So something that cropped up is Durak, the firstborn child of Thrall/Go’el and Aggra, just recently came of age and actually made quite a big splash all on his own, actively shunning reliance upon his parents’ great list of achievements and high social rank and confiding in Orc Champions/Player Characters that he’s unsure of his path in life.
He has no spiritual sense to be a Shaman, or at least no in-built one, although he was visited by the Spirits of the Ancestors during the Om’riggor festival, and that has been known to grant that spark of spiritual power if a candidate is worthy and the need is great.
But when he tackled Trigore the Lasher in his own Om’riggor trial, he was very stealthy, and used a one-handed axe and dagger to cut off all three heads of the Hydra, while feeling a deep connection to his people and their heritage, stating he felt fear, he was young but not foolish.
And then he says the line.
He felt them.
He was them.
And on some level, he realized that this was likely his first real insight as an orc. Not
as a warrior in training, but as one who might one day serve his people, should he live
long enough to achieve that honor. Strange that even though he grasped his weapons,
knowing a fight lay ahead that could only end in death, he could not feel any hate or
bloodlust in his heart. He felt only peace. A kind of calm.
Is Durak about to be ascended to Shaman-hood by the Ancestors Spirits or, and this is me reaching a bit here, he’s going to be the first Orc Paladin.
The Light brings calm, peace, serenity and a surety of purpose to those who can truly call on it. Durak isn’t touched by the Spirits … because the place within him that’s normally filled by them, the ‘hole’ found by Dalaran in the aftermath of the Orc Wars when the Legion withdrew the Fel from the Orcs after their failure, might have been filled by something else.
The Lok’osh, the Orcish version of a Priest or the ‘way’ of a Priest, which roughly translated to ‘A Song of the Heart’ or ‘A Song of the Spirits’. Orc Priests of the Lok’osh tend to focus on the healing and nurturing of the spirit, especially the spirit ‘within’, while Shamans, the traditional spiritual leaders of the Orcs, deal with the spirits ‘without’. The path is said to be difficult for an Orc to find and harder still to follow, but those who can find a deep and rewarding spiritual connection to their people.
Durak is looking for his path through life, and seems to be outgrowing his need to please and seek permission from his parents, but not out of pride or darker emotions, but because he doesn’t know what he is meant to become.
The Light reached out to the Humans after they defeated the Amani Empire of Trolls, after they proved themselves to be both capable warriors and skilled spellcasters, and we’re going to deep-dive into that, and how this event led to the Arathai Empire that we’re going to encounter a splinter of in the War Within. We know that the Lok’osh are few in number but growing at a respectable pace, and that Paladins were originally born amongst Tauren, not Humans, and Tauren are a deeply shamanistic race, much like the Orcs.
I have a theory (a GAME THEORY!) that Durak might end up trying to blend the teachings and skills of the Lok’osh tradition, and the warrior skills he’s already been trained in, and might become the first ‘Lok’goron’ or ‘Lok’gora’, which might roughly translate into the Hero of the Spirit, or the Champion of the Spirit for the former, or Honor of the Spirit/Heart for the latter. Following the teachings of the Lok’osh, a Lok’gora might be a defender of Orcish rites and traditions, protector of the people and smiter of those who would lead the Orcs down dark or dishonourable paths, and given Durak’s bright nature and thoughtfulness, he’d do well as such a warrior, fighting to uphold a more noble and respectful facet of the Orcish people, rather than those who throw themselves into battle recklessly to earn more status and glory to their name.
With Baine now fully willing to stop trying to please everyone and thus fail everyone in the process, I’d actually like to see more new or renewed Horde characters step up as the new generation of Horde Champions. It would be interesting to see Durak and a band of adventurers from each race of the Horde stepping out and making a name for themselves under the watchful gaze of the Horde council, and intersecting with them through-out the later stages of the War Within and the next two Expansions could be a fun little thing for Horde players as we enter an period of time where the Alliance finally gets to have the spotlight for once.
Let Baine be the squad’s go-to adult and their calm center, since Thrall’s … we’re fatigued with Thrall. Like, I’m happy to see him back, I’m happy to see his story continue on in something other than “And then things got worse …”, but let’s not saturate the story with Thrall as the only Orc we talk about that isn’t a relentless warmonger/war criminal/demonic fiend/moron Garrosh.
A Goblin engineer/Rogue. A Zandalari Paladin/Loa-Priest. A Mag’har Warrior. A Sin’dorei Paladin. A Shal’dorei Mage. A Tauren Hunter. A High-Mountain Warrior. A Forsaken Shadow-Priest. A Pandaren Monk. A Vulpera Rogue. A Dracthyr Evoker. That’s a 12-man squad of young, fresh-faced and eager mini-champions running around, giving Baine grey hairs and the Horde Council ulcers and might need the Horde’s favourite Champion to maybe lend a hand to and act as a source of guidance to some young (and not-so-young) adventurers who have the glow of destiny around them.
On another note, I’d love to see this happen for the Alliance as well but the Alliance just … doesn’t have any young, fresh faces to form the established center around which such a group could form. Anduin’s too important to go running off to herp about as a young adventurer finding their way, both as the true heir to Stormwind and the last surviving Wrynn, and because he’s been through the wringer four times now, both as a boy fighting against Onyxia and her brood, a youth trapped in Pandaria dodging Garrosh’s assassins and his own father’s agents trying to drag him home, being made King at a very early age in the middle of a planetary disaster and everything that the poor blighter went through in Shadowlands.
Seriously, give Anduin a /hug. He needs it.