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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minipost: Nomi makes the NYT

So, the headline for the food column in the New York Times today is “Charred, Browned, Blackened: The Dark Lure of Burned Food”.

And the first thing I thought of was Nomi.

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if you go down in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise

I hadn’t originally intended to acquire all the Artifacts because some of them are downright evil… as in, Shadow Priest, all the Death Knight, and all the Warlock. I don’t want to be carrying those things around, let alone using them. In the case of the Death Knight and Warlock, the Artifacts that I consider to be the least of three evils fortunately align with my favored specs for those classes.

As I’ve been beginning to acquire Artifact weapons for multiple specs for each class — and have completed “Arsenal of Power” for Shaman, Mage, Hunter, and Demon Hunter — however, my Collecting bug is starting to itch to get all the Artifacts.

It’s been fun to see all the little stories — though some are certainly more interesting than others. Although I know that some of the Artifact quests revisit the same places and even, in some cases, the same bosses, I’m beginning to want to see them all… even the downright evil ones.

Additionally, I’ve read that in most (if not all) of the Order Hall Campaigns, a quest to begin one of the later stages of the Order Hall Campaign is given by the same NPC who gives out the quests to go get the other Artifact weapons. If you haven’t gotten the other Artifacts and are stubbornly ignoring the quests to do so, you might miss that Campaign quest and then find yourself stuck in your Campaign. Thus, it is to your advantage to just do all the Artifact quests, even if you don’t plan to play as any of those other specs.

I can kinda-sorta make an in-character rationalization/justification for picking up even the Artifacts I don’t really want in-character from the evidence I’ve seen so far that there is often another person or group — and usually a bad one — either in possession of or trying to obtain the Artifact, so it wouldn’t be the responsible thing to do, as the leader of my Class Order, to leave those Artifacts in the hands of those other persons or groups. I should at least bring them to the relative safety and protection of my Order Hall.

I don’t want to do the [Shadow Priest, Affliction Warlock, Demonology Warlock, Blood Death Knight, Unholy Death Knight] quests “in character” as my characters, though, if that makes any sense at all. I’d want to do them as, well, someone else. Some sidekick, a lesser champion of the Order, rather than my actual character herself. For my Priest in particular, I have been thinking that if I do go get the Shadow Priest Artifact with her, I’ll temporarily change her entire appearance at the Barbershop — with a Mog to match, of course — to be my short-lived Shadow Priest alt, Kazithra (Kregga’s mom), while I do the questchain. I’d also temporarily change the appearances of my Death Knight and Warlock to go get the other Artifacts for their classes, though I have less concrete ideas about what alter-egos I want to create for them.

But then once I have those evil Artifacts that I don’t really want to be carrying around with me, what do I do with them? Can Artifacts be stashed in Void Storage?

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Aluneth & Ebonchill

Kaelinda dinged 102 last weekend — again from Fishing dailies — so when she returned to the Hall of the Guardian, Meryl sent her off to get the Arcane and Frost Artifacts.

I got the Arcane Artifact right away.

Going into the Nexus to get it made me wish I’d done the Dragonwrath quest chain. Maybe I will do it with Kaelinda, at some point, so that after Legion is over, Aluneth and Tarecgosa can argue with each other in her closet at night.

Then I got busy working on the Quel’Delar story and didn’t go get the Frost Artifact until today.

I find it interesting the way the surroundings of the Frost and Arcane Artifacts are reversals of each other. To get the Arcane Artifact, one goes into the frozen halls of the Nexus; to get the Frost Artifact, one needs to deal with various arcane wardings.

I like both the base and upgraded appearances of Felo’melorn and Aluneth. Ebonchill, not so much — though I like the upgraded appearance (and the red tints) a little better. My top two choices to mog over it are the Ethereum Life-Staff, which I already had, and the Apostle of Argus, which I didn’t. Luckily, it only took me two attempts at Hyjal Summit to acquire it. It’s not that Hyjal is hard, of course, just that the trash in the Horde encampment is so spread out that it’s really annoying to solo.

Meanwhile, Kamalia finally completed “Nightfallen but Not Forgotten”. Oculeth is my favorite of the Shal’dorei whom I’ve met so far. Kamalia also reached Revered with the Nightfallen and the Dreamweavers. That puts her at 4/6 for Broken Isles Diplomat. She just has the Valarjar and the Wardens left. I had been choosing the Nightfallen whenever Kirin Tor was the faction-of-the-day; now I’ll be choosing the Wardens — at least until I’m Revered with them, then I’ll probably go back to choosing the Nightfallen.

At this point, though, I’m debating whether or not to continue doing the Nightfallen storyline with Kamalia. I’m a lot more interested in following that complete storyline with Kaelinda. Kaelinda is more personally interested in the Highborne and their magic, and she actually wants her Order Hall shoulders for their appearance — unlike Kamalia, for whom her Order Hall shoulders would certainly be a stats upgrade, but she doesn’t particularly care for their appearance.

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a Demon Hunter’s priorities

So, that Demon Hunter starting experience was really quite enjoyable.
There are a few places where you are offered a choice between two options, and although the only one that really seems to matter is whether to spec Havoc or Vengeance, I think it might be interesting to roll another Demon Hunter someday and take the other choices at all of those decision points, just to see how the follow-up dialogue is different.

Upon returning to the normal world, Kiralaira had a few things she wanted to do right away.

First, she needed to go punch Kael’thas in the face —

— TWICE —

— for being a traitor and selling out to the Burning Legion.

Then she went to ask Illidan if, um, given that she’s, um, apparently the “alpha” Illidari, she could, um, “borrow” the Warglaives of Azzinoth for, um, “safekeeping” while he is, um, “indisposed”?

(This would feel significantly less awkward if she had chosen [this guy] instead of [that guy] at a certain decision point in the starting experience.)

Illidan replied, no, not right now, ask me again next week.

Next, she went to Tanaan to take a selfie or two with Yrel.


I do hope it wasn’t one of your relatives who gave me these horns, dearie

After not having gone through the Tanaan Invasion experience for so long, it didn’t seem all that tiresome or tedious. I found myself just zipping right along, all the way through to the end, and even having fun doing it. Imagine that!

Then she went to Pandaria.

Wait, what?

I thought I was done with the Shado-Pan, I really did. After I got the Shado-Pan Helmet with my Human Mage, I remembered that I’d never gotten one with my Draenei Mage, either. So I took Kaprikka out to Townlong Steppes, but after a day or two… nope, didn’t want to do that, after all. She went back to camping Onyxia, and I added “don’t want to do any given rep grind with any given Class more than once” to my list of reasons for Retiring my secondary Tauren alts.

(Because a) I don’t like the Felstalker and b) the Shado-Pan rep mounts don’t require the rep to use, the red Shado-Pan Riding Tiger is already her mount of choice.)

But Kiralaira insisted that because she is a new and different Class, she needs a Shado-Pan Helmet (and Transmogrification kit) — and, furthermore, she wants to make a Shado-Pan Helmet kit that also uses the Shado-Pan Tabard — something I haven’t yet managed to do.
And because she is level 100 and Fel Rush and Eye Beam are fun and powerful, she might even actually do the Sra’Vess (mantid) Shado-Pan quests, which I ignored on all my other characters…

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Millhouse is mine! Muahahahaha!

I have wanted Millhouse Manastorm for my Alliance Mage’s gathering of Follower Mages basically forever. I had given up, though, on ever actually getting him for her, because, quite frankly, I was too lazy to push her through Silver Proving Grounds — and it didn’t help that getting Millhouse requires running UBRS, one of my least favorite of all the Warlords dungeons (probably the only one I despise more is Grimrail Depot). I had even reactivated Millhouse in Kamalia’s Garrison, figuring that Kam was the only character who would ever recruit him.

Then when I was reading through the latest hotfix notes at Wowhead the other day, I noticed this lovely bit of news:

Removed the requirement to have completed Silver Proving Grounds in order to queue for Warlords of Draenor Heroic Dungeons.

I’d been thinking that Blizzard ought to do this eventually, to make farming Warlords Heroics for mogging and stuffs at level 110 easier to do — I’m glad that they did it now and not in a later patch!

So I hopped in LFG and managed not to get kicked for my incompetence, and here we are!

Now Kaylynda will be able to leave her Garrison for the Broken Isles without feeling like she has unfinished business on Draenor.

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