There’s ancient World-trees, Tyr’s back, the Aspects are empowered and the Void’s doing something. All this stuff to talk about and I just wanna talk about Season of Discovery. Why? Because it’s a good god damn game! It’s bringing me back to my early years of snot nosing it around the eastern kingdoms or finding Darnassus for the first time. 

But it’s so much more than that! It’s Classic with a plus. They’ve added loads of stuff, smoothed out class flow and levelling, found even more ways to make us talk to each other. But they’ve also brought so much depth to Azeroth. Have you seen all the Priests going around blessing each other because they need to? They need to socially roleplay their character for progression. It’s incredible! So let’s dive into the lore of Season of Discovery and see what’s going on in Azeroth. 

Ashenvale PVP

When the Orcs made it to Kalimdor, first contact with the Night Elves was brutal. Grom Hellscream's Warsong clan took massive casualties killing Cenarius and setting up the Warsong lumber operations. From that day until the end of BFA a war raged in Ashenvale.

In SoD Ashenvale has been turned into an open world PvP zone. You can just hang by the PvE objectives and get the rep needed for mounts (Yea, a mount at 25!) But really, we want to get stuck in and kill as many of the other faction as possible. I’m playing a Night Elf rogue and I ain't letting no Orcs stink up my forest.

Another incredible touch is that each faction has three lieutenants to take down. Three Keepers of the Grove for Alliance named Larodar, Centrius and Ceredwyn. The Horde have three Blademasters named Tojara, Moogul the Sly and Jubei. Jubei should ring some bells for long time veterans of the franchise as he's one of Warcraft 3's random Blade Masters you can get in custom and ladder matches. That's also true for the three Keepers of the grove, and after War 3, their first canonical appearance in WoW! 

When I'm running around Ashenvale with 10-15 people, roaming between the tree and engaging similar sized bands of Horde, backed up by these named characters, I feel like I'm in a Warcraft 3 battle.

Runes

Runes are new spells introduced to the game in a way as to not disrupt the traditional gearing or spell acquisition. You get runes, inscribe them on a piece of gear and you have a new spell. But the truly amazing bit is how you get them. 

Each class has a simple rune acquisition in their starting zone, like Rogues needing to find a hidden Idol, or Warlocks needing to find forbidden knowledge. But that's the simple stuff. Priest have a mechanic called Meditation. When they pray at a holy site, and I mean literally type /kneel, they gain a meditation buff. They need that buff to gain runes. So priests are flying around Azeroth praying at various sites for gameplay progression. It gets cooler. Each race has a specific type of holy site and meditation they can get. So Trolls get Loa, Forsaken Death, Humans and Dwarves the Holy Light, and Night Elves Elune. But later runes require meditations from more than one race. How do you get someone else's meditation buff? They have to bless you. Another player has to /pray it onto you. That’s incredible!

At level 20, rogues get a huge buff to their poisons. How do they get it? By single handedly breaking into Shadowfang keep, blowing the front gate with explosives and pick pocketing two elite mobs. The mobs don’t spawn if they have party members with them, so they have to go solo! 

Warriors have to find and challenge a legendary wandering Warrior. Paladins get Divine Storm by crusading through Ashenvale, killing demons and turning the literal salt of their corpses into a rune. The Warlock Metamorphosis unlock has players going deep into enemy territory to conspire with individuals who don’t give a damn about the faction conflict. These are deep, immediate and incredibly fun to play! 

Black Fathom Deeps

Black Fathom Deeps was an excellent choice for SoD’s first levelling dungeon for many reasons, but one of them is it's lore. Think about the early dungeons in Wow. Ragefire was a warlock coven cowering under Orgrimmar. Wailing Caverns was our first look into the Emerald Nightmare. Deadmines and Stockades dealt with the Defias. 

But BFD was truly unsettling. It pointed to something deeper and more ominous than anything in the other dungeons. Aku’mai, spawn of the Old Gods, had moved into a once beautiful Night Elven temple. Hydra are blessed by the Old Gods and followers of the Void know that. So the Twilight’s Hammer, that load of whacko’s who want to bring about the Void apocalypse on Azeroth, moved in and started worshipping it.

Ragefire arguably foregrounded the Legion, but we already knew about them by vanilla. Wailing Caverns whispered the Nightmare, but it was a part player in Voids true plans. Black Fathom Deep was our introduction to a story that only featured super subtly in Warcraft 3. It was the first Dungeon in a storyline that led us to C’thun, Yogg, Y’shaarj, N’zoth and now whatever Xal’atath has in store. 

For that reason, I can think of no more fitting levelling dungeon under 25 to make into a raid! With that I gotta get back to griefing Horde in Ashenvale!