The green dragons were driven insane, you can see this with the quest from the essence you get from Eranikus.

Corruption
Emerald Nightmare
lolore

I know, I have to say, is anyone in WoW willfully evil? There's a whole lot of 'corruption' and 'driven mad' going on.

I'd love to see a good guy choose to support an evil group because, well, he wanted to. Maybe an NPC who is morally ambiguous and goes with whoever can offer the most. I realize high fantasy settings usually lend themselves to sharp good/evil contrasts, but a little gray area isn't bad.

How about this; Gilneas just opened its gates, joined the Alliance and is at war with the Forsaken. Garrosh is worried about what Sylvie is up to, so he strikes a deal with Lord Genn to allow Orc Rogues to camp in the outskirts of Gilneas to spy on the Forsaken. In return Garrosh promises the Orcs won't get involved in the war and will give Genn some intelligence they gather. Genn is a little skeptical, but allows it (the Forsaken are a tough nut to crack). One day a Gilnean hunter is poaching in Genn's royal preserve stumbles across the Orc camp. Only one Orc is sleeping at the camp, and the hunter surprises him. The Orc tears him up a bit, but is killed. The Gilnean books it back to town and informs the town watch. The watch locks him up for poaching, but goes to investigate. They arrive at the camp the same time the other Orcs are coming back from their missions, and all they see are Gilnean Watch officers ransacking the camp, with one of the Orcs dead at their feet. The Gilnean officers find all kinds of maps and captured battle commands, making them think this is a Horde spy camp (not far from the truth). The Orc Rogues easily slay the watch officers with the element of surprise on their side and now think Genn has double-crossed them. The Rogues strike camp as night falls. The officers are missed at the Watchhouse as the shifts change, so another group is sent out, along with some regular soldiers resting in garrison. At that time Genn's secretary heads out to the camp to get an update. The watch group runs across the secretary, who is alone in Genn's game preserve, with no written orders, with no lantern, and certainly not armed for hunting. The secretary insists the watch has to leave the preserve immediately, but they get wind that something is up. In order to defuse the situation, the secretary spills the beans about the arrangement Genn had with the Orcs. The watch and soldiers are outraged that Genn would conspire with their enemy's allies, and don't believe him anyway. As they find remains of the camp, the Orcs attack from range. They bring down a few of the watch, but the soldiers scatter. The Orcs capture and question the secretary and find out that now the watch and army know about them. The scattered soldiers run immediately to the home garrison to report, meanwhile some go to the watch to declare martial law and organize a citizen's militia to start house-to-house sweeps since they don't know if there are any other spies in the area. Genn gets the news and certainly can't reveal that he agreed to this, too many Gilneans are dead, and it would be a massive loss to morale. He declares his secretary an outlaw, and says he must have been conspiring with the Horde. The Rogues don't know what is going on; they've been attacked twice and one of them was killed. They don't believe the secretary when he says it's all a mistake, but take him along as a hostage. The secretary is eventually able to persuade them to let him help them escape. He enters the castle from a side entrance, under the Orcs' watchful attention, and grabs a couple loyal guards to help him. He learns that there have been soldiers in and out of the castle lately and a lot of angry secret meetings, and that the Watch has been getting orders to deploy, then not to deploy, to form a militia, to not form a militia, and that there seems to be a lot of bad things going on. The secretary fills them in, and says that in order to keep things from exploding they need to get the Orcs out, otherwise the Orcs will likely join the war. As long as they can get the Orcs out, they can salvage the situation and say only one renegade Orc slipped in, who was later found and killed. The Rogues, under the secretary's escort along with Gilnean royal guards, take off for the wall. Meanwhile Genn is able to convince his officers that the last thing they need is a general panic among the citizens, and the important thing now is to secure the wall and sweep through the less populated areas, meanwhile the Watch can be reinforced and keep an eye on the streets for more activity. He has the militia stand down, searches discontinued, and garrison soldiers redeployed. He joins one of the patrols riding toward the main gate so he can inform the soldiers there directly. As they near the gate, they hear the sound of battle, apparently the Forsaken have surged forward and are assaulting.


... so, at the gate you'd have Genn with his personal guard, reinforced with regular soldiers, the normal gate guards, the front line troops who were just enveloped who are trying to beat back the Forsaken, as well as Genn's secretary with a small force of royal guards and Orc Rogues trying desperately to sneak out in the ruckus.

Anything could happen...

The Forsaken are certainly going to be suspicious of Orc Rogues in the company of high-ranking Gilneans, being escorted by royal guards, especially since the Orcs were so adamant about not joining the war, and many of the Forsaken attacks have been thwarted rather easily lately.

The gate guards are going to have lots of conflicting orders. They're used to letting mysterious figures pass in and out under Royal permission, but first they heard there were spies, there weren't spies, they were partially recalled to the home garrison only to be redeployed, and heard unofficially to watch out for Genn's secretary, and now they have screaming Forsaken charging up at the gate, so they have no idea what to think.

Genn certainly wants the Orcs out of Gilneas, dead or alive. If he has to sacrifice his secretary, that would be unfortunate, but he needs to maintain order and morale. Since they opened the gate they became embroiled almost immediately in this war with all these factions they don't know, and few of the Gilneans are too happy about it. He'd rather not kill anyone, but he needs to place the health of his kingdom first.

The regular soldiers with Genn and on the front line likely haven't seen an Orc themselves, but only heard about them from relatives, and those stories weren't exactly nice. They've been relieved that the Orcs haven't joined the battle yet, but know they are the Forsaken's allies. They also have had conflicting orders, and will likely move to protect Genn immediately, since he is so close to some invading forces.

... add player characters on either faction's side to taste, and you have one big mess ready to explode. No one is 'corrupted' or 'driven mad' - you just have a few people trying to legitimately do the best for them and theirs, but lack of communication and different priorities have caused a political powder keg to be tossed right in the middle of a war.

They're mad! They're evil! This is a deep and immersive online experience!

In all seriousness, I think Eisengel is spot on.