The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain
Every Thursday, The OverAchiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we're still after that last coin from the Eventide fountain.
Welcome back, folks. We return this week to the next installment of our miniseries on the Dalaran fountain's magic coins. Getting all of the coins will grant you A Penny For Your Thoughts, Silver in the City, and There's Gold in That There Fountain, with the completion of all three granting The Coin Master and one more notch toward Accomplished Angler.
It's really in the set of silver coins that you get a sense for just how dangerous this fountain can actually be. Most of the people who tossed coins into it never saw their wishes come true. Of those who did, most probably wished they never had. Why is this fountain's existence even tolerated by Dalaran's municipal services? Is it considered an historical artifact or something?
EDIT: This guide is now finished! You can find the full series here:
Silver in the City
There are 15 silver coins in the fountain. Like the copper coins we've already discussed, you don't get anything special for fishing these up, but several contain some interesting commentary from WoW lore figures.
Aegwynn's Silver Coin Aegwynn is a more important WoW lore figure than I think many realize, and it's long been rumored that she'd been in the game since beta under an assumed name. Two popular picks for this theory were Pained, the night elf NPC with the odd name keeping Jaina Proudmoore company in the Theramore tower, and Tabetha, the mysterious mage out in the middle of Dustwallow Marsh. However, it looks like both theories have since been jossed now that Aegwynn is officially dead within the lore. She now lies under Morgan's Plot behind Karazhan in Deadwind Pass. There's a chance that her son Medivh (see below) is buried next to her, but no one really knows. Oh, and Medivh's dad? He's not far away ... sort of.
Alleria's Silver Coin This, along with Anasterian Sunstrider's coin below, is the definition of "Be careful what you wish for." Alleria, like Danath Trollbane (whose coin we discussed the other week), can be seen in statue form within the main gates of Stormwind, but her whereabouts are currently unknown.
Antonidas' Silver Coin This is an only slightly altered version of the famous Serenity Prayer. Antonidas, once the leader of the Kirin Tor, not only trained Jaina Proudmoore but was also the guy who figured out that the invading orcs had been under demonic influence. Unfortunately, he was one of the many magi to die in Arthas' invasion of Dalaran. You can see a memorial to him in the northwestern section of the city.
Arcanist Doan's Silver Coin You've probably killed this guy a million times; he's the end boss of the Scarlet Monastery library, and before heirlooms, he was the source of many a leveling caster's robes, shoulders, and weapons. The Abbendis referenced here is High General Brigitte Abbendis, who you'll run into a few times over the course of Wrath of the Lich King questing.
Fandral Staghelm's Silver Coin I am hard-pressed to pick any time over the course of WoW's history when Fandral Staghelm was anything other than severely disliked by players, and I always liked this coin for the humanizing facet it added to his character. His son, Valstann, died horribly during the War of the Shifting Sands, and you can argue that the night elves' immortality only served to prolong Fandral's agony. However, these days Fandral is decidedly less immortal. Have fun with that health pool of his on heroic!
High Tinker Mekkatorque's Silver Coin Oh, gnomes. But the gnomish racial leader raises a perfectly legitimate question: How does the fountain work, and who the hell built or magicked it into existence? Wowhead commenters raise another perfectly legitimate question: Given the fountain's somewhat frightening track record with respecting to not granting wishes or granting them in the most horrible way possible, why on earth would you ever want to build another one?
Khadgar's Silver Coin Yet another member of the tragic Alliance Expedition who never returned home. However, Khadgar's staying busy in Shattrath, and there's still a bit of cheer here; he has to have been back to Dalaran at least once since the city was rebuilt, or else this coin wouldn't be here.
King Anasterian Sunstrider's Silver Coin This is yet another coin that serves as a reminder of the fountain's oft-disturbing means of granting wishes, but it's also interesting in its little hint concerning Kael'thas' priorities. Anasterian's son was a very high-ranking member of the Kirin Tor at the time that Antonidas was heading the organization, and he was also attracted to the human Jaina Proudmoore (you get a neat little peek at this in the pre-Naxxramas short story "Road to Damnation" in a bit of dialogue toward the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and then a much bigger dose of it in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King). Presumably, Anasterian was worried about Kael's attention to his own kingdom. You can catch a very quick look at a ghostly version of Anasterian within the game toward the end of the Quel'dalar quest line.
King Terenas Menethil's Silver Coin I just realized that Terenas (along with Antonidas and Anasterian, above) is the third person among the silver coins to have died by Arthas' hand. Scary. Anyway, there are actually three places where you'll find Terenas -- or more accurately, a remnant of him -- in WoW, despite his death during the events of Warcraft III. The first and creepiest is in the Lordaeron throne room (above what's now Undercity), where the bloodstain from Terenas' execution is still visible to the side of the throne. Reportedly, you can also hear the sound of the scene from the pertinent cinematic if you turn your ambient sound up. The next antechamber before the entrances to the elevators contains a tomb with an inscription to Terenas, which players observe had to have been written by a Forsaken. The third is during the Lich King encounter in Icecrown Citadel: You can see -- and will have to rescue -- Terenas if you're ported into Frostmourne, and once you manage to get Arthas to 10% and he insta-kills the raid, it's Terenas who pulls your chestnuts out of the fire. I also have to say that Terenas' narration (by Earl Boen) over the Wrath trailer is a beautiful bit of understatement too often missing in video games.
King Varian Wrynn's Silver Coin Why wasn't this guy a gold coin, you ask? Well, until relatively recently, he was missing and presumed dead by just about everyone. It wasn't until Wrath that he made a return to the game as anything other than the subject of a really cool quest (The Missing Diplomat, now relegated to history), so maybe he didn't merit a spot among the major lore figures at the time. Unfortunately for Varian, this is yet another coin seemingly shepherded by the Malice Fairy; his wife would later die in the Stormwind riots instigated by the nascent Defias movement.
Maiev Shadowsong's Silver Coin So succinct. So perfect. Wait a minute -- where is Maeiv these days, anyway? At least you can see her brother during one the game's funniest quests in Mount Hyjal.
Medivh's Silver Coin Medivh's ultimate fate is, as far as I'm aware, currently unknown. While supposedly dead by Khadgar's hand in the first Warcraft game, he later resurfaces in Warcraft III to convince the Alliance and Horde to band together against Archimonde. After this, he more or less vanishes from the universe, although you can play chess against a cheating, ghostly form of him in Karazhan, and he makes an appearance in the comics to his son, Med'an. Oh, and you can travel back in time to see him as he opens the Dark Portal. Some people think he's a raven endlessly circling Karazhan. I sat at the tower for a while a few months back to get screenshots for this Shifting post and never saw anything like that, so I'm not so sure. Possibly I was just in the wrong place. The comics apparently claim that he's laid to rest in the Morgan's Plot cemetery next to his mother, Aegwynn, but if that's the case, there's still no confirmation within the game that Medivh is dead at all.
Muradin Bronzebeard's Silver Coin Eh. This sort of came true. Horde players may not be up to speed on this guy is. He was instrumental to Arthas' training as a paladin and later accompanied him to Northrend, only to lose his memory when Arthas took Frostmourne. He can be found these days as the Bronzebeard representative in Ironforge, seeing as to how Brann is still off getting himself into all sorts of archaeological trouble and Magni is ... somewhat indisposed.
Prince Magni Bronzebeard's Silver Coin Possibly the cruelest coin of all if you factor in the pre-Cataclysm events that left Magni nothing more than a very large paperweight.
A Peasant's Silver Coin This coin still confuses me. Thoughts?
Part 3: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain >>
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