User:Xporc/Leveling experience

Note: the following text is 95% based on actual quests, but the remaining 5% are also non-neutral extrapolations seen from the point of view of the related characters.

Goblin Rogue

This section concerns content related to Shadowlands.

Exile's Reach

• As a promising recruit of the Horde, you're sent aboard a Forsaken battleship to find traces of a missing naval expedition. But your own boat is soon overtaken by a giant tidal wave, leaving you stranded along with the rest of your crew on the same uncharted island that was to be investigated by the first expedition. Turns out that your commander is the mother of one of the missing soldiers, thought she would try to rescue any fellow Horde member just the same.
• This island is populated by imperial ogre exiles who subjugated the local native races and built an ominous citadel of their own. Versed in necromancy, they seek to sacrifice the members of both Horde expeditions to raise the undead dragon Ravnyr back to undeath. After neutralizing the ogre mage leading this group, Horde reinforcements manage to pass through the storms surrounding the island.
• Satisfied with your performance, Warchief Sylvanas sends you on an important mission to Zuldazar...

Gnome Warrior

This section concerns content related to Cataclysm.

Dun Morogh

Introduction

Given the recent political upheaval in Ironforge, the gnomes have suddenly found themselves unwelcomed guests within the city. They now plan a daring campaign against the barbarous troggs to retake their former capital of Gnomeregan.

The political upheaval are those mentioned in The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm.

Gnomeregan (starting zone)

• Radiations are back to an unsafe level in Gnomeregan after the radiation bomb exploded during Operation: Gnomeregan. You are one of the few gnomes who withstood the radiation blast without turning into another crazed leper gnome. The gnomish army retreated from the city, and only S.A.F.E. teams dare to come back in order to find and extract the last scattered survivors.
• S.A.F.E. operatives are too few in numbers however, and while they are glad to have your help they must withdraw from the area. Before leaving Gnomeregan, you are decontaminated with anti-radiation rays, stopping you from eventually turning into another freak.
• A gnome environmentalist, while having turned leper, is not far from Gnomeregan's inner city entrance and is training battle pets to clean up the area.

Coldridge Valley

• Back on the surface, the gnomish army is still organizing itself. Saved gnomes are put to training, mostly as Gnomeregan Infantry, but a friendly pandaren monk also takes students. A brief recap of Operation: Gnomeregan is given to you, as gnomes affected by the city's radiations tend to have memory loss (when they don't lose their mind entirely). Gelbin Mekkatorque himself does the recap, as he has the habit of personally meeting every rescued survivor.
• Thermaplugg has sent his minion Razlo Crushcog to the surface in order to keep the gnomes on the defensive. The leper gnomes have taken over an old arsenal and are repairing the mechano-tanks and battle suits there. Ironforge has sent a squad of mountaineers to help, but in the meantime the gnomes have to keep and strengthen their position.
• The first effort is to try and decontaminate the local airfield. Among the wrecked gnomish bombers and toxic geysers, contaminated water elementals and oozes are creeping out. The oozes are the final stage of leper gnome devolution, but an ingenious gnome scientist is trying to come up with a plan to revert them back to their previous humanoid and sane state.
• The Cataclysm has opened up tunnels under Frostmane Hold, and as such troggs came out and slaughtered the local ice trolls, who had to flee the valley. A team of renowned demolitionists are sent in to close up the tunnels.
• Crushcog's arsenal is then attacked by the gnomish army, and his sentry bots are neutralized at Iceflow Lake. Finally, the gnomes meet up with the dwarven mountaineers at Brewnall Village, and a surprise joint strike is launched at Razlo Crushcog, ending his menace under Mekkatorque's orbital support weapon.
• Learning that the displaced ice trolls from Frostmane Hold are now attacking your dwarven allies, the Gnomeregan Covert Ops send you to Kharanos with a recommendation. On the way, you pick up a beer sample from an upstart Brewnall brewery and deliver it.

Kharanos

• Ironforge has sent a mountaineer company to defend the village, but the soldiers are undermanned and under-supplied. The trolls are attacking at Frostmane Front from the new village they are building there, and several steam tanks of the Siege Brigade were bogged down and neutralized by the Frostmanes. The Gnomeregan Covert Ops are working overtime at Steelgrill's Depot in order to open up a second front at the Frostmane Retreat.
• Meanwhile, you are sent to attack Shimmer Ridge in order to prevent the ice trolls from surrounding Kharanos. The trolls there are only raising boars and doing voodoo rituals for now, but for how long?
• Additionally, only a few supply wagons managed to get to the dwarven village in the last days, and you are sent to cull the wendigos responsible for it. While in their den, you gather up some of the supplies they stole and bring word to the local mountaineer scouts to get back to Kharanos. You are then sent to the Frostmane Front to help relieve the front lines, by saving ensnared riflemen and scavenging steam tank parts for their repair.
• Now that the mountaineers had time to regroup and get supplied, you are sent to Steelgrill's Depot. The local gnomes came up with a device to catapult you into the air, allowing you to parachute down into Frostmane Retreat. There, you are ordered to assassinate their leader, scatter their workers and call down air support to destroy their huts.

Kharanos outskirts

• The mission is a success! Now that the Frostmane menace is getting under control, it's time to turn your attention to other threats. Amberstill Ranch is the premier provider of rams to the local military, but it is only protected by a token force due to the recent events. The beasts are now getting either eaten by wendigos or kidnapped by ice trolls, so you go there and kill the hostiles while getting back the stolen rams.
• Next stop is the Gol'Bolar Quarry. The troggs dug out of the caves and surprised many miners and archaeologists. A member of Ironforge's Senate is pleased to see your progress, but the Cataclysm also awoke the elementals of Helm's Bed Lake, so it's time to save the frozen mountaineers there, under the watch of a Wildhammer dwarf shaman. Just next to the lake is Ironband's Compound, which has been taken over by a group of Dark Iron clan spies. This leads to a dire discovery: the dark dwarves intend to exploit the depleted defenses of the Ironforge Airfield and take it over!
• Despite their exhaustion, the dwarven and gnomish defenders manage to hold down the line while launching enough bombers to repel the invading Dark Iron mole machine-carried troops and war golems. This raises the question, however, of how and why these invaders are here. Are they not represented in the Council of Three Hammers through Moira Thaurissan? It is time to investigate the situation in the halls of Ironforge. Moira herself is left angry and confused at the situation, and suspects the local Dark Iron ambassador to still be in the grips of the Twilight's Hammer, like some of his brethren.
• Ambassador Slaghammer gets willingly caught and sent to jail, considering Moira as no leader of him. This brings a slightly abrupt end to the threats menacing Dun Morogh.
• Because of the political tensions, a lone mountaineer stands without being heard by the Council. He brings news of Loch Modan, and of the region's urgent need for help. Sounds like an adventurer's job is never done ...

Loch Modan

• A welcoming environment after all the snow and cold of the high mountains, Loch Modan is nevertheless a dangerous place. With the Ironforge Reserve away on the Alliance's fronts, the local mountaineers are fewer in numbers and material, lacking siege tanks or flying machines to help them against the ever-encroaching Stonesplinter troggs. After culling down the underground monsters, you are sent to the local town, Thelsamar.
• The dwarves there are worried about the unusual appearance of Mosshide gnolls. Wandering bears and spiders must also be removed.
• Back to the main plot when it is discovered that a Dark Iron spy has stolen documents from the Explorers' League. What do they want with it? The documents are spread all over Loch Modan, and finding them all won't be an easy task.
• In the meantime, kobolds are lurking around Silver Stream Mine. It seems their geomancers managed to trick the troggs (as creatures of the earth) into serving as diggers in the mine. The mountaineers are not happy about this, and want the mine foreman dead, as well as any Miners' League valuable tools retrieved before they are broken. To your surprise, you discover after fighting through the underground maze that the foreman isn't a kobold, but a Mosshide gnoll!
• This is a worrying development. Murlocs also started appearing in the Loch, and this level of coordination between creeps is unprecedented. A local hunter comes up with a plan - since there are too much monsters to kill them all, someone should infiltrate their ranks, and tag the Mosshide representative with a special murloc pheromone that would ignite a civil war in the ranks of their axis.
• Now that the region is saved from their nefarious plot, you are tasked with making sure a shipment of explosive is properly being carried to Ironband's Excavation Site. Turns out one of the crew was secretly a Dark Iron sympathizer, and the wagon was ambushed. The titanic ruins uncovered by the local prospectors are impressive but overrun by troggs.
• Once the excavation site is secured, you travel west to the Farstrider Lodge. Formerly held by the high elves, it is now occupied by hunters of many races, and it's one of these areas where you have to slaughter random animals for dumb hunters. The only remotely interesting thing is that a crashed gnome pilot made a laboratory in Ironwing Cavern, which is now filled with hostile mechanostriders and mechanical chickens. The gnome wants to create a flying mechanostrider for his son, a depressed gnome that is more worried about the Twilight's Hammer cultists reshaping the land at the center of the drained Loch.
• It is discovered that the local Mo'grosh ogres are now working for the death cult, drawing nascent elementium spikes out of the ground. These ogres are considered servants of Cho'Gall, which is not unexpected considering the towering Twilight Citadel stands above the area. This leads to the assassination of Gor'kresh, a disciple of the dreaded ogre mage.

Wetlands

• All the waters that were drained from the Loch had to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the Wetlands. You are told to go there and help the local dwarves, discovering on the way that Dragonmaw orcs are using the abandoned Dun Algaz bunker. You take back some of the fine ale they stole, in order to deliver it to the team of surveyors sent by Ironforge to check on the damages caused when the Stonewrought Dam broke. A few Dark Iron holdouts try to stop you, but they are not a true threat. While there, you notice why the Mosshide gnolls migrated south: you find a camp of dead gnolls being digested by oozes.
• Still investigating the effects of the Cataclysm, you are sent to a cave infested with spiders in order to get a seismic record. But activating the machine spawns a giant water elemental determined to kill you! Once the menace is over, the seismic readings are rather worrying: the Cataclysm could create significant geological instabilities, with the threat of sudden, massive topological destabilization. You've got to warn the good people of Menethil Harbor about it! You go there, and ... woops. Turns out Menethil Harbor is already flooded, and the keep is full of angry Dark Irons to boot.
• You enter the previously-pristine but now derelict building and kill their leader, while confirming they are more Ragnaros loyalists. The captain of Menethil's guard is worried that they seem more and more fanatical. While exploring the rest of the harbor, you learn of the doomed Lost Fleet of Kul Tiras. Its remnants lie in the mire, and its sailors are cursed to forever roam the earth due to the Cursed Eye of Paleth. On the side, you clean up some murlocs for the Merchant Marines.
• Once the Cursed Eye is retrieved, the priest you speak to inform you that the sailor who asked for it died a year ago, and that a Cursed Eye was already purified once before. Once the spooky task is over you are left without work. Hauling sandbags would be a waste of your talent, so you start traveling to Swiftgear Station up north. The gnome wants a pet raptor, so while slaughtering the adults you keep an eye out for eggs to kidnap. After proving yourself reliable, a traveling Ironforge Guard officer reveals to you that she is really here because she must retrieve a shipment of stolen gold ingots. Only idiots would steal such ingots stamped with the seal of the Ironforge Royal Treasury, and those idiots are the Mosshide gnolls.
• Worryingly, it is discovered that the Dark Irons are in the swamps as well, enslaving the gnolls. The Dark Iron leader is a known criminal and anarchist, and it's theorized that she is behind the gnoll stealing Ironforge's gold. You are then sent to Prospector Whelgar, who had raptor problems before the Cataclysm. Now it's gotten worse: the fossils he was investigating simply stood up and started attacking him!
• On to kill some Dragonmaw orcs in the hills. Once it is done, you are sent looking for the greenwarden, the mythical protector of the wetlands. It is said that the night elves found it and grew a grove around it. There are Sentinels there, and they tell you that the Dragonmaws are now stealing black whelps in order to tame dragons again. The Greenwarden wants you to clean up infested mirebeasts. From the night elven grove, you can see a wrecked Dragonmaw caravan stretching along the road, a remnant of the Second War. It seems however that Dragonmaw whelp stealers were caught back by the black dragonflight there, as the two factions are fighting along the wagons. Following the road lead you to the Twilight Highlands, and the site of a massacre. Deceased Twilight's Hammer members can be found strewn all over the pass, as red dragons are seen flying overhead. Better to take a step back.
• Back to the marshes. There is an invasion of fire elementals going on, and you must stop them from burning the wetlands away. The local oozes are now smouldering because of the fire. Once this is done, the head druid asks you to bring supplies to the dwarves besieging Dun Modr, even though the kaldorei can't spare their Sentinels yet. The Dun Modr mountaineers are holding the line, led by the famous Thargas Anvilmar. The Dark Iron dwarves occupying the city are openly affiliated to the Twilight's Hammer.
• Right next to Dun Modr is the Thandol Span, which is in danger as well. A Twilight's Hammer herald is there, followed by several Dark Iron agents thought to be dead. Along Thargas and a few other dwarven heroes, you defeat them, saving the remaining bridge. You then decide you should warn the remaining Stromgarde militia of what happened here.

Arathi Highlands

• Once you enter the Highlands, you meet a strange bronze dragon woman. Seems like Arathi will see some action in the future.
• You arrive at the Stromgarde refugee camp in the middle of the region. The defenders of the region are in a bad situation: Southshore was destroyed by the Horde, and the ogres and Syndicate are occupying their once great city. You are given several bounties and missions by the Stromgarde Militia, and Skuerto the dwarven scout gives you pointers to the various points of interests of the highlands. Your first task is to clean up a farm under control of the Alteraci.
• Stromgarde Keep is full of ogres, forest trolls, Alteraci traitors and Shadow Council agents. It's almost like the Second War!
• The Go'Shek Farm is occupied by Forsaken apothecaries and Hammerfall orcs. Quae and Kinelory the deadly duo are here to avenge their master Phin Odelic and stop the undead to create another plague ... again.
• A certain princess of the earth contacts you, telling you that she was imprisoned by the mountain giants and their kobold allies. You start slaughtering the underground vermin and gather keys at the Circles of Binding because hey, has a questgiver ever lied to you? A contact in the Twilight's Hammer eventually tells you how to banish back this Myzrael girl.
• Skuerto sends you gathering regents and magical artifacts for Archmage Malin, including Archmage Trelane's belongings, on the local forest trolls and ogres.
• There's a cove of friendly Blackwater Raiders pirates south of Stromgarde Keep. They are looking for a lost elven treasure, and welcomed a couple of gnome scientists among them. They lost a ship to the naga however, and you have to dive in the ruins of a nearby elven city to kill them and loot treasure.
• Surprisingly and sadly, there are no breadcrumbs to go forward. The Hero's Call Board tells you that both the Western Plaguelands and Hinterlands need help, so you eventually travel north to meet the Wildhammer dwarves.

Forsaken Mage

This section concerns content related to the original World of Warcraft.

Tirisfal Glades

Deathknell

• You are a Forsaken, former servant of the Scourge. After being freed of your mental shackles by Lady Sylvanas, you fell unconscious to the ground until you where brought to the mass graves of Deathknell, where you were to rise up by yourself or be processed and burned out. Finally, before that fate befalls you, you spontaneously starts to rise on you feet. Strong enough of will to live as a cursed undead, free of the Lich King's influence, you are then quickly sent to thin out the mindless aggressive zombies that are shambling in front of the settlement's barricades.
• You and your new people are destitute ones, so the executor sends you to start scavenging abandoned supplies and clear out the local gold mine from spiders in order to start re-arming yourselves as a nation. Despite the urgency of fighting for your freedom and your very life, you still take time to honor those that didn't make it, making sure an old friend that didn't rose up can now rest in peace with her husband.
• There is nothing that you hate more than your former master and fighting the Scourge is your new raison d'être, but it seems before that you will have to endure civil war. Your former living Lordaeronian brethren have ganged up as the newly-formed Scarlet Crusade, and are now sending scouts and soldiers in your territory with hostile intention. Free undead or not, they do not seem to care, fighting against you with the vigor of the zealous. After discovering their latest intel, you are dispatched to Brill.

Retaliating against the Crusade

• Former heart of the kingdom, Tirisfal is now no more than an apocalyptic vision came true. The fields are filled with rotten crops, plague mutants roam the countryside and your fellow Forsaken are living out a meager existence in abandoned human dwellings, defended by poorly-equipped skirmishers. Despite this, some native humans remain, their farms protected by the Scarlet Crusaders in exchange of fresh food. It is not sure what would have happened without the presence of the Crusade, but for siding with them the farmers are now your enemies. To teach them a lesson, you are ordered to steal their pumpkin harvest for yourselves. With the intelligence you gathered in Deathknell, you are also sent to strike at each of the regional Scarlet captains and their assigned troops.

Rising up against the Scourge

• The Agamand were formerly among the richest families of the region. Their extensive tracts of land are now under direct control of the Scourge, housing a company of skeletal warriors besides the zombies and ghosts resulting of their fall. Their name is still a topic of resentment among the local populace, as they tried to resist instead of fleeing, damning many employees along them when their son betrayed the militia. Another force under direct control of the Scourge is the Rot Hide band of gnolls, led by a distant necromancer called Thule Ravenclaw. The gnolls are busy stealing bodies from the graves of the region and must be put down before supplying the Lich King's armies with them.

Preparing a new future

• Your first encounter with the Royal Apothecary Society is a strange one: Lady Sylvanas ordered them to create a new Plague able to kill both undead and humans. Various components such as pumpkins, darkhound blood and murloc fins are tested, but a more promising path is revealed when they find out that traces of the agent of a deadly ancient plague were preserved through the giant spiders of the glades. Each time a new batch is prepared, it is tested on a living human or dwarf prisoner, resulting in their grisly deaths.
• Another free undead has been spotted living alone surrounded by zombified thralls. He believes himself to be the only free undead, but you are sent by a former Kirin Tor mage to show him that there are a lot of others like him, prompting this powerful necromancer to join the Forsaken.
• The military forces of the Scourge are held at the eastern Bulwark by a standing force of professional Forsaken soldiers and Argent Dawn volunteers. There, experienced adventurers are preparing to move into the Plaguelands, paid by the undead heir of the wealthiest Lordaeronian family or following intel about a mage creating artifacts of wonder for the Scarlets. But it is not yet time for you to join them.

Silverpine Forest

• Lady Sylvanas has charged Varimathras with conquering the southern human and dwarven lands. The Forsaken are now on the offensive, but they are slowed down by Arugal's worgen, the forces of the Scourge and the magi of Dalaran. A team of Deathstalkers were ambushed, and Varimathras wants Elem's Deep mine taken in order to fuel the Forsaken's offensive.
• Dalar Dawnweaver has been charged with ousting his former Kirin Tor colleague, and he starts investigating how the Gilnean mage could have summoned such dire beasts, looking for his old spellbooks, looking at the shackles he put on his worgen servant, etc.
• The Scourge's army is here, and the Rot Hide gnolls seem to have taken control of Fenris Island and its great keep. You find a boatload of bodies stolen from the mass graves of Tirisfal, confirming that the gnolls are working toward a greater goal. With some magic investigation, it turns out that the master of the local Scourge forces is Thule Ravenclaw, a former Kirin Tor magi as well.
• If fighting former Dalaran mages wasn't enough, it seems that actual Kirin Tor wizards are now deploying their forces in the forest from Hillsbrad. They seem interested into the township of Ambermill, and it is discovered that they are trying to tap into the energies of a dormant ley line.
• More and more, you find stories of Forsaken having to deal with their former lives. An angry wife defaced the tomb of her Scarlet Crusader husband before leaving for Kalimdor. An ex-cook can't feel anything when discovering that the Scourge stole his wife's body, but still wants revenge.