The Bloodfang Are the Worgen Culture Blizzard Never Developed

Lore Story Forum
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One of my biggest disappointments with worgen lore is that Blizzard introduced several different ways Gilneans might relate to the curse, then mostly reduced the race to Genn and respectable Gilnean nobility.

The Bloodfang Pack represented something much more distinct. They were intelligent, organized worgen who leaned fully into pack life, territoriality, hunting, and the predatory advantages of the curse. They were not simply mindless ferals, nor were they ordinary Gilneans who only transformed during combat.

I think they could have developed into a legitimate worgen subculture alongside the Greymane loyalists and Crowley’s followers:

  • Greymane loyalists identify primarily as Gilneans who happen to be cursed.

  • Crowley’s people embrace both their human and worgen identities.

  • The Bloodfang identify primarily as worgen, while still viewing Gilneas as their homeland.

That would not require portraying Ivar or the Bloodfang as morally perfect. Ivar is ruthless, territorial, and willing to use harsh methods. He works better as an anti-hero or unpredictable ally than as a conventional heroic leader. But that is exactly why he offers something the race currently lacks.

The Bloodfang could have represented the rural survivors, hunters, soldiers, and common people who remained behind when the crown could no longer protect them. Their authority would come from survival, territory, and loyalty to the pack rather than royal title.

Visually, they could retain remnants of Gilnean identity through torn coats, old insignia, rifles, dark leather, axes, and weathered metal, while developing a rougher culture around the Blackwald and southern Silverpine. Not generic tribal wolf-men, but Gilneans whose civilization was permanently transformed by exile and predation.

I do not think every worgen should become like the Bloodfang. The point is that they could exist as one valid answer to what being worgen means. Genn, Crowley, and Ivar would then represent three competing but recognizable parts of modern Gilneas rather than one version being treated as the default.

Blizzard already created the foundation for this in Silverpine. They simply never followed through with it.

The Bloodfang should not be “the bad worgen.” They should be the worgen who stopped treating the beast as something separate from themselves.

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I like this but would make a little change.

Remove the Crowley Pack and give their discription to the Greymane. Turn the citizens of Hilsbrad who became Worgen into the Cursed. I feel it being the player character having the choice between the 2 cultures work better, plus Gilneas has the Old-Ways as an optional faith not just the light. This would blend better compared to the Lordaeron Hilsbrad Folk.

But yes the Bloodfang being Worgen who wish to live as Goldrinn would, attracting others as well.

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I would have loved the retaking of Gilneas if the Bloodfang pack as the primary forces that hunted the Scarlet Crusade through the city, but instead of killing them, the primary task for Ivar is just a nibble… a bite and let the blessing do the rest, let them run! Let them flee! Let them become future soldiers of Gilneas be they holy priest or paladin, the “blessing” shall work through them all.

That’s how the worgen curse should be spread and used by Ivar Bloodfang. Sharing the gift of the hunt!

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Edgy Worgen died for the perfect Alliance meme.

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I can see the Hillsbrad converts developing into their own distinct worgen culture, though I’d probably add them as another branch rather than remove Crowley’s.

Crowley still feels like an important middle ground between the Greymane loyalists’ stronger attachment to old Gilnean institutions and the Bloodfang’s more pack-centered identity.

The Hillsbrad worgen could then represent people whose connection to the curse is less rooted in Gilnean nationality and more in shared transformation, survival, or even Goldrinn.

I like the idea of the Bloodfang treating the curse more positively and using it in ways other Gilneans would find unsettling, but I’d draw the line at routinely forcing it on defeated enemies.

That risks turning them from a harsh anti-heroic culture into a plague-style conversion faction, and it also raises the question of why newly bitten Scarlets would suddenly become loyal soldiers of Gilneas. Ivar should be ruthless and willing to cross lines others would not, but I think the distinction between offering strength and imposing it matters.

I also wasn’t especially fond of the Scarlets being used as the main enemy for Gilneas’s reclamation, though that is probably a separate discussion. Even within that setup, I’d rather see the Bloodfang distinguish themselves through tracking, ambushes, and pack tactics than mass forced infection.

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My worgen treats it like a blessing instead of a curse. And it’s honestly a lot of fun :dracthyr_nod:

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If you remember the Hillsbrad Worgen, a very similar gift was given either die and be raised as a Forsaken or transform and retain your humanity and be resistant to undeath, with strength, speed and fury. The Bloodfang would have been excellent forces to be deployed on the Scarlet Crusade. Similar fate as the living people of Hillsbrad and Southshore.

I get your point, of using pack hunting tactics, but that’s not that different. Instead of ripping these humans apart contain yourself and merely share the gift. “Let their terror be the satisfaction of their own destruction not by a forsaken plague, but our fangs and claws, but their own hatred inverted.” Imagine Ivar Bloodfang saying that to his pack before the hunt begins.

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The writing team genuinely hates everything about worgen and Gilneas that isn’t the Victorian England aesthetic. Genuinely the one case of racial writing I can think of that feels targeted and spiteful, as opposed to incompetent as is the case for the orcs, forsaken, belves and nelves.

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I remember the Hillsbrad situation, but I think the distinction is that those people were facing death and resurrection and accepted the curse as a way to remain themselves. Defeated Scarlets being forcibly infected as punishment would be a very different use of it.

The line you wrote does sound like something an extremist Bloodfang splinter might say, though. “Their own hatred inverted” is a strong concept, but to me it crosses Ivar from ruthless anti-hero into someone using the curse as poetic execution. I’d rather the Bloodfang offer the curse to people who choose survival through it, while reserving claws and steel for enemies who refuse.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying the writers actively hate those parts, but the result definitely feels selective.

I actually like the Victorian Gilneas aesthetic a lot. My issue is that Blizzard tends to stop at the coats, accents, and architecture instead of leaning into the horror and genuinely Gothic parts of it (repression, decaying nobility, folk superstition, body horror, class tension, and the fear of the beast beneath civilization).

They seem interested in preserving Gilneas as an idealized example of a Victorian human kingdom with a bit of werewolf dressing, but much less interested in what becoming worgen should have done to its culture. That’s why the Bloodfang, pack structures, the curse as an identity, and internal disagreements over what worgen should become are barely developed.

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But isn’t poetic justice very Gilnean? It also plays into the anti-hero/anti-villain tropes. He’s merely gifting them with a new perspective. Forcing them to exist still as human and not undead, but as worgen. The choice after this “gift” is on them. I think that could easily lead for these Scarlet forces to return to Gilneas as seekers of a cure and to save their mind from the gifts, and mayhaps provide the Alliance with Worgen Paladins.

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I think that, as a worldbuilding element, it’d be fun to have the Worgen Curse be something that populations around worgen territory are worried about. It’s such a fun trope, has so many fun stories that can spring from it, that I want it to stick around.

That would suggest there are some worgen who’d bite people and leave them to turn. I wouldn’t want this to be an intentional policy (see: villain batting), but I do think it could be an occasional side effect of worgen combat that Ivar doesn’t advocate for but doesn’t go to serious effort to stamp out entirely - a sort of “A bitten Scarlet has been found roaming the woods? Oh, so he survived the mauling - Impressive. Let’s see if he’s strong enough to handle the turn.” / “A few [enemies] got infected? Yeah, well, that’s Thomas for you. The lad’s pretty much fully feral. Fine, fine, I’ll have words.”

In addition, I think Ivar’s faction being a looser coalition of worgen-positive individuals who are varying levels of lax about forbidding/preventing all infections would allow for minor worgen antagonist characters to show up now and then - ones who could fill a similar bogeyman role as the Forsaken do, without dragging down Ivar himself. The occasional worgen who does intentionally bite enemies to terrorize them is quite thematic, and I’d like to see them every now and then. The sort of character who’d go “Yes, I left those Scarlets alive. I wanted to see those self-righteous worms squirm, let them sit with the knowledge of what they would become. Can you believe they executed most of their own already, even before any of them turned? I’ll clean them up, don’t worry - but first I want to see which of them has the conviction to stay true to their words, and which are cowards who’ll abandon all their professed beliefs to save their own hides.”

There’s also other potential options for keeping the curse around without focusing on the bite - I remember some old folklore held that drinking water out of a wolf’s footprints was one way to become a werewolf, and similar ‘passive’ methods like that could be used very flavorfully for a cursed forest theme without having werewolves bite people. But the werewolf bite is such a good story element that I’d like to keep it in some form.

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I think the idea of accidental infections, lax enforcement, and a few extremist worgen within the Bloodfang gets closer to the balance I’d want. I do think the curse should remain something neighboring populations genuinely fear, and that occasional infections through bites, cursed terrain, or older folklore methods could create good stories.

My hesitation is mainly with making deliberate forced infection an established Bloodfang policy. I’d rather they be a loose coalition containing seasoned hunters, reckless ferals, and a few outright extremists. Ivar might tolerate these incidents more than Genn or Crowley would, or react coldly to someone surviving the turn, but that is different from routinely ordering people infected as poetic punishment.

That doesn’t mean I want the Bloodfang softened. Their anti-heroism could come through terror tactics, refusing royal orders, executing enemy commanders rather than taking prisoners, pursuing threats across borders, using forbidden Harvest Witch rites, or turning forests and abandoned villages into hostile hunting grounds. They should protect Gilneas through methods that make its more respectable leaders uncomfortable.

This would also leave room for minor worgen antagonists who intentionally spread the curse or use it to terrorize enemies, without making that the doctrine of Ivar or the entire Bloodfang faction. I think they work best as a morally varied coalition: dangerous enough that outsiders have reason to fear them, but not so uniformly monstrous that their only possible role is villainy

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I can see a Bloodfang led Wolfcult where those humans who wish to empower themselves and become long lived, have stamina, strength and speed that would trump any human alive be quite the bonus as well as simply changing back when you’re done with the fight is a good thing with varying desires to remain in worgen form.

I see two futures for Gilneas one where the curse eventually dissipates as those Worgen have kids and don’t share the gift of their blood or bite to their progeny die out. Then the curse runs its course and people return to being human.

Second, would be an active though only tolerated Wolfcult and openly regulated and watched. One where people can choose to become Worgen, but are discouraged of passing the gift to the unworthy or to those who don’t wish it. Though… accidents do happen! :wolf:

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Hah, there are sadly a few different threads of the Worgen culture that were never developed. At the start of Cataclysm there was a whole potential for them to be the “Forsaken” of the Alliance. In that, they are a cursed nation where the outside view them as monsters. But they use this curse as a strength, leaning into their beastial nature and ferocity. Matching the strength of the Orcs while willing to get down and dirty with the Forsaken and play on their level.

There are glimpses of this in the Silverpine questline, (Which is sadly Horde only) with a few more Worgen characters/questlines scattered around Cataclysm zones. However after the expansion’s initial launch, any real drive to develop the race sort of vanished.

The Worgen as a whole, ironically, did become like the Forsaken - in that their whole identity and existence revolved around their Leader. The only time they got developed was when their Leader was on screen or present. Sylvanas was the Forsaken just as Genn was Gilneas.

After the initial questing, you had three distinct paths for the Gilneas people:

  • The Uncursed refugees of Gilneas.
  • The cursed but more ‘human’ Worgen lead by Darius Crowley
  • The cursed and ‘beastly’ Bloodfang lead by Ivar.

Although, now that I think of it. I do not believe that Ivar is ever introduced to a Worgen player while they are leveling, they are almost a Horde Exclusive character until you do the silverpine dungeon.

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I completely agree. The Bloodfang should’ve been a third path for the Worgen instead of just “the bad Worgen.”

That’s one of Blizzard’s biggest problems lately. They introduce interesting ideas, then never build on them. The Worgen curse stopped feeling like a curse years ago. There’s barely any struggle, barely any loss of control, and almost no different philosophies about what being a Worgen actually means.

Genn, Crowley and Ivar could’ve represented three very different views of Gilneas instead of everyone slowly ending up in the same place. Imagine Worgen who embrace the curse as a gift, others who see it as a burden, and others somewhere in between. That’s far more interesting than everyone agreeing after a few quests.

Gilneas has so much unused potential, yet after Cataclysm Blizzard barely touched it. The reclaiming of Gilneas was over in minutes, and then… nothing

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The current writers hate worgen (one of the biggest writing devs thinks they should be a human civ) but the blood elf writing has also been targeted and spiteful in favor of the alliance high elves every turn of the way. One of the devs even wrote a blood elf citizen complaining about “slights” to blood elves as a blood elf character who comes across as cartoonishly buffoonish coming up in the next patch, which is a deliberate attack on the audience.

It very much feels like warcraft 2 fanboys/fangirls have co-opted the narrative and are trying to regress everything in the story to wc2.

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They already did.

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Blizzard barely gives a sh1t about most races, worgens specially

They are in so much crap that their leader isnt even a worgen, its just lame

Wow seriouslly need proper worldbuilding, feels like a broken record, but every time someone open a discussion about a problem, the problem is always the same and the obvious fix is always the same, and it baffles me blizzard cant see it

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Same!

Howls in the moonlight

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I feel this way too and would like this to change haha.

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