Spider Kingdom fan expansion concept

[Octavius]

9/10
Great idea the underground world. Great antogonists the nerubians with strong old gods stuff. Great revamped zones. BUT... if you accept suggestions IMO there should be some Argent Crusade everywhere (after wotlk, they are likely one of the dominant force of the continent) and good nerubians fighting against the old gods' invasion.
Maybe we could need some new heroes for each faction and some forgotten ones.
However, excellent work.

[Doomaz]

this looks legit. i love nerubians so i would be really happy this was a real expansion :/

[Scorned]

If The Dark Below is indeed the next expansion, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it incorporated elements similar to Spider Kingdom.

[GennGreymane]

gotta love the updates u made yakky

[Mawnix]

It will take place on the moon.

There will be moon goblins.

Oh my God.

MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

PLEASE.

[Golden Yak]

Jazzed about Blizzcon + more free time = finishing this sucker off. Let's do this.

Doin' a recap/summation of the story which will culminate in a Patch X.3 update that'll end this concept. 'ere we go:


The Story So Far

Part 1 of 6 - Rebirth of the Spider Kingdom ( The events of patch X.0 )

While the world reeled from the devastation of the Cataclysm, and the Alliance and the Horde struggled for supremacy in the lands to the south, a new and terrible threat bloomed in the darkness beneath the frozen wastes of Northrend.


Nerubian Newbreed

The nerubian race, having long teetered on the brink of extinction, rose up from the darkness beneath the world in a vast swarm, striking at all the kingdoms and peoples of the surface. The ranks of their armies swollen with a new breed of warrior, stronger and more monstrous than any nerubian seen before, the legions of Azjol-Nerub seemed an unstoppable menace.

It was only the forces of Doorward, a brotherhood of fearless defenders made up of all the races of the world, who stood against the threat of the nerubian Newbreed. Calling upon champions from the Alliance and the Horde, the defenders of Azeroth fought their path to the very throne of the Spider Queen Nezar'kali, mother of the Newbreed, and struck her down.


Baelgun Flamebeard - Leader of Doorward

In the heart of the Spider Kingdom, the terrible truth behind the rebirth of the nerubian race was revealed - Nezar'kali's monstrous children had been fathered by one of the ancient aqir, the progenitor race that gave rise to all of the insect-people of Azeroth. The aqir master-minded the birth of the Newbreed and the rise of the Spider Kingdom as only the latest step in a millennia-spanning scheme to bring about the return of their dominance of Azeroth.

And despite the death of Nezar'kali, the diabolical plan of the aqir continues...

**************

9/10
Great idea the underground world. Great antogonists the nerubians with strong old gods stuff. Great revamped zones. BUT... if you accept suggestions IMO there should be some Argent Crusade everywhere (after wotlk, they are likely one of the dominant force of the continent) and good nerubians fighting against the old gods' invasion.
Maybe we could need some new heroes for each faction and some forgotten ones.
However, excellent work.

A contingent of Argent Crusaders is present in Doorward to provide support against rising threats from beneath the world. Much of the Argent Crusade have relocated their forces back to the Eastern Kingdoms to clear out the Scourge holdings there. Less than half of their forces remained in Northrend - those that have are supported by the Knights of the Ebon Blade and whatever Horde and Alliance forces elected to remain with the Ashen Verdict (although the Ebon Blade will only allow their own forces inside Icecrown Citadel). So the Argent Crusade are present, but mostly on the surface dealing with the Scourge remnants there - many cults, liches, death knights, and frost wyrms that escaped the control of the new Lich King still persist in Northrend causing trouble wherever they can.

Most of the forces of the world are still largely ignorant of the scale of the growing threat from the dark places in the world - Doorward is the only major faction thus far that is able to mount an organized defense. Their members are known as the Warders of the Dark.

I've come up with a number of NPC characters to represent the various player races and factions here:

http://wowpedia.org/User:GoldenYak/S...red_Characters

As for forgotten ones, there are a couple in Ahn'Saron - Kar'kasz the Fallen, the forgotten one that was slain by Arthas in WC3, and dread Nar'jun, who inhabits a flooded chasm beneath the Palace of the Spider Queen. I envision Kar'kasz as a quest challenge, but Nar'jun is simply there - a secret, out of the way part of the landscape. You can swim down deep and just barely see him, but you'd die of fatigue before you could actually reach him. Makes him more ominous that way!

Oh my God.

MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

PLEASE.

I'm gonna.


Nilbogs (snooty moon goblins)

[Mormolyce]

Gotta say this is probably the coolest of these fan concepts. Your art is awesome as well, looks just like the real thing.

+1 for snooty moon goblins.

[Gaidax]

Great effort, however I see an instant issue with this.

All of the maps are the same... that is the recipe for a boring world. Of course I understand that Spider Kingdom can't be really anything else than caves upon caves and structure hidden in more caves, but it is a big issue, IMO, since I can't see how people would like to spend the whole expansion in some gloomy places.

That's why we get with every expansion a new Nagrand, Scholazar or Hyjal/Uldum - brighter and happier zones (at least partially so) with vegetation and stuff, despite being located in the most improbable settings. There should be a "relief" area with brighter, more lively and vivid colors. Other than that - more effort should be placed into differentiating the areas, even if all of them are underground. See how different the areas are in every expansion - in my opinion it is very important to do so.

Also, I do not think I would like such an expansion anyway, since honestly it feels more like a side story desperately presented as a new major development.

[The Stormbringer]

Nilbogs... ancient keepers of the Moon Goddess' domain. No on knows why she chose Goblins instead of Elves, but rumor has it that they were the only ones short enough to make it look like they didn't have feet when they were floating around in their long, flowing garments, which is undeniably cool.

[Golden Yak]

Gotta say this is probably the coolest of these fan concepts. Your art is awesome as well, looks just like the real thing.

+1 for snooty moon goblins.

Thanks!

Great effort, however I see an instant issue with this.

All of the maps are the same... that is the recipe for a boring world. Of course I understand that Spider Kingdom can't be really anything else than caves upon caves and structure hidden in more caves, but it is a big issue, IMO, since I can't see how people would like to spend the whole expansion in some gloomy places.

That's why we get with every expansion a new Nagrand, Scholazar or Hyjal/Uldum - brighter and happier zones (at least partially so) with vegetation and stuff, despite being located in the most improbable settings. There should be a "relief" area with brighter, more lively and vivid colors. Other than that - more effort should be placed into differentiating the areas, even if all of them are underground. See how different the areas are in every expansion - in my opinion it is very important to do so.

Yep, I thought of that. While the overarching theme is of an underground world (in the same way that Northrend's overarching theme was of an arctic climate), I still intended the zones to feature a wide variety of environments - the Upper Kingdom is a mountainous glacier cavern with lots of gleaming ice formations, Shadow Web Caverns is a huge swampy forest filled with bioluminescent flaura and fauna, the Fire Sea is a magma ocean filled with sprawling Titan structures, and the Lost Realm of Azj is a primal underground jungle lit by a magical sun. Each zone is distinct while tied together by the overarching theme, so it won't be an entirely dark and gloomy place any more than Northrend was a bleak, frozen wasteland.

There's only so much I can do with the blizz-style zone maps to get that idea across - if I was a better environmental artist, I'd drawn up some scenes to show you what I mean. I do what I can with writing and zone descriptions and so forth.

Also, I do not think I would like such an expansion anyway, since honestly it feels more like a side story desperately presented as a new major development.

It's building to earth-shattering events, I promise. MoP started out as just a skirmish between the factions, not with major stakes at the start like the Scourge invading or the Cataclysm. The story re-cap I'm doing will summarize all the events so far and lead up to the final chapter.

Nilbogs... ancient keepers of the Moon Goddess' domain. No on knows why she chose Goblins instead of Elves, but rumor has it that they were the only ones short enough to make it look like they didn't have feet when they were floating around in their long, flowing garments, which is undeniably cool.

That is practically their actual deal. Although they weren't so much chosen to guard the moon as they crashed there and couldn't leave. They do totally look after it for somebody though.

[GennGreymane]

So.... any skyrim influence in your xpack plan? :P

[Deleted]

sick stuff

[L e g i o n]

Niblogs is goblins backwords! haha, clever! i really like this idea, nice to see someone put so much work into a fake xpac. i loves those kind of things! keep it coming!

[Skeppio]

Golden Yak, I just wanted to say that I'm amazed at how much detail and imagination you've put into this expansion idea. In WotLK, I was sorely disappointed when all we saw of Azjol'Nerub was two 5-mans, one of which being the shortest dungeon in the whole expansion, and it's mind-blowing to see how many new ideas and creatures you've concocted to fill up the expansive underworld of Azjol'Nerub. I also kinda like the idea of an updated Northrend, though I'm a bit "meh" on the whole "Scourge civil war and split factions" thing. Though you might've changed that idea, I dunno. I'm not good at keeping up to date on all the details.
Point is, I really love your work. I've been brainstorming my own expansion idea for a while now. If only my artistic skill was a bit higher. So hard to describe things without pictures, but my drawings suck. ;_;

[Throrion]

While I appreciate the effort going into this, there's a couple of things that's simply not gonna happen because they conflict with WoW's design philosophy. First of all, launching with exclusively underground zones, and having that sheer amount of underground zones in general, is simply not gonna happen. There needs to be a much greater zone variety and sky above people's heads. Also, after the failure associated with the 1-60 content revamp, don't expect the 70-80 content to get revamped in a classical questing level format. Having ideas is great, but actually understanding the design philosophy behind WoW is key for them to be considered

[3stats]

Not a whole expansion, but perhaps one or two zones would be cool. I like the concept of underground spider zones.

[GennGreymane]

they have this idea.... they could have hired you....instead we got the 12th doctor aka garrosh

[Myrandron]

The entire thought of the expansion is cool, and the maps are amazing good amounts of work put into them to make them look like real maps. Always love coming back to this and seeing how it's been changed and formed to be even better.

[Golden Yak]

Part 2 of 6 - Twilight of Dalaran ( The events of patch X.1 )

While the forces of Doorward clashed with the legions of the Spider Kingdom, the Twilight Cult under the command of the night elf sorcerer Xarosan put their own schemes into action.



Attacking the portions of Icecrown Citadel that extended down into the underworld, Xarosan's servants seized two significant artifacts from the depths of the Lich King's lair - the necropolis Malykriss, a floating fortress made entirely of saronite, and a casket of black ice taken from the most guarded of the Lich King's armory vaults.

With Malykriss under his control, Xarosan launched an all-out assault upon the magical city of Dalaran, hoping to secure dominance of Northrend's skies and capture the power of the city for his own uses. At the height of the conflict, Xarosan revealed the contents of his second prize, the casket of black ice. Using a dark ritual fueled by nerubian sorcery, Xarosan shattered the casket and unveiled what lay within - the corpse of Arthas Menethil, the previous Lich King.



Reanimating Arthas' corpse with the nerubian ritual, Xarosan intended to use him as a secret weapon against the defenders of Dalaran. Only the sudden appearance of the Wyrmrest Accord dragonflights and heroes from the Alliance and the Horde foiled Xarosan's schemes. Xarosan and the seemingly mindless corpse of Arthas were left trapped on Malykriss as the saronite necropolis plummeted from the sky, crashing deep into the icy hills of the Storm Peaks and burying itself beneath a mountain of ice.

****************

So.... any skyrim influence in your xpack plan? :P

Never played it, so not especially. Cool image though - the Ahn'Saron zone would be very much like that, a vast underground nerubian city with structures built into massive stalactites, lots of magical light sources.

Niblogs is goblins backwords! haha, clever!

Bwaah, that's it! Thaaat's the joke!

Golden Yak, I just wanted to say that I'm amazed at how much detail and imagination you've put into this expansion idea. In WotLK, I was sorely disappointed when all we saw of Azjol'Nerub was two 5-mans, one of which being the shortest dungeon in the whole expansion, and it's mind-blowing to see how many new ideas and creatures you've concocted to fill up the expansive underworld of Azjol'Nerub. I also kinda like the idea of an updated Northrend, though I'm a bit "meh" on the whole "Scourge civil war and split factions" thing. Though you might've changed that idea, I dunno. I'm not good at keeping up to date on all the details.
Point is, I really love your work. I've been brainstorming my own expansion idea for a while now. If only my artistic skill was a bit higher. So hard to describe things without pictures, but my drawings suck. ;_;

Thanks, I'm glad I could spark the imaginations of people with my ideas for what lurks in Azeroth's underworld. The Scourge is a pretty minor element really, they're just there to show the aftermath of the fall of the Lich King. I'm more interested in what the nerubians are up to.

And you should post your concept anyway - evne if you don't feel your work is where you want it, discussing it with others might help you improve. And if you don't feel comfortable posting your own work, trying googling for some other art you feel fits your idea (just be sure to include credit). I like reading fan expansion concepts.

While I appreciate the effort going into this, there's a couple of things that's simply not gonna happen because they conflict with WoW's design philosophy. First of all, launching with exclusively underground zones, and having that sheer amount of underground zones in general, is simply not gonna happen. There needs to be a much greater zone variety and sky above people's heads.

The potential variety is at least as great as any of the surface continents, if you do it right. And I see the zones being built the same way surface realms like Northrend, Pandaria, and especially Outland - you can include endless distance and an underworld themed skybox. I've seen a few in games. Plus there's things like the magical sun of Azj'Aqir. It needn't be a black ceiling of stone.

Also, after the failure associated with the 1-60 content revamp, don't expect the 70-80 content to get revamped in a classical questing level format.

Yeah, that was just for fun.

[rcshaggy]

So GoldenYak you deciding to make a Cave Ogre, or a Shadow Troll for the deep dark depths?

Also like I said, this expansion idea is awesome. :P