Sometimes Vanilla is the flavour you want

I’ve been having a lot of fun revisiting old content this past week.

Especially AQ40 which I hadn’t revisited properly since those halcyon days of raiding it back in the summer of 2006. There was definite sadness in the reflection as we cut a swathe through everything, remembering how once it was an achievement for our guild to manage the corehounds properly or the pain that the trash en route to C’thun caused us, but mostly it was enjoyable.

The Gods of RNG smiled reasonably favorably on me too, racking up 4 out of 12 pets on my way to Mr Bigglesworth.

One from each instance to be specific. Naturally though, the two I want the most, the mini-Gluth that I asked for back in June and the other baby Dog haven’t chosen to make an appearance yet.

I’m glad Blizzard have added another layer of reasons beyond transmogrification and achievements to push people back into visiting old content because a lot of the mechanics are interesting and whilst at first glance the decor might seem a little dull, sometimes beauty can be found glittering like fireflies in the strangest of places. Given that they seem to be diversifying quite a bit, I find myself wishing that they would add current level versions of each of these old classics so that everyone has the opportunity to experience say C’thun as a proper raid experience, not something you wander in and poke in the eye until he gives you shiny things. The old versions would still remain for adventurers wanting a moment’s solace reliving past glories alone or for the ease of pet farming, pet taming or transmogrification runs but it would a bit of extra spice especially in those dark gaps between patches. I’m not arguing for this instead of new content but to run along side it in parallel to flesh out any missing spaces. Think of the opportunities to add new and interesting things, perhaps a mount who looks like Princess Huhuran* for example along side more pets, more clothes and definitely more vanity items.

*Yep I just want to fly around on a giant angry Wasp.

 

Dark Dreaming of the Moon

The Darkmoon Faire has rolled into town once again, bringing with it a whole host of new and shiny things to tempt the eye.

Up first we have the Carousel with it’s experience and reputation buff (sorely needed in the Age of Dailies). All you have to do is buy a ticket and ride it for a while, just like the Maypole buff from the Fire Festival the duration ticks up the longer you spend spinning around. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately riding it backwards doesn’t seem to effect your age unlike Bradbury’s.

What I also like about this is that Blizzard seem to have drawn heavily on the design which featured in their Student Design Contest, even down to the watching eye on top.

Borrowed from MMO Champion

Sadly the balloons haven’t made it into the finished product though, perhaps if we’re really lucky they’ll turn up as mini pets some time in the future.

As seen from a distance

The new Pet Battle Master was an okay fight, easier than a certain gentleman in the Argent Tournament grounds for example. I took his team on with a Beast (Spider), a Flying creature (my Cenarion Hatchling) and a Humanoid (my Hopling). My reward bag yielded no Eye but then this week I have been fairly lucky with other pet drops (the Vanilla raid ones and the tailoring ones) so fingers crossed I’ll get one this week as it’s the pet I’m most excited about.

Buoyed up by this success, I went and purchased my Darkmoon Hatchling, which when inspected closely has a very prehistoric look. Sprout will definitely be careful when feeding, I suspect it’s pet biscuits thrown from quite some distance.

Finally I hit the wilderness looking for the two tamable pets. Finding a Darkmoon Glowfly was easy, the woods seemed filled with them, albeit with a massive level range.

The first one I tamed was level 11 and the first one Mr Harpy accosted was level 1. Sadly it seems that the other pet I actually want, the Crow still hasn’t been fixed. Here’s hoping Blizzard get it done before the end of the week.

All in all, the new additions to the Darkmoon Faire get a massive thumbs up from me and no doubt I’ll be spending even more time here than before.

Daily Delights

My feelings towards Dailies are well documented. I hated them from the minute they were introduced in the Burning Crusade, seeing it as nothing more than a cynical attempt from Blizzard to force the player base to log in each and every day. Nothing in the subsequent five years has done anything to alter that view point, in fact I’d argue the opposite. Which brings us to MoP, the expansion of the Daily. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand Blizzard’s desire to gate reputation. They don’t want a repeat of previous expansions where a good chunk of people did nothing but run dungeons over and over til their eyes bleed, reached exalted with everything and then preceded to whine about having nothing to do. However I don’t believe the current system was the way to handle it.

What would have been wrong with having a reputation cap per faction per week just like the conquest, valor, justice and honour points. It could easily have been the total amount of rep per day times seven, perhaps increasing as you climbed the reputation levels. That would remove the frustration felt when for whatever reason you can’t log in on a specific day and yet you need that rep like yesterday. A further simple twist would have been to make it just like conquest in that you can earn X amount from one area (arenas), Y amount from another (battlegrounds) and Z from a third (rated battlegrounds). That way people could do a heroic wearing a tabard for a bit, do a few dailies and perhaps use their professions for a bit more. Variety is the way to stop people getting bored, not shoehorning them into doing a set number of quests every day.

So now we’ve established beyond all reasonable doubt that I loathe dailies, despise them and would quite happily leap up and down on top of them yelling unpolite comments about their nearest and dearest, I want to talk about the dailies I find bearable. Perhaps my all together favourite is this beauty. I love speeding down the wall, eyes half shut as the landscape goes flying past, frantically trying to steer past spilled oil and barricades. In fact whenever I’m passing by, I pop up there and repeat the course and to me, that’s what dailies should be, quests you actually go out of your way to do because they’re frantic and fun.

Another favourite which also favours speed is this one from the Temple of the White Tiger. Now the first time I did this, I hesitated and failed time after time, getting more and more frustrated. Then driven on by Mr Harpy’s offer to do it for me (naturally he being a rogue did it perfectly the first time), I took a deep breath and ran for my little life. Indeed when it comes to this quest, the phrase “he [or she] who hesitates is lost” couldn’t be more accurate.

There are few others I enjoy, wrestling a shark with my bare hands springs to mind as does battling with my “nemesis” at the Temple of the Red Crane but the vast majority are just a mindless time sink in which I grab as many mobs as possible before aoeing them down and profiting. It’s just like having to do the dishes over and over again intermingled with throwing out the rubbish and picking up the leaves from the garden. I log intending to do all sorts of things, pvp, chat with people in my friends list, tame pets but by the time I’ve tackled my dailies, I’m so sick of the game I tend to log off, looking for other things to do.

The issue is exacerbated by the really random nature of the dailies, getting the same set three days in a row is just painful, especially when you happen to hate those particular quests. If dailies are going to be Blizzard’s answer to providing new content then those dailies have to be fun, they have to be varied (and that includes using the model used to great effect in Money Matters) and above all, they should be just one other aspect of the game. Something that people can choose to do, not a path we’re forced down regardless of how much playtime we have.

As a side note, returning to Money Matters, wouldn’t it be awesome if there were multiple different ways to approach the bulk of the dailies. You could take an intellectual route, perhaps tricking your way to your objective or maybe by simply being nice. The next time around you could take a more agility driven path, focusing on speed or sneakiness. Another day, if time was an issue you could steamroll your way through using brute force and strength. The final path would of course involve stamina and being in it for the long haul.

Shark Attack

I’ve been slightly absent this week, work has been a little full on but hopefully from next week I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule. One involving more words and a few less pictures but in the meantime….

Mr Harpy tends to operate on a policy of “if it’s kill-able  it should be killed at least once just because” and although this has resulted in a few amusing deaths, it’s mostly been a rewarding little hobby.

Now we’re both rather fond of sea-life, sharks and whales in particular so when we spotted these two  swimming off the coast of Krasarang Wilds we knew we’d have to try and kill them.

Our very first experimental attack, carried out in the first few days at 90 didn’t go too well as it turns out these chaps pack quite a punch. However with a bit of refining and a lot of running, the tide turned in our favour.

The end result being a satisfying one although they don’t drop any loot to speak of.

Next up, we’re going to try the same technique on the Whale Shark.

Seeking Redemption: A Blog Azeroth Shared Topic

The Blog Azeroth Shared Topic this week is a touchy subject for me, I’ve always been a firm believer in asking forgiveness not permission but only when caught red handed in mischief. However, in order to write this, I’ve put my “big girl shoes” on and gritted my teeth. Here’s hoping confession really is good for the soul, as suggested by Matty.

What is one thing, just one thing, you did that was pretty awful in Azeroth, that you wish you could get some kind of redemption or forgiveness for, or even just get off your chest?

First the extenuating circumstances leading to my crime.

Back in vanilla, my then guild got server firsts on everything after Razorgore (the Horde beat us to that one) but everything in the garden was far from rosy. Too many egos clashing, massive competition to top the damage metres and lots of cliques hidden amongst the raiding team. We Priests however all got on fairly well, communicating mostly through the Priest channel, the name of which we changed regularly to stop non-Priests from infiltrating. The biggest “fly” in our ointment was a former Priest rerolled Mage who thought that we “healers” existed to serve, nothing more and who set about orchestrating  a campaign with the Guild leaders to prevent amongst other things healers rolling against dps alts on dungeon drops that no main wanted on our Molten Core/BWL fun runs. Things came to a head one BWL where our GM (who ruled with a rod of iron) was catnapping with the intention of logging later for AQ40. In his absence, the one healer who was an officer lead the raid and awarded Mish’undare to a fellow Priest. Now everyone’s favourite Mage ignored the war raging in guildchat and took the step (too far) of phoning the GM at home who promptly erupted on-line and proceeded to read the riot act. DKP was threatened and even I (usually considered immune to the yelling) ended up on the receiving end of furious whispers because I had done nothing to stop the “crime”.

The Priest Officer turned first to shadow before vanishing in the dead of night, having “mislaid” the guild bank and the rest of us were under scrutiny and house arrest by the rest of the guild. We in turn, reacted like the children we were currently being treated as. Rank 1 fortitude buffs on certain people and lots of “accidental” deaths on Nefarian during the Priest call topped the bill. However my sin came a bit later when still smarting from the fall out I happened to be spending a lazy afternoon on-line  picking herbs in Felwood and chatting away to a range of people including a pvp hungry Horde Druid who had logged his Alliance alt for some ganking gossip. Our server had a fairly small community and the news of rebelling Priests had spread like wildfire, after all, no other guild wanted to be “infected” and so once we’d covered the latest who ganked who news we moved straight to the events of that BWL. Some how I found myself breaking my own cardinal rule and the identity of a certain Mage fell from my lips like cherry blossom petals from the tree. Naturally my Druid buddy excused himself from the conversation a few minutes later and logged off, I continued picking flowers and waited to see what happened next. It didn’t take long, soon Mr Mage was complaining about being ganked by a 5 man group including a particular Druid. In all, he died five or six times before the cavalry reached him.

I didn’t give his location but then I didn’t need to, the Druid was perfectly capable of using the /who function but that doesn’t mitigate my crime. As soon as I started typing I knew what would happen, after all Druids were in a similar boat to Priests, having to fight to be accepted as something other than healers and more importantly I knew that this particular Druid would be happy to avenge me.

In closing, I’m not in the slightly bit sorry that the Mage got ganked repeatedly and from that moment forward had a target painted on his back but I do regret the fact that I sunk to his level, that I got into bed with the Horde to get revenge.

 

Edit: Mr Harpy made me add this bit which is probably the worst part. We ended up being part of the rescue group because the guild had to stick together and all and despite said Druid emoting /love at me, when my GM charged him I had no choice but to play my part as a good little Alliance healer. In short, not only did I get a Guildmate ganked against my own “principles”, but I played a starring role in the corpse camping of my Knight in shining armour because I didn’t have the guts to admit that it was all my fault in case my DKP got wiped.

A few of my favourite things: The MoP Edition

The sheer quantity of “fun” items released with Mists has me both amazed and struggling for bag space.  Do I really need a golden banana, probably not but who knows what the future holds. Throwing away a cask of beer could be risky, for all I know I might end up stuck half away up a mountain with nothing to drink at some point soon. Therefore I thought I’d talk you through my favourite silly stuff so far.

So in no particular order, here are my favourites to date:

1. Tuft of Yak Hair

This lets you summon a rather large yak and ride him around the Dread Wastes for a minute or so. You can’t control his speed, only direction.

2. Oddly Shaped Horn

This is basically a Mushan version of the Yak Hair, you get three charges which summons a very large Mushan and get to ride around on it’s back for a little while. Totally pointless but rather fun.

3. Ruther’s Harness

This is the reward  from a  Goldilocks type quest and he’s become my good look charm in battlegrounds, although recently given the sheer number of premades featuring warriors and holy paladins, he’s not been that lucky.

4. Shushen’s Spittoon

It might be rather naughty of me but the second I saw this, my mind immediately jumped to possible pvp implications. If there comes a time when the /spit emote just isn’t enough, deploy this one their unreleased corpse and spit away to your hearts content (of course I’d never do something so …. bad).

5. Silversage Incense

Even angry little gnomes need to find serenity somewhere along the line.

6. Autumn Blossom Tree

You grow these on your farm once you’re honoured or above with the Tillers. Each tree only lasts 3 minutes but I think they’re rather pretty.

Right now our policy is basically if it moves (and even if it doesn’t) kill it and see if it gives shinies. What items are you currently hoarding away and why?

Falling in love all over again.

First impressions are so important. We make snap judgements all the time based on nothing more than the experiences of a few minutes, sometimes even less. If I’m being a hundred percent honest, I have to admit that my initial reaction to MoP was a bit less than positive. After twenty minutes or so of this:

I was starting to get a little grumpy, especially since Mr Harpy was stuck in limbo somewhere and couldn’t even log on. However the more I played, the more I got drawn in. Not only is the landscape stunningly beautiful but in many regards, MoP ticks all my mental boxes. The quest chains range from the fun to the serious as do the rewards. Both Theramore and Southshore get mentioned by the NPCs in the first ten minutes and there is a real sense of a world at war (at least from the Alliance perspective). The Sha, the bad guys of the piece are introduced in act one and have their nasty nature spelt out for us just to make sure there will be no misunderstandings later. The little details are important and I feel that Blizzard have nailed most of them spot on, from the voice acting for a lot of the quests which really helps bring them to life to the little scenes being played out by the NPCs.

I also think I’m in love with Sky Admiral Rogers, not only is she clearly a ganker at heart but the moment when she told Admiral Taylor to “put his big boy pants on” was jaw-droppingly perfect. A few more like her and the Horde won’t stand a chance.

So far I’ve only run the first two dungeons but again, I have nothing negative to say about either of them. I loved the idea of Temple of the Jade Serpent with it’s library of possessed scrolls from the beta but having now run through the Brewery, I’m not sure I could pick a favourite.

Stories coming to life versus the adorable Vermling, it’s a hard one to call.

In short, I’m basically back to vanilla. The little wide eyed girl in a candy shop trying to do everything at once because there is so much to see, to listen to and to play with. In the Cataclysm drought I found myself questioning why I was playing WoW and whether I wanted to continue but now two days into MoP, I’m rather glad I chose to continue.

Theramore: The Aftermath

99 red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells it’s red alert
There’s something here from somewhere else
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky as 99 red balloons go by

From ’99 Luftballons

Much has already been written about Theramore and I suspect the deluge is far from over.

Scenarios: In principle I love the concept of scenarios, quick little bites which you and two others can run through picking up shinies and having fun and when looked at purely in that light, Theramore is fine. You kill some Orcs, blow up a few ships and help Jaina, great I had a blast as Mr Harpy and a random hunter competed to pull as many mobs as possible. In practise, I agree with those who have already stated that Theramore was the wrong story for a scenario.  Without having read the book, there is a huge crater sized hole in your knowledge (and yes, my book “review” with Victorian overtones will be coming soon) and that to me is wrong. Too much of the plot recently has taken place in pages rather than in pixels, Deathwing destroying Auberdine for example or the Forsaken overrunning Southshore. We as players who are invested in this world, in these characters are powerless to do anything as some deus ex machina wrecks havoc on all we hold dear. That is a hard pill to swallow time and time again.

On the destruction of a much loved city: I am still grumpy about this. Theramore was always a home from home for many of my characters, in part because of it’s outstanding sunsets and sunrises. I’m also disappointed with Jaina’s character development as seen through the Tides of War (something I will cover in later post). However that I find myself wondering whether perhaps it was necessary.

You see, despite thinking I had lost the hunger to raid, thinking that I was happy running around collecting pets and pvping, I find Theramore has created a shift in that perception. Now I want to march on Orgrimmar, I want to see Garrosh fall and then I want to spit on his corpse and plant my Theramore banner on it. I want to dance on his face with my cute little Gnome feet and I want to see him burn just like Theramore did. Do I rate the book, no not really and do I like the scenario, no but it’s had a physical and emotional effect on me. I didn’t want to kill Deathwing even though he destroyed a plethora of my favourite places, but Garrosh….. oh he’s going down. In the end, that’s all storytelling is meant to do isn’t it.

A few of my favourite things: First loves and endearing stories

This close to the end of an expansion, my mind always starts roaming back over things I’ve enjoyed in the current and previous incarnations of the game so today I want to talk about my favourite five man vanilla and TBC dungeons. It’s a combination of things, the atmosphere (scenary and any storylines/quest chains) and the mechanics of the fights which draw me to specific dungeons over and  over again.

Vanilla

The Deadmines

You never forget your first, whether that was your first kiss, first shot of horseradish vodka, first lover or first ever WoW dungeon. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter, it was your first and that makes it special. It will colour your views of everything which comes afterwards.

We got lost finding the instance and then spent ages wandering around the tunnels before the dungeon proper thinking we were awesome because stuff was dying. When we finally made it through the loading screen there was this sense of WOW…. and that was before we even got close to the the whole boat in a cave bit. The fights were varied and fun, the loot was the best we’d see up until that point and the fact that you could get a rolling pin and two mini-pets made it even better.

The story line behind the instance has always struck me as a fairly poignant one too. I spent much of my childhood not far from Hamelin, the town immortalised in the tale of the Pied Piper and there are definite similarities between that and the story of the Defias, one which could serve as a warning to anyone planning on not paying for services rendered.

The Scarlet Monastery

When I rolled my first Priest, we were levelling as a threesome. Me, the now Mr Harpy on a Druid and a friend playing a Rogue. We had picked a server at random and so were levelling quite happily by ourselves. This involved ganking as many fellow questers as possible (If a Troll Shaman called Ada is reading this.. sorry) and seeing if we could three man most of the levelling dungeons at an appropriate level. This worked like a charm until we encountered the final wing of the Monastery, where Whitemane and co really didn’t want to go down easily.

Whitemane has remained one of my favourite dungeon bosses and I’m really glad that the revamp didn’t see her replaced with a pale imitation. There is something endearing about her fanaticism, her eye makeup and her love for Mograine that makes me feel slightly bad every time I kill her.

Plus she has a Benediction which clearly makes her awesome! Also every time I cast resurrection, a gleeful little voice in my head yells “Arise my champion”.

Scholomance

I love horror movies despite the fact that I have an over-active imagination and am prone to nightmares even if I’m not watching people being slaughtered in inventive ways by homicidal maniacs in haunted houses, thus Scholomance and I were always going to be a match made in heaven. Again it’s an instance I encountered fairly early on because I needed the mana potion recipe which was only obtainable by completing the quest chains there. Then it became a staple of my pre Molten Core farm as I and my guildmates worked on collecting our dungeon sets.  The arguments as the warlock in the party always wanted to do Jandice and the tank didn’t, people getting locked out of the Kirtonos fight and the yell of “Schools in session” which always sent a frisson of excitement down my spine as I prayed I wouldn’t be the one getting portaled into a room full of skeletons.

I wrote about my love affair with Scholomance back in 2009 and reading back over that post, my feelings haven’t changed at all. In fact whilst I like the re-make (although it’s bit like beloved films, a part of me is yelling “WHY WHY WHY!!!!”), I feel the spirit of the place has gone. The Eva Sarkhoff quest chain was both chilling and heartbreakingly sad at the same time and I feel it’s removal lessens the Scholomance experience.

The Burning Crusade

Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad

Saving Thrall and wandering about in the past, what’s not to love about Old Hillsbrad. Now that Southshore is destroyed, I make pilgrimages to the dungeon to sit in the Inn and mingle amongst the villagers listening to their chatter. I watch little Sally Whitemane running around, carefree and happy not knowing what the future will bring. I’d also love to make a human character who looked like this:

The story is a good one too, trying to stop someone messing with the time line and of course, I love the “disguise” element of the dungeon, seeing my Nightelves and Draenei turning into humans. Thrall versus the armourer never fails to make me smile either even though I know it’s coming.

Shadow Labs

My favourite board game when I was small was called Labyrinth and of course, I loved the the David Bowie movie too (he was my second ever crush after Daley Thomson) so my excitement towards Shadow Labs was building long before TBC was actually released. The first actual run was a little disappointing but as I healed run after run helping my guild attune themselves to Karazhan it grew on me. I particularly enjoyed the second boss, Mr Mindcontrol because of the chaotic nature of the fight. It was like a smaller scale precursor of the Faction Champions. Shadow Labs was also the source of one of my greatest triumphs when myself, Mr Harpy on his warrior and a warlock guildmate managed to three man most of the instance in the first few weeks of the Burning Crusade (at a time when most people were complaining about the difficulty of the instance and the randomness and nastiness of the 2nd boss in particular.

Next time I’ll be explaining why my favourite picks of Wrath and Cataclysm probably aren’t everyone else’s cup of tea.

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: I believe!

Last week’s shared topic caught my eye for a number of reasons but I’ve been so distracted I failed to get a post written in time. However that nagging desire to put pen to paper refused to go away so better late than never, here’s my contribution.

Canon refers to the actual events and characters that exist in a fictional world. Headcanon refers to any situations or characters that are imagined by fans of said fictional world. Sometimes they are silly, like the fact that Garrosh’s favorite treat is lemon squares. Sometimes they are serious, like positing that tauren store grief in the lungs. For my writing, I’ve come up with a lot of headcanon. Got a theory about a torrid romance between your favorite auctioneer and the patrolling guard? Given any thought to where mounts and pets go when they aren’t summoned? Do you know how your characters do their laundry, or what Baine Bloodhoof does in his free time? What are your headcanons, and where did you get the idea?

Suggested by Akabeko.

Long before I actually rolled a Gnome, the Longberry sisters fascinated me. I used to follow Bimble around Ironforge buying apples from her as an excuse to engage in conversion.

With time she and her sister Ginny morphed from being innocent fruit and reagent vendors into something slightly more sinister in my head. Instead of just helping the inhabitants of Ironforge get their vitamin D, something they clearly need large amounts of since they live underground, Bimble and Ginny are actually Gnomish spy-masters in the pay of SI:7. Shipments of fruit come in from all corners of Azeroth and hidden within the crates of sour green apples and heavy moon harvested pumpkins come reports of troop movements and blood stained battle plans. So if you happened upon the right code word next time you buy your juicy pomegranates straight from the Twilight Highlands, who knows what information might fall into your hands. Of course the consequences for messing with such things might be lethal, after all everyone who has ever read Christina Rossetti should know the perils of purchasing fruit from small creatures.

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy.”

from the Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti.

I’ve also been running Violet Hold quite a bit recently. On Sprout I still needed to kill Moragg and since I went to school with a girl called Morag who I didn’t particularly like for a number of reasons, I really wanted to tick that off (to be fair, I was far nastier to her than she was to me, including “poaching” the boy she liked in 5th year by making sure he danced the last dance of our summer ball with me rather than her. It later turned out he was afraid of dogs so that relationship really didn’t work out but that’s another story).

One thing has always bothered me about the Violet Hold. What crimes did these “dangerous” prisoners commit? Can they possibly have topped the terrible things that we the player base have done and if not, why are we swanning around in the Kirin Tor’s tabards whilst they languish in magical prison cells. Thus to sway my own guilty feelings, I started coming with possible offences for these monsters.

This chap above for example might not look particularly ferocious when trapped behind a forcefield but meet him face to face and you’d soon be singing a different tune. His line of “Free to–mm–fly now. Ra-aak… Not find us–ekh-ekh! Escape!” is purely diversion, he doesn’t want to escape, he wants to eat your face with a side order of salted eye chased down by a pickled egg.

Moragg might look like a typical demon, the sort of thing you warlocks can make friends with these days, but secretly it loves nothing better than watching people get down and dirty. This was going fine until the demon happened to come across this:

The tiny gnome peered over the railing into the secluded Dalaran courtyard.
“The view from the balcony is amazing.  You have to come see!”
Armor legplates creaked as Marcus walked over, taking in a deep breath as he absently scratched his scruffy chin.
“The Hero’s Welcome is no slouch.  And there’s something in the room that might interest you.”
Tavi bounded into the room, pausing only a moment before jumping onto the massive bed.

from A Steamy Romance Novel: Northern Exposure

What happened next had a profound and rather disturbing effect on the poor creature. We’ll never know what exactly caused the outburst but once the demon was distracted (you really don’t want to know how much blindweed that took), the body count was in the hundreds.

I actually spend far too much time coming up with stories both for my own characters and those they encounter. I suppose I feel that all of them, from the one line baddies we slaughter on a daily basis to the passing NPCs deserve a story of their own and without the words to sing it themselves, we need to tell for them.