Shaman for All Races

Lore Story Forum
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After the next patch, 8 out of the 13 classes will be available to all races (except Dracthyr). The ones remaining are Druid, Shaman, Paladin, Demon Hunter, and Evoker. Out of these 5, I think Shaman would be the easiest one, from both a gameplay and lore perspective, to be extended to the other races. So I’m trying to come up with ways to make that work on lore.

General Ideas: Earthen Ring Emissaries travel to every city to teach the people there shamanism. It’s easy, but boring, and would lead to homogenization. Why would they travel to each city? Well, why not? Maybe they think the world needs more shaman. Honestly, nothing was stopping this from happening in Vanilla.

Or, each race that doesn’t have Shamans could just learn from the other races in their faction that do.

Race specific ideas:

Human: The elements in Westfall need someone to calm them down.

Night Elf: Well, in the Firelands Raid, Cenarius seemed familiar with the elements and how they work. Honestly surprised he didn’t teach them Shamanism by now.

Gnome: Using Machines to make contact with the elements.

Worgen: Um, there could have been some ancient Shamanic tradition we don’t know about in Gilneas.

Undead: Some sort of fungal druid, or they could simply learn from the Tauren.

Blood Elf: A questiline where they make peace with the Amani, and their loa teach them. This isn’t mine. This is Baal’s.

Void Elves: They could have Dark Shaman, but I’m not really a fan of Dark Shaman or their practices so idk.

Lightforged draenei: Same as the regular Draenei. The path of Shamanism is another facet of the Light, according to Nobundo.

Mechagnome: Same as the regular gnomes.

Nightborne: Some sort of Arcane Shamanism.

These ideas are rough and probably not great, so feel free to share your own.

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All races shouldn’t be shamans. Not all races deal with the elements of spirits. Some are or were grand empires.

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It’s going to happen sooner or later. Best to nip that “first iteration orc priest” situation in the bud before it crops up later.

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Considering you do not have access to a census of every single sapient being on Azeroth, it is impossible for you to claim that 100% of all Void Elves, Mechangomes, and Lightforged Draenei do not practice Shamanism.

Why didn’t I name the rest? Because they have NPC’s in the Primalists or Twilight’s Hammer.

Even if your statement were true, you seem to be lumping in both descriptive and normative statements.

Yeah, that’s why not a single Night Elf during the War of the Ancients was ever interested in learning Druidism.

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We already know it is going to happen, along with all the races/class combos.

Honestly, the humans/worgens are the easiest. The Stormwind humans basically “just didn’t want to learn”. With the Kul Tirans rejoining the Alliance they can teach both the worgens and humans.

I am kinda hoping that draenei shaman trainer gets a few new lines about it.

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I’m mostly interested to see what their totems would look like. That specific racial flair is what makes Shaman and Druid interesting in terms of new races.

That said, Gnomes and Mechagnomes would likely have very similar totems. Lightforged would probably be interesting to sees as well.

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Well, it’s a change from the usual cries of “Paladins for all!”

(Actually, I think those who want paladins for their favorite races want paladins to stay limited—they just want to add their favorite race to the eligible ones.)

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I’m conflicted on this to be honest.

There are certain races that I do not see thematically or ideologically inclined to go down the Shaman route.

But after having Goblin shaman…I think that the ones remaining aren’t as hard to pull off.

Thankfully, unlike it happened with Warlocks or other “bad guy” classes around, none of the current factions are based around ideologies that directly clash against the shaman concept.

Dark Shamanism involves the subjugation of the Elemental forces. Just because it has “Dark” in the name, it doesn’t mean it involves what we colloquially would call “dark magics”.

Void elves could practice the same sort of shamanism as a “regular” shaman.
Only because they are void infused, it doesn’t mean they require the subjugation of elements.
Their condition is due to an accident, not a deliberate intention to go down a dark route.

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While true, I doubt the Elements would see it that way from a in universe perspective. A void infused being calling on the elements is going have a harder finding a particular element to answer than as opposed to, well anyone else really.

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Point taken.

But my line of reasoning went along the lines of considering them much like the Krokul/Broken.

Nobundo and his people were basically Fel-tainted Draenei (just to simplify it a lot), and yet they could end up becoming shamans because of the vague “deep in your heart, you are a good person” trope and all.

They could pull something similar for Void elves if the situation required it.

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Yeah, but Dark Shamans can use the Void to subjugate the elements. I have Dark shaman as an example, because I imagined that that would be the first thing that would come to mind when someone thought of a Void Elf Shaman.

I personally do want all classes for all races. I made this thread about Shaman because I thought it would be the easiest class to extend to everyone next.

Edit: We really need account wide ignore too. A person here keeps sock puppeting.

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It is not enough to decide to be a shaman: you have to be chosen at birth. Not by your people: by the elements.

And the vast majority of the night elf race was working counter to elemental claims during Pax Nelfana.

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I mean unless of course if the Primalists would open up their teachings or atleast the Twilight’s Hammer for all races to be shamans but other than that there’s some races that should and shouldn’t be atleast what makes interesting lore gameplay that is.

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It is not enough to be taught to be a shaman: the elementals must choose you at birth.

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While true, I think that would lean way to much on a condition that Void elves themselves would rather learn to overcome, instead of fully utilising.

That’s why I think that the Nobundo/Broken angle would fit them far better.

And still we’d have things like these:

Which would present a far more difficult obstacle to circumvent.

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Goblins were chosen at birth to make sweet deals with the elements?

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Probably? Goblins aren’t born like the goblins you know. They become the goblins you know through kajamite.

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I think Gobbo shamans follow a sort of dark shaman route. Sure, they make deals with the elements. But those deals are convulted enough that those deals often heavily favor the goblin in question. So they’re basically tricking said element into helping them via a contract.

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How does that explain the draenei, though? It’s physically impossible for Azeroth’s elements to have picked any of them at birth.

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https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Farseer_Nobundo

Velen urged me to take a leadership role amongst the Broken. But more importantly, he asked me to teach shamanism to all; Broken and draenei alike. I accepted.

I thought goblins just inherited the effects.

Edit: Also, Kaja’mite is what caused the Goblins’ intelligence, not their greed.