the trauma of the Tauren

Kamalia did the patch 10.0.7 questline with Baine and Scout Tomul in the Ohn’ahran Plains last night.
One of the key themes of the questline is confronting and overcoming the hatred and mistrust that the Tauren of modern Kalimdor have for Centaur because of the post-Sundering generational warfare between Centaur and Tauren on that continent*.
I’ve thought — briefly — before about how Thunder Bluff having been established following the events of Warcraft III means that Kamalia would have spent most of her life prior to the beginning of World of Warcraft as a nomad. Until I was playing through this new questline, though, I didn’t have any sense that her nomadic experience would have involved constant fleeing from, fear of, and hatred of the Centaur.
Though the arrival of the Orcs saves the Tauren from extinction at the hooves of the Centaur in Warcraft III, I feel like what mentions of that history exist in World of Warcraft‘s quests in Mulgore, the Barrens, and even Desolace — in both Classic and Cataclysm** — don’t convey that aspect of Tauren history & culture very effectively at all. The Harpies, Gnolls, and Quillboar are presented as equally important threats as the Centaur. Nothing that I remember of my leveling experience suggested this degree of cultural trauma:


I feel like I might have felt differently about Kamalia’s interactions with the Centaur of the Ohn’ahran Plains when I first played through that zone if I had understood that the conflict between the Tauren and the Centaur in Kalimdor was that horrific.
~*~*~
*In contrast, Lasan Skyhorn, standing near the flight master in Maruukai, comments that Highmountain Tauren do not have this prejudice.
**Perhaps it’s time to play through those zones again, paying more careful attention to the quest text in both text panes and chat bubble dialogs, in Retail with Kazithra/Kaiuna and also in Classic…

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A Romantic Ohn’ahran Picnic

Crown of Boundless Courage, White Traditional Hanbok, Rosy Corsage, Mindsear Shanker, Aegis of the Vindicator
Even though I can’t get Trader’s Tender for doing this anymore, it was too charming of an idea to not do anyway.

Happy celebrations, however you choose to observe the day!

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puttering along in Dragonflight and Shadowlands

The beginning of a new semester is always a slow time in WoW for me as I try to figure out what this semester’s daily and weekly routines are going to be.
Kamalia has reached Renown 10 for three of the four Major Factions; she’s lagging with the Iskaara Tuskar with whom she is only Renown 9.
Marukkai and Iskaara have Leatherworking patterns, so Kamalia will want to push those reputations. Expedition and Valdrakken have Tailoring patterns, so Kaelyla and Kaelinda will want to push those reputations. Depending on how completion of the 10.0 Campaign affects Campaign access in further patches, I may need to push reputation in lower priority factions just enough to get to the story unlocks.
I was pleased to discover that I only needed to reach friendship level 2 with Wrathion to be able to acquire the Obsidian Dracthyr Battlegear. As soon as I can Gather a few more Rousing Fire and Rousing Earth, I’ll pick it up and then it can be what Kamalisaura’s Visage form wears forever. I’ll still want to get all the way to the final friendship level to get black scales for my Dragonriding mounts, though. As long as there are other folks farming in the Obsidian Citadel with whom I can tag along when I have time and energy to do that stuff, I think I’ll be okay.
Speaking of Dragonriding mounts, I’ve been liking Dragonriding as a flight system well enough — though I dearly dearly miss the ability to hover. It’s nice to be able to stop and hover, aloft, to look around at the area below me and figure out where the quest objectives actually are and where the best place to land would be — not to mention hovering while AFK. I only did the basic versions of all the Dragonriding races; that’s good enough for doing the WQs, and looking at some of the Dragonriding abilities, I suspect I just don’t want to bother with the additional mechanics of the Advanced races. That Dragonriding theme music is such an earworm. I merely have to think about Dragonriding and it pops into my head… I don’t need to go Dragonriding with my Sparkle Pony, but I really would love to go Dragonriding with my older drake mounts, especially the Enchanted Fey Dragon. I never did Paragon with Stormheim enough to get the storm drake mount, but if I could go Dragonriding with it, it might be worth going back for…
How do the wind and stone drakes from Cataclysm and the storm drakes from Legion fit into the Dragonflight dragon ecology & society, anyhow? Is this something that the Aspects and the Primalists might spar over in some future patch storyline — each sending emissaries to the “lost flights” to try to persuade them that they belong on their side?
Meanwhile, Kaelinda has worked her way through Chapter 4 of the Zereth Mortis Campaign. Looking up how to get Sandworn Relics, though, she’s thinking ehhh… I’ll come back for these when I’m level 70. She only has a little more Anima to collect to finish off her Kyrian Cosmetics shopping list, and then I’ll really have to stop procrastinating finishing up Shadowlands 9.0 and 9.1 story stuff and grinding Stygia for Korthia Cosmetics.

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Adventure Mode unlocked; Kalu’ak in Iskaara

Kamalia finished up the Dragonflight leveling Campaign and unlocked Adventure Mode! Before I bring any alts out to the Dragon Isles, though, I think I’d like to get the four major factions up to Renown 10, so that they can have the rep boost from the get-go. I’m currently at 7 for Dragonscale Expedition, 8 for Maruuk Centaur, 6 for Iskaara Tuskarr, and 7 for Valdrakken Accord.
But as for how to increase that Renown… I am overwhelmed with stuff to do. There are loads of sidequests in Thaldraszus that we haven’t done and may not come back to while playing together. I haven’t done the Dragonscale Expedition Renown quests for Climbing or Ancient Waygates yet, nor the Maruuk Centaur Great Hunt intro quests, nor the Dragonriding Races for any zone except Waking Shores. I’ve leveled and put some knowledge points into my gathering profession, but I’ve barely touched my crafting profession. Our quest logs are bulging with dungeon quests, so we’ll probably spend a play session or two just running dungeons.

~*~*~
I was wandering about Iskaara the other night and happened upon a pair of Kalu’ak tuskarr. Back in the day, I ground out Kalu’ak rep to get the Mastercraft Kalu’ak Fishing Pole, and that is the item I currently have equipped as my Fishing Tool. I was pleasantly surprised by how the Kalu’ak greeted me!

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Ok Wrathion, we’re good now

During Battle for Azeroth, I pushed the Shroud of Resolve to rank 6 to get the first appearance upgrade, but once that was accomplished, I just didn’t want to keep going. I spent all of Shadowlands feeling envious every time I saw someone wearing the second appearance upgrade for the Shroud of Resolve, which occurs at rank 12. So after finishing the 9.0 Night Fae Campaign, I took my Druid back to Battle for Azeroth to raise her Shroud of Resolve from rank 6 to rank 12. It only took a few weeks. Doing Black Empire Assaults and Horrific Visions at level 60 as a Druid was a good choice; Boomkin AOE is my favorite AOE of all the Classes (though Elemental Shaman is pretty fun, too), and when I’m in the Horrific Vision, Stealth gets me through the trash in the entrance area without needing to spend excessive time or Sanity.
But once again, now that I’ve got the Shroud of Resolve appearance upgrade, I just don’t want to keep going for the Black Dragonscale Backpack. The grind for Corrupted Mementos is too much and too slow. sigh If the devs made a recolor of that item — perhaps in a less-exciting brown color scheme? — and made it not too terribly difficult to get — such as putting it on the new Trading Post or even in the Store for $5 or $10 — I would go for it.
~*~*~
Meanwhile, Kamalia dinged 70 (again) on the 18th at halfway through the Azure Span main storyline. We’ve finished the Azure Span by now, but we haven’t gotten started on Thaldraszus quite yet.
With the Titan constellations appearance of the Shroud of Resolve now in my Appearances collection for real, Kamalia no longer feels any need for Wrathion’s Armoire of Endless Cloaks — and thus no need to choose between Wrathion and Sabellian or pursue Friendship with them at all. The Cobalt Assembly, on the other hand — it has the fun part of Torghast — stacking up OP power-ups — without the tedious parts. BTH and I had a blast one evening running around there. When we feel like just smashing stuff, that’s where we’ll go. And Kamalia wants the Cobalt Dracthyr Battlegear, of course.

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in which we do not want to have to be the ones to decide between the black dragon brothers

BTH and I finally finished up The Waking Shores last night, dinging 64 in the process.
Every time we have to fight elementals, BTH teases me about how as a Shaman, Kamalia should be upset about having to put down these elementals instead of trying to save them by solving the problem that is making them be all riled up.
When we went through the quests involving the return of Sabellian, BTH groaned aloud, “Don’t make ME choose who gets to be the new Aspect!”
Kamalia doesn’t want to choose, either. Although she knows Wrathion better, Sabellian and his followers do have some good points — and it was Sabellian’s actions that allowed the Ruby Oathstone to be restored.
I am starting to get itchy to bring Kaelyla out to the Dragon Isles. At the same time, I don’t want to rush her ahead of Kamalia, because I want to save the delights of first discovery of all the things in the Dragon Isles for Kamalia and playing with BTH.
When they eventually get there, Kaelinda will choose Wrathion, because of greater familarity, and Kaelyla will choose Sabellian, because she feels a wisp of kinship between his experiences in Outland and her experiences with the Void.
Meanwhile, Kaurinka is still considering going back to Uldum & the Vale of Eternal Blossoms after she finishes the Night Fae Campaign to work on getting the second upgraded appearance of the Shroud of Resolve and the Black Dragonscale Backpack (but do I really want to grind that? really and truly?).

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first week of Dragonflight

After sitting out Shadowlands, BTH decided to give Dragonflight a try. A few weeks ago, he reinstalled the game, subbed up for six months, and blasted through the Shadowlands. Now, for a short time, at least, we can play a game together again while we level through Dragonflight with Kamalia and his Bear Tank.
Due to a confluence of RL factors, we’ve only managed to play Dragonflight for three nights so far. We’ve reached level 63, so BTH thinks we must be mostly done with The Waking Shores by now, right? Um, no, sweetie. He has a tendency to pick a cardinal direction and go do whatever in our quest log is in that direction, then move around the compass clearing out quest markers, and with that approach, we’ve been doing so many side quests that we haven’t even finished Chapter 2 (of 4) of the main storyline yet. From past expansions, I’ve learned that when I am leveling together with BTH, I can only look at quest text long enough to identify the objectives as we barrel along; I’ve learned to save savoring the lore unfolding for my second, solo trip through the leveling experience.
There was no place in the Shadowlands that I really truly loved; it is such a relief to be back in Azeroth. I’m enjoying the sappiness of the side quest stories we’ve been doing. I’m liking Dragonriding, though we haven’t made any effort to collect glyphs and so my poor drake is still so easily tired out. I think my Druid might sit out Dragonflight in protest of not being able to fly with her own wings, however, and if I want to collect Dragon Isles leather transmog, I might have to end up leveling my Monk or my new Rogue (during the end of expansion lull, of course).

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The Official WoW Timeline and My Characters’ Ages

Officially, Shadowlands began in Year 35 from the Opening of the Dark Portal, and Dragonflight begins in Year 40; with World of Warcraft having begun in Year 25, there are 15 years between the beginning of Classic and the beginning of Dragonflight. What does this mean for my characters?

Way back in 2018, Gnomecore asked, “How Old Are Your Toons?” At the time, I began a rundown of the ages of my characters that then sat in draft for a few years until I eventually deleted it. Now seems like a good time to revisit that storybuilding prompt.

Although I have previously headcanoned the first several expansions of WoW as being two years in duration, the Official Timeline has one year for most of them. I’ll use the Official Timeline for these age calculations.

A couple more assumptions, which may or may not be Canon: Tauren become adults in their culture at age 16 and generally live to 90-110. Eversong Elves become adults in their culture at age 100 and generally live 300-500 years, though rare individuals may live for 1000 – 3000 years.

~*~*~

The ages of my major Tauren characters can be determined from my Tauren Paladin and Priest, the twins Karaelia (Paladin) and Kaohana (Priest), who came of age at the beginning of Cataclysm. Thus, they are 16 years old in Year 28 and were born in Year 12. The twins were a surprise late pregnancy for their mother. Keija (Warrior) was 10, Ketura (Hunter) was 13, Kerisa (Druid) was 15, and Kamalia (Shaman) was 18 at the time.
In Year 25 when World of Warcraft begins, they were: Kamalia 31, Kerisa 28, Ketura 26, Keija 23, Karaelia & Kaohana 13.
Kerisa married in Year 28 at the end of Wrath of the Lich King and her daughter Kessina was born about a year later during Cataclysm; either late Year 29 or early Year 30. Her son was born during Legion, probably Year 33.
Keija didn’t begin actively adventuring herself until after the twins came of age. She married at age 25 (Year 27), but she and her husband chose to remain childless until around the end of Legion (Year 33); they had a son in late Year 34.
Kamalia finally got married in Year 33 at the age of 39*. She may or may not have succeeded in having a child by the time Dragonflight begins in Year 40, at which time she will be 46.
When Dragonflight begins, Kerisa will be 43, Ketura 41, Keija 38, and Karaelia & Kaohana 28.
My Tauren Death Knight, Kregga, came of age approximately during the events of Warcraft III, which puts her at about 18 or 19 in Year 25 and 33 or 34 at the beginning of Dragonflight.
Kaumaleia, the Underpowered Death Knight, was about 25 in Year 27 at the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, so she is 38 at the beginning of Dragonflight.
My Tauren Monk, Katewatha, was a young adult, perhaps 21 or 22, when the Pandaren came in Year 30; she will be 31 or 32 at the beginning of Dragonflight.
Kasheena, my Highmountain Tauren Druid, was a young adult of 19 or 20 when the Highmountain Tauren joined the Horde at the end of Legion (Year 33), so she will be 26 or 27 at the beginning of Dragonflight.
Kaurinka, the identity of my Tauren Druid during Shadowlands, is in her mid-30s.
My Tauren Rogue will borrow the name Kazithra from Kregga’s mother, and she will be young, reckless, and insolent; perhaps only 17 or 18 at the end of Shadowlands and 20 or 21 at the beginning of Dragonflight.
My Tauren Mage, whose name I haven’t quite decided upon yet, wants to be middle-aged, I think, even older than Kamalia, maybe in her 50s or 60s at the beginning of Dragonflight.
Update: When I actually created my new Tauren Mage and Rogue, this is what happened…
My Tauren Rogue, Kaiuna, has appeared previously as a Feral Druid who always enjoyed dressing up Rogueishly. Now that Tauren can become Rogues for real, she cheerfully switched classes. She is about the same age as Karaelia and Kaohana, with whom she was a childhood friend.
My Tauren Mage, Kazithra, is Kregga’s niece; she was named for her grandmother. Kregga is one of the younger children in her family and Kazithra is her eldest sibling’s eldest child. Kazithra has just come of age; she is 16 at the beginning of Dragonflight.

~*~*~

I’ve always thought of Kaelinda as a young adult, approximately equivalent in societal function to a 21 – 25 year-old Human. In a story I wrote about a decade ago, she is raised from journeyman to Magistrix shortly before she goes to Outland — but the story is about her crafting a Sparkle Pony, which the story describes as being a construct pattern found in Ulduar — which places the story in mid-to-late Wrath of the Lich King or about Year 28. In a story I currently have in Draft, she is an apprentice at an Eversong Woods academy of magic at the time of Arthas’s rampage in Warcraft III, or about Year 24. So she would have been about 105 in Year 25 at the beginning of World of Warcraft and is about 120 at the beginning of Dragonflight.

Kaelinda’s best female friend, Kaelyla, is a few years older, perhaps 110 at the beginning of World of Warcraft and 125 at the beginning of Dragonflight.
Kaelinda’s best male friend, Ianestin, is also in the 120 – 130 age range as of the beginning of Dragonflight.

Of the various Mage Alter-Ego characters, Kaelydia is around 175, and I don’t know any of the others — Khrysanthemina, Kaelyra, Kateleina — well enough yet to estimate their ages.

Kalaneia and Keliora are both significantly older than Kaelinda, having had their own young adult children at the the time of the destruction of Eversong Woods. Thus, they are somewhere in their mid-to-late 200s.

~*~*~

* Coincidentally, this makes Kamalia about the same age as me — I am 42 this year.

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Current Shadowlands alt priorities

Meanwhile, in Shadowlands…

For awhile, I had all four of my mains in the Night Fae doing the Queen’s Conservatory. Kaurinka recently got hers upgraded to Tier 4. The others waited until they’d gotten their Conservatories upgraded to Tier 2 before beginning to nurture Spirits so that they could use 2x Wildseed Root Grain for every Spirit. Collectively, we’ve gotten the pets multiple times and a few of the other things, but we’re still trying for the Spirit Tender’s Bulb. Kaurinka has restored all of the Spirits she collected before she began actively doing the Conservatory and is only getting new ones from Fair Exchange for a Soul and an occasional Return Lost Souls, so she doesn’t have any active wildseeds right now. Kaelyla and Kamalia both have collections of Spirits that they are actively nurturing, but they’ll run out in another week or two. Kaelinda hadn’t even done the Conservatory Tier 1 activation yet when she was in the Night Fae before, so after she got it going, she only had a few Spirits to nurture. I only really need one Mage to upgrade the Conservatory to Tier 5; while Kaelyla is working on that (recently upgraded to Tier 3), Kaelinda began using the Anima she collected to buy the Renown version of the Faewoven set. Kamalia also began using her Anima to buy the Renown version of the Runewarden’s set; she decided the autumn/fire orange of the Renown version of the set was more interesting to her than the green of the Conservatory version of the set. But having four active characters was exhausting, and having all of them in the same Covenant was, quite honestly, boring. Kaurinka and Kamalia are therefore currently resting; I’m only checking in with Kamalia to turn over wildseeds.

After Kaelinda had restored all of the Spirits she’d gathered (she had only gotten 4/9 of the Night Fae Renown pieces, but she can come back for the rest later — or Kaelyla can get them), she went back to the Venthyr and began doing the Ember Court. And my goodness, the Ember Court is a lot of work!

Kaelinda and Kaelyla are in what I have been thinking of as “Anima Vacuum” mode — trying to get as much Anima each night as I can with both characters — though I don’t do all the available Anima WQs, just the ones I feel the most like doing.

I’m also attempting to get ready for Fall Semester, which will be beginning all too soon. It didn’t take long to get my GE courses ready to go for Fall semester. It’s taken me awhile to get mental traction on reworking my Organic Chemistry course, for which I am doing a substantial overhaul, though. OChem will continue to occupy a lot of time and attention as the semester progresses because I’ll be working on updating my day-to-day course materials as I go along.

With all of this, I’ve been routinely staying up until about 2 am — which isn’t good for my physical or mental health…

~*~*~

I sorely need a new computer to play WoW. My current laptop has a 256 GB harddrive which is somehow almost completely full, to the point that every night it complains about being out of memory and sometimes I can’t take screenshots or the game crashes. I’ve also been getting an annoying lua error which keeps resetting all the UI tutorial banners on some of my characters. I’m getting tired of turning them off every time I log in. I definitely need a new computer before Dragonflight — and before I do Korthia, Zereth Mortis, or the 9.2.5 Blood Elf questline, so that I can take lots of story screenshots that I will probably never look at again! 😛

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Tentative Dragonflight alt priorities

Thankfully, the Dragonflight Quest armor and Dungeon armor sets are not the same as the PvP armor. I like the both of the Cloth sets, the Dungeon Leather set, and the Quest Mail set, but I don’t find either of the Plate sets particularly inspiring.

Even better, that Dracthyr Battlegear is just the kind of awesome-looking new Mail armor that I was hoping we’d get with a new Mail-wearing class joining the game! Kamalia is really looking forward to wearing it… if it’s not ridiculously exclusive to Dracthyr Evokers, that is.

With that in mind, and keeping in mind that any alt management plan I concoct during the beta phase of a new expansion never ends up being exactly what I actually do with my characters — at the moment, I’m thinking that for Dragonflight, I’ll lead out with Kaelinda. Mages have unparallelled world mobility with their capital city teleport, and Invisibility is a pretty good aggro drop and run away ability. It’s okay for reconnaissance sneaking around, too, on occasion. Kamalia will go next; I missed her too much in early Shadowlands, and I’m excited about the new Mail armor. Then either Kerisa or Kasheena; I love being a Balance Druid AOE Goddess and a sneaky kitty to get from one place to another, but although I like the Leather armor, I want to get the Mail first. Then Kaelyla, to keep my Alliance Main caught up. And then… maybe Kamalisaura the Dracthyr Evoker, just to see how the new Class plays? She will be Alliance, so that I can put her in the “Blue Team” category on my Characters page instead of having to make a new category just for her.

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