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Aiding the Alliance: Tyrande Whisperwind and Malfurion Stormrage
Tyrande Whisperwind has been a central part of the Alliance since way back in vanilla WoW. She was one of the key figures in the events of Warcraft III, and she's had a substantial role in the course of Azeroth as a whole -- she was there at the Sundering, she was there at Mount Hyjal, and as far as we can tell, she'll be around much longer than that. Truthfully, my issues with Tyrande are not as substantial as those I had with King Varian Wrynn. Even in vanilla WoW when nearly every other faction leader sat idle, she was called front and center to cleanse Eranikus in Moonglade. She's active. She's powerful. She's faithful. She's as close to perfect as Alliance faction leaders get. There's only one problem: Malfurion Stormrage.
Know Your Lore: Stormrage and the Emerald Nightmare, part 1
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. The events playing out in game right now have long-lasting repercussions on future lore, but there are also events playing out that aren't present in game. The Shattering by Christie Golden details some of these events, but there's another book out there that also has an effect in upcoming events. I'm talking about Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak, which was released earlier this year and covered information regarding the Emerald Nightmare. Even though the book was released some time ago, the effects of the book haven't been felt. This is because as far as timelines go, Stormrage hadn't really happened yet -- or has it? The book takes place somewhere between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, and though we don't see any of the events in the book played out in game, we see players from the book and the repercussions of the book's events. Today, we're going to give an overview of what's in the book and how it affects what's going to play out in Cataclysm. Please note: The following post is all about Stormrage and contains spoilers for the majority of the novel as well as the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. If you're planning on picking up the book, turn away now, lest ye be spoiled for eternity!
Urban Legends of Warcraft: The key, the essence and the ship
Everyone seems to be talking about Cataclysm these days -- and that's not a bad thing, after all the expansion is completely overhauling everything we knew and were familiar with. A lot of the Cataclysm hype surrounds the thought of "finishing" the original game as completely as possible, because many of those beloved quest chains and moments from vanilla will be gone without a trace when the expansion launches. Yet even as these chains are recommended, players forget some of the earliest quests in the game -- mysteries that were never fully explained. There has been a long-running idea since the days of vanilla that there are still quests out there in vanilla that have not been completed. Despite the addition of the Loremaster achievement, there still isn't a single player in this game who has finished "every quest," because some quests have never been completed or even discovered. The thought of undiscovered quests sets people on a flurry of activity, speculation and forum threads that often provided more entertainment than whatever quest they were seeking answers for. One of the biggest mysteries in vanilla WoW didn't involve dragons or legendary swords or epic moments at all -- instead, it all began with a simple, unassuming box located in a quiet glade.
Know Your Lore: The Green 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. Each flight of dragons is vouchsafed with an aspect of creation itself to supervise. The five Dragon Aspects were granted their powers and dominion over Azeroth's life, magic, earth, time and more by the Titans who created them from the massive proto-dragon Galakrond in long vanished times past. In the past few KYL's we've covered Alexstrasza's Red Dragonflight, Deathwing's Black Dragonflight and its offshoot the Netherwing, and deceased Malygos' Blue Dragonflight. This time we look at what might be the strangest dragons of them all. The servants of Ysera, the dragons of the Emerald Dream, the Green Dragonflight. In order to truly understand the green dragons, one would have to be able to understand the dream they all dream, but who can do that? How can one tell the dreamers from the dream? Easy. The dreamers are great honking green dragons that will kill you. It's relatively simple. If you doubt their power or their resolve, go to the Temple of Atal'Hakkar and ask the Atali, trapped in a complex smashed into the water by the fury and might of Ysera herself. Even when they themselves fall victim to corruption, the green dragons are fearsome opponents. While Alexstrasza and her brood concern themselves with life and living things, Ysera is effectively the shepherd of what Dylan Thomas called 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower' - effectively, that which makes life itself possible. This is also what often gets them in trouble with old gods, blasphemous troll deities of bloodlust, and the loathsome Scourge and its malefic master. (I have been waiting to use 'malefic' in a sentence for so long now.)
The Queue: All your fault
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.You know, I was getting bored of that whole musical intro thing, but having it around certainly made these preambles easier to write. What do you write here every day about a daily Q&A column? Guess what, guys! We're A'ing more Qs! Shock! Awe!So you've broken me. Congratulations. I am now a hollow husk of a man that can do nothing but uphold the status quo. I hope you're proud of yourselves. Here it goes again. WootZoot asked... "Any word on if Blizzard is working on a new novel or RPG book?"
Ask a Lore Nerd: Orc plus demon blood equals hero
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Mizunie asks a couple of questions...On the WotLK website, the designers talk about the "Scarlet Onslaught." Who are they and where did they come from?The Scarlet Onslaught is the refounding of the Scarlet Crusade. Sometime after the events in Stratholme, Abbendis has taken complete command of the Crusade with a new band of lackies. She believes the Light has beckoned her to Northrend, so she rounds up every Crusader she has left and loads them on boats under the flag of the Scarlet Onslaught. There's other details to accompany this in Wrath, but they're way too cool for me to spoil this early.Do we know anything on good ol' Deathwing?Nope, not yet. I haven't seen much yet. It's possible we'll learn more in the Chamber of the Aspects raid zone coming in Wrath. It's been revealed that a Black Dragon is the boss inside there, though we don't know the details surrounding it yet.
Continuing quest chains (and a new [fake] Quel'serrar!)
A few weeks ago on Phat Loot Phriday, I wrote about the Essence of Eranikus, a cool little trinket from the dragon in Sunken Temple. It's actually part of an unfinished questline-- a few steps after you get the gem from Eranikus, the questline ends in Winterspring with no explanation as to what happened with the rest of the story. Like many players (including myself), Falandan wants to know if Blizzard has any plans to finish up this series of quests.Tseric answers on the forums, and says that while Blizz is leaving their option open, the main problem with returning to unfinished quests (The Missing Diplomat/King of Stormwind is another) is that they'd have players of a high level doing low level quests. Either that, or they'd have to interrupt the normal leveling game, and you'd be doing quests in the same line with ten (or more) levels between them.But while that's an obstacle Blizzard is considering, apparently it's not going to stop them from revisiting some old questlines: reader anobolic (thanks!) sends a link to this flickr account, with what looks like an extension of the Quel'serrar questline!If you've got Quel'serrar now (not sure yet if Blizzard will give it back to you if you've sold or destroyed it for some reason), you'll be able to do another set of quests (rumored to involve another dragon, and maybe even an Undead Onyxia-- she's back?!?) that will either get you the Daughter of Quel'serrar (more purple for paladins), the Son of Quel'serrar (for warriors), or, if you're the first person on the server to complete the quest, Quel'serrar Reborn (and apparently you get a "dragonslayer" title with that as well). Oh, and there's also a rumor of a Quel'serrar shield to come. Very cool! Of course, all this is rumor so far-- it's not even certain that this is coming in patch 2.1 is real at all (see Update) -- but if Blizzard is rewarding those who worked for the High Blade with another questline to work through, it's a good sign that we might see updates to the old unfinished ones as well.Update: Commenters are casting doubt on the authenticity of the pictures. Stuff like this could be easily photoshopped, and we have no other source for it, so take the info about Quel'serrar with a grain of salt.Update2: Commenter Leggend (thanks!) says this is proof the images were just adjusted in Photoshop. Oh well. Maybe someday Blizzard will actually finish off some of these old questlines.
Phat Loot Phriday: Chained Essence of Eranikus
I know we've been pretty centered on Outland loot lately, just because all the stuff there is so, well, phat. But here's a cool little trinket you don't need the expansion to get, and it's just steeped in lore.Name: Chained Essence of EranikusType: TrinketDamage / Speed: N/AAbilities: On use, it'll poison all enemies in an 8 yard radius, giving them 50 Nature damage every 5 seconds for 45 seconds, on a 15 minute cooldown. Not great, but not too shabby for a level 55 trinket. I found this really helpful on my Warrior (at least until around level 60 or so), but YMMV, of course. Also, whenever you use this, you get a personal, only-you-can-hear-it whisper from non other than the tortured soul of Eranikus the dragon (he's the big green monster above). Yes, that is a voice in your head, and it's coming from this trinket. More on that in a second. How to Get It: This is a long one. I'll leave the details for one of Elizabeth's great Know Your Lore posts, but all you need to know is that the Green Dragonflight is tied to a realm called the Emerald Dream, and that place is currently being corrupted into the Emerald Nightmare. Deep within Sunken Temple (on the same level as all the other dragons and Jammalan the Prophet), a Shade of the dragon Eranikus is sleeping. He was sent there by Ysera, leader of the Green Dragonflight, to take care of all the trolls messing about. But instead, corrupted by the Emerald Dream's troubles, he's sleeping on the job, which is when you come upon him.After you take him down, everyone in the party can loot a gem from his body, called the Essence of Eranikus. You have to get a quest from that gem, and then take it to the font located in the back of the same room where you fight him. Instead of releasing Eranikus, however, it turns out the font itself is corrupted, and he becomes Chained inside the gem, creating this trinket as a quest reward from that quest.Now, the trinket is actually a quest item in another series of quests that currently isn't done. You can take the gem to Itharius, an elf (some players say he's a green dragon in disguise) inside a cave in the Swamp of Sorrows, and give it to him to get a quest to meet up with someone else in Winterspring. But the questline ends right after that, with no final rewards or lore to show for it. It's widely assumed that this quest chain will eventually be where we have a chance, whenever Blizzard gets around to it, to actually enter the Emerald Dream, and confront whatever's causing the corruption in there.Eranikus also makes a quick appearance in the questline to open up the Gates of Ahn Qiraj (along with Tyrande Whisperwind!), but that's a long story for another day...Getting Rid of It: You can give it to Itharius if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it until Blizzard actually updates that quest chain. A vendor will give 64s 64c, or it will usually disenchant into Illusion Dust.
