Imagining Farahlon

My favorite zone in Burning Crusade was Netherstorm. I'm not really saying it had the best quests (questing back then was an improvement over vanilla, but Wrath was a big improvement on BC,) but I loved the feel of it. Some people are purists, but I love when the chocolate of science fiction gets mixed up with the peanut butter of fantasy, and Netherstorm felt like a crazy alien world, with its purple rocks floating in an atmosphere just buzzing with magical energy.

When they announced Warlords of Draenor, we discovered that a lot of familiar places once had different names (except Shadowmoon Valley and Nagrand,) but quests in Netherstorm gave us a bit of an image of what it used to be when it was Farahlon.

In those early announcements, the zone was included on the maps, but it has since disappeared. We're definitely going to Tanaan Jungle, but the fate of Farahlon is totally up in the air. I imagine that if we get a new island zone in the vein of Quel Danas or Timeless Isle, Farahlon will be the first one they jump to use, but there's a real possibility that Tanaan Jungle is the only new zone we'll find in Draenor before we head off to our next adventure.

Still, it's fun to think about Farahlon.

The denizens of Netherstorm were largely aliens. The biggest feature of the zone was a group of Naaru-built Manaforges, which were presumably built after the disaster that destroyed Draenor and apparently was there to pump magical energy into Tempest Keep - which means the whole zone could have been essentially a gas station.

The Blood Elves under Kael'thas' control had launched a huge campaign to capture the Manaforges as well as Tempest Keep (which despite being called a "Keep" was actually a ship, with each 5-player dungeons as well as the Draenei capital of the Exodar as satellite structures.)

It was in Netherstorm that we discovered Kael'thas was now fully allied with the Burning Legion, and the zone was home to some of their Forge Camps.

Netherstorm was also home to the Consortium, a group of Etherals who had fled their own homeworld of K'aresh in order to escape a Void Lord, who then followed them to Outland.

Likewise, there was Kirin Var Village, the home of Archmage Vargoth (who was and is still physically trapped in his tower by a spell cast by Kael'thas Sunstrider. Good thing he's a whiz at astral projection.) Unfortunately, Vargoth's really the only living member of the village, which had been an outpost for the Alliance Expedition after the Second War.

And then of course there was the Steamwheedle Cartel, which set up Area 52 and Cosmowrench in order to try to extract some of the extremely unusual materials that could be found on a piece of land that was more or less humming with Nether energy.

The point being: pretty much none of these people would be in Draenor's Farahlon.

Admittedly, there were already some aliens there. The Draenei had multiple settlements, some of which are now occupied by the Consortium and some of which are just haunted ruins. Presumably areas like Enkaat, Arklon, and the Stormspire might exist on Draenor.

The zone is also more seriously affected than any of the surviving areas in Outland (so it's better off than Arak and Frostfire,) so it's possible there are far more settlements. We don't know if there's a particular Orc clan that lived there - it's possible that the Blackrock or Laughing Skull might have had a presence there.

Geographically, we have only a little other than the wreckage and a quote from Archmage Vargoth, who describes Farahlon as originally having fields that would not look out of place in Westfall, which seems to suggest that it was an agrarian area, perhaps with amber grains growing on farms. It could have been another major Draenei settlement, like Shadowmoon and Talador.

Stretching a bit, in the early Beta of Warlords there were Botani-affiliated creatures called Fara - they used Tol'vir models and were probably going to be sort of smaller Genesaurs, but I believe they were replaced with the Mandragora. Could Farahlon have been named for these beings? Even if that got axed, the proximity to Gorgrond could allow for both the Primals and the Botani to have a presence there.

Apparently the original plan for Farahlon was for there to be a unique starting experience for boosted level 90 players that was separate from the Tanaan Jungle intro. Those got folded into each other, which left Farahlon kind of drifting.

Personally I'm still holding out hope for a third raid tier with Warlords, but I think that Farahlon would be a great place to set it. If the Iron Horde falls completely after we invade Tanaan, we have one more established zone to visit.