The Nerubian empire being in a tundra always made me wonder why Blizzard chose such a weird place for spider people. In the unlikely event that spiders do end up living in the tundra, it likely wouldn't be for very long. Spiders are more likely to survive in forests, where they would hibernate in the winter, or in the case of some species, simply die and while the next generation of spiderkin mature and head off to eat ALL the insects. Spiders like warmer climates best, because that's where the food is most likely to be. In WoW's case? You bet your ass there's insects in warm places.
Logically, Silithus would be where the Nerubians should be. It's warm, there's no shortage of food, and look at that, they think they have an empire. Ohhh, child.
Logic isn't the only reason I think of Silithus when I think of the Nerubian empire. When I hear Abub'arak--or read it, I guess--one name comes to mind: Anubis, god of the afterlife. I don't know if Blizzard meant to invoke this when they created Anub'arak, and heaven knows that there are more blatant images of Anubis in the Ahn'Qiraj raids, but it still springs to mind. It doesn't help that the Nerubian empire uses powerful colors in their empire when we go to Azjol-Nerub. Black, blues, greens, and most striking to me, purple. (And no, I cannot show you an image, mostly because the screenshots I've taken of the dungeon are focused more on my character than on the architecture. Sorry!)
Now, purple doesn't just pop out at me because it's my favorite color. It's also because, in WoW, it's invocative of shadow magic, which we've seen primarily in Twilight's Hammer, who fucking love Silithus. Their robes are a dark violet, dark enough to the point where I wonder if some of them died from heat exhaustion, and the crystals around Silithus are a rusty purple-ish hue. The parallel of a spider empire and an insectoid one are not lost on me either, and that's something I believe Blizzard intended (though whether or not they were successful with this intention is up to the reader).
Now, as much as I love Wrath of the Lich King, I do think that with the Nerubian Empire and its remainders, few that they were, should not have been in Northrend. We already had the Scourge, an old god, more trolls, dragons, and proto-humans. Not every expansion needs to have ALL THE LORE crammed in, as too much on one's plate can lead to people not wanting to eat at all (which is a common complaint I hear about Cataclysm, that there was way too much going on). If it were me, I would have the Nerubian Empire, or what remained of it, in Silithus. Instead of night elf buildings in the area, there would be Nerubian. There would be a constant war, ever shifting with the sands, between the Qiraji and the Nerubians. The night elves, in my humble opinion, would be wise enough to stay out of that, but would still monitor it. After all, the victor could and probably would be their next enemy. Hell, even the dragons would probably stay out of it, though they would watch from the skies.
Back to Anub'arak now. In Wrath, he's undead. He's been dead for a long time, and Ner'zhul decided to raise him from death and force him and his minions into servitude. The ones who are alive despise the Scourge and see Anub'arak as a traitor. The undead ones, well, they probably don't really think. Except for Anub'arak himself, since he's actually able to speak and not just hiss and skitter and kill. Northrend is rife with undeath, but it's not as commonly seen in Silithus. Yes, there are the ghosts of sentinels and druids, but those are more spirits who have unfinished business. That is not to say, however, that something cannot be undead in Silithus.
This thing is not undead, but what it is is a living statue. It was built by Emperor Vek'lor as a Destroyer that would put all others to shame. Apparently he succeeded, too, because this guy's a boss in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. The reason I bring this up, though, is because it started out as a statue, something that was inanimate and not alive in the slightest. But C'thun gave it life, and it became a living statue. To me, that isn't all that different from giving a corpse life. I'm not talking a fresh corpse, such as someone who is dead for ten minutes tops. I'm talking dead-dead. Like, mummy dead. Not being able to be revived even as a miracle dead. You get the idea, I'm sure. With this in mind, this would work for an undead Nerubian and his minions to once again rise from the depths of the sands, or hell, just remain underground and be forced into servitude of their enemies. Well, the leader of their enemies, I guess. But I still like idea of at least one Qiraji being a dick about it and having the Nerubian "servants" do the menial work. And Anub'arak? Oh yes, you can be damned sure there would be hell for him to pay.
Now, theoretically, this could go on for some time. Let's say the Qiraji were more vindictive about it, and they end up torturing some Nerubians to death (again). C'thun could bring them back to "life," but I don't think he would do this forever. C'thun, remember, is using the Qiraji, and their bullshit would probably not interest him. Why should he fix their toys if they're just going to keep breaking them? He doesn't care about their petty egos. He wants the world. Let's say Anub'arak does die again, and the Qiraji ask C'thun once again for him to be raised. C'thun does so, but he also brings back Anub'arak's intelligence. No longer is this beast a mindless slave. Oh, and he remembers the humiliating defeat, as well as the tortures from his previous lives. He ain't here to do the clean-up anymore, unless it means cleaning the Ruins of Ahn'qiraj of all this insectoid filth.
Now, imagine this in-game. It would be big, I think, because Silithus was pretty huge when the questline and raids were released. Imagine walking into the Ruins, and doing it as normal, with the possible hints here and there that there's something going on at the temple that was not meant to. Of course, this piques the interest of the player, and probably their characters as well. RP-wise, this has a lot of potential. Going into the Temple, it's an entirely different scene. It's all-out war between the Nerubians and the Qiraji. You could potentially pick a side, with a Qiraji quest-giver on one side of the entrance, and a Nerubian one on the other. Choosing one over the other would lead you to be Neutral with the side you choose, and Hated with the side you're against. You could also choose not to accept either quest, but this would make the raid harder, as you'd have Qiraji AND Nerubians coming after you (whether or not the loot would effect this, I don't know; loot in vanilla WoW was random as all hell, and any kind of increase in drops were practically negligent).
The quest you choose would lead to a cutscene, which would be a convenient way to load the raid so you would fight the appropriate bosses. The cutscene would basically be the NPC talking about war and them and rewards and blah blah, you're clearly evil, but so are they, so give me shinies. The camera would pan through the temple, showing Qiraji and Nerubians fighting to the death, and showing the appropriate bosses where they would be, whether they were Qiraji or Nerubian. If the raid leader did not choose a quest, however, the raid would be presented as thus: there would still be fighting amongst Nerubians and Qiraji, but once aggro'd, both would attack the raid. The bosses would all likely have scenes. For example, Prophet Skeram and a Nerubian prophet. They would be bickering and hissing at each other, both wanting to stop the raid as it enters, but wanting to do so for Qiraji/Nerubian. Each boss would have a different loot table, but only one would be fought (no, we are not doing Twin Emperor fights for every raid boss, that is suicide). Depending on which one is aggro'd, the other would fuck off, basically saying something along the lines of "I hope it hurts for you as much as it has me" or maybe "I'll enjoy watching this." I dunno, I'm not good at boss one-liners.
The Prophet Skeram/The Prophet... Thoth'ax? (Look, I'm trying here, okay?)
Silithid Royalty/Nerubian Miners
Battleguard Sartura/Silkcloak Obzor
Fankriss the Undying/Lykho'sedat the Patient
Viscidus (seriously, though, fuck that thing, go frost or go home, I guess)
Princess Huhuran/The Silver Bones
Twin Emperors/Anub'arak
Ouro/Scorpio?
C'thun
I'm not going to go through every boss encounter with painstaking detail (although if there is interest in it, I'll definitely come up with attacks and strategies!). This is just a basic idea of what players and characters are going to end up facing. Either way ends up leading to C'thun, but once C'thun is down, in comes the quest giver, crawling in and skittering up to the party. He thanks you, for whatever that's worth, and you get rep boost (in addition to the reputation you have gained and lost from killing one side instead of the other), but something unsaid also happens. A quartermaster is present in the entrance of the dungeon, next to the questgiver, when entered a second time. Of course, vanilla wasn't known for giving out tons of reputation, it was all about the grind, you get to see what wears are being sold to you that you can get in exchange for what drops from mobs and bosses. Of course, this would be gated by reputation, with the best loot being available at Exalted, but starting at Neutral, you can get food/drink and potions that would give you a minor boost on some fights (+10 shadow resistance, for example, or a bonus to HP). For the Neutral goodies, it would require "shells" that drop from trash mobs. Starting at Friendly, you'll need drops from bosses, because that's when you start getting the good stuff. Weapons, armor, rings, trinkets. Relics and totems, too, because druids and shamans need love, too. Maybe off-hands as well, but I don't remember off-hands being used prominently in vanilla.
As always, I would love to hear feedback!
Moam image courtesy of Wowpedia.
