Embrace of the Viper

This low level gear set is aptly named, because it creates drama.

I know what you're thinking, this is level 21 gear, low level loot is serious business, right?

Apparently it is.

Herein lies the problem... the stats on the Embrace of the Viper are itemized for melee or hunters boasting agility and stamina, while the set bonuses increase intellect.

And so inevitably any time I run Wailing Caverns I end up in a group with a druid healer and hunter who end up crying "Ninja!" at each other until someone gives up or gets kicked.

As if I didn't hate Wailing Caverns enough as it....

Introducing Shysse

Shysse is an energetic and very young Night Elf eager to learn the ways of the Sentinels, anxious to become one of the proud warrior women of her people. While her energy and dedication are promising attributes, she has a tendency towards wanderlust and an insatiable curiosity. This is what led her astray. This is how she met the Satyr Zenn Foulhoof.

He promised her happiness. He promised her she would have all that she desired and even things she had never dreamed she could have. He was strange and exotic, but oddly desirable, his hair an unusual red and so silky, his hooves a gleaming gold. She longed to simply touch him. She decided that she must gain his friendship, his love.

And so she snuck away from Dolanaar in the quiet of mid-day to bring him the things he desired from her. She indiscriminately slaughtered the wildlife of the area in search of flawless owl feathers, the perfect nightsaber fangs, that last bit of untangled spider silk.

She returned to him as night was falling, as the town was beginning to awaken. With blood and gore on her hands, she handed him these choice objects. And he laughed. He called her naive and gullible and kicked her away from him as he fled with her gifts.

She landed in the mud, covered in every horrible substance imaginable, the worst of which was her guilt and shame. And she cried. It was in this same spot hours later that her mentor, the Sentinel Kyra Starsong, found her.

It was in a daze that she went with the Sentinel and allowed herself to be cleaned up. She was brought before The Council of the Forest in Darnassus for judgement. She was told that this act of wrongdoing would prevent her from ever achieving her ultimate goal. She was banned from ever becoming a Sentinel.


Her heart broken, her entire world shattered, and no one to blame but herself, Shysse had a decision to make. To stay amongst her people as an outcast or to flee to another part of the world where no one would know her and her wicked deed. Her wanderlust won this battle, just as it always seemed to do, and so she boarded a ship for Stormwind and was on her way.

Stormwind would not be her final destination though. There were plenty of Night Elves that made their way to this Human city. She needed to be even further away, in a place where no one would recognize her.

Very few of her people ever made the trek to Ironforge, not least because the easiest way to get there was by using the Gnomish contraption, the Deeprun Tram, which tunnels deep into the earth to reach the mountain home of the Dwarves. Her natural distrust of Gnomish engineering and the dislike for being underground was just something she would have to overcome.

Once her journey was over and she had arrived in Ironforge safely, her distrust for engineering quickly became a fascination. She became fast friends with some members of the Gnomeregan Covert Ops, and is aiding them in routing the Trolls out of Dun Morogh. In return they are teaching her their stealthy ways as well as a bit about tinkering.

Another 20 Days (Day 1)

Saga at Spellbound has come up with her very own 20 Days of WoW Blogging challenge. Just as I couldn't resist the first challenge, I definitely can't resist a second (even though it took me 3 months to complete the first one). Most likely it will take me a lot longer than 20 days to complete this one too, and I'm already behind the curve as it is. Here goes anyway.

Day 1: Introduce yourself

~waves~ Hi, I'm Ama. I play WoW and I write about it.

In Game
I like RP but I can't find people to RP with. So instead I give my characters a life of their own (even if I don't act it out much in game) and share it here. I've been playing WoW since just before BC was released. My main throughout BC and Wrath was a Holy/Disc Priest. While I wouldn't call myself a hardcore raider, I do have raid experience, and for the most part I'm not a fail-noob. I recently deleted most of my high level toons and am starting over fresh with a new batch of alts.

In Real Life
I'm in my 30s. I'm fairly recently divorced. I live with my parents in Madison, Wisconsin. I work for a cable company. I LOOOOOOOVE reading, especially the fantasy genre. I have an orange tabby cat named Sammy. He likes to hear himself talk... errmm meow.

~hides behind something/anything~ I'm ridiculously shy (at least until you get to know me). I prefer to share myself with the world through text rather than face to face or verbally. I've always wanted to be a creative writer. I think my shyness has caused me to be very concise with what I say, almost to a fault. WTB talent to play with words and shape them into works of art.

Look Ma, I'm writing!

Introducing Liliva

Liliva was a young woman training in the arts of the harvest under Sister Celestine. Hours spent playing and helping her mother in her garden as a child, she was well-versed in herbs to begin with, and so the craft came easily to her.

Then the Worgen came.

Little did we know that the beasts were really our own, that this infection was spreading amongst us. How do you fight a disease such as this... a curse so easily spread?



Bitten by a friend who transformed into a Worgen before her very eyes, it was only through the quick shooting of Lorna Crowley that Liliva survived.

It is with mixed emotions that Liliva continues her life. Between the devastation of this curse, the invasion of the Forsaken, and The Shattering of her home, she has hit rock bottom.

When the curse first took her she slaughtered her fellows mercilessly, caught up in the savagery of the beast. She was caught and caged by her people. It was only through the medicine that Krennan Aranas was able to create that she was just barely able to retain her humanity.

Should she have survived all this?

Yet she has, and she continues to live, despite the death of Prince Liam, despite being driven from her home, despite the feeling that she is a monster even though she is now able to control it.

The Night Elves have taught her and her people much, and have welcomed us into their home. We accept graciously, and yet, we do not yet have a true place in this Alliance. We do not yet even truly know who we are.

Liliva has spent days since her peoples' escape to Darnassus just thinking about all that has happened, and about what her place is to be in the future of this world. Within the peace and tranquility of the Night Elf world she has come to the only possible conclusion for herself. She shall live in peace with everything around her. She shall avoid violence at all costs. When she is confronted with danger she will retreat. If retreat is not possible, then and only then will she harm another being physically.

She will continue to learn the ways of the Harvest, and as an extension, has taken to learning the Druidic ways of the Night Elves. As such, she must contribute to the community she is now a part of, and will do so by gathering valuable herbs and mining precious ore.



In case it wasn't clear, I am leveling my druid through gathering professions only. Wish me luck in this non-violent journey.

The 20 Days of World of Warcraft: Day Twenty

Where would you be now if World of Warcraft never existed?

This has to be one of the most difficult questions to answer. Like Beru at Falling Leaves and Wings, WoW empowered me to leave a relationship that had been rancid for some time. The friends I made and the challenges I overcame while raiding made me feel strong enough to remember that I am a human being and I deserve to be happy. It took a long time and a lot of chit-chat with friends in game for me to really get to that point. Now, I am happily divorced, working in a career that I love, and I am writing again (even if just in this medium). These are all things that I am sure I never would have done if not for WoW. I don't want to think about where I might be right now if that hadn't happened. I'd like to think that I would have recovered my self-confidence in some other way, but I just don't know that to be true.

Love is...

Love is...

• Trading Heart Candies during the Love is in the Air holiday with the one person you couldn't dream of living without.
• Tasteful RP (Is that an oxymoron?)
• The Hordie who saw you struggling to find the quest givers for Wailing Caverns and /beckoned and showed you how to get up to where they were (Pre-Shattering) and didn't gank you.
• Female Dwarves
• Chasing after a friend, healing him, as he charges recklessly into groups of mobs, slaughtering them mercilessly.
• That new toon smell.
• Hearing the cheers in vent as you and your guild down that raid boss that you've been wiping on for weeks.
• The successful PUGs - the ones that don't send you screaming to your blog to rant about the horribleness that is LFD (it isn't really that bad).
• /dancing - anytime, anywhere, any reason - but especially if the reason is a Piccolo.
• WoW blogs and all of us in this quirky community.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!