Where? The Crossroads, Northern Barrens

Who in Azeroth steals a wagon?  No, I’m serious.  We’re talking about a fantasy world where zeppelins and helicopters exist, everyone rides around on wolves, dinosaurs, big goats or something, and you can instantaneously receive a full-sized war bear from a mailbox (Behold the power of SCIENCE!).  Why would anyone in their right mind actually bother to steal a wagon?  I mean, sure I can see the merits in having a wagon.  You get to ride one a couple of times in the early horde quests in Kalimdor.  But I don’t think the benefits of having a wagon justify the effort to attack a settlement to steal them.  So why I ask you would anyone at the Crossroads bother to chain the wagons to the ground?  Well, let’s explore this one a bit shall we?

The Alliance Might Take Them

It’s no secret that there is a long-standing tradition of the Alliance playing footsie with the Horde at the Crossroads.  They show up, kill the quest givers and any lowbie they cross paths with, and then either a) get bored and leave or b) get their butts handed to them by high level horde.  But I’ve never seen them take a wagon.  Hell, they don’t even bother with the copious amounts of hookahs lying all over the Crossroads.  I would think if anything the hookahs would be a higher priority item since they are smaller and I imagine a whole of a lot more useful on those dull Kalimdor nights (Ask the Night Elves. They know what I’m talking about.)

Not to mention there’s the simple matter that taking a wagon, especially without a kodo or something of roughly equivalent strength to pull it (This ain’t no sissy Gilnean stage-coach! This is a Horde wagon, boy!) it would simply slow down the Alliance and impede their attempts to run away.  It’s just not practical, especially since I never see a wagon leave the Crossroads.  Oh I’ve seen them arrive, but never leave.  So it’s not like it’d be some strategic victory for the Alliance to steal the never-moved-a-day-in-their-lives wagons.

The Raptors Might Take Them

Raptors are smart, I’ll give you that.  Smarter than most people tend to give them credit for.  But I already discussed the matters of Raptor intelligence in my post about Subject Nine.  The simple fact here is that raptors don’t need wagons.  At all.  They are quick and agile on their own clawed feet.  Heck, they could have taken a wagon already, but they just destroyed it in order to get to the silver in the wagon to fund their nefarious doomsday machines.  While there may come a day when the raptors find a need for a wagon (Earth mother help us all), it surely isn’t now and rest assured that no manner of iron chain on a peg will be stopping them from taking the wagons.  There won’t be a force on Azeroth prepared for what those raptors will unleash on that day.

They Might Just Up and Leave

This idea may be the most nonsensical or the most sensible one depending on how you look at it.  On one hand, this may be suggesting that the wagons are somehow possessed, driven by forces beyond the nether to become some kind of twisted wooden Azerothian incarnation of Christine.  Shackled to the earth for fear that the wagons’ blood lust would be let loose amongst the innocent souls that dwell within the walls of the Crossroads (and that forsaken that hangs out there too).  Woe be to those who think of breaking the chains of bondage that keep these demonic wagons at bay!  For the guilt of the HK’s that these wagons bring forth shall be laid at YOUR feet and weigh on your conscience for all time!

The other possibility is that they just might roll away.  Because the Barrens is kinda hill-y in spots. However, that seems to be unlikely as the furthest a wagon will roll either forward and stop when they bump into the inn or backwards and bump into the wall.  There’s not enough room for the wagons to gain enough velocity from a fully stopped position to do any serious damage to either the wall or the inn, so maybe just a rock underneath the wheel should be sufficient to make sure they don’t roll into the road at some point, but a chain seems unnecessary.

I would consider the demonic possessed wagon to be a stupid suggestion and no reason to chain them down, but that was before I had to help out with a certain possessed bulldozer in Azshara.

What About Marsupials With a Wagon Fetish?

Well, of course not.  There’s not really an abundant marsupial population in the Barrens, at least not the type of militants that would be willing to attack the Crossroads in order to haul off one of the wagons.  That’d probably take a good size group to do and certainly there can’t be THAT many marsupials in the Barrens that have a wagon fetish.  Unless the centaur are marsupials. There might be centaur with wagon fetishes though.  Actually that might explain a good deal about the centaur.  Or not at all. Wait…  what the heck is a marsupial?

Conclusion

I think we can safely say there’s only one real reason to tie these wagons down.  The Crossroads is actually a prison for demonically possessed wagons.  It’s the only logical explanation.  So keep that in mind Alliance the next time you decide to start killing off the only people who are risking their lives to protect all of Azeroth from the evil wagon threat.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.