This just in: Farf may or may not have been hallucinating, but GMs were newbies once too.
I put in a ticket about Adon - see last post.
<3
~Farf
Level 14 – in which Farf may be hallucinating.
I recognise that this is getting a bit out of order chronologically. If it helps, even though this post is #14, the level at which it actually took place was level 20 (it’s just a bit different on the blog so I can fit everything in.) I’ve also not been to the Undercity yet for the quest I described yesterday (I did that at 21), so yesterday’s post hasn’t happened.
Being level 20, and Ghostlands being 10-20, I was looking for some new places to go and quest, and because the Ghostlands was adjacent to Eversong Woods on the map I assumed that the zones were just joined up linearly, so that ‘Eastern Plaguelands’ place I could see was the next zone on my map must be the one I was meant to go to next. So off I went, jogging down the path. Eventually I got to the place you can see above, which is called the Thalassian Pass. In lore terms, this marks the boundary between the Elvish kingdoms and Lordaeron, which was ruled by humans. It’s also the only entrance to Quel’thalas by land, so it serves as a strategic chokepoint (if you can control it, you can either storm through or block everyone from getting in.) It’s very close to what is now Deatholme, and what is going on in Deatholme is what ties in the lore of Eastern Plaguelands to the Ghostlands.
Deatholme is currently the home of a High Elf named Dar’khan Drathir. He was once a Magister (part of the ruling class in Silvermoon) but turned traitor and helped Arthas to use the Sunwell to resurrect the lich Kel’thuzad. Although technically he’s dead, after the events of the Sunwell Trilogy, in WoW he appears to have been resurrected by the Lich King and he lives in Deatholme where he’s still plotting against Silvermoon and Quel’thalas. Deatholme is full of the kind of Scourge you see in the Eastern Kingdoms, lots of necromancers and skeleton, and it has several plague cauldrons, which are used by the Scourge to brew the plague used to kill living things and make more Scourge. Deatholme is where the Dead Scar begins, so it’s the base Arthas used for his attacks. In-game, you have to collect two powerful artifacts, which are imbued with the magic of the Sunwell, to put Dark’han down – it’s a level 21 ish group quest with really good quest rewards, for the level.
Anyway, the geography of Deatholme is exactly the same as the geography of the Eastern Plaguelands, which suggests that Deatholme might be an outpost in Lordaeron rather than in Quel’thalas – which is backed up by the fact that there’s a second High Elven outpost close to this one in the Eastern Plaguelands. This makes sense, because when you approach the Thalassian pass you see this banner:
- which is the banner of the Scourge and Arthas, suggesting that the Pass is controlled by the Scourge rather than by Quel’thalas, or at the very least they passed through the archway to get into Quel’thalas. Anyway. Once you’re through the archway, the geography of the landscape changes:
- and you’re quite obviously not in Quel’thalas anymore. So my level 20 self, trotting along, felt like I’d done quite well in finding my way around. Then I came across this portal -
- and stopped short, because I’d never seen anything like it before.
Well, I’d never done an instance, and I hadn’t left the Quel’thalas area yet, so I had no idea what a loading screen was other than what you got when you logged on. I had an inkling of what it was for, because in Spyro you had to jump through portals – well, gateways really – to get to different levels, so it wasn’t like I was completely clueless. Anyway, I jumped through it and headed off into the Eastern Plaguelands when suddenly I was stopped by this guy.
Now this is the freaky thing. I remember this guy as being a very helpful High Elf. When I ran past him at level 20 on Farfalla, I could swear that he said something like ‘Stop! Do not go any further, this land is too dangerous for you!’ and told me to come back later when you’re more powerful. But when I was searching the internet for what he actually says so I could write this post, I didn’t come up with anything – Wowhead, Thottbot and Wowwiki all reveal nothing, just point out that his name sounds like ‘add-on’ and he’s situated next to where the expansion pack joins to the rest of the game.
Intrigued, I decided to test it on my druid, who’s level 14, so I just ran him all the way down to Adon and jumped around in front of him. Nothing. So either -
a) he used to do this and for some reason doesn’t now,
b) he only does it to blood elves – which I can’t test, because I don’t have a low-level one, or
c) he never did it and I’m hallucinating.
Food for thought.
~Farf
