“J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji." -Terry Pratchett
@@karldergrosse-333 Suillad mellon. Blizzard is still in the wrong for lifting literal sindarin and quenyan words left and right. Have never been comfortable with that. Even more annoyed knowing words like Azeroth were lifted from other authors as well. Lazy as fuck on blizzard's behalf. Always has bugged me. Enjoy your great king Anduin, the long river? What long river is he named after? Varian doesn't know either, the writers just stole the fucking sindarin word without realizing the word Anduin is literally just two one syllable words put into a compound adjective.
@@kodiakulv5148 my massive reply got deleted....I think you are spot on. Especially with Anduin and that mildly important river that housed the old capital of Gondor :)
Dragonlance is literally a part of who I am. My teen years in an abusive household were spent soaking up as much of the series as I was able. It is almost as if the characters are an allegory for our species, for even now 20 years later, I see pieces of myself in each one of them.
This video makes me really miss the golden era of WoW in an incredibly painful way... I feel like so much of the soul of inspiration and creation has been lost in recent years. Early WoW felt like such a love letter to fantasy as a whole. Modern WoW just doesn't have that passion anymore.
At this point I think they're just trying to bring closure to most plots that were started over the years. Maybe they're attempting to bring as much closure as possible before moving on to something else.
Modern wow is all about the monetization and cramming in a mush stuff as they can in the hopes it'll lure in more players. I still say all the plot lines of BfA could have been untangled and better fleshed out each as their own expansion rather than the rushed 'Yeah this character/place/event has always been pretty major or big in the lore...ok you go destroy them in a single raid on to other thigns now!'
It may have been inevitable though, it's easier to write something good when you still have the best material in the world to crib from, it's much harder to continue that story and stay at the same caliber. Hell, it's quite possible that they're so aware of this that they've resorted to stealing from whatever movies are popular at the time of writing.
6 weeks is beyond insanity Man, also goes to show how much was left opened and created as it went. Much less of a foundation then I ever would have assumed. How it all came together as well as it did early on is really a miracle.
I think it would be almost better if Revendreth was more Ravenloft from D&D with Lords ruling over their perspective zones/realms/worlds and Sire being the overlord.
I mean there are hundreds of portals to unknown places in the twisting nether. You can imagine whatever hellscapes you like, they haven't laid them out in the lore.
@@thefrayedends Sure and the same thing could be done with Azeroth really. That definitely gives them a wider canvas to be creative. I think Blizzard it at their best in the game when they are mixing in and merging other fantasy settings into WoW. Orcs vs Humans and the high fantasy elements have gotten a little stale for me personally, so I am all for getting as creative as you can with where we go next.
Revendreth and the Maw got the best visuals in the game tho. If you're gonna complain about zones, it should be Bastion and Ardenweald. Bastion is a boring looking zone, and Ardenweald is just terrible at every aspect imo ^^
Revendreth is more like Purgatory that takes place in Dracula's Transylvania. Dante's Inferno applies more to the Maw, especially Torghast with its different wings with different torments. Even the Jailer is like Satan, who is as much a prisoner of Hell as the damned souls.
No. Revendreth is poorly written with an asinine "what if, head-canon" there are infinite azeroths and we are "prime" azeroth and the chosen ones 🤣. When are we going to have Thrall point paradox and reset the universe. An interesting premise doesn't guarantee a good story without love and passion to polish it.
Anyone who's played D&D or read Dragonlance novels, and engaged in any fantasy nerd stuff from the 80's/90's you can see clear parallels between a lot of stuff in WoW. If you pay attention to the names and lore of the game, you can just move a letter or two around and ad an X or something and you'll find the counterpart. None of this is a bad thing, nor is it unusual. It's beautiful and I love it, because I'm a huge nerd and love D&D.
I'm currently DMing for a bunch of WoW nerds. One is a cleric of the moon goddess. Selune. They've met followers of Moradin. The head dwarf god. Only two of many things semi-lifted directly from D&D.
Given that Metzen went and founded Warchief gaming after he quit blizz that are gonna release their own DnD setting in 5e its kinda natural alot of warcraft stuff derived from his/their experience with DnD.
@@Zimmerh90 I don't quite remember the source, but I think Metzen mentioned at some point that several Warcraft characters are directly ported from the D&D characters he and others made in the past, I think Garona was such a character for instance. Also, even the name "Warcraft" is allegedly the name of a developer's orc fighter or barbarian.
Dragonlance is amazing and it is what i read as a kid. I HIGHLY recommend reading it if nothing else so you can learn how to pronounce Raistlin. If you don't read much else in it, read Chronicles and Legends and the Lost Chronicles. Definitely worth your time.
I know these might not the most popular videos you put out, but its stuff like this that makes me love the channel. A very interesting and well researched deep dive into something that effects everyone who plays the game.
The Dragonlance chronicles were fucking amazing. I’ve always wished they would make movies out of them and it’s great to see the influence they had on another gigantic fantasy realm
I have to say! Amazing work, super interesting and informative. Really like the new mindset of 2021, well done to you bellular and to you team! Wish you all the luck in the work for a great future ^^
I live in Nottingham where Games Workshop is based and at the HQ they have a huge exhibit and gaming hall called Warhammer World. One of the dioramas set up on the gaming tables has buildings almost identical to those we see in Gilneas, Hillsbrad and Tirisfal. I mentioned this to a longstanding staff member and was told that the same artists had worked on both.
11:44 fun fact about that. Tolkien didn't like how the word "dwarfs" sounded so he changed it to "Dwarves." So you ever see a that spelling yep that's Tolkien.
it's not that he didn't like how it sounded, he used it to differentiate his fantasy creatures from real-life little people because they were commonly called dwarfs with an -fs at the time. Same with his elves and the little Santa's workshop style commercial mascot elfs. He basically invented the modern urban fantasy magic*k* and vamp*y*r thing decades ahead of time.
Dragonlance is my personal favorite universe, with raistlin being my favorite character. Two favorite novels are the soulforge, and dragons of the hourglass mage. Incredible. Also a fan of iolanthe, raistlin female black robe counterpart.
really liked how Dragons of the Hourglass mage filled in the background from Raistlin disappearing with the Dragon Orb and then later showing up at the end of Spring Dawning suddenly black robes and uber powerful. Soulforge and Brothers in Arms were fantastic as well. To be honest, any of the books focusing on Raistlin are great.
The original concept for the night elves is a fascinating read and I'm very disappointed we never got to see it. All the druids permanently merged into their trees and guiding their society telepathically from afar as a hivemind while the warrior caste patrols the forests around them protecting them from threats.
@@galten7361 I can see why they decided against it. As weird and nonsensical as night elves teaming up with humans and dwarves is, it's still better than the nelves teaming up with the people literally invading their continent and chopping down their forests. I personally still would have put night elves, taurens, draenei and pandas together as their own faith and religion themed faction with druids, priests, shamans and a literal prophet in charge opposite the monarchist Alliance kingdoms and the military dictatorship Horde.
Lord of the clans is to this day my favourite boo I’ve ever read , the fact that she wrote it in 6 weeks just makes appreciate even more. Christie Golden is the most underrated author.
She might not be terrible but needs more room than Blizzard in that case. War Crimes being such a bad novel ("magical zoo gives lecture on how you shouldn't kill Orc Hitler") reflects this.
There is nothing to interview. Frozen throne and diablo had tones of fans back then trust me I m 45. They saw what daoc EQ and neverwinter were doing and capialized on it. At the same time a moba called heroes of newerths devs took frozen throne and made a game called dota out of it. Its now dota 2 which their TI has the largest prizepool in all of esports their last TI was 40 million grab prize. Wow is literally frozen throne as an mmo and dota is frozen throne as a Mona plain and simple. Brilliant of them at the time to do it to be honest
"Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal". - Pablo Picasso, who stole the line from TS Elliot, who in turn stole it from WH Davenport Adams. Steve Jobs then stole it from Picasso.
Tolkien, that young officer in World War 1 that then pursued his scholarship while creating Arda and Middle Earth over the decades. And when he wasn't writing the Hobbit and later, Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, he was encouraging his good friend, C.S. Lewis, as he was putting out his Narnia books! I'll shill a bit here, for a WoW break, roll up a free LOTRO character. That MMO does a great job in capturing the spirit of that world. The Shire is just fantastically made.
I'm thankfull for the Night Elves, really love them, but that also made the burn of Teldrassil and the Alliance-side of the War of Thornes really hurt me. ;(
Kaldorei were doomed as soon as they got put into the Alliance in Vanilla. They had to nerf us into oblivion so that we wouldn't completely destroy the Horde.
Don't forget Transylvanian and Hungarian lore in Revendreth! There are many Hungarian names used there (since Transylvania was part of Hungary for most of it's history) and the vampire lore is a direct reference to Dracula lore
My brain is about to explode every time you say MogRaine instead of MoRgaine while the book is in the picture xD But besides My OCD, Nice video! Love it!
Revendreth is a mix of the Ravenloft D&D setting, with A LOT of Vampire: The Masquerade terminology (Sire Denathrius... Venthyr sounds like Ventrue, there’s a Prince who holds courts...).
One key source of inspiration that wasn't noted in the video was the Elric Saga. Which also notably influenced Warhammer (see Chaos). Arthas himself is no doubt modeled on Elric (deathly pale skin and white hair, soul eating sword, pawn of divine/demonic forces, royal who destroys his own kingdom).
I would love to see a MMORPG based on Malazan book of the fallen. Or have WoW to start taking influences from it. There is just so much lore and detail in it. And hopefully Steve Erikson doesnt mind.
Well the reason I never know about dragonlance is because I've never heard of that name. I've heard magic the gathering and maybe others but not lance, I was blown away that most of what they did was rearrange those details, and put them in whatever parts of their story.
Saint Kargoth certainly was an inspiration for Arthas. A paladin that becomed "the" Death Knight. Kargoth started out as a paladin and became corrupted becoming a Death Knight. One thing I think Blizzard missed though is how tragic Kargoth's story is, and I believe this was originally the idea behind Arthas it just didn't turn out that way. Blizzard should have really played up the tragedy of Arthas' fall. Kargoth is definitely one you need to look up as I believe his story is same in many ways, although not the exact story, but the story was handled much better.
I'd never spotted the Dragonlance stuff, but now cannot unsee it. Entertaining bit of history and shows that there really are no new ideas, at least in fantasy RPGs. BTW I pronounce 'Raistlin' to rhyme with 'waste bin'.
There is also the idea of the Helm of Domination based on the Crown of Sorcery from Warhammer. In WH the wearer, Azhag the Slaughterer (and Orc), could listen through the crown the thoughts of Nagash (a human necromancer). In contrast to WC, the wearer was Arthas (a human) that could listen to Ner'zhul thoughts (an Orc necromancer) through the helm. Of course this was before the modificaiton to the lore with the introduction of the Jailer.
I loved this, thank you! May I request a segment or clip of where Starcraft really Came From? As a fan of both, I'd also find that really interesting! If that's outside your wheelhouse (hope I used that correctly), then thank you for doing this one!
* *Laughs in H.P. Lovecrafts the mythos and Real world religions* * Well Honestly DnD is true; its true for everything. Even down to Tolkien. EVERYTHING can be traced back to DnD or Tolkien.
Garrosh is basically Grimgor. Arthas is basically Sigvald. Cenarius is basically Orion. The forsaken are basically what happens when you combine the vampire counts with the skaven Kel'Thuzad is basically Nagash (which you covered)
What I found interesting, if one decides to accept that Azeroth it's based on the name Azatot of HP Lovecraft, it's that's one of the old god names. So it could imply that Azeroth it's or has become what the old gods that invaded wanted it to become. And also the parallelism in the story (still only if one accepts that theory) which comes from the book of HPL that states if Azatot were to awake, then everything will end, since it's in his dream that we exist. In the same way that if Azeroth, the world, stopped from being a world to take another shape or a drastic change, what would happen to the inhabitants?
Blizzard had an immense gift for taking great ideas and perfecting them. It was true in their story telling as it was true in their games themselves. Now I think little to nothing of that remains. Here's to hoping Dreamhaven can capture some of that old magic.
For the people interested about Warhammer 40k lore, I implore you to watch Bricky's two videos explaining each and every race in that universe. I never knew anything about WH40k and he explains it really casual and it's a great watch.
20:30 Actually Revendreth also reminded me of the Lucifer Comics - those definitely drew inspiration from dantes inferno as well as miltons paradise lost
Tolkein's orcs were actually 'sallow' in colouring, not gray/dark. Sickly yellow and supposed to look like corrupt and afflicted humans. Also the draenei-tau connection? You guys missed that easter egg. XD
@@minuette1752 I know that's their origin in the movies. What I mean is that Tolkein's intention was for them to resemble corrupt and disease-afflicted humans. In the original texts and Silmarillion, orcs don't really have an exact origin since Tolkein kept changing what their origin was depending on how he wanted to reword the legends. Sometimes they were corrupt elves, sometimes corrupt humans, other times they were creatures made of muck and shadow. It depends in what timeframe we're considering during Tolkein's works.
@@galten7361 Far easterners? How so? They seem more like vikings that have, in this fictional world, tribal societies ran through raiding and pillaging rather than mongols.
In the japanese manga Dr. SLUMP (1980-1984) by Akira Toriyama (the author of Dragon Ball) a fish with legs and arms that very likely resembles a murloc is recurrently used to represent the passing of time, much in the same fashion as the "A few moments later" meme is used nowadays. Don't know if this is a japanese representation or specific to this (sometimes surrealistic) comic, but just seen it there.
The parallel between tieflings and draenei is a bit misguided. Because the Tieflings we have today start to exist after 2008 with the Dungeon and Dragon 4th Edition. The Tieflings from 3rd and 2rd are totally different from the 4th and 5th editions of D&D, include if you look from forums at the time people people complains how the 4th edition was turning D&D in WoW.
the funny thing about those people saying 4e turned D&D into WoW. most of the things they say are like WoW, ignore the fact that all those things they complained about like At wills, Encounters, and dailies were in past editions as spell like abilities.
There might also be a connection between Medivh and the character "Raven" from DC comics. Raven's mother slept with a powerful demon lord who needed half-human offspring to open a portal and invade Earth. Medivh's mother got (partly) possessed by a demon lord, who'd use Medivh to open a portal to Azeroth. Oh, and Raven's catchphrase is "Azarath Metrion Zinthos".
That would explain the vaguely Eastern European accents. But I never heard of Armenians making a deal with the devil and hunting down anyone who refused it.
10:55 quite wrong here, Kel'thuzad csme with Warcraft III, but that Nagash final form came in the End Times, around 8 to 10 years later, so in any case it was Games Workshop the ones who took some inspiration from Blizzard.
dude what?! The Runes are directly from warhammer? hahaha that's awesome. This video was super fun, I love content like this. Had not idea about the Draenei either.
"A little bit of Ireland there is. Well, Celtic stuff. And Gaelic stuff." And yet Blizzard somehow didn't include The Morrigan, the Chooser of the Slain in the Irish Pantheon, in Ardenweald. Or any direct reference to her at all. Believe me, I've looked.
80% of modern fantasy comes from Tolkien. That's a given in western culture. But Chris Metzen, especially since BC, was able to give it its own spin and that makes it original in my eyes.
@@celtic889 Tolkien already established orcs as being technologically impressive. They weren't savages (be they noble or not). Nor did he ever really find a backstory for what makes them so hostile to other races that satisfied him. Elder Scrolls did "good orcs" earlier anyway without any demons anyway.
Warcraft setting started being legit bad at TBC. What with the retcons, Animehair Varian and Garrosh being introduced, Kael'thas becoming a meme who died a disappointing death
I own many of WC novels. I kind of felt like I had esoteric knowledge after reading them versus what and how it was presented in WoW. Appreciate your content. I come from FFXIV
Wait, wait, wait, WAIT! Are you implying that the reason why WoW sucks right now is because they are running out of references to plagiarize and they have no ounce of creativity to even come near to the level of the references they plagiarized in the past to save themselves?
That was literally never implied. Original devs of WoW were amazingly creative. If being inspired is plagiarizing then genres would not exist. All fantasy is inspired by Tolkien, all cosmic horror is inspired by Lovecraft etc. - it's how you use this genre setting that makes you creative. And Warcraft made a really creative world based on the Tolkien and Lovecraft genres.
i'm pretty sure everyone who has read LOTR knew orcs were mostly green, sometimes brown or tan. Mud colors. It's the Uruk-hai which are cross breads of orcs and humans that saruman made that have the more famous black or dark skin colors in the movies especially the second one. But if you look at say the third movie sauron's army, granted some of it are green goblins and humans and a mixture of other creatures but more green orcs of some kind or another.
I feel like that bit about mutant deep sea murlocs simply became the anglerfish 'deep sea murlocs' we got in Wrath, personally, but it's not a big point.
I'm actually sceptical towards the Draenei / DnD Tiefling inspiration. While Tieflings were introduced in 2nd edition of DnD they looked nothing like they do today. Back then they were more like a human with some fiendish traits, like devil wings, horns (not the draenei kind) and similar things. In the 4th edition both appearance and lore was changed of the Tiefling which resulted in the kind of Draenei looking race of modern DnD. The thing is, 4th edition DnD was published in 2008, while Burning Crusade releasing in 2007. Furthermore, Eredar was introduced all the way back in Warcraft 3 in 2002. Of course, back then they didn't have the trademark Draenei horns and was generally much more demonic (being an demonic race and the overall Eredar / Draenei lore not being written yet). Still, the Draenei clearly have inspiration from the Warcraft 3 Eredar, now being linked to them in lore. I have heard before that DnD actually took inspiration from Warcraft when redesigning their Tiefling race, but I don't have any source on that. Maybe Draenei was inspired by concept art of the new tiefling prior to the DnD 4e publishing, or maybe Warcraft actually do have an original race design.
“J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji."
-Terry Pratchett
Mae govannen! Tolkien IS fantasy. The GOAT.
Rest in peace Terry, you were always one of the best!
@@karldergrosse-333 Suillad mellon. Blizzard is still in the wrong for lifting literal sindarin and quenyan words left and right. Have never been comfortable with that. Even more annoyed knowing words like Azeroth were lifted from other authors as well. Lazy as fuck on blizzard's behalf. Always has bugged me. Enjoy your great king Anduin, the long river? What long river is he named after? Varian doesn't know either, the writers just stole the fucking sindarin word without realizing the word Anduin is literally just two one syllable words put into a compound adjective.
@@kodiakulv5148 my massive reply got deleted....I think you are spot on. Especially with Anduin and that mildly important river that housed the old capital of Gondor :)
It sounds like a good analogy. But then u realise you're saying literally nothing
So glad Dragonlance is getting recognition here. Seems most contemporary fans of fantasy aren't aware of it for some reason.
Man I grew up on Dragonlance, all of those era Forgotten Realms had an air of epicness to them
Dragonlance is literally a part of who I am. My teen years in an abusive household were spent soaking up as much of the series as I was able. It is almost as if the characters are an allegory for our species, for even now 20 years later, I see pieces of myself in each one of them.
It was before most wow fans were born.
This video makes me really miss the golden era of WoW in an incredibly painful way... I feel like so much of the soul of inspiration and creation has been lost in recent years. Early WoW felt like such a love letter to fantasy as a whole. Modern WoW just doesn't have that passion anymore.
i was thinking the same thing
it literally hurts me...
At this point I think they're just trying to bring closure to most plots that were started over the years. Maybe they're attempting to bring as much closure as possible before moving on to something else.
Modern wow is all about the monetization and cramming in a mush stuff as they can in the hopes it'll lure in more players. I still say all the plot lines of BfA could have been untangled and better fleshed out each as their own expansion rather than the rushed 'Yeah this character/place/event has always been pretty major or big in the lore...ok you go destroy them in a single raid on to other thigns now!'
It may have been inevitable though, it's easier to write something good when you still have the best material in the world to crib from, it's much harder to continue that story and stay at the same caliber. Hell, it's quite possible that they're so aware of this that they've resorted to stealing from whatever movies are popular at the time of writing.
6 weeks is beyond insanity
Man, also goes to show how much was left opened and created as it went. Much less of a foundation then I ever would have assumed. How it all came together as well as it did early on is really a miracle.
To be really honest if Revendreth or even the maw took an ounce of Dante's depiction of hell It would be beautiful. Horrifying but beautiful.
I think it would be almost better if Revendreth was more Ravenloft from D&D with Lords ruling over their perspective zones/realms/worlds and Sire being the overlord.
I mean there are hundreds of portals to unknown places in the twisting nether. You can imagine whatever hellscapes you like, they haven't laid them out in the lore.
@@thefrayedends Sure and the same thing could be done with Azeroth really. That definitely gives them a wider canvas to be creative.
I think Blizzard it at their best in the game when they are mixing in and merging other fantasy settings into WoW. Orcs vs Humans and the high fantasy elements have gotten a little stale for me personally, so I am all for getting as creative as you can with where we go next.
Revendreth and the Maw got the best visuals in the game tho.
If you're gonna complain about zones, it should be Bastion and Ardenweald.
Bastion is a boring looking zone, and Ardenweald is just terrible at every aspect imo ^^
@@Raffalius My biggest problem with Bastion is the blinding brightness. It really needs to be toned down.
It came from the stork after a mommy WoW and a daddy WoW fell in love.
Thanks for saving us 20 minutes :)
I love you
Revendreth is more like Purgatory that takes place in Dracula's Transylvania. Dante's Inferno applies more to the Maw, especially Torghast with its different wings with different torments. Even the Jailer is like Satan, who is as much a prisoner of Hell as the damned souls.
WC Afterlife Bad
No. Revendreth is poorly written with an asinine "what if, head-canon" there are infinite azeroths and we are "prime" azeroth and the chosen ones 🤣. When are we going to have Thrall point paradox and reset the universe. An interesting premise doesn't guarantee a good story without love and passion to polish it.
Anyone who's played D&D or read Dragonlance novels, and engaged in any fantasy nerd stuff from the 80's/90's you can see clear parallels between a lot of stuff in WoW. If you pay attention to the names and lore of the game, you can just move a letter or two around and ad an X or something and you'll find the counterpart.
None of this is a bad thing, nor is it unusual. It's beautiful and I love it, because I'm a huge nerd and love D&D.
I'm currently DMing for a bunch of WoW nerds.
One is a cleric of the moon goddess. Selune.
They've met followers of Moradin. The head dwarf god.
Only two of many things semi-lifted directly from D&D.
Given that Metzen went and founded Warchief gaming after he quit blizz that are gonna release their own DnD setting in 5e its kinda natural alot of warcraft stuff derived from his/their experience with DnD.
@@Zimmerh90 I don't quite remember the source, but I think Metzen mentioned at some point that several Warcraft characters are directly ported from the D&D characters he and others made in the past, I think Garona was such a character for instance.
Also, even the name "Warcraft" is allegedly the name of a developer's orc fighter or barbarian.
The Minotaurs in Dragonlance I imagine inspired the Tauren. Same for its portrayal of dragons.
Dragonlance is amazing and it is what i read as a kid. I HIGHLY recommend reading it if nothing else so you can learn how to pronounce Raistlin. If you don't read much else in it, read Chronicles and Legends and the Lost Chronicles. Definitely worth your time.
I know these might not the most popular videos you put out, but its stuff like this that makes me love the channel. A very interesting and well researched deep dive into something that effects everyone who plays the game.
The Dragonlance chronicles were fucking amazing. I’ve always wished they would make movies out of them and it’s great to see the influence they had on another gigantic fantasy realm
Omg, C. J. Cherryh is one of my favourite authors. Excellent job spotting that. Serious props to you.
I have to say! Amazing work, super interesting and informative. Really like the new mindset of 2021, well done to you bellular and to you team! Wish you all the luck in the work for a great future ^^
This video is like a letter a funeral tribute letter from a game that once was incredible
Well ty for reminding me why I fell in love with this game now I just can’t seem to get myself playing it anymore :(
It's not the same game anymore :(
Yes that is exactly what I feel too so much has changed game wise lore wise and play style is so different now
That's why I've retired from retail and returned hme to classic 😉
I live in Nottingham where Games Workshop is based and at the HQ they have a huge exhibit and gaming hall called Warhammer World. One of the dioramas set up on the gaming tables has buildings almost identical to those we see in Gilneas, Hillsbrad and Tirisfal. I mentioned this to a longstanding staff member and was told that the same artists had worked on both.
11:44 fun fact about that. Tolkien didn't like how the word "dwarfs" sounded so he changed it to "Dwarves." So you ever see a that spelling yep that's Tolkien.
Is it true for Elves too?
That doesn't make sense though. You dont say "oh there's a Dwarve". You say "Oh there's a dwarf".
@@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ No.
it's not that he didn't like how it sounded, he used it to differentiate his fantasy creatures from real-life little people because they were commonly called dwarfs with an -fs at the time. Same with his elves and the little Santa's workshop style commercial mascot elfs.
He basically invented the modern urban fantasy magic*k* and vamp*y*r thing decades ahead of time.
Dragonlance is my personal favorite universe, with raistlin being my favorite character. Two favorite novels are the soulforge, and dragons of the hourglass mage. Incredible. Also a fan of iolanthe, raistlin female black robe counterpart.
really liked how Dragons of the Hourglass mage filled in the background from Raistlin disappearing with the Dragon Orb and then later showing up at the end of Spring Dawning suddenly black robes and uber powerful. Soulforge and Brothers in Arms were fantastic as well. To be honest, any of the books focusing on Raistlin are great.
I think my favorite (maybe) reference is that of Kalimdor and Callandor (Wheel of Time), they are said almost exactly the same.
The original concept for the night elves is a fascinating read and I'm very disappointed we never got to see it. All the druids permanently merged into their trees and guiding their society telepathically from afar as a hivemind while the warrior caste patrols the forests around them protecting them from threats.
Beta Night Elves also were planned to be allied with (if not members of) Thrall's Horde before WoW was designed to have factions.
@@galten7361 I can see why they decided against it. As weird and nonsensical as night elves teaming up with humans and dwarves is, it's still better than the nelves teaming up with the people literally invading their continent and chopping down their forests.
I personally still would have put night elves, taurens, draenei and pandas together as their own faith and religion themed faction with druids, priests, shamans and a literal prophet in charge opposite the monarchist Alliance kingdoms and the military dictatorship Horde.
Lord of the clans is to this day my favourite boo I’ve ever read , the fact that she wrote it in 6 weeks just makes appreciate even more. Christie Golden is the most underrated author.
She might not be terrible but needs more room than Blizzard in that case. War Crimes being such a bad novel ("magical zoo gives lecture on how you shouldn't kill Orc Hitler") reflects this.
"they only gave Christie Golden 6 weeks to write the book!"
2021: "they gave her double the tbc classic prepatch timeframe to write the book"
*Correction* TRIPLE the amount of time.
I'd love to see an interview with some of the early Blizz staff to get their take on it.
There is nothing to interview. Frozen throne and diablo had tones of fans back then trust me I m 45. They saw what daoc EQ and neverwinter were doing and capialized on it. At the same time a moba called heroes of newerths devs took frozen throne and made a game called dota out of it. Its now dota 2 which their TI has the largest prizepool in all of esports their last TI was 40 million grab prize. Wow is literally frozen throne as an mmo and dota is frozen throne as a Mona plain and simple. Brilliant of them at the time to do it to be honest
"Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal".
- Pablo Picasso, who stole the line from TS Elliot, who in turn stole it from WH Davenport Adams. Steve Jobs then stole it from Picasso.
Seeing those old pics of the devs in someone's poster covered room made me feel something. Now Blizzard is this massive souless monster. Sucks.
Tolkien, that young officer in World War 1 that then pursued his scholarship while creating Arda and Middle Earth over the decades. And when he wasn't writing the Hobbit and later, Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, he was encouraging his good friend, C.S. Lewis, as he was putting out his Narnia books! I'll shill a bit here, for a WoW break, roll up a free LOTRO character. That MMO does a great job in capturing the spirit of that world. The Shire is just fantastically made.
I'm thankfull for the Night Elves, really love them, but that also made the burn of Teldrassil and the Alliance-side of the War of Thornes really hurt me. ;(
Best barbecue ever. Shame more didn't die
Kaldorei were doomed as soon as they got put into the Alliance in Vanilla. They had to nerf us into oblivion so that we wouldn't completely destroy the Horde.
The Night Elves should just leave the Alliance already. Stormwind hasn't done anything noteworthy for them.
@@Mark-kr5go Funny enough, they intended the Night Elves to be in the Horde or at least allied with them back before Vanilla was finished.
@@galten7361 that would be even worse
Don't forget Transylvanian and Hungarian lore in Revendreth! There are many Hungarian names used there (since Transylvania was part of Hungary for most of it's history) and the vampire lore is a direct reference to Dracula lore
They are Romanian and also Transilvania pamant romanesc!
I mean....they pretty much borrowed all of DNDs dieties wholesale, and added some letters xp
They def borrowed a lot from each other
Nostalgia hit me right in the gut with all this dragonlance talk.
I've kind of wondered how much death gate cycle is involved in SL. When speaking about Weis & Hickman. :)
I'd not considered CJ Cherryh tho!
god i loved the death gate cycle
My brain is about to explode every time you say MogRaine instead of MoRgaine while the book is in the picture xD
But besides My OCD, Nice video! Love it!
Revendreth is a mix of the Ravenloft D&D setting, with A LOT of Vampire: The Masquerade terminology (Sire Denathrius... Venthyr sounds like Ventrue, there’s a Prince who holds courts...).
Crap now I gotta go listen to the Brujah song again, thanks for that! lol I miss White Wolf games of all sorts with the friend-group of yesteryear.
Wow, this video was way more in-depth than I was expecting. Awesome job!
One key source of inspiration that wasn't noted in the video was the Elric Saga. Which also notably influenced Warhammer (see Chaos).
Arthas himself is no doubt modeled on Elric (deathly pale skin and white hair, soul eating sword, pawn of divine/demonic forces, royal who destroys his own kingdom).
This is one of your best videos
I would love to see a MMORPG based on Malazan book of the fallen. Or have WoW to start taking influences from it. There is just so much lore and detail in it. And hopefully Steve Erikson doesnt mind.
Well the reason I never know about dragonlance is because I've never heard of that name. I've heard magic the gathering and maybe others but not lance, I was blown away that most of what they did was rearrange those details, and put them in whatever parts of their story.
Saint Kargoth certainly was an inspiration for Arthas. A paladin that becomed "the" Death Knight.
Kargoth started out as a paladin and became corrupted becoming a Death Knight. One thing I think Blizzard missed though is how tragic Kargoth's story is, and I believe this was originally the idea behind Arthas it just didn't turn out that way. Blizzard should have really played up the tragedy of Arthas' fall.
Kargoth is definitely one you need to look up as I believe his story is same in many ways, although not the exact story, but the story was handled much better.
...and (Dragonlance) Lord Soth. :)
Arthas is Elric and King Arthur thrown in a blender.
@@michaelmclaughlin261 Soth definitely had some influence on the story and it was still really popular at the time the Arthas story was fleshed out.
@@galten7361 I can see that, although I still think Kargoth is such an obvious comparison it had a bigger influence.
Got some nostalgia feels, little whim to play the game then remember the last time I played retail, feelings gone.
I'd never spotted the Dragonlance stuff, but now cannot unsee it. Entertaining bit of history and shows that there really are no new ideas, at least in fantasy RPGs.
BTW I pronounce 'Raistlin' to rhyme with 'waste bin'.
Revendreth feels very Ravenloft from D&D which is of course based on many pieces of literature and mythology.
This may honestly be the best video in this channel.
Well they wanted the Warhammer Ip from games workshop soo.... yeah, many parallels there.
Though I no longer play WoW still a fascinating video highlighting all the other possible & verified references WoW has utilized throughout the years.
Nice digging guys. This was very interesting.
There is also the idea of the Helm of Domination based on the Crown of Sorcery from Warhammer. In WH the wearer, Azhag the Slaughterer (and Orc), could listen through the crown the thoughts of Nagash (a human necromancer). In contrast to WC, the wearer was Arthas (a human) that could listen to Ner'zhul thoughts (an Orc necromancer) through the helm. Of course this was before the modificaiton to the lore with the introduction of the Jailer.
Elric too.
I loved this, thank you!
May I request a segment or clip of where Starcraft really Came From? As a fan of both, I'd also find that really interesting!
If that's outside your wheelhouse (hope I used that correctly), then thank you for doing this one!
* *Laughs in H.P. Lovecrafts the mythos and Real world religions* *
Well Honestly DnD is true; its true for everything. Even down to Tolkien. EVERYTHING can be traced back to DnD or Tolkien.
And DnD and Tolkien can be traced back to whatever came before them. And. And. And.
This was a very interesting video. Thanks for doing all the research on it!!
Garrosh is basically Grimgor.
Arthas is basically Sigvald.
Cenarius is basically Orion.
The forsaken are basically what happens when you combine the vampire counts with the skaven
Kel'Thuzad is basically Nagash (which you covered)
What I found interesting, if one decides to accept that Azeroth it's based on the name Azatot of HP Lovecraft, it's that's one of the old god names. So it could imply that Azeroth it's or has become what the old gods that invaded wanted it to become. And also the parallelism in the story (still only if one accepts that theory) which comes from the book of HPL that states if Azatot were to awake, then everything will end, since it's in his dream that we exist. In the same way that if Azeroth, the world, stopped from being a world to take another shape or a drastic change, what would happen to the inhabitants?
Bellular you're back!!! hope you are doing well after that last dread interview
Blizzard had an immense gift for taking great ideas and perfecting them. It was true in their story telling as it was true in their games themselves. Now I think little to nothing of that remains. Here's to hoping Dreamhaven can capture some of that old magic.
That took a bunch of work no doubt. Kudos to you and the crew for putting all of this together. Enjoyed it!
Arakkoa is also nicked from the movie "The Dark Crystal" from 1982. And likely more from that movie as well. Its on Netflix, try it out
For the people interested about Warhammer 40k lore, I implore you to watch Bricky's two videos explaining each and every race in that universe. I never knew anything about WH40k and he explains it really casual and it's a great watch.
This was such a fun video toe watch! Wow, such ancient inspirations to the lore here !
20:30 Actually Revendreth also reminded me of the Lucifer Comics - those definitely drew inspiration from dantes inferno as well as miltons paradise lost
I’d probably love seeing a video on an expansion divided basis seeing real world folklore/ story references
Tolkein's orcs were actually 'sallow' in colouring, not gray/dark. Sickly yellow and supposed to look like corrupt and afflicted humans.
Also the draenei-tau connection? You guys missed that easter egg. XD
Orc's were Elves corrupted by Melkor.
@@minuette1752 I know that's their origin in the movies. What I mean is that Tolkein's intention was for them to resemble corrupt and disease-afflicted humans.
In the original texts and Silmarillion, orcs don't really have an exact origin since Tolkein kept changing what their origin was depending on how he wanted to reword the legends. Sometimes they were corrupt elves, sometimes corrupt humans, other times they were creatures made of muck and shadow. It depends in what timeframe we're considering during Tolkein's works.
Tolkien orcs represented everything the author distrusted about modernity. And Far Easterners. They weren't primitives.
@@galten7361 Far easterners? How so? They seem more like vikings that have, in this fictional world, tribal societies ran through raiding and pillaging rather than mongols.
@@LoreSquid Tolkien said the Orcs resembled "Mongoloids." And again, Tolkien's orcs were not shown as technologically behind humans.
In the japanese manga Dr. SLUMP (1980-1984) by Akira Toriyama (the author of Dragon Ball) a fish with legs and arms that very likely resembles a murloc is recurrently used to represent the passing of time, much in the same fashion as the "A few moments later" meme is used nowadays. Don't know if this is a japanese representation or specific to this (sometimes surrealistic) comic, but just seen it there.
Warp-corupted Men of Iron in 40k inspired Me to add Sargeras' Omnics in my mega-crossover project
Its 'Azerim' with its capital Honeywood.
Long live VLDL!!
The parallel between tieflings and draenei is a bit misguided. Because the Tieflings we have today start to exist after 2008 with the Dungeon and Dragon 4th Edition. The Tieflings from 3rd and 2rd are totally different from the 4th and 5th editions of D&D, include if you look from forums at the time people people complains how the 4th edition was turning D&D in WoW.
the funny thing about those people saying 4e turned D&D into WoW. most of the things they say are like WoW, ignore the fact that all those things they complained about like At wills, Encounters, and dailies were in past editions as spell like abilities.
The post-retcon Draenei are just an attempt to have holy demons who are in the Alliance.
Now I understand why Christie Golden called Thrall "my baby" with such emotions during the Blizzconline
There might also be a connection between Medivh and the character "Raven" from DC comics. Raven's mother slept with a powerful demon lord who needed half-human offspring to open a portal and invade Earth. Medivh's mother got (partly) possessed by a demon lord, who'd use Medivh to open a portal to Azeroth. Oh, and Raven's catchphrase is "Azarath Metrion Zinthos".
It blows my mind that they just straight ripped elven script from Warhammer, holy cow.
If you go down in to the lore that is warhammer fantasy and warhammer 40k. you are never comming back.
Could be from Ashteroth, a place mentioned in the Book of Genesis.
The Draenai always reminded me of Armenia. They survived genocide by fleeing all over the world but many to Russia. idk, made sense to me.
That would explain the vaguely Eastern European accents. But I never heard of Armenians making a deal with the devil and hunting down anyone who refused it.
10:55 quite wrong here, Kel'thuzad csme with Warcraft III, but that Nagash final form came in the End Times, around 8 to 10 years later, so in any case it was Games Workshop the ones who took some inspiration from Blizzard.
I know. Tell him liches as we know them are a DnD thing.
dude what?! The Runes are directly from warhammer? hahaha that's awesome.
This video was super fun, I love content like this. Had not idea about the Draenei either.
MORE EPISODES LIKE THIS ONE!!!
So knew you were talking dragon lance there. Good memories
"A little bit of Ireland there is. Well, Celtic stuff. And Gaelic stuff."
And yet Blizzard somehow didn't include The Morrigan, the Chooser of the Slain in the Irish Pantheon, in Ardenweald. Or any direct reference to her at all. Believe me, I've looked.
80% of modern fantasy comes from Tolkien. That's a given in western culture.
But Chris Metzen, especially since BC, was able to give it its own spin and that makes it original in my eyes.
Yup warcraft does orcs the most diff from other fantasy aspects. They are actually smart etc
@@celtic889 that was a realy big thing when W3 came out, more than W2
@@celtic889 Tolkien already established orcs as being technologically impressive. They weren't savages (be they noble or not). Nor did he ever really find a backstory for what makes them so hostile to other races that satisfied him.
Elder Scrolls did "good orcs" earlier anyway without any demons anyway.
Warcraft setting started being legit bad at TBC. What with the retcons, Animehair Varian and Garrosh being introduced, Kael'thas becoming a meme who died a disappointing death
"Could we have had tbe Fel Reaver.......", I bet I wasn't the only one that heard that video
These are the types of videos I love from you.
Could you leave the references/examples in the description? some of us nerds wanna look it up ;)
The i and e are switched in Tolkien at 11:43.
I own many of WC novels. I kind of felt like I had esoteric knowledge after reading them versus what and how it was presented in WoW.
Appreciate your content. I come from FFXIV
Wait, wait, wait, WAIT! Are you implying that the reason why WoW sucks right now is because they are running out of references to plagiarize and they have no ounce of creativity to even come near to the level of the references they plagiarized in the past to save themselves?
As if original ideas were really thing and nothing is truly original lol
That was literally never implied. Original devs of WoW were amazingly creative. If being inspired is plagiarizing then genres would not exist. All fantasy is inspired by Tolkien, all cosmic horror is inspired by Lovecraft etc. - it's how you use this genre setting that makes you creative. And Warcraft made a really creative world based on the Tolkien and Lovecraft genres.
i'm pretty sure everyone who has read LOTR knew orcs were mostly green, sometimes brown or tan. Mud colors. It's the Uruk-hai which are cross breads of orcs and humans that saruman made that have the more famous black or dark skin colors in the movies especially the second one. But if you look at say the third movie sauron's army, granted some of it are green goblins and humans and a mixture of other creatures but more green orcs of some kind or another.
Is there also a deep dive somewhere on the influences of those D&D stories?
what zone music is playing around ~19:00 ???
I love these lore videos!
Usually quality on these vids is top-notch but boy, there were several typos in those transition screens... "Tolkein", "Drenei" and others
This is Amazing! Love the the video the whole way through.
can't believe you didn't mention the connection between Sargeras and Melkor in the bit about Tolkien
Metzen even wanted WoW's intro to be like the Silmarillion where it shows the creation of the universe.
Could you include the list of books in the description?
Murloc appearance is a direct reference to the Kou Toa, bipedal fish people who make real gods through their fanatical belief.
I feel like that bit about mutant deep sea murlocs simply became the anglerfish 'deep sea murlocs' we got in Wrath, personally, but it's not a big point.
I'm actually sceptical towards the Draenei / DnD Tiefling inspiration. While Tieflings were introduced in 2nd edition of DnD they looked nothing like they do today. Back then they were more like a human with some fiendish traits, like devil wings, horns (not the draenei kind) and similar things. In the 4th edition both appearance and lore was changed of the Tiefling which resulted in the kind of Draenei looking race of modern DnD. The thing is, 4th edition DnD was published in 2008, while Burning Crusade releasing in 2007. Furthermore, Eredar was introduced all the way back in Warcraft 3 in 2002. Of course, back then they didn't have the trademark Draenei horns and was generally much more demonic (being an demonic race and the overall Eredar / Draenei lore not being written yet). Still, the Draenei clearly have inspiration from the Warcraft 3 Eredar, now being linked to them in lore.
I have heard before that DnD actually took inspiration from Warcraft when redesigning their Tiefling race, but I don't have any source on that. Maybe Draenei was inspired by concept art of the new tiefling prior to the DnD 4e publishing, or maybe Warcraft actually do have an original race design.
I really love this kind of video. Very well done.
I'm kind of surprised that they didn't include tardigrades somewhere in the story line.
Well, 90% of the names in Revandreth and some drinks are Romanian.Missed that:))
Holy shit throw back. I use to read david gemmel. The rigante series I think it was?
11:41 Who is that Tolkein you are talking about, I only know a Tolkien :D ?
Murlocs were directly ripped from the froglocs of EQ
Never knew the connections to Warhammer, atleast I never bothered to verify the ones I had suspected. Friggen cool, man.