New Dominion
Story Outlines
This post is going to provide a spoiler heavy outline of my currently proposed timeline/future arcs for New Dominion. None of its strictly set in stone, especially the later elements, and whether or not I write it is admittedly up in the air, but I figured it was fair to share what I have tinkered with. I'm definitely open to feedback and for the most part, consider this just a fun what might be, though yeah, timeline spoilers ahead.
The Summer Peace:
This arc encompasses the immediate aftermath of the current New Dominion Storyline. Contrary to other arcs it wouldn't have a singular through-line but would instead be a collection of oneshots and short stories showing how the world has changed and is continuing to change. This arc is also the most open to potential submissions if anyone wants to make any, though if one wants to contribute their own stories to the universe, there's no need to limit one's self either 
Current story concepts include:
The Zandalari's visit to the Drakkari Dominions.
Nazgrel leading warriors (With assistance) against
Grom'thar the Thunderbringer and
Bloodmar to protect the Rageclaw trade routes to better integrate themselves to the empire & greater Northrend.
One is partially written already and involves a recently ennobled father hiring a Drakkari tutor for his daughter and generally trying to slide his mineral mining family into some influential positions with decent luck.
I was also thinking of dealing with some of the less seemly parts of the Drakkari occupation/conquest. IE some soldiers who misuse their positions, possibly isolating or even killing a Drakkari critical of their actions to protect themselves ETC.
The Summer Solstice festival, I got some inspiration from
this, so there may be a solar Loa lurking about and I like the aesthetic; Zul'jin would likely be in attendance and Malakk is working to try and create a holiday that can be celebrated by trolls, humans and more alike.
Another major idea involves a Wolvar scholar being assigned to investigate dead livestock in Silverpine, teaming up with a resentful Mage from
Ambermill and a local Troll woman assigned to prove its not her people's doing. They end up encountering/ambushed by Worgen and possibly encounter a Harvest Witch who was turned but who still has some self control and likely a human hunter involved in the affairs as well.
Beyond that, well the skies the limit, of any period in this story, the Summer Peace is the most ideal to explore smaller but still integral stories. Heck I could make a multi chapter arc following the founding of Roam, or Inquisition drama, ETC, so long as it doesn't break the rest of the story its all possible.
The New Wars:
So this section covers much more heavily spoilered content and is also much more loose. Broadly speaking the New Wars can cover the Silithid Rising in the South, the Legions invasion and the Alliance/Maga re-instigating the conflict with the Drakkari. These wars could all take place consecutively or at the same general time, or a mixture of both.
One factor that always stood out to me about the Legion invasion as I had it planned before this is that it was very... Perfunctory. Archimonde has no interest in doing his assigned task, his explicit goal is to absorb the World Tree & surpass Sargeras, as a result his actions against the Drakkari & Alliance are relatively minor. Sure lots of cults summon up demons and Mannaroth likely corrupts the Warsong, but the real area of focus in the Night Elves.
Right now these wars are outlined separate, but I could easily see the Legion invading mid Drakkari VS Alliance war, disrupting everyone's carefully laid plans, but also ensuring that things are so messy and damaging certain people (Zul'jin) get desperate and its even easier for Azshara to make certain moves, so please tell me your thoughts!
The Tides of Terror:
This would be the sequel story, the main event so to speak and would involve the Alliance/Naga and Drakkari coming to blows; with Zul'jin using renewed aggression from Alliance forces to justify a counter attack on the Quel'Dorei, calling in his debts to Malakk to force the issue.
Only after the Drakkari have started attacking Quel'Thalas in earnest would the Naga become involved as more than opportunistic raiders; coming out of the sea and linking up with resistance cells and cultists alike. At the same time, the Alliance armies would launch all out assaults, very risky plays if they didn't have the Naga hence why its such a shock to the Drakkari who were not expecting things to escelate nearly this quickly. Even Gilneas is lending a hand because Azshara promised a cure for the Worgen Curse spreading across their land.
Suffice to say in many areas the Drakkari are barely holding on or losing ground.
Things get bad,
Great Mother Arctikus may die but manage to take down a Bronzebeard Royal with her in the battle of Thandol Span and its entirely possible that Galen even betrays the Drakkari here, (though its by no means a certainty.) Kul'Tiras makes some notable gains in Hillsbrad and at sea, but much like Eastweld are leery to over commit, while Genn's forces get tied up trying to take over Hillbrad thanks to struggling to pass through Silverpine and being raided from behind. No small amount of Tirisfal is likely lost in the North thanks to the Naga and places like the Barov's archipelago, the Northern mountains and the Hinterlands trolls all come under heavy assault from
However, things don't continue to go the Alliance's way either.
The Dwarves are forced to retreat due to a Dark Iron invasion striking them from the South that dwarfs anything they were prepared for as they though the Dark Horde would keep too many of the Dark Irons's busy for such an invasion. Onyxia may sabotage the King's vessel, killing Varian by turning into a dragon aboard ship & claiming treason in the form of S:17 thanks to its leaders ties to Vancleef & the 'explosives' used to blow up the vessel, leading the spies to flee for their lives as she secures control of Stormwind while they are forced to link up with Vancleef.
The main theater for war however is in Quel'Thalas.
The Runestones are destroyed & the
Outer Gate is breached, but the High Elves rebuff the trolls at the
river's edge, holding the Inner gate and the war seems evenly matched but with time and stamina on the Elves side even before the Naga begin their assault. Worse still for their side though not for morality, Malakk had threatened to disavow his aid to Zul'jin if the Amani tried to utilize his secret weapon of unleashing the Blood Plague on the High Elves.
Despite that (& possibly because of the Legion or Naga) Zul'jin sent elite agents to enact the most deadly variant of his plan; their orders are to breach the Sunwell & deposit the curse egg of Hakkar into the Sunwell, ensuring every Elf is afflicted with the Plague. They managed to slip into the Sunwell's defenses and even placed the heart in the waters.
However before they could begin the rituals, Azshara arrives and slaughters them mockingly thanking them for making this easier than she expected. The Queen of the Naga then enacts her true plan, one that betrays her Old God 'masters' and only serves her interest. She begins absorbing the power of the Sunwell into herself, intent on apotheosis
This act serves to cripple the High Elven army, the sudden weakening of magic is one thing but so much infrastructure depended on the Sunwell.
Azshara arrives on the battlefield, towering over all gathered there to the cheers of her subjects and the horror of elf and troll alike. She plans to wipe out the trolls and then go absorb the World Tree once her new form has stabilized another to withstand doing such a thing again. She shows little care for the High Elves as well, viewing them as the descendants of traitors who's 'blood' has grown weak.
Both the Quel'Dorei and the troll armies try to fight and a Priestess of Hakkar realizes the Blood Gods power is inside Azshara. Sacrificing her life as Zul'jin, Malakk & their elite forces directly challenge (To distract) her and the armies try to wear her down. Thanks to this Priestesses sacrifice she awakens the Blood Curse and with its power suffused to her being Azshara cannot fight it off, dying and turning into giant skeletal remains.
Her death sends psychic shockwaves into the Naga, obliterating their cohesion, morale and in many cases, sanity.
This causes problems for over committed Alliance forces, mostly the rebel cells and Gilneas at time of writing. However the Drakkari & Amani are so exhausted they can barely hold what they already have. What's more, Malakk, despite it being the only reason things worked out, is still angry Zul'jin betrayed his trust and tried to enact a genocide and declares them scales between them even before withdrawing.
Here's where things get more vague.
Initially I had it be the Amani got most of their land back except Silvermoon & the Holy Land as Azshara blew it up when she ascended. However, I am leaning now towards them only getting everything South of the river. I also initially had the High Elves effectively 'have' to join Malakk for safety, but now I'd say sign a terse treaty born of their sudden loss in soldiers & magical power and I am even less sure on what happens to the WIldhammer.
However, I will note that Kul'Tiras and Eastweld do fairly well out of this, neither exactly expand their territory (necessarily) but they avoided over committing themselves and as a result have been given more than enough breathing room to recover in their own time. As to Ironforge it does fight off the Dark Iron invasion and out down the Troggs, but they are quite exhausted to say the least.
Meanwhile, Rend may be forced to break his treaty with the Dark Iron on Nefarian's orders, as with Onyxia ruling Stormwind he's not allowed to invade it anymore. Though he may still be able to claim Redridge through proxy forces, or through deals with the Gurubashi which Nefarian is unaware of. But regardless, before he can make his own choices in policy, Rend needs to remove the dragon.
Overall, lots of wiggle room.
Legion Invasion:
As noted, the Legion invasion was initially concieved as mroe a Night Elf centric story, almost as though the position of world protaganist was shifting to the Night Elves now that the Drakkari narrative was done. Thus, I initially imagined the Drakkari not having a ton to do with this and it not even strictly being a story.
As it is, Archimonde was given the task of taking Azeroth thanks to Kil'jaden & Sagreras's plans failing.
His idea is much more straightforward, using Pit Lords to take over Outland, or at least the parts of it that matter to him and having cultists open the Dark Portal. Its too small to withstand him, but Mannaroth leads a mighty host of demons and Fel Orcs to attack the general area, and sends a decent number of demons into Stormwind, Ironforge and especially North in order to make it look like a real invasion.
The real plan however is to martial their forces, summon Archminonde at Medivh's Tower and launch a surprise invasion of Kalimdor so Archimonde can claim the World Tree.
IE, everything else is just a smokescreen, but it does damage the South's large-scale power structures, and its not exactly easy for the Drakkari to deal with either as many rebel cells have been turned into Legion cults. Thus suddenly quiet towns have Doomguards exploding out of buildings and seemingly noral peasants spewing acidic fire at anyone and everyone.
I never quit outlined how the Night Elves deal with all this, but I envision that because of Medivh/Agewyn they do still get 'some' warning and because the invasion was more sudden and there was no distracting Horde & Alliance to deal with, they manage to hold the Legion back. At least long enough to pull off their canonical plan, thus kill Archimonde and scouring the land of thousands of demons letting them route the rest.
Roam might have helped & also dealt with its founders sister becoming a demon cultist, such drama.
Whatever the case, these events are what compel the Night Elves to take an interest in the wider world again, which is why they notice the Silithid becoming more active, the Gordunni slave empire and the suffering of certain Tauren Tribes. Also, if they avoid being corrupted by Mannaroth, then Rend's Horde of all things may help seal the portal, largely because if the Legion takes over Azeroth it means Rend can't!
As noted, it might be possible to combine these two stories to make something more dynamic, the Legion would have more reason to rush an invasion if Azshara's actions are predicted and the chaos of the demons would weaken everyone as well as leave things more open for Azshara to make her move, but balancing all that sounds tricky to say the least.
Epilogue & Notes:
I don't exactly have another story arc envisioned after this, but I have some outlined world building details I can share, some of which could/would likely be made into a story or at least be addressed in an Epilogue or world building notes, but are ultimately still nebulous.
As noted I am unsure on the state of the Wildhammer & Quel'Thalas, but Eastweld remains independent and while Saiden never loses his desire to reclaim Lordaeron his Eastweld born successors are less interested, though there is always a moderately sized reclamation movement in their politics.
The people of 'Roam' have settled on Kalimdor & mostly trade arcane knowledge and metal crafting to the local power factions, Harpy, Tauren, Centaur & especially Quillboar for local talismans, meat and lots of pig. They become a moderate world power in a few generations, mostly coastal, akin to Carthage or Genoa.
The Night Elves become much more involved in the world, especially Kalimdor, likely trying to rally aid for a war against the Silithid and also put the Centaur on the back hoof. Their direct influence likely never extends beyond the North, but they do likely end up propping up a number of middling states and territories across Central Kalimdor, with weaker rivals like the Centaur & Gordunni competing with them.
Gilneas, with its army and quite possibly its king dead, and Worgen swarming across the countryside in competing packs that are the size of small armies begin withdrawing into the capital. As a result whoever survived among
Mia,
Liam & Tess have to essentially surrender themselves to whoever can aid them, this would likely be the Drakkari due to a combination of 'Wild Gods' and army strength. This is a bloody process to say the least.
Depending on how things went with Galen, the Drakkari likely yield some of their Southern gains though they'd retain the Uplands of Hillsbrad as they were often in Alterac' sphere of influence regardless. Though after another matter is settled this more or less secure the Dominion of the Drakkari for generations to come, in part thanks tot he Naga & Legion coopting so many rebel movements & wiping out those that wouldn't yield to them meaning few are left with enough desire or faith in rebel movements to try.
The Naga fracture, after the traumatic loss of their queen, so many soldiers and general hierarchy, leading to mass slave rebellions across the Empire and the Makura Nation quickly swarming in to take advantage of their weakness. What's left of the Naga that survives end up as fractured polities, many of which are maddened cultists, but some of which end up doing quite well thanks to having barely been tied to Naz'Jatar anyway such as the
Bloodwash of the Blasted Lands and the City State of the
Riplash in Northrend.
Ultimately, the Night Elves and the Drakkari Empire are the leading world powers of this era, there are other nations and factions and federations that are of respectable power as well of course. But these two superpowers are the mightiest of them all and it stays that way for sometime thanks to relatively good management and their systems of government being fairly robust. Neither is terribly fond of one another, but they also have little reason to fight beyond a vague dislike due to history and lingering prejudice and as a result never really come to blows.
Conclusion:
Honestly, most of that was really just world building stuff, but I hope it as interesting. I have a post on the Drakkari's design aesthetic bleeding into human living waiting in the wings and a more long form "How does the empire continue after Malakk" post, but those can come later. For now, I hope this proved interesting and please keep in mind nothing is set in stone, thanks for reading!
