A Pocket Full of Mounts

Talk about biopower. My druid is up to 101 vanity pets and 107 mounts. She keeps them in a secret compartment in her pocketbook, like a tiny Noah's Ark, whence she can easily and quickly summon one to do her bidding. Most of them never see the light of day, and are just there for posterity. The flying mounts are even functionally obsolete, since she can instantly transform herself into an agile bird as fast as any phoenix. Some (Lil Argent Squire and poor oft-abandoned Gnimo come to mind) are frequently sent to do the more tedious gruntwork.

Predatory cats are any Night Elf's birthright, and my druid has a fine collection of them. She eventually coaxed her friends in Winterspring to train a Frostsaber for her. She still regularly attempts to kidnap one of the gloriously orange tigers from Zul'Gurub, but the High Priest consistently clings to the Zulian feline right to the grave.

Her campaigns in Outland have resulted in a series of Netherwing drakes, talbuks, nether rays, and a hippogryph. A small caravan of mammoths are cramped into her pocket. All of them were purchased from reputable breeders like Mei Francis—assuming, of course, that those vendors aren't supplied by thieves lurking in Archavon's lair.

My druid spent many moons aiding the Humans, and in return they have bestowed a largish herd of equine steeds upon her. The horses are apparently imported from Northrend, where Squire Percy enlists volunteers to pick off stragglers from the local wild mustang herds. The once-free beasts who delighted in unbridled galloping now spend their days untended, unneeded, and forgotten as their powerful galloping-muscles deteriorate.

A handful of my druid's mounts are more novel than the rest, marking her complete control over vanquished enemies. She has bent both Anzu and Midnight to her will. Baron Rivendare's lean and hungry warhorse now serves its previous master's (serial)slayer, as do Mr Sunstrider's strider and Skadi's frosty drake. Her valor in ToGC earned her the prestigious Alliance award of excellence, and Ulduar's humbled denizens bequeathed an airborne memento to her.

In her effort to dominate the world of animal mounts, my druid was obliged to enter the domain of dominating humanoids. The Black War mounts—largely obtained under the older, token-based PvP reward system—are testament to her power over the lives and deaths of enemy players.

The only recalcitrant mounts are those summoned by the Qiraji Resonating Crystals. My toon doesn't have much power over them at all, and that power is useless everywhere in the world except for the remote yet beautiful Temple of Ahn'Qiraj—and one rarely has occasion to go there. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that there's one bug in particular that responds to the summons; she just bangs on a coloured crystal and hopes some silithid will surface.

A few specimens bridge the gap between the animal and mechanical. Cyborgs like the Gnomish mechanostriders were my druid's first non-living vehicles. Later, her snazzy chopper didn't even bother to make a pretense of mimicking living animals.

Seaworthy vessels

Last week's post on Azeroth's fishing industry brought me in mind of one of my favourite aspects of WoW: ships! Normally the idea of Azerothian ships automatically conjures an image of the waterborn-tavern feel of Human-style passenger ships; on further reflection and research for the purposes of this post, however, I now realize there is an enormous wealth of ship designs and purposes. There are numerous "inactive" boats in Azeroth that players will have occasion to visit throughout their adventures, but I'm going to focus on those ships used specifically for (primarily Alliance) transportation—perhaps another time I'll look at fun things like piracy and sunken wrecks and viking invasions.

Ship travel is the lifeline linking many Alliance settlements, just as zeppelins are the web by which the Horde is connected. Boats in Azeroth are crafted by shipwrights of varying cultural background, as evident in the design of their vessels.

Night Elves

Night Elf boats are sleek and simple in their design: a single mast with a single, decorative triangular sail; a graceful prow; an elevated aft that provides a roofed space (inaccessible to passengers); a wooden hull—one might consider their simple and natural elegance to reflect Night Elves' general appreciation for and love of nature. The major Night Elf harbour hub is at Auberdine; from there, one can catch a ride to nearby Darnassus, the new Stormwind harbour, or the Exodar. The Auberdine-Stormwind ship (The Bravery), however, is of Human design, though Night Elves (and even a High Elf) are represented in its multi-faction crew. Boats like Auberdine-Exodar Elune's Blessing and Auberdine-Darnassus The Moonspray are of Night Elf design, as well as being crewed solely by Night Elves (complete with wisps). Being an island town, Feathermoon Stronghold also has a harbour-link to land, but its short-haul ferry only carries passengers to the coast of Feralas (it is often faster to swim, and definitely faster to chug a water-walking potion and ride across the channel).

Humans

Human boats are lovely, creaky wooden things, clipper ships straight from European exploration and trading history. Both their early European design and their warm-hued, pub-like atmosphere are aesthetically congruous with Human building architecture on land. Unlike the Darnassian boats, human ships have squat square rigging and multiple masts—between this and the ample below-decks space (which usually contain hammocks for weary passengers and a barkeep with ample supplies of liquor), they're much more suitable (and comfortable) for long-distance voyages. The Lady Mehley, running between the human settlements of Theramore and Menethil Harbour, is crewed exclusively by humans, though other factions are occasionally to be found on human-style ships (as is the case with The Bravery).

The pirate town of Booty Bay is of course WoW's exemplary harbour town; it's such a salty place that the Boots of the Bay reward from the Kalu'ak fishing derby can instantly port the wearer to Booty Bay's Salty Sailor Tavern. Although all the buildings are situated along a multi-level series of docks, the harbour only offers a single transportation route to Ratchet. Passengers on this human-designed transport ship (The Maiden's Fancy) might be surprised to know that the crew piloting the boat are actually pirates belonging to the Blackwater Raiders. But, since the Blackwater Raiders are sworn enemies of the Bloodsail Buccaneers, you can rest assured that you've entrusted yourself to the "good" pirates.

In addition to their cargo/passenger transport clippers, Humans have also designed more resilient ships to foray through the Frozen Sea to Northrend. Two human-crewed "icebreakers" link the Eastern Kingdoms with Northrend: the Stormwind-Valiance Keep ship The Kraken and the Menethil-Valgarde Northspear. Strangley, these ships each have two masts with rigging, though they neither need nor use sails; rather, they are steam-powered to enable them to cut through the northern ice. Despite the colder climes and icebergs of the northern Frozen Sea, the icebreakers do not offer any cabin shelter or amenities for passengers.

Tuskarr

Up north, the Tuskarr have harnessed the power of giant turtles, upon whose living foundations they construct their ships. Remember when the carrot-on-a-stick used to encourage your mount to give 103%? The Tuskarr use this same technology to manipulate their naturally-driven boats; a team of two drivers uses a mechanism involving pulleys, a fishing rod, and of course a carrot, while the turtle flails its flippers and propels itself forward in an attempt to catch the carrot.

The Tuskarr administer two "active passenger" turtles: the Walker of Waves and Green Island. It takes Green Island roughly three minutes to chase a carrot between Dragonblight's Moa'ki Harbour and Howling Fjord's Kamagua Harbour. Once he reaches the Tuskarr drivers' destination, the carrot is reeled out of sight and the turtle enjoys a 1-minute rest before the carrot is lowered for the return trip. Walker of Waves has a similar experience, with his route connecting Moa'ki Harbour with Unu'pe in Borean Tundra. In addition to these two passenger turtles, Moa'ki Harbour is home to The Half Shell, a turtle boat who is permanently docked and even abandoned by any crew who could kindly reel the tempting carrot out of sight. The turtle-driving technology of the Tuskarr is ingenious, though I imagine the D.E.H.T.A. crew would have something to say about animal rights. But the Tuskarr (who appear to have only recently diverged from walruses in their evolutionary history) are a benevolent and nature-loving race, and no doubt have a sort of symbiotic understanding with turtles, depending upon them for both sea-travel and cavalry on land.