Darkmoon Island is home to the brand new Darkmoon Faire. In the original preview for the new Faire, we learned that some shady people and some crazy deals were made to secure the island location for Silas Darkmoon and his traveling Faire. What the Darkmoons got with their purchase, however, might be the real mystery lurking beneath the unassuming Faire-grounds.

Spoiler warning: There are spoilers for the patch 4.3 content that is currently on the public test realms. If you do not want to be spoiled, I wouldn't read the rest of this.

Intrepid explorers began to notice some oddities going on in the forests surrounding the Darkmoon Island proper, now live on the patch 4.3 public test realms. Then earlier today, we were tipped off to an awesome blog post detailing the ghosts of Darkmoon Faire Island on Mia's Azeroth, giving us a comprehensive look at the spirits floating around this new island.

According to Mia's Azeroth, you will eventually run into sparkles on the ground while exploring outside of the Faire-grounds. If you get yourself killed and run around the island as a ghost, those sparkles manifest as six different ghosts of Darkmoon members now freed from their mortal coil. So far, these are the six ghosts you'll find wandering the island:

• Brenden Paulson, who ran away from his home as a child and joined the Darkmoon Faire to escape his father and family, who tried to kill him.
• Sithera Wellspun, who went for firewood for the campsite and got lost on her way back.
• Arlon Surehoof, whose lessons about the dangerous nature of the woods of Darkmoon Island were learned too late.
• Kupp Coincare, a Goblin who might have skipped out on those last few coins from his debt ...
• Zazla, a Troll who survived a shipwreck on a slaver vessel, watched his captors die, and joined up with the Faire.
• Franklin Jenner, a soldier who ran away to the Faire after the horrors of the war against the Orcs was too much to handle.

These interesting characters all have a story to tell, but we don't get much else from their interactions with the player. Is there more to the story? Are these characters just one-off chance encounters of the Faire before the Darkmoon Island and the perils of setting up on a new, suspicious island? Who were these travelers, and what happened on the island before the Faire finally got itself established?

... which brings us to the spooky cages hanging from a big tree off to the west side of the island. Five cages hang in the tree with one fallen off to the side, each containing a skeleton long dead in captivity. Do each one of these cages hold the remains of one of the first six victims of the Darkmoon Island? Who was here on the island before the Darkmoon Faire? What secrets still lurk underneath the island, and what mysteries still await players when the Darkmoon Island goes live in patch 4.3?

These ghosts and the mystery that surrounds them is why the Darkmoon Island addition to WoW is so brilliant. Each piece of this island has been lovingly crafted, from the Faire's zoo, vendors, games, to the surrounding, spooky forest. The designers really had a good time making this place and infusing it with enough wonder and mystery that it just oozes ambiance -- world building at its finest.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Tags: darkmoon, darkmoon-island, ghost, ghosts-of-darkmoon, patch-4.3, world-of-warcraft-patch-4.3, wow-patch, wow-patch-4.3, wow-patch-4.3-news, wow-patch-news

Filed under: Cataclysm