User:High Warlord Nukillis/Dragon Race Concept

The Dragon race concept is a particularly interesting idea to me. It would make for the perfect new addition to the game in a future expansion. What this expansion will be called, I am not sure. But it would probably have something to do with, "Scale(s)," or, "Dragonflight." Either way, it would make for a cool new addition to the base of World of Warcraft. I have listed all of the details below that could be worked into something definently possible.

Story and Lore
A rift in space has revealed a strange, new planar dimension that was originally discovered by the magi of Dalaran, and it has been sensed by some druids throughout Azeroth. A portal similar to the Dark Portal has been created on an island off the coast of Northrend. Both the Alliance and the Horde are investigating this new dimension, and it has been revealed to hold a dark secret of unimaginable horror and power. As both factions continue to search in the plane, some wonder how this new portal was just suddenly discovered.

Some select few of the five Dragonflights have decided to band together to combat what lurks inside this new plane. Upon establishing a base camp, they have delved deeper into this mysterious plane, only to find that this was no ordinary extraplanar dimension: this is the home of the Old Gods themselves. Fearing what they have uncovered, they retreated back to the dragon fortress of Arden and reinforced their army. Dragons from all five Dragonflights are beginning some of their adventures here. Taking up High Elven forms to better suit Arden, they have been found by both the Horde and the Alliance. Torn between the two factions, the Wyrmborne Council (government of Arden) took them both in and made it a sanctuary for both factions. Arden is a settlement that is floating in the air, and therefore only accessible by flight, suitable for the dragon race. The Warlord of Arden, Sulekaerr Fel`rii, has ordered some workers to go beneath the floating city of Arden to create a subterranean proving grounds for beginning adventurers of the race called the Muramal Realm. There are many qualities here akin to the Skywall, with a simulation of the skies of Azeroth. The terrain of it is mountainous, and this land contains creatures for training for the whelp-like dragonkin. To the north of these proving grounds is a settlement of size comparable to the Upper City of Shattrath City. Dragons here can choose which faction that they will ultimately choose for their lives, and subsequently speak to the leaders of the chosen faction to be inducted as a member of the Horde/Alliance.

As these events unfold, the Old Gods are angered greatly by intrusion of their homeworld. They will stop at nothing to cleanse their lands of these unwelcome guests. As such, they have sent their minions to the lands of the broken realm to eradicate the newcomers. Hidden deep in cavernous lairs lie the Old Gods themselves, guarded heavily to prevent any interruptions with their ploys...

The new race, Dragons
When at the character creation screen, players will be able to choose the Dragon race to soon choose what Dragonflight they herald from, giving them certain racial abilities and affecting the Dragon forms later on in the game. They start out in High Elven forms, able to choose normal features of races (such as face, skin tone, hair style/color, and eye color), in addition to the type of Horns they don and the colors of them to compensate. Players will be able to choose between six different classes: Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Mage, Death Knight, and Druid. The Death Knights do not start in the Muramal Realm, they start in the instanced zone where they usually start in. The Dragonflight will be selected in the box where there would normally be the Horde and Alliance tabards to show lore about the Dragonflights too and why they have decided to go their own ways from their respective Dragonflights. The racial abilities are numerous for all five Flights, and therefore are shown in the window where the description of the Horde/Alliance is shown and not where the description of the race is shown since there is extensive lore in that box too. After reaching level 10 in the starting zone, the Muramar Realm, a Dragon will be able to get a quest to travel through a portal to either Orgrimmar or Stormwind to speak to Thrall or King Varian Wrynn, respectively, to talk to them and be accepted into the Horde or Alliance, also respectively.

Issues with Alliance/Horde?
Since these Dragons are still dragons, they are tied with their respective Aspects, of course. But what of the treaties with the Horde and the Alliance? Wouldn't there be issues due to the past of some of the different Dragonflights? Actually, no, there would not. Since they are not directly tied with their Aspects (in the sense that Dragons usually follow orders of their Aspects), they are not directly ties with their Dragonflight's histories either. For example, the Orcs used to enslave the Red Dragonflight, so that would normally cause some unsteady problems between the two races. And the Black Dragonflight is essentially evil, and are servants of Deathwing. Malygos, Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight, has gone insane, and he controls some of his minions to protect him and help him to do twisted things in his insantiy. But you must remember that this new alliance of Dragonflights is under watch by High Warlord Sulekaerr of the Bronze Dragonflight, therefore, they are tied with the fortress-city of Arden, and this is accepted by the Alliance and the Horde who need more allies anyways with the recent events of the discovery of the plane of the Old Gods.

New zones
There will be new zones tailored for level *insert previous expansion's level cap increase here* to *insert previous expansion's level cap increase +10 here* all throughout the homeworld of the Old Gods, and flight travel will of course exist here. This new area of zones is about the size of Outland and Northrend put together, and it includes 15 new zones, including a new PvP-specific zone akin to Lake Wintergrasp, called the Wall of Massacre. This zone is roughly the size of two Barrens put side-by-side. There will be 19 new instances, including ten 5-man instances, four 10-man instances, three 25-mans, and two 40-man instances, the first since the Molten Core and original Onyxia raid instances. This zone will be like Outland with floating rocks, bottomless pits, enormous ledges at the ends of the planes (that will result in the same occurense when going off the edge of Outland; there is also a floating body of water off the "coast" of the plane that appears like a giant spehere of water that can be fallen out of when the end is reached), and two areas like the Netherstorm and the Storm Peaks. Some areas are covered by snow and the plane is very mountainous, with the exception of four zones that have a flat, desert-like terrain.

Racial Abilities (by Dragonflight)
Red Dragonflight

-Fire Resistance

-Regeneration bonus

-Basic healing spell (giving some of your health to an ally)

-Basic ressurection spell (brings an ally back to life with 25% health and mana)

-Fire breath spell, dealing initial Fire damage and Fire damage over time

Blue Dragonflight

-Ice Resistance

-Mana regeneration bonus

-Basic magic buff, increasing stats of group members

-Basic ranged attack, dealing Arcane damage and sapping mana (if the target does not use mana, it will sap health)

-Ice breath spell, damaging a targeted area with Ice and Arcane splash damage

Green Dragonflight

-Nature Resistance

-Stat bonuses

-Basic AoE attack, dealing Nature damage to all enemies within twenty yards

-Basic healing spell (gives 20% health back to a target, cooldown 2 minutes)

-Breath spell, sleeping all opponents in a cone in front of the player for 4 seconds

Black Dragonflight

-Shadow Resistance

-Damage Bonus

-Basic root spell, rooting a target in place for 5 seconds and gives 10% speed back per second

-Basic melee spell, dealing Shadow damage over time

-Shadow breath spell, dealing direct Shadow damage to an enemy

Bronze Dragonflight

-Arcane Resistance

-Spell Power Bonus

-Basic slow spell, slowing movement and attack speed by 50%

-Basic AoE spell, slowing all enemies within 10 yards and dealing Arcane damage

-Time breath spell, causing all enemies in a cone to see horrific visions, Fearing them in place and rendering them helpless for 5 seconds or until attacked

All Dragonflights

-Summon Draconic Companions is trained by points gained by tokens for doing quests in Arden. It allows the Dragon to summon up to 6 Whelps and 2 Drakes of the same Dragonflight to assist in battle for up to 100 seconds or until killed. They have 1/3 the health, armor, and all stats + resistances of the caster. Will follow caster around until they retreat into the skies. Cooldown: 15 minutes.

Travel methods
The racial mount of the Dragons is a Basilisk, essentially a drake without wings. At level 20, the following colors of the 60% speed Basilisk are available: Green, Black, Red, Blue, Bronze, and White. At level 40, the following colors of the 100% speed increase Armored Basilisk are available: Green with Jade armor, Black with Gunmetal armor, Red with Black armor, Blue with White armor, Bronze with Gold armor, and White with Grey armor. At level 60, Dragons can learn a spell that allows them to transform into a Drake, colored by their specific Dragonflight, that travels on the ground at 60% speed and in the air at 150% speed. At level 70, Dragons can learn the second transformation spell that allows them to transform into a Dragon, colored by their specific Dragonflight, that travels on the ground at 100% speed and in the air at 280% speed. At level 80, a talent becomes available in the General tab that allows Dragons to purchase points to apply to the following tree with tokens gained from doing quests in Arden: the Chromatic State of the Wyrm tree allows the Dragon to increase mounted/transformed speed by 30%, later giving Armor/Defense Rating bonuses, Damage/Crit Rating bonuses, and Health/Mana Regen bonuses with these points. A Dragon in Drake/Dragon form will be able to fight and cast spells. Their only limitation will be that they will be treated as mounted players, and with the exception of falling off a mount when stunned (and not being able to attack while mounted), Drake/Dragon form will otherwise have to follow the normal rules of mounted travel (i.e. restricted access to go into a building, the form must be canceled first.)

Death Knights
Dragon Death Knights will get a resistance based on their Dragonflight chosen. They will start in Acherus: The Ebon Hold in the Eastern Plaguelands like a normal Death Knight would, except instead of going to Salanar the Horseman to learn how to summon an Acherus Death Charger, they will go to a new npc called Kardan the Wyrmslayer to learn how to summon a skeletal version of the Basilisk mount. At level 60, to learn how to transform into an Undead drake (as a Frost Wyrm, Emberwyrm, Magmawyrm, Dreamwyrm, or a Clockwyrm, depending on the orginal Dragonflight), Dragon Death Knights must go visit a Death Knight trainer in Acherus: The Ebon Hold to learn the ability. This is the same for the level 70 second transformation spell into an Undead Dragon, and the Chromatic State of the Wyrm is also available to Dragon Death Knights.

Other classes
The Drake/Dragon forms would replace the Druid's Flight Form. (yes, that is all for this section)

Potentials as a race
Well, for starters, you can clearly see that I have thought this through heavily. :P But, there must be some other reasons for them to be added as a race too, both for validity and possible ideas that could potentially be heard/read by Blizzard (you never know). They have their own language, Draconic. All of the races currently in World of Warcraft have a racial language as well as a language spoken faction-wide (Orcish for Horde, Common for Alliance). They do not have their own architectual style as of right now, but the Blood Elves have shown the architectual style of the High Elves, therefore that is more than suitable as a building style (although they would be colored differently I am assuming). Dragons do not usually wear armor, but the Druid Flight Form does not affect hit points, mana, or armor, so this would not be a problem, as the High Elves already wear armor as seen in-game. They also have Male/Female appearances in-game in High Elven form, but Male and Female dragons do not generally have any noticable differences, with the exception of some dragons in lore having slight aesthetic differences by gender (such as the female dragons being sleeker and more graceful, whereas the males have more tone and mass than most females), but this does not appear in-game in Dragons. They are obviously intelligent and sapient.

Summary
So this is pretty much the end of my idea for the Dragon race in World of Warcraft. Maybe someone that is in Blizzard will find this article and will think, "Hey, you know, this guy's got a pretty cool idea! Let's establish a bit more on this, and use it in a future expansion!" I don't know, heh. But you never know, so how could I know in the first place? Anyways, contact me to tell me what you think, or say something in the Talk:page. Thanks for taking the time to read this. -lawl

High Warlord Nukillis of the Llane server. For the Horde!