Varian is a hot headed 100-rage 24-7 Warrior, and I wouldn't have him any other way, damn Paladins always taking the spot light with their "The light is the way" crap. *Cough* :P

Stormwind currently sits as the one power in the land where the leader's word ISN'T contested.

And I'd say the Dwarves have just as strong of a presence in the North as Stormwind's forces, albeit for different reasons. While the Forsaken presence all but disappeared after Dragonblight sadly, leaving Hellscream's forces as the dominate Northern Horde presence.

Just out of curiousity. Is your "in the land" Northrend alone, or Eastern Kingdoms plus Northrend? I've recently rolled Alliance, and having no dwarf characters my grasp of Ironforge-esque lore might be a bit hazy, but are you considering the Dark Iron Dwarves, as a rogue faction (trying to blow up Loch Modan etcetera), contesting the word of Magni Bronzebeard?

Because apart from the schemes of their darker brethren, The Ironforge Bronzebeard clan seem quite powerful within their own walls.

Well Magni's daughter is preggers for his greatest enemy in the Dark Irons. I imagine that kid would raise hell about his right to the throne, especially since Magni has no other sons/daughters that I know of, and his 2 brothers have no interest in ruling Ironforge.

Thank you. I had missed the part that said she was pregnant. I just assumed we rescued her and everything was hunky dory. That does indeed look like it could turn out to become yet another open civil war, however I'm quite certain that Blizzard will "never" (as in they should pursue other venues first) bother about adding that little bit. Unless they plan to do an across the board "civil war" theme. Which they could do, as you have pointed out earlier.

Thrall losing popularity and position because prosperity breeds rashness and intolerance in his people,
Magata Grimtotem finally undermining or backstabbing Cairne.
Vahrimathras returning to take control over his covent of the Forsaken and forcing Sylvanas into exile.
Ironforge turning on itself due to the aforementioned heir to the throne conundrum.
The Exodar could be dismantled from within by yet another rogue group of Eredar.

The possibilities are many. In one way I think it could bring life back to the "war in Warcraft" however it would mean either retconning or just completely abandoning a vast amount of already established lore.

The thing is, the dark irons are vastly unpopular among the Ironforge Dwarves, as all quests seem to point out, and I doubt even the Bronzebeard name and right of succession could change that. If anything, this could point out at an alliance somewhere in the future, albeit a very tense one.

I doubt the child will grow old enough to become a factor in the lifespan of WoW. Perhaps in WoW II, but then we're talking 10+ (RL) years from now.

Edit: Assuming 1-3 years of gametime progressing per expansion. As 4LV points out, there's of course nothing stopping Blizzard from jumping the story a few decades in an expansion instead of making a jump like that in an entire new game (aside from player outrage over their chars not aging).

Wow Classic came out 4 years ago. Your point? If anything, WoW-time is progressing slower than real-world time. Going by that conversion factor, Moira's kid will be 10 years old in about 2020.

A calculation like yours is flawed songster. For all we know, Blizzard might as well decide to jump ten years into the future with their next Expansion. "After over a decade of peace following the defeat of the nefarious Lich King in the frozen north, trouble stirs again in the lands of the orcs/humans/dwarves/elves/tauren/squidfaces.."

But whatever the outcome of this particular discussion, I'm glad in a way that "old world politics" are not forgotten in the face of the expanding number of additional continents added to the game.

Err did you even click my link? I didn't compare WoW time to real life time, I showed the timeline chart for WoW Events.

Maybe I should have been a bit more specific.

In WoW time, WoW Classic happened 2 years ago(As in not 2006, but year 25 of their history post-Orc invasion)

At the time of Wrath of the Lich King(Year 27), the kid would have already been born, IE he's 1-2 now, now, as in Wrath of the Lich King WoW time.

This make more sense to you now?

The problem with such a setup is that it is just a repetition of what happened with Grom. Recycling content is the last thing I want to see. Plus, I think Thrall and Saurfang can combine to show Grom the correct path of the new Horde.

I would much rather see an earlier redemption for Garrosh. In Nagrad, Garrosh knew what his father did, Thrall came and showed him his father's sacrifice. Thrall can once again come and show him his father's mistakes, drinking the blood in Ashenvale, attacking Horde and Alliance forces, and how Thrall with help from Cairne and more importantly Jaina did a ritual to free him from the Legion's control. We can speculate, that Garrosh knows that Grom redeemed himself by killing Mannoroth, but that he doesn't know that Jaina helped him get to that redemption.

It will be interesting to see if the BEs get better involvement towards the end of the expansion (Arthas raid). Along with Sylvannas, BEs lost a lot to Arthas too.

I could just as well add that Varian is probably in need of a harsh lesson himself. Nothing wrong with either of them being hot headed raging berzerkers, but a sense the bigger picture could do both of them some good. After all, they can always go back to 'killing each other like civilized people' when they run out of threats.

My guess it that these two will escalate the conflict in Northrend to a whole new level of stupid. But, anyway, time will tell

Well, Varian isn't exactly all-powerful either. And while Jaina is human, it is my understanding Stormwind holds no power over Theramore either (influence sure, but not control).

To put it bluntly, there isn't much Varian could of done short of invading Theramore... Which must be a hugely unpopular idea.

That said, I wonder who the High Elves see as their leader. There is obviously Vereesa Windrunner, but it's also my understanding that Theramore has the most High Elves.

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Also in regards to the Dark Iron. Why are we to assume they are a threat anymore? Short of some new upstart the only thing I can think of where Dark Iron might have some sort of claim is Grim Batol. Perhaps their Sorcerer Queen is still alive in some form there either working with or against the Black Dragonflight (and by against, I mean in the same manner of Ragnaros and Nefarian... should be an interesting dynamic).

Think about it, Ragnaros is dead/defeated, so are all his lieutenants. Emperor Dagan Thaurissan is also dead. Now we know his child lives on; but who is going to train him/her to be anything but an Ironforge Dwarf? Hell, if you think about it, the child will be the rightful heir of the throne from both families. Wouldn't this actually unite the Ironforge Dwarves and Dark Iron? The War of Three Hammers was fought for control of Ironforge... Because the Dark Iron's felt slighted.

And similarly, the remains of the Dark Iron clan can feel slighted if the heir to the throne fails to recognize his fathers heritage as well as his mothers. While that might be a thing of the far future, depending on how long Magni stays alive, I'm getting a bit curious about the relationship between the Dark Iron Dwarves and the Iron Dwarves. While they're not exactly "cousins" at any greater degree than the Iron Dwarves and the Ironforge Dwarves, the enemy of my enemy is still my friend.

Seeing as the Frostborn are more or less allied with Ironforge, especially with Magni's brother as their King, and the dwarves of Aerie Peak (and Shadowmoon, as explained in "Beyond the Dark Portal") are friendly to Ironforge, if in a competitive way, both the Iron Dwarves and Dark Iron Dwarves stand "alone".

Also remember that Saurfang the Younger fell to Arthas - though it's safe to say that Bolvar would've gotten wtfpwned by Arthas as well, he didn't die to Arthas' hand. Saurfang fell on the field of battle. Bolvar fell at the hands of supposed "allies."

From Wowhead:

Though this isn't directly involved with the conversation at hand, here's a bit more on Garrosh. This is mostly for the Alliance players. If you've ever sat around Warsong Hold, you may have been able to experience a conversation between Garrosh and Saurfang. Sorry for the multiple quote post.

Well that's the problem with WoW, we don't know where the cannon begins/ends. Is Rag dead? Did we kill the Emperor, or did Magni's daughter revive him when he left? Obviously there's still a constant Dark Iron presence in the Dwarvern lands. In the comic they mention the liaison between Magni's daughter and Thaurissan, but in the next issue you have the Dark Irons attempting to blow up the Thandol Spain once again. There are no Dark Irons in Grim Batol for the record, not as of Night of the Dragon which takes place post Sunwell and before Northrend. Heck the Dark Irons still cause a ruckess every year at Brewfest.

High Elves are a scattered people, they have no place to really call their own home and have been cast out by the Blood Elves of Silvermoon. Vereesa Windrunner is responsible for the safety of Dalaran first and foremost, I don't think she's actually been declared the leader of their remaining peoples.

Theramore is it's own small nation to my understanding, much like Dalaran.

Further to GTTheBard's post, here is the transcript from the end of the Horde version of the Battle for Undercity, just after Jaina teleports RageBoy out of Undercity:

From the way he's been introduced and his behaviour since, I'd say "Never underestimate the stupidity of RageBoy" would be a good rule of thumb similar to "Never invade Russia in the Winter".

I think what we can take away from Garrosh and his Northrend lieutenants as well as the characterizations of Varian thus far is that Blizzard was tired of all the various faction leaders being such unmitigated good guys.

Nobody is infallible, Medivh was killed by a Warrior and a Mage apprentice, needless to say if the armies of Stormwind were to descend upon Theramore it would be destroyed regardless of it's leader's power.

I'm not sure about this line of reasoning... while Blizz has certainly increased in-faction strife (Jaina vs. Wrynn, Garrosh vs. Thrall), I don't really think they're aiming for any sort of civil war scenario, at least not in the short term. What we are most likely to see is both sides grudgingly cooperating until Arthas is defeated, at least. Not to mention that the Jaina and Thrall "hidden" alliance is probably still stronger than the other conflicts - I don't see Thrall openly attacking the Alliance unless Jaina officially leaves it, and without Jaina's support it doesn't look like Wrynn can mount any sort of credible effort against the Horde.

About Garrosh, we must also remember that Thrall still looks to be solidly backed by Cairne, Vol'jin and Sylvanas. While the latter might conceivably betray Thrall if she thought it would facilitate Arthas' destruction, I don't think Garrosh could easily claim legitimacy over the Horde even if he somehow deposed Thrall. One thing I don't remember - when he fought Thrall in the pre-LK event, did he challenge him as leader of the *orcs* or of the *Horde*? Because they are not the same thing.

Hmmm... how about if both rage boys deciding to storm Theramore at roughly the same time? That would generally be regarded as a bad move... and seeing how Jaina has quite a lot of friends, that might actually lead to the Alliance and Horde banding together against their own unruly elements, of all things...

Nathantos Blightcaller needs to be promoted to the Forsaken's top general/military adivser now Varimathas has been killed. I was a little disappointed with the Forsaken's prescence in Northrend, other than the Apothecary society. There doesn't seem to be any unifying ranking military figure, they just are spread out. I'd have loved Sylvannas to visit New Agamand for a while, or another ranking Forsaken figure. Even an appearance of Putress before the Wrathgate would have been nice.

The promised exploration of Tauren lore through their Taunka ancestors seems to have fallen flat as well. The only interesting one I found was the guy at the Taunka village in Storm Peaks, the Bronze champion guy. It's pretty interesting to read about him as a champion of the Bronze and I can't help feel with the signs of a Bronze dragonflight betrayal imminent that we'll see him again, hopefully in a helpful manner.

Most of all I'm currently disappointed with the Blue Dragonflight "war". There’s so much unanswered, where are the other Blues? There are loads of blues that are quite prominent that have disappeared or aren’t present. For example where is Kalecgos, and what are his loyalties in this? Other of the more famous dragons like the two from Ahn’Qiraj, one of whom is Malygos’ son, and who could forget the dreaded whelp Awbee! There is also Azuregos who presumably isn’t dead from a lore perspective given the interactions during the Sceptre quest line and given the regaining of the flights sanity through the Netherdrakes (or just through time/the repopulation of the flight if you don't want to believe the retcon). I actually completed the Focusing Iris quest yesterday and was quite impressed by the finishing text:



Magic is now without its guardian. That line makes me think we may have caused a knock on affect allowing another powerful creature that previously couldn’t access magic/ley lines to gain more power, Azshara would be a good bet given the predictions for the next expansion. Also theres the potential that with magic running hectic now it may simply weaken the barriers allowing the legion to access Azeroth even easier.