Could we please get a bit more information on why this is such an iconic component of the Shaman class? Thrall having the ability, them being a part of the Shaman in WC3 - seems a bit thin.
The most obvious conclusion would be that Goldrinn is a sponsoring god, or something along those lines, which would solve the problem of “Shaman aren’t in the Nature School” but it might also clarify further:
Where the elements sit in the cosmos
How they interact with the grand orchestration of things
What the elements want, how the Shaman interacts with them, and what “deal” races have with them, most especially the Goblins
I think it’s an obvious fact that Blizzard does not care about shamans or their lore. For example, I recently learned that Blizzard originally said that Ardenweald was the afterlife for druids and hunters, while forgetting shamans. They slipped in shamans in Grimoire.
A likely reason for this is that Ardenweald is very Night Elf-centric.
Storm, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit are the five elements/aspects of Shamanism.
The Wolf is typically depicted as the avatar of the spiritual side of Shaman. Bub, “Ghost Wolf” is one of Shaman’s most iconic abilities, as well as “Feral Spirits”.
I hadn’t noticed that the Shaman has a lot to do with wolves, despite playing once since Wrath. Weird.
Anyway follow-up question - why is the wolf part of Shamanism, gentleman?
In the intro to Ardenweald, one of the natives turns into a Ghost Wolf. And I thought that was a nice inclusion, but it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
Why are water elementals represented as humanoids, when they could take on pretty much any form? Or why do water elementals work with Mages, with elementals are typically in the domain of Shamans? Who knows. It’s a style thing. Dungeons and Dragons mashed up with Metzen’s love for Native American imagery, a clash of traditional Medieval European fiction with indigenous folklore.
Wolves are a cool representation of the spiritual side of Azeroth.
I can’t remember the quest dialog anymore, but I’m pretty sure it was explained when my shaman was up and coming, learning her trade, and acquiring her spirit form (also back in Wrath). Those quests may have been removed in later expansions, but perhaps the Classic games still have them.
Shamanism in the orcs remained all but extinct until Thrall, the son of the deceased Durotan and future chieftain of the Frostwolf clan, grabbed hold of the reins of Warchief of the New Horde, ushering in a new generation of shamanism, breaking the crippling lethargy of the captive orcs and outlawing the dark magic of the Burning Legion.
The symbol and the wolf spirit became iconic after that.
The wolf being “iconic” for Shaman is pretty much because they forget that other shamans exist outside of orcs. It’s an orc thing to me, and really doesn’t feel iconic at all for any of the other shaman races.
Considering the elements are prominent on Draenor as well, they might just be present in a lot of places. Azeroth might be unique, where the Titans made the elemental planes to sort of jail them all and keep the peace. I always thought it was implied that the planes are unique to Azeroth since the Titans were involved, but the elements clearly predate Titan involvement.
We need more information. Can we turn into wolves because Thrall did? How did Thrall do it? Why did he do it?
Why do Alliance Shaman use wolves? Our four Shaman classes didn’t teach each other.
The Elements thing is fairly clear. The Elements make deals with Shaman. They came to Noboru (can never remember how to spell it) when the Light left him. But the lore on the Elements isn’t consistent, and since we got the cosmology chart, it hasn’t explained how the elements are involved.
I mean, to be honest, Shaman is kind of an “Orc Only” type of class. Draenei are sort of acceptable as Shaman because they also come from Draenor and could have learned from the same sources as Orcs, but Shamanism was not really natural to Azeroth in the original vision of the lore. Of course the lore has been retconned forwards backwards left right and sideways and you have Panda Shaman and Human Shaman, but Shamanism is really more of a “Draenor” type of a thing.
If it were up to me and we could go back in time, maybe we’d do cross-faction PvE dungeons and raids earlier in the games history and make Paladin stay Alliance only and Shaman stay Horde only.