Posts with tag elementals

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

If you haven't read the short story "Unbroken" by Micky Neilsen on the official site, please do so. Not only does it give you a real sense of the development of the draenei during the Rise of the Horde period and after, it helps one understand the tone of this series of posts exploring the elemental spirits of the Warcraft universe.

We experience elementals on both Azeroth and Outland as we play World of Warcraft. While some pretty significant differences between those two worlds and their elementals exist (for instance, there are four named elemental lords involved in the events of Azerothian history who do not seem to have nearly the same influence on the development of Draenor before it became Outland), the spirits themselves seem to share similarities worth exploring.

Unbroken - Mickey Neilsen

The relationship between the elements and the shaman is one of synchronicity. The shaman's influence helps to calm and unite us, just as our influence enriches and fulfills the shaman. When you have completed your training, you will be able to call upon the elements in times of need. If the elements deem your cause just, we will assist you in any way possible.

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Practiced on both Azeroth (by the tauren) and Draenor (by the orcs) the art of shamanism is more akin to symbiosis than that practiced by arcanists (who control or command mystical forces) or priests and paladins (who seem to either supplicate or demand the power of the Light). And while druids and shamans share certain similarities, a druid's power comes more from a relationship with the Emerald Dream that suffuses the living world and less with the component elements. Shamans concern themselves with the complex interplay between the elemental building blocks of existence. It is almost his role to act as a mediator, allowing them to work in harmony together.

The Twilight's Hammer has already been confirmed to be working with Deathwing in Cataclysm, and since they're an elemental doomsday cult dedicated to bringing about the return of the Old Gods, busting Deathwing out of prison is right up their alley. We should probably expect to see these models in game relatively soon, and probably as part of a plot by the Twilight's Hammer to summon Deathwing back into the world -- a plot which will, of course, eventually succeed.

Stayed tuned for more coverage of Patch 3.3.3 and the Cataclysm opening event as it develops!

Last week on Ask a Lore Nerd, I answered a question about sports. In short, does Azeroth have sports? I, foolishly, looked at it in a pretty narrow way. I was thinking baseball, basketball, things like that. However, it was quickly pointed out that not all sports are things like those. That's very true! Azeroth definitely has things like hunting, racing, fishing and the arena circuit. There's also a reference to Battle Ball but who knows what that is. So there's that! And with that out of the way...

XvampyrexrisingX asked...

My friend and I have been arguing recently over the death of the demigod Cenarius. I was hoping for some clarification. I (a diehard Nelf) say that Cenarius was only protecting the forest the orcs were cutting, while she (a Nelf turned Hordie) says that Cenarius attacked the Orcs for no reason and their only choice was to kill him. Which one of us gets the bragging rights?

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!

Two weeks ago, when I was going through my queue of questions, one stuck out as especially complex. Sean Riley inquired about the beliefs and practices of the various Azerothian religions. This topic really excited me as I kind of have a thing for analyzing religion and faith. I would never claim to be an authority on theology, but it's stlil something that is very interesting to me. Warcraft lore combined with theology? Yes please! Obviously this isn't really the place to analyze and debate religion, but taking time out to research the gaps in my knowledge on this particular topic was incredibly fun for me.

Unforunately, I didn't have the space in that week's column to fit the answer to that question in, nor did I really have the time. It was a broad question and needed to invest a hefty amount of time into it. This one question has filled today's column, and while that may be disappointing to some that are waiting their turn, I hope it's an interesting read regardless.

As I've mentioned before, The Darkmoon Faire is currently in Terrokar Forest, just outside Shattrath City, so if you have decks to turn in or need to refill your private stock of Darkmoon Special Reserve, now's the time to get on it. But if you're still a little bit taken aback by the prospect of gathering all those cards, or wondering if the trinket at the end will really be worth it, we'd like to help you out.

In this post, we'll be looking at both the old and new decks and listing some pros and cons of each deck so you can figure out if you want to spend the next month tracking down cards before the Faire shows up in Elwynn Forest in March, or even if you just want to blow your epic flying mount fund on getting a deck before it leaves for the month.

We'll start in on everything after the jump.

Totem Talk talks about totems this week, in a stunning and entirely unexpected turn of events that no one could possibly have forseen even if said non forseeing types were actually Farseer Nobundo himself. Well, okay, he probably could have seen this coming. Matthew Rossi once again apologizes for the incoherence of the introductory paragraph. He didn't see this coming.

Okay, so you have decided to roll a new shaman. You start off in the starting area, fresh faced and ready to run around dropping totems only to discover you haven't got one yet. Confused, you run around with a mace hitting things until you reach level four, when the questgivers suddenly remember Oh, right, this class is supposed to be about dropping pointed, decorative sticks into the ground and you get your first totem quest.

The totem quests are a fun, sometimes easy, sometimes challenging way for a new shaman to get a handle on the class. Well, I think they're fun, anyway. Except that water one, that one is hard for a horde to pull off... well, to be fair it's not much easier for alliance, really. As you might expect, horde and alliance shamans have different questgivers and as such different quests in (mostly) different zones. The horde ones require a bit more travel than the alliance ones, which were put in for the expansion and, in my opinion, are slightly better in their design and play. But that's to be expected as Blizzard put the lessons they'd learned designing the original quests into play for the new ones.

Anyway, we'll talk about the horde quests first, as is fitting for horde shamans have been around longer.

You laughed when I said it, readers. You said I was just whining. You called my character a "dirty Shaman." You even told me to reroll Hunter! Yes, when I suggested Shaman pets to Blizzard, you tried to laugh me off the Internet. But the new talents and spells came out this week, and lo and behold, look what Blizzard added to the Shaman class.

That's right, suckers! Pets! Ok, well, I didn't get my shadow wolf, but two new totems will give Shamans the ability to summon at least two elementals-- a Fire Elemental (to "rain down destruction"-- sounds like a caster), and an Earth Elemental. I suggested we should get them for sixty seconds, but Blizz doubled that, and we will get to have them around for a whole two minutes in the expansion. Serves you all right for questioning my suggestions. Don't do it again!

And there's more pets on the way-- Mages have picked up a 41 point talent that will summon a Water Elemental for them to play around with. And while the Druid (or "Drood" as I like to call them) talents haven't been officially released yet, the rumors say they'll get their very own Treant (that has some really neat talents of its own). Pets for everyone! Although maybe this is why they lowered the raid limit to 25. If everybody brings a pet, you'll have 50 entities fighting on your side. Sweet!