Shrine of the Fallen Warrior

In episode eight of Warcraft Less Traveled, Skolnick described how to find the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior. This was a destination that I made sure to go visit before Cataclysm. I’d been there before. The screenshots you see in this blog were taken on June 20, 2010.

Here is the Spirit Healer that is guarding the shrine, and my main, Zoeie the Shaman, standing in front of the shrine.

Here is the Fallen Warrior the Spirit Healer is watching over.

To hear more details about the real person who is represented by the fallen warrior in this shrine, I would recommend listening to the episode of Warcraft Less Traveled. Skolnick explains it better than I can.

In short, the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior is a memorial for Michel Koiter, who was one of Blizzard’s original game designers. His identical twin brother wrote a blog post that provides more information.

And here is a screenshot to show you how big this is.

Before Cataclysm, the only way to get to the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior was to walk up the path on the edge of the mountain that it sits on.

I remember that you couldn’t actually see the shrine until you finally crossed over the last hilly part of the path. Suddenly, you would see the large, glowing, Spirit Healer in front of you. It was really impressive!

Blizzard decided to keep the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior in the game after the Cataclysm expansion. This is as it should be, since the shrine is in memory of a real person. This is how the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior looks after Cataclysm. The screenshots you see in this part of the blog were taken on January 12, 2012.

To get to the shrine this time, Hansbrix and I got on our flying mounts, flew over the mountain that the shrine sits on, and came in from above it. This is much less dramatic than if we would have walked up the mountainside, and therefore, somewhat anti-climactic. But, it is still an effective method of getting there.