Know Your Lore: Rexxar
Rexxar's a bit of an oddity in WoW. Prior to the Burning Crusade, he and his bear Misha wandered through Desolace and Feralas, with nothing to identify him but the title "Champion of the Horde" and no way to pass his time but to help Horde players with their Onyxia keys. As a player new to the Warcraft universe, I always wondered who he was and why he was a hero to the Horde. It was only later that I found out about his past, his true race, and his connections to the rest of the Horde. Oh, and so Big Red Kitty doesn't yell at us, we'll cover Misha and his other "pets" too. Ready? Let's go.
Who: Rexxar, Last Son of the Mok'Nathal, Champion of the Horde.
What: A Mok'Nathal, which is a tribe of half-orc, half-ogre humanoids.
History: Officially, Rexxar was "born of a union of orc and ogre" -- but since we get to meet his dad and his dad is also a Mok'Nathal, he's probably the son of two half-ogre parents. He grew up in a Mok'Nathal village in Blade's Edge Mountains. He was a happy child with a peaceful life, but as he grew older, he realized that there was no future for him in Draenor. So when the local orcs came calling with their plan to go through a portal and invade a new world called Azeroth, he joined up with the Old Horde against his father's wishes.
But after going through the Dark Portal and seeing the activities of the Old Horde in the First War, he decided that he would be better off on his own. He took off and wandered through the wilderness and communed with nature, kind of like a hippie but with less weed and bad jam band music. He made friends with several animals while he roamed, most notably Misha, an enchanted bear who he became fiercely attached to. But the wilderness of Azeroth was still too close to civilization, and he could not escape the fighting between the Alliance and the Horde. Misha and Rexxar set sail for Kalimdor, where they roamed the Barrens for fifteen levels until they were finally able to finish their quests and go to Thousand Needles.
One day, Rexxar and Misha were walking through the Barrens when they came upon an orc warrior in some distress. The warrior had been attacked by quillboars, and Rexxar was unable to kill them before they fatally wounded the orc. With his last breath, the orc asked Rexxar to deliver a message to the orc warchief Thrall in the city of Orgrimmar. Wait, how long was Rexxar wandering, anyway? If he came over with the Old Horde and went back to civilization to meet Thrall, he was out there for at least twenty years.
Rexxar went to Orgrimmar to deliver the message, and was surprised at how the formerly demonic orcs had become a working civilization under Thrall. Thrall returned Rexxar's admiration, and invited him to stay in Durotar as long as he wanted. Rexxar decided to stay for a while and do odd jobs around the city. First, he retrieved some rare Shimmerweed from Durotar for Frostwolf Chieftain Drek'Thar. Then he killed a harpy queen for Thrall's advisor Nazgrel. After that, he collapsed some kobold mining columns for the goblin Gazlowe. In his journeys, he also befriended a Pandaran brewmaster and helped out a friendly orc shaman. I'm really warming to Rexxar already, as it looks like he had to do the same kill things/collect things/bring me a head quests that we did over and over and over again.
After cleaning up Durotar, Thrall sent Rexxar to an outpost on the coast of the Great Sea. Rexxar noticed a large amount of human activity in the area, and reported that back to Thrall. Rexxar's next mission, to discover what was causing some thunder lizards to go crazy in Durotar, also led back to humans -- their mining camp had disturbed the lizards. So Rexxar was already not inclined to like humans when he returned to the Great Sea outpost with Drek'Thar Nazgrel and found that all the orcs had been killed by human invaders. Non-aggression pacts are for sissies, so Rexxar wiped out all the humans that had massacred the orcs.
Rexxar then returned to Thrall and told him about the human attack. Thrall was angry that his treaty had been broken, and wondered if Jaina Proudmoore was really capable of that duplicity. But Thrall and Rexxar's friend Rokhan, a troll shadow hunter, interrupted their discussion and told them he was worried that the Darkspear trolls had been attacked by the humans as well. Indeed, the human fleet was razing the unfortunate Darkspears. The Darkspear leader, Vol'jin, turned Rexxar, Thrall Chen, and Rokhan into wyverns so they could decimate the battleships. The trio then signaled the Darkspears to head inland while they took care of the humans. Man, Rexxar had a lot more fun than most lore figures. They just sit around on their thrones or command troops, but he gets the job done!
Anyway, the situation was getting pretty tense, so Thrall was happy when Jaina Proudmoore sent a message that she wanted to meet him for a peace summit. But Thrall's not a total idiot and thought it might be a trap, so he sent Rexxar to go ahead first. Rexxar found no Jaina at the summit, but instead, an easily-destroyed ambush. Now they definitely knew that something weird was going on. Once again, Thrall sent Rexxar out to meet with Jaina, but this time on her home turf at Theramore Island. Thrall also ordered explosives to be planted along Theramore's shore, so that the guards would be distracted enough to let Rexxar slip through. Wow, that's an amazingly bad way to start off a peace summit. But Rexxar got through and met with Jaina herself, who said that she didn't know anything about any troops attacking the orcs. Come on -- while she may not have ordered it, you've got to be pretty dense not to notice that there's a war going on right down the coast.
Jaina demanded proof of the attacks, so Rexxar brought her back to Durotar, where they found themselves under attack by naga. What were the naga doing there, just attacking for good measure? There was only one human survivor -- a dying sailor who told Jaina that the "Admiral" would be pleased to see her. Ruh roh! Jaina freaked out and ran back to Theramore with Rexxar trailing her. At Theramore, they ran into Jaina's dad, Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, who told Jaina he was in control now and ordered Rexxar arrested. Rexxar and his guards did not support that idea, and chose to fight their way out of Theramore and return to Vol'jin.
After doing what sounds a lot like a bunch of quests for Vol'jin, Vol'jin trusted Rexxar enough to have him go get the tauren tribes to help out Thrall in the coming invasion. But when Rexxar met with Cairne Bloodhoof, Cairne told him that he was done fighting and that he should tell Thrall Cairne was dead. Cairne's assistants explained to Rexxar that the chieftain's son had been captured by harpies, causing his depression. Rexxar and the taurens rescued Cairne's son, and the tauren headed to Durotar to help out their orc and troll friends. But Thrall wasn't done gathering allies. He asked Rexxar to go court the Stonemaul ogres in Dustwallow Marsh. After running a gauntlet of tests, Rexxar joined the tribe and defeated the tribe leader to become head of the Stonemaul ogres.
Rexxar led his new ogre friends to Tidefury Cove, where the orcs, trolls and tauren were preparing to drive back Proudmoore's forces. Thrall was impressed by Rexxar's victory, and named him the Champion of the Horde. Together, the Horde drove the humans back to Dustwallow, and continued to Theramore to take care of Proudmoore once and for all. Rexxar and Proudmoore faced off mano a mano, and after a tough battle, Rexxar took down the Admiral. Afterwards he comforted Jaina by telling her her dad was a strong warrior.
So it was all over. The Horde was victorious, the humans in Theramore would no longer attack them, and Thrall and Jaina's peace treaty was strong again. Thrall invited Rexxar to stay in Orgrimmar forever. But Rexxar, who had fled from the Old Horde to get away from wars and fighting, declined and went back into the wilderness with Misha.
Where he is now: For a long time, Rexxar wandered a route through Desolace and Feralas, annoying the heck out of Hordelings that had to find him like five times in their Onyxia key quest. But with the reopening of the Dark Portal, Rexxar took the opportunity to find out what became of his father and his people, and went back to Blade's Edge. Today, he's stationed at Thunderlord Stronghold.
How you can help him: In a series of quests at Thunderlord, you tell Rexxar that his tribe still has a village in Blade's Edge and help him defeat some ogres that are harassing the Mok'Nathal. Finally, you defeat some Gronn with Rexxar fighting at your side. Rexxar's dad is still mad at him for abandoning him twentysomething years ago, but hopefully your actions will help them reconcile.
Distinguishing characteristics: Rexxar is a Mok'Nathal beastmaster. Before the Burning Crusade, he just looked like an orc with a hat, but today he actually looks like a half-ogre with an unfortunate Batman-style helm. Misha is at his side, as always, but he has several other pets he can call on, including the hawk Spirit, the boar Huffer, and the wyvern Leokk. You get to play with most of these pets during the Rexxar quests in Blade's Edge. He is an exceptionally dangerous warrior, but he prefers quiet time to battles.
For more information: Rexxar on WoWWiki, the Mok'Nathal on WoWWiki, the Rexxar Quests on Wowhead.
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