Humans are not only not racist, they are probably the least racist race on Azeroth. I mean, one of there racials is diplomacy. They made a coalition of other races and helped unit them, there WHOLE thing is literally helping and uniting other races.
8 Likes
It is tradition for night elves to dance the ganggangsullae every Lunar Festival and Lahassa (harvest festival).
9 Likes
Yes I know, the one example of a racist Human before WoW was even made.
On the other hand…looks at Elves and Trolls
2 Likes
I personally say that the Kalimdor Horde prior to Garrosh’s leadership was the ‘Sick man of Azeroth’ because of how overall lacking it was when placed next to it’s rival. Garrosh did ultimately attend to issues Thrall had been neglecting (granted, war was involved and ultimately needed him removed)
That said, the Night Elves post-Garrosh more or less became the ‘Sick Man of Azeroth’ given that they did not change in the slightest after getting mauled by Garrosh.
4 Likes
Much like elephants, male trolls will use their tusks to duel against one another in order to establish dominance and impress females. This has lead to the creation of a sport where two male participants must fight each other with their hands securely tied behind their backs, meaning they can only fight with their tusks.
Also like elephants, male trolls will experience an annual surge in hormones during the trolls’ mating season which can result in a primal rage if the urges aren’t sated. This had lead to the Zandalari adage - “The chieftains that cause the most bloodshed are the ones with no mates.”
7 Likes
Headcanon immediately accepted without contest.
1 Like
The reason the Forsaken live in dark, underground spaces is purely pragmatic, as Sunburn is now 100% incurable, and they don’t want to look like they’ve been literally slow cooked.
19 Likes
Orcs are offended by the concept of a dog. Domestication is a dirty word to them, given that the Legion effectively did this to them, and the knowledge that their greatest rivals, the humans, turned the mighty wolves of Azeroth into these small, submissive things.
That’s not to say orcs don’t acknowledge that a working dog has it’s uses that a wolf can’t do, but it still grates at their sensibilities.
Dogs like pugs, however, enrage them to no end because this isn’t breeding a wolf to a task, like riding wolves were. This is breeding a wolf down to nothing for the sake purely cosmetic reasons, and as such, there is a dedicated movement amongst the orcs to take the pug and breed it back into a proper wolf as much to ‘save’ the creatures as to spite the humans who did it in the first place.
Most troll tribes are gender-neutral, and don’t normally have bias against a gender adopting a role within the tribe, although exceptions occur. The Darkspear’s former attitude of women staying at home and the men going hunting had more to do with survival tactics due to the harshness of their former lives in Stranglethorn Jungle against the other jungle troll tribes, and then the necessity of keeping the heart of the Tribe alive on the islands they settled on.
Once the Darkspear joined the Horde and Thrall asked them to stop their cannibalism (more spiritual than necessity, as lacking the normal resources to honor their dead, the Darkspear would instead ritually consume a portion of the dead to keep their deceased ‘with’ them) and allow their females to fight on the frontlines again, the Darkspear were more than happy to comply since their friendship with the Orcs and Tauren meant the Darkspear Tribe was no longer dancing along the edge of extinction with so many allies to stand beside them.
The Zandalari, having never really been pushed into barbarism or losing their entire culture like so many of the other Tribes, never had to bother with a gender/role conflict and considers such practices barbaric and backwards, which has often left troll tribes led by those who practice such things effectively exiled and cut-off from the Zandalari until such time as they pulled their heads out of their backsides or were replaced by more enlightened leaders … who had Zandalari backing.
Just because you’re a lesser tribe doesn’t mean you have to be an uncivilised lesser tribe, bloody heathens …
As we’ve seen in the novels and online short-stories, the Mainland Pandaren tend to focus more on the Tushi than the Huojin, with outsiders like Chen Stormstout and Li Li being treated as ‘wild dogs’ by the more uptight members of the communities.
And once the Wandering Turtle stopped coming back to Pandaria, these ‘wild dogs’ had nowhere to go. Made to feel unwelcome, trapped on a land where excessive negative emotion could unleash ‘devils’ or even turn you into a monster, the Pandaren who burned with the Huojin spirit eventually found themselves with only a few outlets for their nature:
Join the Shado-Pan and end up either dead or trapped in an order where you’d never be allowed to be you, all for the sake of protecting a land that had many who low-key shunned you in the first place.
Become a wanderer and flit from place to place until you could finally find somewhere you could be accepted. Assuming you ever could. Assuming the Mogu, the Saurok, the Mantid or some other threat didn’t end you along the way.
Make your own home and hold it against all comers, often without support from more established communities.
And as we’ve seen in pandaria, there were towns that were very much cut-off from the outside world. There’s a community of Pandaren who train hawks in the mountains that has absolutely no quests, the villages in Krasarang Jungle that live purely on their ability to fight and live off the land, the monastery in the Jade Forest that has an open-door policy to all races and such a rambunctious master.
Those fledgling communities that survive become actual towns in their own right that, slowly, become more stoic and Tushi over time, which in turn prompts later generations of Huojin-spirited Pandaren to break off and continue the cycle, perpetuating the ebb and flow of Pandaren life across the continent as communities are born, rise, ebb and diminish, all the while the Celestials look on and wait for the day the Sha can finally be dealt with.
Now that the Sha and the Heart are dealt with, how this will effect Pandaria, now that the emotions of an entire continent no longer need to be policed and enforced so stringently, is anyone’s guess, but I expect a great resurgence of Huojin-style philosophy and an equally great pushback from the Tushi-style traditionalists who are horrified that the strict social constructs they believe uphold the ‘true’ Pandaren norm are being challenged by these ‘wild dogs’ and cannot understand why the Shado-Pan, once their staunchest allies, are now content to sit back and do nothing in the face of this sacrilege.
There are more but I’m stuck waiting for the call to see if I have a shift today. Time to shovel some toast down my throat and get some stuff done while I wait.
17 Likes
Loving the replies so far! Here’s one of mine.
Given its distance from the other human kingdoms, Stormwind’s founders and forebears were a disparate mix of explorers, outcasts, and exiles, and their pioneering spirit and willingness to brave the unknown in pursuit of a better life (i.e., usually one free of chains, cells, and draconian laws) influences Stormwind’s culture to this very day.
As a result, Stormwind is a little more tolerant, a little more independent, and a lot more cosmopolitan compared to the other kingdoms, hence why it’s so easy for other races and cultures to integrate into Stormwind society. And Stormwinders (shut up, I like it better than “Stormwindians”) tend to be more open, rugged, and DIY, and less charitable individuals from more “sophisticated” human nations frequently stereotype them as rustic yokels with a degenerate xenophiliac streak as a result.
Edit: Further more, the majority of human adventurers are from Stormwind specifically because Stormwind’s independent, pioneering, “can-do” cultural attitude lends itself perfectly to the adventurer lifestyle.
12 Likes
Good lord so do I, and I didn’t even know it until right then.
5 Likes
The dwarves’ long history of drinking actually originates with the Dark Irons’ ancestors.
Back in the day, Thaurissan political intrigue in which dwarves would poison rivals by serving them tainted water necessitated the boiling and fermenting of that water as a show of good faith, which led to the fermentation process. Basically, by showing the drink as being turned into alcohol, you were proving that it could be trusted.
From there, the culture took off and it became a point of pride for Dwarves to make more robust (and more alcoholic) beer to demonstrate their hospitality and influence (after all, whoever had the best beer had the most people over, which translated to the most political influence).
While that hasn’t been the case since the Dark Irons departed, the culture is still ingrained and Dwarves are extremely leery of people who don’t offer or accept a drink, as it suggests the other person is either untrustworthy or, even worse, thinks the Dwarf is untrustworthy.
9 Likes
Despite their violent relationship, Kalimdor orcs still hold night elves in a high regard that even nears the territory of worship.
They are immortal warriors that, like Enekie said, can disappear and reappear in the shadows. They fight with a fierceness that competes with their nightsaber companions. They even have a sense of honor and hatred for demons that orcs find admirable.
For the many years orcs have skirmished with kaldorei, they often speak in hushed whispers throughout their camps of the skill and determination of their enemies. Officers even have to remind the less-experienced grunts that night elves aren’t actually spirits and can, in fact, bleed.
When the Horde burned Teldrassil, many orcs watched on with an eerie reverence. They knew in their hearts that they defeated a worthy adversary, but deep down they were sad to see such an honorable people suffer.
Some removed their helmets and shoulderpads in respect for the passing. Others saluted. But in the end, the tales of the kaldorei’s heroic stand will pass down from generation to generation in a bittersweet song of victory.
19 Likes
how dare you not ping me in discord about this very thread, Kaz. Tsk tsk tsk.
Okay so let’s begin.
1.
Dwarven hospitality, in regards to fellow Dwarves, is very, very specific, with a large list of unspoken rules in regards to behavior when in another’s home. The specifics are often lost on non-dwarves, and dwarves will often be more lenient to a human or a gnome who is a guest in their home, because they wouldn’t understand things like… Say, not taking off one’s weapons, boots, or cloak in another’s home until invited to do so by the host (indicating that the host has been made comfortable for you to make yourself at home) or ignoring or dropping a point of discussion or argument without either contention, or acceptance (after all, the host has something to say, and when they speak of it, they must want the guest’s input!)
These rules insist and assume a lot on the roles of guest and host, but it’s a mainstay in Dwarven culture, and has been a key part in their relative stability, even in spite of that one incident a couple hundred years ago.
2.
Gnomish Language is very, very madcap. It’s difficult to impossible for non-Gnomes to truly track gnomes discussing in their own tongue, because their unique grammatical structure and quick method of speaking allows them to jump seamlessly from topic to topic mid-conversation, full of digressions, references, backtracking, jumping ahead, then back, that all makes plenty of sense to a gnome, but would be simply too jumbled for most non-gnomes to understand.
3.
Night Elves had thousands of cultures and subcultures across the Kaldorei Empire before the War of the Ancients. This also meant thousands of tongues, variations on the same religion- or even different religions cropping up entirely- vastly different methods of fighting, administrating, different takes on how to use magic and all its different forms.
As such, the current Kaldorei Culture is a strange and difficult to quantify mix of all these cultures and lifestyles. Many of them were lost entirely to the waves, but tiny groups, ranging from less than a dozen to maybe even a thousand individual elves carry on extremely unique traditions that only existed because of a place they lived that is now sunken beneath the waves. In addition, the current Darnassian Language is a language built out of tiny bits and scraps of over a thousand unique ones, with “Darnassian” being a reference to the movement to unite all these cultures into one culture, and eventually forming the base for the word “Darnassus”.
4.
High Elves had a very strong sea tradition. Note, had, and while they have a navy again, it’s no longer in any place of prominence anymore, and the reason is a low key embarassment to the Government of Quel’thalas. After the Fall of Silvermoon, the High Elf Navy feared the worst, not knowing the sheer single-mindedness of Arthas’s goal, they feared that Arthas meant to exterminate the High Elven mainland wholesale, decided to sail out and away from Quel’thalas, and had half a mind to go establish a New Quel’Thalas after recovering their families from the Great Anchorages of the Nation.
Of course, that did not happen, and there was a slight incident in where some local magistrates left in Quel’thalas’s rubble called the leadership of the Navy cowards and deserters, and they informed Kael’thas of their (incomplete) view, and he took on a similar stance. This had the effect of splitting a navy who was on their way back to Quel’thalas to start trying to figure out what to do now that they’d been branded cowards. Some went to join the other nations of the Alliance (primarily Theramore, Stormwind, and Kul Tiras), some went to try to found those colonies they’d planned on, but none really took off. The largest section though, just turned piratical, and marked the years leading up to and including Vanilla WoW into an absolute storm of piratical activity, as the second or third best navy on Azeroth now just largely turned renegade.
Quel’thalas is waiting for calmer waters to begin the process of really rebuilding their navy, content to keep a token force until the memory of their former naval power had diminished enough, and they have the manpower to actually staff their own navy. But they still have a lot of very experienced captains, admirals, and commodores, and often serve as advisors to other Horde navies, or serve in their ranks, in the meantime.
13 Likes
I like to think that some Lightforged chose the Light for more power instead of faith, similar to some Eredar.
8 Likes
Since we’re seeing pandaren-themed mounts styled off of the Chinese zodiac I feel like you can make an argument that the Pandaren have a similar Zodiac and next year will be the year of the rat.
It might be a marketing gimmick on Blizzard’s part but I do like the idea of having an IC horoscope. ![:smiley:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")
7 Likes
Jarasea has the headcanon that great Jed’hin champions and their descendants speak in the third person!
9 Likes
Also they shout their names at random times like a pokemon.
T’PAARTOS!
9 Likes
Jarasea agrees with this.
JARASEA!
8 Likes
Undead draw pretty pictures
Undead have a thriving arts community. When you’re dead you need to find ways to pass the time so it’s not uncommon for an undead to bury themselves in a writing project or a painting or learning a new instrument.
The topics and subjects cover wildly range from praising Sylvanas to journals depicting what life was like in Lordaeron before the Scourge or just pure fiction.
Undead also make for very good pen pals.
The lost of the Undercity was specifically devasting to this community, a lot of work was lost when the city was filled with gak. Yet the arrival of these individuals to Orgrimmar might be the start of a new art movenment.
Undead (can) make good food
Despite the stereotype that undead eat revolting food, cooking is actually a very popular hobby. Some individuals may even take offense to that stereotype. Undead are often drawn to strong flavors that most individuals would find hard to swallow, it doesn’t necessarily mean they eat garbage but not everyone is going to find a glass of cold pickle juice refreshing.
That said there are many undead who are capable cooks, whether it was something they picked up in undeath or something they did in their old life. These undead continue to obsessively refine and grow their skills as chefs. Many of these undead find their way to Silvermoon were their cooking will be better appreciated. It’s also common for undead to hire a living assistant that helps taste test to ensure that the meal is coming out well, many of which are Pandaren. When the mists parted, many undead cooks ventured to Pandaria to learn from Pandaren masters which has resulted in a boon of new unique recipes from the exchange between the two cultures.
Some undead do continue to eat food but the food doesn’t provide any nourishment and usually becomes an inconvenience later when the chewed food sits in their gut and festers and rots.
Yet the reason why individuals continue to eat varies, some do it because it’s a habit carried over from their old life that they can’t shake. Others, like I mention above can still taste food and enjoy it. Sometimes it’s just to be polite, you’re invited into someone’s home and it’s rude to turn down food. Yet ultimately many will simply share it’s not about what or why you’re eating but the company you are with.
Undead make good designated drivers.
Undead and goblins are good friends
After the fall of the Undercity the Goblins of Bilgewater Harbor offered to take in undead refugees with the intent of shaking them down for every last coin they had. For the Goblins this turned out to be very frustrating, since many of the tactics they employed failed because the dead aren’t as easily swayed by the vices the living enjoy.
This has lead to there being a pretty large community of undead in Bilgewater Harbour. Which has actually lead to a growth in STEM research out of the harbour city. Many apothecaries and researchers dabbling in questionable projects had no problem finding assistance from Goblin researchers. What terrible things will come out of the city is yet to be seen but it’ll likely be explosive and full of blight.
13 Likes