Shortly before the release of Dragonflight, new NPCs have appeared in World of Warcraft who strangely resemble each other. Behind them is the same person: the cheese merchant Elling Trias. Who is this strange person?
Who is the merchant? Elling Trias is a cheese merchant in Stormwind, the capital of the Humans, which also represents the power center of the Alliance. The NPC typically stands in Trias’ cheese shop, the first building on the right side behind the city gates of Stormwind.
Anyone who plays a rogue or is more involved with the Alliance story knows that Elling Trias is also one of the agents from SI:7, the Humans’ intelligence service. The Tiras family is closely tied to various espionage networks. A relative of Elling Trias in Dalaran opens a secret door to the Rogue Class Hall from Legion.
Where can the new NPCs be found? Since Phase 2 of the Pre-Patch for Dragonflight on November 16, Trias has also appeared as other NPCs with different names. Some NPCs caught our attention while playing, and Twitter user @Portergauge eventually pieced the parts together (via wowhead). In disguise, Trias stands around in various positions in the city:
- in the Auction House as “Auction Visitor”
- in the bank as “Bank Customer”
- in the Alliance Portal Room as “Mage Apprentice”
- in the embassy as “Embassy Guard”
Each time it is Elling Trias, recognized easily by the eye patch, the same face, and the same hair. The reason why Trias is standing there is also quite clear: the new race of the Dracthyr, who have also been present in Stormwind since Phase 2. Trias is always near them and observes them.
Humans do not trust dragons – for good reason
Why is Elling Trias spying on the Dracthyr? If you’ve played the quests for the Pre-Event “Primordial Storms”, you can speak with Turalyon and Matthias Shaw after Khadgar’s appearance in Stormwind.
Turalyon is the current leader of the Humans and the Alliance, while Anduin is freeing souls with Sylvanas in the Maw – and has been for several years. Matthias Shaw is the head of SI:7 and the Alliance’s master spy.
The dialogue is not mandatory for any quest, which is why it can be easily overlooked. However, Turalyon asks Shaw to reinforce the watch in Stormwind while the Dracthyr are in the city.
Since they can change their form and look like Humans, the leader wants to know at all times where a Dracthyr is and what he is doing. Shaw assures that he will not lose sight of them.
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This is the background: Stormwind has been infiltrated by dragons before. The dragon mother Onyxia posed as Lady Katrana Prestor as an advisor and nearly caused Stormwind to fall. Lady Katrana Prestor was already an NPC in Stormwind at the release of WoW in 2004 and has been active in history even longer.
Onyxia orchestrated the kidnapping of King Varian Wrynn and the Defias uprising, which nearly resulted in the annihilation of Stormwind, at least lore-wise. This can all be relived in one of the longest and most epic quest lines of WoW and serves in Classic as a preparation quest for the raid against Onyxia itself.
Newer players probably do not know this as the quests have hardly been done for so long and the story itself has been forgotten. Here is a refresher from MeinMMO demon Cortyn:
To ensure that something like that does not happen again, Turalyon demands that the Dracthyr be monitored particularly well. That Furorion is vouching for them as one of the last black dragons does not seem to help their cause much.
By the way, we recently spoke with the developers about the story of Dragonflight:
WoW developers in an interview: “Features of Dragonflight will improve the future of WoW forever”
