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Know Your Lore: Alexstrasza the Lifebinder

Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? E-mail us!

Know Your Lore has covered the benevolent dragons in Warcraft before, but I've decided to highlight a few of them in preparation for Wrath of the Lich King. I feel that saving the best for last is a bunch of crap, so I'm going to start with my personal favorite: Alexstrasza. Admittedly, it isn't terribly hard for her to seal that favorite slot right now. Deathwing and Alexstrasza are the only two Aspects we've been exposed to in a very direct way for a substantial amount of time. To make things even better, she's a headlining character in Wrath.

Alexstrasza is one of five Dragon Aspects chosen and empowered by the Titans prior to their departure from Azeroth. Each of the Aspects was given a domain that they would protect, and have the power to control. Alexstrasza's domain is perhaps the most broad: Life. While all of the Aspects are interconnected and have some sway over one another, Alexstrasza is perhaps the most connected to the others because of her connection to life. Many use this to say she is the 'leader' of the Aspects, but as far as we know, they don't really have one. At least, not until Wrath. Maybe.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Alexstrasza the Lifebinder

Maintenance for June 17th will be short

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:

Continue reading Maintenance for June 17th will be short

Select realms to undergo maintenance (updated!)


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.

Does Kil'jaedan's defeat animation hint at further lore?

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.

Continue reading Does Kil'jaedan's defeat animation hint at further lore?

Know Your Lore: Grim Batol

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.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Grim Batol


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