Cenarion Circle Lore?

Where can I find lore related to the Cenarion Circle and how they operate?
I’ve been participating in Cenarion Circle meeting on Zandalar Tribe and came across several players with very different ideas of how the circle operates at a political level.

I think the novel Stormrage has the most current era druid lore that you can find.
Otherwise, just read up on WoWpedia and/or WoWwiki.

Tried to read on wowpedia but no really relevant information regarding their neutrality.

My impression of the Cenarion Circle’s position in relation to the Horde and Alliance, is that the Cenarion Circle concerns itself with the preservation of Azeroth’s nature, and that they do not dabble with faction politics. I think they consider themselves faction neutral.

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I know that, but we had a meeting with tauren and night elves on Zandalar tribe rping the circle, how do they handle politics?

I’ll give you a summary of what happened.

The alliance found a highbourne artifact, powerful and filled with fel energy.
A forsaken group stole the artifact and intends to use it with no regards to horde or alliance allegiance.
Wanting to keep the artifact secret from the horde warlords and away from the alliance the circle decided to retrieve it and safekeep it from both factions.

The problems started with the method of action, diplomacy was not an option, so we ended up suggesting the best course of action was to stage an attack and infiltrate undercity to steal the artifact, the Tauren showed loyalty to the horde saying an attack is out of question and almost every player had a different idea of how the circle operates on a political level.

That left me wondering, do the Tauren and night elves of the circle participate on the war when on either faction? I was saying no, but other claimed yes, I find no sources to back my claim for example.

So how does the circle maintain their neutrality?

I was under the assumption of the following:

  1. Members of the circle won’t directly participate on either faction to maintain neutrality.
  2. The Circle doesn’t have the strength necessary to fight either faction and it is not in their interests either.
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I can’t claim to know this to be official WoW/Blizzard lore, but personally I strongly agree with your number 2.

Number 1 is a bit more complex.

I think it is, to some extent, up to the individual member of the Circle.

I surmise some members might be more loyal to the Circle than to their race’s default faction.

As a natural alternative to this, I also suppose there are some members of the Circle who will put their faction’s priorities before the Circles.

I do imagine, though, that the latter group will hold little sway or power in the Circle.

It seems logical to me that an organization such as the Cenarion Circle would only grant significant authority to those whose views and actions are in line with the Circle’s goals.

I imagine they work a little like the Ebon Blade. When there’s a crisis they work together with both factions, some remain neutral with only the nature and balance as a concern, and some choose to fight for their faction but not as an official member of the circle. That’s just my interpretation of them though after what we see of them in game. It doesn’t seem very likely they would attack any city of either faction though, a stealth mission maybe, if diplomacy was out of the question.

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That’s an enormous no-go in my opinion. The Cenarion Circle has so far only once been any war-like as an organization, at the Legion’s invasion. Otherwise, they’re just doing peaceful druid things, like healing deserts and stuff.

I don’t think they have enough organization (especially not during the time period of Classic in the lore) to actually oppose the Horde and try infiltrating one of their capitals.
If there was a campaign/even for such a thing, I myself (yes, yes, call me elitist, whatever) would consider that lore breaking and opt to ignore such a thing happening.

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You’re not being elitist, lore breaking stuff irks me as-well, I just might not be knowledgeable enough to see it in this scenario, hence this thread, I want to know more about the subject.

Maybe I didn’t explain myself properly, we’re not invading undercity, the elves are only creating a distraction for the Tauren to infiltrate where the orb is being held and retrieve it.
I don’t see how that would be impossible, it’s more of a heist.

I can see that happening if the DM makes sure the infiltrators aren’t compromised and if they are, there are no alarms sounded or evidence of the infiltration left.
Because if the Cenarion Circle did something like that and got caught, it’d get back to the Dark Lady and there’d be a pretty large political sh(-word)storm between Thunder Bluff and Undercity, which would have been represented in game and would change a lot of things.

But even so, to me, it feels uncharacteristic for druids to do something like that. It’d be more in character to actually start a petition and try recovering the artifact that way, instead of going on a heist to steal it.
This is an order of tauren and night elf druids we’re talking about, after all.
It sounds more like what warlocks or rogues would want to do.

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I see your point, but what if the petition fell on deaf hears? I did state diplomacy was attempted but failed. Does the Cenarion Circle just shrug and do nothing?

I’m gonna be honest here, they’d probably send about six tauren druids who’d set up camp near the Undercity at a fairly obvious spot, then wait for an adventurer to pass by and give them a pair of bracers in exchange for retrieving said artifact.

But I assume that wasn’t the answer you were looking for.
So if they’re dead set on the heist, I would still call it far more extreme than what lorewise would happen, but it could be pulled off, for fun RP’s sake. As long as what I previously said is abided by.

As in, it doesn’t stur up enough trouble for it to get back to Sylvanas.

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Thank you for your input, it’s much appreciated.

That actually sounds utterly brilliant to me…

Ask a seemingly capable, stealthy/sneaky adventurer to peacefully (albeit illegally) retrieve the thing -

with no contract or evidence, of course -

and send a stealthy druid along to observe the adventurer discreetly from a distance, so they can be sure the adventurer does no harm in the process.

:+1:

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