What cultures are the races of azeroth based on

I posted this on Reddit as well but I wanna see as many perspectives as possible

So I find this stuff really fascinating and interesting and I am really curious what all the races of wow are based off of. The only one I can name for sure is that the goblins are based off of the Sicilians. I think dwarves are based off of vikings but im not sure. Im pretty sure dwarves or at least the common fantasy dwarf is based off of the viking mythology of dwarves but elves are in viking mythology to so idk. Anyway tell me what cultures u think the races are based on and why you think that.

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Pandas have echos of ancient Chinese culture, and some forest trolls (from warcraft 3 for example) remind me a lot of Island/Carribean (especially due to their accents!)

Tauren remind me a lot of some Native American tribes and um…I think Night Elves come from heaven :rose: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Night Elves seem to be like the HuldufĂłlk from Icelandic Mythology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HuldufĂłlk

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Thx thats insanely interesting. I had no idea about huldufĂłlk lol. The only time ive ever heard of elves outside of fantasy is norse mythology

Celtic Mythology I think has Elves too.

Human- Generic Medieval Western Europe

Orc- Fantasy Barbarians inspired by the Huns and Mongols.

Pandaria- Ancient China.

Tauren & Highmountain- Various Native American cultures, mostly Midwest but there is actually a lot of other First People’s traditions mixed in as well.

Goblin- Mafia + tinker fantasy.

Worgen- Victorian European.

These are all the ones off the top of my head.

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Sorry i may be dumb but what did u mean by first people. Like who are those lol

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Kul Tiran- Take a fishing dock and fishing town from late Renaissance period in the British Isles and make a culture out of it. Throw in some Wicca and you have Kul Tiras. (Wiccan stereotypes might I add)

Trolls- Caribbean Natives.

Zandalari Trolls- Aztecs. Also what goes beyond Aztec society you can take stereotypical cavemen from American TV and just put a dash of that in there.

Dwarf- Generic Fantasy Dwarf culture in pop culture. Most of this came from writings and depictions from Tolkien which takes Dwarves from old Scandinavian and Germanic tales, as well as old ruins and architecture. Loosely fantasy Dwarf could be described as Norse/Celtic/Germanic therefore.

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First People is another way of referring to indigenous people.

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I think it’s mostly in Canada but they call indigenous people there by the First Nations and sometimes are referred to as First Peoples. Less common than just saying Native Americans.

Native Americans I’ve met told me they don’t mind if you say Native Americans or First Peoples so I sometimes say First People.

The Dwarves could definitely be from Norse mythology, but they’re very Celtic, more British Isles inspired, at least in their culture.

The Tauren are obviously very Indigenous American inspired (apologies if that’s not the right term to use). If there’s a specific group? I don’t really know. Someone else probably has a better idea.

The Worgen are very Gothic, which doesn’t really have a distinct origin but it’s European.

Night Elves are a bit of a mystery since our modern interpretation of them comes primarily through Tolkien-inspired stuff. Some have pointed out similarities in their architecture with certain Japanese buildings, but they’re also pretty rooted in Greek/Roman architecture as well when it comes to Highborne buildings. Blood Elves are pretty much the same deal.

Trolls are extremely interesting though. They’re a combination of a bunch of different real life cultures, all of which are really cool. Their accents are definitely Caribbean, but their architecture is kind of all over the place. But their temples are definitely Mesoamerican.

The Zandalari though, they’re really interesting. To start they borrow a lot from a bunch of different Mesoamerican cultures. The Zandalari live in the mountains, much like how the Inca did. At the same time though, they don’t actually use their architecture (at least I think). The architecture resembles Mayan or Aztec more than anything. It’s hard to figure out which one though, since the seal within Dazar’alor gives me Mayan Calendar vibes. Still awesome though!

As for Orcs, I’d say, and before you disagree hear me out: Vikings stereotypes. To start, one of the most iconic outfits for Orcs is the typical raider look. Additionally, they wear the stereotypical horned helmets all over the place and loot and pillage Human dwellings across Azeroth which have a Medieval England inspiration to them.

Whether or not Vikings chose to slap spikes on every single thing though? I got nothing. That’s just WoW being WoW and doing it’s thing.

Draenei - Protoss. I think the devs even said it themselves that they wanted to try and get Starcraft elements in WoW so they created Draenei.

Gnomes/Vulpera - Obviously demons. Look into their eyes. Don’t you see? You can’t trust those guys.

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The elves in WoW do not seem like the elves from the Edda they are just about as Tolkien as you can get

Well I do know a few blood elf things. Like how a good chunk of their aesthetic is inspired by Art Nouveau. So there’s some slight ottoman empire and east asia in there. We also have hookahs. Our ships resemble arabic style ships. I know somewhere by the sunwell is based off something near Mecca. Memory is fuzzy on that one.

I always got the impression that the Blood Elf ships were more Japanese inspired

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/55/e5/2555e504d318334ebb2805a48707877e.jpg

https://i.gyazo.com/23a01ed94a026178363607e6c3415406.jpg

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I looked it up. They resemble ships called dhow and baghlah

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The only part of the boat that resembles a japanese ship is the sails really but there are sails like that sometimes in a similar fashion in Arabic and Mediterranean ships.

The floral pattern on the trim of the boat as well as overall style really does look like Baghlah and Dhow actually. Many European ships would have designs like this on the boats.

I actually think of Blood Elf culture as a fantasy version of french in a lot of ways.

Yeah that’s what I was getting at. The sail is what really jumps out at me. The rest of the ship I’ve got no clue.

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Looking up stuff about sindorei to brush up on my memory it’s like we’re a weird hodge podge of art noveau and the middle east.

Most of the fantasy cultures in WoW are mixed with influences all over the place. It’s kind of neat to look at things.

I would say looking at early concept art of Blood Elves in more detail would give a better idea at what the artists were thinking. High Elves were back in Warcraft 3 so there is plenty to go off of.

Personally I saw a mix of France, Japan, Celtic, and Mediterranean. At least that’s just me.

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You actually might be right about that. Egyptian almost in some of the buildings. Like hookahs and flowing fabrics just hanging from the wall. Kind of how Europeans depicted a romantic Arabian/Middle Eastern culture.