The other day I finished the second part of the Alliance war campaign, which is a series of max-level quests gated behind reputation gains with the 7th Legion. Progress on my war campaign stuff has been pretty slow, since I haven’t had much luck with earning rep very quickly. But I figured I’d write about my experience so far because the most recent quests were in Nazmir and some pretty interesting stuff happened. I’m also throwing in some photos of establishing footholds on Zandalar, since those got swept under the rug while posting about my leveling experiences!
After starting my war campaign in Vol’dun, where I assassinated the leader of an important Horde archaeology assignment, I was sent to dark, swampy Nazmir. My mission there was simple, learn about the Horde’s war efforts there. After helping some Tortollans who were being held captive by Blood Trolls, they kindly informed the Alliance of a secret meeting being held.
While in the area I went to the Necropolis, a sacred place of the dead for the Zandalari Trolls. To my surprise I ran into Bwonsamdi, Loa of Death, who I haven’t seen in-game up until now. I’ve avoided a lot of spoilers about him so far, but I can’t wait to play through the story with him.
After spying on the Horde meeting where Princess Talanji and Rokhan were present, a surprise third person also showed up: Blood Prince Dreven. Yes, that means that the San’layn are relevant again, at least for now. The San’layn are a race of vampire elves, originally appearing in Wrath of the Lich King, that greatly resemble Blood Elves. Differences include gray skin, different eye color, and of course all their magic has to do with blood. I don’t actually know much about the San’layn or where they came from, but they were supposedly mostly wiped out after WotLK. In this current expansion, though, they have made an uneasy alliance with the Horde thanks to Sylvanas. For some reason Sylvanas thinks these elves can be useful to her, and I have to assume that she hopes that the San’layn can help with the Forsaken plight somehow.
The meeting between Talanji, Rokhan, and Dreven didn’t tell me much, but after that I set out with Shandris and Keeshan to kill Dreven. That didn’t go so well…
Three members from Shandris’ Sentinel Army were killed in the process, and Dreven got away. That was the end of that quest-line, so I need to work on my 7th Legion rep to unlock the next part. It seems like Blizzard is trying to set up the San’layn as an Allied Race, but that depends on if they don’t betray the Horde. In all honesty, I would be so excited for vampire elves as a playable race but I’m trying not to get my hopes up!
Zuldazar is full of lush forests and jungles and is home to many different types of dinosaurs. This zone was the first area I chose to start setting up a foothold in, and I love how it reminds me of an updated Stranglethorn Vale.
Nazmir is a spooky place with lots of swamps and Blood Trolls, but it’s also the place where the Titans built the Old God research facility Uldir an untold number of years ago. Of course, the Titans’ research went horribly wrong and the facility had to be locked and abandoned. Through thousands of years evil festered inside those sealed doors, twisting the land around it. While I don’t know much about Nazmir because I still haven’t started leveling my Horde character, I can assume that that ancient evil is what drove the Blood Trolls to madness. Questing and stumbling across Uldir was startling and left me in awe.
When arriving in Nazmir I was pleasantly surprised to see Keeshan, an NPC Alliance players will remember from the Redridge Mountains quests. Keeshan was put into the game as a reference to Rambo and, while he usually spends his time killing Orcs, when I found him in Nazmir his gaze was set on the Blood Trolls.
Vol’dun is a harsh desert environment where the worst criminals from the Zandalari empire are exiled to. This zone is my favorite out of the three possibly because it brings back memories from my time in Uldum, a zone introduced in Cataclysm.
When I started my war campaign here, I did a small quest-line that was so unlike any quest I have ever done before! I don’t think it was part of the war campaign, and was just a normal quest that Horde players could complete while leveling. Poor Quartermaster Alfin just didn’t know how quick Karma would hit him when he had me kill teeny dinosaurs, called Saurids, that were terrorizing the new Alliance foothold. The Saurids were one of the first things I noticed when I established the foothold in Vol’dun, they’re like rats!
After turning in the pest control quest I found a junk heap that turned out to be an altar to Jani, who is the Loa of Scavengers. To teach me a lesson, Jani turned me into a Saurid and made me go bite Alfin’s bum. I loved every minute of that quest, and I was so happy to find that there’s an achievement for completing all of Jani’s quests!
So far I’ve been really enjoying the Alliance war campaign and exploring the Horde continent, and I can’t wait to start on my Horde character!
You are so far ahead of me with the war campaigns… I’ve been focusing on leveling my alts and only have Dabbaba doing anything on “the other island!”