#Ardenweald

[kottkrig]

Raffle prize for Belethe77

[howliteart]

Hi hello I made a dragon and I'm love her.

Meet Zielona! :D She's a green dragon actually but she can take on a dracthyr-shaped form. She was critically wounded while aiding the Night Fae back during SL and the only healing she could get during the emergency was a big dose of anima, hence her glowing horns and hair.

In her free time she breeds ornamental lashers! Prettier colours, fancy petals, thornless, gentler dispositions… sometimes ones that look like dogs a little bit 🤔

Her dragon form is a slightly color-changed Tangled Dreamweaver. I wasn't up for drawing a whole-ass dragon just for that so I did a model edit, which is under the cut \o/

[mischiart]

Commission WIP sketch of Kit Wildgrowth, a tribute piece. I'm super stoked for this piece and can't wait to show y'all more!

[raguonmynieceandnephew]

I fucking love Shadowlands and I am tired of being silent

This is probably gonna be long. TL;DR at the end.

Look, Shadowlands is the second worst expansion this game has ever shipped, besides WoD. I know this is a WILD opening sentence for a defense argument, but I am a romantic, not fucking delusional. This is a fact. Point blank period. The content drought was absurd, the legendary system was completely fucked, the maw in general, the lore reduced Arthas and Garrosh quite literally to dust, The Jailer as the main villain and FUCKING THORGAST, the overall alt unfriendliness, borrowed power cranked to a million, and I have expressed how much of a fucking joke I think putting Pelagos as the new Arbriter was.

It was bad.

This has been stablished, not just by me, but by the entirety of the wow community.

But even though I agree, all these things made the game worse, I still enjoyed my experience, and I have a positive outlook on the expansion overall, which seems to be the greatest sin a World of Warcraft player can commit: I liked Shadowlands. I dare to say I liked it more than I did Dragonflight, if I think really hard about it.

You simply cannot say you liked Shadowlands in the any circle of the WoW community online, from what I have seen. I remember Kraken Latte put it in first place in a rank she made of all expansions and got shit on for days on twitter, with people failing to see what she saw in the game.

Now, I feel like I have pointlessly yapping till now, so without further ado, here are some of the Shadowlands features i like the most:

1 - THREADS OF FATE

I am a simple man, who likes to do 2 things in wow: Mythic+ and leveling. That is pretty much it. I don't PvP, I rarely raid and I occasionally indulge in RPing as a Tidesage on Moonguard. And let me tell you, this baby right here was lifechanging.

Threads of Fate is by far, the single best feature (before Warbands, lol) in my entire World of Warcraft experience. I loved it. I loved it dearly. I don't think I have ever had so much fun leveling 60-70 through Revendreth and Ardenweald with ToF. I still have the route I took memorized, it was SO good. So many bonus objectives back to back to back, world quests and that goddamn gorgeous blue forest had the FATTEST questing hubs in the game.

I was so excited to play this combined with Chromie Time, like IT WAS ON BETA, until it was ruthlessly taken away from me for no goddamn reason AT ALL. Like, what the actual fuck blizzard. Y'all don't understand how delightful it would have been to level like that in ardenweald in the mid thirty levels, right after clearing Loch Modan (or the Silverspine and Hillsbrad, for horde). I barely touched SL since it got removed.

BRING IT BACK BLIZZARD, I AM BEGGING YOU, JUST DO THIS ONE SOLID FOR ME.

2 - COVENANT CALLINGS

Speaking of features I thoroughly enjoyed that were pried from my hands, we have the best iteration of daily quests this game has ever had. They actually worked as good dailies that gave actual gold, was a good reliable source of reputation and was amazing for anima and cosmetics.

This + the recent nerfs to the Dragonracing WQs make me feel like blizzard doesn't like when players make their gold independently, like, jesus christ not all of us have time to be profession moguls.

3 - THE 4 ZONES

What inspired this post was the fact that SL raids are now on legacy loot (if you didn't know, now you do) and I had to go to Bastion to buy the weapons with the thingy that drops from Nathria and...look at this. Just look at this.

This place is one of the most beautiful things this game has to offer. Like, the entire zone is gorgeous byt seeing this for the first time since DF came out legit moved me bro, LOOK AT IT.

And while the covenants were kind of a shit show gameplay-wise, in EVERY SINGLE OTHER ASPECT, it was a 10/10 feature, argue with your mom. Aesthetics, themes, everything, simply gorgeous. Also, it got bonus points from me bcs i really do not like to use training dummies in current expansions because of the sheer amount of people blasting them at any given time, so each covenant having their own Dummy Room, was a ++++ for me.

4 - THE NECROLORDS OF MALDRAXXUS

The Necrolords were the best covenant, their campaign was the best and their characters were the best. Like, come on now.

Draka? Mother. Vashj? Mother. Emeni? Mother. Sin'dane? Mother Stradama? Grandmother. Like, are you kidding me? I know lore was one of the Weakest points of SL overall, but you are insane if you include anything involving these guys. Even the Korthia campaign was enjoyable when they had the spotlight. And I only listed the female characters lmao, don't forget The Primus, Krexus's meme death, the five houses, Morgraine, Grahmal, Marileth, like C'MON!

5 - THE DUNGEONS

Except for the Theater of Pain, and arguably the De Other Side (I personaly love it), Shadowlands has the best overall roster of dungeons in the entire game.

Sanguine Dephts is, in my opinion the second best dungeon in WoW, period, behind only Freehold, Tazavesh is the best Mega Dungeon they ever made. Mists is a banger, Plaguefall is a banger except for the tentacles, Halls of Atonement, Spires (controversial take, ik), Necrotic Wake is amazing, like, you can say whatever you want about SL, but you cannot talk shit about its dungeon design.

Except ToP.

Fuck ToP.

Now, it's getting late so imma speedrun the rest of the items:

6 - COSMETICS

SL changed the transmog game, and all cosmetics from it (all the mounts and sets from all sources) look phenomenal, and if you disagree you are simply lying to yourself.

7 - ZERETH MORTIS

The zone was good and had tons of stuff to do and collect, plus, the introduction to the Catalysts was a plus.

also, nothing will be funnier than Taelia fucking Fordragon being the talking quest bubble for WQs in THE REALM OF ULTRA DEATH

8 - RAIDS

CN: Vibes? Immaculate. SoD: Horrible systems, cool mechanics SoFO: Cool systems, mid mechanics overall a positive for me

9 - CHARACTERS

Already mentioned a lot of characters from Maldraxxus, here are my other faves: Lady Moonberry, the gay unicorm, Denathrius, Theothar, basically ever steward, The Accuser, Kael'thas, General Draven, Remornia and many more.

There are probably more reasons to list to justify my love for SL despite all the bad it has in it, but I simply do not have the mental fuel to keep going rn, i need sleep.

TL;DR: I like Shadowlands despite it being bad and would appreciate it if ppl didn't throw a fit everytime someone talks about it in any sort of positive light. I then listed Threads of Fate, Callings, the first 4 zones, dungeon design, the fuckton of collectibles, characters and the beginning of the shift in game philosophy as positive and valid reasons to be a SL enjoyer.

[possessedopossum]

My demon hunter and former druid Ursalan and his custom metamorphosis forms. During SL he traveled to Ardenweald, befriended a dying wild god and eventually, inherited a part of god`s powers as his dying wish.

[warcraft-positivity]

Day #286 of things I love about WoW:

The Shadowlands zones. I don't think I'll ever get over how aesthetically my jam these zones were. Ardenweald is my favorite, but Bastion's got a special place in my heart and Revendreth is just downright S-tier in both vibes & appearance.

[froggileee]

I drew the winter queen from WoW

[taggtheotter]

Shadowlands Pixel art

[blue-eyed-banshee]

I still think Sylvanas would have gone to Ardenwheld to find Lirath rather than linger in the Maw to find *cough* Nathanos. *cough*

I think he would be playing Lament of the highborne at the Star Lake Amphitheater. Verath would manifest next to her out of the blue alongside Lireesa, who would either be a Kyrian or Maldraxxi or at least donned with armor from Maldraxas.

Lirath would be overjoyed to see her, and I think they would have been lurking somewhere when Sylvanas attacked Ardenwheld while allied with the Jailer.

She would think her parents would shun her or even hurl a hurtful word or two in Thalassian, but instead, her mother just hugs her. This shocks Sylvanas, of course.

And, of course, Lireesa would immediately ask about Jaina as well as voice how proud she is at how far Sylvanas had come, both in life and undeath.

I'd also like to think that Verath would have appeared to Jaina at some point, maybe while she's writing reports or reading.

She would have been able to sense his presence beforehand due to her capabilities as a mage. At first, she would mistake him for an intruder or even a courier, but realization quickly sets in and then worries because her mind goes to Sylvanas.

I can see Jaina venturing to Ardenwheald with him to see Sylvanas, and you bet your gay ass they'd kiss!

And side note: Jaina would be memorized by Ardenwheald! Taking in the sights and marvling at the fauna and creatures there.

I'll be typing up a little post later.

[trashgavin]

Welcome to Ardenweald.

[alexdreamart]

It is finished! I usually don't work much on backgrounds so this has been an incredible challenge to tackle.

A piece created for Riversong, inspired by World of Warcraft Shdowland zones and original character of the player :)

[elvenarcanum]

A warrior for the Night Fae of Ardenweald

[wowscenery]

[wwo0w]

[cince-arts]

(Ok going to start with some of my favourite pieces I’ve created in 2020/21 then move on from that xD)

The Winter Queen 

Art  © @cince-arts

Character  © Blizzard Entertainment

[darkenaz-art]

I found some sketches from 2021; here is one. Well, I have to admit I don't like Ardenweald at all, but Ara'lon's design was too cute in the cinematic to not to draw him 😅