Sayge foresees the future of Varian Wrynn

"Damn, I'm sexy."

Anduin Wrynn: Whatup, yo? Check my new model.

Varian Wrynn: Wow, you got big.

Anduin Wrynn: Yeah, I did. 

Varian Wrynn: You were the same size for, like, six years. I was beginning to think you had that Gary Coleman disease. 

Anduin Wrynn: Nope. Just a late bloomer. But now, I’m a teenager, apparently. And I am ready to get bizz-ay. Where do they keep the teenage girls around here?

Varian Wrynn: There are no other teenagers in World of Warcraft. You have a unique character model, and you’re the only one. There are no women, either.

Anduin Wrynn: I see girls around here all the time.

Varian Wrynn: They’re all dudes. 

Anduin Wrynn: What? Really?

Varian Wrynn: Trust me. I learned this the hard way. You don’t want to be messing with any of them.

Anduin Wrynn: Well, if I am missing from my position in Stormwind Keep for about fifteen minutes at a time, three or four times a day, it’s not because I’ve been kidnapped by the Horde, so don’t come looking for me.

Varian Wrynn: When have I ever expressed concern or affection for you?

Anduin Wrynn: Yeah, you are a pretty terrible father. Thanks for abandoning me for four years to be raised by a dragon, by the way.

Varian Wrynn: Daddy has a lot on his plate.

Anduin Wrynn: What happened to my mother, anyway?

Varian Wrynn: Go to your room.

ANDUIN LEAVES.

SAYGE THE FORTUNE TELLER ENTERS.

Sayge: He has grown strong.

Varian Wrynn: Yes, he’s all right.

Sayge: And yet, this development troubles you, does it not?

Varian Wrynn: I dunno. I don’t really do a lot of thinking.

Sayge: But you perceive the patterns of fate. Shortly after your return, Bolvar Fordragon met his destiny at the Wrath Gate. Muradin Bronzebeard was discovered alive in Northrend, and Magni subsequently turned into stone for some poorly-explained reason. Baine Bloodhoof appeared, and Cairne died in some kind of convoluted misunderstanding. Garrosh Hellscream showed up, and Thrall got bumped out of a job. And now, Anduin has a unique model. A successor is being groomed for you, King. This does not bode well.

Varian Wrynn: Yeah, but I am the most universally beloved character in all the Warcraft lore. What could possibly happen to me?

DEEPHOLM, OR POSSIBLY THE PEAK OF BLACKROCK MOUNTAIN, OR MAYBE SOMEWHERE IN TWILIGHT HIGHLANDS, TWELVE TO EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER:

Alexstrasza: The efforts of the heroes have weakened Deathwing, but my powers alone cannot beat him.

Thrall: The Earth-Warder cannot withstand the might of the elements.

Velen: Well, in that case, why didn’t you do something about him twelve to eighteen months ago?

Thrall: I’ve had a lot of stuff going on. Shut up.

Malfurion Stormrage: I can probably stop him with my druidic magic.

Garrosh Hellscream: You don't get to be in the climactic battle, Elf. Nobody likes you. Anyway, I got this. Deathwing has a face. I’ve got an axe. I’m pretty sure I can make this work.

Alexstrasza: Silence! Only one thing can stop the rampaging Destroyer. His might, you see, comes from his chin. He can only be nullified by a counter-chin of equal mass. But both chins will be destroyed in the process.

Varian Wrynn: Uh-oh.

Sayge: Called that! Boo-Yah.

I feel pressured to replace my epics with greens

Quest-giver: Thanks, Crawford the Magnificent, for killing all those rock elementals. My children are going to eat tonight.

Crawford: They're going to eat the rock elementals?

Quest-giver: Sure. Why not?

Crawford: Rock elementals are made of rocks.

Quest-giver: So?

Crawford: I'm just saying, if I had a kid, I would not feed it jagged shards of rock.

Quest-giver: Who are you to judge me?

Crawford: Look, man, I'm just saying.

Quest-giver: No. You're this guy who is just going to come down to where I live, parade around on your 310% speed epic flying mount, and tell me how I should be raising my kids. I have seven gold, and now I have to give it to you for killing the rock elementals.

Crawford: I didn't mean anything by it.

Quest-giver: Nobody ever means anything, but the things you say still hurt.

Crawford: Sorry, dude. 

Quest-giver: You don't know the circumstances. Everyone says, come to Deepholm, Quest-giver. You can't walk six feet without tripping over an elementium vein, they said. Then came the hotfix. 

Crawford: That's rough.

Quest-giver: I can't leave, because we'd take a bath on the house, the market being what it is. So, yeah. My kids eat rocks now. The rocks cut up their gums and they cry all night. But at least there will be plenty of rocks tonight, thanks to you, o illustrious hero of the Alliance.

Crawford: Look, I'm detecting some hostility here.

Quest-giver: Hostility? Heck no. I want to give you something. A present, as a sign of my bottomless gratitude. Here. Take this.

Item: Quest-Giver's Subprime Mantle of Financial Illiteracy
Binds when picked up
230 Stamina
153 Intellect (not that it's going to help you any)
Increases Your critical strike rating by 96
Increases your mastery rating by 104, but not in areas related to business.

Crawford: Uh, thanks.

Quest-giver: Put it on.

Crawford: Maybe I will later.

Quest-giver: Put it on now. I want to see how it looks on you.

Crawford: Well, it's just that the shoulders I'm wearing came from Icecrown Citadel.

Quest-giver: So? Out with the old, in with the new.

Crawford: I don't know.

Quest-giver: I see, so those shoulders came from a castle, and these came from a moron who lives in a giant hole in the ground and feeds his kids rocks.

Crawford: No, it's not that. It's just that I don't want to break my set bonus.

Quest-giver: The stats on these are really good.

Crawford: But the old ones have cool particle effects.

Quest-giver: You know, some people actually prefer to wear clothes that are not on fire all the time.

Crawford: These have my Sons of Hodir inscription on them.

Quest-giver: You're making this really awkward. My dignity is the last thing I've got here.

Crawford: Well, take back the shoulders, and then you will have those, too.

Quest-giver: No. Those are a gift. Put them on.

Crawford: Fine.

A Minor NPC Has Big Dreams

A sad man, living a life of misery.

Nobody believes me when I tell them that, one day, I’m gonna be a major lore character.  My buddy Sraaz, the Ironforge Pie Vendor, thinks I’m downright insane.

“The game has thousands of quest-givers and vendors and named targets,” he always tells me.  “But there are only a few dozen raid bosses and even fewer characters with story roles.”

And maybe that’s true for most NPCs.  But I have the drive, the talent and the star quality to beat the odds.

“No, you don’t” says Sraaz.  “You’re a nerdy reference to Tolkien.  You’re a joke.”

“You start out as a joke,” I say.  “Then, you become a meme.  And then you become beloved.  And then you’re standing behind Rhonin in the cut-scene, nodding somberly about how grave the threat to the future of Azeroth is this time.”

That’s true, isn’t it? That’s how the red-shirt guy got up on the dais in the Ironforge throne room.

“You give out the quest where players have to run around collecting pieces of dragon poop,” Sraaz says.  “That’s your role in the game.  It’s not a position with upward mobility.”

“People love those quests,” I say.  “That’s why Blizz keeps putting them in.”

“In the follow-up quest, the players throw the poop at you,” he reminds me.

“So, I have an established conflict with them when I turn up again later as a raid boss.”

“Your name is Bladdergass the Brown,” Sraaz reminds me.

“I know.  I didn’t forget my name.  And If I did, it’s right above my head in big green letters.”

“Along with your title, Stenchmeister.”

“And Elling Trias was just the Master of Cheese before somebody tapped him to be involved in the S:I7 quest-line,” I say.  “And Nat Pagle was just a fishing trainer, before somebody decided it would be funny to use him as a red herring about the Ashbringer.”

Sraaz is shaking his head, but I’m on a roll now.

“Tirion Fordring started out as a regular quest-giver,” I say.  “Now his in-game model is twelve feet tall.  Bolvar Fordragon was just the guy standing around Stormwind Keep, until Blizz buffed him so he could kill the dragonkin that spawned during the Onyxia attunement quest.  Now, that dude is Lich King.”

“That’s your plan?”  Sraaz’s lips peel back off of clenched teeth.  A fat blue vein is throbbing on the right side of his head.  “You think you’re going to be Stenchmeister Bladdergass, the Lich King?”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Why not?”

“Why not?”

“I’ll tell you why not,” says Sraaz the pie vendor.  “For the last six years, I’ve been patrolling the halls of Ironforge, seven days a week.  I get about four hours off on Tuesday mornings, and, the last couple of years, it’s not even every Tuesday. In those six years of grueling labor, I have sold a total of fifty-three pies.”

“On this server?”

“Worldwide.”

“Jeez.”

“Thirty-two of them sold on the same day to an RP guild that held an in-game pie-eating contest.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“It was not,” he says.  “It was the opposite of fun.  After that, those guys took a long, hard look at how they were spending their lives, and they did not like what they saw.”

“I can’t believe that you only sold fifty-three pies.”

"Nobody wants a pie in Ironforge.  And nobody is going to go looking for the vendor that patrols around randomly.  If people want to buy food for some reason, they buy it from the Innkeeper who is standing right next to them when they hearth into the city.”

“That is rough.”

“You don’t get health insurance when you sell only fifty pies in six years,” Sraaz says.  “And every time a Horde rogue sneaks into Ironforge, I get stabbed in the neck.”  He pulls down his shirt collar and shows me his throat, which is cris-crossed with fat, shiny scars.

“I put in papers for a transfer this expansion,” Sraaz says.  “I thought I could be a named elite in Throne of the Four Winds.  You know, pie in the sky.  They told me they like me where I am.  They said they like the holiday achievement where people have to kiss me on Valentine’s Day.”

“Well, it’s neat that you get an achievement,” I say.

“It’s just a cruel reminder that nobody really loves me,” Sraaz says.

“Well people will really love me,” I tell him.  “You’ll see.  I’m gonna be huge.”

If you enjoy magic wands, then you will love this shotgun

You’ve got a problem.  See, your bad-ass Avada Kedavra murder curse requires a six-syllable invocation, and those kids you suck so much at killing figured out that they can stop you with the four-syllable expelliarmus disarming charm.  Now that everyone knows your greatest weapon can be countered by the first spell baby wizards learn in magic pre-school, you are kind of a fucking joke. Nobody gives a shit anymore about how you’ve tapped into the dark and forbidden arts, because the dark and forbidden arts are too slow on the draw.

"You meddling kids!"

And I’m not even afraid to tell you that you look stupid, because you don’t scare me anymore.  If you try to use your death curse, I’ll just pop your wand out of your hand, and laugh right in your pale, damp, perpetually-scowling face.  Your reputation has been downgraded from “He-who-shall-not-be-named” to “that-asshole-who-is-always-dropping-his-wand.”  Your black robes and your death’s head mask don’t look that intimidating when you’re on your knees trying to fish your weapon out from underneath the sofa.

I know you Death Eaters are all about hating the Muggles and the crude tools they fashion. But, whatever else you can say about Muggles, they are very good at committing horrific atrocities, while your own techniques are dated, at best.  When Muggles set their mind to slaughtering a bunch of children, they don’t spectacularly and repeatedly fail, unlike the Death Eaters.  You people kill fewer children annually than the common cold.  But I can sell you some exotic Muggle-crafted tools that are far more efficient than your antiquated forbidden curses. 

This pretty little thing right here is the TEC-9 semi-automatic machine pistol.  It carries a 32-round magazine, and can be easily modified to fire full-automatic.  If you want to be faster than a disarming charm, this is your new best friend.  In the time it takes to say “Expelliarmus,” this thing can spread a kid’s face across a wall like raspberry jam on a motherfucking scone.

But, since you tend to self-destruct in a spectacular deus ex machina fireball whenever Harry Potter wanders into your general vicinity, you may be worried about the tendency of semi-automatics like the TEC-9 to stovepipe while ejecting spent cartridges, causing the weapons to jam or backfire.  Well, in that case, you might like something like this .45 Magnum revolver.  It has a slower rate of fire, but it’s still faster than magical invocations.  And it does a lot of damage, which I think you will appreciate.  This puppy can blow a hole in a human torso the size of a half-giant’s fist.  You know that problem you keep having, where you think you killed somebody, but then they dramatically turn out to still be alive, and they show up at the last minute to save the day?  Well, that wouldn’t keep happening if you double-tapped those bitches with a goddamn .45.

Remember that time you tried to use Avada Kedavra, and you got colossally wrecked by a baby? Remember how it turned out that Avada Kedavra doesn’t work on anyone whose mother loves them? Everybody’s mother loves them, dude.  That’s why you always lose.  But, what I have right here is a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun.  If you skipped Avada Kedavra and used a shotgun, you’d be the king of the wizards.  Instead, you’re spending most of your time sitting in a basement someplace wondering where your nose went.  Let me tell you something about a shotgun: a shotgun doesn’t care how much some baby’s mother loves him.  A shotgun will fuck up that baby’s shit.   

And if you’re really ready to lay down some galleons, I’ve got a case of something called rocket-propelled grenades.  You won’t believe what one of these bad boys will do to a unicorn.

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Diary of a Starcraft Player

Day 1: Photon cannon rush. God, I am talented.

Day 2: Photon cannon rush. Then void rays. This game never gets boring.

Day 3: Mix it up a little. Proxy gateway. Zealot rush.

Day 4: My keyboard is sticky. So are my armpits.

Day 5: I built a Colossus. It didn't work well for me. Posted a thread on forums about how Colossus should be buffed. Also, how Void Rays should have more HP.

Day 6: Posted a thread on forum asking if anyone knows how to clean a skidmark off of my computer chair.

Day 7: Psionic Storm should really be autocast. Posted a thread on the forum about how Templar are too hard to use. Other posters suggested I make them into Archons. I think they should just remove the Templar unit and let me spawn Archons from the Gateway.

Day 8: Photon Cannon rush. I now have the 250 wins portrait. Some guy posted about how zerg need a buff and I told him to talk about balance when he gets to diamond league. Noob.

Day 9: Something is smelly in here, and I am pretty sure it is not me, because I sprayed myself down with Febreze a couple of days ago.

Day 10: Photon Cannon rush. This game never gets boring

More Starcraft: A Reading From The Sacred Book of Zerg

"My faith is my shield."

A zergling once said to the Overmind: "I want to believe in you, but how can I keep my faith, when the life of a zergling is so very brief and full of suffering?"

And the Overmind said unto the zergling: "Look back at the path thou hast trod all of thine life. You will see there are two sets of footprints, for where you have walked through torment and trial, I have walked beside you."

And the zergling looked back and saw that, for much of the way, there were, indeed, two sets of footprints, but sometimes, where he had endured the harshest difficulties, he saw only one set.

"But Overmind," the zergling said. "What about the places where my journey was the most painful? When I look at those spots, I see only one set of footprints. You abandoned me."

"I did not abandon you, my child," said the Overmind. "Those places where you see only one set of footprints are the places where I sent in Mutalisk air support."