Desolace is an afterlife.
S1. E2. (World of Warcraft)
A grey desert, a valley full of bones.
The floor’s colour doesn’t quite make sense in Desolace. Is it glass? Is it sand? Dirt? You step through it and your footprint glints slightly but gain no further clues. The only certainty is that every direction you look in is empty. Which explains its name.
Nothing could hide here. There is space as far as you can see. No blockers, no tall things or trees. Low slung rocks are scattered throughout like they were fired from a giant’s catapult. The view is only broken up by the kodo that stomp and move across the horizon. There is a migratory rhythm you find yourself following. An ebb and flow which you match hypnotically.
Kodo demand respect. Wide, noble beasts with thick skin and totemic feet. But these ones are older. This is a trudge against the clock. It is the final migration of mortality. The skin is heavy under their yellowed eyes. The broad backs that can carry a fully-grown tauren are buckling. The bristles that run along their spine are drooping and patchy.
Most animals are unaware of their impending death, but the herds of kodo that walk across the desert somehow know. They are homing back in on their ancestral graveyards. These blinking moribund beacons have called them from far across the continent. Stonetalon Mountains, Mulgore and the Barrens. Watching them walk is when you realise that the ground here is made of chipped bone, falling forever from an hourglass.
Desolace is an afterlife. And we are all headed in the same direction.
What does it say about a place when its heart is a boneyard? In the ivory wasteland where they meet their ancestors there are hundreds of herds of dead kodo. If the clouded sun cast any shadow, then it would project odd shapes against the shallow hills. There would be a quiet dignity were it not for the vultures and hyenas that pick them apart. But that is part of the cycle. And whilst their flesh is gone, their valley of bones remains.
The roads branch off like dried capillaries from this centre. Most lead to one of the four centaur tribes that dominate the region. They are in constant war with each other. Speak to the friendlier ones and you realise that they are fighting for ancient borders drawn in the dust. The right to rule over ancestral tombs in the mountain. A reminder that everything has value. But once again the prize here is death.
Past the centaur there are verdant patches. Moss that grows on the edge of this dulled blade. An ancient lighthouse at the foot of the world shoots up like a detached tibia. Etched runes and empty windows, looking out at sea, calling to ships that use it as a steer to stay far away. Elsewhere Shadowprey Village and Nijel’s Point are both coated in green. These pockets of prosperity bloom like flowering heads on long dead stems. An intervention from civilization to collectively breathe life back into the gloom. A refusal to give up.
And if you dive under the nearby water, clear and breaking against the edge of the mountains, you will see that life survives. The coral here refuses to bleach. Pinks and purples and teals grow against the chalk. Clans of naga live on the islands in the ruins of palaces. Lost cities hidden by the waves. Rusted bells in church towers that still ring when the tides get choppy. Giants patrol, soaking the cliffs as they scale them with unbroken strides. Plumes of air rise up out of fissures and kelp forests coat the hills that would break up the horizon if they were above sea level.
On your way back it's easy to get lost. The roads from the coast can disappear with the changing winds. The kodo have trudged through it, yes, but so have merchants. This place no longer yields crops, and as a result created wanderers. Besides the centaur there are no houses or villages. The only people you see are in caravans, with squeaky wheels and silent drivers. This place doesn’t foster friendliness. It is the reserve of the mercenary. Of the few fortresses run by malignant groups, the fences are high and spikey on both sides. Designed to both keep people in and keep them out.
Brutality is the only way to survive in such a bleak region. Although whatever destroyed this place, and turned it into dust, has long gone. There are only the faint echoes of the initial roar. And there is no danger of it coming back. No embers are left to extinguish.
Desolace is a place for companionless travel. For soliloquies. The emptiness of the environment allows your mind to unfurl onto it. To meditate and expand into the space so your brain can stretch itself sideways. Let both your body meander for miles across this limbo, the increasing volume of the wind’s lullaby wearing you down as it builds across the wasteland.
And you can afford to disassociate, because hazards are visible from all angles. There are no surprises here. Just don’t drift into danger and you’ll be fine. Give yourself up to the rhythm of the herd. After all, we're all walking towards the same end, but unlike the kodo, we don’t know which day it will come.
This is essay two in a set of six travel essays about World of Warcraft and Azeroth. To read the rest click here. For information on future seasons and games click here.