The World of Warcraft is full of quest lines, but many players today don’t know them anymore. We have uncovered 3 gems for you.
The World of Warcraft has plenty of quest lines. However, many of them are no longer accessible, as they disappeared during the Cataclysm expansion. Other quest lines are hardly seen because the zones have become irrelevant for character levels, until you have even unlocked the respective quest line. In this article, we want to honor 3 extraordinary quest lines that most players have either forgotten or never seen.
The Legend of Stalvan
Few quest lines from Vanilla have likely stayed in the minds of young heroes of the Alliance as well as the Legend of Stalvan. With 13 quest steps, it was a long story and led through several areas – at least humans must have stumbled upon it. Those who didn’t read the quest texts might have missed how much drama and attention to detail were incorporated into this quest line.
The quest line began in Darkshire in Duskwood. Madame Eva had a vision while card reading, promising death and destruction for her granddaughter Alyssa. After hours of meditation, she learned a name: Stalvan. The player was now sent to find out more about Stalvan.
After searching through the city register, there was indeed a clue about a “Stalvan Mistmantle,” who was last registered in Moonbrook – a town in Westfall. There, the search for clues continued.
The quest line gradually leads through the area of humans, over Westfall to Duskwood, into the forest of Elwynn, and even to Stormwind, where more and more clues to this detective story are gathered. But what it is really about Stalvan can certainly be considered bold by Blizzard:
Stalvan Mistmantle was a teacher who ran a school in Moonbrook. After Moonbrook was taken over by the Defias Brotherhood, Stalvan fled to Goldshire. From there, he sought new employment as a private tutor for the children of noble families. He was indeed hired and taught the children of a noble family – including Giles and his sister Tilloa. Tilloa is described in letters as a “young woman.” Stalvan repeatedly mentions how pretty he finds Tilloa.
His affection grows when Tilloa hands him a flower one day, which made his “heart race so much that it nearly jumped out of his chest.” In another entry, we read the following:
“… I am sure she feels the same way about me. This morning she even placed her hand on mine. When she smiles, her eyes shine like diamonds. We exchange words without speaking. I can feel her in my pounding heart and warm veins…”
Shortly thereafter, the story takes a dramatic turn. Because in the next entry it says:
“Anger and wrath of a magnitude that I could not believe existed! How dare she? While I was teaching Giles the numbers, Tilloa appeared in front of me with a suitor while they held hands in public! What a rude young man. Instead of introducing himself properly, Tilloa merely said: ‘Oh, this is just my teacher, Uncle Stalvan. He is a nice older gentleman.’ Older! At the word, my cheeks flushed with heat. I’m just a few years older and yet she betrays…”
Then something in Stalvan breaks. All he sees is only betrayal and humiliation from Tilloa. He announces his actions and murders the entire family and his rival.
Years later, the story is uncovered by the player, and we are tasked with killing Stalvan to put an end to this monster.
A particularly cool detail was that during the quest line, you were repeatedly afflicted by the “Curse of Stalvan” – a debuff that lasted several days. This was at a time when most players did not yet know how to remove a curse and ran around with it for days. By the way, it lasted beyond death…
The whole story is a reference to the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – the story is similar and “Tilloa” is an anagram for “Lolita”.
Even in today’s World of Warcraft, the Legend of Stalvan still exists as a quest line. However, it has been drastically shortened and the story significantly changed. The Worgen curse is supposed to bear the blame for all the murders, and the passages about love are nearly completely omitted – which is boring considering the cool original story that even touches on some taboo subjects.
On the next page, we will show you what the black dragons in WoW have done.
