What I Want Out of a Zandalari Storyline

In 4.1, the Zandalari Troll tribe underwent a sudden and confusing change. Since vanilla, these guys had been the faction-neutral friendly Trolls, initially in Stranglethorn Vale, overseeing our invasions of Zul'Gurub, then going with us to Northrend to deal with the Drakkari, and as late as 4.0 aiding us in our new efforts to stop Jindo the Hexxer - now called Jindo the Godbreaker - from siphoning the power of Hakkar the Soulflayer and reigniting the threat of the Atal'ai priesthood.

And in 4.1, they suddenly became bad guys.

Now, as the story has gone on, Blizzard has attempted to paint the Zandalari as always having been threatening - evil, but on a sort of mortal level, as opposed to the inherently evil demons, undead, and Old God monstrosities. So yes, the Trolls were allies of the Mogu while Lei Shen was oppressing the people of Pandaria. But then, the Mogu were also sort of unexpectedly evil, given that most of the Titanforged races have generally skewed toward the good side of things (the Vrykul are complicated.)

At this point, it's pretty firm canon that the Zandalari were not really nice guys, but then again, the rule of Lei Shen (minus his brief return to life while we were in Pandaria) was a very long time ago, and holding the modern Zandalari directly responsible for actions taken then would be like holding modern humans responsible for the depravities of the Winterskorn War.

I, for one, liked the idea of the Zandalari as being a refined and cosmopolitan, intellectual culture, bearing the hallmarks of Troll civilization but with a more nuanced and advanced society that does not resort to the barbarism of their satellite empires. Indeed, it might even be fun to have the Zandalari be sort of haughty to other Trolls.

You might worry that this doesn't play well with the 4.1-and-beyond plot they've given to the Zandalari, but stick with me, because it actually plays into it.

There are two major figures we know about within Zandalari society - King Rastakhan and the Prophet Zul. While Rastakhan has been in charge of their tribe for decades and is presumably part of some established hereditary monarchy, the Prophet Zul came out of nowhere: a peasant who suddenly drew an enormous following.

When the Cataclysm shattered the world, Zandalar began to sink - we don't know if the whole island was lost or if it was just devastated by this natural disaster. But as it sank, Zul began to preach his vision for the Troll empire reunited, beginning their sudden push against the Alliance and Horde.

This is going to be part tin-foil hat and part just "the story I'd write if I were in charge."

When a religious figure arises, the people in power have to be careful. A king who allows a peasant prophet to gain a following is allowing a person to claim a spot of potentially higher power and authority than his own. On the other hand, eliminating a prophet like that is a good way to make a martyr, and thus give that following a united cause to rally around, which could mean that the popular uprising fundamentally changes the society you intended to preserve. You might be able to think of a real-world religion or two that followed that pattern.

So let's play out the scenario.

Rastakhan is a respected ruler, but when the Cataclysm hits, the his peoples' lives are disrupted and the stability of his reign begins to break down. With displaced people struggling to survive, a new figure emerges with a grand vision to restore the Zandalari to glory - inspiring people with the myth of a reunited Troll Empire.

Rastakhan is eager to rid himself of this prophet, whose plan is insane, given that he's currently focused on rescuing his civilization from literally drowning in the ocean. But when he sends his agents to rid him of this upstart preacher, Zul comes to him, revealing that he has incredibly powerful magic at his disposal. Perhaps the agents Rastakhan sent have been converted to Zul's cause.

Realizing that he has made a miscalculation, Rastakhan makes a deal with Zul: supporting his visionary mission if Zul will back up the monarchy and not rock that particular boat. Zul agrees.

So now, Rastakhan is committed to Zul's vision, even if he thinks it's a bad idea. And over time, as the Zandalari lose their best and brightest in this mad quest, Rastakhan is trapped in the deal he has made.

And then we show up.

Once allies of the Zandalari, we now find ourselves fighting against them in and around their home territory. But as we sail the South Seas, Rastakhan clandestinely reaches out to us, explaining that he can't raise a hand against Zul, because the prophet has such a firm grip on his people - an unexplainably powerful grip - but that we are positioned such that we can strike against Zul and Rastakhan can sit back with plausible deniability even as he supports us on the down-low.

We fight our way through Zandalar, finally confronting the Prophet Zul. But while we thought we were dealing with a charismatic preacher, we discover that we're actually dealing with an avatar of N'zoth.

Yes, the reason why the Zandalari turned so quickly is that it was not just some guy, but an Old God manipulating the population and co-opting the imperial hierarchy to spread its influence.

We could then have a 5-player dungeon in which we either have to rescue Rastakhan after this is revealed or we have to fight a mind-controlled Rastakhan (either freeing him of Zul's whammy or having to put him down) and then a raid in which we eventually confront Zul in a multi-phase fight where he starts off looking like an ordinary troll but ends as an Il'gynoth-like mess of tentacles and protoplasm.

Please make it happen, Blizzard!

Rumor Mill Time: Shadowfall

With Blizzard's announcement coming on Friday, we're in an odd state where I think a lot of WoW fans are eager to speculate wildly about expansion seven but also perhaps hesitant to do so, as we're just going to find out at the end of the week.

Well guess what? I'm in that former camp.

While a "South Seas" expansion has been the most commonly heard idea for a new expansion, it's not the only one floating around. One idea that I've been seeing, including a potential leak from a supposed Blizzard employee called Genki, calling it Shadowfall, is actually another old-world expansion that would add zones to the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, similar to what they did in Cataclysm.

The reason I think this has some credence is that the Wound in Silithus is not terribly close to where we'd assume most of the South Seas stuff would take place (on old maps, Kul Tiras is roughly where Vashj'ir is, and I'd assume it has shifted over a bit, but not all the way across the ocean.) A "south seas" expansion would probably involve zone-hopping anyway, so it might not be too crazy to just make it global, perhaps using the ship-style transportation like the Vindicaar as a more evocative means of getting around than the Cataclysm portals were.

The big question is how to make that work. While Cataclysm was probably the biggest expansion they ever did, as it involved re-doing the story for nearly every vanilla zone, updating the continents to allow flight, and adding two new races with starting zones in addition to all the high-level stuff, that high-level content suffered, without a ton of outdoor content to complement the small number of raids (Warlords had no excuses for its lack of content except for a quixotic or greedy - depending on your opinion of Blizzard's business strategy - attempt to do annual expansions that failed miserably.)

While Cataclysm updated the world to account for the big changes that occurred in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, there have been even more big changes in the game's story that ought to be reflected in the world if they're going for a revamp (for one thing, you'd think most zones would have the remnants of the Legion and fel corruption, as the invasion here is supposed to be a global thing.)

I also hope that they'd do a better job with the timeline, which granted, could get even worse with another revamp. Perhaps it would be best to leave the Cataclysm zones alone, either focusing on just a couple that are relevant to the current story or simply adding new zones with new story and not touching any existing zones.

Anyway, given the datamined words of Khadgar following the Antorus raid, in which the blood of Azeroth is leaking out of Silithus and Khadgar warns of powerful people across the world trying to get as much of that resource as they can, it wouldn't be too crazy to imagine that the faction conflict might re-erupt. In Wrath, we saw tensions explode in a few skirmishes before the Cataclysm made the lack of resources a trigger for a full-scale war. We've seen Sylvanas and Greymane clashing in Legion, and without the Legion holding our attention and a new rush to control this powerful resource, a factional conflict could boil up. This would make familiar locations, or at least familiar environments (such as the Plaguelands or the arid lands of southern Kalimdor) ripe spots for new conflict and story.

Another element that finds its way into several rumors, including this Shadowfall concept, is that we might see racial questlines similar to class ones. Given that I've been wanting to take back Gilneas since Cataclysm, I'd be really happy to see stuff aimed directly at certain races (though it'll make me lament that they didn't allow Demon Hunters to be Worgen, as my Warrior is kind of lower-priority.) It does mean that those players who only play Blood Elves are going to be SOL (as a true altoholic - see the title of the blog - I have characters of every race, though given that I'm a bit lopsided in favor of alliance, my top Troll, Orc, and Goblin are duplicate classes to higher-priority characters I have on Alliance, and I think only the Goblin has even hit level 100.)

While even this concept puts N'zoth as a key player in all of this, the God of the Depths has always liked to be a behind-the-scenes manipulator, and following the massive clash with the Burning Legion (in an expansion that burned through like three or more long-speculated expansion concepts,) it might make a lot of sense to turn the focus inward at the factions again.

If the faction conflict does rear its ugly head again, though, I hope that it's more nuanced. It would be very easy to simply have Sylvanas abuse her power as Warchief and go full on evil until she becomes a raid boss. But we've already seen that story, and I wasn't too crazy about it then. Real people play both factions, and I want to see the Horde have some legitimate justification for believing themselves the good guys. I want to see a bit of ambiguity and fractured loyalties on the Alliance side.

What I Want Out of an Old God Expansion

The consensus on the next expansion is pretty tight this year (meaning we might all look like fools on Friday) but I think the oft-rumored "South Seas" expansion does have some room open for two potential main antagonists. Azshara could carry an expansion on her own, even though I think most might assume that N'zoth would be the true Big Bad - of course, you could also have Azshara take advantage of our killing N'zoth in a middle raid tier (Old Gods have never been final bosses, though with Naxxramas moving to Northrend in Wrath, C'thun retroactively became the final boss of vanilla.)

But let's make the assumption that this is going to be an Old God-themed expansion. What do I want to see in it?

The Old Gods are heavily inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft, even borrowing several names C'thun is clearly a reference to Cthulhu, even though the latter is more equivalent to whoever would be the high priest of the N'raqi Faceless Ones. Yogg-Saron is clearly a reference to Yog-Sothoth, and if you squint your eyes, N'zoth might be a reference to Azathoth (I suspect the similarity between this and the name Azeroth is probably coincidental.)

But here's a big difference between the way that the Old Gods have been portrayed versus how similar entities show up in works of classic horror: in WoW, every monster can be confronted eventually. We've fought two of these things, not to mention the Lich King, Deathwing, soon multiple actual Titans.

One of the hallmarks of Lovecraft's works is that these beings are so alien and so far more powerful than we mortals that even catching a glimpse of them is, essentially, a defeat, as no one's mind could survive such a thing.

But another aspect is the idea of cults dedicated to them operating in secret.

And that's an area where I think WoW and Lovecraft could have a better thematic overlap.

One figure I hope plays a prominent role in the theorized South Seas expansion is the Prophet Zul. It was Zul who appeared to the Zandalari - previously a kingdom willing to cooperate and even ally with the Alliance and Horde to preserve Troll history and fight against the depravity of the Gurubashi and their worship of Hakkar as well as the Drakkari's literal blasphemy in slaying their own gods. The Zandalari were literally working with us up to months before their turn - there are Zandalari NPCs in Stranglethorn Vale post-Catacylsm who help us attempt to stop Jin'do.

But very suddenly, the Zandalari turned against us. Why is that? (Meta-narratively, I think they wanted a reason to do their Zul'again remakes, but let's look in-universe.) The story goes that the Prophet Zul showed up, preaching the need to unify the Troll empires after the Cataclysm started Zandalar sinking beneath the waves. Here was a mysterious prophet with a name that is often used as a prefix for proper names. No one knows where he's from.

This would be the perfect chance to have a WoW version of Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep Lovecraft's only human-shaped eldritch abomination (not counting hybrid creatures like those in the Dunwich Horror.) Described as the "Soul of the Outer Gods," Nyarlathotep is the only being of his that engages with humanity on their scale, and thus has actual malevolence rather than a vast indifference.

What if Zul is actually a malicious manifestation of the Old Gods' (or perhaps specifically N'zoth's) desire to spread madness between the humanoid races, using Zandalari culture to force insane ritual and eventually bodily transformation on the people of Azeroth?

I want to see that, but that's the low-hanging fruit.

I also want to see, essentially, the Shadow Over Kul Tiras.

In Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a young man (I think he's either a recent High Scholl or recent College graduate) is taking a tour of northeastern Massachusetts before he settles down, exploring the homes of his ancestors. On the way between two well-known towns, he is forced to take a detour to the town of Innsmouth, where he quickly discovers that something very, very strange is happening. He finds out that a few generations back, a wealthy sea-captain who lived in Innsmouth made contact with horrific fish/frog-like humanoids living beneath the ocean, and he started breeding with them and spreading their bizarre religion, worshiping a massive undersea entity called Dagon through the town. Thus, Innsmouth has become the home of a murderous cult of people who gradually turn into fish monsters.

I would love to accompany Jaina to Kul Tiras and slowly uncover to her and our horror that the people of Kul Tiras (or at least a powerful faction within) have started worshipping N'zoth and transforming into monsters. Seeing Kul Tiras as a misty seaside civilization, half-ruined by the Cataclysm, and with dark cultists lurking among the citizenry: that would be really cool.

For one thing, I really like urban environments in fantasy RPGs, and fighting cultists on the streets of Kul Tiras' capital seems like a great time to me. It would also give Jaina an opportunity to prove herself to her people by leading the resistance to this madness.

Essentially, I think what you need to do to get that Lovecraftian tone is to have a creeping horror, rather than just straightforward monster fights all the time. Warcraft, given the name, often operates on large-scale warfare than human-scale mystery, and I'm sure that by the end of a zone's quest chain, you'd have to have revealed the monsters for who they are so that a true fight can begin, but with proper art direction and tone, you could help establish the stakes of fighting N'zoth really well.

Leaks and Datamined Stuff for Expansion Seven - One Week Until Blizzcon

With Blizzcon one week away, we WoW fans are looking forward to a nigh-guaranteed expansion announcement.

Many in-game hints suggest an expansion that has us setting sail to fight Azshara and her Naga and the forces of the Old God N'zoth, with a strong emphasis on the Void in patch 7.3 suggesting we might get a clearer picture of just how the Old Gods and the Void fit together.

But none of that is concrete - it's all speculation based on what is already readily visible in-game. So what evidence, then, do we have of actual stuff from expansion seven? And how much should we read into them?

Kul Tiras Textures:

Weeks ago, dataminers discovered a set of textures that were labeled as "Kul Tiras Quest," appearing to be textures for use on cloth armor pieces, and several other textures that seemed appropriate to the "doodads" found decorating a zone. The nomenclature of "Kul Tiras Quest" is consistent with other quest reward items - for example, you might see textures for "Leather Stormheim Quest" stuff. The strong implication here seems to be that Kul Tiras is likely to be a zone in the next expansion.

How Much to Read In? 10/10. Given that the first time we heard "Iron Horde" was on the name of a texture that looked like just a field of vaguely mottled grey, this is a far more concrete piece of evidence. I would be, frankly, shocked if Kul Tiras is not a location for the next expansion.

Subrace Data:

Recently, dataminers discovered files for four races: specifically Lightforged Draenei, Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, and Void Elves. These sort of files exist for any race - playable or NPC - and it would make sense for Legion to have these as they all show up in-game (though Alleria's Void Elf form only in a cutscene,) but the thing getting people excited is that these seem to have non-zero entries in a category that directs to a background image for a character select screen, which is something most NPC races do not have. Given that players have long speculated about the possibility for sub-races, this could indicate that Blizzard is moving forward with the idea (perhaps in place of a new playable race.)

How Much to Read In? 6/10. This, honestly, could just be an error, or perhaps a half-baked idea in the works. I can't really imagine adding Highmountain Tauren as playable without adding, for example, Dark Iron Dwarves. Now, if this is real, it could also just be incomplete. Still, I could see this as an error, a proof of concept, or some some other thing. It's certainly possible, but I wouldn't stake everything on it.

Tottle Pet:

A battle pet named Tottle who seems to be a Tortollan (as introduced in the Secrets of Un'goro Hearthstone expansion) could suggest the introduction of these turtle-folk to the game (it wouldn't be the first time - Sir Finley Mrrgglton showed up in Stormheim,) which would then imply some kind of jungle zone, which would fit well in an island-hopping expansion.

How Much to Read In? 3/10. Even if this is highly likely to be true, it doesn't really tell us much about any major expansion features, and if Tortollans show up, we really don't know what that means.

Seabraid Stallion Mount:

The name for a mount called a Seabraid Stallion was datamined. The going speculation is that this could easily be a Kul Tiras-affiliated mount, given how it namedrops the sea and is also a horse (the human mount.)

How Much to Read In? 2/10. Like Tottle, this could have a million explanations.

More Datamined Expansion Hints

It would seem that 7.3.2 carried a few pieces of the next expansion with it, though the HUGE CAVEAT here is that this is all fragmentary and does not give us a really comprehensive sense of the expansion. We've got a week and a day before Blizzcon starts, so it won't be long before we have confirmation, but let's look at the latest stuff.

First up is a battle pet called Tottle, who appears to be a Tortollan, as seen in Hearthstone's Un'goro expansion. The Tortollans are a race of turtle-people who are apparently tied closely to the Wild God Tortolla (whom we helped in Hyjal during Cataclysm.) This could just be something tied to Hearthstone, but given that the Secrets of Un'goro expansion for Hearthstone was a while ago, I'd guess we might be seeing these turtle-folk pop up in expansion seven, presumably as an NPC race.

Second is a mount. We only have the name, which is "Seabraid Stallion." Such a name could fit just about anywhere, but it certainly doesn't count against the idea of a nautical expansion - in fact, given that horses are the human racial mount and we're likely going to Kul Tiras, it wouldn't be too odd to see a sea-themed horse mount as tied to some kind of Kul Tiras faction.

That's about it. I haven't seen any really convincing copyright applications for titles, but then I didn't see one for Legion.

Evidence of Subraces?

WoWHead has actually uncovered some potential evidence of potential subraces coming in the next expansion.

Whoo-boy!

The article lays it out fully, but the gist is that there are four sets of "race" data in the 7.3 files that you would get with any kind of character model that can equip armor. Now, this is not an uncommon thing - any humanoid race that can equip different kinds of armor, like Naga or Vrykul, will have similar files.

The distinction here is that each of these has a non-zero value for determining the background for the character select screen. The aforementioned NPC races do not have such a thing.

The four races they found are Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne, Lightforged Draenei, and "Void Elf."

Now, obviously these are all tied to Legion, and would probably have to exist for this patch, though of course the Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne would have to have been in since 7.0.

Speculation abounds, of course. In the case of the Tauren and Draenei variants, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to add those to the existing factions of their brethren.

The elves are less obvious. Nightborne, while certainly related to the Highborne that would become the High Elves and then the Blood Elves, are still probably more physiologically similar to the Night Elves. But dialogue between Silgryn and Lady Liadrin aboard the Vindicaar suggests that the Nightborne would be more likely to join the Horde, connecting with Quel'thalas.

The Void Elves, of course, would probably be brought in by Alleria, and if we assume that she's recruiting among the High Elves, that this would probably be a Blood Elf subrace.

So perhaps the elf subraces would allow players to get the other faction's elves.

A lot of questions come up with this. Obviously, the first is whether this is actually indicative of what we're going to hear about at Blizzcon, but if we assume that's a yes, then we have the following:

First off, would subraces be purely cosmetic or would they have their own racial features?

Second, is this it? Because there are some other very obvious subrace options for, for example, Orcs and Dwarves.

Third, is this going to be something one can change in-game with ease? Or will we have to either start new characters or pay to change things?

Fourth: are there going to be class restrictions on any of these? Because I'm really tempted, if this is real, to have a Lightforged Draenei Death Knight (I don't roleplay, but I do have a story in my head for my Death Knight, and it would actually make a lot of sense for him to leave Argus officially redeemed by the Naaru.)

So, big caveat here is that this is all datamining, and not even in an Alpha or Beta patch. But given that, according to the pattern kept by every expansion except for Warlords, we're due for new races, this might be a way to give people something like that by bringing in stuff that has existed in-game for a long time.

Not that I don't want truly new races.

Speculating on Expansion Seven Features

While WoW has still been fundamentally the same game since Vanilla - you do quests and dungeons to get experience and loot that lets you advance in power - the game has gone through some pretty radical mechanical revamps. In recent expansions, we've also had features added that aren't necessarily intended to extend beyond the life of the current expansion, with elements of those features that people like carrying over in new forms.

So what new stuff might we see in the next expansion?

This is very tricky, as it requires us to extrapolate a lot from what we've got now. But we can make some guesses and certainly imagine what carries over.

New Thing: Ships?

The Vindicaar has functioned as a mobile town on Argus, allowing us to have a home base in each zone. Now, the funny thing is that technically, I'd imagine that each zone simply has the Vindicaar in it, as you'll never be in a zone on Argus where the Vindicaar is not. But it gives the impression that you're flying to each of the different areas of interest on Argus.

A similar thing could work with an island-hopping expansion, having you park your ship off the coast of each zone, and using the ship to travel between the zones.

Having a ship that you could build up and customize would also be a way to take the Garrison/Order Hall concept in a new direction.

New Thing: Alternate Character Advancement:

Artifact weapons gave us a way to keep "leveling up" after hitting the level cap. I hope that they'd tread carefully here, as while I think the talent-tree-like initial trait system was interesting, the grind for more Concordance of the Legionfall is not terribly interesting (and the Netherlight Crucible aspect is frustratingly RNG-dependent. Frankly, I think that WoW could stand to back away from RNG significantly - I miss the Cataclysm Justice/Valor point system for getting gear.) Having a system somewhat like artifacts, but different, could allow players a little more customization. Actually, if you wanted me to pick a model I like, I'd point to the Honor Talent system, which allows you to get several talent "slots" filled out early on, but then increases your options for each of those slots as you go.

Recurring Thing: Level-Scaling Zones and Dungeons:

While it did make it hard to have a single plot throughline for the Broken Isles (though Order Hall campaigns and the Light's Heart stuff provided that,) I think the level-scaling on the Broken Isles was a fantastic feature, and allowed every zone to feel relevant at endgame (though the Broken Shore and now Argus have kind of dimmed their significance.) I have to imagine this is going to be an evergreen feature going forward. The question, then, is if they'd consider doing this retroactively to older zones.

Recurring Thing: Mission Tables:

Frankly, I would not mind losing the whole Mission Table thing. Even though Legion has been much better about forcing you to go out and do stuff if you want to really advance your character, I feel like losing the Mission Table stuff would not hurt the game very much. Bodyguard followers/champions are fun and something I'd like to keep, but if we're going to have followers, I'd rather have them acting as buffs in certain zones or something than having to send them on missions constantly. That being said, we've had them two expansions in a row, so they'll probably keep the system around.

Recurring Thing: World Quests:

World quests are, I think, a pretty good evolution of the daily quest system, and again, give old areas relevance at the level cap. Keep 'em!

Recurring Thing: Class Orders:

I really like that there was a bunch of class-specific content in Legion, and would love to see them continue to to that. Having new portals and such to the order halls established in Legion would be cool. The question is whether they could stay relevant. While the flavor of the order halls is essentially timeless, many of its features are pretty clearly Legion-specific - artifact forges, command boards, troop recruitment NPCs, etc. I suspect we'll be saying goodbye to these places, which is a shame.

Recurring Thing: Selected Artifact Traits:

While I think our weapons are going bye-bye in 8.0, some of their features would be welcome additions to their respective specs. I don't know how these would be worked in (maybe just as talents) but I hope that some of the cooler and less weapon-specific things could be kept.

Two Weeks Until Blizzcon - Picking at Plot Threads

With Blizzcon only two weeks away (technically 13 days, as it's past midnight when I write this!) and the announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion practically guaranteed, I thought it would be fun to go over hints that we've seen recently of what might be coming. Consider, for example, that Deathwing's interest in Netherdrakes (which led to the creation of his Twilight flight) was teased two expansions ahead of time, and that Blizzard has only gotten more ambitious in setting things up that there are almost certainly in-game hints at what is not come not only next year, but also probably the expansion after that (and maybe even the next.)

I'd like to write another post speculating on mechanics, but if you read this blog, you'll probably notice that I'm more of a lore junkie than a virtual gearhead.

What I want to do here is not talk about what I think is coming, but instead look back at threads that have been spun, as it were. A lot of threads have been paid off pretty well - especially in Legion - and to be certain, not every thread is going to pay off - sometimes people change their minds on which direction the story is going.

Now, I'm also going to limit this to Wrath and later, as nothing big really springs to mind from earlier WoW that hasn't been addressed or doesn't seem like a dead end. Of course, there are reverberations of events from as early as vanilla that would still fall in my valid territory. Also, I'm only human, so I might miss some things, and it's also possible that some things I think are unimportant are actually a big deal.

Let's begin:

"There Must Always Be a Lich King"

The big question here is why. We're led to believe that the Scourge would run rampant as a full on zombie apocalypse if it weren't for the Lich King holding the reins. But doesn't that seem like it would be fine? I mean, if we had defeated the Scourge as an organized force with a command structure and strategic thinking, shouldn't it be a cakewalk to mop up some zombies? If the implication here is that Arthas was holding the Scourge back, we also have to ask: why? Now, maybe some small fragment of his soul was left, or perhaps there was some practical reason (keeping the living around to make fresher corpses,) but these don't feel totally satisfying. If it was just a lie, well, I guess we bought it, though it would have been nice to have a chance to roll the old WIS (Insight) check on that.

Plot-wise, though, this device allows for the Scourge as an entity and the Lich King as an figure to continue to exist even after our victory. That may have simply been a way for Blizzard to keep the Scourge in their back pocket if they wanted to bring them back, which the Death Knight campaign definitely hints at. We'll get to that further down the line.

"The So-Called Grand Admiral"

While Varimathras' coup d'etat in the Undercity during Wrath is clearly getting paid off in Antorus, another Warcraft III-era Dreadlord made an appearance in Wrath but then literally walked through a portal and was never seen again. Mal'ganis was the dreadlord that tormented Arthas, but even with the soul-stealing Frostmourne, the demon escaped to corrupt the Scarlet Onslaught. But we didn't see him later in Wrath and we haven't seen him in Legion. What is that guy up to? Is he just on some other front in the war right now?

"They do not live. They do not die. They are outside the cycle."

Herald Volazj says this as he dies in Ahn-Kahet, but it's not obvious who he is talking about. Who? And what cycle? (See below when I get to the "Circle" and the "Rings.")

"Um... no clever thing here, but N'zoth and Deathwing"

While it never showed up personally in Cataclysm, N'zoth had its fingerprints (tentacle-prints?) all over the expansion. Sending its own forces to back up the Destroyer (they're pretty good at giving everyone a unique epithet, but Deathwing and Sargeras both get the same,) the only time we may have actually physically been in N'zoth's presence was when L'ghorek was being corrupted in Vashj'ir. While we didn't get too many specifics about N'zoth then, we've gotten far more info on him since. Actually, the Cataclysm-era toy, the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron, makes plenty of references to N'zoth and its apparent home of Nyalotha, which will, well, come up later.

"Kaja'mite and Kezan"

Ok, I'm grouping these together even if they're not totally the same thread. But they're both goblin stuff. First off, we found out that the goblins had apparently begun as small and unintelligent creatures who were enslaved by trolls, who then became super-intelligent thanks to a material called Kaja'mite, which allowed them to build a super-advanced civilization. At some point, this intelligence faded and they declined into their current hyper-capitalistic, ingenious-but-insane culture. So here's my big question: what the fel is Kaja'mite? Are we talking Old God blood like Saronite? Is it something infused with the blood of Azeroth like the Well of Eternity? Is it some other thing, amybe not blood?

Then, we have Kezan. Goblins from levels 1 to about 5 quest through part of the island, but it's clear that there's a lot more there, including the fabled goblin city of Undermine. There is a volcanic eruption that necessitates your departure from Kezan, but it's unclear if the whole island is destroyed. What's going on there now?

"We Shall Return"

With the Draenei finally getting to return (albeit probably temporarily) to their homeland, I would imagine the people of Gilneas don't want to have to wait 25,000 years as well. The end of the Gilneas and Silverpine questing leaves things a bit ambiguous - I've interpreted it that the Alliance holds Gilneas but that the Horde has full control of Silverpine, but we haven't heard anything about that since.

"How dead are the Old Gods?"

Cho'gall seemed to commune with and be possessed by C'thun - so just how dead was C'thun at the end of AQ40 (and Yogg-Saron at the end of Ulduar?) Maybe it's simplest if all we have left is N'zoth, but something tells me that even if you take out the most important part of a continent-sized goo-and-tentacle monster, it's not going to be totally dead.

"Where the hell is Kul Tiras?"

After getting Gilneas and Tol Barad in Cataclysm, it seemed odd that we wouldn't get the island nation that was supposed to be just off the coast of Dun Morogh (roughly where Vashj'ir is.) This is also Jaina's homeland, so... well, let's just say there's been a lot of rumors about this location lately.

"How does killing an ancient time-traveling dragon in a future that never happened help us?"

Murozond might be dead, but technically he hasn't even happened yet. Nozdormu is still (I think?) fated to fall to this bizarre corruption, and even if his death in End Time counts, we have no idea what kind of stuff he got up to, or from our perspective, will get up to, before that moment.

"How fares Zandalar?"

According to info we got on the Isle of Thunder, the island of Zandalar was slowly sinking beneath the waves, which is what prompted the Zandalari to begin this wild crusade to reunite the trolls and conquer the world. We don't know how King Rakastahn is doing, or who the hell the Prophet Zul is.

"Horde leadership issues"

At the moment, the Orcs only kind of have a leader in good old Varok Saurfang, and the Darkspear Trolls went from having their leader as Warchief to having no leadership, seemingly, at all. Thrall is clearly in retirement (much as his voice actor/former VP of the Creative department at Blizzard Chris Metzen is) and so there are some positions to be filled.

"Where is Wrathion?"

Given that the little scamp was all about preparing us for this invasion (which he actually inadvertently helped cause,) Wrathion's absence from Legion has been a pretty big surprise. What is he up to?

"Who is 'The Master?'"

In Warlords of Draenor, we find that Admiral Taylor's garrison was betrayed by a necromancer hiding among his officers. This necromancer killed basically everyone there at the bidding of his "master." Who is that master? I've had theories ranging from Ner'zhul to Kel'thuzad to Bolvar, but we haven't heard anything else on the matter since.

"So does anything from Draenor matter?"

I liked Y'rel, and there's a version of Thrall's dad who we can, with some relative ease, go and talk to. But it was an unpopular expansion. So other than having Gul'dan 2.0 there to set off Legion, is there going to be any longterm consequence of Warlords (ok, also Maraad's death, which made me very sad. And they set up Draenei Vigilants! How the hell did we not come back from Draenor with Vigilant Maraad?)

"Just about everything Ilgynoth and Xal'atath say"

Holy crap, these are each probably worth a post (in fact I think I've at least done an Ilgynoth post.) There's a huge amount to go through, but let's narrow it down to a few factoids:

Xal'atath seems to imply that there was a fifth Old God on Azeroth that was consumed by the others (possibly Xal'atath is a remnant of that one. Also could explain why Y'shaarj was the most powerful if it was the one to consume the fifth.)

It's also implied that by ending the Emerald Nightmare, we actually woke up N'zoth.

We hear more about this Nyalotha place, which definitely seems like Warcraft's equivalent of Rl'yeh to me (consider the lines "In his house in Rl'yeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming" compared with the line "In his house in Nyalotha, he lies dreaming." Also, was it "emerald dreaming?" (see above. Also sorry.)

"The Circle"

Holy crap, guys. The circle. Everyone talks about The Circle or The Rings. We first hear the echo of Medivh mention it in the pre-Broken Isles quests in Karazhan, and then we've got Ilgynoth talking about it. I think we hear Sargeras talking about it at some point. What the hell is the thing? What does it mean?

"Alleria, the Void and the Light"

With Alleria doing Void stuff and the audio drama really putting forth some more nuanced and morally complicated portrayals of both Light and Void, you've got to imagine they're going somewhere with this.

"Who did Odyn give his eye to?"

This is cheating a little, as it's something more from Chronicle than the game, but we know Odyn gave his eye to some power in the Shadowlands that allowed him to create the Val'kyr. What power was it?

Probably tons more threads:

This is what I've been able to think of, relatively free of concrete speculation. With the story of demons and also Titans save Azeroth herself being put to bed this expansion (obviously leaving just enough room for a return if they want) I'm definitely seeing a ton of Void-themed ideas there, though also a decent number of Scourge-related (or at least undead-related) ideas as well.

Imagining Subraces in WoW

The idea of a sub-race in an RPG allows you to add more cosmetic options without necessarily requiring you to create new mechanics or even story. Many racial variations exist in-game among NPCs, but are not available for players, despite the fact that there is plenty of story justification to allow for these groups to play alongside the existing iterations of the playable races, as we'll see below.

So what could we do with sub-races?

Human:

Oh boy, let's just start with the elephant in the room. Warcraft's humans are all basically white people, and even though there are (or were) seven human kingdoms, they're all variations on European cultures. Now, there are a handful of faces and skin tones that allow you to create pseudo-Asiatic or black human characters, but especially when you consider the NPCs, it's basically all white folks. The fact that in Warcraft, humans are descended from the Viking-like Vrykul reinforces this idea of whiteness being equivalent to humanity. I can't really defend this other than saying that I think this flaw in the game's world was done with thoughtlessness rather than conscious bigotry. Unfortunately, this isn't the only problematic race in the game (Trolls are probably the biggest offenders, though Tauren and Pandaren have their issues as well.)

Anyway, aside from creating entire "lost kingdoms" of humanity that borrow from other real-world cultures, I think just fleshing out appearance options is all you can do. Maybe give us more than one "Asian" face to choose from, and perhaps different hair textures. And maybe have some non-White human NPCs.

Dwarf:

This is pretty obvious and built-in, especially given that since Cataclysm, we've officially had all three major dwarf clans inducted into the Alliance. So let players make Dark Iron and Wildhammer dwarves. This could be as easy as just adding different skin color options (that would alter eyes or tattoos for Dark Irons and Wildhammers respectively) unless they wanted to make more official subrace options.

Gnome:

This one's a bit tricky. Aside from leper gnomes, we don't see a lot of variants on the Gnomes. Mechagnomes are different enough that I don't think they'd count as the same race (same with Earthen for Dwarves.) This might be an argument for only giving races with obvious subraces the option (to be fair, in D&D, this is the case, with only one type of Tiefling but three kinds of elves.)

Night Elf:

You could make the distinction between Highborne (like the Shen'dralar) and the greater Night Elf population more pronounced. At the moment, I think the only real difference is hair color. One wild idea is if you were to make High Elves, though lore-wise it would make most sense for this to either be an Alliance-playable variant of Blood Elves, perhaps starting in the Human starting zone, if not getting their own unique one. The Nightborne could also be an option here, though I think they'd make the most sense as a new race.

Orc:

There are actually a few options here, especially as we saw the various orc clans fleshed out in Warlords of Draenor. You could easily have Mag'har brown-skinned orcs (I don't know if you'd want to have alternate-Draenor Frostwolves or just stick with the main universe.) You could also have the grey-skinned Blackrock/Dragonmaw Orcs, whom we did see brought into the Horde (at least partially) during Garrosh's reign. While canonically I think most of them went with Garrosh after he escaped, I imagine some might have stayed under Vol'jin. Also, let's not forget that even though he doesn't look it, Saurfang, who is the de facto Orc leader, is a Blackrock.

Troll:

I'm not going to delve into the problematic nature of the Trolls as I did for humans, but one area where the distinctions is not so problematic (within the race) is that we actually have some firmly delineated Troll empires with their own variations. Zandalari, Gurubashi, Amani, Drakkari, and Farraki trolls all have pretty different looks and feels to them. While the Darkspear would technically fall under Gurubashi, you could add in some new looks and features to allow for some or all of these other empires to get representation. The question, though, is what brings them into the Horde. The role of Zandalar in the next expansion would determine a lot for this idea.

Tauren:

Again, setting the problems of Warcraft's "noble savage" race aside, what might we see as variations? Well, if we want to set the bar low, we could do something as simple as just allowing us to have tattooed Grimtotem Tauren. If we wanted to go farther, though, we could add in the Taunka, who are technically a different race but obviously very closely related. I don't think Yaungol would work, given that there's no real lore connection that would make them part of the Horde (also, they're technically only as related to the Tauren as the Trolls are to the Night Elves.)

Undead:

The question here is how much physical variations we could tolerate. Technically, any undead in any form that serves Sylvanas is a part of the Forsaken. That includes undead High Elves (almost always Dark Rangers) as well as ghosts, skeletons, abominations, and the like. I think the undead elves would be easiest to implement, and skeletons could be just a skin option (existing Forsaken already have lots of exposed bone.) Ghosts and abominations would probably go a little outside the whole "humanoid form" that you need for a playable race.

Draenei:

We've actually got two great options for Draenei sub-races. First, there's the obvious: the Broken. The only thing about the Broken is that it would have to be class-restricted from Priests and Paladins. But otherwise, they've been there since BC, and they're truly just Draenei who have been hit with some nasty curse. The other option is new, which is the Lightforged. These guys do look different, but not so much that you wouldn't call them Draenei. Technically, this could apply to other races, as Turalyon is one as well, though with X'era dead (um, spoilers, I guess?) I don't know if new Lightforged are capable of being created. If nothing else, let us get some of those beards that the Lightforged have. My Mage needs a good wizard beard!

Blood Elves:

The most obvious thing here would be High Elves, but those would be an Alliance variant. That being said, depending on how official this sub-race option would be, you could actually implement that without too much trouble. There aren't really any other variants that don't involve being consumed by magic withdrawal or taking a big step on the path to becoming demons.

Worgen:

Actually, the only real variant I could imagine is if you had Night Elf Worgen. The cosmetic effect might only manifest when using your Two Forms ability, but it would make sense in-lore. I'd settle for a Warlords-style model revamp.

Goblin:

Ok, the craziest here would be to allow Hobgoblins, which are those ogre-like guys that Goblins hand out with. Beyond that, the only other variant I can think of are Gilgoblins, but I don't know if that's something Blizzard really wants to go deep on in-lore. Like with Worgen, I'd settle for a Warlords-style model revamp.

Pandaren:

Ironically, you could have made Wandering Isle Pandaren and Pandaria Pandaren quite different, but I think the whole point of the Wandering Isle was to justify playable Pandaren having just as little knowledge about Pandaria as any other playable races. We already have Black and Red Pandaren as fur color options, so maybe that's all we get.

So that's what we've got. I think that subraces as an option are definitely doable, but only if Blizzard is willing to leave some races out. In fact, in most of these cases, you get some of the benefit of new playable races without needing to implement new zones and leveling experiences (the exception might be the High Elves, who would not logically be starting in Quel'thalas, given that they'd probably be Alliance.)

I know this is something players have been hoping for for a long time. The question is whether people would find it a suitable major feature for an expansion, assuming this would take the place of adding new races.

New Character Incentives in the Next Expansion?

Most expansions in the past have introduced new player options that could encourage a player to roll a new character. Burning Crusade, Cataclsym, and Mists of Pandaria gave us new races (and one should recall that before Blood Elves and Draenei, there was no way to have an Alliance Shaman or Horde Paladin.) Wrath of the Lich King, Mists of Pandaria, and Legion each gave us a new class. The only real exception here was Warlords of Draenor, which focused on revamping old race models rather than giving us new races to play.

Mists of Pandaria and Warlords kind of upset a pre-established pattern, which was that the game would alternate between new races and new classes. In fact, if you ignore the Pandaren (or shifted them over to Warlords) but kept the Monk, you could argue that the pattern sort of survived.

If this pattern has any merit to it, this would mean that we're more likely to see new races than a new class. And I think that, given the massive class revamp in Legion, I would bet the developers are more interested in tweaking and refining existing classes at least for now than dropping a new one into the mix (while Pandaren came in right after Worgen and Goblins, there's never been two new classes in a row.)

I could certainly speculate on new classes, but I'm going to make a fairly confident assumption that that there will not be one with expansion seven.

I should also note that there are other ways they could introduce new character options without adding a new race or class. For example, sub-races like Dark Iron Dwarves or Mag'har Orcs could be implemented, providing a cosmetic alternative.

But let's assume for now that the new addition will be playable races.

The first thing to consider is what the expansion will actually be about.

The general consensus is that it will have something to do with the Void and the Old Gods. There are tons of references to them in Legion, even as we're fighting a separate threat. And the spoilers about the end of the Antorus raid suggest that there might be a real opportunity for the Old Gods to strike out and possibly escape their prisons (or at least N'zoth. We don't really know how dead C'thun and Yogg-Saron are.)

Given the potential prominence of the Old Gods, it seems highly possible that Azshara and her Naga will also play a big role. That could be anything from the first raid tier to Azshara being the final boss, or even for her to be a kind of Garrosh/Gul'dan figure that pulls us into the subsequent expansion.

So let's go through potential races:

Naga:

Blizzard has floated the idea of playable Naga for a long time. Yes, there are anatomical questions to deal with (like how pants and boots work on snake bodies and also how you deal with the fact that female naga seem to have four arms) but story-wise, a rebel group of Naga could be really interesting. (You'd also get another race that could reasonably be Demon Hunters, which would be cool.) I actually put this at a somewhat high probability, though if the Naga are center-stage to the expansion, it seems it would only be fair to make them a Pandaren-style neutral race lest one faction be left with a less relevant race.

Ethereal:

This is another perennial favorite. Ethereals would work fine anatomically, though aesthetically you'd have to do some creative work to make them distinct from one another. The Ethereals are connected to the Void pretty directly, though more on the Cosmic "Void Lord" side of things - though that could be an interesting note in an otherwise slimy Old God expansion. The story might be a little similar to the Draenei, but they'd replace piety with a kind of scrappy and perhaps reckless instinct for survival.

Arrakoa:

The right time for these guys was probably Warlord of Draenor, but the broken Arrakoa were an early example of the good guys using void while the bad guys were using the Light. You'd have to work to get them in there, but the connection is not entirely imagined.

Ogres:

Again, would have been a great Horde race for Warlords. The Ogres have always seemed ready to be a Horde race, and Cho'gall's connection to the Void is definitely something you could explore. Too bad we've killed both versions of Cho'gall, so it would be kind of crazy to bring him back.

Vrykul:

I'm just kind of tossing this in here. Frankly, I think Vrykul would fit better in a resurgent Scourge expansion, where you could also explore their connection to Helya and the Shadowlands, though I think a lot of this is a ship that has sailed. Also, even more than the Ogres, you run into a size problem. I think Blizzard isn't likely to make any playable races bigger than Tauren or smaller than Gnomes.

Broken Draenei:

This might be better as a subrace, and is probably not in the cards given that we've had two expansions with some pretty serious Draenei stuff (as someone who has loved them since their introduction in BC, I've been overjoyed to see them finally getting some time in the spotlight, though I think it's probably time for them to step aside so Worgen or Gnomes could get some attention.) Still, the Broken have an interesting and mysterious connection to the Void. It's strongly hinted that the Blood of Sethe, which crippled the Arrakoa Outcasts, was what the Horde used to poison the Draenei who would become Broken, and Sethe seems like he might have some connection to the Void (let's not dive down the rabbit hole of his similarities with Hakkar the Soul Flayer.) We also found Broken on Argus, who have turned to some kind of power to ward off the Legion... which I will bet has something to do with the Void (see the Broken who went crazy with it in Mac'aree.) It's a connection, though again, this might work better as a subrace.

Beyond these, I don't really have any obvious suggestions for new races.

It is, of course, possible that we won't get new races. But given that "balancing" a new race, at least from a gameplay perspective, is not terribly difficult, I imagine Blizzard is happy to add new ones to get people excited about a new expansion.

A New Beta Version 8.0...etc Coming Up: Confirming What We Were Already Pretty Sure About

So, according to MMO-Champion, WoW's Beta build has been updated to an 8.0 number.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that Blizzard has an 8.0 in the works, which would mean expansion seven (obviously Vanilla WOW was 1.x.) That should not be a surprise, given that WoW is still a fairly popular game and we've gotten an expansion every two years, with an announcement about a year in advance.

As suggested on MMO-Champion, this Beta build probably has nothing to do with the actual closed beta that lucky players will be invited to test at home, but is probably going to allow players to do something at Blizzcon, which is of course in only a couple weeks.

We saw similar things at past expansion announcements: the Demon Hunter quests on Mardum were open at Gamescom in 2015, and some later nixed Shadowmoon Valley quests were available at Blizzcon in 2013, and I believe that you could play a low-level Pandaren Monk on the Wandering Isle at Blizzcon 2011 - so it stands to reason that players will have access to some of the new stuff at this year's Blizzcon.

While I would say this provides pretty strong confirmation that we're getting an expansion announcement at Blizzcon (aside from the strongest confirmation: that it's an odd-numbered year) the fact is that we don't really have any direct evidence of what that expansion would entail.

But even if the consensus on rumors/speculation are accurate (namely a South Seas/Void/Old God expansion) that still doesn't actually tell us much about the content that would be playable at Blizzcon.

Often these playable previews seem to involve what I call "new character incentives" like new races or classes. Warlords had neither, so they just had stuff in one of the two starter zones.

I think I'll probably write a whole other post about what kind of "NCIs" we might see in expansion seven, but the possibility of a playable preview at the 'con does not guarantee that such a thing will exist.

Still, even though the fact that Legion is getting ready for its final raid tier should all but guarantee that the next expansion gets announced soon, this really puts another nail in the coffin in the idea that they wouldn't.

That Chart of Magical Elements and Classes

So, there's a cosmological chart that is at the beginning of both existing (and presumably will be in the upcoming third) volumes of Warcraft Chronicle. I'm kind of obsessed with it, as it details the way that magic and the grand forces of the games' cosmos interact with one another.

We essentially have three layers of magical realms or forces before we get to the material plane, also known as "reality."

The Emerald Dream and the Shadowlands stand just outside - and while there are pockets of unique areas in both - like the Heart of the Dream or Helheim - much of these realms are mirrors of the existing world.

Then as we travel out we get the elements. The four primary ones have Titan-crafted planes, namely the Firelands, Skywall, Deepholme, and the Abyssal Maw. Spirit and Decay don't have their own planes, though one could make the argument that the aforementioned Emerald Dream and Shadowlands could stand in for those.

The outermost circle is what I like to think of as the Primal Forces. And we get the name of the force, the magic affiliated with that force, and the entities who best seem to embody the force. The Light and the Void are both also "realms" of a sort, though probably so alien in their purity that it would be hard for mortals to survive within them, or at least remain who they are. Disorder has a realm in the Twisting Nether, which seems to be where Light and Void collide and annihilate each other to produce destructive energy. Life and Death, again, don't have full planes as far as I know, but they could very well claim the Emerald Dream and Shadowlands, respectively. Order does not seem to have its own equivalent of the Twisting Nether. If anything, though, I'd think that the Arcane is tied to the physical cosmos, as unlike the Nether, Order seems to be a careful balance of Light and Void.

Many of the classes, particularly those with any kind of magical ability, can fit into one of the six primal forces.

Paladins wield the Light, and are thus pretty firmly associated with the top of the chart, allying with the Naaru and using Holy magic. Of course, as we're learning on Argus, it seems the Light "in a vacuum" so to speak, is not automatically good, even though when it comes to mortal affairs, it tends to be a highly beneficial tool.

Priests also call upon the Light, though they also delve into Shadow. In fact, with the Legion design (and probably going forward,) Priests are almost perfectly at 50/50 between the Light and the Shadow, with Discipline becoming much more thematically hybrid between the two. Again, on Argus we're learning a bit more about the Shadow, and how it is not necessarily evil, even though, again, when it comes to mortal affairs, it's often a threat.

Demon Hunters are pretty pure practitioners of Fel magic, putting them in that Disorder domain (oddly not called Chaos. I wonder if there's a particular reason for that.) As beings that are nearly demons themselves, it makes sense that they'd affiliate with Fel, though we also do have to throw in a little Arcane/Order there, as the tattoos on a Demon Hunter are actually Arcane wards to contain the chaotic magic within them.

Warlocks are also, of course, masters of Fel magic. On the other hand, I wonder to what extent they dip into other types of magic. Shadow Bolt and the Voidwalker minion seem tied much more to Shadow and Void - the Voidwalker is classified as a demon but really ought to be labeled an aberration; it's not clear if there's been some kind of fel corruption to make your Voidwalkers actually into demons, though I'd suspect it's kind of grandfathered in as they probably decided to make Voidwalkers distinct from demons only relatively recently. Still don't know what the Legion is doing using them. Also, I'd argue that some Affliction abilities, like Unstable Affliction, seem like they could be Necromancy, rather than Void or Fel magic, though there's not a ton to support this except that the Old Horde's Necrolytes seemed to be Affliction Warlocks. And then one might even wonder if Warlocks also use some Arcane magic, though perhaps Fel can do things like gateways and summoning portals just fine.

Death Knights are obviously, firmly in the Necromancy realm, though it gets a little more complicated as one goes into the inner rings. One of the two "binding" elements is Decay, which is used by Dark Shamans to force the elements into servitude (we saw the effects of Decay in the Barrens and the Kor'kron Dark Shaman fight, where the elements were all polluted and toxic.) It's not entirely clear if Death Knights are using "decay" in that same sense, though having an ability like Death and Decay does lean me in that direction. Likewise, Death Knights have some control of the elements - though really just frost. Is this a combination of Air and Water, with Decay as the "binding agent" used to control them? Perhaps, though perhaps the chill of the grave is not exactly tied to the elements, but is more just pure necromancy. Finally, Death Knights are tied to the Shadowlands, the dark opposite number of the Emerald Dream (though having nothing to do with the Nightmare.) The Shadowlands have not been explored much in game, but I would guess that both the ghost-realm where you have to run to your corpse to revive and also Helheim are both in the Shadowlands - as are the areas you visit in some Wrath quests like the Alliance ones in Howling Fjord and the Horde one in Dragonblight. Apart from the note on Warlocks above, other classes don't seem to be in this territory, though you could argue Hunters actually get in there a little bit with abilities like Black Arrow.

The only class that very explicitly deals in Void magic is the Priest, and that's obviously primarily Shadow Priests and Discipline Priests. That being said, Rogues have always been said to employ some mysticism in their arts, allowing them to use their Stealth ability, and Subtlety in particular seems to employ Shadow magic to aid in striking from darkness.

Mages are very clearly practitioners of Arcane magic. The "arcane" spells used by Mages clearly draw from this power in a pure form, but while they employ Frost and Fire spells as well, it seems that they are conjuring these elements not through any kind of shamanistic request but through manufacture. It's possible that Mages are actually creating tiny portals into the Abyssal Maw for frost and the Firelands for fire, but I'd suspect that they are simply employing Arcane magic to create these elemental effects (I've even wondered if they are actually manipulating time to create heat and cold, given that temperature is technically just the speed at which particles within a system are bouncing around.)

Druids are probably the most obvious "Life" magic users, and their deep ties to the Wild Gods (in the form of Ancients or Loa) puts them pretty firmly in this category. They're also tied very closely to the Emerald Dream, which seems to be where the Wild Gods call home. Of course, Druids (particularly Balance) do seem to draw on the power of the Stars, which appears Arcane in nature. Given the mysteries surrounding Elune's nature (is she a being of Light or the Arcane, and is she connected to the Titans or the Naaru, or both?) it's possible that Druids are actually more like Mages than they might like to think they are.

Now what's interesting is that both Shamans and Monks are kind of tied into this Life magic, but not quite as directly.

Shamans negotiate the balance between the four primary elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. Good shaman employ "Spirit" in order to maintain this balance, though destructive Shaman employ its opposite number, Decay. It's not exactly clear what the connection is between Life/Nature magic and Spirit, or Death/Necromancy and Decay, but what is kind of interesting is the way that Shamans may focus on the primordial elements, but they also have a strong connection to the spirits of ancestors long since dead. Might shamans actually have a more benign connection to the Shadowlands? Also, bizarrely, the ability Ancestral Recall states that it yanks the Shaman through the Twisting Nether, even though there does not seem to be anything else in the class that relates them to that chaotic realm of Fel magic.

Monks are less focused on the elements in general, but employ that same "Spirit" element as their primary fuel, which they call Chi. Of course, with abilities like Breath of Fire, a specialization called Windwalker, and a host of healing abilities themed with Mist, it's possible that a Monk is actually not all too dissimilar to a Shaman, except that the focus is far more inward - mastering the self rather than calling upon spiritual allies.

Rogues and Warriors are largely classes of the material plane, simply using physical training to do what they need to do, though as I mentioned before, Rogues may employ some Shadow magic to aid in their stealth.

Hunters are probably also in this category, though they seem to also like to pick up skill from various areas as well - a handful of nature magic, as well as some Arcane shots and even possibly Necromancy (in the form of Black Arrow.)

So that seems to cover all the player classes. It's pretty clear that some primal forces are represented more than others, but it's a fairly good spread. I think this would be a good place to start both in brainstorming new classes and also in creating new figures and threats for the future of Azeroth.

Tomb of the Nine Gods

D&D's latest published adventure, Tomb of Annihilation, is inspired by the original Tomb of Horrors, a dungeon created by Gary Gygax (or, in-game, created by the evil-even-by-Lich-standards Acererak (thankfully only pronounced as three syllables: As-SER-ak) to massacre even high-level players.

The eponymous Tomb in Tomb of Annihilation is actually canonically compatible with the Tomb of Horrors, as Acererak apparently likes to travel around the multiverse creating these death traps for various nefarious purposes. Even though I'm going to get a little spoilery in this post, I'll keep the purpose of this new Tomb secret for those who might want to play this adventure.

Tomb of Annihilation (as mentioned in a previous post) has the party explore the jungles of Chult, encountering plenty of other ruins and adventures as they search for the source of a curse that has interfered with resurrection magic. Not only are the recently dead unable to be brought back to life, but those who had previously been raised from the dead are beginning to waste away (this does not seem to apply to the undead, except that Liches haven't been able to feed the spirits of the dead to their phylacteries.)

After searching the jungle, players will finally find the lost city of Omu, home of an ancient Chultan civilization that was destroyed mysteriously hundreds of years back. The Omuans initially worshipped Uptao, but at some point they traded that god for nine animal trickster gods. Later, Acererak would come to Omu and slay the nine gods, using the Omuans as slave labor to construct a horrific death trap that served as the gods' tomb, before slaughtering his slaves by forcing them to run through the tomb as, essentially, playtesters.

The Tomb of the Nine Gods is thus the main dungeon of the adventure, and nearly every room has some kind of lethal trap.

There are monsters to fight within, and certainly some might indeed be highly dangerous, but the main threat is going to be the traps, which require the clever solving of puzzles to navigate in any semblance of safety - and even when done correctly, there's often still great danger or dark prices to pay.

While the pre-Tomb adventure has some highly dangerous parts, the Tomb is going to be a total horror show - one in which player characters are highly likely to die in sudden and gruesome ways. The book actually contains plenty of suggestions for how to incorporate new characters players will be forced to roll after their old ones are killed, because that's kind of the expectation.

The only real counterbalance to the deadly, often unintuitive, traps is that players can receive assistance from the dead gods within the tomb - though this comes with a price as well, as the gods will impose their personality flaws on players who receive their gifts (though this is a fantastic opportunity for very silly roleplay.)

It is not impossible to break the global curse and it's even possible to escape the tomb alive, but it will not be easy.

D&D's Tomb of Annihilation

While I've only been running my own homebrew D&D campaign (with a setting I invented myself) I've been somewhat addicted to buying adventure books on the off chance that I might run them (or even play in them) some day.

The latest to come out and the latest I got is Tomb of Annihilation, and man, I've got to say I'm really enjoying what I'm seeing.

ToA is built around an open-world map that will eventually lead into the eponymous tomb - one of several built by the ancient lich/demilich (he seems to go back and forth) Acererak - who is most famous for creating the legendary kaizo-Mario like Tomb of Horrors (created by Gary Gygax to take high-level players down a peg or two or all of them.) While the Tomb of Horrors was created for top-level players, Tomb of Annihilation is a full adventure/campaign intended for 1st level players that gets them to about level 11 (I know some have complained that the D&D books tend to only have adventures that go up to about level 15, but as a relative neophyte, I'm glad to have tons of stuff designed for players who can't just scry a bad-guy, teleport into their lair, kill them, and take their stuff.)

The structure of the adventure is interesting - players start in the city of Port Nyenzaru, where they can do a few fun city things (including betting on or participating in dinosaur races) before they head into the jungle, where there are a whole bunch of mini-dungeons that look like they can all be done in a single session. There's a high level of humor built into the adventure (Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward was a consultant on this one) which off-sets the fact that this adventure is built to grind through player characters.

The entire focus of the adventure is that resurrection magic isn't working - which is a big problem in a world of fantasy adventurers. That means if a PC dies, they ain't coming back (at least until the player defeat the "final boss.") There's even an optional Meatgrinder mode where death saves have to beat a 15 rather than a 10. They recommend that players doing this adventure be prepared to roll new characters, though thankfully the setting and premise make it relatively easy for new characters to be integrated into the party.

There are some very silly things out there, like a mini-dungeon where players get an advantage for riding on each others' backs or one in which you have to fool a frog-person into falling in love with a painting. I haven't gotten to the eponymous Tomb yet (which looks like it takes up about half the book) but there is a big Indiana Jones vibe to the whole thing (in fact, there's a new character background called "Archaeologist," which has a suggested ideal of "It belongs in a museum!")

I'm really enjoying this so much that I'm tempted to put the main campaign on pause once we get out of our current adventure so that we can run this (I also want to run the catch-up dungeon Death House in Curse of Strahd as a Halloween one-shot.)

Leaks and Speculation

In prior years, we've gotten occasional leaks to clue us into the next World of Warcraft expansion. This time around, it's no different, so let's look at what we've got:

Right now the only really believable leak is a bit of datamining that we found in the 7.3 PTR patch. This was a set of textures related to armor and "doodads" (aka bits of decorative stuff for in-game environments.) The textures included maps (again, not for the player map screen, but rather for in-game objects) as well as what appears to be cloth gear. The gear textures were labeled "Kul Tiras quest" which is generally how the game denotes the green and blue quest rewards from the leveling process. Now, I don't know if the quest gear in Legion was labeled as simply "Broken Isles Quest" or tied to specific zones, like "Highmountain Quest." Given that each zone had its own color variant, I would guess the latter, which would suggest that Kul Tiras will likely be a zone, rather than the whole continent for the next expansion.

This is not the first time that a texture proved promising for a future expansion. In 5.4, the Siege of Orgrimmar patch, we got a texture (in this case just a nondescript grey square - nothing as detailed as what we've seen this time) that was labeled "Iron Horde." While many of us assumed this had something to do with Garrosh's "True Horde," it of course presaged the Warlords of Draenor expansion.

This Kul Tiras stuff is much stronger evidence that that had been. The armor textures even have a rope-like motif, which would tie strongly into the nautical country of Kul Tiras, and given that we'd be likely to see simple color variations for different zones, would point strongly to a nautical-based expansion.

We are less than a month away from Blizzcon, but so far I don't believe we've had any other major leaks. In the past, people have discovered trademark registrations by Blizzard that gave away expansion names: Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor were all "announced" this way. We did not see this in Legion, though I suspect Blizzard has gotten better at keeping these under wraps, such as registering the trademark in other countries first.

Beyond this leak - which to be clear, is a substantial one - the rest of our speculation is based on the strong hints that Blizzard has made over the course of the Legion expansion. The past two expansions have had clear segues between them - Garrosh carried us from Mists to Warlords and Gul'dan carried us from Warlords to Mists. Legion has had many references to the Void and the Old Gods, and so the general consensus is that we'll likely be dealing with something at least connected to the Old Gods.

With Kul Tiras likely featuring in the upcoming expansion, it seems likely that we'll finally be getting the long-rumored "South Seas" expansion involving Queen Azshara and the Naga, who are of course tied to N'zoth, the last living Old God we have not yet faced.

An expansion featuring Kul Tiras would likely involve Jaina Proudmoore, who is featured prominently in the Blizzcon art. Alleria's recent connection (well, recent from our perspective) to the Void and its magic would make her a key player to have in an Old God expansion as well. In fact, there's a Blizzcon panel featuring female voice actors, which would make a lot of sense for an expansion that could feature Jaina, Alleria, and Azshara as prominent figures.

If this is truly a "South Seas" expansion, I would then further speculate that we'd likely be seeing Zandalar, with King Rakastan and the Prophet Zul (whom I have always theorized might be an avatar of N'zoth - a kind of Nyarlathotep figure.) We could also see a return to Kezan and perhaps the goblin capital of Undermine (I'd actually love to hear more about the history of the goblins, as they were supposed to at one time have a super-advanced civilization.)

I will of course be keeping my ear to the ground for any credible leaks - though I should also point out that the most accurate leak I saw for Legion looked like total BS at the time - a poorly-translated Chinese post that featured such wild ideas as Sylvanas becoming Warchief, Deathwing's Lair featuring prominently, and a whole new race of elves... which all turned out to be true.

Speculating on the Blizzcon Schedule

Well, Blizzard released the schedule for Blizzcon. Let's take a look and speculate wildly!

I'm going to focus on WoW stuff here, as I get a sense that it'll be the big franchise this time around. Unfortunately for Diablo fans, it doesn't look like there's anything going on with them (something a Blizz representative already posted about earlier.)

It's an odd-numbered year, so we're due for a WoW expansion announcement. I believe these have all been announced at Blizzcon except for Legion, which I think they pushed earlier to Gamescom because Warlords had basically finished in early summer, releasing it's 6.2 patch without any third raid tier coming.

There are six separate panels (not counting the Blizzcon opening ceremony, where the announcements proper are generally unveiled.) These are What's Next, Voices of Blizzard: The Powerful Women of Warcraft (which is apparently going to be a panel for voice actors, specifically the women,) a Deep Systems Dive, and then on the second day The Art of Warcraft, World of Warcraft Q&A, and a Boss Design Workshop.

A "What's Next" panel is usually about new expansions (though not always.) I'm curious about the systems deep dive, which I'd guess means we're going to see some very different new gameplay features coming with expansion seven. Many have speculated for a while now that the next expansion could be a nautical adventure, and some have speculated that the Vindicaar might be a dry run for ships we might command from like a Garrison or Class Hall.

While I'd be happy for them to simply give the spotlight to the female voice actors and characters of WoW (even though I get the sense that the creators of the franchise began as a real boys' club, there are quite a few memorable women in the Warcraft cosmos who aren't defined by their relationships with men, much to Blizz's credit) I also wonder if this could be pointing to an expansion where a number of women play very prominent roles. The theoretical nautical expansion would likely involve both Jaina and Azshara as key figures, and if it also ties into N'Zoth and general Old-God-ness, I could see Alleria also playing a big role in bridging the expansions.

Again, the Gameplay Deep Dive suggests to me some big system changes. I think that most specs are pretty good where they are in terms of gameplay - maybe some tweaks to the new (or essentially new) specs like Havoc, Vengeance, Survival, and Outlaw, but I don't think we need yet another overhaul. But plenty of other systems could see changes, and I never put it past Blizzard to do something wildly unexpected. One key thing I could see them looking at is level scaling - using that tech to allow players of wildly different levels to play together or maybe even doing a level squish along with an almost inevitable stat squish.

Art of Warcraft will probably showcase art for the new expansion. Meanwhile, the Q&A will be whatever it is. I'm curious about the Boss Design Workshop, but I imagine this will be less about unveiling new stuff than just talking about their philosophy and showing the steps it takes to come up with boss mechanics.

I'm sure we'll find out about new Heroes for Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch and new expansions for Hearthstone. But it looks like there's not a ton for the other franchises. As someone who favors WoW over the other Blizzard stuff, though, I think this Blizzcon's for me.