Cultural Headcanons

Wyrmrest Accord
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Let’s keep it real, WrA. Blizzard has done a piss-poor job fleshing out the myriad peoples and cultures of Azeroth, with only a handful of notable exceptions. Which is a darn shame, because Azeroth is home to some very intriguing societies, even if a lot of that intrigue stems from surface-level details, that I’m sure we’d all love to learn more about!

But, hey. We’re roleplayers! We can (and do) fill in what Blizzard can’t or won’t. So let’s get to the point of this thread, shall we?

What are some of your cultural headcanons, WrA?

Big or small, I want to hear what you’ve got! Maybe you’ve got ideas about what and how blood elves like to eat, or how goblin politics work, or you’ve penned religious rites for the Gilnean harvest cult, or… any number of things! I want to hear all about them, and, hey, maybe you’ll inspire someone else.

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In my headcanon and so in handwritten word, Darnassian sounds like Arabic.

Ya Ilun saedni!

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The Nightborne people are afflicted with a nasty case of wanderlust. After being stuck in the same city for ten thousand years, more than just a small amount are leaving in droves to check out the world.

It’s actually a huge concern to the government of Suramar, because they are literally losing around half of the population which is causing an enormous impact on their economy.

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Oh boy this is a topic that basically relates to the past 5 years of my time with this series as I’ve basically only made gnome headcanon to fill in the criminal lack of worldbuilding involving the best race in the game. I’ve even created an entire questline thats essentially a Gnome race order hall.

But for some gnomish worldbuilding:

A common misconception exists that Gnomes only value Engineering when it comes to the trades and while Engineering is the most popular due to it going hand in hand with the gnome’s boundless curiosity and creativity as it is the trade of creating whatever your mind designs the other trades garner just as much respect as to a Gnome; Expanding the world’s understanding of say Blacksmith by discovering a newer more efficient way of crafting a shield to discovering a new Plant’s medicinal purpose. As long as the gnome seeks to push the limits of his craft he embodies the gnomish spirit.

When Gnomeregan was still in its height a common building is that of the public workshop. These buildings served as a gathering place of all skill levels of Engineer; the novice used the more repetitive work of fashioning minor items help build their experience while the more senior members used the work of both the novice and and the master to help complete their projects while the Masters of the craft serve as support as a way to get away from a taxing project that they are stuck on seeking to use their younger peers fresh mindsets to approach the problem from a different angle.

And for a final one:
Gnomish mages preferred magical foci is that of the tome; By compiling their knowledge into these books they can use these tomes as a way to cast more complex magic that would take another mage days to prepare due to the prerequisite spellcasting is already written down for future use.

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Far from graceful or ethereal, the vast majority of Azeroth’s people find Night Elves to be incredibly creepy.

The Alliance finds them reliable, but also finds their priorities on trees and nature over people to be unsettling and their morbid outlooks on life to be peculiar.

The Horde finds them horrifying, soundless and ghost-eyed who appear and disappear without a trace.

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Since the goblins introduced the dish to the rest of the Horde, “pizza” has become a popular dish within the Horde. Because there is seemingly no END to the possible toppings you can put on pizza, each Horde race has their own spin on it.

Orcs are the original meat lovers - pepperoni, sausage, and of course pork. LOTS of pork!

Darkspear Trolls like their pizza spicy, with lots of peppers and other herbs.

Tauren are meat lovers as well, but while orcs tend towards red meat, the tauren are bigger fans of white meat - namely tall strider meat.

Blood Elves are THOSE people. You know. Pineapple.

Forsaken generally aren’t picky about toppings, but they prefer to age the pizza a few days after cooking. Many a goblin pizza chef has had to chase Forsaken refugees out of their dumpsters past closing time.

Goblins may have invented pizza, but some say it was the pandaren who perfected it. Chopped onions, spiced sausages, ground up peppers, all imported from the Valley of the Four Winds.

Highmountain Tauren like their pizza with white meat as well, but while their Kalimdor cousins like paultry, the Highmountain like to use anchovies fished up from Highmountain’s shores.

Nightborne enjoy their pizza with finely-chopped vegetables, grown in the mana-rich soils of Suramar.

Mag’har are meat lovers as well. In fact, they’re the goblins’ number one customers behind other goblins. They credit the dish for showing them that their new home, Azeroth, is a world worth fighting for.

The Zandalari Trolls love their pizzas spicy as well. Many Zandies like to order their pizza with spicy pterrordax wings on the side.

Finally, the gnomes have created their own version of pizza. Rather than a flat round pan, gnomish pizza is baked in an iron skillet, and the marinara sauce is put on top of the cheese. This style of pizza ENRAGES the goblins to no end.

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Don’t stop at pizza. Go to Bilgewater Harbor and find burgers on a grill and containers of oriental food!

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The Pandaren, at some point, had their own Warring States period; that is where Wardancers were most prevalent. The Wardancer discipline then fell out of favor afterward, leading to a resurgence of Monks in the wake of the ensuing peace.

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Lord there were too many to count. I’ve tried to flesh out lore fanon way too much… but one that always sticks with me is my lore behind ice hockey.

Everlook is a place where goblins and night elves seem to get along just fine, and when you have two people close together they’re going to start mingling.

The Night Elves likely practiced skating for most of the Long Vigil, refining it to an extraordinary art over the eons. They have plenty of lakes that freeze over to enjoy some elegant figure skating or just casual play on the ice.

Goblins are fond of contact sports if footbomb is any indication. It’s not likely the elves would allow the explosive Gundam competition to be practiced there, so the goblins probably brought a different game which they called hockey. They would play street hockey on Kezan with pavement and roller blades.

As the two met, the night elves gained a sort of endearing love for the sport, and started showing young athletes ice skating. Eventually the two bled together and the first ice hockey league of Azeroth formed, its first championship played by 8 teams of mixed nelf and goblin heritage. The first champions were the Everlook Silverthorns.

Ice hockey games are played every winter all around Azeroth, with some goblins using ice magic to create temporary in door rings for practice in the off seasons. The tournament in Winterspring is a fun affair and time for rich cultural exchange, surprisingly little wild team fanaticism happens beyond cheering yours on. The games are rough and sometimes people bleed, but it’s ultimately all sportsmanship. Likely due to the fact that the tournament doesn’t run for profit, there’s no incentive beyond the game itself.

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The Cenarion Circle and the Kirin Tor have enjoyed a friendly relationship since the war against the Lich King. Student exchanges between the two factions are rather popular. Druids might stay in Dalaran to study advanced alchemy, advanced mathematics, physics, magical theory, or history (among other subjects). A mage might go to Nighthaven to study astronomy, medicine, botany, zoology, or ecology (among other subjects).

Such programs were temporarily discontinued during most of the Alliance-Horde war in Pandaria for the safety of the Cenarion Circle’s troll and tauren students, and resumed shortly before the Legion invasion.

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Pandaren are one of the most peaceful race on Azeroth. Probably not much of head cannon and more just actual cannon, but I view them as just super friendly with any criminals or blood thirsty ones being VERY rare.

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The Blood Elves have a not-so-secret friendship with the Draenei, and it’s not uncommon, even with the war, to see Draenei Ambassadors in Silvermoon or vice-versa. Draenei eat Thalassian food as a delicacy, and the Sin’dorei have a particular fondness for roasted Talbuk.

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pandaren three kingdoms when

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It’s revealed to us in a Stranglethorn Vale quest that the Darkspear tribe in the past gave their own young tribesfolk as tribute to the Gurubashi. The RPG (which I know is not technically canon) states that highly respected and wealthy troll males have many wives. Building on this, one of my headcanons is that the Zul’gurub chieftains, much like the Ottoman and Chinese emperors, kept harems of several dozens or even hundreds of women (and men) at any given time. Also like the Ottomans and Imperial China, the Gurubashi Chieftain kept his harem populated with not only the daughters of prominent Gurubashi tribesmen, but also from among the regular tribute of maidens from subserviant and vassal tribes. Which included the Darkspear of course. So quite a few of the past Gurubashi chieftains may have had a Darkspear mother.

Also, with the common practice of polygamy, high birth rate, and yet the relatively small population of the tribe, the Darkspear (and by extension other troll tribes) have a situation quite like modern Iceland. Everyone is often blood related to everyone else in one way or another. So the butcher in Sen’jin could be your second half-cousin once-removed, or the random priestess you met at a Gadgetzan bar is actually both your paternal half-uncle’s granddaughter AND your half-brother’s sixth cousin. Even Vol’jin himself was your great-grandmother’s third cousin twice removed.

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Humans are the only race with a concept of binary gender. Ever since vanilla WoW, for example, night elves have basically abandoned the concept of male and female; now it’s “buff people who fight stuff,” “people who are cool with Elune,” and “people who are cool with nature,” with some overlap and metaphor to make everyone fit.

It’s not that female dwarves don’t have beards, it’s that not having a beard makes a dwarf female.

Sex work is legal, unstigmatized, and unionized, because saying so makes a lot of people angry and it gets Warcraft away from its rather gross history.

Night elves and draenei don’t celebrate birthdays; they celebrate centuries.

Since humans discovering the Light was actually them making contact with a Naaru (I think that’s right?), a lot of human names are just “commonized” draenei names.

Stormwind actually holds elections and votes for their king, but you’re only allowed to vote for a Wrynn so it’s basically just an elaborate census.

Calling a draenei any variation of “goat” is hugely racist; some draenei use it to self-describe only as a reclaimed slur.

In most cultures, it’s actually incredibly rare to execute prisoners. The fact that Kul Tirans seem to do it so regularly is seen as a moral failing by other human nations.

There actually is a nation of desert humans; they’re just not “Arabs, but as seen by white people.”

Because Azeroth appears to have metal music and nothing else, the progress of musical trends will actually be the reverse of our’s. In a few decades, adults on Azeroth will be complaining about how Baroque counterpoint is corrupting the youth.

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Because gnomes have only 4 fingers on their hand multiples of 4 are the commonplace numbers used in a gnome’s everyday life and the use of 5 and 10s in the other races is illogical to a gnome.

Culinary arts are one of the required curriculum of a young gnome’s education; experimentation is expected in a gnome’s kitchen which leads to some of the most outlandish dishes that exist on Azeroth. When a young adult gnome is ready to leave their parent’s home they must prepare a meal for the entire family to prove they are capable of fending for themselves and will be able to sustain a family of their own.

One of the more shocking facts of gnomekind to the other races is the prevalence of twins and triplets in a gnome pregnancy. Despite their smaller stature a gnome female’s body is well equipped to handle multiple children however the strain of a larger pregnancy can restrict their movement to the point that must remain bedridden and the father of the children must attend to his mate’s need more often.

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oh man i especially love this

praise the naaru t’iim, savior of worlds

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I don’t remember if I read it on the wiki or just randomly heard about it, but essentially, the Forsaken don’t really get any sustenance from normal food like the rest of us, so they’ll nom on mashed brains, cockroaches and various other weird things you see from vendors just to mess with tourists.

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Nighthaven is essentially a druidic college town, with students and shan’dos making up a large proportion of the town’s population. Now, native Kaldorei locals still form the majority, but the local residents (who many times are already affiliated with the Circle itself) often run businesses and establishments that cater to the Cenarion thero’shans. Taverns, open-air eateries, teahouses, vineyards etc. As well as more educational/practical places like alchemical reagent shops, tanning and leather working, astronomical observatories, ancient archival libraries, etc.

The student population itself is cosmopolitan, with trainers from all over Azeroth sending their most promising novices to Moonglade for study. It is not unusual to see a young Gilnean and Darkspear relax together in a park, or enjoy a meal together at a guksu noodle joint.

Most trainers are Kaldorei, but there is a sizeable minority of ancients, Children of Cenarius, tauren, and furbolgs taking on teaching roles. In recent years, some Darkspear and Gilnean druids have become experienced enough to instruct others.

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Dwarves have a strong tradition of representative democracy. This is hinted at in-game with various Senator NPCs, but I imagine that Ironforge is governed by a constitutional monarchy with some laws in place to force the monarch to acquiesce to the will of the Senators elected from various dwarven towns and mountain holds. In Shadowforge democracy was undermined in the years under Ragnaros’s influence. Thaurissan’s haughty title of “Emperor” reflects this, and the Shadowforge senate was little more than a social club for the city’s elite. But with Thaurissan’s death and Ragnaros defeated the title of Emperor is basically defunct, and the senate has re-asserted some of its power and provides Moira with some legitimacy which would otherwise be difficult for a foreigner to achieve.

The Eredar did not conquer or wipe out other intelligent species on Argus. Nor were the Eredar the only intelligent species on Argus. Rather, the Eredar race arose after the various races of Argus banded together to form one brilliant civilization. In other words, an entire planet’s worth of intelligent species became one since they spent so many years in peaceful co-existence developing their advanced society. Yup, our ancestors included tauren-like hooved critters AND undersea squid critters. That’s why we look so weird.

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