Hello! Time to pose a question I’ve been thinking about.
Dark Irons have had long history of slavery: It was an essential part of their industry and culture for centuries. Yet as far as I’m aware we’ve had no acknowledgement of it for a quite a while; neither confirming nor debunking it’s abolishment under Moira’s rule, or what the other races of the Alliance have to say on the issue. (With many Dwarves and Humans suffering in the slave pits).
I’m wondering if we do actually have an inkling into the current state of affairs? If Shadowforge has progressed beyond slavery, are other races are still wary of them, or is all forgiven in the name of Peace, Goodwill and so on?
This is unfortunately part of the problem with the Old World not being updated. As far as I am aware there’s no mention of Moira acknowledging the Dark Iron’s use of slaves, or making it illegal - but I would assume that they would have done upon joining the Alliance.
However, I don’t think all Dark Irons follow Moira, there may be many who still revere the Fire Lord who practise the industry.
I’d wager that much like the Goblins, while on the surface Dark Irons claim that they oppose slavery now they’re part of the Alliance, it still goes on behind closed doors. As far as I know Dark Iron lands are hardly tourist hot spots, especially Shadowforge City so I presume that although at the top level there’s change, it’s taking time to get rid of some of the more frowned upon practices of the Dark Iron Clan without them suffering from a loss of production.
Bit weird how a bunch of factions did a slavery or two and then they just got it written out offscreen by exclusion without acknowledging it.
Rehgar Earthfury was a slaver during WoW’s timeline, not even pre-WoW, and he’s like…well respected shaman guy.
Kezan goblins did slavery on trolls (and other goblins).
BElf had some leper gnome slaves.
Kul Tirans are internationally renowned slavers.
The brawlpub may or may not involve slavery.
Excuse you, they are called Involuntary Gladiators, and that one sla- I mean gladiator manager who we help near Ogrimmar express sadness and regret about having an involuntary horde member race in chains, although the individual is a criminal
Slaves? What slaves? Oh, THOSE “slaves”. No no no, that’s a common mistake. Those are just unpaid interns. It’s all about that work experience, ya know? Building their curriculum vitae. All above board, I assur- HEY! WHO SAID YOU COULD TAKE A BREAK! /e cracks whip
(Serious answer. Like Betti said earlier, I like to think the shadier races do still have slaves, but just keep it on the down low when more morally upright allies come visit.)
That was one thing about the Dark Iron rejoining the dwarves and by extension the alliance that bugged me. They just kind of never seriously dealt with all the evil stuff the Dark Irons were up to.
“The Dark Irons have joined the Alliance.”
“But they’re the baddies. There’s two zones, two very big dungeons and an entire raid about them being the bad guys.”
“Nope they fine, they in the alliance. Not bad guys. Don’t know where you got that idea.”
It’s the same with the Zandalari, but I think the Horde has a lot more leeway with buddying it up with baddies. The Dark Iron are kind of an exception in the Alliance roster with their moral leanings and history. I wish they’d do something with that in the future.
I will say that they at least somewhat justified this. We worked with the Zandas before (in vanilla, vs. the Gurubashi), the Darkspears had no specific dislike of them (per Shadows of the Horde) and you could blame their stuff in Cata/MoP on Zul’s misguided faction who we ended up murdering eventually because they ruined his character made him a blood troll guy.
Also, just since it’s relevant to the thread, Zandalari are meant to be anti-slavery. They see it as beneath them to be slavers. Enslaving others is the crutch of a weak society.
…though blizz drop the ball on that at one point, 'cos it’s blizz.
I could spend a lot of time going over Alliance factional crimes over WoW’s history, but I’ll just say that Dark Irons aren’t eally the exception, they’re just allowed to look like bad guys, instead of doing bad things while still looking like good guys.
I do kind of like the idea of the Alliance doing horrible, heinous things, while keeping that stance of being “In the right.”
Aside for the classic “Butcher of Taurajo” example, I can only really think of the few times in MoP where they enslaved Pandaren and the time they opened fire on the Horde survivors swimming to shore, but I’d be interested in learning of other cases of the Alliance being shady. My memory is far too shoddy to remember things.
Only real thing we have is that one short quest where you expose the Dark Iron ambassador as a traitor and twilights hammer cultist
Moria reveals in that quest chain, that some of the dark irons are rogue elements and the race is far from united.
Opfh, a mood, as I like to RP on the “dark” of the iron. Good or not now; MOST irons served or serves, so they all have history directly or indirectly connected to their grim past.
This makes for great lore and RP, sadly … blizzard sort of is “content” to leave them as the “spicy” Bronzebeards.
And let’s not talk if poor Wildhammers … they are not even given the light of day … yet we have 3-5 elf combos … and combos within those combos
But I digress, top topic! Yeah - as they stated when Moira ascended the throne; a “majority” of Irons left - seeing her as a Bronzebeard puppet. Leaving mostly “good” natured Irons, or their kind in the fiery home.
So I reckon, one could assume traditions are hard to change. Yet, reforms within slavery MUST have happened when they joined the alliance.
Sadly we have no inclination whatsoever which is really sad.
Personally, I would think Moira likely has done her best to abolish it to the degree that it’s acceptable or the true use of Slavery within the dark iron nation is mystified.
That being said, we know from Cataclysm that the dwarves in Shadowforge and the Dark iron who work surface-side in Searing Gorge are more tenuous allies based on who pays the top-siders the most.
An example being Mountain Lord Rendan who quotes “The Dark irons in Blackrock have got nothin’ on me. Neither do those boys up at Thorium Point. I’m independent as can be, and that’s the way I like it. Of course, for the right price, I’d listen to either side…”
And given the fact that he over-looks the largest concentration of slave workers, it might indicate that a large part of the on going slavery nowadays in the Dark iron nation is indeed run by independent Mountain Lords and warlords.
Hopefully something they’ll address though, among other numerous questions…
They rewrote the slave stuff in Stormsong, but there’s still a line from a Zandalari about how a mogu slaver was so brutal he’d make even a Kul Tiran blush, indicating their reputation.
The Ashvane peeps also did a bunch of slavery but I’m sure some people would handwaved that as “Ashvane bad, Kul Tirans not bad”
Yeah there are a lot of lore accounts of dark irons serving their own selfish interest.