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)

A Titanic Task

Who says only Titans can move and shape lands? Well, people who don’t know much, or who are dogmatically following some silly beliefs. For your information, ethereals can move lands. As I learned some time ago, they sometimes locate worlds shattered by the Burning Legion (or Old Gods, or other nasties – yes, there are more) and take whole chunks of those worlds, snap some magic technology to them and relocate those chunks elsewhere for easy harvest by their ethereal and grav crews. A lot of the minerals or items you may have purchased or otherwise acquired from ethereals come from these. So when I learned about an ethereal in deep debt who was willing to part with his land-moving devices, I was quick to jump on the occasion.

Chain pain

They don’t send me on these away missions often. As the main healer of our humble establishment, they prefer to keep in backup. So I sit there in my room and spend most of my day reading and occasionally treating a minor bruise or a cough someone caught and is then convinced he’s dying (I’m looking at you, Hwarnë). Sometimes, something interesting happens. I remember when we got attacked by that Iron Horde task force and the darfellan guest stepped right into a patch of poison Aeresham dropped, so I had to work my non-existent ass off to treat an alien poison on an alien individual. I’m not complaining, I like a good challenge. It’s different when I get to go on a mission. The field healing magic may not be exact and leave some ailments untreated, but it’s an interesting change of pace.

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.

Spaced out

I cannot pretend I understand what’s going on between my uncle and that ogre, Lunk. Apparently the ogre is popular in some circles for some zany adventures he goes on and the unusual for his race pacifism. In my timeline I never heard of him so I assume he was dead. It’s a brutal world out there and someone who refuses to kill likely did not survive for long. Well, this version of Lunk survives and even thrives, to a certain degree. I even saw two alter egos he donned – the eloquent “Professor Lunk” and “Fel-Breaker Lunk” who was still the same but with special powers. And despite all of that, he likes to constantly try his luck and dare even more ridiculous things every day. One of his obsessions is about going to the White Lady (to which he refers very eloquently as “the moon”), and for that purpose, he recently went off-world to Darfell.

Captain’s Log, Space Date 2456915

Character: Captain Matus T. Manks of the Venture, boldly going where no gnome has gone before
The day began very usually. We read through the “nightly” shift’s mining reports and prepared for our work the following day. I must say living on a world tidally-locked to its sun can wreck one’s sense of time quite well. This red dwarf is stuck in eternal sunset and no matter when you wake up or when you go to sleep, you will always see the same amount of light, and our bodies are set to identify how tired they are by the amount of light in the environment. After spending a month on the duty of protecting the grav miners here, I find myself lying awake in bed for the whole time designated as “night” on our timetables, and then feeling completely tired for the whole “day”. But that was by far the least odd thing that happened to me yesterday.