters with Mor’Ladim reframed everything. What I once saw as a soulless monster, mindlessly haunting Raven Hill and punking low levels just trying to gather zombie ribs for a quest was actually the shattered remnants of a once courageous man who had already lost everything—his family, his home, and finally, himself.

It was then I realized my near-obsession with avenging myself against Mor’Ladim had been misguided. From that point on, whenever I passed through Duskwood and Raven Hill Cemetery, I made it a mission to share Morgan Ladimore’s story with the young, wide-eyed adventurers leveling there.

If a low-level quester—foolish enough, as I once was—wandered into his colossal aggro radius of, I’d step in, hold off Mor’Ladim just long enough for them to escape… and then, before I left, I’d /salute the fallen veteran of two Azerothian wars.

And that’s how I finally got revenge on World of Warcraft’s Mor’Ladim…and it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped.

Because these days I don’t hunt Mor’Ladim. I honor him. Not as a monster—but as a man who lost everything.