Sylvanas Loyalist Institute

"Serve in Life, or Slave in Death"

― An unofficial motto, likely apocryphal

The Sylvanas Loyalist Institute, also known as The S.L.I or The Loyalists, was a Forsaken-aligned clandestine operation undertaken in response to The Fourth War and one of the main antagonists in The Fourth War Campaign. Initially a covert operation designed to manipulate netutral or Horde sympathetic factions into committing to the Banshee Queen, the S.L.I changed under the leadership of High Executor Laudwine into a direct, often violent coercion group bent on forcing the various groups to "comply or die".

They became openly antagonistic towards The Lamplighters after their plans to force them to join The Horde in the Fourth War ended in failure and political embarrassment when the plot was uncovered. The Institute held a policy that any neutral faction that refused to serve the Horde was actively causing Horde members to die by their inaction, and once High Executor Laudwine took command, this became a personal feud between him and many Agents. They were matched on the Alliance side by Project T.A.R.O.T and consistently found themselves at odds with both parties, with the Agents of The Lamplighters having temporarily allied themselves with the Project.

With Sylvanas Windrunner's departure and the Horde's subsequent truce with the Alliance, the Loyalists were cut off from their funding and their goals, essentially becoming a rogue institution. The last base they were known to possess was discovered hidden on Pandaria and systematically destroyed. Their necropolis was crashed to earth and buried their leader, High Executor Laudwine, beneath the rubble.

Post-War
After the armistice was signed at the conclusion of the Fourth War, the Sylvanas Loyalist Institute was considered dismantled. Out of its numerous personnel during their wartime efforts, few were accounted for after the disastrous campaign in Pandaria and those known to have survived the necropolis crash did not return to the Horde territories and regrouped in parts unknown. Many among their number re-joined with the forces of the Dark Lady and melded into the ranks of the mainline Banshee loyalists while a select few chose to return to the borders of Lordaeron. One of Sylvanas' Dark Rangers took on the mantle of the Loyalist's incumbent leader and organised those few remaining into a guerrilla strike unit.

Striking into the Hinterlands, they turned one of the Reventusk Troll guardians to their cause, having her desecrate the burial sites of the dead Trolls to raise an army of the Undead. While the Wildhammer Dwarves, the visiting Trolls and the Lamplighters were distracted in putting down this menace, the Loyalists were able to slip north into the Plaguelands and use the leylines around Scholomance to conjure a temporary portal into the Necropolis in Pandaria. There they were able to recover the battered body of High Executor Laudwine, still clinging to life. They spirited him away to the Ruins of Southshore for repairs, before teleporting away to an island off the coast of Dustwallow Marsh in Kalimdor.