Vanir
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Know Your Lore Tinfoil Hat Edition: How is flesh a curse?
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. Please don your tinfoil hat - all that follows is speculation based on in-game evidence. It is not canonical lore endorsed by Blizzard. One of the big reveals of Wrath of the Lich King is the Curse of Flesh. Upon our arrival in Ulduar's Halls of Stone, we escort Brann Bronzebeard to the Tribunal of Ages, a repository of Titan knowledge. After a fierce battle with the Tribunal's defense systems, Brann manages to access the Tribunal's information and learns the history of Azeroth, including how the Titans created Azeroth and how the Old Gods came to infest it, and how the Titan's creations of stone and iron were infected by the Curse of Flesh, making them more easily assimilated by the Old Gods. After defeating and imprisoning the Old Gods, the Titans re-engineered their creations to ensure they were no longer susceptible to the Curse... leaving the ones they'd already created to suffer it, and slowly change into the dwarves, gnomes, humans, troggs and their offshoots. Thus was Azeroth peopled in many cases. It sounds plausible enough. But there are some problems with it - namely, not all of the Titans information sources agree with it. For instance, the first Titan trove accessed by the mortal races of Azeroth was in Uldaman, in the Badlands. This Titan complex, lying in the heart of the Eastern Kingdoms, is potentially the source of the dwarves and gnomes who live nearby in the mountains of Khaz Modan. The Lore Keeper of Norgannon we meet at the end of Uldaman tells us that the Titans deviated from their normal plan when creating seed races. A cross-section of Azeroth's crust was used as the foundation for the Earthen's synthesis rather than the typical biomass construction foundation used by the Creators. Research on the world's composition led the Creators to theorize that an enhanced being could be synthesized that would epitomize the resiliency of this world's essence. This was accomplished by choosing to use a blend of Azeroth's various stone core compounds as the foundation. What does this mean? Rather than the typical biomass construction foundation used by the Creators implies that the use of stone and other materials in the Titan constructs of Azeroth is not standard. This is not what the Titans usually do. Why did they do it on Azeroth, then? They appear to have done it quite extensively as well - the Earthen, the Mechagnomes, the Vrykul, the Mogu, the Tol'vir - a whole host of inorganic entities, using 'a cross-section of Azeroth's crust' to construct them. And why is the resilience of Azeroth's essence so remarkable?
Know Your Lore: The Sons of Hodir
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? Leave a comment below! This week, the role of Alex Ziebart will be played by Matthew Rossi.Hi. You may remember me from not finishing the KYL on Thrall. Well, since this week our Alex Ziebart has to take a small breather, I'm filling in for him as part of our "Hey, I finished that post you didn't so you owe me, and also the pictures are back from the developer and I'd hate to have to post them to the website" arrangement. Alex informed me as he handed over the package in that park, just before my trained snipers totally failed me, that this week would be discussing the Sons of Hodir from a lore perspective. Since until such time as Agent Deathwolf tracks him down and retrieves the microfilm I have no choice, that will be the topic of today's post.Since I happen to be exalted twice with these guys, it seems a fair enough question to ask who they are and where they come from. So far, we have fragments of the story, but not the whole picture as yet. If it even needs to be said at this late point, I will be dropping spoilers for Storm Peaks quests like they were remarkably heavy antiques that you asked me to help you move into your new apartment on the 17th floor and I wanted to make sure you never asked again.
Age of Conan Product Developer interview, with gameplay video
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Age_of_Conan_interview_and_video'; On December 5th, I was invited to the Eidos/Funcom Age of Conan press event, where I was privileged enough to be granted access to both the game itself and the development team. I was able to play the opening area, leading into the first town. I sussed out the combat and the conversation interface. I spoke with Jørgen Tharaldsen, the Product Developer, and he let drop a metric ton of knowledge upon my fevered noggin. I reprint here our conversation, interspersed with my handheld-shot video pieces, the first of which is shown above, which is where the game starts, with you as a survivor of a shipwrecked slaver ship. I'd like to thank Jørgen and the entire Eidos/Funcom team, all of whom I found to be gracious, witty, and enthusiastic about their game, which is refreshing to see. My take? The game looks incredible, and it's extremely immersive from the get-go. They say they're on schedule for an early 2008 release, so this is something to anticipate indeed. More videos and the interview after the jump!
Know Your Lore: The Titans
Well, now that Elizabeth has given me her deceptively large shoes to fill, I must step up to the bat and deliver a KYL. The injunction against egg throwing is in full effect.Since Elizabeth is working on the dragons, I decided to talk about everyone's favorite life-making, ruin-scattering, not-gods-but-capable-of-killing-them meddlers, the gals and guys who created the Dragon Aspects, gave the Old Gods a whupping, banished the rowdier elementals to the elemental plane where they could get their brawl on with each other and leave Azeroth alone and who kinda, sorta let Sargeras go nuts and wander the cosmos corrupting and destroying everything in his path. Oops. Yes, I'm talking about the Titans, who I'm sure would hasten to remind you that batting .750 is a damn fine average.For folks who like to just show up on a planet and fix it up so that mortals, like every single person playing the game, can live on it, we don't know a heck of a lot about the Titans. Where are they from? Why do they travel the cosmos, straightening up the place? Are they stricken with a case of OCD or is there some purpose to their pursuit of order? The Titans themselves aren't telling and if anyone else knows, they haven't shared yet. But we do know that they are divided into two 'races', the Aesir and the Vanir. (Norse mythology alert #1, there will be more.) The Aesir are more into storms and oceans, think of them as your classic 'sky gods' while the Vanir are the more cthonic ones, with interest in and power over earth and stone. As a result, the Aesir are the ones who created the mountain and sea giants to take care of the mountaintops and sea floors while the Vanir are the ones who made the Earthen, and if you have ever run a group through Uldaman you know why that's important.Basically, the Titans are the reason that your character has places to go and things to do on Azeroth instead of starting gameplay underneath the tentacles of a horrible elder monstrosity. Sure, some of you might enjoy that, but for those of us who like our tentacles safely battered and fried up calamari style, it's safe to say that we all owe the Titans a solid. So let's talk about when the big guys showed up on Azeroth and what they did from there.
