Tag Archives: jorin deadeye

The cost of doing business

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So, some of you might remember the other day when Lantresor of the Blade wrote to me saying – among other things – that he was coming up to Orgrimmar to see about signing on with the Horde. Seemed like a pretty good deal, what with Lantresor being a major badass by all accounts, plus him being pretty much the head honcho of a clan of ogres. Which, yeah, maybe not the deepest thinkers in the world, but for real, have you seen some of the hired help I’ve already got on staff? I have Dontrag and Utvoch on payroll. I’ve got no business throwing stones.

Anyhow, I got Marogg the infantry chef to whip up a welcoming dinner for Lantresor and his crew, but we kind of overshot a little. See, when Lantresor sent his letter, he mentioned forming a new “Burning Skull” ogre clan, and wanting to sign on… then he said he got that Mogor ogre dude to port “us” to what I’m guessing was Ratchet (where, if epic limericks are to be believed, there once was a goblin from)… and that “we” would arrive in Grommash Hold soon.

And see, that’s great and all. Problem was, “us” and “we” didn’t give me much of an idea of how many people “us” and “we” were, and based on everything else Lantresor was saying, as far as I knew, dude was gonna roll up on Orgrimmar with his whole damn ogre clan. And seriously, have you ever tried feeding a bunch of ogres? Pro tip: don’t. Trust me. I’ve been to Brackenwall Village a bunch of times to see Draz’Zilb. You know why the place always looks so run down? Because motherfuckers don’t have time to fix shit when motherfuckers gotta spend their whole day scraping up enough food to cover their daily requirement of 20,000 calories a head. Including a bunch of dudes who’ve got more than one head.

Anyway, point is, I had some indeterminate-sized ogre contingent rolling on into town, and I knew I was going to have to FEED these stupid assholes, because, you know, I’m not going to be fucking RUDE. (Greatmother didn’t raise no ungracious hosts. My heretofore unboxed ears would not survive.) So I had to have Marogg err on the side of safety and crank out enough grub to feed a small army of ogres. Which… let me tell you, that’s not gonna be a fun line item to see in next month’s budget report. I might have to get some slaughterhouses up and running just to offset the dent this puts in the meat supply. Maybe in the Barrens. Seems like we’ve got some spare real estate out there. Anyhow, I digress.

Bottom line, Marogg pulled in a bunch of culinary personnel to help – I even got our ol’ pal Ji Lunchbox and some of his panda buddies chipping in on this – and managed to whip up enough eats to cover our bases. And so, who shows up?

Lantresor and Mogor.

The end. THAT was the fucking “we.” Lantresor and his double-headed, half-brained plus-fucking-one.

FUCKED OVER ONCE AGAIN BY AMBIGUOUS PRONOUN ANTECEDENTS. SEE? SEE? IMPRECISE GRAMMAR CAN COST A SMALL FORTUNE. STAY IN FUCKING SCHOOL, KIDS.

Um. I mean “fucking school” as in… like… you know… just school. Not school for fucking. Because for one thing, I mean, I get enough hate mail as it is, without advocating THAT certificate program. And for another, not for nothing, but it would be kind of a futile teaching exercise. Either you got it or you don’t. Sorry, nerds.

MOVING ON.

Anyway, point is, we massively overshot there, so, you know, if you happen to be in the Orgrimmar neck of the woods, and you like Kickin’ Chimaerok Chops, well, I’ve got leftovers. Like… a LOT of leftovers. Like make-the-week-after-Pilgrim’s-Bounty-look-like-fucking-NOTHING kind of leftovers. And the faster they get eaten, the sooner I can relieve the frost mages I’ve got on duty round the clock keeping the shit from spoiling. And MAN OH MAN, you can practically HEAR Ji high-tailing it over here with a fork and knife in hand, can’t you?

So where was I? Oh. Yeah. Lantresor.

So yeah, the initial meeting went pretty well. I don’t know if either of us knew what to make of the other at first, but after a little while we started exchanging stories about ways we’ve each messed with Jorin Deadeye, and that broke the ice right quick. We still have some odds and ends to work out, but it looks like Lantresor and his crew are going to come on board, which is only going to help shore up defenses on a bunch of different fronts. Plus, Lantresor apparently knows a handful of blademasters from the old Burning Blade clan who are still hiding out in Outland, and he seems pretty confident he could bring them over as well. So, a lot of potential win going on.

The only awkward part has been how Lantresor kept asking about Shayari. And, um, you know… after Khizzara turned on the warning lights on that one, just to be safe, I made sure Shay was out of town when Lantresor was due to arrive. By… well… sending her off on a shopping trip. Which… seemed like a decent enough idea at the time. Until she got home with a fucking kodo carrying the stuff she bought. Including the kodo. This one’s gonna leave a mark, I can tell.

Meanwhile, Lantresor keeps asking after Shay. I may just have to bite the cannonball and try to get Garona over here.

I’m getting too old for this shit.

More soon.

 

Monday mailbag

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Time to dip back into the ol’ mailbag. Let’s see what we’ve got this time around…

 

Hail, Warchief,

Firstly, I thank you for accepting Grimjaw into the Kor’kron fold, and hope he will serve you well; secondly, my apologies for the depressive content of my letters – it was not my intention to “bring the room down”.

Instead, I will share some good news with you: my son has taken to training as a warrior and will be ready to take his Om’riggor – his rite of passage – next year, and my daughter has taken to learning the shamanic arts. I have high hopes for both of them.

Also, there’s something I think you should hear, Warchief. Another of my wolves – Golmash, I call him, after your grandfather, whose legend is known even to me – has a black pelt and a set of eerie green eyes. And I don’t mean in the dark, slimy green of a swamp so much as a strange, otherworldly glare. I didn’t think anything of it the first time I noticed, but since then I’ve been feeling strangely ill-at-ease whenever he looks at me. I did some research into the nature of these eyes and what I’ve found… is both confusing and disturbing.

On one hand, the eye colour is not unique or unnatural (so far as anyone can tell); on the other hand, only one particular wolf dynasty has ever had them, and rarely so. This dynasty, dubbed “moonwolf”, lived in Shadowmoon Valley until the arrival of the Legion and the corruption of the land that ensued, and the last known scion of this lineage was Skychaser, the companion of Ner’zhul. The fate of the fallen Great Shaman is well-known, but no one knows what happened to his wolf.

I have never had any encounter with that particular lineage, and so far as I can tell, Golmash is strictly of Frostwolf and Nagrandeur descent; thus, the cause of his haunting eyes remains a mystery. How should I proceed from here, Warchief? I am loathe to create a problem where there is none, but something in my gut tells me sinister things are afoot.

Yours faithfully,

–Ogunaro Wolfrunner, Kennel Master

Hey again, Ogunaro. Grimjaw’s gotten settled in over at the Kor’kron stables. I’ve been over to have a look at him, and he IS a pretty fine looking wolf. Like I mentioned last time, I’ve got something in mind for him, but it’s going to be a little bit before I get that going. The timing is kind of up in the air for the time being, but hopefully things will fall into place soon. I’ll keep you updated as things go.

As for this mystery wolf of yours (appreciate the shout-out to Golmash, by the way… well, unless it turns out there’s something seriously fishy going on with him, in which case, gee, thanks for dragging my grandfather into it)… that does sound pretty weird. I can’t say I’ve run into any glowy green-eyed wolves myself, and I’ve ridden more than my share over the years. Still, I don’t want to start running around cooking up crazy stories and conspiracy theories, especially when you sound like you’ve got a good sense of the line this wolf came from. So for right now, what I’d recommend is keeping a close watch on him and maybe keep him apart from your other wolves when you’re not able to monitor them. Is there anything strange about his behavior? How does he get along with the other wolves? Or with you, for that matter? Anything you’ve noticed about him that’s different from most wolves, OTHER than the green eyes?

This is definitely worth monitoring, but I don’t want to start panicking straight away. The Ner’zhul connection is creepy as fuck, but I also don’t put a lot of stock in ghost stories. Unless the ghost in question is one of those bankers down at the Undercity, because funny enough, those dudes actually DO come up with some pretty good stock tips. FYI.

Grats on your kids coming along with their training, by the way. Are they working with anyone in the military trainee program, or has it been individual class training so far? I’ve got a bunch of trainees studying under me, but then you probably already knew that if you read the blog. Your son’s coming up on his om’riggor next year, huh? He must be pretty advanced at this point, in that case. I’m hoping some of mine will be ready for the rite before too long, but right now that’s pretty dependent on…well, a bunch of things. No need to belabor ’em with you. I’m sure you know the drill. Next year would be pretty nice, though.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on what’s up with Grimjaw. And the other wolf thing.

 

Well well, Hellscream,

It seems serendipity brought me and your little “trainee” together. But I’ll elaborate on that in a moment. First, let me tell you that Boulderfist purchased our computer equipment from a rather enterprising goblin shaman and obtained our Internet as spoils of war from the Shadow Council. How they can be smart enough to create working Internet here on Outland and yet foolish enough to serve the Burning Legion is beyond me, but then there it is. Now about your trainee…

I was naturally curious when several of my ogres came wandering up the hill to me complaining about an outbreak of headaches. As it happens, they had incurred these headaches from being repeatedly smashed in the face (and other places) with a shield by an eager, cheerful little orc girl with a potbelly worthy of a ogre woman (few of them that there are). How fortunate that she isn’t as good at killing ogres as she thinks; I settled for reproaching my men for being stupid enough to let a orcling child knock the stuffing out of them. Some claim the ordeal has left them dumber – but frankly, dear Hellscream, I doubt that very much, and if it has, it hasn’t made that much difference.

At any rate, even allowing for the fact that she didn’t know about our truce, as I discovered when I caught her lurking around the Laughing Skull Ruins watching that brute of a shaman Mogor pounding a group of fledgling Alliance “heroes” into the ground and confronted her, there is a certain principle about truces that has to be upheld – namely, the principle that you don’t attack the people you have a truce with. So when I learned of this Jorin Blackeye or whatever his name was continuing to send adventurers after my ogres, I decided a response was called-for.

We lured him out of Garadar under the pretense of discussing a peace settlement concerning the village of Halaa with the Kurenai Broken, and there I confronted him about his actions. I had hoped to settle things in a reasonable way, but not only did he spout some nonsense about “no forgiveness” and whatnot, he took the time to pass comment about my Burning Blade heritage before he started to walk away. After that… well, it’s very embarassing. He sort of walked right into my blade. Face-first, no less. And my blade brushed against his one good eye. All completely by accident. How very careless of the both of us.

Anyway, given that he was using that eye for no-good purposes, perhaps it is an acceptable casualty. I hear he has not dared show his face in public since then – with an injury like that, I know I wouldn’t – and that his clan are electing a new leader. Hopefully they’ll be more understanding from now on.

By the way, speaking of Mogor, the brute and I have reached an accord: a permanent end to the fighting between our clans and the merging of Boulderfist and Warmaul into a single clan, as it was long ago, under the name Burning Skull (somehow, Laughing Blade just doesn’t have the same ring to it). We’re interested in signing on with your Horde – I admit, I’m curious about meeting another of my own kind, even if she is very different from me, and the contribution I can offer you seems like a fitting gesture.

Mogor has portalled us to a small goblin harbour in the Barrens. We’ll be in Grommash Hold soon to discuss terms.

–Lantresor of the Blade

Okay, you know what? Not going to lie. Not a whole lot registered other than the part about Jorin getting a little what-for. In the face. Jorin Blackeye indeed. Heh. HeheheHAH. HAHAHAHA. Such a dick.

So wait, did you actually get his eye, or JUST graze him, or what? I get that you did some damage, but eyes are tricky territory, and even a little extra flick of the blade one way or the other could… hmm… you know, come to think of it, probably best not to dwell on it. I’ll probably end up hearing through channels soon enough.

So speaking of trainees, you realize that when Mirembe sees your letter, of all the stuff you brought up, all she’s going to notice is the “potbelly” part, right? I can almost hear the letter landing in my inbox now.

Also, eesh, surprise guests. I better have Marogg whip up some food to greet these people with when they get here. I wonder if he still has any of that Darkspear rice sitting around for his jambalaya. Pretty tasty stuff, actually, as long as the rice wasn’t sitting around trollville for too long, in which case you end up getting this weird dizzy feeling if you eat too much of it.

 

Hey, uh, Boss?

I was perusing this here blog and I noticed the letter you got from Lantresor. Now, readin’ between the lines here I gotta say… it sounds like that is one lonely half-orc-half-draenei dude lookin’ to get all buddy-buddy with the father of the — *looks around nervously and makes a circuit of the room listening for stealthy swoosh sounds* — youngest and most attractive of the only two lady half-orc-half-draenei girls in the world. Which makes me question his motivations, if you hear what I’m sayin’ and know what I mean.

Not that Shayari can’t handle herself or deal with unwanted attention, but… I’m just sayin’…

Also, not for nothin’, but I hear that Lantresor is a huge complainer. An acquaintance of mine worked with him for a while, and all he ever did was whine, whine, whine. “How long are we going to stay here?” And, “I miss the grassy plains of Nagrand!” Oh boo hoo hoo! Drove everyone else bonkers.

Have a good one!

–Khizzara.

Oh, PS: I dropped a buncha flowers off for Gurtash. Wish I could do something more, but as a mage I’d probably only make things worse. And as a goblin, I might uh, make him explode. Kinda counterproductive for the healin’.

Yeah, that Lantresor guy is…

Hang on.

<thinks>

Oh FUCKING HELL, SERIOUSLY?

I… he… you mean… HOW THE FUCK OLD IS THAT GUY, ANYWAY?

I’m… suddenly feeling a strange craving for dead ogres.

Wait, that would mean giving Jorin the satisfaction. And not for anything, but I refuse to live in a universe where Jorin Blackeye—erm, I mean Deadeye… is validated.

And yet.

Fuck. Rock and a hard place.

HANG ON HANG ON HE’S ON HIS WAY HERE TOO, LIKE SOON AND SHIT.

Dammit. If he’s out cruising for half-orc, half-draenei action… maybe I can pull a bait-and-switch on him? I wonder if Garona’s doing anything this week. I could invite her to attend whatever reception I end up stuck holding for these people and really lay it on thick about how much I’d like her to be there and OH SHIT NEVER MIND THAT’S JUST GOING TO GIVE HER IDEAS.

Fucking hell, this parenting shit isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. UGH.

 

Dear Warchief:

I apologize for disturbing you, when as your loyal subject it should be my duty to relieve your stresses, not add to them, but I have a delicate question for you. (by the way, could you please appoint us Blood Elves a Regent? I got a rude note from someone calling himself “Bob” saying you had named a Lord Invincible to the post, but I’ve never seen him . . . ?)

Anyhow, I . . . met a girl. Cat. Woman. Druid. Ummm, she’s really really beautiful, and she loves it when I pet her, and she purrs when we take naps in the sunlight, and we love to just stare into each others’ eyes when she’s a cat. Not a small cat, a big black panther. But anyways, I met her as part of trying to research help for my . . . not quite alive condition. She’s with the Cenarion Circle, and I guess they had a grudge against orcs for killing Cenarius, only he’s not dead anymore so that’s ok, I hope. We started spending time together, and slaughtering murlocs, and I found out that when we’re together I can feel my heart beating again. Umm . . . is it ok that she’s a Night Elf? We stay at her cave in Moonglade when I’m not on assignment, so she won’t disturb any members of the Horde.

Hopefully,

–Sintra E’Drien of Silvermoon.

Ps. Shouldn’t Loktar Ogar mean something more like “My Victory, Their Death!”?

I… Hang on, when did this mailbag turn into the fucking Dating Game?

So hold it, Sintra, are you seriously asking me to sign off on you shacking up with a freaking NIGHT ELF? I mean, I already had ENOUGH of a headache just recently dealing with Mokvar’s human chick, and as far as I can gather SHE’S at least his EX-wife, as opposed to whatever the fuck you have going on that’s just in the early magical bloom of insert-your-greeting-card-bullshit-romantic-cliche-here.

And so, on top of the night elf part, she’s a druid, and from the sound of it you spend most of your time together with her in cat form? And you’re still technically dead… and… I don’t even KNOW what the fuck that is, like now you’re just doing the backstroke around a giant cocktail glass loaded up with some spiritsforsaken concoction of bestiality and (reverse?) necrophilia and disloyalty and furry and OMG. I mean the only part of that whole damn part of it that I can sign off on is the whole “slaughtering murlocs” thing, because let’s face it, who’s not down for good wholesome murloc slaughter? Other than the murlocs, I suppose. But who knows, maybe not. I know if I were a murloc, I would fucking hate me.

Hang on, though.

Jog my memory here, Sintra… aren’t you a blood elf chick? Because if so, and she’s… that might…

<thinks>

No. No. Never mind. Sticking with the dead-murloc-lone-highlight position. The end. Turn the page. Ahem.

I’ll be in my bunk.

 

[Keep those letter coming! Send e-mail to garrosh1337@gmail.com or use the form below. Next mailbag July 6!]

 

Monday mailbag

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Just got back to Orgrimmar a little while ago. I checked in with the shamans over in the Valley of Wisdom about Gurtash. They’re still working on him, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to have anything solid to say for a while yet. All we really know right now is that that spectral minion got him good…the fucker managed to get a good rip in on the kid in exactly the wrong areas, the head and chest. They made it sound like they’re not going to able to say much for sure for a while still, so apparently I’m just going to have to kill time till then. So, I guess this is as good a time as any to clear out some more of this mail backlog.

So… the last mailbag made an impression for sure, what with it including a letter from some goblin guy that ran on for so long that I’m fairly sure I still won’t finish reading it until sometime next Tuesday. With that in mind…

 

Dat quite da letter, Grottee Metalbeard. I’d recommend splittin’ it into more paragraphs next time, though. Ol’ Garry — *quickly scratches out the former and substitutes in “Warchief” — can only handle so much.

–Alayea

P.S. Though Fordring say he speechless, he sure ain’t one ta talk. =P

Oh, Fordring is one to talk, Alayea. To talk, and talk, and talk, and oh, by the way, did I mention talk? But yeah…that was a letter and a half last time. Actually, it was more like 6.2 letters. Maybe more. No less, though. You’d be amazed what a difference even a tenth of a letter makes. 6.1 would contain surprisingly little content.

 

Eheheh, sorry about all that Warchief. I was on a Kaja’cola binge when I wrote my letter.

Anyway, I’ll drop Blackfuse a line to let him know you’re interested. Protip: The key to keeping his attention is to keep mentioning money.

–Grottee Metalbeard

Oh, and check it out, look who’s back. So…how much Kaja’cola did you choke down before you wrote that letter? Is there any left? Anywhere? Or is that shit just really potent? I can’t say I’ve ever tried the stuff, so I’m not really in much position to say. Sounds like it has the same kind of effect as that kafa stuff from Pandaria that Ruekie’s always drinking. Man, you should see her with a couple cups of that stuff in her. Haste buff like you wouldn’t believe. I’m at least 50% sure one more cup would shave all her spells down to instant cast.

Anyway, yeah, feel free to contact that Blackfuse dude for me. Might be a good idea for you let me know where I can reach him so I can see about making contact directly, too. Is he over in the goblin part of town in Orgrimmar, or up in Azshara, or doing business somewhere else? Either way, yeah, I kind of figured the way to his heart was through his wallet. I mean, come on, he’s a goblin. I know how you guys are wired.

Oh, and before all you crybabies get your panties in a bunch about me saying that, because racist this and stereotype that and boo hoo hoo, I give you Exhibit A:

 

Yo Big G,

Got another question for ya! What’s the big deal with my fellow Horde members shirking their duty in Alterac Valley? Are the Frostwolves really a bunch of pansies now that Big T went all hippy peace and love, or are they just scared of the beards on them Stormpikes? If it’s the beards, I totally got an answer for that!

You see my company, Sparkbolt Enterprises, has recently come into some great explosives. And by great, I mean “how in the burning hells is this stuff still legal?!” We pack it up nice and tight in the best elementium plating we can find (and boy howdy was there a TON of that stuff lying around when Deathwing was killed off), primed and ready to be launched at the face of any Alliance foe you can imagine! I like to call it the Sparkbolt Facemelter™! For best results, aim at dwarves or the sissy pandas that went for the Blue and Gold. It’s like watching an explosive sheep in an oil refinery! Just watch out for friendly fire and people within range of the discharge explosion. Also, wear heavy protective armor when setting one of these bad boys off! My, uh, my cousin Vinny didn’t and his face literally got melted. Makes the family reunions awkward, I can tell ya that much. 10,000 gold will get ya 100 quality Facemelters, primed and ready to roll! (shipping and handling is an extra 5,000. We disavow any responsibility, legal, moral, or otherwise, for misuse or improper storage of our products.)

*attached is a handy order form and catalogue for other Sparkbolt products*

Pleasure doing business with ya,

–Glessee “Glitch” Sparkbolt, Founder and CEO of Sparkbolt Enterprises

Yeah. So. Thanks?

But okay…I want to make sure I’m following this correctly, because listen, if there’s one guy you DON’T have to sell on the idea of blowing up Allies, it’s me. Like it’s really, REALLY me. So… you’re trying to sell me explosives that you have to armor yourself to the teeth just to use, and still stay out of the range…hang on, what IS the “range of the discharge explosion”? Like how far away from this thing do you have to BE? Because you’re making it sound pretty damn huge, which would mean that it would be nearly impossible even to USE the damn thing without being taken out by it. Which means the only way I could even put these things into action would be to use my own people as living cannon fodder, and send them out there armed with these things to blow up targets knowing full well they’re gonna get melted themselves. Which sounds like it’s straight out of Psychotic War of Attrition 101.

So what I’m telling you is, I’ll go as high as 8000 for the pack of 100, shipped, but you’re not getting a copper more than that.

Fucking price-gouging goblins.

 

Heya warchief,

Being a big fan of your poetic skills, I just have to say,

There once was a goblin from Ratchet.

Go!

–Whizzy Greaseknuckle, from a neutral coastal town that may or may not be in the Northern Barrens

The fuck is up with all the goblins this time around? Is there some kind of coupon going around online for a “free with proof of your letter to Garrosh” deal or some shit?

Anyhow, though, you know what? You’re on.

There once was a goblin from Ratchet
Whose wits weren’t as sharp as a hatchet.
She launched a Facemelter™,
Ducked in her bomb shelter,
But, sadly, neglected to latch it.

EPIC VERSE!

 

Hello, Hellscream,

I am Lantresor of the Blade. Perhaps you do not remember me, though I do remember you. If you do remember me, it’s probably about how my clan, the Boulderfist ogres, attacked the village of your friend Jorin Deadeye – which they did, but the peace settlement I made with you should make that square.

At any rate, I’m writing in from the Burning Blade Ruins because I noticed you have a daughter – Shayari, was it? – who is half-orc and half-draenei. That makes at least three of us in this world, I see – her, Garona Halforcen and myself. I am the inversion of your daughter, physically our unique my body is that of an orc with draenei traits; notably, I am taller than an average orc, my shoulders are broader and my skin is an off-blue colour.

I sympathise with her experiences – they are not unlike those of my own. My father was a draenei scout, my mother an orc of the Burning Blade Clan. Sadly, the blood war between my parents’ people came when I was young. My mother raised me alone as best she could, my father being too dead to help, but in the end, I am half-orc and half-draenei – because of which, in the end I would be seen as neither.

I had barely completed my rite of passage when my enemies in the clan had me cast out shortly after they came to power. My father’s people, as you can imagine, could not bare to look upon me, for I was a reflection of their death. I was fortunate enough to still find a place in the Horde, where I would serve under the banner of two warchiefs. Now, though, I bow to no one. Instead, I am a ruler. A ruler of ogres.

Most of our kind were wiped out decades ago, though who was most responsible I do not know. I do know, however, that most would live their lives as outcasts, labelled and cast aside. Victims of their heritage. This world is no good to those of us who are half- anything. We stand forever apart; few know us, and fewer still understand us. For that reason I carry immense respect for Rexxar and his kind, the Mok’Nathal. They have lived as outcasts even longer than I have, yet they remain strong, if insular and distrusftul.

I write this letter not seeking your pity, but as a gesture to your daughter. The things she and I have been forced to learn, the things we have endured and suffered, the rejection, the shame… they are things only the children of orcs and draenei can know. If she has lived this long, it is a testament to her strength and independence; not all such children had it in them to take on the challenges and struggles our unique heritage presents. I, for one, applaud her, inasmuch as that means anything to either of you.

As an addendum, tell your daughter the next time you see her that she is not alone as a half-orc/draenei. Tell her that Lantresor of the Blade knows and understands – and finally, that if she ever needs my aid, or that of Boulderfist, she has only to ask.

–Lantresor of the Blade

Huh. Well THAT’S someone I wasn’t expecting to get a letter from. Not least of all because I wouldn’t have guessed Lantresor read the blog. Actually, hang on – the ogres out in Nagrand have INTERNET access? Grizzle Fucking Gearslip can’t set up a wireless network in Domination Point that doesn’t make the computer literally urinate on the desk, but the fucking OGRES on a shattered planet have GOOGLE? How the hell did THAT happen?!

Anyway.

I do remember you, Lantresor. Although, not for nothing, but I wouldn’t go so far as calling Jorin my “friend.” Yeah, we both grew up in Garadar, but he was…well, he was always kind of a dick. Especially once he got wind of some of the uglier details about Grom, and decided it would be a hoot of a good time to keep reminding me of them at every turn. So, you know, that whole thing where you rolling his village. Boo hoo. Fuck ’im.

Anyhow, thanks for reaching out about Shayari. I haven’t really thought that much about the whole half-breed thing, but it probably makes sense that she’d do well to have someone she can talk to who’s in the same boat. And considering the only other option for that would be Garona, well…yeah… I don’t really know you, Lantresor, but I’m pretty sure you’d be the better option. Seeing as I haven’t seen any overt signs of fucking migraine-inducing crazy from you. Plus, Garona seems to get all cranky whenever anybody mentions Shay around her. Who knows.

As it happens, I think one of my trainees is on track to be around your neck of the woods soon, so if it’s all good by you, I may have her swing by your way to introduce herself. Think of her as sort of an emissary, entrusted with a crucial matter of cross-cultural diplomacy because…well…she was going to be in the neighborhood anyway. So if a young orc by the name of Mirembe comes toddling on over, try not to have your ogre buddies step on her. She’s not as squishy as a lot of kids her age, and more than a little better at shield-slamming, but still, you know, why court trouble?

And speaking of whom…

 

Lok’tar again Warchief!

I know I’ve been writing in a lot, but it’s better to hear how my training goes here than in some silly report, right? And since you asked, I’m a Warsong orc too! My parents were grunts in Grom’s squad during the Third War. The necklace wasn’t from my first kills, so don’t worry!

I made it to Nagrand at last! Your Greatmother is awesome! She welcomed me, sat me down, and gave me a big bowl of clefthoof stew. I think I might gain weight out here from how often she asks me if I wanna eat something. If it’s not stew, it’s talbuk steak. If it’s not talbuk steak, it’s frenzy fish fry. She even offered me a sandwich made from leftover clefthoof roast one night after dinner! I won’t complain, though. The extra pounds might help me with a problem I’ve been having out here.

I met that Jorin guy. He seemed pretty crabby about some ogres or something. I wasn’t paying much attention until he told me to go kill those ogres. How long has this been going on with him? Anyway, to get back to my problem, he looks at me in creepy ways. Like how I’ve seen orcs in Shattrath stare at those draae…drenn…spacegoat girls. It’s gotten so bad, I stay with Greatmother most of the time now. What can I do to make him stop? Even threatening to smash his skull with my shield doesn’t work!

Help!

–Mirembe

Hey, Mirembe. Glad to hear the training is coming along. Just make sure you watch your portions while you’re out there – Greatmother piles the food on any guests who show up in town, and packing on the extra points isn’t going to do any favors to your dodge rating. Sure, she’s a nice old lady and everything, but you still need to be able to tell her “no thank you,” and then, when “no thank you” doesn’t even slow her down when she’s ladling out your ninth serving of clefthoof stew, you need to be able to get up from the table and walk away. And then keep walking, because she will FOLLOW your ass around town trying to get you to eat up, because you’re getting too skinny, and for FUCK’S sake make sure you keep a good pace going so you can stay ahead of her. She might be an old woman, but she’s fucking SPRY.

As for Jorin, speak of the devil, I was just answering another letter from this guy who…

Hang on.

You’re saying Jorin had you out killing ogres? Ogres that he was all cranky about? Like…the ogres who attacked his village back in the day… and who I arranged a TRUCE with way back before I moved to Orgrimmar? The ogres who are… um… led by…Lantresor of the Blade, who was JUST writing to me and trying to be nice and shit, and who I told I was going to send you to as a kind of emissary, only that was before I knew you were running around killing his fucking people, because evidently, according to Jorin, having a cease-fire in place for like four years is no reason not to send unsuspecting noobs (no offense, Mira) to KILL the people we have the cease-fire with because stomp stomp hissy fit? THOSE ogres?

FOR FUCK’S SAKE, JORIN. I mean, seriously. Fuck that guy. Um…not literally, Mirembe. Not literally. You don’t want to encourage him. Like at all.

And speaking of Jorin and his leering… yeah. He was always kind of a creeper. Twice the creepy looks with half the eyes. The best thing to do, really, it probably to try to steer clear of him. But you want to know the real secret weapon? Next time you catch Jorin popping his one good peeper at you, high-tail it over to Greatmother and fill her in on what he’s been up to. Believe me, that old lady doesn’t put up with any crap, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that if he sets her off, she will drop the clefthoof stew in two seconds flat to run over there and serve up a big steaming bowl of Pull Your Head Out of Your Fucking Ass, Jorin.

If THAT doesn’t work…hoo boy. All I can think of at that point if to remind the fucker that he’s already down to just one good eye, and if he can’t keep THAT eye from ogling where it shouldn’t be, SOMEBODY might have to take that one, too. Which may or may not give him an updated vision of how he’s going to die.

Maybe THAT’ll finally get through to him. Because, you know, it’s all fun and games until someone loses and eye, but it’s even BIGGER fun when they lose the other…

Erm…

Never mind.

I’m going to wrap up here. I’ve got to head over to the Valley of Wisdom and check in. On a few things. Keep the letters coming, e-mail to garrosh1337@gmail.com, handy form below, yadda yadda.

More soon.

 

[Next mailbag: June 1!]

 

Monday mailbag

mailbag2

You know what this is, you know how this works, let’s get right to it.

 

Dear Warchief,

I heard that you really like bacon. ME TOO! Bacon is the greatest. It’s like candy, but it’s meat. I like meat. I want to try ALL the meat! I tried crocolisk yesterday for the first time and it was really good! It tastes a bit like pork, but more gamey. What’s your favorite meat that’s not bacon? Are there any animals you would like to eat but haven’t had a chance to try yet? Yay, meat!

–Suirohtal, Archdruid of People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

Holy shit, this guy is like Bizarro Lathorius! And also, gotta say, this PETA sounds like something I could totally get behind. So you know what? YAY MEAT INDEED, MY GOOD MAN. I think I like this archdruid a hell of a lot better than the other guy. Speaking of which, if you have an urge to send a giant kodo caravan to Orgrimmar carrying a vast assortment of meats, well, that would be super nifty and keen.

Can’t say I’ve had crocolisk, but if it reminds you of pork, it can’t be half bad. Naturally, nothing beats bacon, but there is no kind of pork that can steer you wrong. Or roasted boar. That’s some damn good eating, too. Basically if it’s a meat that comes from a porcine source, we’re good. Pork is pretty much the alpha meat. (You quillboar better take care not to get on my nerves too much.)

Talbuk and clefthoof are both pretty good, too, by the way. Clefthoof, I’ll have you know, makes for damn good stew meat especially. Keep that in mind next time there’s a cold winter night and you feel like getting big pot of something going over the fire.

Dammit, I’m making myself hungry.

Anyhow. I can’t think of any animals I’d like to eat that I haven’t. I’ve done a fair bit of hunting over the years, so I’ve eaten a lot of different meats. If anything, the thing I’d really like to eat more of would be vegetables. I can’t say I’ve made much of a habit of including them in my diet, and I think it would be pretty great if HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I THOUGHT I COULD GET THAT OUT CLEAN.

Anyway, though, thanks for writing, Suirohtal, and getting the mailbag off to a good start. This bodes well for a fun time this mailbag.

 

Hail Warchief,

Firstly, my thanks for hearing my plea. I look forward to observing the Alliance reaping what they sowed when they killed my mate. 

Secondly, to answer your question, yes, I am related to Shyrka Wolfrunner. You see, she is my cousin – the daughter of my father’s brother. Our family has a tradition of keeping and breeding wolves for mounted travel and combat – not as exciting as the Saurfang warrior line, I know, but one I am no less proud of. I’m told my father maintained the last wolf kennel on Draenor before it was destroyed, working for the Thunderlord Clan while the clans were ruled by Shadowmoon and the fallen Great Shaman, Ner’zhul. 

For your wyvern’s new, ahem, ‘habits’, I have a solution. Such stains are easily removed using a solution made from ground-up Fadeleaf and Sungrass. Since the ingredients are found so far apart from each other, I enclose a sample in the flask attached to this letter. With any luck, Overlord Malkorok will no longer have to worry about stains on his boots. To prevent it from happening again, your guards should walk up and down. Animals will not do their business on moving objects. 

Finally, if you’re interested, Warchief, I have a wolf you may wish to take for your Kor’kron mounted forces. He is the pride of his litter, one of two pups who are stronger, tougher and more agile than any of their siblings. Most of my wolves are sold to greenhorn adventurers, carrying them across Azeroth on their quests or into the fray in a battleground, but this wolf, Grimjaw, and his younger sister are being held in reserve for special occasions. The younger one, Blackfang, is for my son, a present for when he comes of age. Grimjaw was to be an anniversary present for Detanga, to replace her last wolf who died of old age some time ago, but as you know, that is now a moot point.

I was originally worried about what would happen to my wolvess if any of them were taken to the Kor’kron stables, but before I started writing this my daughter asked me, “Daddy, when will Mummy be coming home from her ‘expitition’?” because I hadn’t the heart to tell her, and nothing has ever hurt me so much as telling her that her mother will never come home, and seeing the tears well up in her eyes, and holding her and her brother to my chest while doing my best not to cry myself. 

They deserve to have their mother hold them in her arms and tell them how proud she is of them. I can’t give them that, but if my wolves can bear your warriors into battle so that no more sons and daughters will grow up without a parent, I will have served my Horde well and given Detanga’s spirit cause to rest in peace. 

Yours faithfully, 

–Ogunaro Wolfrunner, Kennel Master

OH, FUCKING HELL, dude, how many times are you going to bring the damn room down?!

I mean. Um. Yeah, uh, still sorry for the loss of your wife, Ogunaro. And, I mean, that whole story about your wolves, and your daughter, and having to… um… explain what… erm… what happened… and… And hang on, um, I think it must be hayfever season or some shit, I need to… yeah, hold up, I need blow my nose. Or something.

AHRRM. OKAY. Fucking weird…there must be something in the air or something. Hrrmph. Ahem. Okay. OKAY.

So.

I appreciate the offer of the wolf, Ogunaro. I’ll be honored to take Grimjaw into the Kor’kron fold. Rest assured, considering what he means to you, he’ll be well taken care of, and as a mater of fact, I’ll make sure he’s groomed for a role of some importance. Now, mind you, I’m already good on mounts – everybody who reads the blog is familiar with Mortimer, obviously, but even on the wolf end of things, I’m covered what with me already having Malak. But… I think I have a job that would suit Grimjaw just fine. Stay tuned.

 

Lok’tar Warchief!

I know you answered my letter in the last mailbag, but that was a really long time ago. Like, longer than the wait between Winter’s Veil and Noblegarden! Anyway, I thought you’d like another update on my training! I still do the meat shield thing, and boy do things drop super fast when my shield meets their faces! I’m actually in Outland now! Can you believe it?! I even had enough gold to buy my own wyvern from the nice lady in Orgrimmar. I think his name is George. At least, he likes it when I call him that.

Me and George have been having all kinds of fun! We even met a nice zombie man who took us through some smelly dungeons full of red orcs and those snake people so I could learn how to warrior better! He was really cool for being a zombie.

Oh! I even met some brown orcs like you! They didn’t like me at first, but their shaman said she trusted me. Then I said you were my Warchief and they liked me! They even kept me safe from those big robots that roam around!

Anyway, I think this letter’s gone on long enough. Plus George is looking for his wyvern chow.

–Mirembe

PS: I had so many teeth from shield bashing that I made you a necklace to thank you. It has to be better than those silly charm bracelets you get every year!

Hey, Mirembe. Glad the training is coming along. Grats on the wyvern – trust me, you’ll love having one. It takes a little time for you to get used to each other, but once you do, you’ve got yourself a loyal companion for life. They DO seem to have some lame-ass names, though. Don’t know what to make of that.

Anyway, make sure you check in with me before you go back to what’s-her-face to upgrade your flying license and kick George up to the fast lane. I’ll see to it that they hook you up with the trainee discount. The discount being that they charge you with an I.O.U. that they have to come to me personally to collect, in whatever amount they feel comfortable coming to ask me for face-to-face, alone in a closed room, where I have Gorehowl hanging on the wall while I kick back in a chair carved out of a giant skull. Should save you a coin or two.

And hey, sounds like you’re getting in good with the Mag’har. Sweet! If you’re rolling around in Outland helping them out, you’re probably going to wind up in Nagrand before too long. Gotta admit I miss the place…it’s been too long since I’ve been around. When you get there, make sure you look up Greatmother Geyah. She pretty much raised me after my mom died. Sweet lady, definitely get in good with her, but, word of advice? When you talk to her, when she starts asking about your life, don’t volunteer any more information than you have to. Give her too many details to sink her teeth in, and trust me, she will try to greatmother you the fuck to DEATH. Still, tell her I said hi. Also, if you happen to see Jorin Deadeye while you’re out there, tell him I said fuck you. Dude’s a dick. Always gave me a hard time, when we were kids, about Grom being the one who doomed our people. Like HIS dad was any hot shit. Fucker.

And hey, thanks for the necklace. It actually kinda looks like the one I made myself years and years ago. See, it’s a tradition in the Warsong clan to make a necklace from bones or teeth from your earliest kills, carved with ceremonial runes. The teeth from this necklace weren’t from your FIRST kills, right? I wouldn’t want to take those from you – those should be yours. Otherwise, though, awesome. I appreciate the gesture, as long as it’s not stepping on ceremonial toes. Come to think of it, Mira, which clan are you from?

 

Hey mon,

Can’tcha say somethin’ nice ’bout trolls, mon?

–Zim’bobwe, Sen’jinn Village

No.

Okay, okay, fine. Ben-Lin’s been on me to try to be more positive, so maybe if I scrape up something here it’ll shut her the fuck up for ten seconds about me being fucking negative like that shit’s any of her business in the first place. For fuck’s sake.

What was I saying? Oh. Yeah. Fucking trolls.

So, okay, fine. Something nice about trolls. And I’m even going to try not to be snarky and say something like “Well at least they’re mortal so I know they’ll die eventually.” Even though that’s totally true, and a definite plus. Where was I again? Fuck, I’m losing focus a lot today. Might have had too much kafa. Anyway.

So yeah. Something nice about trolls. So okay, here we go.

Those motherfuckers can dance. Like they’ve got moves like nobody’s business. Especially some of those troll girls, because…you know what? I don’t like trolls as a general rule, but…every so often, you have to entertain exceptions.

Yeah, yeah, fine, give me looks. Check ’em out sometime. NO JURY WOULD CONVICT ME.

 

Dear Warchief,

After your recent (and highly illuminating) live blog, I decided to look into this Ask.fm site you’d mentioned. After entertaining a handful of questions though, something strange started happening. Some anonymous person or people seemed determined to keep asking me questions that weren’t really questions, just requests for “Pap of house,” “Pap of your room,” and maybe most distressing “Pap of feet.” I have no idea what they’re asking. You seem to be more familiar with internet customs than I am Warchief – what does this “pap” mean, and why is this person so interested in it? And what does it have to do with my feet??

–Disturbed In Durotar

Oh geez.

Welcome to the world of internet jackassery, DID. If this is your first encounter with it, congratulations on logging on to the internet for the first time ever this week.

So…the “PAP” thing. Yeah. I get this, too. So apparently, it’s an acronym, only I don’t really want to call it an acronym because “acronym” sounds like something that should be at least marginally smart rather than the soul-bleeding exhibition of stupid that almost invariably goes hand-in-hand with this little gem. But I guess it’s supposed to stand for “Post A Picture.” So the people you’ve heard from apparently want to see your house, your room, and your feet, and honest to fuck I couldn’t even take a guess at which of those you should be more fucking disturbed about. Maybe your feet. But I guess that might depend on how much cool stuff you’ve got at your house that these fuckers might try to break in and steal.

You know what? No. It’s the feet thing. Because seriously, internet freak shows, seriously.

Speaking of which, kind of. Like I said, I’ve gotten these “PAP” questions a lot, too. Like, relentlessly. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. And I know I’ve made this point on Ask.fm before, but on the off chance any of these PAP-spamming fucknoses are reading this now, I’d like to take a moment here to address them directly:

Good evening, wastes of life.

I can understand why you value efficiency. I get it. I really do. You people clearly have rich, busy lives, skulking around in your caves and musing over what it would be like if someone could invent some magical substance that would remove the stink from your assorted crevices with the mere addition of water. Maybe they could package the stuff in solid cakes small enough to hold in one hand. I’m just spitballing here.

Point is, you want to be time-efficient because you’ve got shit to do. You can’t burn up your whole afternoon search-and-pecking your way through whole words, because dammit, you’ve got business to tend to on the internet, and if you can’t cut a few corners on questions you’re voluntarily posting to people who don’t give a fuck about you, well then, that’s less time you can devote to running around posting other comments like, say:

comment1

Because then who the fuck is going to illustrate irony for people so they can understand what it is? Or maybe you need to get around to your blog reading so you can offer incisive commentary like:

comment2

Because FUCK THAT GUY, THAT’S WHY. FUCK HIM IN THE ASS WITH A PITCHFORK-MOUNTED JACKHAMMER. POINT BEING. You’ve got shit to do and you don’t have time to waste writing out whole words like “for” and “you” and “are,” and spirits fucking save us if you ever need to say “you are,” because now we’re getting into your/you’re territory and at that point holy shit ALL bets are fucking off.

So I get it. I do. You’ve got places to go (virtually) and people to meet (i.e., to yell at online with a raging bitterness despite never having met these people in reality) and you can’t have trivial things like keystrokes and complete words standing between you and your complete and utter worthlessness as a living being.

Here’s the thing.

And I can’t stress this enough.

YOU’RE NOT EVEN SAVING YOURSELF ANY FUCKING KEYSTROKES WITH THE FUCKING “PAP” THING. You can just type “pic” and ask the same damn thing, and still use the exact same number of letters. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, LOOK, WE’LL COUNT TOGETHER. ONE, TWO, THREE – the number of letters in “PAP.” ONE, TWO, THREE – the number of letters in “pic.” ONE, TWO, THREE – your total number of IQ points. SEE HOW IT ALL WORKS OUT? WERE YOU ABLE TO FOLLOW THAT DEMONSTRATION OR DO I NEED TO GET A FUCKING PURPLE SAN’LAYN PUPPET IN HERE TO TAKE YOU THROUGH IT AGAIN?

And hey, guess what, while you’re at it saying “pic” like a normal person who hasn’t been beaten in the head with a brick for six hours straight by everyone who’s ever lived plus six more guys, you also have the ADDED bonus of NOT reminding people of a fucking medical procedure that NO ONE HAS EVER HAD HAPPY ASSOCIATIONS WITH EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

So listen – if you have “PAP” as part of your functional vocabulary, here’s what you need to do. Go get a chisel. Now grab onto the fucker real real tight – like imagine the chisel is your dick and you just found footage online of someone being really unhappy and you’re getting ready to jerk off to that shit, because FUCK YOU – and jam that chisel right up into your brain and shove it around until you’ve scraped all memory of this “PAP” shit right the fuck out of there forever. Okay? Stop it. Just stop it. “PAP” us no more “PAPs.” ENOUGH ALREADY. ENOUGH. KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF, AND I HOPE YOU DIE.

I’m glad we had this little talk.

 

More soon.

 

Next mailbag May 4! E-mail garrosh1337@gmail.com or submit your message below:

 

LIVE BLOG: Ask Garrosh Anything!

question

Here we go! As promised a few days ago, tonight the Warchief of the Horde (current or former, depending on how you count, because timey-whimey), Garrosh Hellscream, will answer any questions you’d care to throw at him! If you can see this post, then the floor is now open for questions. You can submit your question to the Warchief through any number of means: as a comment on this post, an e-mail to garrosh1337@gmail.com, a tweet to @GarroshHllscrm, an inquiry posted to Ask.fm, or a message through Garrosh’s Facebook or Google+ (feel free to add him on any and all of these, by the way!).

As I’ve noted before, there are a few simple ground rules for questions:

  • No spoilers! Garrosh’s blog incarnation is currently living out the events of the Patch 5.2 timeframe. If you’d like to include some sort of comical nod or foreshadowing toward future events in your question, feel free! But questions explicitly referencing events that have not yet occurred in the blog will not be answered.
  • No anonymous questions will be answered. You can submit your question under your in-game character name, a blogging pseudonym, a Twitter handle, whatever, but there must be an author to whom your question can be attributed.
  • This should probably go without saying, but no questions will be answered that are clearly engaged in harassing, trolling (not you, Bob), antagonizing, or generally disregarding the fun intentions of the endeavor. Questions that seem to disregard, willfully or accidentally, the fundamental premises of the blog (check here for the basics, here if you’re feeling ambitious) will either be ignored or, perhaps, answered in a…derisive manner.

How it works: The live blog proper will begin at 8:30 PM EST (give or take a few minutes). All questions will be added to this post. Refresh this page periodically to check for updates! I expect some responses will come quickly, while others may take a little longer, depending on what sort of response is called for.

While I will never alter the substance of your question, I reserve the right to make minor edits to correct errors (i.e., you refer to Spazzle when you clearly mean Gurtash) or to delete something spoiler-ish from an otherwise good question.

I plan to keep going for as long as I have questions that I think will be interesting and entertaining to answer, so keep them coming! While I plan to try to answer as many questions as possible, I make no guarantee or promise that any individual question will get a response (i.e., I reserve the right to pick and choose which one I answer). When the blog is finished for the night, Garrosh will explicitly announce that, so if there hasn’t been a “Good night, everyone!” type of statement, you can assume there’s still more on the way.

So, with all the quasi-legal technicalities out of the way… Get to it! Ask away! Answers to begin once ol’ you-know-who makes his glorious arrival…

* * * * *

HERE WE GO, BITCHES! Brace your mind and hold on to your ass, because it’s time for yours truly, the one-and-only GARROSH HELLSCREAM, to answer ALL THE QUESTIONS YOU WERE AFRAID TO ASK. Except I guess you weren’t. Because you asked them. SO NICE JOB NOT BEING A BUNCH OF FUCKING PANSIES RIGHT OUT THE GATE.

Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here. Keep ’em coming as you think of ’em…

 

What do you consider your biggest non-combat achievement? –Zugzug

There are non-combat achievements?

I kid, I kid. Well, not really. But whatever, I should still come up with a kinda-real answer.

You probably wouldn’t see this achievement coming, but: First runner-up in the seventh annual Garadar chili cook-off. Which was amended to first place after… well, something unfortunate happened to original-winner Grok’nar. (My best to his widow.) (And I do mean my best.)

See, this might come as a surprise, but your Warchief isn’t half bad as a cook. As a matter of fact, one of the things I had to get used to when I became Warchief was having OTHER people cooking for me. I was never used to having other people serving me. Just felt weird. Still does. Even up in Northrend, I usually chipped in on odd chores around Warsong Hold if I didn’t have more urgent things to do — as much as I was tough on the troops up on there, I think it was kinda good for morale for them to see I didn’t think I was too good to get my hands dirty with the stuff I was asking them to do. Anyway, every so often I would sneak into the kitchen and help them whip up a few things, even then. I actually found it pretty relaxing. Well, except for Saurfang and his damn picky menu. No pork my ass.

 

Warchief Garrosh Hellscream, 

After invading my kingdom in the most brutal manner possible, killing my son, forcing my general and lifelong friend Crowley to surrender by holding his daughter hostage and carving a bloody swath through my people’s ranks, it recently came to my attention that Sylvanas Windrunner, leader of the Forsaken who count themselves among your number, has been using full-strength Blight – which you yourself banned – and kidnapped one Koltira Deathweaver away to the Undercity for torture and brainwashing, according to my informants (who shall remain nameless). In short, she has revealed herself to be an enemy of the Alliance and a liability to the Horde, of wich you are warchief. 

So my question is: What are you going to DO about her?!

With all due respect,

–Genn Graymane, King of Gilneas

Does anyone smell wet dog in here, or is it just me?

Oh, wait, it’s Genn. He must have picked up that stink from hanging around Varian all day.

Anyway. Let’s take this a little at a time:

After invading my kingdom in the most brutal manner possible,

Sounds like a good start.

killing my son,

That’ll teach him to keep his guard up.

forcing my general and lifelong friend Crowley to surrender by holding his daughter hostage

 Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

and carving a bloody swath through my people’s ranks,

 Not seeing a problem so far.

it recently came to my attention that Sylvanas Windrunner, leader of the Forsaken who count themselves among your number,

Your grasp of current events as of like eight years ago is impeccable.

has been using full-strength Blight – which you yourself banned –

The WHAT you say?

and kidnapped one Koltira Deathweaver away to the Undercity for torture and brainwashing,

Holy fucking shit, is THAT where that motherfucker went?!

according to my informants (who shall remain nameless).

I… okay, hang on. Here’s where you’re starting to chase your tail. So to speak. Okay, so you’re telling me, SOME PEOPLE, who YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHO THEY ARE OR HOW THEY KNOW THIS SHIT, BUT OH BOY BELIEVE ME, THEY SURE KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT, these people tell you blah blah blah Sylvanas? And so…you’re asking me, what, if I’m going to lay the smackdown on her or something? And, say, go attack the Forsaken or some shit, who by COMPLETE COINCIDENCE happen to be the same people who KICKED YOUR ASS, only now I’m going to go after them because OH NO YOU DON’T LIKE SYLVANAS?

Well, get in line, chief.  Nobody likes Sylvanas. Other the people who are already dead, but that’s their damage. And for real, I’m not going to break off one chunk of the Horde and go stage, what? a civil war or some shit against ANOTHER major part of the Horde, just because I think their leader’s kind of a jerk.

Come on, who’s going to be a big enough asshat to play THAT card?

 

Do you have a sure fire cure for head aches? –Toka

The only one I’ve found that works pretty consistently is that once Dontrag and Utvoch get going with their damn yammering, and going on and on about whatever the fuck they’re saying, and the headache starts kicking in, you watch them pretty close — I know it might hurt your eyes a little at first, but hang in there, you’ve gotta push through that part — and then when you see them position themselves good and close, you reach over and smack their heads together good and hard. I can’t stress this enough: you can’t be shy about really putting a good CRACK into cracking them together. Then, worst case scenario, they’ll usually shut up for a little while, or better yet at least one of them will lose consciousness for at least an hour or two. Plus when they come to, seems like they end up suffering some really killer headaches themselves, which, you know, poetic justice. SMACKED DOWN BY IRONY, BITCHES.

Of course, if your particular headaches aren’t D&U related, I don’t know what to tell you. <shrug>

 

Do you believe in ghosts?‎ —@RuekieShaman

I… Hang on.

You’re asking me…if I believe in ghosts?

Rook, what planet do you live on? We have an entire fucking FACTION of the Horde that keeps ghosts around as fucking bankers and shit. Every been to Stratholme? Scholomance? Like fifteen other places I can think of right off the top of my head? Dude, I had the ghost of my MOM following me around for a few weeks like a year ago! Where have YOU been?

So you know what? Let me see your “do you believe in ghosts?” question and raise you this one:

Do you believe in goblins?

 

What do you do to relax? –LazyPeon

Well, let’s see. Writing the ol’ EPIC VERSE can be a good way to unwind, unless I write myself into one of those corners where there’s something I want to say but I can’t come up with something that rhymes with “orange,” because who the fuck had the bright idea to invent a word that like NOTHING rhymes with. And when I have a little down time between meetings and missions of conquest and, you know, tax audits and shit, back when I was starting as Warchief, I used to sneak in a few games of cribbage with Eitrigg. Only that old guy was way too good at that game, so he usually won, and that wasn’t exactly so great for my mood. Lately I’ve been trying to teach Malkorok how to play, but I mean, he’s good at his job and all but overall he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, and so I end up having to repeat myself a lot, and re-explain things, and that pisses me off a lot, too. Pretty much the only thing I can think of that I found consistently relaxing, actually, was doing some barbecuing, or whipping up a big pot of something, but like I was saying a few questions ago, since becoming Warchief I haven’t had that much of a chance to do much cooking myself. So there goes that one.

Um. So I guess the point is that apparently I have a pretty fucking stressful life. Thanks for reminding me, peon. Fuck.

 

What are you going to do when Shay wants to date? What if it is the Black Prince?  Or Prince Anduin? –Zugzug

I…

DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT SHIT

ESPECIALLY THE LAST PART OF THAT SHIT

WHICH IS SHITTY SHIT EVEN BY SHIT STANDARDS HOLY SHIT

The fuck is WRONG with you people coming up with this stuff?!

So…excuse me a minute. I think I need to go sharpen Gorehowl.

[OOC aside, because I love to tease: There is an upcoming comic, already written and partially sketched out, involving Shayari bringing a prospective boyfriend to meet Garrosh. Yes, really.]

 

Out of sheer curiosity, any other pastry loves *besides* lemon squares? —Aranya Ver’sarn

Lime squares. A pale imitation, but they’ll do in a pinch.

I have also been known on occasion to pick up one of those giant chocolate chip cookies and spend the afternoon strolling around Orgrimmar munching while I’m doing my business. One of my prouder moments, actually, was one time when I was doing that, and D and/or U, whoever the fuck because who even cares enough to remember, started bugging me about that shit, and I actually managed to knock him out by smacking him over the head WITH the giant cookie.

So, you know, that’s…wait for it…the way the cookie crumbles. (THAT’S RIGHT, GARROSH GOT JOKES)

 

Has anyone turned down your lemon squares, and did they survive it? How successful were they among the draenai ladies? —@SintraEdrien

You know, I don’t usually get in the habit of running around OFFERING the lemon squares. People are much more likely to come rolling up on me ASKING for them, especially since word about them leaked onto the internet, and from that point, hoo boy, every motherfucker with an Azeroth Online account figured they could just hit me up for a sample, because when you make the internet easy enough for any fuckhead to use, every fuckhead will.

Where was I?

But…no. I can’t think of anyone who ever turned down the lemon squares. Even with as much fail as I have surrounding me in a usual day at the office, even THOSE failures don’t fail enough to fail to notice the lemony awesomeness of Greatmother’s recipe. I would guess if they did they would pretty definitely find a way to screw up their chances with the draenei girls. I, on the other hand, rarely have problems when I offer some sweets to the ladies, draenei or otherwise, seeing as, y’know, #TheLadiesLoveGarrosh.

Hang on. Is Shay reading this? Where’s that delete key again? SPAZZLE!

 

How much do you weigh? –Jordyn

7’2″, 340 lbs. of pure muscle.

And bone.

And sinew.

And…internal…body part…um… organs and… kidney stones…erm… YOU GET THE POINT.

 

As a leader, what are the toughest decisions you have to make? Lok’tar Ogar —@DonnerB123

The toughest ones, no surprise, are the biggest ones. Which pretty much come down to decisions of life and death. Like…literally, who to kill and who not to kill. Really brief cases in point: there was that time a was back (and some of you people might not even have been reading here when this was going on, which raises the question WHY THE FUCK NOT), when me and Mokvar and a few others were trapped in this alternate timeline where Dranosh Saurfang was still alive…only pretty much the only way for us to save the Horde was for me to pretty much kill him. On the other hand… every day, here in Orgrimmar, I’m surrounded by the Dontrags and Utvochs and Lor’themars and whoever the fuck elses, one annoying fucker after another griping about nuisance after nuisance…and I have to decide NOT to kill them. Because reasons. I guess.

We live in an imperfect world, DonnerB123. An ugly, imperfect world.

 

So . . . I simply can’t seem to get the hang of this: Is it Dontvoch and Utrag, or Dontut and Vochtrag? My head hurts . . . —@SintraEdrien

 Nobody knows, Sintra. Nobody fucking knows.

 

Would you ever want to return to Nagrand? —@Malkorok_

Oh, hey, Malk. Taking a break from reading that Cribbage for Fucking Idiots guide I gave you, huh?

Anyway… Would I want to return to Nagrand, like to visit? Sure. I’ve been back a couple times to see Greatmother. Not for a while now, granted, but still. So yeah, it would be nice to see the old place again, one of these days, when things calm down.

Return for good, though? Doubt it. Nagrand’s always going to be home, mind you, but my life is in Azeroth now. The past is the past, and all that, and you can’t go back. Well, you can, but, you know…well, don’t remind me. FUCKING TIME TRAVEL.

 

When are you finally going to get married? —@Greatmom_Geyah

Oh, hey, check out the timing there. I was just talking about you, Greatmother.

And…yeah. Okay, Greatmother, look. We’re all adults here, so I’m going to be real with you. You know the old saying, right? Why buy the cow, when you literally have dozens of hot women of every description lining up around Grommash Hold for a chance to take turns at…

Hang on.

Is Shayari reading this or not? Can somebody go check on this for me? Seriously.

 

Warchief, watch out for elven ships around durotar… Your habit of antagonizing the idiot in charge of Silvermoon could have repercussions, now that they’re stockpiling Mogu weaponry. Possibly Forsaken ships too, you KNOW those two are in bed. Figuratively. Though maybe this is the elves ending that? What do you think about this? –Ritaba

Okay… I’m not sure if this is actually a question, but… Let me put it this way, Ritaba. Ask me again how worried I am about Regent-Lord Hair-Care rising up like an avenging demon (*chortle*) and rallying his wrathful people (*guffaw*) to unleash a blood wave of vengeance on me.

Yeah. Like zero…

 

Dear Warchief- could you pleeeease appoint us a leader? Ever since the last Sunstrider went wacko on us, we’ve been lost… —@SintraEDrien

 …aaaaaand here’s case in point as to why.

 

What is your favorite place in all of Azeroth? –Orgrimmar Travel Agency

You know what? You probably wouldn’t guess this, but Mulgore. I really like Mulgore. Reminds me of Nagrand a lot — rolling plains, open skies, all that kind of thing.

Honorable mention for weekends and vacations: What happens at Gallywix’s Pleasure Palace, stays at Gallywix’s Pleasure Palace.

Least favorite: Ashenvale. I hate Ashenvale. For multiples reasons, most of which revolve the same fel-forsaken part of it.

 

Warchief, I must know,
Much is known of the Kor’kron’s activities in Pandaria, and the Blackrock clan’s work in Orgrimmar and abroad. But what of your Warsong clan? They have been inactive since the Cataclysm, as far as anyone can tell. Do you have any big plans for them coming up? –Grottee Metalbeard, goblin shaman

Now see, I can understand how this could have caused some confusion. Because yeah, the Warsong clan came with me up to Northrend, and they represented a big chunk of our forces when I was in command up there. And then in the time right after the Cataclysm, they were pretty active in Ashenvale (which is not, I might have mentioned, on my list of Favorite Places Ever). And so, yeah, since then, I can see how it might look to you like they’ve gone fairly inactive, but that’s just because the clan hasn’t been operating as much as a singular force. See, before I became Warchief, I was chieftain of the clan, so they represented the main bulk of the forces under my command. Now, though, I have ALL the orcish clans under my jurisdiction, so there isn’t as much need for me to be lining up jobs for the Warsong specifically. They’ve been keeping busy, just not in a way that makes you go “the Warsong orcs are doing THIS over THERE.” Some of them were part of Nazgrim’s detachment heading down to Pandaria, a lot of them have been recruited into the ranks of the Kor’kron along with more than a few Blackrocks, others have been assigned to some other operations I have going on around Orgrimmar. So they’re just getting around more. Spread the love! And by “love,” I mean, of course, “bloody fist of retribution.”

 

If Varian begged for mercy would you? a: mock him, b: cut off his head, c: take over SW, d: all of the above —@SintraEDrien

Sorry, I can’t get past the first five words without cackling maniacally so hard I fall out of my chair.

Heh. Heheh.

HAAAAA!

 

What’s your earliest memory? —@LibFeathers

You know, my VERY earliest memories aren’t really specific memories of particular events, just the sort of odds and ends that most people remember. My childhood in Nagrand, obviously — I can remember back, vaguely, to when I was around five or so. My mom was still alive then, so I remember her, and I remember us fighting through the red pox as best we could…which, let me tell you, SUCKED. There was the pet clefthoof I had back then, y’know, before meat supplies started getting thin that one winter, and there was me getting to be friends with Dranosh. We hung out a lot back then, fishing and hunting and stuff — me and Dranosh and Jorin Deadeye, actually, back before Jorin turned out to be a dick. Um… probably my earliest memories of specific events all revolved around my mom — the day when Greatmother told me she’d died, for one. And one, a little while before that, back when the pox was still going on. I’d woken up from this nightmare, and she and I stayed up a while talking about it, and it’s nothing really momentous or even important, but it was just one of those little things that stick with you, you know? Anyway…that’s it for early memories. Not fun, I know. But like…if something’d going to stick in your head from THAT young, it’s almost always going to be something bad, right?

 

By any chance would you be willing to add any pandaren cultural festivals to be acknowledged? Brewfest does not count. —@ShenWeiPureblossom

Funny coincidence — you should totally go talk to Ji about this. I’ve heard he was talking to some of the other pandas about carrying over some custom you guys had on your wandering turtle island whatever-the-fuck is was, some kind of outdoor festival with noodles or something? Check in with Lunchbox about this, he could probably use a hand setting it up. Hell, I might even try to whip something up myself for it, if it happens. Like I’ve been saying, it’s been too long since I got in the kitchen.

[More OOC teasing: This is indeed on the way. In the not-too-distant future, the Pandaren Noodle Festival comes to Orgrimmar, in a comic/transcript featuring… well… almost the entire damn supporting cast.]

 

Hail Warchief Hellscream! It has been some time since I have found the time to reply to your writings as things have been quite busy up in Hearthglen lately. Especially with the arrival of his gracious young Highness, Prince Anduin, while he convalesces at Mardenholde for a time. Something about a bell, if I recall. Anyway, onto the question before I tarry on too long.

I had heard from a rather reliable source who would prefer anonymity that some months ago, you suffered from an invasion in Orgrimmar. Was this true, and what occurred? —Tirion Fordring

Oh geez…here we go. Well, at least T-Ford managed to keep it under 5000 words.

So…yeah. I don’t know if I would call it an INVASION, but… a little while back, yeah, there was…an incident. This goes back a few months… May, I think? Anyway, I’m hanging around in Grommash Hold, right? Just minding my own business, plotting world domination, same ol’ same ol’. A regular day at the office. When all of a sudden, out of like NOWHERE, these gnomes start running into the place. And at first, I’m like, DAMMIT MALKOROK, how about some security up in this piece, but then I see the sheer NUMBER of them — there’s hundreds of these motherfuckers. Maybe even THOUSANDS of them. Which, if you know how I feel about gnomes, was just filling me with a level of glee that could have wiped out all life in the universe.

Thing of it is, this wasn’t some actual invasion or ATTACK from the fuckers down in Gnomergan, or…wherever they fuck they’re living these days. The part of Gnome-ville that’s not fucking glowing from radiation and shit. Anyhow, THESE gnomes are all like…the noobiest, weakest, saddest little excuses for underpowered gnomes you’ve ever seen — and seriously, do you KNOW how fucking SAD someone has to be for me to be forced to coin the phrase “underpowered gnomes”?

And so in they come, in sheer numbers too big for the guards to stop them all on the way in — though, believe me, if you saw the trail of bodies you’d know they fucking TRIED — and they come flooding like rats into Grommash Hold, only if they were rats I might actually worry about it more because FLEAS. And here’s the punchline — when they finally got close to me, you know what they’re big finishing move was? They all kept trying to hug and kiss me. Like my foot or some shit. Until I popped a bladestorm, and, you know, eight trillion dead gnomes.

Which is a beautiful way to line up four words, I gotta say.

 

Do you like to dance? –Jordyn

Draw your own conclusions.

 

Do you think that maybe Mokvar and Deliana were ever married in a previous life? They seem so . . . together. —@SintraEDrien

DUDE, I don’t know WHAT the fuck to think about those two. Would it SURPRISE me? No. I am WAY past the point where fucking ANYTHING could surprise me around here. So much weird shit has gone on around here the last few years, I consider NOTHING off the menu. Mokvar and that human chick married? Sure, maybe. Half-draenei daughter from years back turns up at the front door? Why the fuck not? Ji Deep-Dish floats around in a fucking balloon and gets his pudgy ass stuck in a honey tree? Sounds normal to me. For real, man, at this point fucking Draz’Zilb the ogre could show up riding Onyxia, who’s been reanimated for like the forty-seventh time as far as anybody can count, with Anduin on a leash dressed like in a bear suit, and when Draz belches Anduin’s been conditioned to tell a knock-knock joke, and my reaction would be “Yeah, sure, why didn’t I see it coming?” WELCOME TO AZEROTH, WHERE THE BOTTOMLESS CUP OF WHAT THE FUCK FLOWS FREELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

 

Warchief, I really loved your poem about your pet clefthoof, it really brought a tear to my eye. Could you please share another sample of your EPIC VERSE from your childhood back in Garadar? –Khizzara

Hmm… okay, let me dig out the old journal and see if I can find something for you. Now, keep in mind, my poems back in those days weren’t nearly as polished, but let’s see…

Okay.

There was a little orc
Who ate a little pork
Over in the breakfast nook
And when he was bad
He wished that he was good
Cause Greatmom’s got a mean right hook

EPIC VERSE!

Wait… that’s… yeah, that one maybe doesn’t come off looking so good.

Um… I’ll see what else I can find.

 

When will you ever figure out that the constant stream of adventurers coming to annoy you about gold were sent from me? —@M_Grimtotem

OH FUCK YOU, MAGATHA

So for anyone who missed this, a ways back, Madame Upright Hamburger here stirred up some shit on Twitter, where she went on about having hidden a stash of gold somewhere in my damn throne room, and offering it as a giveaway to anyone who could find it. Which set off a borderline-noob-gnome-like influx of random motherfuckers running into Grommash Hold and trying to turn the damn place upside down looking for the loot. So finally, FINALLY, after Malkorok and his people rounded up and fucking executed like I don’t even know how many of these people, my throne room stopped being the hot spot for random asshats to go hang out. You know, aside from the random asshats who hang out there professionally. And before anybody starts getting all excited, let me reiterate: THERE IS NO TREASURE HIDDEN IN MY THRONE ROOM, OKAY? Seriously. The last thing I want to have happen a little ways down the road is like another ten or fifteen or twenty-five random people to come running through into my command room expecting to collect loot.

 

What’s the latest between you and Zaela? —@MyGarona

Look, Greatmom, I’ve told you, stop trying to… wait.

Garona?

Seriously?

Jealous much?

Look, there’s nothing going on with me and Zaela, okay?

…that you need to concern yourself with.

<waggle>

 

What’s the deal with people thinking Mokvar and I are a couple? No matter how many times I try, I can’t convince ANYONE! —Deliana Hawthorne

Because, see, Lor’themar can say he’s a dude, and he can call himself a dude, and he can stroll around all day in dude’s clothes and using all the right pronouns and shit, and he can talk himself red in the face trying to tell everybody he’s a dude, but at the end of the day, people with eyes and still look at him and see that he’s Lor’themar.

Also, who the hell let HER in here? MALK! How about some security, dammit?!

 

What’s your favorite tipple? Beer? Wine? Liquor? If any, what variety do you enjoy in particular? —@SintraEDrien

Holy shit, Sintra, you’ve sure got a lot of questions.

I’m pretty simple as far as my drinking tastes go. Beer and grog, a some rum on occasion. They have some pretty good varieties out of Stranglethorn, so I’ll pick up a bottle or two when I have the chance. Maybe a little cherry grog on occasion, but that’s about as fancy as I get with it. Although, you want to know who’s MAJORLY into the weird fruity drinks, like those ones that come with the little umbrellas every single time like there’s a fucking law prohibiting their sale without them, like drinking the drink has a chance of proccing rain and the damn umbrella has to be included as a fucking safety measure? Malkorok. No joke. Dude can’t suck down enough of that shit.

Your guess is as good as mine.

 

Why don’t you like us? We just want to help. —@Dontrag_Utvoch

Do you want me to get into the list chronologically, alphabetically, or in order of importance?

You know what? It’s not even worth it. It’s like…fuck, it’s like trying to explain to the damn wolf pup why you’re yelling at it two hours after it peed on the carpet. What’s even the fucking point?

Although…you know what’s funny? Check it: Damned if I can remember which of these fuckers is which, but I know, rank-wise, Dontrag is a sergeant, and Utvoch is a scout. Now it’s kinda-sorta funny that after like nine years in the Horde military, Utvoch still hasn’t managed to get promoted above the absolute lowest possible rank there is. Like, the day you show up, they make you a scout, and here he is a decade later and he’s STILL only managed to keep himself half a rung up from peon.

So that’s good for a chuckle. But you want to know the disturbing part? Back when I first met General Nazgrim, in Northrend, dude was rank sergeant. So that means that until I took over and started doing promotions and reassignments, fucking DONTRAG AND NAZGRIM WERE THE SAME DAMN RANK.

On the other hand, I suppose we don’t know for sure that Dontrag COULDN’T steer a ship in a straight line without crashing it, so…

Anyhow. Okay, one more, so let’s see what we’ve got to wrap up.

 

When are we going to hear the rest of @Mokvar_Scribe‘s tale? The people want answers! —Deliana Hawthorne

Wait, her again? DAMMIT MALKOROK, GET ON THIS!

But, okay, to answer your question:

Starting…NOW.*

That’s it for questions for tonight. Thanks to all of my LOYAL READERS AND MINIONS for contributing, and to all of my enemies who came by, FUCK YOU ALL BUT THANKS FOR THE PAGEVIEWS, NOW HIT RFRESH A FEW MORE TIMES THEN CROAK.

I’m out, people. More soon.

* * * * *

*VERY soon, in fact — as an added perk for those of you who’ve stayed this late into the going, well…count to ten, click back to the main page, and rejoin the ongoing tale of Mokvar, Garrosh, and more!

Meanwhile, for those of you coming late to the party, don’t worry, you haven’t missed your chance to pose your questions to the Warchief — there’s always his monthly mailbag! Next edition coming March 2! Feel free to e-mail, or use the handy-dandy form below:

 

Monday mailbag

mail18

Before I really get rolling with my investigations in Kun-Lai summit, I figured I’d make a pit stop and check on the mail. Here’s what we have this time around…

 

Dear Warchief,

I haven’t had the chance to get out to Pandaria yet, but I look forward to joining the war effort soon. In the meantime, I’m curious, what’s your take on all that Pandaren beer I’ve been hearing so much about?

–Kalaban, Undercity

Thanks for writing, Kalaban. Gotta say, I’ve been dipping into the local panda brews quite a bit since I’ve been out here (Can you blame me? Have you SEEN the cast of characters I’ve got surrounding me?), and they’re not bad at all. It’s really pretty hard for me to give much more of a review than that, because if there’s one thing panda beers have going for them, it’s VARIETY. They’ve got these lighter, thinner ones that personally I think are almost like drinking water (I’m gonna bet those are pretty popular with the blood elves), all the way up to some serious, heavy-duty, knock-you-on-your-ass brews. Plus everything in between, including all kinds of flavor varieties. I guess that’s what happens when half the population seems to work in the brewing industry in one way or another.

And really, quality-wise you can’t complain about any of it. The ones that are so-so are still totally drinkable. And the ones that are GOOD? Man. They make half the stuff you get during Brewfest seem like you’re drinking carbonated kodo piss. Speaking of which, I’m almost afraid to imagine what’s going to happen when the pandas get their first look at Brewfest next year, because holy shit.

That’s the other thing you notice about the pandas, I’ve got to say. Dipping into the beer is so much a part of their culture that you don’t even realize that almost the entire population has a constant, low-level buzz going. And the funny thing is, yeah, sure, they enjoy drinking and all, but they manage to stay really chill about it, like you never see any angry drunks anywhere (take notes, Tirion). But it’s also like a cultural expectation that they stay vaguely buzzed even beyond the sheer fun of knocking a few back. Which, by the way, makes me worry about General Nazgrim going native on us – you may have noticed, dude has this nasty habit of boarding ships and then winding up smashing them to bits, and I’m thinking that trend won’t be helped if he starts getting into the habit of boozing it up to boot. Not to mention, he’s a general and needs to stay combat-ready. Can’t have him getting a beer belly on us.

 

Hail Mighty Warchief!

Someone is going around posting this…uhhh….manipulated image of you. It’s a travesty and demoralizing to the horde! This cannot keep going! I find too many who are laughing at this.

garroshfatbelly

The fool cryptically added FYG and sign it J. I am not sure what that means, but it can’t be nice. Fattening Your Gut? Fondly Yours Garona? (bitch!) F..ff..ffffffuucc…. ooooooh……OH. OOOOHHH! O.O

SIR, THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! I WILL HUNT DOWN THIS…THIS…LESS THAN A PEON WORTHLESS SCUM, SLIT HIS THROAT, AND MAKE A NECKLACE FROM HIS TEETH AS A GIFT TO YOU!

I WILL NOT STAND HAVING SOMEONE MAKE YOU LOOK FATTER THAN JI!

I WILL HUNT DOWN AND KILL EVERY PERSON WHO’S NAME STARTS WITH THE LETTER J STARTING WITH THAT FREAKING BLONDIE BOY JOHNNY AWESOME!

(Like the caps? Me too.)

After all the J’s are dead, their heads hanging of the gates of Ogrimmar,  and the streets flowing with their blood…can we like, go out? I think you’re so cute…even if you have a little bit of a belly. (You may want to take it easy on the pancakes and lemon squares, sir.)

Forever in my Heart,

–Tuekie, Rogue Trainee, Ogrimmar

PS: I’m older than I look. Ok?

Okay, so first of all, just so everybody knows, Tuekie here is one of the Dead Peons Society trainees that I’ve been working with the last few months, part of that whole group Gurtash is in. She’s actually the twin sister of Ruekie, a shaman trainee I think I’ve mentioned once before.

And yes, I know. Somebody had twins and named them Ruekie and Tuekie. And yes, I agree. Death is too good for some parents. (Granted, “Ruekie” and “Tuekie” are nicknames, and their original, given names – Rue’kara and Tue’kara – are a little better, but still, come on. You don’t give your twins names that fucking rhyme.)

Anywhow. Tuekie here was part of the original group with her sister, but we ended up having her stay back in Orgrimmar rather than join us for the trip to Pandaria, in no small part because…yeah. As you might have noticed…just a little tiny bit TOO fond of her mentor. So between the fact that in Pandaria I wouldn’t have the ability to send her back to her parents at the end of the day, and the fact that, as a rogue, who KNOWS what she could get up to sneaking around all invisible and shit…yeah, better to let her stay with mom and dad. FYI, there were a couple other trainees who ended up needing to stay back in Orgrimmar for one reason or another, so they’re still continuing their training back there while the other eight trainees are down here with me.

Oh and also, Teukie? “I’m older than I look”? Um, I KNOW how old you are. You’re freaking fourteen. I’m thirty-four, and you’re fourteen, and I haven’t hooked up with a teenager since I WAS a teenager, and the less said about that draenei girl in Nagrand the better, seeing as I don’t want Greatmother coming down here and boxing my ears. So will you give it a rest already because it isn’t going to happen, okay?

Seriously, do other teachers have to deal with this shit? Don’t stand so close to me.

Now as for the OTHER important part of this letter…

OMG WTF IS THAT SHIT?!?!

Okay…so…this is where I am TOTALLY on board with Teukie, because whoever is behind THAT thing…I…it…just…HOLY FUCKING HELL. “F.Y.G.” OMG

Okay. Okay…calming down…deep breaths…let’s look at this thing rationally.

So…we know we’re looking for someone whose name starts with a J. (By the way, I’m not sure if Johnny Awesome is really going to be our prime suspect here, but you know what? Go kill him anyway. Fucker.)

Also, based on…the product…it’s probably a safe bet that this is someone who really, really doesn’t like yours truly. So, right there, that narrows the field down A LOT, right?

Add to that the fact that that image is clearly using an Earth Online character model. So we’re dealing with someone who probably plays EO, or at least is familiar enough with the game that they would think to dip into it for the image.

So…J’s…  Ji Firepaw couldn’t be it – yeah, he plays EO a little, but he’s pretty clueless in-game and I don’t see him being able to do that kind of image manipulation. Jorn Skyseer at Domination Point is out – he isn’t a gamer at all, and I’ve always gotten along pretty well with him. Jorin Deadeye? Hmm…I don’t THINK he plays EO, but let’s maybe not cross him off the list just yet.

There have to be other options, though. Think, Garrosh, think…someone who doesn’t like you, whose name starts with J…plays Earth Online…

Oh.

OH.

THAT FUCKING BITCH?!?!!

Ohhhhh man is she in for it. Let’s see how funny she thinks it is when I march down there and blow up her whole damn—OH WAIT, I TOTALLY ALREADY DID. So you know what? If this is her idea of revenge, if the worst thing she can come up with to get back at the Horde is to doctor up some sad little picture to send around the internet, hey, knock yourself out, Jaina. Have fun. Pretty fucking sad, when you think of it. Also pretty ironic that she’s making pictures of ME to put on the internet – seriously, lady, you want to go over some of the image searches for YOU that come up in my Google hits on a daily basis?

 

Dear Warchief Garrosh,

I just recently found your blog and just caught up on all of your postings. It’s been nice to see the more orcish side of such a larger than life leader. Plus, your lemon squares are truly a gift from the Light! Even though I am Forsaken, those lemon squares manage to bring life back to my taste buds.

I wanted to share a story I thought you might enjoy. I was searching for news on the events happening in Pandaria, and I came across a picture of Lor’themar Theron. I showed my husband (a blood elf paladin) the picture, and his response was “Who is the guy with the eyepatch?” I couldn’t help but laugh. Don’t tell Lor’themar, I’d hate for him to get angry at me. I’d rather not have him glaring at me when I join up with the Reliquary in Pandaria.

Fare well in Pandaria, Warchief.

–Beshara Dawnblaze, Forsaken priestess of the Shadow and Light

Thanks for writing, Beshara. I’m not gonna lie. I LOL’ed reading that. I’m still kinda sitting here chortling, because…hehe…

“Who’s the guy with the eyepatch?”

“What, you mean Eyepatch?”

“That can’t really be his name, can it? People must call him something else, right?”

“Ponytail, maybe?”

“That’s not really a name, either.”

“Hair-Care? Cyclops?”

“I don’t think he would really answer to those, would he?”

“Well then I’m out.”

So, also, see? SEE? NOBODY knows the dude’s name, not even his own people. It’s not just me, and it’s not just the Earth Online gang. Other that Sylvanas, who seems to be able to remember him for some reason. Maybe it’s an undead thing. As far as those of us among the living go, though, I swear it’s like the guy has some crazy psychic field around him that makes everyone forget him as soon as they look away.

Anyway, I’ll look forward to meeting you when you get down here, Beshara. Tell you when, when you see me in person, if you want to crack me up right out of the gate? Just walk up and say “Eyepatch.”

 

Hey mon,

I got a surprise for ya, mon! Dat letter ya got from Tandeleina in ya last mailbag? She was right, mon! I am Vol’jin! She figured it out, mon! I’m up an’ kickin’ an’ still on da loose! Ya bettah watch ya back, mon, ’cause I be comin’ for ya!

–Bob, Shado-Pan Mon Echo Isles

Okay, seriously, dude, do you think I haven’t figured out your MO yet? Come on. This jackass keeps writing to me, and more often than not he just comes up with some crazy ridiculous bullshit to yank my chain and jerk me around. And you know what? I’m man enough to admit a lot of the time he’s gotten me to bite. He’ll write some load of crap, and I’ll take the bait, and rant at him about it for a while, and meanwhile I’m sure he’s kicking back in troll-land laughing his ass off because trolls think positively EVERYTHING is fucking hilarious because felweed.

Well guess what. You’re not getting me this time, Bobbo. Yeah, you’re Vol’jin. Sure you are. Absolutely. You somehow miraculously survived the attack in the saurok cave, and you’ve gone off in hiding to heal up, and meanwhile you’ve been putting this WHOLE GIANT CONSPIRACY together behind my back, I’m sure, and recruiting people to help you, and biding your time before The Glorious Revolution where you overthrow me or some shit.

Yeah, sure. That’s real fucking likely.

Probably.

Where did I put that note from AlternateTimeline!Faranell again…?

 

Brothers in arms

nagrand

These timeline flashes have gotten me thinking of a lot of things, not least of all the years in Nagrand before Thrall came. I dug my old journal out again for the first time in months and have been paging through it some today. This entry goes back to when I was a teenager. A million years ago and yesterday all at once…

 

Dranosh and I spent the morning riding out to Sunspring Post to go fishing. Most of the way we just talked about how weird Jorin has been acting lately. We used to be pretty good friends, but the last couple months, since he found out about his dad being chieftain of the Bleeding Hollow clan, he’s kinda started turning into a dick, like be’s better than us all of a sudden.

When we got to Sunspring Post, there was a big buzz going on about a hunting party that had been attacked. They had been out doing their usual clefthoof and talbuk hunting, when a gronn came down from the hills. It killed two members of the party before they could even react. The rest of them made a run for it and made it back to the village.

Dranosh overheard this whole discussion going on and gave me that look of his and said, “I know we came out here to go fishing, but what do you say to a hunting trip?” So off we went.

We wandered around the western hills for a while before we found the gronn. At first it looked like it was fighting some ogres and windrocs, but when we got closer we could see the gronn and the ogres were fighting together. Hunting windrocs for food, maybe? I remember Greatmother telling me that ogres were descended from gronn, so I guess the Warmaul ogre clan was getting buddy-buddy with a semi-distant cousin?

Anyway, by this point the ogres had noticed us and were running in to attack us. Dranosh took down the first two to reach us before I could even draw my axes – I’ve got to remember to ask him some time to show me that move of his where he hacks into two targets at once. It’s pretty badass.

Dranosh started duking it out with the gronn while I charged in on a couple warlocks – you know, the ones that all seem to have two heads – that were peppering us with shadow bolts. I ran up on them, and hacked one head off of each of them, one with each hand. Double axe action! The best part, though was how once each ogre was down one head, the two remaining heads looked at each other with these hilarious “Oh shit” expressions – which gave me just enough time to finish my follow-through, wind up again, and lop off those heads too.

Dranosh was mostly keeping it together against the gronn, but right when I’d finished with the warlocks (and chopped up their damn imps for dessert), the gronn got hold of Dranosh and flung him against the mountainside. I leapt to him just as the last couple ogre maulers were running over. We each squared off with one. They turned out to be a hell of a lot tougher than the others.  Dranosh and I weaved back and forth around them, trading off targets, maneuvering to help set each other up – we’d fought together before, obviously, but it was the first time I remember ever noticing how well we know each other’s instincts in battle. All those years of sparring and practicing together…all those times we’d seen each seen every one of the other’s moves – we’ve reached a point where we can play off of each other without even thinking about it. Without even trying to.

Eventually we maneuvered so we were standing back to back with the ogres flailing away at us from either side, lashing into our parries harder with every swing. We let them back us a little closer to each other, then Dranosh glanced back at me and said, “Count of three?” I just answered with “One.” He added “Two,” I added “Three,” and then, with both ogres in mid-swing, we ducked down and away, and let the ogres cut each other down for us.

By this point, the gronn was on top of us again, and we both went to work on it. He hung in there for a while – he was a resilient bastard – but he was too slow and clumsy to keep up with the two of us for long. Little by little we wore him down, and in a little while we made our way back to Sunspring Post – with a gronn head in hand to show it was safe to go hunting again.

On the down side, the fish weren’t really biting at the lake. Looks like we spent all that time walking out here for nothing. Oh well.

 

That wasn’t the first or the last time we’d fought together shoulder to shoulder. There were dozens of hunting trips back in Garadar, and the Warmaul ogres kept us busy on more than one occasion keeping the place safe. So many memories of us charging together into so many fights we should have known better than to try by ourselves, then coming out alive because we were just too stubborn not to. Because neither of us was going to let the other die. Us against the world, we thought. Spirits help the world.

And yet, now I have these other memories. Dim and fuzzy, incomplete, but still there. Dranosh and I, charging into battle together. In Northrend. In the Twilight Highlands. Memories I wasn’t even there for, except that I was. Me, but not me. Another me…maybe a better me. The life I would have lived – the life I DID live, if we don’t reset the timeline back to the “real” one.

Maybe the life I SHOULD have lived.

Meanwhile I sit here in Northwatch Hold, biding my time on the next battle, while half my underlings grumble and complain, as if the victory we just won wasn’t suitably victorious for them. Sometimes it seems as if Malkorok is the only one that understands what I’m trying to do here, and even he…well, I don’t know if he’s the type you ever feel totally at ease with. Even when you know he’s on your side.

More and more, I find myself wishing Dranosh was still here.

 

Children’s Week

orphanage1

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.]

 

Memories of dreaming glory

nagrandelements

Well, that’s settled. My mother is alive.

I’ve been staying here in Garadar the last few days. Luckily Spazzle’s gotten my why-fly (or whatever it’s called) connection working a little more reliably, so I’ve been able to keep up with the blog and post this week’s EPIC VERSE and all of that. As I mentioned the other day, Greatmother said Lakkara had gone out to visit the other Mag’har in Hellfire Peninsula, so I’ve been hanging out here to see if she would turn up again before I needed to get back to business in Orgrimmar. Luckily things have been quiet back home lately, so I figured there wouldn’t be anything Eitrigg couldn’t handle while I was away. Also, yeah, I’m not going to lie, I figured timing-wise this might let me stick Eitrigg with those end-of-month military expenditure reviews. Fuck I hate paperwork.

Anyway. It’s been good to spend some time back here, I suppose, although it’s also been giving Greatmother plenty of time to give me her nudge-nudge reminders about Kilrath having a daughter and how she wanted me to meet her and yeah, that’s just what I want, to get paired off with some girl my Greatmother picked out for me.

On the up side, I’ve gotten to spend some time hanging around with Jorin Deadeye, who used to pick on me like nobody’s business when we were kids, and didn’t get a whole lot better when we grew up. Everything with him was “Nice job your dad did dooming our people,” and “Damn, you’re a mopey, whiny little bitch” (and granted back in those days I WAS pretty emo, and I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY I WOULD HAVE BEEN KIND OF DOWN ON MYSELF AT THE TIME), and going around calling himself the “warchief” of the Bleeding Hollow clan instead of the chieftain. So I’ve been making a point of just hanging out wherever he’s been pretty regularly, and saying stuff to him like, “So hey, you like my axe? Yeah? Well check it, this is Gorehowl, the blade my dad used to FUCKING ONE-SHOT MANNOROTH and lift the blood haze from the orcs, how ’bout that, huh?” and “Hey, Chieftain, remind me, who’s actually Warchief these days? OH YEAH, SMALL WORLD!” Cue the comically appropriate Earth Online machinima:

Good times.

But anyway, back to the original point of the post. Earlier today, Lakkara turned up again. Greatmother called me up to her dwelling to see her. I have to admit, even though I knew that the smart thing was to stay skeptical until I could confirm who she was, it was pretty tough not to be shaken up by the first sight of her. I haven’t seen my mother since I was a little kid, but those last fumes of memory stay with you…and damned if she didn’t look just like my mother, with some extra wrinkles and gray hairs added on. Older for sure, weakened by the red pox and worn by a hard life, but damned if she didn’t look just like her.

I don’t think I was the only one who was shaken up some. As soon as I showed up, Lakkara became pretty emotional and teared up…it took her some time to pull herself together. Greatmother stepped outside so the two of us could have some time alone. Mostly at first I just let her talk. She pretty much repeated what she’d said in her letter, filled in a few more details here and there…I held back and tried to give her room to contradict herself, and listened the best I could for any holes in her story. Nothing I could see.

Then I played my ace in the hole. There was one time when I was a kid when I woke up burning up with fever from the pox. But the disease wasn’t the worst part. In my feverish sleep, I’d been having a nightmare – one of those awful, vivid dreams you wake up from and you’re still not sure if it was a dream, or real, or if you’ve really woken from it or if anything around you is real. You know the ones? Those dreams you have as a little kid where even when you wake up you’re still scared the dream will come get you? Yeah. One of those. I had woken up, and my mother came in and sat with me, and we stayed up most of the night talking about the nightmare I’d had and the nightmare we were living and everything else in between that we could think of.

I’ve never talked to anyone else about any of this.

She remembered every detail. Once I brought it up, she didn’t need any prompting. No leading questions. Nothing. She remembered the night I was talking about, everything we’d talked about. Most of all she remembered the dream – everything I’d told her, as if it had only been days ago rather than years. It had stayed with her as much as it had with me. She said my nightmare had stolen one night’s sleep from me, but dozens from her. She said I would understand one day when I had a child of my own.

That would have been enough to convince me, but to tell you the truth, by that point I was already being won over. Never mind what she looked like – she smelled just like my mother. There are scents that just always stay with you, you know? And for whatever reason I’ve always had a pretty sharp sense of smell. Not that that’s always been a positive thing in some parts of Orgrimmar, let me tell you. Anyway, though…the more time I spent around this woman, the more I noticed it – that smell I can’t really describe but would always recognize when she was close to me, like old parchment and dreaming glories. Like comfort. Like home.

It’s her.

I’m going to stay here with her for another day or two, then I’ll be getting set to bring her to see the orcs’ new home. Obviously she’s never been through the Dark Portal, and I’m kind of looking forward to showing her around Azeroth. I think she’s going to love Mulgore.

 

 

[Header image provided by Angelya from Revive and Rejuvenate, used here with permission and many thanks.]