I always figured it was tinted Ivory or perhaps Onyx Titanforged that turned into brown or black, which I always considered pretty cool. I didn’t find that lazy, I found that clever. The Titanforged didn’t see race, they just saw their brethren Titanforged and knew the enemy they faced was the old ones and their minions. Bad Onimous Octipi Mercurial Eager Ravaging Slimies (Let’s call them ‘Boomers’ for short).
The Titanforged races banded together to defeat the boomers and found unity in that.
— There’s a lot of other human lore I find lazy, but the origins of their race isn’t one of them.
That was great, and shouldn’t be changed. In fact, there are some awesome depictions of said time in the Chronicles book that I was tempted to print and frame. Not kidding.
But one thing doesn’t need to affect the other.
Dwarves and Orcs have the same background, and yet, once they grew past that phase, they still enjoyed having a richer approach regarding their distinct collectives, and how each clan developed its own culture and physique.
The issue here isn’t the origin story, is the handling of features that appeared down the line.
Feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, but just as it happens with other races in WoW, I think that distinct features work better when they go along the cultural differences.
And much like it happens with other races of the game, and with the majority of other settings, I think that the handling of humans should follow said “rule”.
And I think it’s very sad, that the biggest argument against such is the fact that people feel like they are cohabitating on a regular basis with racists that would misuse this.
Personally I’d like to have seen diversity in terms of human cultures and architecture. But after learning about all these issues, I don’t trust the writers to do those themes justice without utilizing some sort of cliché and borderline racist gimmick. Just stick to the entire Titan origin story and focus more on building and developing a diverse range of characters that can introduce us to all sorts of human-centric organizations to do Human world building instead.
The Pandaren approach is an eyeroll inducing string of cliches.
Most of Lorewalker Chos lines, seem straight out of fortune cookies of some cheap road restaurant.
Am I missing something, or don’t the orcs still share common cultural motifs as a race and the only difference between clans are basically one-note character traits? It’d be like if every human kingdom looked like Stormwind, but the only difference is that one would be the paladin kingdom, another would be the farmer kingdom, another still the rogue kingdom, etc. Even Gilneas and Kul’tiras are going further than they probably “ought” to be by iterating on the level of Fantasy English you get out of them.
To me, humans just belong to to that cultural sphere. Going outside of that to diversify them culturally with places outside that typical western euro fantasy would be a waste when you could have… used a monster race to depict them instead, which fits Blizzard’s established pattern of how they’re used. Plus, as Baal points out, it’d instantly otherize IRL human ethnicities by having a group that doesn’t overlap with Stormwind’s.
Tbh the Orc clan choice did kinda feel like a job fair.
ahem Do you like to poke things with the pointy end??? Come join the Shattered Hand Clan! We don’t have as good of an insurance coverage compared to those wood cutters over there, but we do have job security!
I wouldn’t mistake the savage industrialism of the Blackrock, with the shamanic approach of the Frostwolf, or the dark mysticism of the Bleeding Hollow.
And that’s excluding the natural adaptation some of them have, as well as things like their attires (WoD gave us distinct transmogd for each).
The heritage questline for orcs, tried hard to show these differences.
So while I agree that the underlying mindset has a lot of similarities there are also some differences.
Much like the ones we find between Kul Tiras and Gilneas for example.
The Burning Blade’s “way of the sword” being completely subsumed by “um I use warlock magic but I know people hate me for that” is kinda darkly funny to think about. I imagine a couple of orcs awkwardly shuffling beside Lantresor and desperately trying to find something in common to talk about because “he’s a REAL Burning Blade and I just use the name and oh no what do I even say to him”.
Also funny to think of Lantresor barking drill instructions at a gaggle of warlocks on how to properly swing their swords instead of just using them as magic foci.
Perfect opportunity to bring back a Warlock demonology tank melee spec where they summon a demonic sword that does all the work for them while they go like “umm so what do I do?”
The humans of Lordaeron (Though most are undead now)
The humans of Stratholme (Most are dead, but there’s a few survivors who weren’t there during the purge).
The humans of Dalaran.
Each with their own respective culture and distinct values
Yeah, you’re not entirely wrong there, sadly.
Honestly, Chronicles was amazing. I loathed how Shadowlands retconned it into being just ‘The Perspective of the Titans’ and inserted all this ‘The First Ones’ nonsense. Especially considering how lame & dull ‘ThE FiRsT oNeS’ are in comparison.
If necessary, to the point of demanding the creation of additional playable races like it happened with Gilneas and Kul Tiras.
And also, I would not settle with Stormwind being “the rest” of human kingdoms.
Have Danath lead a Stromgarde faction.
Introduce some long lost heir to the Perenolde family that puts the Alliance at odds with Ravenholdt.
Maybe even push Dalaran out of neutrality once and for all.
And of course, push the Wrynns out of the Stormwind picture for enough time that the kingdom manages to create a culture of its own instead of being some generic and lousy arthurian fantasy.
I think that in terms of class fantasy, both factions would fare far better if they had their own organisations.
This trend towards homogenisation that started with the Class Halls in Legion, in my opinion, ends up harming the uniqueness of each race.
That’s why I think that having Dalaran abandon neutrality would serve the double purpose of:
Allowing us to explore the cultural traits of a particular human kingdom.
Help the Horde build its own identity regarding the usage of the arcane. A role that Silvermoon could cover splendidly (as seen in MoP and the ToT raid/quests).
Past experiences have taught me that there are several “neutral” organisations in the lore that when push comes to shove, they are anything but.
And Dalaran/Kirin Tor, alongside the Silver Hand and the Cenarion Circle, are examples of it.
And even when acting neutral, all of them tend to swallow whatever unique takes certain races bring. Often having the “leading/founding” members (humans or elves), dictating the values and themes to be followed.
Honestly, I had a hard time conciling Aponi with the rest of Silver Hand champions in Legion.
And lets not talk about the Purge of Dalaran.
No, i’m my honest opinion, factions do better when they go on their own.
Meh. Scholomance should be the Horde’s backup in case Darion or Bolvar start pushing to much in a certain direction.
If the Ebon Blade is to split, I’d give said necromancy school to the Horde. With Sally Whitemane, and the likes, at their head.
I think someone linked me said screenshot from a twitter thread. Guessing now its yours. Good job!
Can’t manage to expand it, and the letters appear minuscule. Do you have a different link to check it out in more detail?
EDIT: Nevermind, downloading it makes the trick. Yes, that’s EXACTLY what i meant.
The Horde has both of the elven mage governments that precipitate the founding of Dalaran, which is a human kingdom. Whatever the justification was to have it be neutral in Wrath, it’s become very lame and contrived, which is a deadly combination.
Making the Kirin Tor alliance aligned again would ruin the plot. In any story where magic is an issue. Because they are the only faction that is used for this kind of stuff. You can’t just exclude the Horde from the story which is why the Horde almost died back in Legion because they didn’t matter beyond the questing zones.
I didn’t find that lazy, I found that clever. 
The Titanforged didn’t see race, they just saw their brethren Titanforged and knew the enemy they faced was the old ones and their minions. Bad Onimous Octipi Mercurial Eager Ravaging Slimies (Let’s call them ‘Boomers’ for short).
