Just had myself a good little grin. Karin the Stable Master in Stormwind is my mom's NPC; she was in IT Security - Disaster Recovery when she worked for Blizzard.

She passed away from breast cancer several years ago; her natural hair is black but the npc matches her last wig.

Anywho, @grizzlebehr mentioned that since WoW is gonna get real Asian faces, maybe her model could get updated. I went to get her @Wowhead link for reference and saw this user's thoughts.

I'm not sure if it's a reference at all, but, my stepdad also worked for Blizz in CS!

If it were an intentional reference, I could see it being any number of things given how much consulting/communication she had with game teams. Guards, security...makes sense.

As far as being a Stable Master, it's cause she got HUGE into animal activism before she passed. :)

Fun facts about my mom: her parents got mad when she quit modeling/acting in favor of pursuing computer technology.

She was also an extra on TNG for a few episodes - got her own Wolfram Alpha listing!

Here she and her coworkers are playing with her wigs. She managed to really embrace being a goober with wigs after a while (real rough, going from model to bald - she cried a lot for a while).

Anyhow, I have no idea if they'll update her model but I would SO LOVE IT.

My brother @_eloyce as hit the hardest by losing her. His guild used to occasionally go into Stormwind to take screenshots with her and make him smile.

(They were horde; they MC'd her so she didn't die)

ONE MORE THING I FORGOT ABOUT

When they gave an NPC, I was in QA. My Step Dad was still reeling from her loss...I got on our test server and made an NPC of him, ran up to her and took this screenie for him. :>