What do you think Tahu is implying? That Elune and the Earthmother are the same being? Mu'sha is the name of one of Azeroth's moons, and the Tauren believe Mu'sha (Elune) is one of the Earthmother's eyes (the sun, An'she, being the other but with no known Elven equivalent).

Perhaps he is worried that the Elven Druid's seem to only worship Elune and there is no An'she equivalent? I can't really work out the balance comment really, and that was all that I could come up with, that the Night Elves put so much faith and devotion into Elune, and perhaps thousands of years ago when Taurens were the first druids they worshipped the sun equivalent? And that as Hamuul has rediscoverd Druidism from Stormrage and the Elves, that he has inherited their moon worship instead of forging/rediscovering their own path for the Sun entity?

This looks like it could be one of three things.
- An opening to introducing a new deity that either plays a part in Northrend or the new expansion. (reasonable)
- An attempt to flesh out Tauren lore and split Horde Druids from Night Elf Druids for more uniqueness (unlikely)
- The first hints at a possible new class for the expansion, newly rediscovered sun worshipping branch of Druidism that Tahu heads and makes available, through the Cenarion Circle, to the Night elves as well. Slots in nicely to the ranged/healer role as well if it doesn't rely on shapeshifting like Druidism does. Perhaps just a fantasy but the more I think on it the more that seems possible.

Tahu's gossip text suggests a possible future shift in philosophy for the Tauren Druid tradition. The question is whether or not a shift from Hamuul Runetotem's lessons means a shift away from the Cenarion Circle.

I'm going to bring down the PTR soon as I can and start doing some investigating. A thought, completely unrelated, just occurred to me:

What if Azjol-Nerub IS the Icecrown raid? Instead of battling across the glacier in vehicles or banging down the doors (which for some reason has a lot of shades of Black Temple to me), dropping the floor out of the Colisseum provides us exactly the pathway we need to get in under Arthas and wreck his party.

It would have parallels with Arthas' race to the glacier in WC3, fitting with the whole theme of Arthas trying to make us go through the same experiences he did. Aside from all the morally questionable stuff we've done, the only action of his we HAVEN'T duped so far is going through Azjol-Nerub to reach Icecrown.

Ha! I knew there would be Nerubian tunnels under the Argent Crusade base! Looks like part of the coliseum floor is on the bottom of Azjol-Nerub, so I expect us to do some falling after the Nerubians burst through.

MMO Champion has a lot of stuff up, including a new ice themed Crypt-Lord skin. Maybe that will be used for Anub'Arak? We did take his carapace away after killing him, so I would guess he would need some patching up after that. Maybe Arthas made him a new shell to cover the pieces we took? After fixing up Naxx like he did, it is not out of the question he would try to get Anub'Arak up and running again after how useful he was in WC:TFT.

You know, there was a Nerubian model that was found way back in the Beta, but we still have not seen in game. Maybe it will finally show up now?

Despite all this, and the Achievement Icon Name pretty much confirming we're facing Anub'Arak at the end of 3.2, one question which plagues me constantly:

Why the hell has he been restored to Undeath? I actually feel sad for him... upon defeat, he says, "I never thought I'd be free of him..." but if he's once again a puppet of The Lich King for some twisted reason, there had better be a good reason.

He's becoming a very tragic villain.

Why not bash down the door? Vehicles worked well enough in Ulduar and Blizzard seems to enjoy the mechanic. Even intentionally hark back to Black Temple and Doomwalker pounding on the gate. Drive a "Foe Reaver" (not so Fel once the Gnomes/Goblins get their hands on them!) and have to batter down the doors. Just like The Fel and the Furious - drive your Reaver around. Although hopefully mounted on the shoulder like riding Gymer in Zul'Drak.

Yes, but Tempest Keep was merely a setback.

The Coliseum keeps throwing us curve balls. Hooray for Azjol-Nerub content. It makes sense that we'd at least try to infiltrate Icecrown through AN, but something tells me that Blizzard wants us to break down the gates of Citadel all epic-like. Considering we can fly up to the very doors of Icecrown without being molested. Heck, the Argent Crusade has a camp inside the Court of Bones past Corp'rethar. Of course, that could just be the whole Angband thing going on. Getting up to the gates is meaningless if you can't break them down.

Is anybody else getting a creepy Eredar Twins vibe from the promised "Val'Kyr Twins" encounter? "Light to the Aid of Shadow!" <insert massive amounts of raid damage>

Walking through the Argent Tournament in the PTR I found our friend Trag Highmountain:

So I guess after the Taunka of Icemist Village joined the Horde he went to the Argent Tournament to... joust?
Thrall, Garrosh, Jaina and Varian are also present at the AT, although their models are placeholders at the moment. Thrall and Garrosh are with some Kor'kron Elite Guards while Varian and Jaina are on the other side of the Coliseum with Tirion.

Who is Zabra? (Is it a troll priest? Zabra'jin?).

Trag isn't a taunka and is a character that initially was in the Sunwell manga and then in several short stories. It's pretty neat how they are putting more comic/story characters into the game.

Trag Highmountain - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Zabra Hex is the name of the Troll Priest who got an action figure back during the second wave of the line. Was dressed in Transcendence and had Jindo's staff as an accessory.

He was introduced in the Lore during the Ashbringer comic as a Troll Priest devoted to the Light. He is also a member of the Argent Dawn in that story, so him being related to the Argent Crusade makes some sense.

Yes he isn't a Taunka but in the last of his short stories (in Warcraft Legends 4, "Fate"), he joined the Icemist Taunka and vowed to protect the village (although he did a lousy job since Icemist is overrun by Nerubians in WotLK).

My understanding is that the Black Knight is the last boss of the 5-man. Is that not correct?

That's correct. But currently, there's no explanation as to how he got there.

It seemed like the questline on the PTR was incomplete so I'd imagine we will find out more in future builds

Well the portion we did seemed pretty complete, she said she's tell the grand crusader and warn the participants, there's also a daily quest to kill him, which kind of links to it, though I mean it is a daily. Maybe we'll get more out of it, but if there isn't this is enough for me really, we know he's alive, and why he's alive.

Guess we could get our answer in the 5 man and raid also about how he somehow managed to get to be the final boss of the 5 man.

The more I think about the Colliseum the more I kinda like it since it actually reminds me of the fights in the classic RPG's where the main characters had to fight in a tournament to prove themselves and whatnot. In the 5 man we are fighting other heroes (other than the Black Knight) who were aspiring to lead the charge into Icecrown.

The Black Knight is in the 5-man, not the raid.

The way Tahu doesn't want to talk to Runetotem about it makes me think that whatever happens, it will not be a change in the way the tauren druids work already. It's almost certain that Tahu is going to form a new faction. This could mean that we're going to be fighting Tahu eventually, or it could mean there's a very exciting possiblity that, like you said, we will get some sort of "Sun Druid" class next expansion.

EDIT:
Killing the Dark Knight will be a daily quest, each time you kill him he'll say "'Tis Merely a Flesh Wound!" and disappear.

Arthas has serious double-standard issues.

Kel'thuzad dies, gets rezzed at Sunwell. Dies in Eastern Plaguelands, gets rezzed in Northrend. Gets guards sent as assistance when he's let Naxxramas be gutted, then rezzed once a week after he dies.

Arugal gets dug up, rezzed, and stuck in a tower east of Grizzly Hills.

Black Knight horribly bungles, is terribly obvious that he's murdering opponents before the reach the ring, is killed, and gets a rez. Then will get a daily rez. And some assistance in the 5man (as I doubt he's a legitimate champion for you to face) and rezzed after that.

While Drakuru conquers Drak'tharon and starts to put all of Zul'drak under his thumb, but when he's caught mis-managing us, Arthas explodes the dude.

I guess Arthas just doesn't like Trolls. KT, Arugal, and the Black Knight are all human. Well, Arugal debatably so.

Also, I'm thinking more "Come back tomorrow and I'll bite your legs off!" as part of a 30 second death speech.

KT does not get rezzed once a week. That's a gameplay mechanic based on raid resets, not a lore fact. The Black Knight getting a daily rez is also (probably) going to be a game play mechanic. That dragon we've been killing every day isn't getting rezzed, it's just a daily quest.

Preeeeeeetty sure Exemplar's making a joke.

It's interesting to note in the Death Knight Q&A that Ghostcrawler talks about how Death Knights don't fill a unique niche, but helped work against the tank shortage. Any new hero class they introduce is going to do the same thing in terms of doing the same job as an existing class, just doing it in a unique way. A leather-wearing Healing/DPS caster class with druidic roots but sun-centric mythos would be different enough, but exactly how they play differently will be the design challenge.

I'm still very interested in learning where Tahu is going with his train of thought.

I doubt we will get any type of druid hero class just since it will heavily conflict with the current druid class which already is a healer/dps and can shapeshift. If they add a new hero class I'd expect it to be unique in the sense that it won't conflict with what we currently have. I'd imagine we will find out more about those NPC's when the questline is further implemented.