A few months ago, I received from Panini Books a new "beautiful book". Its blue cardboard cover is adorned with an illustration representing Stormwind, with its high cathedral with white towers which overcomes the famous alley of statues giving access to the capital of the Alliance. The golden filigree that borders it represents navigation elements (compass, compass, globe...). We really have the impression of holding in our hands one of these encyclopedias of yesteryear, especially since the printing is carried out on very good quality paper with a slightly dark grain.
The back cover, in gold letters:
Adventure awaits in the Eastern Kingdoms!
From the gleaming towers of Silvermoon to sulphurous Blackrock Mountain to the white stone castles of Stormwind, the Eastern Kingdoms are vast and full of wonders. Every corner of this majestic island holds endless stories and treasures, but also more than one secret that some individuals would prefer to know buried forever.
Follow Spymaster Mathias Shaw and Captain Flynn Softbreeze on this expedition that will take them across the Eastern Kingdoms for their king and homeland, to trace their history and inventory weapons, armor and unspeakable powers scattered throughout the territory.
Written by Blizzard Entertainment figure and New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, Discovering Azeroth: Eastern Kingdoms is the first stop on a remarkable journey to the beloved lands. of Azeroth.
Although keeping an encyclopedic side, if only by the chapters which, each one, describes a major place of Azeroth, the pen of Christie Golden manages to remove this aspect which could become off-putting and too scholarly, to tell us the past of these lands, or rather a multitude of small stories and anecdotes told in the first person, from the point of view of Master Shaw. This famous spy of the SI: 7 that the apprentice thieves will have had the opportunity to meet many times in game. The twelve chapters are as follows:
- Stormwind
- Karazhan
- Stranglethorn
- The Burning Steppes
- Badlands
- Ironforge
- The Arathi Highlands
- Les Maleterres
- Silvermoon
- Hillsbrad Foothills and Silverpine Forest
- Tirisfal Glades
- Undercity.
On the sidelines, whether through additional annotations or corrections, Captain Softbreeze adds elements, often amusing. As for example when he surrounds the expression "drop points" with six question marks and annotates:
According to Mathias, a drop point is "a place where you drop a message or an object - behind a loose brick, in a crack in the wall, under a collarbone, that sort of thing". Chilling, perfectly freezing.
Sometimes, it is even whole letters that he signs with an affectionate "kiss". Suddenly, the reading is very pleasant, and that too thanks to the many illustrations, sometimes simple diagrams scribbled in pencil, other times more complex colored drawings, so many prints which represent the wonders of this world in the dark. turbulent history that Mathias and Flynn describe to us. There's no real logic, each page is different from the previous one, like a travel diary that you flip through without even realizing how much time is passing. And for anyone passionate about the universe, it's a joy, because although I recently reassembled a character on Burning Crusade Classic, and once again traveled up and down these lands, I missed dozens of small details that are described here, messages forgotten in broken stelae, buried treasures and other secret passages that these lines reveal, and that the curious will be happy to discover later in game.
A book that every regular World of Warcraft player should have, and even more so those who still play Classic (and who knows, maybe Mathias will soon leave to discover the secrets of Outland...). To be found at the price of 28€, at your favorite bookseller, directly on the site of the publisher Panini, or even on Amazon (ISBN 978-2809492798):
Discovering Azeroth: Eastern Kingdoms - Amazon (28€)
