Posts with tag rhonin

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Forgive me for being a stereotype but holy crap Baja Blast is probably being released in bottles this year. Taco Bell's decade of tyranny is coming to an end.

HemttTanker asked:

Are they having a Blizcon this year? And if so, might the delay in releasing any new WoW content be so they have stuff to talk about during the event?

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.

Two weeks ago, we looked briefly at the Timewalkers and the strange goings-on on the Timeless Isle. Since then, players that have been dutifully completing Kairoz's weekly quests have reached the end of the mysterious visions Kairoz has been trying to pinpoint -- with some disturbing results and implications. In fact, the whole mad journey has been a steady trickle of unanswered questions and dizzying scenarios that might or might not be true. Or perhaps they're all true, just in different versions of reality.

And that's the bronze dragonflight in a nutshell. It's a headache-inducing puzzle of events that might have been, have been, never been, and may have meant to be but hadn't, that can't quite be untangled. Led by Nozdormu, the bronze dragonflight's missive has always been to protect and observe the pathways of time. The Titans gifted Nozdormu with the knowledge of when and how he would die as a warning, a lesson -- that no matter how powerful Nozdormu might think he was, he, just like any mortal, would have to answer to time eventually. This was meant to keep the Timeless One in check, an effective plan.

But did it really work?

Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on how it happened. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.

Please note: This post contains spoilers for events on the Timeless Isle.

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.

Vereesa Windrunner has lost everything several times now.

She lost her oldest sister Alleria to the same Horde invasion that killed most of their family, as Alleria went off to seek vengeance against the orcs and ended up lost somewhere beyond the Dark Portal, never to be seen or heard from again. Her other sister, Sylvanas, was killed by the Lich King's servant Arthas Menethil, and the death knight chose to prevent Sylvanas from even attaining the peace of death, trapping her in undeath.

Worse, when Vereesa lost Sylvanas, she lost her homeland and her people. The high elves of Quel'thalas became blood elves, following Prince Kael'thas on the path to ruin, addiction, and madness and she could not, did not follow. Along with a few remnants of her people, she attempted to preserve what had been thrown away, to keep high elven culture alive even as Silvermoon resided in the hands of those that had abandoned it. Its not surprising that she found love in someone who shared her loyalty to the Alliance, nor perhaps is it surprising that she found it in human arms, as both Alleria and Sylvanas showed a predisposition to humans.

For most players, the Kirin Tor are simply one of many factions available during Wrath of the Lich King. They ran the city of Dalaran, once located just north of the Hillsbrad Foothills, then later relocated to Northrend. In Wrath, players both Alliance and Horde could earn reputation with the Kirin Tor -- the Kirin Tor didn't have a faction bias. They were quite happily a neutral organization, far more interested in matters of magic and learning than any political matters.

But there is far more to the story of the Kirin Tor, and to the city-state of Dalaran. And now that the Kirin Tor has a new leader, it's taking those first few steps away from neutrality and into alignment. Because of this, the Kirin Tor has stepped into a dangerous new light, one with some ethical questions that are far, far more political than one would expect from a collection of mages and intellectuals united under one banner.

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.

It was a tiny, small, inconsequential disc. Golden in color, simple in appearance, the talisman was far more dangerous than any could comprehend. Well ... almost anyone. The goblin servants of Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, created the object, and even they weren't truly aware of just how terrible that creation truly was. For the golden disc held not only the power to tear through the Burning Legion; it held the power to control every dragon, every flight in the world -- with the exception of Neltharion, of course.

For he would rule them all. The voices told him so and promised him glory above all creatures of the world, mortal or immortal, no matter how insignificant. The Burning Legion was simply an army of pests to be eliminated, as were the kaldorei; the War of the Ancients was a petty squabble marring the glorious moment of his ascension. It was only a matter of time.

The Dragon Soul was perhaps the most dangerous creation in existence, and it was held in the claws of a dragon that was most certainly completely insane.

Today's Know Your Lore contains some information regarding Thrall, Twilight of the Aspects, the 4.3 5-man dungeons and the Dragon Soul raid. If you're avoiding spoilers, I'd skip this for now.

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.

A large portion of the new Elemental Bonds quest line available for players in Hyjal involves ex-Warchief Thrall struggling to come to terms with different facets of himself and his life to date: Uncontrolled, unchecked anger at the circumstances of his youth, worry and fear that no matter what he does in his life, it will never be the right thing. And in the midst of all of this, a strong, overbearing desire to just settle down with his woman, have some kids, and just be a family man -- something for which he feels incredibly guilty. After all, when the weight of a dying world rests on your shoulders, the last thing you should be thinking about is starting a family.

He comes to terms with all of this, however, and emerges even stronger than before. It seems as though Thrall is prepared to be the savior of Azeroth, the one who will stand with the Aspects at whatever designated time lies before us in the not too distant future and make certain that the world is restored, whole and complete. The one who can properly fill in as Earthwarder. Except ... being the world's savior doesn't leave much time for raising a family, does it? That deep-down desire to just be a normal orc and raise a normal family doesn't seem to be an option at this point -- after all, the world will need someone to continue to faithfully watch it, after Deathwing is gone. Unless, of course, Thrall isn't the savior of Azeroth at all.

Perhaps that fate rests on one tiny, fragile egg.

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.

My master... He continues the work that his progeny began.

Though the Black Dragonflight is in the process of dying out, that isn't stopping Deathwing from trying to keep it alive. Sort of. Over the course of Warcraft, Deathwing has been on a very deliberate mission to repopulate the world with dragons of his choosing. During the Second War, Deathwing discovered the location of the Demon Soul, a powerful artifact he created back during the War of the Ancients in order to control the other dragonflights.

Deathwing wasn't able to wield the Demon Soul, however -- the other Aspects placed a powerful enchantment on the device so that he would no longer be able to use it. But Deathwing was a very clever dragon and realized this meant he simply had to find someone else to use it in his stead. Through visions, he led a powerful orc from the Dragonmaw clan named Zuluhed the Whacked to the artifact. Zuluhed couldn't decipher how to use the thing, and so he handed it over to his second in command, Nekros Skullcrusher. Nekros then promptly used the thing to enslave Alexstrasza the Dragonqueen.

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.

This is the story of an extraordinary man, his draconic best friend, and the elf he loved and eventually married. Well ... not exactly. Common thought lends itself to the perception that this is all there is to his story, that there is little more to the flame-tressed hero than a series of events in which he stepped up and played the part of the hero again and again, flawlessly performing astonishing feats of magic, his doe-eyed, winsome elven woman at his side. That he is friend to the dragons, fearless leader of the Kirin Tor, a man of great and shining destiny.

Common thought would be entirely wrong.

Let's begin again: This is the story of a man who desperately wanted nothing more in the world than to be left alone to practice his magic and attain glory -- not for the good of the world, but the good of himself. Selfish, self-centered, cocky, quick to anger and arrogant, he is drawn inexorably into his destiny not by fate, but by the scaly hands of a meddling dragon. The dragon, however, isn't really concerned with the man at all -- he's merely using the man for his own selfish draconic reasons. And the winsome, doe-eyed elven woman? She may be beautiful, but she's also annoying, stubborn, and just as arrogant as the man, when it comes right down to it.

The man's name is Rhonin, his life is largely out of his hands, and he's not particularly happy about it.

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.

In the past few weeks, we've rather exhaustively gone over the War of the Ancients. Parts 1, 2 and 3 of our series of WotA posts covered the major events. However, while the basic outline of those events remains, we must now content with the effects of time travelers upon the events of the War -- specifically, the human mage Rhonin, the red dragon Korialstrasz, and the orc warrior Broxigar are all sent back either directly or indirectly by the actions of Nozdormu, the bronze dragon aspect of time.

We know that the timelines differed in various ways (for instance, Hakkar the Houndsmaster died not during the War of the Ancients but the Third War itself in the original timeline), but how exactly did they differ -- and more importantly, why?

Recently, I was talking to Matticus and Kinaesthesia on one of our podcasts about Ruby Sanctum. Toward the end of the discussion, Kina mentioned how much he loved Halion's voice actor, Matthew Mercer (granted, we didn't know that was his name at the time.) We agreed his voice acting was excellent, and Kina suggested Blizzard ought to keep bringing him back for more parts. To date, Mercer also has done the voice of General Vezax in Ulduar and Overthane Balargarde in Icecrown.

Anyway, some days later while we priests were tossing the PoM around, the subject came up again, and Kina quoted the line Halion says when you enter phase 2: "You will find only suffering in the realm of twilight. Enter if you dare." He gushed at the inflection on the word "suffering," while I stated my preference for the way he taunts you with, "Enter if you dare."

Our talk led to other memorable lines from Wrath. I immediately brought up Sara from Ulduar and quoted her haunting, "I am the lucid dream." Plus, who could forget a first visit to Ulduar? I remember my sleepy raid's wandering into the Antechamber around 1 a.m. the first night that patch 3.1 went live. After accidentally completing Crazy Cat Lady and distributing loot, we stood around deciding where to go next. Vent had gone quiet while we all tabbed out to read up on Hodir until a deafening scream cut through the silence of the Observation Ring. Everyone on Vent promptly freaked out: "What the hell was that!?!"

I loved it.

A lot of us lore nerds have been wanting it for a long time, and now we have it: An official place to discuss the lore of the Warcraft universe. Of course, it's technically called the Story Forum, and one of the blue stickies on the forum suggests that this forum is meant to focus on "the publishing division" of Blizzard's creative development (i.e., the novels and manga). Then again, the forum's main welcome sticky states that the forum is for discussing the stories of Warcraft "as told in-game and through the novels, manga, comics, and short stories that Blizzard publishes." So in theory the exact nature of the forum could be considered a bit iffy.

Still, I'm going to go ahead and go by the welcome message and declare it a lore forum. No longer will we have to go searching through pages and pages of flames, rants, and class balance whines to find the lore-based flames, rants, and Garrosh vs. Varian debate threads. Nethaera also revealed that the publishing division plans to look at the Forum discussions to get an idea of what people like and don't like about Warcraft's stories, so if you've been writing an epic rant about Med'an or Rhonin, you may finally have the outlet you've always wanted. You can find the forum here.

If you need extra ammunition before jumping into the discussion yourself, be sure to check out our lore guide, as well as past entries of our Know Your Lore column.

After the jump, you can check out the forum welcome message, as well as some additional words from Nethaera on Blizzard's Creative Development Team and lore resources.

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.

In the last Lore 101 segment, I went over resources -- the novels, manga, comics, source guides, games and everything else that make up the story behind World of Warcraft. It's a lot of material to follow, and the sheer volume of it can be daunting, but there's no better way to sort out the story and what happened to who, when and where, than by following the original sources.

While this is all well and good, today's post covers why everything in part one may or may not be... well, invalid. That's right, the novel you just picked up and read through may very well not count in the long run. The comics may not actually apply. A later novel may wipe out the timeline of existing events in one fell swoop, and the information you thought you had a solid grasp on might be invalidated in an instant.

And that's perfectly okay. Let's take a look at what makes a story like Warcraft tick.

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.

For those that have been following along over the past couple of weeks, I've been following a certain order of progression with the dragon flights. Originally, there were the proto-drakes. The largest of these was Galakrond, from whom the Aspects of the dragon flights were created. Next, the Black dragonflight and its leader, Deathwing -- created from Galakrond himself, fought to achieve supremacy over Azeroth. From Deathwing's eggs, the Netherwing were born, or rather, evolved due to exposure to the energies of the Twisting Nether. Today we follow that order with the latest addition to the dragons of Azeroth -- the Twilight dragonflight.

The Twilight dragons don't really have a lot of 'history' to speak of, as they've only been recently developed, but there's enough to go into as far as their origins go. The Black dragonflight, intent on breeding a superior race of dragons that would overtake and control Azeroth, has spent several years trying to create this dominant race, with little success.