Gnomish and Tauren Heritage

So, I still haven't gotten my Blood Elf to 120 (he's 118, so not long, if it weren't for all the distracting new stuff!) But having had my Gnome Warlock and Tauren Shaman at 120 for a while, I was able to hop on and do their heritage armor quests. (You only need to do the big war campaign stuff on one character, regardless of faction, to get the Tauren quests.)

Anyway:

Gnomes have a silly and, sort of disappointingly small-scope quest chain. Basically, you're recruited for G.E.A.R., a new kind of air force squadron. But while you're delving into Gnomeregan you find out that one of Thermaplugg's former assistants is creating an army of troggs to unleash upon the world.

Honestly, Thermaplugg's been dead since, basically vanilla. I think we could have done more interesting stuff with the fate of Mekkatorque and maybe giving Gnomes some new stuff - it was surprising that none of this had anything to do with Mechagon, for instance.

But it's silly and involves gadgets, so it's pretty Gnomish, and the armor is cool (very reminiscent of Mekkatorque's gear.)

The Tauren one, though:

With Baine free (and the state of Thunder Bluff a little ambiguous - I know that distances are farther in lore than in-game, but I'd be very concerned for the city right now) you go to Red Rock Mesa (the Tauren kiddie-pool area) and commune with a spirit guide, who warns you that there are dark forces coming from the spirit realm.

You travel back to Mulgore, which is enveloped in darkness - it's a cool, spooky effect that I don't think we've seen before in-game. Basically, it sounds like the spirit realm is out of balance, and these undead spirits (many of whom use a model we saw when dealing with Vol'jin's plot) are attacking Bloodhoof Village and Thunder Bluff.

You fight them off, but rather than destroy the leader (which is still just called something like "Dark Spirit" like all the rest of them,) the spirit of Cairne comes to tell you and Baine to let it persist, to preserve balance in the spirit realm.

It's interesting here to think that the "spirit realm" probably is the Shadowlands. While we've generally seen the Shadowlands as malevolent (to the extent we've seen it at all) it's cool to get a different perspective on it. Considering it's where the dead are supposed to go, it seems less malevolent than simply neutral, and perhaps it's just that malevolent perversions of it that strike us as evil. To borrow a concept from D&D - there are two "domains" for Clerics (think Specializations) in Fifth Edition that are kind of "dead" themed: Grave Domain and Death Domain. Death Domain is actually only listed in the Dungeon Master's Guide (not the Player's Handbook, where most subclasses are mentioned) because it's intended primarily for villainous NPCs, and is all about necromancy and inflicting death. Grave Domain, on the other hand, is more focused around protecting the sanctity of the grave, with opposition to the undead and keeping the dead at rest.

So maybe this implies that the Shadowlands themselves are not evil, it's just that things like the Lich King (or at least the first two,) Gorak Tul, and maybe whatever force is pushing Sylvanas to act the way she is (which, to be fair, might just be Sylvanas) are perversions of that realm, not exemplars.

Anyway, the Tauren armor is fantastic, complete with a massive totem on the back (it takes the "cloak" slot.)