Midnight So Far

 We're in the "preseason" period of Midnight, which I think is meant to allow players to level up at a leisurely pace. Naturally, I'm instead using this time to level up as many characters as I can (see the name of the blog).

As I typically do, I leveled up my main, the human protection paladin, through the main campaign story. He was only level 88 when I finished that, so I did a few side quests, and I was sure to hit every delve and dungeon along the way (three are necessary for the campaign). Then, I've gone through my long-established old-school characters I've been playing for nearly twenty years now. Eager to see the Horde-only side of Silvermoon and also encouraged by a far simpler Subtlety spec, I took my Rogue in after the Paladin.

With each of these next characters, I hang around in a single zone to do all the side-quests and get the "Sojourner" achievement. The Undead Rogue stuck to Eversong, and I have to say that the questlines in Silvermoon in particular felt very appropriate for a character I've always imagined as a kind of bitter and cynical spy like something out of a Le Carré novel. Arguably it's a bit more like a Noir detective kind of vibe to these stories, but there's a notable recognition of the fact that the Blood Elves have a deeply flawed society, with a rich elite that exploits the poor. It makes sense - their Highborne ancestors were the powerful elite of Kal'dorei society before they were exiled, and given how long elves live (they weren't immortal like the Night Elves were until the end of the Third War, but I think they're meant to live thousands of years - I can't recall if Dath'remar was Anastarian's father, but I don't think they're all that many generations removed from the War of the Ancients). The quests in Eversong itself are largely less bitter in tone (actually there are some very whimsical ones within the city as well).

My next character in was my Draenei Death Knight, who has historically gravitated most toward Blood, but I've also often played him as Frost, and have focused on that for the most part so far. As a profoundly ancient alien, it seemed appropriate to have him focus on the Voidstorm. While I think a Void Elf Devourer Demon Hunter or Shadow Priest would be truly the most appropriate character to do all the stuff there, I was actually really rewarded for bringing a Draenei, as there's a quest where a lot of the NPCs apparently speak in Draenei and have specific dialogue for them. I'm impressed that they've managed to really come up with some metaphysically weird stuff here. Since their introduction technically toward the end of Legion (though they required purchase of BFA) the Void Elves haven't really had much time in the spotlight to develop as a culture and people. Unlike the rest of that first batch of allied races, we didn't see any during Legion. Voidstorm puts the Ren'dorei front and center, and gives them an opportunity to be defined independently of being "those void-transformed Blood Elves who were banished from Quel'thalas." (Incidentally, I have a Blood Elf Shadow Priest that I've had since BC, and I find it really funny that he'd condemn the Void Elves for what they're doing while being a literal Shadow Priest.)

Next after that is my Tauren Enhancement Shaman, who has been questing around Zul'Aman. Across the board, I've been impressed by the writing of the side quests, with a lot of unexpected and emotionally resonant stories (a story involving the Loa that protects Amani children hit me with a moment that made me wonder who was cutting onions nearby).

These four are the only ones that I've taken to the new content so far, but I'll be rounding out my tour of Midnight when I bring my Night Elf Demon Hunter to focus primarily on Harandar. I'm halfway tempted to level him up as Devourer just so that I have a ranged character in the mix.

I'm pretty loyal to my alts - the original characters of each class have mostly been the ones I actually play and try to gear up, though after Cataclysm, my Worgen Warrior and Draenei Mage kind of took over from the originals (both swapping my "class main" in these to the Alliance, so I lean Alliance a little) and then I couldn't resist the Wicker Man Druid forms of the Kul Tirans, so that one took over for my original Night Elf Druid.

I still like to keep those originals (like my Orc Warrior and Troll Mage) leveled up, but usually I do so toward the end of an expansion and don't put too much effort into gearing them.

But yes, let's talk Midnight.

Thematically, there's a pretty heavy emphasis on the Light being nearly as much of a threat as the Void. We see this in Turalyon's, frankly, dickish attitude toward the Blood Elves and his insistence that the Light can do not wrong, even in the face of pretty clear evidence. Along the same lines, we see Lothraxion succumb to wrathful zeal and we actually have to kill him to keep him from causing massive collateral damage that could destroy Silvermoon. But we also see its effect on nature with the Lightbloom.

Notably, there seems to be something that has supercharged this danger in the Light. It could simply be the effort to pour the Light into the Sunwell to hold off Xal'atath's invasion - after all, it seems that the Lightbloom in Eversong started nearly two decades ago, when M'uru was used to reignite the Sunwell. The effects have been benign until recently.

But it's still something of a mystery: it's not clear if the Paladins and Priests channeling Light into the Sunwell is what is causing this or if there's some hidden threat.

Traveling into Harandar, we learn a couple of things - technically never said explicitly, but implied heavily:

First off: the Haranir are clearly an offshoot of the original "Dark Trolls" that became the Night Elves. Their history tells of having once lived on and under a great mountain (presumably Hyjal) and that their ancestors left there to live underground in the great root-nexus. So yes, I think we can confidently say that the Haranir are a kind of "missing link" between Night Elves and Trolls, and fittingly, they have a mixture of features from both peoples.

Second: the Haranir worship an absent goddess they call Aln'hara, who supposedly rested in a great cradle of roots suspended above Harandar, but she was stolen away. This is, almost certainly, the World Soul of Azeroth. (Notably, there are illusory beings that are imagined into existence by the goddess, and they look exactly like the various World Soul memories we've seen during War Within, which themselves have a similar color scheme to Azerite. Indeed, we have a big part of the quests in Harandar to secure "Aln Dust" which I suspect is just Azertie). And that's actually really interesting! Some force must have moved where the World Soul was located inside the planet. I think we're meant to suspect that the Titans did this in their "Ordering of Azeroth," but let's not forget that the Titans found the world in a state where the Old Gods were trying to corrupt it, so it may have been the Black Empire that stole the Haranir goddess.

I'll also note that the cradle is small enough that I can now actually imagine Azeroth emerging from the planet without killing every living thing on it, which is nice.

Third: we finally have the "material world" location for the Rift of Aln, the part of the Emerald Dream in which we fought Xavius, and which was the wellspring of the Emerald Nightmare. Turns out, the real Rift of Aln is in Harandar! (I'll be eager to explore that area more thoroughly.)

The expansion widely expands the "Quel'thalas Peninsula," though I think it does so primarily by just making Zul'Aman much bigger - the area from the old raid/dungeon is now referred to as Atal'Aman (fitting in the established Troll naming scheme) and is both an outdoor area where you do some of the campaign quests as well as the location of a Delve (there do seem to be a few Delves this expansion that are just alternative versions of outdoor locations - in fact, I think there's one in each zone like that).

Notably, even as Zul'Aman sticks out much farther east than we saw prior to this expansion, there's also a mist-shrouded mountainous island beyond, which many are speculating is a place we'll go in the next patch. Much as the road through Quel'thalas goes all the way up through Silvermoon and along a very long bridge to Quel'danas, there's a giant road and broken bridge that leads to this mountain.

As always, there are tons of details - the game is incredibly dense with lore and little interesting notes. But we've, of course, only scratched the surface so far.