Now, we know that the world of Azeroth that, for some of us, we could probably traverse in our sleep or while alt-tabbed without running off of cliffs or into walls, is going to be going through some major changes.  One of the ones that was mentioned in the devchat last week caught Lansiron’s eye:

Q. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again?
A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It’s hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?

Yep, that’s right, all you Northerners!  If your character was born west of the Thondoril River, the ancestral homes you once might have thought lost forever could possibly be restored!

Now, we don’t have a lot of information here, like, if the Western Plaguelands are restored, why not the Eastern Plaguelands as well?  Will Andorhal be rebuilt?  What happens to the Scourge in Scholomance?

However, I think even the start of a cleansing becomes a pretty major theme for RP.

Have you started thinking about what the healing of the Plaguelands will mean for your characters?  Where are they now, in terms of those blighted lands — do they still hope for a cleansing, and maybe even work towards one?  Have they given up on those dreams completely?  If they’ve given up, what happens when the lands are green again?

What about Forsaken characters?  If the lands can be revived, will the news make your deaders take heart, or will it fill them with a new kind of dread?  I’ve seen Forsaken who revel in their undead states and others who only want it to end.  Those who search for a way to live again, and those who have accepted what they are.  Might the cleansing and healing of the Plaugelands hold answers for any of those?

I’m not sure what this will mean to Davien.  She’s long since been resigned to her Forsaken state.  She doesn’t want to become human again.  But she won’t pass up an opportunity to learn how it happened, if she can study it.

Threnn’s story here will, I think, depend largely on Bricu’s.  He’s said before that reclaiming Lordaeron and the North is off his agenda, and has been for a while.  While Lordaeron will probably still be under Forsaken control, and Stratholme’s still off to the east, I’ll be curious to see whether this will make Bricu rethink his position at all.

Most likely, I’ll be ficcing out something for one of Threnn’s good friends, whose family lived on the western banks of the river, and who hasn’t been back to the North for many years.

What RP opportunities do you see for your characters?

It’s a neat exercise, looking at where your character is now and extrapolating things that might happen in the years to come.  A while back, someone on Feathermoon (I believe it might even have been our own Regatta) started what might at first glance sound like a terribly depressing thread:  the story of her character’s death.  At the same time, the Riders started looking into the future as well.

Both projects sparked some amazing writing, and gave us a glimpse into who we think our characters will be long after the servers go dark for the last time.   It’s been a long while since I last looked forward, but Illithias has started a thread for the Riders, looking 45 or so years ahead, and that has me looking both backwards and forwards.

From pretty much the first night that the Bittertongues were together, Bricu and I have tossed ideas back and forth about directions their story might take — plotlines, complications, things we did and didn’t want to put the characters through.  We’re still constantly doing that, and I think that’s one of the reasons the RP between the two of them is going strong to this day.

One component of that plotting is the willingness to let plans change as the story unfolds.  You can never predict how outside factors will influence the things you’ve plotted out so carefully,  so you need to be ready for new and unexpected developments.  Something we’d discussed, way back when, was whether or not they’d have children during the course of the game.  At the time, we’d both ruled it out, figuring they would have a family eventually, but far enough into the future that we wouldn’t deal with it in-game.

And, of course, when the future-days threads came along, we wrote about their firstborn — Threnn and their daughter both met a rather tragic end in Bricu’s story.  For nearly two years, that what-if story was the end of it.

Then, last summer, while discussing the consequences of another plotline (one which ended in a healing at the Temple of Elune), Bricu said, “Well, what if Threnn gets pregnant?”  I blinked at the screen for a few minutes, turning the idea over in my head.  We both spent a few days thinking about it — it would be a huge wrench in the works for both of them, and would of course radically affect every decision they made from that point on.

Of course, the potential stories that would come from putting them both so far out of their comfort zones was too strong to resist, and we went with it.

It’s interesting to look back and compare where I thought their story would go, and where it has gone.  The future-days plots were never intended to be any kind of set in stone future canon — they were always what-if tales — but elements of that one felt very true to both Bricu and Threnn.

Their current story, the actual canon story, is much happier and, although it’s had its darker moments, has been a hell of a lot of fun to play out.  That doesn’t mean that everything from the other tale has to go away completely — I can see certain elements of the what-if story coming into play even still, spun into their stories in a new incarnation.

So, while I’m trying to figure out who not only Naiara Bittertongue might be in 40 years, but also who her children might be, how about you chime in?  What are some significant things you’d had planned for your characters that never came to pass, or came to pass in a very different way from how you’d envisioned them?   Looking at where they are now, where do you think they’ll be in five, ten, fifty years or more?  (Or longer, for the longer-lived races?)

I know that I, personally, wouldn’t be likely to play a goblin — goblins creep me out just about as much as gnomes creep out Yva.

Worgen might have a bit of potential — I always liked the Arugal story, and Pyrewood Village out in Silverpine.  But unless you’re playing someone from Pyrewood, the original worgen come from another dimension.  They aren’t werewolves.  I’m guessing, for RP purposes, we’d see a huge influx of players who either didn’t know that, or who’d go all Mary Sue on us and declare their worgen character different from all the others.

However, much of that speculation was put to rest with this picture from MMO Champion, showing the rest of the Hallow’s End masks.  You’ve got male and female murlocs (I’m assuming the pinkish one’s a girl, anyway), male and female Vrykul, male and female… are those ogres?  And then there’s the devilsaur and the naga-lady.  I’m a little confused about why there’s a devilsaur instead of a male naga, and decided to drive my guild leader crazy with a wild NAGASAUR theory for a few moments (OMFG IMAGINE THE NAGASAUR SUES.)

So, while I’m afk writing the backstory for my devilsaur paladin (don’t ask how he holds the mace with those tiny arms.  I’m still working that out), I thought I’d make this an open thread for you all to chime in on what races you’d like to play, given the chance.  You can be serious or silly.  Make me giggle with your imagined hybrid races, or make me wish there really were playable gnolls (come on, you know you want to see things from Hogger’s point of view).

Have at it!

**ETA:  I do stand corrected (several times over!) that that bottom mask is indeed a male naga rather than a devilsaur.  I still think Nagasaurs are funnier. And, actually, you all realize that it only gives me fodder for more evil loony theories, what with the naga’s former lives as Highborne elves –  Queen Azshara.  Devilsaurs.  Rule 34.