Trolls, especially Jungle Trolls, don’t have a history of using arcane magic. So I always thought that it was weird that trolls could be mages in Classic. After Cataclysm it’s implied that Undead and Blood Elves instructed most members of the Horde in the ways of the arcane. And Goblins have enough contact with Humans for me to believe that they learned directly from them. But before that?
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You’re not wrong. Trolls don’t really have a history with using the Arcane. They had Shamans, Priests, some Necromancers but they were notably lacking in serious mage usages.
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If I remember correctly, trolls were originally planned to have warlocks instead of mages. But doing so would have left forsaken as the only playable horde race with the class, and orcs and forsaken already had warlocks as options anyway, so troll warlock got cut to make room for mage (since there was a UI limit of 6 classes per race at the time). It would have been either that or cutting priest, which probably would have been an even worse decision since the same problem would happen with that class instead.
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Yeah, it was arguably a plot point; not having a serious mage tradition was why trolls historically got pushed around by the night elves and then by the high elves.
They seemingly tried to learn as much as they could about it from the mogu, but the mogu are pretty stingy, jealously guarding their best magical knowledge from outsiders and from each other. Lei Shen taught the Zandalari how to resurrect him - which, given the titan origins of his knowledge, was likely arcane in nature - but he wasn’t really interested in sharing the sort of knowledge with them that could someday be readily militarized against his own empire.
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It is worth noting that eventually the Zandalari did have magic users strong enough to protect Zandalar during the Sundering via magic bubble (Like Suramar).
What those magic users were was never specified, but it was likely mages as that’s the only class we’ve seen erecting giant nation protecting shields.
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My issue with that is that this would explain how the Zandalari obtained Arcane magic. But apparently this is one of the things they didn’t share with the other tribes as these tribes lack Arcane users.
This is reflected even in the game. The Jungle and Forest Trolls NPCs for example don’t have a single Mage or Arcane like ability. It’s as if only playable trolls can be Mages.
The Zandalari were always considered the wisest of the Trolls, so them having mages wasn’t that big of a stretch. The lesser tribes likely got their knowledge from them as they were always in contact with one another. Heck, the lesser tribes leave speakers on Zandalar to maintain that relationship. Teach the speakers, who would then bring that knowledge back.
Also, while we don’t see the Amani throwing arcane storms we do know that they were master enchanters, to the point of showing up even the High Elves, who had to steal those practices in order to defeat them.
There’s just not as much of an emphasis on traditional magic in the lesser tribes, where Shaman and Priests would receive more attention due to a connection with the Loa. But they certainly still have them in the background.
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The troll enchanter you are talking about, Zanza the Restless, is a Loa though like Bwonsamdi. And lives in Zuldazar.
Yes, he does, though him being a Loa and his residence don’t really matter in this context. He specifically brings up the battles between the High Elves and Amani and gives the impression that this was during the initial struggles for territory, which would before the Zandalari got involved during the Troll Wars. So it stands to reason that the Amani were capable of these enchantments on their own.
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There are plenty of primitive races capable of being magi, like gnolls, murlocs and kobolds. It’s not as if magecraft is some difficult secret that only some races have figured out.
Sure Trolls were only given magi to begin with due to needing a second Horde mage race, but considering all of the other tribal and primitive races capable of employing mages, it’s not really that weird.
Considering goblin origins they likely got magecraft from the Zandalari, or are just natural mages due to their connection with Mimiron.
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I would’ve accepted Tauren Mages over Trolls pre-Cata simply because Tauren had some semblance of Arcane users in Druids.
Weren’t the trolls beaten by the Night Elves simply because they had lacked the ability to use Arcane magic?
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No, it was because the Well of Eternity empowering the night elves, not solely the magi factor alone.
The Zandalari had mages in Vanilla WoW too, after all.
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Ahh ok, thanks for the clarity. I remember reading it somewhere but I guess it was just my imagination. Would make sense though. The Well was supposed to be like X-Men mutant levels of Arcane energy.
that was retconned in chronicle, that never happened, the entire empire was badly devastated, most of the entire land was sunken into the sea.Even the city was in large part destroyed, they have to rebuild their entire kingdom.
Got the passage on that? Don’t have chronicles myself, but every other source only mentions that the Zandalari shrugged after seeing they were an island and rolled with it. There’s no doubt of devastation as destruction of their surrounding lands would have been unavoidable, but nothing contradicting their protection via magic that I can find.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/421688410734985227/739393596712550510/unknown.png
“Even the zandalari had suffered”, if the magic shield would work, like in Suramar, not a single bit of zandalar would sunken into the sea, the Reason the broken island still stands was the shield of suramar.
That doesn’t discount previous lore at all. It only says they took a hit, and not even that they lost most of their city like you claimed.
Dazar’alor was likely the place that was protected, which makes sense. Any surrounding areas outside would have been lost outside of what would become Nazmir and Vol’dun unless those areas were protected as well, which I find unlikely. Suramar stands because Suramar bubbled, everything else on the Broken Isles stands because… life finds a way or something. What the Zandalari did was likely no different.
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Really, none of it precludes the loa having been called upon en masse to shield the region against the Sundering rather than any sort of arcane barrier. After all, the Drakkari were able to use their gods’ stolen power to straight-up blast a Scourge necropolis out of the sky, so evidently the shape taken by a loa’s power isn’t limited to just priestly/druidy-type stuff.
Such a thing as a protection from the effects of the Sundering might have been managed with every priesthood of every major loa offering up sacrifices together and jointly imploring their gods for a mighty blessing to protect the heart of troll society.
This is also a very distinct possibility. The Zandalari have closer connections to their Loa than the lesser tribes, living among them and all that, and we’ve seen Talanji conjure up a shield that stood up to a Jaina barrage (Which is stronger than any actual disaster /s).
The Troll Compendium does make it sound like the Zandalari sages did it on their own, but it’s probably a safe assumption that the Loa helped in some capacity based on our current understanding of their relationship.
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In Stranglethorn Vale there were records of trolls using the Stone of the Tides to control water. Perhaps they learned and practiced from that?
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