Author's Note: I wrote this my sophomore year in high school, feeling bored and such. I thought it was amusing, and I'm publishing it here for your amusement. This probably has a lot inconsistencies with the current lore of WoW, and it's based on what was then a recent expansion pack, The Burning Crusade. It'll be a bit outdated considering I haven't played WoW since then, so bear with me. Enjoy.
In the outlands of Azeroth, there is a land called Zangarmarsh. It's described by many credible sources as "a hauntingly beautiful swamp covered with a forest of giant mushrooms." Of course, to all those who are familiar with how this intricate system works in the dimension of Azeroth, it's not surprising then when someone tells you that they died in Serpent Lake. There are two reasons why they would've died: One, they fail at gaming, or two, they're a gnome. It's just how it works.
Now the point of this essay is to explain to Azerothians (and Outlanders, but that'd be kind of unnecessary, since there are no races that actually originate from this continent, besides the wildlife) why the latter happens.
Zangarmarsh is known for its climate of perpetual rain and general "blueness." More so, it is known for its incredibly massive mushrooms. Of course, these mushrooms are naturally occurring fungi of Zangarmarsh (who were, as experts assume, once normal-sized). The reason they became the size they currently are is due to a situational error that occurred thousands of years ago. A drought, lasting approximately three months, killed off 90% of the indigenous wildlife. The ten percent that remained were the microscopic snakes and other useless moth-like creatures, or a few mosquito-like dragons. The Dranei became aware of the situation and quickly provided provisions for the Outlanders as soon as they received word, but the fact they were light-years away and their technology wasn't as refined, the rejuvenation of the Outland and its inhabitants occurred, but not in the way that the Dranei expected.
Anyone who understands the lore of the Dranei know that this race is particularly excellent at crashing and screwing things up. This instance was no exception. Let's call the provisions the Dranei sent the "Care Package." Now the Care Package came in about seven different ships, all powered by the mana from the top-notch mages. Of course, top-notch Dranei mages really means "the second-worst mages in the history of the Warcraft universe." (Troll mages happen to take the award of sucking the most.)
If comparatively mediocre mages were managing the Care Package (the seven ships) they would have gotten it right by distributing each ship to a particular region of the Outlands. But no, the Dranei mages were too busy drinking their pretentious cup of Goldthorn Tea, and decided that sending it in the general direction of Outland would be sufficient.
Of course they were wrong.
"It's the thought that counts," you may say, "They were trying to help, right?"
No, not in this case. If you're going to screw up something of this magnitude, don't even attempt. They screwed up. And sent all the ships of the Care Package right into Zangarmarsh, specifically in the Serpent Lake.
Before the Care Package was ever there, Serpent Lake was actually just an insignificant puddle with insignificant mushrooms. (I suppose not insignificant to the microorganisms living there...) After the Care Package's effect (which contained a large amount of rain and growth-serums), the puddle became a lake, the microorganisms became six-feet carnivorous snakes and serpents, and the inedible mushrooms became three-hundred-foot monstrous fungi that permeated the immediate area with particularly-lethal-to-gnome gases.
So this is how Serpent Lake became what it is today. Now sometimes the unsuspecting newb (or even occasionally the absent-minded hardcore gamer) ends up in Zangarmarsh on a quest. The only reason they're given a quest in Zangarmarsh is usually because the jerks in Aldor's Tier in Shattrath (fun fact: Aldor is actually a Dranei-ran cult that worships the Naaru, a trippy god-essence thing) give them out. And the only reason they give out their quests to gnomes despite the potential danger of that gnome's life, is because they're racist and they still feel bad for completely ruining the natural ecosystem of Zangarmarsh and make peace-offerings by sacrificing gnomes to the serpents. They're afraid that if they didn't continue on with this unjust practice, the serpents would turn on them and eat the Dranei's Elekks, and therefore wouldn't have a decent mount to carry them around Azeroth or wherever they want to go.
So the Dranei are just an undependable, selfish, and lazy race who enjoy killing off gnomes. No one can blame them, though. Gnomes are gross.
Anyway, so as a gnome goes through Zangarmarsh, he experiences some minor flight-sickness that he usually ignores, since he gets the same kind of feeling when he drinks too much at the local inn in Dun Morogh. Now as he comes closer to Serpent's Lake, he begins to feel this completely new feeling, similar to the effects of LSD. Anyway, he falls off of his flying mount (and since gnomes are the nerds of Azeroth, their mounts are typically some techno-gadget flying machine. If it were a living creature, they might not have died, but they're too dedicated to their robots)
As they fall, they fall to their death at the bottom of the lake. Serpents aren't known to be the kind that turn down meat, especially gnomish meat, considering that there's a certain flavor to gnomish meat that one really can't describe. After the serpent consumes their little meal of gnome-flesh with fervor, they reach a state equivalent to nirvana, and somehow get their wings and end up on top of the mushrooms. I guess that's kind of saying that along with the delicious taste of gnome-flesh, the gnome-blood gives the serpents their wings (like red-bull to humans). After they end up on top of the mushroom, they reproduce and have many serpent offspring to continue on this circle of life, predation, and death.
You might be asking, "Why don't other races, like dwarves or humans or elves, get affected by this mushroom gas?" Truth is, humans don't because they've gotten immune to it from taking small amounts throughout the history of time. Dwarves don't, because they're stocky, and usually they have dependable flying mounts. Elves don't, because they're immune to everything. Dranei obviously aren't because they're in cahoots with the serpents, and technically, they created the mushrooms to be the things they are anyway.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that gnomes are fragile little pansies that show that even in a gamer's world, there are those who are inferior. And gnomes are those people.