I know this dungon is a complete meme, especially with Ebonhorn’s refusal to assist us in any meaningful way. But having played through it dozens of times for Lemix, I find myself returning to some thoughts I had about it even when I played it originally, compounded with new lore from Dragonflight, this entire dungeon feels nonsensical.
From the perspective of the lore that existed when Legion originally released, this was supposed to be Deathwing’s Lair, although Dragonflight later showed he had SEVERAL lairs, which reduces the impact of this location considerably. But there’s very little in the dungeon’s layout to suggest that it was a dragon lair, especially not an inventory/flesh shaper of Neltharion’s caliber. Exploring the dungeon, it looks more like a generic cave with Drogbar housing and activities throughout, kind of feels like they couldn’t really decide how they wanted to theme it leading up to release.
On top of this, the dialogue and placement of Deathwing’s skeleton in the dungeon itself doesn’t make any sense. According to Ebonhorn, they’re “Digging” at the bones of his father, but we mostly just see them digging at random rocks, with a skeleton cameo at the end, BUT… WHY is Deathwing’s skeleton there? Didn’t he turn into an eldritch tentacle monster and melt into the soup of the Maelstrom? Shouldn’t his bones be at the bottom of the ocean? Did the dragons inter them at this random cave? Why would they bother?
The whole thing just feels… off. It kind of feels like the cave was supposed to be the Drogbar’s main town or something, and they added the Neltharion flavor later in the development cycle, without adding more black dragonflight doodads to the dungeon itself. That’s the vibe I get from it. Anyone have any lore context I’ve missed that helps make this place make sense? Or any other insight I might not have considered? Or is it just as slapdash as it seems in retrospect?
WoW’s writing has never been that great, to tell the truth.
Plot holes and inconsistencies are everywhere.
Neltharion’s Lair was likely one of several locations he had used, and many of them were known to be kept secret to… just about everyone. Let’s just go that it was the one non-secret location that was routinely used to handle “public relations”.
Because if that was the one everyone knew about, they wouldn’t be assuming he was hiding a second one… or five.
Assuming it was a known relic, hiding it away for too long would raise suspicion as well. So storing it a semi-public location for safekeeping (and discreet study) probably worked out well.
Most of Deathwing’s most notable relics were things he created like the Dragon Soul / Demon Soul and the Dark Heart. Those were kept secret until they were used or found by others.
I have tried to justify it, but lazy writing is the easiest explanation. Deathwing turned into a tentacle soup monster at the maelstrom, but somehow his bones are here. A wizard did it.
Does anyone else marvel when someone comes out with chestnuts like these about a single quest out of the thousands and thousands of quests at are in this game?
My particular kind of autism causes me to remember almost the entirety of the lore for this game, down to very specific quests, but I can’t remember phone numbers, addresses, or dates.
It’s a gift???
I suppose that’s true. It was kind of alluded to him using a number of the caves in the Highmountain Area, hence why a number of them are so spooky. It’s a shame that few of them were very interesting, or contained much in the way of Black Dragon assets like we see in BWL/etc.
Mind, I’m the same way with baseball. I watch the games, have vague grasp of players and what’s going on, and then I hear the announcers rejoinder on some guy doing something in a game 30 years ago and just…shake my head, slack jawed. I can’t remember who pitched last night…
This, the only really good story they had was the Lich King and that was started back during Warcraft 3 the WoW writers (same or different people I dunno) just piggybacked.
Meh. I enjoyed the writing up until the end of Legion. Which, coincidentally, was the end of the plot threads that were seeded in WC3. All of the “New Lore” has felt incredibly forced or incredibly contrived.