Tag Archives: averry
Ready Check
Averry here with one last out-of-character item before I disappear behind the curtain again for (I hope) a long, long time.
Back before I went on my recent, unplanned hiatus, I’d written about my interest in setting up a Friends-of-WCB shits-and-giggles raid for Siege of Orgrimmar. Based on the response I got, both in blog comments and in individual messages, it looked like there was a fair bit of interest at the time. Hopefully that’s still the case, because now that life has become somewhat less hectic, I’d very much like to finally get the ball rolling.
So, here’s the pseudo-quasi-plan: I’d like to set up a Horde-side SoO group for next weekend – i.e., the weekend of November 23 and 24. In a perfect world, if we have enough people and the right combination of roles, I’d love to do this as Flex, but if not, we can always go in and take over some poor, unsuspecting LFR. This would be a one-night deal; I don’t have a strong preference for that Saturday or Sunday, so I’d prefer to leave that open and see when people are available. I would be looking to start somewhere in the vicinity of 8:00-9:00 PM EST, and run until…well…until we all get sick of each other, I suppose.
If you’re still interested in coming along, please let me know – either through a comment here, or by contacting me directly – what your availability is and whether you have a preference between Saturday and Sunday. (Also, please be sure to let me know if either day would be possible for you, even if you have a definite preference.) If you haven’t already, feel free to add me on RealID: Averry#1116.
Even if you aren’t able to participate in the raid itself (say your Flex lockout is already committed, or you don’t have a max-level Horde toon*), you’re more than welcome to come join the party, whether that be hanging out in raid chat or popping into vent with us. (Speaking of which, LF generous benefactor with a vent server we can use for the shindig!** I promise this won’t be one of those cases like when you host a party the weekend your parents are away, and a bunch of strangers come over, and they end up wrecking the place, and then they take off and stick you with the mess, and so now you’ve got to clean it all up before Mom and Dad get home or oh boy are you going to be in trouble, which sounds pretty awful and stressful but really isn’t all that bad once you realize you can just cleaning-montage your way over it. Although you never could figure out how the wombat got in the guest bathroom, because who the hell brings a wombat to a party? They’re notoriously bad minglers. So no, it won’t be like that.***)
So, there you have it – clear your (social) (HA!) (raid) calendars!
Be seeing you,
Averry
* Although, seriously, you don’t? What’s wrong with you?
** I say “shindig,” because yes, gentle readers, I am old.
*** Disclaimer: It will totally be like that.
Cheat Sheet
As promised in my last post, here’s an overview of the state of the blog. I realize that after two years of accumulated in-jokes and storylines, the Command Board may be a bit disorienting to a newcomer (or, for that matter, to a long-time reader who blinked at the wrong time), so I’ve tried to break this down into a semi-sorta-kinda FAQ. Most of this will be familiar to long-time readers (though I’ve also included a few behind-the-scenes notes that some of you might find interesting), but I hope it’ll explain a few things for new arrivals.
I hate Garrosh! Why does Garrosh seem so sympathetic in this blog? Are you one of those Garrosh apologists/fanboys?
Comically enough, I originally started the blog because I really didn’t like Garrosh either, and saw the blog as a way to have a few chuckles mocking him. It wasn’t long, though, before I decided that I would get sick of the outright-mockery approach pretty quickly, so I started branching out. Part of the result was letting blog-Garrosh become (I hope) a bit more multifaceted, while still remaining true to his temperamental self. Including the LOLs.
Ultimately, I don’t set out to justify anything Garrosh does, just to present it in a way that makes sense in light of the character, and if that pushes a black-and-white scenario into some shade of gray, well, that makes for a more interesting story anyway. And, keep in mind, the story here is being told, generally, from Garrosh’s point of view, so I don’t know how that perspective wouldn’t be sympathetic. Everyone is the hero of their own story, after all, and nobody thinks they’re a bad person.
Why isn’t there anything here about the siege of Orgrimmar?
What are you talking about? There was a post titled “The siege of Orgrimmar” a good solid year ago – if anything, shouldn’t you be asking why Blizzard is coming so late to the party? (By the way, I didn’t realize until just now that patch 5.4 was released almost exactly on the one-year anniversary of the “Siege or Orgrimmar” post. How awesomely freaky is that?)
Anyway, to give a real answer: Time-wise, the blog has not yet reached the events of patch 5.4. The storyline is currently playing out the midst of 5.2; Lor’themar Theron and Jaina Proudmoore have recently set up shop on the Isle of Thunder, while Vol’jin is still recovering from his injuries at Shado-Pan Monastery.
This time lag between the game and the blog, by the way, is partly by design. I’d always intended the blog to run a bit behind the game; coming into MoP, I realized that if I tried to follow in-game events too closely, I wouldn’t have time to adapt my own ideas to fit Blizzard’s story. There have already been a few instances in which Blizzard’s story has taken a turn that’s forced me to change gears in a way that would have been disastrous if I didn’t have a month or two of lead time. Of course, I’m clearly more than a month or two behind – that’s been a result of various real-life circumstances slowing down my output over the last few months. I’m working on it!
So the blog basically retells in-game events, from Garrosh’s point of view?
Yes and no. The blog operates within Blizzard’s continuity (with the aforementioned time delay), but also weaves additional storylines in and around the canonical Blizzard plots. Anything that happens or is stated explicitly in-game is canon, obviously, and the blog is bound by it.* That said, I sometimes like to put other stories around Blizzard’s, to give them context that might change the way those events are perceived. (This was a large part of my motivation for the Timequake story leading into Theramore, or, more recently, the blog events surrounding the Divine Bell / Domination Offensive storyline.)
Also, while the point of view is mostly Garrosh’s, there are some posts that present events from other perspectives. Most notable are the “guest” posts by Spazzle (Garrosh’s tech goblin), which help fill in story details that Garrosh wouldn’t necessarily be privy to. You can always identify a post written by someone other than Garrosh by the color of the text – Spazzle’s posts, for instance, are always written in green text, and almost always include the phrase “Spazzle Speaks” in the title. Also, as a rule of thumb, when Spazzle et al post, Garrosh remains oblivious to anything that might be revealed; the conceit at work here is that Garrosh doesn’t really care what anyone else is writing, so he doesn’t bother reading it.
* The one instance that I’ve flat-out fudged in-game details is the way I’ve chosen to incorporate the events of “A Little Patience.” From the Alliance point of view, that scenario takes place almost immediately after Varian arrives in Pandaria; in the blog, I’ve pushed those events a bit later in the story. This was largely a matter of convenience: I knew that I wanted there to be a military operation in Krasarang in which Garrosh’s trainees went missing, and I realized fairly late in the going that “A Little Patience” lent itself to that story pretty readily. Hopefully those Alliance-side readers out there will be willing to turn a blind eye to my blatant and shameless revision. (Horde bias rears its ugly head again! GRR!)
Garrosh has trainees? When did that happen?
Right here! As part of the escalation of the war effort, the Kor’kron started a training program to prepare orc teenagers for eventual military service. When Garrosh learned that Gurtash – an orc boy from the Orgrimmar orphanage whom Garrosh had taken under his wing – had been conscripted, Garrosh volunteered to take Gurtash’s trainee group under his own supervision. (Side note: In my head-canon, Garrosh has a bit of a soft spot for the orphans, being as he is one himself.) The trainees, who have nicknamed themselves the Dead Peons Society (DPS for short) have accompanied Garrosh to Pandaria and joined him on a few adventures. Fairly recently, they went missing after the Horde loss in the “A Little Patience” scenario, and were eventually found by Garrosh, hiding away in an underground system of caves. That’s brought us up to the point where we are now, story-wise: Garrosh and the trainees underground, looking for a way out.
Is the entire supporting cast from within the game?
Mostly, but not entirely. I’ve invented a few characters for the blog – Spazzle being the highest-profile – but I’ve tried to keep it limited, and tried to restrict those characters to fairly peripheral positions in the lore. The one glaring exception was the storyline involving Garrosh’s mother, Lakkara, who isn’t mentioned anywhere in the actual lore. It just struck me as odd that there’s no record of who she was, or what happened to her, and besides, in a mythology packed to capacity with father/son relationships, I thought it was about time somebody’s mom got a little screen time.
Otherwise, when a character turns up who doesn’t exist in-game, that character was often inspired by a reader and/or based on someone’s game character. For instance, both Gurtash and Mortimer (Garrosh’s personal wyvern) became blog characters thanks to mailbag letters from Khizzara from Blog of the Treant; Khizzara’s own namesake has made a few appearances as Spazzle’s cousin; doodle-prone kitty druid Taktani became a full-fledged character (and boy, is she ever a character) after making several mailbag contributions; and many of the DPS trainees are modeled on the baby orc alts of friends.
In general, though, if you see a supporting character turn up whose name you don’t recognize, the smartest first guess is that he or she is based on a questgiver or other NPC somewhere in-game. (Wowpedia is your friend!) I deliberately picked a lot of relatively minor NPCs – people like Mokvar, Elder Cloudfall, and Dontrag and Utvoch – to use as supporting characters because I figured their relatively peripheral status gave me more latitude to work with them, give them backstories, etc. After all, what are the odds that Blizzard would actually do something with one of these people to contradict my own concoctions?
(Either way, if you’re not sure who someone is, I’ve also maintained a partial list of supporting players on the About the Blog page, including some of the more pertinent information about them.)
Speaking of which – in the SoO raid, Mokvar is a mini-boss! Isn’t he missing? How are you going to deal with that?
First… um, yeah, that whole “no way they’re gonna do something with this guy” really blew up in my face on this one, huh?
And second… So, everyone who thought I was going to lay out this big storyline for Mokvar, and make such a production out of his disappearance…and then have it turn out that he really is dead…step forward.
Didn’t think so.
For those of you unclear on Mokvar’s whole story, which has been unfolding gradually for quite a while, you can check here for a brief overview and links to the relevant posts. Very short version: After becoming the victim of a mysterious attack, Mokvar sets out to track down a powerful relic from his warlock days, with the aid of a human named Deliana (who was Mokvar’s Alliance equivalent in the old dungeon set quests); over the course of his quest, he starts to behave increasingly strangely, culminating in his eventual flight from arrest in Orgrimmar. His whereabouts are now unknown.
Stay tuned. You’ll see where this is going!
With Mokvar gone, how are you handling the transcripts?
Prelinimary: The blog contains several transcripts of conversations that Garrosh has engaged in. The premise from the outset has been that Mokvar is (or was) Garrosh’s personal scribe, and records all these conversations for posting. This explains, by the way, a number of occasions when Garrosh mentions summoning Mokvar to an event, or otherwise noting Mokvar’s presence, as a way of leading in to a transcript.
Since Mokvar is off the grid, Garrosh has passed transcription duties to two people: Gurtash, who records his transcripts in the form of comics; and Taktani, a friend of Dontrag and Utvoch and long-time mailbag contributor, who’s started to (and will continue to) write a few transcripts, laden with her own unassuming brand of commentary.
What are these guild chat logs that keep cropping up?
Garrosh and several of the supporting characters play an MMORPG called Earth Online – the basic premise being that, to these characters, Azeroth is reality, and our real world is actually the game world of the MMO. Garrosh started his own guild, called <Warchief>, and several familiar faces (including Spazzle, Sylvanas, Lor’themar, Faranell, Garona, and Dontrag and Utvoch) are members. Also worth noting is that Jaina Proudmoore is a member of the guild…although she doesn’t realize (yet?) who her guildmates are in “real life.”
The guild chat logs recreate some of the exchanges that the members of <Warchief> have within their game, usually including regular guild chat, officer chat, and, in some cases, whispers. I make no pretense about the fact that some aspects of these logs are based on my own guild-chat expeiences, especially officer chat. The transcripts are always presented from the point of view of whoever posted them – usually Garrosh, but occasionally Spazzle.
Where did this whole thing about lemon squares come from?
Garrosh loves lemon squares. Don’t you?
Real explanation: Very early in the blog, Edenvale of The Gamer’s Fridge posted a recipe for Garrosh Hellscream’s lemon squares, and pointed me to her post with a comment on the Command Board. Since then, it’s become a bit of a running gag – the recipe, according to Garrosh, was his greatmother’s secret family recipe, and he was most perturbed that this random night elf had apparently gotten ahold of it.
What does “FYV” mean?
An abbreviation of one of Garrosh’s favorite turns of phrase, of course: “Fuck you, Varian!” Among other things, Garrosh often finds a way to slip that phrase into his EPIC VERSE compositions.
Speaking of which, what’s this “EPIC VERSE”? Garrosh writes poetry?
You sound surprised. Garrosh is an orc of many interests. What, do you think he’s some kind of one-note caricature or something?
Okay, fine, game-Garrosh kind of is.
Honestly, I just got a kick out of the obvious dichotomy of Garrosh Hellscream, gruffest of the gruff, also writing poetry on the side. True to form, Garrosh doesn’t view his compositions as just any poetry, so he prefers to call them EPIC VERSE. In caps. Always. It’s sprinkled throughout the blog – almost always in purple text, to stress its epic-ness – and ranges from limericks, to parodies of other famous poems, to reader requests, to epic rap battles.
So, that’s as much as I can think to cover. Other gaps can probably be filled in through the Major Storylines page, but if there are questions that anyone still has, in terms of getting caught up or clarified, by all means toss them into a comment and I’ll make sure it’s answered. And so, on that note, I’ll sigh off with the promise – unconditional promise! – that before the week is out, you’ll have the continuation of the actual STORY part of the story! Which left off, as you might recall, right here:
And So It Begins
Greetings once again from behind the curtain, everyone. Averry here with another pseudo-kinda-public service announcement. (No, not another one about Google search terms. That one was all Garrosh.) (Kind of.)
First of all, yes, I know, I’m woefully behind on actual story updates on the blog, and I’ve left you all hanging on that last semi-cliffhanger for far too long. As I’ve hinted at elsewhere, I’ve had a convergence of real-life work and – ever so conveniently – a (minor but annoying) hand injury which has made it rather difficult to work on new comics for more than short periods at a time. And, of course, this happened just at a point when I’d committed the story to a string of comic installments that really need to stay in place.
Rest assured, I’m working on getting the next installment together as quickly as possible. Since starting the blog, I’ve always truly hated letting more than a couple days go by without a new post, so believe me when I say that the slow output I’ve had the last several weeks has grated on me to no end. With any luck, you’ll find this upcoming stretch worth the wait, between (in the immediate-term) some face time between Garrosh and Varian, and (in the slightly longer-term) a few plot twists that I’m hoping will draw some pronounced reactions. (Yep, there I go teasing again.)
In the meantime, though, I wanted to touch on two other items, since – have you heard about this? – today marks the moment we’ve all been anticipating for quite a while: the release of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, and the downfall of Garrosh Hellscream.
Well, in-game, at least. Blog-Garrosh still has a ways to go before he bids us a fond farewell.
Granted, as I’ve mentioned before, I do have the major plotlines mapped out for the blog from here to the grand finale, and I’m admittedly not in any great hurry to close up shop just yet, but nevertheless, the gap between what’s happening in the blog and what’s happening in-game does highlight one issue that probably deserves to be addressed. Which leads us to…
ITEM THE FIRST!
That being, the timeline of the blog, and all the convoluted storylines swirling around it.
Over the last year or so, a number of readers have given the Command Board plugs and shout-outs on various other blogs and forums – for which I always feel grateful and flattered – and on more than one occasion, their endorsements have included the recommendation that new readers go back and read the blog from the beginning, since it’s not exactly newcomer-friendly. That’s a fair criticism, even if it’s not really meant to be critical; while building up these ongoing storylines and running jokes/themes is one of the things I enjoy most about writing the blog, I also understand that it probably makes it difficult to jump in mid-stream. And while I’d certainly love for people to go back to read it all from the beginning (ARTIFICIALLY INFLATE MY PAGEVIEWS, BWAHA!), at this point, well past the 300-post mark, I don’t think I can fairly expect every new arrival to commit to such a bear of an undertaking.
And, with the release of Siege of Orgrimmar, I should probably brace myself for a few new folks to start finding their way here. (It’s already started on Twitter, by the way. Not to mention the beginning of what I’m sure will be a minor whirlwind of trash-talking tweets. Stay tuned; I may share some here soon.) While I try to link back to earlier posts when relevant, and hope that the About the Blog and Major Storylines pages help fill in a bit, I’m sure the blog can be a little confusing to a new reader for a number of reasons. So, to help any of you who just arrived – or not-so-new readers whom I’ve managed to confuse with some of my byzantine plotting – I’m going to be putting up a bit of a crib sheet in the next couple days to help account for where we are and how we got here. Hopefully, if you just found your way to the Command Board and are having a WTF response, that will help a bit.
(Super-short version: Right now the events of the blog are taking place in the midst of patch 5.2 – the Divine Bell is still a recent memory, Lor’themar and Jaina have recently arrived on the Isle of Thunder, and Vol’jin is still recuperating at Shado-Pan Monastery.)
With that said, let’s more on to the much more pressing…
ITEM THE SECOND!
Raiding your Warchief. With your Warchief. Kind of.
True story: Coming into MoP, I retired from raiding. I had raided pretty much all the way through TBC, Wrath, and Cata…and it just wasn’t fun anymore. This, by the way, was a reflection of my own shifting priorities and interests, not some tired, stale WoW-veteran gripe about Blizzard somehow doing me wrong. And I’ve absolutely loved MoP – in no small part, I think, because I’ve spent the entirety of it doing solely what I felt like doing, when I felt like doing it, having stepped away from the gear grind and raiding scene. Not a criticism of those who enjoy that scene, mind you; it’s just not where I am anymore.
That said…well, this is something different. This new raid isn’t just any other raid. The Siege of Orgrimmar carries with it a personal connection unlike anything before, and unlike anything WoW will ever offer again. And while I definitely don’t have any interest in committing myself to full-on progression raiding, I feel like this is a raid that I need to sample. Not “need” in the sense of the joyless gear grind that many of us let ourselves be sucked into – “need” in the sense of “Oh, man, I’ve been living with this story for years now; I’ve got to experience the end first-hand.”
More importantly, I’d like to experience it with people who share some of that personal connection. People who have been along for the long, crazy, oftentimes ridiculous ride, and have context for these events and these characters that your average WoW player doesn’t have. People who think of Lor’themar as “Ponytail” even more than as “that blood elf guy”…who find it odd that Orgrimmar has no vendor selling lemon squares or goblin NPC named Spazzle…who understand why it’s a BIG EFFING DEAL that there’s a mini-boss named Mokvar the Treasurer lurking in the Valley of Strength bank. (Yes, really.)
So, consider this an invitation.
At some point in the next week or two, I’d like to try to assemble a group of readers, fellow bloggers, and all-around friends of the Command Board to stroll into Orgrimmar together and see what there is to see. In a perfect world, if there are enough people interested and we can cover the necessary roles, we could use the new Flex setting; worst-case scenario, we could group up, hop into LFR, and take over the whole operation Garrosh-style. I definitely wouldn’t want to ask anyone to commit their normal-difficulty lockout – not least of all because I want this to be a purely for-kicks endeavor, not about progression or gear. Just good fun in good company, and if we happen to stumble into a ridiculous wipe or two on trash, I hope it would be a source of amusement, not angst.
So, if you have a level 90 Horde character and think you’d like to join the party, give me a shout. Feel free to e-mail me at garrosh1337@gmail.com, send a tweet to @GarroshHllscrm, leave a comment here on the blog, or contact me in-game (RealID Averry#1116). Give me an idea of what days and times might be possible for you, and what role(s) you might be able to fill. With any luck, I’ll be able to get something together sooner rather than later, and then, with even more luck, you might have a chance to be there when I come face-to-face with…well…myself. And kill him. Me. Kind of. Unless we don’t. (AT LONG LAST, AVERRY’S NEUROTIC SELF-LOATHING FINDS ITS ULTIMATE EXPRESSION!)
Thanks for wading through all my babble here. And thanks, as always, for reading and hanging in there with me. I hope to hear from many of you soon.
Be seeing you,
Averry
Sawyer
Hi, everyone. Averry here with a completely self-indulgent out-of-character post that ultimately relates to the blog only tangentially. I know I keep saying I don’t like stepping out of character like this, especially since I already did not too long ago, but in this case, the blog is also my outlet. Thank you in advance for bearing with me, and apologies in advance for this not being at all what you normally come here to read.
Regular readers know that one of the blog’s running jokes is that Garrosh plays a game called Earth Online, which rests on the premise that our world is actually an MMO, and the in-game world of Azeroth is reality. I’m sure it won’t come as much of a shock that I’ve sometimes used the conceit of Earth Online to refer to things in my real life — for instance, the fact that Garrosh plays the teacher class “in-game” is a nod toward my real career.
On a couple of occasions, Garrosh has mentioned an in-game vanity pet that he’s fond of, a dog named Sawyer. This was an unabashed reference to my own dog, a West Highland white terrier whom I adopted a few years ago from a local westie rescue group. The fact is, Sawyer had already worked his way into the blog in other, less obvious ways — I’d long ago come to think of him as the personality basis for Mortimer: naturally feisty, oftentimes cranky, fiercely loyal, frequently a handful. And always boundlessly endearing, to the point of finding a soft spot (kind of) even in Garrosh.
Very late last night (or very early this morning, depending on how you’re counting), after several days of struggle with deteriorating medical issues, Sawyer had to be put to sleep.
He kept fighting to the end. Sawyer had been rescued from a puppy mill, so he was no stranger to adversity; even after being rescued, two would-be adoptive families returned him to the rescue organization after finding his brand of canine PTST was too difficult to deal with. It was only because of those returns that he ultimately wound up with me. Oddly enough, in all the days since he moved in, I don’t think I can remember a single one that he tried my patience to a degree that even registered. (Maybe that’s a perk of working with high school students, who knows.)
When Sawyer was first rescued, his age was estimated at about two years, based on his small size and puppy-like behavior, so I figured I would have him with me for a decade or more. Two years of age became nine or ten after eventual dental work revealed he had the teeth of a much older dog; still, I thought, that left me with another four or five years, more if we were lucky. By the time our luck ran out this week, our time together had run its course in just under three years total.
Three years were over too soon. Then again, twenty years would have been over too soon. Somehow, though, I really don’t feel cheated. Three years were a gift.
Yes, I know, I’m one of those crazy sentimental dog people. (I can not watch the last five minutes of “Jurassic Bark.”)
Friends and guildmates have long been familiar with Sawyer’s antics — I’m sure many of them got sick of hearing me talk about him. And more than one raid was punctuated by the sounds of a squeak toy over vent. And there may or may not have been an add or two that I didn’t pick up very quickly to tank because a certain someone was pawing at my arm. I wish everyone could have met him.
As I’m sure you’ll all understand, Sawyer’s fight for life has been a major factor in the blog going quiet for the last several days. I’m probably going to continue to be quiet for a little while more. While I have a lot of stories in the pipeline that I’ve been pretty excited about, I really don’t feel very funny right now, much less ready to take on some of the darker, serious stuff (of which, um, there’s a lot). Rest assured, Garrosh’s misadventures will be back again in short order. Thank you for your ongoing patience.
If you happen to have a dog — or any pet, for that matter — give a few extra hugs tonight. If you don’t, maybe take your companion pug for a walk around Pandaria. Or, better yet, look up a local rescue organization, and send along a small donation to help undeserving slobs like me continue to have their lives graced by the best friends they’ll ever know.
Sweet dreams, Sawyer. Thank you for rescuing me.
The Wizard of Zhan, Act 3
The curtain rises on the exterior of Karazhan. Garrosh et al approach the front gate.
GARROSH: Okay, so this is the place…
FARANELL: Weren’t we just here not too long ago?
Garrosh knocks on the door. A window on the door slides open, and Berhold the doorman sticks his head out.
BERTHOLD: Who goes there? What business do you have at the master’s Dark Tower?
GARROSH: We’ve come to see the Wizard.
DONTRAG: The guardian Wizard of Zhan!
UTVOCH: We hear he’s sage—
Garrosh smacks Utvoch.
GARROSH: Now don’t you get started with that shit again!
BERTHOLD: The Wizard? You can’t see the Wizard! No one sees the Wizard!
GARONA: Here’s where I grease the wheels… You remember me, don’t you, Berthold?
BERTHOLD: <leans out a bit more, squinting> Hmm, well…oh…oh goodness…lady Garona? Is it really you?
GARONA: It’s good to see you again, Berthold. Could you please go in and tell the Wizard it’s me?
BERTHOLD: Well, um, of course, m’lady. I’ll just be a moment.
Berthold disappears inside and the window closes.
GARONA: <grinning smugly> See? Now we just wait a minute or two, and then they’ll roll out the welcome mat.
GARROSH: How do you know this guy, anyway?
GARONA: I guess you could say we had sort of a thing back in the day.
GARROSH: Suddenly this Wizard’s judgment is seeming a little suspect.
GARONA: What’s that supposed to mean?
Just in front of the door, a heavy portcullis suddenly comes crashing down.
FARANELL: Um, unless welcome mats have been radically redesigned lately…
GARONA: Hang on.
Garona raps on the door angrily. The window opens and Berthold looks out again.
BERTHOLD: Yes?
GARONA: Didn’t you tell him it was me?
BERTHOLD: Yes!
Berthold slams the window shut.
GARONA: Well I…I…
GARROSH: Okay, so I stand corrected on this Wizard guy.
MOKVAR: Well now we have a minor problem about getting in to see him.
GARROSH: Anyone else have any bright ideas?
FARANELL: Garrosh, let me see that Focusing Iris?
GARROSH: You’re not going to try to blow up the gate and get us all killed or something, are you?
FARANELL: Not all of us.
MOKVAR: Reassuring.
FARANELL: But really, let me see it. I think I know how to appeal to him.
GARROSH: <handing the Focusing Iris to Faranell> You think you can get us in, run with it, man.
Faranell knocks on the door; the window opens, and Berthold looks out.
BERTHOLD: Are you all still here?
FARANELL: Yeah, so listen—
BERTHOLD: Good heavens, what happened to you? You look like death warmed over!
FARANELL: Yeah, yeah, I’m undead. So anyway—
BERTHOLD: Undead? That must be a horrible fate.
FARANELL: Yeah, well, take a good long look at the future, smart guy. Are you done interrupting me now? Yeah? Good. So, check this out. I know your boss isn’t in much of a hurry to be reunited with little miss sunshine over here, but I think he’d be very interested in getting a peek at this.
Faranell holds up the Focusing Iris.
You go on back inside and tell him that the bearer of the Focusing Iris is here, and might be persuaded to let him check out the number one item on every magic user’s Winter’s Veil list, okay?
BERTHOLD: Huh…if you say so, sir…
Berthold disappears inside.
MOKVAR: You think he’s going to go for it?
FARANELL: Trust me, I know how to appeal to another mage.
GARROSH: Let’s hope.
Accompanied by the sound of rattling chains, the portcullis rises back up, and the door swings open.
FARANELL: And there we go.
GARROSH: Nice job, Doc. Now we’re in business. Let’s go finish this…
The group walks through the gate.
Blackout. Garrosh and the others enter a large chamber filled with relics, vials, and other magic paraphernalia. Tapestries and ornate curtains decorate those portions of the walls not covered with tall bookshelves.
GARROSH: Huh… Well this looks like the kind of place a wizard would hang out, but where is he?
A booming voice echoes through the room.
VOICE: You have come to seek an audience with the great and powerful Wizard of Zhan?
GARONA: Oh boy, here he goes.
GARROSH: <looking around> Uh, yeah, we do, if he can bother dragging his butt out here so we can actually see him.
VOICE: You dare presume to speak to the great Wizard with such familiarity, mortal? You shall count yourself fortunate that the Wizard does not smite you where you stand!
UTVOCH: Wait, he’s a priest? I thought he was a mage.
MOKVAR: Is he always like this?
GARONA: Oh you have no idea. All the time with the talking about himself in the third person.
In the middle of the room, a towering, semi-transparent avatar of Medivh appears.
MEDIVH: The Wizard of Zhan has been informed that one among you carries the storied Focusing Iris! It is for this reason alone that you have been permitted into this sanctified chamber!
GARONA: Oh, and there he is, finally. And thank you, dear, for that very warm welcome.
MEDIVH: <looks at Garona> Oh. Delightful.
GARONA: Oh, really? You want to know what else is delightful? Being a single mom trying to give her son a good life when the kid’s high-and-mighty richer-than-Aman’thul dad for some reason can’t be bothered to mail off a child support payment!
MEDIVH: The great and powerful Wizard of Zhan does not have time to trifle with these petty—
GARONA: Oh, sure, when it’s something I want to talk about…
GARROSH: So listen, Your Wizardry, we have the Focusing Iris—
MEDIVH: Indeed, hence you are here in my chamber, and not cast out to the ogres! I will be most interested to examine the relic, and—
GARROSH: Yeah, well, here’s the thing, chief – before we let you go poking around with the shiny, we have a few things of our own that we could use a hand with.
MEDIVH: You dare dictate terms to the great and mighty Wizard!
GARONA: Oh man, he’s really in form today…
FARANELL: If you’d rather not be bothered we can just be along our way.
MEDIVH: <chuckles> You mortals have daring, I’ll grant you that much.
Medivh looks around the group, eyeing them carefully.
I will hear your requests.
GARONA: Hold the presses, he just called himself “I.”
MEDIVH: And you would do well to still her tongue.
GARROSH: Been working on that for months, chief. No luck so far.
MEDIVH: At any rate – present your entreaties, but remember the Wizard makes no promises.
GARROSH: We each have something we’re after, Wiz. In my case, I’m trying to find a way to summon Prince Malchezaar down from the Netherspace, so I can put him in the ground before the Burning Legion can pull him out of mothballs to stir up trouble for my people.
MEDIVH: Ah, yes, the irksome demon who’s tucked himself away in the upper levels. You intrigue me, mortal; I must say it would be no small pleasure to have that particular infestation removed from this place…
GARROSH: Okay, so far so good. Meanwhile…well…the rest of the requests are a little more personalized.
DONTRAG: Shall we present our case to the great and metallurgical Wizard, sir, and—
GARROSH: <smacking Dontrag> For spirits’ sake, no.
MOKVAR: Dontrag and Utvoch here would like some brains.
UTVOCH: Indeed, sir!
DONTRAG: <rubbing his head> So as not to have our current ones beaten out quite so often, sir.
GARROSH: And for real, anything you could do on that count, I mean, I can’t possibly overstate how much of a quality of life improvement that could be for everyone involved.
MOKVAR: As for the rest of us… A heart for me.
GARROSH: Because apparently he’s still moping over his ex-wife or something.
GARONA: Could you be any more insensitive?
FARANELL: And some guts for me.
UTVOCH: I still don’t really think you need—
MEDIVH: Enough of your insipid prattling, insects!
GARROSH: Yelling doesn’t do much good with this crowd, Wiz. Don’t think I haven’t tried.
MEDIVH: The great and powerful Wizard of Zhan has heard your requests, and in light of the possibility of studying the Focusing Iris, has deemed them acceptable.
GARROSH: Awesome, Wiz.
FARANELL: See, I told you the Iris was our ticket in.
MOKVAR: So is there a spell or an incantation you have to do on us, or…?
MEDIVH: Silence, mortals! I have not yet finished! I will grant your requests, but first I require you to perform a task on my behalf!
MOKVAR: Uh oh.
DONTRAG: I knew there was going to be a catch…
MOKVAR: We’re going to have to kill something, aren’t we?
GARROSH: So hang on, when you say we have to do a task for you, is this a for real task, or one of those busywork kind of tasks, because you’re talking to an old pro at doling out those…
FARANELL: Personally I think the whole getting-to-work-on-the-Iris thing should be enough of a trade-off on our part, but…
MEDIVH: Bleat at me no longer, fools!
MOKVAR: …Ouch.
FARANELL: That was kind of a good one, actually.
MEDIVH: Before the mighty and magnanimous Wizard grants your request, he demands that you return to him another magic relic of great power: you are to slay the Wicked Witch of the West, and recover from her the Doomstone.
GARROSH: Hang on, the Wicked Witch of the West? That’s Magatha, isn’t it?
GARONA: Yeah.
GARROSH: So we get what we came for, AND I get to kill Magatha?
FARANELL: Didn’t you already kill her in the other timeline?
GARROSH: Trust me, dude, it never gets old.
MEDIVH: You shall venture to the odious lair of the Wicked Witch, where you shall slay her and return with the powerful Doomstone. You must not shy away from this task, for if you fail to carry out this duty—
GARROSH: Dude, it’s cool, done and done.
MEDIVH: Excellent! Be warned, however, the lair of the Wicked Witch of the West shall not be breached easily. It lies in the Mountains of Twilight, in the dread Bastion of the Dying Day. The journey shall be long and arduous, and you will find many trials between here and—
FARANELL: <holding up the Focusing Iris and channeling a spell> Yeah, stoke that noise. Portal to BoT coming up!
Faranell completes the spell and teleports the group away, other than Garona.
MEDIVH: <sighs> Mortals.
Blackout. In an inner chamber of the Bastion of Twilight, Magatha peers into an Eye of Twilight. Beside her hunches Zhi-Zhi, dressed in armor and sporting bat-like wings on his back; around the room similar winged monkey creatures scurry.
MAGATHA: The visions have grown cloudy…they may have reached Karazhan, but no matter – soon enough we’ll find them, and the Focusing Iris will be—
In a flash of light, Garrosh et all appear in the middle of the room. The group appears briefly disoriented as they look around.
FARANELL: Okay, here we are!
MOKVAR: <looking around> Are…are those flying monkeys?
MAGATHA: Well then! All the better! No need to go out hunting for them – the fools have delivered themselves right into my very lair!
ZHI-ZHI: Now! Now we get them, your Witchy-wooken-ness ma’am! Hozen do good and get the dookin’—
MAGATHA: <smacking Zhi-Zhi> Shut up, you insipid preliterate orang utan! Get them!
ZHI-ZHI: Ahhh! Stop hitting Zhi-Zhi!
DONTRAG: I know the feeling, ape guy…
ZHI-ZHI: Get them! Get them!
More monkeys swarm into the room and start running to surround Garrosh’s group, which backs up toward stage right. Magatha runs back and forth in the background, overlooking the scene. Arikara flies in and swoops back and forth above them.
GARROSH: That’s…a whole lot of monkeys.
FARANELL: Plus that wind serpent…
Mortimer leaps into the air and barrels into Arikara with a snarl, knocking them both offstage to the left.
GARROSH: Yeah, I’m not so worried about the wind serpent.
The monkeys descend in bunches, attacking the group.
The chimp brigade, on the other hand…
The Horde group starts to fight off the monkeys; they cut the monkeys down easily enough, but by sheer force of numbers, Magatha’s attackers push Garrosh et al further back.
Magatha descends and begins shooting chain lightning.
MAGATHA: Hahaha! You fools made my work that much easier! Now the Focusing Iris will be mine, and—
Faranell runs up to Magatha and splashes her from a bucket.
AAAHH!! I’m melting! I’m melting! AAAAHHH!!!
Screaming all the way, Magatha melts into a sizzling brown puddle on the floor.
GARROSH: Um, hang on a second. She melted? Fucking WATER killed her?
FARANELL: No. That wasn’t water.
MOKVAR: What was it, then?
FARANELL: Acidic plague.
GARROSH: You walk around with a bucket of acidic plague?
FARANELL: Do you not know what I do for a living?
ZHI-ZHI: The Wicked Witch – she’s dead! You killed her!
MOKVAR: Uh oh. Bracing for pissed-off monkeys.
ZHI-ZHI: She’s dead! She’s dead! Hozen are free! Free of the Witch!
Zhi-Zhi starts jumping up and down jubilantly, with the other monkeys following his lead in short order. Mortimer wanders in and sits, munching on a wind serpent wing.
DONTRAG: I guess this is good?
MOKVAR: As long as they don’t start fliging poop around, I think we’re okay.
ZHI-ZHI: No more beatings from Wicked Witch! We friends now! Friends of the hozen!
Faranell prods Magatha’s remains, rummaging through the remains of her cloak.
MOKVAR: Be careful there, Edwin – are you sure you should be poking around in that stuff?
FARANELL: <continues rummaging> Oh, yes, you’re right, I’d better be careful not to touch any of the plague, or else my flesh might decompose and I might die and OH WAIT.
Faranell pulls a polished gray stone from Magatha’s cloak and tosses it to Garrosh.
Here we go. Mission accomplished.
ZHI-ZHI: Yes! You take Doomstone – reward for killing Wicked Witch! And hozen will follow you now!
GARROSH: Don’t I know you from somewhere?
ZHI-ZHI: <scratching his head> Ever been to Tian Monastery?
GARROSH: Never heard of it.
MOKVAR: Well, other than that one time.
ZHI-ZHI: <still scratching his head> Dunno then…
GARROSH: <shrugs> Whatever.
FARANELL: Portal back to the Wizard?
GARROSH: Yeah, let’s get a move on.
ZHI-ZHI: Hozen come too! Follow new leader! Leader who free hozen!
GARROSH: Uh, yeah, dude, listen, I’ve already got my quota filled on preliterate knuckle-dragging lackeys, okay?
DONTRAG: Sorry, sir.
FARANELL: Okay, gentlemen, here we go…
Faranell casts a portal spell and teleports the group away. Zhi-Zhi remains with the other winged monkeys; he looks around dejectedly, then sneers at the spot where Garrosh had been standing.
ZHI-ZHI: Still not the one!
Blackout. In the Wizard of Zhan’s chamber, Garrosh et al port in, joining Medivh, Garona, and Liadrin.
MEDIVH: Ah, you’ve returned! The mighty but restless Wizard of Zhan is both pleased and not inconsiderably relieved at your timely return!
MOKVAR: You were worried about us?
MEDIVH: Not especially. But since your departure, your…colleague has scarcely shut up.
GARONA: Well sue me for thinking you might want to catch up a little. It’s not like we have a kid together or anything.
GARROSH: <looking to Liadrin> And hang on, what are YOU doing here?
LIADRIN: You think I would miss this floor show?
GARROSH: Well you know, if you were going to come here anyway, you could have maybe stayed with us and used some of your magic to help move things along.
LIADRIN: And then what would you have learned?
GARROSH: I didn’t learn a damn thing as it is, other than “Watch where you step around monkeys” and “Don’t get too close if you see a walking corpse with a bucket”!
FARANELL: You know I’m standing right here.
LIADRIN: Two valuable life lessons.
GARROSH: …I seriously need some new friends.
MEDIVH: At any rate.
GARROSH: Yeah, PLEASE get us back to business.
MEDIVH: You have brought the Doomstone, as I instructed?
GARROSH: <holds up the Doomstone> Got it right here.
MEDIVH: Excellent. Now you shall hand over the relic, and—
GARROSH: Not so fast, translucent boy. First you give us what we came here for, THEN we’ll give you the doohicky.
MEDIVH: You dare try to dictate terms to the great and powerful Wizard of Zhan, mortal? I should liquidate you for your presumption alone!
Mortimer, who has been sniffing around the various tapestries that cover parts of the walls, tugs back one curtain to reveal a control panel covered with elaborate levers, buttons, and monitors, manned by a Forsaken male dressed in warrior’s plate.
GARROSH: Uh, who’s that?
The Forsaken man speaks into a microphone on the control panel, and his words are echoed by Medivh.
AVERRY and MEDIVH: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
FARANELL: Well that’s…odd.
GARROSH: The hell?
GARONA: I don’t even want to think about the implications of this for me.
AVERRY and MEDIVH: Silence, you foolish mortals! Pay him no mind!
GARROSH: Dude, we can see you’re the one doing the talking.
UTVOCH: I’m confused.
FARANELL: Imagine our astonishment.
Averry looks back at the others and hurriedly pulls the curtain closed again.
GARROSH: Now then, insects, you will disregard the man behind the— Oh. Oops. Wrong button.
MEDIVH: That’s better. Now then, insects, you will disregard the man behind the curtain, and put him out of mind!
ALL: What man behind the curtain whom we certainly don’t remember seeing?
MEDIVH: Much better.
GARROSH: Look, can we just get what we came here for so we can get this whole freak show over with?
LIADRIN: It probably would be just as easy to do it this way, Guardian.
MEDIVH: <sighs> Very well. Have your companions step forward…
Mokvar, Faranell, Dontrag, and Utvoch step closer to Medivh. Medivh looks to Faranell.
First you, my fellow – albeit preposterously less mighty – mage.
FARANELL: Can’t anyone be one of the best at their class without being an elitist jerk about it?
MEDIVH: You came, as I recall, seeking guts – and yet I daresay you suffer from disorganized thinking. To flee from danger is, in many cases, not cowardice, but wisdom. Indeed, in my day I have known many a soul called a hero, who carried out great deeds of valiance, and they had no more courage than—
FARANELL: No, no, you’re taking this too metaphorically.
MEDIVH: Pardon?
FARANELL: I don’t need guts because I think I’m a coward. Look at me. Half my internal organs are missing. I have no guts, literally.
MEDIVH: Huh. You know, you’re shedding new light on some complaints I’ve been getting from Moroes…
FARANELL: How about I put you down for an “I’ll get back to you” and keep the line moving.
Medivh shrugs and turns to Mokvar.
MEDIVH: As for you, my good orc… Your trouble is another misperception of your situation – not the lack of heart, but a damaged one. To that end, I give you this remedy, for your ears and your ears alone:
Medivh leans closer to Mokvar.
<aside> She is still out there, alive, and she is looking for you.
Mokvar makes a surprised expression, then nods and steps away. Medivh turns to Dontrag and Utvoch.
Now then…you two.
DONTRAG: Yes, sir, your high and mighty Wizardariousness, sir.
UTVOCH: Very much honored to bask in your presence and await your magnaminious blessings, sir.
MEDIVH: Hmm… Yeah. Right. Sorry. You can’t fix stupid.
DONTRAG: Oh.
UTVOCH: Um…okay…
GARROSH: <sighs> Gotta say, we’re not getting a whole lot of return on our investment so far.
MEDIVH: Now for your request, other-orc. You say you seek the demon Malchezaar, and the means to draw him out of his hiding place…
GARROSH: Right. Please don’t tell me this is another one of those “Oops, I can’t really do that one” things for you.
MEDIVH: The great and powerful Wizard of Zhan can do anything, mortal!
FARANELL: Other than listen to himself for like the last three minutes.
MEDIVH: But, as it happens, in this case the Wizard does not need to!
GARROSH: <sighs> Don’t tell me you’re going to get all cryptic on me now.
LIADRIN: What I think the Wizard means, Garrosh, is that you have the means now to do it yourself.
GARROSH: The what now?
Liadrin points to the Doomstone in Garrosh’s hands.
Huh… This thing can do it? How?
LIADRIN: You need only charge it with the Focusing Iris, and you’ll see.
GARROSH: Huh. Well, you heard her, Edwin. Let’s see what this thing does.
Faranell takes out the Focusing Iris and starts to channel arcane power through it and into the Doomstone. The Doomstone starts to glow, then expand, growing into a heavy gray slab of rock with a single runic symbol etched into it.
LIADRIN: Now all you need to is touch your hand to it and say “Come click on the stone.”
Garrosh gives a quizzical look, then shrugs and puts his hand on the stone.
GARROSH: Come click on the stone.
LIADRIN: That’s it…go on…
GARROSH: Come click on the stone… Come click on the stone… Come click on the stone…
As he repeats the phrase, Faranall and Mokvar approach and touch the stone as well. The stage lights dim as Medivh’s chamber fades away, and the only things left visible are Garrosh and the stone. A bright light flashes around the stone, and Prince Malchezaar appears.
MALCHEZAAR: <looks around bewildered> What? How—?
GARROSH: Well hey, now we’re in business.
MALCHEZAAR: You! You dare?
GARROSH: Yeah, so, we haven’t really properly met or anything, princy, so let me fill you in – I dare. Like, professionally.
MALCHEZAAR: Madness has brought you here, orc! Now I shall be your undoing!
GARROSH: Seriously, do you bad guys all take a class on these stock threats? Because—
Garrosh reaches to his back to draw Gorehowl, only to find it’s disappeared from its usual place.
Wha— Oh for fuck’s sake, seriously? Again, now?
Laughing menacingly, Malchezaar draws Gorehowl and brandishes it.
MALCHEZAAR: Ha! Have you misplaced this, fool? I remember fondly the day I recovered it from Demon’s Fall!
GARROSH: Ugh, fine, we’ll do this the street-brawl way…
Garrosh rushes at Malchezaar and grapples with him, gripping Gorehowl by its haft when Malchezaar tries to swing it at him.
MALCHEZAAR: Flee now while you can, orc! You do not face Malchezaar alone—
GARROSH: Yeah, yeah, we all know the spiel, squid-face – but you know something? You’re right. I DON’T face Malchezaar alone…
The stage lights come back on, illuminating the normal, minimally dressed stage of the Opera House – with Faranell, Liadrin, Mokvar, Garona, Dontrag, and Utvoch in a semicircle behind Garrosh and Malchezaar.
Say hello to the legion at my command! SHOW TIME FOR REAL, kids!
MOKVAR: Liking our odds a lot better this time…
While Faranell and Mokvar stand back, casting fireballs and lightning bursts respectively, Liadrin, Garona, Dontrag, and Utvoch run in to engage Malchezaar at melee range. Malchezaar staggers back and forth under the onslaught of the group, still grappling with Garrosh over their hold on Gorehowl, until Garrosh twists it out of Malchezaar’s grip, leaps up, and cleaves through the demon’s neck, severing his head. Malchezaar’s body slumps to the floor, and the spectral audience bursts into applause.
GARROSH: Wham, bam, the bitch is dead. Bitch.
As the audience continues their applause, Barnes walks to center stage.
BARNES: A splendid finale for a most varied and entertaining evening of theater! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you tonight’s troupe of performers, here for the first and only time for your enjoyment!
The applause rises; Barnes walks back offstage.
MOKVAR: Well that takes care of that.
DONTRAG: We’re done here now, right?
LIADRIN: That should do it, yes…
FARANELL: <standing over Malchezaar’s body somberly> At least now he can stop coming back to die over and over…
MOKVAR: Oh, yeah…I guess you were in your own kind of time loop, weren’t you, Edwin…
LIADRIN: But…Edwin, it would have been a stable loop with you, wouldn’t it? Just one set of events repeating infinitely?
FARANELL: That’s what I’d figured it was going to be…
GARROSH: Wait, what? What do you mean, a stable loop?
FARANELL: When I stayed in old Southshore, and replaced myself. I’d figured I would live through my life like I remembered it, then get to the point where we traveled to the past, and go back with you again, then the events would be complete. And then it would be done, and the cycle would just keep spinning itself.
LIADRIN: That isn’t what happened for you?
FARANELL: <shaking head slowly> It didn’t just repeat. I would live through to our mission to the past, and replace myself again, and pick up my life in the past…and yeah, the loop would keep repeating, but every cycle through, I had to live it through again, and repeat my part of it again, and…
GARROSH: And…?
LIADRIN: Oh…oh no…
FARANELL: …and die again. And be raised again.
MOKVAR: Holy crap…
UTVOCH: Wait, I’m confused, what’s he—
GARROSH: Just this once, will you please SHUT THE FUCK UP?
FARANELL: And so yeah, every time around, I had to live out that repetition fresh. I can still remember every loop, individually…
LIADRIN: Edwin… I’m not sure if I even really want to know, but…how many times did you…go around?
FARANELL: By the time you…I…reset the timelines and broke me out…? 2,734.
LIADRIN: By the Light… You…relived your own death…?
Faranell nods, still staring at Malchezaar.
MOKVAR: Edwin, listen—
FARANELL: Doesn’t really matter at this point. <turns back to the others> Come on. We’re done here. Portal to Orgrimmar coming up.
Faranell summons a portal, and one by one the rest of the group disappears through it.
There’s no place like home…
Faranell ports out. The curtain closes.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
Hi, everyone. This is Averry, the writer behind the Warchief’s Command Board.
As those of you who’ve read the site’s About page already know, I’ve always made a point never to break character in the blog. I’ve decided to make this one exception, though, to address a recent development that affects the Command Board. This is a one-time thing; I don’t plan on ever posting as myself here again after this.
You probably already know what this is about. During Blizzard’s Mists of Pandaria press tour, it was announced that the final tier of the MoP expansion will be the Siege of Orgrimmar, in which both Alliance and Horde lay siege to the city in order to end the rule of Garrosh Hellscream.
Since news broke about Garrosh being the final boss of the expansion, I’ve gotten a number of comments on Twitter and in e-mails, either wondering how this news will affect the blog, or, more flatteringly, basically saying that blog-Garrosh has had a hand in making them a little less excited about the prospect of being rid of game-Garrosh. Thank you for that – it really feels great to think that people have been enjoying the blog at all, much less that they’ve developed sympathy for – let’s face it – a rather unlikable character as a result of it.
I’m not sure yet what this is going to mean for the blog. There’s still plenty of time to figure that out. The short version, for the short term, is that the blog isn’t going anywhere. I’m already cooking up a fair number of ideas about how I might play this upcoming storyline, but since we still know very little, they’re just possibilities. Once we have more definite information about the MoP story, I’ll start incorporating it into the blog.
The one request I would make is that everyone try as much as possible to keep direct references to the planned MoP developments out of their comments to posts here. (Well, other than this post. Comment away on this one!) Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love seeing your comments and hearing from you. But to a certain extent, talking about the upcoming Siege of Orgrimmar tier here breaks the blog: since I write from Garrosh’s perspective, and the conceit of it all is that Garrosh is an actual person who’s writing about events as they’re actually happening to him, upcoming patches represent events that are out of his frame of reference right now. There’s no way he could respond to comments about them, simply because they wouldn’t make any sense to him. It would be like someone showing up at your work and saying to you, “So how does it feel knowing that two years from now they’re going to fire you for embezzling funds, which by the way you’re not actually going to start doing for another six months or so.” You’d be at a loss to respond to this person, because you’d be too busy calling the nearest insane asylum.
One of the things I enjoy most about the blog is hearing from readers and getting the chance to respond, whether that be through comments or the mailbag posts (yes, “Bob” notwithstanding, the vast majority of the letters really are from actual readers). But when I get comments that basically say “Hey, look what’s going to be happening to you, Garrosh!”, there’s really no way for me to respond, because if you think about it, all Garrosh could respond with would be a blank stare. I mean, a blanker stare.
Rest assured, we’re a long way from seeing the end of Garrosh’s adventures across the internet. I still have plenty of ideas (WTB more time to write them in!), and I’m sure MoP will end up giving me even more great material to play off of.
Thanks once again for reading, friends. Honor go with us all—hang on. Ack, it really is easy to lapse into character sometimes. Sorry.
Be seeing you,
Averry
ADDENDUM (Added 7/26/12) — In light of the Mists of Pandaria release date, I thought I would add one additional note to this post, just to give everyone a heads up – don’t be surprised if there’s a bit of a time delay between new lore developments going live in-game and being acknowledged in-blog. The new storylines of MoP, and the pre-launch events, will definitely be reflected in Garrosh’s posts here, but I’ll be giving myself a little leeway time-wise to play through the new content and process it for post/story ideas. I’m not on the Beta, so other than a few odds and ends that I’ve picked up online, I’ll be getting my first exposure to the new material on launch day. Please don’t send leave angry comments on September 26 when I haven’t started talking about Pandaria yet!
