Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!

Terrant asks...

I have questions about Kalimdor. How aware were the Alliance races of the continent before the events of Warcraft III? Was it completely unknown, known but unexplored, or frequented by the adventurous? The only Alliance settlement seems to be the recent Theramore, but at the same time, the goblins' trading network and cities seem to be well-established, so you'd think word of the continent must have gotten around. And there are pirate organizations that include humans and dwarves on the continent, too.

Here's a heads-up to all our North American night owls early risers and Oceanic readers: It's Tuesday morning, and that means maintenance. Luckily, it's a short one today. Bornakk has said that they expect most servers to only be down a half hour, starting at 5AM PDT and ending a 5:30AM PDT. There are some extra servers that will be down slightly longer, until 6:30AM PDT. Those servers will be listed after the break. Aussies can rejoice as well, as any Oceanic servers not on this list won't be taken down until 5AM AEST (Which is noon over here on the American west coast).

For the list of servers that will have a longer downtime, read on:

The boats that ferry us across Azeroth are near and dear to everyone. It could be our inner pirate, eager to plunder the lubbers and scallywag some seaports. Certainly, everyone knows the tale of Captain Placeholder. The Azeroth Triangle has stolen other victims, though -- the ship's crews have been missing, hinted at returning, and then still missing.

In a series of pithy moments last week, Nethaera and Eyonix revealed the sad fate of the fearless crews. It wasn't, as Neth originally claimed, workplace safety hazards that caused the vendors to go AWOL. According to Eyonix, the sight of so many poledancing Blood Elves harrowed the seamen such that they were forced to plunge to icy depths and ultimately drown. Captain Placeholder, Eyonix jokes, is the human form of Deathwing.

I don't care if Eyonix disclaims two or three times that it was a joke -- for me, this is now lore and canon. Captain Placeholder is Deathwing, and I don't care what anyone else has to say about it. Clearly, he killed the boat crews to protect that secret. I fear for the fate of Eyonix for letting this spoiler into the public eye.

Yesterday I posted Ask a Lore Nerd, in which I asked you, the readers, to ask me any lore questions you'd like. Your questions came, and I'm doing my best to answer! There were quite a lot of questions, many of them multi-part questions, so I haven't been able to get at all of your questions today. I picked ten comments, answered their questions, and I'll get to the rest of them as soon as possible! Don't be afraid to ask further questions. Keep them coming!

Milkingit asks: Where do murlocs come from?

Answer: We don't know for sure, but there are many theories. Their appearance on land is supposedly a rather recent event, but it's likely that murlocs have been living on the ocean floor for many thousands of years, walking Azeroth even longer than Trolls. The Trolls have been believed to be the oldest sentient race on Azeroth, so if the murlocs came first, they're a very old race and we may never know their exact origin.

There are also a few theories on what has inspired murlocs to move inland. The naga taking over the ocean depths may have driven the murlocs inland. The murlocs may be in cahoots with the naga, and the infestation of the mainlands is a tactical move. The murlocs may also be being controlled by Neptulon or some other force, and are doing his/their bidding. We may learn more in Wrath of the Lich King, as the murlocs make a comeback there.

World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com.

This week the column returns to give you your dose of regularly scheduled UIs. We'll be looking at the UI provided to use by Selece of the Deathwing server. He's submitted a UI back in March of 2007, but the one he sent us a couple weeks ago was so slick we just couldn't pass it up.

Selece tells us his UI is designed for end game Hunters and has four primary goals:

1. Clean lines – He needs to see what's happening without the UI getting in his way.
2. Readability – Text elements need to be clean and crisp, everything has to be easily identifiable.
3. Clear center – He needs to be able to see what's going on around him, and the center of the screen is his place for that.
4. Visible cooldowns – Cooldowns need to be easy and quick to see, so he knows what's up next.
   

I really find those four pieces of advice to be very useful for not only a ranged DPS class like Hunters, but also for any class.

Drysc reports that a number of realms are under investigation for performance issues and will be undergoing a scheduled maintenance at 5:00 AM PDT on Wednesday, March 12 with a foreseeable downtime of 1 hour (update: Zorayn notes that downtime will be extended to 2 hours as opposed to one). As Drysc edits the thread, realms are added (or removed) regularly. From a quick perusal of the realms, it seems as though it is the Nightfall Battlegroup that is affected. Blizzard currently lists the affected realms as follows:

Aerie Peak
Altar of Storms
Alterac Mountains
Anvilmar
Arygos
Blackwing Lair
Deathwing
Demon Soul
Doomhammer
Gnomeregan
Icecrown
Jaedenar
Kel'Thuzad
Lethon
Onyxia
Sentinels
Tanaris
The Venture Co
Uldaman
Undermine

Drysc further notes that other Battlegroups are under close observation and will be taken down for maintenance should any issues arise that might require it.

Tipster Kronack sent us a link to this video, which shows the Sunwell Plateau's final boss, Kil'jaedan. The animations look to be his initial summoning and his final defeat. I'm pretty impressed by how awesome he looks, but what really intrigues me is what these animations could reveal about the lore behind the encounter - and what follows it. We still don't know much about the Kil'jaedan encounter, since Blizzard is mostly focusing testing on the Eredar Twins these days -- when the dungeon is even activated -- so most of what we have for now is speculation. That said, there's still some pretty good things I can see in these animations.

Anyway, I'll be using Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau lore spoilers to explain what I think, so If you don't mind that and want to speculate along with me, please, do join me after the jump.

If your first time discovering Grim Batol was anything like mine, it ended in horrible, bloody, unexpected death. That experience sums up Grim Batol rather well. The fortress has stood roughly 250 years, give or take a couple decades, and has changed hands more than once during that time.

Before we get to Grim Batol itself, we need to take a look at a little piece of Dwarven history: The War of the Three Hammers. You see, the Dwarves of Azeroth, just a few hundred years ago, all carried one banner. They were the Dwarves of Ironforge, plain and simple. Their society was a large one, and their wise and powerful king Modimus Anvilmar was highly revered. Amongst the Dwarven society, though, there were three clans that stood above the rest. The Bronzebeard Clan, the Dark Iron Clan, and the Wildhammer Clan.

Each of these clans played a very specific role in the Kingdom. The Bronzebeard, led by Thane Madoran Bronzebeard, were the military arm of the mountain city. They were soldiers and defenders. They were the sword and the shield, and the clan closest to King Modimus Anvilmar. The Wildhammer, led by Thane Khadros Wildhammer, lived in the outlying regions of the Kingdom, in the... well, the wilds. Scouts, hunters, things of that sort. They held little real power within the city proper, and they didn't really like that. The Dark Irons, led by Thane Thaurissan, were mages and sorcerers. They were also jerks.

Once upon a time, cavemen roamed the earth, great volcanic eruptions disrupted the cavemen's gaming time, and I wrote an article called "Know Your Lore: Good Dragons." Now it's time to cover the "bad dragons" - the Blue, Black, Chromatic and Infinite Dragonflights. And yes, I know you're all going to complain about the blue dragonflight being "bad", but unless you really want to run every dungeon at level 80 without a mage, you're gonna have to fight them.

Blue Dragonflight

• Leader: Malygos.
• Characteristics: The blue dragons may be the most intelligent of all the dragonflights. They're the masters of magic, the weavers of the arcane, and the guardians of icy areas. Of course they're going to be villains at some point! "Arcane magic corrupts" is one of the primary lessons of WoW, along with "elves are jerks" and "never get involved in a land war in Kalimdor."

Tabot asks about Grim Batol, and he's right-- there is a bit of rumbling going around about that place. It started at BlizzCon, in the dungeons and raids panel, where Jeff Kaplan mentioned that Grim Batol, the huge fortress in the Wetlands currently surrounded by the Red Dragonflight, is one of the locations they're looking at adding content.

To find the past of Grim Batol, you've got to read Day of the Dragon, the novel by Richard A. Knaak. Basically, the Dragonmaw Orc clan had captured Alexstrasza in Grim Batol, and was using her to make their own dragons. Rhonin (who will be the leader of the Kirin Tor in WotLK) was able to break her out and free her. And that didn't make Deathwing (Onyxia and Nefarian's father, and the big bad black dragon aspect of Azeroth) very happy, because he was trying to steal Alex's eggs to make his own dragonflight. Rhonin eventually defeated Deathwing, and there DotD ends.

Cut to now. No player has ever been inside Grim Batol, and the only place it's ever been used in the game is as the spawn point for a dragon in the Horde's Onyxia key quest. Meanwhile Deathwing is MIA, or maybe even kept prisoner in Grim Batol (rumors say the Red Dragonflight may have taken him prisoner in there to get revenge).

However, things (as usual) are not always as they seem. Lately, there have been murmurs (in Outland of all places) that Deathwing is back. Grim Batol may not be a simple fortress-- it may consist of the whole coastline on the eastern side of the Wetlands. And if Deathwing is free, I've heard rumors that he, like Rhonin, may be found up north-- Northrend's Dragonblight is a place where dragons go to die, and Deathwing is supposedly headed up there, claiming that all he wants is to end his life in peace.

Of course, he's not to be believed. And the Red Dragonflight is doing something in Grim Batol, even if it's not keeping Deathwing prisoner. Only time will tell what Blizzard plans to do with the big fortress overlooking the Wetlands.

Never heard of Deathwing? Well, I suppose you can be forgiven -- he's not currently in the game. However, Deathwing (also known as Neltharion), the former leader of the Black Dragonflight plays a big part in Warcraft lore. Despite the fact that he's not currently to be found in Azeroth, there's a lot of speculation as to where Deathwing might be. Grim Batol, where he was last seen? Returned to his long-empty lair? Or perhaps he's truly dead? Well, new information coming from the public test realms suggest that Deathwing may be back. BlizzPlanet is reporting that in the Black Temple, the NPC Lady Sinestra has a dialog referring to "the master" -- presumably Deathwing.

Still curious? Full text of the dialog after the jump.

Today's Know Your Lore subject isn't seen at all in World of Warcraft, and he's rarely mentioned by name. Many of you might be scratching your head and going, "Lame, is this another magic-using bad guy?" But his influence can be seen nearly everywhere in Azeroth and beyond, and if you've raided in World of Warcraft, it's likely that you've spent many hours of your life fighting him without even realizing it.

Who: Neltharion the Earth-Warder, aka Deathwing the Destroyer.

What: Big black dragon. Officially a Dragon Aspect, one of five sent to guard ancient Kalimdor by the Titans. He's also the head of the Black Dragonflight.

Today's maintenance will be extended by two hours (to 11:00 AM PDT) to apply a minor bug fix patch.  Of course, what all of us are wondering is which bugs are getting fixed... I guess we'll see when the servers come back up.

Also during (and beyond) this maintenance window, realms Doomhammer, Icecrown, Deathwing, and Kel'Thuzad will be migrated to new hardware.  This migration may take as long as 24 hours, so users on those realms should plan for extended downtime.  All active players with characters on those realms will receive an extra day's credit on their account to compensate for the downtime.

Thundgot has announced upcoming server transfers and new transfer-only realms to be introduced over the next month.   These are still subject to change, but hopefully will give EU players an idea of what to expect.

April 17th - 21st
Shattered Hand and Ragnaros --> Frostmane (new realm)
Bladefist and Daggerspine --> Outland (new realm)

April 24th - 28th
Warsong and Skullcrusher --> Stonemaul (new realm)
Burning Legion and Stormscale --> Grim Batol (new realm)

May 1st - 5th
Dragonmaw and Spinebreaker --> (to be decided)
Burning Blade and Stormreaver --> (to be decided)

May 8th - 12th
Zenedar and Ravencrest --> (to be decided)
Dunemaul and Deathwing --> (to be decided)