Futility

Quest Giver: Matthias Lehner — First Legion Forward Camp, Icecrown [64, 44]

Objective: Follows Army of the Damned. Turning this in opens two things at once: Sindragosa’s Fall from Thassarian, and a fresh Matthias sequence starting with Where Dragons Fell from Matthias himself, who has relocated to [71.6, 37.6]

Quick Facts

• Level: 80
• Chain: Follows Army of the Damned; leads to Sindragosa’s Fall (Alliance)/Cradle of the Frostbrood (Horde)

Walkthrough

• After the Army of the Damned vision ends, Matthias dismisses you with his final warning: “Do you see now? Sending your men against the prince’s armies just swells their numbers. I don’t expect you to understand… you’ll probably just end like the others. You’d best return to whoever sent you. They might be worried.”
• Fly to the Skybreaker (Alliance) or Orgrim’s Hammer (Horde) and speak with Thassarian or Koltira.
• This is a pure travel quest. No combat required.

Faction Turn-In Dialogue

• Thassarian (Alliance): “Nice shooting. The Scourge never had a chance. Are you feeling okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Not that it would be an unusual thing around these parts, now that I think about it.”
• Koltira (Horde): “There you are. Nice work down in the valley. The carnage was visible all the way up here. Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Efficiency Tips

• The airships patrol routes through Icecrown. If you cannot find them, fly to the general area around [62, 40] to [60, 53] and wait for them to circle past, or use the summoning NPCs at fixed locations to teleport aboard.
• The follow-up quest (Sindragosa’s Fall/Cradle of the Frostbrood) is available immediately from Thassarian/Koltira.
• Matthias moves after this quest. He turns up next at [71.6, 37.6] near Sindragosa’s Fall, which is a long way from the Forward Camp, so do not go looking for him where you left him.

Lore & Secrets

The Title Says Everything

The quest is named “Futility” because that is the lesson Matthias has been teaching since Do Your Worst. Over three quests, you experienced the full arc: you used a demolisher to destroy 150+ Scourge (Do Your Worst), then played as Arthas slaughtering his own loyal soldiers and raising them as ghouls (Army of the Damned), and now Matthias tells you the conclusion.

It does not matter how many Scourge you kill, because every soldier who falls against them, from both sides, rises to fight for the Lich King. Conventional warfare against an enemy that gains strength from every casualty is, by definition, futile.

“You Look Like You’ve Seen a Ghost”

Both Thassarian and Koltira notice something is wrong with you when you return.

You have seen a ghost: Matthias Lehner, the spectral remnant of Arthas’s humanity. And you have experienced something far worse than seeing a ghost: you inhabited Arthas’s body and felt what it was like to murder your own loyal soldiers and raise them as undead.

Thassarian, as a death knight, would understand this better than most if he knew the full truth.

What Comes Next

The chain continues into the second Matthias Lehner vision sequence. Sindragosa’s Fall/Cradle of the Frostbrood leads to visions of Arthas raising Sindragosa, his duel with Illidan, and eventually the climactic confrontation at the Cathedral of Darkness in Tirion’s Gambit.

Explore Icecrown’s hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Icecrown Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.