For the first time, I ran an adventure a second time.
I wrote about the first time I ran this before, but now I've run it with a different group of players, with the same ultimate result (they won, in a hard-fought bout.)
Anyway, it was interesting to see how these players did things differently.
The premise of the adventure is that of a wild west showdown (though ironically, the lawless frontier in the nation of Nephimala is actually in the east) in which the party needs to find a safe place to keep a young aasimar girl and the half-orc nun accompanying her while the party scouts out the town of Teh Hevuraga looking for allies and staying wary of secret gang members who wish to capture the girl and sacrifice her to the infernal powers that lead the Red Rattler Gang.
The first party did a lot of work to meet all the major figures in the town, while the second never explored the Temple of Coran (God of Glory and Heroism) or the local brothel - which is actually where the first group chose to keep the girl during the fight.
Neither group used the dynamite they could buy. Also neither group figured out the owner of the general store (who sold the dynamite) was a Rattler. Both did chase the card-cheat out of town, though neither figured out he was also a member of the gang.
The Sheriff's deputy, who is the third and final town resident with the gang, had very different fates in the two runs. The first time, the tiefling bard seduced him, got him to warn her to leave town before Galero (a Barbed Devil) and his crew showed up, and then tied him up so he couldn't flee. The second group did not suspect him and he wound up shooting the sheriff in the middle of the fight, only for good old Sheriff Tom Clauron to turn around and blow his head off.
Anyway, I think there's tweaking to be done - maybe incentivize the party to explore the town a bit before sundown. I was also a little disappointed that neither group reinforced the doors or buried dynamite in the road to use as a trap. A single stick could potentially take out or at least severely injure one of the eight regular gang members (and half of them are carrying dynamite themselves, which would go off an almost certainly kill them in the chain reaction.) Maybe it needs to be clearer that they can do these sorts of things.
Friday, July 12, 2019
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Would They Ever Do Another Cataclysm?
Cataclysm was... different from the previous expansions. And to a large extent, it was different from what came after as well. Each expansion has brought with it a large new continent for us to explore, but Cataclysm was largely about finally revealing certain zones we'd always wondered about - Uldum, Mount Hyjal, Grim Batol (which to be fair was just the dungeon capping Twilight Highlands.)
But Cataclysm's endgame, which is what sustains a WoW expansion for most of its lifetime, was anemic.
I think the disappointment with Cataclysm has been a bit overshadowed by the disappointment over Warlords of Draenor (while I wasn't crazy about its initial patch, I think the jury is still out on BFA,) but its endgame was a letdown after Wrath of the Lich King. For one, Blizzard responded to worries that Wrath had been too easy by blasting the difficulty way higher, which crippled a lot of the more casual raiding guilds that had sprung up during Wrath. But there also just wasn't a lot there, in comparison to what came before.
However, Cataclysm was nonetheless a monumental effort in design. Initially using Deathwing's rampage across the world as an excuse to rebuild the old world for flight, Blizzard also decided to revamp a few quests here and there, which snowballed into a massive redesign of the entire vanilla leveling experience, and one that now, hilariously, creates an odd world in which we're stuck in this strange state where it seems like the Cataclysm is the most pressing matter only for players to then travel to Outland and Northrend, before any of that happened. (And for your Void Elf, it's pretty odd considering your race didn't even exist yet.)
So there's a rumor going around that 9.0 will see a profound change to the game world - the end of the faction conflict. I've written before about what form that might take, but one thing I hadn't even really considered was that, if they were to really do that for real, it might require an alteration more profound than simply flipping a few switches on who can interact with whom.
Might we instead see another revamp to the game world, only this time it would not simply be to allow flight (though maybe adding Quel'thalas and the 'Myst Isles to the existing continents?) but to allow players of either faction to travel lands that were once forbidden to them?
I mean, my Undead Rogue has been back to Stormwind since he died (see the Legion Rogue class campaign and mount quest) but, while I don't RP in-game, I think he'd be profoundly moved if he were able to walk the streets of Stormwind freely once again.
But this raises a few questions:
First, what does this mean for endgame? Cataclysm's suffered for it. Blizzard keeps talking about how the team is bigger than it used to be, but will that be enough? Legion, to be fair, felt pretty huge as expansions go. BFA... is big in some ways and disappointingly thin in others.
Second, one of the big appeals of WoW Classic is that they're restoring the version of WoW that existed prior to Cataclysm (and yes, also Wrath and BC - so no Blood Elves, Draenei, or Death Knights.) Cataclysm came out in 2010, which means that 9.0 will be coming out about ten years later - almost twice the 6-year period between Vanilla and its revamp. Might people not have developed a nostalgia for the Cataclysm version of the world? Granted, this might not be a problem if they just use Bronze Dragon characters to allow both versions to exist in-game.
Third, after all the work done developing war mode, how will world PvP work? Will you opt in to a group of separatists who aren't into this whole lovey-dovey "oh well, I guess the War in Warcraft will have to refer to the wars against the Old Gods, Legion, Scourge, Sha, or other thousand threats this world faces" cooperation brigade. (Side note: I hate it when people say that ending the faction conflict would mean it's not War-craft anymore. Ahem.)
Obviously we won't know for certain what comes after BFA until Blizzcon on November 1st. But they've surprised us in the past, and while my initial reaction to these rumors was strong skepticism, I could be wrong.
But Cataclysm's endgame, which is what sustains a WoW expansion for most of its lifetime, was anemic.
I think the disappointment with Cataclysm has been a bit overshadowed by the disappointment over Warlords of Draenor (while I wasn't crazy about its initial patch, I think the jury is still out on BFA,) but its endgame was a letdown after Wrath of the Lich King. For one, Blizzard responded to worries that Wrath had been too easy by blasting the difficulty way higher, which crippled a lot of the more casual raiding guilds that had sprung up during Wrath. But there also just wasn't a lot there, in comparison to what came before.
However, Cataclysm was nonetheless a monumental effort in design. Initially using Deathwing's rampage across the world as an excuse to rebuild the old world for flight, Blizzard also decided to revamp a few quests here and there, which snowballed into a massive redesign of the entire vanilla leveling experience, and one that now, hilariously, creates an odd world in which we're stuck in this strange state where it seems like the Cataclysm is the most pressing matter only for players to then travel to Outland and Northrend, before any of that happened. (And for your Void Elf, it's pretty odd considering your race didn't even exist yet.)
So there's a rumor going around that 9.0 will see a profound change to the game world - the end of the faction conflict. I've written before about what form that might take, but one thing I hadn't even really considered was that, if they were to really do that for real, it might require an alteration more profound than simply flipping a few switches on who can interact with whom.
Might we instead see another revamp to the game world, only this time it would not simply be to allow flight (though maybe adding Quel'thalas and the 'Myst Isles to the existing continents?) but to allow players of either faction to travel lands that were once forbidden to them?
I mean, my Undead Rogue has been back to Stormwind since he died (see the Legion Rogue class campaign and mount quest) but, while I don't RP in-game, I think he'd be profoundly moved if he were able to walk the streets of Stormwind freely once again.
But this raises a few questions:
First, what does this mean for endgame? Cataclysm's suffered for it. Blizzard keeps talking about how the team is bigger than it used to be, but will that be enough? Legion, to be fair, felt pretty huge as expansions go. BFA... is big in some ways and disappointingly thin in others.
Second, one of the big appeals of WoW Classic is that they're restoring the version of WoW that existed prior to Cataclysm (and yes, also Wrath and BC - so no Blood Elves, Draenei, or Death Knights.) Cataclysm came out in 2010, which means that 9.0 will be coming out about ten years later - almost twice the 6-year period between Vanilla and its revamp. Might people not have developed a nostalgia for the Cataclysm version of the world? Granted, this might not be a problem if they just use Bronze Dragon characters to allow both versions to exist in-game.
Third, after all the work done developing war mode, how will world PvP work? Will you opt in to a group of separatists who aren't into this whole lovey-dovey "oh well, I guess the War in Warcraft will have to refer to the wars against the Old Gods, Legion, Scourge, Sha, or other thousand threats this world faces" cooperation brigade. (Side note: I hate it when people say that ending the faction conflict would mean it's not War-craft anymore. Ahem.)
Obviously we won't know for certain what comes after BFA until Blizzcon on November 1st. But they've surprised us in the past, and while my initial reaction to these rumors was strong skepticism, I could be wrong.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Eternal Palace End Cinematic
With the Eternal Palace now open, we know what happens after the raid.
But just in case you were worried about spoilers, here's a cut!
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Possibilities for a Faction Merge
BFA is theoretically promised to "resolve the faction conflict." Given that, one wonders to what extent the folks at Blizzard are willing to actually do that.
There are a lot of ways things could go, and conservatively, one might assume that the fight will simply end in terms of story - we'll get an uneasy peace like we had in Warlords of Draenor or Vanilla through sort of the first couple zones of Wrath.
But that's boring and frankly I don't think it will be enough for players who are really tired of the constant "I must fight against the evil other, despite the fact that I've time and time again been reminded of how they're just people trying to get along in a difficult world" see-saw.
Let's imagine instead that we see a radical shift in the game - allowing players of the different factions to play together.
What forms could this take? I can imagine a couple scenarios. Let's go through them:
Mechanically Only:
Technically this exists already with Ashran, where players of the opposite faction can go in disguise as a member of their enemy's faction - not as spies, but really more as traitorous mercenaries.
Really it was just a solution to allow Ashran to meets its design goal - a continuous open-world PvP zone, not gated by specific battle times like Wintergrasp or Tol Barad, and allowing players to come and go as they please. To address balance, they allowed this crossover.
For player convenience, it wouldn't be terribly hard to implement this system for the whole game - much as players become members of the other faction for three bosses in Dazar'alor, even gaining new racial abilities, you could simply do that and allow players to basically temporarily race-change so they can play with friends.
But given that this change seems to be built into the story, I doubt that such a change would be relegated to a mechanical-only solution.
Opt-In:
This version might be the most complex to actually implement, and runs the risk of dividing up players even more.
Essentially, in this scenario, you would make a choice for a character (either permanent, in which case all my characters would obviously opt in, or reversible, in which I might consider the RP implications for the way I've conceived my characters' individual personalities) and that would put you among the people who have, officially, set aside the faction conflict in the interest of working together to fight the real threats to life on Azeroth.
Where this could get complicated is how you divide opt-in versus opt-out people. If your group leader is opted in, and they invite that Troll shaman to your party, but you don't heal trolls ("let them regenerate if they're hurt so bad!" you snarkily remark while your healing spells simply don't work on them,) what does that mean? Would you have to effectively make a third faction, where if you're a die-hard "Death to the Alliance" Hordie you can't group with your more enlightened brethren in case they bring along their new Draenei buddy?
A third faction, under the same restrictions that exist now, would just divide players even further. Despite that fact, I think that something akin to this - the idea of an opt-in system - is actually the most plausible - probably with some workaround that maybe allows the group leader to designate how open the party is to members of the other faction, and even if you'd normally not be able to heal that Troll, your group leader has told you it's ok, and that you should.
Universal:
This is maybe more plausible than the previous one, actually. In this case, everyone can group with everyone, and maybe they just broaden War Mode and, more precisely, the absence of War Mode. After all, if you're not playing in War Mode, you don't want to fight the other side. And if you don't want to fight them, why shouldn't you be able to toss a friendly healing spell or group up to take down some bad guys?
Total Dissolution of Factions:
This is the most radical take, and would very likely not really work for older content. But in this case, both sides of the entire game would open up to you. You could stroll from Stromwind to Orgrimmar and have friendly conversations with the guards in both cities.
Obviously, older content would get very tricky here. Consider how, for example, some quest mobs for Horde quests are friendly targets for Alliance players. An Alliance character wouldn't be able to do those quests, and similarly, a Horde player who is friends with the Alliance shouldn't be able to kill them either.
This could of course be handled by just grandfathering in old content and simply having the future of the game portrayed as one in which all settlements and cities are simply neutral territory. Honestly, it wouldn't look all that different from the Broken Isles (minus parts of Stormheim.)
It's really going into older content where this would start to be weird.
Getting Along
I think the most important mechanical change to a post-conflict world would be the ability to group up with players from the other faction for things like raids and dungeons. How we arrive at that, if we do, remains to be seen.
I do think that there needs to be a way for players to keep the faction divide going, especially after all the work they've put into War Mode as a new gameplay mechanic.
But in terms of story, and for a game that's 15 years old and does not have the 12 million players it had at the end of Wrath, I do really think that the game needs to allow individuals to set aside the faction conflict and cooperate with the other heroes of Azeroth.
Super Mario Maker 2
Not realizing it was out yet, I did something I very rarely do, which is that I impulse-purchased Super Mario Maker 2.
So far I've only worked on one course, but like the previous iteration, this game feels like a "staple" one simply has to have if one has a Switch.
Probably the biggest addition is that there's now a "story mode" that encourages you to play through courses to earn coins to rebuild Peach's castle. I don't know how deep this will get, but my sense is that it's primarily to introduce possibilities and concepts for your own levels.
Naturally a lot of people will be building the most absurdly difficult levels possible, but I've always striven to create levels that are beatable but have something clever going on - not that I know whether I succeed at that.
I actually don't know off the top of my head if the Switch can use a stylus - on the Wii U, that was the main way you interfaced with Mario Maker when building courses. My brief experience controlling it via joystick has been not quite as refined, but perhaps that just requires getting used to it.
Like the previous game, you can make courses in original SMB style, SMB3, SMW, and New Super Mario Bros, but they've also added a Super Mario 3D world variant - which is kind of a kludge, as it's still 2D, but uses a lot of new assets that didn't exist in the other games, like glass pipes and trees that you can climb in cat form.
Additionally, there are more world-themes, so you can have deserts, forests, underwater levels, and snow levels.
I'm eager to make some fun new courses!
So far I've only worked on one course, but like the previous iteration, this game feels like a "staple" one simply has to have if one has a Switch.
Probably the biggest addition is that there's now a "story mode" that encourages you to play through courses to earn coins to rebuild Peach's castle. I don't know how deep this will get, but my sense is that it's primarily to introduce possibilities and concepts for your own levels.
Naturally a lot of people will be building the most absurdly difficult levels possible, but I've always striven to create levels that are beatable but have something clever going on - not that I know whether I succeed at that.
I actually don't know off the top of my head if the Switch can use a stylus - on the Wii U, that was the main way you interfaced with Mario Maker when building courses. My brief experience controlling it via joystick has been not quite as refined, but perhaps that just requires getting used to it.
Like the previous game, you can make courses in original SMB style, SMB3, SMW, and New Super Mario Bros, but they've also added a Super Mario 3D world variant - which is kind of a kludge, as it's still 2D, but uses a lot of new assets that didn't exist in the other games, like glass pipes and trees that you can climb in cat form.
Additionally, there are more world-themes, so you can have deserts, forests, underwater levels, and snow levels.
I'm eager to make some fun new courses!
Monday, July 1, 2019
Who is Playing the Game Best?
In a lot of ways, I think the frustrations I have with the way the Alliance story is told is that they've made the entire faction into Ned Starks - capable in combat, but far too quick to trust, with no real schemers amongst them.
As it stands, I see three potential chessmasters at work in BFA: Azshara, N'zoth, and Sylvanas.
Let's start with Azshara, given that we're dealing with her right now:
Azshara is personally very powerful. She's generally considered the most powerful mage on Azeroth, making Jaina or Khadgar look like novices. On top of that, she's been in power for well over ten thousand years. Her people adore her, as they did when they were all Night Elves. It almost seems as if she has some magical ability to influence people beyond her personal charisma.
We know that 8.2 starts with Azshara drawing the Horde and Alliance fleets into a trap, wrecking them in the drained-for-now Nazjatar.
Azshara has been known to ally herself with powerful evil entities when it suits her - first she welcomed Sargeras, considering a Titan the only one worth to be her consort. But when Zin-Azshari, not to mention most of the world, began to flood, she made a deal with N'zoth, transforming her people into the Naga so that they could survive beneath the waves.
In Azshara's Warbringers short, the interaction seems like one in which she talks her way from drowning with her empire in ruins all around her to becoming the queen of a new empire and a new race. She makes a bold move, bluffing (or maybe just choosing death over servitude) N'zoth so that it will save her on her terms.
She has fiercely loyal subjects and a lot of arcane power at her disposal. But is she actually a master schemer?
See, I could be wrong, but my read of the Warbringers short is that N'zoth made her think she'd won the negotiation. We'll get to N'zoth, but particularly the moment when Azshara is underwater, smugly smirking, only for a look of panic to gradually grow on her face before N'zoth fulfills his end of the bargain and transforms her (in a manner that seems extremely painful.)
See, Azshara is defined by her arrogance. Yes, she's powerful. And one gets the sense that basically no one ever says no to her. Which means that, while she might be a brilliant mind at the arcane, she probably thinks she's smarter than she is.
Comparing Azshara to N'zoth, my money is on N'zoth being the one whose plan is deeper and ahead of everyone else.
Here's the thing: we know less about N'zoth. We barely every interact with him (it... I'm going to use male pronouns given that the game does and his voice actor is a man, even though Old Gods are very clearly something outside of what we understand as gender) but what we've heard about him suggests an entity that thinks in an extremely strategic manner.
N'zoth is famous for being the weakest of the Old Gods - but also for seeming to always come on top. By weakest, one wonders what we're actually saying. My sense is that he had the smallest armies and perhaps the least powerful control of raw magic. But N'zoth's ability to outmaneuver his more powerful brethren suggests a being with a remarkable ability to play the game.
The Old Gods are beings of madness, but they have all shown themselves capable of at least some manipulation. C'thun turned the Anubisath constructs to his purposes. Y'shaarj made of his death an intractable curse. Yogg-Saron created the Curse of Flesh and the Emerald Nightmare. And N'zoth created the Naga, was probably the one to corrupt Deathwing, and even usurped the Emerald Nightmare from Yogg-Saron.
And as old as Azshara is, the Old Gods are older, and insidiousness is their very nature.
It's disturbing that N'zoth seems to be treating us heroes as his allies, even as we strive to defy him. There's something he knows that we don't.
Now, Azshara and N'zoth are allies, but one imagines that Azshara can't really suffer any being, Titan or Old God, as her superior. Does she have a plan to take the reins of the Black Empire?
I imagine she does, but I also strongly suspect that if she does, N'zoth is counting on it, and ready to do whatever it takes to use that to his advantage. Remember, N'zoth played the weak one among the Old Gods - was it that he truly was weaker, or did it just suit his purposes to be beneath the other Old Gods' notice. Of the four of them, he's the one who hasn't ever been killed in any way (and yes, the jury's still out on how dead C'thun or Yogg-Saron are, but N'zoth isn't even partially dead.)
But then there's the wildcard: Sylvanas Windrunner.
Now, to be fair, you can always make someone seem to be running the most complex schemes by simply not telling us what they're doing. It's clear Sylvanas is doing something. We've seen her capable of deception and ambush - she successfully fooled the Alliance into sending troops south to Silithus before her attack on Darkshore. It's even starting to look like the entire coup in the Undercity in which Varimathras turned against her and tried to summon the Burning Legion might have, somehow, been her doing to purge disloyal members of the Forsaken and strengthen the Horde's investment in her people. She also arranged the entire Siege of Lordaeron as a trap to decapitate the Alliance - though in this case she might have failed to account for Jaina showing up.
Sylvanas has been up to a lot this expansion, though we're currently at a stage where nothing is explicitly working for her. But there are strong implications:
First, there's my theory that Sylvanas wanted Baine to break Derek out so as to make it appear that he was freed before his mind was conditioned. Then there are the assassins she sent after Thrall - which again, could be a failure, but do you really send just two assassins to kill a legendary shaman like him? Again, it's speculation, but I think she intended to draw Thrall into the whole fray. And we still don't know what the full terms of her deal with Helya was - a being who, according to a turn-in quest from Island Expeditions, is not nearly as dead as we might have thought.
Right now, Sylvanas has sent Nathanos with the Blade of the Black Empire (no longer Xal'atath, as that entity has left the blade) to the ocean, and the last the Horde sees of him, he's walking nonchalantly into the ocean wall (as a Forsaken, he doesn't need to breath. Though I doubt my Forsaken Rogue could just walk through that wall.)
Which means what? WHICH MEANS WHAT?
Nathanos has not simply failed his mission, and that leaves us to ask what that mission is, and what Sylvanas asked him to do?
So, to put the full tin-foil hat on, I think that the Blade of the Black Empire is going to be used to trap N'zoth - not entirely unlike Frostmourne, it'll be a soul-prison, and in this case it will be a prison for an Old God.
But there are other steps in that plan (if indeed that is the plan) that we don't know.
Sylvanas has to be reckoned with in some way this expansion. I can't imagine that the "faction conflict will be resolved" if Sylvanas remains Warchief, or unless we discover that she's been doing all her horrible deeds for some greater good - though even then, I imagine Tyrande and co are not going to be in a forgiving mood.
So here's my bet: I'm counting Azshara out of the "top manipulator" competition. I think she's powerful and important, but she's the Cersei of this story, and (spoiler alert! If you somehow don't know how Game of Thrones ends by this point and care!) that means that for all her plays, it's not going to save her in the end.
N'zoth is the champ to beat - an eldritch being of unspeakable nature. But Sylvanas is pulling some master moves here, to ends that we haven't been able to discern quite yet.
And here's the bigger tin-foil thing: She's also drawing on powers that we don't fully understand.
Now yes, the Void is the main Lovecraftian, unimaginable, horrible, eldritch force in Warcraft. The Old Gods are clearly beings of cosmic horror, and that genre is all about things that you can never really beat, and generally can't even really slow down - your best bet is to hide and hope they don't notice you.
But Sylvanas is drawing on the power of Death. And we've seen in the past that Death magic doesn't seem to even play by the rules the Old Gods follow. The Lich King built a massive citadel out of an Old God's blood - blood that drives mortal insane just by being around it. But the undead? Unaffected. You go to that mine in Ymirheim, and the Val'kyr there are doing fine. There's a Faceless N'raqi who actually asks us to help him because he can't escape - the Ymirjar captain there cannot be manipulated, even as the captured miners will attack there liberators or jump into a chasm to their deaths.
The powers of Death are the ones we know the least about - like who the hell Bwonsamdi's boss is. And we know that the whispers of the Void flooding Alleria's mind beg her to kill Sylvanas because she works for the "true enemy."
Is death powerful enough that even the Old Gods fear it?
And if Sylvanas is drawing on that power, might she be able to outplay even N'zoth?
As it stands, I see three potential chessmasters at work in BFA: Azshara, N'zoth, and Sylvanas.
Let's start with Azshara, given that we're dealing with her right now:
Azshara is personally very powerful. She's generally considered the most powerful mage on Azeroth, making Jaina or Khadgar look like novices. On top of that, she's been in power for well over ten thousand years. Her people adore her, as they did when they were all Night Elves. It almost seems as if she has some magical ability to influence people beyond her personal charisma.
We know that 8.2 starts with Azshara drawing the Horde and Alliance fleets into a trap, wrecking them in the drained-for-now Nazjatar.
Azshara has been known to ally herself with powerful evil entities when it suits her - first she welcomed Sargeras, considering a Titan the only one worth to be her consort. But when Zin-Azshari, not to mention most of the world, began to flood, she made a deal with N'zoth, transforming her people into the Naga so that they could survive beneath the waves.
In Azshara's Warbringers short, the interaction seems like one in which she talks her way from drowning with her empire in ruins all around her to becoming the queen of a new empire and a new race. She makes a bold move, bluffing (or maybe just choosing death over servitude) N'zoth so that it will save her on her terms.
She has fiercely loyal subjects and a lot of arcane power at her disposal. But is she actually a master schemer?
See, I could be wrong, but my read of the Warbringers short is that N'zoth made her think she'd won the negotiation. We'll get to N'zoth, but particularly the moment when Azshara is underwater, smugly smirking, only for a look of panic to gradually grow on her face before N'zoth fulfills his end of the bargain and transforms her (in a manner that seems extremely painful.)
See, Azshara is defined by her arrogance. Yes, she's powerful. And one gets the sense that basically no one ever says no to her. Which means that, while she might be a brilliant mind at the arcane, she probably thinks she's smarter than she is.
Comparing Azshara to N'zoth, my money is on N'zoth being the one whose plan is deeper and ahead of everyone else.
Here's the thing: we know less about N'zoth. We barely every interact with him (it... I'm going to use male pronouns given that the game does and his voice actor is a man, even though Old Gods are very clearly something outside of what we understand as gender) but what we've heard about him suggests an entity that thinks in an extremely strategic manner.
N'zoth is famous for being the weakest of the Old Gods - but also for seeming to always come on top. By weakest, one wonders what we're actually saying. My sense is that he had the smallest armies and perhaps the least powerful control of raw magic. But N'zoth's ability to outmaneuver his more powerful brethren suggests a being with a remarkable ability to play the game.
The Old Gods are beings of madness, but they have all shown themselves capable of at least some manipulation. C'thun turned the Anubisath constructs to his purposes. Y'shaarj made of his death an intractable curse. Yogg-Saron created the Curse of Flesh and the Emerald Nightmare. And N'zoth created the Naga, was probably the one to corrupt Deathwing, and even usurped the Emerald Nightmare from Yogg-Saron.
And as old as Azshara is, the Old Gods are older, and insidiousness is their very nature.
It's disturbing that N'zoth seems to be treating us heroes as his allies, even as we strive to defy him. There's something he knows that we don't.
Now, Azshara and N'zoth are allies, but one imagines that Azshara can't really suffer any being, Titan or Old God, as her superior. Does she have a plan to take the reins of the Black Empire?
I imagine she does, but I also strongly suspect that if she does, N'zoth is counting on it, and ready to do whatever it takes to use that to his advantage. Remember, N'zoth played the weak one among the Old Gods - was it that he truly was weaker, or did it just suit his purposes to be beneath the other Old Gods' notice. Of the four of them, he's the one who hasn't ever been killed in any way (and yes, the jury's still out on how dead C'thun or Yogg-Saron are, but N'zoth isn't even partially dead.)
But then there's the wildcard: Sylvanas Windrunner.
Now, to be fair, you can always make someone seem to be running the most complex schemes by simply not telling us what they're doing. It's clear Sylvanas is doing something. We've seen her capable of deception and ambush - she successfully fooled the Alliance into sending troops south to Silithus before her attack on Darkshore. It's even starting to look like the entire coup in the Undercity in which Varimathras turned against her and tried to summon the Burning Legion might have, somehow, been her doing to purge disloyal members of the Forsaken and strengthen the Horde's investment in her people. She also arranged the entire Siege of Lordaeron as a trap to decapitate the Alliance - though in this case she might have failed to account for Jaina showing up.
Sylvanas has been up to a lot this expansion, though we're currently at a stage where nothing is explicitly working for her. But there are strong implications:
First, there's my theory that Sylvanas wanted Baine to break Derek out so as to make it appear that he was freed before his mind was conditioned. Then there are the assassins she sent after Thrall - which again, could be a failure, but do you really send just two assassins to kill a legendary shaman like him? Again, it's speculation, but I think she intended to draw Thrall into the whole fray. And we still don't know what the full terms of her deal with Helya was - a being who, according to a turn-in quest from Island Expeditions, is not nearly as dead as we might have thought.
Right now, Sylvanas has sent Nathanos with the Blade of the Black Empire (no longer Xal'atath, as that entity has left the blade) to the ocean, and the last the Horde sees of him, he's walking nonchalantly into the ocean wall (as a Forsaken, he doesn't need to breath. Though I doubt my Forsaken Rogue could just walk through that wall.)
Which means what? WHICH MEANS WHAT?
Nathanos has not simply failed his mission, and that leaves us to ask what that mission is, and what Sylvanas asked him to do?
So, to put the full tin-foil hat on, I think that the Blade of the Black Empire is going to be used to trap N'zoth - not entirely unlike Frostmourne, it'll be a soul-prison, and in this case it will be a prison for an Old God.
But there are other steps in that plan (if indeed that is the plan) that we don't know.
Sylvanas has to be reckoned with in some way this expansion. I can't imagine that the "faction conflict will be resolved" if Sylvanas remains Warchief, or unless we discover that she's been doing all her horrible deeds for some greater good - though even then, I imagine Tyrande and co are not going to be in a forgiving mood.
So here's my bet: I'm counting Azshara out of the "top manipulator" competition. I think she's powerful and important, but she's the Cersei of this story, and (spoiler alert! If you somehow don't know how Game of Thrones ends by this point and care!) that means that for all her plays, it's not going to save her in the end.
N'zoth is the champ to beat - an eldritch being of unspeakable nature. But Sylvanas is pulling some master moves here, to ends that we haven't been able to discern quite yet.
And here's the bigger tin-foil thing: She's also drawing on powers that we don't fully understand.
Now yes, the Void is the main Lovecraftian, unimaginable, horrible, eldritch force in Warcraft. The Old Gods are clearly beings of cosmic horror, and that genre is all about things that you can never really beat, and generally can't even really slow down - your best bet is to hide and hope they don't notice you.
But Sylvanas is drawing on the power of Death. And we've seen in the past that Death magic doesn't seem to even play by the rules the Old Gods follow. The Lich King built a massive citadel out of an Old God's blood - blood that drives mortal insane just by being around it. But the undead? Unaffected. You go to that mine in Ymirheim, and the Val'kyr there are doing fine. There's a Faceless N'raqi who actually asks us to help him because he can't escape - the Ymirjar captain there cannot be manipulated, even as the captured miners will attack there liberators or jump into a chasm to their deaths.
The powers of Death are the ones we know the least about - like who the hell Bwonsamdi's boss is. And we know that the whispers of the Void flooding Alleria's mind beg her to kill Sylvanas because she works for the "true enemy."
Is death powerful enough that even the Old Gods fear it?
And if Sylvanas is drawing on that power, might she be able to outplay even N'zoth?
Whither Calia?
Calia Menethil, much like Tandred Proudmoore would in this expansion, jumped from apocryphal character to canonical one in Legion.
Arthas' sister, Princess Calia is theoretically the rightful Queen of Lordaeron - if such a kingdom still existed. After Arthas' turn to evil, Calia went into hiding, living as a commoner with a husband and child who would later die to the Scourge. She became a priest, and our first interaction with her is when she joins with priest players and Alonsus Faol to travel to Netherlight Temple, serving as a member of the Conclave.
In the events of the Before the Storm novel, Calia plays an interesting role that has yet to be truly paid off.
One of the big climaxes of the book (which, full disclosure, I haven't read) is the failed peace summit between humans and Forsaken. Anduin and Sylvanas make a deal to allow for a peaceful meeting between family members divided by undeath. The meeting goes well at first - some Forsaken and human relatives get along well, some argue and walk off in a huff, but no one is murdering each other, which is actually pretty good considering.
But when Calia reveals herself at this meeting, all hell breaks loose. Some of the Forsaken decide that they want to go with her to Stromgarde and return to the Alliance. Sylvanas responds to this by first shooting Calia and then all the Forsaken who came along to the summit - even those who were not defecting.
Staying true to what she technically said, she does not kill any members of the Alliance - which counts if you consider Calia to belong to the Conclave instead.
It's a moment that convinces Anduin that he's been too naive, but ironically it also convinces Genn that the Forsaken as a people are not to blame for Sylvanas' evil.
But what happens next is the really crazy part:
Anduin brings Calia's body back to Netherlight Temple, and there, with Alonsus Faol, they infuse her body with the Light in such a way that she rises from the dead - not back to true life as with the Resurrection spell (which, while it's common in-game, is presumably considered a rare miracle lorewise) - but raising her as a kind of Light-touched Undead. Reanimated by the Light, rather than Necromancy.
Since then, though, we haven't really gotten a sense of what role she has to play going forward. This seems like a massive thing to happen, but we haven't really gotten anything concrete.
However, there has been at least one subtle reference to her:
When Derek Proudmoore is returned to Jaina, she (wisely) suspects that Derek may actually be sent as a weapon against her by Sylvanas. While Baine's breaking him out of captivity seems to be foiling Sylvanas' plan, it's all a little too easy and a little too clean. Just as it's pretty clear that Matthias Shaw arranged for the guards in Redridge to conveniently be off duty as Saurfang made his way through, it seems highly likely that Baine's "liberation" of the undead Proudmoore brother was probably just the way she intended to deliver Derek to Jaina, complete with conditioned sleeper agent brainwashing.
But Jaina is suspicious of these developments, and notably we don't see Derek hanging out around Proudmoore Keep. Instead, she mentions she knows someone she thinks could help him. Could she mean Calia?
Notably, in Chronicle it says that when the Forsaken first broke free of the Scourge, they sent emissaries south to the other human kingdoms, but that those emissaries never made it to their destinations. The obvious interpretation was that the humans simply killed these walking zombie people on sight, unwilling to entertain the notion that they might not be a threat. But that interpretation might simply be the version of events the Forsaken have come to believe. And might Sylvanas (or some third party) have had them killed to ensure the Forsaken would not simply reconnect with their fellow humans?
What if Calia represents the chance for the Forsaken to be what they should have been all along? The same people they were in life, safeguarding their brethren and working to restore Lordaeron to its former glory?
Sylvanas right now seems to be a step ahead of everyone - indeed, there's a post to be written about whether N'zoth, Sylvanas, or Azshara have the upper hand in all the plots going on (which I debating writing instead of this post) - but what if Calia is a wildcard she couldn't account for?
It seems very likely to me that Derek Proudmoore is, in fact, a sleeper agent who doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill his family - but he has. Sylvanas is simply waiting until he's properly placed and then she'll pull that trigger when it hurts the Alliance the worst.
But we long to see scheming villains make a single catastrophic error, and if Calia can save Derek from his programming, it could mean Sylvanas finally playing a losing hand.
Given that the Allied Races are based on existing races, it seemed Calia's "lightbound undead" or whatever they wind up being called could easily be an Alliance version of a Horde race, not unlike the Void Elves.
But given the "Crossroads" cinematic, I'm beginning to wonder (hope) about whether Blizzard is willing to seriously relax the faction conflict aspect of the game moving past BFA.
Sylvanas has gone so far down the villain path that it seems hard to imagine her remaining the Warchief much longer. But beyond that, one also wonders if she could even remain the leader of the Forsaken.
Who would take over for her?
Nathanos is clearly her second-in-command. But Nathanos has show no sign whatsoever that he's questioned the Banshee Queen's methods. His contempt for the Alliance and general dickishness, and the fact that he's basically defined by his loyalty to Sylvanas (it's heavily implied that when they were both alive, they were a couple, because apparently Windrunners are really into human men) mean that if Sylvanas goes, Nathanos almost certainly will too.
Which leaves only, like, Lillian Voss to take over, and that seems... possible but not super likely to me.
However, if tensions between the factions give way more than they ever have before, would it be possible for Calia to come and lead the Forsaken in a manner that works given a cessation of hostilities between the factions?
This would be an enormous shift - and imply not just a truce, but a real and lasting peace between the factions. Because Calia is far more likely to align herself with Anduin than with whoever winds up running Orgrimmar.
Calia's resurrection feels like such a massive event that her absence from BFA has been extremely notable.
Now, sure, sometimes characters you'd really think should show up don't. Take Wrathion, who disappeared after Mists and missed the entire Legion invasion he was supposedly trying to help us prepare for. Now, I'm happy to report that I ran across a stealthed Blacktalon Agent in Nazjatar who essentially shushed me when I tried to talk to him, but it's true that sometimes characters you expect to show up don't wind up doing so.
Still, Calia has a role to play.
Granted, that role might not be in BFA.
It's still a big mystery how BFA will end. While I suspect that it'll finish in Ny'alotha, I don't know to what extent we're going to be seeing the Alliance/Horde plot fully resolved. Indeed, there's a possibility that Ny'alotha will actually be a whole continent for the next expansion and that we're going to go back to Sylvanas as the big bad of BFA. But we won't know for a while.
I'm still rooting for a spooky Shadowlands expansion, and Calia as both sister to Arthas and a new kind of undead entity herself would be a good character to explore in such an expansion.
For now, though, she's a name to keep an eye out for.
Arthas' sister, Princess Calia is theoretically the rightful Queen of Lordaeron - if such a kingdom still existed. After Arthas' turn to evil, Calia went into hiding, living as a commoner with a husband and child who would later die to the Scourge. She became a priest, and our first interaction with her is when she joins with priest players and Alonsus Faol to travel to Netherlight Temple, serving as a member of the Conclave.
In the events of the Before the Storm novel, Calia plays an interesting role that has yet to be truly paid off.
One of the big climaxes of the book (which, full disclosure, I haven't read) is the failed peace summit between humans and Forsaken. Anduin and Sylvanas make a deal to allow for a peaceful meeting between family members divided by undeath. The meeting goes well at first - some Forsaken and human relatives get along well, some argue and walk off in a huff, but no one is murdering each other, which is actually pretty good considering.
But when Calia reveals herself at this meeting, all hell breaks loose. Some of the Forsaken decide that they want to go with her to Stromgarde and return to the Alliance. Sylvanas responds to this by first shooting Calia and then all the Forsaken who came along to the summit - even those who were not defecting.
Staying true to what she technically said, she does not kill any members of the Alliance - which counts if you consider Calia to belong to the Conclave instead.
It's a moment that convinces Anduin that he's been too naive, but ironically it also convinces Genn that the Forsaken as a people are not to blame for Sylvanas' evil.
But what happens next is the really crazy part:
Anduin brings Calia's body back to Netherlight Temple, and there, with Alonsus Faol, they infuse her body with the Light in such a way that she rises from the dead - not back to true life as with the Resurrection spell (which, while it's common in-game, is presumably considered a rare miracle lorewise) - but raising her as a kind of Light-touched Undead. Reanimated by the Light, rather than Necromancy.
Since then, though, we haven't really gotten a sense of what role she has to play going forward. This seems like a massive thing to happen, but we haven't really gotten anything concrete.
However, there has been at least one subtle reference to her:
When Derek Proudmoore is returned to Jaina, she (wisely) suspects that Derek may actually be sent as a weapon against her by Sylvanas. While Baine's breaking him out of captivity seems to be foiling Sylvanas' plan, it's all a little too easy and a little too clean. Just as it's pretty clear that Matthias Shaw arranged for the guards in Redridge to conveniently be off duty as Saurfang made his way through, it seems highly likely that Baine's "liberation" of the undead Proudmoore brother was probably just the way she intended to deliver Derek to Jaina, complete with conditioned sleeper agent brainwashing.
But Jaina is suspicious of these developments, and notably we don't see Derek hanging out around Proudmoore Keep. Instead, she mentions she knows someone she thinks could help him. Could she mean Calia?
Notably, in Chronicle it says that when the Forsaken first broke free of the Scourge, they sent emissaries south to the other human kingdoms, but that those emissaries never made it to their destinations. The obvious interpretation was that the humans simply killed these walking zombie people on sight, unwilling to entertain the notion that they might not be a threat. But that interpretation might simply be the version of events the Forsaken have come to believe. And might Sylvanas (or some third party) have had them killed to ensure the Forsaken would not simply reconnect with their fellow humans?
What if Calia represents the chance for the Forsaken to be what they should have been all along? The same people they were in life, safeguarding their brethren and working to restore Lordaeron to its former glory?
Sylvanas right now seems to be a step ahead of everyone - indeed, there's a post to be written about whether N'zoth, Sylvanas, or Azshara have the upper hand in all the plots going on (which I debating writing instead of this post) - but what if Calia is a wildcard she couldn't account for?
It seems very likely to me that Derek Proudmoore is, in fact, a sleeper agent who doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill his family - but he has. Sylvanas is simply waiting until he's properly placed and then she'll pull that trigger when it hurts the Alliance the worst.
But we long to see scheming villains make a single catastrophic error, and if Calia can save Derek from his programming, it could mean Sylvanas finally playing a losing hand.
Given that the Allied Races are based on existing races, it seemed Calia's "lightbound undead" or whatever they wind up being called could easily be an Alliance version of a Horde race, not unlike the Void Elves.
But given the "Crossroads" cinematic, I'm beginning to wonder (hope) about whether Blizzard is willing to seriously relax the faction conflict aspect of the game moving past BFA.
Sylvanas has gone so far down the villain path that it seems hard to imagine her remaining the Warchief much longer. But beyond that, one also wonders if she could even remain the leader of the Forsaken.
Who would take over for her?
Nathanos is clearly her second-in-command. But Nathanos has show no sign whatsoever that he's questioned the Banshee Queen's methods. His contempt for the Alliance and general dickishness, and the fact that he's basically defined by his loyalty to Sylvanas (it's heavily implied that when they were both alive, they were a couple, because apparently Windrunners are really into human men) mean that if Sylvanas goes, Nathanos almost certainly will too.
Which leaves only, like, Lillian Voss to take over, and that seems... possible but not super likely to me.
However, if tensions between the factions give way more than they ever have before, would it be possible for Calia to come and lead the Forsaken in a manner that works given a cessation of hostilities between the factions?
This would be an enormous shift - and imply not just a truce, but a real and lasting peace between the factions. Because Calia is far more likely to align herself with Anduin than with whoever winds up running Orgrimmar.
Calia's resurrection feels like such a massive event that her absence from BFA has been extremely notable.
Now, sure, sometimes characters you'd really think should show up don't. Take Wrathion, who disappeared after Mists and missed the entire Legion invasion he was supposedly trying to help us prepare for. Now, I'm happy to report that I ran across a stealthed Blacktalon Agent in Nazjatar who essentially shushed me when I tried to talk to him, but it's true that sometimes characters you expect to show up don't wind up doing so.
Still, Calia has a role to play.
Granted, that role might not be in BFA.
It's still a big mystery how BFA will end. While I suspect that it'll finish in Ny'alotha, I don't know to what extent we're going to be seeing the Alliance/Horde plot fully resolved. Indeed, there's a possibility that Ny'alotha will actually be a whole continent for the next expansion and that we're going to go back to Sylvanas as the big bad of BFA. But we won't know for a while.
I'm still rooting for a spooky Shadowlands expansion, and Calia as both sister to Arthas and a new kind of undead entity herself would be a good character to explore in such an expansion.
For now, though, she's a name to keep an eye out for.
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