Forest on Fire


Ashenvale always disturbed Trugtold Redlock, he was raised to be a warrior and when Thrall lead the Horde to Kalimdor Trugtold eagerly followed. But when the Night Elves started attacking, Trugtold tribe had tried to push them back into the woods and to reconnect with Grommash Hellscream's logging forces. As just a grunt Trugtold took twelve arrows to the chest and had to be dragged away to recover, and the rest of his tribe continued into the forest only to never return.

Trugtold hated Ashenvale even years later now as he and his adventuring team hunkered down guarding the Skryre workshop from the onslaught of Night Elves. Trugtold's hands moved swiftly loading and cranking his crossbow wishing he could just unleash his axe on the Kaldorei but knowing the elves will avoid close combat until the last moment.

"Whoooo! Burn you dagger eared moon-humpers! Let me show you hell, Timothy more, more fireballs!" Lili Halgar, the Forsaken Warlock, second most veteran member of Trugtold's team shouted at her Imp as it threw fel-fire into the undergrowth. Lili had been a rather unfortunate fourteen year old victim of the plague of undeath. With no family or mentors when Lichking's hold on her was broken, and her family trade of farming serving her no purpose she had wandered Kalimdor until she discovered her affinity towards Fel-magic obsessing over it dangerously until Trugtold gave her his ultimatum, work with him as an adventurer, or he takes the bounty the Tauren had put on her head.

Next to Trugtold a goblin stepped onto the back of it's lizard pet, giving him enough height to aim his heavily modified rifle over the barricade on the forest side of their shallow trench. The Goblin rifle had a small sack jury-rigged onto the top loader where the usual ammo box was placed, the sack having a suspiciously familiar green glow seaping through.

"By all that is profitable Lili, what has you so worked up?" The Goblin, Grevo Shiftcrook, asked of their warlock.

"This mission pays well enough that I can pay off my debt to Gleexke." Lili responded while summoning forth a demonic hound to try and flush out the Kaldorei.

"Wait, I thought I helped you pay off that debt?" Grevo snapped, his rifle finally barking as a green projectile flew into the woods snapping a treebreach off it's tree.

"Well that was my first one, I'm talking about the third debt."

"I told you to stop taking out loans with her!"

"Silence, the Spirits say they've pulled back." The low rumble of the team's fourth member Suske Grimtotem cut off the argument between Lili and Grevo.

Trugtold was glad that he had gone against his initial instinct when Grevo had accidentally let slip that Suske had been a Hellscream loyalist, and instead still let the Tauren join their team. It had been particularly fortunate when the time came and the Legion invasion began and Demons took Ugi from them.

Suske held the team together and even took on Ugi's healing duties. While Grevo had been struggling to keep everyone alive, Lili started losing herself to her Fel-obsession, and Trugtold had closed himself off the Tauren had hammered them all like a earthquake forcing everyone out of their spirals, and back on task, and because of that they had all survived the Legion's invasion.

"Who would of thought the Night Elves would have gone on a offensive like this? Guys seem like blood crazed maniacs more than Elves if you ask me." Grevo complained as he began checking his rifle, taking notes on the wearing on the barrel and both inspecting and suspiciously hiding the ammo pouch he had attached to the top.

"I've seen them like this." Trugtold responded while Lili cheerfully then interjected.

"Yup they were all blood crazy and violent right after they blew up Nordrassil. I barely escaped just a corpse with a knife in a strange new land." Lili interjected earning a rolled eye from Trugtold and Grevo.

"Anyways. If the camp holds out until, well whatever the crackpots in there are working on is done, then we can pull out and still get paid. Just hold on guys at this rate either the Kaldorei are going to run out of people to throw at us, or the lunatics in the workshop finish whatever the heck they're building. So, umm, yeah lets keep our eyes peeled." Trugtold never felt like he was a real leader, his speaches were awkward, and more often than not his team only respected his threats or just followed him into battle without a solid plan of their own expecting him to know what they should do.

That expectation from his team had lead to their current situation. They had come to reinforce the Skaven Workshops when the Night Elves had launched a full fruntal assault all because "well Trugtold Redlock wanted to", they had stayed away from the teams going out into the woods to flush out the Kaldorei because "Trugtold doesn't feel like it so we're staying here", and when the Skaven brought out their own gunline to try and scythe down the Elves with sheer volume of fire the group hunkered down next to them "because Trugtold wanted to go there".

And because his leadership they were now trapped, their chance to escape long gone as the skirmish units were overwhelmed and driven away and the rest of the Horde forces at the encampment and the Skaven infantry were all gradually slain and even the Skaven's gunline was eventually whittled down. So now because they followed Trugtold they were stuck here with the last elements of the Horde's forces and the last few Skaven weapons teams all desperately trying to hold. Just because some damned 'Warlock-Engineer', the leader of the Skaven forces in Ashenvale apparently, wanted to complete some project rather than get to safety and allow them to evacuate the camp.

And then like clockwork their 'liason' scurried over to their position darting from cover to cover avoiding anything that could expose him to the dangers posed by the unoccupied trees. Skrrit Wormthief in the few days that Trugtold had known him had been a... unique experience. Suske Grimtotem disliked the Rat almost immediately, Lili Halgar found the Skaven to be amusing and even wanted to experiment on him. Meanwhile Grevo Shiftcrook was increasingly suspicious around the Skaven, even now he was swiftly hiding his rifle while keeping a eye on the rat.

"Good-Good work. Keep fight-killing!" The Rat whispered to the adventuring party nervously looking over the barricade and from the position of one of the rats sniper teams, and back to the adventurers.

Trugtold simply rolled his eyes, his team were among the only Adventurers that the Rat visited during this day's fighting. At the start of the battle he was filled with bravado and even took part of several skirmishes, but as the battle drew on, and he was called back to the workshop more and more often by the Skaven leader and the team of Goblin engineers inside the more and more panicked the rat seemed.

"So how much longer until it's ready?" Trugtold asked, with an very vocal agreement from Grevo and an eager smile from Lili.

The Skaven's gasmask covered head dipped slightly and he scratched behind his ear. "Well, not too much-lots longer, the Warp Engine isn't filtering to the Doom emitters correctly so we're fix-reworking the the whole engine assembly. We really want this secondary weapon system to be... urgk" Skrrit's voice cut off as Trugtold grabbes the cowardly rat by his head lifting him off the ground.

"Are you telling us, that it's ready to go, but you're trying to perfect it in the middle of a battle?" The Orc leader demanded bringing the Skaven so close that the rat could feel the heat of his breath through its mask.

"What-what y-you do if I say...?" Skrrit's nervous answer was immediately broken as Trugtold carried the Skaven their pace sending the pair to the doors into the main workshop and inside for thr first time for Trugtold since he had arrived.

Inside Trugtold finally got to see the various equipment the Skaven and Goblins were working with to construct the weapon in the center of the bay. Suspended on four massive wheels of wood and metal what appeared to have once been the main bodies of several Goblin Shredders cobbled together around a smoking billowing, vibrating engine with an unknown green glow and cables leading green lightning to odd vials filled with liquid Azerite. Each time the lightning struck the Azerite the vials would glow with enough energy to light the entire room and a metal sphere just above the vials seemed to start to emit a green aura which would quickly fade away.

In place of the Shredder's arms the right arm was instead sime sort of cannon which was tipped with a green crystal, while the left arm seemed longer with a number of buzzsaws installed along its length. The machine in the center was currently being swarmed over by Goblin Engineers as well as Skaven Warlock-Engineers and Engineer-Acolytes. In the center of it all heavily armored and very distinctive Skaven seemed the simultaneously be directing the chaotic work, experimenting with a green crystal alongside a shard of Azerite, and both shouting down at the stupidity the others around him while proclaiming his own brilliance.

While Trugtold's enterance had been far from subtle, only those nearest to the doorway responded to his presence at all. Some yelped in fear moving to run away while others grabbed improved weapons or pulled weapons of various descriptions from nearby. This then began to cascade until everyone in the workshop was either aiming a weapon at Trugtold's direction, or was rushing for cover or to grab a weapon. Only the armored Skaven leader at the center of it all and the angry looking Goblin working alongside him seemed to entirely ignore the commotion.

"No...No, NOOOO! Doom-Emitter essential far bester-stronger than dumb arc caster!" The armored Skaven yelled at the Goblin responding to some statement Trugtold failes to hear.

With the entire bay watching Trugtold stepped forward Skrrit still held firmly off the ground by the Orc. "Hey, you the guy in charge?" The Orc demanded walking ahead as the swarms of engineers all slowly stepped back and away from the Orc still confused and on alert from what they were seeing.

It took several moments and many steps forward before the armored Skaven and Goblin ceased their squabbling and the Skaven turned his attention to Trugtold. The Skaven looked the Orc over once before huffing in frustration.

"Whaaaaaaat?!" The Rat's nasally voice demanded the sound of it rolling through the workbay. One of the Rat's claws was replaced with a bladed mechanical facsimile which clenched and released showing each mechanical blade and the odd nozzle in the the center as it did.

"Do you plan on finishing this thing or just wasting all our time? If you don't finish soon everyone outside will be dead, and you're never going to get to try and finish this." Trugtold Redlock had no time for niceties, he was a man of actions and facts, and in the current situation he had already used up all his patience and polite manners outside.

The Skaven looked Trugtold over scowling, then the Orc noticed some green tinted lenses suddenly dropped and sloted into place on the Skaven's helmet before it looked past the Orc and then all about the facility. "Whoever paid you was far to honest-stupid with their pay. Or they really seek to stop our genius. You all do terrible-bad can't even hold some annoying purple elf-things!"

The Skaven then turned to the Goblin whom he was arguing with, likely someone important but, while Trugtold would never admit it, the Orc struggled to figure out who it was, though if it was someone important his team was likely told during the briefing.

"Fine! Five crew, no compu-thing to make-need less crew. But we keep the Doom-emitter!" At the Skaven's words a groan sounded from among the Engineers as the workers all immediately set to work some of them prying off parts of the machine and using cranes to life component out that they must had just placed into the machine.

This however was not what Trugtold wanted at all. "Hey did you hear me? I said you need to finish this thing now!" The Orc shouted.

"Wh-wait-wait!" Skrrit gasped out now nervously kicked from where he hung in Trugtold's grasp.

"What? You Question Brilliance-Geneus of Ikit Claw?" The Skaven, Ikit's voice was low, damgerous and Trugtold could swear he saw not only a puff of green come from the Skaven's claw but green lightning run along the Warlock-Engineer's body.

"N-no-no! Most brilliant and smart one who makes all others, uh, dumb by compare. We-we good now, not long and then Doomstrom will crush-kill all elf-thing far better than all weapons ever because Ikit make-build best weapons ever." Skrrit's panic filled attempt to appease Ikit seemed to work. However Trugtold noted that the Rat Engineer's attempts to free himself from the Orc's grip reached a fever pitch and every push and tug seemed to suggest that Skrrit was trying to flee for the door.

"How Long?" Trugtold insisted.

Rather than Answering Ikit seemed to ignore the Orc while setting to work, and instead Skrrit took to answering the question. "H-half hour, parts all done and work, just needs to be installed."

Trugtold frowned and growled. "Great...just fucking great."


Nelysea Shadowwatcher roared in frustration, she and her team had been held back again, her sword denied once again. Nelysea physically doubled over, she had now gone weeks without harming anything, weeks without a kill and the Eternal Hunger was soon to take over. She had thought thay she could honor her past people the memory of who she was before the Lich King took her, remade her into the ultimate expression of the power of Ice Crown. But rather than allowing her, her slaughter of the rats that brought her former species such misery, the Kaldorei mistrusted her when she swore before them that she would bring nothing but death and defilement to their enemies. Rather than letting her carve through the Horde they shackled her with these four idiots and left them to rot behind the lines of their current battle.

"Las, stop yer groaning and moping about over there and just join the damn circle, we're up next even if you'd just learn to be patient fer five minutes." Krumann Hammershout shouted pointing to the campfire he and the others had assembled around. The Dwarven gunman the Kaldorei had promised gold to 'fight' for them, yet seemed more like someone to keep her in line and away from the battle glared in her direction.

"I swear, if not fer this milksop here I'd swear all you Knife Ears are overdramatic by default." The Dwarf mocked while jabbing a thumb at his companion, an lightly armored duel sword weilding Kaldorei who was currently looking up from a book and adjusting his glasses.

"Actually I can be rather dramatic if the situation calls for it. But this is different, Nelysea is a Death Knight, so she suffers from a condition which chroniclers have catagorized as..." The Kaldorei warrior Nythealaes Mosswhisper stated in a voice as soft as his namesake.

"Bah, I told you not to ramble. It's yer fault that were here. Supposed to be kill'n smarter larger rats fee quick coin, not these Skeven things." The Dwarf grumbled.

"I said that the Skaven were a race of highly intelligent, bipedal Rats with dexterous appendages cabale of manipulation of a diverse array of multifaceted tools including various projectile launchers and...' Nythealaes trailes off as Krumann pointed his finger at the elf with a friendly smile, and a kind but stern glare.

"Yah know I told you to summerize in twenty words or less. We coulda been gathering Azerite to the South, stuff selling for a premium right now." Krumann grumbled while stoking the flames and adding a log to the fire.

"What is wrong with you two. You wouldn't even join this war if the pay isn't good enough!? Sylvanas was slaughtering people you heartless mercenary scum!" A bear-like entity barked at the Dwarf and Night Elf pair while laying next to the fire and eventually Nikki Rowley shifted into her Worgen form glaring at the duo. Apparently this lunatic naturalist actually thought that a Worgen was her true self, and apparently this lunatic thought she had more in common with the Night Elves than Nelysea did, though truthfully maybe she did, still didn't mean her presence and soft fur wasn't like a beacon begging the Death Knight to torment her. Earning yet another groan of agony from her and another test of her self restraint.

"Nothing wrong lass, just between Nythealaes and myself, we've actually been round the block quite a bit. I saw the first great war, and the third, milksop here was there when Archimode was defeated. We both were there underneath Saurfang when Kalahad struck the Scarab Gong. We fought on Pandaria, and passed through the Dark Portal into the Dreanor of the past. Sylvanas, The Old Gods, The Legion, someone is always slaughtering us. That's why the Alliance was formed, and the Alliance always wins, though maybe your not aware of our overall winning streak, yah know hiding behind that wall and everything." The Dwarf'a grin caused Nikki to growl dangerously.

"Nikki calm yourself, as my father always said 'best to feel angey after you've already kicked their asses, then they can't get free passes.'" The last of the fourth of the group a rarity of all creatures called a Pandaren named Nara Evenspear stated holding her hands in a posture the Death Knight assumed was trying to look sagely.

But while a new deep seated urge to cause death and suffering manifested as pain for Nelysea, Nikki scoffed and challenged the Pandaren. "There's no way in hell your father actually said that."

For her part Nara shrugged earning laughter from Krumann. "He must have said something to that effect, though I admit I may have misrembered some of his wise sayings, after all I needed my memory to memorize every book that has ever existed in pandaria."

Nikki however wasn't having it. "Didn't you say you father recorded every one of his sayings in a boom so you could memorize them perfectly. You are so full of shit! I still remember when you claimed 'i know all the spells' and turned out you just bought a bunch of spell scrolls!"

"I said I can perform all the spells." Nara retorted evenly.

"It is documented that Pandarens frequently distort the truth and tell 'tall tales' sometimes for personal gain. However you can..."

"Oh come off it Nythealaes, are you really going to take the dog's side over a Panderan, fer shame!" The Dwarf gunman jibbed at his companion laughing.

Nelysea just rolled her eyes, she probably could just sneak away and start killing those damned rats herself. She was a Death Knight of the Ebon Blade, she's killed swarms of the Scourge by herself she shouldn't be shackled with warriors of lesser caliber.

"I woul'n't try sneaking away lass. I was paid to put ye on yer ass if you try running off on your own. Now come over and sit, I don't know what you're going through but I know one thing for sure. If you don't have friends, you're going to have to suffer lots more than normal. First hand experience." Krumann Hammershout patted the log next to himself with a smile.

"Oh what sort of corny line is that? What next 'I wouldn't be here now if not for my friends'." Nikki then mocked with a slight chuckle.

"Nah, Aye wouldn't be here now if not for this one trying to tell me we were hunting talkn rats not furry, unbathed goblins. If not fer that id be smuggling Azerite to the Alliance right now and making a fortune." The Dwarf's eyes locked with the cursed eyes of Nelysea after answering Nikki. "C'mon, I can guess or know everyone's story here. But yer the foggiest, it'll do ya better to just talk."

This Dwarf dare assume he already knows her, her the woman who was once a Kaldorei Sentinel until the Scourge dragged her off to strip her of what she once was outside of her skills with a blade and magic and to replace it with everything that made a Death Knight who they were? Nelysea grumbled angrily as she stomped over to the campfire but refused to sit, denying the Dwarf any pleasure of a victory.

"Right, so I'm going to play a game with ya lassies. I'm gonna make a guess as to each of your back stories before ye got here. If I'm right I get to take a swig, if I'm wrong you can either take a swig yourselves or make me or this milksop here take it fer you instead. I'm not guessing about ol'Nythealaes Mosswhisper here because I already know that he's a self trained warrior who lived outside Elf society for a few centuries before the third wae broke out, but he was rejected from the Sentinels because their women only policy at the time. So he immediately took to adventuring and spent time basically doing odd jobs for guilds until he and I met at Ahn'Qiraj war. Anyways you lot get thr jist. So whose first." The Dwarf proposed with a eager look as he pulled out a large keg from his travel pack.

Nikki scowled. "This is so stupid."

Nelysea felt more outrage burning inside. "You dare use my life as a drinkin.."

"I'll go first if you let me drink also if you guess mine right." Nara's voice was eager and her eyes wide and begging as she asked.

"Sounds good! Let muh see 'ere. Obviously you were raised in Pandaria so no good on that, but I'm gonna say your father wanted you to be something mundane, probably cause you were a smarter kid than mos'. Probably a teacher or a librarian of some sort, Milksop can probably give the proper culto-regio-nomic term or whatever. Of course all that reading you probably didn't get out regularly so you probably snuck out or did other riskier things to make your time more interesting." Krumann stated pausing routinely to look over Nara Evenspear as if searching for the answers.

"Wow that's actually exactly it, almost... he wanted to keep the family tradition, forced scrolls on me day in and day out." Nara said with wide excited eyes and soon she and Krumann were both chugging their drinks.

"Wait that's not right. Nara you said your father was a martial arts master who wanted you to take over the Dojo, you said you had to sneak books into your room." Nikki interupted causing Nara to sputter mid-drink.

"Well, I wonder which one is true...welp, bottoms up!" Nara stated with a dismissive chuckle before drinking again, then stopping. "Hey, old man, Nikki next!"

With a eager grin that made Nikki's hackles raise the Dwarf turned to her as he stared at the worgen for over a silent minute. Worried the Worgen woman looked over to Nythealaes for reassurance or support, the Elf just gave her a unclear thumbs up and a awkward grin.

"I got'cha now lass! You're not born in Gilneas, but you were Gilnean by blood. A lesser noble, probably a illegitimate daughter at worst but I'm leaning towards something like the fourth child. Ao they made you that thing that's basically a noble that's only good for cleaning and housework the fancy title for a maid. Probably hoped they could marry you up the social ladder too, so they took the time to make it special. I'm guessing whoever you worked for was the one with animals, so you got to spend a lot of time grooming them. But I'm guessing things went wrong at some point, either just before the Northgate Rebellion or very wrong During the Cataclysm, though that's for later." Krumann guesses with a eager smile.

"Wha... I-I mean no...I was his sixth child and illegitimate. And I was the house's stable mistress." Nikki huffed.

To the side Nara was nearly falling out of her seat laughing. "He's got you pegged girl!"

Nara then sat up, a eager grin as her eyes locked on Nelysea. "Oh do her next, do her next!"

Krumann quirked his eyebrow. "You want me to just continue down the line like I was?"

"Yessss! And let me drink when you get anyone right...and do her and I'll pay you ten, no thirty silver!" Nara was getting more and more excited each second and was softly bouncing in place.

Nelysea glared at Krumann. "Don't you dare." The Death Knight's tone was low and threatening as she slowly pulled her blade.

At the same time Nikki barked at the rest of the group. "Hey don't just do what you want!"

Nara just grinned. "What scared that he's so accurate?"

"He got you wrong, and you just lied to drink with him!" Nikki replied with a growl.

"Or so you think." Nara replied with a dangerously smug grin.

"I said I will..." Nelysea said threateningly her sword half drawn.

"Fo nothing, not to your Allies, not while Alliance law is in effect. Besides all we are doing is talking while I make wild guesses. And after all Nikki seems to think I'm not accurate so what's the harm?" Krumann taunted with a smile.

Nelysea growled then slammed her blade back into its sheath. "Fine. Play your stupid game, but if I think your wrong, I get to stab you."

Krumann stared at the Death Knight taking several moments and changing angles as if he was trying to look past her thick armor. "Hmmm, this one is harder, but I've been around plenty of Night Elves. So, You've been around for a long time, a very long time. Maybe you were a Priestess around the time of the War of the Ancients, but you felt the draw of the sword. You joined the Sentinels, but they all took to the bow, but your commitment to the sword marked you out among the others. You slowly climbed the ranks while holding to your faith determined your calling to the blade was divinely directed. And then the Third War came, you fought bravely, and the Scourge recognized your talents that you used against them, so they took you."

Nelysea was reaching for her blade slowly, ready to thrust her sword into Krumann the moment he finished. But then something resonated and Nelysea found herself freezing in place drawn by the Dwarf's words. Meanwhile Nara watched eagerly with a ever growing grin.

"He's riiight isn't he?" Nara stated with a teasing tone in her sing-song voice, already tipping back her own mug to drink.

Nelysea frowned and then growled. "Whatever. Say what you want. I doesn't change the fact each of you are useless, the moment we attack I will be all that's needed to slaughter these weak worthless mortals."

"Umm actually I thought I read that Deat..." Nythealaes began but Krumann's hand slapped over his mouth silencing the other Night Elf.

"Nah friend, this one is a win. In fact why don yah take a swig wit me on this one." And with that the Dwarf gunman filled another mug shoving it into Nythealaes' hand and the Elf then silently took the drink before gulping it down.

"Ok so which of you three is next?" Krumann asked his grin wide as he looked between the three pointing between them like he was going to try and choose by random.

Nara almost leapt forward. "oh, oh, do Nikki again, do Nikki again!" The Pandaren cheered eagerly.

Krumann laughed. "Right Right, so something deeper, or maybe see if I can guess the next part of her story?" The Dwarf asked leaning forward and staring at Nikki again.

Then the sound of bird whistles sounded each singing in sequence signalling the Sentinels, Wardens, and Adventurers to begin the final assault against the Horde encampment, the assault that should finally kill the cowardly Skaven leader and break the Horde ally's coordination on Kalimdor.

"Finally!" Blade out, Nelysea turned to rush towards the battle.

"Welp seems we'll need to continue the game later. See you all when this is over." Krumann stated as he casually stood grabbing his rifle and swiftly joining Nelysea in marching to battle. Behind him Nikki shifted into a bear once again growling and lumbering to the waiting fight as Nana with a wave of her hand turned the campfire to ice.

And Nythealaes put away his books and glasses, dawned his helmet and drew his two blades hopping and limbering up before running to join the rest of their team.


Reviews:

Guest 1: There's never a solve all for war, thus why missiles haven't solved warfare, nor will drones, and clearly were not stuck with late WW2 warfare. The Alliance and Horde are now going to be subject to more styles of warfare with less hand waiving. (seriously while the art changes the WoW game mechanics are always the same few things over and over again)

Guest 2: Well the dragons aspects aren't really mortals but I'll play. 1) the Dragon aspects that actually matter. 2) Oldest Slaan 3) Dragon children of Cathay (idk where the measure their parents is but mom and dad together supposedly can rival a major god or even maybe a, singular, chaos god) 4) Malekith 5)The other Dragon Aspects 6) The youngest of the Slaan 7) Teclis 8) Arthas as lich king 9) Jaina 10) Malfurion 11) Elf Edgelord himself 12) Anduin if he accepted his bullcra... destiny and actually tried 13) Sylvanas... 19) The Wild Gods 20) Thrall...

But all of this is still very situational, and many of these figures outside of their comfort areas and without their usual support are going to dip in power dramatically, Slaan are a bunch of cheats for example and draw on the magic stored in the Geomantic web, or at least use it to purify Dhar allowing them to pull off bullshit. Jaina is still very much human and without all her artifacts and with her limited (what actual limit there is is unknown, but I assume its slightly lower than her simps think) Mana she can be rather quickly drained and rendered ineffectual. And if Arthas hadn't been a dumbass who willingly neuters himself routinely, he'd certainly be much higher on the list, but possessing power is meaningless at the ranks were talking about if you are too stupid to use it in a competent manner. And even Saurfang probably couldn't find a way to suffer unnecessary deaths fighting against Malekith outside of his armor I mean i say that, but it is still Saurfang he might order his men to behead themselves to prove Horde Honor to Malekith or something to that extent but even then I'm sure Malekith would probably atill be dead before the Orcs awestruck blind love of Saurdang would have them all committing mass suicide.

Jak23: I don't compare the Dragon children to the Primarchs, they're just to different. i mean the Dragon Children don't have a massive hypocrite and moron as their abusive father. Which, Dragon Emperor, well he doesn't care about humans in such a way that any outside his Empire he won't give a damn about. The Moon Empress meanwhile, she's already been elected Empress of the land because she's nice and not a walking POS created by a hack who dared to say that Tolkien didn't know how to write.

Which funny enough about the Dragon Riders...they are one of the reasons I don't accept the End Times. Because they never rode out, and one of their big lore tidbits is that the Dragons will all wake up and we'll have waves of Dragons riden by Elves sweeping over the lands, only then to be overwhelmed by whatever counter chaos has...instead GW forced the End Times and gave fans the middle finger. Leave it to GW to not utilize what they've established leaving fans unsatisfied and vast forces dying off screen, and to Blizzard to establish invincible super god warriors who die on mass to 15 year olds with a basic hunks of metal they picked up yesterday while doing a fortnight dance utterly shattered any and all stakes or illusion of that great powers... power.

And no change in their behaviors. They basically took over Draenor/outland to spread the titan's power...i mean for the good of all worlds. but obviously Mommy Alexstraza will be the most straightforward "we must care for them by having our proxies or ourselves take them over", then Ysera will be too busy trying to imitate the wild gods by being useless and dead, Nozdormu will rant about how he's destined to... god most the Dragon Aspects are so fucking bland and one dimensional. Then Kalecgos will simp over Jaina, be terrible at hos job, or on rare occasion actually exist as a character rather than a living plot point and wish to study this other world and likely take more interest in the wall rather than a egotistical blond bitch who thinks saving people and reenacting the Holocaust is the same thing. and if were in the future Dragon Aspect Ebyssian will be wait for it... bland and boring somehow inspiring people by being either a coward who does nothing or by being a yes-man... should have been fucking Wratheon, can tell you exactly what he'd do, somehow it'd fuck up, but he'd try to get the noble houses to join the Horde or Alliance.

Dragon King of the West: Any Vampire is a problem, though most newborns, or lesser vamps usually live existences worse than a Empire peasent both because the basic weakeness of a Vampire.

Thanquol's problem there is warpstone is pure Dhar and he uses Dhar, which in it's properties its more like a Warlock who can use both Void and Fel at the same time, which considering Dhar is necessary for Necromancy it basically im WoW terms encampasses all three evil forces combined into one magical essence. Perhaps decay would be the closest raw substitute.

BloodRedRoses11: A very hilarious direct Ethernet connection in that Thanquol fucked up bad one time and accidentally summoned Skarbrand...and rather than kill him found the whole thing amusing and made a contract with Thanquol, so Thanquol can basically bypass the summoning restrictions that Warhammer usually has for Daemons and can summon Skarbrand just by calling out for him...but of course Skarbrand is Skarbrand the moment Thanquol does that, he's dead. But it also makes Thanquol the only known being to have a Greater Daemon like Skarbrand linked to his soul in such a way.

ScruffinMcguffin: The Map of Sigmar's Empire never changes, every Temple of Sigmar does not recognize Marrienburg and the Wasteland's independence, it's merely in rebellion and will be reclaimed in due time. The Empire can grow technically but those lands are still not part Sigmar's Empire.

That because this isn't fantasy, its a documentary of pure fact ;), on my side it is marked fantasy, first thing i did and it's still marked as fantasy on the uploader.

Hakuryuu: Truly a sad state for the people of Azeroth mind controlled by egotists in Blizzard to sacrifice without end and without recognition or even eventual payoff for the sake of the company proxy character whom never even intended to be their stand in but was made to be anyways.

Whaaaaaat Thanquol not making good decisions? Personally i think sabotaging your allies right before a major battle is brilliant ;).

Yes since the clock is turned back to the start of the war, she is, Jaina doesn't go home and experience a suprise that "allowing enemies to butcher everyones friends and family and then never explaining yourself or even bothering to message home while advocating for said butchers" doesn't really make you many friends. Seriously why did she expect her people to only be upset because she never called home? i mean her father even openly proclaimed he was there to rescue her when he arrived.

Correct although you should also note, and this is tinging both sides view of the other. Warhammer if Sigmar wasn't a God, or there wasn't A God behind their cult, then nothing would happen when they invoke prayers. Azeroth any cult or guy vaguely praying without even knowing to what, can evoke the six powers, case and point the Church of the Divine Light, they had no Naaru, no grand teacher, they were just praying to a vague idea (their core tenents are still just a vague concept that are purely insulting to anyone whose studied philosophy or theology...or both) and bam resurrecting people from the dead baby! So for Azeroth any one of the Mallus cults can be absolutely fake, where Mallus, the fake Azerothean cults clearly have some God behind them, perhaps one of the chaos gods at worst. And in how Andy Law just recently put it, for the Mallus Gods they're just sort of there, they could cause famines or floods for any old reason and so you pray to them more to ask them "hey could you not starve us to death" and so long as they aren't a particular asshole among the pantheon they'll probably consider stopping the famine. Where Azeroth the Light is fhe fundamentals force of Goody goodness with nothing negative ignore those Scarlet Crucaders and lightbound over there, nothing the light or its followers does is bad ever because all acts of goodness ever are all the light.

Captain Günther is entirely out of his depth, and he already thinks he is yet so much more so than he can imagine.

Actually makes sense for Yuan Bo. Particularly if you know the Old Cathay lore bits that have been assigned to Yin-Yin besides the fleet catastrophe, which lets face it, would you trust her again after she lost 100 years worth of continueus shipwright work (france replaced their entire fleet in under a decade for comparison and their main problem was funding it and the work wasn't non-stop) to some bad weather? But the parts of Grand Cathay she also represents is the more sheltered portion, she also controls the wealthiest port arguably in the world, and certainly the wealthiest human region in the world. Most of the rest of her character is actually tied to these ports and Cathay's wealth even in the TWW game, and even on launch of the game she was the Dragon we knew the most about after the Iron Dragon and Storm Dragon, and i was telling people to expect her either to come after Nippon or Kuresh and her story to likely be more of one opposed to the Dark Elves since they are her actual foe as 99% of their attacks on Cathay are attacks against her holdings.

But everything said I'm willing to bet she's the greediest or most materialistic of the Dragon Siblings. Where Miao Ying rules over the guns and tech Cathay and treats her descendants like military serfs, Yuan Bo rules the central and administration of Cathay and treats his descendants like trusted employees, and Yuan Zhao rules the Warpstone Desert, the alchemy and western caravans of Cathay treating his subjects as family. I'm calling now that as ruler of the Eastern Coast and admiral of the fleets she views her people and her descendants as her possessions and will be the most determined, she's going to get that discount despite having enough wealth on hand to buy the whole fucking franchise.

Ravenguard0009: "Hey Ner'zul do you remember invading the Empire during the time of Sigmar? He's this human with great hair and pecks so great you'll turn gay on sight...yeah you never met him you'd remember being jealous that loin cloth. Also i'm sure Nurgle would have sued you for attempted copyright infringement."

Thanquol has a very unique way of fucking up and failing upwards, even though I'm sure even GW has forgotten since they listen to and respect the fans about as much as anarchist sociopathic criminals listen to the law. "Hey GW i know Warhammer Fantasy is only 5% of your profits, but maybe if you invested more than .5% into it and actually produced new models and cheaper/more effective movement trays...well i mean the investment to return ratio is already pretty good all things considered." -Fans "I think i heard a filthy poor person speaking, hey hey i have a great idea, how about we nuke our own game and setting at the same time we put out a huge new model line, and attribute all those models sales and successes to the brilliance of this new game, despite the fact that they actually comparatively under perform!"

Whaaaaat leaders not participating or pulling out of a Alliance because they feel looked down upon or unappreciated. No one, especially not Greymane would ever know what that feels like. isn't that right King of Gilneas who pulled out of the Alliance because a certain Dragons fuckery made him feel his people were unappreciated and being used by people who looked down on them... man if only Gilneas had a KING, especially one who could be sympathetic towards such sentiments rather than the Stormwind cheerleaders head chearleader Genn Greymane. God i hate Genn's heel face turn, he became the very myth that was used to convince him to leave the Alliance in the first place. There's "I was wrong to leave the Alliance originally and it's the best hopey people have now"... and then there's King Genn "fuck the peasents they deserve to live in kennels, none of my quests involve improving the quality of life for my refugee citizens, just simping for the High King" Greymane.

Well we've seen the Alliance outright support the toppling of governments like the Empire. Often to be replaced with Alliance appointed rulers, or at least Alliance sympathetic ones. even at times when the previous rulers had been seeking peace and a non-violent union of their state to an Alliance one... sooo yeah. The Empire already is grating on the Alliance's sensibilities, because even if some of the previous events are written off as "whoppsies" the fact you hired Adventurers to do what they did in the first place says plenty.

Ahhh the glories of religions, particularly ones with well documented evidence, aka daily intervention by the powers of their gods if not the gods directly. Warhammer Fantasy loves to walk that line of is ir mundane or is it god/magic*insert history channel "aliens" meme guy here* which i love because you never quite know when that arrow your using is a regular arrow or some one time use magical never fails to hit arrow. Makes the magic just that little bit harder to quantify.

Alliance has Cavalry, but cutscenes and gameplay certainly suggests that Alliance has been transitioning their cavalry to a more "mounted infantry" concept which has always had its pros and cons, the cons being extremely visible when said infantry are expected to fight using melee. But also Anduin's probing, the troops are already on the move, that means there has to already be some basic strategies in place, and majority of the time Alliance seems to adore just mirror matching with the Horde to give drama to what should otherwise be a entirely one sided near genocideally apocalyptic stomp.

JiggyliFAP: Skavenwood presents Warp Trip, the story of when a glorious movie rat took so much warp dust the Horned Rat become jealous.

And yet what's attributed to Russia, and what's possibly actually been done by Russia somehow magically are beyond what the Horde is willing to do... thanks to Blizzard's consistency of being utterly inconsistent. But the example has more to do with time frames, and how clearly no one on Azeroth actually puts any effort into stopping enemy forces mobility... or maybe WoW fans, its like i first implied and Azeroth has such a low population overall that they can't really do that in the first place, because the Sentinels being AFK for such a short time isn't a excuse. As example the Vietnamese farmers kept China's army stuck in the northern most provences while their side's entire army was invading Laos holding the line, aka the opposite of what they did vs the Americans aka being big dicked chads...yet Azeroth's premeir super power, the one state that can solo the Horde or Alliance failed when fighting against a commander who thinks the more of his men are dying the better he's doing.

While I doubt the Skaven would abandon the Horded Rat, per say maybe make a new rendition or revive the other Skaven God ideas, that GW shelves long ago. Though certainly they'd very likely ditch the Council of Thirteen...almost like we have a whole Great Clan to use as the example of Skaven doing just that.

Yes and No, its a original creation based off another quest item and an old in game item one translated ancient text, the other let you understand and talk to the other faction...which got scrapped after toxic behavior by players behaving in the perfered Blizzard social standard.

Thanquol has never summoned Skarbrand and honestly I think that it's a good thing ... would have been a cool sort of final moment for him, but makes sense why he never ever summoned Skarbrand again.

Skaven aren't ever going to connoisseur's savoring tskes self control, and that isn't something Skaven have when it comes to food. However we have slight evidence of them enjoying drunkenness along with blatant evidence of them liking drugs and the feelings they bring.

Almost certainly doesn't know...also the Alliance...or Azerotheans in general also seems prone to forgetting and rediscovering things...like the concept that drooling monsters saying "i will slaughter your entire planet" aren't good materials to simp over...*cough* Elf morons *cough*

Anduin has to think of alternatives, after all WoW, and by WoW almost certainly the Alliance in particular, loves to have 1v1 mirror matches as battles.

Yeah those lore sessions are good fun, and its nice being able to go "yes i was fucking right!" and also fun to have other exceptions and views shown. Part of why i wish there was something along the line of those two for Warcraft...but at the same time i understand why not, especially since most former writers for Blizzard either were cut off entirely or are horrible people who probably can't be trusted to speak on the lore in a honest manner.

MadFrog2000: These adventures are the greatest, Murderhobos and insane rat.

But the problem with Murderhobos is that they are fully dependent on plot armor when facing Undead. heck for how moronic Arthas is in permanently weakening himself and nerfing the hell out of the Scourge when the world was just as terrified of the Scourge when it was being run by a guy deliberately sabotaging the Scourge, and Arthas was actually trying to win (Got to Love Blizzard trying to ressurect forces they themselves entirely eliminate thus recontextualizing those forces as incompetent and impotent sometimes in the very same expansion) If Arthas could turn Murderhobos in a supposed instant after having over 50% of his power permanently stripped, you know Vamps can to a lesser degree.

micelzod: Something something, balance nature, something something, genocide sapient cats, ????, balance achieved due to extinction of cats. Despite being older than dirt, and having the self restraint of an addict toddler, apparently the Night Elves don't have their own version of the lost wolves of Japan/yellowstone*pick a place it's happened so often there a good chance that if wolves live or lived there then its happened*.

With how often Blizzard claims their animals have near human levels of sapience and how often those same animals are pushed to near extinction by Alliance quest lines... it all depends on the sugar coating and levels of "just following orders" style copium.

Deadliestfan: Yeah part of poor Thanquol's problem is that Dhar is combining all the eight winds of magic for a corrupted result, like how combining all the colors of paint gets a blackish color. Even raw Fel wont work, you'd need to mix it, probably the best combo would be a mixture of Fel-life-void.

Hey don't forget the Skaven virtues of fear and paranoia.

Vampires aren't "people but different" psychology and fundamental needs they're certainly different than any other creature. part of why i simp for Ulrika because her books get that, and still keep her loyal to her homeland and to humanity, even as she partakes in the fundamental natures of a vampire and a Von Carstien and Lahmian.

Renee is a vastly under utilized arctype in WoW's main story telling (would have made BFA's rebellion believable if they presented characters like her on the rebel side...rather than an alliance puppet, and an alliance puppet with an alliance simp as a bestie), they need more of her particularly to sell the "there are good guys among our faction" narrative Blizzard tries to pull to justify the civil war good vs evil strawman BS. And she certainly is on point.

Sadly for Genn and Anduin this isn't a time where they get to be Gamera movie Kennys and just automatically know more about Mallus than someone born and raised there, they have to work with limited knowledge and make intelligent observations and have insight and even dare i say self reflection... truly a horror beyond horror in the minds eye of a Blizzard or GW executive, what next feelings of guilt for cruel practices?

The reason for why everything uses that as part of their anti-swarm tactics is a two fold. 1) chockpoint concept, even in a open field you can psychologically create a choke point for enemies to have to force themselves through, obviously it's not going to be as effective as a real one since its just a mental one, but there's a large number of odd moments where that psychological factor actually plays out and allows an outnumbered defender who should have lost to win, the Choke point concept is infact so prevelent that some people theorize that it the central aspect of all war that war basically revolves around controlling passages or creating barriers to force enemies into fighting for said passages, and 2) reinforcement of forward/back (i blanked on the real name of it) psychology of soldiers, soldiers perform better and are often more courageous when the simple formula of Friends to the side and back, enemy straight ahead is in play. performance significantly drops by the mere presence or possibly of a hostile that could attack them being their on their side this was true in 700 B.C. and is true today and is even a factor the Russians and Ukrainian soldiers are/were both complaining about as that war has progressed. (part of why i hate Saurfang's claim about formations, if he's actually fought in something other than 1v1 duels, he'd know how distracting the mere presence of someone who might or might not attack you being behind you is you figtht better when all your enemies are in one direction and you just need to focus your attention that direction)

"what whose Rogers? Sky Admiral, you mean to say WoW has them floaty in the sky dohickies?" -the curse of the battle of Lordaeron. But I'll restate, Anduin's doing his due course as is in his character, he knows he has cavalry and his own skyships, but he needs to think of every angle, particularly those of his allies, if Anduin's going to be the leader Velen claims he will be he needs to be both certain enough in his own actions to stick to them while able to ask for advice and seek out alternatives, and from everything we've seen of him pre-BFA I think he's certainly got those traits and abilities. Before Blizzard turned him into the whote boy fantasy alternative to Trek's Space Jesus, all praise the Sisko, may he ever bring us to the wisdom of the prophets.

Oh for sure Skaven are vastly more problematic than the Forsaken, but if you base the complaints around "they eat people" or "they murdered civilians" then the argument drops right out from under you as the Horde's good friends are sitting there dining on their 'recently tortured to death innocent child souffle'. The Horde's problems with the Skaven have to come from other facets of the Skaven and their society, and this is just a weird Skaven trend in the Lore but when it comes to Non-Skaven on a society to society scale (so certainly not individual to individual in that they're still rat bastards) they tend to take longer and overall (still a incredibly low bar) be more honorable than they are Skaven to Skaven but I think that's because the Skaven's racism and Paranoia ironically plays out to the benefit of other societies and generally even individuals Skaven haven't enslaved. Though that point I can't pin if it's because the Skaven's nature as a whole, or if it's the dictates of their leaders being 'respected' by fearful underlings, or a mixture of both. Best the Skaven can hope for is basically all being like Gallywix.

Dragon Isles i honestly HAVE to give them that pass, or I'll flip, because there is not magical mist, Dragon Isles are a straight retcon of the "gameplay is lore" statement because when that statement was made, Blizzard was factoring in multiplayer into the setting lore and i mean many places are built straight from the concepts of multiplayer maps. So by "Gameplay is Lore" the Scourge, Alliance, Horde and Night Elves have all fought on the Dragon Isles already so they had already been there so we should have had the Dragon Isles before Pandaria at the latest. But again this is how Blizzard studio was operating in 2004 vs almost any time after and why i stick to using the Epistemology of Fiction video approach so I don't get caught up with having to match a company's attempts to push product and can instead use the games as a guideline to find the most likely law of reality and methodology for their world. and it makes more sense if the Bronze flight, or some other force phases the isles off the planet entirely so even if you were at the right place, then all you'd find is empty ocean, which its the Dragon Aspect and the Titan Keepers with Titan boons, they should be able to pull off such Geomantic Web levels of magic bullshittery.

That's actually a good suggestion with the internal Silver Hands politics. Personally I don't know where/how to fit it in, but I'll have to take time to think it over.

story we want to tell, almost always signals to me a weak or unimaginative and lazy author/director/executive being involved. Kathleen Kennedy made a statement in a similar vain saying there was no comics or books that could help them with the story they wanted to tell, cue the fans showing a liat of hundreds upon hundreds of official Starwars books and comics KK could have used. But Blizzard isn't the only one, the Warhammer End Times is a giant case of that which made the whole event entirely shoehorned and just unsatisfying, and then AoS was built off that effectively ruining AoS's start for anyone who cares about lore as opposed to being focused on shiny new models. And even now i feel AoS still suffers too much of the same flaws with 40K that lead me to preferring the Warhammer Fantasy setting, which is especially ironic since AoS is supposed to be the "diverse" setting, yet has less of it than Fantasy did.

But that's why especially with like the War of the Thorns and BFA, and such I want to give their leadership a fair shot to be intelligent people rather than the lobotomized vegetables Blizzard reduced them to. Honor and Intelligence are not mutually exclusive, neither is Faith and virtue and Intelligence. why Blizzard's writers decided that people with those traits should act like such tactically inept morons to such a extent where you wonder if those characters had ever heard of a past war ever happening, IDK... But Saurfang, Sylvanas, Anduin they all deserve to have their chance to shine... and maybe Genn can even earn my respect as a King...i doubt it, but maybe he can actually act like one.

So Dreanei are demigods on the same level or more than High Elves from Mallus, so we can sort of handwaive them a bit. The Horde's Red Pox was bioengineered to target orcs specifically and then was further twisted by Demon blood, so it's understandable why it might not have spread and then the Demon Blood could be used to explain why the Orcs didn't get affected by Azerothean non-magical pathogens (plague of undeath still worked) they picked up with of course subsequent generations being conceaved by orcs who had the infections so they were raised with the infections and likely got leapfroged into having the same sort of immunities your basic Azerothean has. As for from Dreanor to Azeroth, I'm thinking it's something like what i labal the Sub-saharan anomaly. There was obviously more indirect contact between Subsaharan africa and Europe than the Americas and Europe, but it was so little ans so distant that they were effectively alien to eachother, yet the European Diseases were easily endured and beaten out by the Africans and their diseases and while the Sub-Saharan ones had vastly more lethality and such success in Europeans that they effectively locked europeans out from Africa least the European compromises and agrees to living a nine month lifespan, their dieseses never transfered to the American plantations or sugar fields, and never sweap through Europe claiming reaping huge portions of the population. Which is something of what i think would (and should have) been true for Dreanor at least until it became a Mortal Kombat stage then the disconnect, the magic and the sterilization and decay probably killed a huge portion of the dieseases...but certainly large portions of the Horde and Alliance forces who invaded past Dreanor should have been suffering severely. Also Azeroth has light magic healing, which I doubt life magic can differentiate a unknown diesease (a form of life) from all the rest of the life its invigorating and boosting, but certainly the methodology behind light magic seems more to target what is bringing you harm to soothe and remove it. Still might not be 100% effective but if most of Dreanor viruses are immediately harmful or fast acting then it is likely to work.