#blizzard stole my orcs

[faireth-reed]

Imagine being Varok Saurfang. Losing your son to the Scourge, having to kill him again yourself when you're fighting the Lich King. Also there being ex-Scourge members who managed to get rid of their domination, so he could have had a recovery with them. Varian being there to support you in those final moments.

Then imagine some years later dying to the people that suddenly claim to be the masterminds behind everything. And finding that another boy that you care about is under the mastermind's direct domination. And then you meet Varian again in the sword and giving the boy an encouraging talk. And it fucking works.

I don't know you, but if I were him, I'd cry and laugh at the same time.

[hiccanna-tidbits]

The RotBTD+ Gang Plays DnD! (Feat. my ships, sorry not sorry XD)

So highkey I’ve actually been wanting to do a “The Gang Plays DnD” type post for AGES now, but then I saw @hobie-brown and @ohlooksheswriting-wips do DnD AU posts for RotBTD, and then I was like “Ah shit, I really should finish mine, eh?” So thank you to both of you for inspiring me to get off my ass and actually write the post!!!

Hiccup DMs. He comes up with this super complex plot revolving around dragons (because of course) where the party has to dismantle this society ruled by evil knights who want to genocide all of the dragons. Imagine his chagrin when the party wants to do nothing but fuck around in towns and aggravate NPCs 90% of the time.

They usually end up playing at Jack’s apartment, mainly because Hiccup’s dad doesn’t really want a bunch of loud nerds yelling about 20-sided dice in his household while he’s trying to work, if he can at all help it. Jack’s sister regularly barges into their living room and roasts the fuck out of Jack and his friends for being such damn nerds and eats all of their DnD snacks they’ve set out. If they’re in the middle of a combat session, she always gleefully proclaims that they’re all going to die. While Jack is annoyed by this, the rest of the party finds it deeply hilarious.

Jack Overland plays the absolute mayhem warlock Jack Frost, who got his powers through making a deal with the archfey Prince of Frost and has absolutely no qualms about being an evil god’s mortal Sower of Chaos. He spends the vast majority of the campaign doing such useful things as creating ice slicks under annoying NPCs and freezing people’s drinks. He also plays a Tiefling because absolutely no one can talk this boy out of playing the creepy demon race.

Rapunzel plays a woodland nymph druid who is also the party healer (because of course she is). Her name is probably Sunlily or something else suitably hippie-esque. Whenever there’s downtime (or whenever the rest of the party is also dicking around, and she can get away with it), Rapunzel likes to go into the nearest forest and pick the best berries and nuts for the rest of the party. She also loves baking fruit pies and cooking the best nymph food for her companions when given the chance. Definitely the party Cinnamon Roll (every party has one!). She often will turn into cute animals to distract the guards while the party infiltrates a building.

Merida’s character is the party archer and general ranged weapon master, as well as a raging lesbian. Hiccup learns very quickly that any male NPC who tries to flirt with her will very quickly get impaled with an arrow. She can’t ever decide if she wants to be a ranger or a rogue, so she multiclasses in both for flare. She also plays a Tiefling, and continually insists that her character is both scarier and sexier than Jack’s. In combat, she either Leeroy Jenkins her way in with a sword and just starts slashing every which way, or just shoots 90% of the enemies with arrows before the fight even starts. There’s really no in between. She can get away with this because she’s highkey one of the party tanks, and consistently deals a shitton of damage.

Anna plays a human bard, basically having read over the class options and going “Wait, in this one I get to make stylish medieval music??? And wear dramatic and garish outfits and a dumb hat??? And cast wacky illusion spells??? And do silly little magic tricks??? And INSPIRE EVERYONE??? Hell yeah, I’m in!!!” She mostly uses magic attacks in combat (definitely favors Tasha’s Hideous Laughter), but occasionally when she’s out of spell slots she’ll just take to slamming enemies in the face with her lute. She also has WAY too much fun with Vicious Mockery, let’s be real.

Elsa, upon hearing Jack’s character concept, rolls her eyes so far up in her head she can see her damn brain, and vows to play his concept, but serious–solely out of spite. She rolls up a super OP elf Chaos Sorcerer, filled with lots of brooding angst about how uncontrollable her winter powers can get if she isn’t careful. She combines it a bit with Storm Sorcerer so she can create literal blizzards, and Hiccup ends up allowing it just because he thinks it’s cool. Although Elsa’s character is undoubtedly aggravated by the rest of the party’s antics, she starts becoming grudgingly protective of these idiots and can deal some pretty crazy damage when her companions are threatened. She also contains one of the party’s only brain cells.

Eugene of course plays dashing rogue master thief Flynn Rider. Although his high deception and lockpicking skills certainly come in handy, he’s the most chaotic neutral fucker you’ve ever met and will take any excuse to rob NPCs blind or cheat them out of every cent they have in a tavern card game. It’s nigh impossible to get him to cooperate with the rest of the party much of the time, and often Elsa’s character has to either bribe him with some of her family’s gold or threaten to freeze him to stop him backstabbing one or more party members. Eugene’s character forces Hiccup to add in many more heist plotlines than he originally intended. This delights Eugene immensely, and sometimes he goes a bit crazy planning elaborate heists.

Moana plays a sorcerer water genasi. She can control any body of water, but she has a special affinity for controlling saltwater (i.e. the ocean lol). She also requests an animal handling bonus, but only with marine animals, solely because she thought it would be funny. She’s also an ex-pirate who robbed a lot of wealthy merchant ships and freed their slaves back in the day, which Merida thinks is incredibly badass. Moana tends to get bored and unengaged when there are no bodies of water to play around with, so Hiccup ends up having to add a lot more lakes, rivers, and oceans to the campaign than he originally planned on. Moana also takes a sailing skill, and thus the party often ends up traveling by boat. Typically Eugene and Rapunzel will infiltrate and hijack it, and Moana will sail it. Moana probably contains the party’s only other brain cell.

Astrid plays a gigantic berserker orc barbarian who is never without his trusty axe. Astrid is hands down the party’s top tank, and unquestionably deals the most damage every combat session. Much like Merida’s character, Astrid’s character is absolutely a shameless power fantasy. Hiccup pretty easily picks up on this, but is too polite to say anything about it. Jack also picks up on this, but is hardly as courteous as their DM, and teases Astrid mercilessly. Astrid is not amused.

Rapunzel requests that her weapon of choice be a frying pan, her justification being that her character found a discarded one at the edge of a human village outside her woods and mistaked it for a highly-dangerous human weapon. Hiccup is like “…you know what? Fuck it” and rolls up stats for a goddamn frying pan. Jack has nigh-endless admiration for Rapunzel for choosing such a goddamn memey, absurd, yet oddly effective weapon and it definitely makes the poor boy even more smitten with her than he already is.

Eugene and Merida have a bet going on who can sleep with more sexy barmaids. Merida is currently winning, much to Eugene’s chagrin. She’s not even inherently better at seducing NPCs, she and Eugene have the same charisma stat–she just consistently rolls better than Eugene. Eugene is incredibly salty about this.

Anna and Elsa want to be sisters in-game as well, but neither want to change their race–so Anna decides her character was adopted. Hiccup and the rest of the party go along with it, mainly because there’s something deeply hilarious about a regular human bard being adopted and raised by a family of high-powered elf ice mages.

Astrid is absolutely the sort of player who tends to get bored and restless outside of fights, and tends to fidget and twiddle her thumbs waiting for the next combat session. Jack picks up on this, and purposely does more roleplay for longer just to piss her off. He’s also just a very dramatic fucker and highkey loves roleplay.

When she’s not causing mayhem around the town or sleeping with hot women, Merida tries to entertain Astrid between combat sessions by offering to spar with her. Unfortunately, this does not usually end well for poor Merida, as even the most hardcore and badass of tieflings is prone to getting dumpstered by an 8-foot-tall barbarian orc with an axe. Astrid is, nonetheless, grateful to have someone to fight.

Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana will humor Hiccup and attempt to actually play the main plot. Meanwhile, Jack, Merida, and Eugene are a DM’s worst nightmare. They constantly derail the damn campaign to fuck around, cause mayhem, and do inane shenanigans in every. Damn. Town. They go to. Anna is kind of a wildcard–she’ll typically go with whatever group looks like they’re going to be doing something more interesting. Astrid will go along with whichever group is more likely to get into a fight–which, often as not, is Jack and his posse of terrible Chaotic Neutrals (who have definitely pissed off a number of NPCs into attacking them).

As the campaign goes on, Elsa and Eugene become the beleaguered Party Mom and Dad. Both are quite aggravated by this–especially poor Eugene, who just wanted to play a morally-gray charming rogue who stole everything and got away with it and then accidentally ended up caring about these idiots he got stuck with.

Anna initially joins the campaign because she has a planet-size crush on Hiccup, and inevitably is the one who dragged Elsa into it too. Being the hopeless romantic that she is, Anna writes a love interest into her backstory. Hiccup eventually has the party run into said love interest, and Anna is overjoyed. He starts flirting with her as the love interest, and it’s easily the best 30 minutes of Anna’s life.

Moana and Elsa also give Hiccup pretty detailed backstories, and he works in little subplots for them. Moana gets to bring water back to a dying part of the jungle in the middle of a draught, while Elsa gets to go on a whole sidequest to explore her family history and how they came to be sorcerers.

Jack, Merida, and Eugene also give Hiccup fairly elaborate backstories, but Jack’s and Merida’s are like 99% memes and Dumb Shit. Hiccup tries to give all of them backstory-related plot hooks, but inevitably any hooks he provides are either stabbed, robbed, or frozen. Honestly any plot hook offered to these 3 will be all but spat in the face of and tossed off a cliff.

The one relevant part of Eugene’s backstory is that he and Rapunzel decide they used to be partners in crime before the campaign started. Rapunzel would infiltrate and scout out places he wanted to rob as small, unobtrusive animals (her preferred Wild Shape is a chameleon) and later distract the guards as a bunny or kitten while he went in and took every gold coin in sight. In return, Flynn Rider would bribe builders to not develop into Sunlily’s forest. Rapunzel and Eugene partly came up with this For Funsies, but also it was Rapunzel’s sneaky way of tricking Eugene into having prior connections in the party so he’d be less likely to betray them. It works pretty well–although the entire party is protective of Cinnamon Roll Sunlily, Flynn is certainly especially protective of her.

Astrid does the absolute bare minimum as far as backstories go. She is literally just here to smash stuff, slice people, and beat some fuckers up.

Rapunzel has a backstory, but she’s typically so invested in the main plot and the other party members that Hiccup rarely needs to bring it in to keep her engaged. She’s highkey the party emotional rock, and probably the only one keeping them all together.

On that note, Rapunzel’s character is the ONLY one who can get Jack’s character to take the plot even REMOTELY seriously. Like he’ll be dicking around in the nearest tavern challenging the nearest orc to a drinking game, and Rapunzel will come in and ask him to help them on a Main Plot Quest. And he’ll be like “come onnnnn I’m having funnn” and she’ll be like “Jack pleeeeeease?” and you just. Can’t resist Sunlily’s puppy dog eyes. At all. Also, whenever Sunlily is genuinely threatened, any silliness immediately goes out the window and Jack Frost is OUT FOR BLOOD.

For better or for worse, Rapunzel is not immune to being looped into Jack’s shenanigans. Occasionally if either Merida or Eugene have a particularly hare-brained scheme she’ll go along with it, but by and large Jack is the most successful in convincing her to temporarily abandon the plot and cause mild mischief with him. They once wasted half a session creating an elaborate “ice theme park” for some squirrels in the forest.

Hiccup tries to get Merida to play the main plot by eventually having there be no more sexy female NPCs to seduce in the towns they go to. Unfortunately, this backfires–Merida just hooks up with Moana’s character instead. When asked to roll for how good the lay is, Merida gets a nat 20–and thus her character and Moana’s character end up hooking up regularly throughout the rest of the campaign.

Hiccup introduces a few Wise Old Mentor-type NPCs to guide the party throughout the campaign. While Rapunzel, Elsa, Moana, and Anna actually try to listen to them and take their advice, Merida, Jack, and Eugene absolutely refuse to take them seriously and mercilessly play pranks on them.

At one point, Hiccup gives the party the option to attempt to tame a group of wild dragons and use them as mounts. They all have to make animal handling checks. Anna, Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana pass. The rest of the party fails, with Jack and Eugene crit-failing. Hilarity ensues.

Hiccup ends up bringing back Anna’s backstory love interest as an NPC regular. Anna thinks he’s just being a good friend and a good DM and trying to incorporate her backstory as much as he can, but really, he just wants an excuse to regularly flirt with her. He hardly has the balls to out-of-game.

Merida comes out as gay toward the end of the campaign. Everyone in the group is extremely supportive, of course, but everyone is also like “Merida…with the amount of barmaids you’ve banged…and the amount of times you and Moana’s character hooked up…this isn’t exactly surprising.”

Hiccup actually finds a way to use Jack and Elsa’s same-concept-opposite-execution characters to the plot’s advantage. He decides one of the main villains will have a prophecy saying he’ll be taken down by a powerful ice mage. The party manages to fool this guy into thinking this ice mage is Jack, and sends Jack to fight him. As soon as the villain sees Jack, he’s like “WHAT??? THIS clown???” (word has absolutely spread throughout the land of Jack not using his ice powers for anything besides mildly annoying trolling). Naturally, the bad guy lets his guard down after thinking he’s going to fight this literal joke, and then Elsa crashes in from the side and absolutely dumpsters him.

Jack tries to defeat the final boss by just annoying him so much that he leaves. Unfortunately, he just annoys him so much that he attacks Rapunzel’s character. Jack’s just like “oh HELL no” and attacks with absolutely nothing held back. Turns out he’s pretty terrifying when he’s not using his magic for Dumb Antics.

During the final boss of the campaign, the Big Bad tries to one-shot Moana’s character, and Merida’s character super theatrically jumps in front of her to take the blow instead. Rapunzel just barely manages to heal Merida’s character, but it’s a really close call. During all this, Merida is like “ah shit...maybe I’m NOT just in this to get fantasy-laid.” After the fight’s over, her and Moana’s characters have a big dramatic love confession and share a Big Damn Kiss in front of everyone. It’s pretty epic.

After the final session of the campaign, Merida drags Moana outside Jack’s apartment and sputters and trips over her words for a solid minute before she finally gets out that through all this nonsense...well...maybe it’s not just in the game that she thinks Moana is hot. Moana just gets this HUGE grin on her face and says “c’mere, Leeroy Jenkins” and just pulls Merida in and kisses her. Cue the rest of the party barging in on them. Merida and Moana freeze, and there’s a moment of terrified silence...and then the entire party starts cheering them on like “took you long enough!”

The entire rest of the party could detect the sexual tension. Literally all of them.

But Eugene is like “HA, THIS MEANS IF WE DO A SEQUEL CAMPAIGN I’M WINNING THAT BET! BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA BE DATING MO’S CHAR AND THUS NOT ABLE TO SLEEP WITH ANY MORE BARMAIDS!”

By the epilogue session, Jack and Rapunzel are dating. Merida and Moana are also dating. Hiccup and Anna STILL haven’t figured out why they’re so prone to spending half the session flirting when Anna’s love interest shows up, and Hiccup STILL hasn’t figured out why he likes to have Anna’s love interest show up so often. Bless their souls. Maybe they’ll figure it out next campaign...?

Damn I actually really like this...maybe if people like it I’ll do some incorrect quotes or a drabble or something??? Or maybe some HCs from next campaign???

[pdchronicles]

Long Post about Trolls in WoW

I have, for a very long time, had an issue with the way Trolls are portrayed in World of Warcraft.  On the surface, this must sound like a rather pretentious and borderline entitled statement to make, and I understand that.  I’m not trying to sit here and tell Blizzard how they should portray a group of people that they’ve created in their own game and in their own intellectual property.  Instead, I’m trying to explain a potential that I see in them.  I’ve mulled over making a post about this in a place where someone at Blizzard might actually see it, but I’m concerned it will come off as a bunch of complaining in an already saturated echo chamber.  I’m also not confident enough in my own ability to effectively capture my thoughts and articulate them into carefully ordered words.   Before I continue, be aware that I’m going to be referencing things that I’ve seen in BfA’s beta, so there will be heavy spoilers in this post.   I was prompted to make a post like this after seeing the outdoor content that will be released with the new Warfront feature in Arathi Highlands.  Before this content was datamined, we learned that Witherbark Village got an overhaul in its design, with new assets added to spruce the place up and make it look quite nice, and very Troll (even Zandalari) themed.  The Warfront content includes a quest to kill 20 Witherbark Trolls in order to drive them out of Arathi Highlands.  The quest for both the Alliance and the Horde are the same, albeit with slightly different text.  Here is the quest text for the Horde-side quest: “The bloodthirsty Witherbark tribe has always refused to join the Horde... and now that the Horde holds Arathi, we will succeed where the Alliance has failed. Drive the forest trolls from the Highlands.“ In a war between the factions, wouldn’t it make sense for the Horde to try to gain any allies that it could?  A bloodthirsty group of Trolls seems to fit right into the Horde that Blizzard is currently portraying to us.  It’s right there in the quest text.  The Horde’s mentality here is “if they’re not with us, kill them”.  It’s true that this convenient alliance has been done before, such as way back when the Orcs aided the Darkspear Trolls.  Or, when the Taunka joined the Horde in Wrath.  And it’s likely being done again with the Zandalari, because I don’t understand how they would join a Horde led by an undead unless the circumstances were incredibly dire.  (More on that later.)  However, I think the only thing more tired than “convenient alliances” is the “Trolls being driven away from their home” trick.  Darkspear by the naga.  Drakkari by the Scourge.  Amani by the elves.  Frostmane by the Dwarves.  And so on, and so forth.   I think that it’s totally in-character for the Alliance to want to drive the forest Trolls out of Arathi.  However, I think it would make more sense for the Horde to try to work with them, even if it’s just leaving them be and perhaps encouraging them to attack the Alliance for them.  It’s possible that I’m stuck clinging to an idea about the Horde that is no longer relevant.  Before we had Garrosh, who was interested only in orc superiority, and before we had Sylvanas, who cares only about herself, we had a Horde that served as a refuge for the people of Azeroth who suffered because they were different.  This was something that I could relate to, deeply, because I have always felt different myself.  I’m a gay man living in a predominately conservative part of the United States, a country that seems on the brink of a moral crisis, where the people in charge, if they had their way, would deny me basic human rights in the name of their religious beliefs.  I live in a country where the current “president” jokes that his vice-president wants to “hang all the gays”.  I don’t think I need to explain this in any more detail to show how my own feelings of being an outsider made me relate to what the Horde was.  They were a group of misfits who banded together to help each other because the other people around them hated them and didn’t want them to be a part of their world.   The Horde feels much different now.  I struggle to both relate to it, and feel like I’m a part of it.  Still, it would be nice to see a little bit of that from time to time, and the situation in Arathi Highlands offers a small opportunity to do so.   Another reason I felt I needed to rant about all of this is because I’m simply tired of the Trolls being the go-to bad guy fodder.  As if it wasn’t obvious, they are my favorite race in the Warcraft universe.  I love the fact that they are one of the oldest sentient civilizations.  Zuldazar is the oldest city, still standing, in the world.  They mastered magic before the elves.  Elves are descended from Trolls, the magic of the Well of Eternity mutating them into what they are.  Trolls, through their Prelates of Rezan, also mastered the art of the holy warrior before Human paladins ever came into existence.  The Amani Trolls hunted down the C’Thrax and sacrificed almost everything they had to defeat Kith’ix.  They saved the world.  Trolls are the oldest (we think) non-Old God or non-Titan created beings on Azeroth.  They called the Titans “The Travelers”, and they witnessed the Titans first battle with the Old Gods.  Trolls never enslave anyone.  When the lower castes of the Zandalari wished to leave the Empire and go out into the world, the Zandalari encouraged them to do so.  These lower castes would eventually become the Gurubashi, Amani, and Drakkari tribes.  It’s because of these tribes that the Aqir haven’t destroyed Azeroth.  The Trolls’ persistence at hunting them down forced them to split up into separate groups themselves:  Azjol-Nerub, Ahn’Qiraj, and the Mantid Empire. That was quite the history lesson, but it helps to articulate my point.  The Trolls have a long, deep, and varied history.  This makes it an absolute travesty that they are used for little more than villain fodder and comic relief in the game itself.  Every circumstance of the Trolls doing something evil can be traced back and attributed to one thing:  Desperation.  They are constantly losing their home to outside invaders.  The first example of this was the elves, who stole the Troll’s lands because they wanted the magic within it.  The Great Sundering, a fault of elves, caused terrible destruction, death, and starvation for the Trolls.  In desperation, the Trolls called out to their gods, and these calls were answered by Hakkar, and this led to even more suffering.  The Drakkari killed their own gods for their power in a desperate attempt to stop the Scourge from destroying their tribe.   I could go on like this for a really, really long time, but I think you get the point.  For a people so ancient, with so much history, and so much potential for their culture, they deserve better than to be slowly and efficiently erased from existence.  But, that’s what’s been happening over the course of WoW’s history.  Just look at the Darkspear.  They have gotten so little development that we don’t even know who’s leading them right now.  We don’t even have very many of them left to be candidates for the role.  The elephant in the room, of course, is the incredibly disappointing end to Vol’jin’s character arc by unceremoniously killing him off by a random demon in the opening act of Legion.  There are so few notable Darkspear characters that Blizzard invented a new one, just so the Alliance could kill him during the Battle of Lordaeron.  They have already killed off so many of the Tribe that they had to invent one...to also kill off.  This, in a game that felt the need to add two more “races” of playable elves in a game that already has two.  And a new class that’s only playable by elves.  I have never understood this direction. With all of this on my mind, I hope you can see where I’m coming from when I say I’d like to see something other than “kill the Trolls” in a quest.  But, let me shift gears here, and maybe be a little more optimistic for a while.   I’m thrilled that the Zandalari are being added as an allied race for the Horde, and I’m excited that we’re going to get to explore and experience Zandalar.  I do think it’s unfortunate that these things are being added to the game now, because the faction war is really putting me off.  More specifically, the direction of the Horde, and Sylvanas leading it, is really dampening my enthusiasm and I’ve been really struggling to get past that.  It’s going to be really depressing if their methods for getting the Zandalari to join the Horde will be to make them suffer so incredibly that they have no choice but to ally with them.  But hey, I said this was supposed to be optimistic now, so let’s get to that.   In the novel Shadows of the Horde, Vol’jin mentions that King Rastakhan has a plan to unite all of the Trolls once more.  This plan is only hinted at, but it’s described well enough that it is clear that whatever this plan may be, it is different from that of the Prophet Zul.  Vol’jin denied Zul’s offer of joining with him (along with the Drakkari, Farraki, and Gurubashi), and the events of BfA fully reveal what Zul’s plan ultimately entails.  (Hint:  It’s not good.)  King Rastakhan’s plan appears to be different from this, and doesn’t seem to involve any of the shady shit that Zul’s been up to over the last several years.   In that same novel, while Vol’jin is conversing with the spirit of his father Sen’jin, the elder Darkspear seems to indicate that perhaps it is time that a Shadow Hunter once again leads the Trolls, like it was before the formation of the first Empire of Zul.   Fast-forwarding ahead to BfA itself, there is an area in Zuldazar that is sort of a Troll embassy.  It’s a place where a representative from the different Troll tribes meet, each tribe represented by speakers.  The Amani, Farraki, and Gurubashi, being the largest of these tribes, have their own specific areas.  The other, smaller tribes all hang out together.  The existence of this area might just be for flavor, but I like to believe it has some other purpose.  It could be there to give further merit that King Rastakhan is working on a plan to unite the tribes once more.   In addition to this, there is a Zandalari NPC in Zuldazar who offers to give you a glimpse of your future, in a way.  One of the possible things that she tells you mentions the unification of the Troll tribes.  

Again, it could be here for flavor.  But, why?  I’d like to think this is another hint that Rastakhan has some sort of plan for the Trolls, and that we, the player, could be a part of it.  And since this is seen during the Horde leveling experience only, it means it’s the HORDE player that could be a part of it.  The optimist in me hopes this is foreshadowing an eventuality where many, if not all, of the Troll Tribes join the Horde.   Naturally, there are a thousand holes that can be poked into this.  But like the Trolls I love so much, all of this wishing and hoping is a result of desperation, because we’ve been given so very little in regards to the Trolls for years now.  Blizzard just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to making Trolls suffer.  It doesn’t stop in BfA.  Nazmir is an entire zone dedicated to killing Trolls (Blood Trolls), and there is no option or hope of saving them.  The Zandalari, in turn, are made to suffer through the murder of several of their most revered Loa by both the Blood Trolls and Zul’s fanatics.  It’s questionable whether King Rastakhan will even survive the expansion.   These thoughts, this negativity that I have has been plaguing me for a very long time.  It started in full with Vol’jin’s death.  I don’t mind admitting that watching that happen made me cry, if that’ll better articulate how strongly I feel about this race of misfits.  I’ve felt a pang of sadness and regret every time I’ve watched Blizzard unceremoniously kill off a Troll character before they could be fully developed or their character arcs brought to a meaningful conclusion.  Zuni.  Torunscar.  Zul’jin.  Vol’jin.  Durja.  Zin’Jun.  Not to mention the countless “cannon fodder” NPCs.  The voice line of a dying Troll on the Broken Shore yelling “Da pain!” still fucking haunts me.  Blizzard’s portrayal of Trolls is heartbreaking.   As you can probably tell, I care a bit too much about this.  Trust me, I recognize that.  I’ve been dealing with this in a number of different ways, not least of which is continuously reminding myself that WoW isn’t for me.  It’s for a huge audience of different people with different interests and different passions, and it’s unfair of me to expect my own desires to be fulfilled.  At the end of the day, my point here is that I see incredible potential for amazing stories and it frustrates me that I seem to be in the minority about that.  Games are an amazing medium and they offer this unique ability to make the player feel like a hero.  That feeling is the main reason why I play games in the first place.  The real world is complicated, ugly, confusing, and it’s not always clear which choice is the right one.  In games, it can be different.  You can see the wrong and you can stand up against it or help to fix it.  I’m finding that more and more difficult to experience in WoW because I’m playing a race that I feel its creators care very little about.   In an attempt to wrap this up, because I’ve been at this for way too long already, I want to see what Blizzard has in store for the Zandalari.  Their portrayal will likely decide if I still stay invested in WoW to any degree, or if I finally leave it behind for good.  None of the characters I have exist canonically in WoW’s story any longer.  Why the hell would I put them through that?  But, I still enjoy the gameplay and getting inspiration for my own stories from Blizzard’s creativity.  This is their game and their story to do with as they please.  I’m just hoping they recognize the potential that they have with the Trolls and start utilizing them for something better than they currently are.  Thank you for reading.  

[friendlyunclej]

Proving My Worth

Prologue

     My brothers and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, especially when it comes to territory to take over. Bruuk, the oldest of the three of us, always placed his eyes on the icy north. He always believed that the flurries and blizzards would make any and all towns ripe for the taking. Thuul, the next oldest, kept track of the ridge that held the difference between the mountains that divided Kalldor. He claimed that the best places for camps were there, where we could easily traverse between either side of the continent. I, Shuulash, always kept close tabs on the forests in the south. With a grand amount of villages, towns, and even a few cities covered in fog and rain, it was obviously the best option to build a proper fortress. However, neither of my two brothers would ever side with me on the matter, as I seemed to be the only one of us who wasn’t worried about some green-skinned tusk bearers.      That issue past relatively soon, however, as some new owners of a town fought them directly. Proving to be more powerful than any of the Orcs forces, these “heroes”, as the townsfolk were calling them, drove them to the farthest reaches of the continent towards the south. Relaying this information to my brothers, they actually began to consider my proposition. Soon enough, I had convinced them that the forests surrounding the town would be perfect. Unbeknownst to them, I desired more than just simple wooden posts as a home. I had to prove to my brothers that I was more than just an angry Hobgoblin looking to earn his marks, so I set my sights on the one thing that would show them that. I wanted the town that the Orcs couldn’t take. I wanted C’Moira for myself.

New Acquisitions

     “Did you see what those hooded things did to that town?” I asked my brothers with a smirk.

     “Yes, we did,” Thuul responded, “we did give them the majority of our forces as support.”

     Bruuk, picking his teeth with a branch, said, “And it was a good thing we gave them the weak ones. I’m pretty sure that if any survived, those creeping pieces of shit would have just kept them for themselves.”

     “You say that as if not all of the goblins are weak,” Thuul snickered.

     “You’re right,” Bruuk agreed with a chuckle, “Still, we shouldn’t trust them too much. Those blasts were-”

     “They were incredible,” I interrupted, “Picture such power in our hands. If we could convince them to-”

     Bruuk spouted, “Shuul, wipe that smirk off your face. We’re done with them.”

     I stared at him dumbfounded as Thuul supported by saying, “He’s right. They’re not to be trusted, much less bargained with.”

     Enraged by their fear, I shouted, “Again with that fear of magic tying both of your hands behind your backs. If we can capture a single one of them and bend them to our will, we could-”

     My speech was interrupted by Bruuk’s fist. As I returned to my feet, he was reprimanding me with, “Again with your lack of respect wearing away at my nerves. It’s not fear that keeps us from parleying with them. It’s trust, Shuul.”

     “We trusted them with this and they delivered. I don’t see why we can’t trust them again,” I said, clearing the blood from my nose.

     Thuul interjected by saying, “We can’t trust them, because we never saw their faces, little brother. Those who are faceless are soulless. Those who are soulless can’t be bent to any will, no matter the methods used.”

     “Then what about those in the town who have similar abilities?” I asked, staring back sternly. “We’ve seen some practicing the art of magic, even a few children. If we take them, they should be just as powerful.”

     Bruuk snarled back, “And how would you keep them on our side?”

     I gestured to my bag of metal tools, consisting of various knives, daggers, rope, and pitons, as I answered, “As I always have.”

     For the first time for as long as I could remember, I saw Thuul chuckle, shrug, and side with me in a soft, “I agree.”

     Bruuk, surprised of Thuul’s reaction, questioned, “Do you really think a magician would make such a difference for us?”

     “Truthfully speaking,” Thuul said with a pause to consider the issue a bit further, “It would be a hell of a weapon. Additionally, if they’re not as potent a weapon as expected, one of my herd informed me of someone across the ocean seeking magicians in trade. We could obtain silver weaponry or even special armor for them.”

     Seeing the sincerity in Thuul’s eyes, Bruuk jaunted back over to me and stared down at me for a second. Locking eyes with him, I stood tall and certain with the streak of red down the front of my nose still fresh.

     Laughing a bit, he clasped me by the shoulder and said, “Well, alright, little Shuul. You want a magical pet, you can have it. We’ll need to refill our ranks with stronger creatures before trying to attack that town again. Once we do, you tell us how to get it. Deal?”

     He outstretched his hand to me as I glanced from his eyes and conniving smile down to his red paw. A bit angered still, I clasped is tight before saying, “That’s a deal, but, before we continue this...”

     Pausing for him to drop his guard, I smashed my forehead against the bridge of his nose. He reeled back as I growled, “My name’s ‘Shuulash’, brother. Not ‘Shuul’. It would benefit you to remember the difference.”

     I stepped over him towards my fortress as he chuckled at me. He responded, “It’s good to see that you’ve actually grown a pair, brother. We’ll see how useful your magical pets are before calling anything other than ‘little Shuul’, little Shuul.”

     Ignoring his teases, I continued walking towards my fortress, smiling to myself with the knowledge that I had kept a few barrels that those hooded figures used on the town.

     As the years pressed, my brothers and I witnessed the once scarce C’Moira transform into a bustling town with a growing population. As we gained greater numbers of goblins, they produced more children. While we gathered bugbears and lesser Hobgoblins, they recruited more guards. As I broke an ogre to my side, they found more magicians and warriors. I would always remind them that my brothers and I were still around, sending small patrols to interrupt their supply chains or even sneaking in personally to capture a magician or two to bargain for weapons or armor.

     Through the bargaining with the creatures from the other side of the world, we had obtained immaculate armor and weapons, some with special attributes or powers attached to them. We had never seen who was supplying us for such treasures, but their treasure was better than good so we had no desire to ask questions. After we had enough weapons and armor, my brothers and I held our forces from meddling in their affairs anymore. My brothers did it because they were waiting on my orders. I pulled my forces so as to better scout the town for one last attack, hoping to make C’Moira my own.

     Working behind my brothers’ backs, I spent months studying C’Moira’s traffic and supply lines, hoping to weaken them as much as possible. If I was to do this, I wanted to do this right. My first step was to slowly cut off their supplies. I had ambushes that would take out farmers, their cattle, and even some roaming traders who made an agreement with the town’s leaders. The second step was to sneakily plant the barrels I still had from the hooded figures we worked with many years ago. I waited for openings in their patrols and even snuck around in stolen garbs during the day to plant the barrels where I needed them to be. With everything in place, the third step was to send in my brothers and some goblins as I stole my prize weapon; a female magician who seemed to be the most powerful in the town. I told my brothers where to be and what to do, while I kept my weapon’s whereabouts to myself.

     Fortunately, some new troublemakers came into the town just a few days before the last step. A couple of them assassinated some people in a carriage while most others just seemed to be regular bystanders until they fought in the prison. Honestly, they seemed a bit powerful, at least powerful enough to give that head guard some issues. I may try to get something from them if I’m able to capture them. Otherwise, their heads would make decent trophies.

Epilogue

     “So, is that all, Shuulash?”

     “Yes, Bruuk, it is. We stick to this plan and we’ll have the strongest magician in the town in our grasp before tomorrow night. Do you have any concerns, Thuul?”

     “Only the newcomers in the city. The ones who you said were fighting in the prison.”

     “With the forces we’ve mustered, they won’t stand a chance.”

     “True, but we aren’t sending all of our forces tomorrow. We’re sending just enough to create a distraction for you to get your magician. Why is this specific one so important anyway?”

     “Neither of you need to know why the magician is important. You just need to know that it’s needed for my plans.”

     “Oh, so the magician is going to help us take out one of the cities?”

     “Something like that.”

     “I don’t like the sound of that. Bruuk, what about you?”

     “That sounds like you’re keeping more secrets than necessary, Shuulash.”

     “I’ve told you guys everything you need to know. Bruuk, you’re attacking the southeastern side. Thuul, you’ll be on the northern side. I’ll have mine sprawled throughout the center and western side of the city. Once the first bit of smoke begins to die, I’ll have my weapon in chains, and more for each of you and those across the water. Everyone wins at the end of this, except the damn elf head guard. Isn’t hurting an elf plenty worth a few measly goblins?”

     “Fine.” “Fine.” “Good.”

     “Well, then, Shuulash. I’ll be ready in the morning.”

     “Thank you, Thuul. Bruuk?”

     “After this, we’re discussing your love of secrets, but, before that, my troops will be in position.”

     “Hmph, that’s if you’re still around to discuss it.”

     “What was that?”

     “I said that we’ll all be together discuss it. But after this is done. Now, go and prepare.”

[chroniclerwabba]

it’s 5AM and i’m pissed about warcraft (mostly lore) again

I have a personal chip on my shoulder against Overwatch for reasons that might not be wholly valid. Project Titan (original OW) was started, and Blizz started to shift people around. Jeff Kaplan switched from working on WoW to Titan, and the game eventually got cancelled in 2014. Cataclysm’s released heralded a downturn for the quality of the game, not just in terms of lore.  The xpacs had a few good things in them (MoP is one of my favorites, the pandaren have great lore), but there was a lot of shit in there too. WoD was barebones as shit in terms of content with a completely nonsense storyline that took a huge shit on the lore. Titan was cancelled and recycled into Overwatch, a move that divided developers and even caused Metzen to quit.  I don’t blame or hold anger at Metzen for quitting (the guy had a fucking baby on the way, he needed to be a dad), but when he announced he was retiring, that’s when Warcraft really lost its magic to me and when I fell out of love with it.

So I blame Overwatch for what happened to Warcraft, which isn’t necessarly fair. Overwatch is fun and well made (in terms of art style that is, everything else is debatable). Maybe it makes more sense to blame the writers for losing their touch. But I still hold that slight disdain for Overwatch, even if it’s unfair. But enough about that; let’s talk about shitty lore.

Cataclysm is where the game just became bogged down with bad lore decisions, consisting of forced conflict and characters acting against their established selves to make said forced conflict happen.

Garrosh being made warchief was the first in a long laundry list of bad decisions. There was no reason Thrall would’ve logically made him leader even when being Grom’s son. It was evident he was not suited for this position and someone like Vol’jin or Saurfang should’ve taken the reins. He would’ve either kept him as a high ranking general like Nazgrim or waited until he matured a bit more and mellowed out to give him the mantle. It’s such a bullshit promotion that exists only to force conflict and have lore why PvP is still a thing (because it’s not like we can just have pvp be noncanon like bungie did with classic halo jesus fuck blizz you’re not 343 you don’t need to give pvp lore validity of fucking course the racial leaders aren’t really dead despite me killing them smh)

Garrosh is a bumbling inconsistent mess. In the books, Garrosh is smarter, but in the games, he’s a goddamn idiot and a brat with no sense of responsibility who blames Thrall during their fight in Nagrand (despite the fact that thrall literally left eitrigg, vol’jin, saurfang, and cairne behind to help him deal with shit and he tells them all to fuck off. also blaming thrall for him having to pick up the pieces is bullshit when he almost broke the horde because he literally kept trying to push the other races down into subservience, to a point where he tried to assassinate vol’jin). So Garrosh had no accountability as a leader. His whole plan to establish orcish supremacy and “make the horde great again” shows he has no fucking clue about orcish history despite his dad being IN THE SHIT. Orcish supremacy was all a lie concocted by Ner’zhul to fearmonger the draenei as evil invaders. Before the Horde, all the clans did was just live separately and fight the ogre empire who just wanted to enslave them. The Horde only exists because Kil’jaedan manipulated them into becoming one to wipe out the draenei. Garrosh doesn’t even know his own people’s fucking lore. Oh, and an extra special fuck you from when he said Thrall is no longer an orc. Nobody in the entire Warcraft lore has any right to tell Thrall he isn’t an orc. Thrall was a literal child soldier raised by Blackmoore to fight like an animal in his colosseum (his fucking name literally means SLAVE). The only human friend he had during his childhood was raped and beheaded and even lets Blackmoore’ men go free after he kills him in honorable combat.  Thrall has the most validity out of anyone in the Horde to be against the Alliance, but he just wants to give his people a home after the Legion stole it all and turned them into murderers. So anyway Garrosh can go fuck himself (except none of what I said actually matters because warlords of draenor established that all orcs are evil murderers even without demon blood so everything warcraft 3 was about means nothing i guess fuck you blizzard). Also, miss me with that bullshit about honor™ when you use a bomb to vaporize your enemies and not fight them by yourself on the fields of battle like your dad would’ve.

The Alliance hasn’t been written as morally grey or written to have flaws since Warcraft 3. Aside from Arthas’ and Jaina’s storylines, the rest of the Alliance is a bunch of assholes. Grom is forced to drink from the demon pool because the night elves started murdering them after they went to Ashenvale to cut down trees so they can build settlements to protect the orcs and their new tauren allies. The same allies the night elves just up and abandoned to be fucking murdered by the centaur almost to extinction despite how Cenarius himself blessed Huln Highmountain for his bravery for the tauren helping fight the legion alongside the kaldorei ten thousand years ago. So big fucking lore oversight, right? Also, since the kaldorei can just grow trees everywhere, why is there a logging crisis with the Horde? They can literally replace the trees right there. In fact, they could literally have solved the Horde’s famine crisis, but they don’t because they’re a bunch of stingy fucks who never get their shit called out. When people complain about Alliance favoritism, this is what they mean. The Horde always has to be the villain in some way, and the Alliance are always the good™ guys who never do anything wrong ever™. The closest we’ve gotten to the Alliance being somewhat morally grey was Camp Taurajo (which is swept under the rug with the biggest bullshit handwave by baine saying ehh it’s okay because that’s a realistic reaction). Jaina just straight up lets her men burn down and kill a bunch of native farmers whose race has lived here for years and never has to acknowledge this directly.

Jaina is almost as mishandled as Garrosh was. In the early days of MoP, they screwed up her being the anti-Horde character but could’ve salvaged it. Now they’ve just made her near irredeemable trash. So after Garrosh blows up Theramore and kills all her men, she’s pissed and out for blood and justifiably so. You want her to kill that motherfucker, but Blizzard doesn’t know about this thing called “moderation” or “reasonable chracter development” so they just decide to crank her up to 22 and have her be a stone cold murderer. She’s just gonna drown Orgrimmar and kill all sorts of innocent civilians inside, including an entire fucking orphanage of children she knows good and well exists since she’s visited the city many times before. Completely missed her the first time (because someone who watched her ex-fiance burn down an entire city including the children would be okay with killing children i guess). Thrall shows up and tries to tell her “hey, child murder is fucked up” and she doesn’t bother listening (apparently thrall isn’t allowed to be upset by children being victims of war despite having been a child slave himself but it’s somehow his fault because he made garrosh warchief even though there was no way he could’ve known this would’ve happen but whatever conflict i guess). So Kalecgos then shows up (who apparently is just her token love interest now and will never show up in the game to do anything useful so all that development he had in cataclysm is now moot. like fucking aggra at least helped thrall at the echo isles kalecgos didn’t do shit) and tells her “hey, child murder is bad” and it finally clicks in her head (so it took three times for her to figure out that she shouldn’t let small children die). Then we flash forward to Legion where Blizz has just decided they just don’t give a shit. Jaina shows up to Stormwind Keep and is pissed that the Horde abandoned the Alliance at the Broken Shore. So a grown ass woman in her 30s proceeds to be condescending and talk shit to a seventeen year old boy who just LOST HIS DAD about not wanting to fight two wars at once and risk crippling the Alliance (because apparently kul yiras no longer exists so she just can’t fund her own damn war i guess. also jaina apparently possesses a teleportation spell established since wotlk to exist that would’ve allowed her to save varian wrynn before he died so thanks a lot for the pointless death that could’ve been avoided for lore reasons, blizz. also we’re just supposed to forgive her racist piece of shit dad for wanting to commit ethnic cleansing and kill little orcish children because jaina needs to angst). Then she gets written out of the plot so Anduin never gets to call her out on the bullshit she tried to pull and so Blizz can shelve her for another forced war conflict. So Jaina has literally developed backwards to the beginning of Warcraft 3. Thanks, Blizz.

Sylvanas has angsted since WC3 that undeath is a curse and nobody should be subjected to it, only for Blizzard to keep turning her into Lich King 2.0 when we get Warlords of Northrend™ eventually (undeath is bad and i angst about it 24/7 so let me use all these chemicals to raise these people into zombies and plague the land but it’s okay because i think slavery is bad at least. also she’s afraid of going to hell to be tortured forever when it’s like “hey you dumb bitch maybe you wouldn’t go to hell if you didn’t keep raising people into zombies after establishing it’s a LIVING HELL TO BE A ZOMBIE”). So Sylvanas has also developed backwards. Thanks again, Blizz.

I’ve written this twice before, but Illidan is the biggest load of bullshit ever. In Warcraft 3, he was a great antihero. Kind of a dick, but you admired that he was out for himself. Now he’s the greatest™ hero™ ever™ that did nothing wrong™. He’s like a worse Anakin Skywalker.

All of WoD

anyway i’m going the fuck to sleep and then wake up in 5 hours to write wow fanfic to fill the hole that blizz’s nonsense created