Patch 8.1.5 arrived in World of Warcraft, and with it came the Kul’Tiran allied race. Regular readers will know that I had been planning to race change my shaman, Cinderstorm for quite some time now. Well, that moment finally arrived. I said farewell to my pandaren self, then set off to start the journey to become Kul’Tiran.
This post contains story spoilers for the Kul’Tiran Allied Race scenario. If you don’t want to be spoiled, now’s the time to go!
Up front, I have to say that the Kul’Tiran Allied Race scenario is one of the best quest lines yet. I really enjoyed it, as did quite a few fellow guildies and twitter friends. Though others did not enjoy it as much… but they were clearly wrong 😉
I took as many screenshots as I could throughout this scenario, but I must confess that I was so enthralled with the story that often I forgot! Wowhead, of course, has a full run down on their website here if you want to see the bits I missed.
As with all other allied races, we start the journey to recruit them by visiting the Stormwind Embassy.
It is here that Jaina asks us to help cement the relationship between the Alliance and Kul’Tiran by assisting her with building a ship for King Anduin. But not just any ship – she wants the very best. She wants a ship built by legendary shipwright, Dorian Atwater. So off we go to find Dorian.
Despite being legendary, Dorian Atwater is a bit of a mystery. After speaking with Cyrus in Boralus, we head off to Brennaden in Stormsong to try and find them. After asking a bunch of super lazy citizens, we are given some clues as to where Dorian may be.
We head off in the general direction of where people think we can find Dorian… and we come across this adorable little cottage with – wait – elementals?! There are elementals all over the place! Out the front is an old man tending to the garden. We ask if he is Dorian, but not – Dorian is his wife (he is Sal Atwater, btw, and an absolute darling).
We go inside to meet the legendary Dorian. She’s wonderful. She’s retired, but after some coaxing (and a heartwarming letter from Jaina) we convince Dorian to pick up her tools again and build us a ship! But not before we ask her what the deal is with all the elementals everywhere… she doesn’t know what a shaman is, but I tell you what she’d give Thrall a run for his money, I reckon!
Of course there’s a lot to be done to build such a majestic ship. Firstly, somewhere to build it.
Once the perfect place has been found at Port Fogtide, it’s time to get the timber for the ship itself. We head off to the lumber yard to get some timber (after clearing out some of the evil that’s lurking about the place). This part of the quest was a little buggy for me at the time, but it was still loads of fun. We run around collecting timber while Dorian literally blasts bad guys out of the sky and laughs at us for being so slow (it was HEAVY!!)
So we have our timber, but it turns out it’s haunted (of course!) and we must cleanse it. This was a really nice way to (re)introduce us to the drust druids. We are picked up and given a ride to someone who can get rid of the things haunting our timber.
Again, this was another point that I forgot to take screenshots. In addition to finding a cure for the timber, we need to find out why the ore shipment hasn’t come through. So we head off to Cleak Hills mine were we see poor Chealsea Wright is being harassed by a scary looking wicker beast who has stolen her keys. After a short chase, we find the wicker beast’s lair and it’s hear that the hair on the back of my neck prickled. You see, I swear that I heard Abby Lewis’ giggle when I entered that cave. And sure enough there’s the “toys” that were used to summon the beast the first time around in Drustvar. But when I asked people if was the same they said no. But jokes on them! The wowhead guide just confirmed that I was right – it is Abby’s wicker beast! Except he’s not evil, he just wants a friend, poor darling. Still kicking myself I didn’t get pics!
Nevertheless, we get the keys back to Chelsea and the ore situation is dealt with.
So it’s back to Stormsong for our next steps – a crew! Again, I was shit and didn’t screenshots unfortunately. But we are sent to see Tandred Proudmoore to figure out the crew he wants for this ship. We travel around recruiting – Brother Pike as our tidesage, Lieutenant Tarenfold as master gunner, and Rosaline Madison as first mate, along with the rest of her Outrigger Crew (recruiting her was fantastic! I love her!!) Lastly, Dorian Atwater herself is convinced to forgo her retirement to be the ship’s Botswain.
Then we name the ship. When the quests suggested this I started panicking – it takes me ages to name things! How could I possibly come up with a name for this magnificent ship!?!? Thankfully our companions have some suggestions:
Rosaline Madison says: Anduin’s Wrath. The Horde will learn to fear her!
from Wowhead’s Kul’Tiran unlock guide
Brother Pike says: She seems like a Dawnsailor to me.
Captain Tandred Proudmoore says: The Alliance is fond of its lions. How does Lionheart sound?
Katherine Proudmoore says: Tiffin’s Melody.
https://www.wowhead.com/news=290170/kul-tiran-human-allied-race-unlock-questline-8-1-5-ptr
Now I will admit that I didn’t know who Tiffin was, but Jaina’s reaction to the name made me investigate. When I learned Tiffin was Anduin’s mother, it was a no brainer that the ship would be named Tiffin’s Melody. (Thor made me cry even more with this, because he pointed out that all ships should be named after strong women, so of course it had to be Anduin’s Mum. 😥 )
With the crew sorted and the ship named, the last thing left to do was to bless the ship itself. The ceremony was beautiful, actually, and honestly really helped confirm that this race of people was something I connected so strongly with.
That left only one thing to do – delivery the ship to Anduin. We set sail for Stormwind and experience a truly beautiful moment with Anduin. I did wonder what the voice lines were for each name choice, and of course wowhead delivers, so go check it out if you’re curious. But for me, having chosen Tiffin’s Melody, the moment was extremely touching. Bex (@formbextron) made a beautiful comic that summed up the moment perfectly!
The next step was to race change from Pandaren to Kul’Tiran. It took awhile for me to decide what I wanted the new Cinderstorm to look like, but I got there in the end!
Many of you will know I have an unhealthy obsession with transmog… I’ve learned that the transmog sets I’ve been using on my pandaren didn’t suit my Kul’Tiran so much. So what a terrible tragedy that I need to spend some time figuring out new transmogs! /sarcasm
And so the new Cinderstorm is born!
Just to wrap up this adventure, I learned that you can go visit Tiffin’s Melody in Stormwind after everything is done. The crew are all there, and you can even explore under the deck and everything! It’s a beautiful ship, and I love it!
So that’s it! I’m not Kul’Tiran! We are still getting to know each other, but I love her. I’m learning how to take pics with her (there are an awful lot of “derp” faces!!) but I’ll get there in the end 🙂 I would like to do some reading on the Kul’Tiran history a bit more to get a better sense of who she is. Maybe one of these days I’ll even write a background story for her. But for now, I’m having fun getting to know her.
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