Fanfic / An Order Of Amber

An Order of Amber is a Warcraft Self-Insert Fic focusing on Original Character Gwenyth “Gwen” Elwyn Arevin, a witch of Gilneas that attempts to use her meta-knowledge to advert the rise of the worgen and aid the Alliance.

It can be read here on SpaceBattles.com (you don't need an account to read, only to comment).

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This work provides examples of:

• Ascended Extra: The witches of Gilneas, and especially Celestine Tolbecker as she is Gwen’s aunt and mentor. She later becomes the Speaker of Ravens, while in the games she was merely the Druid trainer along with Mr. Exposition to give a lore reason for why the Gilneans could be druids.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Calia Menethil had a happy, if largely unseen, family in Southshore. In the fic, her husband is killed by the Horde when they take Southshore's fleet.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • The Gilneas Brigade, which in canon was a small effort of Darius Crowley to help the Alliance. Thanks to the efforts of Darius and Gwen, it is now a full fledged fleet and the core of the Alliance Expedition.
  • Dalaran survives against the Scourge for nearly a month, as they change the wards to be centered on the city towers instead of the vulnerable archmages.
• Adaptational Diversity: The Alliance Expedition, which in canon was mostly from Lordaeron, with a few brigades from other nations. By the time Jaina sets sail, it is composed of ships from every current and former members of the Alliance. Various characters describe as if they were traveling with half the Alliance forces.
• Adaptational Ugliness: Arthas ends up with a partially disfigured face as a consequence of a very different fall of Lordaeron.
• All for Nothing: The death of Calia's husband at the hands of the Horde, as the orcs didn't have enough space for the supplies they killed him over.
• Berserk Button: Having her mind played with is this for Gwen. When Celestine drugs her while traveling through the Blackwald, Gwen verbally lashes out at her for taking Gwen’s free will.
• Cassandra Truth: Gwen’s attempts to warn Dalaran fall apart due to this trope and that characters that would believe her are far away. Later subverted, as the Council of Six seeks to find her once her warnings start coming through.
• Blow You Away: Vivi is able to launch a gust of wind powerful enough to deflect bullets.
• Counterspell: During a battle against Godfrey's forces, Gwen has her casting being interrupted by a team of mages taking turns using it against her. Much like in the game, it can block types of spells and Gwen has to use different spell types after being disrupted. It evolves into a game of cat and mouse where Gwen baits the mages into disrupting weak spells, but eventually she's reduced to instead using healing spells which are instant cast.
• Crossover: With various other Self-Insert Fic in the forums, where the main characters make cameos with the author's permission.
  • Syllia Dawnguard and her friends appear in Dalaran, where they almost come to a fight with Gwen due to an accident. This meeting induces some guilt in Gwen over her failure to warn the Alliance over the years. Syllia and her friends later join Kael'thas forces in fighting against the Scourge's invasion and seeminly survive with other civilians.
  • William Silverlaine, which comes from Concentrated Firepower by _Gold. He joins the Alliance Expedition.
• Child Prodigy: From a very young age Gwen showed an aptitude for Life magic, and quickly surpassed her mother and aunt in just a few years of study.
• Decadent Court: Gnomeregan is revealed to be this, as the archmage Kinder Tindersnap is wholly unconcerned about Sicco Thermaplugg's plans to overthrow the High Tinker because power struggles are a way of life.
• Demonic Possession: Weaponised by the Scourge. Banshees sow chaos in the human forces during the battle of Greymane Wall, possessing people from random soldiers to the archbishop himself.
• Due to the Dead: While traveling to Dalaran, Gwen and Kaeden Kindfeather find a village destroyed by gnolls. Gwen gives them a witch burial, which later leads Magroth the Defender to realize that witchcraft is not Black Magic.
• Evil Luddite: Subverted. While traveling to Gilneas City with Celestine and Aderic, Gwen sees a mob of spinners and weavers attack a cloth factory, as the new industry is causing widespread unemployment. Gwen blames herself for this as the cloth factory is using her design of a sewing machine.
• Green Aesop: A young Gwen and Irwen helped a farmer and his family in the Headlands, whose garden was wilting because someone had cut down all the trees and allowed the harsh winds to blow to the unsheltered house.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Sister Roper, the caretaker of the chapel of Crowford, is a lay member of the Church. By the Harvest arc, she starts learning to harness the light from Magroth.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Vivi slowly becomes this, as a mixture of a Windwalker Monk and an Enhancement Shaman. She mostly leans on the the later, due to lack of specialized monk training and her emphasis on swords.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Gwen's mother, Irwen, who is a Muggle Born of Mages, whose greatest magical talents extend to alchemy. Her own daughter's extraordinary magical prowess only excerbates Irwen's sense of inadequecy.
• MacGuffin: The Greymane Wall, which later becomes the linchpin of Gilneas' defense. The Wall’s existence is more controversial, both because it literally divided the kingdom in half and due to the isolationist policies.
• Original Character: Beyond Gwen, there are a few other characters that play an important role in the story.
  • Kaeden Kindfeather, a manly dwarf thane who aids Gwen to travel across Gilneas while she journeys to Dalaran. He’s related to a minor canon character, Kardan, who appears in the comic books.
  • Vivianne Mistmantle, a Closet Gay Action Girl in training who does not wish to be married down in the nobility. She’s the daughter of Tobias Mistmantle, a Gilnean rebel who later became a quest giver in Duskwood.
  • Aderic Longtooth, Speaker of the Fox and leader of male witches. He later joins the Alliance Expedition to Kalimdor.
  • House of Tulvan, a family of dukes of the northern headlands, are related to Lord Geoffrey Tulvan, an arena boss in the Twilight Highlands. Adam Tulvan, the Archbishop of the Church of Dawn. An ambitious man, he votes in favor to lift the Burn the Witch! policy of the church. He’s killed by Genn Greymane during the battle of Greymane Wall because he was under the effect of Demonic Possession. His mother, Lady Tulvan, later joins the rebellion.
  • The Tolbecker family, which includes the three brothers Robin (Celestine’s husband), Markus and Thomas. Thomas is killed by Detheroc during the battle of Greymane Wall to lure Gwen into a trap. There’s also Celestine’s daughters, Emmaline and Roseline, who pursue witchcraft and arcane magic specifically.
  • Fralatina "Frazzle" Tindersnap, a gnome mage who later travels to Gilneas once rumours of the plague start spreading and becomes the mentor to Roseline Tolbecker in arcane magic. Her grandmother, Kinder Tindersnap, is a former member of the Council of Six, and a high ranking archmage in Gnomeragan.
• Our Gods Are Different: Rather being nature spirits native to Azeroth, Wild Gods are beings which were empowered by Titanic Watcher Freya to protect the world. Ancient Guardians are Wild Gods worshipped by the night elves, and mostly live in Mount Hyjal.
• Our Witches Are Different: Gilnean witches are divided into two orders, the Fox and Raven for men and women alike. Each order is led by a Speaker.
• Monumental Damage: Lordaeron's iconic palace is blown up by Haris Drenden while he's still inside to prevent the Scourge from raising him into undeath.
• The Paladin: Magroth the Defender, which many characters point out he really lives up to the title. Magroth comes to Gilneas to investigate Gwen's burial of a destroyed village and stays as Gilneas is notably lacking paladins.
• Parental Abandonment: Gwen's mother, Irwen, leaves Gilneas because she believes she's holding her daughter back from her true potential. Even more straight example is Gwen's unnamed Kul'Tiran father who abandoned Irwen after she became pregnant.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: During the Mingling in the Amber arc, Heather despairs that her mother invites two men to her tent. She also mentions that she once almost walked in on her mother having sex. during another Mingling.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation: Klinar Goldensword and her daughter Finnall Goldensword are cannonical characters from the rpg games, where Klinar was Daelin Proudmoore's mistress and Finnal their half-high elf child. In the story, Klinar was Derek Proudmoore's lover, making Finnal to become Daelin's granddaughter.
• Related in the Adaptation: In canon, Tal'doren and the Blackwald have nothing to do with the Gilnean witches. In the fic, Tal'doren is an important place for witches.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Heeding Gwen's warnings, Prince Kael'thas organises a large fleet to evacuate many high elf citizens, leads reinforcements to help Sylvanas (though it proves futile) and takes a few vials of Sunwell's waters to create fountains of power to aid the elves' Addictive Magic;
  • Prince Liam helps Magroth the Defender in rescuing a kidnaped witch;
  • A more villainous example, Genn Greymane is a General Ripper during the battle of Greymane Wall.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Heeding Gwen's warnings, Klinar Goldensword flees Dalaran with her daughter once rumors of the plague start spreading and reunites with the Proudmoores in Kul'Tiras.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Antonidas and Uther survive and travel to Stormwind and Kalimdor with the Alliance Expedition respectively.
• Screw You, Elves!: Lord Renard and his blink foxes, due to Cenarius and the night elf druids never bothering to help the wounded Wild God when they decided to hide the worgen underneath Tal'Doren.
• The Stations of the Canon: Initially played with. While Gwen’s efforts resulted in some minor changes in Gilneas, such as the formation of the Order of Embers and efforts to prevent a famine altogether, nothing changed outside of Gilneas until the Culling of Stratholme.
• Take That!: The concept of lightforged undead is scorned by Gwen, who finds the concept baffling.
  ''And there was something stupid about a Light-based Undead. How would that even work? A 'light-based undead' was called a resurrection. A known ability of paladins to revive the recently deceased with their magic.'’
• They Called Me Mad!: Genn feels very vindicated once the Scourge takes over Lordaeron, as his Wall is the only reason why Gilneas avoided the same fate.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Once Celestine and Gwen take refuge in a village, and are chased out by a mob of superstitious peasants which mistook them for mages.
• Wandering Wizard: Irwen Arevin, unlike other witches, never settled down and spent years traveling Gilneas with her daughter in tow. Gwen, however, settles down on a cottage in Lord Crowley's lands.
• We Have Reserves: The Scourge. Even after spending nearly a month besieging Dalaran, Arthas is not concerned the Scourge permanently losing tens of thousands of undead. This is because the Scourge controls the Spulcher, which has enough corpses to replenish all the losses.
• Wham Episode:
  • Seeking XV: Gwen is exiled from Dalaran by Antonidas after attempting to warn the city about the future;
  • Amber XXI: Gwen meets Lord Reynard, the fox Wild God of Gilean witches;
  • Harvest 1: Gwen's get her first animal form - a fox as a blessing from Lord Renard
  • Harvest 10.0: Modera and Jaina Proudmoore find Gwen
  • Scourge 7: The Scourge marches on Greymane Wall;
• World Tree: Tal’doren, the Wild Home which is also the general meeting place of witches during summer (for men) and winter (for women). It is also somewhat sentient, as well being the prison of the worgen (more specifically, Tal’doren’s counterpart in the Emerald Dream is the worgen’s prison).