A Closer Look at Icecrown Citadel

We've been in Icecrown Citadel since it opened up. We did really well on the Lower Spire, and after a few close calls, we seem to have mastered the Festergut fight. But we cannot get Rotface down. It's reminiscent of Yogg-Saron in that it feels like we're banging our heads against a wall and not getting anywhere. A lot of fights you can see your progress as you get closer and closer and finally win. But his fight. This fight just feels messy.

Anyway, while we're working on that, I think it would be nice to get back to some lore posts, and since we're working on Icecrown, let's delve into the lore behind it, and the bosses inside.

ICECROWN CITADEL
Icecrown Citadel sits on Icecrown Glacier in the area of the world known as Icecrown. That's fairly easy to follow. Icecrown itself was just a cold spot at the top of the world until Kil'jaeden decided it would be a good place to toss the tormented soul of Ner'zhul, now the newly minted Lich King. Of course, being a soul, he had no means of getting around, and was stuck where he was on the Frozen Throne.

Still, being the Lich King, he was able to call forth the people of the world that would dedicate themselves to him and help establish the scourge, and eventually Arthas Menethil overcame a lot of obstacles to join with Ner'zhul, finally giving a body to the Lich King. With Arthas on the throne, and an army of scourge at his command, the rebuilding of Icecrown began. Using the hardened blood of some old god (hey, he's old, he doesn't need it anymore), Arthas and the scourge proceeded to erect a mighty fortress around the frozen throne and throughout the area of Icecrown. The saronite ramparts and gates now permeate the zone. It is said that these structures even reach deep under the ground around Icecrown.

So Icecrown Citadel is a giant fortress built around the spire that the frozen throne sits upon. But like many castles and fortresses, it houses a great deal of other things. There is a lecture hall where Lady Deathwhisper preaches the virtues of the Cult of the Damned. The Plagueworks is where Professor Putricide commits diabolical biological experiments. The San'layn are ruled by their Blood-Queen from the Crimson Halls, and there is even a prison where a sleeping green dragon is tormented. And of course, at the top of the spire, resides the Lich King on his frozen throne.

Some of these bosses have more back story to them than others, which is typical. Marrowgar is pretty much your every day skeleton guardian, but Deathbringer Saurfang has a long sad path to his position in the citadel. Over the next few days, I'll explore the lore behind each boss and speculate a little about their purpose in guarding the Lich King's domain.

WoW.com Application

WoW.com, formerly WoW Insider, is a very popular warcraft blog with a lot of contributors. It's a very well known source of information for all things WoW. I've been reading it pretty much since I started playing the game and looking up information on the internet. A few weeks ago they put up a notice that they were looking for new columnists, including a lore columnist.

Now, I had chickened out earlier when they were looking for a hunter columnist because I just couldn't convince myself I had the passion for huntering that I felt I would need to write a weekly column on it, even though my main is a hunter and I love the class. But lore? I really enjoy the lore of this game. I could do a lore column. Heck, most of my posts in this blog are about lore. So over the last two weeks I put the application together and sent it off. It was actually pretty challenging to get the application done.

I have a few horde characters, but I admit that I'm an alliance guy. Part of the application involved writing what I felt was in store for the future of the Horde, and I struggled with that. It's not that I don't know anything about the lore of the Horde, or what potential things are changing for them. I just couldn't think of how to express it in 500-750 words. I'm really looking forward to seeing how a leadership change from a diplomat (Thrall) to a more militaristic (Garrosh) personality will change the Horde. If we thought they were vicious and bloodthirsty now, it's only going to get worse. I'm curious how goblins being an official part of the horde will affect them. But it was hard for me to speculate on what those changes might actually be.

The rest of the application was more fun. I had a good time writing up a list of potential topics and I think I came up with some really good ones. I was more generic in my topics. My intention was to leave it open ended so I could make a more detailed decision later. They may have been looking for more specifics, so it may work against me, but at least I'll have some topics to put on this, sadly, seldom posted on, blog in the future. I was joking on the officer channel in our guild last night with another officer who submitted an application that even if we don't get hired, at least the people at WoW.com will be reading our blogs that we linked in the application. Maybe I'll start getting a few more hits here and feel like I'm actually contributing to the WoW Blogosphere!

Anyway, I'm glad I got it finished and sent in. I can think of several other bloggers that could probably talk about lore a lot better than I could, but I would never know if I didn't try.

Thanks, and have a good morning.