Of all the writing tragedies Blizz has done, I think one of the worst was never letting the Horde live up to its potential as a melting pot of different races. Like, the Alliance isâŚan alliance. But The Horde is Family â˘, man, and thereâs so much space for cultural cross pollination and other wonderous things.Â
The Earthen Ring and the Cenarion Circle, flush off their victory of reclaiming the Plaguelands, now come to retake the Ghostlands. To purge the last holds of the Scourge and the Plague from Azeroth. And they peel it away, acre by acre. It takes time, lots of it, and while they work, people come to help, to watch. Tranquillen EXPLODES with people, traders and scholars and logistics people just there to support the cleansing effort. And the Sindorei stand and watch with wonder - so much delight and happy tears, and so many painful ones - as their land comes back.Â
But its so empty. So many of the families and grand estates that occupied those lands are ghosts now, slaughtered to the last. Thereâs nobody there to reclaim it all. Except for all the traders, the visitors, and people looking to restart lives far away from Orgrimmar. And thereâs a lot of empty land, more than what the Sindorei could ever hope to reasonably occupy with their numbers. So Silvermoon offers deeds in exchange for gold to fill their depleted coffers and people start to come by the scores, setting up communities to farm the fertile land, to fish the full rivers, to bring shipments up and down the Elrendar River to the goblin steamboats waiting to haul the art, the furniture, the clothes, the weapons all being made inside Silvermoon or the burgeoning trade town of Tranquillen to Kalimdor.Â
It becomes this massive pile up of different Horde races. The trolls settle along the river and teach their neighbors how to fill their nets with dozens of fish at a time, versus plucking them one by one with a fishing line. The tauren bring their wind-powered mills and grind the golden wheat they grow into flour and bake into earthy, hearty breads that become staples of the local diet. Refugee orcs come and bring their smithing craft to the forges where they argue and fuss with elven smiths over power verses finesse, sturdiness against portability, and just how many enchantments you can inscribe into plain, good steel before it comes apart. The Forsaken bring their alchemy studies, but instead of brewing plague, a foundling medical academy springs up next door to the Sanctum of the Sun, where chemistry is wielded in tandem with magic to cure ills and repair injuries. And the goblins? Oh the goblins have never been happier, with their pockets lined with taxes and fees on the products coming out of the former Ghostlands, renamed Summerlands, and the Sunsail Anchorage is having to be expanded AGAIN to fit all the ships requesting harbor.Â
The races pile up on top one another in this strange, mish-mash, jumble of a community, filling out the vacant estates with villages and farms and families everywhere. The Dead Scar, even cleansed of its Scourge taint, is still barren and infertile soil. So its paved into a wide, white stone highway, going from Thalassian Pass straight to the new gate where the Ruins of Silvermoon have been rebuilt. Names of victims, of whole lineages, are magically inscribed into each flagstone, a memorial full of sad memory and wondrous hope.Â
Orgimmar remains the military and logistics center of the Horde, its airtowers shuttling members of the Horde across Azeroth. But Silvermoon is the cultural and artistic center, now. Schools of learning, new industry, and a culture clash thatâs created some of the best cuisine north of Pandaria. (âTallstrider kababs! Tauren vegetables! Sin'dorei glaze! Cooked over orcish smoke pit with goblin tech and served with troll rice! Come and get âem!â) And a whole generation of Horde grows up under those trees calling tauren, trolls, elves, Forsaken, orcs, and pandaren âneighborâ and âfriendâ.Â
Its the answer to a question Lor'themar never knew he had. A question heâd been struggling with in the background of all the strife and madness of his life since he took up the mantle of Ranger General. How to bring their people back to glory, how to rebuild Silvermoon, how to recover from all the treachery. Come to find out, he didnât need to do much at all.
It was the answer that Vol'jin had been looking for, how to reweave the bonds of fellowship between what had become hated enemies. To make the Horde strong again. To make the promise that he, Thrall and Cairne had made in the red dust of Durotar a life ago. (âCairne would be happy,â Thrall rumbled as his daughter reached for a long loop of his beard again, âhappiest of all of us, I imagine.â) This was that promise made real, a truly united Horde, in every sense of the word.
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
