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Know Your Lore: Khadgar, Archmage of the Kirin Tor
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. What do you do when your life is stripped away? Khadgar is an Archmage of the Kirin Tor -- one of the members of the Council of Six, and a powerful mage in his own right. Ancient and wizened, in his lifetime Khadgar has confronted the shadow of Sargeras, faced the orc legions that poured through the Dark Portal, seen Draenor shattered into a wasteland, and even confronted Deathwing himself and survived. And after all that was said and done, he was the first human to reach out and connect with the enigmatic naaru, bringing A'dal and his forces to Outland. And he's done all of this by age forty-four. Forty-four? Yes. There's much more to Khadgar than his appearance might suggest. Although his body may be ancient and wizened, there is nothing stopping what is still a fairly young and incredibly intelligent mind. But Khadgar may not be where he expected to be when, at age 17, he was asked to apprentice to the most unlikely tutor in the Eastern Kingdoms. His name was Medivh.
Blizzard releases The Story of Warcraft
Are you lost in a sea of Warcraft games, expansions and patches? Not sure which came first, the orc or the egg? Wondering what happened in the patches you missed, or the expansions you didn't play through when they were current? Blizzard has just released The Story of Warcraft, a massive guide that goes through and explains the story of the Warcraft universe game by game, from Orcs and Humans all the way to Cataclysm's Hour of Twilight. Each chapter of the story includes a synopsis of the events in each particular game or patch. In addition, the guide contains video trailers and key art for every chapter. If you've ever been wanting to get into the lore of Warcraft, but simply didn't know where to start, this guide is for you. According to Blizzard, more bonuses like wallpaper and character cards for various Azeroth heroes will be added at a later date. This is a pretty amazing guide, and it's something Blizzard has desperately needed for a very long time. I'm glad we've got an outline out there for people to follow. Blizzard is also taking suggestions for future updates -- check out the official announcement post and leave your comments if you have any ideas to share.
WoW Rookie: Reading about Warcraft
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's. Even if you're not a roleplayer, it's almost impossible not to find yourself swept up by some aspect of the hundreds of compelling stories tucked into the World of Warcraft. The question is, how can you dig deeper? Where do you find more? The answer: Books ... Manga ... Comics ... RPGs .... Page after page after page of glorious lore. Blizzard approves the storylines and lore included in the Warcraft and World of Warcraft line of novels, although you won't find a straight and clear progression across the whole line. Not every story and character crosses over from books to game (and vice versa). Besides the Warcraft novels, WoW-starved readers can chew through enough manga, roleplaying game books and gaming guides to sate any lore feeding frenzy. The best part? You enjoy +Lore bonuses to your online play experience. Even the RPG books add color to the overall picture. Follow us beyond the break for a basic reading outline to escort you down Warcraft's path of lore.
New WoW book: Tides of Darkness
Tie-in novels really aren't my thing, so I never read Rise of the Horde, but for those of you that are interested, there's a new Warcraft novel coming out. World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness is written by Aaron Rosenberg, who wrote, among other things, Starcraft: Queen of Blades. If you couldn't guess by the title, this new book is going to be exploring the events of Warcraft 2, which was my favorite game by far of the three. Blizzplanet has the full story on it; it's going to be released in August 2007, and the author will be making an appearance at New York Comic Con if you want to meet him.Regardless of whether I personally read these novels or not, I do think they're a good thing, in that they delve further into the lore than the games often have a chance to. Lore: it does a body good. What aspect of Blizzard's various universes do you think needs a novel treatment?
