Exhibit: Thousand Needles

The world is going to change. There's no getting around it, and there's no going back. Some places will escape the environmental devastation unscathed and even oblivious, but others will drastically change. Whole settlements will evaporate into ruins; in some places, the present and the past will both be swallowed up, never to be seen again. There's a kind of sadness attached to this idea; the thought that an ancient shrine might disappear entirely severs a tenuous link to the legends of the past. Perhaps the most chilling part about the transformation of the world is the fact that it is more certain than death or taxes.

Thousand Needles is one such place; when the Cataclysm hits, most of this low-lying land will be flooded. In this exhibit of the Digital Museum, I'll capture what I can of Thousand Needles' rugged and doomed beauty.

Directory

The Great Lift
Pinnacles and Canyons
Shimmering Flats
Mirage Raceway
Low-Lying Civilizations
Gift Shop
Looking Ahead

The Great Lift

At the southern tip of the Barrens, the ground gives way in a steep dropoff into the canyon of Thousand Needles. Descending to the canyon floor from that dizzying height would be impossible without the ingenious elevator system developed by the Tauren, utilized in Thunder Bluff as well. By means of these lifts, the Tauren are able to avoid hostile creatures on the canyon floor, and inhabit the zone's rocky canopy. The Great Lift is the northern gateway to the desert, and deposits travelers into the dusty desert of Thousand Needles.

Pinnacles and Canyons

Much of Thousand Needles is a deep canyon pierced by the towering rock chimneys and hoodoos that give the desert its name. Some of the hoodoos are topped by large boulders that are perched so precariously that they constantly teeter dangerously, gyrating on their perches.

The very existence of the canyon reveals that a river once cut through this area, eroding the rock and carving out the gorge. The scorched basin that is now Shimmering Flats was likely once a lake or inland sea feeding this river, but it is suspected that the Great Sundering altered the land into its present arid form. The canyon is a beautiful shade of earthy red, interrupted by very little vegetation. A single oasis of scalding, stagnant water stands at the foot of Darkcloud Pinnacle, haunted by ill-tempered water elementals.

The largest pinnacles were sturdy enough for the Tauren to build settlements upon. Atop Darkcloud Pinnacle is the Grimtotem tribe, while the Horde Tauren have established Freewind Post—and tensions exist between the two tribes high above the canyon floor.

Shimmering Flats

Salt covers the ultra-flat reaches of this sun-scorched basin surrounded by steep cliffs. The ancient lakebed still holds signs of its underwater past. The wreckage of a large ship lies on the northern edge of the desert, leagues upon leagues away from the nearest sea-coast in Tanaris. In another area, the bleached remains of an enormous turtle bake in the sun.

The ship wreckage must have piqued the interest of curious explorers. The Explorers' League set up shop at the Rustmaul Dig Site in the southwest of Shimmering Flats, unearthing some large pieces of ancient stone masonry. But the dwarves dug too deep and disturbed a hive of silithids. Between the silithids erupting from the depths, and attacks from an Orcish party now holed up at Ironstone Camp, the dwarves were obliged to abandon the excavation. The artifacts now lie abandoned, the buried city foundations forgotten, and the ancient seafaring civilization unknown.

One question that arises is: why is there masonry buried in the lakebed? When did the city exist, and who built it? Was it built after the Sundering, and then fell quickly into decay? Was it an underwater city inhabited by an aquatic race while the lake was full? Or is it even more ancient, dating from some prehistoric age before the lake even existed?

Forbidding mountains ring the desert basin, but at the south is a gentle pass through the peaks into another desert world, with Gadgetzan sprawling at the Tanaris-side foot of the mountains pass.

Mirage Raceway

Have you seen the rocket-drawn chariots dancing across the desert? Careening around the track's curves, shuddering toward finish lines, exploding in spectacular fiery displays, incinerating upon impact with the unforgiving desert cliffs? The Mirage Raceway, set in the heart of the Shimmering Flats, is a long-standing tradition that will soon be drowned when the Cataclysm urges the sea into this low-lying desert. Goblin and Gnomish engineers compete to create powerful rocket-propelled racing vehicles. Debris from the raceway's mishaps is strewn about the entire Shimmering Flats.

At the raceway's centre are the goblins and gnomes who build and maintain the race-cars, as well as spectators and vendors of various races.


Low-lying Civilizations

The Galak Centaur have built encampments in the canyon, while the Gravelsnout Kobalds roam at the foot of the Great Lift. A clan of harpies lives in a cliffside cave that will surely be drowned. Aside from these humanoid civilizations, there are quite a few carnivorous beasts roaming the canyon bottom—rather more than a desert food-chain can support, I would think. Hyenas, cougars, stealthed cats, and winged serpents roam the canyon floor. In the salt flats are populations of scavenging vultures, landlocked tortoises, scorpions, and basilisks. On the southwestern edge of the salty basin, an abandoned archaeological digsite inadvertently unleashed a hive of silithids. Tucked in an enclave in the southern cliffside is a wyvern nesting-ground, high enough that it will only be partially flooded when the waters roll in.

Gift Shop

Tigule and Furor's Strawberry Ice Cream: The Mirage Raceway is renowned for this ice-cold treat, coveted by orphans around the globe and a delicious snack to cool you off in the parched desert, as you cheer on the race-car drivers. Brivelthwerp at Mirage Raceway is the only ice cream purveyor outside of Outlands, aside from the packaged version you can buy from vending machines on zeppelins.

Ancona Chicken: Also at Mirage Raceway is Magus Tirth, the only breeder/seller of the Ancona chicken pet. While some other chicken raiser might take up the torch, or the vendor himself might relocate, it's possible that the Cataclysm will spell doom for the Ancona chicken species as a whole. Get yours while suppliers last!


Looking Ahead

This desert world has already seen drastic change during the Sundering (or the 'first' Cataclysm). The next Cataclysm just might revert the zone into a more original state. There's no question about it: everything that lives on the canyon floor and the salty flats will lie underwater when Cataclysm strikes.

Will there be enough warning to evacuate the centaur and raceway operators before the floods come? Or will everything simply be swallowed up and forgotten? Centuries from now, will deep-water divers stumble upon vast tracts of rocket car rubble and wonder how it got there? Will the monumental Great Lift fall into disuse and decay? What will become of the ancient civilization that was only barely unearthed at the dig-site?

It's likely that all civilization will follow in the Horde's footsteps and move to higher ground. The pinnacles that remain above sea-level will become new settlements (or, in the case of Darkcloud Pinnacle and Freewind Post, grow into a networked island complex). Life will take root on the coasts of the new inland sea—the previously inaccessible plateaus high above the canyon—and learn to thrive in its new environment. The goblins of Mirage Raceway will adapt to seafaring life; perhaps they'll find some new sport to amuse themselves once the ocean closes around them.