Rediscovered. Armed. Ready to Annihilate.
“Doom’s Way”. “Boomsday”. There was no Darkfuse Weapon Cache on the island, only a weapon of mass destruction devised by the Blackfuse Company from the era of a mad Warchief. We didn’t realize the truth until our warbands uncovered it and unwittingly restored what should have stayed buried.
The Boomsday Project went dormant when the Darkspear Rebellion succeeded in toppling Warchief Hellscream’s regime, but their work was not unmade, only forgotten. The facility controls the Boomsday Payloads: One in Kalimdor, one in the Eastern Kingdoms and one right under Boomsday Island as a failsafe. These payloads are capable of annihilating entire towns, but we have no means of finding them in time. No means of disarming them. The one thing we can do is make the right choice.
Should someone to bypass the facility’s security and reach the command consoles, they seal their own fate. Once a payload is activated, either deep in the lands of the Horde or the Alliance, the facility will seal itself shut and activate the payload underneath. Someone will have to make the ultimate sacrifice to save their allies and people while condemning others.
We have a week until the Boomsday Facility activates all three payloads and causes untold damage. A week to prepare our heroes to make a terrible choice.
War, Knowledge, Might and Power. All will be put to the test on Boomsday Island.
-Garlokk Direforge, Ironforge Archivist on the Doom’s Way campaign
Salutations Argent Dawn!
This pet project has been in the making since early April and following the success of the Ghosts of the Hinterlands Campaign some of us have finally put our heads together to organize this with a more hands-on approach to the narrative and a healthy focus on player involvement.
Location and Lore
Boomsday Island is a remote, small landmass situated off the coast of Desolace with a formerly scarcely documented history. Originally known as “Doom’s Way”, an intended corruption of the original name to mislead the Horde and the Alliance, the True Horde conquered the island and established its base. The Blackfuse Company showed up shortly after and constructed the Boomsday Facility deep underground, building a secure bunker from where they would have conducted the Boomsday Project: Hidden payloads of mass destruction spread across Azeroth and used as a deterrent for rebels and the Alliance alike.
The site was abandoned when the Darkspear Rebellion became a major problem, leaving the facility and its staff sealed up, depowered and later buried by cave-ins. Due to the secretive nature of the project the Blackfuse agents and Kor’kron officers who were aware of it took its secrets to their graves, while the Alliance and the Horde never bothered to look deeper into the state of the island. Even during the Fourth War, when the factions returned to conquer it, they never had the time and intel to check what’s under them.
Until now!
OOC we are using unphased Ashran as the location and treat the faction bases as abandoned and in need of renovation and maintenance.
Location and Lore
Doom’s Way is a remote island situated off the coast of Desolace with a very scarcely documented history. Prior to the Darkspear Rebellion a Centaur Clan occupied the island only for the True Horde to discover and then subsequently conquer it. The Kor’kron garrison abandoned Doom’s Way with the Rebellion’s victory, only to reappear as a strategic target during the Fourth War with both factions vying for control. Ultimately the Alliance forces won, but soon after the end of the Fourth War they also left the island as it quickly lost its strategic value with there being no open war between the factions. War journals and ledgers were lost, reports were discarded and over the years Doom’s Way once more became forgotten.
It may be due to this obscurity that the Darkfuse Solutions cartel hid a cache of dangerous Darkfuse weaponry in an unknown location on the island, with a distress signal tipping off Horde and Alliance intelligence about its existence. Soon enough both Alliance and the Horde realized each other’s activities and what started as a simple retrieval mission became a diplomatic issue: Both the Horde (who discovered and named the island) and the Alliance (who claimed it in the Fourth War) treat the island as their own property and will now fight over it to establish dominance and to secure the weapon cache for their own benefit.
OOC we will use unphased Ashran as the location and treat the faction bases as abandoned and in need of repair and maintenance.
Campaign Mechanics
We plan the 2-week long campaign to involve RP-PvP battles, RP-PvE encounters with NPCs as well as side plots involving the history of Doom’s Way as well as the reconstruction of the faction bases. We plan to involve and expand on Camp roleplay with objectives such as securing resources around the island (with the enemy faction being free to patrol the areas and disrupt these efforts), clearing out local nuisances left behind by other former visitors and the recovery of any intel regarding the Darkfuse cache and the means of retrieving it safely.
There will be certain reveals, decisions and developments that we feel will be exciting for the attendants as we plan to involve even the little man in them, not just the head honchos and commanders.
RP-PvP
As the dominant focus of the Campaign, we will utilize the same ruleset that was used in Ghosts of the Hinterlands, which is:
- One Ability every 5 seconds as a tank and damage dealer
- Unlimited Healing and Healing AoE
- No Hard CC, Forced displacement and interrupts
- No hard-hitting AoE and single-target abilities
- We expect attendants in these skirmishes to be at max level and relatively geared to survive the occasional moshpit
- No 1v10 heroics in the backlines or constant harassment of healers
- We encourage participants to mix in emotes directed at friend or foe to spice up these fights
- Aim for engagement and fun, not to compete and win. If you have any issues and grievances, let an organizer and your Guild Master/Guild Officer know.
- Horrific Vision Head Enchantments are banned. Please either unequip your helmet or use one that doesn’t have any of the enchantments.
- The D.I.S.C. Belt from Patch 11.1.7 is also banned. Similarly please unequip it or use an alternative.
- Groups and Guilds can use certain abilities in unison or affect the skirmishes via Moments of Glory. More on that below.
Moments of Glory
While the current RP-PvP ruleset has proven to be suitable for skirmishes there’s been a lack of avenues for guilds and groups to showcase their prowess or facilitate a suitable impact for them. We devised a relatively simple system called Moments of Glory to address that.
During planned skirmishes the organizers can be prompted via DMs and raid chat about a group or guild getting together (at least 5 individuals) and performing a manoeuvre or feat influencing the battle. Once approved the organizer will broadcast said event, giving every attendant a bit of time to react. The Horde grunts form a meatshieldwall and perform a unified Dragon Charge? Let us know, we let the enemy know, then go ahead and wreak havoc.
There are a few limitations in this case to keep these moments noticeable and unique, these are:
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Only a collection of individuals (preferably 5+) or guilds can have Moments of Glory. We respect that certain characters may be powerful enough to turn a battle alone, but this campaign won’t facilitate that.
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You can’t repeat or extensively maintain these feats. Focus waivers, rage abates, and mana can run out in every prolonged battle.
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Don’t overcomplicate or overstate the impact of your actions. This is more about characters getting their moments to shine, rather than belittling or devaluing the power of the enemy combatants. We want to reward, not punish.
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The organizers reserve the right to decline attempted Moments of Glory to keep fights fun, dynamic and relatively fair.
These MoGs are not meant to be decisive or overwhelming, but instead allow groups to shine and have their spotlight during organized RP-PvP skirmishes and to spice them up a touch. Additionally, all attendants may still perform their feats (such as forming a shield wall, a cavalry charge, etc.) outside this framework, but we then will leave it up to the enemy warbands to react as they wish. MoGs will have a more guaranteed outcome.
In bullet points:
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Intended strictly for RP-PvP skirmishes with Organizers present,
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They are impactful, yet short acts of heroism, power, guile or strength meant to impact the enemy in a meaningful manner,
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They are enabled by renovated buildings within the respective factions’ bases,
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In practice a group of at least 5 people message an organizer asking to perform a MoG with a short description of what they are doing (preferably prior to RP-PvP events, but we accommodate spur of the moment initiatives too), the Organizer either approves or declines based on their personal evaluation,
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Once approved the organizer informs the attendants what’s coming, followed by raid-wide /RWs describing the MoG and its impact,
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The general expectation is that the impacted attendants react responsibly and not loldodge/immune it, but get pushed back, disoriented, knocked down or hindered,
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MoGs are not meant to limit attendants: Characters can coordinate and perform the same feats without calling them MoGs, but they won’t be facilitated by the organizers or require the enemy faction to react to them the same way,
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Similarly, MoGs are not decisive ends to battles or characters, but momentary events meant to change the tide of battle or to help the initiators aura farm and showcase their prowess,
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MoGs won’t be endlessly repeated, spammed or maintained to disable or invalidate the enemy attendants. Organizers will ensure they are reasonably spaced out and remain impactful while also fun for everyone involved.
Now how will these flimsy Moments be limited or tied to the campaign beyond Organizer approvals? The Faction Bases.
Boomsday Island Bases and Events
A core narrative element for the campaign will be the reconstruction and maintenance of the respective faction bases. Due to the island’s remote location there won’t be an abundance of strong materials or resources. As a result, the organizers (IC Commanders) will issue orders to head to the nearby woodlands to gather wood, the lava-smeared caves for granite and other objectives to both spice up camp RP, as well as create avenues for smaller skirmishes so patrols and gathering teams can engage each other.
There will also be RP-PvE encounters in the form of ghostly remnants of the island’s previous occupants whose ghastly activities will need to be dealt with before their haunts start affecting the faction bases themselves. These wraiths will also provide lore tidbits about the island, previous conflicts, the reason these ghosts even exist in the first place and even the Darkfuse cache itself via ghostly remarks and even journals that the attendants can recover.
These encounters will be freely emoted fights with reasonably lengths and outcomes. We don’t expect anyone to get demolished by a ghostly goblin, but they will put up a fight!
Base Renovation and Camp RP
As we elaborated in this forum thread before there are two main narratives for Doom’s Way: Finding the Darkfuse Weapons Cache (and potentially using it on the enemy faction) and conquering the island.
The latter is what the RP-PvP events will be about. However, we don’t really want the entirety of two weeks consisting of random skirmishes until both factions grow bored but give the campaign a bit more structure.
Hence, we’ll have a basic system for the renovation of the faction bases as well as a requirement of resources to accomplish that.
We have a plot point about the island not just being hard to find, but also engulfed in an anti-magic field that denies grand rituals, teleportation or major spells being utilized. Not only that but since this is not meant to be a major warzone neither of the factions dedicate an abundance of equipment and tools to avoid a major escalation.
However, with buildings getting renovated in the bases the attendants can get a bit of leeway.
Do you want your rangers and footmen to have a standout Moment of unleashing a volley on the enemy? Renovate the Workshop + Bunker where ammunition can be sorted, produced and stored, then you have the means to suppress the enemy with a volley.
Do you want your grunts and frontliners to form a shield wall and dragon charge through the enemy frontline? Renovate the Barracks where your soldiers can rest and maintain their equipment.
Do you want a freezing blizzard or rain of poisonous frogs to force the enemy back? Renovate the Mage or Magi Tower or Spirit Lodge respectively.
A list of these buildings and some examples of their effects can be seen in this post: Here
Note that this list is not exhaustive or set in stone: We encourage all attendants to be creative and justify further boons and consequences for having a building renovated, just discuss with an Organizer when you have a lightbulb moment.
Who decides what building gets renovated?
There will be acting commanders who make the final call every two days, but they can be swayed and convinced by the other attendants. Remember, this is more about In-Character actions and motivations and far less about OOC minmaxing, given the effects are purely affecting Role-Play.
Neutrals and Antagonist Factions
Due to the remote and abandoned nature of the island and of the campaign’s focus of both factions wanting to defeat one another we decided to not incorporate scenarios or activities by neutral groups who would have a weird and hard time to show up anyway. Mercenaries trying to play both sides, Anti-War propagandists as well as antagonist/villain groups can signup as Horde or Alliance members or help with roleplaying NPCs with close collaboration with the organizers.
DISCORD
The Boomsday Campaign Discord is offically open! https://discord.gg/DVHGVpA8Tm
Organizers and Contacts:
Primary Horde Contacts
Gruggosh – Hand of Conquest – Discord: grugs
Sinbane/Gnomeculler/Hordeculler – Overall DM for both factions – Discord: warmonger1
Primary Alliance Contacts
Hit/Lloris – Holy Order of Lordain – Discord: vexedvexing
Gnorfolus – Hounds of Wrynn – Discord: gnorfell
Sinbane/Gnomeculler/Hordeculler – Overall DM for both factions – Discord: warmonger1
