In all honesty South Fury River pollution should have been a dominant feature in the revolt against Garrosh. That coupled with the fact that Baine should have had at least a bit of a grudge against garosh for killing his father in an unfair duel.
13 Likes
Frankly lorewise that’s one of the more glaring annoyances about the manner in which the goblins were being blamed for the Southfury Watershed pollution. While they tend to make messes wherever they settle, that specific case was never just a matter of “goblins being goblins.” It was explicitly a result of Garrosh pushing the goblins to mass-produce war engines and weaponry to an unsustainable and damaging degree.
Moreover the way the narrative subsequently attributed the development of his war machines between the end of MoP and into WoD, that stuff would have been heavily facilitated by the Blackfuse Company goblins in particular, who betrayed the rest of the Horde to support Garrosh both during the Siege of Orgrimmar and in Draenor.
It was a very specifically mentioned situation in As our Fathers Before Us, meant to highlight how Garrosh wasn’t just making outrageous demands of the tauren and other non-orc races out of otherwise unavoidable necessity; in a time when everyone was already desperately trying to hold onto and survive with what they had after the Shattering, his warmongering policies were actively and needlessly creating shortages where they otherwise wouldn’t exist. On top of all the damage and losses that Deathwing’s return had caused, Garrosh was creating additional and completely avoidable problems, then demanding that the orcs’ allies provide supplies and manpower to let him keep pursuing the same irresponsible policies that were creating more shortages of both.
15 Likes
The fact that he needs to be taught to read and write at all is one catastrophic stumbling block. As a shaman he represents the intelligentsia of the society he comes from. The intellectual elite, the wise men/women who maintain the lore, wisdom, culture and law of their society.
Add to that the predicament of the teacher being white coded gentry instructing a non white coded individual smacks at the very least of 19th century colonialism as a meta model for their story telling.
18 Likes
While your point about him needing to learn such things being ridiculous stands on its own, your example’s a bit imprecise, as trolls aren’t orcs or tauren. Shamans aren’t made out as elevated and revered among trolls quite the same way; among trolls that sort of eminence is reserved for the the priesthood and (less often, since they’re rare) the Shadows Hunters, as they’re the ones who talk to the loa. Shamans speak to the elements and the dead.
While vague and messy in its portrayal, troll shamanism has been associated more with the witchdoctors, who while respected, aren’t made out to be the sort of high-level community leaders among trolls that the high priests and Shadow Hunters are.
(Incidentally that was one of the referenced issues the loa had taken with the modern Zandalari during Shadows of the Horde; they’d strayed from the old ways of honoring the loas through Shadow Hunters and other mediums more directly in tune with the spirits, while becoming dominated by the large-scale, popularized “mass worship” model of priestly institutions, which had led to a growing sense of entitlement to the loas’ blessings replacing the understanding that it’s supposed to be a two-way relationship of mutual benefit and respect.)
Which isn’t any excuse for an implicitly illiterate Zekhan, but is a cultural distinction to be made. One would expect him to know reading and writing because he’s living among the mainstream Horde, and not some backwater outpost somewhere.
Now, not knowing what erosion is…the guy’s a shaman. Unless he just hadn’t specifically needed to learn the orcish word for that before then (one supposes he may have trained in shamanism predominantly among other trolls), there’s no real excuse for him not to know what the concept of erosion is.
1 Like
A DM can do away with Dice, Rolls, Levels and Numbers entirely and let the story play out in reaction to the Players’ choices without forcing them or him/herself to Roll a Dice!
A good DM who does away with Dice, Rolls, Levels and Numbers would be one who lets the Characters make choices and run with them and if they have a grand speech with a Villain they want to play out they can have the Villain dodge or block attacks(as there are no rolls, numbers or stats of any kind) until he is done.
If I was DM’ing a LotR RPG I would allow the Players to kill some characters but not each other nor their friends’ close family.
Said friends(if played by Players) might be permitted to kill their family themselves in reaction to something said family said of course:
Example: In the possible case of Sam’s player deciding to kill Sam’s father the Gaffer I would prevent him from doing so(on the grounds that he hasn’t said anything "yet" to anger Sam into attacking his own father with the emphasis on the "yet" part) until the Gaffer mentions speaking of Frodo’s move to Crickhollow to the Black Riders.
Gandalf’s Player attacking Saruman upon meeting him in Isengard while still Gandalf the Grey would result in Saruman being ill-prepared for this sudden attack as he would expect Gandalf to be more subtle and wind up dead with Gandalf taking over Isengard(and potentially butchering scared rapidly breeding Orcs) before returning to the Shire to inform Frodo’s group of what he had learned.
I follow logic even in the case of Murdering Butchers to say the least. Murdering Butchers who lived as long as Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry are cautious if nothing else(and usually start their Murdering Habits before going into Exile over some Magical Ring) not to mention sentimental for Friends if not betrayed!
If the Butchers were the pure Murdering Sort I would force them to be too afraid to dare attack or steal from Gildor Inglorion(due to him being Galadriel’s brother and having only one Sword in the form of Glamdring with all other weapons being cheap Knives) but later suggest as the DM when they reach Crickhollow and kill Fatty Bolger that they could pass Fatty off as “Baggins” and frame his death and the loss of the One Ring on Gildor.
Naturally their murderous impulses would get one Player Character turned into Tom Bombadil(via “You killed it you bought it!”) granting him/her access to Goldberry(and Tom Bombadil’s unbreakable love for her thus keeping him from killing her) and the ability to talk to beasts.
Naturally I would suggest using the Beasts to spy on Gildor so that they can discover what happens to him(Black Riders kill his group and realize the Ring is not on his or the other Elves’ person and start massacring the Shire in a fit of rage before ultimately being shot to death by arrows leaving only the 4 Nazgul of Bree and the Witch King alive).
The Nazgul of Bree wouldn’t be in Bree until their spies in the City informed them and how would they inform them if they are all dead due to a bunch of Murdering Marauders(who had just got their paws on Barrow Down Swords)!
Since my map would simply be the map in the Book them avoiding the Nazgul through using Aragorn’s knowledge would be reasonable and since the Nazgul wouldn’t be informed of anyone leaving until discovering that the gates aren’t answering their knocks at all and climb the gate only to discover a massacre and by then have no idea where the Ring(most certainly the cause of the massacre) has headed leaving them to rely on spying on every City which the Players would sic on them lowering the 4’s numbers slowly over time.
Eventually Eastern Arnor would be a bloody trail of Corpses(including Glorfindel whom the cast would stumble upon in the Woods easy to slay due to being too trusting of Gandalf) with Elrond abruptly killed dead before he can gather his wits(as fear of him a great Elf Lord fetching his Sword would be used to keep Player Characters from raising a finger on his household until reaching him directly).
Well in my defence, as you say troll shamanism is messy, like blood elf and tauren paladins. I have a tendency to view troll shaman as synonymous with witchdoctor or priest (whether canonically correct or not) as the in game classes don’t do a great job of representing precise cultural institutions. There is no witch doctor or Shadow hunter class. You have to make do with what exists. Zandalari are even more problematic than dark spear. Troll shaman to me has just been a generalization of troll holy man - fill in the gaps with head canon.
3 Likes
Zekhan had no involvement in either warfront. Rokhan leads the Darkspear efforts in Arathi. Zekhan is however the official Horde ambassador to Dazar’alor, and has previously served as Thrall’s page, which is one of many reasons why it’s ridiculous to suggest that he’d need to learn literacy from Lor’themar after having already served in those roles.
23 Likes
Perhaps he was being taught Common to be a better ambassador during the peace treaty. Lor’themar would be a better teacher for that, of course Calia also could have been a great choice given she is even more connected to the language and perhaps he could have helped teach her Orcish in return.
It was most likely Orcish as mentioned above.
And if it was Common, or even Thalassian, Lor’themar still makes no sense because he’s a faction leader that has been so stupidly busy for the last few years between the Legion invasion, Horde/Alliance war, and then the Scourge attacking and part of the council being kidnapped that he wouldn’t have time to teach anyone a new language.
15 Likes
The assumption is these books take place BEFORE Shadowlands and both side are in a relative peace.
For the third time, we were confirmed by April that our interpretation was correct, harm was done, and accountability ought to occur therein, and it was not another language at all, after she tried to spin it and then immediately back tracked faster than you can say Loktar Ogar.
If the rewrite does the Language Spin, they have missed the point ENTIRELY
17 Likes
Even just from a lore standpoint, shrugging off the optics… one of the things we know very well about Lor’themar is that he is always BUSY.
Teaching reading and writing isn’t fast, even if the pupil is very smart and has prior familiarity with the material.
Lor’themar is a weird choice for the role. Now, granted, I would bet that all the care and thought that went into the Shatterspear blurb went into this excerpt.
(And internet being what it is, I’ll clarify that that is very little.)
18 Likes
The duel itself was completely fair. The Grimtotem sabotage was what killed Cairne.
True, though the circumstances that caused it were Garrosh’s fault. Even Cairne’s mistaken belief that Garrosh’s troops were responsible for the Twilight’s Hammer’s atrocities was only considered by the High Chieftain because Garrosh did indeed have Horde troops in Ashenvale harassing the night elves in violation of the cease-fire, even if they weren’t specifically responsible for the heinous things that the cultists were doing.
Had Garrosh dealt with the whole situation in good faith Cairne wouldn’t have had any grounds for thinking the mutilation of Sentinels and murder of Hamuul’s druid allies was his fault, but unfortunately Garrosh was playing fast-and-loose with the armistice, so when confronted with Cairne’s accusations he couldn’t even legitimately claim that there was no possible way for his troops to be responsible, because he knew they were indeed operating in parts of Ashenvale where they shouldn’t have been. Which was why rather than being completely perplexed and confused, he defaulted to outrage at the accusation. Because to Garrosh, even he couldn’t be 100% sure that some of his soldiers - who shouldn’t have even been in those parts of Ashenvale at the time - hadn’t gone too far, so he had to lean into the “I’d never allow those troops to do that!” defense rather than “I don’t even have any troops in there!”
The cultists’ deceptions only worked at all because they could commit them amidst the smokescreen of Garrosh’s soldiers already violating the cease-fire. Had they not been doing so, then the events that drove Cairne to challenge him would have been glaring aberrations that raised a lot more questions. So while the killing blow was a result of Magatha’s deceit, the fact that they were even dueling each other at all was caused by Garrosh’s irresponsible leadership.
6 Likes
I think you need to re-evaluate what you find fair. One participant using a poisoned weapon that contributes to his victory is for most reasonable minded people unfair.
6 Likes
That was not Garoosh’s intention. In fact he was outraged once he realised that was what happened. but beside the poisoned weapon, the duel was a fair one.
1 Like
I think you have a few things off. And this is just a couple things you posted recently in this thread. I wonder what Story you are even paying attention to, at this rate.
“Jaina was the Warchief who went to Argus and killed Onyxia!”
5 Likes
One of these cancels the other.
1 Like
That’s kind of like saying “beside the tornado, the weather was beautiful.”
15 Likes
It is worth noting though, that this was an early introduction of the themes that came front and center in AGW. That is, honor culture is a lie. If you arent willing to do whatever it takes to win, then you dishonor everyone who died fighting for your side. If you are willing to do everything it takes to win, then you will end up doing something that violates your concept of honor. Honor and valor are fairytales told to soldiers to convince them to die.
1 Like