A visual tour of Darnassus.

As an entire race of purple floppy-eared elves have known for years, there's only one city in Alliance territory worth kicking up your feet, and that's Darnassus. The great tree beats the sweltering depths of Ironforge or the plague-ridden streets of Stormwind any-dang-day. Of course, until they opened up the auction house there recently most folks stayed far away from Darnassus, complaining it's too far away or somesuch rubbish. But, since more and more of you people are starting to pop in, confused that the "streets" aren't criss-crossed with inexplicable netted pits or oily sewage lines, I will take it upon my gracious self to offer this tour of the greatest city in Azeroth.

This is the portal leading to Darnassus, located in Rut'theran Village. Since there are no instances, epic loot or battlegrounds in Teldrassil, I'm going to go ahead and assume you have no idea how to get here. What you want to do is fly to Menethil Harbor, catch the boat to Auberdine, and from there catch the connecting boat to Rut'theran. Now, walking through that glowing pillar of light is like being momentarily engulfed in warm gelatin, which is to say unbelievably awesome. One day someone is going to figure out a way to make sensual underwear out of the same material as that portal, and that person will have found his fortune.


After coming through the portal you'll arrive at this bear-shaped tree. Since this is where the bank and the mailbox are, this is unfortunately all of Darnassus most people care to see. The great thing about the Darnassus bank as opposed to Stormwind or Ironforge is that you can jump the counter and just wallow around in the piles and piles of gold if you want. I'm pretty sure the banker-elves would get mad if you tried to keep any, though, so don't get any bright ideas. I wonder how they know whose items are whose, the way they just keep them all piled up like that. Oh man, one time I paid this silly human a gold to get a running start and dive headlong into the piles, and he impaled his forehead on someone's spear. You just don't get that kind of entertainment in that stuffy Ironforge vault.


Once you guys get it through your thick heads how awesome Darnassus is and finally decide to bind your Hearthstones here, this is where you'll be popping up into town. The inn has only a single bed, but if you want to curl up in bed locked up in a house somewhere you're kind of missing the whole point of Darnassus. And don't worry, even if you Hearthstone in you still get to go through that warm, squishy, pink portal since the hippogryph master is out in Rut'theran.


This is a statue of some night elf broad in the Temple of the Moon. In my opinion they should replace it with a statue of me, but I guess then it wouldn't be tall enough to look impressive. Anyway the temple is a cool place to hang out and just enjoy life for a while, but the elves get a little pissy if you try to fish in the pool here.


This chick Jaeana just wanders around the joint selling meat... which is weird because I figured night elves were vegetarians. Then again, they do live in a big ol' tree, so maybe they view plant-eating as a form of cannibalism. If that's the case, it means night elves are strict carnivores, which makes them pretty awesome I guess. Anyway, Jaeana will deep fry anything on her menu for an extra six silver, so you should definately check her out.


I know, I know. A dwarf in Darnassus is as out of place as a cockroach on a wedding cake (which is how wedding cakes in the Undercity are prepared, I understand). Still, this guy's pretty helpful because he lets me restock my missing soul shards without ever having to leave Darnassus. Just sign up to bust some Horde chops, suck a few souls into my bag, and I'm good to go. Kind of a warlock drive-thru, really. Saves me a trip to Felwood or Winterspring in any case, which is cool, because Everlook totally sucks compared to Darnassus.


Darnassus is full of fun critters to play with: squirrels, frogs, and the occassional deer. Nothing cute or fluffy would ever go near Ironforge, and I'm pretty sure there's a lousy kid in Stormwind who's been caging them, spray-painting them and passing them off as white kittens. Anyway, don't think I'm getting all worked up over some animals like some kind of pansy druid -- everyone knows these little guys are just for target practice. Or Rain of Fire practice. Whatever floats your boat.


I don't want to hear about the strength of Ironforge guards or the valor of Stormwind knights -- the night elves have giant walking trees that will stomp you into the ground. This has got to be the absolute best security measure in Azeroth. This one time some troll clown thought it would be fun to sneak into Darnassus, but the giant tree monster wasn't having any of that. Stomped the troll squishy-flat, and then scraped him off against a bannister just the way you'd do if you stepped in a wad of gum. It was pretty much the most awesome thing I've ever seen, and the troll was still not-quite-dead enough for me to Immolate him and get an honorable kill. I think I'll start a giant tree monster fanclub.


...and just when you thought Darnassus couldn't get any greater, WHAM! Two-story auction house. Wheeling and dealing with a view. You just don't get service like that anywhere else! Except maybe Booty Bay, but the only thing you can ever find there are torn pages from the Green Hills of Stranglethorn, which quite frankly is so riddled with plot holes I'm surprised it's so popular.


This is my favorite spot in the entire city: a branch of the world tree overlooking the Veiled Sea, about a mile up. I bet this is the quietest spot in all of Kalimdor... unless I decide to summon my imp and kick him off the side, in which case the air fills up with his screams of demonic gibberish.


An oft-overlooked class, in my opinion, is that of the noble ditch digger. I think most night elves can aspire to no greater, personally. Ditch diggers don't have to worry about raids or talent trees or mana or anything, they just dig holes. There's a metaphor for life in there somewhere, and I'm sure the ditch digger could find it with his hours of solitary contemplation. I've got more important things to do, like wand squirrels to death, so I'm not going to worry about it anymore.


Our tour concludes with this beautiful shot of the Teldrassil waterfall. You just know that if such natural beauty were found in Stormwind they'd put a barricade around it for the "safety" of the idiot tourists who don't know enough to not fall to their hideous splattery deaths. And you'd have pudgy human children tossing copper coins over it making wishes. I'd recommend tossing pudgy human children over the waterfall to make wishes instead, but if someone's flinging kids over the falls that means my wishes have already come true.