My lore reading order for comics & short stories [My WoW drawer]

If you are new to the Warcraft lore like I was in July (lol) and you want to read the books, comics, mangas and short stories, go to THIS WEBSITE.

But if you're like me and want to do something a bit different, for example start with all the comics and mangas, then read the short stories and save books for last.
Well, that's just me, but if you want to do the same, listen up.

I won't add anything about books here, since I haven't read all of them.


Only mangas and comics:

1. Warcraft saga (5) - about the creating of the world: Titans, Old Gods, Dragon Aspects and other
2. Ashbringer (4) - about the paladins, creating the Argent Dawn and the Scarlet Crusade, follows different characters-mostly the Mograine family
3. Death Knight - about breaking free from the Lich King, ends in the future (after "Mage"), follows Thassarian
4. Sunwell Trilogy (3) - about the past of the Sunwell, follows Kalecgos, Aveena, Tyrygosa, Jorad Mace. 
5. Shadow Wing (2) - about the neatherdrakes in Outlands, dranei and broken relations, the first death knights (not the ones mady by the Lich King), follows Tyrygosa and Jorad Mace
6. World of Warcraft: The Comic (25) - 1-14 is pretty much Varian Wrynn's lifestory , 15-25 is about and Alliance-Horde peace gathering between Thrall and Varian, then it goes all weird and Cho'gall does something and it's about the Guardian and Council of Tirisfal. Characters you should know: Varian (Lo'Gosh), Broll Bearmantle, Valeera, Rehgar, Thargas, Anduin Wrynn, Jaina, Aegwynn, Garona, Meryl, Med'an, Maraad, Cho'gall. Also includes some other important characters, but they had minor roles so whatever.
7. Mage - about the Blue Dragonflight and Malygos attacking Dalaran, follows Aodhan
8. Pearl of Pandaria (4) - about Li Li's and Strongbo's adventures in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor while looking for Chen Stormstout, also the history of Brewfest in the game
9. Shaman - starts 100 years ago with Shotoa, main story takes place during the Cataclysm, explains the shaman's thoubles with elements, what are dark shamans, follows Muln Earthfury (in main story)
10. Curse of the Worgen (5) - about the war between Gilneans and Forsaken, how the Gilneans got turned to worgen, flashbacks to the time of the War of Ancients (about 10,000 years ago), where do the worgen originate from, follows Halford Ramsey, Genn Graymane, Belysra Starbreeze
11. Dark Riders - For the Alliance, story about some guy that goes on an adventure with some other guy, they go to Karazhan, not much important lore-wise but it's a good read
12. Bloodsworn - For the Horde, story about a group that goes to stop some centaurs and ends up in some trouble, they go to Maraudon, Desolace in Cata is different than before and this may have mentioned why but I don't remember, also just a good read

• Warcraft Legends (5) - Many different stories in each of these books, that just bolt everywhere so you can't just put it here. Very epic storys about many things. Before realing Legends you SHOULD read: The Sunwell Trilogy, Ashbringer & Death Knight?(not so sure about this, but it doesnt do bad) There is one story "The First Guardian" in Legends which you should read before World of Warcraft: The Comic and Mage?

I thought I'd mention my favourites and give them spots.
But first, some honorable mentions: Curse of the Worgen (much new such amaze so story wow), Death Knight (how people treat the DKs was cool to know), Shadow Wing (dat ending tho?)

3rd Place: Pearl of Pandaria got this spot, though it was a tough choice. The fun travelling story of Li Li Stormstout and Strongbo snatched the spot from the Worgens for a few reasons. Mainly the first reason being, that I didn't like the worgen leader much in the comic (he's cool at the end, the short story makes him even cooler) and the Pandaren story had a lot of travelling around Alliance citys. I haven't played a lot of Alliance, but seeing those sights and people I had only seen a little gave me a smile if I recognised them. :)



Moving on...

2nd Place: World of Warcraft: The Comic. Even though half of it was a story of Varian Wrynn, king of the Alliance, that part was the coolest. Following Varian around wasn't that bad and seeing Anduin being actually useful was great too. This comic also introduces one of my favourite characters: Rehgar Earthfury. He wasn't that good at the beginning, but later he turned out to be an aweosme character. The last fourth of the comic took a turn for the unexpected, but overall the story was interesting. (Sorry Varian, this doesn't stop me from raiding Stormwind and killing you. For the Horde!)



And now!

1st Place: It just has to go to Warcraft Legends. I mean really. There is no debate. These stories were just excellent. Some had Thrall in them too, that helped. *heh* (My favourites in the books: Family Values, A Warrior Made, Fear and Nightmares) There were also others that I just figured I won't mention (otherwise this list would be too long).





Only Short Stories 

1. War of the Shifting Sands - about Silithus/Ahn'Quirai, Fandral Staghelm's loss
2. Unbroken - about the dranei becoming Broken and Lost Ones, dranei's shamanistic connection, orcs taking over Shattarath, follows Nobundo (starts and ends later, main story takes place here)
3. Road to Damnation - about the Scourge, Kel'Thuzad's damnation, you follow him (after reading this I feel bad for him)
4. Vol'jin: The Judgment - about Vol'jin and his friend's destinys, a bit about Sen'jin
5. Lor'themar Theron: In the Shadow of the Sun - Blood Elves' struggles, relationships with Kirin Tor, high elves and Forsaken
6. Garrosh Hellscream: Heart of War - watch the Ulduar cinematic before reading this, Warsong Hold, (Garrosh kissing up to Thrall)
7. Gelbin Mekkatorque: Cut Short - The "All you need to know about Gnomes as a Horde player" Story, what happened in Gnomeregan
8. Sylvanas Windrunner: Edge of Night - Sylvanas at Icecrown, war between Gilneans vs Forsaken (and some troops from Garrosh), Valkyr
9. Tyrande & Malfurion: Seeds of Faith - The Cataclysm flooding night elf villages, naga attacks
10. The Council of Three Hammers: Fire and Iron - This is actually a story that was written due to a mistake Blizzard made: they thought that Falstad Wildhammer was dead, so they went all back and fourth and made Kurdran Wildhammer the represantative for a while, until "Red Shirt Guy" at Blizz Con pointed this out. This is the story that fixes their mistake, pretty interesting. Also, the NPC "Wildhammer Fact Checker" was added to the game because of this.
11. Gallywix: The Secrets of a Trade Prince - the only (aww) history about goblins and their lives on Kezan (only one that I know about), Gallywix's life story basicly
12. Baine Bloodhoof: As Our Fathers Before Us - Garrosh doing bad stuff, the tauren's distrust in Baine
13. Genn Graymane: Lord of his Pack - read Curse of the Worgen first, takes place after the comic and Worgen starting area in WoW
14. Velen: Prophet's Lesson - about problems concerning the cataclysm, Anduin's importantness
15. Varian Wrynn: Blood of our Fathers - you may want to watch the Cataclysm cinematic first (where Deathwing flies and burns stuff), more about Anduin being important
16. Charge of the Aspects - read Twilight of the Aspects book first!!!, the four aspects having meetings in Mount Hyjal thinking of what to do against Deathwing, Thrall being a total badass, events leading up to "Hour of the Twilight dungeons" (End Time, Hour of Twilight, Well of Eternity) and Dragon Soul raid 
17. Quest for Pandaria - read Pearl of Pandaria(comic) first, Li Li and Chen Stormstout go on a quest to find Pandaria, Tol'vir lore and some other
18. Li Li's Travel Journal - 1-4 are about The Wandering Isle (Pandaren starting area in WoW), others are about adventures in Pandaria (like why you're doing the instance Stormstout Brewery) and many other things
19. The Trial of the Red Blossoms - a closer look into becoming a member of the Shado-Pan, follows a young pandaren named Ten 
20. Death from Above - story of the mantid and Kalaxxi, takes you back 10,000 years but I say read it now, since it doesn't have anything to do with any of the other lore of that time (that's a Pandaria thing)
21. Strength of Steel - about the Order of the Cloud Serpent, follows an orc named Koak
22. Bleeding Sun - about the Golden Lotus faction, the story that follows to the questline in-game with the Sunwalkers and Dezco
23. The Blank Scroll - about the Lorewalkers, explains what the goblins are doing in Pandaria, follows two goblins: Ziya and Druz and a pandaren Lorewalker Shuchun
24. The Jade Hunters - about each of the Celestials, the three dwarven factions, follows a Dark Iron named Fenella, Fendrig if the Bronzebeards and Carrick, a Wildhammer 
25. Over Water - about the Fishers, pandaren go fishing and find an Alliance soldier and tell him a story while they... fish, follows Tarlo (a human. the story doesn't mention that part, I was confused while reading) 'Takes place after Garrosh had been defeated'
26. The Untamed Valley - about the Tillers (yes, the ones who plant crops), a fight where Maraad, Sentinel Commander Lyalia and some tillers go against some Garrosh-loving black shaman 'Takes place after Garrosh had been defeated'

• Blood of the Highborne*

*This is not available anywhere online, it is only in the Paragons book

There are many short stories and they are all very different. This time I can not give them places, but I'll just name 5 favourites. :)

Charge of the Aspects
So first I must add, that I read this before the book Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects. BAD IDEA. Read the book first. The story is literally just made to tie the book better into the game and it does an incredible job at that. I just loved the thing that happened "underground". ;) (no spoilers) Thrall + the Aspects = Win and I loved it and the book just as much (or even more) <3


Gallywix: The Secrets of a Trade Prince
This was a story that had more laughs in it, than any other. The way it was written was pure awesome. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big goblin fan and reading this game me some idea what they were upto before joining the Horde. Ofcourse there are the neutral Steamwheedle Cartel, but their not that interesting. It's the Bilgewater Cartel for me!


Li Li's Travel Journal
This was a choice between this story and Quest for Pandaria. Li Li's story got this spot since I liked it from start to finish, but Quest for Pandaria had an interesting beginning and awesome ending, but the middle had some slower events. Back to this story: it was interesting to see Li Li meet the characters who the Adventurers also get involved with. It was action packed and fun to read and I actually liked many of the Pandaria shory stories. (beware, some other might come next) :)


The Blank Scroll
This is another Pandaria story, I know, I liked those. :3 This was about the Lorewalkers (the coolest factions in Pandaria, they just eat and tell you stories: aweosme) and goblins. This story did try to show Gallywix from a better side, but ('tho I liked his story) I don't like Gallywix. One day I wish the goblins will get a better leader, one who'd stop them from them from ruining the lands with their engineering (since that turns other races, like tauren and night elf, against them and I don't like that)
Now I started ranting.. sorry about that, but Blank Scroll was great and I liked it! <3


Strength of Steel
Another Pandaria story... Yes! This was a really amazing story. Usually, if there is something of one's view on the world changing for a better one... (No I'm not going for spoilers now) Let's just say, that Koak was headstrong on a path... and the ending was wonderful. Not sure if that's the same for Alliance players, but for a Hordie it was so amazing.



So now I'll end this post. Hopefully this has given you some clarity on what, how and in which order to read. :) I'll write about the books too, but just not yet.

PS. I told you this before and I'll tell you again. Go to this site for more info about all of this :3 http://wowpedia.org/Novel_guide

'Til next time, nerds!
<3 Diantz

"Knowing Warcraft" [My WoW drawer]

Now you have no bloody idea what World of Warcraft is, I bet.

Even  you say that you do, I don't believe you. To me, the fact that you know it's some role playing game is not good enough say you "know Warcraft".

Luckly I'm here to explain you the basics. (even if you don't give a damn about it)

This will be a intro to what it consists of, not a shot summary of the story, so you've been warned.

We all know World of Warcraft, it's the game where you choose to be Alliance or Horde (author's note: For the Horde!) and  then you level a character to max level and start raiding or PvPing. Here's a picture:

(It's quite random. Oh look! That's Vol'Jin and Mal'ganis and Mannoroth or is it Magheridon? and Cenarius and Chen Stormstout and Kel'Thuzad and... I'll stop now.)

Anyway. Before WoW there were 3 games:
Warcraft I, Warcraft II and Warcraft III.
Strategy games.
If you haven't played any, you should go for Warcraft III. The stories are amazing and importand lore wise and the grapics are excellent for a game that old. (Who the hell cares about the graphics anyway, right? It's aaaaaallll about the loooore <3)

A picture of some of the main characters of the game.







PS: The green text will be my opinion about those specific expansions and WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!



So now after Warcraft III came World of Warcraft (vanilla) and that was followed by expansions.
(To be honest, the lore in vanilla isn't quite my favourite. Though there are some things that I liked about it, such as them introducing an Old God named C'Thun and the elemental lord of fire Ragnaros. And I bet some people are happy about Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker <--- HAHAHA, inside jokes lol)






The first expansion was WoW: The Burning Crusade. It was mostly about the demons trying to invade your world and doing bad stuff.
This expansion has the coolest raids and dungeons in my opinion. (Karazhan, Black Temple and Escape from Durnholde Keep are my favourites. Also the fact that every damn last boss has such a story behind them is something to behold. And what can I say, Illidan is my 3rd favourite character is WoW lore :3)





Next on the list is the most popular expansion, during it's time WoW has 11 million people playing it! Yes, I'm talking about Wrath of the Lich King.
(Though it being a fan favourite, I'm not that moved by it. I don't know if it's the fact that everyone fangirls over this or that I don't like snow in games or that I don't like paladins, they get quite a nice role in it, but I'm not that big of a fan of the Scourge and Nerubians, they make the worst dungeons (in my opinion). I did like one thing: the killing of Malygos, the aspect of Magic. That's awesome)





So next is the expansion, where WoW lost many of it's players: Cataclysm. The end of the world was coming and shit started happening.
(Now this is my baby, I sterted playing WoW in Cataclysm and no one is gonna take away my sweet sweet nostalgia of doing RDF and getting Deadmines or Grim Batol and leaving or doing Dragon Soul and getting shoulder token after 5 months. 
OK, sorry about that. But anyway, I loved the lore in Cata: Dragon Aspects, druids of the Cenarion Expedition and shamans of the Earthern Ring teming up, Twilight Cultists following Deathwing and ofcourse all that following Thrall around, as you may have figured Thrall is my all time favourite character of WoW. Don't forget about goblins, my favourite race to play. As much as I love orcs, ingame I'll stay true to the Bilgewater Cartel and play my goblin shaman <3 )





Now up on the list is Mists of Pandaria, the expansion where they featured Pandaren and monks. It's not as epic as it sounds, but it had some amazing bosses and the Horde got alot of epicness in this.
(It was amazing to see Garrosh going insane and becoming the last boss of the expansion. The Horde got a lot of love this expansion and I'm glad. We had Vol'jin threatening Garrosh and Lor'themar arguing with Jaina, who had gone crazy becuse of Garrosh yet again, and Baine being all for-the-Horde-like teaming with Vol'jin and Chen Stormstout joining the Rebellion against Garrosh and Thrall going all "I'll go to Orgrimmar alone, if I die look after my boy, Vol'jin" sacrificing himself and all that. I mean wow, just wow. And that last cinematic doe with Garrosh beaing deafeaten and Thrall being like "You dissapoint me, Garrosh" again and wanting to kill him and Vol'jin becoming warchief. UGHHhhhhhhh, I loved that cinematic. Sorry about that nerd-gasm. There was other lore that I also liked, like Wrathion's shit and Anduin trying to be important and the Thunderking being all badass like and the Sha, but I liked all that Siege of Orgrimmar stuff a damn lot)





So now the expansion that is to be released on 13th November: Warlords of Draenor. The expansion bringing you alternate universes, epic long-dead characters who now live and the past being changed!
(My expextations are damn high on this one. The cinematic was 5-minutes-of-awesome. The Lords of War videos are awesome. Outland is in its former glory and we get to explore it. The expansion is just great. Since I already mentioned being a Thrall and shaman fan, I'm mostly hyped for that moment where Thrall meets his parents Durotan and Draka. After seeing the cinematic, Garrosh seems a lot cooler then before. Ofcourse now I'm looking foreward to seeing Gul'dan's struggle in all of this, since all his plans backfired on him. I'm going to stay in tough with WoD content for sure.)

The cinematic of Warlords of Draenor is here

Thanks alot for actaually reaching this point of my rant and I after reading this I think you can actually say that you know Warcraft. (somewhat...)

'Til next time, nerds!
Diantz <3

Taking a different turn towards Warcraft

It's been a while since I've posted anything here.

That's because of three main reasons:
1. I made this blog to rant about TV shows and they are on vacation atm (and I'm not watching any new ones)
2. Blogs are stupid
And the mos impostant one,
3. I've been bus cramming ALL the Warcraft lore into my small brain

This post is here to warn all the nerds that stumbled upon this blog and actually rad anything here.
I will now do some posts of Warcraft and MAYBE, just maybe, I'll write more about TV shows in the futre. (Though there isn't much to write when it's like at ep2 and nothing really has happened)

So be warned, nerds. Cause I'm going full nerd.

 Diantz <3


PS: When there are letters missing from some words, blame my battery-powered keyboard.