World of Warcraft®

Nynra paced inside her room, frowning to herself all the while. Within the locked chambers she was free to let her mask sit aside, glancing at her reflection in the mirror; her enchantment held, mostly, but she could see wispy patches of rotted skin and dessicated bone underneath her flesh still. She frowned and sat down, focusing on the matter at hand.

Ragefang had declared new targets. She saw the reasoning behind it, of course; one that did not aid you was not an ally, and one that did nothing could be considered an enemy as well. But it was too far, Nynra believed. This "collateral damage" as it could be called is not worth the price for war. She eyed the parchment on her desk with that same worried frown.

Who am I betraying? This thought danced through her mind, causing her fears. She still trusted Poni and those of Homeland, and she had friends within the Horde. But she wanted to stay home, with the Alliance, with her old friends and her old life, even though her dessicated form did not allow it. It was the main reason why she hid herself so often; in the Horde, it was fear of her love for the Alliance. In the Alliance, it is her very existance.

So who is she betraying...? She did not know, but she knew it had to be done. She took an old quill, one that had seen much care and attention, and began her letter;

A Warning to all members of the Horde:

Ragefang and the Pia Presidium, along with other Alliance Military Groups, have decided that those that do not aid in the defeat of Garrosh Hellscream and Sylvanas Windrunner are enemies as well, and must be destroyed. Civillian targets will be ignored still, but I am uncertain as to how long that will last.

They will attack trading posts. Homes. Cities that have nothing to do with the war.

They will raze Mulgore simply because it exists.

They will crumble Silvermoon because it does not stop the Horde.

And anything inbetween them and their assaults will also be washed away in that endless sea of blood. If it bears the red banner, it will die. They do not care about collateral damage; a merchant of the Crossroads, to them, is now as viable a target as a guardsman or soldier.

This is wrong. Spread this warning and be prepared to defend yourselves when these attacks come. I may not agree with the Horde wholly... but the death of innocents is, and always will be, wrong.

May the Light bless you and your own.

Nynra Lirann Lightheart

She wrote this letter three times and placed them in three different envelopes. Each one was marked: The First, Wyvern's Tail Tavern; The Second, the Homeland Long House; The Third, Da Doctas Main Offices. With the three letters in hand and her mask and guise back on, she went to meet an AAMS messenger, hoping to get her letters sent.

"What you are doing will be considered treason, you know?"

Said the wise, old Tauren. Speaking in a matter-of-fact tone, looking down the young Orc.

"I swear as my name is Grangulak, son of Grunlok. Let they consider me a traitor. I am a traitor of brutality for the sake of glory. I am a traitor to the death of innocence. I am a traitor to this abomination they call 'war'. Let them know that the Shattered Shield Clan will oppose this 'new' Horde as fiercely as Dranosh himself would!"

The tauren bowed his head towards the Orc, with a satisfied smile.

"Then I will give my life for your cause."

The Orc nods, as he passes through the Tauren, walking amidst the Barrens.

"Give your life for yourself for I am but a vessel for Honor and the values of my people."

***

Grangulak was a small fry caught in the web of destiny.

Like he always did, after some intense series of duels, boasting and story telling the young prideful Orc would rest his body and lift his spirit on the Wyvern's tavern finest ale.

As he drank his ale in peace, he hears a commotion from a group of Goblins near his table. With his curiosity perked, he hunched himself to hear what the little green ones said

"Did ya hear?! They are going full war on us! Profit is comin' I tell ya! We will be filthy rich by the end of the fiscal year!"

Grangulak peaceful face quickly turned into a scowl as he raised his voice.

"What are the little ones babbling about? Can this humble Orc know about this 'war' you mention so clearly?"

They knew Grangulak was just a small fry mercenary; A nobody. So they threw at his table a copy of the parchement.

"Here muscle guy! Ya can have it! Free o'charge! Tell ya friends to visit this tavern more often ok? We will be hirin' shortly no doubt!"

As the group laughed their way out of the tavern, Grangulak started to read said parchment, with much distress. Despite his scowl, he keeps the letter inside one of his tabards. He mumbles to himself.

"You live by the sword, you die by the sword, Eh Garrosh?"

He shakes his head as he stands up. He must warn the others.

He must prepare the clan.

Knowles glances at the notice in the Tail.

"!@#$in' monsters, man."

The gnome sauntered in to Gondorin's small office in Acherus, the enchantment disguising her as a goblin dropping away. She was carrying a carefully-folded note, which she handed to Gondorin before giggling and bouncing away. "It came from an inn in Orgrimmar," she said.

Gondorin read the note, his face remaining impassive.

This is one of Genevra's, he thought with a twinge of sadness. She stood in our War Council meetings. Was she the leak? No, I don't think so.

Gondorin called the gnome back as he wrote out a note in his flourishing Gilnean script. "You're going back in. Talk to the flesh sculptors if you can't convince a wizard to give you an illusion again. Take this note in, then get out. It will be your last mission into Horde territory. I don't want you placed further in harm's way."

The note read:

You Horde, believe what you will. But do not buy into rhetoric designed to only lead to your deaths.

Yes, we will flatten Mulgore, but place no blame in Pia Presidium. They are staunch defenders of the light: they will not knowingly attack a civilian outpost. Nor will I. They will endeavor to avoid damage to civilians. I will as well.

But Mulgore stands as part of the Horde, and proud Baine Bloodhoof bends his knee, so recently risen from the grave of his honored father, to Garrosh Hellscream. Your Warchief does not allow you neutrality. While he sits astride Orgrimmar's throne, then, neither shall I.

Yes, we will flatten Silvermoon, but place no blame in Pia Presidium. Quel'thalas allies itself with the Horde and maintains a direct link to the ruins of Lordaeron to facilitate the transport of warriors who are complicit with Sylvanas Windrunner's atrocities. Lor'themar Theron remains silent on the issue of the Banshee Queen, and lets his elves proudly wear the sigil of the Horde.

You have been told, repeatedly, what will bring peace to your lands and ours: dethrone Garrosh Hellscream. Capture, try and execute Sylvanas Windrunner for her crimes against life. Failure to do so is implicit support of the actions of these two murderers.

The drums of war sound, Horde. There are those among you who are capable of honor, capable of sound thinking. Elevate them as your leaders. Withdraw from Ashenvale until such time as a treaty can be made with Darnassus, after you have made reparations for Hellscream's wanton deforestation and destruction of the Silverwing Sentinels.

Draw back Forsaken forces from the Greymane Wall, allow the resettlement of Gilneas' citizens in their home. Remove Forsaken ships from the waters of Gilneas. Make reparations for the horrifying, plague-riddled attacks that persist, to this day, necessitating the forced resettlement of Gilnean citizens.

Until these conditions are met, the war will not go away. I do not fight this war with relish or anticipation, but with a grim determination: I *will* see justice done.

This very night, your soldiers have died at my blade, and the spells and weapons of my allies. This very night, your occupation of Andorhal ground to a screeching halt. This very night, the forces at a Bulwark no longer needed fell. This very night, we stood in the center of your wretched Undercity, taking on all guards, and making it known that we will not tolerate Sylvanas' crimes.

This very night, your military hold in the Twilight Highlands was razed.

This very night, goblins at the Krazzworks were slain.

This very night, orcs and trolls at Hammerfall, in lands rightly belonging to the remnants of Arathi, were slain.

You have the power to end this war, Horde. Exercise it. To do otherwise is to say you seek this war.

The middle ground has left, as though it never was.

You are Horde. We are Alliance. We are war.

Shelter your children, and provide sensible protection: remove them from the advance of the armies.

Such a request is not a consideration your Warchief gave to us.

Gondorin Ragefang

((As much as I enjoyed trying to stir up some PVP, can we really take activities such as "razing" a military post or breaking into the center of the Undercity as IC? I could see small attacks on the fringe, but aren't we treading on concepts of materiality here?))

Drakehide coughed sharply and wiped thick red blood and small chunks of debris from his blade. First, there had been the two raids that evening on the Crossroads. Whoever he'd been, that night elf had persistence. And as honorable as that night elf's persistence, and his dedication to victory has night had been...the repeated travel from Ratchet to the Crossroads to thoroughly thrash him made Drakehide irate. Drakehide had also not walked away from the confrontation without injuries of his own to speak of.

Then, there had been the raids, in Ratchet, a neutral settlement of all places. Who had sent them, Drakehide didn't know, and didn't care. Probably just a band of brigands, or rebellious souls, making their presence known in Homeland's newly-acquired tavern, but...again, it had made him most irate. Especially the gnome. Drakehide, the tavern's bouncer, had spent more time a sheep that evening than he had...not a sheep. All while a SECOND night elf had been taking shots at them. Damned troublemakers...

The bouncer's night had not ended there. The worst came in the form of their old friend Eldantios, who had committed not one but two plague-bombings of the establishment. The bar would be closed until they could have several professionals go through the bar, floorboard by floorboard, and give it a thorough cleansing. And then, of course, they would need some sort of official from Ratchet, health inspector or something, to give the place a thumbs-up before it could re-open.

This bouncing work was hard business. The warrior was going to need to speak to Aminara about his contract. Hazard pay was becoming a consideration.

There had been some good news, though. A lone forsaken on a proto-drake had come to his aid in the Crossroads, right when Drakehide had almost fallen during the night elf's second attack. Zallian Dawnstrider had healed the bulk of his physical wounds, and he felt a great deal better than he had when he'd picked up the deployed plague-bomb and run it out of the bar. MUCH better. And he knew that he at least had allies against Mialera in Kagran, Roriel, and Pakaza. His hunt for Mialera was looking up, at least.

All the same...it had been a long night, and a poor night for the warrior. The cough, from the plague-bombing still lingered. And he was in the mood for some happy news.

Then he saw the bulletin board. Which was, most notably, not happy news. At all.

Irate, the warrior composed a message of his own.

To Nynra Lightheart and Gondorin Ragefang, respectfully, and with my regards,

Go %&$* #%*$ %*$% and %*$$ yourselves in the %*$# #*%$ murloc %*$& and %*$& %*$@ board with a nail in it %*$$ %*$& @&%# on a GLOOOOORIOUS %*#@ $@%* sandwich.

By all means, continue throwing your people at me, and attacking civilian settlements. I will be only too glad to continue knocking you down.

Love,

Drakehide, son of Mok'Rukh

((LOVES me some RP-PvP. As a sidenote, I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in Ratchet over the next little while, FYI, so if anyone A-side wants to give Drakehide a good splatting at the Crossroads again...*trails off, cough cough*))

It had been a routine delivery to the Crossroads for the orc, A quick run out the back door and across the plains, quick as a Ghost Wolf. He went for the run, Bralox like to run. Clutched in his side satchel was a packet of herbs for the village wise woman. Bralox liked her. She usually had fresh cookies.

He drew up several feet short, as the village came into view.

It was burning. With a burst of speed, Bralox pushed forward, coming closer, ready to render any assistance needed. Probably lifting and hauling. (They usually made use of his size and strength.)

That was when he noticed them. A band of alliance mercenaries, razing the town. He came out of his wolf form, standing and walking closer, drawing out to call a halt, perhaps find a diplomatic way of dealing with the situation, when he saw the children. One of them was already dead, a clear stab wound from a knife through it' chest. The young orc couldn't have been more than six or seven. The human responsible for the death was crouched over a second orc nearby, one of perhaps nine, who was yelling all manner of taunts and profanities, brandishing a training sword smaller than the human's dagger.

"No." Said something inside the orcs head. "The spirits will not allow this." The voice was growing angry. Bralox was used to angry voices in his head now and then. Fire was angry.

But this was not Magmos, Blaze of Flame. This was Shardros, Bulwark of the Earth.

"For too long you have sat, wallowing in the despair of your homeworld's death, Bralox son of Brontul. This is your home, these are your people. The spirits ask you Bralox, what are you going to do, What path shall you walk, Redwalker?" The towering orc narrowed his eyes, looking at the human in an almost time frozen state. His gauntlets surged with the elements, His left, the raw fury of the storm, his right the pulsing rage of fire. "Bralox... SMASH!' Came his reply.

The spirits howled, totems were dropped. "SHARDROS, MAGMOS, COME TO MY AID!" The Elementals revealed themselves at his totems, Quickly setting themselves between the raiding party and the civilians, the old, the weak and the children. His Spirit wolves joined them. It took three strides for Bralox to reach the human, now frozen in a strange mix of disbelief and fear over the child. Bralox simply picked him up and threw him with all his strength, the man flying through the air like a ballista bolt, coming to rest with a skull crushing thud in the forge. A dangerous and fury filled smirk on his face, Bralox turned to face the raiding party remaining. Slowly, he reached down, unbuttoning his tabard, he slipped it over his head, folded it up, and tucked it into his bag. All hell proceeded to break loose.

((Woah, never seen/heard bralox be that badass! Go bralox!))

((While still ICly boycotting the Council, I have to agree with Kyalin....Lore-wise,this is a bit...Can't put a finger to it, but some of this doesn't make sense. Three assaults on Undercity in a samll amount of time seems odd, and Andorhal is way to large to be destroyed, atleast in a single night. The World of Warcraft is much larger ICly than it is, and its quite questionable how so many feats were performed, by the same organization, in one night.))

(( I get the feeling theres lots we don't know about Bralox. ))

((In a world of high magic such as this one, where people cross continents and worlds in the blink of an eye, covering this much ground on the backs of creatures like dragons, etc. isn't so far-fetched. I'd say worry less about specifics and more about the excitement of the military action. War is afoot. Revel in it as we finally start kindling the near-dead sparks of world PvP again!))

((THEY'LL NEVER GUESS WHO IT IS *sneaky sneaky sneaky*))

((Anyways, I would have to look at it more like.. Perhaps they pushed a part of Andorhal, or they pushed it back for the time while the Horde regrouped. As for the under city invasion, I can see it more like raiding a specific part, a small strike force to cause some panic, keep the guard on it's toes in the city, draw troops back, and leave the outlying villages vulnerable.))

((As long as it is described that way in their write-ups, Bralox. Not "welp, we levelled the city again."

Also, a push for more world PVP is all well and good, but I hope you'll keep an open channel of communication with the Horde, Rage. It's no fun to have to choose between stopping an established RP event and going off to defend from the evil Alliance. Again.))

((Knowles, we had some discussion about that in AllianceOOC last night when Raoul hopped on an alt to talk with us. There were some misunderstandings about something that was said, and it was cleared up to everyone's satisfaction.

The intent for what's wound up being two Tuesday night attacks in a row has never been to disrupt Horde RP events, and I personally feel bad that's wound up happening, since I'm spearheading so much of our RP-PvP stuff from the Alliance side. It's wound up happening like that since our War Council meetings are on Tuesday nights, and I'm trying to shift us into more fun stuff to do instead of just standing around talking. When there's activity, there's more active participation, which is what I want.

I'm also trying to alternate our attacks so they aren't always happening on Sundays at 6:00; while that makes it easier for the Horde to have prepared, entrenched, readied defenses, it's also less fun for spontaneity's sake. World PvP will grow if there's a sense of constant threat.

One other thing that was talked about was having the Horde do more hits for the Alliance to respond to; this was met with some enthusiastic agreement from the regulars of AllianceOOC. So start smackin' us around. ;)

((But I can't! D=))

One other thing that was talked about was having the Horde do more hits for the Alliance to respond to; this was met with some enthusiastic agreement from the regulars of AllianceOOC. So start smackin' us around. ;)

((A major thing to remember when planning/hoping for things is that the RP circles Alliance side are far larger in numbers than they are Horde side. Clinic is really the only remaining, weekly RP event for Hordeside. It's incredibly difficult for Horde RPers to get any sort of decent numbers together on short notice, if at all, because we simply do not have the numbers. Not to mention, that out of that already much smaller number of Rpers, many of them have no interest in PVP of any kind. Please don't assume it's as easy for us to just gather numbers for RP-PVP as it is for people Alliance side. ))

04/04/2012 11:35 AMPosted by Rowanne

A major thing to remember when planning/hoping for things is that the RP circles Alliance side are far larger in numbers than they are Horde side.

Not to mention the fact that a larger percentage of the alliance side is interested in the active RP-PVP then horde side. So...with that in mind you take a much smaller community and break it down into an even smaller sub-community...

Not saying horde won't give it as good as we get but...keep in mind numbers and such when folks get all gung-ho and whatnot.

/tosses in her two cents and wanders off again

((Heh; given the number of times we've been handily repelled by an entrenched force on our Sunday attacks, I'd say you've got more PvPers than you might realize... ;)

This said, it isn't our intention to interrupt Horde RP events; me, I'd love to see more Horde RP just to see more RP in general; I sadly don't have much time for more than one character to really focus on with game play. After nearly 7 years of playing this game, I sometimes have to take it in smaller bites for it to stay fun. As a result, I sadly don't have much ability to make a Horde alt, get to level cap, get geared, and then instigate more Horde RP. :(

I'll keep doing the RP-PvP things as long as people keep having fun with them, and if we step on some toes along the way, please, by all means, get in touch with me. I'm on the Real ID of a couple of prominent Horde RPers, and am always happy to add more to said Real ID if it means facilitating more cross-faction communication so we're all having fun on Cenarion Circle.

And if we wind up attacking more than we're being attacked, well, it can just feed the growing perception that Ragefang is a warmongering maniac. ;) ))

The intent for what's wound up being two Tuesday night attacks in a row has never been to disrupt Horde RP events, and I personally feel bad that's wound up happening, since I'm spearheading so much of our RP-PvP stuff from the Alliance side.

((You say this, and yet you did it anyway, even after several individuals hopped Alliance side to inform everyone about it. I have a very hard time believing that this is sincere.

Just so no one can take this out of context, when I say "we", I mean Razortalons. Most of the time we are the ones who rally the defense, and keep people in line (not cheating, etc). We didn't rally the defense for your attacks last night, so I can't tell you how people acted during it.

I understand the idea of having spontaneous attacks to keep the enemy off guard... but unless you're intent on killing NPCs instead of having an actual battle... the Horde really does need some kind of idea when it's going to happen. Much of the Horde's RPers are not around and readily rallied on, say, a random Thursday night. Jobs, kids, a smaller RP base, and other issues all prevent people from being around.

We don't advertise the defense in trade, we don't allow people to 'cheat' via RealID or 'spy alts', we even have the defense pull back and not kill people rezzing so the Alliance can regroup and give a real fight. We enjoyed it quite a bit, even the days that you all completely overwhelmed us. Hell, it brought out some people who really hadn't been RPing in a long time. It had a lot of us go "Well, we should get better" and actually go out and get PVP gear, and learn how to PVP in a group. It did a lot of good. If that's what you want, and enjoy, then we need some kind of advanced warning that something is going to happen so we can be available. No one (well no one in Razortalons) wants to know where you're going to hit... but we'd like to know when, and how long you intend to stay around.

Sure, it doesn't make sense in a realistic war... but as you said, this is a land of high fantasy and magic. It doesn't have to make sense in reality. There's nothing wrong with taking some OOC steps to make sure it's fun for everyone, though. We're NOT asking for "zomg no one attack during events!" We're not asking for "NO WORLD PVP EVAR." We're asking to be informed of when RP-PVP is going to happen, so we can be there too.))

04/04/2012 11:54 AMPosted by Ragefang

((Heh; given the number of times we've been handily repelled by an entrenched force on our Sunday attacks, I'd say you've got more PvPers than you might realize... ;)

((Again, because it's planned, and like Eslyn said, RT provides a bulk of defense. You will rarely, if ever, get those numbers on unplanned attacks. I'm not saying stop, by any stretch, but please don't have the same expectations based on Sunday night attacks lately. Like Eslyn also mentioned, it's just the difference between actual PVP and killing NPCs. ))