Weekend Warcraft Lore General

Strike the Blackrock Edition

Discuss the lore and story of the Warcraft franchise and its application in and around traditional games.

>Document compendium: Contains official (ex-canon) DnD 3.x variants and a fan made DnD 5e version! Also contains the official Warcraft Chronicles volumes 1 and 2.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B52pEESRLwfBM3V0Sm5NTlBITlk

Previous thread

The Sea Priests of Kul Tiras are a legitimate religion.

The what? Is Old God worship becoming formalized? Is this the Twilight's Hammer or something different?

Strike the earth!

...

i just got photoshop and poured in 50 hours of heart and soul into this, so enjoy!!!

This is your primal god tonight

Kul Tiras has sea worshipers who are totally not minions of the Old Gods, guys.

Let's be honest: we've all seen if coming since warcraft 3

allied race when

Don't care what faction I'm on, I'm killing that thing

>since cataclysm
FTFY

Ty so much!

I'll post another revised version of it if you want.

it was a joke

would be fun if the nightborn got nelf refugees knocking at the door, really turns my tables

Nelves deserve to get fucked for knifing their greatest hero, Illidan, in the back. Rot in shit purples.

>literally turned evil because he got friendzoned
>did the one thing everyone agreed should never ever be done for no real reason
>spent all of TBC pouting in his NEET basement eating skulltendies and ogling his waifus
>I AM MY SCAAAAAARS

Why do people think Illidan is cool?

>Talanji brought the mongrel Horde wit' her. Dis be treason, Highness.

...

>had his eyes burned out to gain enhanced senses
>gave his people eternal life at the expense of 10,000 years of torture
>saved his brother's girlfriend (even though neither Tyrande nor his fagget brother deserved it)
>tried to destroy the lich king but night elves stopped him and saved LK
>literally the only night elf that ever mattered period

Illidan is a fucking warrior of the light. This is the closest thing the night elves have ever had to a paladin.

Then why is he a comedy of errors in everything he tries?

They breed em' hardy on that island lads.

Argue with THIS, evolutionlets!

He looks nothing like a Troll, so I'm guessing they aren't going for the "titanforged Trolls" thing I was worried about.

Might make it so the Titans inspired Troll architecture and magic use, which is a tad bit disappointing but eh.

You must have missed the part where his entire race is busy trying to knife him in the back every time he does something positive for them. Night elves don't deserve to exist.

The problem with Illidan is kind of the ridiculously extreme reactions to him.

He's always done somewhat selfish anti-hero shit, but everyone around him alternates from seeing him as the most evil of monsters or a saint of saints.

>They breed em' frumpy on that island lads.

FTFY

which is what makes him such a shit character. should have left him dead.

I never liked him until playing through Legion with him and his story. Early on I wasn't even very into it having to relive his life bits and all. Having him being so straightforward and single minded was, I thought, interesting and enjoyable.

He is a character with a consuming passion that has driven him to great lengths and done some questionable stuff in pursuit of it but always felt, at the time, he was making the best choice he could.

I dig it, I like characters with passion about something.

Okay, Redfags and Bluecucks. Let's break this shit down once and for all: why did you choose your faction?

Normal Mode: don't give an answer which takes jabs at the other faction, and don't shit on people for their preferences.

Heroic Mode: admit to yourself it all just comes down to aesthetics, and explain what those aesthetics are and why you like them

Mythic Mode: say something nice about the other faction

I'll start.

The Horde is just so fucking cool. It's like I handed Blizzard a big checklist titled "Things I Like" and they then gave me everything on that list. I love tribal themes. I love weird beast races. I love Native American and Aztec aesthetics. I love voodoo and witch doctors. I love jungle zones and desert zones. I love creepy undead horror themes. The Horde has all this, and it's great.

Alliance has some cool stuff. Draenei are pretty awesome, and I like the overall look and lore of the dwarves. But it just wasn't enough to really hold my interest the way Horde did.

Its a character that got re-writed two times. That fact alone makes it bad

I wanted to play a sentinel and fight alongside giant walking trees.

it never happened

i don't remember why but i guess i liked night elves in 2004
i started with an orc during the beta, though
simple AS

I just really like night elves, DESU, the idea of being reclusive guardians of nature where the women are courageous guerilla fighters and the men are mystic men, alongside giants and trees and all that

Oh.

Ok.

I liked the story-arc of the elves in Warcraft 3, but my favorite hero was Rokhahn the troll shadow-hunter, and I have a weakness for Tribal voodoo aesthetics.

Once you get past all the straight up racists calling the horde races "Niggers" the alliance is full of some pretty rad people, and I'm genuinely interested in the story arc for prince Anduin Wrynn, a gentle soul who's been forced to take the place of his vicious warrior of a father.

this:
horde has some really fun aesthetics though, and I like the underdog theme they at least had going for them

Didn't your neighbourhood human paladin bring you the memo? Sylvanas is evil, tentacle priests are good. Or are you trying to think for yourself like those evil Horde members?

>why did you choose your faction?
because it's the one my dad played and I never felt cause to switch

I liked the tribal stuff and ancestral/animist beliefs of the Horde. Originally liked trolls the best with tauren close second, that slowly reversed as I played more.

Aesthetically, I like more "monstrous" races, but I think the gear is clearly designed for humans first in mind and tend to have a hard time finding stuff that looks good on my tauren, which gets pretty frustrating.

I see no reason to lie. Blood Elves.

imo worgen have the same issue as tauren, I think it's just because of the long head thing

"My father once told me the world was gonna roll me, I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed" -Jaina Proudmoore

I liked the idea of repentant undead, and their burnt out buildings and gloomy greetings felt really immersive. The Scourge made for fun bad guys, too. Then I picked up trolls. As time went on I even came to appreciate orcs and tauren.

As for something nice about the other faction, I liked them enough to play them too. My character list is about 2/3 Horde, 1/3 Alliance. My first character was a night elf, even if I ended up maining a Forsaken. I think the humans had the best storyline in Vanilla in terms of the actual plot you got to play through, dealing with the Defias as well as lingering threats from the Second War.

I play as Undead whenever it's possible because I like the aesthetics as well as the idea of playing Undead. I was surprised, but very happy to see them as a playable race in WoW.

>tend to have a hard time finding stuff that looks good on my tauren

Fucking preach. I main a tauren hunter and several times I've considered going back to my troll shaman because hunter gear is already overall bad-looking and it's just worse on Tauren.

The only mail gear I find looks really good on Tauren is tier 14 (Yaungol-slayer I think) and the Headdress of Sharpened Vision/Pauldrons of Nalorakk combo you can get from Zul'Aman.

I'm all for faction pride but anyone who doesn't have at least one consistently-played alt for the other faction is really cheating themselves.

I forgot, the thing I like about the Alliance is Anduin.

They seem to base gear on humans, so if you don't stand up straight and have a boring head many stuff goes to shit. It just feels lazy.

I don't consider him an evil monster or a saint. Just kind of a tool who lets himself get yanked around by edgy ideals.

It is 100% aesthetics, I love trolls. Initially I liked their voodoo stuff since that's an aesthetic I like. Then they upgraded to Mesoamerican themes with the Zandalari which I love even more, holy shit guys we're getting fucking MACUAHUITLS on Zandalar.

As for the other faction I liked the original nelves a lot like most people did, and I've always had a soft spot for dwarves and their titanic lore with them looking for answers about their past and creation.

From the beginning Trolls were my jam. Great music themes, kinda fun but also pleasant accent, culture completely different to all other major factions, despite the fact that they, unlike orcs, are from Azeroth like Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, while not necessarily being completely savage or primitive.

I really like lore of dwarves, and if I'll ever will go for achievement of Double Agent that requires max levels for characters in both factions, I'm definitely going to level up fully
a dwarf, with possibly doing starting quests for other races. Out of all races of Alliance,
Dwarves have the best aesthetics and music.
Accent's nice too.
Might be why that one trinket that changed your looks to a member of opposite faction swapped Trolls with Dwarves, almost equal amount of various sub-races.

Literally Americans

>Illidan was the biggest fucking asshole on the planet that constantly did overblown evil bullshit with no apparent justification because he never talked to anybody about his plans
>Legion retcons it to make him a good guy
>WOW NIGHT ELVES SURE ARE RETARDED FOR DISLIKING THIS GUY THAT WAS RAISING AN ARMY OF DEMONS AND NAGA

>They still never do anything to explain why the fuck he had a giant pleasure hall filled with dozens of mindbroken sex slaves or why he spent so much time fucking with the Aldor and Sons of Lothar

also, I love when posting sometimes for some reason changes space into enter if it goes over the text window.

>>They still never do anything to explain why the fuck he had a giant pleasure hall filled with dozens of mindbroken sex slaves or why he spent so much time fucking with the Aldor and Sons of Lothar

The way I always interpreted it was Illidan's exile on Outland was basically just him retreating to his basement like the faggot neckbeard beta he is. Vashj and Kael were basically just the other dateless wonders he spent every night playing Counter Strike with. He opposed the Legion because he wanted them gone so he could fap in peace. But the Legion using Outland as a staging ground for attacking Azeroth again threw a wrench in that, especially when the Horde and Alliance showed up and collectively realized "oh shit, it's THAT fucking guy again" and kicked his ass.

But nah, I guess now he's a super kewl badass antihero. Which ironically makes him less interesting than his NEETadin characterization.

I started playing wow as a kid, and kid me fucking loved dinosaurs. I see Trolls ride raptors, I chose Troll. As time went on, playing WC3 and reading the lore, I began to really like the Horde as a whole-the Trolls are still my favorite.

As for the Alliance, while I can never get into the faction as a whole I like individual races in it-Dwarves and Gnomes being my favorites.

It's a real shame that WoW didn't keep the dwarf-centric theme that the Alliance had in vanilla, especially considering that they have the most interesting politics of any race in the game.

Instead, they had to transform them into 'humans and friends.' The 7.3.5 cinematic is just evidence of that, in comparison to the relative diversity of the Horde.

It looks like a stone human...

I do remember back in Vanilla you definitely got the impression Ironforge was the real power-player in the Alliance. That was definitely an interesting dynamic, and it didn't reek of "see, in MY setting the dwarves are the superpower!" simplicity you usually get with that sort of thing.

The Human Empire thing definitely killed most of the personality the Alliance had.

I wonder why he's the only Keeper/Watcher that has different theme than other Keepers and Watchers.
Same thing applies to Uldir, which on art shares Troll architecture theme.

The dwarves were rocking shit, but the humans got the best questline in vanilla.

They were rife with internal struggle too, even though they were the most powerful: Moira running off to the Dark Irons, traitors about, warlocks skulking in the shadows, and thieves robbing their countrymen.

It literally just looks like an Aztec Watcher, just like how the Halls of Origination Watchers look Egyptian.

Didn't Ra-den, ostensibly before he was tortured and used as a source of flesh shaping juice, have a Chinese aesthetic? or is pandaria just coincidental

Eh, the Titan stuff in Pandaria had a more Asian theme. Remember Norushen?

So was each Watchers Pantheon made up by a different titan who wanted to put their own pet culture in?

>I'm gonna make Norse God watchers!
>Vikings are gay, MINE are gonna be Egyptian and I'll make some pyramids for them!
>Shit taste brah, I'll build some Chinese ones
>You're all faggots, I'm making Aztec dudes

I started playing about a year before TBC.

At the time I went with Horde (Undead), mostly because at the time I was going to my edgy middle school phase. I played Horde until about the end of TBC. (I switched to Blood Elves because you could actually have a pretty model when playing them.)

Around the time of Wrath I switched to Alliance, due to a multitude of reasons. First, I was getting really into the WoW RP scene (Moonguard FTW) and Horde RP is really bad. Second, I had read a ton of the lore/books/comics/etc and found that I liked the Alliance more. Their characters out of the game were heads and shoulders above the Horde ones. (Plus you could make pretty characters with nearly every race.)

Once Cata released I played a mix of both factions, usually starting level 1 and reaching ~60 or so before making another character. I mainly stuck to the Alliance because the blatant Horde favoritism by Blizzard really put me off, and also because the more interesting starter zones. (With the exception of the Night Elf one. It's still horribly designed.)

I pretty much quit after the release of MoP, because I felt it was a horrible expansion/basically only useful as fanservice for the Chinese playerbase. Since then I've come back around the release of each expansion but don't stick around because the game just lacks the charm it once had. I really hate that every character is now the 'chosen one'. "Hey, you're now the leader of the Warriors of the world and have a legendary weapon! Just ignore the other 70 people with the exact same legendary weapon and title 10 feet away."

How the heck have the dwarves not populated most of the Wetlands and let a bunch of human dregs and refugees come over with their shoddy boats and establish a large city?

>Okay, Redfags and Bluecucks. Let's break this shit down once and for all: why did you choose your faction?

1) I fucking hate elves and elf wank. At the time, the Alliance was at least 50% elves and the Horde had no elves.

2) I find fantasy based on African/Central Asian/near Eastern/American cultures more interesting than more generic European/Japanese/Pirate fare because I don't get to play with them as often.

3) After actually playing the game, I came to be a huge Troll fanboy. I also always liked Goblins and when Cataclysm added them to the Horde, I was stoked. I also have a monstergirl fetish and being surrounded by scantily clad Orc/Troll/Goblin girls is awesome.

4) Since all my mains and friends are Horde-side, and I know the layout of all the Horde cities, and the location of all Horde vendors, etc, so it's just easier to keep playing Horde.

probably a titan keeper

>Norushen
He was pretty much a Giant made to be a template for Mogu, which in turn were used to make rivers and later guard Valley of Eternal Blossoms.
True, Highkeeper Ra had to be in creative mood when he was making new Titanforged when he was going south. Tol'vir and Anubisath that he put to guard Forge of Origination in Uldum and Ahn'Qiraj (to be frank, I am not sure if those 4 Watchers in Forge of Origination are Watchers or special Anubisath models).
I am inclined to believe that Ra-den was the one who did the experiments and accidentally made that Blood God when dissecting Y'Shaarj, given he bleeds Anima, and flesh-shaping is a form of blood magic.
And he's the only Keeper alive after having his heart ripped out, while Loken can be permanently killed.

I'm a horde player from day 1. Always loved wc3 orcs and undead. Spent most of my time playing horde in wow and got attached to the characters, but then I decided I'd missed out on some cool stuff so I started playing both sides.

I simply love that the horde are a group of rejects who banded together to create their own path in life. These are all people who got shit on by their peers at some point and they said enough is enough.

The alliance has my sympathy, they got put into a shitty situation and made the best of it. Illidan, malfurion, varian, and now Anduin/alleria have my respect. They are good leaders who only wanted what was best for their people.

As if right now I enjoy the sylvanas trope, a hero who fell defending her people, then became a jaded villain. It's a great trope.

But Anduins trope is great too, as a male I simply cannot deny how awesome "my father was a god dam hero loved by all and I have to rise to the occasion and fill his shoes" trope.

Say what you want about the warcraft characters, blizzards trope game is on POINT

>Since all my mains and friends are Horde-side

This has me worried if my friends ever get back into the game. They're all hardcore Alliancefags and are obnoxiously stubborn about it. I will always prefer playing with IRL friends, but it kinda saddens me how to do that I need to play the faction I don't like as much.

HALT

>Vikings are gay, MINE are gonna be Egyptian and I'll make some pyramids for them!
>Shit taste brah, I'll build some Chinese ones
That was the same person, namely Ra-den. He was also much more powerful than the other watchers.

>Normal Mode: don't give an answer which takes jabs at the other faction
You even failed the Normal Mode lmao

>gee, Aggramar, how come Aman'thul lets you order TWO planets?

>Implying the modes matter.

OK, seems someone needs a tl;dr of how Titans arrived at Azeroth
>Titans arrive, sees Old Gods
>Decides to make army, take a bit of the ground, make Watchers of 2 types: metallic Aesir and stone Vanir
>Empower leaders of both kinds, different Titan gives different powers to some keepers
>War against Old Gods barely won, Titan intervention ripped a hole in Azeroth Keepers had to stabilize into Well of Eternity, Old Gods trapped in enchanted prisons, Elementals banished to freshly made Elemental Plane, which are different kind of prisons. Helya helped (she's apparently a Watcher, but not a Keeper, also quite skilled sorceress)
>Keepers makes Forge of Wills and Forge of Origination to help Azeroth's World-Soul grow
>Place Forge of Wills close to Ulduar, where they set up their main base, use it to create new races, giants, troggs (overcomplicated design), earthen (turned to dwarves), vrykul, Mechanognomes, etc.
>Ra-den makes Mogu, Tol'vir, and Anubisath giants and goes south to install Forge of Origination (reset button in case of life corruption)
>On the way finds Heart of Y'Shaarj (one of remains of Y'Shaarj, which was ripped out by Aman'Thul, which is the reason Well of Eternity was a thing, as the parasite was entangled deep), and takes it with himself to later hide in future Pandaria

In punishment Aman'Thul allowed him to empower only one Keeper, so they're good.

>Tortollan
>Fungarian
>Vulpera
>Sethrak

These better be allies soon.

The Hall of Origination constructs are Watchers, but not Keepers. That's the term used for any giant-sized entity forged by the Titans that never suffered any sort of degeneration.

I'm pretty sure Vulpera at least were all but confirmed to be post-release allies

They have a wealth of datamined character options, male and female models, goblin animations, and a rep faction.

I'd say patch content Horde Vulpera are all but confirmed. Now the real question is, what will be the Alliance equivalent...

There is the one datamined pigman, people have said an ugly allied race would be fun...

>Ra-den is known as Highkeeper Ra from the start
>Odyn got placed as Prime Designate because he was a heroic leader during fight against armies of Yogg-Saron
>Both empowered by Aman'Thul
>After the titans got rekt by Sargeras and parts of their power goes to Keepers, Ra goes all emo and closes himself, only to be later solo'd by Lei Shen, who eats his heart and takes his power over Storms
>Odyn gets so arrogant that he thinks that only he is right
>Disagrees on making Dragon Aspects, claiming only titan-forged can defend Azeroth, despite the fact they are proposed because only Tyr even noticed the incoming fuckhueg problem of Galakrond
>Probably later makes Storm Dragons, because Vrykul likes riding dragons
>Wants to make Stormforged Vrykul, which requires souls of dead vrykul being given new empowered bodies
>Needs for that someone who will drag out their spirits from Shadowlands, so he comes up with idea for Val'kyr, but he needs a first one
>Approaches Helya, who is pretty much his adoptive daughter to him, with suggesting that she'll be first Val'kyr, and she'll make some of the Vrykul women into other Val'kyr
>It means he needs to kill her and bring her back to live
>Helya obviously disagrees
>Odyn kills her anyway, and uses his power to make her always obey her
>When he got butthurt at other Keepers for ignoring opinions of himself, The Prime Designate, he takes part of Ulduar, Halls of Valor, and moves it to Stormheim
>Later when Loken is corrupted by Yogg-Saron, he helps Helya to be released from Odyn's control, to which she imprisons Odyn and his Valarjar in Halls of Valor via curse, and takes most of Val'kyr on her side
>Some decides to not join any side and stay in Shadowlands to become Spirit Healers
Aman'Thul is not good at ordering when not everything is right, especially that it was HIS direct intervention that caused Well of Eternity.

Doesn't address my original point, which is why are the Watchers/Keepers all based on IRL mythologies separated by thousands of miles and years? Yeah, I know the real reason is "Blizzard" but it begs the question why the Northrend Titan stuff is vikings and the Uldum Titan stuff is Egypt.

This is a big reason why I think the Titan stuff should always have been left really, really vague. It was far more interesting when the closest thing we ever truly saw of them was Algalon.

Keepers are Watchers empowered by Titans. Ironaya is a Watcher who is as old as Keepers, to give easiest example.

I need some campaign ideas. Preferably the earliest era being Vanilla.

I'll bet it's because Odyn is made Prime Designate and huge dick, so he hijacked majority of how Ulduar looks, while Highkeeper Ra was creative when taking stuff south.
Also, almost all of Keepers made some original designs of their own.

Fair enough. I like the idea each Keeper had his own favorite aesthetics.

What would you have made if you were in their shoes, /wwlg/? What kind of alien/IRL culture hybrid would YOU make?

I would have said Aztec/Maya, but we're getting that in BfA it seems.

nelves exploring the arrival of the draenei after eating a tsunami in western kalimdor

I can't decide if everything would end up white-and-clear and avoiding the use of straight lines in anything, or just look like someone took Great Zimbabwe and slapped Constantinople's color palette on it.

Honestly my favorite two campaigns are dealing with the defias mystery and their global reach that leads up to Prestor, and the Qirage discovery. The later really, because it's kind of an unknown factor for everything.

The Qiraji were teased as far north as the southern Barrens. They plant that seed really early.

Humans:
>Group of Defias Brotherhood members trying to find out why the nobles fucked up over stonemasons that rebuilt their city, so they can live in luxury, while you have no money now, leading to Katrana Prestor, who apparently have ties to Lord Victor Nefarius, who mysteriously holds influence over Blackrock orcs. Or that she is both backing Defias from behind the scenes, while also being the one who convinced nobles to not pay stonemasons
Dwarves:
>Help arranging "kidnapping" of Moira Bronzebeard, so she can marry her beloved King Dagran Thaurissan, your leader
Gnomes:
>Fighting out of Gnomeregan as it is overrun by Trogg, and running away from toxic cloud that is being released to deal with Trogg (and failing)
Night Elves:
>Establishing of outposts in less forested areas, which you are not particularly used to, like Stonetalon Mountains or Desolace
I hope slight right-before-Vanilla/the very beginning of Vanilla isn't a problem?

Your PC's where from fairly well known families, thus you are all invited to one of Medivh's legendary parties.
At point you sneak off, and find some objects of power.
Trying to discreetly get back to the main area they are beset on Marous, in one of his particularly devilous moods.
The butler drags them to a mid Sargarous mind rape Medivh who turns them into another batch of The Dark Riders Of Deadwind Pass and charge them with finding the /item of power/ dragging them across the mysteries of Azeroth.

Alliance Quillboar confirmed

Did they have to make different models for types of humans instead of making customization like in other games?

I would say that choice of Aesthetics depends on which Keeper was empowered by which Titan, which could mean that's the kind of races they had on their world originally, and Keepers instinctively are copying them. Or from the worlds the Titans have seen over the ages. Any works.

Anyway, I would probably make either Byzantine/Orthodox Christian aesthetics, or some Persian aesthetics.

night elves didnt kill him, we did.