It’s well known that MU Orcs have virtually lost their clan identity. Most of the current Durotar Orcs were born on Azeroth. Same goes for Outland Mag’har, who are from various clans but mostly grew up together in Garadar, out of touch with that stuff. The Frostwolves and Dragonmaw retain their clan structure but it’s been a while since we heard of them.
AU Mag’har could have changed that since the clans were still very much alive back in WoD, but eventually it turned out they also sort of had become a unified group, even though we can still identify which clan the NPCs are from judging from their classes and looks. Through them the Horde now also has all of the Breaker races (except Magnaron it would seem) among its ranks, which is cool because it gives us some flavor of Orcish ancestry and traditional society, but it looks like Orcs barely even acknowledge their bond with them.
Retain the currently existing division between the MU “Diaspora” Orcs who choose to retain the abolishment of the Clans and all heritage therein even with the MU Mag’har Orcs vs AU Orcs who retain such and insist on retaining such because of how history unraveled in the AU Draenor with Deus Vult Yrel.
Create Lore where Thrall, as a father, realizes that his culture and heritage isn’t inherently bad and abolishment was a perhaps necessary but currently superfluous sociopolitical choice at the time, and work toward re-integration of Orcs with their heritage, including initiation of Orcs born into slavery who do not know their “original” clan into whatever Clan they so choose.
Doing the former retains the in-universe division between the Baseline Orcs and Mag’har Orcs that justifies the latter being an “Allied Race” rather than customization options for the former.
Doing the latter would be a Cool Story that would need to be handled carefully, which track record shows they are unable to do so.
Thrall never abolished the Clans. That loss of clan identity was a result of the internment camps and the lethargy of the orcs. The Alliance were just grabbing orcs and placing them into the camps, they weren’t like okay we’ll have the Bleeding Hallow go to Camp X, Blackrock go to camp Z, etc…
And as the lethargy set in the orcs, they straight up stopped caring about escape attempts, history, and just languished. Its very reasonable to assume clan identity would also be tossed aside, except from the few individuals who clung to it.
The Warsong Clan still existed as a clan even after Thrall reunited the horde. Along with the Frostwolves. I mean the whole Warsong clan was separated from Thrall and the rest of the Horde upon landing on Kalimdor, maybe even beforehand.
However over time the idea of clans just started to fade out. The Frostwolves still exist as a clan but can be because they live in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Honestly I would say the decline of orcish clans probably happened due to several factors. The main one being the internment camps. Second one was Thrall slowly making a single orcish identity with the New Horde. It didn’t happen suddenly though. And finally Blizzard just wanting to get rid of them for convenience sake.
This is a common misconception that I see alot folks commonly make.
The Outland Mag’har still very much maintain their clan identities. Notably Jorin Deadeye, son of Kilrogg styles himself as the ‘Warchief of the Bleeding Hallow’ and Garrosh absolutely maintained his status as scion of the Hellscream lineage, which became more apparent after learning of his fathers’ heroics.
The notion that Outland Orcs are out of touch with clan identity boils down to 3 factors;
1.) TBC being WoWs first expansion certainly made it difficult to visually convey the clan identities properly as it was still very early in WoWs development and they most certainly didn’t plan to have the Orcs be so visually distinct as they had much later when they conceived WoD.(character models, architecture, ect.)
2.) Given that all the Mag’har are introduced as all living in relatively the same village, it’s very easy to simply assume that they’ve abandoned their clan identities. As again, their lack of visual diversity can be deceiving unless one reads into the quest text.
3.) Severe lack of development as a group since around Cataclysm has led many to believe that they simply integrated into the Orgrimmar Orc society.
So despite common belief, Outland Mag’har very much retain their clan identites.
Withered for Nightborne and Wretched for High / Blood elves was mainly due to losing control over their addiction to arcane magic. Either by a lack of arcane magic to sustain the addiction or consuming too much that it corrupted them from the inside.
So did the Humans when Lordaeron Survivors who are living now lost their kingdom, Gilneans still have their leaders but still lost a homeland, and I think Alterac is still in ruins and bandits are still running and causing issues.
The Warsong and Frostwolves, who avoided capture after WC 2 still maintain their clan identity. Probably terminally damaged for many of the orcs who went through the interment camp system. For those who grew up in it? 20 years is enough for an entire generation to grow up without the ‘clan’ concept mattering to them, and their parents likely would have been in too deep with fel addiction withdrawal and/or wretched shame to care much. Then, when Thrall liberates the camps and takes them all to Kalimdor he bases the New Horde/Orc civilization on a modern (by Azeroth standards) nation-state where clan membership is not relevant.
Good points all around. It’s true that among the NPCs in Garadar are “Bleeding Hollow refugees” so there’s that. However Garadar was built 10 years before the First War, so more than 40 years ago, which means several generations of Orcs were born there, in that unified, “multiclannish” environment. I suspect the Bleeding Hollow are a more recent addition, as it’s said that they joined because their village - Gul’rok - fell (not too long ago I suspect).
As of Garrosh, his Hellscream lineage is an important part of his identity, but the Warsong clan though ? Does he mention it at all ?
True, and I mean it’s hard not to believe that. Since many of the Mag’har sided with Garrosh during the Siege of Orgrimmar they were never mentioned again as a Horde faction I think. Cromush was active in BFA, but that’s pretty much it… I wish writers gave us some news about them.
Speaking of the Warsong clan. You guys are implying it’s still active. Are you talking about those “Warsong Outriders” NPCs ?
Along with the Frostwolves in Alterac Valley, Dragonmaws in the Twilight Highlands, Blackrocks in Blackrock Spire and whatever Twilight’s Hammer orcs survived to start the Twilight’s Hammer Cult, the Warsongs were the only other orcish clan on Azeroth that remained intact after the Second War, and the only one of those to accompany Thrall’s new Horde across the sea to Kalimdor (with Grom still leading them.) They endured there as a distinct clan into WoW, where they’d settled at the border between the Barrens and Ashenvale, and their conflict over that territory with the local night elf garrison was the basis for the Warsong Gulch Battleground and numerous Ashenvale quest chains. Warsong NPC’s persisting throughout Ashenvale and being present near the Battleground’s in-world entrance post-Shattering indicate that they remained entrenched in the region into the Cataclysm era.
Nothing specific has explicitly been done with them since then. Previously Garrosh’s forces in Northrend were named the Warsong Offensive and included NPC’s with the clan’s name, suggesting either that Garrosh was using the name as a form of “homage” to his heritage or possibly that some number of actual Warsong warriors might have comprised his vanguard there while still identifying as their own clan. They didn’t really appear as clan-named NPC’s during Mists of Pandaria, with only the Dragonmaws, Blackrocks and some Outland Mag’har being overtly associated with the era of Garrosh becoming tyrannical (though it’s likely given their location, they were probably involved in his playing fast-and-loose with the cease fire in Ashenvale), so it’s unclear if the Warsongs had stuck with him the whole time and thrown their lot in with his True Horde by the end, backed the rebellion out of loyalty to the other Horde races they’d known as allies since the Third War or simply abstained from picking a side, though logically one would expect at least some probably ended up among his True Horde Kor’kron army. Consequently their status since his overthrow isn’t really clear. Unless it comes up in the Exploring Kalimdor book (haven’t seen it myself, so I’m not sure), which by most accounts seems to habitually preserve or reassert the Cataclysm status-quo in most places, meaning they’d likely still be in Warsong Gulch and Ashenvale regularly fighting with the night elves to hold onto the Gulch and nearby lumber operation.
Insofar as the Warsong Outriders patrolling the road through Garadar in Outland, their presence suggests that at the very least some measure of that clan identity survived among the Mag’har there. Which wouldn’t necessarily be surprising, given that until relatively recently the heir to the Warsong clan was in charge of the village’s defense. Though not actually stated, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Mag’har who crossed over to join Garrosh’s war against the Alliance included a bunch of fellow Warsongs.
Since they’ve not been focused upon since before Garrosh’s fall, it’s also unclear if the Warsong clan has a new chieftain; in fact it’s never really established who their clan leader was during the years between the death of Grom and the arrival of Garrosh, but whoever it was might logically have resumed that role once Garrosh was ousted, assuming they’d survived to that point.
Thank you for summing that up, I think I have a better grasp of the situation now. For some reason I had always assumed location names such as Warsong Lumber Camp were mere passive references to Orcish culture because, you know, gotta pick names. It sort of reminded me of the Azerothian Shattered Hand, which has little in common now with the Orcish clan than it once was, considering it has become a multi-racial order of rogues probably intended to mirror the Alliance’s SI:7…
I wonder about what the current status is for the Frostwolves and the Dragonmaw. The former are still in Alterac Valley as far as we know but the last we heard of them was them being accused of treason because they had refused to help the Forsaken ; apparently the latter split between Zaela’s followers who sided with Garrosh and Gorax Angerfang’s followers who seemingly chose to remain in the Horde as of Legion. Did Exploring EK make no mention of them at all ?