The Tree of Darnassus: Rut'theran Village, Temple of the Moon

Movellas WoW writing competition

I am making this post under duress from Navi and Kamalia, I swear!

So a while ago I saw a writing competition being advertised on the twitters calling for writers to submit their stories about WoW. Since I have been known to do that kind of thing I submitted three stories (there was no limit) on what I thought was nearly the end of the competition. June 6th came and went and nothing changed on the competition page so I stupidly stopped checking back. Then, after July 6th I got a tweet from the illustrious Ironyca alerting me to the fact that the winners had been announced.

And.....

I was one of them?

Out of 74 entries, 8 were chosen to receive some fun prizes. My story The Innkeeper's Daughter got second place, as illustrated by this incredible image made by WoW Roleplay Gear. LOOK YOU GUYS! It's Aka wearing silver plate!!!

I highly recommend you take a moment to peruse all of the entries, because there were a lot of really great ones, including some by other bloggers you know and love!

Dollhouse: Green Grass, Purple Shade

Only one race has the privilege of saying they live in a tree. Rising up out of the sea is the great tree Teldrassil, planted in an attempt to recreate the World Tree. In addition to the night elf starting area, the tree houses the capital city of the night elves. Friendly players will most likely approach from the sea, taking either a boat or hippogryph flight to the now-reclaimed Rut'theran Village. Teldrassil is little more than a looming shadow from this vantage point. The only things to do on Rut'theran's island are take one of three boats or step through the glowing pink portal.

Once among the branches, the city of Darnassus is laid out in an open, circular pattern. Major quarters ring the edges, while the central bank is surrounded by a large lake. I'm not sure if the trees on Teldrassil count as trees or merely branches, but the night elves make the most of them by carving them into buildings.

Just beside the city's portal is the flight master and quartermaster. Straight ahead is the tree housing the central bank, which is filled with piles and piles of gold behind an open window. Going counter-clockwise from the portal will bring players to the Temple of the Moon, where the High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind and her consort Arch-Druid Malfurion Stormrage hold court with diplomats and Sisters of Elune. This section draws on the Nordic-influenced elven architecture, with lots of lichen-covered towers and pillars. The white marble gives a cool solemnity to the religious center, and the few alcoves allude to quiet study by pious worshippers.

Continuing the circuit brings us to the Tradesmen's Terrace, which houses the city's auction house and several vendors. The buildings here are many-storied, wooden, and open in their construction. Many lack doors and only have enough walls to support the structure. The pathways are packed dirt and lined with grass and purple-leaved trees. Even though it's a capital city I can't help but want to take my shoes off and go for a walk! Happily, there are a few empty rooms that roleplayers could easily take up residence in. This section even features a barracks for the Sentinels!

Skipping back through the Temple Gardens, taking advantage of the lovely stone bridges over the lake, we come to the Cenarion Enclave, my Ally home-away-from-home. (What wouldn't I give for something like this in Thunderbluff?) The buildings are hollowed-out trees that house druid, hunter, and the elusive rogue trainers, and players can train their riding skill and purchase nightsaber mounts here. The top room in the druid section is conspicuously empty. The walls leading to the underground rogue trainers have some interesting runes carved in them!

Northeast of the Enclave is a recent addition to the city: The Howling Oak. This is the sanctuary for the Gilnean worgen, and houses class trainers and refugees and not much else. The atmosphere itself is cool enough: the Oak is a "worgen tree" much like the massive Tal'doren in the worgen starting area. Mysteriously, there are no residences at all here.

Southeast from the Enclave is the Craftsmen's Terrace, which holds the city's inn, the Argent Dawn ambassadors, and the city's profession trainers and vendors. Here are more wooden, open buildings, some of which contain creature comforts like beds and privacy screens, the answer to wall-less rooms. Along the outer edge are spectacular, five tiered buildings. When there was no flying in Azeroth, these were perfect, but now that I can fly up to peek in the frosted windows I would love to be able to fly right inside and move in!

Last, but not least, is the Warrior's Terrace. This brings us back to the classic marble pillars and houses the warrior trainers and battlemasters tucked away in corners. Continuing east through the wide walkway will bring players once again onto soft grass. Heading past the wisps and ancients will bring you to Teldrassil proper.

Darnassus has cool relaxation down to an art. You can see the serenity reflected in the open, guileless architecture and layout of the city and feel it in the always-shady, damp and mossy flora directly intwined with the buildings. There are a few locations in the city perfect for roleplayers to insinuate themselves into the daily life alongside the NPCs, which makes me very happy! As much as I love my Hordies, gorgeous cities like this one make me wish I could visit them more regularly.

Green Grass, Purple Shade

Rut'theran Village, Temple of the Moon

Temple Gardens, Howling Oak

Cenarion Enclave

Tradesmen's Terrace

Craftsmen's Terrace

Warrior's Terrace

IRL Ding!

Congratulations, you have reached level 25!

You have gained 200 cooking profession points.

You have learned IDGAF (rank 3).

Your Strength increases by 5 pushups.

Your Intellect increases by a nominal amount.

Your Spirit increases by enough to stare down angry office ladies and overly curious gym acquaintances.

And now for something completely different

get your party hardy on

always be yourself

always

make sure everyone appreciates how great you are

yep just like that

if you get any haters just fight them

enjoy your favorite activities with friends

go out for dinner

cigars are a birthday must

when in doubt, just move your hips

I'm sure there's a useful takeaway message in here somewhere.

[Shared Topic] Starstruck

Before we begin, turn on your speakers and groove slam, work it back, filter that, baby bump that track. If it's stuck in my head it might as well be stuck in yours, too.

What? She's still kicking around Blog Azeroth? Yeah, yeah. Once upon a time I was inspired by the weekly shared topics at BA, then my brain decided to take a little thinking vacation and that was that. This week, however, Dragonray from Azerothian Life wants to know:

Are you starstruck by anyone? Does someone in the community respond to a post or a tweet and get you all speechless because they actually responded? Is there anyone you are waiting to have respond directly to you? Is there someone that you would like to chat to, but are too chicken? Am I the only one who puts other bloggers on a pedestal?

In short: yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes!

Did you know that one time Keeva commented on my blog? Beru responded to my comment on her blog? Pewter tweeted about a post I wrote and recommended it?! Cynwise replied to one of my tweets?  Matticus liked one of my NBI posts?? Rades has my blog on his blogroll?!?!?!

YOU GUYS, I AM SURROUNDED BY FAMOUS PEOPLE AND SOMETIMES THEY NOTICE ME!!!

Some bloggers are famous but still take the time to recommend or comment on other blogs. Those folks seem really approachable because, well, they approach you! Random tweets may break the ice, but having at least a short volley is the only way to know they are genuinely interested in talking to you. It's so flattering, especially when you haven't really interacted before. I mean, to you, they are THE (name), whereas to them, you are RandomFollower#133498.

I don't know if there's anyone I'm waiting to respond...I haven't written to or about anyone in a little while. I would love for a bunch of random famous bloggers to just pop by and be like "wow, Aka, great blog!" but since they are all busy doing their own blogging thing, usually about things crunchier than tauren angst, I'm not holding my breath.

I surely am chicken, or at least veeeery hesitant to initiate contact with some bloggers. In some cases it's because I know they are really busy and likely won't reply, making my jerkbrain feel sad and lonely. In other cases it's because I figure they get a lot of messages and don't need or won't notice mine. Larissa at PPI used to respond to nearly every comment she got on her blog no matter how many there were - even if I never get as much traffic as her I totally want to be like that!

Finally, hell yeah I put bloggers on a pedestal! If I didn't, I don't know that I would be so impressed when they take notice of little old me. But honestly, it doesn't just extend to big name bloggers. I have what I consider to be my circle of blogging friends, and their commentary means as much if not more to me because we are friends!

Dang, I know that I encouraged sending fanmail as a way to connect with and support bloggers, but so far I've sent very little. I should get on that, and show my blogging crushes just how starstruck I am!

Faffin' around

Are you guys exhausted by all of the fanfic posts yet? There's a little bit of a break coming, so take a breath. Now would probably be a bad time to mention the just-created Fanfic Fridays?

This past weekend was the last free weekend I'll have until I leave Japan, so I spent it gorging myself on WoW. What? That's a perfectly acceptable use of my time. I visited the Midsummer fires on 3 toons and honored or peed on them as the situation called for. Sprinkie the mage gained a level and a half, which is nice because I don't particularly want to go through Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord again. I am looking forward to Sholazar Basin for whatever reason. Aka got Ahune's scythe, and my silly paladin found an Ice Chip in her bag! Anzu, however, remains Mob-of-Interest #1.

On Saturday night, I got a random tell from a level 1 asking me to come to a heroic 25 ICC. We didn't endeavor to do any particular achievements, although some simply happened. Sadly, WoW crashed and  wouldn't let me back in for around 10 minutes so I missed the entirety of the Valithria fight and almost got booted from the group. Everything was going well until we got to LK, when people were shot off the platform by the shadow puddles or stood in defile, and the RL unleashed an unexpected torrent of hatred on the group. Awww, your precious nerd rage, it tastes so good. I was having a great time watching Legend of Korra.

The next night, as I was tooling around the Faire on my mage, I got a tell from a former guildie (she didn't leave on the best of terms) asking me to bring a toon to the last 2 bosses of DS. I told her I couldn't go (I was engrossed in Tangled, okay) and she asked me who my main was. I told her and she stopped responding...guess she didn't remember me? For some reason that annoyed me. You don't even know who you are talking to but you try to get raiders for your new guild's raid? It's not any different from what the random from Saturday did, but considering she and I raided together for several weeks I thought she would at least recognize my name. Harrumph!

There's been lots of Mists information lately, and I am loving all of it! The shared mounts and pets are making me a very happy grinder. I'm chugging away at the Darkmoon Faire, having each alt buy a different pet so that eventually they will all be shared with my main! And the flippable table? You better believe I FLIPPED MY SHIT when I saw that. Holy crap! An item just for me! I actually haven't played in the beta for quite some time. Although they raised the level cap and opened up the final zone, I feel like I've gotten what information I needed and now I can wait to play it for reals. Seeing the pandaren starting zone was enough to give me an idea for my new character, and goofing my way through the 85+ quests helped solidify my plans for Aka's story. Now I just need a release date to plan around and I'm set!

Remember when I was curious about pandaren roleplay, namely what island characters would know about the rest of the world? As always, Anne Stickney comes through for me with a fantastic roundup of exactly how much Azerothian history they've missed out on.

aka: druid pajamas
dah: beach gear
aka: flattering, but protective
dah: please don't have the LW design druid bikinis...

In addition to more LW posts (gosh I love those guys), I've hopefully got a few more lead-in stories regarding Aka, Mists, and my newbie. There's also the rest of the city picspam posts (did you forget about the Silvermoon one?). Since I'll be using my laptop during the month of August, I'm hoping to queue up a ton of screenshot posts and maybe check in weekly via video! Finally, I'm knocking around the idea of creating a toon that only does holiday activities. If this means only doing level appropriate quests or trying to corpse run through high level areas remains to be seen. Also, I'm trying to decide between rogue/druid for stealth, hunter for pet distraction, or pally for plate protection and self healing. Any ideas?

Dahakha's Return (guest post!)

What did I tell you about needing to read more? Are you guys freaking out as much as I am?? (Previously from Dah: Dahakha's Finale, The New Recruit)

=====

Purple lightning flashed across the sky as the ethereal camp buzzed with activity. In the centre of the clearing was a large machine, covered with strange writing and sprouting cables and wires which led to all manner of diagnostic devices and....a power source the likes of which Blazzit had never seen before nor since. He thought that he had wired everything up properly, but that was not a reliable indication of anything in goblin engineering. Especially goblin engineering interfaced with ethereal technology! Still, no goblin ever invented anything by not experimenting, and Blazzit was determined to bring something back to Area 52 that would make his bitter rival, Grendrel Frazzlenut, as jealous as Blazzit's engineering schoolmates had been when he demonstrated his combination cigar-lighter/decanter to them. Well, after he had overcome that unfortunate open-flame-and-alcohol problem that may have been responsible for his lady friend leaving him.....how was he to know that was her most expensive toolkit? With a shake of his head he brought his mind back to the machine in front of him.

The ethereals had no idea what the machine was for, and so he had been contracted to find out. Nobody knew anyone who could identify, let alone read, the alien writing, so Blazzit had resorted to the tried-and-true experimental methodolgy of turning it on and seeing what happened. Unfortunately there was no obvious switch or power source, so here they were, about to find out what happened when enough power to fuel every machine on Azeroth (so the ethereals said, anyway) was fed into it.

With one last glance over his work, he yelled "Clear!" and began the countdown. All activity ceased as the ethereals stood by with whatever precautionary measures they had devised. Blazzit contented himself with pulling his shaded goggles over his eyes as he reached one. He threw the switch.

The machine exploded.

Blazzit's eyes widened as something metallic and sharp hurtled toward him. Then, just as he was about to flinch, time seemed to slow. The shard came to a halt mere inches from his long green nose, then started flying back in to where the machine had been. There was a massive, horrifying ripping sound, and the debris - which a moment before had been exploding outward – was sucked into a tear in the fabric of reality.

Blazzit could feel it tugging at him too, and he saw in his peripheral vision others starting to stagger against their wills towards the tear. Suddenly a shape appeared at the centre of the vortex, and the rift closed violently, sending shockwaves in all directions. Blazzit was knocked off his feet and even turned a few backwards somersaults before his momentum faded.

As he picked himself up he became aware of a struggle taking place in the camp. Ethereals were doing their best to shackle something....a.....tauren? He gingerly moved closer, testing all his limbs and checking that everything was present and accounted for. Finally he had a clear view of the creature. It was a tauren, huge and black and very very angry. An ethereal raised his weapon to club the captive, but Blazzit halted it with a cry.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? And what did you do to my machine?!", he finished indignantly. The tauren glared at him. "Do you even understand me?". More glaring. "Bah! Fine then." He turned to the ethereal in charge of the camp. "I will need you to hold him until I can fetch some help from Orgrimmar. I hope Chieftan Baine can lend me some of his people....I bet he would be pleased to have news of another tribe of tauren!" Blazzit lost himself in daydreams of the grateful tauren leader rewarding him with riches....

"Chieftan Baine?" The gravelly voice was hoarse and alarmed. "Baine Bloodhoof?"

"Heh, so you can understand me. Yes...wait, you know the Chieftan?" Blazzit's face fell as his dreams of riches faded.

"What happened to Cairne? There was no talk of him stepping down last time I was in Thunder Bluff!" The tauren looked, as far as Blazzit could tell, almost panicked.

"Er....Cairne has been dead for months. Don't tell me you never heard of his duel with the Warchief?!"

The tauren looked stunned. "Dead? But...why would he duel Saurfang?"

"Saurfang? Hellscream! You think I am an idiot? I know who my Warchief is!" Blazzit was starting to lose his temper. "Give me your name, tauren! I have things to do!."

The tauren stared off into the distance, numb with shock. "I am Dahakha. Known as the Insane to some. Maybe I have finally lost it...."

"Right." Blazzit turned away, flicking his fingers at the ethereals. "Take him somewhere secure. I will-", he broke off as a screech sounded behind him. He whirled just in time to see a bird of prey clear the camp and fly off into the Netherstorm wilderness. The tauren was gone.

=====

You guys, he won't even tell me what's in store!