new allies for the Alliance from the shadows in the shadows

Last week, Kiralaira finally reached Exalted with Argussian Reach.

At last, Kaylynda and Alleria Windrunner could go in search of the renegade Magister Umbric and his followers…

I have played through the Ghostlands many, many times on my Horde characters — it’s one of my favorite level 10 – 20 zones — so it felt both familar and strange to be there with an Alliance character. I had to remind myself to go around Tranquilien instead of through it.

While we were in the Ghostlands, naturally I had to take Alleria to see her sister. I couldn’t quite figure out where to stand to put Alleria right next to Vereesa, though.

Did Dawnstar Spire always have this upper level, and I never saw it because I never looked up, or is this a new addition? It’s so pretty… If a Void Elf comes back to Dawnstar Spire on the ground, can they see and use the teleportation console to get up here?

Telogrus Rift itself doesn’t impress me much. It’s another scrap of a fallen world, like Niskara or Mardum or Dreadscar Rift, that looks like it should be airless and very, very cold — only with purple void goop instead of green fel goop. My new Void Elves were happy when they finished Alleria’s training and were able to return to the warmth and sunlight of Azeroth again. They will probably not go back to Telogrus very often, if ever.

These characters have stories, or fragments of stories, at any rate, which someday perhaps I will get together enough to be able to tell.

I chose the skin tone that appeared the most pink to me for Kaelyla and the one that seemed the next-most-pink for Kishalla. I find it a bit ironic that in this expansion where Sylvanas is public enemy number one of the Alliance, it is Alliance players who can most closely mimic Sylvanas’s appearance by being a Void Elf with the darkest blue skin tone and the silver hair.

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1 week until BfA

Kiralaira finally went to Argus. The story drew me in; I played it over three nights and it wasn’t hard to keep going until I hit the achievement that marked the end of each part. I took 2429 screenshots along the way. Though I don’t care for the fel-ravaged visuals of Krokuun and the Antoran Wastes, Mac’Aree is hauntingly beautiful. Vigilant Quoram’s tests were somehow not as difficult as I’d been expecting them to be — even the first room of the Test of Tenacity was not as frustrating as the shifting rune maze in the pre-Mage Tower part of the Karam Magespear questline. I am ridiculously amused by how even after a thousand years of living with the Lightforged, Turalyon still has a gringo accent when he says the Draenei greetings.

During this week, my Monk and Paladin will be running selected dungeons to get to 8 different dungeons completed and earn their Order Hall set pants.

My Paladin got her official Legionfall Champion while I was pushing through Order Hall Campaigns — but Paladins can also get a 10th Champion, Maximillian of Northshire. I haven’t done that questline yet, so maybe I’ll do it this week — or maybe I’ll let it wait until later.

These past few weeks of being so focused on the major goals of completing the 7.0 Order Hall Campaigns and doing the Argus Campaign have left me way behind on my prep for Fall Semester. That’s part of why I’ve decided to leave playing through the War of Thorns until the night of August 12th. Doing that, however, means that I’m having to mentally bookmark a backlog of reaction and analysis posts on blogs and Wowhead and Blizzard Watch about The War of Thorns, Warbringers: Sylvanas, Old Soldier, Elegy, and A Good War.

Oh, and the conference I went to? Amazing! I only wish it had been earlier in the summer, so that I could have had more time to figure out how to restructure my courses to implement some of the ideas that I learned about.

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2 weeks until BfA

After finishing up the Warrior campaign, I did Priest & Paladin in parallel, alternating between them. Despite the dire circumstances, the twins were delighted to be able to work together for their Order Hall Campaigns — and the members of their orders observed and recognized the special synergy between them. Then I pushed through the rest of Death Knight because I just wanted to be done already with Order Hall Campaigns. I got spoiled on how the DK campaign ends long ago — one reason why I was saving it for last — and it was as epic… and troubling… as advertised.

I’m feeling kind of burned out on WoW now — having a 5-day break while I attend this chemical education conference is actually rather refreshing!

My Priest also picked up the Hidden appearance for her Disc Artifact. So far, I’ve gotten the Hidden appearances for Arcane Mage, Fire Mage, Frost Mage, Brewmaster Monk, Holy Paladin, Enhancement Shaman, Beastmaster Hunter, and Guardian Druid.
Interestingly, though Kamalia hasn’t obtained the base Hidden appearances for Elemental or Resto, she has the 200 WQ tint of those appearances available for her to use.
I’ll have to come back at level 120 to farm the dungeon drops for the Hidden appearances for Balance Druid and Holy Priest.
I’d thought about getting the Feral Druid one for Kerisa, but I decided instead to get it with my Highmountain Tauren Druid.

Niskara, Niskara, Niskara… Marksmanship Hunter, Blood Death Knight, and Holy Priest all go there at the very beginning of things to get Artifacts. Warlocks go there for Chapter 2 of their campaign. Paladins and Priests have an intersecting storyline there near the end of Chapter 3 & beginning of Chapter 4 of their respective campaigns. Demon Hunters and Warriors conclude their campaigns there. From a meta perspective, I recognize that this place is a hub to answer the common complaint about art resources being created that only a small fraction of the playerbase will ever see (locations such as Kezan, the Broken Isles, Gilneas-before-the-Cataclysm, and the Wandering Isle, for example) and to reduce the load on the art team. From an in-universe lore perspective, though, why is this scrap of a world such a central location? Might that have been explained in some bit of quest text that I have long since forgotten?

I was greatly relieved to read Gnomecore’s report that the gear from the Darkshore WQs uses the new character selection screen/Boosted/Warlords Salvage Yard models — I have all of those already, so no need for me to run myself ragged trying to collect them. Between missing 5 days of play time and wanting to finally do the Argus campaign when I get back, I may end up doing all three chapters of the War of Thorns back-to-back with just one character per faction on the night of August 12th. On the Alliance side, it will be Kerithian the Night Elf Druid, of course. On the Horde side, I’m thinking it will be Kelisanna the Rogue, to observe and report on Sylvanas’ operations for Regent Lord Theron.

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in which the Nightborne have been saved from themselves

This week being my Spring Break, I finally managed to sit down and power through the rest of Suramar.

It was indeed some very well done storytelling, and I enjoyed it — though it helped quite a bit that I’m at ilevel 900 from the slow ratchet of WQ rewards and already have flying. Although I still think she’s a conceited snob, I grew to like Arcanist Valtrois a bit more when I got to see her in her element, as it were, working with the ley lines — and the quest where she butts heads with Stellagosa in Zharkhenar cracked me up. I still like Occuleth the best, though.

I am not entirely “done” with Suramar, however, as I still haven’t gotten the Leywoven Flying Carpet. Kaelinda has Paragoned for the Nightfallen at least twelve times by now, and it’s getting rather discouraging to keep getting nothing but gold and Wakening Essences and other random junk when I open the caches. sigh…

I’d been making myself wait to purchase Battle for Azeroth at least until I’d completed Suramar and would be able to do both of the Horde-side Allied Race recruitment scenarios. I’d read that the Highmountain scenario is the longest and most involved, and that the Nightborne scenario has a scene that dovetails with the Void Elf scenario.

I spent the extra $20 to get the Collector’s Edition because fancy raptor for my Hunter who loves raptors —

— and fancy horse for my Human Mage who loves horses.

Although I could recruit the Highmountain Tauren and roll up the Highmountain Tauren alts I want to create now, I’m going to try to save that until after I’ve gotten all the classes leveled to 110 and experienced their Order Hall campaigns (through getting the last champion from the Broken Shore).

Because I only needed my Nightborne Mage to exist, however, there wasn’t any problem with sending Kaelinda off right away to help Lady Liadrin convince Thalyssra to join the Horde.

She was rather surprised and shocked by how harshly the Regent Lord treated Alleria Windrunner, though she herself was sufficiently well-mannered not to show it.

Kaelinda now has a “prettykitty” mount macro that includes the Mystic Runesaber, Arcanists’s Manasaber, Nightborne Manasaber, Luminous Starseeker, and Winged Guardian.

Thanks to a comment on Wowhead, I learned that I could create an Allied Races character on a realm where I didn’t yet have a level 110, so I was immediately able to create a Nightborne Mage on my Minor Mages realm (I’ll still have to get Kaylynda to 110 to do the Void Elf recruitment scenario, though).

Minor Mages, please welcome Koralythria!


She has pale pink hair (the color is very subtle) and no glowy tattoos (because she’s a commoner).

Koralythria is very young, as Nightborne go — only a hundred or so years old (about the same age as Kaelinda). Before — well, before Gul’dan, really — she was a junior assistant gardener at one of the smallest gardens in Suramar City, dreaming of someday becoming skilled enough to work on the Grand Promenade.

In her free time, she associated with a group of other young (less than a millenium old) people who were curious about the world outside the shield and wondered if there were things their leaders weren’t telling them. After the Legion arrived, she joined the cause of the Dusk Lily and became part of Vanthir’s network as soon as she became aware of them. Though her horticulture work had given her some proficiency with certain types of bladed implements, during the Insurrection, she discovered that she was more talented with magic than she had thought. When she came to Shal’Aran, she was overawed by Thalyssra. She was also rather disturbed and concerned by the Withered… especially by how many of them there seemed to be (so she’s even more of a conspiracy theorist now than she was before). She very quickly began to idolize Valtrois and Occuleth, though.

So… now that I’ve finally finished Suramar, what next?

Xe’ra’s Revisionist History of Illidan, then Argus, with my Demon Hunter — because the more Void Elves I see running around, the more I want to play one.

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airborne in the Isles

This evening I took Kaelinda down to the Broken Shore and did just enough to get this to happen:

Because the Mage Tower buff was waterwalking, I was riding my Mystic Runesaber instead of my Azure Waterstrider, and it was so cool that the moment I completed the achievement, it sprouted wings and I could take off!

I had been feeling like I didn’t really mind puttering around on the ground — between Kamalia having the Derelict Skyhorn Kite, Kaelinda having Slow Fall, and Kiralaira having Glide, I’d had plenty of fun jumping off of cliffs or high buildings to get where I was going. Of course, flying would be nice to have as a convenience for leveling all those alts I’ve still got to bring up… I’d forgotten how much fun it is to explore by flying! Right away, I went and flew all around the Tomb of Sargeras to find the entrance to the Cathedral of Eternal Night — and then I flew across the broken causeway and explored around the exterior of the Nighthold.

I enjoyed seeing all the NPCs representing all the different Class Orders during the Return to the Broken Shore scenario, and the Class Order areas around the base. I felt quite uncomfortable, however, about using what are essentially the same weapons that destroyed Cenarion Thicket and Theramore against the Legion ship…

Meanwhile, it’s been long enough since Patch 7.2 launched that through diligently running Champion missions for Legionfall tokens and using Kirin Tor Emissaries for Legionfall tokens, Kamalia could accomplish this without ever having returned to the Broken Shore:

I’ve cropped this shot a little wider than I usually crop achievement pictures to show that she’s standing at her Order Hall mission map…

Now that Kaelinda has explored the Broken Shore and unlocked flying, I’ll take Kamalia and Kiralaira down there, too, sometime fairly soon, to get their final Order Hall champions. At some point in the future, I’ll probably do the Artifact-related questlines… but I think I’ll wait on that until I’ve got the rest of my alts leveled, and Suramar and Argus completed for the Allied Race unlocks.

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in which Kaelinda is a Good Suramaritan

Over the past few weekends, I set myself to completing the 7.0 half of the Suramar campaign. With both Kamalia and Kaelinda, the point I’d stopped at was just before Ly’leth Lunastre’s instructions to meet with Vanthir. When I finally went to meet with Vanthir, and did the Waning Crescent chapter of the campaign, then I began to understand why Anne Stickney has been praising the storytelling in Suramar all expansion long. I hadn’t really felt like I could relate to Thalyssra and Valtrois — or even Occuleth, though I liked him better than the other two. But when I started to meet common folk Nightborne like Vanthir and Deline, then I started to be able to think of what a Nightborne character that I might create could be like.

Meanwhile, BTH recently decided to re-sub up to WoW and has been busily plowing through the Broken Shore and Argus campaigns. After having spent a lot of time corpse-running in the Midnight Court area of Suramar yesterday evening while working on the Statecraft chapter of the Suramar campaign, this evening, I enlisted BTH to help me with the quests in the first part of the Change of Seasons chapter that required me to return to that neighborhood. That made it much easier!

Now that I’ve finally completed Broken Isles Pathfinder, Part One, I think it’s time to go to the Broken Shore and do Broken Isles Pathfinder, Part Two before I continue on to the 7.1 half of the Suramar campaign.

As for Koralythria, my future Nightborne Mage… Not all Nightborne are over 10,000 years old, like Elisande, Thalyssra, Valtrois, and Occuleth. We know this because Nightborne have children — I love that there are so many Nightborne children in Suramar City (and that there are child models for the Zandalari Trolls in the datamining from the first Battle for Azeroth build) — which means that there are Nightborne of all ages. So she is relatively young, probably about the same age as Kaelinda — who is a young adult, as Blood Elves go, at a little over 100 years old. She lived in the southwestern half of the city and recieved help from Vanthir at the Waning Crescent, then joined Thalyssra at Shal’Aran. As a commoner, she does not have any glowy tattoos. I observed that only the elitest of the elites have those — not even nobles such as Ly’leth Lunastre or her friend Lady Aurore have the glowy tattoos. She’s probably an artisan of some kind — perhaps an apprentice or assistant to one of the merchants in the Evermoon Bazaar, or maybe one of the horticulturalists who tended the Glitterpools along the Grand Promenade. She’s a Mage, so she’s done some scholarship of magic, but that won’t become her main career until after the Insurrection.

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in which the Illidari thumb their collective noses at Kil’jaeden

At the beginning of the campaign against the Legion in the Broken Isles, the Illidari Prime claimed from the former Illidari instructor Varedis (now known as Varedis Felsoul) the Twinblades of the Deceiver and from another former Illidari, Caria, the Aldrachi Warblades.

The Illidari claim to have “sacrificed everything“, but one thing they have not sacrificed is a potent lust for revenge. Enraged by these defeats, Varedis and Caria vowed to utterly destroy the Illidari.

The Illidari Council thwarted them at every turn, however, until Kil’jaeden himself got involved…

After threatening the Illidari that “Your insolence has come to an end. You will join the Burning Legion. You will become Felsworn,” Kil’jaeden tells the Illidari Prime, “You may grovel now, demon hunter.”

On behalf of all of the Illidari, she refused — with a very much ruder gesture than the rather juvenile animation portrayed in the game.

The Illidari promptly jumped the Fel Hammer to Niskara and the crack strike force of Kayn, Kor’vas, Jace, Allari, Asha, Belath, and Kiralaira — the same team who had been handpicked by Illidan to lead the mission to Mardum to reclaim the Sargerite Keystone all those years ago — took care of Varedis and Caria for once and for all.

Kil’jaeden wasn’t too happy about that. “Very well, Illidari,” he snarled, “Your fate is sealed. You will perish with your world.”

The Illidari laughed in Kil’jaeden’s face and celebrated their victory.

I won’t be using the “Slayer” title, though. It feels too generic. I’ll stick with “Illidari”.

~*~*~

Niskara is obviously a pretty important place. The Marksmanship Hunter, Blood Death Knight, and Holy Priest all went their to obtain their Artifacts. I know that the Paladin Order Hall campaign will go there eventually, and that Aponi Brightmane will be my guide when I do, because while I was getting the Blood DK and Holy Priest Artifacts, I observed Silver Hand NPCs scattered about the place (in various states of captivity, torment, and death) and I saw player Paladins running about accompanied by a female Sunwalker. The finale of the Demon Hunter campaign went there, too. Will any of the other Order Hall campaigns go there, I wonder (don’t spoil me, please)? What kind of a world was Niskara, before the Legion shredded it?

~*~*~

Anyhow, now that’s three Order Hall Campaigns completed — one quarter down, three quarters to go. Time to finish leveling another alt. My Hunter is the most likely candidate; she did quite a bit of Pet Battling during Sign of the Critter weeks early in the expansion, so she has a few levels on the rest of my alts — she’s now 108, whereas the others are 104-105. After she’s done, the next one up will probably be my Warrior, so that I can finish the Blacksmithing quest chain and craft the two levels of Demonsteel Armor.

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