We totally need more arakkoa headcanons. They’re the best birbs.
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They’re my favorite babies. Bird gang rise up.
Arakkoa are very easily put onto a track or calling or devotion to something. Their fanatical upraising left many of them with an empty hole that they fill with any sort of long-term goal or a replacement for their worship. The severity of the dedication varies, but it’s not often there is an Arakkoa who is listless and lost.
Solium was an important metal in their society. Gold blessed by Rukhmar, used in decoration, jewelry, ornaments, everything that needed more flair. In addition to being a stronger metal, it could absorb and hold solar energy as well as be more receptive to magical enhancements.
There is a day every year that new hatchlings are assigned their clutch-sibling. This is the single most important day in their life. The assignment isn’t picked at random, young Arakkoa are watched from the day they are born and ones who are more opposite from each other are more likely to be placed together. They are challenged from the very start.
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Not really headcanon, but it’s the assumption I’ve come too.
What system of Government does Pandaria have? I think it’s a decentralized confederacy. All the counties and towns are run by the mayor. The only thing really binding the Pandaren government together is the Sha. If one of them goes power hungry and tries to take control of other counties the Sha will get unleashed and no one will really win with that. They also have the Shado-Pan and Celestials. If two counties or towns come into a political disagreement then the Celestials will try and find a reasonable solution, which in turn would be enforced by the Shado-Pan.
Over the course of the Battle for Azeroth, Pandaria has become a sort of Casa Blanca - a popular place for displaced refugees on both sides to come seeking shelter.
On the one hand, the pandaren are a compassionate race, not the types to turn away those in need. Many refugees are welcomed to the continent’s shores.
On the other hand, the shado-pan are greatly unnerved by the sudden influx of refugees. Not only are they worried that they might exhaust Pandaria’s resources, but they are worried that the refugees of both factions will fight among themselves, or worse - the Alliance or Horde would see it as an excuse to once again bring their race war to Pandaria’s shores.
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The Grimtotem are logically consistent.
I’m not talking Magatha here, but her people. She’s… another story.
Consider their situation leading up to the events of Warcraft III. They were primarily living in the Thousand Needles. Now, those who were here before Cataclysm should remember, that place was a bloody desert. Not exactly a lot of crops or fresh water to go around right? And even in the days of classic World of Warcraft the Needles were still clear full of Centaur encampments… imagine how bad it was before the Horde cleared them out?
The Night Elves certainly wouldn’t have been viewed in a good light. They could have stopped the Centaur but didn’t. The Quillboar were violence and warlike as well. The goblins greedy and selfish. The dragons concerned only with their own affairs. The elves of Dire Maul hiding in their city. The remnants of the original Horde invasion showed up before Thrall’s people did, and they weren’t as friendly ( I.e the Ogres )
They were surrounded by enemies… trapped up on top of plateaus, with little food and water to sustain them. And they survived this living nightmare. The world was against them and only through violence and war could they survive it.
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For years the Church of the Holy Light has had “confessors”, though confession has never been a mandatory sacrament for followers. However, lately the Ren’dorei have taken greatly to this sacrament. For a race constantly at war with whispers in their own mind, confession is an incredibly useful tool for keeping oneself sane. By vocalizing the temptations and whispers of the Void aloud, many ren’dorei find the power and influence of these whispers are greatly diminished.
Many void elves are afraid, however, to confess their innermost dark thoughts to a human or dwarf that may not understand. To facilitate this, many void elf priests have begun working as confessors and training new acolytes.
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The Grimtotem fall into that peculiar niche where Blizzard wants you to think they’re villainous, but their primary goals (freeing the Tauren from the Horde, defending their own lands) are laudable when anyone else does them, so they come off looking kind of good?
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So, I did not realize this one until I actually saw someone remark about it in trade, but i think it’s a good one and certainly represents well.
Humans, depending on their place in Azeroth, represent the levels of imperialistic interested.
Kul Tirans are actually the lowest on the board for being Imperialistic since they genuinely feel no need to go conquer when they more or less have an entire continent to themselves (and this can be carried over to Zandalari since Zul and his followers were shown to be an overall minority. Also see why they were purged successfully within a few months). The most aggressive action Kul Tirans would likely ever take is ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ to ensure their naval (and in turn trade) dominance.
Stormwind humans are the middle peg for it all. They have elements within them who want to be Imperialistic, but most of them are the Lordaeron hold overs. The average Stormwind native within their respective territories likely only sees a need to ensure their own borders, but not much need to conquer more.
Gilneans and Lordaeron hold overs, however, are by far and away the most aggressive and Imperialisitc minded people (ranking right up their with Sylvanas and Garrosh). Their mindset is similar to the Spanish ‘Reconquista’ but have plenty who are willing to extend it to unjustified aggression to others who never actually slighted them directly. It’s also why they feel a need to keep claims on land they have not owned in decades and wouldn’t be able to realistically populate on their own without support.
This in turn can also be shown in the multiple Kalimdor conflicts. Most SW and KT humans tend to support the nelves, but don’t want to go to some continent around the world to die for a home not their own (and this has only gotten worse since the Forsaken were defanged in the EK and Sindorei aren’t exactly an expansionist group). Gilneans and Lordaeron survivors, however, still filled with anger readily throw themselves at the horde on Kalimdor.
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I just remember this one I used to think of, and I don’t know if it is an actual thing in lore I don’t remember, but I like to imagine that climbing Mount Neverest is a sort of rite of passage that Kun-Lai Pandaren like to undergo.
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I mean, even if it’s not in lore. I’ve seen multiple guilds on both sides actually hold ‘Summit Climb’ events back in MoP and in early WoD. Some of the most amusing events I took part in.
I think that, much like its real life equivalent, Mt. Neverest is secretly a graveyard. It is littered with the frozen bodies of foolhardy mountain climbers, to the point where certain bodies are used as landmarks to navigate by.
Only the bravest, or most foolish, of pandaren dare to climb to the mountain’s summit.
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In a slight repetition of fate the leaves Kirin Tor chronomancers endlessly interested, the Mag’har have, over time, lost some of their clan identity much like their counterparts from ‘prime’ Draenor. Although the Mag’har did not suffer quite the same crippling defeat as the first Horde did on Azeroth, and nor were they manipulated into such an extreme abandoning of their culture by the Burning Legion, their own defeats and struggles on the ‘alternate’ Draenor nonetheless were an equally dramatic cultural shift. Although Warchief Grom Hellscream was able to turn away from the path of violent conquest and lead what was left of the Iron Horde against Gul’dan’s coup, the Iron Horde’s losses nonetheless crippled much of the clans who had joined Hellscream, even before Gul’dan corrupted those who remained within the Iron Horde as he overthrew Hellscream. The chieftains that had became Hellscream’s lieutenants were the heads of mighty clans in their own right, clans who faced the brunt of Azeroth’s armies, their chieftains fighting to the death and thus leaving the surviving members of their clans adrift. In more hostile regions, like Gorgrond and Tanaan, this left members of the Blackrock and Bleeding Hollow all the more vulnerable to the constant threats of the wilderness, even as a postwar peace with the draenei and the retreat of the Azerothians allowed a chance for recovery.
It was, of course, the rising threat and soon war with the Lightbound that fully transitioned the orcs from disparate, if formerly unified, clans, into a singular Mag’har. With many of the individual clans still weakened from the Iron Horde’s defeat, unity was the only feasible option to stand against the might of the Lightbound. Hellscream already provided a familiar figure to rally around, and the concept of unity was not so foreign after the Iron Horde, even if Hellscream’s grand plans had failed so utterly. Nonetheless, the support the few remaining chieftains, most notably Durotan, was enough to push the fractured clans back into one society in the face of such a foreign and overwhelming threat. The identities of the major clans were still acknowledged and given due respect, but authority settled around the most prominent chieftains who had been able to survive the defeat of the Iron Horde.
The concept of a Mag’har identity solidified over years of war as the orcs equated the corruption of fel and the corruption of the Light as two sides of a functionally identical enslavement, as both the thralls of Gul’dan and the Lightbound orcs abandoned their people and culture in favor of foreign masters. As the clans were forced together into entrenched fortresses as the only way to survive against the Lightbound, intermingling between clans broke down old rivalries, but also old traditions, especially in the light of a prior generation of orcs having faced such losses from the Iron Horde’s defeat. For younger orcs, like Overlord Geya’arah, the identity of Mag’har supersedes that of Frostwolf, for she was not raised solely within the community of the Frostwolves, and not all of the traditions of the Frostwolves could be practiced away from their ancestral home, or with the constant threat of the Lightbound. Some older orcs, of course, still bear the traditional war paints or tattoos of the Bleeding Hollow or Warsong, or wield the Shadowmoon’s void magic, and so on, but the cultural melting pot of the Horde on Azeroth has only further encouraged the next generation of Mag’har to look beyond their forefather’s insular clan cultures, for better or for worse.
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So, this is actually something which was sparked by an IC debate which happened yesterday and was one of the more interesting non-fight oriented RPs I’ve had in awhile (and somehow drew large amounts of attention from the people in VoH)
So, to set the stage; Xins made a comment that Sylvanas is on the exact same path most tyrants are on prior to uprising, as history has shown. A forsaken with zealous loyalty to his Banshee Queen takes offense and steps in to debate. Debate about loyalties, ‘The Horde’ and blind loyalty ensue. To tie it in a bow, both sides make it clear where their loyalties will lie when things go down.
Now, for the main portion of the program here; Mag’har orcs are still not used to arguments and debates happening between members of their new allies and violence not being the method it is solved. This can be evidenced by both Xins and said forsaken each having to signal a Mag’har who agreed with their side not to act violently over this disagreement.
Second! While Forsaken and Sylvanas loyalists are getting accused of being ‘The new Kor’kron!’ there are -Titanic- ideological and behavior differences. For the forsaken loyal to the Banshee Queen, it’s not about pan-orcism (Or pan-corpsism here) and supremacist rhetoric. For them, it’s about stick beside the first leader they have had since having a mind free of the scourge, and the fear of not having a leader to represent them in the aftermath. This can even be seen with, upon acting much less confrontational, most don’t actually want to brand someone for treason unless -absolutely- required (the bulk of forsaken at least) given that the people of the horde have always been the only allies they have known since being free of the scourge.
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So I’m not 100% confident that I know all the odds and ends of how Blizzard is handling parallel universes/time travel/inconsistencies in the timeline/the bronze in general… So it’s possible there might already be a clarification for this and I’m just unaware of it. But when a hiccup in the timeline happens, or when the infinites decide to cause some ruckus and disrupt the flow of time, those inconsistencies don’t just magically poof themselves away. People don’t fade into nothingness just because of some alteration.
The Bronze has to deal with these inconsistencies on a relatively regular basis. Even if they conscript a group of heroes to go back and change events to how they should be, the events of what should not be are still there. Sometimes clean up involves killing one man, sometimes it involves razing an entire village, but no matter what happens someone has to straighten it out. It doesn’t right itself, and anyone who thinks that to be the case is either lying, or foolish.
It’s possible there might be a handful of people who have slipped through the cracks, who have been strong or cunning enough to best the bronze, and are now living quietly among the general public. Those that time forgot. Or just deemed unimportant enough to waste magic on.
It’s for this reason that maybe, in the future, chronomancy is going to be a lot more volatile, with a lot more people abusing it and causing MAJOR problems. Chronomancy is often accepted as one of the most stable and direct forms of… Well, -mancy, there is and I don’t buy that at all. There are more ways to take advantage of the manipulation of time than the seconds it would take to do so.
This is from the Wiki on Nozdormu, regarding the caverns: “Those who venture there and get past the bronze dragon sentinels rarely emerge unchanged. Some age, or become so youthful they are but infants. Others are lost in time and return decades or even centuries later. There are even legends of some who leave the caverns before they even enter!”
…DOES THAT SOUND LIKE STABLE MAGIC TO YOU?!
P.S. The Titans actually gave Nozdormu the knowledge of when/where/why he’s going to die… And that’s where Dornaa comes in.
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Vulpera sky burials
With the ever shifting dunes of Vol’dun making traditional burial near impossible, the Vulpera have had to get creative with disposing of the remains of loved ones. Similar to Tibetan sky rituals, the Vulpera leave the bodies of their deceased to be quickly disposed of by the vultures of Vol’dun. Perhaps this is why so many vultures accompany the caravans as they move about the desert. Prior to the burial rite, they remove the tail of their loved on and affix it to their wagon so that part of them can continue along with the family for generations for come. There aren’t any species of fox-like animals living within Vol’dun so these tails have to come from somewhere.
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Oooh head canons. Gonna be short ones as I am on my phone but a few from the Mag’har.
Monetary value is completely awkward and unknown to them living in several societies where barter trade is the most common and salvage and barter in the almost post apoc world of current draenor forced them into further use of this system.
Mag’har are religiously devout to the spirits, having an extreme aversion to both the Fel from what they experienced 30 years back at guldans hand and from the Light from their most recent troubles. Paladins give them the creeps and lightforged give them a near ptsd experience like Draenei get from seeing elder orcs who they know slaughtered their families whole say back on MU Draenor
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Another Mag’har head canon that ties into the one previous me.
With the abandonment of the Clan systems in favor of once more being a unified culture the clans became seperated in two ways from the Mag’har mind set. Clan idenity was now more like being from a different state in the US and less like being from a different country of the world. Clan tactics and garb became synonymous with orders/castes among the Mag’har and much much less then the war gear of the seperate clans. Teachings and traditions were passed down openly to those with apitude for it, not with those of certain bloodlines. While those bloodlines do carry a certain expertise to their line of profession among the Mag’har, seeing a shadowmoon be a Warden in Blackrock plate or a Burning Blade be a Warg Fighter alongside his companion in the Frostwolf furs is not uncommon among the Mag’har for those ancient clan traditions are now simply professions among these nomadic and highly adabtable people
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The few moon priestesses that stayed in Suramar gradually transformed their rank into a powerful political move. As faith became less and less favored, they spun their rank as an esteemed position for wisdom and ability. When they transformed into Nightborne, however, they used their gift of gab (from sermons and hymns, of course) to navigate the political game.
I also imagine a fair number of them would transition into astromancy, scrying the stars not out of good will, but to discover the depths of their ability.
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So flying around Azeroth for absolutely no good reason, a few things popped into my head.
- Night elf ruins litter three of the four major continents, unless I’m forgetting some in Pandalandia.
- Night elves spending 10,000 years living on one continent is silly. Don’t they get bored?
- On Earth, which presumably has fewer magically-induced destructive events than Azeroth, stone constructions from even a “few” thousand years ago are frequently found in far worse shape than night elf ruins, which frequently have structures still standing. This at least can be countered because Earth presumably also has fewer magical architects.
- Near some of these mysteriously preserved ruins are magic portals. They link to the Emerald Dream currently.
So it got me thinking; what if these ruins aren’t ruins from 10,000 years ago, but at some point during those 10k years the night elves set up colonies across the planet, linked by magical gateways? I mean, corrupted Kirin Tor wizards made a similar-looking gateway in the Everbloom, linking Stormwind and Draenor, and Stormwind has one right in their mage tower. So those types of portals would be possible. Maybe the reason they link to the Dream is because of the use of druidic magic instead of arcane (and we know druidic magic can make portals due to the Hyjal intro quest from Stormwind and Orgrimmar).
Supporting this idea is Vordrassil; we know at the very least, Fandrel and his pals went off to Northrend to make magic trees. And we have Val’Sharah which I believe was still used by Kalimdor’s druids as a sanctuary. So we have night elves going off to one, possibly two, seperate locations during the time they supposedly hid in their forests.
So yeah, my cultural head-canon is that the night elves have been hiding their secret history of exploring all the corners of Azeroth from everyone. They kept from interacting with the locals so the humans wouldn’t sneak into their portals and mess things up.
So yeah, that.
The conflict between the Drust and the Kul Tirans wasn’t nearly as black and white as the Kul Tirans think. History, after all, is written by the winners.
The Drust were a territorial people, yes, and they didn’t take kindly to these strangers arriving on their shores thousands of years ago. However, relations were cordial at first. Though the Drust’s reception was icy, they weren’t looking to start a war. Eventually, there was even some trade between the two people. However, things turned sour when the humans asked if they could mine ore from the mountain in Drustvar. As the mountain was sacred to the Drust, the Drust refused, and didn’t budge no matter what the humans offered in exchange.
It was not until they caught the humans mining ore out of their sacred mountain anyway, in blatant defiance of their arrangement, that the Drust resorted to war.
Gorak Tul and Ulfar were both chieftain on the High Council during the war. Prior to the war, they were actually friends. Ulfar wanted to sue for peace, believing it still possible. However, Gorak Tul was insistent on responding to the humans’ trespass with force. It helped Gorak Tul’s case that the humans were merciless in their extermination of the Drust, setting fire to entire villages, not seeming to care much for the difference between warriors and innocents.
When Gorak Tul began turning to death magic to turn the tide of the battle, that was when Ulfar turned his back for good, and took his followers into hiding with him. Eventually, the Drust would lose, and the Kul Tirans would portray themselves as the righteous victors over a race of barbarians.
In time, Ulfar’s followers would come out of hiding, and trade would resume amongst the Humans and surviving Drust…among other things. Half-Drust children became increasingly common.
Today, the Drust are not extinct. Not in Ulfar’s eyes, at least. For in every Kul Tiran, there is at least a drop of Drust blood. The lineage is stronger in some than in others - hence why many Kul Tirans are so much taller and stouter than other humans. And of course, there are the Thornspeakers, who still teach and practice the old Drust magic, before Gorak Tul twisted it to his own ends.
Still, it saddens the old bear to see that the predominating narrative about the war was the lies pedaled by Lord Waycrest, and to see the Kul Tirans forget their ancient sins. It is most alarming now, because in attacking Zandalar, the Kul Tirans have repeated those sins - landing on shores not their own and laying waste to entire villages for their own ends.
For this reason, most thornspeakers are against the war. They see it as Humanity refusing to learn from its past mistakes.
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