Worlds of the Nether: Irden Reichs

The Irden are today one of the greatest powers in our sector of the galaxy, but every great power must begin somewhere. It may be hard to imagine their beginnings seeing their influence, but once, a long time ago, the dwarves that became the leaders of the Irden Reichs did not even dominate their homeworld of Zvargoff. Over 3500 years ago, it was a world of giants. All of the dominant races were various kinds of giants, from fleshy hill giants, through mountain and stone giants, through the sea giants dominating the seas, through ogres and ettins stalking the valleys, through fire giants dwelling underground and coming up to gather more slaves, up to the rare cloud giants. That last race was in that ancient era the definite overlords of Zvargoff, then known as Tyrinsal.

Map of the Warcraft Galaxy – Update (NGC 6384)

Map of the Warcraft Galaxy (NGC 6384)

Aberrations of the Bone

For some time, Mr. Krasha was looking for people interested in going to one potential mission, one that wasn’t very popular among most here. Ever since our crews started going out into the other worlds, we all heard about the Xa’tac and the terror they sown across known worlds. This “Space Scourge” was furthermore rumored to recently re-emerge after centuries of presumed extinction at the hands of the Burning Legion. So when the boss was informed by the Gnadra that our gnomish friends, Captain Matus T. Manks’s crew, was abducted and held on that world, few were interested in actually going there. I know it’s common among the adventurers to quote Draenor for being so savage, but this world was the home of an interstellar empire of terror and undeath. Even if they are presumed to be dead, who knows what kind of terrors still lurk within? And we weren’t too far off.

Worlds of the Nether OOC Insights

The setting, or rather settings, I’ve been making for our Worlds of the Nether campaigns/sessions on Twitter do not appear to be particularly complex. I mean, all you get to see from those worlds are small glimpses that can serve in two or three scenes we can manage to pull off in one evening. Even a TV show that visits one world per week, for 45 minutes, gets a better exposure for their worlds because they can just pull off many more scenes, detailing many more characters and more background elements. So you’d think I don’t need to explore much of the worlds I’m making for these, as long as I make a compelling setting for a few quick fights or talks, right? Well, you’re wrong. I mean, maybe I don’t need to do that, but I do it anyway, because I have some compulsion to write small details into everything that probably borders on a mental disorder.

Deathlords of Xa’tac

It’s hard to write anything definitive about the Xa’tac civilization. Most people out there among the stars know them only as “Deathlords of Xa’tac”, but in this way they omit the long history of the Xa’tac people, most of which wasn’t that different from histories of other worlds – as in, not filled with gruesome ritual sacrifices and enslavement of millions into undeath. They have come to be known in this way due to their short and brutal rule of many worlds and the campaign of conquest that enslaved and completely exterminated multiple worlds. They became a threat so powerful the Burning Legion itself stepped up to destroy them. And once they were wiped out to the last man, the demons were content to simply fly away and never look back. The Deathlords of Xa’tac became a boogeyman that mothers scared unruly children with. But we can’t forget where they came from and how they became what they were.

There’s too many gods of death

Everyone wants to be a god of death it seems. Why is that so? I don’t know about others, but I much prefer life. When you’re dead, you can’t taste things, or feel the soft, new nest underneath you. When you’re dead, you can’t expand your knowledge. So why there’s so many gods of death? I mean, think about it. Arthas, the Lich King, presented himself to the vrykul as a “death god”. His “best friend” Yogg-Saron of course had to suffix his already scary title of “Old God” with “of Death”. Now, DEATHwing decided his name doesn’t have enough death in it so he proclaimed himself an Aspect of DEATH. Even the squawking quilboar had an organization called “Death’s Head”. It seems that if you want to sound scary you have to put as much DEATH as possible in your names and titles. Coming soon: deathy death death of death (and death). And then there are these Xa’tac.