What’s the race that had the first druid? I know it’s been said that Malfurion was like the first druid under Cenarius… but that also came from way back in lore. While I don’t know if it was them the Yaungol used to be peaceful under Cenarius and were pushed by trolls into later being enslaved by Mogu and losing their culture and bond with Cenarius. But there is a druid tauren named Xarantaur who has existed since presundering.
Then there are trolls, the oldest mortal race on Azeroth who have been worshipping the Loa since fivever. They study under the loa and even take on their blessings or even being able to take on their loa’s form.
Now we have the Harronir who are the bridge supposedly between troll and elf, I don’t know if it was hard confirmed yet. But they can be druids and existed before elves, and elves didn’t have druids right away.
That is according to the Warcraft lore. I don’t know that any other gods actually taught the power of being a druid and it’s entirely possible that it was simply tribal knowledge passed down from Malfurion himself. It’s important to remember that in his original form he was more of a dryad which existed long before the time trolls probably even had any real skills and definitely well before the time that night elves mutated from those trolls. So it’s entirely possible he may have taught the trolls first and then the night elves second but he was definitely the original. Otherwise during BFA or Shadowlands, we would’ve been handed other information expressing if there was a LoA who was responsible.
I feel though this order of logic discards Zandalari being the first mortal empire that was built from loa guidance and moving some of the responsibilities to Malfurion who was yet to exist and was in a separation the Loa told to keep away from.
Trolls couldnt be true druids til the i want to say tiger? loa tricked the others into allowing multi-loa worship around cata. Before that they were all single loa priests.
I can only tell you what’s written in the lore. As someone who has mained a druid since cataclysm, it’s probably the one class that actually truly means something to me. I know Malfurion is more than 15,000 years old, and the troll empire is just over 16,000 years. But we don’t know when their gods actually started interacting with them or when druidism was introduced to their race.
Since it took the god Cenarius to introduce the concept of the druid and enable them to shape shift, we would have to know, roughly when the priests stop being priests and started being gods.
Multiple forms of shapeshifting and a connection to the dream.
Outside of that any troll priest would count as a druid since they can all do that incarnating thing where they temporarily shapeshift into them.
As of dragonflight it was the pre-tauren/yaungol who were first taught by cenarius and learned to commune with the dream but then forgot after cenarius left over the years, then the nightelves.
Its possible the kultirans were next because of their relations with the thorn speakers.
Apparently, both types of trolls, dark spear, and Zandalari we’re taught by Gonk, the LoA. But every reference seems to point to the time just before the cataclysm. However, there’s not a defined moment that explains exactly when they learned it, but I found this part interesting:
In both cases, loa have been worshipped by trolls for a very long time, but the specific form of worship known as druidism was introduced only recently.
In a game where things go back tens of thousands of years, there’s no real definition for the word recently, but even if we were to assume it was in the last 10,000 years that would still make Malfurion the original showing that it was actually night elves who were the first to get this power.
Lore has being clear and stated multiple times that Malfurion and night elves were the first druids.
Other races learned nature magic or were shapeshifters but that didn’t make them druids just like knowing first aids doesn’t make people a doctor.
I have a variety of sources that I keep linked up. WoWWiki, WoWPedia, Reddit Druid section, etc. it’s probably the only class I actually do any homework on. If you look up Gonk, you will see similar information from multiple sources.
Catacysm pre-patch with the echo island invasion is where the troll druid lore comes from, it was gonk not kimbal (the tiger i was thinking of) who taught them how to connect to multiple loa and unlock shapeshifting. On his side he convinced a bunch of loa to allow multi-worship in exchange for being saved from zalazane.
Justicars and paladins aren’t the same thing, but they fall under the same umbrella. Think of it like the difference between a New York detective and an FBI agent. Completely different titles and agencies, but still serve the same purpose. Investigating crimes. The same thing would be said for these two groups. we do know that one group is a lot older than the other and therefore would have come first.
