GOBSMACKED: The Goblins of Azeroth and the Undermine
Welcome back to the blog! I’ve had another busy month starting off my year and prepping for patch 11.1. When you’re reading this, we’ll be in the middle of a definitely-not-extended maintenance on Feb 25th or 26th (depending on your region). Patch 11.1 is here!
It’s no secret this is the most excited I’ve been for a patch in a very long time. I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed WoW Goblins-Kezan is my favorite starting zone by miles-and Undermine is one of our last remaining pre-established locations that we haven’t explored in-game yet. This is a place I’ve been waiting for since around 2010 and I am so excited to jump in.
But in case you aren’t as much of a Goblin die-hard as me (like I literally had a folder of Goblin memes ready to post when the patch was announced), I’m here with a briefer for you on what you need to know to enjoy yourself in the Undermine. This post will cover: the history of the appearance of Goblins in WoW itself, playable Goblins, Gallywix, the various cartels, the Undermine, and why the heck this is relevant in the first place. It’s also important to say: all other writing aside, WoW Goblins are just generally hilarious. You should laugh at the explosions and giggle at the jokes. They’re silly.
But first, thematic music:
home sweet booty.
Goblins
You’ve seen Goblins in this game for a long time. Vanilla WoW included many thriving Goblin settlements: Gadgetzan, Booty Bay, Everlook, and Ratchet just to name a few. What about before Classic? Goblins were one of Mimiron’s accidental experimental successes. They share a lineage with pygmies (the short guys in Uldum). Mimiron discovered Kaja’mite (long before its soda edition) and tried its properties on a small race near Ulduar and bam: Goblins!
Goblins were immediately known for their advanced intelligence due to Kaja’mite properties. One of the most tragic uses of their ingenuity came when Neltharion had them create the Dragon Soul and later the famed plates that held his breaking body together (you may remember seeing Goblins in the Cataclysm cinematic-they’ve long been enslaved by Deathwing for various purposes). After the Sundering, Goblins were lost in the sauce and unable to find their Kaja’mite supply. Generationally, they lost their intellect and retreated to Kezan.
The Zandalari found Kezan during some of their expeditions across the various islands of the newly-sundered Azeroth. At this time, the Zandalari were focused on empire building and looked to mine Kaja’mite. Kezan just happened to have a repository, but since Goblins weren’t aware of its properties at this time, the Zandalari just enslaved them to mine it. Over time, proximity to the substance reignited the spirit of invention in the Goblins.
it’s….charming!
Our short friends organized into a rebellion approximately 100 years before the opening of the Dark Portal. The Zandalari fled Kezan and, as is so often the case, the Goblins fought amongst each other with the loss of their common enemy. Once this conflict ended, they turned toward a new struggle for dominance: economics.
This is actually one of the reasons Goblins are one of my favorite races in WoW: they are the closest thing to a wide labor, union, and late-stage capitalism allegory we have in the universe. The writers used to veer into this territory (remember the Defias?) but focused on other stories. I’m very glad to see the Goblins come back and return to their bread and butter: stories about the effects of highly unregulated business barons, commerce, and the effects of boundless greed.
As this mercantile struggle continued, leaders in the competition broke from the pack, known as Cartels. You’ve seen many of the Cartels throughout the game: Steamwheedle, Venture Company, Blackwater, and Bilgewater to name the ones we’ll see in 11.1. In Goblin hierarchy, Cartels are strong governing powers, similar to corporations of today, with Trade Princes being at the top of the food chain. The Cartels took various differing approaches to Azerothian politics, but that doesn’t really matter much for thinking about them today. Just know that by the time of the end of the Third War, Cartels were operating independently as predominantly neutral entities.
We as the adventurer came into conflict with the Cartels during Classic. You may recall killing many a Venture Company goon during your adventures in Stranglethorn Vale, or turning on the guards of Gadgetzan if you grinded Bloodsail rep. Goblins continued appearing prominently in the game, such as running Area 52 in Netherstorm or manufacturing the zeppelins the Horde used to travel between continents. These Goblins were all WoW Goblins, with many players left wondering when they’d become playable.
please play the Goblin starting zone!!!
Playable Goblins: the Bilgewater Cartel
Goblins became playable in Cataclysm, specifically the Bilgewater Cartel. The other Cartels had taken up residence in Booty Bay or Gadgetzan, but the Bilgewater were mostly still hanging out on Kezan. By this point, Jastor Gallywix rose to the top of the food chain and was Trade Prince of the Bilgewater. By the way, if you haven’t played this starting zone, I can’t recommend it enough. Kezan is absolutely fabulous, and Undermine in 11.1 will have unique dialogue for any Goblin players. Nice work devs!
Bad news: here comes Deathwing. The aspect of bastard himself said “hey guys cataclysm time” and made Mt. Kajaro get ready to blow up. Gallywix, in charge of the only exit of the island, forced every Goblin to fork over all of their money to ride his escape vessel. Except his plan was worse than that: he wanted to enslave every Goblin on his boat! Yikes!
The vessel fleeing Kezan ran into an Alliance/Horde naval conflict and didn’t survive the trip. This incident led to the Goblins finding Thrall (like how did he get captured) and working with him to escape the Lost Isles. At the end of the starting experience, you collaborate with Thrall and beat the fuck out of Gallywix, who is still trying to enslave everyone. Gallywix begs forgiveness and Thrall, in his endless idiocy says alright be good man and lets Gallywix remain in charge. Bruh.
thrall bro….we can’t keep doing this
Bilgewater Goblins joined the Horde and became invaluable members of the community. Even Garrosh remarked upon how Goblins were able to earn their keep with machinery, inventions, and weaponry (as he would later demonstrate). Throughout Cataclysm, Goblins generally just hung out and did adventurer things. Most famously, Gallywix had his face carved into a cliff in Azshara and created the Horde insignia at Bilgewater Harbor right above Orgrimmar.
By Mists, things got a little more interesting. Goblins displayed a particular investment in Garrosh’s aspirations, with specifically the Blackfuse company aligning with the increased violence displayed by the Warchief. In his last stand in Orgrimmar, Garrosh was accompanied by Helix Blackfuse and other Goblins. Gallywix at the time was more focused on weighing the entire equation, seeing that Garrosh’s behavior wouldn’t have long-term profit or prosperity. He sided with Vol’jin.
GOAT ALERT SIEGECRAFTER BLACKFUSE
Gallywix made a different decision in BFA (which is not a great writing choice but I digress). He went all in on Sylvanas’ war efforts, especially since he was one of the first to discover Azerite back pre-Cataclysm in the Undermine. The story goes that he found the tiniest shred of Azerite deep in the earth but it lost its power, regaining energy when Sargeras stabbed the planet. I guess it makes sense that he would go in with Sylvanas using Azerite since he discovered it first, but I still wish they had kept Gallywix a bit smarter than that. Even he had to know Sylvanas wasn’t seriously trying to win the Fourth War.
After Gallywix abandoned the Horde, Thrall created the Horde Council and asked Gazlowe to take up the mantle of Trade Prince. I want to make one thing extremely clear: THIS IS A MONTE GAZLOWE FAN ACCOUNT! This guy owns. He is what you’d get if the best workers’ rights advocates in real life were all merged into one character. And he has a cool hat! Gazlowe took up leadership of the cartel and the Goblins remained in the Horde.
Mr. Noggenfogger, your elixir has done much for me
What did other Cartels do during this time?
A few representatives of other Cartels were operating all around Azeroth. A few Goblins are part of the Uncrowned, the Rogue Legion order, such as Marin Noggenfogger, while Renzik the Shiv joined SI:7. You can listen to his recent short story here.
Business continued as usual for Gadgetzan, Everlook, and the Venture Co., with the latter finding new ways to be awful in Azeroth. Famously, the Venture Co. is terrible for the environment, with them being a close parallel to real-world companies that shred forests in the name of profits.
As a quick status check:
Bilgewater: Horde affiliated. Adventurers. Horde Council membership.
Steamwheedle: joined forces with Gazlowe to maximize prosperity. Still operating out of Gadgetzan.
Blackwater: still in charge of Booty Bay, operational, and trading.
Venture Company: recently defeated in THE MOTHERLODE!!! Dungeon. Operational and seen in Azj-Kahet, as well as the Dragon Isles.
Gallywix you Big Bitch
Jastor Gallywix is a lot of things, but he’s never been boring. I mean, Sylvanas has always been questionable, but what other racial leader has been the final objective of a starting zone? Literally none of them. This guy is loyal to his paycheck and that’s it. Fabulous. I actually think it’s totally fine to have a character who has a code beyond interpersonal connections, even if that code is just “he’s good for the economy.”
I was a bit disappointed that Gallywix’s characterization in BFA was so poor. His traits of thinking things through, being highly inventive, and questioning the outcome of his schemes were overwritten in favor of being silly, wacky, and chaotic. That’s all fun and good but it isn’t really how he was written before. In the Undermine, you’ve obviously seen that he’s going to be a villain. I like his portrayal a lot more in TWW than BFA, because everyone is better written than in BFA lol, and I’m ok with the direction they’ve chosen to take him. But what about between BFA and TWW?
HOW DID YOU GET TO TAZAVESH!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!
Gallywix was seen in Tazavesh hanging out with some brokers. Yeah, the interspatial trade guys, basically everything Goblins aspire to. That’s not good! This man is very intelligent and probably learned a good deal about the cosmos from Tazavesh. It explains why he’s been immediately on top of the Black Blood in TWW, especially given how fervently he pursued Azerite. He’s definitely the most immediate to respond to “new blood resource from cosmic entity” in canon.
So why is he involved with Xal’atath?
oh yeah, the plot!
The Void, Dark Heart, and Profit
You may remember that I mentioned Goblins made the original Dragon Soul for Neltharion. You may also remember that, in Dragonflight, we researched the Dark Heart and found out that it had properties similar to the Dragon Soul. I want to remind everyone: the Dragon Soul was an exceedingly powerful weapon. Most cosmic entities would still want to seek it out today due to how strong it was.
Alleria landed a nice shot in 11.0 to break the Dark Heart for the time being. It makes one wonder: is that the end of this much-hyped artifact that seemed super strong and blew up Dalaran?
I propose that Xal’atath has used brokers or another network to get in touch with Gallywix, one of the smartest Goblins alive. If he has knowledge of how Goblins made the Dragon Soul, perhaps he knows something about the Dark Heart. And what does he get in exchange? Unfettered access to the power of the Black Blood of course.
Down down down the road: Undermine
As I said earlier, the Undermine is one of the last remaining named locations in Azeroth that we’ve heard of but not explored. For fun, some others include Avaloren, the Arathi continent, Tel Abim, Plunder Isle, and Goria in Draenor (lol). We’ve been hearing about the Undermine for over a decade and a primarily underground expansion is definitely a good time to venture there.
Continuing with our theme of real world parallels, since that’s what Goblins do best, the Undermine has been discussed as New York: tons of rich trade bosses, endless innovation, lots of pollution, reckless driving, you name it. It’s discussed as a very lively place under the threat of constant surveillance, hierarchy, and chasing profits. We haven’t been there but we’ve met many a Goblin who left the town and chased after a different lifestyle. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be pretty. I’m excited to see what else the Undermine has in store for us, but for now, just know that it’s the Goblin capital and houses a significant population of Goblins.
THIS MOUNT WILL BE MINE!!!!!!
What’s next?
Based on the 11.0.7 quests, seems like it’s time to punch Gallywix. Though I don’t think the road to get here was perfectly executed, it makes sense that Gallywix would eventually be a raid boss. After all, we literally fought him at the end of the Goblin starting zone. Yikes.
I’m excited to see the writing for 11.1: Goblin writing has always felt very grounded and relatable to us as working class people under capitalism. We’ll see if folks have the media literacy to decide who Gallywix represents to them.
I almost forgot:
EXPLOSIONS???????????!?!?!?!!?!?
