A Look at Frostmourne in D&D

 Probably the most iconic weapon out of the Warcraft franchise, wielded by the most iconic villain, who is also the highest-CR monster in the WoW D&D book, Frostmourne carries with it a certain caché. Ironically, though, the story is not nearly as complex or extensive as that of its opposite number, the Ashbringer (which I covered in the previous post).

It was only during the very controversial Shadowlands expansion (I say controversial - it might be better to say it was unpopular, though I maintain it is not the worst expansion, and was certainly better than Warlords of Draenor and possibly its predecessor, Battle for Azeroth) that we got hints as to the deeper history of Frostmourne.

Let's talk about the original lore, which will be quite quick, and then we can do the Shadowlands stuff (which is mentioned in the book).

So, when Arthas pursued the Dreadlord Mal'ganis to the frigid continent of Northrend, he struggled to slay the demon in a permanent (or at least longterm) manner. He had happened across his old dwarven friend Muradin Bronzebeard, one of King Magni's younger brothers. Muradin, pursuing the dwarven fascination with archaeology, had found stories about a powerful magic sword, and Arthas thought that this might be the key to defeating his demonic foe.

However, upon finding the blade, Muradin read a warning that had been left there: anyone who took up the blade would lose their very soul. Arthas, in an act of reckless wrath, shrugged off this curse and took up the blade. The tremors that followed from this act of doom would knock out Muradin with falling rubble, and the newly soulless Arthas left his friend for dead, keen on getting his revenge.

Claiming victory against Mal'ganis, Arthas returned to Lordaeron to a hero's welcome, but the sword had done its work - unbeknownst to the celebrating crowds in Lordaeron City, along with Arthas' father King Terenas, Arthas had not only become corrupted himself, but dragged his own forces into undeath with the power of the sword. Arthas stabbed his father through the neck with the blade, and began a massacre of the capital city, spreading the undead Scourge across the kingdom that he had technically just inherited as the new king.

The blade, it turned out, had come sealed away in the Frozen Throne along with the Lich King.

The original Lich King had been the soul of the Orc shaman Ner'zhul, who had originally been tricked by the demon Kil'jaeden into forming the Horde in its murderous original incarnation. Ner'zhul, seeing the Horde defeated in the Second War, fled back to Draenor, and used artifacts looted on Azeroth to open numerous portals to other worlds. The stresses tore the planet apart, leaving the surreal landscape of Outland behind, and Ner'zhul found himself captured by Kil'jaeden the moment he stepped through his chosen portal.

Kil'jaeden tortured Ner'zhul, tearing his soul from his body, and sealed it into a suit of armor. He then froze that armor and the blade Frostmourne into the icy crystal that would become the Frozen Throne, which he hurled toward Azeroth. It landed in Northrend, and from there, Ner'zhul worked to build an army of the dead on behalf of the demonic Burning Legion.

The blade bound Arthas' will to that of the Lich King, and removed all inhibitions from his latent sociopathic tendencies. While he furthered the Legion's plans during the Third War, he also secretly worked to undermine them, the Lich King's ultimate goal to break away from the Legion's control.

Arthas would go on to defend the Lich King even after the Third War from forces the Legion sent to wrest back control of the Scourge, and upon his victory, he ascended to the Frozen Throne and used Frostmourne to break the armor of the Lich King out of the crystal. Taking the Helm of Domination, the capstone of the Lich King armor, onto his own head, he merged with Ner'zhul, ultimately absorbing the Shaman and becoming the dominant will within the Lich King.

He actually spent several years frozen back into the Frozen Throne, commanding the Scourge mentally from his seat, and Frostmourne went unused during this time. But when his grand plan - to provoke the Alliance and Horde into sending him their greatest champions so that he could raise them as his own, he emerged from the Frozen Throne and took on a more active role leading the Scourge in person.

Frostmourne remained his weapon during this time, but when the final battle came to its culmination, as he sought to raise the greatest heroes of Azeroth as his own personal agents, Tirion Fordring, wielding the Ashbringer, shattered Frostmourne, leading to Arthas' demise and the defeat of the Scourge.

However, the shards of Frostmourne remained - later, during the last full-scale invasion by the Burning Legion, some Death Knights traveled to retrieve these shards, and had them reforged into a pair of shortswords called the Blades of the Fallen Prince (the artifact weapon for Frost Death Knights during Legion).

Now, you'll note that there's basically no actual explanation of where the blade even came from (and some questions, like how there were already myths and legends about Frostmourne that Muradin was chasing down when the sword could have only gotten to Northrend, like, a year or two earlier at most).

In the Shadowlands expansion, it was revealed that while Kil'jaeden had played an active role in the creation of the Lich King, the actual source of power behind the Scourge was not demonic/fel in nature, but was the power of the Shadowlands - Warcraft's realm of death (which includes the afterlives).

Frostmourne was actually one of a handful of Mournblades, which were created on behalf of the Jailer - an incredibly powerful entity of the Shadowlands whose malevolence saw him locked away in the ultimate planar Oubliette, the Maw - almost precisely Warcraft's version of a dark, bleak, cold hell.

The Jailer, with help from his prisoner, the Primus (a being of comparable power in the Shadowlands) produced the blades and the Helm of Domination as part of his plan to sweep over all of creation and bring every living thing under his direct control, like a master puppeteer for the entire cosmos. This power of domination is at the heart of evil necromancy, and was the primary tool of the Jailer.

So:

Given the lore - that the sword claims the souls of any who take it up or who are slain by it - you might think... this is probably not the safest weapon to wield. And you'd be right.

It's also one of two artifacts that are listed directly as equipment on the Lich King Arthas stat block (the other being the Helm of Domination). While the Helm does actually give you a chance to retain your free will if you put it on (much as Bolvar Fordragon, who became the Lich King after Arthas, did, and used his powers to hold back and weaken the Scourge,) Frostmourne doesn't work that way.

Upon attuning to the sword, you become Undead (if you weren't already) and your alignment becomes Neutral Evil (if it wasn't already). These changes remain in place even if you end your attunement.

    Now, I think there's a debate to be had as to whether Arthas was already evil before he took up the blade, or if he was still Lawful Good but had just taken his convictions to an extreme that accomplished evil despite his intentions (it's a very dark thing to debate, but his infamous Culling of Stratholme... might that actually have been the right call, horrific as it was?)

Also, while attuned to the sword, the Lich King can see through your eyes and hear through your ears, and communicate telepathically with you regardless of distance, even across planes.

    So, this raises an interesting question: if you slay Arthas and get this, who is the Lich King? In theory, it's whoever then loots the Helm of Domination. While I won't do the whole stats for that, attuning requires a DC 18 Charisma saving throw to avoid having your mind absorbed by the Lich King. Bolvar, who was probably a 20th-level paladin in D&D terms, might have had as much as a +15 to such saves (with Aura of Protection,) so it makes sense that he'd be able to succeed.

Ok, now the core things:

Frostmourne is a +3 Greatsword. It does 2d12 extra Cold damage on a hit. If you reduce a creature to 0 HP, the creature dies and its soul is trapped in the sword. While trapped, the target cannot be raised from the dead until Frostmourne is destroyed.

    I'd assume "raised from the dead" means specifically resurrection magic, as you sure as hell can be raised as undead. That's kind of the Lich King's whole thing.

Now, while anyone can attune to Frostmourne, Paladins get additional benefits (interesting question: do we count Death Knight here? I think the precedent we have is that Doomhammer, a famous Shaman weapon - actually the Enhancement Shaman artifact in Legion - requires attunement by a Barbarian, not a "Shaman," so I'd say Paladin here includes Death Knights - which only makes sense). First off, Undead creatures of your choice (excluding you) in your Aura of Protection have advantage on attack rolls and saving throws. Then, also, all allies in your aura gain immunity to Cold damage.

    I'd actually strongly consider integrating that second part into Arthas' stat block, as he has some powerful AoE abilities that would theoretically hit his undead allies and do frost damage.

Beyond that (oh, was that all?) there's 1 major beneficial property, 1 minor detrimental property, and 1 major detrimental property.

    Major detrimental properties can be very nasty - the 97-100 one prevents you from regaining HP, for example.

Finally, Frostmourne can be destroyed if its wielder is slain by someone wielding the Ashbringer, and only the Runecarver (er, spoilers: aka the Primus) can reforge it from the fragments.

    So:

    Two things:

    First off, chances are that if you have gotten Frostmourne, you've done it by defeating Arthas, which means that you're probably at the end of your campaign. Arthas is built as a campaign end-boss, and while I'd argue that on the strict "tiers of play" guidance, he really ought to be a tier 3 boss (as he's a global, rather than multiversal threat) I also get that he's the most popular Warcraft villain and they want him to be super powerful. (I'd argue that expansion final bosses who do warrant tier 4 are probably Kil'jaeden, Archimonde, Argus, the Jailer, and Dimensius the All-Devouring, and possibly N'zoth and C'thun (the latter of which retroactively became the final boss of Vanilla because of Naxxramas' relocation to Northrend)).

    Technically you don't become an NPC under the DM's control, but you might want to talk about what it means for your character to become Neutral Evil. While you can certainly have an evil team player in a party, the narrative of Frostmourne is that you don't just turn evil, but become a villainous antagonist to the party.

    It is cool that we get this weapon statted out. But at the same time, I just don't think it would be practical to ever have a player use it in a campaign - unless you want the finale of a campaign to be the rest of the party fighting against the one who has just attuned to it. Or, if you're playing a villainous campaign, sure, maybe then.

A Look at The Ashbringer in D&D

 The Ashbringer was a fabled weapon introduced in World of Warcraft - without any precedence in the older games like Frostmourne or Doomhammer. Its history is pretty interesting:

The final raid of "Vanilla" World of Warcraft (as the game's original era prior to the release of its first expansion, The Burning Crusade, was called) was Naxxramas, a massive floating ziggurat that served as the base of operations for Kel'thuzad, the lich who had started Arthas on his path of corruption and, in undeath, was basically his chief advisor. (The premise of Arthas' story in WCIII was meant to be a kind of villainous inversion of King Arthur, where a young man finds a powerful sword and is guided by a magical advisor, so in this case, Kel'thuzad is basically evil Merlin).

Naxxramas was infamously only even entered by a small fraction of players. I believe still the largest raid in WoW to date, it had 15 bosses, with four wings that functioned almost like shorter, 3 or 4-boss raids branching off from a central hub. Defeating the final boss of each wing unlocked the upper level, where you could fight the Frostwyrm (think Dracolich) Sapphiron and then Kel'thuzad, both of whom were established in Warcraft III (or the Frozen Throne expansion in the case of Sapphiron).

The final boss fight of the Military Quarter, generally seen as the third wing (they sort of ramped up in difficulty, though you could do them in any order) was the Four Horsemen, a quartet of death knights (obviously inspired by the Book of Revelations).

Leading the Four Horsemen, at least in the original version of the raid, was Alexandros Mograine. Mograine had been a great champion of the Holy Light, and fell not because of his own corruption, but because of his treacherous son Renault (who is one of the bosses in the Scarlet Monastery and appears in the book,) who murdered his father, allowing him to be raised as a Death Knight of the Scourge.

While fabled as the hardest raid of Vanilla WoW (though that also might have been simply because it was the one that required the best gear, expecting you to have gone through the other, earlier raids,) it was brought back as the first major raid in Wrath of the Lich King, ironically becoming famous as probably the easiest raid in WoW's history, though this also meant it was a great place for new raiders (like myself) to get the hang of it. However, in the new version, Alexandros was replaced by Baron Rivendare (who had been a boss in the Stratholme Dungeon, over which Naxxramas had originally hovered), for reasons that will become clear below.

(The raid clearly had to be redesigned a little bit to accommodate the smaller raid sizes in Wrath - going from 40 players in Vanilla to a 10-player and 25-player mode in Wrath - but I also wonder if its relative ease was just that, only two expansions into WoW, raid bosses were mostly becoming far more complex, and Naxx's 2005-era design was far simpler. Having never set foot in the original version of the raid, which was removed when they relocated it to Northrend for Wrath, I can't really comment on how similar or different the fights had been.)

The elder Mograine had earned the epithet "The Ashbringer" because of power he wielded through his sword of the same name. The sword itself had been built around a strange crystal that was recovered from Orc Warlocks during the Second War. This crystal had been suffused with shadowy, dark magic, but while Mograine and his fellow paladins tried to destroy the crystal with a bombardment of holy magic, it instead purified the crystal.

The crystal was taken to Magni Bronzebeard, king of the Bronzebeard clan and a peerless blacksmith (kind of a big part of dwarven culture when your capital city is built around a massive forge). He crafted a greatsword that the crystal would sort of hover magically within as part of the blade.

For years fighting the Scourge, Mograine channeled the light so powerfully through this sword that when he struck the undead, they would sometimes be instantly disintegrated into ash - hence the name.

However, with his son's betrayal, the sword itself was corrupted, cycling back into a state of darkness.

Players could get this Corrupted Ashbringer as a drop off the Four Horsemen boss fight in Vanilla. You could actually take it into the Scarlet Cathedral dungeon and confront Renault with it (by this point you'd be so much higher level that you could safely wade into the dungeon without fear) and the Scarlet Crusaders, in reverence for the blade of the Ashbringer, would bow down to you. The spirit of Alexandros would emerge and slay his murderous son.

But the Ashbringer remained corrupted. For years, there were rumors and speculation about whether there was a hidden sequence of things you could do to purify the weapon. They turned out to be false.

However, in the backstory prior to the events of Wrath of the Lich King, Alexandros' other son, Darion, sought out the Ashbringer so he could free his father from this cycle of undeath. Plunging the sword through his own chest (which is crazy given how enormous that blade is) he gave up his life so that his father would be free, but then was raised himself as a Death Knight.

Darion was (probably) the first of a new order of Death Knights, the Knights of the Ebon Blade, who struck a massive blow against the Scarlet Crusade, and then were turned to fight against the (actual good guys) Argent Dawn. Drawing out the elder paladin Tirion Fordring (one of the founding members of the Knights of the Silver Hand,) the Lich King revealed he had sent the Ebon Blade to attack the Argent Dawn as cannon fodder, to be slain to draw out Fordring. Realizing he had been betrayed, Darion threw the corrupted Ashbringer to Tirion, and in this act of redemption, the blade was purified, and the Lich King was turned back at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel, while Tirion offered to vouch for the Death Knights who had turned on the Scourge, sending them on a path to redemption and reconciliation with their people.

Tirion would go on to wield the Ashbringer in the war against the Lich King. Accompanying the "heroes of Azeroth" (aka the players) to the top of Icecrown Citadel, the Lich King immediately froze Fordring in a block of ice to keep him from joining the fight. Once the fight had gone on long enough, Arthas immediately unleashed a lethal wave of necrotic energy, slaying all the heroes who had come to fight him, and began to raise them as his new champions. But Tirion, protected by his icy prison, called upon the light to give him the strength to escape his bonds, and, breaking free, leapt up and shattered Frostmourne with the Ashbringer.

With the wicked sword destroyed and the souls trapped within it freed (including whatever was left of Arthas',) the spirit of King Terenas (Arthas' father, whom he murdered) emerged, reviving the heroes, and together, they finished off Arthas.

For years, Tirion remained the holder of Ashbringer. However, when the Burning Legion invaded, and he led the Argent Dawn (well, Argent Crusade - I prefer the Dawn as the name of the organization, which changed in Wrath) to fight the demons, he was overwhelmed and seemingly killed. However, the Knights of the Silver Hand, recently reformed and integrating the various paladin orders across different cultures of Azeroth, found that he had been captured instead. While the demonic captor was slain, Tirion had sustained fatal injuries, and to the paladin who defeated the demon, he bestowed the Ashbringer.

Functionally, the Legion expansion gave each specialization its own unique artifact weapon, which you'd keep the whole expansion and simply upgrade to higher power rather than getting new weapons. The Ashbringer was the artifact weapon for Retribution paladins.

Hilariously enough, each artifact weapon had several variant appearances you could unlock, including a secret one with methods of attaining it that varied from weapon to weapon. You could get a "corrupted" appearance for the Ashbringer that required you to do many of the things that people had speculated you would need to do to purify the old Corrupted Ashbringer from Naxxramas.

Anyway, it has become one of the most beloved and iconic weapons in WoW, so I'm not surprised that it's in the book. It's also deeply tied into the story of the Scourge, which is probably the most popular villain faction.

Now: in D&D, artifacts are generally not meant to be permanent magic items for a PC to have. It's not a hard and fast rule, of course, but I think that handing this to a player might be something you do for a particularly climactic event - maybe the player earns the right to carry it into battle against the Lich King, for example (though if they get the killing blow, that means you won't get Frostmourne - which is maybe for the best).

Ashbringer is an artifact greatsword, which requires attunement by a paladin.

It has a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls. It also deals 1d10 extra fire damage on a hit, which goes up to 3d10 fire damage when hitting an undead creature.

    I think the Adz of Annam does hit harder - it's a greataxe that does an extra 3d12 force damage. But certainly against undead, this is among the hardest-hitting weapons you can get. And while 1d10 isn't that crazy, adding a damage die to any weapon is a pretty big upgrade.

Ashbringer can be found in one of two states - True State or Corrupted State. An act of legendary wickedness will turn it from True form to Corrupted, and an act of legendary heroism will turn it back from Corrupted to True.

Each form has a different feature:

Steal Life, which is the corrupted version, will give you 20 Temp HP when you reduce a creature to 0 HP.

Wake of Ashes, which is the true version, will make a target expode into a cloud of ash when you reduce it to 0 HP (you can choose whether to do this or not). Each creature of your choice within 10-foot emanation originating from the target must make a DC 18 Con save or be Blinded until the end of its next turn.

    Each form certainly has its uses. I think that, given that you probably aren't going to get this weapon until quite high levels, I'd probably say the Wake of Ashes one is more likely to be useful, as you might have other sources of Temp HP that give you more. That said, 20 is still a significant chunk of THP even at high levels.

Ashbringer is sentient, with an Intelligence of 14, Wisdom of 17, and Charisma of 17. It's lawful good in its true state and lawful evil when corrupted. It also has 120 feet of darkvision. It can communicate with its wielder telepathically and speaks Common and Dwarven.

    This is interesting - the weapon has never demonstrated sentience in WoW, and there certainly are weapons that have, like a certain dagger whose former inhabitant is the main villain in WoW's current story arc. That said, there's long been a theory that the crystal around which the sword is built is a fragment of a Naaru, the crystalline light-beings who can go through a cycle of light and void.

    I will also point out that in the WoW book, true to WoW, Horde characters actually don't learn Common. Orcish is the "Common" of the Horde (there's even an Orcish sign language in the book). Now, does it make sense that Forsaken can't speak Common? Not really. Also, while these languages are used in the MMO to make a language barrier between the factions, given how often important NPCs interact in a friendly way with both factions, either they're all multi-lingual or it's just sort of a convention. But in theory, you might have foreign words going into your brain if you're, say, a Tauren Paladin (or "Sunwalker.") 

Ashbringer has 1 minor beneficial property, 1 major beneficial property, and 1 minor detrimental property.

    I don't know that I love the random properties thing with artifacts, but at least there's no major detriment. Still, some minor detriments can be pretty bad, like giving you disadvantage on Strength and Con checks and saves. 

Finally, if for some bizarre reason, you want to destroy the sword, you can actually just bring it to Magni, who made the sword and can unmake it just the same. Despite the legend surrounding the Ashbringer, the sword is not some ancient relic, and its creator is an active political leader within his society (he did spend some years as a diamond, but that's a whole other story).

    All in all, the Ashbringer is actually a pretty straightforward magic item. It's obviously good - it deals more damage than a Holy Avenger unless you're fighting a fiend (Holy Avenger gets its bonus 2d10 against undead and fiends, while Ashbringer gets 1d10 always and then an extra 2d10 against undead) though its on-kill effect might not be as great as the Holy Avenger's Aura of Protection upgrade.

A Look at Illidan Stormrage from the WoW D&D Book

 Illidan Stormrage is the most emo character in Warcraft lore.

For D&D fans, and more specifically those who are fans of (maybe even discovered D&D through) Critical Role, you'll know the voice of Illidan quite well, as within WoW, he's voiced by Liam O'Brien (though not in his original appearance in Warcraft III). Indeed, most of the folks from CR have done voices for prominent characters, like Laura Bailey playing Jaina Proudmoore (who also has a very high-CR stat block, though she's more likely to be an ally than a foe... except for a period from Mists of Pandaria through Battle for Azeroth if you're Horde).

Anyway, I'll start off this look at the stat block with a quibble: the book lists Illidan's alignment as Neutral Evil, and I just must take strong objection to that. Illidan is a profoundly reckless person who has used dangerous and forbidden magic to defeat the foes that threaten his world, and I think this makes him very, very clearly a Chaotic Neutral character. He's too ruthless to be good-aligned, but he's also somewhat selfless in his motivations (in other words, I'd say he leans more good than evil, though some of his methods have been quite bad).

I think I've already gone through his backstory like twice on this blog, so let's instead talk about his appearances in the Warcraft games.

In WCIII, he had been imprisoned for ten thousand years following the War of the Ancients (like all Night Elves, he had benefited from the immortality granted to them by the World Tree Nordrassil) but was released by Tyrande Whisperwind, his childhood friend and the object of his deeply toxic love triangle with his twin brother Malfurion. Illidan, having infiltrated the demon-sympathetic forces of Queen Azshara during the War of the Ancients, was the ideal expert to help fend off this next invasion, though his release required the killing of several Night Elf Wardens by their own Priestess of Elune (put a pin in that).

Illidan led some of the Night Elf forces against the Burning Legion in a region called Felwood, but struggled to defeat the Dreadlord Tichondrius because of the Dreadlords' particularly fast resurrection (all demons simply go back to the Twisting Nether when slain, but Dreadlords seem to have some faster turnaround... ok, I can't get distracted by the whole bizarre and deeply retconned lore of the Dreadlords). Helpfully, the then-Death Knight Arthas Menethil showed up and presented Illidan with a solution: if he took the Skull of Gul'dan (the profoundly evil Orc Warlock who had been the secret power behind the Old Horde) and consumed the Fel magic within it, he would have what he needed to defeat Tichondrius in the long term (later on, in WoW, Tichondrius came back, but it was several years later, rather than just a couple minutes like in that battle).

Illidan secured the skull, but the energies transformed him into a half-demon himself. He slew Tichondrius, but then, you know, had a new problem with his PR amongst his people.

In the Frozen Throne expansion for WCIII, Illidan had fled into exile, going to the shattered remnants of the Orc homeworld of Draenor, where he sought to build a kind of cult/kingdom for himself. Gathering Naga, Blood Elf, and Broken ("Krokul") Draenei to his cause, he set himself up in the Black Temple, once the main holy Temple of Karabor built by the Draenei on the planet when they arrived a thousand years prior.

However, Kil'jaeden, one of the two primary lieutenants of Sargeras and essentially the "Left Hand" of the Burning Legion, found Illidan and threatened to destroy him and all of his followers unless Illidan would do him a solid and destroy the Lich King, who had rebelled agains the Legion.

Illidan launched an assault on the Scourge back on Azeroth with his followers, conjuring an earthquake that cracked the Frozen Throne (and thus freed the Forsaken from the Lich King's domination, though this was an unintended side effect) and then traveled to Northrend to assault Icecrown, where the Frozen Throne had landed.

However, while the siege was a massive battle between the Illidari and the Scourge, ultimately it was Arthas who emerged victorious, defeated Illidan in a one-on-one duel. Arthas would go on to ascend the Frozen Throne and merge with the Lich King, his will coming to dominate that of Ner'zhul's and become among Azeroth's greatest villains.

But Illidan survived his battle and retreated with his surviving forces to Outland, where he worked to shore up his defenses in the event of Kil'jaeden's inevitable assault upon him.

However, his efforts to control Outland put him in conflict with the forces of the Naaru, the Alliance and Horde expeditions there, and his callous debauchery within the Black Temple had even lost him the loyalty of Akama, the Krokul leader of the Ashtongue Deathsworn, the mutated Draenei priests who had once worshipped in Karabor's halls. Akama, working with adventurers and freeing the leader of the Wardens, Maiev Shadowsong, struck back against Illidan at the summit of the temple, killing him all while Illidan had sent his Illidari Demon Hunter trainees on a mission.

Illidan's body was locked away in a crystal for years, but when the Legion invaded again (in the Legion expansion,) the demons attacked the Vault where Illidan's body was being kept, stealing it away and attempting to use his body as a vessel for Sargeras to enter Azeroth.

However, adventurers (perhaps even some of the same who had slain him nine years prior) freed him from this prison, the fel magic resurrecting him but not having a chance to make him a vessel.

Illidan, at this point, saw his purpose more clearly, and became an important ally in the fight against the Legion once again. Using a magical crystal (the objective of his Demon Hunter proteges years before,) he opened a portal from Azeroth to Argus, the world that was effectively the Legion's main base of operations (home to the Eredar, including the Draenei).

During the invasion of Argus, the Prime Naaru (still not totally clear what that means compared to a regular Naaru) X'era declared that Illidan had a cosmic destiny, and sought to forcibly purge his fel magic and replace it with the Holy Light. But Illidan refused, destroying X'era for violating his body autonomy. (The Draenei Prophet Velen, who was a witness to this, sealed my impression of him as a truly good person because he saw this and seemed to find Illidan's actions totally reasonable, even though Velen is a devout adherent of the Light. Consent, people. It's a hard line.)

Fighting through the corrupted Titan facility of Antorus, the adventurers battled against the newborn Titan Argus, whom Sargeras had corrupted over the eons while he was just an embryonic Worldsoul, and with Argus' defeat, the remaining members of the Titan pantheon were able to draw Sargeras back into their cosmic throne, the Seat of the Pantheon, where Illidan remained along with the Titans to battle Sargeras for... eternity, as far as we can tell.

So: Illidan is really more of an antihero than a villain, and while he certainly did some unprincipled and bad things, his motives, to me, have mostly been for the greater good (or sometimes to save his own skin). I don't think he wants anyone to suffer unless they're bad guys.

But all that aside: it's not unthinkable that you'd come into conflict with him. I imagine that the stat block here is imagining him in that Burning Crusade-era version of him at the Black Temple (and certainly that's reflected in some of the abilities he has.

Phew, all that preamble aside: what's his stat block like?

Illidan is a CR 24 Large Fiend. This puts him as the second-highest-CR stat block in the book, just after Arthas (makes sense, as Arthas did beat him a duel). He's fast - a 60 foot walking and flying speed, and he's got a decently hefty HP pool at 430 and an AC of 20.

True to the Demon Hunter working as a Ranger, his best stats are Dex and Wisdom. Also, appropriately enough, he has 120 feet of Blindsight - the Fel magic in his burned-out eye sockets giving him sight beyond sight (...was going to say something about a certain very influential science-fiction series but don't want to spoil an upcoming movie for those who haven't read the books).

Illidan has something approximating a Mythic mode, where he gains a new trait, a new action and a new legendary action, which he can activate once he's bloodied.

Complementing his high movement, opportunity attacks against him are made with disadvantage. He also has your standard legendary resistance and magic resistance.

Bizarrely, he isn't listed as carrying the Warglaives of Azzinoth, given that those are his iconic weapons (and are in the book as a pair of artifact scimitars). He has a somewhat simple multiattack - making one Flame Crash - a ranged/melee ability that deals 22 fire damage and has a +14 to hit - and then two Warglaive attacks (18 slashing and 19 force, also with a +14 to hit).

His legendary actions have a once-per-round Agonizing Flames, which forces a dex save against a single target, dealing 33 fire damage and then making them burn for 1d12, or a save for half of the main damage only. Then, Strike lets him move up to half his speed and do a Flame Crash or Warglaive attack.

When bloodied, once a day, he can use a bonus action to unleash the Demon Within (basically his version of the spell Metamorphosis,) which regains him 100 HP and then unlocks three new things:

Aura of Dread triggers a Con save of 22 from anyone within 30 feet of him, dealing 19 necrotic damage on a failure and, also on a failure, preventing them from regaining HP until the end of their next turn.

Shadow Blast is part of his actions that can take the place of the Flame Crash attack in his multiattack that is basically a 30-foot radius necrotic fireball with a Dex save of 22.

Finally, Draw Soul forces a target he can see ("see") within 60 feet, dealing 45 force on a failure, and insta-killing them if they hit 0 HP from it, though only once per round.

And that's more or less it other than some skills and such.

    So, I think running Illidan is very straightforward. Most of his damage is coming from his Warglaives, so you can't have him just stay out of melee range (though he does have a 10-foot reach with the Warglaives). I think his high speed and the disadvantage on opportunity attacks against him does mean he's suited for hit-and-run tactics. He should be pretty good at focusing down vulnerable party members.

I will say, though, that the simplicity of his stat block actually makes him a pretty great choice for an allied NPC. While he's so high-CR that you'll need to make some really hefty encounters for the party to need that much help, it would be fitting with his characterization in most of his appearances (Burning Crusade having been a time when some players complained that he had been thrown the "villain ball.") Also fitting to that characterization, though, is that the Aura of Dread would also harm allies.

While I for sure never fought Illidan when he was a current raid boss (I went into Karazhan, BC's first raid, like twice during that expansion, and that was the extent of my raiding experience prior to Wrath of the Lich King) I do know that there was a phase where he flew up into the air and his glaives manifested two giant fel fire elementals that I think you needed to take down at the same time. There's no real equivalent thing here, though I do think that the Warglaives of Azzinoth can summon fire elementals. (Actually, upon checking, they instead let you cast Summon Fiend with the devil option).

Anyway, Illidan is certainly one of the most iconic characters in Warcraft lore, and one who could very easily play either ally or antagonist in a campaign.

New Weapon Types with D&D Beyond Drops

 Now that we've nearly exhausted the World of Warcraft book (fittingly coming out at a time when a massive number of players are dropping into the new Classic Plus version of WoW called WoW Forever - amazing timing that's actually probably less intentional than you'd expect. Consider how long after Descent into Avernus Baldur's Gate 3 actually wound up coming out) we're going to look at the monthly source of new content that I sometimes forget exists, but really shouldn't.

D&D Beyond Drops has given us one pretty good subclass, a lot of monsters and also feats and backgrounds and such.

November's slew of drops has a bit of a Planescape theme to it, giving us the long-awaited (maybe?) Bariaur species, which was one of the three original playable races in the original 2nd Edition Planescape books (along with Githzerai and Tieflings, the latter of which obviously took off pretty well).

But the thing I'm here to talk about is instead the three new weapon types.

It's actually kind of nuts that D&D doesn't play around with new kinds of weapons more. In the WoW book, they suggested using various weapons to approximate the very over-the-top Warglaives that Demon Hunters use - the famous legendary (or Artifact in D&D terms) Warblades of Azzinoth, wielded by Illidan, are presented as a pair of scimitars (great except I'd wish the main-hand one had a different weapon mastery). (Actually, in fairness, the legendary weapons from WoW, which were a particularly rare drop if you defeated Illidan, were considered one-handed swords because Warglaives wouldn't be added to the game until Demon Hunters were in 2016, nine years after Illidan was fought in the Burning Crusade expansion.)

Now, I also got the Grim Hollow Player's Guide a few months back, and that actually has a whole slew of advanced weapons that have new masteries and properties.

But in 5E's official releases, we've only occasionally gotten new weapons, like the Double-bladed Scimitar (which actually looks more like a polearm than the Warglaive, which actually looks like a two-bladed scimitar... should these swap names?) or I believe a new weapon in Tomb of Annihilation.

So there's precedent.

But the addition of weapon masteries has actually made new weapon types matter a bit more than they used to. So, let's take a look at these and see how they feel, and what kind of characters might want to use them.

Bola:

Bolas are martial weapons and have the and Finesse, Thrown (20/40) properties, and the Topple mastery. They deal 1 flat bludgeoning damage (plus ability modifier, of course). They weight 2 pounds and cost 2g.

    Like the Blowgun, this is one of those weapons that will probably need to be quite souped up magically to make it appealing if you're trying to maximize damage, given that its damage die is effectively 1d1. That being said, with the Topple mastery (which I think makes it unique among weapons with which you can make ranged attacks) could actually be very helpful from a utility perspective. Hitting a flying foe in particular (if it doesn't have hover) could be really clutch.

    I wouldn't recommend building a damage-dealing character around this, given the low damage, but it might not be a terrible idea to carry a few of these around if you have the weapon mastery to spare. Fighters will obviously have tons of weapon masteries active. Note as well that Rogues will have proficiency with this despite being martial because it has the Finesse property (and thus also works for Sneak Attack).

    You can also whip this around in melee, though I think you'd be far better off with some other weapon unless you get, like a Vicious Bola that will be getting bonus damage dice. Still, a Vicious Bola winds up doing only 1 more damage than a mundane Maul.

    So, more of a utility option in most cases.

Pitchfork:

The classic weapon of angry mobs (equip your Commoners with these!) this is a simply weapon that deals 1d6 piercing damage, has the Reach and Two-Handed properties, and the Push mastery. It weighs 3 lbs and costs 1g.

    First off, the cost feels high - a peasant can't be throwing around a gold. But for an adventurer, it's pretty negligible.

    Now, a d6 is the lowest damage you can get with a two-handed melee weapon, but I think the existence of Reach justifies this - normally reach will sort of "downgrade" a weapon by a damage die, like how a Halberd is like a Greataxe, but goes from a d12 to a d10 in exchange for an extra 5 feet of reach.

    And actually? For a melee weapon wielded classically by simple farmers, reach is probably incredibly valuable - along with Push, it's all about fending off scary monsters, and being able to strike them from beyond the monster's reach is really valuable (and I'm given to understand that this was a huge part of actual medieval warfare - that polearms were far, far more popular and common in actual combat than your classic swords and axes.

    What this weapon is perfect for is a Monk, because you'll be upgrading past the d6 by level 5 anyway, and this is I believe the only simple melee weapon with reach. Without the Heavy property (which is why Monks don't use Greatclubs - though also they can get a d8 weapon just by using a Quarterstaff or Spear with two hands) there's nothing stopping your Martial Arts bonuses to applying here. And given that a lot of Monk weapons are often taken from the tools of civilians (which back in pre-industrial days was like 95% farmers) this fits incredibly well.

Weighted Chain:

This is, I'd guess, a weapon with far less historical precedent, but it's cool as hell - it's a bigass chain you swing around at your foes. This is a martial weapon that deals 1d8 Bludgeoning damage, and has the Finesse, Heavy, Reach, and Two-Handed properties and the Graze mastery. It costs 15g and weighs 10 lbs.

    We need to unpack this: this is the only weapon with both finesse and reach, and the presence of finesse means that a Rogue can actually use it. Now, that being said, the Graze mastery, while very good (though I might have overrated it a bit when 5.5 first came out because I didn't think about how many enemies you face with lower ACs than a boss-level threat) is not very good for Rogues, given that they get far more of their damage from Sneak Attack than their actual weapon hit (in contrast, this makes "d1" weapons like the Bola more appealing to a Rogue than to other classes).

    Much as the Glaive downgrades its damage die from a Greatsword to get its Reach (sort of - 2d6 is a little better than a d12, but their max damage is the same), this is downgrading one die further to get Finesse.

    While it is a finesse weapon, though, this is a heavy weapon, in terms of both weight and the property. In terms of weight, your table might completely ignore carrying capacity, so who cares? But if you don't ignore it, that makes this potentially a little tricky to use on a character that isn't Strength-based.

    However, the property, which does mean we're going to have to have at least 13 Strength (while it is a finesse weapon, heavy imposes a Strength requirement simply on any melee weapon. we just haven't had a Heavy Finesse weapon before,) also does meant that this is a valid option for a Great Weapon Master build. To get that feat, you'll need a 13 in Strength anyway, so if you have the ability score points to spare, you could use this on a Rogue. Sadly, a Monk cannot use this because while the Rogue gets any martial weapons with Finesse or Light, Monks only get martial weapons with the light property (they sort of don't care about Finesse, as they effectively get that with their Martial Arts feature anyway).

Overall Thoughts:

Anyway, while your players might not think to take these when they build their characters (and in 5.5, class starting equipment doesn't let you choose "any martial weapon" anymore, now giving you specific weapons as part of that package - though you can also just take gold) DMs can get these into their games simply by rewarding magical versions of them. Have your players find a +1 Weighted Chain and see them exclaim "wait, a what?"

I will say, I really like the Grim Hollow weapons (especially the Cumbersome ranged weapons, which require you to use Strength instead of Dexterity for them) but these require a fighting style to pick them, which is a bit of a drag.

But yeah, Drops has been a fun sort of constant flow of cool ideas that can be plugged in wherever.

My First Brand New Dungeon in WoW Forever: Ruins of Lordaeron

 Ruins of Lordaeron is one of the new dungeons that never appeared in Mainline WoW that has been added in WoW Forever. It's designed for characters in their late teens or early 20s (levels, not age, of course).

The dungeon is built in the area that, in the post-Cataclysm WoW, is accessible above Undercity, or the ruins thereof now, officially serving as the modern Forsaken capital, even if it's certainly not as detailed or dense as the Undercity.

You more or less make a U-shaped path through the ruined capital city, around the central keep where, outside of the instance, you can access the elevators down into Undercity (and of course, the throne room where Arthas murdered his father the king).

In terms of dungeon design, this is decidedly old-school, calling to mind the scattered packs of monsters like you see in a dungeon like Stratholme - it's not too difficult to only pull one pack at a time, but you occasionally get patrols (including a couple patrolling bosses). Twice, or maybe three times, there are bosses that come after a wave of undead monsters spawn.

This being decidedly pre-Wrath, the threat here is the remaining Scourge holding the surface of the city. Most of the foes are undead, though the first part of the dungeon is a bunch of giant spiders.

As you come around the southern bend of the ruins, you'll see a cemetery, which you have to sort of loop around back to to face the final boss, a skeletal mage recalling the one in the Scarlet Graveyard.

I think the map here is only minimally changed from what exists in Modern WoW, though the routes are cut off in a way to keep you going in roughly the right path. However, the entire dungeon is overrun with a thick necrotic fog, which makes it profoundly dark and foreboding. The final cemetery area has some glowing green vapors that give it a nice, otherworldly quality.

Indeed, the lighting and weather effects in WoW Forever are quite impressive, and the decision to make nights truly dark (especailly in Undead-associated places like Tirisfal Glades, though to be fair, I've been following a Tirisfal-Silverpine-Hillsbrad path that has tended to keep my in the spooky woods and fields) both adds to the atmosphere and mood and also does genuinely challenge you to see where you're going. I don't know that that's such a bad thing, but I imagine there must be accessibility features that can make the darkness less intense.

I will say that tanking a dungeon, at least at level 20, is a very different beast than modern WoW. DPS has unlearned the need to actually give the tank a chance to get threat on their enemies, but at these low levels, it's also not like the DPS can't take a few hits. While I did get Consecration, it's both very mana-intensive and also doesn't guarantee that the enemies will pay attention to me if a Mage is spamming Arcane Explosion.

At least so far, I'm not seeing a ton of players using crowd control, but given how distinct AoE versus single-target abilities are (and how few of the former there are at these levels,) it seems far more viable than in Modern WoW, where it's rarely worth doing, and even if you do, there's so much passive AoE going out that it's quite hard to avoid breaking CC.

I've never liked that the challenge of Mythic Plus is all built around how quickly you can finish the dungeon. While I get that this is the easiest thing to use, and prevents groups from cheesing high-difficulty dungeons by, like, waiting long enough to pop Bloodlust/Heroism on every pull, it has meant that carefulness is basically passé, and you're incentivized to sprint to the next pull, or even chain-pull.

(Note for tanks: chain pulling is not just pulling multiple groups at once. It's when you've gotten a mob down to one or two low-health enemies who will probably die to DoTs and start the next pull then.)

The disempowerment - or rather, the rolling back of the assumption of empowerment that we have in Modern WoW - slows the pace of these dungeons. But in a way... the fact that the dungeons themselves are designed like they made them in 2004, when you had bosses that just did like, one unusual thing (this one knocks the tank in the air occasionally!) makes me feel less excited to take my sweet time going from pull to pull.

I think you could argue that modern dungeon and raid bosses are too complex - that you need to take a seminar to learn how to even attempt some bosses. But I think there's a middle-ground of memorable bosses with unique abilities that require you to change up your strategy while still being explainable in two or three sentences that I'd be happier with.

Ruins of Lordaeron is actually relatively accessible for Alliance players, because the ruins above Undercity don't have any guard NPCs, at least until you get past Terenas' tomb (hey, I thought he was cremated and the urn used as Kel'thuzad's phylactery. What's even in that sarcophagus?) While I do think you get flagged for PvP, it's a relatively quick jaunt over to the instance portal. By contrast, the other new "in a city" dungeon is, I believe, deep within Ironforge (I want to say through the doors in the throne room that goes to the lower city where Diamond Magni was for several expansions - though I haven't seen it myself because I haven't actually played any other characters than the Undead Paladin on Forever). I suspect, much like Ragefire Chasm or Stormwind Stockades, that members of the opposite faction should well and truly just skip that one.

WoW Forever Will Stay Fun if You Can't Fall Too Far Behind

 I was thinking about WoW Forever, which I've been playing for the past few days.

I've got an Undead Paladin (I resolved that if I make a character of each class, I'll have to do it on the opposite faction of my oldest character in Modern WoW, meaning my Paladin, Hunter, Druid, and Warlock have to be Horde and my Shaman, Mage, Warrior, Rogue, and Priest have to be Alliance) up to level 19, planning to run the new Ruins of Lordaeron dungeon when I hit 20 (and get Consecration).

I'm also planning on having each class go as the spec that I play on that character (or if not that actual character, as a few of those old toons have been demoted to secondary alts for their class, then the one I play in Modern) because, well, the classes play so differently that I don't really feel like there's much redundancy. A Protection Paladin in Midnight is almost unrecognizable from one in WoW Forever - I think the only two spells they'll share are Consecration and Judgment, and the latter is very different in Modern than it is in Forever.

Anyway, leveling is a slow process. Part of that is stuff that I don't really feel all that nostalgic about - like being unable to tag mobs that another person has hit first. I'll note that I do like the intent of this, which I believe is to get you to group up with other players if you're questing in the same area. But the number of people I've tried to group up with only to be unceremoniously declined makes me feel instead that I'd rather I didn't see so many active players. This is something that kind of sucks in an MMO: almost all the changes to these sorts of systems are meant to make you feel glad that there are other players out there. But I'm brought back to blissful it felt when there was basically no one else in a zone where you were questing - at least until you got to a group quest with a bunch of elites to fight.

Still, leveling being a slow process is actually... a good thing?

I think that if there's one real problem at the heart of Modern WoW, it's that we feel rushed. Make sure you experience all this content in the current season before it becomes irrelevant! That means leveling up as fast as you can. It means gearing up as fast as you can. It means that there's less time to soak in the atmosphere of a quest line, to feel like you're one lone adventurer (or maybe a small group of adventurers) in a world of mystery and danger.

However, the early days of WoW, and I think vanilla in particular (though I speak from only a couple months of experience in Vanilla, and was somewhat ignorant of what the game even looked like at max level,) put far less emphasis on the "endgame." To a certain extent, it was kind of frustrating, because the massive raids were experienced by only a tiny fraction of the players (I believe that less than 1% of players during Burning Crusade even went into Sunwell Plateau, or maybe that was how many finished it).

Because endgame was kind of this far-off, distant thing that most players didn't even expect to see, you could really focus on the leveling process, and not worry so much about how long it was going to take you to get to the cap.

I hope that WoW Forever can sustain that feeling.

And I think a key to this is that feeling of horizontal progression - if they pull it off.

See, here's where I see this falling apart:

Let's say that players start doing Molten Core, or the new Barrow Deeps or Hyjal Summit raids. Then, a few months later, they maybe open up Blackwing Lair, along with some new raid, like... I don't know, those caverns below Stonetalon Mountains that were a big thing in Warcraft III but have never appeared in WoW.

It'll be the new raid, so I'm sure the novelty of it will draw people to try it out. But if the gear there is pure sidegrades, will people run it once and then kind of lose interest?

This is obviously why Modern WoW has these seasonal resets - if you're a raider, you're sure to check out the Venomous Abyss because the gear you get there is just fundamentally better than what you could get in the Voidspire raid.

But, of course, that then leads you into the opposite problem: that the Voidspire gathers dust as no one has any mechanical reward for going through it.

Indeed, given the whole seasonal model, my (basically dead) guild's role as the "Clean Up Crew," running Naxxramas after Ulduar had come out and running Ulduar after Trial of the Crusader had come out, doesn't really make sense, as you can get better gear from doing pretty easy solo content.

So I would say that between the two options, unless they can come up with some genius third option, is to lean more toward the former. Make the reason to go into the new raids be because it's something new.

And... I would also not come out with new raids as often as they do in Modern WoW. With Modern, a fast patch cadence was a big priority after the content droughts of earlier expansions.

But I think WoW Forever should keep a foot on the brakes - don't overwhelm the players with too many endgame options. If anything, expand the low-level content, adding new races and zones to encourage players to make new characters and start new journeys and reset to a lower power level.

Like, I don't think you want to leave players who hit the level cap with nothing to do. But I think it's crucial that what level-cap content you do make remains there, waiting for players to hop into it even if the raid has been out for five years. As long as it doesn't feel like you've got to rush to catch content before it vanishes into obscurity, you'll be able to cultivate that relaxed pace of the game.

Like, I never ran Sepulcher of the First Ones during Shadowlands, only coming to it I think after War Within came out (generally, raids become soloable two expansions after their initial release). While I'm happy I've been able to see it (I feel like there's some ineffable, half-remembered aesthetic from, like, 1960s animation that the First Ones' aesthetic reminds me of) but I certainly don't feel like I get a sense of how it actually felt to do these bosses at an appropriate level. That one guy that you chase down a long trail... I can take it down before it's gone like 10 feet.

So, truly, they really need to make the endgame a relaxed field of options that never go out of style.

To be frank, if they made a version of WoW like that, with that sort of "all endgame content is current" approach, but then added in all the conveniences of, well, modern class and quest design, modern environmental design, and with the story having moved forward as it has in Modern WoW... that might actually be my preferred form for WoW to take.

As it stands, though, I think I'm still more invested in the 22-year history of the Core/Modern/Retail/Mainline/Real WoW, and all the various ways the game has grown and evolved. I've been playing more of Forever this week than Modern, but that's largely due to the fact that we're quite a ways into the current patch, and while I still do have to polish off some armor set appearances, I'm sort of ok taking it easy until the 12.2 Worldcore patch comes out.

WoW Forever is Reminding Me How Far We've Come (But Also What We've Left Behind)

 I've been there. I was there, in the trenches. I started playing World of Warcraft in the fall of 2006, and I have never once let my subscription lapse. That's not some misguided declaration of loyalty to a company that, let's face it, has plenty of reasons not to deserve our loyalty, or pride, but just an acknowledgement that, while I did come in right at the tail end of vanilla, I've seen WoW through all of its eras.

WoW Forever is built on the foundation of WoW Classic, which rolled back World of Warcraft to how it was in 2004 (mostly). I think one of the biggest motivations for the release was the feeling of what was lost when the original continents were profoundly revamped in the Cataclysm expansion, but it has also been there as a way to preserve an earlier version of the game.

Classic itself is actually two versions of the game, with the "true Classic" preserving the 1.X era prior to Burning Crusade, and then a gradual revisit to various expansions - which makes sense, given that I, for one, feel far more nostalgia for Wrath of the Lich King than my brief time in Vanilla and even my full time through Burning Crusade. In fact, it's sort of three, because now there's apparently Burning Crusade Anniversary.

What impresses me here is that, for the same subscription fee (that hasn't gone up, I think, since 2004 - though I get the 6-month version that does lower the cost-per-month) Blizzard is now running, effectively, 5 versions of WoW that anyone with any subscription can access.

But to come back to my initial point: I was there in Vanilla, and even if I didn't get anyone to the level cap until about a year later after Burning Crusade had been out for the better part of 2007, the actual experience of leveling up through the Old World was mostly unchanged other than a few new quests here and there and some Blood Elf and Draenei NPCs.

WoW Forever's longterm plans are somewhat up in the air - though the presence of a very Cataclysm-accurate Gilnean peninsula on the world map does feel like it hints that this zone will be opened up at some point (and I wonder if that also means the Worgen will be brought in as playable).

Playing WoW Forever, the class design and pace of play does, actually, take me back. It's a far, far slower game than what we have in Modern WoW (I was going to say what we have in 2026, but of course, this is technically also 2026). Going to class trainers to learn new abilities and even ranks of your abilities, having only one flight point per zone, having to wait to get a mount until level 40. The lack of any Zeppelin between Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar, so you have to hoof it (literally if you're a Tauren) across the Barrens to get your flight points.

And... I don't actually hate that.

See, by contrast, I felt very dumb the other day when, in Modern WoW, trying to complete my tier set appearance set on my Shaman, I accidentally put a Champion-quality cloak in the Catalyst, wasting a charge on it when I wanted to put a Hero-quality one in, so that once I get a full set of hero gear upgraded with crests, I'll have all four versions of the Shaman tier set's appearances.

There's an efficiency to gaining power in Modern WoW, and a real feeling that you can and thus should race to get the highest-quality gear you can that certain things fall by the wayside. Leveling up now is a brief inconvenience on a new character, and even content from the same expansion, but from a previous season, is kind of skipped in favor of whatever is new.

For my altoholic tendencies (see the name of the blog,) this is really enabling, because I can grind away and get really good gear on a character of every class in a season. It's not, like, trivial. It's a lot of stuff to do. But it's relatively easy. Tier 11 Delves start to be pretty easy once you get Valeera's level capped out, and thus a flow of gear that only a few expansions ago would be better than anything I'd ever expect to have (at least while it was relevant) is what I've now come to expect.

So, slowing down, making that journey to level 60 a real challenge and substantial commitment, is actually pretty cool. You get to feel a bit more like an adventurer in a more traditional sort of RPG. I mean, in D&D, barely anyone even makes it to the level cap.

And this isn't just about the speed of leveling, but also the challenge of the world around you - just going into an area filled with monsters is going to test you. I just did some quests in Silverpine Forest that took me to Pyrewood Village. Teaming up on my tanking (while he's going with a tank build, ironically his first like 12 talent points go into the Retribution tree) Paladin with a DPS paladin (or at least he was wielding a two-hander) and a Frost Mage, we had some hairy moments there when we got more Worgen attacking us than we had meant to fight. We wound up getting through it ok, but I definitely blew through some healing potions and the other paladin had to heal me occasionally while I tanked all the foes.

And that felt epic - it made Pyrewood Village feel like a truly scary and deadly place.

But:

The design of the classes (and here I've really only gotten to play a Paladin, but it has reignited a lot of memories) is... janky as hell.

I'm not really talking about power levels, though I guess that this is going to come hand-in-hand. What I mean is that when I am fighting on my Undead Paladin, here's what I do:

I get Seal of Fury up (a new spell designed for tanking,) refreshing it every 30 seconds, which is how long it lasts. Then, I do Divine Strike, a new ability that does a bit of holy damage, and has a 10-second cooldown. Then, I do Judgment, which, with Seal of Fury up, does some holy damage and then taunts the foe. This also has a 10-second cooldown, though I have started investing in talents that will get it down to 8.

That is it.

In other words, there's a lot of downtime where you just watch your character swing their weapon, hoping that they'll crit, or at least not miss.

Now, sure, maybe that's particularly true of Paladins, whose Seal system does lean more into buffing their auto-attacks than doing something active. Hell, back in the day, we didn't get Divine Strike. There can be some interplay with various seals, swapping which one you have for different judgment effects. But that is still relying on auto-attacks and that same Judgment cooldown.

There are other reversions: there's no open tagging for enemies. If someone isn't in your party and hits a foe first, you can't get credit for it. Ok, fine - you don't want an area with 30 people questing there to be a trivial "just tag everything with a DoT". And you also don't get to share quest item drops unless it's from a unique enemy - sure, you bring 3 people to Pyrewood Village to collect shackles from the Worgen there, so you'll need to take out 3 times as many Worgen." But then, we hit a part where we all needed to get a book out of a bookshelf in the Pyrewood Inn. The other paladin looted it first. Then, we had to wait about a minute before the book respawned within the bookshelf (which you sort of opened like a chest) for the next person to get it, and then once again for the last player to get their book for the quest.

This kind of friction... is not something I've been pining for. This is not what I'm nostalgic for.

The only reason, really, that I'm bothering with WoW Forever at all is just to see what's new. It's really exciting to see Dalaran towering over Lordamere Lake (though it also drives home how absurdly tightly-packed the original 7 human kingdoms were - Lordaeron City and Dalaran are about as far from one another as Boston and Cambridge).

Ok, no, that's not entirely true. I am also bothering with it because of the difference in stakes. One of the core philosophies that Blizzard talked about with it was the idea that players aren't these grand and important champions, but are just adventurers of little renown in a big and scary world.

And that vibe is something that you can start to miss.

Again, the analogous thing with D&D is that by the time you hit higher levels, you have such incredible power (well, if you're a spellcaster) that the only things that can really challenge you are world-threatening or even cosmic threats. There's no reason to spend months trekking across the wilderness, foraging for food, when the Wizard can cast a spell every day that teleports you to any location in a different plane of existence.

Our characters in Modern WoW, especially if you started in those first couple expansions, though, have earned that epic tier of play - at a certain point, when you've been part of the team that took down the Lich King, and also Deathwing, and Ragnaros, and beat both Kil'jaeden and Archimonde twice... you just aren't a random nobody anymore.

The expansions have gone from making you earn that respect to just acknowledging it and assuming it. I think this started with Warlords of Draenor, where the player character was your faction's chosen Commander for the expedition to Draenor. They doubled down with this in Legion by making you the leader of your class order (or at least a member of its most elite council).

What this allows the game to be is super epic. But it also means that it's really hard, maybe impossible, to reset things so that we come in as faceless nobodies again.

But what's the longterm plan?

As someone who feels a strong attachment to Modern WoW, there is a feeling of... worry? Jealousy? Anxiety? surrounding the apparently massive success of WoW Forever - which supposedly had the biggest launch in WoW history, beating even Cataclysm (while Cata is probably very few peoples' favorite expansion, it rode in on the coattails of Wrath of the Lich King, which is very many peoples' favorite expansion, and I think the longstanding peak of active players for WoW was actually after the Cataclysm launch).

Part of me is enjoying the nostalgic trip to this 2004-like version of WoW, with all the jankiness. But another part of me feels like I'm going mad: is this really how people want to spend their time in Azeroth? Autoattacking, fighting to tag mobs, spending fifteen minutes running across a zone just to get a quest that sends you right back where you came from?

Truthfully, I think that the enlightened response here is to just be happy that both versions exist, that the varying versions of WoW let people with different tastes and desires for what they want out of the game to get what they prefer. And if it turns out that the people who want the updated, forward-looking, slicker, and maybe more fast-paced (both in terms of gameplay and content releases) game are in the minority among WoW players, is that so bad?

Humans both like to feel that they can think for themselves and be independent and unique, but at the same time, we get a lot of comfort from people agreeing with us. Like: I don't care at all about sports. I don't watch them. But solely because I grew up outside of Boston, I have it deeply programmed into me that being a Red Sox fan is morally correct, and being a Yankees fan is a moral failing. And it's absurd, because it does not affect me in any way shape or form whether someone out there disagrees over which team is better to like. (Fun fact, my sister lives in Brooklyn, and her husband grew up as a Yankees fan, so as a compromise, they've decided that they'll encourage my nephew, if he winds up caring, to be a Dodgers fan. And it kind of works, because they used to be the Brooklyn team, but I also live in LA.)

And again, because Blizzard has all these WoWs on the same subscription, there's less of a sense that one version is competing with the other.

In fact, what I really hope we see is some of the lessons learned in doing WoW Forever applied to Modern/Mainline/Retail/Real WoW. There could be some great cross-polination here.

But also, because they have both of these versions of the game (and like three versions of Classic as well, lest we forget) it means that they can also kind of have their cake and eat it too.