The Darkspear one will be interesting, and potentially frustrating, because the tribe’s most significant triumphs, as narrated by Vol’jin in Shadows of the Horde, were rather blithely undermined by the Zandalari Empire’s formidable showing in BfA. They even stole ol’ Bwonsamdi.
Still, I hope they revisit that stuff and play up the Darkspear as a success story, thriving where certain of its contemporary tribes have floundered.
They should learn their lesson from the Worgen heritage quest and highlight why it’s awesome to be a Darkspear, not why it sucks. Show us what we have overcome and accomplished. The heritage quest really should be a point of pride for the player.
But that makes me nervous because I am remembering that Blizzard’s idea of “pride” is very different from mine.
I’m scared about the Troll Heritage armor quest. The Orc one had a lot of good, but the bad left a rotten taste in my mouth and I fear the Troll one would be the same.
As for the Draenei one. I think it’d be funny if you start it the Draenei quest with the Man’ari options then you just get told to piss off and get the armor but no questline.
A surprised to be sure, but a welcome one.
I think the Draenei Heritage questline will have to address the red elephant in the room, but I don’t think this means the armor design will have connections to the man’ari. I want to see the repercussions of Velen’s actions in 10.1.7, I bet the heritage questline will be about the tension and unrest between man’ari and draenei.
I don’t play hordr characters so I have no opinion on the troll heritage one.
Do the Darkspear even still worship Bwonsamdi? I thought they turned away from him in BFA when he was being positioned to be evil.
I don’t have an orc so I haven’t done their heritage quest. What bad was there in it?
I loved the orc heritage quest chain. What issues did you have?
I could see that happen for the Draenei.
They do. It’s seen from the launch of BfA, with Shadow Hunter Ty’jin, on the Banshee’s talking bout how both the Darkspear and Zandalari worship Bwonsamdi to moments during the expansion such as when the Alliance discovered a group of Darkspear worshiping Bwonsamdi during the Alliance war campaign, and Shadows Rising makes it clear that that Bwonsamdi is respected by the Darkspear.
There was a lot of good parts of it but it felt very… safe. All the orcs came off as hyper insecure like they have to qualify every Orc thing they do.
“Raaar we believe in blood and honor! But we’re also good guys don’t worry!”
Seemed to be recurring theme.
I think what really got under my skin was Thrall’s wimpy son with a human voice and the Shattered Hand chick who usurped the previous chieftain BUT DIDNT KILL HIM!
Sorry if I’m a little bit concerned that the Horde’s primary intelligence gatherers have such a colossal risk for a succession crisis!
Then there’s the how she says her agents will stop the Alliance spies from interrupting us. No! Be specific! Are you killing them or not? Because killing trespassers is not a treaty violation and I am personally offended they’d spy on our sacred rituals! Hell let ME kill them!
Also the way they talk about the internment camps so casually, THEY IMPRISONED YOU AS A CHILD FOR CRIMES COMMITTED BEFORE YOU WERE BORN! You have a right to be angry about it!
Also why are half the generic NPCs Warlocks? Like I get Warlocks were invited to the event but I have no idea why they out of all classes are getting more representation. Especially over Shamans. You know, Shamans? The cornerstones of the New Horde’s culture?
Then there’s the random brawling. That’s not how Orcs do it! Orcs like a good scrap but they don’t just randomly attack a person they challenge them. Random drunken fights are what I’d expect from Dwarves not Orcs.
It’s all these things and more that miss the target of Orc race fantasy compounding together that made the questline such a disappointment for me.
I don’t see the issue with Thrall’s son and the new Shattered Hand leader. If she won the duel for leadership fairly there’s no reason to believe there’d be a succession crisis. In fact, duels for leadership aren’t strictly to the death in Orcish society, since during his duel against Cairne, Garrosh specifically asked for it to be to the death in order to try to get him to back out without either losing face.
A bit off topic, I just wanted to say how satisfying it was that Cairne still accepted a duel-to-the-death and then proceeds to beat the ever living 
out of Garrosh; only losing because Magatha poisoned Gorehowl.
The Shattered Hand running properly is 100% vital to the Horde’s security. What happens if someone isn’t willing to concede leadership so gracefully and has a large following of loyalists?
The Shattered Hand would begin eating itself alive and SI:7 would have a field day gathering secret info and taking out priority targets while The Shattered Hand was distracted by itself.
Do you know why the Ottoman Empire saw almost no succession crises in almost 600 years? It’s because the Sultan had to kill all of their sons except their chosen heir. Removing the possibility of a war of succession because there was only ever one legitimate heir. This method works and in the Horde’s case, the safety of hundreds of thousands of lives hinges on it.
You’re assuming the former leader would be able to rally enough support. Losing in a public duel for leadership means you basically have been shown you’re to weak to hold leadership. Why would anyone follow someone like that in orcish society? Again, it’s the reason Garrosh tried to get Cairne to back down by making their duel to the death, because if he refused no one would respect him among the orcs.
The Troll quest will be on Voljin becoming the new loa of kings and the Draenei quest will be about the new future between the Draenei, the Lightforged Draenei, the Man’ari Eredar, the Broken and the Krokul.
(I really hope to see some Man’ari Eredar, Broken and Krokul in these quests)
Has the Shattered Hand even been relevant in the narrative, though? Generic NPCs have appeared here and there over the years, but has there ever been a time when they were actually part of the overarching narrative? At least on the same level as SI:7?
I can’t seem to recall any time they’ve been relevant. Which is something I’ve complained about before. Horde side, it seems the only people we get when it comes to sneaky rogue stuff are Garona and Valeera.
I would love to see some espionage and counter-espionage shenanigans going on between SI:7 and the Shattered Hand. But so far, Blizzard seems to barely even remember the Hand exists.
Of anything, the Darkspear, Blood Elves, Goblins, and Forsaken have given more to the Horde’s intelligence work than the Shattered Hand ever have.
Supposedly, at least according to Warcraft Wiki, the Shattered Hand became a multi-racial organization in Thrall’s New Horde that includes those races… but it’s another case of being told and not shown. Allegedly there are Goblins, Blood Elves, Trolls, and Forsaken Rogues who have been inducted into the “clan”… but again, we never actually been shown this happening.
I would love it if this was the case, but it’s hard to call it truth when we never get to actually see the Hand get to do anything in the narrative.
Closest you have to seeing that in game is that all Horde races rogues get quests from the Shattered Hand during certain level thresholds. But considering how quests are handed out like candy on Halloween by various groups within the factions, I wouldn’t take that seriously.
There’s also a handful of non-Orc NPCs that sprinkled here and there:
So, at least at one point there were a handful of Trolls and a lone Dark Iron operative. Whether they’re still a thing or were quietly swept under the rug… no idea. Maybe one of these days Blizzard will make the Shattered Hand something relevant and a counter to the Alliance’s SI:7, but I’m not very hopefully in that regard.
I like to think that it’s because the Shattered Hand are better at being sneaky, since the SI:7 have been so open and seen.