I want to make an Alliance paladin. I love the paladin class gameplay, but I do not like the lore behind the alliance paladin races. Is there any way for an alliance race to adopt the teachings of a sunwalker or is this a big no no?
From an RP perspective, no reason you couldn’t. Nothing about the faith seems particularly exclusive, nor does there seem a higher power controlling it that would deny the teachings to an Alliance, aside from finding a proper teacher (who would presumably be a tauren)
I imagine there will be plenty of people who will deny this. Many people aren’t cool with sunwalkers at it is. But it’s your character. Go for it.
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And those are people you should not pay any attention to.
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Sure?
I mean, if you can justify a human getting lessons and teachings from a Sunwalker (whom are presumably all Tauren), sure.
Tauren culture is also a big thing, as the Sunwalkers draw their powers from An’she, the Tauren sun god.
Theres also the potential of getting labeled as an Alliance defector if your human goes around Alliance cities, praising An’she. Or, at least, looked at very hard because of the Horde/Alliance relations.
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Considering that the two races are mortal enemies… Sunwalkers are born under a cultural mindset that’s simply too alien for Humans.
I do remember on Earthen Ring Silverdawn, whose lore is about a paladin who became mostly an empty mental shell that was rebuit by the Church of Elune. She made bank with that.
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All up to how you play it. I’d be skeptical of a human paladin telling me they just got back from doing Sunwalker Order business in Thunder Bluff–that’s perhaps a bridge too far in terms of the lore.
But there’s no real reason your paladin can’t be working in the realms of other “types” of Paladin as the game would put it. You even have all the hook you need coming out of the Legion class order hall, if that’s to your liking. Considering all the kinds of Paladins from around Azeroth got to spend time together under one roof, it would be a stretch to think there was no cross-pollination between the beliefs, so to speak. You can play it any way you’d like, of course, but that might be where I’d start. Something like befriending a Sunwalker during the Legion arc and suddenly finding a reinvigoration of your faith in the Light, filtered through the notion that the sun is the true object of your devotion.
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Do you want to be an actual Sunwalker in title?
Because if that isn’t specifically you’re interest there is nothing that says your paladin cannot find his faith and strength from worshiping the sun. That isn’t exclusively some Tauren thing. Anyone could look up and put their faith in the sun (or the moon, or the stars) based upon what it means to them. It is all about how you explain it and what the backstory is… and you might want to come up with a different “title” than being a Sunwalker. Maybe he is a Sun Warrior or a Disciple of the Sun… maybe not the greatest ideas off the top of my head, but you get where I’m going.
I think if you were creative enough, you could come up with a backstory and reason behind it that would be more easily digestible than your character finding some connection with an actual Tauren Sunwalker (as others have shown issue with above).
It does require having a cultural mindset a lot more primitive than the established Human cultures. Sun worship historically was brutal, and frequently ran on human sacrifice.
Somehow, I doubt Tauren would have much interest in human sacrifices for their sun worship- as such, I doubt we could make many comparisons of historical sun worship from our world to the Tauren religion.
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Of course there is nothing directly opposing your idea, though I’d personally avoid playing one race’s unique unit fully copying the idea to another race. I’d say the first step would be to fully identify which parts of the Alliance Paladin lore that you dislike and see how key they are to calling yourself a Paladin.
With Vanleer i loved playing monk but was not fond of Monk lore. Specifically I thought the idea of a Forsaken having become skilled enough in unarmed strikes to forgo weapons was silly, so i looked at alternative routes to what “Monk” meant in Warcraft. In the end i had the character put more emphasis in the brewing and tea based aspects, and had his “style” be defined by grappling and throwing as compared to unarmed strikes.
I’ve done similar with two paladins in the past, one human paladin taking a far more muted and humble approach instead lf the grandiose showings that were popular at the time, and a Dark Iron who acts as Judge and gets his conviction from his ideals of justice.
hears people belittling the worship of one of the eyes of the earth mother and snorts
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Whaddaya say, Mr Tauren?
Would you teach a human to be a sunwalker, if they wanted to learn?
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While i would be suspicious of a humans intentions. But anyone willing to live in harmony with the earth mother and understanding that being a sunwalker is just a small aspect if how the earth mother works.
Even an elf could learn as well.
Perhaps I shall!
Currently, my studies are focused upon the culture of Vrykul, but perhaps I might learn to see the world through a tauren’s eyes someday!
I can teach you, but you must be willing to live the lifestyle that of the shu’halo sunwalker
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One way to make this work visuallly is to collect troll BFA armor on the horde side for transmog.
With that you could go for a kind of Aztec Sun Warrior kind of theme.
