We all have them, but what ones will you admit to?
For me, I’ve got a few that relate more to slice-of-life in WoW than anything.
Orcish riding wolves have temperaments and personalities closer to that of Huskies and Malamutes than actual wolves, due to selective breeding and long proximity to the Orcs and their allies. It is not uncommon for Riding Wolves to ‘talk’ to a favourite Orc, and it is expected for a Raider and their mount to share accommodations at all times to maintain the bond between the two, much to the chagrin of other races who are used to mounts staying in a stable or simply outside of a residence.
Stormwind has something of an issue with food supplies given that the bulk of the Human population lives within the sprawling city, and apart from Elwynn Forest, the surrounding territories are suffering greatly. Redridge is hardly fertile territory and has next to no farms of their own and is constantly being harassed by Blackrock Orcs and Gnolls. Duskwood is haunted by the Undead and has recently turned traitor to the Legion, and the only human settlement there is now abandoned. Westfall is over-run with refugees, criminals and is still suffering an unnatural drought, amongst other elemental disasters, and there is a distinct feeling of abandonment amongst the people who remain there, specifically to Stormwind but also to all the member-nations of the Alliance. There is literally barely enough food being produced to feed the people and it is ironically only the staggering losses in the last few wars that have kept Humanity from riots or similar crises due to nation-wide food shortages.
When Gnomeragon became irradiated and much of Humanity ended up in Stormwind and her surrounding provinces, in an effort to support themselves, many Gnomes hired themselves out as tutors to the general public, at very discounted rates, since knowledge was what they knew and many Gnomes lacked the kind of skills required to make it outside of their hyper-advanced underground metropolis. Today, the legacy of this is that most of the Alliance is, for the first time in history, educated, literate and far more accepting of both the ‘natural’ sciences and the arcane arts due to many Human and Dwarven children being taught by Gnomes and having positive interactions with , and positive impressions of, the race as a result.
The Dwarves will never admit to it, but their discovery of alcohol was merely a side-benefit to trying to find ways to purify underground water sources. As a result, outsiders going into a Dwarven community might find themselves shocked to see children drinking alcoholic beverages, but ‘common sense’ and long cultural pressure has convinced Dwarves that drinking ‘untreated’ water is dangerous, and as such there is a large industry amongst the Dwarven peoples related to brewing various strengths and types of alcohol to be suitable for all ages and palates. However, Pandaran Brewmasters introduced tea-plants to the Human kingdoms centuries ago, and while the tea plantations remained a small and lucrative business, the market was mostly aimed towards the nobility and the rich. However, with the introduction of bulk-amounts of tea from Pandaria, and in far more varieties than the old Eastern Kingdom plantations could offer, there has been something of a revolution in regards to the Dwarven issue with purifying water from underground sources and caused no end of consternation from more traditional brewers who remain stubbornly set against ‘outsiders’ interfering in ‘honest Dwarven business’.
The Night Elves consider the supposed ‘link’ between themselves and the Cave Trolls that found themselves around the ancient Well of Eternity to be slander from races jealous of their size, abilities and long life-spans. This has to do with the Royal Family of the Night Elven Empire, which ended with Azshara and her reckless campaign for ever greater power and immortality, who found the concept vulgar and sought to lionize themselves after the brutal destruction and campaign of eradication that saw the end of the Twin Troll Empires and the scattering of the Troll species to the far corners of the original super-continent. It was this campaign of censorship and information control that resulted in the Night Elves becoming warped and xenophobic over time, and also played a large part in why Azshara’s personality was the way it was, and while the Night Elves have dramatically come down from this point in the aftermath of the Sundering, a certain high-handed condescension of the other races remained in some strata of the Night Elven society, and even the most accepting and tolerant of Night Elves finds themselves offended mightily when the prospect of being related to Trolls is brought up.
Kodo are Monotremes. They possess both reptilian and mammalian features, and likely lay eggs but nurse their young from ‘milk patches’ on the bellies of the females.
Blackrock Orcs are uniquely vulnerable to the manipulations of the Black Dragons, given the Black Flight’s connection to the Earth and the Blackrock Orcs being unique amongst the Orc tribes for their connection to the earth and their long generations of dwelling in Gorgorond, the place where so many powerful Elementals of Earth and Fire were slain and came to rest. This is why Blackrock Orcs on Azeroth retain their black and grey colourations, rather than the green of most Orcs, or ‘Daem’har’ as the Mag’har call their corrupted cousins, especially those who dwelled in or around the region suffused with Nefarion’s power and the malignant presence of the corrupted Black and Chromatic Flights. Mag’har from the alternate version of Draenor are strongly aligned with the spirits of Fire and Earth, and tend to have weak connections with Water and Air as a result.
I think I might have posted this in a similiar thread awhile back but it’s still valid to me.
Small groups within the AU Draenei culture, namely the Rangari who are outliers of that society, saw the early hints of the dangers of Yrel’s fanatiscm and quietly removed themselves even more. When it became clear just how badly things were progressing with her Lightbound, and likely more than a few seeing very stark parallells between them and the early days when the Eredar first joined the Legion, they began to act in opposition to them. Mainly gathering and moving any draenei or orcs they could save and start their own resistance. I’d even go so far as to say that maybe they managed as an act of desperation, to get a bit of that group to MU Azeroth where they slipped in to there respective factions.
Mostly that last bit is to explain why my Frostwolf shaman refused to follow Grom as Warchief after trying to wipe out his clan in WoD.
I’ve heard two headcanons explaining how elves aren’t literally everywhere due to overpopulation by having no one dying and more people being born.
Elves have a naturally lower fertility rate, resulting in extremely lower population increases. It’s like in ten thousand years a single elven couple, that is trying, will produce three children tops.
Elves actually did overpopulate. The reason that they aren’t everywhere is because the Scourge culled 95% of their population. This is why the High Elves and Blood Elves have still been able to field armies and participate in our conflicts. They were simply brought down to the population of other races.
Personally I prefer the first option better. No really reason I can think of at the moment besides the fact I prefer a biology reasoning.
Scientifically speaking, large reproductive numbers are a result of a species being common prey. It’s why most humans irl have one kid at a time. We don’t have any real predators, so we don’t need a lot of us. Whereas most things rabbits live near will eat them. Hence why they produce a large number of offspring.
Given that, elves being invulnerable to disease and not dying of old age, on top of not having natural predators, it makes sense that they’d produce very few children.
None of that is relevant to canon in reality, but it’s worth mentioning.
I’m pretty sure I remember an old WoW machinama series on Youtube years ago that touched on exactly that. One character was a night elf druid who was searching for a way to increase kaldorei reproductive numbers now that they were mortal again. If I remember right, he specifically says something like their immortality had biologically left it difficult for the race to have children.
Obviously this was just a fan made series with no official input from Blizzard, but the idea has definitely been around for awhile now.
To be fair, the Light will answer any belief-system so long as you have unyielding faith in that belief.
The crazy hobo who worships the Almighty Tea-Cup could be the strongest Priest in creation, but because of their insanity and their ‘belief’ system functioning the way it does, they might be an entirely passive entity who can only produce healing tea that tastes like raspberries and stale vodka.
That actually reminds me of another Headcannon, but it is 3am and I need to sleep.
My oddest headcanon involves tauren hooves and veneration/caring for ones elders.
Anyone who has seen videos of anyone cleaning and re-shoeing horses hooves or clipping and cleaning cow hooves knows how tedious of a task it can be. I like to imagine that as tauren grow older and their joints begin to stiffen, cleaning their own hooves can become hard for them to do. Many cultures around the world have traditions of cleaning other peoples’ feet out of respect. I’d like to think that younger tauren provide this service for their aging family and neighbors out of respect, love, and kindness.
Number 2 certainly works for Draenei… immortality doesn’t help much when your entire society has to move planets every generation or so, to say nothing of the orcs canonically killing 9 out of 10 individuals.
And it does seem like Draenei have human-like fertility, since there are plenty of Draenei kids around. In my mind the most logical explanation is that, even though they don’t age, most Draenei just don’t live that long. Disease, violence, and accidents probably end most lives before two centuries or so, with only the most powerful or lucky surviving beyond that.
…though I guess that’s a pretty tenuous headcanon since basically every Draenei in lore seems to be from Argus.
Blood Elves magically vanish all their waste from Silvermoon and send it to random places in Azeroth. This is the real reason they are not popular with the other races, aside from the Forsaken who never cared all that much.
Azeroth’s orbit is like a figure 8 and also twice as long as Earth’s. That is why every year in WoW is about 2 years in real time, but also why they have the same seasons we do- it’s just because they have them twice. Maybe the Sundering and all the other crap threw it off. Who knows?
It’s the only way I can justify the weird “every expansion is only a year” deal.
Goblin Headcanon:
• Goblins move their ears a lot, and one little twitch can change the meaning of their words.
• Goblin ears are sensitive to sound and touch. Grabbing a goblin’s ears is considered rude, lewd and liable to get you bitten.
• Kezani(Goblin Dialect of Bilgewater) morphs often as new slang arises. Goblins are the trendsetters of slang.
• Goblins have twins and triplets more often than single births.
• Goblin pregnancies last four months or sixteen weeks.
• Goblins are resistant to poisons and food borne illnesses because most of them have lived in generations of poverty and unregulated run-off/toxic dumping.
During the campaign on draenor and the mag hars recent exodus to azeroth l arge amount of orcs net themselves from another world and its very common to mix up an azeroth orc and a draenor orc
