Slain by Elf

Although there is something regal about riding atop an elephant, it didn’t appeal to me, particularly when compared to a ram or big cat. With my friend Knifey getting himself a pony and a ram, I decided to go for the big cat, which meant raising my reputation with Darnassus until I was exalted. This goal seemed possible and the best plan, with the lands of the Night Elf a short sail away, compared to having to travel to a different continent and brave many hazards before I was likely to meet many dwarfs or humans. And so I left the Exodar for Auberdine, the centre of peace in Darkshore, and introduced my self to the elves.

It wasn’t long before the elves had me cleaning up the wildlife of natural threats and sickly animals, as well as from more unnatural threats. It wasn’t easy. Many of the beasts ran in fear when death was close, and with their four-pawed escapes I could not keep up, leading to annoying and frustrating chases that only either led me in to the maws of other animals or drew more angry animals to the aid of the one fleeing. The undulating landscape didn’t help matters, as it often obscured a teddy bears’ picnic of beasts from view, and gave me a continued crick in my neck as I had to constantly change from looking up to looking down.

That the region was long and thin also made travelling tedious, with many journeys taking me the distance of the map, not like in other regions where there is a more central hub that lends itself to shorter, more frequent trips back to town. Working for the Night Elves was a slog, there’s no doubt about it.

My adventures took me through Darkshore and down to Ashenvale, before I headed back to help those in the tree of life, Darnassus itself, although I was careful not to do so at the same time as young adventurers were starting out and needed guidance more than myself. Venturing south from Ashenvale to Stonetalon Mountains gained me further favour with the elves, but still it wasn’t enough and my patience for sparsely populated areas with few quests far apart was wearing thin. I decided to settle for riding an Elekk after all.

I took an extended rest after adventuring for the elves, as it had taken its toll on me. By the time I was ready to return, the riding trainer at the Exodar had changed his policy and was happy to start giving riding lessons to younger adventurers than normal. Perhaps he realised how unlikely it is for someone who has roamed the land for months and faced many dangers to fall off a hulking Elekk that is trained to have a rider. Still short of being exalted with the elves I took him up on his offer and rode away on a purple Elekk, happy to save my aching feet from a lot of running.

With a new mount and some rest behind me I was reinvigorated, and quickly rose in rank after questing in Stranglethorn Vale and Dustwallow Marsh. It was as I was getting more powerful that I remembered the Night Elf sanctuary of Feathermoon Stronghold, supposedly off the coast of Feralas. I had yet to travel there, but had been too lowly to get there safely. Now was the time to explore further.

Indeed, the elves had a stronghold on the island, and there were emissaries requiring aid. I had matured enough to help them. I set off to find a missing courier, which took me to the coast where I avoided elementals that were stupidly powerful for the task in hand, before investigating some gnoll camps, and finally locating the courier in a disturbing insectoid hive. Whilst in the wilds I took care of an ogre problem and provided a leatherworker with some yeti hides. Although the leatherworker was from Stormwind he had a deal with the elves and his work rewarded me with Darnassus reputation.

So it came to be that after a short while I was granted the wonderful sight of being bathed in a glowing green light with the approval of the elves, as I had finally become exalted with their faction. I thanked the elves of Feathermoon before rushing to the flight master to catch a hippogryph to Darnassus. Once there, my only concern was which big cat would choose me for a mount. I was soon the proud rider of a white tiger.

This was a good moment. The Elekk is a good enough mount, but it doesn’t fit in to many buildings, including banks, repair shops, and the Stormwind auction house, and even though it’s not possible to ride in the buildings at least you could get in the door and then be forced to auto-dismount. With the Elekk I found myself constantly bumping in to the doorway and having to dismount manually, which got frustrating. A smaller mount doesn’t have this problem. I also prefer the look of the saber mounts.

An interesting aspect of getting a second mount is the cost. Quite a while back now, a second mount would have been quite the extravagance at 40th level or so, costing around 90 gold to buy with a faction discount. However, changes have been made that make far less of an obstacle. First, the cost of being able to ride has been shifted from the cost of the mount to the cost of the training. Once you can ride one mount you have the training to ride them all, so this was not a factor for a second mount. Second, the discounts offered by faction vendors have been increased. It used to be that becoming revered gained a 10% discount on goods, but now the discount starts at the honoured reputation level and continues up to a 20% discount at exalted. With the cost of the mount reduced this did not matter as much, but it is still nice. Third, as mounts are now available at 30th level the cost has been decreased accordingly, so they are now only 10 gold to buy. With my faction discount, and having already learnt the riding skill, my second mount only cost a bargain 8 gold!

The big cat mount is fabulous, and almost worth the effort. I am not sure if I ever want to grind Darnassus reputation again though. Stormwind certainly seems to be the easiest faction to grind, and Ironforge isn’t too bad, apart from having to visit Uldaman, but Darnassus seemed to be hard work. Maybe suffering from a little burnout with World of Warcraft made it that little bit harder. At least I finally have my kitty to show for my effort.

‘You run your longsword through him and he drops to the ground, dead.’

‘Good. That means I can move and not provoke an opportunity attack.’

‘Not from the dead kobold, you’re right.’

‘I meant the other one, the one that’s still alive.’

‘But you also don’t provoke from the dead one.’

‘Which I believe is a change from third edition.’

‘…but not 3.5.’

Hired by a doddery academic to map out an old abandoned keep near the town of Winterhaven, I join a disparate band of adventurers. As we start our journey the introductions are made. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Iago.’

‘That’s nice, Argo. Me Jane. HA HA HA!’

‘No, Iago. *sigh* Do you have no culture?’

For some reason the conversation then lacks for the journey, but excitement is still to be had when some kobolds jump out from behind some rocks, probably shout ‘Utinni!’, and start attacking.

A couple of eagle-eyed fellows I find myself adventuring with quickly spot these kobolds and leap in to action, drawing weapons with lightning speed and loosing missiles before I have even noticed what’s occurring.

‘Do we have combat advantage over the kobolds in the surprise round?’

‘As they are the ambushers I would say it’s safe to suppose that we don’t.’ Despite this initial setback, as well as the shaky introductions, we work together to defeat the kobold… well, I’m reluctant to use the word ‘threat’. Warlock, warlord, fighter, ranger and wizard, our different abilities and powers work in harmony and we swiftly kill the ambushers.

Onwards to Winterhaven, where we shall spend the night before heading to the old keep.

The party heroically defeated the monster and saved the world! Had we not succeeded I wondered previously if not saving the world meant we could no longer play in the Iron Heroes setting. After all, it would have been destroyed, there would be nowhere to adventure. It was pointed out that this is a ludicrous suggestion, if only because there were many other groups worldwide who would still be playing in the Iron Heroes setting. The source books and adventures aren’t destroyed because one instance brought the end of the world to it, so there was no reason why we couldn’t continue in a different instance.

It is indeed a silly idea that we can’t play Iron Heroes should an adventure cause the end of the world. It was never really meant as a serious suggestion, rather a remark on how absurd it is to threaten the existence of an RPG world, when the end of the world requires the death of a character.

The character is more important to the player than the world. After all, the player controls and influences just about every aspect of the character, mostly in reaction to the world. The character is the player’s extension in to the world, and without the character the world may as well not exist. Understandably, players can get quite attached to their characters, and the death of a character is a major event in most gaming groups. Characters are heroes and expected to overcome nearly all obstacles and enemies ultimately to prevail. Players can also inject some of their own personality in to the character, or create something new to explore different aspects of ourselves, so to have one die can feel like losing a hamster; it is inevitable given time, but still unpleasant to experience.

When it comes to creating characters I nearly always try to create something different from before, whether it is a different race, class, morality, fighting style, or a combination of them all, I much prefer not to try to copy any previous character I’ve played. (The only time I have purposely created a similar character was after an unlucky first-round death, before I even got comfortable in my chair.) For me, if I can return the next week with essentially the same character then what concern does death hold for me? I see no reason to fret about who I am battling if I can simply wipe the wounds from my character sheet and continue where I left off every time, for there would be no drawbacks to character death. And where’s the danger or risk, where is the sense of adventure that comes from having something to lose?

For a character death to have some kind of meaning within the game there need to be penalties associated with it, which is essentially why there are penalities for resurrecting dead characters. You can choose to play the same character in a weakened state, holding on to all the memories and alliances built up that can be drawn on for a fuller game experience at the cost of being a little less effective, or you create a new character, one with no party-created history but with all the possibilities that come from a blank slate. If I could simply clone my character each time I needed to, I would have less reason to care about him.

And so saving one’s character should be like saving the world. The fight we were in was dangerous, but it had the additional threat of the end of the world should we fail. But if we can come back next week to the same, unaltered world is it really all that different from losing a character in any other battle? Of course, had we failed in the fight it would have meant all of our characters’ deaths, much like any battle except that our odds of defeat were much greater, and so we all had a personal reason to be victorious. But above and beyond our character dying, how can we feel the effect of the end-of-the-world scenario without forcing ourselves to admit that, to us, the world is destroyed and thus we can no longer use Iron Heroes as a setting? If all we did was ‘clone’ the world, or deny its destruction, how is that any different from losing a character? In both cases I create a new character and come back to the same world as before. Because of this, the threat of the world’s destruction becomes essentially meaningless to me.

Of course, one could make a similar argument for the destruction of a city, or the villain marrying the king’s daughter, should neither event have any effect on later adventures, and fundamentally you’d be right. As a dramatic device the destruction of the world seems far more significant than an unhappy marriage, and for it to carry the weight of that significance in the minds of the players there needs to be more of a threat than other dramatic devices entail. With a baron getting away with manslaughter offering the same player-consequences as the world ending it strikes me as difficult to instill a feeling of threat.

At least in the above cases of the city, king and baron there is the possibility of events having repercussions for subsequent adventures. The end of the world, unless you stop playing in the setting, essentially has none, which is why it fails as a dramatic device. An evil wizard corrupting a king’s rule thus offers a far greater threat to continuing adventures than the end of the world, and because of that I know which outcome I’d be more concerned about preventing.

I may have brought up the subject with a facetious comment, but it was motivated by wanting a more meaningful experience when playing RPGs. Well, if not more meaningful, at least less meaningless.

Sapphire, my warrior with a tail, is in Stranglethorn Vale taking care of the pirate population when I spy some floating wreckage nearby. Fishing has never been a profession I’ve taken too much interest in, being rather too passive and not offering much direct reward. With each new character and the early fishing quests I try yet again to keep my fishing skill level current with my character, and each time it peters off quite quickly. The same is true of Sapphire, but I have perhaps the highest skill in fishing than on any character. On a previous time fishing I manage to pull a crate out of some floating wreckage in which I find a book that teaches me how to spot concentrations of fish. I thought that would be handy, but now I have yellow dots on the mini-map forever reminding me that I could be fishing.

With the thought of perhaps some interesting treasure again waiting for me I whip out my fishing rod for a few minutes of relaxing, or boring, fishing at the wreckage. I fortuitously have the skill required to fish in the area and, to my delight, I pull a couple of mithril-bound chests from the wreckage. Inside one of those chests is a 210 skill enchanting formula to add stamina to a shield! This is not a particularly common formula to find and is particularly handy for my enchanter wannabe-tank. Maybe I should take more time to fish.

An ornate dagger is spotted in the basement, amongst a pile of junk. Being interested in the occult, the rabbi moves closer and bends down to pick it up. To everyone’s amazement, and some disbelief, the dagger appears to fly up from the floor of its own accord to attack the rabbi! He tries to dodge but his aged frame simply isn’t agile enough, and the dagger strikes in to his flesh.

As quickly as the dagger flashed through the air it becomes motionless, and the marine in our group wants to ensure it stays that way. ‘I sure as hell don’t want that thing jumping up at me, whatever caused it. Let’s put a large rock over it to stop it from moving.’

‘Soldier, personally I would advise against that, what with it still being in my leg. Professor, you’re a biologist, perhaps you could remove the dagger safely? I’m in a bit of pain.’

‘I don’t know about that. What if it attacks me?’

‘Oy vey, then I do it myself’, and with that the rabbi eases the dagger out from his flesh and tosses it to one side, wincing with the pain as he does.

‘Hey, rabbi, the dagger didn’t move when you tossed it. Why don’t you go ahead and examine it now?’

The rabbi’s reply was perhaps anachronistic to the 1920s and better left unquoted.