French-fansite Judgehype discovered a new entry in the Amazon.de database for an upcoming novel coming from Panini. Apparently, there are plans for World of Warcraft: Troll Wars by Paul S. Kemp. He is an american fantasy author known to fans of Star Wars, and Forgotten Realms.
This novel is not yet listed in the United States, and searches online at this moment aren’t shedding any other sources except for the german-version of Amazon and another book finder list. So this was a really good (oops?) find. I am currently investigating, and will update as soon as I fetch something.
If the book shows up in upcoming days in the United States, it might likely appear here, or here.
The german text reads as follow:
World of Warcraft: Die Trollkriege
Im Anschluss an den legendären Krieg der Ahnen wurde eine Gruppe von Magiern der Nachtelfen von ihrem Volk verbannt. Auf der Suche nach neuem Lebensraum landeten sie an der Küste von Lordaeron. Zu dieser Zeit waren die Menschen noch ein loser Verbund aus schwachen Stämmen, während die Trolle eine regelrechte Hochkultur etabliert hatten. Die Ankunft der fremden Zauberer und deren Bündnis mit den Menschen legte den Grundstein zu einem der folgenreichsten Konflikte Azeroths, die unter dem Namen Trollkriege in die Geschichte eingingen.
World of Warcraft: The Troll Wars
Rough Translation: Following the legendary War of the Ancients, a group of night elves magi were exiled by their people. In search of a new habitat, they landed on the coast of Lordaeron. At that time Humans were still a scattered group of weak tribes, while the trolls had an established empire. The arrival of the foreign magi and their alliance with the Humans laid the foundations for one of the most memorable conflicts of Azeroth, known throughout history as The Troll Wars.
10-ISBN 3833235373
13-ISBN 9783833235375
Connecting the Dots
First and foremost, this novel has not been confirmed yet. I am investigating. That said, it is very unusual for the World of Warcraft creative team to develop novels that are not in some way a tie-in of a upcoming World of Warcraft expansion.
The Dark Horse World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1-2 are an exception, but technically and literally those are not novels.
The Troll Wars was a massive conflict in the past of Azeroth that ended 2800 years before the Orcs arrived through the Dark Portal. The defeat of the Troll Empire came about when Anasterian Sunstrider and Thoradin’s forces allied for the survival of their peoples, to end the Amani threat once and for all.
Some of this lore can be found in the Chronicle books mentioned above. It is a very rich story. Basically, that was the single moment in time that birthed the original Warcraft. The high elves trained 100 humans to become magi. The Troll Wars was won. Time later, as the human civilization expanded into seven kingdoms, the Humans’ use of magic became reckless. The Burning Legion took notice, and with the impending threat looming from beyond, the high elves and humans united once more.
The Troll Wars definitely had a deep impact in the history of Warcraft, as the conflict that set in motion the foundation of the Order of Tirisfal. The magi convened to empower a single champion tasked to hunt and vanquish the demons summoned by reckless magi. That champion became the first Guardian: Alodi — who we glimpsed briefly in the WARCRAFT film (played by artist Glenn Close).
So it is a very impactful story which can potentially reveal a lot about the origins of Humans, and hopefully some interactions of Watcher Tyr, and Warlord Thoradin. The question is … will the novel be a new expansion tie-in? Do we need to go back in time through Caverns of Time? Is knowledge from the Troll Wars era going to somehow tie-in with something that we need to do in (or after) Argus? Only one way to find out. The novel is slated to ship on November 13… 9 days after BlizzCon.
**On the other hand, what if the Blizzard creative team has decided to expand the Warcraft mythos, and break tradition? What if we see the rise of novels that are not bound to upcoming expansions? Something to flesh out all the new stuff we got in the Chronicle books?
INVESTIGATION UPDATES
Update #1 (May 9, 5:38pm): Digging around about Paul S. Kemp’s past books, most were published by Del Rey Publishing … if that doesn’t say much to you, Del Rey is owned by Random House (which itself is owned by Penguin Random House). Blizzard Entertainment and Random House announced their partnership on September 18, 2015. On 2016, Random House published World of Warcraft: Illidan.
Update # 2 (May 12, 11am EST): Two things have happened overnight. Amazon (Germany) and BuchFndR (book finder) have changed the date and the name of the book. The book description was removed. The date was changed to December 31, 2018 (which is mostly a placeholder). The only evidence that this existed has not been deleted yet. Here is a cached version of the page before it was hard-edited.
Update #3 (Nov 13, 2017): It’s been 6 months since this find made the headlines. BlizzCon was 10 days ago, and nothing came out of it except Battle for Azeroth has a strong presence of Zandalari trolls and even an Allied Race. Still no news to confirm that this novel is real other than the fact that it appeared in the Bookfinder with a ISBN. The author never responded to a couple of my requests.
“Did it exist at all?” some people who has heard about this novel just recently might ask. It is a fact that it happened. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be listed still on November 13, 2017 by Amazon UK and Amazon.de, and countless other book finder websites. Instead of Del Rey, for Europe release it is under the Panini label.
Now that BlizzCon 2017 revealed Zandalar and Kul’Tiras as the level 110-120 playground, one question remains. Blizzard did not reveal what the end-game content is or where. In Legion, the end-game zone was Suramar and Nighthold. Then Broken Shore with Tomb of Sargeras as the main raid, followed by Argus and Antorus raid. We don’t know what the Suramar of Battle for Azeroth is — and that is a big deal because we don’t know what happens after we hit level 120 and our quests in Zandalar and Kul’Tiras ends the leveling experience.
Our recent interview with Jeremy “Muffinus” Feasel revealed one thing though… Blizzard Entertainment is going to use phasing technology in Kalimdor and Eastern Plaguelands so that level 1 Undead and level 1 Night Elves continue to experience their level up starting location zones up to level 110. None of those quests will be affected. Once the player accepts the Battle for Azeroth first quest at level 110, the world changes forever for that player with a burned Teldrassil, and whatever the new status quo for Ruins of Lordaeron is after the Alliance forces the Forsaken to retreat.
That alone makes me wonder if the Suramar of Battle for Azeroth is actually a revamped Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms — another phase technology layer on top of the Cataclysm revamped world — updating the zones. With the Zandalari joining the Horde, will there be new Amani content in a Battle for Azeroth patch post-launch? Did you also noticed the complete absence of mention about Caverns of Time in Battle for Azeroth?
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I think humans lived harassed by the trolls, when the elves came the trolls stopped paying so much attention to the humans and focused their effort on fighting the elves.