Are tauren uninteresting?

Lore Story Forum
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I have done the tauren quests and the high moutain tauren quests but havent found it very compelling.

I havent seen the earth mother and if I didnt know better, I would just say she doesnt exist.

The high moutains have warnings of not to dig to deep, which seems a reference to the faceless(old god creatures) but never any substance materializes?

Like I have been enthralled with troll lore and we see and experience Loa and they are very active with the trolls, even having their own special afterlife.

But I dont see anything special of the sort with tauren, am I blind somehow? Are they unexplored? Or are they just a simple people?

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I… guess so. Blizzard does nothing with them.

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On the contrary, I find the simplicity and mystery still surrounding the Tauren to be some of their most endearing features. They’re one of the only groups left in Warcraft that has anything resembling wonder and mystery left to them.

That being said, they are touched on very little, however we have seen that doesn’t really mean it’s a bad thing. We’ve seen what happens when Blizzard tries to pull the curtain back a little too far… cause ya know… Shadowlands has been… so, so awesome.

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I mean, I dono, I guess its subjective but troll lore has endeared me to them to the point where I read about multiple loa and even their tribes.

Like I experienced the grim totem but still cant say much to them except that they are evil racist tauren that have warlocks and mages unlike regular tauren.

I dont see what there is to love in the absence of nothing, xal atath says some interesting stuff about them but its to cryptic to make anything out of it.

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That’s fair, and I also understand that when compared to Troll Lore, the Tauren department is essentially barren.

And I would describe it more as an… appreciation of sorts for the Tauren lore being as simple as it is. Sometimes when the lore gets explored further it looses some of the magic. That being said I do think that while there are aspects that can be explored and the lore enriched. I’d just rather seen it done right, rather than being done for the sake of being done.

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coincidentally I just posted this in the Story Community Council thread

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The biggest blow to the taurens to date came in Shadowlands, and not for the reason you’re thinking. Shadowlands broke the secret trend that has connected the tauren all the way since Vanilla.

I’m talking about the Odd Number Tauren Conspiracy!

The Odd Number Tauren Conspiracy isn’t about tauren only existing in odd numbers. That would be weird and silly and this conspiracy, though weird and silly, is not quite that weird and silly. I could explain it in great detail, but in this case, I think a straight forward explanation would be the most helpful one.

Vanilla WoW. The 1.x releases! We get vanilla Tauren, the most basic of taurens.

Burning Crusade, the 2.x releases. No new tauren types.

Wrath of the Lich King, the 3.x releases! We get Taunka Tauren, the shaggy Tauren.

Cataclysm, the 4.x releases. No new tauren types.

Mists of Pandalandia, the 5.x releases! We get Yaungol Tauren, the angirest of all Tauren.

Warlords of Draenor, the 6.x releases. No new tauren types.

Legion, the 7.x releases! We get Highmountain Tauren, (Blizzard, I’m about to discuss a word you have banned me for in the past. Please know that this is not a sexual innuendo, nor sexual in any regard) the Majestic H-rned Tauren.

Battle for Azeroth, the 8.x releases. No new tauren types.

Shadowlands, the 9.x releases! We get… No new tauren types??

But… It’s an odd number release!! We were supposed to get, IDK, a race of extinct tauren. Maybe Auroch Tauren?

But no, nothing. The trend has ended, the conspiracy fallen.

No new tauren types.

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Tauren were pretty interesting to me in warcraft 3 but have been watered down to a pacifist cow race since Cata. Ofcourse, I am biased towards Cairne and dislike Baine, (who is now the face of the tauren) so maybe it’s just my opinion.

It would make sense if, Azeroth is actually an Earthmother First One whose essence reincarnated into a Titan world soul. Because of this, she is more powerful than any other known Titans and has the power to defeat the Void Lords. This makes her the “mother”/ creator of Elune and An’she, possibly the WQ, which is why they are all siblings as they have the same progenitor.

While others have expressed a desire to see Tauren connect with An’she, to me, the Earth mother has always been the primary/ mother goddess for the Tauren, and reconnecting with her power would make sense, as An’she is more important to specific groups like the Highmountain and the Tauren priests and druids. Which is why I would like an Earthmother focus in the story.

The Tauren also need to get off their pacifism and show strength to both their allies and enemies. Ideally, this should’ve been Baine vs Sylvanas in BfA, but that encounter just made him look really weak (like imagine if he was using Earth magic to crush the Forsaken guards before they could subdue him, or if he broke from his own chains in Orgrimmar using the Earth).
I like that the Tauren still prefer peace over war, as they are not bloodthirsty, but they need to be less passive and meek, ie, slow to provoke, but once provoked they can be a terror.

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Do you not feel this isnt shown with other tribes such as grimtotem and bloodtotem?

Both of which are violent and quick to violence with the playable tauren being their opposite.

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Not necessarily completely. The Tarragrue and others like him/her looks quite Taurenish. We might get to free their souls and have ghost Tauren/Tauragrons.

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Its not shown even with the Tauren themselves. While they are peaceful there tolerance has limits. Its just the way blizzard has chosen to present them post cataclysm.

Baine Bloodhoof in vanilla:

There are many conflicts that wound this land. It is my hope that you will not bear witness to as many of them as I have. Yet there is one that I would ask you to seek out. It will give you some sense of how terrible, if left unchecked even a small threat can be to the land.
Palemane gnolls have settled to the south of Bloodhoof and in a cave to the west. They disrespect our attempts to communicate, and they slay the wildlife of Mulgore unbridled.
Words are no longer the answer.

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I want this to be canon, just for that name. I want Tauragrons.

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The bloodtotèm joined the Legion, so I take it as the fel corrupting their pursuits. As for the Grimtotem, I don’t know, to me it seems as though they’ve been suppressed by the Bloodhoof clan for years and resent them for it, but they do not seem inherently violent or bloodthirsty, Magatha and others like Jevan show that they are more than capable of getting along with others if needed. Their tendencies are more criminal rather than the way for eg, the orcs are portrayed.

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The Tauren have interesting aspects, and can be interesting. Some people love 'em - I can not play them much. I only have so much time. Perhaps they have not been depicted well as of late.

I was a fan of Cairne. I loathed Magatha for what she did to him, I wanted her slain! … but her portrayal in Legion was aces, so I can abide her. Ebonhorn added something. The Bloodtotem/Feltotem are a thing, too.

With all this in mind, I have often thought:

“It would be cool to have a whole patch with Tauren as the focus. We never had a whole raid zone of Tauren. Maybe we have had a one off boss, like Blackhorn… but we never had a whole Tauren Patch. That could be awesome… and more importantly… different.”

I think a full fledged Raid Preview Cinematic with dialogue, and angry, rowdy Tauren baddies could be interesting.

But that does feed into the notion that being “villain batted” is the only way to get content.

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Not true, there are Kyrian Tauren

:^)

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YESSS!!! Blueberry Tauren. Ok, good, the conspiracy continues.

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I found the Tauren interesting before BfA where they just became genocidal mass murderers like the rest of the Horde

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Tauren are and can be very interesting. The Sunwalker lore in Mists is an example of this.

What is not interesting is a lackluster character like Baine who “represents” the Tauren terribly, is considered a Quisling type of character, a character that would betray the Horde in an instant, a character that cares more about Anduin than his own people, a character that would not even lift a finger to help the Vulpera. A character that Blizzard said “yeah, sitting on his rear-end for a year and half is good character development”

Tauren are fine. They are just ill-represented. It would be like having a Calia represent the Foraken. Just a terrible idea from the onset.

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Amusingly even Huln Highmountain is blue now, though went to Ardenweald rather than Bastion.

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Well, he’s a night warrior (I think?) so I… Guess it makes sense? And he does fit very much with the Wild Hunt.

Good, more evidence the 9.x New Tauren Sister Race is Blueberry Tauren.

The conspiracy never dies!!

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