Posts with tag wow-lore

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.

We talked last week about Garrosh Hellscream as a tactician and strategist. This week, we're going to talk about his opposite numbers. Unlike Garrosh, Varian has become the Alliance's supreme military commander more by default than acclimation or appointment. The Horde started as a military organization, and its chief executive is named 'Warchief', so the job of commanding the Horde's military forces naturally comes along with it.

The Alliance technically doesn't have any sort of chief executive figure. Varian Wrynn is King of Stormwind, not the Alliance as a whole. While Stormwind's military forms the backbone of the Alliance's military forces, it's fair to say that Varian has become de facto head of the entire Alliance military less out of a desire from anyone to see him in that role and more out of reluctance from anyone else to step forward and attempt 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.

Enigmatic and sly, the black dragon Wrathion has been observing the progress of Pandaria even before our arrival on the continent. He has a plan for this mysterious new place, one that is just as shrouded in mystery as his intentions. And we, the adventurers of Azeroth, are at his beck and call -- performing favors and jumping through hoops in exchange for powerful upgrades to our weapons and gear, happy to assist Wrathion in whatever grand plan he's trying to pull off.

Yet at the same time, it has become increasingly obvious that Wrathion's reach is far larger than we'd thought. As players level through Pandaria, more and more often they'll see Blacktalon Agents, casually strolling down city streets or having a drink in a local inn. When asked what they are up to, the agents give gruff, non-committal responses that raise far more questions than they answer. If you have concerns, they say, you should take it up with the Black Prince.

Of course, telling a black dragon you have a problem with his plans is likely one of the worst, not to mention last, decisions you'll ever make.

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 what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.

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.

One of the interesting things about Garrosh Hellscream's rise to the position of Warchief of the Horde has been his display of leadership. When he was in charge of the Warsong Offensive, he lead the Horde in battle against the forces of the Lich King's Scourge and the Alliance. Upon returning from Northrend covered in glory, he began his tenure as Warchief by unleashing Horde forces to seize control of Azshara, make inroads in Ashenvale and Stonetalon, and encouraged (one could even say strongarmed) the Forsaken under Sylvanas Windrunner into invading Gilneas in order to secure a port for future advances.

Following this, he orchestrated an elaborate plan to lure the Alliance's leadership to defend Theramore, a plan that nearly succeeded in destroying them with a mana bomb, and has since extended the war to Pandaria where he's dedicated a great deal of the Horde's military resources (and those of factions within the Horde like the Blood Elves) towards finding ancient weapons or things that could be made to serve as weapons, all while sending his Kor'kron to occupy the Echo Isles. In short, Garrosh has been a dynamic leader, and it's hard to dispute that he's made more gains for the Horde during his time as Warchief - both the Dragonmaw and the Blackrock have become powerful Horde allies under Garrosh, Gilneas is heavily contested, the Forsaken have spread across northern Lordaeron, Azshara is firmly under Horde control.

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.

They are the first of the troll Empires, the first of the troll tribes, and in fact, the first of trolls as a cohesive race. The Zandalari have seen it all, from the very dawn of civilization to the evolution of the night elves to the Sundering to countless wars to present day. They have been watching both the culture and the assorted tribes of trolls splinter further and further, into smaller and smaller tribes. They have been watching as their race continues down the slow path towards eventual extinction, with little choice in the matter.

The Zandalari are tired of watching. As some of the first known intelligent races on Azeroth, they have seen it all, from vast troll Empires to splintered sub-groups. They are not about to walk that path to extinction quietly. After all, there's another, far more ingenious option available. And although their first plan may have failed, their second plan is far more likely to succeed, given the strength of their allies of old. In patch 5.2, we're about to face off with the Zandalari for the second time -- the first being the revamp of Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman in Cataclysm.

But who are the Zandalari? Why should we care about this random group of trolls over any other?

Please note: This post contains some spoilers for patch 5.2 content.

Regardless of whether or not you're a roleplayer, if you're on a roleplaying realm, you're subject to the guidelines of that realm. What many players don't realize is that this includes an extended list of naming rules that PvP or PvE servers don't really have to follow. Even if you aren't a roleplayer, being on that realm means that if someone notices your name doesn't follow the guidelines listed by Blizzard and decides to report you, you'll need to change your name.

That sounds pretty annoying, doesn't it? Luckily you can avoid the issue altogether by simply picking an appropriate name to begin with. While that may sound like an onerous task, there's really only a handful of guidelines that you need follow. Don't worry, you won't need to dedicate hours and hours of time into finding the "perfect" name -- you just need to pick something that is deemed appropriate, without breaking the server rules that have been set in place.

So what's appropriate? You might better ask what isn't appropriate.

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.

Sometimes you just start wondering about things.

Looking around Pandaria, I've commented before that the entire continent feels like it was being segregated from the rest of Azeroth even before the sundering and the mists sealed it away for 10,000 years. Knowing what little we do about Ra-Den, the Titans and the mogu's origins, one huge unanswered question remains. Why was it all there? The Mogu'shan Vaults, the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Ra-Den and the mogu were placed in what is now Pandaria for a reason, and we do not yet know what that reason was. We have tantalizing hints from Wrathion's dialogue that implies that the Vale was a creche of life, where the Titans could experiment towards creating new life, much as we're told is the case in Sholozar Basin and Un'Goro Crater.

Here's the issue, then: what life were they making? We're told that the Emerald Dream mirrors the face of Azeroth before the sundering, but we're never told just how far before. We're told that the Titans created Azeroth and shaped it before the coming of the Old Gods, but we're never told when the Old Gods arrived, or how long ago they came.

Just how far back does Azeroth go, and how exactly did the Titans create it? How did they shape life upon it? Why are there prehistoric creatures throughout their 'laboratories' as it were?

We can't really take a good look at Garrosh Hellscream without taking a look at his Alliance counterpart, King Varian Wrynn. Varian is an enigma in his own right, although for different reasons than Garrosh. Where Garrosh was a character that was introduced and shown in every aspect in the game itself, Varian is notable for being ... absent. He wasn't there for vanilla WoW. He wasn't there for Burning Crusade. Varian didn't make his first appearance in game until the launch event for Wrath of the Lich King, and exploded onto the scene with an attitude that threw a lot of players off.

Where Garrosh saw all of his development play out in-game, even the odd disconnected moments, Varian saw his play out through a series of comics and novels. Most of his history is a big question mark to many players. While not quite as big an unknown as Lor'themar Theron, people still wonder -- who is this guy? Where did he come from, and why was he so angry when he returned? And perhaps most importantly -- where did he turn from angry leader in the Ulduar cinematic to the far more patient leader we're seeing in Mists?

Oddly enough, his story and Garrosh's mirror each other far more than you'd think.

If we as roleplayers take the stance of roleplaying the role written for us by the developers over at Blizzard, our characters are automatically in a pretty heroic role. While some choose to forgo the option and roleplay the more mundane roles in Azeroth life, others happily embrace that role of the hero without question. Within that role is a variety of different areas you can tweak to your heart's content, but you can rest easy knowing that your character is at least in some small way a part of this giant, ever-evolving storyline Blizzard has to tell.

But what if you'd like to step out of that role of the Blizzard hero -- not into the territory of the everyday mundane, but into a space where you amp up your character a notch or two? @kremlincardinal originally asked this question for The Queue, but it's far more complex than a simple Queue answer could really encompass.

From a roleplay standpoint, are hybrid classes possible (within reason)? Like a rogue with minor magical (mage-like) powers?

Is it possible? Yes. Should you do it? Well ... that's entirely open to interpretation, but we've got a few tips if you're thinking of giving it a try.

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.

They claimed to be the true Horde. They may yet prove it.

The Blackrock orcs seem, on the surface, to be a relic of a bygone age. A tribe of orcs holding on to a past swept aside by Turalyon's hand clutching Lothar's broken sword, a defeated remnant of Gul'dan's legacy. Once led by Blackhand the Destroyer, the Blackrock clan rose to prominence when Blackhand became Gul'dan's proxy as Warchief of the newborn Horde. And it remained central when Orgrim Doomhammer, Blackhand's second in command, slew Blackhand and seized power, for Doomhammer too was a member of the Blackrock clan. After the final defeat of the Horde atop Blackrock Spire, it seemed certain that the Blackrocks would trouble Azeroth no more.

Yet Blackhand's sons Rend and Maim, who had served Doomhammer even after he killed their father as leaders of the splinter clan the Black Tooth Grin, led the Blackrocks into the mountain that bore the same name and set about rebuilding them. When Teron Gorefiend came to Blackrock Spire, the brothers Blackhand refused his call to join Ner'zhul's Horde, seeing themselves as the true inheritors of Blackhand's legacy. In time, the Black Dragonflight came to the mountain, attracted by the reds still held in bondage there, and Nefarian brought the Blackrocks into his service. Maim Blackhand died in the war with the Dark Iron Dwarves to determine which force would rule the mountain, while Rend died when Thrall sent members of the Horde to kill him for his claim to the title of Warchief that Doomhammer had bestowed upon the shaman.

And yet, the Blackrocks were not done. Ironically, it may have been one of Thrall's most loyal supporters who brought one of Garrosh Hellscream's most dangerous enforcers into the fold.

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.

Garrosh Hellscream is almost an enigma in his own right. You wouldn't think that, by first glance -- after all, right now he fits the bill of brutal orc bent on global domination. But Garrosh's story has had so many moments between the depressed and unwilling would-be leader of Garadar, and the bloodthirsty warleader of Mists of Pandaria that it's difficult to determine where, exactly, he went from point A to point B. I've been asked about it before by many, but KyleCaligiuri phrased it really well, so I'll reprint the question here.

Is there some piece of lore I'm missing explaining Garrosh's actions between Cataclysm and Tides of War? Shattering helped put a *bit* of a positive light on Garrosh after WotLK, I felt, since he was remorseful about what happened with Cairne (in that he didn't want to win by cheating...) and I felt his leader short story did as well, if I remember correctly. I'm now playing through the Horde campaign finally, and the events in Stonetalon further point that he is all about honor and pride in the Horde. Also, Ragefire Chasm is all about defeating the dark shaman so that they don't end up with another threat like the Twilight's Hammer or Burning Blade. Yet, this is all contradicted in Tides of War, where he drops a bomb just as Krom'gar did in Stonetalon, and embraces the dark shaman. I'm only up to Desolace right now in the Horde campaign, so do we see his progression toward the more corrupt Garrosh, or is this still yet to be explained?

It's that disconnect between moments that confuses people. Garrosh may be many things, but two-dimensional is not one of them. Who is Garrosh Hellscream, and how did he find his way to this path that flies in the face of his previous actions?

Last week, we discussed the mundane side of the Horde -- what a roleplayed character who has not traveled to Pandaria would see if he were to remain in Azeroth. We also discussed some alternatives to traveling to Pandaria that don't involve joining the militia as a happy member of the Horde's wrecking crew. The Horde side of the equation at the moment is not really a happy one, the various factions almost seem to splintering apart, with nothing to bind them together as a cohesive whole.

For the Alliance side of things ... there isn't quite as much to talk about. This shouldn't be taken as a bad thing, because it means that the Alliance is finally starting to stand together again. There's not as much to talk about, because the Alliance isn't really fracturing apart or experiencing any major upheavals from a political standpoint. This doesn't mean that a character remaining in Azeroth would have very little to keep him occupied, however.

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.

Spoilers for Patch 5.2 and the Throne of Thunder raid

Patch 5.2 promises to move the story along, but it also hints at a darker mystery.

I'm still musing about what all of it means, but one thing is for sure - we know much more about the mogu than we did before. We were told before that the mogu reverse-engineered the Curse of Flesh, now we know that they were originally affected by it. Much like the tol'vir, vrykul, and earthen the mogu were once stone servants:

The Mogu were children as well. Children of the Titans. They were once a legion of stone. Heartless and obedient. By the Titan's command, they fought the terrible servants of the Old Gods. They shaped the mountains and carved the rivers of the land. And they created a magical cradle of life in a hidden valley that we now call The Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

But eventually, the Titans fell silent, and their creations were cursed with flesh. The Mogu grew restless. Many generations later, when the Thunder King united them, they seized upon their legacy. I truly believe now that the Mogu thought they were doing the work of the Titans. They fought against the mantid and used the powers of the Vale to create new life. Oh, but such terrible works!

It's an interesting idea where the state of being stone, emotionless, is seen as the pure, uncorrupted one and that of being a living being of flesh is the corrupted, impure state. The Old Gods made the rocky children of the Titans more like themselves, for the purpose of easier absorption. Not all the native people of Azeroth were so created, of course - it seems that the trolls, the tauren, and the various descendents of the aqir - the qiraji, nerubians and mantid - were never Titan creations.

In the beginning, the Titans created Azeroth. They set the world in motion, and then left to continue on whatever path it was that the mysterious beings followed. Yet something happened to the planet, something bad enough that it warranted the return of the Titans. Upon their return, they discovered the Old Gods, a malignant group of entities that were intent upon sowing chaos. Perturbed, the Titans tried to kill an Old God -- and they discovered to their horror that killing the Old Gods would kill the very planet itself.

And yet, instead of simply rebooting and starting over anew, they kept Azeroth. They imprisoned the Old Gods beneath the surface of the world, and planted various fail-safes to make sure the creatures were never freed. And just in case an Old God managed to escape, Algalon the Observer would visit and determine the status of the world. If it was deemed too far gone, he would activate a signal that would re-originate the world -- Azeroth would be destroyed and rebooted.

Why did they leave Azeroth alone? Why didn't they simply re-originate the world at the first sign of trouble? Why put in a failsafe to do so, instead of taking care of the problem immediately? But perhaps most importantly ...

What is Azeroth?

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 edition of KYL also contains some spoilers for patch 5.2 content.

Last week, we discussed the ongoing situation in Pandaria, and how your character's journey through Pandaria colors character development in the face of current events. Keep in mind that the column was written for those that wish to take that questing experience and use that to develop their character -- but that's not necessarily the only way to roleplay. The column brought up a really good comment from reader Musicita, who pointed out the following:

When I'm out questing, I don't feel like the quest text is referring to *my* character. My character would not be doing these things. The quest givers are talking to the fictional hero that Blizzard has invented for us to play. It's the Blizzard Hero who does all the brave things, who is the trusted agent of the King, etc., etc. I am not roleplaying that character; questing is an out of character experience.

This is an equally valid form of roleplay -- there are just as many people that would rather ignore the questing element in regards to character story as there are those that would like to embrace it. But if your character isn't embroiled in Pandaria, what sorts of things would they notice around the world? What's going on with the rest of Azeroth, if you're a member of the Horde?

It's not pretty.

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.

Last week, we covered Deathwing's shortcomings and the non-reappearance of Kul Tiras. This week, we'll talk about my biggest beef with the run up to Mists of Pandaria, and then segue into a general complaint I had about Cataclysm as a whole. Some of this actually predates 2012, but it's easier to see in the hindsight we all get once enough time passed, so it serves us as well to discuss it now as it would at any other time.

So let's get started by saying this: I really disliked the lack of a pre-expansion event. The ones for Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and even Cataclysm weren't always spectacular, but they did a really good job of giving you the feeling that everything was about to change. The lead-up to Wrath with the zombie plague was controversial at times, but it was memorable, it served as a really clear line of demarcation and set up a lot of elements that would be taken up later. Garrosh Hellscream went from 'whiny dude crying in Nagrand' to 'warrior willing to challenge his warchief to Mak'Gora' in a pre-expansion event. The Cataclysm pre-launch event had some excellent little moments in it, the return of Rexxar, and gave us the first new AQ content in years.

I understand that Pandaria didn't pose the same kind of situation - instead of Pandaria hosting a threat that comes forth to affect the wider world, the Horde and Alliance bring their war to Pandaria and threaten it - but I still lamented this lack. Something as simple as a Horde/Alliance airship battle that ended with us crashing on the new continent could have worked.