Spider Kingdom fan expansion concept

[marrefar]

One thing I'm wondering about is that Dreanei dragon of yours Madra? Why would an ancient dragon, native to the world of Azeroth take the form of a Draenei? A race that have found refugee on Azeroth. Try to make some more lore about it and I might go with it

For the rest of the idea, I LOVE it ^^ Keep on the good work

[Golden Yak]

Seriously, if you haven't applied to work for Blizzard yet....please do so. You obviously have some serious talent.

Otherwise I am bookmarking this thread and showing it to every Blizzard employee that comes into where I work.

Free promotion, woo!

Great concept, but create an idea with a unique and new view!

Emerald Dream, a continent on the other side of Azeroth, a Legion invasion even!

No more rehashes imo, but a great great great post!

The revamped content is almost done with. Soon I'll be drawing up maps of some brand new zones, and I'll be making them distinct from past content.

I'd like to turn back time and implement this WITH the wrath expansion. A couple of instances just didnt fill my need for an underground experience in northrend. Needs a porper underground zone. And a labyrinth.

Word. I was looking forwards to putting my rogue's trap-disarming skills to use in an instance based on the underground maps from WC3. The nerubians were skilled engineers after all.

First of all: I love your idea.

Thanks!

That said, I have a few issues:

I have not been able to see why Bolvar wouldn't do anything to stop this "Death Queen" from controlling the scourge or at least fight against her (as well as the other factions). After all "there must always be a Lich King", whom (arguably) is the strongest ruler (or controller) of the scourge. It is especially "many of the freed, sentient Scourge entities resisted the call of the new Lich King, and broke away from the Scourge to forge their own destinies."-sentence that bugs me. Are there still SOME loyal minions to the Lich King WITH free will? Does he still control some of the mindless or is he simply too weak? Is he even "awake", and if not, how come?

Bolvar is very awake - the dragonfire burns his body and the calls of the undead fill his mind. He's not asleep on the Frozen Throne like Arthas was - he's in a constant struggle to keep the Scourge he controls and the dark power of the Lich King under control. Bolvar commands roughly 2/3rds of the Scourge, keeping them sleeping in tunnels beneath Icecrown. The final quest in the revamped Icecrown zone has players speak with the man himself to complete the questline and receive their reward. He is, however, still extremely vulnerable - the Ashen Verdict and agents of the Wyrmrest Accord are the only thing standing between him and those who would exploit his situation - and Angerboda is still out there with an ace up her sleeve.

Most of the Scourge entities that have broken free are those who retained their intelligence in undeath, like Liches and Death Knights. Many of them served Arthas gladly, and would have stood with him even if their souls were not bound to his power. Bolvar was able to force many of them to sleep, but many others were able to resist his control once it had slipped. You might think of them as similar to the Forsaken, who managed to break away from the Scourge during a moment of weakness on the part of the Lich King.

There are a few reasons for this - Arthas reveled in the dark power he inherited from Ner'zhul and used it freely, while Bolvar is using all of his strength to contain it. Bolvar could probably dominate the freed undead, but doing so would require full use of his powers as the Lich King, likely overwhelming his remaining goodness and making him into another monster like Arthas.

Also, all of the Cult of the Damned are still alive - living men and women who serve the Scourge in hopes of attaining immortality through undeath. Bolvar is not raising any of the dead to serve him, so the Cult has become disillusioned and has switched their allegiance to other Scourge factions who promise them eternal life.

While I like the revamp of Northrend, I have to question (if this expansion was in the making) _WHY_ Blizzard would revamp Northrend first instead of Outland, which clearly is the worst leveling experience at the given point in time. I know the Cataclysm is a good argument, but I'm not seeing from a Lore-standpoint, but more from a game-standpoint.
(As a sidenote, given Kalimdor and EK was revamped at the same time, could there be a chance that Outland would be revamped as well as Northrend, theoretically?)

This expansion could really come at any point after Cataclysm - it doesn't need to be right after. I've chosen to make it level 90+ content, but it would work with any level range. Even if Blizzard comes up with a different set of changes related to the Cataclysm far down the road, I've got a fallback catastrophe related to Northrend that would tear up the place just as well...

As for Outland, reworking it just didn't appeal to me in the way that Northrend did. Maybe Northrend content was fresher in my mind. Plus they had the Spider Kingdom, after all. Some people on the board have come up with great ideas for new Outland stuff, but no one had touched upon Azeroth's underworld before.

Nerubians are relatives of the Silithid. Would be see some of those too? Would we see some Nerubians vs. Silithid?

That'd be like humans vs chimpanzees... and the humans have machine guns and tanks. And really, the Silithid wouldn't have any more reason to fight the nerubians than they did the Qiraji, another race related to them. I will be throwing out a few ideas about the origins of the nerubians, and their cousins the Qiraji and the Silithid might appear in some regard. And so will the missing link between them all, the Azj'Aqir.

I suppose the main boss of the expansion would be a nerubian. I base this on the name of the expansion (duh). Have you had any thoughts about name and gender for that bad@£$?
If the main boss isn't a nerubian, I would suggest changing the title, probably to "Revenge of the Twilight" or "Undeath reincarnate".

The Twilight Hammer and the Scourge Remnants are mostly the bad-guys of the re-worked content, but they do have a role to play in the main Spider Kingdom stuff. As for the ultimate baddy - it goes a bit further than the nerubians, but they do have a ruler who's calling the shots right now. A particularly nasty young lady by the name of Spider Queen Nezar'Kali.

Also: That name.
Well, since I saw a zone called Wound of the World, why not call it "World of Warcraft: (The) Wound of Azjol-Nerub"?

Well, the last two expansions weren't called WoW: Sunwell Plateau or WoW: Icecrown Citadel.

Thanks for the great post.

One thing I'm wondering about is that Dreanei dragon of yours Madra? Why would an ancient dragon, native to the world of Azeroth take the form of a Draenei? A race that have found refugee on Azeroth. Try to make some more lore about it and I might go with it

For the rest of the idea, I LOVE it ^^ Keep on the good work

Madra was going to be a draenei at first - the Kirin Tor's newest champion. But when I started adding in more blue dragon story, I decided I needed one of them as a character, and 'Madragos' sounded pretty cool, so I decided to make him the blue dragonflight's liaison to the races of Azeroth - sort've taking over Kalecgos' old job now that he's the new Aspect.

As for why he chooses a draenei form? Well, there's still a lot of hard feelings between the blue flight and the Kirin Tor. Since most of the Kirin Tor are humans or gnomes, Madra appearing as one of them could make them uneasy, even mistrustful. Appearing as a more exotic creature keeps him distinct from the Kirin Tor - basically, they're more comfortable keeping him where they can see him. Not the worthiest of sentiments maybe, but old hatreds die hard.

Also... well, draenei are blue, and they have tails. Madra is intensely proud to be a blue dragon, and is more comfortable in a form that shares attributes with his true self.

[Pancho]

I would love to see this not as an expansion pack, but as a massive content patch

[whetherman]

What i find so painful about all this is that i thought the nerubian role in WotLK was massively underplayed and they could have even done an entire raid on the massive underground kingdom. That being said it is not enough content to inspire an entire expansion, but it's plenty to make a very large raid. It's a damn shame they decided to downplay it like they did.

[Deleted]

Holy shit.
Whilst I hated the northrend content as a whole, this actually seems rather interesting. You seem to have put a lot of effort into it, and it makes the zones seem a lot more enjoyable.

[johnnyd2]

hey again, nice new updates ^_^

[Imurbandaid]

Right now Ulduar is still there, just as an open questing area rather than a closed raid. The story marches onwards.

Making Ulduar into a questing area gives it a HUGE disjustice...if that raid ever gets removed from its current live state i will weap...

Also i saw you wrote something about the content rivaling that of Cataclysm...and thats not a good thing...
Yea they spent a lot of time revamping the whole world, you are just revamping northrend...with the revamp of the whole world they left too little time to develop instances and heroics so cataclysm has the least content at launch compared to all expansions...i think it would be better to shoot for more content at release than cata...

[Golden Yak]

What i find so painful about all this is that i thought the nerubian role in WotLK was massively underplayed and they could have even done an entire raid on the massive underground kingdom. That being said it is not enough content to inspire an entire expansion, but it's plenty to make a very large raid. It's a damn shame they decided to downplay it like they did.

I still hold out hope that Blizzard will do that very same thing in a future patch. If a zone was planned and then cut, it means they had a ton of material plotted out for it - it'd be a shame if they couldn't think of any way to get it into the game somehow.

Holy shit.
Whilst I hated the northrend content as a whole, this actually seems rather interesting. You seem to have put a lot of effort into it, and it makes the zones seem a lot more enjoyable.

Thanks! Glad you think so.

Making Ulduar into a questing area gives it a HUGE disjustice...if that raid ever gets removed from its current live state i will weap...

Ulduar was my favorite raid. Still is. I'll be bummed if they remove it too - I never finished it either and I'd still like the chance someday. But honestly, seeing every fight shy of Yogg-Saron curb-stomped by 85s who don't know what they're doing is an even greater diservice to it, in my eyes. I'd be fine with seeing it and other raids brought up to level 85+, but Yogg-Saron's death is an important part of the Spider Kingdom story, as is the return of the Titanic Watchers, so it had to go.

Also i saw you wrote something about the content rivaling that of Cataclysm...and thats not a good thing...

I was specifically refering to the 80+ content - the five zones that were released with Catas launch. The three Spider Kingdom zones I've plotted out already have as least as much as the Cata zones did. There's going to be no shortage of instances, believe me.

[Velyndina]

Bleh. I like the idea of this but I simply can't go through seeing my beautiful Northrend being changed like this!
I love sholazar, its one of my favorite quest areas and you flooded it!

Arthas is my favorite character ever so take your nerubians elsewhere! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!

[Explosion_Rex]

Bleh. I like the idea of this but I simply can't go through seeing my beautiful Northrend being changed like this!
I love sholazar, its one of my favorite quest areas and you flooded it!

Arthas is my favorite character ever so take your nerubians elsewhere! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!

You do understand that Arthas is dead now right?

[Velyndina]

You do understand that Arthas is dead now right?

Yep. BUT northrend in the game is..."back in time" so hes not dead there.

[johnnyd2]

Yep. BUT northrend in the game is..."back in time" so hes not dead there.

well, a major point of this idea is changing northrend. so

[Velyndina]

well, a major point of this idea is changing northrend. so

Uh...look at my first post? :\

[Golden Yak]

Bleh. I like the idea of this but I simply can't go through seeing my beautiful Northrend being changed like this!
I love sholazar, its one of my favorite quest areas and you flooded it!

I must admit I've been reconsidering Sholazar's changes - I'm now thinking that it'll start out flooded, but with the help of Watcher Freya and the ancient power left behind by the Titans in the five pillars, players will eventually drain the basin and restore it to its former glory.

Re. Arthas - dead perhaps, but his legacy will play an important part in the future. Velius and the Twilight's Hammer are attacking Icecrown Citadel in an effort to get at something the former Lich King has left behind.

[Deleted]

Interesting.. Very interesting.

[Barani]

Stunning detail and work and amazing concept!!! There are no words to describe how great this is.

[johnnyd2]

Uh...look at my first post? :\

oh, my bad.

[Auroro]

I look at your wiki page and there is no faction of nerubians.

They are not really evil, they just lawful evil. They are in the same rank as Scarlet Crusade.

Nerubians are mad scientists where as Scarlet Crusade are religious crazed.

Nerubians would never serve the Old God, they thought those Faceless were a myth. At the same time they were immune to mind control, which means that they somehow broke free of the Old God control long before Lich King the first start his war against them.

"That as the nerubians fought the Scourge, they dug deeper underground as they lost ground to the undead. "We inadvertently exposed a tendril of the Old God's will, which was made manifest in the creatures known only as the Faceless." He then goes on to say that they lost the war because "In the end, we could not fight on two fronts against such powerful enemies. Our misfortune cost us the war against the undead, and ultimately, our home." implying that the nerubians discovered the faceless ones by accident." From Kilix the Unraveler and Archmage Lan'dalock.

In order to have the Nerubians work with the Twilight cult, you have to created two different faction of living Nerubians. Someone was able to get the queen of one faction to join the twilight. Nerubians faction that player deal with could started with hate until we show them the true behind the Twilight and they quickly beheaded the Twilight cult's diplomat for their lies. They deal with dungeons fill with Nerubians (Undead and/or Crazed)

The underground worlds need to show the effect of a two fronts war against the Nerubians.

Twilight Cult joining the Old God fronts while the Scourge Remnants is getting weaken at a couple point.

Nerubians' library could make an appear as a group of twilight cultist use it as their basic training ground to learn powerful spell and find the location of titan weapons.

Nerubians are deadly smart, they just do not have the man power to back it up. I like that you add some weird changes to the Nerubians' man power.

I think the Zim'Torga's people retreat to the Altar of Har'Koa, since Har'Koa is the only god left alive.

[noteworthynerd]

You've clearly put A LOT of work into this, and it shows. I generally disapprove of expansion ideas, because they're poorly thought out, but that's not the case here... I think your expansion idea is pretty awesome, +1,000 Internets!

A couple of critiques/ideas...

Dragonblight: You act as if the Black Dragons are still hostile towards the other Dragonflights... But if the quest chain (I can't seem to remember the name) in which you save and purify the egg is to be believed, then the flight will live on as allies.

Azjol-Nerub/The Spider Kingdom: I think this area should be much larger... Maybe not the entire continent (as the lore would suggest), but at least, I dunno, half?

All in all, absolutely awesome concept, sign me up! I'd especially like to tell you how impressed I am with the maps and concept art, not sure if you drew them (I haven't read many of the responses), but kudos to whoever did. Personally, I really, really like what you've done with Sholazar, reminds me a lot of the Thousand Needles, my new favorite zone.

[Golden Yak]

I look at your wiki page and there is no faction of nerubians.

The nerubians are mostly discussed on the Beastiary wiki page, but all the major villainous factions will get their own sections eventually.

They are not really evil, they just lawful evil. They are in the same rank as Scarlet Crusade. Nerubians are mad scientists where as Scarlet Crusade are religious crazed.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that the new generation of nerubians are identical to the older generation. It isn't just their physical forms that have changed, but their motivations and mindset as well.

Nerubians would never serve the Old God, they thought those Faceless were a myth. At the same time they were immune to mind control, which means that they somehow broke free of the Old God control long before Lich King the first start his war against them.

The nerubians served the Old Gods since before recorded history. Many of the sprawling temple-cities of the Spider Kingdom are places of worship where they made sacrifices and gave praise to the Old Gods. They were brilliant engineers, scholars, and alchemists yes, but they were also fervant worshippers. They didn't need to be seduced or corrupted - they served willingly. This does, however, mean that nerubians could also choose not to serve...

implying that the nerubians discovered the faceless ones by accident."

The nerubian survivors of the Scourge war burrowed deep. The Faceless were unleashed upon them shortly after the end of the war, as punishment for their failures. The reason the nerubians are on the rise now, however, is because they have managed to regain the favor of the Old Gods.

In order to have the Nerubians work with the Twilight cult, you have to created two different faction of living Nerubians. Someone was able to get the queen of one faction to join the twilight. Nerubians faction that player deal with could started with hate until we show them the true behind the Twilight and they quickly beheaded the Twilight cult's diplomat for their lies. They deal with dungeons fill with Nerubians (Undead and/or Crazed)

The underground worlds need to show the effect of a two fronts war against the Nerubians.

There are indeed nerubians who are not allied with the Twilight cult. The split is not nearly equal though - the new force that serves Nezar'Kali vastly outnumbers the nerubians that have rejected the path she is taking for their people. All of the nerubians that resist are part of the older generation. None of the Newbreed have joined them.

And it's not so much that the nerubians have joined the Twilight cult, but the Twilight have joined the nerubians. The nerubians were conducting rituals of worship thousands of years before the Twilight even existed.

Nerubians' library could make an appear as a group of twilight cultist use it as their basic training ground to learn powerful spell and find the location of titan weapons.

I had the same idea. Here's my write-up for a sub-region found in the Upper Kingdom:

Library of Ancient Weavers
The sages of Azjol-Nerub were some of the longest lived magic users in the world, rivaled in their knowledge of arcane lore only by the oldest dragons. The library of Azjol-Nerub held thousands of scrolls woven from spider silk and inked in blood and venom, each scroll containing more lore than an entire shelf from the libraries of Dalaran. Tragically, none of the knowledge saved the nerubians from the onslaught of the Scourge, who ravaged the library as uncaringly as they devastated the rest of the Spider Kingdom. Many irreplaceable records of ancient lore were lost, but the nerubians succeeding in hiding away some of their precious knowledge.

The Library has become a stronghold for the Twilight Cult, who seek to uncover what the nerubians managed to hide. The lower levels of the library contain elaborate ritual chambers, filled with ancient relics and glowing with nerubian spell circles. The Twilight Cult have begun performing summoning spells, seeking to draw forth terrible elementals of darkness unlike anything the natural world has seen. The blue dragonflight and the Kirin Tor seek to stop them, but one of their number may find the lure of the nerubian's forbidden knowledge too great.

Nerubians are deadly smart, they just do not have the man power to back it up. I like that you add some weird changes to the Nerubians' man power.

Man power is definitely not a problem for the nerubians anymore.

I think the Zim'Torga's people retreat to the Altar of Har'Koa, since Har'Koa is the only god left alive.

Har'koa is slain during the retreat from Zim'Torga, and her altar is overrun with Drakkari loyal to the Twilight's Hammer. Players will confront the undead Har'koa at her altar to destroy her and recpature it.

You've clearly put A LOT of work into this, and it shows. I generally disapprove of expansion ideas, because they're poorly thought out, but that's not the case here... I think your expansion idea is pretty awesome, +1,000 Internets!

Thanks! Glad you approve.

Dragonblight: You act as if the Black Dragons are still hostile towards the other Dragonflights... But if the quest chain (I can't seem to remember the name) in which you save and purify the egg is to be believed, then the flight will live on as allies.

I do not recall such a questchain, although I believe I read something about it. I haven't done all of the reworked 1-60 stuff, so I may have missed a lot. There might be a new generation of goodly black dragons someday, but the forces that occupy the Obsidian Dragonshrine in Dragonblight are still loyal to Deathwing at the moment.

If more info about a redeemed black dragonflight comes out in future, I may take a look at reworking that particular idea.

Azjol-Nerub/The Spider Kingdom: I think this area should be much larger... Maybe not the entire continent (as the lore would suggest), but at least, I dunno, half?

The map is just a rough outline of which zones are where. They can, of course, be as big as I need them to be to fit everything in. Right now they are definitely taking up at least half of Northrend. There are also ruins and smaller cities that have appeared across more distant parts of Northrend that are not connected to the main zones - these represent parts of the Spider Kingdom that have been driven up to the surface by the Cataclysm.

All in all, absolutely awesome concept, sign me up! I'd especially like to tell you how impressed I am with the maps and concept art, not sure if you drew them (I haven't read many of the responses), but kudos to whoever did. Personally, I really, really like what you've done with Sholazar, reminds me a lot of the Thousand Needles, my new favorite zone.

All the art in this thread is mine, although obviously the maps are Blizzard's with a few tweaks by me.

Thanks for posting!