Tag Archives: desolace
Desolace postscript
Not too many letters this week, so I’m going to hold off on doing a mailbag. (Get with the program and get writing, people! Your Warchief commands it! garrosh1337@gmail.com)
Also, a quick note on my recent trip to Desolace. I think I mentioned at one point that I had a couple stops to make there, but I only ever really blogged about Shadowprey Village (annoying as that was). Before coming back to Orgrimmar, I also made a stop at Ghost Walker Post. I didn’t write anything about that at the time, partly because I was trying to save time for the trip back home, and partly because it was generally pretty uneventful. It was also a little depressing, so I really just didn’t want to dwell on it much, but it’s probably just as well for me to give it a quick write-up now. Better than dwelling on this Grimtotem business.
I’ve been out to Ghost Walker Post once before, and I have to admit, I always find the place pretty depressing in general. Not so much for the outpost itself, which is fine as far as outposts go, but because of the area right below it – the kodo graveyard. Go ahead and laugh if you want, but ever since I moved to Azeroth I’ve had kind of a soft spot for kodos (maybe they just remind me of my pet clefthoof from when I was a kid). So seeing the place where kodos go to die, with all the skeletons and corpses all around, that’s just a little more than I want to take most days.
At least the surrounding area is a little less depressing-looking these days. I know the Cataclysm brought water into the area to help feed the regrowth of vegetation, but even still, it’s pretty incredible to see the change. The whole area around the outpost has turned lush and green, and there’s even the beginnings of a forest starting up really quickly. The Cenarion people – hippie druids, yeah, but still less annoying than those DEHTA fuckers – have set up a base there at Karnum’s Glade, although I didn’t actually go over there, because, you know, druids. Still, I had to look around the new wildlands there, just because it really is a pretty amazing sight. Even when you figure in the new sources of water, it’s incredible that the place started recovering so quickly. It’s enough to make you wonder whether there’s something more going on there, beyond just the influx of water.
Which…yeah. Really have to wonder. I probably shouldn’t even mention this, because people are probably going to think I’m crazy, and it really honestly could be my imagination playing tricks on me. But at one point when I was looking around the wildlands, off in the distance, I could have sworn I could see the figure of a tauren – not fully solid, but partly transparent, even a little shimmery. Maybe it was just the light and the glare of the sun, I don’t know. But it’s not just that. If it were just a tauren it could have been anybody, and with all the druids around, not to mention Ghost Walker Post, there’s no shortage of tauren in the area. But I recognized him. I would know him anywhere. The stature, the totem always in hand…the steady gaze that always seemed to be sizing me up and coming away just disappointed enough.
It was Cairne. I swear on the spirits I thought I saw Cairne.
He looked at me, and he looked away, and just scanned around the wildlands like he was assessing his work. And then he was gone.
At least gone from view. I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind since.
Visiting Desolace
Just got back from the final part of this last inspection tour, this time making a couple stops in Desolace. Most of the time there I was in Shadowprey Village, which, well…you know, trolls. Wall to wall trolls. So you can probably imagine how that went. And I mean, they seem to be on top of things there pretty much, but I’m at a loss for what it is that these trolls find so fucking funny all the damn time. You try to talk to them about anything, and it’s just a big laugh riot. I’m starting to wonder if they’re all just smoking something.
I’d heard they had some pretty good seafood there, so I tried asking Lui’Mala about it, since I figured she would be in the know what with her being the fishing trainer there, but apparently the question was too damn funny for her to pull her shit together enough to answer, so yeah, on to Plan B. I finally managed to get an answer out of Jinar’Zillen, who told me they were a little short on fish at the moment, but they’ve been bringing in some really high quality crab lately if I wanted to swim down and bring up a few of the traps. I couldn’t help but wonder why they would actually need the fucking Warchief to go haul back his own crab traps, what with it being a fishing village where you’d think there’d be someone around whose actual fucking JOB that would be, or at the very least they’d have some random noobs to go do it just to keep them busy and out of trouble, but whatever, what with all the traveling I haven’t had the chance to do my usual swimming routine anyway, so fine. He said they were having their best luck with the traps a little way to the north, so I swam down there, only when I got there I couldn’t see any traps anyplace – and while I was looking, this huge orca came rolling up on me and decided it was snack time. Didn’t work out so well for him, but still. Turns out, the orca was kind of famous around the village – name of Blubbergut apparently – so I don’t know how Jinar’Zillen could have mixed up his feeding territory with the trapping spots. Still, that solved the whole problem with the lack of fish, so at least I got a decent lunch out of it.
After I finally got tired of trying to figuring out what all the trolls were finding so damn hilarious all the time, I ended up spending most of my time hanging out with Rokaro, a Champion of the Horde and successor to Rexxar there in Desolace. Speaking of which, gotta say, we had a fun time exchanging Rexxar stories, since we’d both spent a lot of time with the guy, and if you know Rexxar well, trust me, you get a lot of entertaining stories about him. Not to go spreading a lot of stories out of school (seeing as I was hardly ever actually IN school), but you know, you watch Rexxar closely and it’s not too hard to connect the dots. Hangs out with a bear all the time, always wearing a weird wolf mask…well, you do the math. Although I have to admit the bear thing is kind of cool…it would be nice if we could at least get Rokaro a worg or something.
We ended up swinging by the Mannroc Coven for a while, which is this area that’s overrun with demons that had been summoned by the Burning Blade. We spent a little time wiping out a few dozen of them just kicks, but these were pretty obviously low demons on the demon totem pole, so they were really easy to kill, and after a little while it just started getting boring. So we just headed back and figured we’d leave the rest of them to be finished off by some aspiring adventurers, um, looking for…you know…some critical mission vital to the survival of the Horde. Or some shit like that.
[Header image provided by Angelya from Revive and Rejuvenate, used here with permission and many thanks.]
Back to the inspection tour…
I’m going to be getting back to the next wave of inspection visits this week. First up I’ll be checking up on the Southern Barrens. I was getting reports that Warlord Gar’dul was putting out some heavy-duty fail out there (and seriously, could I make just ONE COMMAND APPOINTMENT these days without it blowing up in my face?), so I sent Warlord Bloodhilt to relieve him at Desolation Hold. Hopefully he’s getting things cleaned up out there.
After that I’m due for a couple stops in Desolace. Right now it looks like the plan is for me to make a stop in Mulgore on the way there from the Barrens, so I’m supposed to be having a meeting with Baine Bloodhoof while I’m in Thunder Bluff. Not really looking forward to that. It’s going to be the first time I’ve seen him since…well…you know. AWKWARD.
I need to check in with Eitrigg on a last couple matters, then I’ll be heading out as soon as Mortimer’s saddled up and the Kor’kron escort is ready to go. More updates soon.
Monday mailbag
Hey guys, I just got in from EarthCon, which let me tell you was a blast. They announced the next expansion, where they’re adding a new continent to the game, although there was a lot of nerdraging over it. Turns out the new continent had been mentioned in the game before, but just as a running joke, so now some people are like, “Seriously? They’re actually going to do a whole expansion about Australians?”
I can’t say I totally disagree with them, to be honest. I mean I love this game, but they showed some concept art for some of the new mobs there, one creature called a Platypus and one called a Wombat, and really, dude, they’re not even fucking trying anymore. There was also one called a Kangaroo, and if nothing else I guess now we know what that murloc must have fucked to spawn the first gorloc. So good job there I guess.
Anyway, I’m pretty wiped out so I’m just going to do a couple quick letters this week.
You told my wife that “Hellscream’s eyes were upon her” and now she won’t…you know…with me. Could you please tell her that you meant it metaphorically? Thanks.
–Very Frustrated
Meta what? Oh wait, you mean metamorphosis? Because no, here’s the thing, yeah, the warlock I have assigned to your wife is demonology, but he doesn’t actually have to go into demon form to use his Eye of Kilrogg. So I think you might be going for overkill there.
Still, sorry your wife is holding out on you these days. Especially what with that thing she does with her tongue.
Horde > Twilight’s Hammer! Remember the Wrathgate!
–Bob, Echo Isles
Dude, seriously, you picked the wrong guy to try to slip a Wrathgate reference past. You know I was actually in COMMAND up in Northrend for like a year, right? And hate to break it to you, but we weren’t fighting the Twilight’s Hammer at the Wrathgate. There were no Twilight’s Hammer anywhere NEARBY. It was all Scourge and Alliance and that nutjob undead Putress group that tried to overthrow Sylvanas.
Look, I’m all for talking smack (by the by, fuck you, Varian), but if you’re going to trash talk over major events would it KILL you to do your fucking homework?
I was just questing in the Barrens and something occurred to me. Right now after years of adventuring I’m powerful enough that the enemies in the Barrens aren’t much of a threat, so I tear through them fast. But that got me wondering, since the Horde obviously has lots of very powerful warriors, why don’t you just send some of them to the lower level zones to handle the problems there? The quest givers in those areas act like the enemies are posing a threat but your garden variety soldier in Twilight Highlands could take them all on at once no problem.
–Malkar, Orgrimmar
First of all, nice job with the cool little AA internal rhyme scheme with your signature there, Malkar.
As for your question…I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I didn’t even know about this myself until I became Warchief, although once I did find out, it made all kinds of sense.
Like you said, Malkar, if you’ve spent any time at all traveling around Horde territories, you’ve noticed that everywhere you go, it seems like there are Horde agents looking for help with all sorts of odds and ends. Sometimes they need enemies slain. Sometimes there’s an animal population that needs to be thinned out. Sometimes there are supplies or resources to be gathered up. Sometimes there’s a delivery that needs to be made. And so on. And so there’s always a demand for helpful citizens to step up and get the job done.
But…these odds jobs really don’t make a whole lot of sense. Because you’re right, the baddies you’re getting called upon to fight really aren’t anything that couldn’t be handled easily enough by anyone who’s ever set foot in Northrend. Or hey, let’s forget about the fighting, even. That delivery you were just asked to make? The package from Desolace that needed to be dropped off in Feralas? Well…you know they DO have MAIL DELIVERY in Feralas, right? Hold on, let me double check.
Yep. Look at that. They have mail delivery. Oh wait, let’s be totally sure, do they have mailboxes in Desolace?
Well I’ll be damned, they do. Which begs the question, WHY CAN’T THEY DROP THEIR DAMN PACKAGE IN THE FUCKING MAILBOX THAT’S TEN FUCKING FEET AWAY FROM THEM?
Erm, okay, I shouldn’t let that get me yelling since I already know the answer.
Here’s the thing. If you go to a lot of Horde territories, you’ll find the place practically swarming with bunches of wannabe adventurers looking for ways to help. And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the thought, but like…they’re not very good. Half the time they don’t know where they’re going even when they have a fucking map right in their pocket, and they don’t even know how to use the abilities they were just trained in an hour ago, and holy shit they die easy. Like for instance, I know from Dark Cleric Cecille that a lot of aspiring Forsaken adventurers grew up in total dread of this one Son of Arugal who used to wander around in Silverpine Forest. He’d lay waste to them. People would yell out warnings like “OMG SON OF ARUGAL RUN!!” and need to round up two or three friends to even try to take him out. A Son of fucking Arugal. Do you know how easy it is to kill a Son of Arugal? Every time I sneeze, I kill three of them, and I’m not even on the same fucking continent. And these nubs are dying to one by the bushel.
And yet, these scrubs are hell-bent on helping the cause. And they’re like ants. There’s hundreds of them, everywhere, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of them. And yet they’re running around trying to help, and biting off more than they can chew, and then we have to send people to go rescue them or at least collect their remains, or even if they don’t go get themselves in trouble they’re just hanging around distracting our more experienced soldiers from more important matters.
So way before I even showed up here, the higher-ups in the Horde worked out a way to deal with this. They assigned people to all the Horde zones whose job was…basically…to come up with ways to keep these noobs busy. Anything to keep them occupied. Go kill some boars. Deliver this package to the next town over. See those shiny rocks just outside of town? Go gather up about fifty for me. See this guy standing right next to me? Talk to him. Tell him I said hi. Let him know I sent you. He’ll never see it coming.
Just play it up and make it sound important, they’ll feel like they’re contributing, they’ll stay out of trouble, and we’ll be fine. And meanwhile we can maybe get a few odd jobs taken care of while we’re at it. And maybe, every once in a while, we’ll uncover a diamond in the rough who’s actually up to the task for some missions we really need done.
That’s it for now. As always, send your letters and questions to garrosh1337@gmail.com. See you guys soon, I’m gonna crash.
