WoW: Getting My Thinky Thoughts In A Row
Previous posts in the "how they met" series:
http://nagaina.dreamwidth.org/343829.html
http://nagaina.dreamwidth.org/246279.html
http://nagaina.dreamwidth.org/250330.html
Thinking Thinky Thoughts About...Dalaran!
http://www.wowpedia.org/Dalaran
http://www.wowpedia.org/Dalaran_%28kingdom%29
* One of the seven successor states of the fallen Arathi Empire. The foundations of Lordaeron, Gilneas, and Stormwind all came later in terms of history than Strom and Dalaran, which canonically was the second city-state of Arathor.
* In any case: founded by the high elf trained human magi whose arts helped win the Troll Wars and whom, upon returning home, were generally made to feel cordially unwelcome in their homeland. Having bargained with the high elves for power and knowledge, the rulers of Arathor proved to have no idea what to do with that power once the wars were over and defaulted to attempting to control and regulate its growth and advancement by heavily regulating the magi themselves. These hundred human magi, their families, apprentices, and allies eventually grew weary of this and, in the first major political schism within the Empire, eventually departed from Strom to establish their own city-state where they could practice their arts freely.
* The government of Dalaran is described as magocratic (literally, rule of the Magi) and essentially as functioning as a Greek-style democracy. The Kirin Tor functions as Dalaran's senate and its members are elected democratically from those citizens of Dalaran who are eligible to hold a senatorial seat -- which is to say, they are elected from the city's mage populace. Begging the question: what is the political/social status of Dalaran's non-mage resident population/citizens? What are their rights under the law? Are they allowed to vote in senatorial elections? Serve at any level of government? Helots? Mothakes? Asserting that Dalaran functions as a Greek-style democracy, as the WoWPedia articles on the topic do, elides some of the darker truths of ancient Greek democracy, the most important of which is that all men were most emphatically not equal under ancient Greek theories of democratic government, the franchise was not universal, de jure and de facto slavery was widely accepted and practiced, and a goodly chunk of the citizenry were not considered an actual part of the polity. The articles on Dalaran assert that the magi "offered protection" to their non-mage citizens but there's a difference between "protecting a vulnerable population" and "giving them a voice in our system of government." They also assert that, while the Kirin Tor itself is democratically elected, the Kirin Tor's own internal leadership body, the Council of Six, is a highly secretive entity whose membership is not generally, publicly known -- which suggests that its membership is selected in an equally secretive and essentially undemocratic fashion. (Note: post Third War, the secrecy of the Council of Six appears to be deliberately breaking down, perhaps in an effort to achieve greater public transparency. HOLY CRAP IS RHONIN A POLITICAL REFORMER?) Dalaran, on the other hand, does whole orders of magnitude better at not incorporating sexist douchebaggery into their system of government and treating women as entirely competent citizens and rulers. But, still. Questions.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Magocracy
http://www.wowpedia.org/Kirin_Tor
* Brathaliana "Talia" Delaine/Talis Delauney is the eldest daughter of one of Dalaran's Hundred Families, the descendants of Arathor's original magi and the founders of the Dalaranese state. What this means, practically speaking, is that she's the heiress to an old and wealthy family of past and likely future political significance in her homeland -- though she is not, herself, a mage, nor does she possess an interest in the arcane arts. (An aptitude for practicing them, yes; an interest in doing so, no.) Her parents, Maelona Delaine and Galien Wildsmith, elected not to force her will on the matter, on the theory that she would resent it if they did and that she had plenty of time to come to peace with the idea before her training would have to begin in earnest. As it turns out, not so much was in effect for both these courses of reasoning. Talia never did "come around" to the idea of being a mage and instead inclined in the direction of swords, armor, and horses (quoth Maelona, "Well, she can always be a warrior mage...") and, just as the matter was reaching a point where hard decisions were going to have to be made, Maelona and Galien were assassinated. The assassination was cleverly disguised as a "magical experiment in long-range materiel transport gone horribly awry," though traces of the actual magical sabotage that doomed said experiment were uncovered by the forensic magi that investigated the matter -- those details were never made public to the Kirin Tor at large but instead confined to the special report issued solely to the Council of Six.
* Talia herself barely escaped with her life, landing badly injured in the lap of a close friend and political ally of her parents, rescued from otherwise certain death by their last acts of self-sacrificial magic. That friend was HRH Kael'thas Sunstrider, the heir to the throne of Quel'Thalas, ambassador plenipotentiary to Dalaran, and an elected member of the Kirin Tor. (...Don't get me started about that whole "electing the heir to a foreign power to Dalaran's senate" thing. Just don't. Unless all high elves are held to possess dual citizenship with Dalaran...) Kael'thas took the direly injured Talia into his household, tended her wounds, and concealed her continued survival from both public and private knowledge during the course of the investigation into her parents' deaths, giving the grieving child what comfort he could during that time. Once the secret investigative report indicated sabotage as the cause of the accident, he revealed to Archmage Antonidas that she was still alive and, likely, would be in significant danger if that information were to become public knowledge -- though it was entirely possible that the assassin responsible for the murders of her parents realized that she had escaped. Antonidas concurred with this assessment, as well as the suggestion that keeping Talia hidden in Dalaran would be virtually impossible in the long term. Together, with Talia's input, they created her alternate identity -- Talis Delauney, a young half-elven orphan from the Lordaeran bordermarches with Quel'Thalas -- and Kael'thas crafted the flesh-anchored illusions that would transform her from a handsome young woman into a handsome young man. The defenses Kael'thas and Antonidas weave around her rendered her "invisible" to any scrying attempts on her person but their own. Antonidas called upon his still-good diplomatic relationship with the throne of Lordaeron to seek a guardian for young "Talis" in that kingdom, and found that guardian in the form of a faithful Menethil family retainer, hereditary baron, imminent Knight of the Realm, and paladin of the Silver Hand, Alexandros Mograine, whose injuries during the Second War had forced him into semi-retirement from active military service and who spent his days training young knights/paladin candidates, of which young "Talis" would be but one more. With Talia/Talis safely ensconced in Lordaeron, Kael'thas and Antonidas turned their efforts to ferreting out the assassin.
* Solivar and Talia/Talis meet during the tourney in a completely unaccidental fashion: they draw lots against each other in the preliminary swordsmanship trials and the results are an extremely impressive display that produces a draw and both being advanced by the judges. Solivar is intrigued because "Talis" actually does fight using an ancient quel'dorei swordsmanship form that hasn't been practiced in Quel'Thalas for a damned long time and also because he's the only other person participating in the trials of demonstrable quel'dorei heritage. Unfortunately, Solivar is carrying the hereditary weapon of his family, the sword of his many-times-great-grandmother, Nephtheara, one of the first spellbreakers. When Talis and Solivar get to the "ooooooh, WHAT A NEAT SWORD" part of their mutual fanboy/fangirling of one another, some spells get inadvertently...well, severely dinged if not outright broken. Kael'thas, who is attending the tourney as Quel'Thalas' official representative and as an adjunct to Dalaran's diplomatic party, manages to repair them but the damage has already been done, and Talia's brief re-emergence from beneath layers of illusory defense has "pinged" a complex of predatory spells keyed specifically to her person, spells intended to guide magical assassins created by the murderer of her parents to her location. They arrive in the midst of the tournament and begin hunting her with murderous intent. This does not work out so well for them.
http://nagaina.dreamwidth.org/343829.html
http://nagaina.dreamwidth.org/246279.html
http://nagaina.dreamwidth.org/250330.html
Thinking Thinky Thoughts About...Dalaran!
http://www.wowpedia.org/Dalaran
http://www.wowpedia.org/Dalaran_%28kingdom%29
* One of the seven successor states of the fallen Arathi Empire. The foundations of Lordaeron, Gilneas, and Stormwind all came later in terms of history than Strom and Dalaran, which canonically was the second city-state of Arathor.
* In any case: founded by the high elf trained human magi whose arts helped win the Troll Wars and whom, upon returning home, were generally made to feel cordially unwelcome in their homeland. Having bargained with the high elves for power and knowledge, the rulers of Arathor proved to have no idea what to do with that power once the wars were over and defaulted to attempting to control and regulate its growth and advancement by heavily regulating the magi themselves. These hundred human magi, their families, apprentices, and allies eventually grew weary of this and, in the first major political schism within the Empire, eventually departed from Strom to establish their own city-state where they could practice their arts freely.
* The government of Dalaran is described as magocratic (literally, rule of the Magi) and essentially as functioning as a Greek-style democracy. The Kirin Tor functions as Dalaran's senate and its members are elected democratically from those citizens of Dalaran who are eligible to hold a senatorial seat -- which is to say, they are elected from the city's mage populace. Begging the question: what is the political/social status of Dalaran's non-mage resident population/citizens? What are their rights under the law? Are they allowed to vote in senatorial elections? Serve at any level of government? Helots? Mothakes? Asserting that Dalaran functions as a Greek-style democracy, as the WoWPedia articles on the topic do, elides some of the darker truths of ancient Greek democracy, the most important of which is that all men were most emphatically not equal under ancient Greek theories of democratic government, the franchise was not universal, de jure and de facto slavery was widely accepted and practiced, and a goodly chunk of the citizenry were not considered an actual part of the polity. The articles on Dalaran assert that the magi "offered protection" to their non-mage citizens but there's a difference between "protecting a vulnerable population" and "giving them a voice in our system of government." They also assert that, while the Kirin Tor itself is democratically elected, the Kirin Tor's own internal leadership body, the Council of Six, is a highly secretive entity whose membership is not generally, publicly known -- which suggests that its membership is selected in an equally secretive and essentially undemocratic fashion. (Note: post Third War, the secrecy of the Council of Six appears to be deliberately breaking down, perhaps in an effort to achieve greater public transparency. HOLY CRAP IS RHONIN A POLITICAL REFORMER?) Dalaran, on the other hand, does whole orders of magnitude better at not incorporating sexist douchebaggery into their system of government and treating women as entirely competent citizens and rulers. But, still. Questions.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Magocracy
http://www.wowpedia.org/Kirin_Tor
* Brathaliana "Talia" Delaine/Talis Delauney is the eldest daughter of one of Dalaran's Hundred Families, the descendants of Arathor's original magi and the founders of the Dalaranese state. What this means, practically speaking, is that she's the heiress to an old and wealthy family of past and likely future political significance in her homeland -- though she is not, herself, a mage, nor does she possess an interest in the arcane arts. (An aptitude for practicing them, yes; an interest in doing so, no.) Her parents, Maelona Delaine and Galien Wildsmith, elected not to force her will on the matter, on the theory that she would resent it if they did and that she had plenty of time to come to peace with the idea before her training would have to begin in earnest. As it turns out, not so much was in effect for both these courses of reasoning. Talia never did "come around" to the idea of being a mage and instead inclined in the direction of swords, armor, and horses (quoth Maelona, "Well, she can always be a warrior mage...") and, just as the matter was reaching a point where hard decisions were going to have to be made, Maelona and Galien were assassinated. The assassination was cleverly disguised as a "magical experiment in long-range materiel transport gone horribly awry," though traces of the actual magical sabotage that doomed said experiment were uncovered by the forensic magi that investigated the matter -- those details were never made public to the Kirin Tor at large but instead confined to the special report issued solely to the Council of Six.
* Talia herself barely escaped with her life, landing badly injured in the lap of a close friend and political ally of her parents, rescued from otherwise certain death by their last acts of self-sacrificial magic. That friend was HRH Kael'thas Sunstrider, the heir to the throne of Quel'Thalas, ambassador plenipotentiary to Dalaran, and an elected member of the Kirin Tor. (...Don't get me started about that whole "electing the heir to a foreign power to Dalaran's senate" thing. Just don't. Unless all high elves are held to possess dual citizenship with Dalaran...) Kael'thas took the direly injured Talia into his household, tended her wounds, and concealed her continued survival from both public and private knowledge during the course of the investigation into her parents' deaths, giving the grieving child what comfort he could during that time. Once the secret investigative report indicated sabotage as the cause of the accident, he revealed to Archmage Antonidas that she was still alive and, likely, would be in significant danger if that information were to become public knowledge -- though it was entirely possible that the assassin responsible for the murders of her parents realized that she had escaped. Antonidas concurred with this assessment, as well as the suggestion that keeping Talia hidden in Dalaran would be virtually impossible in the long term. Together, with Talia's input, they created her alternate identity -- Talis Delauney, a young half-elven orphan from the Lordaeran bordermarches with Quel'Thalas -- and Kael'thas crafted the flesh-anchored illusions that would transform her from a handsome young woman into a handsome young man. The defenses Kael'thas and Antonidas weave around her rendered her "invisible" to any scrying attempts on her person but their own. Antonidas called upon his still-good diplomatic relationship with the throne of Lordaeron to seek a guardian for young "Talis" in that kingdom, and found that guardian in the form of a faithful Menethil family retainer, hereditary baron, imminent Knight of the Realm, and paladin of the Silver Hand, Alexandros Mograine, whose injuries during the Second War had forced him into semi-retirement from active military service and who spent his days training young knights/paladin candidates, of which young "Talis" would be but one more. With Talia/Talis safely ensconced in Lordaeron, Kael'thas and Antonidas turned their efforts to ferreting out the assassin.
* Solivar and Talia/Talis meet during the tourney in a completely unaccidental fashion: they draw lots against each other in the preliminary swordsmanship trials and the results are an extremely impressive display that produces a draw and both being advanced by the judges. Solivar is intrigued because "Talis" actually does fight using an ancient quel'dorei swordsmanship form that hasn't been practiced in Quel'Thalas for a damned long time and also because he's the only other person participating in the trials of demonstrable quel'dorei heritage. Unfortunately, Solivar is carrying the hereditary weapon of his family, the sword of his many-times-great-grandmother, Nephtheara, one of the first spellbreakers. When Talis and Solivar get to the "ooooooh, WHAT A NEAT SWORD" part of their mutual fanboy/fangirling of one another, some spells get inadvertently...well, severely dinged if not outright broken. Kael'thas, who is attending the tourney as Quel'Thalas' official representative and as an adjunct to Dalaran's diplomatic party, manages to repair them but the damage has already been done, and Talia's brief re-emergence from beneath layers of illusory defense has "pinged" a complex of predatory spells keyed specifically to her person, spells intended to guide magical assassins created by the murderer of her parents to her location. They arrive in the midst of the tournament and begin hunting her with murderous intent. This does not work out so well for them.