Welcome to WRa - Tell us about your character's houses's backstory

Wyrmrest Accord
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Okay, here’s your chance to tell us all about your house(s). You can give us a backstory. Tell us whose house it is mainly, who will be living there, its history, or whatever you want to share.

I’ll start. How shocking!

My house was meant to be Kina’s, since she’s the character I actually play. But as it has evolved, The house is actually one of my other warriors, It belongs to my Pandaren, Qeylis Ganbataar. Qeylis is older, and is “retired” from the Shadowpan. He’s lived a heck of a live, presumably, be he doesn’t speak of it. He is a scribe and speaks several languages, he is well read and collects antique books. And during his life, he’s managed to put a way quite a bit of money. He helped Kina out of a difficult situation and they became friends. He acquired the property by unknown means and has made some alterations and improvements - primarily in the means of personal protection. He might be trying to avoid a person or two.
Kina’s life had imploded, and she - by choice - was living on her own as a nomad mostly. So Qeylis gave a place to live, no questions asked. So, most of the house isn’t her choice, but she does have free reign over the cave and spring He found when making repairs in the basement. There a spiritual connection with springs and Kina’s tribe. Which pulls in Greatmother Moon, who Qeylis got in touch with about the spring, when he couldn’t find Kina. So there’s where I’m up to.

Layout wise, you enter in the basement, which is where the spring will be. Greatmother will have a “room” near the “Seer’s Spring”. I will also be using one or both of the skybox rooms for Tauren rituals. Once it’s all set up, I’ll be happy to let people use it for stories or events.

Building wise, I’m trying to go up, instead of sprawling out, for the living spaces. I think the empty stairwell rooms have more bang for the buck. I can get 1-3 levels/rooms for the price of one room. Each side has 4 attachment points so you can have plenty of little rooms and hallways without having to “walk over” your other roommates.

Permanent roomies are Qeylis, Kina, and Greatmother. Part-time roommates are everyone one else. Since most of my characters are connected in someway to Kina.

Looking forward to see how this evolves.

EDIT:

And it evolves. The house was in bad shape when Qeylis bought it, so of course he’s done some reno… which has created secret passages and hidden rooms and little spying nooks. I’m trying use stone walls to indicate remaining parts of the old building - and the basement being part of that. And other wall styles for new construction.

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So, Alliance-side, my house is meant to be an emulation of the School of Endless Waves, a dojo owned and run by Pingyang Cloudpaw just outside of Boralus in Kul’tiras, providing the locals education on the Way of the Monk and especially the Cloudpaw clan’s own Wave Style of martial science. It is the first of its kind, a school specifically meant to share the Wave with non-Pandaren. The School of Endless Waves was founded at the tail end of the Fourth War, inspired by Pingyang’s involvement in the Order of the Broken Temple and subsequent travels after. As one of the last living teachers of the Wave, she has sought to spread it as far as she can manage, aided in part by her daughter, Zhaoyang, among others. The School of Endless Waves is the portion of the project she personally oversees currently, until a worthy successor can be chosen to take over for her, just as it was back in Mandori. As it is so far from the Wandering Isle, this dojo also serves as her home away from home and the de-facto home of her current two closest students, former brawler pirates Morwen and Keeko. This dojo also hosts various visitors of varying frequency, primarily other learned martial artists providing guest lessons and exhibitions. It is most frequented by Liangyu and her troupe, representing Pandaria’s Temple of the White Tiger, and Zhaoyang, another qualified master of the Wave Style.

As one might expect of a Pandaren institution in Kul’tiras, the place is mixture of the two visually, bearing mostly local aesthetics with notable Pandaren accents and flair. Though it currently lacks any identifying signage, it’s primary purpose may be unmistakable by the squared space traced next to the main building. A monastery gong sits on one end, accompanied by a single cradle stool, ready to seat the master as she presides over outdoor spars and contests. Two wells, one Pandaren styled, occupy the front and back, along with a modest fountain; one of the few structures that stood before the building itself. A Brazier of Elune sits directly behind the building; perhaps the most out of place fixture to be found. A similar, smaller, space as the fighting ring outside dominates the first floor inside, flanked by weapon racks on multiple sides, housing both practice foils and the genuine article. A modest bookshelf also occupies one side, filled with scrolls and books both instructional and philosophical.

Further up sits the more lived in part of the dojo, housing most basic amenities for day to day living. Though currently quite small, especially when dominated by a surprisingly large kitchen space, it remains the coziest part of the property. The warring scents of blood, sweat, and homely pandaren cuisine are bound to attract anyone seeking to learn the Way of the Monk in Kul’tiras.

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I think my House is going to be a Brewery, and Brewpub ran by my Pandaren Techno-mage.

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HORDE

Sef lost most of her family when Quel’Thalas was invaded by the Scourge during the Third War – becoming a rogue out of instinct and necessity.

As the forces of Azeroth advanced on the Lich King’s domain, Sef found herself surrounded by death once more… except this time, she was running towards it. Preservation became an act of defiance against not only the destruction and misery around her, but also the retribution and violence of her own hands.

The desire to safeguard beauty and history led to the creation of < Azeroth Archives > – founded alongside a powerful Sin’dorei mage and Tauren shaman. Together, they forged the museum’s display vaults with a combination of arcane magic, Gnomish engineering, and elemental wards.

The Archives always existed outside of the faction conflict, though not quite neutral. A shadowy cadre of historians, archeologists, thieves, smugglers… operating in and beyond each major city, all connected via shared vault access.

The coastal retreat is a place of respite, where a few of Sef’s oldest and closest companions can revel in a shared space, among prestigious figures.

The compound serves three main purposes: shared accomodation, hosting intimate events, and displaying artifacts, artwork and treasure.

Upon entering, a long hallway leads to a large display room – currently still under curation and construction.

To the right is a modest room that will be expanded, a salon of sorts where friends and acquaintances can engage in philosophical discussions, plan collaborations and more.

To the left is dormitory-style trappings for Archives veterans, complete with kitchenette and bathroom.

Don’t be surprised if you stop by and see famous figures such as Thokk and Quintus engaged in a spirited debate about Lordaeronian history with The Crow™, or Gentarn passed out in the bathtub after having a few too many bottles of arcwine.

((Today, I decided to focus on the dorm spaces until we can get to level 6 and beyond because the large rooms take a lot of budget and I couldn’t fill them yet anyway! I put a door at the end of the hall and put a bunch of crates and barrels there for now so it looks closed off due to works and stuff))

Alliance

While the character is a Dracthyr, the CHARACTER is a human who has done quite a few too many experiments on herself.

Engineer. Alchemist. Thief. She is my current main rogue and this is her haven.

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Four years go, my Sunreaver Axiann led his unit to the Dragon Isles, unofficially part of the Dragonscale Expedition. That’s where he met that ship’s Farstrider Captain, Ethan’tolas Everdawn.

Axiann, well poised, polished and eloquent, and brash, overly direct and rugged Ethan’tolas clashed at first. But after many years of being alone, they found something in each other, tempered each other, and eventually fell in love.

Service keeps them separate most of the time, but whenever both are in Quel’thalas, or Ethan’tolas and his crew ferry the Sunreavers to another campaign, the continue to deepen their bond and explore the possibility of sharing their life.

Axiann had always lived in his loft apartment in Dalaran City, where he has spent the majority of the last century. He is used to restaurants, shops, concerts and symposiums, and good coffee served on demand. The loss of his home has caused deep pain, and the last 14 months have been a blur as he followed his Archmage on the Isle of Dorn and on campaigns of vengeance, and then of recovery.

Ethan’tolas, for his part, has lived primarily on his ship, the Everdawn. Formerly his parents, he had been away when the Scourge invaded and came back to find his homeland decimated, his parents dead and their ship damaged at Sunsail Anchorage. After scouring the area for survivors and finding several who chose to follow him, he reclaimed his family’s ship, made sure it would sail, and began scouring the shoreline for more survivors. Eventually he and his would join the Farstriders and add his ship to their small fleet.

Now, as things settle and the Sunreavers return to Quel’Thalas, the Magisters of the Silvermoon have gifted them several lots in a newly reclaimed village named Dawncrest, in recognition of their service.

On a ride out to see the village, located on the island where the Western Sanctum has been expanded, Ethan’tolas and Axiann have decided to build a home, a real house, and try their hand at some semblance of domestic life, together. While the Sunreavers were on their last campaign, Ethan’tolas oversaw the construction of their house, and as Winter Veil and the high holiday approached, the two moved in and have started to unpack one room at a time.

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Dalaran being a city suspended in the sky has very limited room for expansion, and a number of enterprising mages expanded their properties with pocket dimensions, and alterations to space-time. It’s bigger on the inside! Ether, during his tenure with the Kirin Tor, rented one of these extra-dimensional spaces: a cozy studio apartment, perfect for the up and coming mage trying to establish themselves in the city of magic.

When Dalaran fell Ether had believed that his research notes, collection of rare tomes, and valuable artifacts were lost forever, but while rummaging through the ruins of Dalaran he made a lucky discovery. The door to his “apartment” which served as an anchor for the pocket dimension his abode resided in was found. Mostly destroyed, no longer functional, but with enough latent magic that he was able to use it to locate his home as it drifted untethered through the nether.

He has since bound his old apartment to a new anchor, and has managed to reclaim his little slice of Dalaran, a bittersweet reminder of the home he’s lost.

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My character runs a trade service company with terminals in Aszhara and Westfall. Since she has to traverse between the two primary ports, Sadgati, immediate family and friends along with upper management has apartments on the top floor. Despite the fantastic view of the open sea, the trade terminals are VERY noisy, even at midnight making good sleep hard to come by at times. Suffice to say, she is looking into getting a weekend / vacation home, even if just to catch a break for a night every few weeks.

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The Makenna Spire is one of the old spires of the city, built during its founding atop a desecrated Amani funerary shrine (this is not a good thing) it is one of the Spires that represents old magic and old money of Silvermoon. Thala Quel’Makenna stood across from Thala Quel’Sangryn, their most viciously violent rivals.

Inside the Spire is the history of thousands of years. From the libraries transcribed from ancient Highborne tomes to the secret walls of hidden rituals and magic.

As well as the proverbial bodies of Makenna enemies. Names scribed onto scrolls of rivals long assassinated and targets that went missed. The stories of the middle sister, known outside the family only as Whisper, who bloodied her blades on those who dared stand in threat to the family.

There are shrines messy with gardens tended to by Makenna rangers and arcane labs overseen by their Magisters with Spellbreaker guardians at the doors.

The daughters of Makenna inherit great swaths of their estates while their sons cement allegiances with other houses in Quel’thalas. And in the darkest recesses of the Spire the family’s agents ever plotted the infiltration and destruction of Thala Quel’Sangryn once and for all.

In light of the Alliance betrayal after the fall, Makenna had embraced fully a Horde identity. Mixing the elegant and subtle power of Elven masonry with the aesthetic of the greater Horde creating not so much a contrast, as a complement between the two styles.

The Horde throne of the Makenna Matriarch, whoever that is at the time, sends a message of where their family lies politically. Not with the Alliance and certainly not welcoming of the Silver Covenant.

This politics of the House gets muddy however, when you learn one of the children of Makenna is Ren’dorei. And so the loyalty to the family outweighs any ban on Void, it just ensures their Void stays hidden and whispered in discreet secret.

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So despite my forum-posting toon being Kunocati, my most-used tauren right now is Otakte (I don’t use him for posting because for some reason the forum treats him as a new poster and limits my posts on him which… is .. .. okay w/e)

At some point during his continued surveillance* of Orgrimmar, Otakte decided it would be wise to establish a home-away-from-home for himself and both kinfolk and allies (alts) and friends made in the vicinity, during times he isn’t able to go home properly but wants a break from the joys of red dust and drunken orcish grunts.

For my worgen druid Levington, it’s… mostly just a modest home outside Stormwind that friends may visit. He’s maintained a close friendship with Otakte over the years and has made sure they can mutually visit one another safely and discreetly.

* His tribe still doesn’t trust the Horde -or- Alliance, even a decade after shutting itself away from the outside world, and keeps a wary vigil to this day.

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Carmen has lost so many of her “homes” that she has given up entirely on the concept of permanent occupation of land ownership.

So she’s usually in Moonglade, being with her family and getting playfully interrogated by the spouses.

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My Horde house is kind of 3 houses in 1. I’ll go through them in the order that makes sense.

House #1: Silvermoon Apartment

So most of my house is actually owned by my partner’s character IC lmao. Zansendra Dawnstorm, Blood Knight of Quel’thalas (her character) inherited the house from her uncle, after he passed away during the 2nd Scourge Invasion, Shadowlands era. Around a similar time she met my mage, Kallum “Kael” Matthews. Kael is a half elf from Dalaran with a human father (the esteemed Archbishop Matthew Matthews of the pioneering Matthews family - they claim to have been in Dalaran since its inception) and his wife, the High Elf Sorceress Irythia Matthews. Kael was only a teenager when Jaina purged the Sunreavers, but it awakened a sense of activism in the boy, who became very obsessed with Sin’dorei culture (much to the chagrin of his human father and Silver Covenant mother). It’s also where the nickname “Kael” came from. Can’t go around Silvermoon being called KALLUM, right?!

Long story short, in adulthood Kael, a qualified Dalaran Magus but truly a historian at heart, sought to move to Silvermoon and get a job with the Reliquary. Long story short, he did so, struck up a relationship with Zansendra, and now the two are married and share her house! It’s a comfortable 3 bedroom and a study type of affair, and they are happy there.

House #2 - The Orcish Holiday Hut

Kael’s work with the Reliquary, especially in more recent years with the Dragonscale/Algari Expedition, has occasionally taken his work to Orgrimmar just as much as Silvermoon. So saving up the money he’s been able to earn with not paying rent, Kael purchased a small orc shack on the Isle of Wyrm’s Rest (or whatever we end up calling our little home) off the coast of Kalimdor, to have a place to store artifacts, use as a forward base for his work when it takes him near Kalimdor, and have an excuse to go fishing from time to time, a passtime Kael has come to enjoy. He’s set up an enchanted doormat that activates a portal between the Orc hut and the Silvermoon Apartment. If one finds themselves visiting my house, it’ll be the orc hut you walk into, with the “portal” to the Silvermoon Apartment being within.

House #3 - Forsaken Forward Base

I built this using outdoor decor - mostly Forsaken tents and platforms. This one has yet to be in character, but Sarestha Ravelle, self proclaimed Paladin of Forsaken Lordaeron, will likely be more involved in Midnight, and looking for a place to set up a base of operations for herself and what little remains of her old guild, the Order of Lordaeron Unbound. She will approach Zansendra, a friend of hers, who will politely decline the idea of having a bunch of smelly corpses in her living room ruining the vibe between her and her recently-ish-newlywed husband. So Zansendra will politely inform Sarestha that she’s welcome to “visit” or “pop in while passing through”. Then Kael, being an idiot sometimes, will excitedly brag about his new Kalimdor hut and his “ingenious” portal idea, and Sarestha will get an idea…

Sarestha earns money from odd jobs, but spends like… nothing. Why would you? Dead. Don’t need food. So she’s got enough money to buy the vacant lot next door to Kael’s orc hut. Zansendra said I could visit or pass through. And now we have a direct portal to Silvermoon. This isn’t unhinged at all, I promise undeath hasn’t negatively impacted my understanding of living social norms :slight_smile:

Kael hates the neighbours.

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I’m running the current Horde house, and I do intend to add more bedrooms, as Baby Adventuring Group’s First House, ie, a bunch of novices got together, pooled their money, and bought the land, then started trying to build somewhere to live in-between contracts.

And as such, the Crossed Hammers Hall is rough. It has Orcish lumber framing, Lordaeron bricks and white-washing, Earthen plumbing, Goblin and Pandaren kitchen, Sin’dorei library, so on and so forth, and a bunch of young adults who’ve never lived on their own without a responsible adult nearby and are now forced to co-habitate in confined conditions in a building built on the cheap by the lowest bidder and eager if inexperienced hands.

Literally, I desperately need to expand the bedroom situation or there’s going to be a fight. I ran Orcs, Sin’dorei, Forsaken and Goblins in, no issue, but Pandaren, Zandalari Trolls and Tauren are in for a tight squeeze in the bedrooms, and no, that wasn’t an innuendo.

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My Alliance house is ICly in Gilneas, and belongs to Bradley Silverlaine, my worgen warrior (and first ever WoW Character). He’s an Alliance soldier, currently a Captain in the Gilnean Armed Forces. I don’t RP him much anymore but it’s a nice homage. I went for the Duskwood-esque area, near a moonwell. Felt fitting for a worgen!

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Technically, both my Alliance and Horde houses are the same house. Technically.

I had the idea for my Alliance house that it was going to be in the Duskwood section of the neighborhood and belong to my hedge witch, Callie.

I almost ran with the idea to make an interior of a ship for Larisi. I also thought about making the interior a dungeon type thing to use for RP quests. But I don’t think I’m going to do either of those now.

With Callie dabbling in one kind of magic, I thought I could also bring in my accidental chrono-mage, especially after seeing the Chronoscholar title in Lemix. Both are Alliance, but I don’t want Kirsy or any of my Horde characters using a house. However, having both houses lead to the same interior pocket dimension amuses me to no end. I’m going to mirror the interiors a bit, but that’s what they are - a mage tower in 2 places that opens into a pocket dimension.

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