Where? The Burning Steppes

You ever notice that there’s always been a strong association with fighting and dogs?  And I don’t mean in the abusive illegal Michael Vick kind of way (See that? That’s topical humor right there. Well, for me at least). But on an Alliance quest in the heart of the Burning Steppes, you are given the task of collecting 50 (Yup. Fifty.) Blackrock Medallions from the orcs of the Blackrock clan around the area.  Sounded pretty simple, so I head off and start whacking orcs left and right.  But then there’s also these worgs that the orcs have around, and you won’t believe it, they drop the medals too.  The hell?

So are the worgs part of the Blackrock forces?  I mean, I know that they are the pets of the Blackrock clan and are used as guard dogs or sentries and often follow around the orcs to assist in battle much as a hunter’s pet would, but are these medals to indicate that the beasts actual hold some manner of rank?  Is there a separate chain of command for the worgs?  Do the newbie orcs and wolves start out in the same place?  I can imagine the boot camp must have been pretty dog eat dog (/rimshot).  It kind of makes me wonder about promotions.  Do you think a worg could ever become an officer?  I can only imagine there’s a pretty harsh concrete ceiling to military ranks for canines.  However, seeing General Spuds MacKenzie delivering a speech to a mountain full of orcs is an awesome mental image.

I suppose the other possibility would be that the worgs actually started eating the orcs and thus would have the medals, but I really can’t see the orcs continuing to use animals that would routinely just eat them.  Seems slightly counter productive in my opinion. I mean, orcs aren’t stupid.  Ogres maybe, but certainly not orcs.  So the medals have to be for the worgs (granted, that idea doesn’t help my previously stated case that orcs aren’t stupid) but what were they for?  Did the worgs see some action and earn the medals?  Maybe there was an all wolf platoon during the Second War.  A down and dirty group of dogs of war that fought in the trenches with their orc allies to end the Alliance’s tyranny of…  um… giving the table scraps to the cats?  Humans do seem to have a pretty strong cat theme going, whether it’s Stormwind or Dalaran, there are cats to be found.  So maybe that’s why the worgs signed on with the Blackrock orcs?

Okay, but how long does a worg live?  The Second War (the last time the Blackrock’s actually participated in a war) was years ago, these have got to be some pretty old dogs. You think they all sit around, play cards, and drink toilet water, while swapping old war stories around a fold up card table on Thursday nights? Maybe they sit on park benches around the desolate and flaming landscape under the shadow of Blackrock Mountain talking about how their generation had real discipline and knew the value of hard work and these young pups just sit around in their Spire, listening to their hip hop and walking around in circles doing nothing.

Ultimately, I think this about treating the dogs as equal to the other orcs.  Something that Genn Greymane probably would have approved of, before he kind of became part doggy himself.  Hey! There ya go, Genn!  Forget the Alliance that you /gquit all those years ago and join up with the Blackrock Orcs!  They hate the Horde (The New Horde at least, beggars can’t be choosers) and I hear their boss is coming back soon.  It’s the perfect opportunity for you!  They like to be mean and nasty to things they don’t like too!  So then we’ll have a worg platoon, and the worgen platoon, and they can all chase the cats up trees together!  It might even prevent the worgen from becoming the most overplayed race since Blood Elves!

…ah, who am I kidding? /rolls worgen.