Warcraft Lore for Dummies - Part X

CHAPTER X: BECAUSE WARCRAFT DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH FAT FURRIES ALREADY

If you've ever seen the movie Dragonslayer, at the end of the film after the real heroes defeat the dragon the old king walks up and pokes the carcass with a sword, and he is declared the 'dragonslayer.'  That's pretty much how Deathwing went down.  A bunch of dragons in human form give Thrall a laser beam and he pew pews Deathwing and then we poke him with swords and we have have an epic battle with his toenail fungus and hooray, we're Dragonslayers.

Then suddenly after ten thousand years (everything in WarCraft is always ten thousand years later) the fog surrounding a hidden island called Pandaria lifts and we discover new lands to fight over, because if there's anything we do really well, it's discovering beautiful and exotic new lands to kill each other in.

The Alliance is led by King Varian Wrynn (also known as Lo'Gosh, which he will remind you at every opportunity), and the Warchief of the Horde is Garrosh Hellscream.  Garrosh is leading the Horde because Thrall is too busy trying to cross over as an epic aspect/guardian/protector/elemental/farseer/rap star and marketing his new fizzy sports drink to take any actual interest in the affairs of the nation he built.

Blood and Thunder, hear me roar
When I drink Thrallade my mouth says MORE
For homies in da Barrens be fightin quillboar
Only thirty calories and packed with lore

Varian used to be a slave gladiator and a vicious warrior who slew Onyxia, but now he has a teenage son so he needs to act all responsible.  Of course his son has nothing to do with weapons, he's a priest.  It's gotta be disappointing.  "Son, let me show you some of the techniques I learned when fighting orcs twice my size, with my bare hands..."  "Oh no father, I'm laundering my white robes and reading a really interesting illustrated manuscript..."  So Varian is slowly changing from a burly mancastle into a bit of a think-first politician.  He still growls once in a while, but it's pretty much for show now.  You have to rescue him from just about everything because he can't even organize a landing party on his own and is nearly killed by an adviser who's been sitting 10 feet away from him for years.

Garrosh on the other hand needs no defense.  He's busy killing, burning, and smashing everything in the whole world.  If it's got a Horde banner on it, he's using it to attack something.  Stonetalon Mountains was never beautiful, but now it's about as pretty as a strip mine.  Ashenvale is on fire.  The Undead have their pestilence creeping over most of the northwestern kingdoms.  It's a bloody mess.

So when this island appears, Garrosh is all like "Mine!" and Varian is like "Not his!" and we rush off to establish bases without asking anyone, because of course the island is already inhabited by powerful but peaceful peoples that we care nothing about until we discover we can't loot the whole place without talking to them.  The island is called Pandaria, which means "island of the fat furry bears."  And it is filled with fat furry bears, led by a bear named Taran Zhu who is always bleeding from something.

The whole land is very peaceful except for a seeping evil called Sha.  You see, ten thousand years ago (here we go again) the emperor of the panda people was a fat bear named Shaohao.  He felt that the best way to deal with his troubles was to bury them where nobody could be bothered by them.  Of course this is a giant metaphor for responsibly managing your personal psychology, as the entire expansion is.  It's just filled with morality plays and lessons to be learned, as if Blizzard woke up one day and said "oh shit, we have 10 million kids playing our game, maybe we shouldn't let them live in a world where people only kill things."  I'm guessing Chris Metzen has kids now and he probably doesn't want them to end up draining his wealth paying for expensive therapy.

So Shaohao literally buries his negative emotions.  Using fat panda magic he buries them in the lands under Pandaland, and deep under there an old god twists and shapes these emotions into ghost sha creatures.  As the humans and orcs show up and begin exploring and gathering resources and fighting, the sha latch on to these violent forces and emerge like fracking leaks, poisoning the landscape.  Garrosh takes this to the extreme (because he's an extreme kind of guy).  When his diggers discover the heart of an old god he does what anyone else would do with a giant, icky evil black diseased thing... and throws it in a pristine well in the middle of Pandaria.  Taran Zhu tries to stop him, but he gets impaled on Gorehowl and is bleeding again. 

Then more mists dissolve (for no discernible reason) and an island is discovered... off the coast of the first island.. and it is weirdly stuck in time, hosting the ghost of Shaohao and a bunch of elite monsters that poop epic gear.  This is a timely discovery since it allows people to gear up quickly and enter the final scene of this act, returning to Azeroth to lay siege to the city of Orgrimmar and attacking Garrosh to bring him to justice.  Thrall leads the way and is kicked aside, and then when Garrosh is defeated is stopped from executing him by Varian, who insists that he msut stand trial for his crimes.  Jaina begs Varian to kill the entire Horde leadership, but when the new Warchief is discovered to be Vol'jin he backs down, because he is regenerating five HP a second and there's nothing you can do about it.  He backs off with a warning that "we will end you" and Jaina is displeased.

Meanwhile, on Timeless Isle the bronze dragon Kairoz gives players a quest to view events that could take place inside Orgrimmar, and they suggest that Garrosh might escape justice after all.  But who is responsible for freeing him?  TunE in next time, same orc-time, same orc-channel!