Welcome to the frequently asked questions page! Some of the questions aren't actually frequently asked, but a little explaining is in order to make a little more sense in the long run. Feel free to post any questions you may have about labeling or commonly used references throughout the blog.
Why don't you explain things in the post?
A very simple question deserves a simple answer. These aren't meant to be stand alone works. Labels are my friend and if I want to look up something World of Warcraft related it would be in the label. A lot of these stories were created for those that already knew the background of the world and the people in it, explaining to them what Azeroth is would be much like explaining what Earth is.
What does T&A mean?
Well, that has its own meaning in other forms, but the abbreviated title T&A refers to Tales and Ales. Tales and Ales was a story-time session I ran and regularly participated in in the World of Warcraft game. Anything labeled with Tales and Ales is usually written in a story-telling format, and not as thorough as most other stories in order to keep it to a manageable length in the game environment. Listening to someone talk for 10 minutes can get boring pretty fast in real life, let alone game life.
Some of your stories have continuity problems, time seems out of place.
Granted, not a question, but a valid observation.
In my early days I was as confused about the sprawling world that the Warcraft environment sprung from as Chris Metzen seems to be these days. With endless amounts of retcon it is even harder to follow the way life was or should be now since each time they decide to add something they have to change history to add it. Not to mention the lapse in time itself as each new expansion claims to be only a year from the previous place in the story, meaning three years of game-play can suddenly be condensed into 12 months.
Some of these earlier works deal with Kaldorei, or Night Elves, and the ages seem out of place. I assure you, it isn't an accident. At that time I believed that Elves just aged much slower, not like the typical Elf you hear about where they reach adult-hood and stay there endlessly, but instead where they literally grow up slower than others. Development is stunted much like modern day animals that mature in a weeks and humans that mature in decades. There has yet to be any verified aging method, much of the mechanics of the Warcraft universe are subjective and open to interpretation.
You keep saying things like World of Warcraft and Warcraft universe... What is that?
I can't blame you for not knowing what World of Warcraft or WoW is, not everyone does. But to make it simple, it is an extensive universe created by Chris Metzen decades ago. There were the Warcraft games which eventually became World of Warcraft as MMORPGs (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) became increasingly popular. It currently has over 11 million subscribers and countless fan-sites. If you're interested in learning more Wowpedia is a community ran site with tons of information both for in-game features and simple history. You could also visit Blizzard's Official Site which is now home to most Blizzard run games and tools, including history, forums, player art, and anything you could conceive of that is family friendly.
Okay, so who are these people in your posts?
Several of the characters in my stories don't even belong to me. They were created by other people and I was given permission to include them in my writings. That is not to say all characters are not my own intellectual property, as some are. And all the writing did come from my own hand as well, nothing is duplicated unless otherwise stated.
Head on over to Here's Looking at you, Kid to find full descriptions on re-occurring characters, if you are so inclined.
There's a noticeable difference in your posts, are they yours?
I assure you the writing is mine, unless otherwise stated. Most of these are a collection, or what I was able to keep of my collection over a five year period. Some of my even earlier stuff might surface at a later time, and let me tell you, re-reading anything from my middle/high school days makes me cringe. But, you can't hide all the bad and only show the semi-good. I felt editing or re-writing would both be too time consuming and take away from the original work, so it remains as it was when deemed acceptable to be saved.
In other words, taken from a man claiming to have been turned into a newt, "I got beht'er."
I'm still not understanding the time-line. Are they in some sort of order?
Unfortunately, not much of one. I attempted to post in order of creation, which isn't entirely the right order since they had been rescued and moved around a few times before coming to their home both here and on my portable hard drive. There are roughly two dozen posts on Yllithia that are placed in order of her life. However, unfinished work and small stories here and there will also be floating around dealing with that character, and those won't be so neatly placed. Also, coming back to stories and finishing, adding, or trashing and rewriting the same concept years later has moved more than a few people around.
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