little gilded Fire Festival incense burners

When the Helm of the Fire Festival was first introduced in 2012, I wrote

Together, the Fire Festival shoulders and helm look like something out of the next great Harrison Jones adventure. They look like the kind of thing one might find on little statuettes or idols arrayed around the altar of some forgotten [deity] — incense burners that would have to be activated in a specific order and with specific types of incense.

A forgotten deity like this strange statue that I found in the Karazhan Catacombs while doing the Balance Druid Artifact quest, perhaps…

When, in mid-2017, holiday items became Moggable during the corresponding holidays, it was somewhat inevitable that The Underpowered Death Knight would want to do this…

Incense Burner

Helm of the Fire Festival, Mantle of the Fire Festival, Glorious Breastplate & Girdle, Conqueror’s Legplates, Sunscale Gauntlets, Replica Lightforge Boots, Yaungol Fire Carrier

This year, I’ve expanded that silly idea into a full Transmogrification Collection for all the armor types!

Triumphant Flame

Triumphant set with Helm of the Fire Festival, Mantle of the Fire Festival, Masterwork Leggings, and Emberhawk Crossbow
There are other plate-like golden mail sets (Masterwork, Radiant, Sparkleshell) and a handful of scale-like golden mail sets (Burnished, Dreamwalker, Captain’s, Glimmering). I like the Triumphant set best with the festival helm and shoulders, but you may like one of these other sets better.

Soot-Stained Glitter

Helm of the Fire Festival, Mantle of the Fire Festival, Vest of Forceful Fury, Headhunter’s Belt, Mennu’s Scaled Leggings, Gloves of Issued Challenge (LFR), Felshroud Boots, Master Builder’s Shirt, Alysra’s Razor (N)
This set was the most difficult to make because there isn’t much in the way of either gilding or solid bright yellow in leather. Dark with gilded accents seemed like the best way to go.

Golden Goddess


Helm of the Fire Festival, Mantle of the Fire Festival, Elegant Robes/Robes of the Battleguard, Cloudscorcher Leggings, Wild Gladiator’s Gloves of Prowess + Nightvale Wristwraps, Kurkenstoks, Nimboya’s Mystical Staff*
Either of these robes is “the obvious choice” for this sort of outfit.
The Bling Cane is a good alternative for the staff.

Stay tuned for more Fire Festival outfits later!

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Things to Wear with the Darkmoon Top Hat

If you’re going to wear the Darkmoon Top Hat to get that sweet 10% XP and rep buff, you might as well own the look.

To allow characters of any level to wear them, I designed these outfits exclusively with items usable by characters in the Classic (1-60) level bracket.

Darkmoon Sleight-of-Hand

Elder Wizard’s Mantle, Cat Lover’s Vest, Nesingwary’s Sash, Genavie’s Leggings, Shimmering Gloves, Duskwoven Sandals, Tuxedo Shirt, Cloak of the Darkmoon Faire, Enchanted Azsharite Felbane Staff*
Trying for a stage magician sort of look here. I almost didn’t use any shoulders with this kit, until I saw how nicely these ones complemented the cloak.
A lookalike of the staff is the Rod of the Void Caller, a quest reward from Hellfire Peninsula. For a low-level character, the Magician Staff would also work nicely.

Darkmoon Flower Seller

Songbird Blouse, Dervish Belt, Leggings of the Fang, Inscribed Leather Gloves, Dark Leather Boots, Cloak of the Darkmoon Faire, Staff of the Verdant Circle
“All I want is a place somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air,
With one enormous chair —
Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?
Lots of coal making lots of heat!
Lots of chocolate for me to eat!
Warm [face (?)], warm hands, warm feet!
Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly!
Someone’s head resting on my knee
[Nice and cozy (?)] as it could be
Who takes good care of me —
Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly…”
—My Fair Lady

Darkmoon Daredevil

Sparkleshell Mantle, Darkmoon Breastplate, Belt of the Gladiator, Soldier’s Leggings, Wastewalker’s Gauntlets*, Sabatons of the Flamewalker, Cloak of the Darkmoon Faire, Tremendous Tankard O’Terror, Driftmire Shield*
Don’t be fooled by the huge tankard — it’s just for show. Whether the mount is animal or mechanical, she’s one of the sharpest stunt riders at the Faire.
One thing the Transmogrification interface doesn’t tell me is if an item I’ve chosen is something that isn’t available anymore… /headdesk.

The Ice Cream Mitts are an excellent alternative for the gloves. The Shield of the Barrens is the most comparable shield design.

Darkmoon Demolisher

Acid-Etched Pauldrons, Revenant Chestplate & Leggings, Symbolic Belt Gauntlets & Greaves, Cloak of the Darkmoon Faire, Darkmoon Hammer
This kit takes its inspiration from the outfits worn by Mola and Ziggie Sparks.
There are two sets of plate armor that use the “Revenant” name: one from Classic that is a recolor of the crafted Thorium armor set and has a lot of lookalike items from Burning Crusade quest rewards, and one from Wrath that is a lookalike of the crafted Cobalt armor set. This outfit uses the Classic items.

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micropost: something wicked this way comes

After reading the announcement for the new Hearthstone expansion, “The Witchwood”, now I have the “Something Wicked This Way Comes” track from the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban soundtrack looping in my head.

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minipost: Stitch, is that you?

Is it just me, or do the Marsuul creatures that will be found on Argus indeed look quite a bit like Stitch?

image from Petopia

image from Wikipedia

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scenes from the Auction House dance party

As my current primary banker, it fell to the Underpowered Death Knight to attend the Auction House dance party. She took all of her favorite party clothes and changed outfits at intervals throughout the day.

Things started out a little slow.

Sometimes the dance floor was definitely the safest place to be.

It was fun to be the only Tauren in the house while I was wearing this outfit!

That white leaf version of the Cenarion Spaulders on the Blood Elf in the background comes from the Ravenbear Disguise — a toy I have, but have never actually tried. Now that I know what it does, my Druid will want to use it to augment a Transmogrification kit someday. She has coveted those shoulders ever since she first met with Morthis Whisperwing for the Swift Flight Form quest chain.

I saw fewer bunny ears than I might have expected.

The Underpowered Death Knight looks pretty drunk in this selfie — rather appropriate for her costume of the moment!

Although Mystery Kegs and other forms of brew abounded, however, she hadn’t actually partaken.

Then this happened.

So I popped my Jewel of Hellfire, too…

…which scared away all the other Tauren at the party.

Why does the female fel Eredar face have the same kinds of seams in it as the Titan Computer Console faces in the Tribunal of the Ages?


reference image from Wowhead

Someone put down a Moonfeather Statue…
It was a MOONKIN MASH!
It was an OWLBEAR SMASH!

I saw several people wearing the new Winter Veil suits, but I think I might have been the only Gaudy Sweater in the crowd.

I loved seeing these two low-level characters catching the spirit of the fun and hanging around at the party for awhile.

I considered wearing this hat with a Tuxedo, but this is so much more stylish and eye-catching, dontcha think?

Despite this event triggering whenever you entered the Auction House from far enough outside —



— people were continually complaining about the absence of the auctioneers and wondering where they were supposed to go. More than once, I spoke up reminding the poor confused people that Orgrimmar also has auctioneers in Goblintown, Trolltown, Taurentown, and the Valley of Honor.

An Alliance raid paid us a call, but they couldn’t stop the funk.

Rainbow Generators were very popular all day long, but this is the most I think I ever saw going at once — and certainly the prettiest formation!

Somehow it wasn’t surprising that the most populous race for the race calls always seemed to be the Sin’dorei. Fortunately, they are so tiny (compared to the Shu’halo) that a lot more of them can comfortably fit on the stage.

Tauren have the most fun, though!

A sweet end to the day!

A very serendipitous selfie snap that I couldn’t replicate if I tried! Though I had been dancing next to that handsome fellow in the guard costume deliberately 😛

Previously: the Underpowered Death Knight and the Doomsayers

Next: the Underpowered Death Knight and the Doomsayers’ return

~*~*~

I’ve updated the image links in my posts about the earlier Volunteer Guard Day and Spring Balloon Festival micro-holidays.

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Sunday on the Promenade 29

A couple of fun, somewhat silly outfits; and a couple of more boring, more normal outfits.

Incense Burner

Helm of the Fire Festival, Mantle of the Fire Festival, Glorious Breastplate & Girdle, Conqueror’s Legplates, Sunscale Gauntlets, Replica Lightforge Boots, Yaungol Fire Carrier
When the Helm of the Fire Festival was first introduced, I wrote, “Together, the Fire Festival shoulders and helm look like something out of the next great Harrison Jones adventure. They look like the kind of thing one might find on little statuettes or idols arrayed around the altar of some forgotten [deity] — incense burners that would have to be activated in a specific order and with specific types of incense.”
Now that these items are moggable (only during the festival, fortunately), it was somewhat inevitable that The Underpowered Death Knight would want to do this…

Farmhand

Straw Hat, Grimscale Armor, Overlord’s Girdle, Dalaran Warden’s Legplates, Maltendis’ Handguards, Sabatons of the Endless Vigil, Red Lumberjack Shirt, The Shoveler, Garden Pitchfork
Several years ago, I daydreamed, “Oh, if only Fury Warriors could use Titan’s Grip to dual-wield with polearms and staves — wouldn’t DWing a shovel and a pitchfork, or a shovel and a broom, or a pitchfork and a broom, be totally [awesome]?” Well, now they can — and the Warlords Garrison gave us some lovely Transmogrifiable Garden tools.

Deathweaver’s Tide

Crown of Chelonian Freedom, Koltira’s Shoulderplates of Conquest, Heavy Chestpiece of Eminent Domain, Dojani Girdle, Honorary Combat Engineer’s Heavy Legplates, Koltira’s Gauntlets of Conquest, Landfall Plate Boots, Cloak of the Iron Council, The Turning Tide
Having farmed Naxx 25 specifically to get this runeblade, it was time to make a kit with it. Lacking inspiration, however, after I’d picked out these shoulders, I decided to just use the whole set, plus this cloak that many minor Death Knight NPCs wear. Ah, well, the relatively subdued armor lets the blades be the focus of the ensemble.

Grayfeather

Thick Scale Shoulder Pads, Wildthorn Mail, Lifecycle Waistguard, Infernal Trickster Leggings, Grips of the Fel Destroyer, Treads of the Dreamwolf
This partial recolor of the Gryphon Mail set is also quite handsome. The crafted Icy Scale Boots almost go with it; the part that covers the legs is a match for the chestpiece and leggings, but the part that covers the feet is bright blue! So I have chosen to use a different pair of boots that might work for everyone — not just the races who go shoe-less.

~*~*~

This series of posts began because I set myself a goal to document new Transmogrification outfits in a more timely fashion. As soon as I create a new outfit, I write it up in a draft post. As the weekend approaches, I start working on taking fashion screenshots, processing them, and updating “Things my [Class] Wears” posts. On Sunday — though not every Sunday — I publish the collection of my recent efforts. Then I begin the next “Sunday on the Promenade” draft post.

Occasionally, I have ideas for themed Transmogrification collections that take several months to completely assemble. Thus, some of these outfits might get re-posted at a later date as part of such a themed Transmogrification collection.

If any of you, my dear readers, have kits that you’d like to share, I’d be happy to add you to the show! Just email me your picture(s), along with a list of the items in the outfit. I don’t regularly check my blog email, though, so if you’ve sent me an outfit, please make a comment on the most recent Sunday Mog Show post so that I know to check my blog email for your contribution.

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Office Egg Hunt

Last fall, when BTH & I found out that we would be adopting, I negotiated a parental leave agreement for this semester that involved me teaching just one class — organic chemistry — instead of my usual load. I would take two weeks completely off when the baby arrived, during which time a colleague (who is also my Dean) would teach the class. For the once-a-week three hour lab component of the class, I would attend the first half-hour and get the students going, after which my Dean would “babysit” the students for the rest of the course.

Yesterday afternoon, for their Lab Final, I gave my students an assignment to use the chemical knowledge that they have developed over the past two years of studying chemistry to a) extract pigments from spinach, raspberries, and blackberries and b) use those pigments to dye hard-boiled eggs. I told them that I wanted to see pretty pictures of the results in their lab reports.

My Dean joked that instead of taking pictures, they should show me the eggs by hiding them in my office — with each student’s grade being dependent upon how cleverly they hid their eggs.

This morning, I walked into my office and saw this:

I burst out laughing. They actually DID it!

The rest of my morning was lost to finding the rest of the eggs:

I remembered that there had been sixteen eggs, but after I found these fourteen, I searched and searched all over my office and just could not find the last two.

When I went to class, my students were amused at my tale of how they had caused me to thoroughly waste my morning. They told me where to find the fifteenth egg:

The sixteenth egg wasn’t actually in my office. It was still in the lab because the student was trying to intensify the color by soaking it overnight in the dyebath he had prepared. He went and got it, to complete the set:

The eggs dyed with the natural pigments really quite nicely, especially the ones dyed with the blackberry pigment mixture. The really brightly colored eggs, however, were done with standard food coloring, which we keep in the lab for a handful of lower-level experiments.

I love my OChem students (and my boss)!

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