Shared Topic: Insert NPC here

I actually wrote this piece last week and held it back with the intention of gathering screenshots…and then real-life happened. So, I’m late to the party on this one!

Last week, Cymre brought us yet another juicy topic at Blog Azeroth:

If Blizzard added your main as an NPC in WoW, where would they be located and what would be their function?

At first, I thought this topic would be a breeze. Rhia’s a baker. She owns a bakery in Stormwind and sells a variety of sweet delights to locals. So, wouldn’t she be someone like Aimee in Dalaran, the ever-popular pipe and cake vendor?

Aimee, sweets vendor!

The longer I thought about it, however, the less like Rhia a vendor like Aimee seemed. Yes, Rhia does love to bake and share treats with everyone, but she’s really much more like Vianne from Chocolat.

Vianne was raised as a wanderer, obeying the call of the “wind” that shuffled her from city to city and making her living through domestic magic. Although she believes in the unseen, her gifts, working through the simple delights of chocolates and candies, are accessible to everyone.

Rhia’s bakery is her “domestic magic”; she’s still, at her core, a shaman and while she may be feeding cakes and pies in Stormwind right now, she will follow wherever duty takes her. She lives to serve the people, whether through healing or treats.  To keep her as a still NPC, simply selling cakes and pies, seems to almost violate the essence of her character.

Farseer Umbrua, pre-Catalcysm

Instead, she would be a shaman trainer, sitting on the ledge overlooking Stormwind harbor (and the horizon), with bags filled with pies to feed whatever passerbys or students come her way. Since Farseer Umbrua vacated her post in the Valley of Heroes after the Cataclysm, it makes sense that Rhia might take up a similar watch. We also have the portrait I commissioned of Rhia that’s highly evocative of this position — Stormwind in the background and Rhia looking on from a dock near Olivia’s Pond.

It’s an image that’s both mysterious/elusive and warm (almost maternal), and that’s certainly Rhia at the core.