Archaeological Find

So, I’ve been working on Archaeology lately. When I started this digging spree a few days ago I ended up in the Southern Barrens for a fossil site, and found Snort the Heckler prowling around the area. I’m sure most of you recognize him, he’s the rare hyena that’s smack dab in the middle of a digsite. Poor guy probably gets killed a lot by passerby.

Anyways, my stable had a bunch of empty slots in preparation for MoP, and at the time I thought I’d bring him with me and he could be my temporary archaeology buddy. I honestly wasn’t planning on keeping him for very long, I’ve never really been fond of that colour on hyenas.

Well, over the past few days Snort’s been at my side while I go around Kalimdor trying to coax Tol’vir sites to appear, and…I think I’m becoming attached. For some reason I’m finding myself incredibly fond of his appearance, even though I didn’t care for it before. He’s the perfect companion for this type of work too. He always has his nose to the ground and eagerly sniffs out artifacts for me. Even his name is fitting in that regard.

So, yeah, I think I might have a new hyena? ._.

Iggy's Evolution

Out of all the new creature models coming in Pandaria, I think the one that I'm most excited about would be the dragon turtle.

I knew I had to have one the moment they were datamined, which presented a problem. I already had Igneous, and I knew I couldn't bear to have two turtles, yet I couldn't let go of Iggy after everything we've been through.

So what was I to do?

The best solution would be to have Igneous change forms. That was difficult too, though. At first I couldn't think of any way for Iggy to realistically transform into a dragon turtle while retaining who he was. The models were vastly different in personality and appearance. Iggy's entire being was based on his fire and lava composition.

I was at a loss until I really started taking a closer look at the models. The gears in my head began turning, and suddenly I saw it all come together.

My head canon is as follows:

Igneous is really more of an elemental creature than a true beast. Since he is tied to both earth and fire, it seems natural that during the chaos of the Cataclysm he would resonate with the destruction caused to Azeroth and the elemental planes. This fueled his fires, making him burn bright with the anger and turmoil.

In Mists of Pandaria, the world is slowly beginning to heal from the wounds inflicted by Deathwing. As the elements calm themselves, Iggy's fires also start to diminish. As his shell cools it melts and reforms itself, hardening into shiny black obsidian.

And that is how I justified Iggy's evolution. :)