Tag Archives: oshu’gun
Ancestral Grounds
Writing from Garadar. I’m going to stay in Outland another day or two, maybe pay a few visits to some familiar faces while I’m here. Today I mostly needed some time to myself.
I went to the Ancestral Grounds this morning. I flew around the western mountains for a while, and eventually, after some looking, I finally spotted a small cave with the remains of a makeshift hut just outside. When I went inside, I found a few dusty boxes of supplies, some cooking gear, a few other little odds and ends… To one side there was a fairly heavy chest that looked like it hadn’t been opened in years. Until today, anyway. Nothing shocking inside, just tidy folded stacks of clothes. They smelled like old parchment and dreaming glories.
Against the back wall of the cave, laid out on a sturdy but uneven table, there was the body of an orc woman. She was covered from head to foot in the ceremonial wrappings that are used in tauren custom. I guess even Magatha has a line or two she wouldn’t cross when it comes to respecting the remains of the dead.
And laying beside the table, discarded and inactive, I found a tauren totem. It had the same configuration, the same Grimtotem markings as the shadebind totem I’d found in Hyjal when I had my run-in with Krom’gar’s ghost. I’ll be keeping it with me this time. Not that there’s much left for anyone to do with it.
I carried Lakkara’s remains down to the Ancestral Grounds and buried her in a vacant spot, just across from where they’d buried Dranosh Saurfang. I think she would have liked it there. She always used to try to keep an eye on him. She probably would have been a little sad to see him there with her already, but not surprised. He was always showing up for things early.
After I’d finished, I sat near the grave and looked down from the hillside. I stayed there a while, looking out toward Oshu’gun, and watched Banthar – herd mother for half a lifetime now – wander with her pack across the Spirit Fields.
Because I’m a glutton for punishment
Yesterday mom & I stade over night at Son Spring Post last night. Mom said it was a long walk back home to the villag and it would be good to rest here first. I dont think I wood of got to tired but maby she just wanted to visit the other place. She was talking a lot to the other grown ups so I gess maby she nose some of them.
They hav a whole other villag here and they have a lake just lik ours ownly its not our lak its different. They gave us grild mud fish for dinner & it was good but not good like great mom Geyah makes but maby they don’t catch fish as good as ours cuz they don’t have our lake just another lake thats not ours.
I think when we get home I will go fishing with dranosh if he dosnt still have a cold
When we left we walked down from the road to look at the big white mountain. I heard people talk about it but I never saw it before they call it Osha Goon. It was really big & white like they said and there was grass all around it and lots & lots of clef hoofs walking around.
there was one big group of grown up clef hoofs with some babies following it. mom told me to look at them. There was one big grown up one with white fur & then some more brown ones they wernt as big as the white one but they were still grown ups. Mom sed the big white one was the pack mother. Mom sed the white one was very old & she will probally die soon and then one of the girl clef hoofs that are younger will become the new pack mother.
Mom says the people in Son Spring Post watched the clef hoof pack and gave the girl clef hoofs names, Osha & Banthar & Beru & Mumaki & Thromka. Mom want ed me too look at them & see if I can gess wich one will be the new pack mom so I picked one and mom sed that was the one they called Osha.
I asked her if I pikt the rite one & she sed she don’t know we’ll have to find out. I asked her witch one she thot wood be the new pack mom & she pointed to one & sed her name is Banthar. I asked her why Banthar & she said because the other clef hoofs acted mad when the babies were bad and when the eleks came close. She sed Banthar didn’t let small things bother her & she sed the ones who end up being the leader are the ones who can endure.
Maby mom is rite cuz she is smart & knows stuff like that but I still think its stoopid they have to have a new pack mom, I think the old pack mom should just stay cuz its dumb she’s going to go away and then they have a new pack mom when they already have a pack mom. I gess animals are not to smart.
So we walked more cuz mom sed it was going to get hot soon so we should get home. I asked her how she knew and she sed to lisen. there was a buzzing sound somewhere & mom sed there is a bug that makes that sound when its going to be hot. I wonder what kind of bug it is and why it only makes the buzzing noise when its going too be hot and how it knows its going to be hot in the first place
When we got home mom sed she was tired & I should go play & she is going to take a nap becuz she is tired. But I think she might be getting a cold cuz she was koffing a lot when we got close to Garradar. a lot of the kids at school wer sick this week so maybe there is a bug going around only not like the bug that makes the buzzing noise but maby it is if they have a fever and the bug knows they are getting hot. I hope they get better soon & also Dranosh so we can go fishing. And mom too cuz she’s cool even tho she is old.
Putting my old journal away now. If I get the bright idea to dig it back out again, somebody slap some sense into me. Without the slapping, though, since I’d probably end up breaking your jaw before I would think to appreciate the concern.
[Header image provided by Khizzara from Blog of the Treant, used here with permission and many thanks.]
Children’s Week
Ever since I got that letter from my mother a couple weeks ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about the old days in Nagrand. Like I’ve mentioned a few times already, I used to keep a journal back then. About a week ago, before I left for Nagrand, I pulled it out again, and I’ve been paging through now and then.
I don’t know if any of you have had the experience, but it’s funny reading things you wrote so long ago that you don’t even remember writing them. It’s like this weird ping pong game between “Oh crap, I wrote that? Was I ever really that stupid?” and “Hey, that sounds really smart, who wrote that?” I know, I know, I shouldn’t be all that surprised by that second one. Modesty is the burden of the preternaturally awesome.
Anyhow, I’ve been reading through those very first entries in particular. It wasn’t even really a journal at that point so much as a notebook I used to fill up with all kinds of stuff – drawings, my early half-assed attempts at poems, stories about things that had happened to me or that I just plain invented… I guess Greatmother Geyah and my mother both thought I had this creative side, so they figured they’d give me some notebooks to try to encourage me.
(Side note, you should totally see some of these cartoony little-kid pictures I drew of Jorin Deadeye, with like “POOP HEAD” written in and arrows pointing to him.)
I’ve been coming back to a few passages I’d written about my mom. Reading me stories (thinking back, that’s probably what got me started writing in the first place, all the nights she read me to sleep), like that rhyming kids’ book Talbuk Luck, kind of an old standard for Draenor kids back then. She even did this goofy sing-song voice for Tahri the Talbuk – I’d forgotten all about that until I started reading back over this stuff. Or the time later on when she took me on that long trip on foot out by Oshu’gun, and sat on one of the bluffs to watch Bach’lor running around in the fields with his herd.
The little-kid entries come to a stop all of a sudden, and don’t pick up again until I started writing again in my teens. And, oh boy, here comes the emo. But, yeah, the gap. Kicked in right about the point when she died. “Died”? Should I put that in quotation marks now? Anyway. Disappeared. Any desire to look at those notebooks went with her, for a long time.
Yesterday afternoon, Lakkara went out to go exploring Orgrimmar. I’d been showing her around, but I’m sure a lot of it was just this big blur of information, and she seemed pretty blown away by the place in general. No surprise – the city is gigantic compared to villages like Garadar that she’s used to, and even Shattrath doesn’t come across quite so vast and, well, overwhelming. So she wanted to have a little time to just look around at her own pace. Reasonable enough.
After a while when she hadn’t come back, I figured I’d go have a look around. As big and sprawling as Orgrimmar is, it’s pretty easy to get turned around even if you know the place, much less if you’re still new to it all. It took a while, and no small amount of circling around, but I finally tracked her down. In retrospect, I should have known where she’d be right off, considering what week it is.
I found her in the Orgrimmar orphanage. It was starting to get dark, and she and Matron Battlewail had the kids gathered around…while she read to them. Talbuk Luck. Of course. She was even doing her goofy Tahri the Talbuk voice, which was cracking this little troll girl up especially. She read through to the end, this silly sing-song rhyming story, and when she finished, Gurtash hopped up and shouted “Epic verse!”
Nobody noticed me when I first got there, so I just hung back and watched in the doorway, then headed back to Grommash Hold.
Tomorrow I’m sending out new orders to some of our field commanders. We’ve lost a lot of soldiers over the last year or so – in Vashj’ir, in Twilight Highlands, in Deepholm… Most of the time we recover the bodies and bring them home, give the fallen the burial they deserve. Sometimes, though, there’s no body found. People just disappear. And after a while, they wind up on the rolls of the dead.
Since Deathwing was defeated, things have been relatively quiet on most fronts. So I think we can spare the personnel to take on a few extra missions. I’m having the field commanders send out some additional patrols, an extra scouting party here and there, to make another sweep or two in the areas where we’ve taken those losses. In particular, the places where we’ve had people disappear, presumed dead but never confirmed beyond a doubt. The ones, especially, who’d left children behind. Just in case.
I’m not going to advertise it, and I’m sure not going to let them know at the orphanage and risk getting the kids’ hopes up. Life is hard enough, and cruel enough, which the orphans know better than anyone, without me setting them up for more disappointment. But who knows. Maybe there’s still some good news for one or two of them, out there waiting to be brought home. Doesn’t hurt to have a look.
Every once in a while – not often, but sometimes – life decides to be generous.
More soon.
[Header image provided by Khizzara from Blog of the Treant, used here with permission and many thanks.]
Monday mailbag
Yeah, I know, just barely sneaking this one in under the wire today, but here we go…
Apologies for the belated response. Last week was my on-call week in the Horde Medical Corps, and we had our hands full keeping those boozehounds off Drek’Thar’s lawn. Came out well, though; we had most of the Lok’Tar, they had most of the Ogar.
Unfortunately, that caused me to miss EarthCon. To answer your question, yes, AE is a hybrid spec. You can find it in the Mechanical Engineering tree, but you have to look. Basically, they’re the guys who build and operate everyone’s flying mounts in Earth Online. It’s a nice spec, with a few serious drawbacks. First, there aren’t very many raiding guilds that can really use it. Which leads to the second drawback: if you get booted from one raiding guild, it can take a while to find another one that’ll take you. I’ve done OK with it, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it. It’s kind of like goblin engineering that way, you should stay clear unless you have a burning desire for it (emphasis on “burning”). That said, the teaser trailer for the next patch looks pretty awesome:
For the rest … yeah, we snooze, we lose. Oh well. As I said, Lor’themar’s not a bad fellow, just mostly useless.
–A Concerned Citizen
Haha, I like that – “We had most of the Lok’Tar, they had most of the Ogar,” that’s a good one. I’ll have to use that sometime.
So the preview video looks pretty cool…also kind of funny how they obviously modeled that rocket on the one that the goblins out at Area 52 have been working on. See, that’s one thing I really enjoy about Earth Online, how they manage to work in all these little references to things in the real world.
I might have to look at the engineer class at some point. Right now I’ve mostly been bouncing between the veterinarian I rolled originally, and the teacher class I made a few weeks ago. I know, I know, it’s just going to take me longer to get to max level if I don’t stick with one toon, but whatever. Have to say the teacher class seems like a high-skill, high-reward kind of thing. Most of the time it just feels like this huge uphill battle, but every so often if you manage to play a sequence really well, you get this huge Charisma buff and can convert some of the student hostiles into minions. Come to think of it, that could be REALLY fun and handy if you could maneuver it just right, and get the buff with a student pack that’s not like the gobliny nerds, but had more of a predisposition toward mischief and violence. Then you could have a really useful bunch of minions! I might have to work on that, it could be fun to have a little army at my disposal…
Also, since you brought him up again, let’s try to keep an eye on Lor’themar just the same. Nice guy or not, there’s something about that guy that doesn’t sit well, and given how things went with the LAST blood elf leader, I’d just as soon be extra careful with him. Oh and also, if you happen to find any powerful ancient magical weapons, don’t show them off to him. Bad enough the arcane crackhead is hanging around the Sunwell these days, last thing we need is to dangle more magic candy in front of him.
Continued thanks for your ongoing good work in Stonetalon. Your efforts will not be forgotten. We will be in contact soon with further updates. Appropriate reimbursement will be forthcoming.
–MGT.
Wait, how did this end up in my e-mail? Grebo’s dead! I buried him right next to Krom’gar. Which is to say, I tossed both their bodies into the same gulch. Fuckers.
Anyway, though, I guess when he died they closed his e-mail account, so I guess maybe it got auto-forwarded to his commanding officer? But that would have been Krom’gar, and he’s…ah. So forwarded again. Fuck, does this mean I’m going to start getting spammed with all their crap? I guess I should print this out and send it to his widow, seems like he had some kind of business venture going on on the side. So on top of everything else he was stirring up in Stonetalon, he was moonlighting to boot. Awesome.
I was just eating a cupcake with the most delightful lemon icing and it made me think of you. Would you like to share the other half of it with me?
Your most devoted admirer,
–Wega
Wait, are you hitting on me? Because first of all, I’m not completely sure from your name if you’re a girl or not, and don’t get me wrong, but I’m not into dudes. Not that there’s anything wrong—wait, what am I saying, there’s TOTALLY something wrong with…never mind. (The Kor’kron lawyers are telling me I have to be more careful about saying stuff like that.) Anyway, second, if you ARE a girl, you’re just going to go making my other mailbag admirers like Uukra jealous. Although…that could have its benefits, too.
So actually, let me put it this way – LEMON SQUARES OR DEATH?
Greetings Garrosh,
Based on all the good things you’ve mentioned, being Warchief sounds like a pretty sweet deal. How does one go about getting the job? And hey, it’s been a while since you’ve treated us to your poetry, surely you’ve been working on something! Can we see?
–Ambitious Near Astranaar
Well, ANA, this is your lucky day. Two birds with one stone, cue the origin cut-away…
Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down.
And I’d like for you to listen, you won’t be bored.
I’ll tell you how I became the Warchief of the Horde.
In downtown Garadar born and raised,
Fighting ogres is how I spent most of my days.
Fishing with Dranosh every afternoon,
And hunting with Nesingwary ’round Oshu’gun.
When a couple of guys who were flinging some mud
Said Grom hooked the orcs on drinking demon blood.
I spent a few years moping – Greatmother had sass,
She said, “I’m getting Thrall up in here to pull your head out your ass.”
The Warchief rolled in and he showed me the truth:
Mannoroth said “You’re mine,” Grom said “STFU!”
Thrall said, “Stop being emo, you’re gonna go far!”
And I thought yeah man, come on, take me to Orgrimmar!
I pulled up into Durotar, after Northrend I’d hit,
But that’s when all the elements went fucking apeshit.
Thrall went to check it out, that’s when I scored,
And I took up my throne, as Warchief of the Horde.
EPIC VERSE!
It must be hard getting old…
Yesterday was Greatmother Geyah’s birthday, so I made a short trip back to Nagrand to go see her. The folks back in Garadar were giving her a birthday party, and it was good to see everybody, other than Greatmother feeling the need (yet again) to tell everyone the story about the time when I was a little kid when I was climbing a tree, and got up to one of the higher branches but slipped, but my pants got caught on the branch while I was starting to fall, and as I fell the pants got yanked down around my ankles, and so I was just hanging upside down there with my pants around my ankles and the branch hooked between my feet, and I was just stuck dangling there for a while, and, commando even then, so, you know. She always tells that story every chance she gets, because spirits forbid you let the fucking Warchief be taken seriously for a couple minutes. But she means well, and she’s getting up there and probably a little senile, so whatever.
Anyway, while I was out there, I decided to drop by a few of my old hunting spots for old time’s sake. I was going to bring Hemet Nesingwary along with me, but he was having a good old time messing with some random scrubs who were hanging around out there – people keep coming to him wanting to prove what great outdoorsmen they are, and so he just makes up random stuff to have them go kill and see how quick they eat up the chance to waste their time on pointless shit. Like seriously, you should see how many people just jump at the chance to burn up their whole day killing random animals that absolutely anyone with a sword could kill, because they actually believe that killing a bunch of talbuk that are standing around RIGHT THERE is the way to impress Hemet Fucking Nesingwary.
(That’s his real middle name, by the way. Man, his parents must have hated him. Can you imagine what middle school must have been like?)
At one point a couple years ago I think people started getting wise to the scam, so he had to dial it down a little and ask them to kill less stuff. Seriously, there was a point when he would send people all over the place killing 30 of like…everything out there. After a while he cut that down to like a dozen, just to make sure he didn’t totally lose his supply of takers. Still, it’s pretty funny to watch the fuckers eat it up even now.
So anyway, he was busy with that, so I just went out to Oshu’gun myself to see if Banthar was still wandering around. It didn’t take long to find her, but what the FUCK, man, I almost missed her what with the fucking DYE job she got apparently. Because like…okay, check it out. Back in the day, when I remember coming out here, this is what Banthar looked like:
And here’s what she looks like nowadays:
I mean, that’s just sad. It’s bad enough when an orc starts to go gray, and freaks out, and goes way overboard dyeing his hair that pitch pitch black, that shade of black that doesn’t even fucking exist in nature, and half the time they try to do the pathetic comb-over too, which let me tell you, looks sad enough on humans but is even less kind with orc hairlines. But seriously, now we’ve got a CLEFTHOOF going through midlife crisis and dyeing herself auburn? How fucking sad is that? What’s she going to do next, start riding around in a convertible wagon and hitting on clefthoofs half her age? Plus, how the fuck did she even manage to dye herself brown anyway?! If I go over to Sunspring Lake, are there going to be all these floating dye circles and stains around the shore? I can just imagine one of the ethereals over at Aeris Landing seeing this going down and being all, “Hey, Chip, check this out, you’re not going to believe this shit…”
Really, if a fucking clefthoof can’t age with dignity, what chance do the rest of us have?
[Header image provided by Angelya from Revive and Rejuvenate, used here with permission and many thanks.]
