That said, I’m very interested in deep-diving into the Arathai situation because they’re very technologically advanced and skilled with Light-magic, but they have only a single mage.
Why did he not take on apprentices? Why are there not scores of people trying to learn the arcane so they can try to send some sort of signal back home? Why are their Light-users not trying to do the same?
Admittedly, this was a military expedition before they got teleported down to the caves, but clear communication lines are a necessity, and that the whole expedition hinged on a handful of Mages creating a Portal Network to link back to the Empire, and there was no backup for this, strikes me as very odd, given that it was linked to their beloved Emperor’s ‘divine visions’.
There’s a hole in this lore and I wanna see what is gonna be used to either explain, or fill in, that gap.
There were others but they were killed in a storm before they went underground.
I believe it’s stated he wasn’t very well trained / didn’t know how to do portal magic.
Potentially meglomaniacal Emperor who believes he can speak to the Holy Fire may have hubristic character flaws and have not entirely the most well thought out plans. Why have a backup plan when god told you your plan is great and is going to work?
On top of that, I imagine it would be difficult to train new mages because probably not everyone is capable of learning and probably would take a long time to even get to that level it would take to help. Also, there is likely not exactly a lot of books around to teach.
I also get the vibe that the ones who volunteered for this expedition were the like super-religious, kool-aid drinkers who were willing to do whatever it is the Sacred Flame and Emperor commanded of them. Seems more the crowd to just pray and repeat platitudes instead of exploring alternative magic systems (read: heresy).
Oh my God, what have they done to Alleria? She’s got JD Vance levels of eyeshadow and her new design is garbage. Literally the only positive thing I have to say is she’s got a sick new bow.
So far the story is a literal rehash of DF but with dwarves and not dragons. For that matter, it’s a rehash of SL and MOP too: strangers who have wrought something awful because of their ignorant actions now have to save a strange land that no one has seen for a kabillion years for some reason from the big bad they were responsible for awakening in the first place. Meanwhile, a new and not well-thought-out (this time also very boring) race has some chores for us to do so we can earn their trust or whatever.
So why do the Earthen gals have beards? I get that it’s a nod back to the roots of the fantasy race but it’s legitimately weird in the context of WoW because in all 20 years of the history, we’ve never had that. My memory is telling me we once upon a time did have a beard option for Dwarf ladies but I could be misremembering.
It’s a incredibly small thing, but it’s extremely distracting especially in lieu of how these Earthen operate as aware automatons…so hair in general feels excessive on them.
You might be thinking of LOTRO or RIFT. I think neither had a female dwarf option or the LOTR idea was that you couldn’t tell them apart because of beards.
I can tell you that the option was wanted by some of the dwarven RP community.
If you do the Priory of the Sacred Flame dungeon, that lore hole gets quite a bit bigger. It also reinforces the idea that at least some of the expedition were hardcore fanatics.
There’s very much a Warhammer vibe to the Arathi, not surprising since Metzen is a big fan.
it’s confirmed that the hair is wires, and also that earthen can customize any part of their body. their gender concepts are also slightly more weird than others, b/c they can change it at will. makes sense that earthen ladies can have beards b/c maybe it’s just a genderweird thing.
my favorite part of the arathi is confirmation that the kul’tiran body type can be on any human. my least favorite part of the arathi is confirmation that the kul’tiran body type can be on any human and they made us unlock it AND gave it fewer customization options than base human AND they don’t make it available for worgen
On one hand, at least it’s an improvement to the blue stripe she used to have painted on her face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouv9pPEYU80
Why did it stop just below her eye and then start again above her eyebrow. Go in the bathroom right now and paint a blue stripe on your face but do it like that and tell me it doesn’t look weird.
Honestly, if Blizz leaned into 80s New Romantics for her edgy glow up that would rock.
Overall imo the redesign was a little too late in my opinion but this is my general dislike with how they handled void elves. She should have just had this appearance from the get go instead of, we have High Elf Sylvannas at home for Alliance. Especially since she’s the representation for the Void Elves in game and looked nothing like the race players played (until much later with the skin and hair updates).
So at least she looks like an actual void elf now??
Does she really, though? All other NPC Void Elves are in blues, purples, and blacks. Alleria’s out here rocking the pure white…and I’m sorry it does not work.
