Ring of Fire
Trugtold's eyes slowly opened, the ceiling above him was the familiar slanted red common among Orcish architecture. How he had gotten, wherever here was was incredibly foggy. Last he remembered he was in Ashenvale, holding the line against the Alliance for...a weapon to be made? That sounded right but still, he felt sluggish and rather weak.
Finally Trugtold raised his head to look around the room he was in. Nothing about it seemed familiar, there were brown sheets and furs put up blocking his view of elsewhere in the building. Even looking about the room however was a rather painful experience. "Doctor, the cadava he's awake!" A feminine voice, high pitched yet coarse and crude shouted from just outside Trugtold's vision. And then a goblin woman's face was in Trugtold's her fanged smile and the gleem in her eyes promising Trugtold that she possessed all the malicious greed of her species. Though her approach as she inspected his bandages suggested a soft, and genuinely caring approach that contradicted her race's nature.
"Careful Nurse Goldsteel, what did I tell you about harming the poor man!" The second voice was male, capable of powerful projection and deep, yet soft spoken. A Tauren then walked into the room, dressed in a series of white robes and with odd tools clipped to his chest.
The Tauren looked down at Trugtold with a wide smile on his face. "You're a very lucky man. If that that Witch Doctor hadn't known about healing sickness, you probably would have died."
Trugtold squinted, perhaps he was worse off than he thought. A Tauren, dressed up and called doctor was trying to tell him that healing has a sickness. "Wh-what..." The Orc finally forced out his first words through a scratched and pain filled throat.
"Shhh, you don't wanna die do yeaz? Truth be told, I didn't get it till doc explained. Basically everyone has demself a limit see, and most people dey die well before hitting that limit, and most who do hit that limit, well they die almost immediately after. Afta all most magic healing is like a bandage, or a booster shot, only works for a bit before your own body has to take over, afta that..." The Goblin Nurse Goldsteel began but was cut off by the doctor.
"Nurse, please allow me. Now as your doctor, I need to advise you on your current state. When someone receives healing from a magical source, there is typically two ways it manifests, either mana is used to recreate and replace whatever flesh is damaged or missing and that is merged with your essence, or your life force is boosted and your body is pushed into a state of rapid regeneration like that of the Trolls for example. However in actuality as the replaced flesh accumulates the more such healing taxes your life force and essence, until your body weakens too much to supply your new flesh's needs, or starts to reject the new flesh all together. This was called Healing Sickness by Trolls who were the first on Azeroth to encounter this phenomenon. For them while less likely to be fatal it almost always lead, if untreated by proper medical techniques, would result in the body no longer being able to regenerate an afflicted area, like say a missing limb." The Tauren explained in detail before looking down to Trugtold.
"You were on the verge of death when they brought you to us. Not something as rare as I had hoped when I first opened up this clinic. But your back, heart, arm, and your legs, were all stricken by the phenomenon known as healing sickness, and without several days of careful treatment your body would have simply ceased altogether and you would have passed away." The Doctor then elaborated.
"Where's... my team?" Trugtold gasped out still trying to will his body to move but struggling to even properly move his head.
"I don't know, the Adventurers who brought you here said they found you and your companion in Ahsenvale traveling south. Apparently he carried you quite some distance before they found you." The Doctor responded.
"Companion?"
"One of those little rat people from the other world."
"Come on, You don't want this Death Knight. We all fight you die." Trugtold boasted, praying that the Death Knight was injured enough that maybe the claim would be true, or perhaps they'd buy it anyways and back off. Because there was no way his team and he were in any shape to fight the Death Knight currently glaring them down, but there was also no way they could just let her kill the Skaven leader and throw the Horde's allies into complete disarray.
Tense seconds passed and Trugtold could feel his heart hammering in his chest. Damn it, buy the bluff woman, there was no way he was going to let his team die after they had fought their way through a Ancestors Damned encirclement of fucking Elves. Trugtold knew his team, Lili was good to go, she might be insane but she knew herself and her limits probably better than everyone else in the group... if only she could read other people she might even make for a good leader. Grevo had been complaining of being out of his 'special ammunition' for a while now and most of his spare gunpowder was used making land mines and traps around the camp. And Suske had been with Trugtold on the frontlines and was almost as battered and bruised as he was.
Only Skrrit Wormthief had been spared from much of the fighting, but that cowardly rat had only been occasionally useful. Trugtold knew he'd be worthless against a Alliance Adventurer, never mind a Death Knight. There's no way on Azeroth he'd ever be able to hit her with anything that damn Rat's aim was so bad, missing with the damn rocket and blowing up the other flank of the battlefield.
Trugtold felt a bead of sweat roll down gis temple as the Knight almost imperceptibly adjusted her grip on the accuraed Runeblade in her hand. Finally after several tense seconds the Death Knight spoke. "I'm familiar with death. And I'll burn this whole forest down if I have to in order to fulfill my oath."
Trugtold wanted to scream and curse, of course the damn bitch wanted to fight to the death, because of course a Death Knight wouldn't get tired or give a damn that they could be cut off from their comrades and possibly die alone. Still despite her proclamation the Knight remained unmoving as the armored skaven glared and almost seemed to hiss at the Death Knight while holding his Halberd. What was his name again Cricket Caw, well whatever it was maybe Trugtold could coordinate with him on the sly and they could make a fighting retreat.
The crackling sound of flames, and the pop of fire causing sap to boil stopped Trugtold. With a glance the Orc could see flames spread across the canopy of the trees overhead. Soon falling branches carrying flame began to come from above and the fires spread, if they remained in this fire for long either the smoke or the flames would likely trap and kill all of them. Yet the Death Knight still didn't move more than some subtle shifting in her wrists and her shoulders to maximize her stance against the assembled Horde and Skaven.
Then in a instant the tense standoff backdropped by the spreading flames was broken. "Errgh, Hurry and Kill-Kill!" The armored Skaven leader shouted green power coursing through him before a bolt of green lightning shot forward striking the Death Knight's shield quickly throwing her off balance.
Immediately the attack was followed by Grevo, Lili and Skrrit each attemptimg to shoot or hex the Death Knight. However the Kaldorei's natural speed and agility allowed the Death Knight to recover before Lili could finish uttering the single syllable spell, or the two gunmen could raise and fire their weapons. And so seconds after catching the Skaven Warlock's spell on her shield the Death Knight was swiftly deflecting a single bullet and cutting through the magic carrying the hex with her blade. As expected Skrrit's bullet was wildly off target, but the shot the Rat fired worked almost as a signal as the Halberd carrying Warlock, Trugtold and Suske all charged towards the Death Knight and the battle commenced.
"Doctor, what was the Rat's name?" Trugtold asked the Tauren doctor while Nurse Goldsteel climbed onto the bed standing over Trugtild with a stethoscope in hand.
"Unfortunately, I never asked him. I'll go ask. Nurse, be careful not to step on our patient." The Doctor stated with a polite smile before turning to walk away.
"Gotcha Doc. 'sides I don think he's the type to enjoy dat, though if you are, I'll do it if you're willing tah pay ten coppa." Nurse Goldsteel replied to the doctor before lowering her voice and whispering to Trugtold at the end.
"No." The Orc deadpanned in reply.
"Shame, you're good enough dat I could use you like a chair as you walk around, if yeah know what I mean." The Goblin stated with a coy smile.
"I don't really want to." Trugrold grunted in response.
"Sooo, just breath in while I use dis, stessiscop ta check yer breathin'. Also gonna use a guage to get yer blood pressa, though again, i could just step on ya, I am real..."
"No."
"Kay, kay... So I figure you were fighten dem Alliance up north, were you trying to conquer da mountain or sometin? Oh say ahhh, gotta check yet mouth." As the Goblin spoke she pulled out a thin wooden stick.
Confused Trugtold obeyed only to have the stick shoved in his mouth. "Ahhh...egghhh. Nahhh... I mean No, we were securing a camp that our new allies wanted to use for making a weapon."
"Oh cool, did it work? Also Doc says no leeches or bleedn you, but yer blood pressah seems high we need to figure out a way to lower it, I'm willing to guess dat da magic put too much blood in yeahs." The Goblin summerized after a while of listening to Trugtold as she looked over the results her various tools gave her.
"I've never heard of too much blood before. And no, I don't think the weapon worked." Trugtold answered with some snark to the Nurse.
"Well that sucks, I mean you got this beat to shit and da dang thing ain't even work. I'd ask for double if I was yous. So gotta ask, how many Alliance did it take to get yous dis bad?" The Nurse stated while Trugtold endured her prodding in silence.
"Just one."
Trugtold was the first to reach their Death Knight enemy his axe coming down in a powerful two handed swing. The arc of blow meant to entirely remove the Knight's sword arm. However with a single hand the Death Knight's Runeblade caught and forced aside Trugtold's axe. Then the Skaven Warlock's halberd was knocked aside by the rim of the Death Knight's shield which barely avoided the weapon's destructive blade. Even Suske's own staff strike was intercepted and blocked by the the Death Knight's armored boot.
The Knight then swept her blade, but Trugtold was a veteran, and lunged into the blade, knife and bracer working together to keep the Runeblade from cutting into him though the strike broke Trugtold's arm, a break almost immediately healed by Suske's totem magics. However this was just the start of the Death Knight's own onslaught. Following after her sword came the rim of the Death Knight's shield shield, complete with it's spikes the shield slammed into Trugtold's face breaking his nose and tearing his flesh, one spike gouging deep into his socket and barely missing his actual eye.
Still the blow momentarily blinded Trugtold and blood gushed from his nose as he stumbled back with a roar of pain. Acting swiftly the Orc blindly warded the area in from of himself with his axe while his other hand grabbed the flask holding his healing potion, thinking quickly he spashed his face with the potion before drinking the rest. As the potion did it's work vision slowly returened to the Orc warrior.
Suske was stumbling back healing a broken wrist while testing their damaged staff. All while the Death Knight knocked away the Halberd of the Skaven Warlock only for her kill strike to be defered as she was forced to use the blade to strike down a leaping Fel-hound only for a round from Grevo's rifle to deflect off her helmet stunning her for a second which was more than enough time for her Skaven target to start running away while Trugtold could step in swiping his axe to try and split her inhalf at the waist.
The Death Knight stepped forward dodging into the Axe strike taking the blow from the shaft of the Axe while avoiding the weapon's blade which barely scraped across the armor of the Death Knight's pauldron. But this lead the knight into Trugtold's responding kick, the Orc's push kick which impacted the the Death Knight's shield and sent her tumbling back. But as the Knight fell her blade caught Trugtold's leg cutting him open along the entire length of his thigh.
"Ahhhgh, Damn it!" He roared as off balance and unable to put pressure on his now bleeding leg Trugtold collapsed onto the ground. And while Trugtold slowly fell, his opponent rose to her feet, her shield deflecting another gunshot and her sword blocking a wild strike launched by the armored Warlock and his halberd.
As Trugtold lay, a trembling hand reaching for another flask full of potion the Skaven roared its outrage at the Death Knight. "Gaaaah, Die-dieeee!" The ratman shouted as green lightning launched from its halberd, barely missing the Death Knight who threw herself aside, and instead impacting Trugtold with enough force to send him flying back and away from the pair's skirmish right before a miniture rocket, thrown by the Goblin Trugtold had seen before at Ikit's side, inpacted the Death Knight's chest.
The explosion threw the Death Knight back into one of the burning trees. As a massive hand grabbed Trugtold's shoulder lifting him off the ground. "Drink! Let the healing take place, you can't rest now, let's finish the fight." It was slower now, even as Suske shoved potions into Trugtold's mouth while his totem boosted the Orc's healing through magic regeneration. But soon enough the deep cut in Trugtold's thigh sealed even despite the Runeblade's influence.
While Trugtold's ability to stand on his leg slowly returned the Death Knight steadied herself before charging for Lili. The Warlock tried to stop the onrushing Death Knight with her own barrage of magic yet the Alliance warrior broke through each spell weathering the damage, or simply knocking the spell away with their sword. Then the Death Knight was on Lili, the warlock raised her staff both trying to channel a spell to create distance between her and the Knight and to block, however the blade cut her staff in half and Trugtold felt a twinge of worry as a spray of long dead blood came from Lili.
"Damn you!" Trugtold shouted now rushing full on for the Death Knight while a string of bullets sparked against the Death Knight's armor further denting it and breaching weakened portions of the Death Knight's armor. Flames wrapped around the Death Knight as more burning branches fell about her and even bounced off Trugtold's back. But as each painful flame covered branch hit him the Orc shrugged off the impacts, now he couldn't care about the pain, that damn bitch was trying to kill his team and there was no way in hell he was going to let her live long enough to try any more.
The Knight blocked with her shield but Trugtold would just strike again with more force. He pulled back to swing again just as the Death Knight thrust her blade into his chest reciting some words that caused Trugtold's blood to painfully boil within the veins. But the Orc pressed on and brought the axe down, this time the blade shattered the Death Knight's sheild, forcing her to drop it.
But even as Trugtold grinned in victorious defiance of the Death Knight her fist connected with his face before a green coil of deathly power emerged from her blade and leapt to Trugtold causing the Orc to roar in agony so immense his vision left him. It was only for a moment but even as this happened he could hear about him, the panicked scream of Suske, and the enraged snarl of the Skaven.
"I said Die-Die damn she-thing, Obey!" There was a click and a unfamiliar sound to Trugtold. Maybe it was Suske's shouting, maybe it was the guidance of the Ancestors, maybe it was Lili's leg that the dazed Orc stumbled on. But Trugtold fell down to his side, the Death Knight's blade missing him by less than a inch and, as Trugtold's vision returned, a wave of green fire consumed where he had once been standing. The Death Knight was engulfed in green flames causing her to shout in indignant pain before she leapt over Trugtold and after the Skaven warlord who had turned her into a living torch.
However as she used both hands to bring her blade down on the Skaven with all her might Suske stepped in shoving the rat aside and the Death Knight's Runeblade instead split the Grimtotem Tauren's chest open. As this happened a green bullet clipped the Tauren's horn causing it to break even as the round grazed off the Death Knight's thigh armor.
Still Suske stood strong glaring down at the Death Knight while sweeping up his staff to strike her. Behind him Grevo was punching Skrrit in the face trying to pull the still smoking pistol for the terrified Skaven's paws. As Grevo pulled the pistol from the Skrrit's paws and began reloading Suske's staff struck the Death Knight's chestplate bringing with it the might of the Earth Spirit bringing the full power of a Earthquake to the blow. The Knight's armor then cracked, amd further warped slowly becoming a useless wreck around her body.
But while she was being rocked by the full might of the earth, the Knight's blade caught and ran across Suske's throat. The force knocking the Tauren back and away before he dropped to his knees. He began attempting to heal himself, but blood fell like a waterfall from the Tauren.
All while the Tauren bled the Death Knight recovered and stood above her Tauren prey. Her ruined armored barely clinging to her body, pieces falling away with nothing to keep them connected. Trugtold could see her malicious smile as she raised her blade to deliver the death blow.
"Such on this Dagger eared bitch!" Grevo shouted leveling Skrrit's pistol at the Death Knight's chest and pulling the trigger.
The weapon exploded, green and red flame with black smoke completely claimed Grevo's hand and Trugtold could swear he saw a red mist in the smoke. But the failure of the weapon was not total as the bullet still launched, a green streek crossing from Grevo to their enemy and connecting with her sword knocking the weapon from her grasp.
Trugtold was unarmed, he was weak, his vision was blurred. How many days had he been fighting for now? How many times had arrows pierced his flesh? Why was his while being numb?
No now wasn't the time to think of that. The Death Knight had no sword in her hands at the moment, and he had to be stronger, he was a ORC! With a grunt Trugtold grabbed his last potion flask, and threw the glass bottle into his mouth. The plan was mad, but so was Trugtold. As he grabbed and threw a rock at his target the Orc took off for his enemy a deep personal hate in his eyes.
The Knight's fingers found her blade and she raised it in defense, but Trugtold was now too close, the sword's tip stabbed through his bicep but Trugtold's fist found the Death Knights head and his weight threw her onto her back with him on top of her.
His teeth clenched, the glass shattered and potion filled his mouth while glass shards cut his gums. But he sucked in the glass and potion letting the healing power flow through him as he allowed the Runeblade to stay embedded in his flesh only using his other arm to beat away. Five, punches, ten, twenty, the metal of the helmet and Trugtold's own strength broke his knuckles but he kept punching. Thirty punches and the helmet finally broke away revealing the snarling face of the Death Knight beneath.
His fist was more than broken now, bone jutted from open wounds in the Orc's fist which was now mangled beyond recognition. But the broken bone was perfect for tearing into the face of the monster underneath him. Fifty, Trugtold couldn't see, couldn't hear, he was doing something, punching something but he couldn't think why only that he had to, he had to keep punching, keep punching.
He kept punching, he had to keep punching thats all there was was punching...why was he punching? Trugtold was tired, why was he tired, he didn't know, he had to... to something because... it hurt so much maybe, maybe if he just stopped for a moment. Wasn't he doing something right now? was it important, he remembered he was doing... something that was... he was so tired, why was he so tired. Shouldn't you rest when you were tired? Then why was he moving? He should... it was something important wasn't it? He should stop.
"He-he stopped move-jerking." A voice muttered, it sounded scared. "No-No, keep move-jerking. Need you live if more Elf-things show up! More of the punchy killy! I didn't drag you all this way for nothing. Eeeeegghhh, heavy!"
The voice sounded annoying, but maybe it knew what was so important that Trugtold had to do? Maybe it could... he was just so tired. Maybe just let go for a little bit...
"Errrrrg I should have just eaten you! Stupid dead Orc-thing! Not-not even good meat shield, arrow still hit my precious foot!" Hmmm? The voice was squeaking again, but Trugtold couldn't understand it. Still it was funny sounding enough, though the attempt at a humorous snort from the Orc only caused more pain.
"By the Horned droppings! You live-alive still? Damn it wake up! How dare you make Skrrit carry yo..."
"I tell you dat der be voices dis way mon. It be bad juju to be ignoring voices in da woods..." Now there were more voices, more familiar sounding ones, somehow that felt right. Maybe he could rest a little and let them take care of, the thing.
"Jus one Alliance did all this to yea? Wowie that's pretty bad luck mistah Trugtold. They must have really had it out for yea." Nurse Goldsteel stated finally just taking a seat at the foot of the bed and looking over to Trugtold.
"Yea knows. You ain't too bad look'n, too many scars fer my taste, but I could name a few ladies who'd pay top coin fer a night on yous."The Goblin stated.
"I'd rather not." Trugtold answered simply.
"Jus saying. But whateva, your loss. So dis Alliance guy didja get em?" The nurse sheugged off the Orc's refusal before asking more questions.
"I... I don't know. M-my team... my team gave our all, a-and I blacked out towards the end." Trifold stated, a hopeless breaking feeling clutching his heart as he gasped out the admission.
"Eh, happens to da best of us. Once I flew on muh Uncie's flying contraption. Darn ting went so high an so fast I ended up gettn knocked right out. Something 'bout blood an da legs or somefin. Oh mistah adventurer, have you ever been flying 'fore?" Honestly Trugtold couldn't think if he should have been grateful for the odd distraction of the Nurse's question, or upset with her attitude.
"Well I've ridden on my share of flying creatures, and a few zeppelins." The Orc adventurer stated.
"Meh, dey don count fee nuttin. Everybody rides a Zeppelin at least once in der life and dem flying creatures while dey are good its not like you're da one flying. The rush of pulling the stick and going up an down and fasta or slower." The Nurse now had her hands in front of her like she was oddly using the reigns of some animal or maybe steering the rudder of a ship.
"I'll have to take your word for it then." At that moment the Doctor returend with a familiar small Skaven at his side.
"Nurse Goldsteel, what have I said about bedside manner?" The Doctor chided causing the Goblin nurse to leap off the bed.
"Now my dear patient I've decided to bring your travel companion to join us here. Now if you wouldn't mind, our patient has a few questions for you sir..." However the Doctor couldn't complete his sentence as Trugtold's roaring voice took over.
"Skrrit, you miserable little coward. Where is my team? You better have a answer for me or there's no way that horny whatever can protect you from me." Trugtold's voice rumbled with the promise of unrestrained violence and Skrrit's knees trembled in response.
"W-well-well you see-hear...thats..." Skrrit stammered in fear.
"JUST ANSWER!" Trugtold would not wait any more, he needed the rat to answer now.
"The-the fires were spreading. Trees falling and the Elf-thing horns were getting closer so I grabbed you because you were still move-fighting so I could use you as a shield. I don't know-saw if the the others were still alive, but the cow-man-thing must have still been he was also still moving." The Skaven confessed in a panic, and Trugtold swiftly realized he was looking at the Skaven's actual face for the first time ever. A pair of glasses rest between Trugtold's spiteful glare the the fear ridden eyes on the other side. The rat's oil stained brown fur was slightly patchy even making a bald spot at the top of the Rat's head.
"You left them to burn to death!?" The bed ridden Orc roared.
"N-no-no! The-the-the-the Goblin was still conscious, the-the one with the rocket! And-and, ummm, ummmm, the other one the mean one. He was drink-eating a potion...yeah-yeah they are entirely fine-fine." The Rat was obviously saying what Trugtold wanted out of fear, but it everything he said was very plausible and Trugtold knew Suske had been healing himself. Surely the Tauren didn't know about the 'Healing Sickness' so maybe everything was working out in the end.
"Yeah-yeah! And since that Death Knight ran-fled away they-they don't need to fight." The rat continued to ramble which caused Trugtold's blood to run cold.
"She...she survived?" Trugtold gasped, he gave everything and that monster was able to get away.
"Y-yeah...she eventually pushed you off her and limped away once she realized that Master Ikit was already gone." Skrrit eventually admitted while scratching his head nervously.
Beside the Orc the goblin nurse gasped. "Yous telln' me that afta everytin' dat Alliance Death Knight's still kicking... Fucking awesome. I hope i get to watch da rematch."
"Nurse Goldsteel!" The Doctor roared.
"What?"
"Beside manners! Think of the patients!" The Doctor insisted.
"Oh...Yeah, umm sorry Truggy. Didn't mean to...yea knows." The Nurse apologized with her arms behind her back kicking her foot shyly.
Trugtold looked down on her then shaking his head in slight disbelief. "It...its ok. So long as my team made it we should be good to go. Even can get that rematch your excited for maybe."
"Yeah!" The Nurse cheeres pumping her fist in the air while skipping in place. "You go go get 'em you stud muffin!"
Trugtold turned back to the Doctor. "I need to find my team, and I don't trust that idiot to find them on his own."
"Why should I help-help you find them?" Skrrit shouted in indignant offense.
"Because you owe me your life rat, or if you want me to kill you now?! I'm gonna keep you under my boot until you pay me back in full." Trugtold's voice dropped low with a rumble of dark intent.
"...umm...umm yes-yes Skrrit will happily help you in any way possible master Trugtold, master Trugtold sir." The Rat almost immediately snapped into grovelling.
"Ha I bet he gets off on being a Sub, totally calling it." A high pitched goblin voice laughed as the Nurse fell over laughing.
"Nurse Goldsteel! Bedside manners!"
Reviews:
Guest 1: So if we're talking human users, Light is better since one guy can do the job of two. But the minutia, Lore of Life is better, since some of its more "casual" healing spells (from the tabletop, and even the TT caating buff) can bring back people from the "dead/dying" state which while the light has plenty of spells that also do that, it's generally not on the same scale. But Light doesn't have the inherent flaw of Ghyran where it can't differentiate between a plague and all the rest of the life in your body, but at the same time the Jade Wizards have spells to cure plague which ironically is specifically meant to cure blight and named Cure Blight.
As for the Lore of Light... basically their tabletop and videogame spells are just outright their best spells, the rest are either so hard, or so specific that THE Light's spells are just flat more useful. And even if you don't adhere to the roleplay and tabletop spells and go more into spells that the Lore of Light could or should be able to use, the Holy Light spells are still going to be better for utility due to the nature of Hysh and Hysh spellcasting.
Though on the respective enemies bit, Hysh is pretty much the only one of the three listed magic lores that can outright END a Daemon or arguably a Demon (I don't actually think so, but the nature of Hysh could potentially entirely undo the make up of a demon seperating Fel from flesh leaving a dead husk and obliterating the sentience that is the Demon) But still for overall combat, Holy Light even vs Chaos, but Ghyran otherwise because I'm going to fucking troll the shit out of enemies with their spell list and you will die of thorns, tree's bitch slapping you, and puddles of water all while I'm playing the healer who every time i cast anything someone nearby get the benefit of what would arguably be a minor WoW healing spell...every time I cast. Its like Final Fantasy MMO combat healing.
Guest 2: They did the Horde dirty, period. Warcraft 3 spent all this time building the Horde as a reformed Alliance of races that are traditionally "evil" or "evil-to-neutral" and made them guys who still would obviously fight the Alliance and didn't bow to the High King of the Alliance, which somehow makes them evil in Blizzard's book, wanting to have sovereignty over your own culture and people. While a good story overall so i can't blame Blizzard they did Garrosh dirty by reducing him to being just a villain, guy had a chance to be far more compelling and interesting than Arthas could have ever hoped...instead he's the "Die Whelp" guy. Vol'jin then was our hope for a Horde reset back to what Warcraft 3 left us at...and then they immediately killed him, and had Sylvanas do a 180 on her plot progression and go full villain... all through contrived deaths that were borderline off screen deaths that Blizzard almost made as a afterthought.
I mean the only reason I can possibly think for them to kill Vol'jin alongside Varian is that Blizzard thinks Alliance players are a bunch of soft skinned babies who'd immediately quit the game if the Warchief didn't also die alongside the High King...or they were setting up for BFA and Shadowlands, but both of those were so poorly written in comparison complete with "we wrote it badly on purpose" responses from Blizzard associated writers I honestly doubt they had thought out the Sylvanas and Jailer plot yet, so my first theory carries more weight.
And for anyone going "but Vol'jin meant the Horde and Alliance wouldn't fight anymore"... really? So when Thrall was Warchief no one dicked with the Alliance? No one say, found a man in Stormwind garbs washed up on the shore, enslaved him and took him to Orgrimmar to fight as a gladiator only to find out later that this man was actually Varian? No one say, kited a world boss all the way into Stormwind city? No one used god awful plagues against Alliance member state citizens and openly attacked Alliance settlements both ones featured on the Azeroth world map, the WoW world map, and those not on the maps? I mean for hecks sake, the Horde and Alliance fighting in Legion alone proves why those two sides"fighting on the same side" means about as much as it did to the crucaders at Constantinople on April 13th 1204. I mean lets put some of the ALLIANCE (the lesser of the two offenders during the legion expansion) actions into context. Sky Admiral Rogers bombs people who should be considered their allies, out of spite, and gets a slap on the wrist, followed by a increase in finances and authority and Genn who assisted her... basically is adopted fully into the Stormwind nobility, since the guy you know if a fake ass fucking king and apparently forgot he had his own nation of people to tend to the needs of, Stormwind isn't Star Trek Earth people Genn's people are vulnerable and likely hungry and STILL in need of recovery and the guy hasn't lifted a finger to help them in years. Now lets translate this into the real world, Aliens invade earth, Battlefield Los Angeles style but vastly less competent (because the Legion is 99% incompetence and .00001% pure unadulterated demonic badassery with the remainder if that percent being "meh they're ok") and so Russia, China, and the USA and NATO agree to put all hostilities, and current conflicts on hold to stave off the Alien attack. Millions die, the Russians seemingly fail to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of a US carrier group and the US carrier group is killed with all hands. The Russians spend half their nuclear arsenal fighting the Aliens and decides to build more nukes ...so a US admiral and a British politician blow his house up...in retaliation for the Aliens killing a us naval fleet, and the admiral is effectively then allowed to bypass the secretary of the navy from them on, and the British politician is made an US Senator, rather than punished for trying to kill an allied, or at least neutral head of state, while actively ignoring the ongoing war with the aliens.
And how are we to expect that Vol'jin would have stopped petty shit like this from happening? Or prevent bullshit like this from spiralling out of control, say into another massive war, especially if say some petty asshole wearing the Alliance lion decides to drop a plague canister on Darkspear Isle, like say a Dog who hasn't been held accountable for his actions...ever all because he sang the south park sadam "i can change" song. Extrapl points if that Dog is Genn, extra extra points if Genn was mind controlled or possessed (the Alliance get out of jail free card for fucking everything). Enough righteous vengeance right there to spark a war, wouldn't you agree, and much better reason then to have the Horde reach out to the Zandalari, and it would reflect better on the insideousness of Sylvanas (assuming we keep her and the Jailer as the badguys with no change to the Jailers plan whatsoever) than what we got instead. Eventually Vol'jin could be finally shown evidence that it was Sylvanas, or N'zoth who was behind the actions Genn was "framed" for and so little about the war would have to be changed. not that much happened besides the destruction of two cities anyways, everything else was on uncharted islands, off screen, or players killing old god shit that wasn't even part of the war. And if we reeeeaaally. want Sylvanas to take over and lead the Horde for BFA, then have Vol'jin die as a sacrificial act at the END of Legion and have him die sacrificing himself for Anduin, Velen, or Illidan, two of the three of which would be rather symbolic having a troll die for them since they are the races who screwed the trolls over the worst in history, and no "but they worked with Varien during mists" yeah and their reward? They got to live. This would have set Baine and Saurfang's actions in BFA to have more impact than "oh no my pen pal will be sad if I don't prioritize his people over my own" and "the Horde aren't all beheading themselves to show off how much more honor we have the alliance, me hate horde now."
Guest 3: Again Skaven are deceptively cooperative, but thats because they're reality Hollywood evil. They'll all work together without indiscriminate murder, unless their name is Alec Baldwin, but this is only if they think their something to gain otherwise they'll gladly throw you under the bus and revel in the blood splatter as it runs you over. And considering that the body count in Hollywood allows for a relatively stable population even among humans, those evil infested scum must have some measure of cost/benefit analysis on a scale similar to canon Skaven... though with Disney I do wonder when the mouse decided to fire his Skaven management team and try to strike out on his own.
Guest 4: Dragon Ogres are more intelligent and have the greater size range, while plenty are a little smaller there are plenty more that are much, much larger, including one all famous example who is the size of a small mountain. They're glory and largest examples are all relics of the past slumbering never to wake even during the "end times" (AKA GW's AoS sales pitch and middle finger to the fans) but they also have a more impressive rivalry with dragons, because while the Aspects are by far more impressive than most Warhammer Dragons in terms of Size the Warhammer Dragons the Dragon Ogres fought were greater, and well most Dragons "today" are vastly more impressive specimens than your average WoW Dragon (WoW Dragons instead have shapeshifting and don't suffer perpetual drowsiness because the Titans were more about biocrafting a new slave race, rather than changing the ecosystem into something the Dragons bodies can't agree with... so comparsrive nice guy point Titans Old Ones, i guess)
Dragon Aspects on the overall have the edge, though in reality they have 17 years on Cathayan Dragons, and that's including the Dragon Emperor and Great Bastion. On a One to One, I'd still have to give it to each dragonflight except Green, their aspect could learn a thing or two from Shiyama...hell all the wild gods could, considering how she's putting in the work while dead. And depending on Shen-Zoo's story, if GW bothers to give us a completion of that arc or even an explanation, she could well end up 1v1 outshining any of the aspects but as it stands, no and i doubt GW will give us anything special from her. Despite what her role in Cathay supposedly was and that considering she just decided to solo the realm of Chaos she has all the markings of a major badass in the making, as it is right now she hasn't done jack or shit, and GW isn't likely to allow anyone or anything thing cool to compete with their precious Age of Sigmar, i mean they handed CA Warhammer Fantasy expecting it to fail. (hint GW, maybe its because CA did more with Warhammer Total War 1 than you did with the entire model and codex range in a decade)
Guest 5: Not really, the Old Ones dipped for sure, but they spent all that time preparing the races they made specifically to deal with Chaos, and the Naga of Kurresh were originally labeled the Chaos lizardmen. So likely anything the Old Ones gave to the Lizardmen could be subject to being compromised. Even the departure of the Old Ones was more they were fleeing, from the consequences of their mistakes or from defeat at the hands of the Chaos Gods is uncertain. Though there is still "tech" or biological variants they could have left to the lizardmen or given to them if they stayed, honestly it would have made little difference if they stayed or left since all their work was with future-sight... But the game company named GW is staffed by morons who think "oh wow shiney new model sells good, must because the End Times event and AoS pamphelt we wrote that directly insulted the fan base and told them everything they ever liked makes them stupid awful people who deserved to burn in hell, can't possibly be because even people who don't play the game saw the models and thought that those were the coolest fucking shit they had ever seen in their life because how amazing the models looked... yeah new models sell good because new game, certainly wouldn't have done anything to help improve sales for the old game... wait what do you mean that joke we made about letting CA make a Warhammer total war is selling better than our game?" (noted I don't hate Age of Sigmar, but honestly it's gameplay I was very apathetic about, and i can't get invested in any of the characters. I like strategy games for strategy, not for RPG-style metaplay)
As for the Lizardmen being active, they actually were fairly active, but their areas of control don't overlap with the Empire so we don't see that much of it. But they sent troops to fight against Nagash when Nehekara rebelled against him, they control a full continent and a half, and are supposedly active in Ind and routinely fight against Kurresh, not to mention certain Dragons having it out for them. And thats a expansion if a "old" lore bit, the times were Cathay and the Lizards ever came up in the same book there always seemed to be the implication of tension between the two, or their forces were from opposite backers and fought on far sides of a battlefield from one another. As much as everyone seems to love the Empire that was one of my big disappointments with the End Times because i knew we hadn't flushed out the world so major races were certain to lose out...and oh god how right I was and how bad it was.
BloodRedRoses11: what did you expect Blaze the cat?
no no see that's the secret brilliance of Azeroth, if you think differently and don't worship the exact same god, Paying Blizzard a 1K of your income a month... i mean Anduin...i mean the light... then obviously your corrupt and must be punished by the plot for your awful crime of existence.
Dragon King of the West: If you think that, that weapon is a little on the weak side but still horrific enough. And certainly displaying a point of the one things Ikit is worked up and generally upset about and trying to solve to help perfect his weapons. As for those Horde adventurers they certainly would be through a lot, days of fighting, breaking out of a Alliance Encirclment to eacape a Death Knight...only to run straight into it.
Hakuryuu: Well he's participated in making the vast majority of the Skaven's successes leading into the End Times, and before then...well Doom Sphere. But of course it's commonish, you have to be some level of insane to raise up their ranks, because that gives you the false confidence needed to gain their respect and fear.
Problem there is how two faced the light is. Cutting off Arthas for killing Plague infected citizens, most of whom were already zombies by the time he reached them, yet allowing the Scarlet Crucade to use the equivalent of a light nuke to murder people simply for not donating enough to the light. Acting like its a peaceful and distant force, then constantly filling the Dreanai's minds with visions of military conquest being performed in it's name... telling a death army to spread its word and leaving out the crucial "peacefully" part of the order. I mean that's like Hilary Clinton asking America'a top assassing to 'handle someone' and then acting suprised when that person the next day fell down a elevator shaft onto some bullets. And yet whenever the big named characters of the Alliance are around, "well that's all these little individuals fault, I don't have the power to strip them of their powers (ignore what I did to Arthas)"
and the Teclis/Deadliestfan comment... i think the 'he thinks' portion following the 'say without problems' has me confused. Because if it's Teclis, there isn't much for him to say. if he can't use them as a shield for Ulthuan or their proxy in the war against Chaos and the much more important Dark Elves then does it really matter? And if your talking Deadliestfan, you know he doesn't have thoughts on anything so don't bother asking him his opinion directly ;) ('your a awful person" shut the fuck up me. Besides I'm fucking hilarious)
Actually I had the Tesla coil in my head as a thought of the description for the physical design.
Mimas41: You tempted me into writing around the fight skipping it entirely while writing a chapter about buying food and friendship.
Jak23: Hahahahaha...you serious? The Empire Knights are a dying breed, their glory days are behind them in the sands of Arabay and they have to constantly fight not each other to gain recognition and resources, but against the State Troopers and Outriders. And to win that recognition in a positive manner runs the risk of entering a death spiral of integration, coordination, and unappreciation.
Meanwhile the Bretonnian Knights are organized, the entire Feudal System itself is nothing more than a classic military ranking system applied to public offices and politics at large. The Knights Errant some among their number are units that quality as child soldiers, the rest aren't "a rabble of dudes in armor" but are well organized (if still politically motivated by default due to the feudal system) military units who command levy (aka: conscript) soldiers that they then loan to the wider army. You're average Bretonnian knight will have far more field experience, far more material support (even at the expense of their levy troops if they must), and will have significant amounts of time serving with the fellow Knights of their unit unless they had just ascended to a new strata of Bretonniann nobility and are thus moved into a new unit. And to compound this, entire Bretonnian armies carry the Lady's blessing, including the Levy troops who by law aren't even allowed to worship her, and who by law are taxed for not worshipping her. And to help emphasize, the Knights of the Blazing Sun (inferior to the outriders of the Blazing saddles, but at least their sheriff isn't a N*gong*), made more publicly famed by TWW are among the few Knights of the Empire as Blessed as a Grail Knight, yet they lack the experience, super human physique, and are far less likely to be carrying a magical weapon that is then blessed by their God which is more the case with Grail Knights as they, as Questing Knights, not only gave up the lance until they fulfilled their quest, but had to supply for themselves and were prone to... noblely acquiring magical weapons off of battlefields. A Questing Knight is the closest thing to a outright "adventurer" from Mallus as how Azeroth pretends their adventurers are, complete with getting paid in pocket lint for taking on quests.
Now my Girl Myrmidia, her Blazing Suns and Righteous Spear (operating out of all the old world including Bretonnia) she's got the Achilles to Bretonnia's Hector in terms of training, but considering how unpopular she is in the empire comparatively, there's no question that Bretonnia by the time you become a Knight of the realm you and the unit you're part of perform and are better than your imperial counterpart, both as a individual and as a whole. But if you're looking at the mainstay knights of the Empire and not the Temple Knights your Knight of the Relm will outclass them in every regard, they and their retinue/unit have been drilling or on the battlefield for just as long if not longer, and they have their own levy troops they also will likely learn to command, morivate, and sort of lead. And if they hit the point of being around and becoming a senior knight sometimes referred to as Gallants by codex, well they're certainly much better off. It's the errants who are the ones who are shit on and deserve it since they're baby's first warhorse and the Errants also make up something akin to 1/4th of the Questing Knights since a Knight can have a good number of sons (and, depending on GW's mood, daughters) who can't all inherent his lands through proving themselves as a Knight Errant. and yes I'm of the mind set that likely 0.2%, to 5% of all Knights errant and probably a half that percentage of, or at least self proclaimed, Questing Knights across Bretonnia are made up of females but with a near 0 of Knights of the Relm and and a absolute 0 in Grail Knights (Lady of the Lake Homophobic by modern standards? doesn't want no boobs with her man meat, she's not a easy hoe like Slaanesh).
Also if CA's influence takes hold over Old World, and based off a Changling Grand Scheme mission, we may get Bretonnian Ghosts serving under the Green Knight and looking for redemption in the future.
JiggyliFAP: So for the Skaven, again it's not immunity it's resistance and a pretty high one. which i know, certain WoW fans take it that if their Dark Irons have a 5% fire resistance they can walk through lava and resist dragons breath. But the Skaven's resistance is a very particular one, focused primarily on substances that corrupt and unlike the "resistance" of the pure beings of Azeroth, a half second's exposure to a random artifact that some lesser demon sneezed on once isn't going to instantaneously warp them into some near unrecognizable entity like it would with a Wild God or Dragon. But otherwise that paragraph *chefs kiss* perfect.
On the souls. 1) I don't do that springboard stuff, but you have to have a connection to be pulled back, that doesn't make it perfect, but considering how extensively different the physicality of both systems souls and magic are, there is a primacy, Azeroth souls being "too heavy" and Mallus souls being something that "can't be touched" (i mean you can casually fistbump the dead on Azeroth without Necromancy being needed) 2) Morr can't cross, but that doesn't say anything about his blessings or magic, otherwise any Light User and any Cult Priest would be worthless once crossed over the portals.
I know game mechanics vs story well enough especially when it comes to mounted and the like... but when books and short stories take a shit on mounted combat... while in the same book praising a war machine with shopping cart wheels as a ultimate war machine... shopping cart wheels, vs a living creature who has the ability to step over obstacles. And IDK why everyone in the AAA and Hollywood scenes thinks a mounted warrior isn't cool unless they're copy pasting the Ride of the Roherium, but a single knight bursting through a dense but thin line of burly armored warriors to decend on one dude is plenty awesome... but i spent too much time reading things like Kingdom, the Illiad, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms etc, as a kid. God forbid that Blizzard try making a "mundane villian" look badass through simple visual storytelling and display of skill... surely that has never ever worked, especially not a in a trailer, isn't that right Elder Scrolls Online: High Isle launch cinematic?
I know and knew you knew, but needed to lay out the clarification especially the discussion and record.
WoW cosmology is "simple" and still bullshit, you have the six great powers but they are not all encompassing. Shadowlands isn't in death, its a death aligned relm which for the purposes of the souls in it requires elements from the other six powers to sustain them. much like how the Emerald Dream is life aligned, yet was bent to the designs of the Titans, or how Demons are the exact opposite of the Titans, yet have a Titan as their leader. The Vampires may be able to persist on Azerothean Blood, but they almost certainly can't break free from their dependance unless they drink the blood of something equally insane from Azeroth, like the Dragons, which is ironic, but that's still going to be a little more iffy, since the bit with the Vampires is that they're more or less trying to fix a vague inherent flaw in the Loci that serves as their soul and specifically it seems like they need the blood to steal a trait that allows them to filter the winds of magic into multiple states. So for a theoretical example (this is pure theory) Taking the wind of Ulgu, turning it to Dhar (since Necromancy) and then into the necessary combination of Shyish, Hysh, Ulgu, and Dhar from there and doing that constantly which that's already Tower of Hoeth, or Slaan levels of magic bullshit right there. But considering how magically complex the existence of Vampires already is, it would be fitting especially since this still would take the most magically gifted of all Vampires to ever reach a state where they can purely persist on magic alone.
So the problem with the Oak of Ages is the World Roots, the Oak of Ages Roots. For one and this is more fan theories (and part of why many fans on this part at first hated, and still sort of do hate, the realms of AoS) but the World Roots and the Geomantic web run along the same main pathways/laylines So the fan theory bit suggests the Tree not only predates the Old Ones, but is how they mapped out their Geomantic web and it and athol Loren are fundamentally entities of the magic that existed before the destruction of the Gates. But anything that disrupts the worls roots or inntheory the Geomantic web is going to disrupt the tree. And Specifically for the Oak of Ages, Mordhiem is right over one of those roots, though i admit I'd have to check if that root is still alive or not, but still that's planting a tree whose roots will compete with the Roots of the Oak of Ages. And considering that the Malestrom is just one of the many things keeping Daemons out of the Warhammer World, the Geomantic Web being one of the next ones basically being the screen door that keeps daemons who aren't too strong out, and then the Oak of Ages sucking up and filtering magic into its acrons which more than the Oak of ages linging up with the Geomantic Web which was already built on the magic laylines of Mallus, where the World Roots are dead, Chaos is at its strongest (outside of the North and South) for example Kuresh. Which oddly a lot of that doesn't make itself known on the Wiki, or gets hidden in obscure corners. Which is why for WoW I waste so much time looking for lore and gameplay videos to find aspects of the setting that no one gives a fuck about, because there things like this concerning the Oak of Ages, which when i talk about the Oak of Ages typically include Athol Loren (the forest) in the assumption since the forrest is all tied to the Oak. Which particularly if the Wild Gods or Dragons want to plant Sentinel, but lets give it a new more role specific name, a shield Tree, that's probably going to cause more disturbances both in the flow of magic to the Malestrom, and to the Oak of Ages, and if were super unlucky, or if i pull it out of my ass just because I want "evil lizard invasion" it could disrupt the Geomantic Web. Those the Web is likely not to get disturbed at all.
Dont you know it only counts if a E-girl bathes in that bathwater ;) .
I can picture a lot of the more magically stupid Azerotheans pulling a Skurge and gathering all these worthless trinkets and horrifyingly evil artifacts of Chaos and just going "Behold! My stuff!" Meanwhile the Alliance and Horde are there just shaking their heads im embarrassment while a Empire Priest is on the verge of aneurism and Tzeentch is somehow there laughing his ass off.
And the talk of Mana used as the magic medium, got my mind going back to some of my favorite magic systems. like Nier/Drakengrad's Maso the element that allows you to bypass/ignore the law of conservation of mass, the Ruhk from Magi, and then back to the Winds of Magic. But Mana as a medium is basically the only way it makes sense, qnd explains why people "switch sides" so easily. But it's still going to be rough (though by this point of time it should be easier) for the Azerotheans to accept the Winds as a whole other cosmological force, a sort of all encampassing one, though obviously not "a force above all others...at least not until the Chaos Gods have taken over everything" but one that doesn't have a set easy to define field and just sort of wafts everywhere. And I mean at this point the Azerotheans haven't or are just starting to come to terms that Decay is seperate from Death.
If the Light is Sentient well its then the one who has chosen the top Naaru, the Light's more or less number two as far as Blizzard has told the fans...is a genocidal conquistador that makes Jihadists, Crucaders, and of course the Conquistadors all look like door to door evangelicals. And as this is the top ranked Naaru, well it's like running for prime minster, president, etc with Joseph Stalin, Mao, or Hitler as a running mate. It seems more in the fundamental nature of the Prime Naaru to be absolute rather than permitting others to live independently particularly when the threat of the Burning Legion or Old Gods isn't of immediate concern. The Naaru have shown themselves to be beings who don't care about the free will of beings outside the light and have to actively learn that other beings have free will, and that that free will can't just be overriden. And then we have other top light Leaders. Velen is basically the Light personified and is never around to give help to non-light unless the light benefits, so much so he was so blinded to the immediate concerns of the Draenei that Anduin had to teach the guy he went to learn from a lesson on leadership. And if ANYONE is starting a war between the Alliance and Horde again in the future from the current cast its Turalyon, with Genn as a distant second. And why would Turalyon start a war? well besides "veteran of the first and second wars" guys got a all or nothing bent to his mindset, one that wasn't there, or at least so pronounced, until he was inflused with the Light by the Naaru. That's why i specifically called out the leadership, they don't live the supposed tenents of the Church of the Light, your basic dude, the drank the coolaid devotee they're certainly going to either stick to the tenents and jump to the help of others, or be like their leaders, so obsessed with furthering the light that even a potential world Genocide is meaningless to them in the face of some petty concern of the light. Summery Light has a top down problem, where there seems to be some corruption at the top, but it doesn't seem to have trickled down to the lower levels, yet, though there's some questionable BS the light has permitted while having a zero tolerance policy for others doing lesser things.
But its not there on the wiki, but the humans of the far past like before and during Thoridin''s time the humans practiced Shamanism and Druidism...which Druid =?wild gods? and Shamanism as a spiritual practice they did ancestor worship, which for some reason people think that's somehow "not religion" but, yeah yeah it is, especially when those ancestors include vrykal and Titan Keepers, very specifically worship or Tyr the Titan Keeper. Also meaning that the Church of the Light was undermining the authority of the titans and turning their own creations against them.
It's Blizzard their story telling is the same as their marketing and ethics...say one thing thay sounds good then do the exact opposite. But also if the powers of the Wild Gods disappeared while they were on Respawn...their followers would never have powers because they're always dead, fucking top lane feeds. Truly Azerothian mortals must be more powerful than any god, because the wild gods keep giving the enemy free XP.
Heads up Ostermark is primarily Verena and Morr territory. And this is because Ostermark is kinda a place that sucks, Vampires to the south, Kislev to the north, Mountains full of Orks to the east...and worse Stirlanders as neighbors to the southeast. And the Ostermark people well, i love their personalities. Sure their colors are dower and dark, but they are vibrant and full of life as people but they also live with some interesting rules. Such as "till death do we part", you don't remarry if your spouse dies, after all who would want their ghost to haunt your new squeeze.
As for the battle local, its in some of that folded non-existent space in Northeastern Ashenvale. So you can't walk around on WoW going "yeah take that Ikit I found a rat mob and killed it here, I woulda totally killed all the Skaven ever with my level 60 adventerer who i spent a million dollars in gold for just last week. But also because this is a low stake filler meant to establish characters and lay points for later story building, that it went into a third chapter is a little disappointing for me, but also damn the character building.
Ravenguard0009: Its still the Skaven, which Ironically while the Warhammer Orks behave on exactly on the same logic as the majority of WoW's villain groups, where Skaven and everyone else behave on the ever dreaded "unbeatable", except for ofd screen under the "brilliant" leadership of the jailer, Scourge where if you kill the leader they don't just instantly crumble but actually keep fighting (part of why i say the vast majority of "threats" on Azeroth aren't factions but individuals of power because even the Legion "invades" a world so well that...nothing fucking happens and they instead get counter invaded, a fucking Horde Hunter caused the Legion to do more damage to Stormwind and the Allkance than the Legion themselves have in lore ever done...too bad that Hunter team's actions weren't canonized.
Death Knights of the Blood specialization might as well be Blood Knights. Though ironically on the battlefield as a Azerothean with some knowledge of what the Warhammer world has, I'd be more concerned about a Courtizen of Lahmia. Blood Knights are more of the same, but those ladies have a very dangerous combo of abilities, especially with how weak willed some groups of people on Azeroth seem to be. Remember only people who the Lich King Ner'zul couldn't mind control were the Nerubians...and he slaughtered them all.
But that would ruin Blizzard's "the good guys are always right...no matter how awful their actions, Arthas would have been perfectly right, if we had deemed him the good guy, but he wasn't so he was just wrong." But it also is cheap to the Horde since they're left feeling like they're being given the Alliance Leftovers and nothing of their own.
As for the Rieksguard numbers, remember Volkmar inside the city of Mordhiem just had his honor guard, and "not the Horde" then tried dropping a nuke on the city. Also for the navy bit, don't blame the Bretonnians, blame those disloyal shitbag Marrienburgers, trapped over half the Empire navy in the Riek and put such a absurd tax for Empire warships passing through the Empire just can't get a navy out into the sea...while the northern ports are too strained by constant Norscan attacks to be able to actually support a strong navy...so the answer to this problem is obvious, we conquer Denmark...i mean Marrienburg, yeah Marrienburg.
Butterfly effects. One thing I'd advise to understand the insanity of such things and how slow they are, yet titanic, look up the video "America's cheesiest Conspiracy" showing how America's Prohibition movement lead to not only the Got Milk add campaign, but also to the US government stepping in and preventing Domino's from going out of business and having a Government enforced "non-profit" that the leading board earns a million a year to convince Americans they like Dairy products all in the 90s...all because prohibition. These little bits, well so far i have no reason to go too distant from events that were already dead set, but the course of both world's histories have been irrecoverably changed.
micelzod: Well it should have already have been a living hell, but Blizzard dropped the ball, HARD... or as i suspect, they went with their usual strawman positioning, and so of course "any plan Sylvanas had would fail because it was against the power of good being good and thus good wins because reasons ,stop trying to think just obey what we command you, god damn it why can't you be like our other players like younger Asmongold and not give a fuck about the lore and just blindly accept what we claim!??"
Adventurers are skilled people, real problem is that outside the meta classifications and the only recently established order halls, there's not really a in universe way of defining and advertising for skillsets, even the quests just have a meta class tag and then the individual talks like they're talking to basically any ol adventurer almost implying a Warrior could walk up and take on a Druid quest and the guys wouldn't be able to tell the difference. obviously in universe there HAS to be some method to discern between Hunters and the blight upon the world they represent and all the other adventurers and thus be able to go "hey I've got a job that i need a stealthy sneaking backstabbing sonofabitch to do for me" and get a rogue rather than a hunter who clearly knew they were talking about him specifically. probably also a method of diacerning between races but thats less important, though can't really trust a gnome to help stamp out a gnome infestation like the one at gnomeregan.
deadliestfan: Yes both are unstable, and that is glorious, i dream of the day where Gallywix wants his eyes on his monument to shoot lazers to kill anyone who dares threaten his...ah who are we kidding, anyone who thinks of trying to touch his profits. Only then for the Goblin/Skaven made upgrade to the monument to cause the whole mountain to blow up. muahahahaha, so glorious...
Even as a GM I typically struggle with DnD and DnD players, they're given too much freedom and it takes them too long to keep their backstories simple, or to actually roleplay rather than just metagame. Narratively that's also where i still struggle with WoW adventurers, but again there's no issues with them as a concept. Just thinking of how to apply them at all levels from the guy who started the war against C'thun, to the guy who helped a local farm combat an invasive species of animal that's ruining their crops and already killed seven farm hands.
I wish we could have seen that factionalism in Warhammer ET...rather than all the people where that factionalism could have really meant something being killed off screen in a sentence, as the books just focus on exclusively the Empire or shitting on fan favorite characters. But while not stupid people WoW has seen quite a few moments of snap collectivist thinking, and like the Bugs from starship troopers, "since some mormans settled here without their species permission their while species must now die." they make culture or species wide proclamations based off a single incident or single colony, and ironically the Trolls are the only ones to not base their opinions of a entire species off the first contact with a single individual or colony. Mission one of the Night Elves anyone? first contant with humanity immediate assumption is that the humans must all die because they're coexisting with Orcs.
I still extremely dislike the thought of a workshop building a tank from scratch as opposed to using a prepared disassembled tank package that they then assemble on site. But that logic is really the only thing that works, if you can't have the Gnomes on hand, or the parts the process has to stop and be put on hold, which on hold, like how Command and Conquer does when a player runs out of credits rather than "oh we can't build anything because we don't have 100% of the materials needed". And there has to have been some severe shortages or loss of skilled personnel to justify the shortages of high tech weaponry from the Cataclysm war to BFA. Which I'm assuming it's personnel shortages between Rogues, mass destruction, and Horde and Alliance military philosophy being more about slaughter than territory control. Which it might sound cynical, BUT there's actually some funny precedence that can be drawn from the time the US government wasted 300 million dollars to learn that scopes make rifles more accurate. check out the internals of the Heckler Koch G11, the thing looks like it has the gearworks of a grandfather clock and it was meant to replace the M-16, and so typical german engineering a shortage on clockmaker weapons masters would eventually lead to the shut down of what in a alternative timeline could have been the main rifle of the US army with production getting bottlenecked, and maintenance backlogs growing to titanic proportions. And why shouldn't the Horde and Alliance murder the guys working on the tanks, airships, chemical weapons, etc for the other side, especially since their war philosophy is expressly about killing the enemy and not holding territory.
And with the Light, i think there's a severe top down problem with the Light, I mistyped when i said any in my previous response to Jigglifap I should have specified from among their leaders. Because Velen, the Naaru, etc the higher up on the Light totem pole, the more you seem to be absolutely blinded and willing to do awful things to anyone who isn't immediately devoted to the Light, or at least let awful things happen to them.
Those two videos in particular are a great example of what's called dynamic combat theory since it expalins a lot of detail while showing how it would be in action and showing why other more media, and 60-80's historian popularized theories of combat are well, either pure show, or are based off of snobbish assumptions that modern people are "evolved" and people of the past are too stupid to do things in smart ways. (a seperate and incomplete video series on the theories of Phalanx warfare is going into the histography of ancient historians...yeah i just fucking hate the scholarly community of the 50-80s they're a bunch of assholes with no understanding of their fellow man nor respect for humanity nor those of the past, and it's clearly only gotten worse, they're a blight on the sciences I hope the historical community can repair the damages they've ingrained in our media and move us past those people's affronts)
I'm not sure if I'll have enough focus in Kalimdor in this story to be able to dive into the absolute chaos that will be the Druids at the moment, or if in the next story I'll roll back the clocks slightly to cover them and everything else I intend for there on.