#Outland vs Draenor

[brightbell]

A Letter to Sisters

My Dear Sisters,

I have just returned home from a visit to Outland, as the people here call it. It has taken me many years to gather the courage to go on this quest, and I honestly can not say if I am glad that I did, or if I regret it. 

It was, without a doubt, one of the hardest things I have done since we decided to leave Talador and join the Alliance in Azeroth. 

My heart is broken. I have seen things that would make the hardest Vindicator fall to their knees. I have seen what has become of our blessed Auchindoun, and I fear I will never recover from the sight. It is in ruins. A shell of its former glory, abandoned and left to the ravages of time, and demons. I explored the area extensively, and found nothing but sorrow.

Our planet itself has been blasted to pieces, most of it unrecognizable as the (mostly) beautiful place we know it as. Names of places have changed, and once-great cities have either been left to the devices of the forests, or they have been reduced to ashes. 

Talador is no more there. It is now a place called Terokkar Forest, and that is where the ruins of Auchindoun lay. Shattrath, by some miracle, still stands, but it seems to be shrouded in shadows, instead of being a beacon of Light and hope. I stayed there for a few days, preparing for our journey to Auchindoun, which is surrounded by a vast wasteland where nothing grows any longer. 

Ashran is completely gone. There is no sign of it anywhere, and nothing, except my maps of Draenor, to know it even existed. And Tanaan itself is veritable hell, now called Hellfire Peninsula. The very land is scorched and corrupted beyond recognition. Monstrous beasts and demons roam the hellscape, and it is there that the Dark Portal resides.   

I do not even begin to know how to describe Gorgrond, it has broken off from the rest of the planet and is now called Netherstorm. It is frightening, I mean, it always was, but now it is something so different that it shocks the senses. Arcane magics rule there, and there is a Draenei vessel known as Tempest Keep that sits just off the edge of the land. It, too, is corrupted, but with arcane magic instead of felfire. 

What was once Frostfire Ridge is now a vast desert canyon, with enormous spiked cliffs, aptly called Blade’s Edge Mountains. It is hot and arid, no sign of the pure, soft snow that used to cover the ground. I do not know what could have happened to make the land become so perverted, and to look like it does now. I did not linger long there.

Traveling south, we came into Zangarmarsh, what used to be the Zangar Sea. The sea is now mostly gone, and in its place is little islands dotting the area, huge mushrooms, and alien species living there. And Trolls. Damned Trolls have taken over some of the areas there. 

The Spires of Arak is completely gone, like Ashran, no evidence of the land’s existence at all. It’s like the land was just blasted away. And Shadowmoon Valley, how do I even describe what I saw there? Nightmare inducing might be the easiest way. There are no more lush forests. There are no more cities. The only thing that is there now is felfire, demons, beasts and the Black Temple that lays in ruins itself. It was hideous.

The only place that bears any resemblance to home is Nagrand, and even it is greatly changed. Oshu’gun is also abandoned, and settlements of orcs reside everywhere, along with ogres and other various unsavory things. 

All in all, it was not a fun adventure, not at all. The greatest loss, I believe, is Talador and Auchindoun. But it is all just so foreign, and so heartbreaking that it was like visiting a different planet, instead of what was once our home in this timeline. None of our family nor ancestors are still alive in this reality. 

My sweet Elodie, I humbly request that you do not attempt this journey, I fear it would be too much for you. Relv’ka, if you decide to go, please meet with me first, it is not a journey for the faint of hear. 

I am going to return to my small cabin in Redridge, should either of you like to visit. 

All my love,

Kala’Ryn

[xenodile]

@ryo-maybe OKAY SO

Warcraft originally presented orcs as an Always Chaotic Evil generic monster race that served the Burning Legion, until Warcraft 2 introduced Outland and presented us with the explanation that the orcs had been enslaved and collectively brainwashed by demons.  That’s Racial Enslavement Number 1.

Then Warcraft 3 rolls around and Blizzard decides they want heroic orcs, so they write up Green Moses and need a suitably shitty situation to make people feel sorry for the orcs.  So in the wake of the Horde being broken at the finale of Warcraft 2 and banishment of the Burning Legion, the surviving orcs all get clinical depression and lose the will to fight, and are subsequently rounded up by humanity into concentration camps.  The orcs, afflicted with Plot Mandated Racial Depression, are shipped to different parts of the human kings to be used as servants and laborers.  That’s number 2.

Number 3 is a retroactive tick on the board, added in the 5th expansion of World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor.  Warlords builds up the hitherto stupid and brutish ogres as ACTUALLY being the original arcane empire, the elves before there were elves, who created the orcs with sorcery to be a slave race.  Orc VS Ogre conflict was talked about previously, as was a larger ogre civilization that was broken by orcs, but Warlords retconned it into a full blown clone slave uprising.

Why is this important to talk about?  Because the orcs, to this day, actively practice slavery.  The orc starting area has a few quests where you interact with a slaver and tussle with his slaves, one of whom is a taunka, a bison-like race closely related to the Tauren and allies to the Horde.  The whole Varian Wrynn gets kidnapped arc, where he finds a magic sword and makes his name as a gladiator?  He was a slave, owned by an orc, and made to fight in the pits in the orc capital of Orgrimmar.

The turning point that drives Thrall to escape captivity is when he’s told what his name means, and his owner, Blackmoore, beats him for losing a fight.  Yet Thrall allows the orcs to practice slavery.

[swampgallows]

Which allied race(s) do you think has the most disappointing implementation based on their current lore and future story possibilities?

i talked about this a little bit before but the lightforged draenei seem kinda limited their scope, although im sure it’ll come back around in the inevitable light vs void xpac

which is also, probably, where they’re gonna implement the stupid au draenei storyline from WoD as well

people might think this is out of character for me but i really wish we’d gotten MU mag’har. or at least some news about what the orcs in outland are doing, especially now that thrall and his family had been living there!? like, hello? what’s going on in the orc homeworld of our universe? is geyah still alive? do any other orc clans still exist? what is it like now that the demon presence is gone? did they find a way to drain the coilfang reservoir? did the broken remaining on draenor take back karabor? (actually is akama on azeroth? is he dead? i literally dont remember. we fight his shade but i dont remember if This Kills the Man. god i love akama)

i know WoD was supposed to be outland “as it once was” but it was also a bunch of AU stuff that would never come to pass in the main universe, or there’s so much inconsequential cloudiness about what is both canon for MU draenor and AU draenor, or what they retconned of the MU for the AU, or what is exclusive lore to the AU and not the MU, who you can punch, who you can’t punch...

plus as many people have mentioned it makes it dumb as fuck that we conscript the people who were literally our enemies for an entire xpac just because thirty years have passed for them even though they’re temporal anomalies. that isn’t our Grom, those aren’t our orcs, and they’re basically walking reminders that “it was really really evil of garrosh to try to form the horde even when orcs werent united by demon blood, but it’s really really good of us to take his framework and just absorb all of those units into our current horde to prove we’d do the exact same thing”. 

for the mag’har allied race to have any future storytelling possibilities they’re probably gonna have to revisit the seed they planted in the mag’har unlocking scenario where blizz took their jewish coded race who suffered genocide at the hands of the orcs and their dark magic and went “actually, now it is the draenei’s turn to commit genocide with their space catholicism”. and theyre apparently led by an ‘exarch hellscream’, the not-garrosh son of AU grom, which cements the hellscream lineage in another universe as being full of overzealous genocidal dictators. if you cant tell that fucking sucks ass

dont get me wrong, if there’s a “more orcs” button you know im gonna slam my fist into it, but a lot of WoD was coasting purely on aesthetic and is a hot fucking mess beneath that veneer so a lot of the implications of adding the AU mag’har are unsavory and haphazard. not to mention they immediately sidled not-thrall geya’rah into being an outspoken sylvanas loyalist, so much like the zandalari she’s kinda being taken for the chaotic ride of “our factions are so so so so important but actually have no scruples about doing what the fuck ever at any time as long as they say the H word before they do it”

bro there are so many nasty ass frayed threads to the warcraft lore thanks to that bullshit AU. i do not envy the people who have to weave something new out of that matted bezoar

[amberesinite]

Hi, friends! I’ll be starting a series of comparison screenshots of equivalent locations is Outland vs Draenor, along with a little bit of history /slash/ how we got from one to the other. I don’t know how many people still follow me for WoW, but hopefully some of you will appreciate my ~artsy~ screenshots.

[gascon-en-exil]

What are your favorite zones, since you mentioned it? What did you think of the whole plaguelands stuff pre and post Cata?

There’s so very many to pick from. In no particular order:

Eversong Woods, the Ghostlands, and the Isle of Quel’Danas - the last one is kind of boring as a quest hub, but I love the sin’dorei aesthetic and the first two had a great flow to them pre-Cata when most zones didn’t. Even now they hold up well, although I still wish you could fly in them.

Duskwood - just about perfect in layout and quest flow, and it’s got a lot of meaty stories if you’re into them

Western Plaguelands - I enjoy the contrast between the pre-Cata devastation and high level shenanigans and the current version which is a greener mid-level zone featuring two of my favorite subtextually gay NPCs. Eastern Plaguelands saw very little aesthetic changes and I wasn’t too fond of it to begin with, but at least it goes by quickly now if you can manage to not get bored by having to watch the caravan storyline play out yet again.

Thousand Needles - flooding this zone was a great creative decision, because from what little I remember of the pre-Cata version it used to be an utter bore. Not really a fan of gnomes vs. goblins, but their party barge is good for some light-hearted fun.

most of Northrend - I live in the subtropics where snow happens maybe once a decade and then for only about half an hour, so of course I’m drawn to a continent that’s almost completely frozen over. Tons of great visuals, and most of the storylines land very well and have a good flow to them.

Vash’jr - I may be the only person who likes this one, but I think the idea of an underwater zone is a novel concept and there’s a surprising amount of variety on the seafloor. Maybe it’s because I mostly play ranged classes, but adapting to combat with an added dimension wasn’t that hard. Nazjatar tried to recapture this feeling with most of the water magically removed but didn’t quite manage it in my opinion.

Jade Forest - Pandaria’s leveling feels really front-loaded, because nothing on the continent feels quite as impressive as this first zone until you hit the then-max level content.

Shadowmoon Valley (Draenor version) - Such a calm and beautiful aesthetic, and while I love the contrast between Draenor and Outland wherever it appears this is arguably the zone where it manifests the most starkly. I don’t talk about them as much, but I enjoy the draenei almost as much as I enjoy the various non-kal’dorei night elves. Also props to the Spires of Arak, less so for the zone geography and more for the great arrakoa storyline.

Suramar - the nightborne are almost as great as the Quel’Thalas elves, and proceeding through this zone’s storyline and grinding rep here were original experiences playing on concepts I love like disguises and societal intrigue. Also, they have a vineyard that makes magically-infused wine and you get to see the whole process - so nice.

all of Kul Tiras - the Kul Tirans as a people are a bit swarthy for my tastes, but this is such a solid self-contained little nation with a bunch of good stories to tell and some interesting visuals. Like with Northrend there’s some geographical bias on my part; I live in a cosmopolitan port city so I look upon the likes of Boralus and Freehold as fun variants on that theme.

Whew, told you it was a long list.

[vaard]

Does Vaard ever question himself for adopting Draenor!Rue because she’s not his Rue? And does he see her as his if he doesn’t have doubts?

Absolutely. He still wonders if he did the right thing bringing her back vs leaving her there in AU Draenor with another family.  I don’t know if he could have actually handed her off to someone else, though. It was a split second ‘I’m taking her home, no second thoughts about it’ decision, one that he does question from time to time if it was right. It’s all together a rather confusing situation. He never wanted to go to AU Draenor in the first place for fear that they might be there, but he doesn’t love her any less.She is a small amount of redemption for him, though, after what happened with his Rue and his failure to save any of them. Looking at her face is joyful but also painful. While she might be a second chance for him, it doesn’t erase the fact that she’s not entirely his or turn back time for the small, unmarked gravestone that’s still in the Outland.

[reignsan]

Hot take: Draenor is the best part of WoW

Draenor the world that is, not WoD the expansion. I’ve had this opinion for some years now, but leveling my Zandalari through Draenor made me think of it again.

Blizzard’s strength absolutely shines in its worldbuilding, and I think that stands out the most in Draenor than anywhere else. All of Draenor’s zones are beautiful (except Gorgrond, imo). Shadowmoon Valley in particular and the WoD draenei architecture in general, might be my favorite visuals in the entire game.

But I think what really makes Draenor stand out is how, in Blizzard’s attempts to make it really seem like an alien world, they went all out in creativity for its natives. There’s nothing wrong with your standard elves and dwarves, but things like plant people who reject the idea of self and infest people with spores to zombify them, or orcs that evolved from elemental conglomerate golems inundated with life magic, are just so “out there”. Even the ogres, which are otherwise your standard fantasy ogre, have a unique twist on being extremely powerful mages and the strongest political power at the time we visit. And I’m sure everyone here knows how I’m absolutely in love with the arakkoa and everything about them.

It’s not just the races. The Zangar is a beautiful and terrifying concept: a sentient seaborne fungus that’s slowly trying to make its way inland. The planet’s origin story with the plants vs stone war is unlike any other creation myth I’ve seen before. Ancient alien precursors and hidden technocities they left behind? That’s all over the genre. Grond vs the Sporemounds isn’t.

Even its more recent history grabs me. The orc vs draenei conflict is one of my favorite conflcits in the series because even though the orcs were the villains they weren’t just corrupted, you learned throughout RotH how they got to that point and you can sympathize with their paranoia and being tricked, even if that doesn’t excuse their actions. And the arakkoa outcasts vs adherents stuff is beautifully done on absolutely every front. I love looking at the arakkoa in Draenor, then looking at them in Outland, and seeing how far they had fallen and what led to the destruction of their society.

I love Draenor. The race/class combo I want more than anything is a draenei druid, I’d change in a heartbeat. And with my subscription ending at the end of March, I wanted my last post about WoW to be a positive one. So yeah, there’s my Warcraft hot take.

then blizard had to go and ruin the place by light-scorching the entire planet with their umpteenth ‘dude corruption lmao!’ plot. Truly all they seem to use their wonderful worldbuilding for is just to tear stuff down and make people upset

[thuashdore]

a super rough timeline that is here up until i write the detailed, nicer-looking timeline: warcraft edition

...because five expansions have passed since i wrote my original biography for beau, and people need to know what is going on.

my about section currently covers Vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade. that’s the easy part out of the way. the following are events that have occurred that Beau has actively been involved in, in one way or another. brief descriptions only; the actual timeline (which is coming) will be a lot more detailed - mostly for those folks who are not in the Warcraft universe... but hey.

this is going to be a long read. you’ll probably see why it’s taking me a while to do the full version. the descriptions are, rightly so, memey. you’ve been warned.

there are also a few things in here that are purely explanation. again, for those who are NOT familiar with the Warcraft universe: i got you babe. <3

oh and for all of those who know Warcraft like the back of their hand: tl;dr the player character story line (paladin edition), but without faction-specific events. you’ll be surprised how many of those exist. <3

WRATH OF THE LICH KING - a.k.a. lets go kill the dead guy who made the undead guys and wants to end the world.

2nd scourge invasion and zombie infestation begins - Beau learns about the Argent Crusade (a happy group who all want to be friends together and forget about the red vs blue fight) and joins their ranks

Alliance + Horde (read: blue and red, respectively) declare war on the Lich King (glorified necromancer with a big sword), and all able-bodied individuals venture to Northrend (read: cold continent).

Naxxramas happens (tl;dr they kill a lot of dead people, including a cat and the Lich King’s best pal).

The Nexus War happens (tl;dr they kill a bunch of blue dragons - including the boss blue dragon) - Beau is involved largely due to her affiliations with the dragonflights; the Bronze in particular, though the Netherwing are involved too. 

The Halls of Stone and Lightning are found and unveiled. Ulduar happens soon after (uh... titan’s constructs think we’re bad. we punch them and they realise the tentacle guy underneath ulduar is the real bad guy. the world nearly ends, but through the power of friendship and good punching we stop that from happening. some red-haired mage gives a speech about it). 

THE CALL OF THE CRUSADE - including the Argent Tournament, the Trial of the Champion and the Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader (tl;dr the leader of the Argent Crusade - Tirion - thought it’d be good to decide who gets to go kill the Lich King by having us all fight each other, and whoever survived would go. a big bug was underneath us and we squished it). 

Assault on Icecrown Citadel - including the Forge of Souls (cool music btw), the Pit of Saron (go save Red + Blue people) and the Halls of Reflection (we found his big sword and he got angry at us so we had to run). Beau probably did this with Jaina... though I mean she wouldn’t say no to either her or Sylvanas asking. Jaina makes the most sense to me however. 

Icecrown Citadel (tl;dr it happens not long after the above and we go kill the Lich King and his friends and also his pet dragon... but he nearly kills us all first until Tirion takes our kill and Lich King’s dead dad resurrects us but in the good way).

Ruby Sanctum (tl;dr strange things happen with the dragons so we say we’ll take a look at it, and then...)

CATACLYSM - a.k.a. let’s go kill the angry black dragon who wants to end the world.

The Shattering / Elemental Unrest (the angry black dragon was cooking under the world for a long while and has now come out... so the world is on fire).

Beau spends most of her time with the Dragonflights again (given it directly involves them) and works on bringing peace to the elements... so involves going to the Throne of the Four Winds, Hyjal, Bastion of Twilight (and Blackwing Descent) and, of course, Firelands. One for each element (and also killing the bad dragons’ kids and wife!!).

The Hour of Twilight (read: the End of the World), which includes the End Time instance (basically “if you don’t stop bad dragon he’ll die anyway but so will everyone else so”) the Hour of Twilight (the Archbishop was the bad guy the whole time!!) and Dragon Soul (Green Orc Jesus gets the killing blow this time, but we do kill the bad dragon and a bunch of tentacle things - remember Ulduar? those, but Less).

MISTS OF PANDARIA - a.k.a. lets go meet the pandas who have been hiding for millenia and then kill the Orc who wants to end the world (but only for anyone that isn't an Orc just like him... JUST like him).

Lil Prequel here wow first time but Beau spends her time with the Dragonflights, who are now not immortal. I know I didn’t mention that before, but now it’s irrelevant - they’re not immortal now. Most people don’t get that. Or agree with it. But i’m just saying either way they’re Tired after the fight with their bad brother, immortal or not, so this is what she does for a bit.

Garrosh Hellscream, Big Orc Leader of the Horde, decides to bomb Theramore (cute city that did not deserve it). The first time that something like this has ever happened. Pretty much everyone is shocked except for the people who knew about it... which is a few people. Jaina Proudmoore (read: ruler of Theramore and someone you don’t want to piss off) is pissed off; very hurt and distraught by the destruction of her home. Red and Blue are at each other’s throats because of it.

Pandaria is discovered (read: the land covered in the mist?? yeah that one. it has pandas on it... and other things), and Beau travels there with, surprise, the Bronze Dragonflight.

Pandaria is a lot of Personal Growth for Beau, because of the Sha (read: bad emotions made manifest that feed off of people experiencing said negative emotions). she faces a lot of her innermost demons and is forced to conquer them in order to be able to properly help the people of Azeroth. there’ll be a big post on this someday, but for a good portion of the expansion she assists the Pandaren in dealing with the Sha presence.

Isle of Thunder is discovered, and the Throne of Thunder raid happens (tl;dr Lightning Man wants to rule the world; fails). Beau has limited involvement in the former (its primarily dominated by blood elves/reds and the Kirin Tor Offensive/blues), but is involved in the latter.

Then the Horde (specifically, the trolls - big boy troll leader Vol’jin) begins their revolution against their Warchief, Big Bad Orc Garrosh Hellscream. Beau assists with the rebels, as do the Alliance and most of the current Horde. Garrosh unleashes the Sha of Pride (read: worst one) and destroys the nicest place on Pandaria. Everyone is angry.

Siege of Orgrimmar (read: Horde capital city) happens - we kill Big Bad Garrosh’s friends but he somehow evades our kills, because player characters don’t get killing blows in this game until WoD. Vol’jin becomes the Warchief, and him and Varian (read: king of the blues) end the war! No more Alliance vs. Horde! For like two expansions!!!!

Garrosh is put on Trial... and escapes, with a Bronze Dragon (who’s actually an Infinite dragon... who are Bronze dragons that don’t agree with keeping to the destined timeways so they do what they like). they travel back in time, and we have to follow them.

WARLORDS OF DRAENOR - a.k.a. the expansion no one talks about... that ends with a bunch of guys wanting to end the world.

Prelude!!! Garrosh goes back in time, finds his dad, and they make a New Horde (the Iron Horde), and they make the current Dark Portal (read: big demon portal thing) bigger and more red, and plan to invade Azeroth! again! this has happened before!

Iron Horde invade Azeroth - we stop them, but also decide to go through the Portal to the ALTERNATIVE Draenor (read: it was this place called Outland... which is where we were in The Burning Crusade, but before Outland became Outland, it was Draenor. work with me please). 

Khadgar (uh... powerful mage; little eccentric; looks old but is actually like 10 yrs older than Beau but got made to look old bc of magic; Father of the Institute for Fallout fans - but nicer than Father is) thinks it’s a good idea to free Gul’dan (green warlock; bad; smelly) because he’s the guy powering the portal. We’ll regret that later, but right now it does stop the Iron Horde from invading Azeroth.

Beau, being a Neutral(tm), spends most of her time with Khadgar in his tower. Assists with liberating Shattrath (read: important light city), helps find and kill Garrosh (but Green Jesus Thrall actually kills him) and also participates in Highmaul (kill a bunch of ogres) and Blackrock Foundry (kill the orc making the weapons for the Iron Horde). Khadgar also starts making a ring of immense power, to give us an edge. He also kills us a few times - accidentally.

The Iron Horde crumbles after killing Blackhand (weapon orc we killed in the Foundry) and Gul’dan (here comes the regret) makes the remaining orcs drink the green goop that comes from a big demon (Garrosh wanted to stop this, but we killed him so...). the orcs turn green just like they are in reality, but now we have to fight Demon Orcs... oh, and Gul’dan summons Archimonde (big demon overlord who’s one of Sargeras’ - leader of the demons - best friends).

Surprise surprise, now we go and kill Archimonde and all of the other people who are now a part of the Burning Legion (Sargeras’ army of demons and other races... but mostly demons). We manage, but Gul’dan is transported to Azeroth by Archimonde and he finds Illidan (uh... there’s no easy way to explain Illidan so we’ll just say he’s a big winged elf-demon man, but a kind of okay one???), who’s trapped in a crystal. 

The end of Warlords is that we’re all friends, we have a cool powerful ring, and we’ve killed Archimonde - but... Gul’dan is free, has Illidan, and is going to summon all the demons to Azeroth.

LEGION - a.k.a. the demons, and Sargeras, really really want to end the world.

Prelude: I won’t lie, I honestly forget how we got back to Azeroth after traveling to an alternate timeline. Warlords was a fever dream to most people, but either way we did it... and when we get home there’s green fire everywhere and demons are upon every known orifice of Azeroth.

The whole of Azeroth fight the demons for a bit, because while there’s a lot it’s kind of like “mm, we can handle this actually”

The Battle for Broken Shore happens, and as it turns out we underestimated how many demons were here. Alliance and Horde thought a “small squadron” would suffice... but no. The Literal Entire Legion is here and MORE are coming. Tirion who got the killing blow on Lich King dies. Vol’jin Warchief of the Horde dies. Varian king of the blues dies. It’s a huge mess and everyone has to retreat.

Dalaran (read: a floating magic city) is moved from where it is now (Northrend, and then Karazhan - a tower... we’ll leave it at that) is moved to the Broken Shore and we declare war against the Legion.

Beau is chosen by Tirion to succeed him as Highlord of the Silver Hand (basically, she’s in charge of the paladins and makes sure they eat their vegetables before battle). She gets shiny weapons because of this, that grow in power the more you feed them... not literally, but figuratively. Don’t ask.

We find the Pillars of Creation (read: titan artifacts) to help us fight Sargeras, and along the way we also liberate an ancient city and also push back the Emerald Nightmare (read: uh... corruption of the world? its bad, alright, so we kill it). 

Oh, we also kill Gul’dan (and save Illidan!).

...but he’s already summoned his main hoe: Kil’jaeden (read: Archimonde’s best bro), so now we’ve got to go and defeat him too - preferably before he gets to Azeroth.

We take back the Broken Shore and infiltrate the Tomb of Sargeras (which is where the demons are coming from) and because we’ve got all the Pillars of Creation and the cool weapons we’re able to do it. Huzzah!

We do almost nearly die in space but Illidan uses a stone to teleport us to safety, however he also brings a demon-infested planet along with us.

We hate that at first, but Velen (read: the non-corrupted trio of the once Golden Trio: Archimonde, Kil’jaeden and Velen) decides we should end the Legion while we have the advantage, so makes us a little golden dingy spaceship to travel to the demon planet and... well, defeat and destroy the Legion.

We fight on Argus (read: the demon planet) for a long time and invade Antorus, the Burning Throne - the main operating hub for the Legion. We kill everyone there and fight a literal corrupt titan!! twice!! and then with the power of the non-corrupt titans, they’re able to bind Sargeras to his former seat on the pantheon (read: a literal stage with thrones on it, one for each Titan), which does end the reign of the Legion.

...Sargeras is pissed because he REALLY wanted Azeroth to die, so before he’s bound to his chair forever like a big baby he takes his flame sword and stabs Azeroth with it.

...oh this is also a good time to mention that Azeroth is actually alive and a Titan, but like... a not born one yet. Azeroth the planet is an egg for Azeroth, the titan. anyway.

We go back to Azeroth and the planet is bleeding, and Teams Red and Blue go crazy over whatever gunk is oozing out of the wound Sargeras’ sword has left behind. So they start fighting over it. Which brings us to...

BATTLE FOR AZEROTH - a.k.a. blizzard are telling us it’s a Red vs. Blue expansion when really it’ll end up being something like “the old gods want to end the world”.

this is where we are now. Red and Blue have a new leader on each side... and the whole Azerite (the name given to the gunk oozing out of the wound left by Sargeras’ flame sword) thing is pretty much causing each side to declare war. Beau, being neutral, is... worried, to say the least; she still doesn’t have a home of her own and being neutral during a faction war is... Difficult. she’s hoping her status as Highlord will help. her focus is mainly on providing aid to those who need it, and figuring out a way to mend Azeroth’s wounds and stop Her from getting too damaged.

...and that is all I can say, for now.

[the-royal-courier]

Jed’hin Monthly Match: More than just a Draenei Sport

By Risri Elthron

After my trip to Mac’Aree with several Draenei last month, I was invited to witness the monthly Jed’hin matches hosted by The Sha’tor in the Exodar. The sport, once practiced exclusively by male Draenei, has adapted to Azeroth and the times. The traditional sport meant to hone the body into a weapon without the use of armor or actual weapons has become a popular sport with tournaments and matches hosted throughout Draenei settlements on Outland, Draenor, and Azeroth. The sport has even attracted the attention of Kaldorei and Human enthusiasts.

On Wednesday evening, The Sha’tor hosted their monthly Jed’hin match. The host for the evening, former Jed’hin champion Vekuum, started the matches with a brief statement about he history of this time-honored sport, “This is a time-worn tradition of the draenei people, originating on Argus, and passed down throughout our history! Fighters participate to honor themselves and their peers, and of course, for personal glory.”

A Kaldorei and human joined the Draenei contestants, testing their mettle and strength against each other. The champion for the evening was a Draenei named Mafanaar who bested not only those he was matched up with during the tournament but also one more challenger in the Exhibition matches at the end of the evening.

From the slamming of the well-honed bodies against each other to the cries of victory from those who were able to make their opponent leave the ring, the evening was full of cheers and good sportsmanship.

The Sha’tor host a Jed’hin match each month in the Exodar. Join them next month on the 22nd to see for yourself the strength and effort put into the no longer just a Draenei sport.

Matches

Aelnii vs Lunanii Telrien vs Rââm Mafanaar vs Liall Vorkhan vs Makios

Semi-finals

Lunanii vs Telrien Mafanaar vs Vorkhan

Final

Lunanii vs Mafanaar

Exhibition Matches

Kovaal vs Sybelinana

Aelnii vs  Mafanaar

Congratulations to all the winners and participants!