We're back! Mist Howler

July has been steaming hot this year, with nary a cloud or drop of rain. I swear the lawn outside my window looks like it could spontaneously combust at any moment. However, I have returned home from my vacation, and I have a new rarespawn to share with you! Cataclysm looms ever closer, and I'm trying to get a few more done before it hits.

This time, the rarespawn is Mist Howler.

Who is Mist Howler and where can I find it?

Mist Howler is a rare mob wolf found in Ashenvale forest, on Kalimdor.



Mist Howler can be found prowling the western area of Ashenvale forest. Going west from Maestra's Post, the wolf can be found in the open area along the hills separating the Zoram Strand from the rest of Ashenvale. An easy way to check for it is to start at the pass leading into the Strand and then go north and south from there.



Mist Howler is easy to tell from the other wolves in the area because it has the grey wolf skin rather than the white one of the Ghostpaw wolves.

Combat and history

Mist Howler is an interesting rarespawn because of its abilities. While only level 22, it possesses an area fear (called Terrifying Howl) as well as the more common abilities of Rend and Tendon Rip. This means that trying to fight or tame this wolf may end up problematic, at least for a character around that level. If defeated, it has no special drops.



Mist Howler is of course tameable for a hunter, and if the fear effect can be avoided should be rather easy to tame. Unfortunately it does not have a unique or even very unusual skin, sharing one with several other low-level common wolves. Once, before the pet normalization, Mist Howler had a very fast attack speed (1.3 versus 2.0 standard) and a faster run speed than average, making it highly desireable for caster disruption in PvP. Alas, these days Mist Howler is just a standard wolf.



There is not terribly much else to say about Mist Howler. It has a very nicely themed name considering its Terrifying Howl, and could possibly be a pack leader or a lone older wolf of the region.



"Mist Howler" strikes me as a suitably elven name, and I wish I knew a kaldorei translation for it. It's almost poetic.

That's all for this time, I'll be back with more exciting rarespawns this week!

Until next time;

~Dragonshade

Furbolgs of Ashenvale: Oakpaw

Furbolgs are another sentient race introduced in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Like satyrsm quilboar and tauren, furbolgs were interesting additions to the previously rather generic Warcraft universe. Furbolgs were introduced as unaffiliated monsters and sometimes helpful NPC's, and the game also set the theme of the demonic corruption of the peaceful bear-people into ravenous, slavering monsters. Today tribes of such corrupted furbolgs exist all of Kalimdor and Northrend, including Ashenvale.

This post is about Oakpaw.



Who is Oakpaw and where can I find him?

Oakpaw is a rare mob furbolg found in Ashenvale on Kalimdor.



Oakpaw can be found wandering around the corrupted furbolg settlement of Greenpaw Village, located south of the east-west road and directly north of Mystral Lake. The area has quite a few generic furbolg mobs, but Oakpaw's black coloration makes him stand out among them.



What's his story?

Oakpaw does not have a plethora of abilities or any special drops to distinguish him from the other furbolgs in Greenpaw Village. He has a rejuvenation spell to heal himself, but is apart from that an easy fight. Most likely he is a tribal shaman working for the resident leader of the Foulweald furbolg, chief Murgut.



The Foulweald furbolg are the focus of a rather famous questline, "Raene's Cleansing". This alliance-only questline has your character travel Ashenvale to aid the night elf Raene Wolfrunner in halting the threat of the corrupted furbolgs. Notably, this questline rewards you with Dartol's Rod of Transformation, a novelty object that allows you to transform into a furbolg for a short time. Once consumed by completing the questline, the rod will nowadays remain in your inventory for an unlimited number of uses.



After your efforts in combating the corrupted furbolgs, it is possible that some of these creatures will be cleansed and one day become peaceful again. The influence of creatures like satyrs and demon-tainted fel moss is implicated in the corruption of most tribes, although the presence of the Burning Legion is always a possible source as well.



Sadly, even when using the Rod you cannot communicate or make any form of peace with Oakpaw, so whatever wisdom the creature may have once had will likely be lost forever.

Until next time, stay off the fel moss.

~Dragonshade

Stuck inside of Xavian with the night elf blues again: Prince Raze

I mentioned in a few previous posts that the Highborne were very fond of lofty-sounding titles, displaying their self-proclaimed superiority. I also mentioned how the present-day races that originated from the Highborne are fond of this tradition.

The satyrs are no exception.

This post is about Prince Raze.



Who is Prince Raze and where can I find him?

Prince Raze is a rare mob satyr found in Xavian, a satyr encampment in eastern Ashenvale forest, on Kalimdor. Xavian is very close to Forest Song, an alliance flightpoint and base. Just ride west from the flightmaster and you will find yourself in the middle of the satyr area.



Prince Raze can be found in several spots inside Xavian. I have only seen him standing idle (watching him for extended periods of time), and he does not seem to patrol at all, which makes finding him easier. He can also rather easily be spotted due to his pink/purple coloration, quite different from the other satyr in the area.



Rare and dangerous

Unlike many rares that I have featured so far, Prince Raze possesses some dangerous abilities far beyond those of the surrounding mobs. If you adventure in this area and are far below his level (32) be very careful.



In addition to a fireball and a fire nova, he also knows a skill which may spell doom for a low-level character, a spell called Charged Arcane Bolt which hits for several hundred arcane damage. This spell luckily has a cast time and can be prevented. To add to this, Raze has the same ability as the other Xavian satyrs, a one-shot self-heal which will restore him to full health. This spell can not be countered, so you will effectively have to fight him twice.

Add to this the many potential adds in the area and you have a somewhat tricky situation if you are unlucky.

Demons by choice

The satyrs chose their own fate when they followed their master Xavius into the worship of Sargeras, well aware of the destructiveness of the Legion.



From a real-world perspective, satyrs were introduced as a non-playable enemy race in Warcraft III, having their own buildings in the form of corrupted night elf structures. From the beginning, the night elves have tried to eradicate their foul kin and never quite succeeded. Satyr enclaves exist all over Kalimdor and beyond, as many satyrs entered the service of Illidan Stormrage and departed with him to Outland.



That a satyr in Ashenvale would be brazen enough to proclaim himself "prince" of anything is only another indication of the self-absorbed and vain nature of these fiends. Most likely Raze is or at least considers himself to be the leader and lord of the Xavian satyrs, possibly being the planner behind their attacks on other creatures and settlements. Alas for Raze, he provides no unique drops to befit his status (but he does drop satyr horns for the vengeful dryad questline for alliance).



All in all, a fun little discovery in a familiar area. Even villains need leaders, and maybe even princes.

Until next time, never chose to follow your liege into worship of a fallen titan of enormous power who is the leader of a multi-dimensional army of ravaging demons.

~Dragonshade

It came from the sea: Lady Vespia

World of Warcraft has a lot of ladies. Yeah, I can hear you start up the "all girls are played by guys" jokes right now, but I'm talking about NPC's with the epithet "lady" something-or-other.



The naga seem to be very fond of retaining the titles their ancestors likely held in night elf society. There are a lot of princes, ladies and lords, found anywhere from the early zones of the old world to the raids of The Burning Crusade. And with the naga scheduled to be a big part of Cataclysm, I imagine we'll see a lot more of them soon.

Who is she?
Lady Vespia is one of the lesser rare mob nagas. Prior to The Burning Crusade, naga could not be equipped with any special armor or weapon options, so she basically has the standard female naga body type, albeit with a nice color scheme.

Where is she?



Lady Vespia may be found in the Zoram Strand, on the western edge of Ashenvale Forest in Kalimdor. She can usually be found near a small island right off the coast, slowly wandering around the island and swimming around the water.

Zoram Strand is the location of the well-known dungeon Blackfathom Deeps, a former night elf temple now long desecrated and infested with naga, satyrs and twilight cultists doing their evil deeds. The strand itself is littered with the remains of wrecked craft and great sea-creatures brought there by the naga.

What's her story?



I'm assuming that Lady Vespia belongs to the Wrathtail naga who infest the area, presumably having come here from the deeps to aid her brethren in some nefarious scheme related to the demonic or the Old Gods. Vespia is (like many other naga females) a frost mage, who uses water and ice magic against intruders. Female naga tend to dominate the males in their society (in a twisted reflection of night elf society), and presumably Vespia is a lesser leader among the Wrathtail, along with Ruuzel (who oddly enough is a melee type).



It's interesting to note that throughout the Darkshore questlines there is a constant theme of the naga emerging from the depths all over the coast and their huge slave-beasts washed up as corpses on the sand, and Vespia and her kin fit in with this.

A case of mistaken identity?

I should point out that Lady Vespia should not be confused with her fellow naga rarespawn Lady Vespira, who is found in Darkshore. Why such similar names? I have no clue.



Of the two (I'll get to Vespira eventually) I'm going to have to say that Vespia has the nicer coloration. There's just something about the subdued orange tones that looks very good, despite the model being quite old by now.

On a final note there has been some reports that Vespia can sometimes drop the quest item required for the quest Ruuzel, but as I can find no reliable information on this I'm going to guess it was a bug that's been fixed, or pure flights of fancy.

Until next time, stay out of the deep end of the pool.

~Dragonshade