Re: General WoW-related news thread [6-09-12: Lore Q&A]

[erwtenpeller]

Q: Can we get some information on Garithos? Where he was from and on whose orders was he acting? Was there any significant event in his past that caused his hatred of non-human races?
A: Grand Marshal Othmar Garithos was the only son of a baron who ruled over lands in what would later be the Eastern Plaguelands that bordered Quel’Thalas. While his father ruled from the town of Blackwood on the shores of the similarly-named lake, Garithos joined the army as a knight during the Second War, where he saw combat in Quel’Thalas defending the elves’ homeland from invading orcs. While he was in Quel’Thalas, however, a small band of orcs broke off from the main invading force and burned his home town to the ground, killing all of its inhabitants in spite of the valorous defense marshaled by its lord. Othmar’s family perished doing their duty, defending the homes and lives of their subjects. He blamed the elves for the loss of his town and family, believing that the elves diverted forces away from the Alliance’s true goal: the defense of humanity alone. After his father’s death, Garithos was awarded his title and continued his service in the armies of Lordaeron. By the time of the Scourging of Lordaeron, he had attained the rank of Grand Marshal and was the highest ranked surviving military officer in the region, promoted not necessarily due to his own abilities, but his father’s reputation and title. Cut off from the chain of command, Garithos amassed a small army of volunteers and conscripted civilians, and gave them the mission that he assumed the Alliance should have always had: the preservation of humanity above all else. Despite the ad-hoc nature of his forces, other states recognized him as potentially the last remnant of Lordaeron’s government and certainly the strongest warlord in the area. As such, officials from neighboring non-human states such as Ironforge and Quel’Thalas sent him aid, ignorant of his intolerant policies.

Isn't it fun how the fate of an entire race can be determined by one butt-hurt dude with balls for a chin and daddy issues?

[Rmuffn]

Q: Is there truly an Old God underneath the Tirisfal Glade?

A: Nope! There’s something incredibly unsettling there, but it’s not an Old God. It isn’t recommended to go digging through the Glades, though.

??

[Guest]

Loved that answer Erahn.

[Rmuffn]

I want to know what dwells in the depths of Tirisfal now!

[erwtenpeller]

Braidens mum!

[Thelos]

Q: Is there truly an Old God underneath the Tirisfal Glade?

A: Nope! There’s something incredibly unsettling there, but it’s not an Old God. It isn’t recommended to go digging through the Glades, though.

??

Could it be the mortal remains of the avatar of Sargaras Aegwynn defeated?

[Shaelyssa]

Q: Is there truly an Old God underneath the Tirisfal Glade?

A: Nope! There’s something incredibly unsettling there, but it’s not an Old God. It isn’t recommended to go digging through the Glades, though.

?? :o

Could it be the mortal remains of the avatar of Sargaras Aegwynn defeated?

No that's not possible, because when the exiled highborne (the night elves) left Kalimdor and reached Tirisfal, they sensed something sinister underground too, and that was 7,300~ years ago, so way before Aegwynn defeated the avatar.

[Gesh]

Q: How did the blood elven fel eye glint become so widespread? The Warcraft Encyclopedia suggests that Rommath only taught the blood elves of Azeroth about how to siphon arcane magic, as most of the populace would likely be “horrified” if they knew the true extent of Kael’s dealings with Illidan.


A: The situation regarding blood elf eyes is, in fact, extremely similar to that of the green skin of orcs: just being around heavy use of fel magic turned the eyes of the blood elves green. You could be the most pious of priests or most outdoorsy of Farstriders, chances are, if you were a high elf in Quel’Thalas or Outland following the Third War, you were around fel energies, and your eyes would turn green. Like the orcs’ skin color, such an effect would take a very long time to wear off. Fel magic works a bit like radiation in this sense; it permeates the area and seeps into anything in the vicinity. Anything near a source of fel magic shows signs of slight corruption, it just so happens that high elves and orcs manifest it in a very visual way.


So much for Horde aligned High Elves.

[Braiden]

Braidens mum!

How could you possibly know?

[Geldar]

This Q&A was really much less than what I expected after a nearly 7 month wait for it. Not only most of the questions were horribly vague and obvious to answer, there were questions there which were featured in the previous Q&A's and not only that, but the fact how lore is getting more and more streamlined due to bad writing is just hngh.

Cenarius is now okay with the Orcs because they fought at Hyjal even though the majority of NPC's were tauren and nelf -EVEN- though the Orcs are ravaging the Ashenvale which I thought he was the heart of, that makes sense, right? RIGHT?

Giants and fearie dragons do not care about the elves as well or their homeland? Regardless of what we were taught from WC3 and their heavy presence with the elven forces there?

And Elune implicated as a Naaru? Come on! One of the reasons I love the Night elves is because they had one of the oldest and most unique cultures in the game and the biggest part of it was played by Elune, now if this turns correct she will not be a unique goddess anymore, just another loose lore end the devs are too lazy to explore tied up to the whole bunch of "Good Light" lore involving the humans and the Draenei.

So in essence, stop turning the Night Elves into purple humans and return them to their rightful place of the fearsome warrior woman and druidic faction we have learned to love from WC3 and stop making them appear like this!

And if anyone has noticed as well, there is a interesting principle used these days, that they should not really expand on something if it requires effort, just take the easy route around it. And if no one is aware, I will give an example.

MoP's opening event was supposed to be a two week long naval battle between the Horde and the Alliance as Metzen/Crawler said in an interview, though they decided to scrap that and go with the easier option of Theramore because it required less effort that can be focused on creating content. Not to mention the Tides of War stuff with what appears more and more that Jaina will end up neutral even though Dave Kossak promised otherwise. Hopefully there will be redeeming qualities for all of this in MoP, but only time can tell.

[erwtenpeller]

And Elune implicated as a Naaru? Come on! One of the reasons I love the Night elves is because they had one of the oldest and most unique cultures in the game and the biggest part of it was played by Elune, now if this turns correct she will not be a unique goddess anymore, just another loose lore end the devs are too lazy to explore tied up to the whole bunch of "Good Light" lore involving the humans and the Draenei.

Elune being a Naaru hardly changes all those years of Night Elf culture. I'd be more shocked to find out they wouldn't reveal her to be a Naaru, it's a highly convinient light-entity to place there. Elune is still the same deitie and worshipped in the same way by the Night Elves, only now it will have a logical place in the current warcraft framework.

As a neat little bonus it ties the Draenei and the elves together some more, which is not a bad thing either.

[Dréfurion]

And Elune implicated as a Naaru? Come on! One of the reasons I love the Night elves is because they had one of the oldest and most unique cultures in the game and the biggest part of it was played by Elune, now if this turns correct she will not be a unique goddess anymore, just another loose lore end the devs are too lazy to explore tied up to the whole bunch of "Good Light" lore involving the humans and the Draenei.

Elune being a Naaru hardly changes all those years of Night Elf culture. I'd be more shocked to find out they wouldn't reveal her to be a Naaru, it's a highly convinient light-entity to place there. Elune is still the same deitie and worshipped in the same way by the Night Elves, only now it will have a logical place in the current warcraft framework.

As a neat little bonus it ties the Draenei and the elves together some more, which is not a bad thing either.

It's shit. From a non-rational point of view (and it's mostly that) I absolutely fucking hate it. It feels a little like treason to a race I love, to have something so mysterious (potentially) be revealed as something Metzen pulled out his ass and thereafter poorly implemented into the game at a much later date. It takes away such a crucial unique detail of the Kaldorei lore, which I loved, and replaced it with poop.

I hope Blizzard reconsiders.

[Shaelyssa]

And Elune implicated as a Naaru? Come on! One of the reasons I love the Night elves is because they had one of the oldest and most unique cultures in the game and the biggest part of it was played by Elune, now if this turns correct she will not be a unique goddess anymore, just another loose lore end the devs are too lazy to explore tied up to the whole bunch of "Good Light" lore involving the humans and the Draenei.

Elune being a Naaru hardly changes all those years of Night Elf culture. I'd be more shocked to find out they wouldn't reveal her to be a Naaru, it's a highly convinient light-entity to place there. Elune is still the same deitie and worshipped in the same way by the Night Elves, only now it will have a logical place in the current warcraft framework.

As a neat little bonus it ties the Draenei and the elves together some more, which is not a bad thing either.

No, it might not change all those years of night elf culture, but it certainly does change how I feel about the past, and definitely how I feel about the future of night elvish culture!!! Elune wasn't your typical compassionate and benevolent deity; she was multi-faceted, a goddess of many aspects. One of them being the "Night Warrior", a very brutal and almost barbaric goddess that would bless her disciples when they brought her the skinned hides of demons and orcs, and all sorts of other bloody rituals. She had a lot of attributes that were typically not very Naaru-esque.

Also, I definitely think if the night elves found out Elune was a Naaru, it would really shake things up a whole lot, and I mean A LOT. I mean, you can tell from Tyrande's reaction to what Velen proposed that the very idea of Elune being a Naaru isn't exactly looked on so nicely in the Sisterhood. The Naaru are generally connected to paladins, priests and golden light, not the moon, priestesses and moonlight. And besides the superficial, there's also what I mentioned previously about how the Naaru and Elune are generally associated with different things.

The worship of Elune, the MOON, is very central to night elf culture. Learning that their goddess of at least 20,000 years is first of all, not even an actual goddess but a Naaru, and that she isn't even the moon, is hardly going to be the most comforting of discoveries.

So ya, it is going to change things ... it's going to change things a whole lot, and at least for me, night elves are gonna become even way less interesting now :(. But oh well, no point whining ooc. My priestess isn't going to believe anything the spacepope has to say until she sees E'lune before her very own eyes. :D And even then she won't believe that the goddess is actually a Naaru!

[Shaelyssa]

It's shit. From a non-rational point of view (and it's mostly that) I absolutely fucking hate it. It feels a little like treason to a race I love, to have something so mysterious (potentially) be revealed as something Metzen pulled out his ass and thereafter poorly implemented into the game at a much later date. It takes away such a crucial unique detail of the Kaldorei lore, which I loved, and replaced it with poop.

I hope Blizzard reconsiders.

Exactly this! I loved the mystique surrounding Elune. We didn't know what she was for sure, but now we find out she's a boring Naaru? Zzz LAME!

[Thelos]

As much as I joke around about Elune being a Naaru, I hope she actually does keeps her identity as a sovereign godess, independant of the Naaru. I prefer having multiple divinties, rather than to have everything reduced to a singular force of good. This makes me fearful that they're going to repeat this trick again by declaring that the Naaru in turn are Titan constructs. This kind of reduction of a plurality of forces to a singular, I feel, is dumbing things down unnecissarily. In fact, some of the most interesting conflict arises whenever forces of good disagree with one another!

The way in which the awnser was phrased though is still very ambigious. All it really says is that Velen is convinced that Elune is a Naaru. Even though he's likely to be right, given his experience and power, he's not infallible; he can still be proven wrong.

[Gesh]

I miss the shadowmelding psychopathic Night Elves.. that use to prey on orcs stupid enough to stroll into the woodlands.. /dream-filled sigh.

[Rmuffn]

Q: How did the blood elven fel eye glint become so widespread? The Warcraft Encyclopedia suggests that Rommath only taught the blood elves of Azeroth about how to siphon arcane magic, as most of the populace would likely be “horrified” if they knew the true extent of Kael’s dealings with Illidan.


A: The situation regarding blood elf eyes is, in fact, extremely similar to that of the green skin of orcs: just being around heavy use of fel magic turned the eyes of the blood elves green. You could be the most pious of priests or most outdoorsy of Farstriders, chances are, if you were a high elf in Quel’Thalas or Outland following the Third War, you were around fel energies, and your eyes would turn green. Like the orcs’ skin color, such an effect would take a very long time to wear off. Fel magic works a bit like radiation in this sense; it permeates the area and seeps into anything in the vicinity. Anything near a source of fel magic shows signs of slight corruption, it just so happens that high elves and orcs manifest it in a very visual way.


So much for Horde aligned High Elves.

It isn't ruled out at all. Infact, this only makes it even MORE possible rather than unlikely.

[Dréfurion]

I miss the shadowmelding amazing Night Elves.. that used to prey on orcs stupid enough to stroll into the woodlands.. but were recently occupied with fighting in Hyjal and the Firelands like the brave, courageous heroes they are! I hope they'll invade Quel'thalas to kill my tiny Belfish butt soon.. /dream-filled sigh

Fixed.

[Muzjhath]

I miss the shadowmelding psychopathic Night Elves.. that use to prey on orcs stupid enough to stroll into the woodlands.. /dream-filled sigh.

This!
It is on the basis of the WC3 Night elves my last orc (muzjhath) actually respected the Nelfs. They were strong warriors great at steath. Like her!
They believed in KILLING their prey, not locking it up in a cage. Like her.

The only fault she found in them were that they allied with the humans.

Still, the Elune = Naaru thing... Really bland and boring if true.

If Velen is wrong, hillarious.

[Grufftoof]

The Q&A didn't say she was a Naaru. Only that what Valen said has import, because he's really clever and old and stuff.

It is still open to change, interpretation and work. It brings more questions I think.

And as for the faerie dragons and giants. Well, the only bit I can remember is the giants from WC3 are specfically mentioned as joining for the fight. And are not created, aligned or part of any Night Elven culture. They're allies of necessity/comrades in ideals against The Legion/Scourge.

"These monstrous creatures, crafted by the Titans when the world was young, are composed of living stone and stout flora. Benevolent and solitary by nature, the mountain giants have awakened to find that the tranquil world they once helped to shape has become a hectic battlefield of fire and sorrow. Now the mountain giants have pledged their courage and strength to the night elves' cause - and stand ready to banish the last remnants of the Burning Legion from the world."

Nothing stated that they're part of NE culture or such... nor that they have any "real link" to the NEs.

[Magaskawee/Anaei]

Recently there was another Creative Development Q&A, with many statements that could be important for your role-play. I recommend everyone to check it out.

Clickity-click

And in a less civilized tone:

Q: What is Elune? Is she tied to any other beings (Naaru, Titans, Loa, Elementals, An’she, etc.) in the setting’s cosmology?
A: See the final answer in Ask Creative Development, Round 2. Velen has been a prophet of the naaru for many thousands of years, and it’s unlikely that he would propose such a theory without significant evidence and consideration.

Game set & match you purple-skinned tools!

If I may point out, you are all going, "ERMEGURD SHE'S A NERRU" but blizzard, as usual have done something very cunning, they haven't said yes or no. They've just said Velen wouldn't say it, if he wasen't really sure. But Velen is a mortal, sure he's a big bad prophet of the light, but he can be wrong.. This confirms absolutely nothin'.

[Dréfurion]

I miss the shadowmelding psychopathic Night Elves.. that use to prey on orcs stupid enough to stroll into the woodlands.. /dream-filled sigh.

This!
It is on the basis of the WC3 Night elves my last orc (muzjhath) actually respected the Nelfs. They were strong warriors great at steath. Like her!
They believed in KILLING their prey, not locking it up in a cage. Like her.

The only fault she found in them were that they allied with the humans.

Still, the Elune = Naaru thing... Really bland and boring if true.

If Velen is wrong, hillarious.

This, I think, is actually the problem.

I think the whole rule of "Horde is evil and savage, Alliance is good and sophisticated" that sort of seems to be in the mindset of everyone and thus the Devs has caused the Night Elfs to be changed a little to suit that idea better. They are still the best, most intelligent, strongest, stealthiest and all-round kick-ass race there is, but they could do with having some savagery put back in to them.

[Shaelyssa]

If I may point out, you are all going, "ERMEGURD SHE'S A NERRU" but blizzard, as usual have done something very cunning, they haven't said yes or no. They've just said Velen wouldn't say it, if he wasen't really sure. But Velen is a mortal, sure he's a big bad prophet of the light, but he can be wrong.. This confirms absolutely nothin'.

Oh please it'd be such a Blizzard move to go ahead and say she was really a Naaru!!! "Blizz, as usual have done something very cunning" I think you give them too much credit!!!

[Thelos]

Recently there was another Creative Development Q&A, with many statements that could be important for your role-play. I recommend everyone to check it out.

Clickity-click

And in a less civilized tone:

Q: What is Elune? Is she tied to any other beings (Naaru, Titans, Loa, Elementals, An’she, etc.) in the setting’s cosmology?
A: See the final answer in Ask Creative Development, Round 2. Velen has been a prophet of the naaru for many thousands of years, and it’s unlikely that he would propose such a theory without significant evidence and consideration.

Game set & match you purple-skinned tools!

If I may point out, you are all going, "ERMEGURD SHE'S A NERRU" but blizzard, as usual have done something very cunning, they haven't said yes or no. They've just said Velen wouldn't say it, if he wasen't really sure. But Velen is a mortal, sure he's a big bad prophet of the light, but he can be wrong.. This confirms absolutely nothin'.

That post was a joke.

This one was genuine:

As much as I joke around about Elune being a Naaru, I hope she actually does keeps her identity as a sovereign godess, independant of the Naaru. I prefer having multiple divinties, rather than to have everything reduced to a singular force of good. This makes me fearful that they're going to repeat this trick again by declaring that the Naaru in turn are Titan constructs. This kind of reduction of a plurality of forces to a singular, I feel, is dumbing things down unnecissarily. In fact, some of the most interesting conflict arises whenever forces of good disagree with one another!

The way in which the awnser was phrased though is still very ambigious. All it really says is that Velen is convinced that Elune is a Naaru. Even though he's likely to be right, given his experience and power, he's not infallible; he can still be proven wrong.

I couldn't resist making a joke about it because we've had this discussion in OOC chats many times before, though in those discussions I was mostly speaking in jest; or, trolling if you will. It's a game role-players often play to proof that their favorite race is somehow superior over that which other players are playing. In Kalimdor, this was often draenei versus night elves. In the mindset of that particular game, I'm going "Score! Yes, suck it, long-ears!". Hence the "Game, set & match" comment, implying that this lore statement was akin to a a winning point.

In any other mindset, though, I think this is a terrible idea, for reasons mentioned by other people in this thread.

[Lexgrad]

hahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahhahaa Lighty Nelves! Lets hold hands and go to the cathedral together!! Almost as funny to me as Geldar talking about the Light....

Pity none of the DK questions/Stromgarde questions were answered as they were the more interesting ones imo, and what is under Trisfal Glades, we know it is unsettling, makes you go mad, whispers dark shit to you but it isnt an old god!!!

The Forsaken MC/free will angle is interesting. I think it answers all questions and fits with the DK lore well too where some DKs are shown to be agressive at raising.

Shadow vs light deserves a thread of its own!

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