World of Warcraft®

((Feel free to post your own character's musings and thoughts here. About literally anything!))

Written on a stray scrap of paper, crumpled up and tossed idly into the corner of the Blue Recluse. Penned in impeccable, small neat script, it appears to be idle ponderings of someone...

Warfare is based on three applications of effort. Combat, Movement, and Knowledge. Without these three focuses of war, an army, navy, or militia cannot succeed. The strength to overcome one's foes, the movement to outmaneuver the inevitable retribution, and the knowledge to read the moves in the midst. Each effort is vital to success, but one reigns above all others. Knowledge.

Without it, the fiercest predator is lead into traps, the fastest runner has nowhere to run, and the strongest champion is little more than a child. For armies, the need for knowledgeis tenfold. You must find the enemy, know what you are pitted against. The more one understands their enemy, the easier it is to defeat them. To understand and observe every detail of your foe, is to cripple them before the battle begins, to never know defeat as you cannot be taken unawares. If a situation is unfavorable, the intelligent retreat to better conditions, those lacking will waste their strength and resources. Intelligence is the most devastating weapon of war. A sword can kill one man at a time. A secret can decimate an army in the blink of an eye, just as we have seen at Theramore.

Observe one's foe, strike where they are weakest, and hide one's own flaws. The subtle move and countermove of chess, and leaders is awe inspiring to behold. The movement of armies as if they were one entity is something seldom seen or appreciated. Yet a beast without eyes cannot fight, without ears is vulnerable, and without movement, has already lost. Scouts and spies, the eyes ears and sometimes sharp nails of the armies. They bring the intelligence, the knowledge that generals and kings crave. Without the scouts, every battle is a mystery, against a foe of unknown strength, and with the element of surprise.

Those who lurk and listen, watch and see, have honed the deadliest instrument in existence. No one is safe from their own reality, and it is the job of the watchers, to dictate what that reality is.

Zephilyn sat down in the chair in the Recluse, ready to relax with a glass of milk. The small scrap of paper crunched and rolled under her hoof, catching her attention.

With a curious look, she picked it up - unsure of whether it might be someone's daily shopping list or plans for destruction of the world as we know it.

She digested it's content and thought to herself for a few moments before penning a brief response in elegant script.

"While eyes and ears are important, they only tell you where and when to strike with your fist. If you hit like a baby sporeling, no amount of knowing what's coming for you will save you. Strike fast, strike first, but most of all, strike hard."

A satsified smirk crossed her face as she carefully crumpled the paper back up and tossed it in the corner where she originally found it.

The old gnome tilted back his tankard of stout ale. A crumpled ball of paper flew over his head, bounced on the floor, and settled into the corner of the room.

Curious.

Leaving his table a moment the old gnome strolled to the corner and took up the ball of paper. At his seat he tipped his tankard back once more then began the careful restoration of the object to reveal its hidden message.

Mid read an idea illuminated his eyes, curling his thick grayed mustache with a grin. Flipping the paper to its back he scribbled...

Meso-scale separation of membrane critical segregation of limited covalent mechanisms are polarised by fractal interactions for long-term epidemiological germline for contiguous consistent translation where ø =/= ¼ ± n°> µ(2*38.6667%)¬...

The scribbling continued until the page was filled. With no more room left to write he was forced to sit back and admire the beginnings of his work. As he read his pride slowly melted to disappointment.

"No no." He grumbled. "This will never work."

Dejected he re-crumpled the page and casually tossed it over his shoulder.

"That formulae for the perfect Ichthyo bait will never work." He muttered and tipped back his tankard of stout.

Finnaeus often snuck into the Blue Recluse, just to absorb the ambiance. He would never admit it to himself, but sometimes he missed the old place. So many memories, so many people he spied on and listened to after they poured themselves three too many tankards of mead.

As he moved through the shadows, carefully avoiding patrons, he stepped on a crumpled piece of parchment. He grabbed it without thinking, and then climbed up into the rafters to get a better vantage point and away from the tumult of the normal patrons. Mechanically he un-crumpled the page, and read its contents.

He furrowed his brow as he read. It read fine until the end, when he could not decipher what was written. It all looked so overcomplicated. He took a quill and ink from his satchel, and without hesitation wrote the following in scratchy, sloppy handwriting befitting a troll still learning how to use his digits:

The time for thinking is in the preparation stages. It is here that we can analyze, plot, strategize. But once engaged, instinct is what will carry you to survival. It is instinct, born of days, months, and years of training, hard work, and experience, that will ensure you survive when carefully laid machinations have been interrupted, or sometimes destroyed, by the appearance of an unforeseen variable.

A wise farmer once said, "You can carefully plot your vegetables from dusk until dawn, but that won't save you when a dragon lights them afire."

Finnaeus smirked at the last bit - a drunken quote from his father. He looked for a moment at the parchment, and then re-crumpled it and dropped it from the rafters. Without seeing if anyone took it, he uttered an incantation, and disappeared from the tavern.

Ketyru reclined in her seat, a scowl hidden by her hood and mask. Still no sign of her supplies, or the raggedy captain meant to deliver them. She was becoming increasingly agitated. The bitter bite of her dark ale did nothing to ease her thoughts, until something bounced off her head and into her lap.
Puzzled, she uncrumpled the paper and read through the various authors' advice. She didn't understand the mathematics at all, and that only heightened her curiosity. The rest, though difficult for her to read, made sense. Except the bit about dragons flaming vegetables. Everyone knew dragonfire brought life, not destruction.
Moved by the scrap, Ketyru dug through her satchel for an ink well and came up empty handed. With a sigh, she instead use a simple, charcoal pencil to add her own bit of advice. The dying words of her father, her real father, floated alone and smudged in the corner.
When things seem impossible and you feel outnumbered, remember child. You are never alone.

Out on a late night patrol, the Recluse was almost empty when Chambliss entered. After a friendly wave to the bartender, he slid into a chair and pulled out his battered patrol notebook to record the events of the past hour. Since it had been an entirely dull night, in under 30 seconds his attention was captured by a disheveled note left on the table. Picking it up, he tried to read it, but immediately found it was a mishmash of words written by different authors, that were getting badly smudged.

"Huh," said Chambliss.

After a few more seconds to compose his thoughts regarding the multiple principles, theories, and advice collected on the page - a truly unexpected collection of wisdom - he added his own to the page:

: )

"Awesome!" said Chambliss.

Smiling cheerfully, he grabbed his notebook, gave the bartender a thumbs-up, and headed back out to protect the city.

Deep within the archives of Conclave, the old gnome paced as he read aloud a rather concise treatise on the evolution of the various elven races. The information had been consolidated and condensed from numerous other sources.

"Some many thousands of years ago, be it tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands is up for debate by several scholars,"

Cail scoffed incredulously. "Hundreds of thousands. Honestly." Sims, his mechanical squirrel companion, beeped and chirped lazily as he lay on a nearby bookshelf between two large volumes. His head dangled over the edge. Two large crystal orbs following the gnome's movements.

Cail responded to Sim's chirps and beeps. "Well, yes I suppose. But..." Cail paused, looking flustered. "Don't change the subject on me. We're talking about Elves, not Draenei." Flatting down his beard the old gnome continued to read. His voice betrayed the frailty of his age.

"Several sources contradict their actual origin. Some cite their origination from the Troll race while others insist that the Elves were in fact a separate race to begin with. Regardless of this origin one fact seems to be fairly certain and generally accepted; the which being that all Elven races descended from those that are called Kaldorei. Translated to mean "Children of the Stars". "

The old gnome continued to read aloud a synopsis of the origin of the High Elves, their subsequent separation and banishment surrounding the Well of Eternity events (the which were not detailed in this volume). On reading about the origin and naming of the Blood Elves a thought peaked the old gnome's curiosity. Moving slowly to a bookcase he fingered over the spines of various books until he pulled one out and opened it.

"Sims. Listen to this. It says here that Arthas ventured to Northrend following the devastation of his people. He returned a darker person than when he left and went on to murder his father, assume the throne and it says that he began working dark magics leading to the plague of undead quickly swallowed Lordaeron in darkness." Cail set the other book he'd be holding on the table and flipped the page. "Arthas then cut a swath of evil throughout the lands leading north into Quel'thalas." His eyes scanned the page. "A great majority of High Elves died, swallowed up by Arthas' undead scourge machine."

He tiredly leaned against the table and glanced up at Sims on the bookshelf. "A curiosity. Without getting into specifics it says that all of Lordaeron was lost. Naturally, there were some survivors, but if... say... ninety-five percent of the kingdom was slaughtered and of those ninety-five percent were raised as part of the scourge, then it was these that essentially stormed through Quel'thalas. I wonder then how many were lost in that effort and how many were replaced by these High Elves."

Sims beeped a response.
"I know. Scourge is scourge. I'd imagine that much if not all of your racial identity is lost once you join the undead ranks, especially where the scourge is considered... but still it begs the question, what was their racial make up? Were they still mostly Lordaeron bodies with strong portion of High Elves. From other texts I've read it would seem that humans tend to be more proliferous given their shorter span of life. In sheer number alone a single human kingdom would easily rival the numbers of just about any other kingdom of that time, save possibly the trolls... fractured as they appear."

Cail paused to rub his tired eyes. Sims beeped a lazy response of low disinterested tones.
"What I'm driving at is this. At the time of the first two wars the human kingdoms were fracturing. At the time of Arthas' decimation Alterac had already been lost due to treachery during the second war if memory serves, Strom was of no consequence due to its essentially being deserted, and Gilneas had walled itself off from the world. Am I forgetting anything? I feel like I'm forgetting something else." Cail waved it off. "What is curious to me is this more recent struggle between the Undead of Lordaeron and the Worgen of Hillsbrad and Gilneas."

Sims beeped a few sharp tones as a retort.
"Well, yes, I am aware of that, but it recently occurred to me that this struggle in particular is more simply a battle between two kingdoms. All this time I've been considering things only through the prism of Horde and Alliance. Undead creatures against smelly beastial wolf-men. What I've been failing to see is the plain humanity hidden beneath all of these layers."

Sims chirped a tone of interest.
"At their core, aren't the Forsaken, as these undead prefer to be called, essentially the citizens of Lordaeron?"

Sims beeped argumentatively.
"Well, demographics aside. I'm sure if a census were taken most would simply identify as Forsaken or Undead rather than Human or Elf, or otherwise."
...

"But do you see what I'm getting at? The Forsaken, a great many of whom I believe to be the former inhabitants of Lordaeron, have reclaimed their ruin kingdom and are now seeking to expand their territory and influence. Factions aside. The worgen Gilneans, they are only responding as any other human kingdom would to an invasion. Again, factions aside."

Sims beeped inquisitively.
"Agreed. Those divisions can not be dismissed, and that is not my intention. I merely find it interesting to look at this struggle in a different light. Considering the battles won and lost in Silver Pine and Hillsbrad, it takes on a slightly different meaning to me now. It all feels more..." Cail motioned his hand in a circle as if trying to draw the thought from his mind.

"Well," The old gnome clapped the book shut and pressed himself off the table, moving back toward the bookcase. "It doesn't really matter. Simply a curiosity that traipsed its way through the mind." He slid the volume back into its place. A thoughtful if tired finger drifted from its spine to another volume.

Sims beeped an inquiry.
"Oh! Thank you, Sims. I'd forgotten about the elves." Resuming his usual pacing route, the old gnome clasped his hands behind his back.

"Knowing then the heritage of the High Elves, and subsequent Blood Elves, I wonder then what the average lifespan of a Blood Elf is currently. Do they live as long as an average human? How about an average Dwarf or Gnome? Certainly they don't have as great a lifespan as their Night Elven cousins, apparent immortality aside."

Sims quirked his tiny head to one side and began to chirp and beep. Cail waggled a hand and cut him off. "I don't want to get into Night Elven specifics. For the moment that's all beside the point."

Sims beeped an inquiry.
"If a High Elf, or Blood Elf for that matter, naturally has a very long lifespan then I wonder how that might translate into their children. Would that trait carry over, or is it something solely present due to their affinity for magic? What if that child were of a mixed origin?" Cail tilted his head as he passed Sims. He quirked an eyebrow. "What if that child were half human? How would that life span be affected?"

The old gnome reached the end of his pacing route and turned on his heels as he had hundreds of times prior. He lifted a finger to punctuate his thought. "Would it matter if the father was a human? What if it were the mother? Which traits would be dominant and which dormant? Would they also hold an affinity for the magics?"

Cail twisted the ends of his mustache between two fingers as he paced. The gnome fell deep into thought as he turned back and forth along his pacing route. Sims beeped curiously, jarring him from his thoughts.

"It interests me, Sims, because I think there may be one among us who is not whom she claims to be." Sims sat up and beeped with alarm. Cail paused in his trail and waved his hands. "No no, not a spy. Simply a person with more to them than meets the eye is all." He turned a smile to his mechanical companion. "It's merely one of those ideas. The type that have taken hold and I just can't shake until I discover the truth for myself, is all."

Falling deeply into thought once again, the old gnome slowly resumed his pacing.

((Cross breeds. A current Musing of My Mind. I hope an OOC post here is acceptable. I couldn't find the energy to craft this into character. :P

Off the top of my head I know of Garona and Rexxar, and with a quick google search of "warcraft half breeds" I came up with a few links to several lists of various half-breed characters. So this sates (answers) the first part of my musing.

The other part is how prevalent (and acceptable) is it within our own RP. Now, I know that RP is personal and as long as we're having fun it doesn't matter (to a point) -what- we do with our characters. One of the last things we should be concerned with is another's opinion. Yada-yada-yada...

I muse on this last bit because I have a character who I've been casually molding over the past several years, trying to find a comfort spot (which is usually a deeper understanding of said character) before I really bring it out into any sort of 'serious' or 'relevant' RP. Recently I've been tinkering with mixing this character's race, and so hence the musings.

Thoughts? Ideas? Opinions? Specific examples to share?))