Up next in 10
Now that we've seen Lorewalking a bit, a listener asks the Lore Watch team what other events in Azeroth's history we should get to go visit through that system. While the listener suggests the War of the Three Hammers -- which Joe and Matt are on board with -- the response runs the gamut of Azeroth's history, from ancient events to a couple from WoW we just weren't there to see, all the way back to the creation of Azeroth herself. They ran through events with dizzying speed, some of which are well known to us, and others which are mostly only known to the loremasters among us.
Or maybe we should kill Arthas another time, that would be fun, too.
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0:00
[Music]
0:10
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch, a round table free form discussion about lore and your favorite media. I'm your host Joe Perez, one of several lore focused
0:16
folks from Blizzard Watch and I've got my marvelous co-host with me today, Matt Rossy. How you doing today, Matt?
0:22
It went from 13 degrees Celsius to 1g -4 degrees C in the span of a day. I I am I
0:33
am very not enjoying this this new thing the weather does where it goes from kind
0:39
of autumn to straight into the Arctic hellscape. For those of you in the the uh non
0:46
Celsius or non uh metric parts of the world, that's the equivalent of going from about 55 degrees down to I want to
0:54
say 24 23 somewhere in that range. It's a pretty big swing. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, friends, we're
1:01
not here to talk about the weather despite our name being Blizzard Watch. Uh instead, we're going to be talking about questions that you, our wonderful
1:07
listeners, have sent into us. If you have questions for this or any of our podcasts, be sure to send those in. You
1:13
can send them into podcastardwatch.com. Specify the show that it is for in the subject line as well as any special
1:19
pronunciation of your name. If you want to hit us up on Discord, we have two channels set aside. We have the Q and Podcast questions channel which is open
1:25
for everybody. Same rules apply. And if you are a Patreon subscriber, you get access to the Patreon Q and podcast
1:31
questions channel where we tend to look there first for questions and themes as a way of saying thank you for helping us
1:37
keep the lights on. This first one is well
1:43
I think I missed Oh, there it is. It's from Paris. Sometimes y'all put names in weird places. I appreciate it. Uh Matt's
1:50
Q answer about using lore walkers as storytellers, a celebrity house tour of a timeline, got me thinking about what
1:57
stories could shine in this format. For example, the war of the three hammers
2:02
starting with Modimus Anvil's death, seeing the Bronzebeards drive out the wild hammers and dark irons, the dark
2:09
iron's retaliation, and culminating in Prince Dagran Thorician II's coronation
2:16
as high king of the dwarves. Could Matt and Joe explore other epic historical
2:21
moments that would make great lore walking stories and do a deep dive into what the War of the Three Hammers lore walking story would look like? Well,
2:28
we'll see how far we can get with that one, folks. Um, but yeah, you hit one on the nail, like one in the head that I
2:34
would have I've been really wanting to see since we started going back in time. Uh, you know, we we've done the time
2:40
ways. We've done, you know, stuff of the bronze dragon flight so much and now we have lore walking. I've always wanted to
2:46
see the stuff surrounding the dwarves, the war of the three hammers. Uh, I always wanted to see like what that was
2:53
beforehand, like how things how tensions rose. Uh, I would love to see how, you
2:58
know, what the fighting breaking out, like what it looked like. Um, and yeah, because I think we haven't really had a
3:05
dwarf expansion despite the war within starting with Earth, and I don't know that really counts, so to speak. Um,
3:11
I mean, we didn't get to know anything about the dwarfs through it, so no, not really. Yeah. So, I would really I I would
3:16
personally really really like that. I think that would be really epic. Um, what about you, Matt? Was there like
3:22
what's what's your what's a big call out for you? Well, first off, I mean, before I even talk about it, I wrote um back
3:28
when I was still doing your lore, I wrote a huge post about the War of the
3:34
Three Hammers. Yes, you did. And another pretty big one about the Envelar dynasty because the Envelars
3:41
really got the shaft. They had the one king who was just the best king ever,
3:47
and his son immediately got the throne stolen from him by the Bronzebeards. And
3:54
this needs to be pointed out. When this all started,
3:59
the Dark Irons and the Wild Hammers left for the same
4:05
reasons. They were both like sick of the Bronzebeards.
4:14
Like the Bronzebeards aren't the unalloedied heroes of this whole deal.
4:19
The only reason that the Bronzebeards and the Wild Hammers ended up on the same side of things is that the Dark
4:25
Irons just went nuclear and with magic that nobody had ever seen
4:32
before. And they attacked the the Wild Hammers, too, for no reason.
4:38
The Wild Hammers weren't doing anything to them. The Bronzebeards had indeed kicked them
4:45
out of, you know, Iron Forge. That's fine. You know, the the war between the
4:50
uh Bronze Beards and the and the uh Dark Iron, that made perfect sense. But the Dark Iron deciding while we're at it,
4:57
we're going to destroy the the Wild Hammers. The Wild Hammers had done nothing to them.
5:03
It It's amazing how self-inflicted the ultimate defeat of the Dark Irons was.
5:08
Mhm. how they just if they had just kept their anger contained to the group that
5:15
had actually, you know, done something to them. Who knows? It's it's quite possible the Wild Hammers would been
5:20
like, "Look, we're perfectly happy up in our up in our, you know, mountain fastestes. We're not coming down to deal
5:26
with this. Y'all you all can handle your own problems." I've always thought that that's wild.
5:33
It's utterly wild how that all went down. I think it would be great to see it. I would love to watch
5:40
how you know just just the the fact that the Bronzebeards even decided to toss the Anvil Marmars like basically the
5:48
Anvilar line ended with the son who got
5:53
a he got his permanent Senate seat and that was it. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, here's your here's your honorary seat.
5:59
Uh now don't now go away." And they're still alive. The Anvil Mars still have people in, you
6:08
know, in Iron Forge. I think Thargas is still alive. Uh the the younger son, the the elder
6:16
son of the line died. Um but the younger son, he was we saw him in the comic book and from what I understand, he's still
6:22
around. He didn't go anywhere. You can you still I think I still have his action figure. Mhm.
6:29
Uh so yeah, it's it's wild to to think
6:35
about like all the possibilities for that. Like you could just do you could do like a like a I could actually
6:40
imagine this as a TV show like multiple seasons of Dwarf War and there's like
6:47
the Anvilmar opening which is like almost like a the the prequel and then when the you you find out what
6:54
happens to the Anvil Mars it moves you into the you know the big story of the three waring houses. Um
7:03
it's sort of get game of thrones with dwarves. Uh so yeah, I just I'd love to
7:08
see more of it. I would absolutely love to see like all the different ways that everybody was kind of a jerk. Uh how
7:15
everybody, you know, came ultimately came to whatever you want to call the final resolution of their issues.
7:23
And you know, one of the things that always gets me is imagine that during
7:28
this conflict, Ragnaros gets summoned to Azeroth.
7:36
That's almost an afterthought. Like that's that's right near the end of the war.
7:42
And yeah, you just wow. Like that that's the showstopper ending is that Ragnaros
7:49
gets pulled through to Azeroth and he takes out an entire
7:54
like region like the entirety of both the like the burning steps and the
8:00
searing gorge are because Ragnaros got summoned
8:06
and and that's how that war ended. the the allied armies of the dwarves were
8:12
coming to, you know, clean house on the on the Dark Irons for invading their their cities. And they, as they're
8:18
getting there, gigantic fireball explosion takes out multiple mountain ranges. And they're like, "Okay,
8:26
this feels like we don't need to go in there now cuz who knows what just happened. We're going to go home."
8:35
I just h So yeah, I I absolutely would love to see more of that. Um if we're
8:40
looking for something that isn't that though, uh I've got a few possible candidates. Uh the fact that we've never
8:46
actually gotten to see the complete War of the Ancients or even something that sums up all the stuff
8:53
that happened during it. Yeah. We've only had bits and pieces, right? Like even with like the eye mountain stuff and
8:58
Yeah. Even in Legion, we just got a couple flashbacks of very specific points of view. Yeah.
9:04
Yeah. Yeah. So, I I'm I got to feel like there's got to be at some point the war
9:09
the war of the ancients needs to get more than a couple of flashbacks. Uh it is the pivotal moment in Azerothian
9:17
history. It is the thing that made everything the way it is now. Um it's
9:23
what changes the world from from what it was to what it currently is. So, yeah, that needs to be there. I've said up up
9:31
and down that I'd love to do some I'd love to see the the troll, you know, the the high elves, the array and the trolls
9:38
like that whole setup for that war. The the whole idea that the high elves were like, we'll get the humans to help us
9:45
only for the humans to go, okay, give us a hundred mages, teach a hundred of us magic and we'll do
9:52
it. and how that basically that that thousand-year period of time, everything
9:59
the Eastern Kingdoms goes through is directly based on that.
10:05
Like that alliance of high elves and humans created the seven kingdoms.
10:11
Like the seven kingdoms didn't exist before that happened. the the the the
10:17
nations that then basically controlled the next thousand years that moment and
10:23
the fate of Silver Moon really from that moment. Um the fact that Silver Moon got to be
10:29
there and the Ammani trolls were basically penned in into Zolomon and
10:36
eventually were got desperate enough to start embodying their own gods forcibly
10:42
bringing the lowa into themselves. a technique that when it got learned by
10:48
other trolls led to them eating their own gods.
10:54
So, yeah, a ton of stuff happens from from the war, you know, the troll wars
10:59
uh that I'd love to see. I uh there's so many more, but I I've I've mentioned two
11:04
and I don't want to like cut you off. I think you should get to mention some as well. Well, one of the other ones that I was thinking about for a long time that
11:10
I would love to see uh get some in-game attention is actually the fall of Nomegon. Um, we've never really
11:19
witnessed the the essentially the war that drove the gnomes out, the
11:24
everything that happened uh there. We know what happened, but we've never seen
11:29
it. And I think Yeah. And then again, when we say we know what happened, we know the cliffotes.
11:35
Yeah. We have we have a very very very cliff nody version of it.
11:42
So yeah, it's one of those things that like I keep thinking of like I understand that gnomes had Meccaon and
11:47
and all that stuff happen, but learning what happened originally in Nongon would
11:53
be really really interesting to me. Also seeing sort of like the evolution from
12:00
the, you know, og mechanome into them settling and into them becoming,
12:05
you know, creatures of flesh would also be really interesting to me because we have an idea for a lot of the other
12:13
races and how that worked out. Um, gnomes, we kind of don't know why they
12:20
settled where they settled. We don't know why they why they wound up there. humans, we have an idea. Uh dwarves, we
12:27
have an idea. Like it's we have all these like little tiny inklings of of
12:34
all these other places, but gnomes have never really been explored in that capacity. I have a head cannon for it, but it's
12:39
pure head cannon. Go for it. What is your head cannon for it? Well, we know that the discs of Nogan
12:45
were taken, the real ones were taken south uh to what ended up becoming uh Aldoir.
12:53
I mean Aldon, sorry. Alderman. Yeah. And and we know that Aldon is supposedly
12:58
it was, you know, it's full of trogs. And we know that trogs among other
13:05
things can, you know, they can be the form of both dwarves and gnomes. Gnomes
13:11
can both of them can devolve into those things. Um, we see the same trogs invading mechagon itself. Not Mechagon.
13:18
Uh, Noron. Uh, and I think all these gnomes were
13:26
essentially the support staff to to maintain the discs like when
13:34
um, oh, bloody heck, I can't remember his name. Tier when Tier uh grabbed the
13:39
discs and got um his buddies Ironia and Arcadus to come with him, they I think
13:46
they brought attendants and amongst those attendants were servants of Mimmerron who were whose whole purpose
13:51
was to keep the disc for Ganon. I I do want to ask one question though because I maybe this is me not
13:56
remembering. Um I didn't think that the drugs were related to the gnomes aside
14:02
from a fan theory, right? I thought that I thought that there was no actual confirmation that
14:08
trogs and gnomes were related. However, trogs and uh dwarves were were related.
14:14
Well, see, here's the weird thing. We do know I mean, I do think that we think that trogs and and dwarves are related,
14:21
but we don't really actually know that either.
14:27
There's never actually been anything showing, oh, hey, here's a here's an
14:32
earthn or a dwarf. Now they're turning into a trogue. And we've seen trogs
14:38
in the elemental plains. Like it's only been like vaguely hinted
14:46
that any of these things are actually related to trogs. The only people we know for sure are related to trogs are
14:53
grummels. Um because we know that the the gr turned
14:59
in the frogs were turned into grummel. The the things that live in high mountain. Why can't I remember their name now?
15:05
The Drogbar. Yeah, they're they're like they're like Trog adjacent.
15:10
Yeah, maybe. But I don't think we have any actual like, you know, we don't have anything of the Trogs turning into them
15:17
or them, you know, evolving from Trogs or anything. It's just it's there's a lot of this
15:22
stuff. I I don't know. I I think we've just discovered something that would
15:28
actually make a good Lord Walker thing. Like where do what are Trogs?
15:34
Yeah, cuz I mean like are they their own thing? Are they are because I remember I remember some of the original artwork.
15:41
Um and I like I remember I want to say it was like Blizzcon
15:46
2008 or something like that. Uh and then I remember the and I know it's not canon
15:52
now. Uh but it can always become canon if they decide to make it so. uh the manual of monsters uh which was the role
16:00
playing game uh monster manual for the uh the the actual like Warcraft RPG. Um
16:10
they had these as evolutions like you know the the they were originally like this in between part between you know
16:18
curse of you know flesh gone wrong like if you survived the curse of flesh you
16:23
became a dwarf. if you failed the curse of flesh, you became a trogue. Um, and I remember that being canon for a while
16:30
because that's what they, you know, they explicitly said. Uh, which is why you
16:35
found them in, you know, dwarven areas, but then they started appearing other places where like they appeared in Deep
16:43
Home where they became stone trogs. Um, then they appeared under Ogramar. Uh,
16:50
why are they under Ogramar? Is there a you know Titan facility there? Um is
16:55
there something uh there that you know they they you know that that links them
17:01
to them? Uh Bran Bronzebeard in game has theorized that cobalts uh and by
17:07
extension snowbals uh are actually an evolution of uh you know tro evolution
17:14
of trogs. And this is from as early as I want to say it was the Warcraft magazine. I can't remember what volume it was. Uh, but there was a whole Titan
17:21
Creations lineage chart. Um, which was wild and is definitely not
17:28
necessarily uh accurate anymore, but it was definitely the ravings of a uh a
17:33
bronzebeard who was just discovering this stuff. Uh, and it covered everything from like the evolution of
17:38
like uh theory uh into the highborn into the nagas and
17:44
the various things uh how the the dark trolls and the xandelari trolls are
17:50
related, forest trolls, ice trolls, all linking all of them together. Um all the different tribes of the forest trolls.
17:57
uh how the Pandaren uh evolved uh you know all that stuff like there were all
18:03
these like maddening notes which is I thought was always interesting. I'm I'm gonna take a random sidebar here uh
18:09
because I always liked this concept of Bran just keeps like the a field journal
18:14
that he just writes in all of his crazy thoughts as he discovers stuff. You know if he speculates it doesn't
18:20
necessarily mean he has any evidence for it. He just kind of has an idea and writes it down. No, it's I I think
18:25
that's something I can believe of him pretty easily. Yeah. Um but I always thought it was it
18:31
was fascinating and they could always go back to these things because again they're not they're not canon now, but they could be if they chose to
18:37
Yeah, they could they could always introduce more evidence. I will point out too while we're doing the Charlie
18:43
Day, you know, board of connections. It is pretty weird that both
18:48
Sorry, one one last thing. Uh I think it was Chronicles volume one. I I just remembered this um did speculate that
18:56
earn being afflicted by the curse of flesh was where trogs came from. Go ahead. Sorry.
19:01
But I will point out to you that we I can think of at least one trogue that we find on Mechagon.
19:08
Mhm. King Gobamak who has the ability to summon other trogs to him. And thus there's even more
19:16
Trogs and that's in Mecca. Meanwhile, Olu, you know, uh over in Nomegon, lots
19:22
of Trogs. Um if Trogs aren't related to gnomes, then
19:29
they seem to have some kind of problem with them. I don't know how else to put this. Like,
19:35
they just seem to really not like gnomes. Mhm.
19:41
And I we know that unlike other
19:48
evolved or curse of fleshed peoples, the the mechanomes
19:55
have somebody who can actually just turn them back.
20:01
And if I I honestly think if if King Mechagon if he'd actually found
20:10
that guy me, you know, over ma overmaster Zod. I believe
20:15
if he'd found that guy, he wouldn't have had to do all of the weird experiments and stuff he was doing to try and turn
20:21
everybody, you know, back into non-curse of flesh beings because that guy could
20:27
do it. He could, you know, he actually did it to several gnomes
20:33
against their will, but he definitely did it. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Against their will. I'm not saying he was a good person. Uh, I'm saying that he had that
20:40
ability. Um, and that's that's weird to me
20:45
that there's Trogs everywhere. It almost feels like
20:51
the fact that Trogs could be then biosculpted by the uh the mou into
20:58
Grummels and Grummels. I mean, if you told me
21:04
that Grummels were a form of dwarf that lived like, you know, in different mountains,
21:11
I would not necessarily disbelieve you. You know, they kind of have a similar
21:17
vibe, but they kind of also they don't feel tremendously dissimilar to gnomes
21:23
either. Like you could imagine like, you know, dwarves, gnomes, grummel, grummel
21:29
fitting into the halfling position. I I just it's one of those things that I I
21:35
find myself musing about. To get around to it, though, I mean, ultimately, we don't have enough evidence for any of
21:41
the stuff we're saying. Like we've got like a mention in Chronicle, uh, a couple mentions in quests from before,
21:48
you know, original vanilla quests had some wild lore speculations in them.
21:54
Like the whole deal of the, you know, the trolls calling Titans the the
21:59
travelers and implying that that trolls had been living on Azeroth way before anything
22:06
Titanic ever showed up. Um, which might still be the case. I I I don't know. Um
22:14
so yeah, it's it's pretty wild. Uh there's the I as I say the other thing that we do at least we do know about trogs in
22:21
general too and I'm not trying to make this all the trog show. Um and some of the things can be very
22:26
simple too, right? Like we talk about like Matt brought up there their you know I don't want to say desire but like
22:33
their proximity to to gnomes. We know that trogs are carnivores and
22:39
potentially cannibals. Um, they like meat. Gnomes tend to be a lot smaller
22:44
than a trog. Um, they could be just that they're hunting them as, you know, a food source. Ala, you know, Fraggle Rock
22:52
and the duers. Certainly one possibility. Uh, Trogs are about, I'd say, almost twice as big, if
22:58
not more. Yeah, they're big. They're even the Trogs are bigger than a dwarf. Yeah, some of them.
23:06
Some of the trogs I've seen are not bigger than dwarves, but and some dwarves are really freaking big. Magny's
23:12
huge. Magny is huge. Magny is freaking huge. Even when he's not now that he's not diamond, he's
23:20
still freaking huge. That is a big dwarf, man.
23:27
There are I mean I don't want again not to to dwell too much on this but there
23:32
are a lot of stories that we could go into that I think would be really interesting like we've never seen
23:39
imagine getting to see the Xandelari Empire start. Yes. Getting the start of the Xandelari Empire. Getting to see the original
23:44
Troll Wars. uh getting to see the uh Stormwind riots, which we've never seen,
23:52
which are a a massive pivotal part of the story in history of of Azeroth and
23:58
the Alliance, recent history, uh but like still very pivotal, uh which spawned an entire resistance
24:05
group and spawned an entire zones worth of content, if not more, that has echoed
24:11
for ages, angst you could possibly imagine for two kings. now.
24:16
Um, yeah. And what's weird about that too is like Anduin doesn't ever really
24:22
deal with it. You know, Andowin has really never shown any particular
24:28
interest in or desire to come to terms with the events of the Stormwind riots,
24:35
which killed his mother and sent his father down a this depressive spiral that basically lasted
24:43
up until just before his own death. I mean, to be fair to Anduin, I mean, he's I just don't think Andwin knows how to
24:49
deal with it. I one I don't think he knows how to deal with it and two he's been sort of going from crisis to crisis
24:56
like whether it was his entire freaking life you have. Yeah. So as a child he causes some of them. He does. He does. I didn't say what the
25:03
cause of the crisises was just that he happened to be involved in them. You know some of them are world endings. Some of them see him being held captive
25:10
in a uh torture scenario and then being ridden around by an ancient being as if
25:15
it was a mech suit. Like Yeah. And then he's got to deal with the the fallout
25:20
depression from that and then everything else. He just now got back to, you know, the mainland and just now got back to
25:27
maybe dealing with some king stuff. So like maybe eventually he'll be able to deal with that, but not so much. But it
25:34
would be it would be interesting to see how that all uh shook out. We also
25:40
if for no other reason that you get to actually see Tiff and Ren. Yes. Violent. person has the one
25:46
character who's never had any in-game appearances and yet, you know, pretty pivotal. Married to one king, mother to
25:54
the other. I I really feel like we could we could stand to have seen more Tiff and Ren. Um yeah, it's it's crazy to me
26:02
that we haven't. The other thing that we could see too are some of the survivor stories of the
26:10
Scourge, which I think would be fascinating. I mean, not not just Kalia. Kalia is probably the name that that
26:16
springs to mind the most. She describes what happened to her, but imagine being able to like see that from her
26:22
perspective. You know, living through the way she lived, having to hide, having to, you know, look at the the,
26:30
you know, deceased bodies of your loved ones around you and try to figure out what you're doing next. Um,
26:36
you know, there's so many other survivor stories like that or uh a story from the
26:42
perspective of what it's like to be raised as a banshee or a dark ranger or something along those lines because
26:49
we've gotten little bits and pieces of it, but and and we've talked about this forever where it's like you get this
26:56
thing where it's almost like amping up what you are like what your rage is, what your aspect is that you have at
27:01
that moment of death. Uh so when you are alive it's just pain and torture. But why why is it like that? What is it from
27:08
their perspective? What are their final thoughts uh on the motor? Why did they accept it? Right? Cuz in the case of the
27:15
dark chore stuff, we learned that if you were playing horde, unfortunately, you
27:23
were resing people and you were resing people as dark rangers or banshees essentially with the help of uh the Vir.
27:30
And if you got to a certain one and they rejected
27:36
the offer, they rejected the offer. They weren't resurrected there. There's a component of compliance in this that we
27:42
didn't know until then. And I'd love to see like one, how that was figured out,
27:48
and two, what that is like from the other side. You know, what what is that offer? What is that promise being made
27:54
that we don't get to hear, which I think is is absolutely, you know, potentially fascinating. And even if it's just a
28:01
little thing where it charts everything that Sylvanas did as far as
28:06
like raising more allies and everything in there, getting more of that
28:12
perspective would be interesting to me. I know not everybody. I know some people are still on the I'm tired of Sylvanas
28:18
train, but I still think that the things surrounding her are fascinating. the
28:23
choices that she made, the things that were being decided around her without her direct uh, you know, intervention
28:31
are also, you know, to me at least very interesting. Tons of options here.
28:37
There's just there's so many I mean I mean there's here's one that I've wanted
28:44
to see for a very long time. the actual genesis of the various
28:50
Torin and Torin adjacent peoples from the uh Yongol on and how it is
28:59
expressed in their folk tales like there's that really messed up one about
29:05
the shadow from the earth that went across the the shoe hollow and drove
29:10
them mad that we we don't have any idea what what is this talking about what is this? When
29:17
when did this happen? What is it describing? Um
29:22
and and why did they start fighting? Why did they start getting into war with the centaur? What happened there?
29:28
Yeah. Um is that related to this whole thing? Like the centaur, also the origin of the centaur,
29:34
we know it and we've seen enough of it that I'm not saying that we need to see it again. But at the same time,
29:41
the idea that the centaur were born because Princess Theod, you know, Therodess and like, you know, one of the
29:51
the sons of Sinarius started having children. It's like, how
29:57
did they even meet? How does this how did this relationship happen? Um, it's
30:04
it's like there's a ton of really just
30:11
I'd really love to see like the fact that we have all these different torin
30:16
people who I mean I love elves, you know, nobody doesn't love elves. Nobody doesn't love dwarves. Come on. We
30:22
they're they're fantasy classics for a reason. But we have seen a lot of them at this point. the and the elves just
30:29
had like the whole Bellameth deal. Um, I'm not saying we have to never see
30:35
elves again. I'm totally down for more elves in Midnight, but I would love if we got like some kind of, you know, all
30:43
these different torn peoples having some kind of moot where they all get together. Maybe they
30:49
don't they don't accomplish anything. Maybe they just get up together and are just really,
30:56
you know, the Yongal are like, you know, incredibly hot-tempered jerks. The, you
31:01
know, the Tonker are like, "Have you tried enslaving the spirits?" Um, the
31:06
the Shuhallo are like, "No, we stop bringing that up. We're not going to do that." And you know, the high mountain
31:13
are like, um, yeah, no, I I'm also not down with this
31:18
enslaving the spirits idea. But I will say I don't mind punching them. The punching them part I'm fine with. It's
31:24
the the the fact where you go straight to enslaving them. That's crazy. That that that's going too far. Look, we
31:30
we'll go back to the golf ball for a second. Okay. Okay. Those guys aren't going to help. But I would love to see
31:38
it. I'd love to see more torren anything. Like I'd love to see us go back and
31:43
actually see like were there like let's get to see those torn druids we've heard
31:49
about from like the ancient times that knew Sinarius and and knew his dad and had
31:56
stories of you know his dad falling in love with the moon. Um you know and and
32:02
that's where Sinarius comes from. Uh, Malor,
32:07
you know, they don't call him Moren, obviously. Uh, what what do they call him? Aparro?
32:13
I don't remember. I think it might be Aparo. But anyway,
32:19
just there's a ton of stuff for everybody really. Like we mentioned dwarf trolls already, you know, stuff
32:24
that they we could see more of. Um, obviously torin, Joe already came up with really good
32:31
stuff for the forsaken. Uh, you know, humans are gotten more than you'd expect, but like I've said before,
32:37
there's a ton of holes in in humanity stuff. We only recently found out about Lordane.
32:43
Like the reason that Lordon is named Lorderon is because of this guy Lordane. And and we didn't know anything about
32:48
him until fairly recently. Like he he's he's very tied into the artifact weapons
32:54
from Legion, but that's basically it. That was the first time he got mentioned. If it weren't
33:01
the fact that he existed is the reason that we that Terrace Fall was called Terracefall because Lordine and his guys
33:08
were were literally protecting the Tomb of Tier. They were descended from the people who
33:14
said, "No, we're not leaving. We're not scattering the world. We're going to stay right here and we're going to guard
33:19
Tier's tomb because he was our friend." And that's that's I want I'd love to see
33:26
Tier fighting the Chthraxi. Mhm. I'd love to see the story of the
33:31
Chthraxi coming after Tier, how one of them got his bell rung and the other one
33:37
fell down after the fight and eventually later on that that dagger again shows
33:43
up, the same one that, you know, we're dealing with right now. uh good old
33:48
Zalot and woke him up and that and caused the you know Akir
33:54
Troll Wars which the Air Troll Wars that would be a
34:00
big thing to do. Um just yeah there's there's so many but I mean I feel like
34:06
I'm leaving out tons of people that we could get some really cool lore walking stuff with. Yeah, there's like the Dreni
34:13
um like what's up with those guys? uh the furbul like c could could we get at
34:20
some kind of consensus on what's going on with the furbul please like um are they related to the pandarin in any way
34:27
like who who made the pandarin like were the pandarin originally furbul that the
34:33
mou messed around with I thought that was confirmed I don't if I'd love to see it
34:40
you know I just and it would make sense for law walker Cho to be interested in this you know
34:45
what I like you think that he could at least be real curious about his own people
34:52
um enough to go look up their origins. So yeah, I I'd love a lot of that stuff.
34:58
The one thing that I think you'd be right. Go ahead. One thing that I think might be topical coming up that that I would love to
35:03
maybe see is, you know, with us going into a lot of the the more Titan lore,
35:10
seeing the initial war against the uh the old gods and how that started with
35:16
the, you know, and beginning with the plucking of Yasher, you know, the creation of the well of
35:22
eternity. So like going with this first massive wound uh showing how it was
35:28
actually created uh and how they devised like fixing it and what the reason was
35:33
behind it and we may get some of that because that may be related. Go ahead. I absolutely agree that that should be
35:39
done. Uh, but I actually think that that should be the end of it and first we
35:45
should get to actually see we got the tiniest glimpse of this when we traveled back in time and saw the old gods
35:53
fighting the the elemental lords at the beginning of the creation of the black empire. I want to see what happened. I
36:01
want to first off I want to see Odin get his face melted. Well, yeah. I mean, for obvious reasons.
36:06
I want to see that a lot. I would love I will sit here and root for Ragnaros all
36:11
day. I will hold up a giant foam finger of Soul for us. Like it'll be the
36:16
hammer, not a foam finger, but I'll hold that thing up and be like cheering. Woo! Melt his face some more because you know
36:23
I I don't like Odin. Um, but just there's so just imagine getting to
36:28
actually see the the the end of the war between the old gods and the and the
36:33
elemental lords where the elemental lords essentially get bound by some kind of powerful magic that binds people and
36:40
makes them do things they don't want to do. I don't know how that could possibly,
36:45
you know, relate to other stuff we've been seeing recently. I'm I'm looking like I can see you guys.
36:52
Sorry, that's you can't see my face. Um, but seriously though, the I feel like
37:00
the whole deal with Warlock magic being from the Titans originally and the idea
37:05
of, you know, the Warlock magic being able to bind and control demons and the
37:11
domination magic we've seen uh from the Shadowlands and the fact that the actual
37:18
elemental lords were bound and controlled by the quote unquote cipher of damnation.
37:25
I feel like this stuff all comes together somehow and it would be really
37:30
good to start actually seeing pieces of it. The bit with Zalot that we saw
37:37
that felt like when we the lore walking parts of that that felt really
37:42
important. Mhm. And it's very important towards what we're going to see in Midnight. Right.
37:48
And the last of these three um expansions is still to my knowledge
37:53
called the final titan. Right? Is it the last titan? The last titan. It's the last titan. I feel like we're we're on the cusp of
38:01
getting to see the the final what the actual relationship between the old gods and the void and the titans really is.
38:10
And I feel like the the the magic that can bind and control things is a huge part of it.
38:18
I I really feel like that's something that needs to get explored and I feel like lore walking could absolutely do
38:23
it. Um plus I mean then there's stuff like you mentioned the drag bar earlier. I'd like to know just like who are these
38:29
guys? You know are they trogs? Like could you show us that? I I'd like to
38:35
know more about the drag bar. They're they were pretty cool. I mean not necessarily nice people but they don't
38:41
have to be nice. It's true. And I mean, and again, going back to the thing, I would love to see
38:47
the sundering of Azeroth, uh, the actual like blowing up of the continents and what
38:54
we've seen from Queen Ashara's point of view in the Warbringer, but what about the rest of the world,
39:00
right? Like, I just want to see like how everybody else like interpreted it and how everybody else, you know, dealt with
39:07
it because that's one thing we haven't really seen. So like what is the
39:14
what is the I don't want to say creation myth but what is the the passed down story from that time because anybody who
39:21
survived absolutely would have wrote about it or had an oral tradition regarding it right. So it's like I mean yeah I mean you like
39:29
one of the things you pointed out a long time ago is that like some people just you know they had to bug out
39:37
and they would have lost a whole lot of people. We we've seen that you know like
39:42
tons and tons of elves got killed u when Ashara failed to hold the wall of water back that's just in one place like
39:49
what happened to all those furbul what happened to the you know the pl
39:54
people living in places that are now currently underwater yeah because we know that 80% of the the
40:00
land mass uh broke apart but that's 20% of the land mass is just gone
40:06
and that's and it was like huge passage huge chunks of connected land ripped apart.
40:12
Yeah. And we we talked about this. We've actually had articles on the the website over the years uh trying to piece
40:18
Azeroth back together and it it doesn't fit. It doesn't work. And even it wasn't
40:24
until we got uh Chronicle Volume One. Yeah. That we we understood how incomplete it
40:30
actually was. Like you can put some of the land masses where approximately they are, but you're still left with like
40:37
these huge chunks just missing. what was there? You know, what was was these was
40:43
these remnants of the Black Empire? Were these settlements of, you know, living
40:48
humanoids that had a, you know, culture that couldn't get out? I It's a dark
40:54
story, but it it is a important piece of Azro's history that we we know about,
41:01
but don't really know about, if that makes sense. Yeah, we know the broadest of strokes.
41:07
Uh we do not know like for example I mean just looking at the map of ancient
41:13
Calumdor because I'm doing that right now. Um looking at where Zullean is
41:19
considered to be on ancient Calumdor and it doesn't mean Zullean actually existed as a city there at that time. I'm just
41:25
saying that the point where Zullean currently is extrapolated onto this map.
41:31
It's fairly obvious that the distance between that and what is, you know, now,
41:41
you know, the the Xandelari Mhm. like, you know, islands is enormous.
41:49
There's so much land that just isn't there anymore
41:54
or is underwater or you know is like the you know there's
42:00
Suramar. Surar is literally like there's the well of attorney, there's Serar, then
42:06
there's, you know, Zulleon all the way over there. Huge distance. Probably it
42:12
it it's just crazy to look at these and realize all this land is now basically
42:18
water. Like there's just ocean everywhere here.
42:24
Um, it's just that even if your people survived it,
42:31
they, you know, they'd have they'd have stories to tell about, you
42:37
know, that how they survived it. Mhm. And yeah, there's just so much of it
42:44
that's just gone. I mean, and think about how like how
42:49
widespread trolls ended up being. Like there's Zula rock down, you know,
42:57
way down uh on at the bottom of what is now modern Calumdor that's, you know,
43:04
entirely across the ocean from Zulgar, which is, you know, on on the Eastern
43:10
Kingdoms. Think about how far away
43:16
these are from each other. Mhm. Like Yeah. You know, there's ah it's
43:21
just so so much distance and so much water between a lot of these places like
43:26
um the the the the frost trolls, you know, up in uh Northrand
43:32
um Dunder, you know, there there's just tons of places that
43:38
just separated by vast distances that at one time had the ability to travel be,
43:44
you know, entirely by land. You could walk, although it would take a very long time. They very far away from each
43:50
other, but you could physically travel from Zolomon to Gundereak. They they
43:55
were that's that's why there are frost trolls in the Eastern Kingdoms because they used to be able to just walk over
44:01
there. And yeah, I mean, I'd love to get to see, heck, I'd like to get to see
44:08
Ashara's life. Like, was there a period of time where Ashara was cool?
44:15
Because keep in mind that Ashara lived a very long time. Like was young what was young Ashara
44:21
like? Was she always a bit full of herself or did that happen because they just kept telling her how great she was
44:27
over and over again? Uh you know kind of like you know if you have an entourage of yay of yessayers you're going to
44:33
eventually turn into a bit of a buttthead just because nobody's ever telling you no no you shouldn't do that.
44:39
Like when Ashara's like, "I'm going to change the name of Aloon's Holy City so it's named after me instead." And
44:44
everyone was like, "Yeah, that makes sense." Like, is that how she got there?
44:49
I I And there's just tons of these things, man. But yeah, you're totally right about the uh the Sundering.
44:56
Yeah, because I mean, think about think of everything in effects, too, right? Like I mean, we know that the Path of Titans existed. We knew that that it was
45:03
something that tied the Titan facilities together. The Titan facilities themselves were tied together in a way that was functional beyond what we know
45:10
today, which you know, pre- sundering, we would have been able to see that information or maybe speculate how they
45:17
were connected. Go ahead. No, and you're right. I mean, there's Titan facilities that today, like
45:24
we know the Well of Eternity had something built around it that fed the power back into Azeroth.
45:31
Mhm. And the only bits of it we have now are like parts of of Suramar
45:37
and parts of like the uh the what do we call the tomb of Sargeras
45:44
which was the temple of Aloon at one point. The temple of Aloon we we know it's got Titan facility stuff inside it. We've
45:50
been in there. We've seen them. Like what was it? You know it was obviously doing something with all that
45:57
power, right? It had to. And it has places for all the Titan, you know, this the various
46:04
objects that we use, the uh the pillars of creation.
46:09
Is that what they were called? Yeah. And the pillars of creation, you know, there's there's places for them inside
46:15
that temple. Why what was Aloon like? What was the point of them being in the temple of Aloon? What what did they do?
46:22
Why is it the temple of Aloon? Is it because it's related to the Well of Eternity?
46:29
Like there's the whole myth of Aloon, you know, spending the day in the well
46:34
and then coming out at night. You know, it's probably not true, but at the same time, maybe it is.
46:40
Well, especially now that we've been now that we've been underground and we've been seeing the vast array of crystals
46:46
that exist that that seem to have a purpose, whether you know, we we
46:52
Belelladar is not the only one of its kind. We know that like that's there's been tons of
46:59
references at least by others of that there are other crystals like this whether they are you know related to uh
47:07
you know Aloon or the Naru or literally any number of things we don't know. Um
47:14
yeah and for the fact that we we've actually at least one myth ties Aloon to the Naru.
47:19
Yeah. As part of the ordering of the universe.
47:25
Yeah. It's there's so much here, right? Uh there's we're at this point the problem we have
47:32
is the two of us are going to start spinning. Well, I mean to be fair, we have about 10 minutes left, so spinning is not
47:38
necessarily the worst thing in the world. Um but yeah, like there's we have an
47:45
unprecedented opportunity with the way the game is currently to actually start
47:50
exploring these in a way that is relevant to players. And that's one of the things that I think we've always
47:56
wanted. Uh lore walking was something that I I asked for
48:03
dang near a decade ago at this point. You campaigned for it. I did. You straight up were telling everyone
48:08
that that it's why are they not doing this? Yeah. And then they did. And I'm very grateful for that fact. At least
48:15
somebody listened. I think I know who, but thank you. Um, it's it's a vehicle that does something
48:22
that we we've talked about often on this podcast about other things. One of the
48:29
things that makes games that have, you know, a lot of story or a complicated story, immersive is allowing you to
48:37
experience in it that story firsthand. Whether it's a flashback, whether it's
48:43
uh moments that you get to just be an observer, whether it's something where you take on the persona of a key person
48:49
inside of that storyline. These are all things that they that make it more
48:55
immersive and it makes the world matter more because you can hear about these
49:00
ancient warriors and civilizations and people that, you know, did XYZ and that's fine, but seeing it firsthand is
49:08
so much more different. Imagine going back to the the War of the Sands and
49:13
being a warrior, a night elf warrior on the walls there, fighting back the
49:19
hordes of these Eldrich horrors, you know, these these bugs that just do not
49:25
have an end. You know, the Silithid are not exactly warm and cuddly. and having
49:32
to deal with the terror of that, having to deal with being so far from home, having to deal with being in a place
49:38
that is uh almost an life because it really is
49:44
uh it's different to hear about it and hear about the struggles of people like
49:50
Fandal Strahelm or to see it to see what happens when his son dies to see you know what what
49:59
pressures have caused him to essentially crack. You know what you're making me think of?
50:05
What's that? This is, you know, before we had Lore Walkers, uh, we did have the, uh, you
50:12
know, the bronze dragons of time. Yeah. And we had a raid.
50:17
We did the Mount Hydel raid. Yes, we did. Which replayed events from Warcraft 3.
50:23
Yeah. It basically let you as a player in WoW who would, you know, if you'd never played Warcraft 3 for some reason,
50:31
um, you could still go into this raid and actually experience the whole buildup to the end of that game. You
50:39
could see it. You could fight actual monsters from those times, including the big bosses, and play a role in their
50:46
defeat, right up to and including when Archamon blew himself up. You could be
50:52
part of it. And that's something you could we could really be doing with this lore walking
50:57
stuff. Like you could get like from having like you could start doing more
51:03
and more like couple person groups, single person stuff. That's great. Do more of that as well. But you could also
51:10
use it to actually start bringing raids out again. Like imagine uh you do want
51:15
to do the sundering thing you were talking about. Imagine if there's like multiple t, you know, almost lore
51:21
walking experiences of the events that lead up to the sundering and there's a
51:27
raid at the end where you actually go in to to keep Ashara busy long enough for
51:34
Malfurion to blow up the world essentially to prevent Sargeras from coming through. And you get to see all
51:40
that stuff. You get to see Brocks go through the portal with the axe to fight
51:47
Sargeras knowing he's not coming back. No, you know, I'm going to die. Please
51:53
let me have my heroic death. You know, all this stuff you could
51:59
actually get to see and not just read a, you know, chronicle
52:04
about it or a book in the game, which is great. I love books in the game. I've I've never been against them. But you
52:11
could have let players see this stuff. I think it would be just awesome to do.
52:17
And I think that I keep going back to the sun ringing idea because my word there's so much you can do.
52:23
Um there's so many characters you could get to see and get to interact with.
52:29
Imagine actually getting to interact with them. That's the other thing. Not just read about what they're doing, but you go and
52:34
say, "Um, Ronan, maybe, you know, I'm just saying in the future you might, you know, no, please don't tell me about the
52:40
future. It's already bad enough." Like, oh, why do they always say that? I'm trying to warn you about your death,
52:47
man. Like there's just a ton of stuff you could just o
52:54
imagine getting to be there and you you know your entire job is to keep um
53:00
Xavius like occupied until Malfurion can turn him into a tree.
53:05
Like you know you could get to fight that guy again. I'd love to to stomp on this that guy's face for a while.
53:13
Yeah. I I I think we've we sort of talked this one, I think, into the ground. Uh
53:20
hopefully that it covers your topic. I know it's not necessarily a deep dive into the dwarves themselves, but
53:26
I think we both agree that that would be great. Yeah. Um and trust me, as somebody who plays who plays a dwarf and has played a dwarf for
53:32
many years, I want more. Give me more. But as Matt was saying,
53:38
no, I'm just saying it it's one of those things where we could do an entire show just about the War of the Three Hammers. And probably we should.
53:45
Yeah. And I mean, have we done it? Like we've kind of mentioned it, but I don't know if we've actually just done a deep dive on
53:51
We have actually. So way way way way way back when when Ann was still here, we
53:58
definitely did an episode that was the the War of the Three Embers. Now, that said, we could always revisit it with
54:04
the updated information we know. Again, part of the the interesting thing that we've had recently is added information
54:11
that maybe makes sense but wasn't expected. Like a lot of the dwarven lore
54:17
that got revealed tangentially because of the earth and stuff. Uh learning about where some of the customs came
54:23
from, some of the uh the lore and the stories like the whole Magny becoming a
54:29
speaker for Azeroth and becoming made of diamond isn't unique. And we didn't know
54:35
that until we were actually in the thick of the War Within opening chapters. And that was a piece of dwarf floor that had
54:42
like we we knew that there was a chamber uh below the the the royal chamber
54:47
behind vaulted doors uh that I wound up in early vanilla going into uh GM prison
54:54
a few times trying to get to. Um my wife actually straight up got me in there. Yeah, it's it was it was you
55:01
could do it you could do it with as as a hunter you were able to do a lot of weird funny things with fain death back
55:06
then. Um yeah um fain death or have your pet run up to the wall then like see through its
55:14
eyes and then switch really fast. Yeah, that's one she did. Yeah, for for those you
55:20
can't banner now. Blizz, it's too late. Yeah, I was going to say in vanilla when you feain death, you had no hitbox uh
55:26
for a couple seconds. Yeah, you didn't exist. So if you feain death and disengage, you went through solid objects. It was fun. Um, so many
55:33
of days on GM Island ex as a result of like exploring that area where I wasn't
55:39
supposed to be. And it was always fascinating to me cuz like now we know
55:44
that like that book of of you know ancient magic that large tome that Magny
55:50
read from started as probably something handed down from descendants of the
55:55
earthn from those It was in Ulawir. It was in Aldoir, you know, and was absolutely full of
56:02
Earth at one point. Uh, so yeah, and we know that the diamond the diamond
56:08
warriors, the diamond folks were the ones that were made of that. I can't remember the name of them off the top of
56:13
my head, but like they were always prophets. They were always, you know,
56:18
incredibly important. They talked directly to Azro. Like this is a known quantity. Even the broken earth knew
56:24
this. uh which was absolutely fascinating because we didn't we thought it was uh we thought it was like a a a
56:31
special accidental thing that happened. No, turns out that's just what Azeroth does with her speakers or the people
56:38
that are most important. It's just they become diamond. they become closer to their their original roots which
56:44
apparently are all tied with the original uh earthn to begin with where they tend to be more constructs of and
56:51
again we'll get into this I'm sure in the last titan they're constructs of Azeroth more than anything else they're
56:57
closer to Azeroth than possibly any of the other uh you know Titan forge races
57:03
she influenced them more than the others possibly due to their proximity underground possibly due to what their
57:09
chosen task was um so much so that the Titan Watchers had to essentially break
57:14
them, right? Or the Titans and the Titan Watchers had to cause them to be damaged. We didn't know any of that, but
57:20
it all ties in with that that a lot of the old like dwarf mythology, a lot of
57:26
the old stories, like a lot of the stuff that Magny was talking about when we were helping him get prepared for the
57:32
ceremony to talk to Azeroth, like all this stuff started paying small dividends that I don't think anybody's
57:38
really talked about. Uh, like those are little tiny pieces. Again, dwarf lore,
57:44
there's so much we can go with. There's so many cool things. Like, we haven't even gotten into like the fallen cities
57:49
or anything like that because there's whole things there, too. Um, yeah, it's
57:56
it's wild, but we're going to call it there. I think Blizzard Watch is made possible due to your generous
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pronunciation of your name. You can also hit us up on one of two Discord channels. We have the Q and Podcast question channel which is open to
58:30
everybody. Same rules apply. And if you are a Patreon subscriber, you can go ahead and hit us up on the Patreon Q and
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podcast questions channel where we tend to look there first as a way of saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on. But with that, folks, we'll see you
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next week. [Music]
#Entertainment Industry
#Online Media