Night Elves, Cenarius and Loa

Lore Story Forum
44

No it isn’t. World Trees don’t mean anything to the Wild Gods. Like it or not, politics doesn’t mean anything to them, either.

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45

Do you have lore to back this up though? Loa have been helping trolls since Classic, same thing with Wild Gods in Pandaria with pandaren, who tried their best to help the pandas fight the mogus. And don’t forget, not just n. elves died in that tree, tons of animals and spirits and forest creatures created by Wild Gods also got roasted

Agree they’re not that involved in politics, but don’t think you can rlly call them “souped up animals”. That sounds almost a bit insulting TBH

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46

It has already been mentioned, but I’d like to reiterate the sentiment.

Largely, the Wild Gods were also absent from the front lines in Legion, which was supposed to have been the largest scale invasion of Azeroth by a hostile force to date, barring the Black Empire.

Ursoc was corrupted and made into a raid boss. Aviana I don’t recall participating directly in the conflict at all despite being in game for Legion, Cenaurius was in the same boat as Ursoc, and I don’t recall Melourne or Goldrinn participating in any meaningful way either.

So if the Wild Gods were either corrupted, or otherwise unable to assist during Legion, the GREATEST threat to the wilds of Azeroth, why or how should they participate in a conflict between mortals, particularly when either faction has several races that act for the benefit of the Wild Gods and their realms?

A key difference between the Wild Gods and the Loa is that the Wild Gods do not seem to “bless” their adherents in exchange for worship. The Wild Gods just are and act as patron spirits to the forces of life they represent, regardless of worship. So while the Loa will take the worship, and directly give some boon in return, to get the favor of a Wild God, you would need to embody some aspect they represent in a situation that they could make use of you in. Otherwise, they’re really not in the business of manipulating the mortal races the way Loa are, save for Cenaurius to some degree.

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47

If you read the texts about the artifact weapons in the Druid hall, particurlarly about Ashamane and Avianna, as intelligent as they are they clearly look at the world from an animal’s perspective than as how what we think of as people or the Loa spirits do. They don’t seem to have the same kind of awareness that sapients do and seem to react more out of instinct than intellect. And “souped up animals” does seem to describe how they evolved. Ashamane and the bear twins act more like highly intelligent cat and bears than people in the shape of animals.

48

All these long posts when you can sum it up as “night elves don’t get nice things”.

Hyperbole aside, if kaldorei had all the logical allies they had in WC3, and all the Wild Gods they’ve worked with in the past backing them up, they would be a faction unto themselves and the Horde would never even breach Ashenvale. It would be March of the Ents: Feral Killer Elf Edition. So in order to have them lose, they need to not have all of their lore powers.

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49

What the hell does a flawed creation of the night elf Fandral 15 years ago have to do with some Ancients on an island with zero contact or interest in the night elves for over 10 millennia? They’re Wild Gods. So? Not all Wild Gods are involved with the night elves or Fandral’s campaign to plant World Trees for the Old Gods to corrupt in every location he could. In fact, I don’t think a single one of them besides Cenarius has EVER been that closely involved with them.

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50

The weird part about this is…

8.1 Spoilers below:

Spoilers

The night elf forces are getting all of these things in 8.1 in the Battle for Darkshore. Including Dryads, Ancients, Chimaeras - etc. And it’s implied that they -had- those same forces to begin with, they just weren’t readily available during the War of the Thorns because 50% of their forces were sailing to Silithus to assist at The Wound.

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51

To be fair, it was a corrupted World Tree, and was only blessed by two Dragon aspects, unlike the other World Trees … :smirk: One could argue they did Nature a favour… Especially if the tree was truly killed - which would mean the Green & Red Dragonflights would have the power that was poured in, return to them (Like what happened in Chronicles, the first time the Dragonsoul was destroyed - all their powers returned to full scale) meaning the Greens & the Reds are once more immortal, empowered & eternal. (Lore-Hype Overload)
If the tree isn’t truly dead though, that means technically much of it could regrow, one could argue the fire purged the corruption, and with some nature (Like in Australia) flame actually helps regrow & spread vividly - and the zone could get a whole rework. Either way a win-win. :sunglasses:

52

The “corrupted world tree” thing hasn’t been relevant since Cata, the whole point of the starting zone was that most of the corruption was gone, and the culmination of the zone has you using the power of Elune to wipe out the last bastion of it. It was 100% a genuine, uncorrupted World Tree when the War of Thorns happened.

Keeping it around was also all the more important because it more than likely became a home for displaced Kaldorei who got pushed out of Azshara and Stonetalon.

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53

Well, nonetheless like I said; fire can cause regrowth in nature. Most of the Australian Flora spreads seeds & regrowth with fire - Which we also saw in some zones in the Cataclysm such as the Barrens, and if the tree was overburnt & killed; then we could see the Red & Green Dragonflight return somewhat to their former glory.
Also those powers released, might give Ysera in the Emerald Dream enough power to be reborn; like the Loa / Wild Gods do. :heart_eyes: :pray:

54

If you played druids throughout Legion, you’d know that all those Wild Gods actually WERE involved in fighting against the Legion.
Malorne you help rescue from a pocket realm within the Nightmare - where the poor fella is reliving his battle with Archimonde & having his horns grabbed & neck snapped, over & over and over again. We help defeat the shade of Archimonde in the nightmare, and restore Malorne back to the world who offers a boon to the druids of the grove to fight against the Legion & forces of the Nightmare.
For Goldrinn you assist throughout druid questline as well, where the Legion were assaulting as much Wild Gods as they could. Goldrinn sought vengeance against the Legion for slaying one of his beloved champions (Varian Wrynn) and we go through that whole scenario.
Aviana we assist in the ‘Mount’ unlock questline (Which was a 2-seater Flightform for druids) Where the Legion were attempting corruption and / or slaughter.
We stop them, and she blesses us with her boon.
And like Malfurion had stated - It brought the Black Empire much delight that natures forces were fighting on not one but two fronts. One being the Nightmare & the Black Empire / Old Gods, and the other being the Burning Legion.
With these enhancements & boons, kind of indicates that those who assist (Which obviously enough happens to be druids most the time) the Wild Gods ‘bless’ their adherents, but not for exchange in worship, but for exchange of either servitude or help.
Largely, the Wild Gods were, in fact Not absent from the front lines in Legion.
I mean they also had an occasional world quest of Goldrinn’s revenge on the Broken Shore near the Tomb of Sargeras, lol.

55

personally, I think maybe it’s best for several reasons (balance and all), for wild gods not to directly interfere in the war. But not every single wild god is the same, and Cenarius did attack the orcs in warcraft 3 b/c he sensed “demon blood” or something in them, defiling ashenvale and all that.

And according to latest lore, death (Sylvanas and Forsaken in Darkshore)…isn’t it the cosmic opposite of life (nature magic, druids, wild gods)? So…maybe then could show a buff in-game, like “Blessing of Cenarius”, boosts all night elf’s Stamina by 15% or something?

56

Now they aren’t… ALL of the Dragonflight Aspects permanently gave up their power to defeat Deathwing. No aspects exist to bless any future World Trees.

“We must look at the world… through mortal eyes” -Alexstraza."

57

That was the powers they HAD.
There were parts of their powers they’d poured into other sources - such as World Trees.
When those sources are destroyed, the power in them returns to the source they came from - The Dragonflight.
“Rhonin found a flaw in the ancient artifact and destroyed it. In that moment, the power trapped within the relic escaped, returning to the Dragon Aspects.” - Chronicles Volume 3, ‘The Battle of Grim Batol’ 10 years after the Dark Portal, page 23 in Chapter 1: The Rising Darkness.

58

Politics have nothing to do with this

The destruction of the World Tree does

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59

Because Blizz doesn’t want to kill a bunch of Nelf ancients.

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60

I mean… This, basically :arrow_up:.

Dryads, the Daughters of Cenarius, have been fighting the Horde since at least Cata. And Dryads show up again to fight the Horde on the beaches of Darkshore during the War of Thorns. But Cenarius fight against the people who killed him once, and are now led by a paragon of Undeath, the antithesis of Nature, in a war of extinction against his greatest allies and students, blighting, burning, and corrupting the entire region in their wake? Nah, that’s too much.

Wisps were used extensively during the War of Thorns, both offensively and defensively. And in 8.1, Sylvanas’ toadies are continuing to violate their sacred afterlife. But nah, it’s too much to ask of Aessina, the Mother Wisp, to get involved.

Furbolg tribe driven from their home? Captured and killed? Driven to madness and corruption? Not so much as the twitch of a whisker from Ursoc, or uncle Ursol.

Meanwhile, you can’t throw a rock in Zandalar without hitting a loa, and a Zandalari can’t so much as sneeze without a loa being there to wipe their nose.

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61

Considering that the alliance was killing those furbolgs as much as the Horde in that Warfront…

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62

If we’re considering that, we should also consider that Wild Gods understand culling for the sake of balance. Its a tenet of their life as much as the Kaldorei. There are miles of difference between mercy killing and culling disruptive populations, and defiling nature and deliberately displacing wildlife and natives so that they fall out of balance with one another and/or become corrupted.

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63

I can’t think of a single quest where Night Elves send you to kill Furbolgs in which the Furbolgs aren’t already corrupted, and killing Night Elves, first.

Heck, even other Furbolg tribes send you out to exterminate corrupted tribes, through quests or rep grinds. Sometimes it’s even the remaining sane members of a tribe that tell you to wipe out their kin.

Obviously, Furbolgs are a very fragile and delicate part of the ecosystem. And it was not the Alliance that upset that equilibrium during the War of Thorns.

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