WoW - Alliances player's guide

We're finally going to dig into the player's guides. I've been told several times that the alliance player's guide and the horde player's guide are the best books in the series, and, flipping through them, I saw a lot of good stuff. However, it's time to take a closer look, as we dig into the alliance player's guide.

Chapter One – New Races

We're given statistics for three new playable races here: The wildhammer dwarves, the Furbolg and the Half-elves. People have been aching to have the former two added to the game ever since WoW came out, so they're great choices. I find half-elves a bit meh, but not a lot of other alliance races remain.

Wildhammer Dwarf: This is a really strong section and most of it is actually still canon to WoW. The only issues here, and the only bits that are non-canon, are things that connect it to the dumber parts of the RPG, like the dwarves being pissed that the blood elves defected from the alliance or tons of dwarves traveling to Kalimdor to establish a base on the slopes of Mount Hyjal. The wildhammer racial traits and levels are also pretty sensible (their -2 charisma certainly makes more sense than that of the ironforge dwarves), though they do keep the nonsensical attack bonus versus giants.

Furbolg: While generally good, there's a few weird things in here. For example, grizzlemaw is identified as the center of furbolg society, despite the fact that there is no furbolg society. All the tribes are independent from one another. The racial levels in furbolg are amongst the weirdest in the game, as they actually physically transform, growing in strength, gaining sharper claws, thicker skins,greater size and sometimes even a different fur color. Actually, its a pretty interesting mechanism, which could actually be explained lorewise. Of course, that's if the RPG ever tried explaining racial levels, but sadly, it doesn't.

Half-elf: One of the main problems of including the half-elves alongside these other races is that they really don't have any attributes for themselves, instead copying those of their parent races. The only attribute that they have for themselves is the racism against them, which is probably why that was so overemphasized in the 1^st edition. While I'm glad the ridiculous level of and focus on racism is gone, there really isn't anything left to distinguish the half-elves now and most sections could be replaced with “For most cases, see human statistics, for others, see high elf statistics”.

One thing that confuses me a bit is that half-blood elves are listed as a separate hybrid race, stating that they can't exist in present settings since the blood elf race is only four years old. How the hell does that work? High elves and Blood elves are the same race, distinguished mostly by culture and the fact that the latter draws demonic power. Give a half-elf a red robe and a grimoire, and you got yourself a half-blood elf.

Chapter Two – Class Options

Here, we are given three new kinds of classes: Variant Classes, Racial Iconic Classes and Creature Classes.

Variant Classes

Already established classes that have one or two minor aspects changed.

Lone Druid: Simply a druid without an animal companion, gaining extra spells or attack power in return. Honestly, I'd have preferred if this was the normal druid class, so props for including it.

Totemic Druid: Another good idea for what the standard druid could have been like, this is a kind of druid that adheres to a single totem, like the bear (druid of the claw), the crow (druid of the talon) or the snake (druid of the fang). One thing of note is that the presence of the druids of the fang as a separate totem contradicts LoM, though the version presented here fits better with World of Warcraft (plus, it gives the game designers the opportunity to later add snake-themed spells to the druid class). While only three totems are specified here, its implied that there are more.

Focused Mage: A mage without a familiar, gaining some advantages in return. Like with the lone druid, I'd have preferred this as the standard mage.

Auradin: A paladin without any spell slots, but with increased health and permanent auras. I really like this one, as it works well with some of the old warcraft III units.

Racial Iconic Classes

Mechanically, these act a lot like variant classes, representing the influence of a race's culture and traditions on their iconic races. As far as race-related powers go, these make a lot more sense than racial levels.

Furbolg Shaman: The furbolg shaman loses a few shaman-related powers (flametongue, frostbrand and purge), instead gaining barbarian rage and the ability to cast druid spells. Fits perfectly.

Gnome Tinker: Gnomish tinkers trade a few of their explosive-related abilities (and the resistance they build up against them) for more reliable devices and occasional sparks of genius. A bit less interesting to play, but it makes sense lore-wise.

High Elf Mage: High elf mages lack familiars and specialization in elemental magic, instead gaining a few darker powers. A bit too dark I would argue, as all high elf mages apparently know either necromantic or warlock magics. I think a bonus for pure arcane spells and/or nature-related arcane spells would be a lot more lore-appropriate.

Human Mage: Wait, if both humans and high elves get their own mage specialization, who exactly is in the standard mage class? Most races that use arcane magic are close enough to either high elves or humans that you could justify them using the racial class. I think the only exception to that rule would be troll mages. Amusingly, the human mages also lack familiars, meaning that the focused mage has essentially become standard. In addition, humans don't have enhanced counterspell and lose a bonus feat, instead gaining the ability to summon more elementals, combine spell slots so you can cast higher level spells and the ability to naturally cast a number of spells. Overall, pretty good for a racial class.

Human Paladin: Now this is one I don't get. There are no different origins or organizations for paladins of different races (note that this book was published before the introduction of the light-worshiping draenei and the blood knights). A human paladin and a dwarf paladin are members of the exact same organization and gain their powers in the exact same way with the exact same training, so why does the humans get different auras and more skills with the hammer?

Ironforge Dwarf Warrior: Dwarf Sharpshooter: Now that is a long class name. Like in DnD (and unlike in WoW), fighters/warriors are also the primary ranged class, with hunters/scouts/rangers being more nature-oriented, so that's why the sharpshooter is a warrior variant rather than a hunter or scout variant. The sharpshooter gives up a number of warrior bonus feats in order to gain more skill with a gun and quickly solve mechanical problems. Simple class, but it works.

Night Elf Druid: Like the paladin, this makes no sense as a racial class. All druids gain their powers from the same source and have been trained in the same tradition, no matter their race, so why would the night elf druids get different abilities? However, the night elf druid (like the lone druid) makes a lot of sense as a replacement for the druid base class, with druids losing the brew potion ability and a few bonus feats, in return gaining extra defense (nature itself warns them of impending attacks), the ability to hibernate for long periods and ways to surpass a demon's natural defenses.

Wildhammer Barbarian: The wildhammer eschew ranged weapons, armor and any knowledge of traps, instead gaining lots and lots of luck, immunity to fear effects, increased health and mounts that rage alongside them. The fear immunity and the raging mounts kind of make sense, but the other two are pretty much unexplained. Why are the wildhammer tougher than any other barbarians?

Creature Classes

A number of classes that have been included for gameplay reasons, allowing you to play a normally overpowered race from level 1, rather than having to deal with the hassle that is level adjustment. As creature classes were never really intended to represent the creatures lore-wise, it's pretty futile to discuss it. The races given are ancient protector, dryad, keeper of the grove and mountain giant.

Feats

A couple of feats, mostly unremarkable. The only odd one is that apparently night elves can empower their magic by dancing.

Chapter Three – Prestige Classes

Man, we get a lot of classes this book.

Ace: Basically, someone who specializes in driving vehicles. While I do like this class, it's kind of hard to imagine an ace entering a dungeon. One notable oddity about this class is that it covers both aerial and ground-based vehicles, but all the terminology only references aerial vehicles.

Dead Shot: The dead shot is essentially a sniper. Like the ace, it's hard to imagine the dead shot being part of a group of adventurers, though it could work in a stealth-centered campaign.

Demon Hunter: Pretty much the demon hunter from warcraft III. The only notable difference is that the RPG Demon Hunter will eventually turn into a demon himself, a process which isn't explained (and seems kind of odd, considering Illidan himself only became demonic after absorbing an incredibly powerful, one-of-a-kind demonic artifact).

Exemplar: Exemplars serve as inspiration to their allies and strike fear into the heart of the their enemies! So... other classes don't inspire their allies and bring fear to their enemies? There is no mention of any of special magic or training being involved (which makes me wonder how the exemplars can project their voice), so this class just leaves me scratching my head. Is carrying a flag really enough to warrant a prestige class?

Gunman: And yet more unexplained powers that should only be possible through magic, though at least this time, the book is nice enough to actually point out that it makes no sense for the gunmen to think that their powers are just the result of good training. Not nice enough to give an explanation though.

Mountain King: Unlike the mountain king in the first edition, the abilities of this class aren't drawn from the knowledge about the dwarven titan heritage. However, they are still drawn from the spark of titan magic inside the dwarves (the dwarves just didn't know about the source yet). As far as prestige classes go, this one is just about perfect.

Sapper: Why is this class in the alliance's player's guide? Sappers seem more like a goblin thing, probably best suited for More Magic & Mayhem. Otherwise, this class also feels a bit excessive, as roughly the same could be achieved by playing a rogue/tinker and there isn't really any specific lore either. Usually, prestige classes represent some sort of elite order that gets specialized training, but this book seems to have a bit of a problem with that.

Savagekin: Now this is a better example. The savagekin are a group of druids who have completely given themselves to animal instincts, spending most of their lives living shapeshifted in the wild. It's a cool class concept. The only weird thing is that half-elves are listed as being the most common savagekin race, alongside night elves. The night elves are extremely wary of high elves and half-elves, so its kind of hard to imagine that a large enough section of the half-elf populace not only moved to Kalimdor, but was allowed access into the night elf lands, was allowed access into the moonglade itself, studied druidism, learned about a sub-sect of feral druids, decided to join them and learned their ways, all in the span of only 4 years.

Sister of Steel: A female blacksmith, who occasionally fights, prestige class. I think that supersedes the exemplar as the dumbest prestige class concept I've seen. I also have no idea how it is in any way relevant that the members of this class are female. Do female smiths get extra magical powers? The magical powers of the sisters are also weird, as they seem linked to the titan heritage of the dwarves, despite the fact that humans and gnomes can also become sisters of steel (this is long before the humans and gnomes get their backstory as titan creations, so you have to wonder why this fact doesn't raise any eyebrows in-universe). The position of the sisters of steel as “performing the tasks traditionally reserved for men” also makes no real sense in the warcraft setting either, as gnomish, human and (to a slightly lesser extent) dwarven women have always been portrayed as smithing and battling merrily alongside men. If you really want a female empowerment class, why not use sentinels or huntresses?

Ursa Totemic: It's a furbolg barbarian. The entire class has been designed as an extension of the Furbolg's racial levels, which basically translates to “act slightly more like a bear”.

Warden: Another class that would make sense as female-only, but no, we've gotta keep that for the blacksmiths. Otherwise, this is an excellent example of a good prestige class.

Windwarrior: The article only describes the wildhammer dwarves who fly flying mounts, yet they call the class windwarrior rather than gryphon rider? Actually, the article later mentions in a sidebar how different races take different mounts, but that only makes it more confusing because the entire rest of it is about the wildhammer dwarves.

Chapter Four: Magic

Oh yay, more magic-related stuff. As usual, the magic in the the book is completely mishandled. I'm gonna give you a full quote

“At the same time, the Alliance is wary of magic, particularly arcane magic. Divine magic is far more benevolent, coming as it does from well-intentioned gods or directly from nature. But arcane magic draws from the Well of Eternity, which was not part of Azeroth until created by the titans, themselves outsiders. And arcane magic is far more vulnerable to corruption.”

The stuff related to divine magic is the usual BS that we've seen before. No, RPG writers, not all sources of divine magic are good. I'm also not exactly sure why the well of eternity being created by outsiders is relevant here either. First of all, the alliance doesn't actually know that the well of eternity was created by the titans. Second, the well of eternity is the source of most of the life on the planet, which means that if the well of eternity is a dangerous source of magic for that reason, nature itself is also dangerous.

Ironforge Dwarves: Guys, I just said that the alliance doesn't know about the well of eternity's creation. That means you don't get to make the discovery of that fact spark a cultural revolution. Hell, at this point the dwarves have barely confirmed their own connection to the titans, let alone studied the history of anyone else.

Wildhammer Dwarves: The section is pretty good, and being wary of arcane magic does actually fit with what we know about the wildhammer dwarves.

High Elves: Hurray for good retcons! First retcon of the section is that the high elves causing the third war is just a belief held by some idiots, rather than actual canon. Second retcon is that the blood elves outnumber the high elves by far, meaning the events from Warcraft 3 are probably canon again.

Night Elves: An actual good section, having the night elves' distrust of arcane magic be a result of their history, without having the omniscient narrator confirm or deny it.

Furbolgs: Another good section, with the very nature of arcane magic (taking control of the world) going against the Furbolg philosophy.

Gnomes: Gnomes aren't all that interested in arcane magic, because they don't become enamored with their own power and are too humble to look down upon others? That's fine and all, but neither of those are requirements for becoming a mage.

Human: Humans are better mages than other races because they have a wider emotional range and are therefore more passionate. The book also points out how odd it is that the humans aren't addicted to arcane magic, despite the fact that the high elves are only addicted because of their connection to the sunwell. The whole “humanity is young and therefore they haven't learned their mistakes” card is played up here as well, and it really doesn't fit in the warcraft setting. The oldest human kingdoms are over 2000 years old, having practiced magic, both arcane and divine, for most of that period. If at this point they haven't had mages become corrupted or religious people lose faith, only heard about it in tales from other races (which the book states), it's not a result of merely being a young race.

Spell List

While there are a few good spells in here, many seem to be assigned to the wrong class, like druids getting a ton of mount-related spells that seem designed for windwarriors, Fan of knives and a few night-related spells being given to the mage class or vengeance being a warlock ability. There's also a few weird ones, like a spell that specifically enrages orcs, a priest spell that allows you to see titans' foot- and hand-prints or a mage spell that allows you to draw straight lines. More than half of this spell list could have been dropped from the book or turned into class abilities.

Magic Items

And three other magic items (sword, helmet and ring) that specifically targets orcs. It just seems a bit odd that there is magic that targets a single race. Just doesn't feel right to me. However, more importantly, why is there only specialized magic for fighting orcs? All the members of the alliance have fought trolls for much longer than they have fought orcs, so why aren't there any spells targeting them? Also, these books really need a way to restrict the making of specific magical items to either a divine caster or an arcane caster, as wildhammer and night elf magic items can be made by any arcane caster.

Chapter Five: Technology

The races and technology section is a bit weird, as it only lists four races: Dwarves, elves, humans and gnomes. Yeah, it groups the elves together, because both groups apparently disdain technology. Honestly, I'd let that one slip if the chapter hadn't actually given a description in the opening:

“[Technology] is science applied to practical use. Thus, by this definition, a simple can opener is a technological device. A more accurate description is that technology is the system by which an entire society provides for the wants and needs of its population”

Which means that things like the night elf glaive thrower or the elven navies pretty succinctly fall under technology. It's also weird how it lists the elves despite them supposedly being non-technological, but doesn't list any information on the wildhammer dwarves or the furbolg.

Otherwise, the section is pretty good. The tech-mods are all pretty nifty and have nice backstories. Most other technological devices are also pretty good, tough a few are a bit on the high-tech side (a dwarven armour that projects a forcefield around it, a gnomish amulet that invokes chaos energy to give a random benefit), though that also goes for a number of devices that were directly brought over from WoW.

Chapter Six: History and Culture

For this chapter, we switch narrators to Brann Bronzebeard.

Night Elf

This history section has A LOT of errors. Seriously, doesn't anyone double-check this sort of stuff? Just a sample of the errors in this section: The night elf males were all druids before the war of the ancients, all magic (both divine and arcane) stems from the night elves and Azshara was stopped by an elite guard of arcane-wielding warriors known as the moon guard, with no mention of the other contributors. Even from Brann's in-character point of view, these mistakes don't make sense, as he has night elf sources readily available.

On the other hand, the culture section is very, very well-written and should be mandatory reading for any blizzard employee writing night elf quests. However, my favorite line is this:

“However, some night elves get a little… overzealous about their work. Apparently, night elves have this idea of what nature should be like. Their concept of “nature” seems to mean “forest.” I wouldn’t be surprised if many night elves felt the only “natural” nature is that which is created and cultivated within their own lands”

This line pretty much perfectly grasps the way the night elf druids interact with the world. No, it's not natural, but for the night elves, it is what they see as the perfection of nature. The description of the roles of priests and druids is also great. The book makes it very clear that Tyrande is the sole leader of the population and the arch-druid only has authority over the druids. I need to make one correction here about my comic review though, as this book also states that only men could become druids and came out several years before that book. However, my objections to the idea still stand.

High Elf

Now this is a strong section. It manages to explain the seperation between the high elves and the blood elves in a way that makes sense and doesn't simply write one section off as evil or wrong (many elves sought refuge in the alliance after the second war, relying on their charity. Most of the elves were appaled by this behaviour and organised to retake their homelands, renaming themselves blood elves. The blood elves think the high elves are pussies for not defending their homelands, while the high elves think the blood elves are monsters for using such dark magic).

Half-Elf

One of the biggest problems with including the half elves in a book like this is that its hard to make any sort of generalisations about them. Half-elves are found in every human and elven culture on the planet. That is eight different nations (Dalaran, Stromgarde, Stormwind, Lordaeron, Quel'thalas, Gilneas, Alterac and Kul Tiras), each with their own culture. In addition, half-elves are incredibly low in number, meaning they didn't form any culture of their own during the thousands of years they've been around. This section tries to do this fact justice, having Brann state that there really isn't any way to talk about half-elf culture. However, it still generalises way too often. Plus, its kind of hard to imagine all human culture as being this universally racist, considering their nature. Kul Tiras is a trade empire with contacts all over the world. Dalaran was founded on the foundations of working together with the high elves. Are those cultures really going to react the same to half-elves as the isolationist Gilneans, the gruff warriors of Stromgarde or the distant Stormwinders? What about the half-elves who joined the trade cartels, or the half-elves that moved to Khaz Modan? Since they're treated as outsiders anyway, they're much more likely to leave their homeland, so there should be pretty significant populations after the thousands of years they've been around. Also, if humans and high elves are able to interbreed and consider each other hot enough that even first contact resulted in babies, and thousands of years have passed since then, shouldn't a significant portion of both the human and elf population be part elf/human?

Humans

Awesome section, covering a huge amount of lore with great accuracy and new insights. It's also pretty funny, with Brann's snark making even the darkest moments seem pretty funny. One small point of critique is that Brann specifically mentions "retribution paladins", even though the different WoW paladin specialisations are just a gameplay element. Lorewise, a paladin is a paladin. Though some may specialise in certain styles of battle, there has never been any indication that there is a sharp distinction between several groups. And if there was, this book would have been the perfect opportunity to introduce it, but this is all the mention we're getting. To counter the minor plot hole, the book turns a previous error into a mystery, with Brann pointing out how odd it is that the undead of duskwood are found so far to the south.

Brann's snark is also present in the culture section, though it is a bit odd when he gripes about the humans putting people in charge by right of birth. Hey, Brann, isn't your brother a king? One thing that makes perfect sense lorewise, but which I don't like personally, is that the human cultures are starting to mingle due to all the refugees banding together in Stormwind and Theramore. I really liked the diversity of humanity. On the other hand, the formation of new cults/orders of the holy light (which may or may not be sanctioned by the arch-bishop) is an idea that makes perfect sense and which I like. Many religious texts have been destroyed in the past thirty years, so no one can bring out any evidence that your new crazy cult contradicts the teachings of the light. Of course, there is plenty of darker cults as well.

Ironforge Dwarves

Another must-read for any fan of Warcraft lore. I especially like the idea that the name of the dwarven race actually stems from the human language, as the humans were the ones who thaught the dwarves writing and some of the finer nuances of language. Another fun fact is that dwarves didn't used to have days (due to living underground), but had 10-hour shifts. They switched to 8-hour shifts when they became part of the alliance, so three shifts match to a single day.

Wildhammer Dwarves

Another great section. One thing of note is that Brann says that the Wildhammer Dwarves generally revere the earth mother, and that some wildhammer dwarves on Kalimdor have started studying the teachings of Elune.

Gnome

The gnome history section is... not particularly enlightening. For some reason, the gnomes don't really know anything about their history prior to their discovery, which was a little over two hundred years ago, and there is no information given we don't already know.

Actually, even looking at WoW, the backstory of the gnomes seems incomplete. We know that the gnomes are descended from the Mecha-gnomes, who were made by Mimiron in Ulduar, but how did they get to Dun Morogh without leaving a presence anywhere else in the world? And if the being who created the gnomes was created on and never left Azeroth, what's with the sand gnomes?

(Personal suggestions: The gnomes are descended from a group of mecha-gnomes that got sent to re-seal the doors of Uldaman after the dwarves first broke out, but were infected by the curse of flesh in the process. Being created after the curse of flesh was identified by the titans, they recognised the symptoms and decided to stay in the region to avoid infecting Ulduar/the sand gnomes are the gnomish members of the alliance expedition who had a devolution similar to, but not as extreme as, dwarves and troggs. The rumoured sand gnomes of Silithus are descended from the mecha-gnomes of Uldum. You can also tie pigmies into this theory as being the next step down from sand gnome, which would also mean that gnomes and goblins are related.)

The culture section is fun though, and manages to make the gnomes excentric without going over the top in ridiculousness.

Furbolg

While still pretty good, one problem of this section is that they keep saying that the furbolg are staying neutral because they don't want to offend their ancient friends, the tauren. Nowhere in WoW or WC3 has there been anything to suggest any sort of friendship between the tauren and the furbolg. Or any sort of regular contact at all. I'm not even sure we've ever seen a furbolg and a tauren stand in the same building.

The Argent Dawn

This really doesn't read like the argent dawn from World of Warcraft at all. There, the argent dawn are a group of knights, paladins and assorted allies who exist to fight the scourge. Here, they are some global anti-evil organisation who fight evil races in general, having a strong presence in northern Kalimdor (Rather than a small group of random paladins like in WoW). In addition to the scourge and the burning legion, they also fight the twilight's hammer and the scarlet crusade. They're also likely planning on attacking the forsaken when they get more members. Brann is more than a little suspicious of the argent dawn, going so far as to speculate that they were a secret cult before the third war and casting suspicion on how oddly young many leaders in the argent dawn look.

The book does however explain that the paladins of the argent dawn wield the power of the light in an unconvential way, which would explain the "argent dawn templar" prestige class we saw a while back. It goes a bit against the explanation given in that book, but I'm going to let it slide as that explanation made no sense.

Church of the holy light

Membership count: 800,000...

Well, the horde is truly and deeply screwed if war ever breaks out. Let me remind you that the ironforge dwarves and the gnomes of gnomeregan are not followers of the holy light in this continuity. And yes, the entire church is aligned with the alliance. Groups like the argent dawn and the scarlet crusade are seperate. That means that there are 800,000 humans and high elves alone in the alliance. That's not counting most ironforge dwarves, the gnomes, the furbolg, the wildhammer dwarves, humans who aren't members of the church and, most importantly, the night elves. Makes you wonder why the alliance and the horde are seen as equals when the difference in numbers is so incredibly high.

Otherwise, the section is pretty good. But damn, that membership count is ridiculously high.

Kirin Tor

Membership count: 120

Well, dalaran has no chance of ever becoming a major faction ever again, what with having only 120 mages at its command. And that's including the ruling council, apprentices, lorekeepers and librarians. It's also weird that Jaina Proudmoore isn't listed as a member, despite the fact that she was being trained by Antonidas himself and is probably the most powerful human mage still alive.

Chapter Seven: Alliance History and Current situation

The start of this chapter should not exist. While the chapter takes a look at the alliance as a whole, the start of it again takes a look at the individual races, repeating what was said last chapter. The only new thing present is that the individual nations of humanity are discussed, something which really should have happened last chapter.

One big problem with the seven human kingdoms is that stormwind was never given an identity of its own, being more of a gestalt of the other human nations. It has the magical schools of Dalaran, the fleets of Kul Tiras, the religious presence of Lordaeron, the warrior king of Stromgarde, the shady nobles of Alterac and the not-helping-our-supposed-allies (which was pretty much the only thing that defined Gilneas before Cataclysm) of Gilneas. As a result, Stormwind is pretty much the blandest faction in the entire franchise, yet for some reason, the warcraft writers insist on focusing on it. You'd think that being located on the other side of the continent from the rest of humanity for over a thousand years would have given Stormwind some unique traits, but apparently not.

However, that's a rant I will continue when we get back to Wrath of the Lich King and the comic series. This book has far, far less focus on Stormwind as the center of humanity. Hell, it's made clear that Stormwind is NOT the leader of the alliance. Instead, its pointed out that, mostly thanks to Lady Katrana Prestor, the eastern part of the alliance is in serious danger of falling apart. It's also hinted that the western part of the alliance may outnumber the eastern part, meaning the night elves still have a lot of their population left (which is only logical, hence why it was completely ignored when the cataclysm rolled around). The western part of the alliance is also a lot more united, what with it's members being either night elves or under the command of Jaina Proudmoore. The night elves are actually slowly settling in the role of alliance leadership, slowly gaining a presence in the eastern kingdoms. It's also hinted that the main reason the druids don't work with the alliance is due to Fandral Staghelm. Again, makes perfect sense, but completely ignored for Cataclysm.

Of course, there's still a few minor problems (Brann stating that the stormpike dwarves were the inhabitants of Alterac valley and the orcs and trolls were the invaders, the troll presence in the hinterlands being caused by trolls travelling south to avoid the scourge), but they're really minor and can be handwaved by Brann simply not knowing these things. Overall though, this section is awesome.

To end the section, I'm going to quote the part about relationships with the horde:

I’ll be frank. There’s no good reason why the Horde should be a threat to us at all. The overwhelming majority of the problems with the Horde are of our making — but all that said, we still have to deal with them. For the time being, the Horde is now our most “obvious” enemy, in that they are numerous, and old hatreds put the fight with them at the top of nearly every priority list. It’s silly — both the Alliance and the Horde should be dealing with the Scourge first — but that isn’t happening, and we have to deal with it. We need to push for a ceasefire, at least to get the time to smash the Scourge in Lordaeron.

Chapter Eight & Chapter Nine: The alliance military & bestiary

Mostly a listing of NPC stats for the various alliance forces. Not really anything of note, though there is the odd listing of a dire cobra and a dragonhawk which doesn't look like the one from Warcraft III. Or looks like what's being described in the text.

Seriously, does that look like something you can fly into battle? And what the hell is up with the left leg? And how is this creature “Majestic”?

Overall

This book leaves me a bit divided. Generally speaking, the first half of the book is 'okay' at best, and 'mediocre' at worst, with many of the newly introduced mechanics not really leaving any impression. It honestly feels like half the stuff is only there to fill space. However, the latter half of the book is fantastic and a must-read for any fan of warcraft lore and anyone working at blizzard.

WoW - the comic #1-7

Hello and welcome to our next review. This time, we're covering the first arc of the world of warcraft ongoing comic. Written by Walt Simonson and illustrated by Ludo Lullabi (Mild-mannered artist by day, he becomes the superhero Soundmaster by night), the main goal of the world of warcraft comic (at least of the first two arcs) was to introduce a character that would change the warcraft setting forever, for good and for bad. During the third arc it was tried again, but that character was so intensely loathed, blizzard was forced to press the “abort” button.

Simonson is actually a pretty large name in the comics industry, having done high-profile work for over 30 years by the time the warcraft comics came out. I actually did read some of his other stuff, and really liked it. So let's see if he can work his magic on the warcraft series as well. Let's dive right into the first story.

Prologue

Our comic revolves around a team of gladiators who fight in a tournament called the Crimson Ring, which is held by the ogres of Dire Maul. The team consists of three people, a legendary orc warrior named Bloodeye, a mighty night elf druid named Broll Bearmantle and a completely untrained and malnourished blood elf thief named Valeera Sanguinar. Yeah, I have no idea why the hell she is on the team. The team is led by Rehgar Earthfury, an orc shaman and a champion of the first two wars.

Our comic starts with the dead Bloodeye being given a funeral pyre. It seems he was poisoned only a day after Rehgar bought Valeera (inhaling those sacred shaman herbs is really averse to your judgement). Most of the prologue is Broll giving Valeera the backstory of Bloodeye and Rehgar. While it's not really relevant to the overall story, it is actually a pretty nicely developed background. However, one odd thing in the backstory is that Rehgar eventually started following Thrall's teachings, becoming a shaman. After which he bought himself some slaves to fight in a gladiatorial arena. Seems he forgot to took notes during Thrall's lessons, as Thrall not only opposes slavery, but was actually a slave gladiator himself, developing a special hatred for that practice.

Issue One

In the first issue, we meet our protagonist, who washes ashore in Bladefist Bay. This guy, a human, goes through several names throughout the story as he can't remember his original name. As he is now attacked by a crocolisk, the first of his names shall be Croc-Bait. Anyone who has played WoW will know that Bladefist Bay all the way in the north-eastern part of Durotar. Unless you're specifically heading for the bay, there is no reason to even get close. However, in the comic, it's apparently right next to the main road through Durotar, as Rehgar's caravan, travelling from Dire Maul to Orgrimmar, stumbles across Croc-bait. As Rehgar watches the human defeat the crocolisk with only a plank of wood, he is impressed and decides to capture him for his gladiator team. Way to uphold Thrall's teachings, Rehgar.

Croc-bait talks to his fellow gladiators, giving us the backstory to Valeera. Valeera's parents were killed during the scourge invasion of Quel'thalas. She was only a young girl when this happened and she fled into the wilderness, being forced to survive on her own. She did pretty well, until she was caught trying to steal an amulet from an orcish shaman, and she was captured only a few days ago, after which she was sold to Rehgar. While I do like this backstory, there are a few things that detract from it. First of all, the art seems really shoddy.

First of all: those two people in the background are supposed to be undead. Yeah, it took me a while to figure out as well. More importantly, it's clear that Valeera here is just a small child, the equivalent of eight to ten human years old, maybe even a bit younger. Elves age slower than humans and the culling of Silvermoon only took place four to six years before the events of this comic. So, Valeera should obviously still look like a small chi..

What's especially weird about this is how Croc-Bait comments that she looks just like a child, which leads to the reply you see above. Does this look like a child to anyone? And if she was intended to look like a child, why would the artist continue to draw in that outfit and in those poses?

On a related note, what's with the outfit? Does that seem like practical gladiatorial gear to anyone? And before you get on my neck about the revealing outfits of the sentinels or Sylvanas: those people are A) not supposed to engage in close-quarters combat, B) unarmoured all around, giving them some sort of mobility advantage, rather than still wearing heavy gloves and boots, C) immune to cold weather. I'm also a bit confused about where Valeera got the outfit, considering she was captured in a different outfit and has only been a member of the gladiatorial team for a single day when she's first seen wearing this. Did Rehgar just have a revealing leather outfit that magically fits perfectly around its wearer lying around? 

However, let's ignore the art for a moment and talk about something much more important: Why is Valeera a blood elf? She has been on her own ever since the original invasion of Quel'thalas, so she didn't join Kael'thas' group of survivors or the elves of silvermoon. So where did she get the green eyes? How does she know how to drain magic? Why does everyone, including her, act like she's some sort of representative of the blood elf mindset and actions, despite the fact that she never even lived in a blood elf community? The history of the blood elves also gets a major misrepresentation here, with broll claiming that the blood elves joined the horde to sate their thirst for magic (rather than joining because the forsaken assisted them after the alliance attacked their lands). The section also mentions that Garithos was a member of the current alliance, which I'd like you to remember for a future topic, when I cover the mess that is the alliance backstory.

This is (If I remember correctly) also the first time the idea that only male night elves are allowed to be druids is brought up in canon, along with the idea that the majority of the elven males slept in the emerald dream. This is an idea makes absolutely no sense, as Cenarius was willing to teach Tyrande back in the war of the ancients, and only didn't because she was already a follower of Elune. So the only way this would make sense is if the night elves themselves decided that no chicks were allowed in the druid club, but that would have to be a decision made by Malfurion, which would be more than a bit out of character. And as for the idea that the majority of the night elf males slept? Even if it was the majority that initially went to sleep in the emerald dream, there would be plenty of time for new men to be born in the ten thousand years between the war of the ancients and the third war.

Our issue ends with our team winning their first gladiatorial battle, but being attacked by a huge orc (Seriously, that guy is at least four heads taller than Croc-bait) hired by Rehgar to test them.

Issue Two

And the orc gets his ass kicked by Croc-Bait almost instantly. Thanks for setting up that pointless cliffhanger. The orc gets called a blademaster several times, despite the fact that he doesn't use any of the blademaster magical powers. I think the idea came from the RPG, where horde gladiators were called blademasters.

Our team travels to Dire Maul, where they begin fighting in the crimson ring. They do pretty well, laying waste to the individual challenges, and beating a team of ogres in the team competition. Croc-bait does especially well, with his speed and agility earning him his new name: Lo'gosh, named after an ancient legend about a great wolf. However, the crowd seems a bit too enthusiastic about all this. I think the implication isn't supposed to be that they're likening him to Lo'gosh and giving him a nickname, but that they actually believe he is Lo'gosh reborn. Despite the fact that all he did was fight in an agile manner. Are there no other legends about agile warriors?

At the end of the issue, we get another cliffhanger, with a random tauren woman wanting to buy Valeera for an all-female gladiatorial team.

Issue Three

One odd thing about the early covers for the world of warcraft comic series is that they all feature Lo'gosh with some sort of red face-paint, something which he never has in the comic itself. Actually, the face itself also looks slightly off-model from the portrayal in the comic as well. And each other for that matter. Were the covers done before they settled on the final character design or something?

Broll, Lo'gosh and Rehgar travel to Thunder Bluff, where they are going to get a replacement for Valeera  While Broll and Lo'gosh are in Thunder Bluff, they plan to visit the pools of vision, which are said to be gateways for messages from the dead. For Broll, this will allow him to talk to his dead daughter. For Lo'gosh, this might restore his memory.

Wait, how does that work? I can understand trying to find a dead person who knew Lo'gosh to talk to, but Broll says that the idea is for Lo'gosh to undertake a cleansing ritual to restore his memory. How does having pools that allow you to speak to the dead help with that?

The tauren say that there is a cave elemental loose in the pools of vision, and Cairne is trying to reason with it, rather than simply destroying it. However, Broll and Lo'gosh plan to visit anyway, in a panel that makes them look outright possessed.

In the pools, both see short visions. Lo'gosh sees his wife and his son being torn away from him, while Broll sees his daughter being consumed by flames. If I'm allowed to nitpick about the caverns some more, that seems more like visions of death rather than messages from the dead.

Of course, Broll and Lo'gosh are attacked by the cave elemental during the vision, but Lo'gosh beats it up with a boulder. Cairne is thankful that the human ruined his attempts to make peace with the spirit and invites him over to elder rise. Seriously, what the hell? Hamuul Runetotem gives us the backstory of the Lo'gosh that our Lo'gosh was named after. He was one of the ancient guardians who fought in the war of the ancients, a great white wolf who died in the region that would later be known as the barrens. According to the night elves, who call him Goldrinn (that really doesn't seem like an elvish name), the spirit of Goldrinn was later seen at Eldre'thalas, guiding the night elves in their defence. After that, cultures around the world started to develop stories about a great wolf, whose sheer will and ferocity allowed him to defy death.

Finally, Hamuul Runetotem gives Broll and Lo'gosh a mysterious blue feather. Broll, being a druid, realises that it is a magical hippogryph feather, which can be used to summon the hippogryph to whom it belongs. So, Broll and Lo'gosh do exactly that, holding off the various orcish guards (I guess all the tauren braves are on a coffee break) until it arrives. The text mentions that the creature originated from Ashenvale, which is two regions to the north of Mulgore. Yet it doesn't seem that more than a few minutes have passed until it arrives at Thunder Bluff. Is Simonson under the impression that World of Warcraft is an accurate depiction of the scale of Azeroth?

Rehgar isn't exactly angry that the two have escaped, already having assumed that they were going to do so sooner or later anyway. However, he doesn't want to let them off too easy and sends wyvern riders after them. He can do that, because he is a random gladiator master without any official authority.

Valeera has also escaped from her captors, arriving at Thunder Bluff around the same time that Broll and Lo'gosh escape. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman is looking at the events through some sort of magic mirror, and orders a member of the stormwind assassin guild to go after Varian.

Issue Four

As someone who reads a fair amount of comics, I have to say that the pace of these stories is rather refreshing. Usually, stories in modern comics tend to be rather stretched out. Sometimes it works, allowing more time for action or build-up, but often it doesn't, with the extra space taken up by filler or two-page spreads. Here, we have a lot of action, a good amount of characterisation for each character and still have room for the plot to advance at a rather good pace. Well, usually. This and the next issue, the plot moves a bit too fast, and much of the exposition is really, really awkward.

Varian and Broll have a good bit of aerial action going as they fight off the wyverns sent after them. I feel bad for the orc guards that are getting slaughtered. People who have dedicated their lives to protect their society, now dying in a suicide mission to recover two slaves that even their owner doesn't expect to get back.

After escaping, the two head for Ashenvale, where they run into a match of Warsong Gulch. They spot a large horde force lying in ambush for an approaching alliance army, and rush to inform the alliance forces, who were apparently too stupid to use any aerial scouting themselves (even though we see them use hippogryphs during the fight). I'm also a bit confused about this whole 'armies' thing. I always assumed that the battles in ashenvale were small border skirmishes, since the alliance and horde have this peace agreement thingie. When you start sending armies at each other, aren't you at war? And this isn't some single low-ranking commander causing trouble either. It's a joint assault by night elves, humans and dwarves versus orcs, tauren and trolls.

While the battle initially goes well for the alliance, thanks mostly to Lo'gosh' tactics (the night elves themselves would never think of using an ambush of course, since... erm... this book was written after warcraft 3 and therefore night elves suck in battle?). However, when the orc shaman leading the defence summons a powerful lava elemental to counter the assault, he loses control, unleashing the lava elemental on the forests of ashenvale. To stop the forest from being burned down, Broll unleashes some sort of hidden power. Throughout the story, Broll has had some rage issues, and here we see the true extent, as his sheer internal fury summons a storm to extinguish the elemental. However, Broll loses control, and thorned roots attack everyone on the battlefield until Lo'gosh knocks him out. And thus the alliance wins the battle.

Wait, how did they win? The horde outnumbered the alliance significantly, and the only way the alliance could win was through an ambush. However, when the alliance struck, one of the first things the shaman did was summon the lava elemental. With broll going into rage mode immediately afterwards, stunning both the alliance and the horde, both factions were affected equally and the alliance lost the element of surprise. So how has the alliance won the battle when Broll is knocked out? Shouldn't they still be outnumbered at this point?

Anyway, following the random victory, we're given Broll's backstory. Having been born with antlers (I feel so sorry for his mother), he was expected to be a prodigy in druidism. However, while he was pretty decent, he wasn't anything special. Remulos, a powerful keeper of the grove, gave Broll an idol in the hopes of unlocking his true potential, though it was unsuccessful. During the battle of mount hyjal, Broll was part of a small outpost that was attacked by Azgalor. Azgalor easily knocks Broll asides and strikes the idol with his fel blade. Broll's daughter, Anveena, tries to save him, but she is turned to cinders when the idol explodes in a burst of fel energy. Following the battle, Broll grew more and more dark, losing control over his animal transformations. In the end, Broll decided to run away and join the crimson ring, in the hopes of regaining control. While there are a few minor timeline issues (Broll having more than one form before the battle of Mount Hyjal, broll stating that he joined the crimson ring before the orcs got a presence in Ashenvale), I do overall really like this backstory.

Meanwhile, in Thunder Bluff, Valeera spies on Magatha and the Stormwind assassin discussing plans to kill Lo'gosh. Apparently, the forsaken are also involved in this, but that plot point goes absolutely nowhere.

Issue 5

Broll and Lo'gosh head for Thistlefur Hold, where they've heard stories of Broll's old idol being in the hands of the local furbolg. The dialogue in this issue is really stilted, with tons of unneeded exposition and odd sentences.

Broll and Lo'gosh sneak into the furbolg compound, and find the idol. However, the green dragon connected to the idol has become corrupted as well (something which they really should have seen coming) and attacks them. The rest of the comic makes absolutely no sense in greater warcraft lore, to the point where I'm going to have to do a step by step:

1. Lo'gosh tries to strike the dragon, but he is unable to hit it, as the dragon phases into the emerald dream. The only way to kill it is to attack it from both the emerald dream (which Broll enters) and the real world at once. An ability like this would make the green dragonflight unstoppable in any battle, as the only people capable of entering the emerald dream with any ease are those allied with the green dragonflight. We also see that the emerald dream allows you to enter azeroth in any location you want. How are any enemies of the green dragonflight still alive? Why doesn't a green dragon just teleport into Onyxia's lair and kill her?
2. As Broll enters the emerald dream, he is attacked by a manifestation of his own rage. We never see any clear shots of his surroundings, but its pretty clear he is in some dreamscape, where his inner self is manifested. Everywhere else, the dream is just a primordial Azeroth, filled with jungles, but it acts nothing like that here.
3. Broll's inner rage is actually his bear spirit, which has grown out of control. Broll's other spirits show up to aid him in regaining control. This makes no sense, as the animals spirits are the ancient guardians. If Broll's bear spirit is so overwhelmed by rage, all bear spirits should be suffering from the same problem, as they're drawn from the same creatures (Ursoc and Ursol).
4. As Broll regains control of all his spirits, he is able to instantly remove corruption from the idol with only a wave of his hand, instantly breaking the corruption of the green dragon and of the furbolg. In every other instance where it appears, we see that corruption is a huge problem, which affects the very land around it. Even if you remove the source of the corruption, you don't instantly heal all of its effects. If that was the case, felwood should have been instantly cured when Illidan absorbed the skull of Gul'dan.

Issue 6

Our issue starts with Valeera following the human assassin, who travels to the night elves we saw in issue 4. The night elves are happy to answer all the questions of the mysterious human who doesn't identify himself, because all night elves suffered a brain aneurysm after the battle of mount hyjal. It gets even better when the night elves attack the spying Valeera, who tells them that she is the blood elf that fought alongside Broll and Lo'gosh. Of course, they don't belief here, and they attack her. Yeah, why should they belief that a blood elf fought alongsi...

Wait a minute, later in the book, they mention that they knew that there was a blood elf champion in dire maul. And Broll caught up with his cousin only a day ago, so it's hard to imagine Valeera never came up. The night elves do mention that they don't believe Valeera could be her because she looks to be only a child. But, if she looks like just a child, why are you trying to slaughter her? You took the orcs, trolls and tauren prisoner, so why kill the fleeing blood elf child?

Meanwhile, Broll and Lo'gosh are visiting Fandral Stormrage, giving him the idol of Remulos. Afterwards, they are invited for dinner by Tyrande Whisperwind herself. While she can't do anything about it, she senses an aura of dark magic surrounding Lo'gosh, advising him to visit Jaina Proudmoore in Theramore. Just before the two can reach Theramore, the assassin tries to shoot them down, but he is intercepted by Valeera. Broll and Lo'gosh miss all this and have a meeting with Jaina while Valeera struggles for her life, until she is saved by a mysterious woman with white hair, who brings the unconscious blood elf to Theramore. Jaina tries to disspell Lo'gosh' curse, summoning her chamberlain, who turns out to be the mysterious woman, to assist her. Man, that really is one hell of a pile-up of coincidences. Lo'gosh, the assassin, Valeera and the mysterious chamberlain all being in this incredibly small area, despite the first having a headstart of several hours on the second and third person, and the fourth person having absolutely no reason to be in the swamp. Plus, there's the fact that Broll and Lo'gosh apparently didn't notice they were being followed, nor did the assassin. They really need to install some rear mirrors on them flying mounts.

And here, we get the most important reveal of the series. Lo'gosh is actually Varian Wrynn, the king of Stormwind, who vanished while travelling to Theramore. There is an obvious parallel between Varian Wrynn and Thrall. Both were slaves, forced to be gladiators. However, there is a key difference I want you to keep in mind for when we discuss WotLK: Varian was enslaved for only a short period, during which he was generally treated well and generally respected, even being freed by a leader amongst the horde. Thrall was enslaved from a very young age, and had to fight for his freedom and the only human to ever show any form of kindness or respect was a lowly messenger that was brutally slaughtered.

Issue 7

Jaina gives Lo'gosh her personal ship, which he uses to travel to Stormwind. However, a group of naga recognise it as Jaina's ship and attack. As our trio of heroes are legendary gladiators, they really don't have much of an issue fighting off less than a dozen naga. The siren that was commanding the naga summons a couatl and starts firing bolts of arcane power at the ship. To stop the latter, Valeera jumps at the siren, stealing her magical trident. The comic is apparently going by RPG rules, as Valeera is risking corruption just by using the trident for its intended purpose. And no, it's not fel magic or some other dark sorcery or anything. It's just a simple magical trident. Yet its enough for Broll to start panicking, thinking its going make Valeera addicted to arcane energy. Valeera. You know, the blood elf? A species where every member is already addicted to arcane energy? And before you think it's just Broll being distrustful of the arcane because of his night elf upbringing, her growing addiction because of this is actually a major plot point in the next story arc.

Lo'gosh' battle with the siren causes all his memories to return, and he quickly finishes her off. As the first arc finishes, our heroes stare off into the sunset. They're probably discussing why their boat is suddenly intact again after all the damage during the battle.

Overall

I'm a bit divided what to feel about this arc. On the one hand, it has a pretty decent overall plot and the characters are pretty interesting. On the other hand, there's a lot of minor flaws that an editor should have caught.

Story: As I said, the overall plot is pretty good and the pacing is pretty well done. The only issue that disappoints in this regard is issue 4. While it works as a set-up for Broll's backstory, the rest of the issue is pretty much irrelevant to the overall story. The dialogue in the story felt a bit awkward, like I was reading an old comic from the 70's. Issue 5 was the worst in that regard, with almost every line being exposition, even giving exposition for stuff we already know.

However, the main problem is the lack of attention to details. While I don't expect Simonson to personally know every detail of the backstory, he isn't supposed to be the only person working on these books. Unfortunately, blizzard didn't provide the editor, but DC did, assigning the book to Hank Kanalz, best known as the co-writer for the very first issue of Youngblood. The only issue in the arc to have any blizzard employees listed at all is issue 7, which has Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson as story consultants.

However, continuity problems aren't the only problems here. There is a lot of minor issues internally. For example, take the distances. It takes a few minutes for a hippogryph to fly from Ashenvale to Thunder Bluff, yet it takes at least an entire night to travel from Darnassus to Theramore. On that same note, the world as presented here is frigging small, with even the most generous guess putting Kalimdor as being the size of Germany at the very most.

Characters: I really like these guys. Despite some similarities to Thrall's backstory, Lo'gosh does actually manage to stand on his own as an interesting and likeable character. Broll is also memorable and is probably the character that undergoes the most change. It's really fun to compare his banter with Valeera from the first issues with the banter from the last issue. Valeera is the least developed character, a result of her being on her own for three issues. It's hard to develop when you can only talk to yourself. As a side note, I do think that it would have added to the character had Valeera actually looked more like a child. As it is now, all of her personality seem to be derived from her race, so it would really benefit to give her some unique characteristics.

Art: The art is generally a bit cartoonish, but that fits with the game its all derived from. Otherwise its good, though I get the idea that Ludo Lullabi was a bit lazy in some places. Many panels have the characters covered in darkness, with only their eyes visible, even in places where it makes no sense. However, the art for the backgrounds is absolutely fantastic and makes the transition from game to comic really well. I find the covers by Jim Lee a bit mediocre. While the art is good, they don't really tell you anything about the book or connect to the warcraft universe. Plus, there is the odd difference between Varian on the cover and Varian in the book I mentioned before. The only cover that really fits with the art inside the book is the cover of issue 7, which was drawn by Ludo Lullabi, Sandra Hope and Samwise Didier.

This story had a lot of potential, but lack of oversight makes it lose a lot of points with me. Of the three arcs of this series, I would rate this one second. While it doesn't have the focus of the second arc, it is much, much better than any of the Med'an stuff. But that idiotic arc is a story for another day, when we start covering stuff related to the disaster that is cataclysm.

Next: Back to the RPG.

World of Warcraft - Lands of Mystery

First off, I have to apologise for being tardy. I was sick for a bit, and after that, I was also busy playing the new expansion, which I have thusfar really enjoyed.

I have been looking forward to this book and the two after, as they're generally considered the best of the RPG books, of which a lot of lore was kept for world of warcraft. This book in particular gave us most of the lay-out of Northrend, still used in Wrath of the Lich King.

Lands of Mystery exists to finish what Lands of Conflict started: describing the world of Azeroth. Like Lands of Conflict, the book is supposed to be composed of the research notes of Brann Bronzebeard, one of the greatest explorers in existence, giving us some nice perspective on the people of Azeroth as well as the world.

Chapter One: Northern Kalimdor

Ashenvale: The great forests of Ashenvale were the first night elf lands visited by Brann, and his reaction to seeing the ancients walking around is really amusing (“I think a few of them gave me bad looks when they saw my axe”). Brann notes that the night elf sentinels lack any real combat experience, which is a weird claim considering most of them are thousands of years old and there has been plenty of conflict, even in night elf lands (most notably the satyr). Brann also claims that Ashenvale is one of the few territories that is under undisputed alliance control, despite the fact that he himself describes the warsong lumber mill and satyrnaar in the chapter.

Azshara: One thing, not limited to the RPG, which I've always wondered: Why didn't the horde simply start cutting wood in Azshara, rather than Ashenvale? The night elves only have a minimal presence, due to considering the entire region haunted, and it's very close to Orgrimmar. Sure, the trees are not as big as the ones in Ashenvale, but you won't lose any wood shipments due to night elf raids either. Plus, you can't possibly need that much wood anyway, considering your low population. Aside from that, the Azshara description is fine, though I have to wonder about the tauren having a listed presence.

Darkshore: Aside from the night elf presence, darkshore has a considerable number of dwarves (which Brann gushes over) investigating the local titan ruins. As another aside, world of warcraft, for some reason, gave all the ruins in the region highborne architecture, despite half of them supposedly being titan ruins. For some odd reason, Brann decides to randomly insult Onu, an ancient of lore, in the description. Otherwise the description is fine.

Felwood: One thing that irks me about the RPG is its literalistic approach to world of warcraft, as it often states that only the locations we see in world of warcraft exist in the game. A good example is seen here, as the book says that there are only two furbolg villages, one for each tribe, in the entire region, rather than saying that there are Deadwood and Felpaw villages spread throughout the region. As a result, the books often make the world seem small and limited.

Mount Hyjal: And here we get the first major stumble of the book, as it says that Astranaar, a town in ashenvale, is the capital of mount hyjal. Even better, the listed population for astranaar is 4000, despite there only being 1000 night elves on mount hyjal. Another fun fact is that humans are described as being a major part of the guard that defends the world tree, despite not being listed in the population chart. The dark trolls and furbolgs that live in the region and joined during the battle of mount Hyjal are also notably absent from the population chart.

Moonglade: In a contradiction to the previous RPG books, Moonglade is treated as if it has always been the home of the night elf druids, and only the druids. There's no real mention of any other former major night elf cities either, so I wonder where the hell they were supposed to have lived before the establishment of Teldrassil. We also get to see a wonderful bit of editing, with Remulos giving a request to Brann Bronzebeard, which is included in the book. However, the request is located in the wrong section, being put in the mount hyjal part instead.

Teldrassil: I'm actually going to skip over Teldrassil. The entire concept and execution of Teldrassil in WoW is so absurd that I can't possibly judge this book over it. Instead, I am planning on making a separate post about the subject. However, one thing I do have to comment on is the description of Archdruid Fandral Staghelm, who upholds the old night elf belief that only night elves should be druids. Considering the fact that dryads and keepers of the grove act as the teachers to night elf druids and have done so since the war of the ancients, that's a really weird belief to have once been widespread.

Winterspring: For some reason, the RPG insists on listing a capital for every zone, even if the zone does not have any faction that is really in charge of the zone. In this case, the capital is Everlook, which is absolutely absurd, as Everlook claims no authority on any location except the town itself.

The book states that Winterspring was home to the dragonflights until the third war, which raises the question why the hell they weren't present during the battle of mount hyjal (something the book pointed out in the Mount Hyjal Section).

As another aside, did you ever notice that the effects of the sundering are only ever described for regions in Kalimdor? Roughly half the zones in Kalimdor are still suffering from the damage the sundering caused, yet apparently, northrend and the eastern kingdoms suffered no problems at all.

Chapter two: Central Kalimdor

I think Brann might be suffering from a sunstroke as he writes this section, as he says that Desolace, the Barrens and Stonetalon Mountains have been reduced to little more than ash and rubble.

The Barrens: The weird idea that dwarves are going to move to Bael Modan in massive numbers is again brought up, with Brann speculating that there will be thousands of dwarves living in Bael Modan in a few years. Why? The only real reason Bael Modan exists is because of its importance to archeologists. Even if the dwarves are so enthusiastic about that, why would they move to Bael Modan rather than the Badlands?

The presence of Northwatch and Bael Modan as official members of the alliance also brings up a few questions regarding the formation of the alliance of Stormwind, but that entire issue is also a post for another time.

Desolace: Okay, so one of the alliance main goals in Desolace is to battle the growing number of undead. Except that there is no scourge presence in Desolace, just a number of necromantic centaur. Like with attacking the blood elves for their use of fel magic, it seems kind of weird that the alliance is wasting troops on attacking necromancers far away when there are still groups of necromancers actively waging war against the alliance.

Durotar: Brann says that Durotar is similar in climate to the original orcish homeworld of Draenor. Aside from the fact that TBC would later show that the orcish homeworld is a lot more varied than what we saw in Warcraft III, Warcraft I's manual had already established that the orcish homeworld was cooler than the lands of Stormwind, which are in turn much cooler than Durotar

The RPG book brings up the idea that Zalazane is allied with the scourge, which is all but confirmed in one of the adventures, where Zalazane starts creating abominations. The source of this idea is apparently that Zalazane uses zombies and “the scourge seems to have a monopoly on zombie-creating crazies”, a point which is blatantly wrong, as we see forest, jungle and sand trolls throughout the world utilising zombies.

The person who wrote the Durotar section is a lot better with the idea of scaling in video games than the guy who wrote the felwood section, as Brann speculates that Skull Rock is but one of many caves used by the burning blade to prepare for an attack on Orgrimmar.

Dustwallow Marsh: The book is very inconsistent regarding the status of Daelin Proudmoore's legacy and that of his surviving forces. In the barrens section, Brann called Northwatch an alliance stronghold, while in the Durotar section, Brann says that the inhabitants of Tiragarde (the same forces that occupy northwatch) aren't real members of the alliance and are as dangerously insane as the scarlet crusade. Another example occurs here, as the introduction had stated that the weight of Daelin's death still hangs over the people of Theramore, while this section states that the population of Theramore supports Jaina and the people who agreed with Daelin have left the city.

Mulgore: Brann makes it seem here that the dwarven archeologists of bael'dun have committed no aggressions, with the tauren only attacking them because they misunderstood the purpose of the expedition. Brann even hopes that he can just explain to Cairne that the dwarves are just looking for more knowledge of their ancestors. However, he seems to entirely ignore the fact that the dwarves of Bael'dun destroyed an entire tauren tribe. Now to be fair, its possible that Brann doesn't actually know about the stonespire tribe, but it's still odd that he never questions why the local dwarves started blowing holes in the mountain without ever talking to the tauren.

Orgrimmar: This section easily wins the award for best section in the book. Something that especially stands out is Thrall's dialogue with Magni, which reveals the true reason for the forsaken allying with the horde (Thrall is afraid of the growing hostilities with the alliance and knows that they far outnumber him) and shows Thrall still actively working towards peace.

Stonetalon Mountains: Some minor foreshadowing for Wrath of the Lich King here, as an adventure reveals that Balnazzar survived the death at the hands of Varimathras. Otherwise, the section is unremarkable.

Thunder Bluff: There is a bit of confusion regarding the difference between shamans and druids here, though it can be attributed to Brann being confused. However, it doesn't really seem like something someone as experienced as him should be confused in. Shamans deal with the elemental spirits and the spirits of the dead, while druids follow the teachings of Cenarius passed down via the night elves to invoke the power of the emerald dream and the ancient guardians. Otherwise, the section is pretty good, though I'd hardly call the tauren a druidic race like Brann does (considering they have been practising druidism for at most four years at this point).

There is also a bit of a minor inconsistency regarding the tauren's backstory, something which carried over to WoW. Some times, the tauren are a race of nomads that travelled around the barrens, until they were forced to move to Mulgore with the aid of Thrall due to pressure of the centaur. Other times, the tauren actually originated from Mulgore, having recently been driven out by the centaur and having moved back into their old home with the help of Thrall.

Chapter Three: Southern Kalimdor

Feralas: It appears that the tauren of Feralas are a bit different from those of Thunder Bluff, with Feralas being their ancestral lands and there being no suggestion of them having been nomads. I always found it a shame that tauren history has never really been developed, as I would love to learn what they were like before the third war.

Silithus: Actually a pretty interesting section (having been written before the opening of the scarab gates in WoW), though some of the gaps in the knowledge of the local night elves seem a bit odd in retrospect.

Tanaris: Another pretty good section. I like Brann's speculation that the Caverns of Time may actually be Uldum. Given the knowledge he has, that's actually a pretty reasonable idea.

Thousand Needles: As this is one of their strongholds, lets discuss the grimtotem tauren for a while. Playing World of Warcraft, I always assumed that the grimtotems were just another tribe of tauren. However, the RPG establishes that they actually only formed recently, as a counter-movement to Cairne's vision of uniting the tauren tribes. In some ways, this makes sense, as it explains their wide spread and their great numbers (relative to the other tribes). On the other hand, it is hard to ignore the fact that the grimtotem tauren united to prevent taurens from uniting. And it's not just a temporary alliance either, as the grimtotem are all loyal to Magatha. I also have to scratch my head at why the grimtotem are even allowed in Thunder Bluff, when they are actively attacking other tauren tribes.

Un'goro Crater: An absolutely great section. This section is far more realistic about the size of the world than most other sections, saying that Brann spent weeks in Un'goro crater and still didn't find everything. It's a real contrast with the barrens, which Brann apparently explored in only a few days despite it being about a third of the continent in length.

Chapter Four: South Seas

Alright, now we're getting into some new territory. Players of the Warcraft games have only seen fairly small bits of this region (the ruins of Suramar and the tomb of Sargeras in Warcraft 3 and Bilgewater Port and the lost isles in Cataclysm), so this is almost completely new.

The Broken Isles: This is the range of islands that includes the ruins of Suramar and the Tomb of Sargeras. Since we last saw them in Warcraft III, the naga have mostly taken over the island range, though the murlocs and makrura also have a rather large presence. The description is really good at presenting the parts we saw in the earlier games, but doesn't really expand the lore regarding the isles, which is a shame.

The Eye: Ooh, now we're getting into really unfamiliar territory. The Eye is the area around the maelstrom, which includes the naga capital of Nazjatar and the Makrura capital of Mak'aru, which are at war with one another. I was a bit surprised that the makrura have any sort of civilisation, considering the fact that in World of Warcraft, they don't even have any buildings. The environment of the eye is described absolutely fantastically, with lots of cool ideas. Apparently, the sundering tore open the land beneath the maelstrom to the extent that the molten core of Azeroth lies exposed in an area called The Rift, which is where the naga built their capital city. I'd love to one day see this place in World of Warcraft.

Isle of Kezan: The RPG version of Kezan provides a rather interesting contrast with the World of Warcraft version, which we would see in Cataclysm. While bilgewater port in Cataclysm was mostly home to goblins, the bilgewater port of the RPG is the biggest of the goblin ports and people of all races can be found here. Most notably, Kezan of the RPG is a lot less technologically and sociologically advanced. Think 17^th century Amsterdam rather than 21^st century New York. A notable change from World of Warcraft is that the Blackwater Raiders are not affiliated with any of the cartels, which means booty bay isn't a member of the Steamwheedle Cartel, but an independent faction. Overall, the Kezan section is pretty good.

Plunder Isle: Home of the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Pretty boring section really. Only notable feature other than pirates is the presence of a large group of basilisks.

Zandalar Isle: While the description of Zandalar is pretty good, the history section contains a number of major flubs, like claiming trolls built Zuldazar, the capital of Zandalar, thousands of years after the sundering to be one of their first permanent strongholds, when the amani, drakkari and gurubashi troll empires already existed before the night elves even came into being, or claiming that all the troll races participated in the troll wars, when it was just the forest trolls.

Chapter Five: Northrend

The groundwork for Wrath of the Lich King is lain here. While there are a few minor differences (Scholazar Basin is part of the Borean Tundra, Coldarra is its own region and Dragonblight and Borean Tundra are notably bigger), the geography is almost exactly the same. However, there are a number of key differences. Most notable is the absence of the frost dwarves, the iron dwarves and the vrykul. Oddly enough, both Thor Modan and Valgarde do already exist, the former being a stronghold of Ironforge and the latter being constructed by Arthas' remaining forces instead. The scourge is also a lot less wide-spread than it was in WotLK. I criticised WoW and will criticise WotLK for having the scourge be such a reduced presence, but the RPG is a lot worse in that regard, with the scourge having little presence outside Icecrown, Azjol-Nerub and Grizzly Hills.

Azjol-Nerub: I always found it a shame that the Azjol-Nerub zone got cut from WotLK, so seeing it here as a full zone is cool. One odd thing is the fact that Baelgun, the dwarf Arthas killed to get access to the blood key, is still alive in the RPG. While I'd normally chalk it up to just being part of the shoddy timeline, this was apparently confirmed by Luke Johnson (I can't find the forum post, so I can't confirm), developer of the WoW RPG. Out of any character to retcon into being alive, what possible reason could you have to choose Baelgun? Aside from that, the description of Azjol-nerub is also really lacking, with no specific locations described beyond Baelgun's old holdings.

Borean Tundra: The only reasonable excuses for the scourge to not have taken control of the other regions of Northrend are that the natives are so low in population it's simply not worth it or that the natives are too well-defended to make the amount of undead that could be raised worth it. However, in the Tundra, we see those excuses fall flat on their face for the first time, with over 20000 tuskarr and 2800 trolls living in the region, with the largest settlement, Kaskala, having a population of 12500. Considering that the tuskarr have no defensive structures at all and a poorly organised military, this place should be like candy to the scourge. The tuskarr in the RPG also seem oddly friendly, considering that they were hostile creeps in warcraft 3. The description of Scholazar also feels really lacking considering it's a mysterious massive jungle in the place least likely to have it, yet somehow remaining uninhabited.

Coldarra: Home of the blue dragonflight. The nexus as seen in WoW hasn't been thought up yet, so it's simply an extensive network of caves here, like seen in Day of the Dragon. One odd remark that Brann makes here is that the lich king knows better than to invade this place and wouldn't get much from it anyway. While the former makes some sense, the latter doesn't. While the expense in troops would probably be massive, the lich king would still get 500 frost wyrms and, more importantly, access to the knowledge of Malygos, meaning he would have full and complete knowledge of magic.

Crystalsong Forest: There is a bit of an inconsistency in the RPG regarding the location of the genocide of the blue dragonflight. While the Coldarra section say that the destruction of the blue dragonflight resulted in the creation of the dragonblight, this section and the Dragonblight section say it resulted in the creation of Crystalsong forest. Unlike in WoW, there are no dryads, nymphs, satyr or ancients here, so the population is pretty boring, consisting solely of green dragons and crystalline golems (beings created by the storm giants of Ulduar to gather crystals). Brann also gives these races the hilariously specific population count of 141. Considering he didn't have conversations with members of either race beyond convincing them not to kill him, you got to wonder how in the world he arrived at that number. Otherwise, the section is actually pretty good.

Dragonblight: Of all the regions in Northrend to not have a scourge presence (okay, there's 160 scourge in the region, but that's such a tiny presence it can be disregarded), this region is the most ridiculous, since it's covered entirely in dragon skeletons and its defenses are minimal to non-existent, with only the 80 blue dragons of wymrest forming any threat. There's no presence from the other dragonflights, no magnataur, the icemist tauren (the inspiration for the taunka) have a population so small they'll go extinct even without any action by the scourge and the nerubians here are doing everything to avoid the scourge. Yet, for some reason, the scourge apparently has no interest. Brann even makes it sound like the scourge is still trying to find a use for hundreds of dragon skeletons. Hey, here's an idea: RAISE FROST WYRMS, YOU IDIOTS! Has staying in northrend frozen your brains or something? Actually, that would explain a lot about their actions in WotLK.

One of the adventures here is also particularly odd, with Deathwing going to dragonblight because he is dying and wants to be at peace. The adventure doesn't mention a reason for Deathwing to be dying, and there is no suggestion of Deathwing faking this, so we're probably supposed to infer that ol' Fluffywing is simply dying due to old age. However, I was always under the impression that the dragon aspects, being godlike creatures, were immortal. And why would Deathwing even want a peaceful resting place anyway? He's trying to kill everything because he's been corrupted by the old gods. I don't think you get out of that gig just by virtue of being old.

Grizzly Hills: Remember my comment about how silly it would be for thousands of dwarves to move to Bael Modan? Originally, I just chalked it up to Brann being overenthusiastic about archeology. However, Grizzly Hills has a population of over 14000 ironforge dwarves, putting that excuse to rest once and for all. It also has over 28000 furbolg, making it another odd zone for the scourge to not yet have conquered, though they at least have more than a token presence here (4750 undead present).

There also seems to be a major contradiction to World of Warcraft here, with the dwarves having discovered evidence that they're originally from the grizzly hills, placed there as a test by the titans. While it isn't explicitly confirmed, the listed adventure gives the implication that it probably is (with an ancient dwarven artifact found in the grizzly hills). This would be a major contradiction to the history given in the Uldaman dungeon in WoW, where it was revealed that the dwarves were created from a species called earthen by an external force, something which happened about half a planet to the south of the grizzly hills.

Howling Fjord: Howling Fjord is home to Valgarde, the keep built by the remains of Arthas' expedition after he ran off after the final human mission, making this the only alliance-dominated region in Northrend. Not really much else to say, though I like the small bit about most travellers wearing some kind of ear protection in order not to have to listen to the howling winds.

Icecrown Glacier: Well, we at least know where all the undead are, with Brann speculation that there are 250000 living here. Damn, that is a lot. Hey, you know what would be a good use for those legions? Conquering stuff! I know, I know, I keep going on about that, but it's something that seriously irks me. The scourge was such a huge threat in warcraft 3, yet here it's reduced to sitting on its ass.

The Storm Peaks: And another brilliant population count from the people who gave us stormwind. I suspect the writers are really, really bad at math, as this one's a doozy. The storm peaks is the only zone with a listed population of Magnataur, meaning their entire population resides here. Storm peaks has a listed population of 300. The magnataur make up 3% of that population. Ouch. The zone description is okay otherwise, though I find the descriptions a bit lacking. Especially Ulduar feels dull. Come on, it's a legendary titan city. There's gotta be something more impressive to comment on than the smoothness of the walls.

Zul'drak: To close off northrend, we get another zone with a large population yet no scourge presence, with over 33000 trolls living in Zul'drak. Aside from that, the description is actually pretty good. However, we get the most hilarious editing mistake I've ever seen in any of these RPG books: They left in the editor's notes!

“Or were the trolls more intelligent and more sophisticated long ago?

Why highlighted?

Oh yeah. Waiting on word from Blizz. I’ll nudge them.”

Chapter Six: Civilisations

The review is starting to run far too long, even by my standards, so I'll try to keep the next few chapters short. Chapter six gives us insight into four civilisations and gives us rules to play their members. They all look really interesting for people who like to play less conventional campains.

Blue Dragonflight: The blue dragonflight section is exceptionally well-done, giving us lots of clever details. One idea I especially like is the fact that some blue dragons have actually started investigating the holy light, as it is a divine form of magic that requires no worship of any deities (something which the blue dragons don't practice), with some of them likely having infiltrated the church of holy light. The only real mistakes in the section is stating that Malygos blessed the world tree and calling Rhonin Korialstrasz' apprentice, neither of which is true.

Magnataur: Yeah, just throw the storm peaks population count out the window, as the magnataur count as their own civilisation now. One thing that I always find funny about both this book and lands of conflict is how Brann randomly speculates that things are related to the old gods, despite there not being any thing to hint in that direction. The magnataur take the cake in this regard though, as even brann admits that he has absolutely no idea of any aspect of their history, yet he still thinks they're related to the old gods.

The magnataur of the RPG are a bit more intelligent than their WotLK counterparts, having only a minor -2 intelligence penalty, and there is mention of magnataur arcanists, shamans and trap-makers. Overall, the section feels a bit bipolar, with any given example contradicting facts that were established earlier. For example, one of the described characters is Dammia Frostcut, who other magnataur ofteen seek out for advice, assistance or alliance, despite the section earlier saying that the magnataur consider each other enemies and only work together when a strong one dominates others.

Murloc: This is one of the oddest sections I think I've had to comment on. On the one hand, it's really interesting, setting up murlocs as an ancient race that worship mysterious beings beneath the oceans and that, one day, simply appeared out of nowhere. On the other hand, it feels really disconnected from warcraft lore, as there are frequent references to murloc traders, the murlocs are described as being as tall and intelligent as grown humans and the first section almost makes them look like some sort of mythical species, the rumours of which were initially dismissed even by Brann. One other odd thing that I've noted is how much this section focuses on murlocs in Northrend. Coupled with the fact that all other civilisations are centred in northrend, I kinda suspect that Lands of Mystery was originally two books, one about Kalimdor, one about Northrend, which were thrown together.

Nerubians: The nerubians seem to be a big case of “Oops, we didn't think this through”. For example, a nerubian from the warrior caste or the seer caste may be promoted to spiderlord. This is despite the fact that spiderlords have entirely different bodies than warriors or seers. The same applies to random females and queens (who are three times as large). Yet there is no mention of any magic involved or anything. Similarly, the nerubians believe that any religion is by definition futile, yet they were apparently divided into five or six different schools of religious thought before they were slaughtered by the scourge (and one of their listed characters is a shaman). The nerubians are immune to the plague, yet they burn any nerubian who has it in the fear of it spreading. Still, the nerubians manage to be fairly interesting.

Chapter Seven: Adventures

We're gonna skip this chapter, since it's hard to cover adventures without spoiling them.

Chapter Eight: Organisations

Four organisations are given here: The bloodsail buccaneers, the burning blade, the druids of the fang and the scourge. I'll admit I'm not really fond of the choice to pick those specific four factions. The bloodsail buccaneers and the druids of the fang are fine, but it's odd to discuss the burning blade without talking about any of the other orcish clans and/or demonic cults, and the lore behind the scourge is about a hundred times more extensive than that for the other three organisations, to the point that you could probably dedicate a whole book to it.

Bloodsail Buccaneers: Okay, the backstory for this makes no sense. Falrevere, the leader of the buccaneers, was once a racist Kul Tiran merchant. When asked by a gryphon rider to defend Drisburg, a city on Kul Tiras that was mostly dwarven/gnomish immigrants, from the scourge, he calculated that the chances of victory were too low and prospective losses too great to assist the town, so he retreated. And then he decided he was never allowed to set foot on Kul Tiras again. Yeah, I don't get it either. There is no mention of him and his private fleet being drafted into the Tirasian military, so I don't get why a random merchant was expected to go on a suicide run. Sure, he threw the people who protested against the decision overboard, but I think the implication is supposed to be that he did it because he wasn't going to be able to return anyway. A lot of Falrevere's remaining troops chose to defend Lordaeron, which he allowed them to do, and the remaining troops became the bloodsail buccaneers. However, with this backstory, you'd expect the buccaneers to be fairly average sailors who just didn't want to give their lives in the fight against the undead. Yet they get described as the most bloodthirsty and depraved people imaginable.

The Burning Blade: The section's pretty okay, but as I said, it's like having one piece of a large puzzle. One thing that strikes me as odd though is that Brann is surprised that the leaders of the burning blade are orcs from the first war, as he thought orcs couldn't get that old. Wasn't the first war only 25 years ago? Considering the lethargy of the orcs in the internment camps likely hampered procreation a bit, shouldn't most orcs have experienced the first war?

Druids of the Fang: I always found the backstory of the druids of the fang a bit weird. What exactly was wrong with the barrens? Yeah, it was damaged in the sundering, but so were desolace, dustwallow marsh, durotar and thousand needles. If anything, the barrens got it the best. Why not help out your allies in dustwallow marsh or get the orcs their own damn fertile lands so they'll stop cutting down yours? The most logical explanation that I can think of is that there was something else wrong with the barrens, but the only thing that comes to mind is the emerald nightmare, which didn't spring up until thousands of years after the sundering. Also, why did the druids of the fang get a snake theme? The emerald nightmare doesn't really seem particularly snake-themed anywhere else.

I kinda dislike this section, as the writing seems chaotic and jumbled and the druids of the fang never come across like an organisation. Part of the problem is that the section uses the term druid of the fang to refer to the uncorrupted members of the cult, rather than referring to the corrupted members, stating they were already named that before the corruption. However, that doesn't really make sense. The druids of the fang were (according to the rpg) aligned with the bear-totem, so why wouldn't they just be druids of the claw?

The Scourge: As I said, the lore behind the scourge is so incredibly extensive it could probably get its own book. And this section is certainly not bringing information in the most efficient manner either. Reading this, you'd know less about the scourge than the burning blade. What strikes me as especially odd is the inclusion of Linnena Hallow as one of the scourge leaders alongside Arthas and Kel'thuzad, despite us having never seen in her in any media. Wouldn't it be more prudent to have someone like baron Rivendare, darkmaster Gandling or Ras Frostwhisper listed here, rather than a fairly-low ranking necromancer operating in the middle of nowhere?

Chapter Nine: New Rules

A bit of an appendix, giving some new options for players, including three prestige classes

Buccaneer: Now this is another case of being giving too little in a single book. As an aquatic class, the buccaneer is interesting, but as the only aquatic class in the game, it feels incredibly lacking. As it is now, the buccaneer makes for a fun NPC to encounter or something to play in a short campaign, but nothing I would play long-term with.

Holy Strider: This is a tauren spy with a few magical abilities and a connection to the land. Not exactly sure what is supposed to make them holy though. It looks fun, though the idea of a tauren running up a straight cliff is incredibly silly.

Techno-mage: Another class that really belong in another book. At least the buccaneer had a connection to the blackwater raiders and bloodsail buccaneers, which featured in the book. However, techno-mages are found mainly in the eastern kingdoms, which aren't seen in the book. To make up for this, the book gives us a special gathering of techno-mages in Kalimdor, in a place called the house of arcane contraptions. In the barrens. Near the border of Ashenvale. Yeah, there ain't no one who would object to humans and gnomes experimenting around with arcane magic in that general area. Admittedly, the house was built before the orcs arrived. 10 years before the orcs arrived in fact. Back when Kalimdor was still supposed to be a hidden continent. *facepalm* Plus, that just makes the question of why the night elves tolerated it even more important.

Feats: A couple of fun feat related to working in odd territories. Not really anything bad, but nothing that really stands out either.

Magic Items: I have no idea why these four items are here. None of them save Hellfire, the blade of Fel'dan, really have enough of an impact to warrant a list of only four items, and one of them, the argent dawn insignia, doesn't even have any connection to the subject of this book.

Steam Armor & Equipment: Again, I'm not entirely sure why this is here as the book didn't really have anything to do with steam armor. The XK-77 armor, used by mogul razdunk, should have just been in a sidebar, and the rest of them could be left out or saved for another book.

Special Materials: Nerubian Chitin! Okay, I'll admit that that fits in the book. I wonder why there aren't any other materials here though, as I can think of plenty of appropriate things (most notably the materials used by the naga in TFT).

Spells: A few fun spells, mostly related to water. Makes me think it would have been a good idea to put a hydromancer class or arcanist specialisation in here, to compliment the buccaneer.

Conclusion

Overall, I like this book, though the latter half is definitely lower quality than the former. Despite the fact that I like it, I think that this book is the reason the RPG was declared uncanonical. Plot holes, pointless retcons and stupid developments are something blizzard can live with. However, this book would have incredibly limited the potential for any expansion involving Northrend, as the descriptions don't leave any room to add new elements. The book also feels like it was thrown together out of several other smaller books that focused on the individual regions, as the tone and style between the kalimdor parts, the south sea parts and the northrend parts shifts rather noticably. I'm also going to subtract half a point for the pointless resurrection of Baelgun. So, all in all, the book gets 7,5/10.

Next, we take our first look at the world of warcraft comics.