Daily Quests

The Fires of Hatred

Vas — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:50:41 +0000

So I’ve had a little fun diving into the histories and analogs of Azeroth, and I’m going to joke that it’s in preparation for the new Archeology secondary tradeskill, but that’s not really it at all. I’m probably one of Christ Metzen’s biggest fans, and I take every opportunity available to me to explore his lore and his work (even if I don’t always agree with the directions he takes it and the changes he makes), and since I’m in a unique position to share my love of lore and writing with you, I will!

Last week we talked briefly about Azzinoth and the Warglaives that are his namesake, and though there’s an equally small amount of lore behind it, I want to discuss Atiesh this week. Now almost everyone’s heard of Atiesh, the legendary greatstaff that was constructible in the original 40-man Naxxramas, but few people know what it is, and even fewer know the lore behind it and the changes that were made.

Now, there are two things that strike me about Atiesh right off the bat. The first is that atiesh is apparently Persian for fire or flame and that the staff itself was forged from the Seed of Hate, a relic that is ignominiously without lore itself. Now, why do those things interest me? I get that question a lot, but the simple answer is that when it comes to lore, Blizzard has done very little by accident, and beyond the simple explanations are usually profound, carefully woven ulterior stories, and Atiesh is no exception.

The Seed of Hate, like I said, is a relic that is completely unsupported in lore. I believe it’s mentioned one time by the Archmage Angela Dosantos of the Kirin Tor, and we’ll talk about her later, but the name itself implies an object of seething and, well, hatred. It’s name being translatable into fire or flame in at least one language lends to that theory, and when you put the two together you get something along the lines of a fire being forged of hatred. In context with the lore behind Atiesh, you get the Burning Legion.

Atiesh itself is known as the Greatstaff of the Guardian, a symbol passed from one Guardian of Tirisfal to the next in much the same sense royal keepsakes and jewels are handed to their successors. It is said to grant its wielder untold power, and following the history of the Guardians it’s easy to recognize that as a truth, though it’s never explicitly stated whether or not it’s the Guardians that empower Atiesh or Atiesh that empowers the Guardians.

The Guardians themselves are empowered by a secret council of mages known as the Guardians of Tirisfal, and their purpose is to secretly combat the Burning Legion wherever it rears its head on Azeroth; a bold step taken by the mortal humans of Azeroth and their elvan allies in an effort to take their fate into their own hands. The Council elects a champion who is then empowered with all of their strength in order to fight the demon horde. When that Guardian grew too old or too weary to fight, the Council elected a successor and would carefully channel the Guardian’s strength into the next wielder.

So here we have a weapon that’s been created to aid in the destruction and thwarting of the Burning Legion and its agents on Azeroth, a weapon whose name literally means flame and was forged of an object of hatred to be held by the most powerful mage on Azeroth. Later the Guardians are corrupted when Sargeras, Lord of the Burning Legion, allows himself to be vanquished by *Magna Aegwynn, Medivh’s mother, so that he could infest her spirit and through it, her later unborn child.

Let’s run through this again and pepper in a little lore from another history of Azeroth. The Burning Legion originally takes note of Azeroth when its denizens discover the power of magic and arcana and recklessly transform the Well of Eternity into a beacon that can be seen from Twisting Nether. Their invasions fail, thwarted in one way or another by the first champions of Azeroth. Thousands of years later, in the courts of Dalaran, magi seduced by the demons they seek to enslave begin to summon their corrupt masters into Azeroth so that they can in turn seek the corruption of Azeroth. In response, the Council of Tirisfal is founded to vanquish the demons that have been and will be summoned into the world, and in so doing they happen across or come into possession of a relic of hatred that is a fount of terrible power—one that they forge into a weapon to fight the Burning Legion. A staff of fiery hatred is wielded against the Burning Legion whose master later seeks to infest the most power mage on Azeroth.

I’m being redundant because I’m going to make a bold claim. Atiesh was Sargeras’ trump card all along. His invasions failed, and after throwing scores of demonic armies away in pursuit of the Well of Eternity, he sets into motion a plan that will grant him power over the most powerful mage on Azeroth, through which he bleed Azeroth of its magic at last. The implication here is that one or all of the original Council of Tirisfal were possessed by one of the Legion’s demons. They offer the Council the Seed of Hate, and Atiesh is born. Later it becomes a vessel in which the Guadians power is channeled, and the Guardians themselves are infested by Sargeras who is born into human form as Medivh, Aegwynn’s successor and son.

But Sargeras is defeated again by the stalwart defenders of Azeroth, and Medivh is slain, vanquishing Sargeras’ spirit and banishing it to the Twisting Nether where even his lieutenants, Archimonde and Kil’jaeden are unable or unwilling to find him, and the Guardians of Tirisfal are at an end. The Greatstaff passes into the hands of the Kirin Tor where it is held in possession of a series of mages who all meet untimely deaths while wielding it.

The Kirin Tor decide to seal Atiesh away, and they create a magical vault to store it within, and Angela Dosantos is appointed its watcher—and Atiesh, the Greatstaff of the Guardian remains undisturbed until the Third War when Archimonde razes the city of Dalaran. The magical barriers in the vault are triggered, and the staff is shattered, instantly launched in forty-two pieces to the corners of the world so that it may never be reforged.

The splinters of Atiesh are eventually collected by the Scourge, Kel’thuzad meaning to recreate the staff and wield its endless power against the living, perhaps even against the Lich King, and the Argent Dawn intervenes. Before the Scourge come into possession of the lost base, the Argent Dawn wrest the splinters of Atiesh from the perverted lieutenants of the citadel, and its pieces pass once again into the possession of the Kirin Tor.

But the players can create Atiesh! I know, I know, I’ve had that argument too, but this is one of those unfortunate times where the lore is rewritten to suit the next generation, and Atiesh is never completed by the mortal armies of Azeroth, and the Argent Dawn relinquishes the debris to the Kirin Tor for safe keeping. Later, Garona, at the behest of Meryl Winterstorm, retrieves the final piece of Atiesh from the rotting husk of C’Thun’s avatar, and the splinters held by the Kirin Tor find their way into the hands of Med’an, the son of Medivh and Garona, who holds the shattered staff in his hands as he’s empowered formally as the new Guardian of Tirisfal, reforging Atiesh and restoring its endless power.

*Magna is Dwarven for protector, a title given to the Guardians of Tirisfal that Medivh never received.

Supervas out!

One More For The Road

Fyreuni — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0000

I always found it a little amusing that the prize for collecting 100 mounts was…another mount. And in Fyres world where that means another mount to feed, that might not be such a good thing! How could she say no to that face though! Now whats interesting about this comic is that this is probably one of the first ones we came up with back in the day when the comic was still an inkling. And only now, almost one full year later does it show up in the scheme of things.

Speaking of which, this is a major milestone for me, as:

That’s right! This is the 50th comic I’ve done! I also am amused that this actual in game achievement works in this instance :3 Anyway, 50 comics…that’s major for me. I can’t believe I’ve stuck with it for this long, but that’s a post for our anniversary. Speaking of which, some VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS after the break, so CLICK!

As we near the 1 year anniversary of Daily Quests, I want to sort of “end with a bang” you know? So I’m officially announcing that Daily Quests Comic Updates will be on Hiatus for at least two, possibly three weeks. “OMG WHY!” I’m sure some of you are screaming, but I have a very good reason. I *want* to do Emergency Kindergarten: Lesson 2. Very much. However, it is REALLY time consuming. Animation isn’t easy or fast, but its time to do it again, you know? I have had a lot of people still commenting on Emergency Kindergarten: Lesson 1 and a lot of people want to see Lesson 2. So my plan is to use the time I usually work on the comic to work on EK:L2. The reality is, I just can’t work on both at the same time.

My goal is to have EK:L2 in about two weeks. That is a very VERY ambitious goal. And one I am not sure I can achieve. But I will try. However, do expect that there might be a three week break while I get ‘er done. Hopefully everything will fall into place and we can all take our seats and get another important WoW lesson. I thank everyone for their patience and understanding and I hope you all look forward to lesson 2!

Lastly, if you don’t follow Fyreuni on Twitter then you might not have seen a couple of new pieces of art I have done recently, so here is a bit of an art dump! Click for larger:

Behold the Flames of Azzinoth!

Vas — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:05:21 +0000

So in keeping with last week’s discussion about legendaries, I wanted to take the time to answer a question that I get a lot even now, and a question that I’ve been getting regularly since Warcraft III. Most everyone knows that it’s Illidan that carries the Warglaives of Azzinoth, and most everyone knows what they look like and that the Demon Hunters trained in his image all use similar weapons.

The mystery is generally where did they come from? Who is Azzinoth, and why does Illidan carry his namesake? And if Illidan was imprisoned for 10,000 years prior to our meeting him, just how old and how powerful are they? Behold the history of Azzinoth!

10,000 years ago the Highborne elves and their reckless use of magic drew the attention of Sargeras and the Burning Legion, and the resulting invasion would later be coined the War of the Ancients. The war was ended only when the Well of Eternity was destroyed, shattering the continents into what they are now.

It was during that war that Illidan faced off against a Burning Legion commander named Azzinoth who wielded two great warglaives as a single weapon and commanded a host of fire elementals to do his bidding. In his arrogance and attack he was slain by Illidan who collected the body as a trophy and took up the great blade of Azzinoth, intent on turning it against the Legion. Unwieldly, though, as a single weapon, Illidan was forced to split the blade in two, creating a brilliant pair of warglaives that he could wield in either fist, and they were henceforth known as the Twin Blades of Azzinoth.

Scraps of the demon lord’s armor and trinkets also found their way into Illidan’s collection of trophies, but over the course of the war and the ensuing years, Illidan trained with his warglaives, and those that saw him in battle with Azzinoth claimed that he became more proficient with the weapons than their original owner, but eventually Illidan was locked away, sealed beneath Hyjal for betraying his brother, his love, and his people.

There is speculation, of course, as there is with any lore, that what we know is half truth and retcon because poor writing and unedited works apparently claim that Illidan took only one of Azzinoth’s twin blades and break it in two to form two even smaller weapons, but I personally don’t find that to be a necessary addition to the lore–nor can I find in any of my sources where that is actually written! So, the Twin Blades of Azzinoth were born when Illidan sundered Azzinoth’s single blade and took his shield and his trinkets as mementos and trophies.

Supervas out!

Fyre and Ice

Fyreuni — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Well, Fyre has had a lot of laughs at the expense of her guildmates, so this was only a matter of time really!

This was the first comic I did using Flash CS5, which Vas bought for me! :D I was using CS3 at home, and CS4 at work, and let me tell you, I REALLY like CS5. A lot of the little things that bugged me about the earlier versions are fixed (like for example if you used the color picker and tried to pick from something that was a symbol it wouldn’t recognize you wanted that color and you’d have to click into the symbol to get the color) …okay wait, did that make sense to anyone? It makes sense to me…Oh well. Still love Flash, still love to hate Flash. So far lovin’ CS5!

Anyway, wanted to make a shout out to Cadistra and let you all know that shes updated her store with some cute buttons! I’m totally getting some to decorate my World of Warcraft bag. Yes, I take a WoW bag to work every day! Jealous? I thought so! Anyway, check out her store for some awesomeness in button form!

Legendary!

Vas — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:43:05 +0000

So with six shards remaining in my quest for Shadowmourne, I’ve found myself reflecting on the journey so far. I know that we talked about it before–from the forging of Shadow’s Edge to the imbuement of its soul stealing essence. The Lich King’s devious whispers and the citadel itself arrayed against the would be wielder of souls.

It’s been a long, fun quest with a lot of new people and a lot of friendly faces (and some not so friendly ones), but that’s not really what I want to talk about either. What I want to talk about are the other, forgotten legendaries of Warcraft lore, and I want to know what you guys think about them.

Discounting the private server datamines of the original Ashbringer, Warcraft’s original legendary weapon was Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Wind Seeker. The blade is the wind empowered weapon of Prince Thunderaan, an elemental prince captured by Ragnaros and bound to an eternal prison plane which was broken in two to assure that he would never again be free to challenge the Firelord. Ragnaros gave half each to his lieutenants Garr and Baron Geddon who relinquished them respectively to the mortal armies of Azeroth. Thunderaan was freed and subsequently destroyed, his blade delivered to the champions over his corpse.

And then Sulfuras, the Hand of Ragnaros; the Firelord’s enchanted maul, empowered by his elemental fury and the Throne of Fire within Sulfuron Keep. The Hand of Ragnaros is forged by vanquishing the Firelord’s avatar and retrieving the Eye of Sulfuras, the conductive charm bound to Ragnaros’ physical form, and combining it on the Dark Forge with the Sulfuron Hammer, a keepsake of the Thorium Brotherhood.

Then there’s Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian, the shattered staff of the last Guardian of Tirisfal, Medivh. It is collected by Kel’Thuzad and divided up amongst his lieutenants while the Scourge search for the last piece of the Guardian’s great puzzle. Atiesh is the only legendary in the game that I’m unsure of from a lore standpoint. Is it faithfully in the hands of the mortal armies of Azeroth, or was it truly lost the analogs of time? Look for me at the lore panel at Blizzcon!

The last of Warcraft’s illustrious legendaries are the Burning Crusade drops–the Warglaives of Azzinoth and Thori’dal, the Stars’ Fury. Those two I’d like to talk about in their own respects–they both have profound stories within the lore.

So Daily Questers! Which legendary is your favorite, and which one do you want to know more about? Which one do you wish you could take with you in Cataclysm, and what do you think we have coming with the next expansion?

Supervas out!

Perception Isn’t a Blood Elf Racial

Fyreuni — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Ahh, okay, comics back on track, at least for now! ~_^ Oh the irony of a dwarf sneaking up on an elf…Get it? Irony? Iron dwarf?? Ahahaha…okay though but seriously. Sorry for the absence last week, if you didn’t see the post I wrote about it, long story short is I needed a break, and it helped a LOT. Feeling much better now!

The only other thing worth mentioning is that a few of you might have noticed that nifty new icon on the right there! Obviously it links to the Daily Quests Store where you can get the newest item Grumpy Tree and Friends Magnets! I also wanted to let everyone know that I have EVERY INTENTION of ordering another run of Daily Quests Comic Books. So if you’re interested in purchasing a copy of the first 25 DQ comics, just hang tight! Its coming shortly!

The Deadmines

Vas — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:57:11 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve had an opportunity to sit and write for you guys. Work’s kept me busy in the most interesting ways possible, and when it’s not that it’s something else, but every week I go without a lore post I feel bad that I promised I’d find the time, so this week I made sure that no matter what happened, I would find the time.

That being said, I’m on an business trip all this week, so today was the only day I’ll even have to myself. Now then, where were we? Cataclysm? Right. We all know that the Cataclysm is going to feature heroic versions of some of our favorite old instances. Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines especially, but what a lot of people don’t know is that the new versions of the instance aren’t just level 85 copies of their low level predecessors. What we’re looking at are totally new stories and continuations based on the previous occupants and the past five years.

This week we’re going to talk about the Deadmines, and specifically about Edwin VanCleef, who most people were expecting to be the heroic end boss of the Deadmines in the next expansion, but the fact of the matter is Edwin is dead, and he has been for five years now, but it’s important to know that the Defias Brotherhood hasn’t died with him.

For the past two decades, Edwin VanCleef has seen to the machinations of the Defias Brotherhood from beneath the Deadmines of Moonbrook–rarely leaving, his eccentricity eventually resulted in the recommissioning of a massive Ogre Juggernaut, a war machine left over from the Second War, which he believed would be a staple in defeating the nobles of Stormwind and destroying the city that he and his masons built without payment when it was razed by the Horde.

But again, Edwin VanCleef is dead, his head delivered to Gyran Stoutmantle, now an Alliance Marshal, as a gift for the noble houses of Stormwind, and while it’s going to be awkward for a while, you have to remember that Cataclysm represents a benchmark in the redundant timeline of World of Warcraft in which five years have passed, and in that time a young woman named Hope Saldean has grown to maturity in ruined Westfall, the adopted daughter of Farmer and Salma Saldean.

Hope Saldean is the daughter of the late Edwin VanCleef, her true identity being Vanessa VanCleef, she is said to have witnessed her father’s assassination in the Deadmines five years ago, and the resulting disarray of the Defias Brotherhood left her orphaned and abandoned in Moonbrook where she eventually came into the care of the Saldeans who are blissfully unaware of who she really is.

With her namesake carefully sealed away, Vanessa was able to grow out of harm’s way into the young woman that has stepped into the absentee power vacuum of the Defias Brotherhood. Now securely in possession of the largest and most dangerous assassination and bandit network, Vanessa has sworn vengeance against Stormwind for the death of her father, and she intends to make every noble house in the kingdom pay that debt in blood–but the question is how?

Does Vanessa intend to continue restoring the Ogre Juggernaut beneath the Deadmines, or has the Brotherhood come into possession of some new technology or discarded weapon of war with which to embattle Stormwind? Will she slip and fall and seal the fate of the Defias like her father before her? Or does Vanessa VanCleef represent a new beginning for the ruthless organization of thieves and bandits?

Supervas out!

A note on my absence

Fyreuni — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:58:50 +0000

Okay, well, I’m sure more than a few of you noticed the lack of comic this week, even when I promised it would be up on Friday. Well, first things first, I’m sorry. I really did mean to, and the comic got about halfway done before things just went all over the place. First of all, I usually do the comic on Thursdays, and this Thursday I had COMPLETELY forgotten about a freelancing job I needed to complete, so I had to use the evening to finish that off. By the time I finished, it was pretty late, and I wanted sleep. So I said, no big deal, I’ll finish it Friday evening.

Well, Friday rolls around and first of all, I had a hair appt at 4:30, with the intentions of being home around 6:30 and using the rest of the evening to finish the comic. Well Weoh calls me up and he’s all “Hey! You coming to that housewarming party that I had told you about a month ago?” and I’m like DAMMIT. Completely forgot about that…so had to go, and it was fun! I’m just mad at myself for forgetting.

Saturday comes along and basically I realize how horrible my haircut actually is. It looked GREAT at the salon and that evening, but the next morning when I tried to style it, I couldn’t get it to look like anything. I redid my hair three times that day, and it was not looking any better. I know it sounds horribly vain, but I was really upset about the whole thing. She cut off WAY too much hair and ignored me when I said that I have wavy hair. She cut the lengths in such a way that the bottoms started to wisp out all over the place, and I just…couldn’t do anything about it…I didn’t have the drive to do anything that day, it really depressed me…
Anyway, on Sunday Weoh took me out, and I told him how I felt about the hair. He kind of saw it too, so he took me to a new salon and asked them to fix it. Long story short, she sat down, listened to me, helped me pick a style and knocked it out of the park. I had a similar style to this about a year ago, so I know I can style it right, and it looks REALLY good. I’m really happy with it again, and my confidence is back! Weoh also bought me a new outfit which makes it a total package and I’m really happy with how I look! :3

So what’s the point of all this rambling? Well, I think I just needed a week off. Even though it was completely unplanned, when I finally accepted that I couldn’t get it done, I felt okay with it, and focused on some other things that I really needed to take care of. For example, I’m in the process of cleaning off the PC so I can migrate Daily Quests onto it, and FINALLY take my Craptop back to the store to get a newer, better one! And I just feel that much better confidence wise after taking a bit of a break.

I remember when I started this thing I made a promise to myself to never miss a week. Well, I know I can’t make that promise but even so, this is only the second time I’ve not been able to post something. And you know what? I still think that’s really good. I promise you all a comic next week since its half done anyway! And thanks to everyone for understanding! ^_^

Stick Around

Fyreuni — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Alright. I’m sure this isn’t what you’re expecting. Well, I’ve had a really bad week. I didn’t want to not put something up, but I didn’t have the energy or drive to do a real comic…so yeah, you get this. On the one hand, I suppose its a sneak peek into my sketching process. I use Carmine Red Col Erase pencils when I sketch, I like the way they feel, they are nice and soft, but firm enough to get a decent line. I actually sketch really rough, but a lot of the lighter lines don’t show up in scanning.

Anyway, I guess you could call this a self-insertion. Yeah, that’s me, I definitely don’t look as nice as I draw myself. The other person isn’t Vas though, its Weoh, since Vas lives in Houston because he fails. If any of you follow my twitter, you’ll remember a few weeks ago I took pictures of everything Weoh and I had on a stick while we visited the Calgary Stampede. You can get so many things on a stick there…

Anyway, I can’t promise anything next week either. I’m going through some things, and its hard for me to focus on anything right now. I hope at the very least these scribbles are good enough for now.

For That Natural Shine

Fyreuni — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Being an expert on all things that make your hair look shiney and oh so full of body, Vas would know all the little tips and tricks on using materials to be found on Azeroth for good looking hair. And of course those things can be used for other purposes as well…like…polishing Hodir’s helm I guess. I had actually finished this one about three hours ago, but promptly fell into a stressed induced coma (read: passed out asleep on my bed) shortly after finishing it. I’ve been having a rough week, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication of it getting better any time soon. Oh well. Keep plodding on I suppose. Even my long weekend is ruined by some freelance work that came in. Well, not ruined because I *need* this work, but man, I wish I could rest…

Other than that, some of you may have noticed that Daily Quests finally has a store! Its a little bare right now, but I hope to be adding more in the near future. I put the extra comics I had left over from the Calgary Comic Expo up there, and they have been pretty popular…in fact, at the time of this posting, theres only one left O_o. I may or may not buy another run of that comic, or I may just keep it as a limited addition and release another compilation down the road. Haven’t decided yet. Anyway, as I said, more stuff to come soon, and if anyone has any suggestions or comments about the store or how to improve it, feel free to let me know!