This thread is supposed to be a collaborative effort to create a fanfiction of sorts on how Old Kalimdor could look. For everything from creatures to vegetation, cities and geography.

You could consider it a second part of Let's build Pandaria: ideas for the continent of Pandaria.

Portrayed like this, you'd think it's madness, and such a work is an impossible feat. Whatever, if you feel better, treat this thread as "ideas for Old Kalimdor" thread, and we could try to compile everything after we have a good pack of ideas.

And if not, we'd simply leave this as just another theorycrafting or ideas brainstorming, as pretty much all the other threads around .

Until now, pretty much like its predecessor. The point of interest is that we would work around an Old Kalimdor without night elves, an Old Kalimdor before/during that great war between aqir and troll.

The equivalents to the current Alliance and Horde would be the Eastern Empires (trolls and allies) and the western kingdoms (aqir and allies). Human vs Orc becomes pretty much Troll vs Aqir.

To simplify territory control, I'll consider Old Kalimdor a circle with 3 tiers (far, middle and central).

Some "military" info:

Eastern Empires

Far Northeast: Zul'Aman
-City-state of the northern forests

Far East: Zuldazar
-Capital of the troll empires, seat of power of the troll civilization

Far Southeast: Zul'Gurub
-City-state of the southern jungles

Western Kingdoms

Far Northwest: Azjol-Nerub
-City-state of the northern tundras

Far West: Azj'Aqir
-Capital of the aqir kingdoms, seat of power of the aqir civilization

Far Southwest: Ahn'Qiraj
-City-state of the southern deserts

Until now, pretty basic. Both races are still similar, and in case racial differences are already around, they're pretty much ignored, and both races exist as nations of single people.

Now, some stuff about the other races:

Tauren
The Tauren would have a pseudo-mesopotamic civilization, living in the middle south of Old Kalimdor, in a region similar to that of the real world Valley of Indus. Their lands would go as far as the Kodo graveyards in the middle northwest and the jungles of the south. The geography would basically be a lush savanna full of herds of animals.

Their allegiance would mostly be on the aqir, trading with them usually. Unlike their current self, they would be a race of farmers, with not many hunters around, having a lot of cattle to sustain themselves. Their would revere the sun much more than the moon.

Their nomad self would come after the war, with their lands and civilization ravaged by both the trolls and the aqir betrayers. Their people would migrate northwest, to the limits of their former kingdom, and remain in the area until today.

Goblins
Goblins would be nothing like they currently are. Their race would be divided in a series of savage tribes, and they would just be that, a bunch of savage psychotic pygmies that rule over a dry savanna at the far south, around a dormant volcano that would later be known as Kajaro. They represent the African tribes of spear and zebra shield, and greed is already present, only that around animal skins and ornamental bones instead of gold. As for their leadership, the methods haven't changed a lot in all these years

Their allegiance would mostly be on the aqir, convinced with some kind of "get more of that!" promise. The aqir could teach them how to work the metals around the fires of Kajaro (explaining Deathwing's armor). They could eventually become similar to Tolkien's orcs of Mordor.

After the war, the trolls would defeat them and enslave their entire race because of their crimes to the lands of the Gurubashi, and they would eventually become today's goblins after the discovery of Kaja'mite.

I have some about Furbolgs in the middle north and vrykul in the far north, but it's late already so I'll leave them for tomorrow.

Well, opinions? Feel free to give ideas of your own .

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Sounds like a great idea Lon-ami

Just some additions to how the land probably looked:

• The area known now as "The Barrens" was a jungle.
• The Thousand Needles was a river/lake (or atleast the Shimmering Flats was)
• Sholazar Basin and Ungoro Crater probably looked like they do now.
• In the center of the continent was the Well of Eternity.
• Many titan ruins known today probably existed at that time too.

I'm guessing we saying that the titans had already arrived on Azeroth, since we are speaking of Ahn'Qiraj and the Vrykul.

Path of the Titans (as seen in Northrend) goes all the way from Ulduar to the Well of Eternity and southern Kalimdor.

Add Zul'Farrak to the extent of the Gurabashi Troll Empire.

The Troll Empire could use to enslave the Kobolds and then with the end of the war the poor rat-people run/dig to the underground.
I can the Harpies helping the trolls. It would be cool I guess XD
And maybe the Magnataur could be a race in the spotlight at this time.

Early vrykul should be touched on, they war against the other races and hoard treasures but never hold any territory outside their borders for long since they tend to attract coalitions of forces against them to hold them in check.


Same with the furbolgs forming Grizzlemaw at somepoint to deal with the trolls and nerubians.


A few new races to show the civilizations that either destroyed themselves using the well or later got wiped out by the black flight or other wars.

Lost kingdoms like the "kelaani" jackalmen precursors to Gnolls but far more intelligent, wiped out by some catastrophe to have the quillboar snuffle through their ruins...

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At this time and until after the Sundering Goblins where Trollish slaves.

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We have no idea when that happened, they could've lived around kajaro for years before the sundering broke the land and made the place an island where they were enslaved.

EDIT: on the other hand, we know by War of the Ancients that some goblins were smart enough to smelt Deathwings plates.

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Brought to you by Sanguine Enterprises.

My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

Bit of an observation here. The Q&A revelation of where the Obsidian Destroyers came from indicated that the Aqir who would become Nerubians and Qiraji both discovered and conquered two Tol'vir kingdoms as they traveled north and south respectively to found their own nations, so by that measure Azjol-Nerub and Ahn'Qiraj probably wouldn't have existed until some time after Azj'Aqir splintered, and thus not coexisted with the actual empire of the Aqir.

Is this pre-Kaldorei? They were around for quite some time building their own empire before the Sundering. I don't think you can build a pre-Sundered Kalimdor without including the night elves. And wouldn't Zuldazar be more centrally located? Far east would be approximately Uldaman, so you could have the Earthen emerging there.

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Now imagine a music, dear readers, heavy with cellos at a rapid staccato. Cellos held between thighs in a dark room. The little room of Harry's chest as he walks with his teammates to the opening gate of his first Test of Cribbage. They are a rag-tag group of champions, this bunch, and with Harry, the near-perfect new god, they know they will dominate the day. Harry is a world laced with rivers of wizardly blood. He is ready.

WHoA, so many replies, let's quote each (most) of them .

One of my main "problems" is when did the Curse of Flesh happen, and how would all the titan creations behave during the war. My ideal setting would be the Curse of Flesh coming after the war, but still have to research a bit more to be sure it fits properly, especially on Loken sending the creations to slumber.

Another of my "main points of reference" is Northrend as a military setting. If you notice, west and east have a particular diversity. West, we have aqir and tauren, and east, trolls, furbolgs and vrykul. This is one of my main "sources" for the allegiances.

Thanks!

My view on those:

-The Barrens was part of a giant lush savanna that covered everything from current Barrens to near current Azeroth.
-The Thousand Needles was a giant waterfall, in the style of Niagara and Victoria Falls.
-The other 3 are fine with me .

Yeah of course, by RPG timeline they arrived 147,000 years before the First War, so we're fine with it xDDD.

I consider Zul'Drak and Zul'Farrak don't exist before the war. My idea on them is that each of the 3 troll city-states created a new city state west of their territories, in their effort to fight the aqir. Thus, ice trolls, sand trolls and dark trolls were born.

I'm still thinking about the magnataur in the regard that they could be fleshcursed Tol'vir. Still haven't decided myself.

As for the other races, we have free choices, although the particular case of harpies might need research (some sources say they are cursed night elves).

What do you mean, that they were already slaves before the aqir-troll war? If so, source please, I would be so disappointed if you're right :S.

Depends as how you view the "creation" of this nation, and the meaning of "split" (which I interpret as populace of Azj'Aqir moving to those city-states after their city was wiped out). Or maybe, they just rebuild some new cities with the same name after the war.

As for the Tol'vir, I have them in my list of "allied candidates". They could have worked with the aqir, blamed them later for their Curse of Flesh and cut relationships. As for the creation of Obsidian Destroyers, there's 2 options: enslaved Tol'vir that were made obsidian, or the aqir having a titan device to create their own Tol'vir.

I'm pro-continental drift, meaning that the continents-relationship with the original center of Old Kalimdor changed after the Sundering. Regarding night elves, I'm with the theory that they were formerly trolls. My explanation for that is simple: After the war, some dark trolls and furbolgs discovered the Well of Eternity, and got transformed into night elves and pandaren.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I think the Tauren should not be nomadic and have a big kingdom and then the Centaur hordes would destroy that kingdom and makes them nomads later.

If we're NOT doing an Ancient Kalimdor circa War of the Ancients, then I'd like to see an Ancient Kalimdor around the time of the second visit of the Titans.

Depends on when were the centaur created, but yeah, it's a good idea.

We don't know anything about that age, even not "when" did it happen. I think it would be a bit pointless, at least if you want it to have a connection with the canon :S.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

We'll be travelling to Old Kalimdor in the War of the Ancients raid. WotA is the only point in pre-Sundering past that bears any real flashpoint to the story, outside of the looser, more mythological undocumented history even FURTHER in the past. Still, that's the history I want to explore.

I want to see a world with no Elves, no Dragons, no pink races. I want to see Elune as an active goddess, and her friendship with Malorne. I want to see the story of Tears of the Earthmother. I want to see the beginning epidemic of the Curse of Flesh amongst the Titanic constructs. I want to see a unified Troll empire. I want to see the Ancients, Gods, and heroes of the world struggle to prevent a world from falling to chaos, and fail. I want to see a panicked timetable that ends with Earthen being interred at Uldaman, An'she dying, Elune drowning, Cenarius being born, and Dragons being created to preserve the fragile balance. I want to see the world have its fate changed overnight by unsympathetic Titans.

What I mean is that, no matter we only know that "aqir fought trolls", we have a lot of ruins and situations coming after those events.

The titans' visits haven't received any relevance story-wise. They just came. They kicked some ass. End of story.

Well, I always envisioned most of those things happening in this "age". Since earthen took part on the WotA, I always imagined Loken put them to slumber after The Sundering, when everyone was deeply affected by the catastrophe.

As for the other events, they happened in spans of thousands of years. I don't find them stable as a concurrent storyline, unless the protagonists takes 1000-year naps every week or something.

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Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I'm gonna be a little controversial here, but Elune is probably one of the most boring elements in Warcraft's story to me. Just the idea of there being an omnipotent god over Azeroth that only has a connection to two of the twelve races is a little suspect to me.

There are more we just don't know about them

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If we don't know about them, how do you know there are more?

__________________
Now imagine a music, dear readers, heavy with cellos at a rapid staccato. Cellos held between thighs in a dark room. The little room of Harry's chest as he walks with his teammates to the opening gate of his first Test of Cribbage. They are a rag-tag group of champions, this bunch, and with Harry, the near-perfect new god, they know they will dominate the day. Harry is a world laced with rivers of wizardly blood. He is ready.

Well, trolls have their own loas, and tauren have the Earthmother; but yes, she-s pretty boring imo, too. Pretty much like the Light, it doesn't seem to really exist as a being.

__________________


Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Because we've been told they exist, and that elune is part of a pantheon of gods

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