Let’s keep it Kalimdor-specific, if you can!
What are some headcanon that you have with regards to Kalimdor? Let’s see if we can’t give our friends at Blizzard a bit of inspiration for their edits no doubt are happening as we type.
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An easy one to start with: Brackenwall Village would have been rebuilt by the Stonemaul by now and would be a sizable Ogre settlement. Dire Maul would have been taken over by the Horde with the defeat of the Gordunni and would most likely be a contentious fighting point for the Horde and Alliance given it’s the home of the Shen’dralar but was co-opted by the Ogres.
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Gazlowe joining the Horde formally now has quite likely resulted in a decent increase in the number of Bilgewater Cartel Goblins joining Ratchet in the Barrens since it’s a settlement that allows them to escape the imagery of Gallywix. Distinct chance that while not too huge, the port has grown a decent bit and was steadily doing so during the Fourth War with Bilgewater goblins looking to avoid military service.
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We’ve seen wounds all over Azeroth spout azerite that completely alters the dynamics of that area. What we haven’t seen is how the Sword of Sargeras’ wound has changed the ecosystem of Silithus.
Yes, it’s said the silithids were temporarily scoured from the surface, but we’ve already seen that they’re bouncing back, like they always do.
Silithus is still gushing azerite. It is also right next to the carcass of an Old God that others in the past have already tried to resurrect. The silithid of the zone are mutating from azerite, by the hand of a sinister Ahn’Qiraj force. This could result in the birth of a new race, more powerful and deadly than any other Aqir related species, if left unchecked.
The Cenarion Circle is on the case, which explains their absense in Battle for Azeroth. But thanks to the Fourth War, an investigation is pending whether or not to remove Horde races from the order, and while that is still underway they are severely understaffed and unable to effectively regulate this new threat.
Another headcanon that might be a little spicy: the Horde 100% didn’t get a slap on the wrist for instigating the last war. They are crippled by a reparations bill to the night elves, most settlements in Ashenvale have been abandoned, and most Horde races, even civilians, are terrified of going anywhere near night elf lands because they will be killed on sight.
Last one for now: Teldrassil is slowly becoming a new kind of holy sight for the Kaldorei. Night elves have a unique connection to the land they inhabit and its lore, and the devastating wound of life stands as a place to be honored. A loss like that is truly terrible, but death remains a part of the cycle of balance and the charred tree will have new lore and spiritualism revolve around it.
Those who a honor the husk from Darkshore can feel its sorrow and rage. It bleeds into their hearts and minds. Ancients, wild gods, and wisp spirits alike have had their attitudes changes by the travesty. Perhaps one day the pain and loss will be soothed, but until then most inhabitants of Darkshore have become darker, more feral.
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Mulgore is the Texas of Kalimdor. Everything’s bigger in Mulgore, everyone has a gun, and the fields & hills go on foooooooorrever.
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That Kabal from Hearthstone is real to me as well as Gadgetzan from HS. Goblins turned the Sword in Silithus into a tourist attraction and sell little Azerite baubles.
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Feathermoon has been reinforced and fortified as the de facto Night Elf capital until a more permanent arrangement is made.
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Kalimdor only? How am I supposed to talk about Duskwood now?
My personal headcanon is that Uldum is in need of the biggest bug extermination fleet in the galaxy. Not only do you have N’zoth’s little hive babies, but you have Azerite powered silithids that are probably burrowing across the deserts after being evicted by a space sword. Unless… there’s an underground war of epic proportions going on between the two bug hives. Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.
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There are legends of confused wanderers from the distant past or far flung future stumbling out of the deserts where the caverns of time reside.
By the time they reach safety they are driven half-mad, either from the trip through time itself or the trek through the burning sands of Tanaris. Their ramblings about events to come or long forgotten are bizarre and nonsensical up until the moment they die from the exertion of the trip. Some doubt whether they are truly time travelers, but how else can their strange garb and rare equipment be explained?
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Orgrimmar is named after Orgrim Doomhammer, a little-known hero of the Horde.
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Large post below and it is not even fully inclusive of all my headcanons for the going-ons in Kalimdor.
The Azerite gushing forth from Silithus has created one of the largest qiraji forces seen since the Aqir war.
Silithus is a warzone, with a faction of Goblins trying to make money off of the zone as a tourist destination, remnants of the Cenarion Circle that are attempting to keep back the qiraji to protect the rest of Kalimdor, and parts of the Explorer’s League that are investigating newly unearthed ruins.
Uldum is not much better, with the remaining Uldum watchers, Tol’vir, Explorer’s League, and Cenarion Circle attempting to push out from spaces like Ramkahen to fight back against the emboldened and empowered qiraji.
This is all while ominous rumblings beneath Ahn’Qiraj bode to something far more sinister awakening beneath the surface, but the onslaught of Azerite qiraji makes it difficult to investigate further.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Un’goro Crater has seen Azerite dinosaurs. A subfaction of the Cenarion Circle, a cult of dinosaur druids from Zandalar, and a group of goblins struggle to gain control of, and protect, the area from the qiraji that fly overhead (and burrow beneath, as they’ve once more built up a hive in the southern section of the zone).
Southern Tanaris is under siege, as a large section of qiraji forces attempts to corner much of the remaining Bronze Dragonflight in their cave. Gadgetzan is both made larger to better represent its true size, and fortified, as it represents one of the last few large and safe strongholds in southern Kalimdor. Unable to protect the timelines and themselves, this war has led to an increase in sightings of the Infinite Dragonflight and people who ramble of times long past or far to come, unable to speak properly as their minds are addled from their unwitting journey through time.
Zul’Farrak, abandoned by its people after Cataclysm, has seen a cult of the void take over the city. They are attempting to use the troll ruins and abandoned tablets to summon forth loa and troll spirits of import in order to twist them for the qiraji war effort. A section of remaining sand trolls, allied to Zandalar, wish to take back their city and restore it.
Feathermoon Stronghold has grown slightly to accommodate incoming refugees, while the ruins of Feathermoon have been built up into a rather sizable kaldorei town. The Ruins of Isildien have been wrested from the Gorduuni, and it is now a campsite for refugees and an archaeological site.
The Gorduuni are largely concentrated only to Dire Maul now, and lack true leadership. A small sect of the ogres have fallen sway under the messengers of the qiraji and now devote themselves to their message. They take the dead and compile them into amalgamations of void, posing a true, strong threat to the continent as a whole.
Camp Mojache has grown considerably, and has agreed to neutrality with Feathermoon Stronghold for the betterment of both their peoples, Kalimdor, and Azeroth as a whole. This agreement leads to the formation of a new reputation faction which sees no factions and is largely composed of the races of Kalimdor, and works in tandem with the Cenarion Circle and Earthen Ring to fix areas shattered by the Cataclysm (Auberdine, Menethil Harbor, etc…) or war (Stonetalon Mountains, Ashenvale, etc…) either wholly or to the best of their abilities.
Thousand Needles has seen the rise of a rather considerable fleet of goblin anti-air ships, which aim to aid and protect settlements like Freewind Post from small pockets of qiraji air units that make it past, or go around, Gadgetzan. Gazlowe himself has ordered production of this fleet and oversees maintenance himself on a small settlement on the shore. The ships are brought down from Bilgewater Harbor. Jevan and his Grimtotem make up a considerable amount of the fighting force for Thousand Needles and Dustwallow Marsh to the north, working to prove their allegiance to Baine and the Horde.
In Dustwallow Marsh, Cultists have made their way to what was once Onyxia’s Lair, and have warped the remains of her brood into void-addled, skeletal beasts meant to benefit the war upon the other races of Kalimdor. A group of Kirin Tor mages have translocated a chunk of land to the remains of Theramore and built a small settlement in order to investigate the cultists and their activities. Mudsprocket has grown considerably and upped its fortifications. Brogg and Axle have agreed to jointly lead the town, with Brogg heading much of the forces against the void-addled dragons in the south. He does hate dragons, after all. Direhorn Post remains a Grimtotem town, and has grown considerably. Magatha herself is present, though her allegiance to the Earthen Ring during the third Legion invasion has muddled the message and allegiance of the tribe-- a sect of dissidents has moved to Blackhoof Village, unwilling to follow Magatha after they feel she has abandoned their tribe’s original allegiances. Brackenwall Village has grown considerably, now housing a large Horde fighting force meant to defend should the qiraji push beyond the Thousand Needles. Much of the fighting force is composed of ogres.
Bael Modan in Southern Barrens has grown (deepened), along with a small tauren village where Bael’dun Keep once stood. Alto Stonespire now leads the tauren of the village, Camp Stonespire, alongside Auld Stonespire. Many of the survivors from Camp Taurajo (yes, I know Exploring Kalimdor said there were no survivors, but quests said otherwise) reside in Camp Stonespire. A partially destroyed Flying Machine that once belonged to the dwarves of Bael’dun resides just outside the entrance to the camp as both memorial and warning. The Explorer’s League in Bael Modan are watched over by Camp Stonespire guards and must remain weaponless. What was once unearthed, then hidden by the cataclysm, stirs once more beneath their feet. Razorfen Kraul no longer houses quilboar and a sect of the Cenarion Circle has made a camp within and works to cleanse the area of foul quilboar magic.
Desolation Hold was razed by the Alliance in the Fourth War, and converted instead to an Alliance military camp. Fort Triumph has also seen growth from this period, but both largely stand today in order to protect the area from the threat of qiraji to the south, from what the Cenarion Circle may unearth in the Kraul, and from what lies beneath dwarven feet in Bael Modan. Looters of Taurajo are currently being tried in the rebuilt Fort Triumph, and General Hawthorne has posthumously received recognition in the form of a statue for allowing the escape of civilians. The Ruins of Taurajo are no longer burning (it has been years, Blizzard) and are no longer being looted. The spirits within are uneasy. It would involve finding looted personal possessions, etc… Vendetta Point, similar to Desolation Hold, was lost in the Fourth War and razed. The land was returned to the Horde and a small Horde village and checkpoint stands there in its stead. Forward Command is instead a Cenarion Circle quest hub researching the Azerite within the Wailing Caverns, its effects on the wildlife, and to help in the protection of Camp Una’fe. A sect of the Explorer’s League, and an independent group of kaldorei historians, are investigating the elvish ruins within The Overgrowth.
Hunter’s Hill, taken by the Alliance during the Fourth War, is now largely a Sentinel encampment, alongside a small division of the 7th Legion. They provide a camp for the kaldorei historians investigating the nearby ruins and some druid survivors from Stonetalon. Honor’s Stand was razed and taken by the Horde during the Fourth War, and has been rebuilt accordingly. Northwatch Hold still stares down the barrel of goblin Azerite cannons, though gnomish Azerite cannons are being built just outside the walls of the Hold.
Mulgore has seen many changes over the years. Red Cloud Mesa has seen the removal of Bristleback quilboar, and young tauren now prove themselves through a series of class-oriented quests. With the removal of the quilboar and cleansing provided by young tauren druids and shamans, the mesa is cleared of quilboar magic.
The Bael’dun digsite has been cleared of dwarves and the Venture Co. mine cleared of goblins, but a group of goblins supported by Gallywix have taken over the sites and sparked tensions between Horde-aligned goblins and tauren. Bloodhoof Village has grown considerably due to Highmountain tauren that have decided to move to the village. A nearby tauren graveyard is added, which young tauren must cleanse of spirits. Camp Sungraze has seen some Highmountain move in.
The Great Gate has been reinforced, and a military camp sits on the Mulgore side. The gnolls of Palemane Rock have ventured into darker magics and pose a greater threat to the tauren of Mulgore. The Ravaged Caravan has been removed, replaced instead by an empty tauren fishing hut. A tauren ceremony takes place at Red Rock, at sunrise and sunset of the last Wednesday every other month.
The Windfury harpies of Mulgore have seen a small population boom, ignored and unchecked due to various recent struggles the tauren, Horde, and Azeroth as a whole have faced. Underground tunnels, both filled with water and not, that feed into Stonebull Lake are now available for exploration and are also the location of a new dungeon featuring quilboar, gnolls, and some Grimtotem. A small Grimtotem camp allied to Jevan can now be found in Stonetalon Pass. Thunder Bluff now has settlements below it, largely composed of Highmountain and other Horde races in need of a home. Due to the increased population in Mulgore, additional water wells have been put up, and due to turmoil within the Grim Totem, given additional guards.
Desolace is a bit interesting because it is largely untouched, except for a few snippets here and there. The remaining centaurs are now under the High Khan and worked together alongside the Cenarion Circle to purge the satyr and demons from Desolace, which they did with great success. Contention remains between the two factions afterwards, as the centaur do not necessarily agree with the Circle continuing to greenify (which they have continued to do, again with much success) Desolace. The naga have also largely been purged from the zone, though much of their forces seem to have, quite simply, left.
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I would much rather see an exploration into things that clear up some unknown information that remains vague to us. I have no headcanons really, I try just work off what I know without forcing others to try and go along with something that may not be true but…
I want to know how long it takes to get from one location to another.
I want to see the relationship between the Horde and the Wyverns , a borderline sapient race of flying beasts who Agreed to help the Horde. I want to see characters find a pack or flight of wyvern who are wild but familiar with the Horde and see how they function to give better insight into this very interesting intelligent being.
I wan’t to hear about local dishes. I want to know what animals might be endangered and what is invasive. I want to see what the Shattered Hand is up to. Zekhan could of been tasked to meet them for Horde business and we see better inner workings of how the Shattered Hand functions today and who their leader is and if they’re working with the Illidari to cure the ones left behind on Outland.
What is the Barrens like right now? What is the state of the Overgrowth? What about the Sunscale Raptors? They wear jewelry, have a village and houses and steal from the tauren, how have they developed? Are they more advanced now? Do they have a culture we don’t know about? Rexxar can communicate with animals through a means of special tactics and tools, connecting to the Wilds but not like a shaman. What could we learn about the Wild life and animals through Rexxar’s eyes?
Are there any notable Zandalari groups who managed to make their home here, since most seem reluctant to move over? Does Durotar have Vulpera settlements now?
What about worship? Religion? What sacred sites could they visit? We could see better connection between the Horde and Goldrinn if Rexxar and Zekhan visit Hyjal to give honor to the hero of the Horde and a personal symbol of strength to Rexxar and the hunt. This also could open up an interaction with the protective Kaldorei who are there now. We could learn about their current relationship with the world, the wilds and Elune. Which can open up conversation about the Moon’s importance to worship to Horde races as well. The surviving Shadowmoon Clan and the AU Shadowmoon, the general practices of Shamanism, the purpose and reverence it might be as a guiding light at night.
I don’t care about goblin mafia people being beat up or someone learning how to read where that makes no sense at all. I want to see an open and empathetic exploration of a world to show us the beauty of a planet that has so much awesome things to explore.
I honestly mean when I say, I want writers to weave together so much unnecessary information to a point where it upsets people who’d rather see mythic+ affix tweaked that focus isn’t being put on that and instead the morning routine of your average quillboar shopkeep.
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In my previous post I went over much of the stuff I headcanon to be happening in southern Kalimdor. I don’t have the ones for northern Kalimdor typed up yet, but I do have notes on various ‘cultures of Kalimdor’ that I’ve tweaked for this post. Some are not entirely headcanons, rather questions or ideas where I would like to see expansion upon something that’s been touched upon. This also isn’t an exhaustive list, but not everything is typed up well enough either.
I’ll preface this by saying that worldbuilding is an incredibly important, and once great, facet of WoW that has been sidelined for some time now. Blizzard implementing lore even just along these lines would go a long way towards righting some wrongs around the content of the game.
I will also say that the ordering of the races is not due to any particular reason. I had typed as the ideas came and I left it that way, so the ordering has nothing to do with any favoritism or bias on my part.
The Cultures of Kalimdor
All Races
Pandaren have some of the most expansive racial history that covers faith, folklore, cuisine, etc… I would like to see this level of depth applied to all other races as well.
- What is their cuisine like? Regular food for everyday people vs. nobles vs. festival food.
- Additional cooking trees! This follows off of the point above-- we have multiple “Ways of…” for Pandaren cooking. I would love to see “Way of the Kaldorei” and “Way of the Darkspear” cooking trees for older expansions. It has the benefit of revitalizing old content for people that want to grab those recipes as well.
- Additional holidays. There are a ton of races in the game, playable and not. There is plenty of opportunity for additional holidays, or even just tweaking existing ones to better fit the different races. I.e. Kaldorei-ize Pilgrim’s Bounty.
- Racial heritage armor. Every race should have a heritage armor tied to a questline that explores their history and culture in-depth.
- ‘Culture quests’. I’ve spoken about this before in a different thread, but adding new questlines for all the races that are similar, or even more expansive, than heritage armor quests and their exploration of the races would add so much content to this game without the need to worry about balancing. Through these they could implement cosmetics, pets, mounts, toys, customization, etc…
Tauren
A highly empathetic race with strong ties to An’she and the Earthmother, we have seen little of the richness of their culture for some time now. We know of their last rites, and they are, in fact, one of the few playable races of which we are provided canon surrounding their last rites. However, we also know that the different tribes have different spins on the same traditions. Bloodhoof and Eagleton use different tinders for their funeral rites, for example.
On that note:
- I can only imagine that tauren have various ceremonies surrounding spirits, and how they soothe them. Do they use different herbs depending on the type of spirit? If the spirit is angered, saddened? Neutral?
- I would like to see a tauren ceremony on the calendar for Horde, and a kaldorei ceremony for Alliance. This would be akin to the Wanderer’s Festival. The tauren ceremony could be a reflection upon the tauren as a whole- their history and the life of their race as it looks in front of them. Tauren tend to, canonically speaking, take a look at things in a way that focuses on renewal rather than what could have been. I would love to see this in action more, especially considering the world-ending bleakness that has been the overarching story of WoW for some time now.
- What are their marriage ceremonies like? Child care? We’ve seen this lightly touched upon, but there’s room for so much more.
Kaldorei
A race once deemed matriarchal partially due to necessity, the core of kaldorei culture has been altered both minor and majorly over the lifetime of the MMO. I would like to see how young and old kaldorei are clashing over these shifts, as it is not lost on me that elder kaldorei are likely unhappy with female druids and male sentinels, even if they are necessary or right (depends on your view, I suppose.)
- What are marriage ceremonies like now versus the past? The same goes for child care. Are kaldorei having more children now than in years past? What is aging like?
- Highborne still exist and many still remember when they were nobles. Is there a divide amongst them involving a group that wishes to return to that status vs. those that are alright with the way the social hierarchy is now?
- What is sentinel training like?
- Additional expansion upon the lore behind facial tattoos (and thus increasing the ones available) would also be fantastic.
- A proper headcanon now: I believe that there is a week-long “Mother’s Day” ceremony celebrated by the kaldorei, due to the historical influence of women in their society. Mothers are/were historically rare as they did not see much need to have children, so I believe it was a status symbol for better or for worse. Some kaldorei dislike those that became mothers, as they could not contribute to greater kaldorei society as a whole. Others found it noble that they would sacrifice much to have a child/children. This involves gift-giving, prayer to Elune, bouquets with a heavy emphasis on flower language, etc…
- Another proper headcanon: I believe that the ceremony to obtain facial markings was a long and arduous process whose steps directly related to the type of markings you could obtain. There would be general examinations involving physical and mental tests that would flush out the elf’s affinity. Moving forward the examinations would be centered around the capabilities of the, for example, animal that the elf displayed an affinity for. Those with an affinity for the cat, to obtain the claw tattoos, would undergo hunting and stealth-focused examinations, for example.
Goblins
Often the butt of jokes or… caricature to put it mildly, but that is not all they have to be.
- I believe that, much like gnomes, goblin surnames can be inherited or they can change to whatever invention is their greatest. It is also not unusual for goblins to decide on multiple, and thus have absurdly long hyphenated names.
- Honor above gold. While the idea that goblins prefer gold over just about anything else, including proper relationships or ethics, it is not always that way and it should not always be that way. For example, there’s Renzik. He is SI:7’s second-in-command and… a goblin! If he cared about gold as much as goblins were exaggerated to care about gold, he would have flipped for coin years ago. I believe that there is a strong sense of honor among goblins that cannot be bought— work with them, do good by them, and you will earn a friend greater than any other.
- Goblins love money, we get it. But consider they don’t all dump their ethics for it. Goblin tailors are as good as, or even in some cases superior to, elvish tailors. They work hard to get there and they didn’t bribe, sweatshop, or destroy priceless caterpillars to get there-- they just put their all into it and maybe invented a really sweet dyeing process.
- An annual trade show. Goblins and gnomes have one of the most historically famous and intense rivalries. I like to think that they jointly host a cross-faction trade show in which they try to one-up each other (and learn from each other, because creativity often needs a spark from someone else.)
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Dinosaurs make everything cool, and superpowered rock dinosaurs like in Hearthstone’s journey to Ungoro would be just the best. Another reason HS’s writers and WoW’s writers should swap places.
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Desolace has its name because it is very desolate, which sounds like Desolace.
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The Azuremyst Isles are rebuilt and it’s honestly a very nice place to visit. Yet because of its remoteness from the rest of the Alliance and everyone forgetting what the heck a Draenei is, there’s seldom visitors.
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The Tauren are named Tauren because it’s similar to Taurus, which is a word for bull.
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Darkshore is so named because of the ancient Darnassian phrase Daraca Shoranal, which roughly translates to “A place to contemplate the waves”. The fact that it is dark and a shore, and the similarity between the corrupted ancient Darnassian and the common words for Dark and Shore, is purely coincidental
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Shrines or Totems representing An’she and Mu’sha spread throughout the continent. A damn bridge connecting the southern and northern barrens. some war scars on the landscape mainly in Ashenvale, Darkshore and the Barrens and maybe Stonetalon as well.
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You guys are really making me want an Azerite-empowered Qiraji expansion. Not only would they be a grounded, terrestrial (but still totally credible) threat and a great base from which to build compelling new villains (both bugs and cultists), you could even bring the Old Gods back without stretching too much (or leave them dead and say that as with the Scourge, it’s uncontrolled Qiraji that are more dangerous). It could be the BFA that could have been.
As for my head canon, I imagine that after their third near-eradication the Night Elves are having an existential crisis of epic proportions, with traditions increasingly going out the window (to the chagrin of many elders) and some willing to go full Illidan in their pursuit of ways to preserve their people and culture. Since expanding their world considerably after Warcraft 3, they see themselves not only as the eternal guardians of the earth but also of history (theirs and Azeroth’s), a history that threatens to be lost forever.
I’d also like to imagine that the Tauren have finally had it with the Horde, but if it gets to that point you know Blizzard will just contrive another Taurajo.
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