Whitemane opens Stormstout on 12 December and will close Maelstrom

Stormstout, Whitemane's fresh Mists of Pandaria realm, opens on Saturday, 12 December 2026. Whitemane announced the date on 3 November in a post called "The Road Ahead". Stormstout was planned for 8 August and delayed on 30 June, and its beta is online now.

Maelstrom and Frostmourne Legacy will close

Shortly after Stormstout opens, most likely around its first raid, players will be able to transfer up to two characters from Maelstrom and Frostmourne Legacy to Stormstout. Both realms close after that. Whitemane says characters keep their progress and items, nobody needs to do anything yet, and the transfer date will be announced closer to the time.

Maelstrom has been Whitemane's Cataclysm realm for characters from finished seasons since 2023. Frostmourne Legacy is the older Wrath realm that runs next to Frostmourne, which relaunched as Wrath Rebuffed on 19 September.

New on Frostmourne

The rest of the post covers Frostmourne, where these changes went live with the weekly reset on 4 November:

• Ascended dungeons are harder versions of the Wrath heroics with their own queue, Random Ascended I, for level 80 characters with an average item level of 180 or more. Bosses drop upgraded Heroic loot, so item level 200 rares become epics and the final bosses' 200 epics become 213
• Naxxramas Normal is now one difficulty that scales from 10 to 30 players, with no instance lockout. Each boss has a weekly loot lockout instead and drops 2 to 6 items, depending on how many eligible players are inside
• Personal Loot is a loot method in every level 80 heroic dungeon and raid, on every difficulty, and a raid formed by a level 80 leader starts on it
• The changelog says Ulduar Normal opens on 9 December

Until Wednesday 11 November, the Crimson Accords event gives 25% more experience, Honor, Conquest, Justice and Valor on Frostmourne and 100% more on Gilneas.

Stolen accounts

Whitemane says it spoke with about 50 players whose accounts were hijacked, and all of them had used the same login details on one of the larger WotLK realms. According to Whitemane, that realm was breached, most likely stored its passwords in plain text and never told its players. Whitemane doesn't name it.

A 24-hour safety lock is coming. After a login from a new location and a new PC without two-factor authentication, the account can still play, but for 24 hours it can't trade, send mail, delete items, use the guild bank, join or leave a guild or use the Auction House. Accounts with 2FA are never locked, and Whitemane restores stolen gold and items once an account is secured.

Sources: Whitemane's news post "The Road Ahead" (3 November 2026) and its Frostmourne changelog (4 November 2026).