Guild Stories: The Tree of Life

Hello, my still faithful (I hope) blog readers. Since we’ve started the guild, I’ve been writing up summaries of our stories there on the guild Discord, but I never published them out to the public. I figured people would be interested in hearing what happened to Krasha since, so I’m sharing the Discord summaries here.

OOC

Verroak Krasha arrived in Orgrimmar to find his new group of minions on the Horde side and offer them a job people of Alliance races would not be able to do easily – venture into Suramar and acquire fruits of the arcan’dor. His long-standing research attempted to free the blood elf race of their mana addiction for good. Not just substitute it with the Sunwell, or other sources of magic, to cure it for good. To further work on his research, he needed the fruit of the arcan’dor, which he knew cured the nightborne of their hunger.

Our first contact was a slimy merchant named Marian Lulian. As it turns out, a group of corrupt guards just came into his shop and took some of his rare gems “confiscating” it. After being pushed a little by a ruthless death knight of ours, Glysra, he confessed the fruit has been stolen by a group of thieves known as Tunnel Snakes. He’d tell us more, but only if we chase the guards and retrieve the confiscated goods. So we did, and in spite of our best attempts at parlay, it’s come to blows and we massacred the guards at a pier near the market. Once we took the stolen goods back, Marian gave us the information we needed to retrieve the stolen fruit for ourselves.

We delved into an old ruin where the Tunnel Snakes lived, or rather once lived. Now, they were all killed by an assailant that would soon prove to be more corrupt guards, and their blood elven allies. We found the sole remaining Tunnel Snake, Mordial, and as we dispatched his torturers, he offered to help us in dealing with the rest. Deeper in, there was a powerful blood elf spellbreaker, talking to the true leaders of this organization – a nightborne Arcanist Nasadra and a blood elf Magister Renethras. As their projected images dispersed, the spellbreaker attacked and we were forced to kill him. Glysra was now pissed by the interruptions and vowed to kill the two leaders, while we still needed to find more fruit.

First, we left Suramar in pursuit of the blood elf magister. In Silvermoon City we encountered a former apprentice of his, fired for accidentally killing his dragonhawk. As she was quite a mess, we had to bribe her, and our paladin Lillianei convinced her to change her life. However, she did reveal that another warlock who lived nearby was still in contact with Renethras. Once we met the other warlock, a former demon trainer, he resisted briefly, before spilling the beans on Renethras. Turns out they were religiously worshipping Kael’thas as the Sun King who became something far more powerful after his death, and would return one day to save Silvermoon and burn the rest of the world. Then his goons attacked us again to try to stop us, but after we dealt with them, Rommath himself showed up and told us they too want to get rid of the fanatical magister and they’d arrange their forces in a way to help us deal with him.

We went deeper into the blood elf lands, to the Isle of Quel’Danas itself, where Renethras’s Firewing zealots occupied a sanctum. In the middle of it, they were performing some profane ritual, connecting them to Shadowlands themselves. While we dealt with some of the people protecting Renethras, the ritual almost succeeded. Renethras briefly contacted Kael’thas, but as the latter was still undergoing his torture in Castle Nathria, he believed the voice of his former follower to be a phantom summoned by his torturers and refused, as the spell collapsed. The magister was furious and tried to kill us, but despite his powerful magic, we succeeded in destroying him.

While we gathered some fruit from the magister’s room, we needed much more. Glysra got wind of a raffle being held in Suramar, offering four of the arcfruit to the lucky winners, and a chance to avoid their certain withering. Attending the raffle were, among others, our “friend” Marian Lulian, the thief Mordial, and a lady near to withering, Jourie Ravenoak. As it turned out, the raffle was sponsored by our nemesis, Arcanist Nasadra. After we listened to her rant against Thalyssra and the Horde, we bought our tickets, only to be informed by Mordial that the whole raffle is rigged, and the real fruit is behind held above. He convinced us to sneak away to steal the fruit, but Marian noticed us. Luckily, after a brief distraction, Marian was stunned and hidden in the bushes.

Reaching the fruit on the ledge above, we found ourselves surprised by the rafflemaster Shyloque, who warded the area to stop thieves. Thankfully, he was a very simple spellcaster and could not handle our assault. Once we gathered our fruit and Mordial ate one, happy to finally be free of the hunger… he suddenly turned to ice and was shattered. Nasadra was just inside the building and her powerful ice magic could pretty much one-shot anyone. However, Meelah succesfully stunned her long enough for us to run away.

A while later, Glysra followed Nasadra to a building on the Concourse of Destiny, while Meelah brought back an amulet with an enchanted fire elemental essence to protect us from Nasadra’s magic. After confronting the guards, we found out these were not bought off by her and in fact came here with Silgryn. After we informed them of Nasadra’s treachery, we entered the building together, only to find Silgryn already confronting her. Nasadra revealed her true plan – killing half of Suramar, because there would never be enough arcan’dor fruit to save everyone. Silgryn found that understandably insane, but Nasadra was offended and attacked. Although Silgryn protected himself well enough, he was wounded and ran for help, while we confronted the arcanist.

The fight ended on top of the building, as Nasadra summoned ice elementals and a massive hailstorm, trying to ruin the city. Thanks to our protection and the help of Jourie, a warlock as it turns out, she could not easily kill us, and we managed to strike her down and disperse the storm she summoned. Glysra brutally murdered her in the end, and Silgryn came back just in time to see the result. As he promised before, he rewarded us with what whatever we’d ask for – and that’s the arcan’dor fruit.

We departed the city to let it recover from our… activities and succesfully delivered the bounty our boss wanted.

Character Profiles: Riktal Bluefingers

Riktal during her visit to Frostfire Ridge

Name: Riktal, daughter of Tagal, of the Frostwolf Clan
Race: Orc
Gender: female
Age: 21
Class: Mage (frost)
Professions: herbalism, inscription
Religion: Shamanism
Alignment (per D&D): Chaotic Neutral
Traits (per CK2): quick, ugly, shy, kind, just, diligent

History of Azeroth: The Quilboar Intercession

Little is commonly known about quilboar history. In popular knowledge, they’re known as simply one of the numerous “primitive” native races of Kalimdor that were displaced by the Horde during its initial campaign in that continent. They appear as little less in the public consciousness, as simply the minor villains and roadblocks in the road to Horde’s supremacy. Few people realize they have a rich, unique culture and a whole body of legends and histories about their past. Even less people realize that at one point in time they had a chance to claim their place on Azeroth as one of the dominant races of our world. For those with even cursory knowledge of ancient history, their once powerful role should come as no surprise, given their role in War of the Ancients and their place in the world of that era. However, it’s what came after that shaped their current position the world.

Infinite Azeroths: Dranosh

Timeline: Azeroth-18
Character: Warlord Dranosh Saurfang, Warchief Varok’s son and heir

Being the heir of a Warchief is a rather fickle business. As much as we like to pretend we abandoned our old bloodlust and that we no longer hold the villains of the Old Horde in high regard, we are still orcs. We still love battle, and at a moment’s notice, someone can jump out at Varok, I meant father, and decide it’s now their turn to lead the Horde. I do not fear for father’s life, for he is a warrior like few others, but everybody has a bad day from time to time. Or someone could poison the blade of his enemy and make the new Warchief win without honor. So as certain as I can claim to be in public, I am never completely certain if I will ever become the Warchief. Or if I want that to happen to at all.

Infinite Azeroths: Ironclaw

Timeline: Azeroth-41
Character: Rehgar Ironclaw, one of the chief Dark Shaman of the corrupted Kor’kron

A storm was brewing above the shores of Kargath Bay. Or rather, Grommashar Bay as “glorious Warchief Garrosh Hellscream” prefers to call it now. Ever since the Darkspear Rebellion and the Alliance failed to overcome their differences and lost in Orgrimmar, Garrosh went on an unprecedented offensive. From a villain with no popular support, he suddenly became a miracle worker. He turned the tides of war against his enemies despite overwhelming odds and all the loot-hungry adventurers knocking at his door. In his thirst for power, he ravaged Pandaria with the Sha of Pride he unleashed, and invoked upon the ancient and forbidden powers of the Old God Y’Shaarj. The creature was long dead, he thought, but Garrosh forgot the maxim the Twilight’s Hammer keeps repeating, which is ominously true – they do not live, they do not die, they are outside the cycle. Y’Shaarj will soon be reborn – in him.