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Know Your Lore: 5 remarkable relationships from Warcraft 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. Last week, we talked about the orcs' history and culture before the dawn of the Horde period. Now, if you've read Christie Golden's Rise of the Horde (and if not, you should), then you know the outline of what came next. We're going to talk about that more next week, but this week, I wanted to touch upon something else. What's interesting to me is how the story of the Horde's creation, which is certainly a grand and sweeping tale of betrayals, madness, and ultimately despair, is also a story of how two orcs met, fell in love, and pledged to each other despite the chaos of the dawning nightmare of Gul'dan's Horde. In light of Nyorloth's post discussing favorite relationships in Warcraft lore, it's hard not to think about Draka, daughter of Zuura and Kelkar, and Durotan, son of Geyah and Garad. Their lives would be spent as witnesses to the end of one way of life and the birth of a darker, more terrible chapter than their people had ever known. This got me thinking about my favorite relationships in the game. These aren't all romantic ones. There are friendships, familial relationships, even enmity. Hating someone still counts as a relationship, after all, if you relate to one another.
Two Bosses Enter: Brann Bronzebeard vs. Vereesa Windrunner
In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, bosses, leaders, and powerful figures of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title. The Two Bosses Enter exhibition season continues with a matchup of two Alliance powerhouses duking it out for fame and glory. Brann Bronzebeard, legendary explorer and Old God waker-upper, will put his years of experience running away from and narrowly escaping the horrors of Azeroth to use as he stands short and proud against Vereesa Windrunner, youngest of the Windrunner daughters and perfect with a bow. Which Alliance champion will come out on top? With a solid first win under her belt, Ishanah of the Aldor kicks Tae'thelan Bloodwatcher back to his dig site in the Badlands, ending his chances for victory in the exhibition season. Readers fondly remembered Ishanah from their Burning Crusade days, pointing to her prominence as one of the naaru's chosen as being instrumental to her win. Plus, I think readers just like her better. The time has come, adventurers. Who will move on to the next round? Vote! Vote, I say! %Poll-71105%
Know Your Lore: The Twilight Dragonflight
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.
DC Series 6 figures feature Sylvanas and Bronzebeard
We only just posted about the DC Unlimited Premium series 2 figures, and here comes another set that's getting announced way earlier than it's getting released. The series 6 set isn't actually due out until March of next year (seriously, what's with all of the early announce dates on these things?), but it does have some of the most-wanted lore figures in the game depicted in action figure form. Magni Bronzebeard, Sylvanas Windrunner, and goblin tinker Gibzz Sparklighter are all making appearances, as you can see over on DC's page.I think they look pretty darn good, though I'm still not sold on actually buying one. We'll likely see them on the floor at BlizzCon, so if you want to get a closer look, be sure to poke around the DC booth there. And even if you're not going, we'll be sure to take pics for you.
Barrens Chat: Spoiled Rotten
So, this is somewhat of a spoiler strip. It is something that has been mentioned and posted in previous articles, but just in case you skipped those for obvious reasons, you probably should skip this, also.That being said, I noticed while drawing this out and looking at a screen shot of Thrall that he looks like a green, balding version of the Geico cavemen. With big teeth, of course. Maybe it's just me.I know I've started doing them on the computer entirely again, but I uh... misplaced my drawing paper. When I get paid this Friday maybe I'll go pick up more, but that's a really long drive to the nearest art store.Possible alternate text for a couple of the panels after the jump! %Gallery-22361%
Maintenance for June 17th will be short
Here's a heads-up to all our North American night owls early risers and Oceanic readers: It's Tuesday morning, and that means maintenance. Luckily, it's a short one today. Bornakk has said that they expect most servers to only be down a half hour, starting at 5AM PDT and ending a 5:30AM PDT. There are some extra servers that will be down slightly longer, until 6:30AM PDT. Those servers will be listed after the break. Aussies can rejoice as well, as any Oceanic servers not on this list won't be taken down until 5AM AEST (Which is noon over here on the American west coast). For the list of servers that will have a longer downtime, read on:
Turalyon and Alleria - where did you go?
A post I saw while crawling the forums during one of my 'no sleep' periods has me wondering the same thing the original poster is: where in the Outland are Turalyon and Alleria? We were told prior to The Burning Crusade's launch that we would discover the fate of the Alliance Expedition, but while we've found out about Danath (running Honor Hold), Khadgar (communing with A'dal in Shattrah) and Kurdran (he's running the Wildhammer Stronghold in Shadowmoon Valley) we've yet to see more of the fate of the two last members than the surprising fact that they have a son who is now grown up enough to wear Pally Tier 2. I wonder if anyone has told the Horde that Sylvanas is an auntie? (And man, I don't even want to think about the kind of gifts Auntie Sylvanas would give.)Personally, although I can hardly pretend to be the lore expert around here (we all know who that is) I'm enough of a mark for the lore that I want to see what happened to the guy who picked up Lothar's fallen sword and kicked Doomhammer's ass up and down Blackrock Mountain. (My tauren would just like to tell me to stuff it here.) Not to mention all the possible drama of a Windrunner family reunion. Are there any in-game clues to where these two ended up? Does anyone think we'll find out more when the Sunwell Plateau goes live, or are we going to have to wait for Wrath of the Lich King, or maybe even beyond that?Edited to add: I forgot to mentioin that, despite the Allerian Srronghold bearing her name and having several high elves manning it, Alleria is not to be found there.
