Shortly before the release of Dragonflight, new NPCs appeared in World of Warcraft that are strangely similar. Behind them is one and the same person: the cheese merchant Elling Trias. Who is this strange person?
Who is the dealer? Elling Trias is a cheesemonger in Stormwind, the human capital and power center of the Alliance. The NPC is usually located in Trias’ Cheese Shop, the first building on the right after the Stormwind City Gates.
Anyone who plays a villain or is more concerned with the story of the alliance knows that Elling Trias is also one of the agents of SI:7, the secret service of the people. The Tiras family is already closely linked to various spy networks. A relative of Elling Trias in Dalaran, for example, opens a secret door to the order hall of the villains from Legion.
Where can you find the NPC? Since Phase 2 of the Dragonflight pre-patch was released on November 16th, Trias has also appeared in the form of other NPCs with different names. A few NPCs caught our eye while playing, and Twitter user @Portergauge eventually put the pieces together (via wowhead). In disguise, Trias stands around in various positions around the city:
It is easy to tell that each time it is Elling Trias by the eye patch, the same face and the same hair. The reason why Trias is there is also pretty clear: the new race of Dracthyr, who have also been represented in Stormwind since phase 2. Trias is always nearby and watches them.
The similarity is clearest in a direct comparison.
Humans don’t trust dragons – with good reason
Why is Elling Trias spying on the Dracthyr? If you’ve played the Primeval Storms pre-event quests, you can talk to Turalyon and Matthias Shaw after Khadgar appears in Stormwind City.
Turalyon is the current leader of the humans and the Alliance, while Anduin frees souls with Sylvanas in his maw – and has done so for a number of years. Matthias Shaw is the head of SI:7 and the Alliance’s spymaster.
A little trivia on the side: The name “SI:7” means “Stormwind Intelligence: 7” in full and is a reference to MI 6, the British secret service, also known as SIS.
Dialogue isn’t mandatory for any quest, so it’s easy to overlook. However, Turalyon asks Shaw to strengthen the guard in Stormwind while the Dracthyr are in the city.
Because they can change form and look like humans, the leader wants to know where a Dracthyr is and what it’s doing at all times. Shaw assures that he won’t take his eyes off her.
Do you want to play a Caller yourself? You can find our big Rufer guide with builds for DPS and healers on MeinMMO. We have included gameplay for you here:
3 minutes of gameplay for Rufer, the new class in WoW Dragonflight
This is the background: Stormwind has been infiltrated by dragons before. The dragon mother Onyxia, disguised as Lady Katrana Prestor, acted as an advisor and caused Stormwind to almost fall. Lady Katrana Prestor was already an NPC in Stormwind when WoW was released in 2004 and has historically been active there for a long time.
Onyxia orchestrated the kidnapping of King Varian Wrynn and the Defias uprising, nearly destroying Stormwind, at least by lore. All of this can still be relived in one of WoW’s longest and most epic quest lines, and in Classic it serves as a pre-quest for the raid against Onyxia itself.
Newer players will probably not even know this anymore, since the quests have hardly been done for so long and the story itself has fallen into oblivion. Tutoring is available here from MeinMMO demon Cortyn:
WoW: The Story of Dragons – What you need to know to understand the story of Dragonflight
To prevent this from happening again, Turalyon requires that the Dracthyr be carefully monitored. The fact that Furorion, of all people, is one of the last black dragons to vouch for them is obviously not very conducive to trust.
By the way, we only recently spoke to the developers about the story of Dragonflight:
Interview with WoW Developer: “Dragonflight features will forever improve the future of WoW”