#but once you get through the alliance questlines in the game you actually have to go to the pirate homemap and destroy their entire fleet

[bfdreaming]

So I've been playing another one of those idle cultivation games and since I can't not think about svsss, I started thinking about what a PIDW idle cultivation game would look like. It turned into something that would be better than the actual PIDW AND other games in the genre, possibly because it caught a very reliable whale early on... *cough*

You create your own character, but the default name and appearance is LBH, and it's LBH that appears in illustrations.

You start in Cang Qiong, on Qing Jing. You have been there for a few miserable years, your only friend being Ning Yingying. One day you happen to notice her standard cultivation manual is very different from yours despite having the same cover. You manage to steal a proper manual of your own so that your cultivation journey can finally begin!

Here we get a tutorial alongside the story. Basic systems are introduced one by one, like cultivation, cooking, combat, missions, pills, and equipment. You can access the love interest page, but it only has Ning Yingying on it for now, affection points already maxed. It explains that you can marry someone with max affection, but only if you have somewhere for them to live. All you can do here for now is talk to Ning Yingying.

At some point, the sect is invaded by SHL, and you get a portable grandpa out of it. He tells you about your likely demon heritage and gradually takes over the tutorial from Ning Yingying, who didn't know much more than you to start with. However, your demonic qi is currently inaccessible due to a seal and you're in the human realm, so there's a limit to how much he can help. If you seek him out on his own screen, he'll comment on whatever's going on, offer hints on what to do next, and if you ask for it specifically, dump lore. There is a hidden score that affects what he says. The more you consult him, the more he has to say. Most players don't trigger it to a noticeable extent because they aren't interested in reading through his lore dumps, but a certain whale did, and dutifully documented everything on the wiki.

Just when you've gotten into the swing of things, the Immortal Alliance Conference happens, and we all know how that goes. Your teacher's sudden but inevitable betrayal leads to another tutorial, this time in the abyss. It covers your demonic cultivation system, exploration, hunting, mount taming, and relics. Ning Yingying's portait is grayed out. (There is no Xin Mo.) You cannot progress your human cultivation at all.

Eventually, you escape into the demon realm, and Meng Mo leads you to the palace of the former demon emperor. It's keyed to heavenly demon blood, and keeps out anyone else unless you let them in. You're the only heavenly demon left that Meng Mo knows of, so it's safe, but dilapidated. Cue the home tutorial. With the right resources, you can fix it up one section at a time. Once a section is renovated, it can be decorated for some stat boosts. (After fixing up the first room, you MUST fix the kitchen and add the necessary basic furnishings. LBH does not give you any choice in the matter until the kitchen is useable.) Later, you can start adding rooms for wives. You can only have as many wives as you have rooms for.

With most tutorials out of the way, the game becomes less linear. You begin conquering your way through the demon realm, and there's both an official suggested route and some fan guides. However, once you've conquered a few regions, Meng Mo warns you that your demon side is threatening to overwhelm your human side, and if it gets much worse, it will be very messy. He can't help you with that, so he advises you to head back to the human realm and find another sect.

You're quickly found and taken in by Huan Hua Palace (and the game is linear again while you're here), where you can resume cultivating, and add the Little Palace Mistress and the Qin sisters to your wife candidate page. Once you've completed optional questlines for them, you can start raising their affection. However, you can't marry them yet because your home is in the demon realm and you don't want to out yourself.

The main Huan Hua questline is not optional, however, and it mostly consists of discovering what the Old Palace Master did to your birth parents. You end up outing yourself as a half demon (OPM already knew but now the rest of the sect does too) and have to leave. Luckily, Meng Mo has some kind of technique that will keep most of them from thinking about you too much when you're not in front of them, so no one will try to hunt you down or warn the other sects.

You still have to keep improving both sides of your cultivation, though, so you do have to find another sect. Thus begins a major gameplay loop: join a sect, meet the potential wives there, follow the sect questline as you advance, get found out as a half demon and have to leave, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile, you're conquering the demon realm. LBH apparently gets up very early in the morning. Don't worry about it.

A few sects in, you'll join Qiu Haitang's sect. Her own quest is locked at first, but the plot has you two getting somewhat close. Once you're revealed as a half demon, you tell her about how Shen Qingqiu was a huge jerk and tried to kill you once or twice. She seeks you out afterward, tells you her own story, and asks you to kill SQQ. She will begin travelling with you at this pint, but only for stuff related to this questline, which you don't have to do right away, or ever. Don't worry about it.

You can't just waltz into Cang Qiong, though, since SQQ knows you're a half demon. So you'll have to sneak in, but that means getting through the wards undetected. There are two ways to do this. The first, suggested by Meng Mo, is to recruit Sha Hualing, who broke in before. Recruiting her involves a pretty long questline but you can probably start it right away at this point. The second can be discovered by accident by recruiting Mobei-Jun, which involves a single difficult fight. (You'll probably end up recruiting them both anyway.)

Once you and Haitang are in, before you can get to SQQ, you're caught by NYY. After talking to her, she begs you not to go through with it. She knows he's been terrible to you, and she really doesn't know anything about the Qiu massacre, but he's like a father to her.

If you want to kill him anyway, you have to fight her to stop her from sounding the alarm. Once you kill SQQ, Haitang will be willing to marry you. NYY remains grayed out forever, her fate ambiguous. (Players suspect you killed her.)

Most players don't want to hurt NYY, and had perhaps been expecting to marry her, so most players agree to spare SQQ. Upon doing so, Liu Mingyan appears and reveals herself to have been listening in, and says you should kill him anyway because he killed her brother. (You may remember something about this from before.)

NYY protests that this is just a stupid rumor. SQQ gained nothing from LQG's death. He had no motive.

LMY says that SQQ hated LQG.

NYY says that he hates a lot of people but doesn't try to kill them about it.

You cough.

NYY amends that he doesn't usually try to kill them about it. At any rate, if he did try to kill someone, he would definitely not do it in a manner than would inevitably and obviously paint him as the only suspect.

LMY concedes that this is strange, and you mention an artifact you aquired in the Huan Hua plotline that allows you to speak with the dead if you go to where they died. So you all sneak into Lingshi Caves. (Haitang can't sneak out without you, so she comes too.)

Once there, your artifact picks up on a ghost in a chamber before the one LQG died in. You speak to a teenage boy who is frantic to save Xiao Jiu. Haitang says that this is what SQQ used to be called, and asks what he needs to be saved from. The ghost says he needs to be saved from the Qiu family, that everyone knows the older brother is cruel. Haitang is taken aback, and starts to protest, but the ghost is getting increasingly upset. You cut in to tell him that Xiao Jiu made it to Cang Qiong safely and became a disciple, and the ghost settles, remembering that he'd seen an older Xiao Jiu come to meditate. (That particular chamber has really awful vibes for anyone except SQQ.)

The ghost disappears, and you continue on to speak to LQG. He reveals that SQQ tried to save him, but was failing. LQG had a moment of clarity and realized that he was about to kill a guy that was trying to save him, so he killed himself instead. He apologizes to Mingyan before fading.

Now we can finally leave Cang Qiong. LMY will be willing to marry you IF your character is a woman. (Some players keep asking the devs to fix this glitch.) QHT expresses her frustration at her inability to get justice for her brother and the guards and servants. NYY, recalling that the teenage ghost claimed to be older than Xiao Jiu, asks how old he was at the time of the massacre. Haitang distractedly says they were both 14. NYY presses, did this young servant with no martial training single handedly take down all your family's guards?

QHT pauses, and confesses that she agrees it sounds odd, but that's definitely what she saw. She then asks you to come to the ruins of her estate and investigate with her. You automatically agree, and NYY tags along. (LMY left without saying anything while you were talking. Rude?)

Long story short, the locals and the ghosts confirm that QJL was a big jerk. The ghost of QJL starts ranting, saying all sorts of awful things wrt Xiao Jiu until he spots QHT, who has been crying silently. He tries to backtrack, but she asks you to disable the artifact. She's heard enough, and can't bare to look at her brother anymore.

Meanwhile, NYY has been putting together what the ghosts described, and thinks it sounds like a qi deviation, but that can't be right. You point out that QJL said he'd somehow killed a horse with a trick that sounded a lot like SQQ's signature move. QHT shakily admits that Xiao Jiu seemed to snap out of it when he saw her, and she'd been told he had carried her out of the fire, but she didn't believe it until now.

NYY sees that QHT's on the edge of a breakdown, and tells you she'll take it from here, gently shooing you away so she can tend to Haitang. NYY and QHT will be willing to marry you after this.

The quest self updates, prompting you to investigate other rumors about SQQ. Once you've done so, you get a quest update prompting you to talk to SQQ. You return to Qing Jing to confront him.

Though your protagonist has been relatively quiet thus far, most responses impersonal, LBH now has a lot to say, without your input.

"You" tell SQQ what you've learned, how there was a valid explanation behind every major complaint you've heard about him. How he isn't just a simple scum, how he's gone through a lot, how he still shows care for people, often in roundabout ways. So surely, surely he has a reason for how he treated you? Did he know you were a demon? Was he just trying to get you to leave on your own before you were found out? Did he throw you into the abyss because a heavenly demon could survive it, but could be trapped by cultivators? Was he actually trying to help?

SQQ laughs bitterly. No, he was legitimately trying to kill you, because he's an asshole. Maybe your investigations turned up some of the rare times he's been soft--mistakes, he assures you--but he really is an asshole. He's rotten and he always has been, and you're a fool to suspect otherwise. What are you going to do about it? Will you kill him?

You won't kill him, though. You already promised NYY, and you care about her more than you hate him.

You start to leave, then suddenly remember the ghost in the cave. You turn to mention it to SQQ, because if you had a dear friend die trying to save you, you'd want to know about it. But SQQ only looks confused.

You ask if someone did indeed promise to save him in the past. He says someone did, but he's not- he didn't- but he's right- Actually, SQQ just remembered there's something he has to do right now immediately, so get off his mountain already.

As you're leaving, you see him flying towards Qiong Ding.

[gryffintheparrotcat]

When I entered Act 3 for the very first time( after playing the game the maximum amount I possibly could per day for like 3 weeks?) I took a 2 week break. Straight up didn't touch the game at all, not even to start a new playthrough or anything.

You go from clear objective Act 2 to this way too buggy and large city and every house has a new interaction but most of them are entirely irrelevant but there is the slight chance this is the house where an important scene for a quest can get triggered and on top of that you know all still open questlines will end here but you don't have any clues on where to go for these yet either. And it's not like having the quests in the journal already would help bc then you're stuck with an overwhelmingly large list of quests that are all in the stage of "find this boss" or "find [insert npc/item but no location]". Incredibly overwhelming and honestly stayed that way for my first 3 playthroughs but on the 5th it's just exhausting. These quests don't actually matter to the story I could just straight head to Orin and Gortash and maybe Raphael and then go for the brain and my ending would play pretty much the same, only losing out on character moments. Fuck it's so mindnumbing to be stuck in Act 3 for so long that in all of my playthroughs, no matter in if they're good/evil/etc, I seriously consider just making a Gortash alliance and letting Gale blow up the Netherbrain to speed this damn thing up (even in my Gale, Wyll or Karlach romances!).

Besides new character moments are the reason I replay, especially as different tavs, to experience how different choices affect character interactions. But who in their right mind wants to go through EVERY Act 3 interaction more than 1-3 times? Mostly and especially because they literally do not matter in the larger narrative.

I feel like an Act 4 would've made it less overwhelming, less buggy and more narratively meaningful. There is a reason Act 3 is cut off; so we can see consequences for our Act 1-2 story choices that we made. Act 3 is just a handful of story endings all at once and since there is no telling in which order we'd do them, they can't affect each other or the story, making them incredible weak in the narrative. And also meaning there can't be specific interactions between the characters after those situations, we barely get any [!] or party banter after major desicion. Take half of those questlines, take the Gortash boss fight and coronation, take the cut upper city content and make it an Act 4. Make Act 2 Ketheric, Act 3 Orin and Act 4 Gortash. Act 1 for Lae'zels big story moment (creché) , Act 2 Shadowheart, Act 3 Astarion and Gale and finally Act 4 Wyll and Karlach.

i was on twitter the other day (i know) and i was accidentally on the for you timeline (i know) and i saw someone asking about act 3. and i was aimlessly reading the replies and there is such a consensus it seems that when you hit act 3 you lose motivation to play and make a new save instead. and that people feel like they could replay act 2 over and over and over but act 3 is like. draining to hell. not to mention buggy. and like. yeah....... yeah

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Yes, I was on mobile. And no, it wasn't bad!! It was a neat game I had never heard of before! Probably cause I was 3 when it came out lol

Yeah, I was pretty young XD

My grandfather was playing it when we came to visit. He loved computer games but never replayed a single one. He always had the huge Prima guide all earmarked and had notebooks of strategy because he’d do all this research before playing, then just hand the game and the guide over to my brother and I when we came to visit XD

I think MM8 (Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer is the full title) was the first computer game he passed to us because he figured it is basic enough to play. When you kill an enemy you can activate a setting to produce blood splatters, but it’s like 2000-era splatters, so nothing too violent XD

Even though when I said I clear the maps what that means for every map EXCEPT Dagger Wound Island is that I kill all the innocent people in the cities too... tee hee.

It’s a good game though, if you can find it. TBH when i said my brother gave me a flash drive he DID, but I actually downloaded the game from Dropbox XD You can find copies floating around out there if you want to try playing it! It’s a much bigger game than my little demo showed :)

[terraforged]

How does Wrathuon recruit and treat his Blacktalons? How many are there? Does he scout them, or do they come to him? What skills does he look for? What would make him fire or refuse to hire someone? Are certain races and classes overrepresented? Underrepresented? Are the Blacktalons paid fairly and equally? Are there ranks? Does he know all their names? How much do they know about him? Does he interact with them individually? How does Wrathion assign them tasks? Asking for a friend...

Valeera has no friends so should just admit she wants to be a blacktalon :^)

How does Wrathion recruit and treat his Blacktalons?

I mean the fact he’s still able to recruit them after what he did is a bit of a mystery all things considered. I assume what mostly happens is people either don’t think their factions are doing enough and have nowhere but him to turn as an alternative, or other Blacktalons sorta wink wink nudge nudge people into it at which point he’ll go through the motions of dealing with that person himself.

He’s, you know, he’s their boss. He treats them like an employer because that’s what he is. When he was younger he was probably a goddamn nightmare to work for given how volatile he was, but as he is now he’s not too bad. His Blacktalons are his, so whilst he’s an employer he’s also possessive and he will go out of his way to support them if he can and they need it. He does generally have their backs with things even if he doesn’t care for them on an individual personal level like you might a friend– he’s probably more empathetic with them than you’d think, which I think goes a long way to how he’s managed to retain his own lil faction and grow it despite the dumb shit he did.

How many are there?

Man, I dunno. A lot. Not as many as the Horde or Alliance obviously, but his network is vast and there’s going to be a hell of a lot of them spread out through the factions and other neutral groups.

Does he scout them, or do they come to him?

If he sees someone talented he’ll try and scout/headhunt them if he can, and like he does know talent when he sees it. However, if he realises he’s going to get nowhere (like with Valeera lmaooo) he won’t bother or push too hard. Likewise though I think people do also approach him, and I think that this tends to be the primary way people become Blacktalons other than existing Blacktalons generally being like ‘yo have you considered’.

What skills does he look for?

Anything that might be of benefit. I think the game only ever really shows him as having rogues but I think this is massively narrow-minded and not actually the case at all– he’d have people from all classes, and people who aren’t actually any class at all. Wrathion would hire a bar keeper in an area where having someone placed that centrally would be a boon, so it’s like not all Blacktalons are actually people who can fight or heal. Some are nobles, some are seemingly random civilians. If they can offer something of benefit to him he’ll take them. Being able to fight well is one of the last things he actually looks for because whilst useful you can train a farmhand to fight decently. He more looks for the things you can’t train.

What would make him fire or refuse to hire someone?

If you get ‘fired’ you’re dead. You don’t get fired from the Blacktalons, though you could quit or retire naturally. If you do something to the point you need to be fired though he’ll just fucking kill you, he’s really not about that life when actions like that have a lot of potential to shred his already shitty reputation. 

He’d refuse to hire someone if they were a genuine asshole, and like I know that probably sounds hypocritical but Wrathion does have his own moral code and if someone’s was too far removed from his own they wouldn’t be suitable and he wouldn’t hire them.

Criminals who’ve done things like petty theft or something in retaliation to something done to them are fine? If they’ve done something he can morally account for and deem acceptable they’re still fair game to him, so it really just depends on how he views them and their past as a whole.

Are certain races and classes overrepresented? Underrepresented?

Rogues and shamans are both pretty overrepresented, with druids also being higher in numbers. Rogues are the most abundant because, you know, he’s a rogue himself and ended up with quite a few to begin with from Ravenholdt so for a while that’d have been what he was known for.

Paladins and priests are probably the least represented, though he does have some. Ironically he’d probably have primarily shadow priests, though again there’d be some disc and holy in there too.

Race wise nothing is over or under represented. Wrathion doesn’t give a shit what you are, and I absolutely think he has individuals from none playable races in the Blacktalon ranks too including things like the mogu and arakoa etcetc.

Are the Blacktalons paid fairly and equally?

They’d be paid a set base salary, and like they’re well paid even in the basic lowest end salary a Blacktalon could have. Over and above this though bonuses are a pretty, uh, big thing. Skilled Blacktalons make fucking bank out of it, which I think is a very deliberate thing on his end because it’s way harder to convince someone to to betray an employer who’s already paying them very, very well and offering them benefits both financial and otherwise probably not generally found in Azeroth.

Everyone’s paid equally in relation to their position. Race and/or class mean nothing in relation to this.

Are there ranks?

There are. Left and Right are the highest ranked Blacktalons beyond himself, but under them there are individuals of higher and lower rank with more or less responsibility than others. It is possible to work up through ranks depending on what you’re bringing to the table and what you’re actively accomplishing for him.

Does he know all their names?

He does. He also knows basic information about all of them such as family ties and prior affiliations etc.

How much do they know about him?

Anything that’s public knowledge. Beyond that they really know little more than anyone else, until you get into higher ranked individuals like Left and Right who he’s personally close with. Even they though rarely know what he’s actually doing as we see in his journal questline.

Does he interact with them individually?

He’s met all of them at least once, but after that he doesn’t personally interact with them directly. What he actually uses, and what makes him and his network so fucking hard to find anything on, are things like the gems we see him give players in MoP which allowed him to directly talk with the player and see what they’re seeing. Every Blacktalon has one and this is an absolutely mandatory part of being a Blacktalon. They’re tied specifically to Wrathion and the Blacktalon in question. Killing the Blacktalon breaks the gem, and whilst someone particularly gifted might be able to essentially ‘hack’ one of them that hasn’t happened yet so. Shrug on that one I guess!

Wrathion does issue orders directly to his Blacktalons, but never really by meeting them face to face. I think this is part of what’s made his network so fucking effective despite being managed by one person even though it’s so spread out.

How does Wrathion assign them tasks?

It depends on the strengths of the person in question. As aforementioned a Blacktalon which is someone like a bar keep or a noble isn’t going to be given a combat mission, as their primary role as a Blacktalon is to gather information and/or use their influence as needed to the benefit of Wrathion and his goals.

He’ll give people tasks suited to their skills. Wrathion doesn’t really set his Blacktalons up to fail by sending them to do something he isn’t certain they can accomplish, he has the player Champions for that.

[shadowphoenixrider]

Why N’Zoth should have been behind BFA’s War

Okay so I’ve been thinking this for a day or so now, and I’m gonna just dump my thoughts here.

In this essay, I’m gonna make the argument that I think N’Zoth should have been behind the war in BFA. It’s gonna be long as shit, FYI. Here we go.

It’s no secret that opinions on BFA’s story have been...mixed. Some think it’s a garbage fire, others think it’s okay but not stellar. Some bits of BFA’s story, such as Jaina’s arc I find very well done, whilst others are very...below average, must try harder.

I think the main problem is the overarching storyline running through the entire expansion. It feels very disjointed, like many self-contained narratives sort of strapped onto one another into what looks like a storyline, if you squint.

Contrast this with Legion’s story. What was the primary conceit of the expansion? The Legion’s back and we have to stop them. Great! A nice solid story maypole we can pivot events around. Everything the patches introduced tied back to this core story ideal:

Return to Karazhan: some freaky shit is going down in Medivh’s digs and we think the Legion is behind it. Stop them!

Tomb of Sargeras: Time to get to Tomb and stop the Legion from pouring in!

Argus: You know what, we need to stop the Legion Once And For All (maybe)! Time for a cataclysmic showdown on the Legion’s homeworld!

Even the Insurrection storyline held closely to the Legion storyline, since the demons had control of the city and a Titan MacGuffin we needed, so we had to help the Nightfallen boot them out.

Now, BFA has at first glance, a good premise. All-out war between the Alliance and Horde, whilst Azeroth bleeds underneath us. That seems pretty good, right? Yes, it is, but there is a problem; the status quo.

The trouble with wars, especially really big ones (like world wars), is that by their nature, they upset the status quo. The WoW status quo is both the Alliance and Horde is, in the lore’s eyes, on equal footing. Problem with this all out war is that someone’s gotta lose - but no faction can lose because that upsets the status quo.

Thus, the story has already lost its running shoes because it can’t change anything drastically at the end. There’s still got to be a Horde and an Alliance - now, Mists of Pandaria managed to end an Alliance/Horde war in a fairly convincing stalemate because of Garrosh. Since he was deposed and he was the instigator of a large portion of Bad Stuff, people could sort of understand Varian letting the Horde survive under the threat that they’d get their asses thoroughly beaten if they did anything bad again.

This did not work a second time. Why did it not work a second time?

That’ll be because Sylvanas burned down Teldrassil, which pretty much accounts to genocide. Now, Garrosh pretty much dropped Azeroth’s equivalent of a nuclear bomb on Theramore, and that was made a very big deal of, but Sylvanas decided to take a leaf from the Bombing of Dresden and add some fire to her war crime. And thus, a very large petard is hoisted around BFA’s neck.

The image of a burning Teldrassil is almost certainly a very shocking, very dramatic one, and I’m pretty sure that’s why Blizzard chose to do it. It’s certainly a very big, risky move in the terms of story that could have elevated it. The quest to try and save the citizens of Teldrassil as it burns is truly harrowing and excellent in how it underscores the hopelessness of the task.

The thing with the burning of Teldrassil is it has colossal consequences, and the story did not handle it with the gravitas it deserved. After that moment, you cannot bring the Alliance and Horde to a happy peace - the Horde has done an undeniably awful, inexcusable thing, and yet the Alliance will apparently look the other way and sign a peace treaty with them now Saurfang is dead and Sylvanas has run off to make Shadowlands happen.

So already we’re in trouble from War of the Thorns, which was not helped at all by Blizzard devs playing a ‘who burned the tree’ game only to reveal that it was always Sylvanas, she did it because she meant to do it. This did nothing but upset and annoy people (me included), which started everything off with a sour taste in our mouths.

Next stop is the attack on Undercity, which is good if not for the inexplicable stupidity of the Alliance not perhaps thinking that Sylvanas would use the Blight against them, after they just witnessed her burn Tedrassil down. And knowing she dumped Blight on Gilneas.

Despite these slip-ups, we’re keeping up this feeling of all-out war. The Horde gets word that Talanji and Zul are stuck in jail, let’s rescue them and get the Zandalari on our side to beat the shit out of the Alliance! The Alliance, not to be out done, decide to go get the Kul Tirans.

And that’s when the story fractures. The stories on Zandalar and Kul Tiras are kinda understandably divorced from the main war, but they’re so divorced as to be almost completely outside of it. The only signs of it outside the War Campaign are the Alliance sailors scrapping in Talanji’s Rebuke that you find in a non-essential side-quest, and the shoehorning of the Horde into the Stormsong questline, which then proceeds to break the latter questlines when the bloody quilboar seem to appear out of nowhere and become the main baddy (what?!).

It took the advent of 8.1 for Faction Assaults to start occurring and making us feel like all-out war, but it seemed a little too late. There was the attack on Dazar’alor that pushed the war narrative, but it was starting to get tangled up with the ‘Sylvanas is Bad Warchief, we must remove her. Or not...?’ storyline with Saurfang, which fell back onto ‘the Horde isn’t bad, it’s the Warchief who is!’ which 1, we’d already had in MoP, and it wasn’t a fun feeling that time either, and 2, it’s not really a good excuse after a genocide.

So Horde politics start, which are sort of interesting to Horde players, but not Alliance players, who only have Tyrande being understandably pissed at losing her home and people and going to wreak havoc to be content with. Well, if by ‘wreak havoc’ you mean ‘kill a val’kyr and somehow get beaten by Nathanos and then get shelved for orc drama later’. Salt was rubbed into this wound when a dev said that Tyrande had ‘got revenge for Teldrassil’ with this, which went down badly.

Now, there has been Old God stuff rumbling throughout the expansion up to this point, granted, but you can count on one hand the amount of times it was given a shit about. Only when Crucible of Storms comes out does N’Zoth do a proper ‘hey guys I’m a bad guy!’ thing, and he actually starts to slither into centre stage.

8.2 begins, when Azshara comes to kick our ass and free N’Zoth, and that’s when the tried and true ‘factions unite vs. the Big Bad’ trope comes out (as everyone and their mother predicted it would), and both factions decide that maybe they should focus against Azshara and her Old God master. But before N’Zoth beating, we need to boot out Sylvanas because she’s mean and burned a lot of innocent people.

8.2.5 arrives, everyone goes and makes angry faces at Sylvanas, Saurfang dies dramatically, Anduin and Jaina look pretty, and Sylvanas flies away angrily. Congrats guys, we did it! Now for some peace. Ignoring the fact Teldrassil is still ash, and Rastakhan is still dead (and the Zandalari are pissed about that), so it should be less ‘peace’ and more ‘polite ceasefire’.

And now it’s 8.3 and suddenly N’Zoth’s everywhere! And we’re going to kill him at the end of this patch and...that’s it. Next stop, Shadowlands. That big bad we’ve been hinting for a long, long time got a single patch to wave his tentacles and then he was very dead. Even worse, his big arrival was completely overshadowed by Shadowlands’ announcement. Ooof.

With all these things, BFA’s story feels like it set off without knowing where it was going to end up, except that maybe N’Zoth was involved and Sylvanas would ditch the Horde. So it bumbled around, making weird choices, and then wrapped up plotlines far too quickly. The war felt after Dazar’alor that it was about to escalate, what with Rastakhan’s death and Talanji’s ascent to Queen. Instead, it suddenly paused before deciding it was going to end so quickly I think it gave us whiplash, just so we could fight N’Zoth as an united front. So of.

As a result, we have plotholes still yawning open, very unsatisfying endings, as well a perpetual conflict between Alliance and Horde on every public forum imaginable - Alliance aggrieved that Blizzard has ignored them yet again in the story department, except when they wanted a shocking stunt, whilst the Horde is upset that they’ve been hit the ‘villain’ stick again, except this time it was a fucking bludgeon, and we’re getting very tired of this now please stop. This isn’t helped by all the foreshadowing of the faction lines either dissolving or loosening up during the coup against Sylvanas, and then Blizzard just going ‘yeah nah can’t do that, gotta preserve the status quo’.

So, how can we improve this by adding N’Zoth? Well, remember the core premise of Legion and stopping them? Repeat that with N’Zoth. It is simple, but we can give it its sweet twist - we’ve got to stop N’Zoth, because he’s not only trying to corrupt Azeroth. He’s also playing the Alliance and Horde against each other so they can’t stop him.

Immediately that makes N’Zoth the Big Bad, and also underscores the point of We Do Not Want Him To Get Out of His Cage, which makes the fact he does get out a big OH F*CK moment. Not that it isn’t already in current BFA, but can you imagine the gutclenching despair you’d feel as you’d done everything in your power to stop this from happening, and yet it’s happening anyway? Now you’d know what Khadgar felt like when the Tomb of Sargeras opened - and you’d know that you’ve got to do everything you can to put this right.

Let’s go back to the beginning, only this time we dial the Void stuff up. We begin the War of Thorns with the factions already tensed up re: Azerite, with preliminary scraps over it and what looked like the Alliance attempting a coup over some of the Forsaken (HEY BLIZZARD STOP PUTTING LORE LIKE THAT IN BOOKS AND NOT REFERRING TO IT INGAME KTHANKS). A tenuous peace, to be certain, which could only be made worse by Old God agitators, stirring up unrest in the factions.

As much as I would prefer the Horde not being the instigator in all the bad stuff, N’Zoth is the only variable I changed in this equation, so with unrest and some intel that makes it look like the night elves are making a move either to cut off Azerite production, or funnel it through Teldrassil, the Horde strikes at Ashenvale and Darkshore, instigating the War of Thorns.

Things look to be going normally, but you as the Champion notice Old God stuff lurking about and ‘hey this looks like what was happening before the Cataclysm- Oh. Oh no!’. You try to bring evidence that this is a set-up to the people in charge, but it’s escalating out of control. Night elves are dug in so deeply that the Horde has to set fires in the forests to get them to move, which causes retaliation, which gets Saurfang involved who critically injures Malfurion, but before the final blow Tyrande punts him into next week and maybe at this point someone goes: ‘wait hold up what do you mean there’s not Azerite over here’.

We stumble over to Sylvanas to try and tell her ‘no wait we’re being played’, but she takes this as misinformation and or a bluff, and fires a couple of catapaults to show she ain’t fucking kidding at Teldrassil. A couple. Enough to cause a ‘I mean business fire’, but since Teldrassil is in the fucking sea and I would assume almost always damp around its lower regions (you’re allowed a snigger at that), it’s not going to set the entire thing ablaze.

Except it does, because of N’Zoth’s minions in the Horde (and Alliance, probably), who fan the sparks with wind and feed them with power. Alternatively, we could have naga rise from the depths to set some Azerite-infused fires too, just to foreshadow Azshara coming onto the scene later.

With Teldrassil engulfed, everyone is shocked, including Sylvanas, who really didn’t intend this to happen at all (and is pissed because there goes her bargaining chip). The Alliance of course declare all-out war on the Horde because how dare they, whilst the Horde is briefly paralyzed with shock.

Saurfang and the others yell ‘how could you?!’ at Sylvanas, who yells back ‘that wasn’t part of the plan!’ and also something along the lines of ‘why the fuck didn’t you tell me the intel was shifty before this happened?!’ before going: ‘well it’s happened now, so we best gear up and stomp the Alliance into the dirt or we’re all going to die’.

Meanwhile people are going: ‘yeah but what about the influences of darker things going on? maybe we should do something about this’ with the answers being: ‘shut the fuck up, they set fire to Teldrassil’/’shut the fuck up, do you really think the Alliance is going to stop after what just happened’?

So it’s a race against time to try and get the factions to turn against N’Zoth instead of ripping each other apart before horrible shit starts happening and we’re all royally in the shit.

Everything happens pretty much as is from there, except we get some explanation for the lack of gas masks being ‘oh no our totally legit sources told us the Blight hasn’t been stockpiled in large quantities, we’ll send infiltration teams to neutralise it’. Only to find out that this is not the case of course and N’Zoth cackles some more. Sylvanas and Saurfang have an argument leading to Sylvanas booting him out and Saurfang getting captured by the Alliance despite the orc wanting death.

Everything goes as is from there, with Zul kinda trying to get Talanji killed because N’Zoth, in a mirror of Ashvane/Jaina. Just this time, we’re pushing the Void angle hard. They’ve both got their hands (or tentacles, rather) deep into Kul Tiras (Azshara) and Zandalar (G’huun), so it only makes sense to amplify their nonsense.

Over time people higher up the chain pick up the fact that N’Zoth’s doing this on purpose, but bad shit keeps happening so the Alliance and Horde can’t put aside their differences because both sides are doing genuinely bad things to each other! Yes, including the Alliance! Sylvanas is doubling down because she wants to survive this, and the only way she knows how is to utterly destroy her opposition. When she sees parts of the Horde begin to lose faith, she gets pissed because this is not the fucking time and this is the only way to stop the Alliance damnit.

Similar stuff happens in the Alliance, with Tyrande understandably going on a rampage against the Horde with Genn in tow, whilst Anduin and the others try to pump the brakes as they see N’Zoth’s tentacles looming everywhere.

Everything reaches a hecking climax when Azshara shows up and one thing leads to another, and N’Zoth comes bursting out, prompting an ‘OH SHIT’ moment. I’m thinking during Nazjatar, the small Alliance/Horde forces there ally, and when they’re just about to do something useful, the bigger kids show up going: ‘what the fuck are you traitors doing?!’ and during the argument, Azshara steals the Heart of Azeroth and unlocks N’Zoth’s prison, which leads everyone to realize ‘bollocks, we were played’.

Anduin can bring most of his Alliance forces to a standstill, and begs Tyrande and Genn to help him vs. N’Zoth. Tyrande tells him where he can stick it, but Genn is persuaded, though he says he’s going after the Horde as soon as N’Zoth is downed.

The Horde does the same to Sylvanas, but she knows as soon as N’Zoth is down, the Alliance will have her head, and especially when she realizes Tyrande’s still out there, she stands her ground. When a good portion of her powerbase decide on the temporary ceasefire to go after N’Zoth, however, Sylvanas tells them to piss off, and ditches the Horde. Talanji does a Genn, knowing how bad the Old Gods are, but she’s still getting blood payment from Kul Tiras after this is done.

Thus, everyone finally turns their attention to the big bad, fully entrenched, and ready for this grand climax. after he’s been causing all this pain and suffering. The Alliance and Horde are splintered, each nursing legit grievances against the other, but standing together for a moment, as always.

Yes, it’s Cata and MoP dressed up in a different coat, but sometimes a simpler plot is easier. That and Cata was more the factions poking each other in the eyes a couple of times rather than all out war.

With N’Zoth as the instigator of the conflict in BFA, we get a big bad we must fight, and we understand more than he’s a legit threat - and that he knows how to weaken us, so he throws us in a battle against one another so he can win. Yet everything isn’t forgiven at the end - the status quo is sort of there, but the factions are more fractured than before. Crimes still need to be answered for, but doing so may cause more conflict and death.

Sylvanas is out there and pissed, and feels the only way she can survive is to subjugate everyone that could ever harm her and perhaps transcend death itself. This entirely speculation on my part, but a part of me thinks Sylvanas’ main driving force is ‘I’ve been through enough, not even death is a respite, I’m going to become so powerful no-one will control me - I will control fate myself if I must’, which is actually fairly tragic and does grant me sympathy for her (watch this not be her main motivator in canon tho).

Does this solve all of BFA’s problems? No, of course not. But I do think it would have improved the story, at least by managing to keep the story flowing in a more linear direction. You’ll notice that Saurfang has all but disappeared from the N’Zoth narrative, that’ll be because I wasn’t too sure what to do with him. I do like him as a character, but he was pushing the ‘only the Horde has story’ narrative, and I’m not too keen on that. He’d still be a main character pushing for fighting N’Zoth and dying in the end, but less of all the focus.

To those of you who got down here - congratulations and thank you! I went on a very, very long time. Hopefully I have written if not a persuasive argument, then at least an understandable one. This isn’t meant as a ‘Blizzard’s writing is terrible!’, because sometimes it isn’t, but as a ‘I think it would have been better if done this way’.

Thank you for reading, and I hope 2020 smiles upon us.

[thanagariansnarebeast]

Top 15 favorite video games: part 2.

7. Bioshock

I remember first reading about this game in the pages of Game Informer and being fascinated by the story and the environment of what was described. I had no idea how good it was until I launched up the game and finally took that first decent into Rapture. The claustrophobic environment, visual aesthetic of a dilapidated dystopia and the enemies being remnants of once good people were all an amazing experience. The story and characters were amazing, and the idea of an underwater city built to try and be free of any ideology or morality was fascinating, and finding out exactly how the city fell apart and collapsed under its own “greatness” was a very unique experience.

6. God of War (PS2)

This game was a birthday present when I was 15 and I loved it, I love Greek mythology and I love action games, so this was an amazing gift. The opening of the game is one of the best I’ve ever played, and the boss fights are some of my all time favorites. The music in this game is incredible, and I love the accurate representation of the Greek gods being complete fucking assholes and ruining lives because they just don’t care. Kratos is a great anti-hero (or villain, ether one is fair) and the Blades of Chaos are a really unique video game weapon. The sequels are amazing but this one holds a special place in my heart.

5.   Devil May Cry 3

Another birthday present, this one from the year before, this game was a very interesting experience for me; I’d never seen such a difficult game, or one so anime inspired. This game oozes goofy, over the top fun and demon slaying is always fun. The combos and weapons in the game are fantastic, and the story might be a big generic; but the game never takes itself seriously enough for that to be an issue. The characters in the game are great and Dante and Virgil being brothers who are enemies is a fun dynamic. This game also has some fantastic boss fights they really make you have to master your timings and attacks.

4. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I fucking love Star Wars, I fucking love RPGs, and I fucking love good stories and characters; and this game has all of that. The story of this game is one of my favorites in anything, not just video games but all media, and the Revan twist is something that I didn’t see coming and really blew me away the first time I played this game. I’ve probably played through the story 7 or so times and I still love it, Bioware is at its best here and the character interactions and your decisions effecting everything in the game and you being able to ruin entire planets with your decisions really makes you feel like what you are doing is important to the galaxy. HK 47 calling everyone a “meatbag” is endlessly hilarious, and might be the first sassy Star Wars robot. I was at a con recently and got an autograph of Jennifer Hale (Bastila Shan) and its something very special to me in large part because of this game.

3. Mortal Kombat (2009)

Mortal Kombat 9 was such an amazing experience when it first came out. The past 5 Mortal Kombat games had been 3D, and had really suffered in quality because of it. The stories and characters had become terrible and the franchise was dying. Then came Mortal Kombat 9, or just Mortal Kombat as its actually called. The first 2D game in the franchise since the good old days of UMK3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy, it was a reboot of the franchise that still used everything that had come before to set up the story. Knowing the old games was a benefit to the twists and turns of the story and altered timeline, but not essential to it. This was also the re-invigoration of the tournament scene for the MK games, which was a very welcome return. The roster of this game is damn near perfect, with the dlc adding an old favorite, the only good character from Deadly Alliance, Freddy motherfucking Kreuger, a new character that was a lot of fun, and I had the PS3 version so I also had Kratos which was awesome. Everything in this game represented a return to form and a new beginning for a franchise that desperately needed it. Mortal Kombat X and 11 have both been fantastic as well, but I chose 9 because of not just it being a fantastic game, but what it did for the series.

2. Dark Souls

I love dark fantasy and I love armor and weapons in video games, and this game has that as well as fantastic combat, and some amazing gothic horror as well. The bosses in this game are some of the best in any game and the game may be punishingly difficult, but the feeling of accomplishment when you finally get over some massive hurdle you were stuck on or finally slay a powerful boss that had been using your body as a punching bag is so incredibly satisfying. The sad state of the world in this game is also refreshing, instead of being some amazing savior sent to kill the big bad fucking up the world; your goal is ether to prolong the dying world for a little while longer, or end it and start something new. Killing gods that have been corrupted and used to be heroic adds a tragic twist to fighting bosses and makes killing them bitter sweet. I absolutely adore how you can make different characters and create builds around certain spells and weapons and I really wish more games would incorporate systems like that, even if they aren’t exactly balanced in any Dark Souls game. I also love how when you get past the opening area you can pretty much go where ever you want, the level design is almost perfect, with every location being somewhat connected to the next, often times looping in on each other.

2. (tie) Dragon Age: Origins

The second Bioware game on this list, it has all the roleplaying and great character writing of KotOR and more, a deep universe that they created; this game was in development for a long time to create a rich lore and new twist on fantasy tropes. The world really feels fleshed out and the characters feel like real people, with issues and hang ups and oddities that make them not just archetypes like most games have. Making decisions that effect characters and your companions can often be tough because you really care about what happens to them and how they feel, and how the world sees you. The gameplay isn’t perfect, its an odd mix of turn based and real time, but it still works pretty well. I put Dark Souls and Dragon Age in the same spot because I love them both for the same yet opposite reasons, if someone could take the roleplaying and world building of Dragon Age and combine it with the stats and combat and boss fights of Dark Souls it would create the perfect game for me.

1. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

I absolutely loved playing this game when it first came out, and I really wish I could get it to work on my PC so I could relive the glory that is this game. Skyrim is probably the more obvious pick for most people, but Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls and first Bethesda game; and Oblivion has better rpg mechanics and a better story in my humble opinion. I love the Dark Brotherhood questline in this game more than any other questline in any game ever, its so fucking good. The game looks like shit graphically now, but back when it came out it was gorgeous, and I remember the first time I played it on an HD tv I was blown away. The rich world and the big name actors being in it was a real treat, and having Sir Patrick Stewart play the king really gave that character the gravitas and importance that was needed to establish a character quickly. Sean Bean being his son was also fantastic, and brings this list pretty much full circle because of him being in Goldeneye. The armor and weapon designs are really good for the most part, and I love collecting all the Daedric artifacts and creating havoc with them. I still get excited when I hear the music from this game, and its orchestral quality really adds to the epic feeling of the game. There’s no one stealing sweet rolls or arrows to the knee in this one ether.

There are a lot of other games that I love and that were hard to leave off this list, but its pretty long as it is; and I’m sure eventually new games will take the place of some of these.

[daggerfall]

Okay question! I have ESO but I’ve never been able to get into it because I don’t know what to do. What was the first thing you did? How do I actually get into the game? I loved Skyrim and would like to love ESO

honestly you gotta just power through your first zone. i find ebonheart pact (alliance for nords, dunmer, and argonians) to be really ugh but i genuinely loved daggerfall covenant as my first and aldmeri dominion as my second alliance. so picking a character and their race becomes kinda key. Making sure you are actually playing the main quest and are in the correct zone helps a lot, since the game dumps you in whatever zone the most recent chapter you own is in (vvardenfell for morrowind, summerset for summerset, elsweyr for elsweyr). it’s very jarring and hard to get into stuff when you have no idea whats going on, who anyone is, or even WHO you are. so having a key for that helps.

Go along with the main questline and your own alliance’s, avoid the prologue quests like the plague (look them up in advance), don’t bother with eso plus until you finish the main quest unless you like paying out the ass for DLC it doesn’t make sense to play yet chronologically, join the fighters and mages guild, and don’t even bother with group dungeons or PVP. Once you make it through the first major zone (glenumbra, auridon, or stonefalls) and its main questline, you should already be somewhat attached to certain characters, and invested in the questline. I know I was already in love with Darien by the time I finished Glenumbra, and had a big (hehe) crush on Lyris, AND wanted to punch ol’ moldy balls and mannimarco in the face REALLY badly, so I was motivated by that.

I’m a very quest/plot/story oriented person, so that’s what gets me in games. Not everyone is the same, but that’s what it is for me.

[merelliahallewell]

A Guide of Silver & Ash

I’ve been super excited for the Drustvar inquisitors ever since I first got to play around on Beta and have been roleplaying one since BfA dropped. It’s not likely that we’re going to be getting any more lore on Drustvar or the Order at this point in the expansion, and so I’ll recap what’s gone on for them so far.  In the hopes of maybe finding more of them to roleplay with (and maybe encouraging people to try out the character concept) I decided to put together a guide to their roleplay! 

This will be headcanon free, so don’t worry about having to sort out out somebody’s personal lore from what’s present in-game. If I do make an assertion or reference something not in WoW canon, it’ll be easy to notice. 

If you’re looking for some more detailed Order of Embers headcanons, I’ll attach some at the end of this post. Merellia, my inquisitor, is writing an IC primer for the Order of Embers that I’ll be releasing (hopefully) soon, so keep an eye on this blog if that’s your sort of thing!

Guide is after the jump- this will be a longer post!

On Kul Tiras’ western side lies the mountainous region of Drustvar- providing most of the island kingdom’s ore and some of their strongest warriors. In recent times, Drustvar has fallen quiet- no shipments have come from it, and the Waycrests have not been seen in Boralus in a long time.

As players enter this zone in Battle for Azeroth, they find a region on the brink of succumbing to the influence of the vile Heartsbane Coven, a group of witches who have spread like a plague across the land, corrupting and destroying all in their path in the name of their Drust patrons.

The Order of Embers

During the zone’s storyline, the player and Lucille Waycrest discover that the magic being used against them is that of the Drust, who were defeated thousands of years earlier by a group known as the Order of Embers, who took up arms against their powerful foes and eventually triumphed. The Waycrests were members of the ancient order, and it was Arom Waycrest himself who led the charge to defeat the Drust king Gorak Tul. 

In the cavern Gol Var, once a Drust stronghold, they recover an ancient tome known as the Tome of Silver and Ash, a treatise which contained all their knowledge on combatting Drust magic. 

In the town of Arom’s Stand, some of the Waycrest Guard’s finest remaining soldiers were recruited to become the reborn Order’s first Inquisitors. The newly-anointed inquisitors brought the fight to the Heartsbane from there.

Conflict with the Coven

The Order’s battles with the Coven play out over the latter half of the Drustvar questing experience and also the zone’s world quests. They add new members to their ranks, create new weapons for use against the Coven, and push back against them on all sides. Eventually, they storm Waycrest Manor, cutting off the head of the snake and defeating the Coven’s leadership. Gorak Tul was forced back into Thros, prevented from returning for the time being. (Tul was later killed in Thros during the Pride of Kul Tiras questline.)

We don’t know how long it takes for all these events to play out- it could range from a handful of days to months after BfA’s launch. 

Even once the Coven’s leadership is defeated, though, it’s likely a number of witches still remain entrenched in their strongholds and forests. An inquisitor’s work is never done, it seems...

Who leads the Order of Embers? Does it have a hierarchy?

Lucille Waycrest- now the ruling Lady of Drustvar, and the last of her house, is in charge of the Order. All inquisitors are raised to their stations by the authority of House Waycrest. Other important figures are the remaining original inquisitors (Sterntide, Mace, Notley, and Yorrick), the quartermaster Alcorn, and Marshal Joan Cleardawn, a former inquisitor that was given new leadership over the Waycrest Guard. 

The Order seems to lack much of a formal hierarchy- all the named NPCs are simply titled with inquisitor- working together as a team rather than issuing commands to one another. They also seem to be adept at handling missions alone and on their own- or with the aid of local allies. 

Can I roleplay an inquisitor or other member of the Order of Embers? Is it lore-abiding?

Sure! The Order didn’t stop at five inquisitors- a world quest boss for the Horde during the invasions has them facing off against an Inquisitor named Erik. They’re probably not handing out inquisitor garb like candy, but there’s no reason to assume that a worthy and trusted individual wouldn’t be made an inquisitor. 

However, it is worth mentioning that the Order of Embers might not be too trusting of those wielding or even infused with darker powers, given the devastation of their homeland by spellcasters wielding deadly, terrifying magic. 

Could a non-human join the order?

I don’t see why not- though obviously, the Order of Embers may be more hesitant to accept, say, a void-infused elf with tentacle hair or a worgen as an inquisitor than a race they’re more familiar with such as a dwarf or gnome. Ability to serve House Waycrest and being of aid against the Heartsbane are likely strong factors in joining up- they may not make a person an inquisitor if they’re a night elf that’s only briefly in Kul Tiras.

There’s no real in-game basis to make this judgement on either way, so if you want to roleplay an inquisitor that’s not human and you think you have solid IC reasoning: go for it! 

Initiation Ceremony

To become a member of the Order of Embers, the initiate undergoes a short ritual where they are presented with their garb.

Brothers and Sisters, today you become the searing fire that burns away the darkness. 

Today you become the shining blade that cuts through the wicked. 

Today you become the beacon of hope against the endless foe. 

By the authority of House Waycrest, I name you inquisitors of the Order of Embers!

Non-inquisitor Roles

If you find the Order of Embers cool, but don’t think you like the idea of hunting witches all day, they have more than just inquisitors in it. The witch hunters rely on specialists to help them get the tools they need to beat back the Heartsbane, and even simply through the questing experience they gather new allies. The blacksmith Angus Ballaster and the alchemist Master Ashton both are essentials. As of patch 7.1, the Order is also joined by a cleric by the name of Loriette. A skilled smith or alchemist could work alongside them, perhaps helping to craft more weapons for them or concocting potions for use in the field.

Allies

The witch hunters are not the only ones out to defend Drustvar- they are joined by a plethora of others trying to protect the region. 

Waycrest Guard - The Waycrest Guard are the chief protectors of Drustvar... or they were, at least, until the Coven took over and enslaved many of their number with a powerful curse. They are shown to work alongside the Order of Embers when Watchman’s Rise is retaken. The Waycrest Guard had some of their finest join the Order- so it is natural for them to work alongside one another. The Guard seem to act as, well, guards for those settlements not completely lost to the witches, while the inquisitors are the ones striking deep into enemy territory. 

Town Militia - With much of the Waycrest Guard falling under the control of the Coven, the towns of Drustvar have been forced to look to their own defenses, such as in Falconhurst and Fletcher’s Hollow. Ordinary citizens have been forced to take up weapons in defense of their homes- and the aid of an inquisitor would likely be welcomed.

Thornspeakers - The Thornspeakers are a faction of Drust and human druids that live out in Drustvar’s woods and mountains. They are led by Ulfar- one of the last few remaining Drust, and somebody who remembers the original war with the humans- though he found himself eventually joining their side. The Thornspeakers seem to congregate at Ulfar’s Den along the eastern side of the mountains. They work hard to maintain the balance in nature, and have allies in the mysterious pair of stags that roam the forests...

Drustvar Rangers - Though they only appeared in a few brief quests supporting the Thornspeakers, Drustvar seems to have a number of woodsmen trying to do their part to protect Drustvar. 

Army of Light - Patch 8.1 brought new allies to Drustvar. While they have little official presence in the zone’s story, the Army of Light is the main Alliance contribution towards defending Drustvar. They have brought their Lightforged Warframes with them - incredibly powerful weapons that once fought the Burning Legion - as well as bunkers deployed by the Vindicaar and Light-based shield generators, all to protect Arom’s Stand from the Horde’s Blight-carrying gunships. they seem to have a permanent encampment to the north of Arom’s Stand, and are summoning in reinforcements from Stormwind. 

Clothing and Armor 

Upon being appointed to their new stations, inquisitors are offered a set of garb inspired by drawings in the Tome of Silver and Ash of what the ancient inquisitors wore. This armor seems to be dark brown leather gear and also has a feathered cap involved- though only one of the inquisitors seems to have chosen to wear it.  

The Order also has a tabard, which is worn by the quartermaster who sells it. While no inquisitors actually seem to wear it, it’s one of the better-looking tabards added this expansion and has a distinctive look. 

Brown is a color you’ll find often worn by the Order and those associated with it- like Lucille Waycrest. The order’s official uniforms include tones of brown and silver or grey.

In an OOC sense, the uniforms the inquisitors wear is the Heroic version of Rogue Tier 21, which comes from Antorus, the Burning Throne. This is Rogue only, sadly. The hat is available sometimes as a drop from Commodore Calhoun, a rare mob in Vol’dun. I do not know if it drops for non-leather wearers. 

If you’re looking for some transmog ideas, this is a link to the Order of Embers mogs on /r/transmogrification. There is a super sweet plate set OoE set on there that actually won Best Dressed of 2018 for the armor class. 

Weaponry

The inquisitors of the Order of Embers wield a number of different weapons, taken from their prior occupation as members of the Waycrest Guard. Everything from two-handed swords to crossbows are used by them- and that’s just primary weapons. Their armor features throwing knives as well. Inquisitor Mace even carries a trio of daggers sheathed at her belt- it seems they have no shortage of tools for dispatching witches with.

On top of this, the inquisitors recovered a small amount of silver from one of the region’s mines. The silver was used to begin producing weapons for the Order- such as the silver-plated hand cannon Witchrend, which seems to shoot scraps of silver and other metals to great effect against the Heartsbane. 

Players who have completed the zone’s quests also have a buff called Silvered Weapons. Silver can disrupt the magics of the Heartsbane, and deal increased damage against them.

Alchemical fire is also a potent weapon against the Drust, crafted by Master Ashton. This can seemingly be put into flasks, which are thrown at enemies. The flasks shatter, and release the flames within, which is a potent weapon against both Gorak Tul and against the animated wicker creatures. 

As an OOC note- silver is a terrible metal to forge a weapon out of. It is extremely soft, and would not hold up well in a fight. Blizzard never covers how the silver weapons are handled.

Other universes have done this, though- D&D has a ruling about silvered weapons, and The Witcher series has a class of silver swords with special forging techniques. 

Miscellaneous 

The Holy Light may be used by some members of the Order of Embers. Inquisitor Erik uses holy spells for his attacks when engaged by Horde players, and Cleric Loriette casts a fiery blessing on players who have unlocked her, a spell type usually reserved for priests. In WoW, the IC classes of cleric and priest is often interchangeable. A Light-wielding inquisitor is not out of the question, it seems. However...

Despite the possibility of Drustvari Light-wielding inquisitors like something we observed in the Scarlet Crusade, the Order of Embers is not a holy or religious order. It owes allegiance to House Waycrest. Zealotry is probably not on their menu. 

Witches have been observed to call upon Drust magic without the Coven’s assent- once by a rejected witch in Drustvar, and again in Tiragarde at the Algerson yard. This could open up the possibility of inquisitors venturing outside Drustvar to seek out new threats. 

The Order of Embers is based out of Arom’s Stand in central Drustvar. The building Lucille occupies is possibly their headquarters. 

Per the faction description, the Order of Embers fights with knowledge guiding their blades. As mentioned before, blind zeal like the Scarlet Crusade had to fight the undead with is not their style- even if Inquisitor Mace is really good at rushing into battle ahead of her allies. It’s also unlikely the Order would be suspicious of magic-users such as druids or shamans. They would have to be a pretty poor inquisitor to confuse the magics of their new allies with that of Drust magic.

Onions seem to be anathema to the witches and their servants. 

Further Reading (Fanon and out-of-WoW information)

I did an interesting write-up of Drustvar’s strange and curious connections to the Light, rather than the Tidesage religion, and it prompted a bit of discussion on the forums. It sticks to canon information, but attempts to draw conclusions from it. You can give it a read here! 

This blog post goes over some potential processes for silvering and what happens when these weapons are used on creatures averse to silver.

I write my own fanon on the blog AzerothExpanded. Over the last few months, I’ve written a number of entries about Drustvar, including a post about the Order’s practices, the roles of its inquisitors and clerics, and Drusvar’s witches. People are free to use these in their roleplay!

Matt Mercer has created an interesting Dungeons & Dragons class called the Blood Hunter (which used to be called Witch Hunter.) It provides some interesting ideas that could be brought into an inquisitor character. You can see the class on D&D Beyond, or read the old Witch Hunter PDF. 

Keep an eye out for the upcoming in character writing from Merellia, coming on this blog! I’m super excited to get it out once my finals end later this week. It should wind up coming in Google Doc, TRP3:E book, and Tumblr form because I like gifs.

- - - - - - 

I hope this post was helpful to anybody who’s feeling like trying out this sort of roleplay! It’s terribly long-winded but I wanted to do my best to cover what’s out there, so that people have all the information they need to jump into this and start on their characters. 

If you’ve read all this and you’d like to meet some Kul Tiras roleplayers or try out inquisitor RP, I’d suggest giving @cesarewatch‘s Kul Tiran RP Starter Pack Forum Post a read. That’s got links to the cross-realm Living Kul Tiras in-game community (and discord) that features members from WrA and MG. It also has links to other smaller communities, including Thorny Inquiries- the Drustvar discord. 

If you’d like to reach out to me about this guide or roleplay with an inquisitor, I play the character “Merciella” on both Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord. Happy roleplaying!

[corsairesix]

Single Player Fallout 76: The Ash Heap and the Mining Coalition

Continuing the trip around Appalachia, I’m going to talk about what the Ash Heap would be like in a single-player Fallout 76 game. I’m also going to talk about the all-new faction, the Mining Coalition. I’ve been writing a lot on what a single-player game of Fallout 76 would look like, and you can find the rest of it by searching #single player 76.

Thoughts:

The Mining Coalition (formerly known as the Hornwright-Garrahan Coalition and sometimes just called The Coalition) is an alliance between Hornwright Industries and Garrahan Mining, and is armored and equipped by Atomic Mining Services. Hornwright and Garrahan were fierce competitors before the war, but when the bombs fell, they decided collaboration was the only way they could keep their position over the workers of the Ash Heap.

Upon forming the Coalition, the mining companies began to target striking workers, starting with the town of Beckley. Union miners are arrested and shipped to the Coalition prisons outside of the Ash Heap, such as the prison in Clarksburg, where companion Stump Matthews is found.

When it became clear that the government that remained was to weak to ensure business interests, the Coalition formed its own military out of soldiers in Garrahan Excavator Power Armor and AMS strikebreaker robots.

The Coalition Headquarters is at the Garrahan Mining Headquarters. Companion Henry Henderson, a Garrahan Power Soldier, can be found there.

The ultimate goal of the Mining Coalition is to turn the giant excavator on Mount Blair into a mobile war machine so they can take over all of Appalachia. To do so, they have to retake Charleston to get access to the Motherlode machine in Hornwright Industrial HQ.

Lewisburg is the model town of the Ash Heap. It remains relatively clean compared to the rest of the Ash Heap thanks to air filters installed on their rooftop gardens, although citizens still have to occasionally wear. Since they are mainly self-sufficient and happy, the Coalition provides protection in exchange for fresh produce and leverage over the town, but otherwise leaves it alone.

One of the stages of the Order of Mysteries questline happens in Lewisburg. I’m going to make a separate post for that quest, so I won’t go over it here.

Dick Shale, legendary tour guide narrator, lives in Lewisburg. He wants to make a new series of tour holotapes that highlight the new attractions in post-war Appalachia, and asks for your help. You can suggest tour attractions that have formed since the war, such as the party spots of Morgantown, the theater at Bleeding Kates Grindhouse, or others. He asks you to travel there, and once you have (or if you already have) he’ll ask you questions about it. After you’ve found three locations for him, he’ll give you a new quest.

Dick Shale asks you to correct the one blemish on his tour guide reputation. He asks you to go to Uncanny Caverns, where the management had him narrate the local legends of the Night Kid, a mutant child raised by bats, which grew into the local tale of the Batsquatch. He has studied it more, and believes that the Batsquatch doesn’t actually exist, and sightings are actually misidentified sightings of Mothman. When you go to the cave you can listen to the Dick Shale tour stations there as you go through the caverns. At the end you find out that the Batsquatch is real, and you can either kill it or use the information from the tour to deal with it peacefully.

The Sheepsquatch quest that comes out tomorrow is mostly the same; it starts as a mystery in Lewisburg and progresses from there. Some of the searching for clues is replaced by conversations rather than finding everything through notes and holotapes, but there’s still a detective element. I haven’t played it yet, so this is just based on what I’ve read so far.

Camden park is mostly unchanged. It is a robot-run park with mini-games, but better mini-games than currently exist. Only Dross Toss remains the same, and the other ones are replaced.

Bleeding Kate’s Grindhouse is a raider camp, led by the eponymous Kate. They make caps by showing movies and performing plays, and only really call themselves raiders because they rob caravans and passersby for their holotapes. Bleeding Kate gives a repeatable quest to find movie holotapes around Appalachia.

The Charleston Fire Department is the farthest south the Responders have a hold on. They use the Ash Heap as a training ground for their elite Fire Breathers, both against the wildlife and the Coalition robots. It lies outside the area of Charleston that the state government has reclaimed.

Send an ask if you have any questions, or if there are any Ash Heap locations you want me to cover.

[gamesception]

Vanilla Necromancer, part 1

Looking to play some vidya game.  Mostly I want to play Outer Worlds, but I don’t trust my laptop to run it, and if I have to play it on console I’d rather wait for the switch port.  Was playing The terrible Kingdom Hearts gacha game, but it tricked me into spending money one to many times so it got the cold turkey.  I’ll still react to the rest of the story at some point, but right now I’m bitter so no.  And I’m busy lately, so I need something dumb & mindless that I won’t mind dropping when Outer Worlds does release, so I don’t want to mess with Witcher yet.  So... what to play?

Call me basic, because I am, but I always quite liked Skyrim, largely because necromancy is cool and Skyrim’s one of relatively few fantasy RPGs that let you go pretty hog wild with it.  Especially if you play it on PC modded to high heaven - perk overhauls that let you collect bones to build extra skeletons, expanded necromancy spells, playable lich transformation, re-worked college of winterhold to make playing a mage in general more interesting, build your own guild to recruit a necromantic coven, alternate faction alliances for non-hostile relationships with npc undead & necromancers, etc etc etc.

With all those mods tailored perfectly to my preferences, It’s maybe not surprising that, while I’ve played Skyrim a bunch, I haven’t played vanilla Skyrim since the game originally released.  But the convenient portability of the Switch is a good excuse to give it another go, and, looking back, even without all those mods it’s really surprising how much support there is for a Necromancer.  So here he is, Sellosus the Blind, named for a Necromancer D&D character I once ran who betrayed the party so spectacularly that he derailed the game completely and became the primary antagonist for the rest of the campaign.

We god a nice, crotchety, grey haired, big bearded, spooky eyed old man.  Fantastic necromancer mancer material right here.  Nord isn’t the best for caster, necromancy especially.  Dark Elf is probably the best there, Breton’s pretty close, but for all the characters I’ve run through this game, I’ve actually played through either side of the civil war plot arc.  So Sellosus will be a Nord, to better fit into the Stormcast side.

As usual, Alduin interrupts my execution.  Major goof on his part!.

Ralof and I escape from dragon and Imperials alike, and make our way towards Riverwood.

Along the way I attune the Mage Stone for an early game head start on leveling some of my key skills.  Ralof doesn’t approve, but it’s only temporary, so I’m sure he’ll get over it.

Of course, he’d approve of my main Standing Stone choice even less, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself

We reach Riverwood and meet with Ralof’s Sister Gerdur.  They ask me to head to Whiterun to ask the Jarl to send aid in case the dragon comes to.  Fair enough, but I’ve got a quick side errend to run first.  But that’ll wait for next post, if I feel motivated enough to continue.

So for the moment, here I am, Sellosus the Blind, novice necromancer.  Bit of a short start, so maybe I’ll throw in a few thoughts on this guy’s build.

Obviously Magicka’s going to be Sellosus’s primary stat.  Conjuration spells are pricey.  Eventually this guy is going to be throwing out multiple expendable lackies per combat and that cost adds up.  So lots of Magicka, relatively little Health, very little Stamina.  Since I’ll be wearing robes instead of armor for flavor and style he’s going to be very fragile, but that’s ok.  Once his primary skills are running properly he’s one of the safest builds in the game.  Speaking of...

Conjuration is obviously Sellosus’s primary skill.  All the explicitly necromantic spells are conjuration, as are most of the necromantic perks, both in terms of undead manipulation (summoning undead, animating corpses) and stealing souls to use for enchantment.  The school has four main lines of perks - boosting summoned elementals, boosting animated dead, enhancing conjured weapons, and discounting conjuration spells.

Sellosus will be summoning elementals a fair bit early on, but I won’t be taking any of those perks as in the long term undead use will replace all of that.  The undead enhancing tree sounds perfect but long term most of those abilities aren’t exactly worth while either... but Sellosus will still be taking them because the capstone ability to summon or animate two minions at once is amazing and a cornerstone of the entire build.  The conjured weapon tree will be useful as the bound bow spell will eventually be an acceptable in-school alternative to destruction spells for range damage, and one of the perks will automatically apply soul trap to targets hit by bound weapons, which is much more convenient than actively casting the spell in combat - though it will still have out of combat uses.  The discount line is useful because conjuration spells are just kind of pricey in general, and again Sellosus will eventually be throwing them about willy nilly.

Another key skill for Sellosus is Enchanting.  In Elder Scrolls games, enchanting magic items is an inherently necromantic endeavor, as the energy that powers those enchantments come from captured souls.  Which is pretty cool!  Eventually Sellosus’s mastery of soul magic will allow him to create magic equipment that far exceeds anything found in the game naturally... with maybe one or two key exceptions.  That’s relatively late game, though.  I won’t be bothering with Enchanting too much early on.

The skill’s perk tree has three main paths - one enhancing elemental effects - which I might bother with for protection but... eh.  Another enhances the use and recharge of magic weapons and that’s just not Sellosus either.  But the center line greatly enhances skill & stat augmentations on magic equipment you make, and that will be huge later on.

Another key skill for Sellosus will be Illusion, for a few reasons.  First is that one of the captsone abilities of Illusion is partially necromantic in nature - allowing illusion spells to affect undead (along with daedra & constructs) which are normally immune.  This will eventually allow Sellosus to pass through hordes of otherwise hostile draugers completely unhindered as the lesser undead fall under the sway of his dark magic.  Second is the relatively high level illusion perk that allows spells to be cast silently.  Combined with stealth enhancing illusion spells like muffle and invisibility, this will allow Sellosus to remain entirely unseen by enemies while conjuring wave after wave of summoned minions.  Third is to steal style points from one of the greatest undead arcanists in fiction, Adventure Time’s Lich.  The Lich was a powerful necromancer, but its greatest threat was the ability to manipulate the minds of those exposed to its magic.  With mastery of both illusion and conjuration, Sellosus will be able to turn his enemies against each other and then raise the corpses of whichever fall first to keep fighting until no enemies are left, making for a pretty sick play style all told.

Theskill tree has a discount line - useful because I’ll be casting the stealth spells a lot and they’re pretty pricey.  To maintain invisibility in combat I’ll have to re-cast it after every other action I take so yeah any discount there is appreciated.  Then there’s a line that enhances the level caps of the various types of offensive illusion and with the way they work those are pretty obligatory.  Finally there’s a line that enhances the effect against different creature types, and the silent casting perk falls in there, so once again obligatory.  Sellosus may end up getting every single illusion perk, the only skill tree where that’s likely despite conjuration and enchantment theoretically being more central to the theme.

Sellosus’s last key skill is restoration.  This is a fairly minor skill in the build as I don’t plan on casting a lot of restoration spells in combat.  Again, despite the low hit points, once the build is working it’s extremely safe.  If all goes well my enemies should be slaughtering each other before they even catch sight of me. 

However, there are a few perks in restoration that will prove essential.  The ability to heal stamina along with health when casting restoration spells will help a lot with Sellosus’s lack of stamina advancement.  More importantly the ‘Necromage’ perk enhances the affects of all of your spells when used against the undead.  With the overall tone of the restoration school, this is obviously intended for virtuous wizards to purge the undead from skyrim with their destruction spells, but for Sellosus?  Sellosus will eventually *be* undead himself, at which point that perk will enhance the effect of positive magics he uses on himself, including that of any magical equipment he creates for himself.

...

So that’s the build, or at least the plan for it.  Even just in the perk trees, that’s already a lot of necromantic goodness to enjoy, and I haven’t even really gotten into the spells, questlines, & magic items.  Something to talk about later, if I keep posting this.

[wowerehouse]

All right I’ve been going back and forth on this but I think I’m going with that this extended infiltration subplot in the SP is canon for the Alliance trio (god they really are a trio now aren’t they, RIP Bergok and Twoshields, we hardly knew ye). 

I’m actually gonna leave Talet alone for a bit while I get Ihz to Icecrown even though I said I wouldn’t, largely because I’m trying to figure out exactly how things went down in-universe for them in SP and also because overland travel is part of the EXPERIENCE with playing Ihz, so I’m getting her there on foot and that’s probably gonna round out my actual game time tonight. Just get her set up, for when the Alliance girls catch up.

(they get priority in any faction-neutral questlines, because I can always send Ihz back to Wyrmrest to do that entire questline and bulk up her levelling and also, if necessary, do some Outland quests as well, whereas Talet is getting booted out entirely in favor of Velshada once I put them through the BC stuff.)

I know, I know, I’m skipping a lot of lore and such in the storm peaks, but in this case, with these specific characters....Rinda already knows most of it, Vel can read about it, Talet really genuinely does not want to know, and regardless, they have no reason to be getting involved right now. 

I’m having enough trouble justifying sending them to Icecrown except that frankly they’re all a little pissed at the Bronze Dragonflight and their logic has gone from “let’s do what we can even if we’re doomed to fail because if we can change this, we have to” to “oh, bronze dragons wanna play? fine. if they’re SO SURE we can’t help, then they won’t mind us going over here and making sure nobody else interferes, like, I don’t know, THE BURNING LEGION, SINCE YOU ASSHOLES DON’T SEEM TO CARE ABOUT THEM FUCKING WITH HISTORY”

....Okay actually. That being said.

It might honestly make more sense for them to not go to Icecrown at all except that I, you know. Want to finish out WotLK, obviously. It would make sense, in-universe, for them to stick stuff out over here in the storm peaks and if anything just duck back to Icecrown to watch things go down and carefully not interfere.

....Anyway, yeah, so, I’m letting Talet alone until I figure out what to do next. Ihz, however, has gotten restless and is going to Icecrown and....isn’t sure why. She just can’t stand not knowing.

[goddessfavored]

“You are the Night Warrior herself, in fact,” Illidan continued smoothly. “I hear you’ve been put in charge of a band of your sisters.”

Well now she will be the Night Warrior herself indeed and I find this amusing

but anyways I intend this to be a rant about the Night Warrior, as it was presented in the War of the Ancients trilogy and why I actually love that Tyrande is going to represent this darker side of the moon in a time of war.

(Ayy this got super long, so it’s under the cut.)

To Malfurion, she looked more like the priestess of a war god and evidently Tyrande could read such in his expression. With a bit of defensiveness, she admonished him, “You may excel at your new calling, Malfurion, but you seem to have forgotten the elements of Mother Moon! Do you not recall her aspect as the Night Warrior, she who takes the courageous dead from the field and sets them riding across the evening sky as stars for their reward?”

The first time the Night Warrior is mentioned in the trilogy is this one. It doesn’t tell us much about it but, to me, it presented some interesting points: 

1. Elune isn’t a peaceful goddess, in the sense that her philosophy isn’t one of being dedicated solely to peace and healing. She has a warrior facet, that might not be her most known face, is a part of the goddess nonetheless. The fact Tyrande points this out to Malfurion as something he may have forgotten indicates that this part of Elune wasn’t something only those devout to the goddess and dedicating their lives to her would know, so I’d say that while not primary, it would still be one important aspect of Elune.

2. The idea that Elune “takes the courageous dead from the field and sets them riding across the evening sky as stars for their reward” is indicative that this aspect of the goddess glorifies war, even rewarding those that show bravery in the field of battle. It reminded me of the concept of warriors being rewarded with Valhalla for glorious deaths in battle, to some extent. If Elune has a face to her that is devout to war and that rewards warriors, this only reinforces the idea of her not being a goddess of peace, the way I see it.

Malfurion gaped at them, only belatedly realizing that they were not the soldiers of Jarod Shadowsong. Their armor was more silver and—he looked twice—shaped for more feminine figures. The song he heard was in praise of the Night Warrior, the fearsome battle incarnation of the Mother Moon. 

The Sisterhood of Elune had come to their rescue. 

For the first time, Malfurion saw the quiet, gentle priestesses in their wartime roles. Many carried long, curved swords, while others wielded short lances with points on both ends. A few even had bows no longer than their forearms, from which they swiftly shot dart after dart. 

 The effect on the demons was immediate. Felbeasts dropped, riddled. A priestess swung her blade with the ease of a soldier, decapitating a horned warrior. Two night sabers dropped upon another hound, slashing it repeatedly from both sides until all that remained was a bloody carcass.

1. Let’s ignore Malfurion’s perception that the priestesses can’t be awesome warriors because they should be “quiet and gentle”. 

2. In spite of the character’s biased views, I think this passage makes it quite clear that martial aspects are important to Elune --- the priestesses are trained, they don’t just fight “with the ease of a soldier” they are soldiers too. The Legion is attacking and while it is part of their duty to heal and help those in need, they actively participate in the fight, and are a considerable force on their own. 

3. Malfurion now refers to the Night Warrior as “the fearsome battle incarnation of the Mother Moon”. I find this interesting because it is one more quality we now learn about the Night Warrior -- when Tyrande talks about it, she mentions only courage, and when Illidan mentions the Night Warrior, it is as a compliment towards Tyrande. Malfurion, however, brings up “fearsome” and I think that it can add to this form of Elune not being solely that of a warrior connected to bravery and the usual ideals of “nobility” but of an aspect that is also imposing, powerful, and even scary to some extent.

Direct mentions of the Night Warrior end there, so there isn’t much. Let’s see what we have about her on patch 8.1 now.

There are mentions of a ritual, but the first time someone talks about the Night Warrior is Maiev, and she’s explaining why the ritual Tyrande intends on doing is dangerous.

What ritual do you speak of, Maiev? Who is the Night Warrior? She is the incarnation of Elune's wrath. Even witnessing the ritual to become her would put our lives at risk.

Maiev doesn’t talk of the Night Warrior as a warrior aspect of Elune, but rather as an embodiment of her wrath. Of course, wrath is suitable both to the current situation of the story (as it makes all sense that Tyrande, in her own wrath, would seek to become an embodiment of her goddess’ rage) and as important part of a warrior aspect in general. 

Legend says that long ago, Elune bestowed her fury upon our greatest warriors to secure Kalimdor.

Maiev continues to explain the Night Warrior, saying that they came to be through Elune’s fury, which furthers the notion that Elune’s warrior aspect is more tied with anger and even vengeance than with the more noble aspects such as bravery.

Now, I will serve you only if you grant me justice! With ancient words, I invoke your most ruthless phase. With this offering, I demand to wear your darkest face.

Elune! Make me the instrument of your vengeance! Now, we shall have justice.

I am no queen. I am the kaldorei's vengeance.

When Tyrande calls to Elune to ask for the Night Warrior’s powers, the Night Warrior is connected to justice, but also to ruthlessness and vengeance. She even says it is the goddess’ “darkest face”, which is completely coherent with the “dark side of the moon” theme, and with everything Maiev said, too. In the end, she does demands to be made an instrument of the goddess’ vengeance, and later, when she talks to Nathanos, this is what she claims to have become. 

It is time we reclaim our home. You, Maiev, must command our forces. Me? What will you do? I have known these woods all my life. The Night Warrior's wrath must be sated.

By the end of it, Tyrande passes on the command of the kaldorei forces to Maiev. The very last sentence indicates that being the embodiment of Elune’s fury comes with consequences, and that the Night Warrior demands the blood of her enemies to be spilled. This, of course, is just speculation, and there are many blanks to be filled (such as why Maiev cares if she lived or died in the ritual, or why they are even working together without any apparent distrust? idk).

Anyways. When it comes to the Night Warrior itself, the content we seem to be getting in game seems to be quite different from that of the books. Here, this face of Elune isn’t connected to simply being a warrior aspect of the goddess, or to courage; it is only tied with wrath, fury, vengeance. I don’t think the two representations are incompatible, though. When Tyrande links the Night Warrior to courage in WotA, she does so immediately after Malfurion seems judgmental about her war outfit -- she’s defensive, and would of course not talk about Elune’s warrior facet in any way that would further his apparently bad impression of it. The other “positive” mention of the Night Warrior comes in Illidan using it to compliment Tyrande, and is actually quite simply explained: she’s a priestess of Elune, and it is a logical conclusion that she would feel flattered to be compared to an aspect of the goddess she’s devout to. Not only that, as he is portrayed in the books, and in a time of war, I don’t see a reason why he would find Elune’s warrior aspect to be a bad thing.Praising bravery isn’t mutually exclusive with ruthlessness or wrath, either; and it is very likely that the Night Warrior was both of those things at once. 

I’m genuinely looking forward for Tyrande to assume this role; first, because the lack of Night Elf response to the burning of Teldrassil has been bothering me ever since it happened, second because I find this to be a very in character response from her. I like Elune not being a goddess of pure good, and I love that her followers not only are aware of that but would benefit from this side of her as well. I love that all that happened would make Tyrande question her goddess --- and that it isn’t quite her faith that is in question, but Elune’s actions as their goddess. Tyrande didn’t stop believing in her, but got angry that she would have allowed this to happen to her people.

Tyrande isn’t the sort of character to await permissions, and she often acts accordingly to what she feels is right, even when others disagree or try to stop her. It is through disobedience and following her convictions that she “adopted” Shandris, but also that she freed Illidan from his prison when she thought he could help them fight the Legion*. That she sought the Alliance’s support and chose to act even when denied is very much a Tyrande thing to do. That she sought Elune as a source of power, too. In Seeds of Faith, she recalls her superior questioning why she chose to join the Sisterhood of Elune, to which Tyrande replies she wanted to protect others, specially the ones she loved; her desire to protect others was extended to protecting her people once she became their leader, and she failed to do so. Now, she comes to Elune not seeking power to protect, but to bring justice to those who harmed them. I really like that they are giving the Night Elves a chance to answer to what the Horde did to them, and that it comes through Tyrande. This entire scenario feels much more like that character from Warcraft 3 than that questline about saving Malfurion in Legion. 

(*not that she owed obedience in this case, but Malfurion did try to forbid her and was awarded with a fuck you husband I’m doing this with or without you)

[bubonickitten]

What are your favourite/most reccomended skyrim mods for someone who's only played vanilla?

Okay, so I went through my Nexus Mods Manager and Steam Workshop mods lists and picked out some of my favorites. (Note that some of them require SKSE.)

General:

ETA: Forgot to mention the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, which is honestly something worth having even if you don’t use mods, because there are a lot of broken quests and glitches even in the vanilla game and this makes it so you encounter less of that. 

SkyUI - Takes a little while to get used to, but once I did, I definitely prefer it to the vanilla UI. Also adds a Mod Configuration Menu (MCM) that a lot of other mods use to toggle different options offered by those mods.

Sounds of Skyrim - There are three: The Wilds, Civilization, and The Dungeons. Adds a ton of new sound effects to the game and lets you toggle which ones you do/don’t want.

Climates of Tamriel - New weather patterns, sounds, lighting, etc.

Run For Your Lives and When Vampires Attack - If you’re tired of unarmored, unarmed NPCs rushing at incredibly lethal creatures and expecting good results.

Better Stealth AI for Followers - Because it’s really annoying when you’re trying to sneak and your follower is carrying a damn torch.

Mods for your convenience:

Detailed Mine Map Markers - Adds the type of ore that can be found in the mine in parenthesis after the mine’s name on the map. VERY convenient.

House Markers - Adds map markers to player homes that are available in the base game.

Return Home Teleport Spells - Adds spellbooks to each of the houses you can get in the main game, plus the Ragged Flagon and Archmage Quarters.

Teleportation Books and Teleportation Books (Dawnguard) - More teleportation spellbooks.

Lock Picking Chalk Marks - I wish I found this mod twelve playthroughs ago. It makes lockpicking a lot more tolerable.

Infinite Gold for Merchants - Gives each merchant 20,000 gold to barter with. Useful if you’re like me and like crafting and stealing and hoarding but then have trouble selling it all without having to travel to five different cities.  

Lightweight Potions and Poisons - Adjusts potion/poison weight to 0.1 instead of 0.5 so you can carry more stuff.

Earring of Unburden Lite - Earring that significantly increases your carry weight. Thank god.

Bandolier Bags and Pouches - If you still need more carry weight (I know I do) and/or love accessorizing.

Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers - If you’ve ever done this quest, you know how useful this would be.

Jiub’s Opus Quest Markers - Why this wasn’t in the base game is beyond me. 

Unread Books Glow - Adds a glow to any books you haven’t read yet (including skill books). Helpful especially if you like collecting things.

Enemies-related mods:

Extended Encounters - The original that I have installed has been taken off Nexus Mods, but apparently there’s a similar one here.

Even More Dragons! - Adds significantly more encounters with dragons - I love it, but it’s hell when you’re still at a low level, so be careful. There are two other versions - More Dragons! (more encounters than usual, but less than Even More Dragons!) and Most Dragons! (which… I tried this one first and it’s great if you feel like fighting four dragons at once outside of a major city and then having to resurrect like 20+ NPCs when the dust settles just so you’re not walking around in a ghost town, but if you just want to casually complete quests without constantly being on fire, I recommend downgrading to More Dragons or Even More Dragons, lmao).

Extra Encounters and Extra Encounters (Dawnguard) - In case you still aren’t satisfied with the sheer number of people, places, and things that want to kill you in Skyrim.

Diverse Dragons Collection - Adds 14 new types of dragons to the game, so while you’re constantly being harassed by dragons, at least you get some variety.

More Enemies - Adds new types of enemies to the game. (Beware the bridge trolls, they’re dicks.)

(This is getting long, so I’ll put the rest under a cut.)

Factions:

Moonlight Tales - Customizable werewolves. Offers different pelt and eye options; a wolfkin alliance option (i.e. if you’re a werewolf, wolves and other werewolves aren’t hostile); and options for involuntary lunar transformations, which adds a new dynamic to the game.

All Thieves Guild Jobs Concurrently - Lets you take one of each type of job from Vex and Delvin simultaneously, which means less trips to and from the Ragged Flagon.

Localized Thieves Guild Jobs - Lets you choose which Hold you want a job for, rather than having it be randomized. Which means less saving and reloading and cursing in order to get a job in that last Hold you haven’t taken over yet. (Not compatible with All Thieves Guild Jobs Concurrently. I’ve tried both and both are good, it just depends on your playstyle which you might prefer.)

Improved Vampirism - Requires Dawnguard.

Aesthetics™:

Enhanced Blood Textures - [chanting] more blood! more blood! more blood!

Pure Waters - Really improves the appearance of rivers, lakes, etc.

Book Covers Skyrim - Adds really nice unique covers to all the books in the vanilla game and DLC.

Lanterns of Skyrim - Adds lanterns along the roads all throughout Skyrim. They turn on automatically when it starts to get dark (iirc you can customize the timing in the MCM).

Shadowmarks - Adds Shadowmarks to player homes. Because the Guild Master lives here.

Skills/Crafting/etc.:

Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade - Exactly what it says on the tin. Also very customizable depending on your specific preferences (requires SkyUI for its MCM feature).

Wintermyst Enchantments - Adds 124 new unique enchantments to the game. FUN.

Smithing Redesigned - Redesign of the smithing skill tree.

Smelting Plus - Melt more stuff.

NPCs:

Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions - Lets you adopt up to 6 kids. You need to couple it with player home mods that allow for 6 kids (there’s a list of compatible mods in the mod description).

Khajiit Child Ma’isha - Adorable Khajiit daughter. Just recently, a dragon was attacking me and she ran over and started wailing on it with a dagger I gave her. I love her. (Supplement with this mod, which lets her wear actual child clothes. Because sometimes with mods that add non-human children, the clothes are glitchy bc the mod uses the adult models of those races that already exist in the game, just… make them smaller, lmao.)  

Adopt Aventus Aretino - Because when he grows up he wants to be an assassin, just like you.

Lucy and Louis - Adoptable vampire children, because why the hell not.

Marriable Serana - Because why isn’t she romanceable already? (+ Hearthfire addon, to allow her to move into homes added by the Hearthfire DLC.)

Khajiit Black Market - Adds black market merchants to taverns across Skyrim. They sell useful stuff like spellbooks, all kinds of soul gems, rarer alchemy ingredients (e.g. nirnroot, daedra hearts), etc. - and, of course, skooma and moon sugar.

Kidmer - Adds a bunch of adoptable mer children to the game. Because it’s weird that only human children exist in Skyrim.

Beast Kids - Adds Argonian and Khajiit children to the game.

Adopt Beast Kids - More Argonian and Khajiit children, but adoptable.

Dominions More Khajiit - Just adds more Khajiit NPCs throughout Skyrim (and not just enemies - they’re NPCs with specific names and present in different factions, e.g. in the Companions and Dark Brotherhood).

Dovahbit of Caerbannog - Super cute immortal bunny follower that wears tiny helmets and carries all your stuff. Seriously.

Friendly Brynjolf - Makes it so he doesn’t keep blowing you off with the same one-liner after completing the main Thieves Guild questline. Also makes him marriable.

Quests:

The Paarthurnax Dilemma - Makes it so you can say “fuck off, I’m not killing the penitent dragon, he’s just minding his business on top of his mountain and talking at clouds” to the Blades and the quest won’t just indefinitely hang around in your quest journal forever because you refuse to kill Paarthurnax because who would want to do that. But also if you do want to kill Paarthurnax for some reason, this mod apparently adds dragons who will defend him from your treachery.

Wyrmstooth - This one adds a whole new region and questlines to the game, but it’s been taken off Nexus (it was the same author as Extended Encounters). I’m mentioning it bc it’s worth knowing about in case it ever gets put back up.

Falskaar - Adds a new region and questlines.

The Forgotten City - This one’s hard to explain so I’ll just say I highly recommend it and give you the description as provided by the mod creator: “a murder mystery investigation set in an ancient underground city. You’ll need to solve it using your wits, and the ability to travel through time. It has a dark, non-linear story in which you’ll interrogate suspects, explore the city and its many secrets, and navigate challenging moral dilemmas. It features multiple endings, an original orchestral score, and professionally voiced dialogue.”

Following Mercer: A Thieves Guild Quest - A short questline that takes place after the main Thieves Guilt questline. You kinda just follow clues to find Mercer’s hiding places for all the loot he stole, and also kick his now-ethereal ass a few more times.

Markarth Undercity - Really cool questline. In case you wanted to spend more time in Markarth, but underground this time.

New Markarth Adventures - Because hell is Markarth.

Helgen Reborn - I literally just installed this one for my newest playthrough so I don’t have much to say about it yet, but it looks interesting. Make sure you don’t have this one active until after you finish “Unbound” (the first quest in the game, where you escape from Helgen) because otherwise you get stuff like this.

Legacy of the Dragonborn - This is a HUGE mod. It adds a museum in Solitude for you to put all of your collectibles (including collectibles from several player-created mods that are either packaged with it or compatible with it), as well as its own questlines.

Moonpath to Elsweyr - Adds a new questline that lets you travel to Elsweyr. Can be a bit glitchy, though - like, in some of my previous playthroughs, it would make all sabre cats in the game invisible, lmao. It’s packaged with Legacy of the Dragonborn if you decide to use that one, and I don’t have the invisible-sabre-cat problem anymore ever since uninstalling the standalone Moonpath to Elsweyr and just using Legacy of the Dragonborn, so ymmv.

Missing Apprentices - This just fixes the unfinished Missing Apprentices quest in the vanilla game.

Armor/weapons/items:

Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons - Both add a ton of new armor and weapons to the game.

PrivateEye’s Heavy Armory - Adds a ton of new weapons and variety to the game.

More Interesting Loot - What it says on the tin.

LC_Immersive Looting - More loot items, like above.

EK Ring Limiter - Toggle how many rings you want your character to be able to wear at once.

Cloaks of Skyrim - Cloaks! Cloaks everywhere!

Amulets of Skyrim - Now with more amulets!

Konahrik’s Accoutrements - Dragon Priest Armory - This is another one I just added and I’m not far enough along in my playthrough to be able to see any of the content yet, but supposedly it’s pretty good.

The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal - If you’re in for some Oblivion nostalgia.

Skyrim’s Unique Treasures - If you’re the collecting type.

Improved Closefaced Helmets - Better meshes for the closed-face headgear in the game.

Skill Book Overhaul - Adds more skill books to the game. I just added this one yesterday but so far I like it.

Royal Armory - Just added this one yesterday, too. Adds some unique weapons for certain prominent characters.

Unique Weapons Redone - Gives unique weapons actual unique appearances, rather than just looking like common weapons with added enchantments.

Recurve Longbows, Recurve Longbows - Dawnguard, Recurve Longbows - Dragonborn - Add longbows to the game. They do more damage and have a longer range, but the pullback time is longer, so it’s a nice balance. There’s also a really cool longbow you can get once you unlock the Dragonrend shout - it’s basically a longbow with an enchantment that has the same effect as the Dragonrend shout, and it’s great (especially if you have one of those More Dragons mods installed).

Diamond Smithing Collection - A series of mods for craftable gemstone weapons and armor.

Light Armor Hoods - Craftable hoods.

Thieves and Assassins - A Better Rewards and Treasure Mod - Makes it so the loot you find will be more oriented toward thief and assassin characters (light armor, daggers, bows, etc.). Nice if you’re like me and usually play the exact same type of character and have little use for heavy armor or two-handed weapons.

Player homes:

Elysium Estate - My favorite player home mod so far. It’s gorgeous and detailed, has toggle-able displays for unique items (Thieves Guild quest items, dragon claws, dragon priest masks, Daedric artifacts, etc.), a guest house for followers outside, planters outside for planting your own garden, tons of storage for specific items, a lot of bookshelves, a bunch of crafting stations in the basement (Skyforge/smelter/grindstone/workbench, alchemy and enchanting tables), its own cow and goat and chickens (they have names any everything and they’re coded as necessary NPCs, so you don’t have to worry about the constantly-spawning dragon in that area killing them). There’s a cute little backstory (it belonged to a gardener who worshiped Kynareth and is passing it on to the next worthy person) but there’s no quest to get it, you just have to read a note on the front door and find the key, so you can basically access it in the very beginning of the game. It’s also compatible with Hearthfire multiple adoptions, so there’s an option for six children’s beds.

Breezehome FullyUpgradable - This is my second-favorite player home mod, and it was my go-to before I found Elysium Estate. It adds a lot more storage, displays, etc., but my favorite thing about it was that it added a basement area with a library, a secret entrance accessible from a cave outside Whiterun, and crafting stations with autochests. Basically, when you access a specific storage container (smithing chest, alchemy ingredient bag, etc.) it automatically scans your inventory and gives you an option to automatically empty all applicable items into that container, rather than having to go through and put away each item yourself. It’s also hooked up to the crafting stations - so if you activate the forge/workbench/grindstone, it automatically adds everything from the smithing chest to your inventory, and then automatically puts it all back when you’re done. It’s pretty convenient.

Khajiit-related mods:

I basically always play a Khajiit, so I have a lot of mods specific to beast races.

Amazing Race Tweaks - Khajiit - Different passive race abilities for Khajiit. I also have this supplemental mod installed to cancel out the jumping bonus - jumping very high is fun but it takes twice as long to come back down and that was annoying for my impatient ass. (Amazing Race is a series btw, there are versions for other races besides Khajiit.) Also check out Passive Race Abilities.

Khajiit Speak - Complete Dialogue Overhaul - Makes playing as a Khajiit a LOT more immersive. It changes your dialogue choices to match the dialect of the rest of the Khajiit in the game (e.g. use of the third-person rather than the first-person), and also adds Khajiit-specific bits of lore (e.g. using the Khajiit names for the various gods). Also, lots of sarcasm - it’s pretty great.

Khajiit Ears Show - Headgear doesn’t hide the kitty ears. This is a TES5Edit script so it requires you to use that. I honestly have no clue what I’m doing with TES5Edit but I followed the instructions in the mod description and somehow got it to work, so… 

Coverkhajiits - More high res textures for Khajiit.

Digitigrade Beast Races - Gives Khajiit proper paws for feet. Also gives Argonians raptor feet. Compatible with the armor in the main game and DLC, but not always compatible with new armor from other mods.

Better Claws and Gauntlets - Actually see the claws on Argonians and Khajiit. Like above, not always compatible with armor added by other mods. And if you’re not wearing gauntlets, the claws usually don’t show.

Dawnguard Glowing Vampire Eye Fix - Lets Orc, Argonian, and Khajiit vampires have glowy vampire eyes.

Beast Skeletons - Adds Mer, Khajiit, and Argonian skulls and skeletons. Because it gets boring seeing only human skeletons everywhere. (It’s mostly lore-friendly, so you won’t come across a bunch of nonhuman skeletons in the ancient Nord burial sites or anything like that.)

[moriganstrongheart]

World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 3 – Review

by Blizzard Entertainment 2018, Dark Horse Books Hardcover, 223 pages, $39.99 USD

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Good: Third War well told, good use of retcons Bad: World of Warcraft narrative potential wasted

Of the three volumes I have read of the Chronicle so far, the third installment was the least exciting to me. I think my apathy with this volume is born out of familiarity; of all of the Warcraft lore, I am most familiar with the events of the Third War leading to the events detailed in World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 3 picks up at the end of the Second War and ends with the destruction of Deathwing at the end of the Cataclysm expansion. I continued to find enjoyment from this volume despite my apathy towards its content, though many of the issues I had with previous volumes have returned, namely issues with maps and formatting. You can read my reviews of the last two volumes here:

World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 1 review

World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 2 review

Maps were utilized a tad more effectively in this volume when compared to first volume; it’s easier to compare the use of maps in this volume than to the second, as the third volume is almost exclusively set in modern Azeroth. There are even some attempts at showing character movement across the maps, as the movements of armies are sketched out near the end of the Third War. Issues that plagued the first volume are still present: there are not enough maps, and the ones that are there lack legends and the details to provide context. While the addition of infographics was a nice touch, there needs to be more. And yet, mapmaking improvements have given me hope that we will see more detailed and informative maps in future volumes.

Formatting is quite possibly the worst aspect of this volume. The first half of the book—which deals with the events of the Third War—is generally well structured and follows the same formula we’ve grown accustomed to. Each event is told in its own narrative chunk and then strung together to create an overarching narrative. In addition, the events of Warcraft III and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne are quite possibly the most memorable events in Warcraft lore for veterans of the series and was the point of entry for many Warcraft fans, including myself. There are some noticeable retcons, specifically in reference to Illidan and Gnomes, but the narrative remains more less the same as it was in those games, with some additions from supplementary media. It is in the latter half of the volume—which covers the events occurring in World of Warcraft up to the end of its Cataclysm expansion—that the storybook format breaks down, detracting from the overall experience. Instead of events driving the narrative, it is major content releases, usually in the form of raids or major patches. Narrative space is also allocated to each expansion release, dwarfed only by the amount of narrative space given to the initial release of World of Warcraft itself. The choice to limit narrative blocks to content releases causes each section within the latter half of the book to feel forced and artificial, as if recounting events from a memorable college party rather than epic events from history.

However, I could be biased as I have played World of Warcraft while many of these stories unfolded, and the nature of the Chronicle does not lend itself well to expansive descriptions of historical event. Still, I can’t help but think that if Blizzard had focused on actual storylines within World of Warcraft, the Chronicle could truly fulfil its goal to be a storybook for all to enjoy. There are so many interesting stories that were introduced in World of Warcraft that deserve their own space inside the Chronicle:

The Defias Brotherhood’s rise, fall and resurgence

The Caverns of Time

The Burning Blade’s infiltration of Orgrimmar

There are some mentions of these interesting storylines within the Chronicle, but none of them really do the stories justice. Focus is instead placed on the defeat of raid bosses from each raid tier and on the overall narrative of each expansion. Additionally, I believe Blizzard made a mistake in trying to attribute the victories in World of Warcraft to specific factions of adventurers. I can see what they were trying to do; by associating the events in World of Warcraft with adventurers, they put the glory of conquest fully into the hands of the players and not lore characters. However, I don’t believe this works as well as they’d hoped. It adds on to the feeling of artificially constructed anecdotes that is pervasive throughout the latter half of the book as the Chronicle reinforces the fact World of Warcraft exists as a MMORPG and not as a vibrant, living world. This new approach to narrative is also inconsistent; some raid bosses are killed by Horde members, while others are killed by Alliance members. Most though, are killed by both factions, which begs the question: why make these distinctions at all? Especially when only about half the actual dungeons in World of Warcraft are mentioned, leaving a whole range of storylines unique to these dungeons untouched--without mentioning the large collections of questlines left untold.

I think World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume 3 does not handle its material as well as the previous volumes, at least in the latter half once it begins dealing with the events of World of Warcraft. Everything up to the end of the events of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne is handled well, as the narrative therein is singular and straightforward. However, Volume 3 suffers from the same issues as previous volumes, while compounding the Chronicle’s formatting issue as it fails to break up events from World of Warcraft into manageable chunks. There is simply too much going in World of Warcraft to summarize its events into a series of anecdotes; they would have been better off spending time fleshing out the lore from Vanilla and maybe the Burning Crusade instead of tackling the base game and three expansions. While I would definitely revisit the Chronicle to brush up events from Warcraft III, I will be going elsewhere when I want to experience the stories of World of Warcraft again.

Personal Rant

As with the previous two volumes, this section goes over my personal observations in regards to the presentation of lore in the Chronicle, to explain how I feel about changes made or the lack of detail in some areas. As always, my thoughts here should not be taken into consideration when evaluating the volume’s quality; I simply want to express my thoughts based on my own experiences. The following has spoilers for Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, supplementary material and the Chronicle itself.

Most of my issues with the lore in this volume have already bled into the actual review; the way lore has been handled so far is not only a detriment to the format of the Chronicle, but an insult to any player who has played through World of Warcraft. It is not a group of Alliance adventurers that took down Emperor Thaurissan, it is you. It is not a group of Horde mercenaries that cleared the threat from Maraudon, it is you. While I understand the intention, I don’t see how Blizzard could not have just have left things ambiguous as to whom participated in these quests. It would have allowed the reader to imagine anyone as the hero, while highlighting important lore moments and characters. Because despite their efforts to put the fate of Azeroth in the hands of the players, most of the events in World of Warcraft up to Mists of Pandaria have a non-player character as the lead actor. Names such as Thrall, Varian, Illidan, Arthas and Garrosh became well known for their parts played in major lore moments and we shouldn’t just brush them aside in an attempt to rewrite World of Warcraft’s history to favour player involvement.

I am so dissatisfied with the way the Chronicle approaches World of Warcraft lore that I’m unwilling to consider rereading the latter half of Volume 3 in the future. It would be much easier to refer to the fan sites mentioned in the first volume (WoWpedia or WoWWiki) or to simply play the game again. I will admit that stories in World of Warcraft do not lend themselves well to the kind of storytelling the Chronicle aims for; MMORPGs do not usually have the complex narratives as they must assume that the player will not be able to participate in all of the story content; they must instead provide smaller, isolated stories which contribute to the feel of the world instead, discarding nuance whenever possible. Still, the Chronicle could have simply taken its time to convey how the world of Warcraft feels instead of trying to get through the story as quickly as possible.

The former half of the book was enjoyable; I am more familiar with Warcraft III narratives than any of the previous entries in the Warcraft series. There are not that many changes from the original source material, though I did notice that Blizzard took some time to rewrite Illidan to match up with the retcons they did for Legion. They also spent a lot of time on Moira Thaurissan, building up her political presence in tandem with her prominent role in Cataclysm--and preparing her for Battle for Azeroth, or so I assume. While interesting, I still feel time spent on fleshing out these characters could have been better spent elsewhere. My final issue with this volume was the inclusion of what I thought was initially excluded: Rhonin’s time travel shenanigans in the War of the Ancients. They somehow made their way into this volume, being allowed a brief mention in the former half of the book. I would rather they not be mentioned at all, considering Knaak’s inclusion of his Mary Sues in the War of the Ancients has no impact whatsoever on the grander scheme of things...but alas, it is what it is.

Even with my issues with the way the World of Warcraft storylines have been handled so far, I’m excited to see what Blizzard does for Mists of Pandaria and beyond. Cataclysm is when I began losing interest in Warcraft lore; the dragon aspects have always been my least favorite element in the Warcraft lore, and I felt disconnected to the lore of Pandaria. By the time Warlords of Draenor came around, I had lost touch with universe and I have not had the chance to delve too deeply in Legion either. I have enjoyed what I have experience so far in Legion, but I would like the chance dive deeper into the lore without needing to read through the aforementioned fansites. One can hope that Blizzard can offer the best resource for enjoying the story of Warcraft, but we will have to wait and see for now.

Official Book Website