Dumb Thoughts : Dual heritage characters, model/character options and the Arathai 'Half'-Elves

Wyrmrest Accord
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Something that cropped up in my head today as I’m giving the house a massive clean.

Now, fair warning. I am probably not going to use the right terminology because we are talking about non-human sapient races. Dual-heritage is meant to imply a person with two cultural heritages, its probably not the right term for a multi-species hybrid of a person, but the English language is a hot mess to begin with, and I’m on some stupidly strong medication, including 50mg of prednisolone, and I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders, and I need something to distract me from this abhorrent flesh prison I find myself trapped inside of once again.

Please tell me if I use the wrong word, and give me context as to how it would be used if I do misstep so I can use the right terms the next time my brain worms start getting ornery. Thank you in advance.

We never did get Torkus that Pandaren Daikmakura, did we? I miss you, mate. We’re blaming this one on you, for old time’s sake.

We know that the Sapient Races of the Warcraft Setting can interbreed, and do so with regularity, but because of the past century of nonsense, there hasn’t been much mingling going on until recently.

Dual-heritage individuals, and people from two separate cultures, let alone races, are few and far between as a result of this. Me’dan, Arathor, Garona tend to be the only ones people can think of at the drop of a hat.

We have the current known mixes/dual-heritage/multi-racial hybrids in the game:

Half-Elves (Human and Elf)
Half-Orcs/Oshu’nei (Human and Orc for the former, Draenei and Orc for the latter)
Half-Dwarves (Human and Dwarf)
Mok’nathal/Half-Ogres (Orcs and Ogres, Humans and Ogres)
Half-Demons (Satyr and Kaldorei) mercifully removed from the setting between Warcraft III and WoW and thus not canon

We can also presume the following hybridized races also exist:

Half-Elf (Draenei and Elf, Orc and Elf, and Dwarf and Elf)
Half-Dwarf (Gnome and Dwarf, Elf and Dwarf, Orc and Dwarf)
Half-Tauren (Orc and Tauren, Troll and Tauren, Human and Tauren, Elf and Tauren)
Half-Orc (Tauren and Orc, Elf and Orc, Troll and Orc, Dwarf and Orc)
Half-Troll (Elf and Troll, Orc and Troll, Tauren and Troll, Human and Troll)
Half-Draenei (Elf and Draenei, Human and Draenei)
Half-Gnome (Dwarf and Gnome, Elf and Gnome, Human and Gnome, Goblin and Gnome)
Half-Goblins (Gnome and Goblin, Dwarf and Goblin, Orc and Goblin, Elf and Goblin, Human and … look, basically if its upright and the Goblin won’t explode or be flattened in the process, we can basically say ‘Yes’. Sometimes repeatedly.)

Now, the thing is, some of these hybridized ‘races’, lets call them ‘Heritages’ instead to avoid racially charged issues here, some of these Heritages come from dark places, from conflicts where one or both sides abused prisoners, and their power. But, for the current WoW, there’s also been several places, and long stretches of time, where hybrid heritage or dual-heritage individuals or groups can exist in both a playable sense, and a logical sense.

1) Hearthglen, aka the Argent Dawn/Crusade:

This one’s fairly obvious as its good-hearted people standing together to fight the Scourge, under the banner of the Light, but not necessarily being worshippers of the Light. Its a universal cause that almost every playable race can see the value of, and earns their respect. And the Argent Dawn has existed since the end of the Third War or the Chaos War as it is sometimes referred to, and was formed by Paladins and Priests who rejected the Humanist/Bigot leadership of the Scarlet Crusade.

This would eventually grow to include other races, so a young character born to this group would work, the Argent Dawn is somewhere between 18-20 years old at this point in the setting, so a child born of two Crusaders is not only quite likely, and would also likely be one the healthiest places for a child of two very different heritages to grow up. It might be heavy on Humans and Light-worship, but the Argent Dawn, and its new form, the Argent Crusade, are both incredibly tolerant of other faiths and species, but actively work to cooperate with even former enemies to help protect Azeroth from any form of evil, be it demonic, undead, Old God or draconic. The only threats they’ve never tackled has been the Horde and the Alliance, due to having members from both Mega-Factions and not wanting to splinter and harm their own forces by picking a side, for good or for ill.

However, with the Alliance laying claim to the Plaguelands in the aftermath of the Cataclysm and the belligerent intolerance the settlers displayed, both to their own commanders and any non-humans they encounter, either on their own side or opposing them, how the Argent Crusade will handle the Alliance claiming the Plaguelands as their own and possibly forcing the Argent Crusade to either disband or move the entirety of their forces to their bases in Northrend, which remain active with heavy populations of both Crusaders and civilians who support their effort.

It should be noted that the Paladins of the Silver Hand left the Crusade during the War of Thorns to fight the Horde, and the Argent Crusade remained neutral during these conflicts.

2) Shattrath City, Outland:

Home to Ogres, Arakkoa, Orcs, Draenei, Dwarves, Humans, High Elves, Goblins and Gnomes, Shattrath is one of the last habitable refuges in Outland, and even that is tenuous, with most of the civilian population dwelling in ‘the slums’, which is a mixture of tents, repurposed storehouses and partially-repaired ruins, from which the Draenei and Sin’dorei forces offer food, shelter, medicine and training, and in turn work in tandem to fight off Demons, raiders, ethereals and mutated beasts to keep the last City of Outland secure.

Despite the bad blood between the races, within Shattrath, the population seems to be rather tolerant of their own differences and work together with minimal fuss, one annoying loud apple vendor aside, there’s a lot of mixing amongst the civilian population and its highly likely that this break down of religious, racial and social barriers to eke out a living in a dying world has also resulted in hybrid children and dual-heritage families.

3) Any Goblin Town:

From Booty Bay to Bilgewater, from Fuselight-by-the-Sea to Bogpaddle, no matter where you’ll find Goblins, you’ll find shelter … for a price. From dock-workers to labourers, magical experts to technological geniuses, Goblins will hire anyone so long as their bottom line remains low and their profits remain high, and they don’t much care about who or what you are, or what you’ve done, so long as you don’t draw the wrong kind of attention or drive off potential customers and the trade they bring.

The thing is, we’ve precious few permanent Goblin settlements, either individually or in terms of their Cartels. Gadgetzan was their only known permanent settlement, but it got absolutely Shrek’d during the Cataclysm, and has only recently become habitable again when Trade Prince Donais managed to take advantage of the situation and reclaim much of the island, also abusing the large amount of Azerite, both in liquid and crystalized forms, to do so. Anyone born in or raised in a Goblin city likely grew up fast and rough, almost guaranteed either poor or in poverty, and belonged to a near-underclass of non-Goblin workers, which are traditionally Humans, Orcs, Ogres and Trolls, either prisoners taken and sold to the Goblins as slaves, or those whose financial debts compelled them to work under their new ‘employers’.

Despite this, more established and reliable Goblin Cities, such as Booty Bay and, to a lesser extent, Bilgewater Harbor, likely held a sizeable population of non-Goblins who held both valuable positions and comparative freedom. Criminals, ne’er-do-wells, desperate sorts and ambitious merchants alike all mixing together could result in quite a few interesting family dynamics, and the resulting children of such.

4) Any Mega-Faction City:

Its a simple historical fact that the larger the population, the less people care about intermarrying between racial or religious groups, with only the most close-minded or evil trying to portray this as something evil or unclean. Unfortunately, Human Beings in the real world are :poop: , and will remain :poop: for a long while yet.

Thankfully, we’re playing in Azeroth, and according to Blizzard, everyone is DTF and it doesn’t matter if they’re different races or the same gender, nobody bats an eyelid at it, and if you complain, we get to use the bat on you.

This does limit potential hybrid children/people to species within the Mega-Factions, but it does make it quite likely, especially since the ‘core’ of each Mega-Faction, Alliance (Human/Kaldorei/Dwarf/Gnome/Draenei) and Horde (Orc/Tauren/Troll/Sin’dorei) have existed for nearly … checks notes … Eighteen years, at least amongst the Horde. For the Alliance, they’ve probably existed for centuries in small numbers in the larger cities, specifically Dalaran (Half-Elves/Gnomes), Ironforge (Half Dwarves/Gnomes) and the Human Cities (Half-Elves/Dwarves/Gnomes).

Now, this brings me to the second part of the topic. Additional character options to reflect this mixed heritage/dual heritage/etc etc of the potential characters.

For Orcs, this could simply be new skin tones and smaller tusks to represent a mixed/dual heritage since Half-Orcs are often depicted as heavily favouring their Orcish parentage.

For Tauren, this is, again, more fur colourations and facial options, but could also use new head options to reflect Taunka and Yaungol Tribes.

Trolls, smaller tusks and shorter (or longer) ears, and please let the male Trolls stand upright already? We can share the same chiropractors that helped the Orcs and Mag’har Orcs, please. Please?

Goblins could do with some new face options and skin tones, possibly some tusk options?

Sin’dorei/Ren’dorei are an easy fit for the ‘Half Elf’ ears we’re gonna get with the Arathai Empire, and again, tusk options.

Humans, tusk options, forehead and jaw options, different skin tones, ear options. If there is one race on the planet with a terminal case of “Where are the holes?”, it is Humanity.

Dwarves could do with ear options, definitely new facial options, as could the Gnomes because young man/woman face and fifteen versions of Floridian magical rock addict is a burden this race does not need.

Draenei could do with some ear options, skin tones and jaw options, tusks, chins, etc.

Kaldorei could do with ear and skin tones.

Would it be crippling to include height sliders in WoW? I wouldn’t mind having some characters be shorter than others or taller than others, or fatter than others, even if the difference is minor, like a few minor bulk-outs or thinning parts on the body.

What are your thoughts?

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Feel like this should be ‘sentient’

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Sentience means the ability to feel things, the ability to perceive things. Any living thing that has some degree of consciousness is sentient, including insects, lizards, dogs, dolphins and human beings. The word sentience is derived from the Latin word sentientem, which means feeling. The adjective form is sentient. The word sentience is often misused to mean a creature that thinks.

Sapience means the ability to think, the capacity for intelligence, the ability to acquire wisdom. Sapience only describes a living thing that is able to think. The word sapience is derived from the Latin word sapientia, which means intelligence or discernment. The adjective form is sapient.

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I have a master’s degree in English literature, I know what these words mean lol

The origins of the word sapience (“sophia”) originally came from Greek, not Latin, and had a cosmic or religious aspect to it. Sort of an ‘all knowing’ wisdom given down from on high, better applied to priests and oracles. Its roots in Latin was then to ascribe a kind of superiority of humanity over nature. Part of why Linnaeus chose it for h. sapien. It implies humanity’s superiority over all living things as per the Bible - not being part of it.

Etymology is fun, but often shows how bad humans are.

So yes, you can use sapient technically (although probably not best) here to say some races have cosmic superiority over others, but I think the gnolls and kobolds may complain. One of those things where connotations disagrees with denotation.

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how is that relevant to the topic at all

anyway getting back on track, i’d love to see more options for multi-heritage characters, both genetically and Adoption-wise. I really loved the inclusion of a multi-heritage family in Dragonflight’s personal story quest, and I’d love to see more of it in game.

height sliders i would also do horrible things to get, mostly because I want my lesbian elves to have a height difference dammit.

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Not a dual heritage thing, but I’d love to see the options on robognomes available for everyone else.

I would love to finally have Norman visually have the robotic hand that he’s always had in his story.

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Finally the best Mak’gora. Two orcs duelling… over linguistic peculiarities, definitions and the impact of deeply rooted Christian theological influence on the English language!

Lok’tar Ogar, friends. Lok’tar Ogar

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My thoughts are, sure, why not? Halfbreeds exist and have for quite while in the lore. I am always in favor of adding more options for customization. I have sorely wanted height and build options for more diverse body types. Blizzard has been dragging their feet on more race options, but they have had alot on their plate. I would love to see them add more customization across all races, but it will probably be a while before that happens.

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Tangential, but I’d love to see players able to learn an additional language related to their Mega-Faction. I know allowing players to speak cross-faction is problematic, hence why the work-around, the language potion you can buy in Dalaran, only allows you to understand the opposite Mega-Faction, not speak to them in a way you can understand.

It stops people going into a capital and going full Corpse Grinder with horrible content on players who don’t want to engage in PvP or deal with that level of nonsense.

I would fight God herself for the ability to add or subtract a foot from any race. It would do wonders for adding some model diversity without overly taxing a 20-year old engine.

I mean, mechanized limbs and prosthetics have been in WoW since vanilla, including Gnomeragon, a Leper-gnome back in Vanilla who had replaced a damaged limb with a mechanical one in … I think it was Stonetalon Mountain, at a Venture Co. mining rig? And we’ve seen this technology again in the Burning Crusade amongst the Mo’arg demons, the Re-Mechanization of the Gnomes in Northrend during Wrath, again in Legion with specific Demons.

We’ve seen plenty of people in Dragonflight in wheelchairs, it could be nice for players to have options for mechanical or sorcerous prosthetics, based upon their racial/cultural/professions.

Orcs and Mag’har have heavy, Iron Horde or Goblin-themed options, Tauren and High Mountain could have wooden/bone/horn versions powered by spiritual charms, Trolls and Zandalari Trolls could have gilded bone wrapped in reptilian hide with voodoo fetishes, Sin’dorei and Shal’dorei could have arcane constructs of gold and red, or purple and silver, Goblins could have shuddering mechanical contraptions, Vulpera could have prosthetics made from scrap and bone and scrimshaw, Forsaken could quite literally have bio-punk replacement limbs with glowing vials and tubes of green, blue, purple or red fluids.

For the Alliance, Humans might have sleek metallic versions of polished steel and blued metal or hand-crafted wooden components, Dwarves of both Bronzebeard and Dark Iron heritage could have steam-hissing, heavily-armored mechanical limbs, Gnomes and Mecha-Gnomes could possess elegant, technological marvels, Worgen and Kal’dorei might find themselves with prosthetics of rune-carved living wood and vine, fang and bone, to represent their connection to the natural world, while Kul’tirans might favour barnacle-studded driftwood, bronze and steel for theirs. Draenei and Light-Forged Draenei would likely have the most beautiful arcane-mechanical limbs of rounded metal and smooth pistons, while the Ren’dorei would like have elegant prosthetics containing squirming void tendrils or seething void energies raging at their confines.

The English language is the most stupid thing in the world once you study its origins and the way it has evolved. It is quite literally a pants-on-head scenario of two dead languages and a living one wearing a single trench-coat and trying to pass themselves off as a singular, original and distinct language.

Their, They’re, There.

Morning, Mourning.

The list goes on …

People complain other languages are hard, try learning a sane language first and then having to learn the bum-backwards insanity that is English!

I think we can’t use that term anymore because its bad because its denigrating people of mixed heritage, but I get your point. I do think sliders, considering 99% of WoW’s armor models function as a second skin on a character rather than separate pieces, would be the best work-around, but the point that Blizzard already has a lot on their plate is also highly accurate, especially with what we’ve seen with the Pre-Patch event, and how quickly we’re diving into the War Within, and this is Part 1 of a 3 Expansion Story …

I want the shiny, but I’d rather have have a fun and functional game first and foremost.

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My favourite is that depending on if you capitalize certain words it changes their pronounciation.

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Coming back to this, I do wish there’d been more attention paid to this family. Xannda and Pella Keenbluff, and their adopted daughter Mova, were one of the brightest little sparks in this expansion, and I was worried the inclusivity of this Expansion had been completely spent in the first part of the expansion.

I actually think it might be something that’ll crop up, story-wise, that the Orcs and Mag’har might take on a lot more mercenary work because, with peace with the Alliance and the Horde Council being most pro-peace, there’s going to be very few chances for younger Orcs to establish a name for themselves in the traditional fashion of doing so by stacking bodies from respected or hated enemies of their Clans/People.

We saw, albeit the AU version, of Grom’mash Hellscream creating new challenges where Orcs within the Warsong were able to fight each other, but not to the death, rather than allow their aggression and antagonism towards each other to build to the point it turned into murder, or caused even greater friction in the larger society of Orcs around the two.

Orcs, be they Green or Mag’har, are prone to fight over flight. We’ve seen Blizzard push this narrative with the Warlords cinematics/short stories, we’ve seen this in the novels, it got pushed super hard during Cataclysm, Mists and Warlords of Draenor.

Its not an excuse for anything they’ve done, before anyone starts on that. But it does explain the why. And it comes down to both genetics and culture, and why we really don’t talk enough about how the Shadow Council, Gul’dan, Blackhand and the original Orc Chieftains of the Old/Dark Horde were absolute bastards and deserve no respect.

Every Clan had their own culture. Main-Universe Orcs shared a lot of this culture, due to meeting twice a year at Oshu’gun Mountain to trade information, renew pacts, hash out grievances and exchange members for marriage, but each Clan still had their own distinct ‘take’ on that culture, and was beholden to the will of the Chieftain, who set tone and direction for the Clan as a whole.

If you disagreed, leave … and try to survive in Draenor on your own, and hope another Clan would take you in. Or stay, complain, and get exiled and then have even less chance of getting adopted. It was a good situation for Chieftains like Durotan and Ner’zhul who cared for their people and didn’t just swing the weight of their position, and their ego around like a cudgel, and it was n even better situation for terrible Chieftains like Blackhand and Kilrogg, who could do whatever the hell they pleased, had surrounded themselves with warriors and bullies who benefitted from the Chieftain’s ‘rules’ and thus could cut down or isolate anyone who’d rebel against the Chieftain’s orders.

Then the Dark/Old Horde happened, the Shadow Council took over, and most of the Orcs’ culture was passed down orally. And most of the Shadow Council’s rank-and-file Warlocks were former Shamans, and one of their most important roles was passing down this history, and the lessons contained within those stories. And then when the Old/Dark Horde invaded Azeroth, they started ramping up breeding programs to mass produce Orc children, let them get old enough to survive the process, and then used the Fel and a specific ritual to age the child up into the body of a late teenager/early adult, and due to Blackhand being the most reprehensible piece of wolf-:poop:, the males were sent to fight and labour, and the females were fed back into the breeding program.

I am cutting out a lot of the squick here. Needless to say, I hope Blackhand’s fate in the Shadowlands is being forced to serve as a drudge or menial worker under a woman because there’s nothing that would torment him more, and with no way to fight back or escape … mr proud warrior women are icky and weak is going to be eating crow forever. And that would burn more than other torment.

This destroyed the culture that valued strength, but not brutality. Co-operation and wisdom got replaced with single-minded self-promotion and suicide charges. In the space of two or three generations, the Orcs lost all of it, and what little we have today is quite literally pieced together from what the few older Orcs who survived both Orc Wars were willing to talk about, what the Tauren gave the Orcs to try and rebuild their heritage, and what they learned in Outland.

Culturally, the Orcs under Thrall were trying to rebuild themselves back to that Shamanistic culture, but 90% of the population only knew how to kill, to hunt and to fight, and had no context or understanding beyond obey orders or be punished, or just get punished anyways because you’re X instead of Y. Even under Orgrimm, the Dark/Old Horde was a brutal and pitiless place to be, and the Camps, while a mercy, were still staffed and run by some of the worst bigots that Humanity could produce, as well as soldiers who’d seen these green behemoths plunder and ravage and burn and felt no remorse at putting the boot in at every opportunity.

The change to the coming-of-age ceremony, and the winnowing of those Orcs who clung to the ideals of the Old/Dark Horde because it empowered them, personally, through the Siege of Orgrimmar and the rebellion against Garrosh, and to a lesser extent, any who remained loyal to the Banshee Queen had that idea ripped out of them in the aftermath of Sylvanas’s betrayal, is a necessary growth of the Orcish society.

Durotan said “For Orcs, war solves many problems.” and to a point, he’s correct. But that worked on Draenor, where everything and anything was trying to kill you, the Spirits really didn’t have your backs and could revoke the only magic the Orcs had at the drop of a hat without warning or explanation, the Orcs were surrounded on all sides by races both more advanced technologically and magically than they were and there was a cyclic disease ravaging their people every few generations that helped keep them from evolving to new technology, the Red Pox, which might have been started by the Ogres, but might have been kept going by the Spirits to stop the Orcs from ever becoming advanced enough to capture or rebel against the Spirits in the same way the Ogres enslaved them.

The Orcs have to change, and adapt to the fact that, for good or ill, they’re on Azeroth. Whaaaaarg-ing doesn’t solve the long-term problems, and they’ve burnt a lot of bridges learning this lesson. Cultural adaptations that go back to the old ways of controlling and channelling that natural aggressive streak into healthier, or at least less destructive, courses is the only way the Orcs are going to continue to grow and survive on Azeroth now.

This was meant to be a small blurb and instead I facerolled this out. Bleh. Brb, gonna go touch some grass.

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I think what’s lost when trying to understand orcs is that like 20 year span between “pre-industrial hunter-gather society” and “refugees in internment camps and their old planet is blown up”.

I don’t think the pre-Legion or pre-Horde version of orcs were in any way more aggressive or warmongering than other races. Perhaps a bit more martial, but you’d forgive them for having to be so in a pretty brutal and violent environment as opposed to humans growing up in say, Westfall.

I’ve always looked at the shift in that culture being yes, part of the forming of the Horde and Shadow Council and demon blood. But you have to actually think about who these particular orcs are at the end of the Second War. The seers and scholars and farmers and tradesman were on Draenor; it was the military on Azeroth. So when Draenor goes kaboom, the only really existing orcs are the soldiers.

There was a BBC tv movie God on Trial, where Jews in a concentration camp effectively put God on trial for everything that’s happened to them (plot not important). And a really interesting point is put forward. That in the event they escape the camps and the Holocaust, it’s a question of who will be left over to rebuild? Most of their intellectuals, artisans, religious leaders, and upper and even middle class were wiped out. So what kind of society does that make?

That 90% then are effectively just the orcs whose sole occupation for the last 20 years has been war. So if someone (Thrall) tries to rebuild an entire society and civilization, and their only participants are soldiers who have just been at war for 20 years, you’d assume part of that flavour would end up in the stew even unintentionally.

It takes generational change to shift the attitudes of a people. And the orcs effectively suffered genocide - be it by demons, their own hand, or the destruction of Draenor - and had to start over with only really warriors and murderers. I’m not excusing that the orcs since then have been an exaggerated caricature of their worst features, but I am saying it’s not surprising considering who these orcs and their descendants are.

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I maintain (through the writing of my own orc) that Garrosh was almost an inevitability. During times of hardship, easy solutions get followers, and fascism offers those easy solutions: just take out your pain on other people, it’s fine!

So in the writing of my orc, she’s traveling around, trying to find scraps of orc culture and write them down so they’re not forgotten. She personally wasn’t above the fury of Garrosh and the fervor behind him-- and part of her atonement is this reclamation of orc culture. The pain of being an orc born in Lordaeron, essentially part of a diaspora, has haunted her for so long. Her personal involvement in the oppression of the Darkspear people is something she’s not sure she can ever make up for, even though it was done out of a desire to “save” herself from the ghosts of her past.

While I think Garrosh could have been written better, I really, really think he was a necessary part of orc writing. I just think he wasn’t examined so critically, and in part that’s because WoW does not do writing involving critical thinking and serious analysis of cultures. I no longer rly complain about that, but instead just write it into my fanfic and RP.

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