I wouldn’t say that Mu’sha in uderstanding of Tauren is Elune. Mu’sha is the moon An’she is the Sun and both are the eyes of the Earth Mother.
That is not homogenisation as Tauren aren’t worshipping Elune or having exact same practices as Nelves. They were however too much influenced by nelves via CC, which is why Sunwalkers emerged to bring balance to Tauren’s identity.
That is indeed disappointing, but at the same time I read a lot of people dissing trolls becuase they’re not direct copy cats of what nelves do even if Trolls have their own pantheon and their own equivalent of Cenarius in Gonk.
I had back in time discussion over it, that troll druids aren’t the issue, the issue was that they were lumped into Cenarion Circle instead of making their own faction of researchers that could be located in Un’Goro Crater.
So I think adding Sunwalkers was the right step to pull tauren away from nelf influence but there needs to be done something more to properly flesh them out and give them their own practices.
It also depends on perception I know a player who is so attached to CC that he would be deeply upset if he had ties severed with them lorewise.
And to Answer OP. Trolls were not meant to Worship Elune it was meant to be Dark Troll thing which was carried on by nelves.
But then we also received Zandalari Lun’alai which imo was quite upsetting.
To nelves who would rather for Elune to be exlusive thing. And for me becuase I’d rather for Zandalari druids to be more solar oriented than moon/stars oriented.
And they could still be outcasts because the sun Loa was a bird like Rukhmar and birds to trolls aren’t reliable enough.
No matter their understanding, it has already been clarified that they are the same entity, the same Elune who is the Night Elves’ matron, instead of an individual divinity in its own right.
Besides, they share a painfully similar mythology where the same events happen, done by the same mythological characters, only under different names and marginally different tales.
By dropping them into Human and Draenei influence and having them dress in full Human plate, wearing Human Silver Hand tabards and wielding Draenei crystal hammers:
Imagine the Zandalari giving up Dazar’alor so the Trolls and the Humans can learn Voodoo together. Imagine the Loa stepping away from the Trolls, because suddenly Gonk is the patron of the Defias Brotherhood and Rezan, along with the rest went up and simply left.
Oh wait, this actually happened in this story. Except it was the Night Elves who abandoned Moonglade, to teach the Tauren druidism (something that was previously uniquely Night Elven) and it was the Ancient Guardians, particularly Cenarius, who stepped away from the Night Elves as we find out that Elune was already the matron of other peoples too. Meanwhile the Emerald Dream, another theme of the Night Elves, where they were specifically blessed to have access to it, can now just be handed out to Trolls by their Troll Loas.
It’s bad both for the Night Elves who lose elements unique to themselves and for others who, instead of being given their own distinct cultural differences and original concepts, are instead handed out scraps from the Night Elves’ table.
Thankfully, this is mostly related to the topic of druidism alone for the sake of having the Cenarion Circle stuffed with every druid race on the planet, but I find it very frustrating.
Nelves worship the moon, Tauren also revere the moon. Elves have completely different understanding of the nature of moon goddess, and Tauren have different interpretation of Moon’s nature.
Y’know it’s kinda like IRL when we have many culture revering the sun but each one had completely different approach to it.
In the end Sun is the only one in our system. So I’m not that upset about it because I know that Tauren have distinct enough understanding of Mu’sha’s nature.
It does look terrible. But I never argued that Sunwalker inmplementation was good, the way they did it was very bad but I believe they can write it in meaningful way if they’d try. And I saw a lot of Sunwalker mogs which looked very good - especially now when Heritage armor was released and with incoming cutomization options I can see their situation improving by small bit.
No, it’s more like with Sethraliss who is a god to both Sethrak and Zandalari. Where Sethrak are her direct offsprings but this Loa still wants to be part of Zandalari’s life. Because of this Loa two species can coexist.
Emerald dream wasn’t “nelf thing” It was created by Titans as a blueprint to Azeroth. Nelves didn’t have “default” access to it. They had to be taught by dragons to reach it. And so far we only have confirmation that Wild Gods can do it, - Gonk, Torcali are wild gods so I don’t see the issue in here. Zandalari were mostly focusing on dealing with beasts and using shape shift abilities for warfare. Not to sleep for centuries in green realm.
I didn’t have issues with CC back in vanilla, I thought it made sense to certain degree but I believe they made all the wrong choices later which harmed both tauren and nelves imo.
I disagree. It’s more akin to the super boring “Naaru are everything” dilemma. Where every holy entity in the game is speculated to be a Naaru (beings strongly tied to the Draenei).
Except here, Elune is actually Mu’sha.
I don’t see the correlation here…did the Trolls give up any region to teach another race? Was Sethraliss even a sacred symbol and protector of the Troll people and their lands in the first place, like Cenarius was to the Night Elves?
Oh, but it was. They were the first (and only) mortals allowed into it, the Night Elves themselves willingly became creatures of the Emerald Dream, they became one with the Dream, and were reborn as the Keepers of the Grove, the Sons of Cenarius.
After the War of the Ancients, they were personally blessed by the Aspect of the Dream herself to be the ones to tend to it and be allowed free access to it, while having to dedicate centuries of slumber in order to adhere to their duties.
It very much was a defining feature of Night Elven druidism, and partly of the Night Elves as well.
I personally don’t mind the concept of Tauren druids, it just irks me the way they implemented it and played around with their themes.
In my ideal Warcraft, the Cenarion Circle would be Alliance and the Earthen Ring would be Horde. I just think the CC has too much of the Night Elf identity to realistically be so neutral and broadened.
Although I agree with allot of what you write, I’m also not completely sure the Emerald Dream was an exclusive to Night Elves.
Just like Zakkaru says, the Loa of the trolls also have a connection to it.
And when you read the tauren page on the Wiki, it also says Tauren acenstors reside deep within the Emerald Dream, not sure how much of that has been retconned as of yet, as ofcourse we now have the chronicles(who are no longer absolute I suppose) telling us tauren evolved from Yaungol near the vicinity of the Well of Eternity.
However, it was never really specified where the Yaungol came from, and so bran Bronzebeard theorized they may come from an ancient Wild God - Correct me if that too has been thrown out of the window. so going from Yaungol, who were also taught by Cenarius(what a clusterfeck really) it’s possible that tauren ancestors dwell within the Emerald dream, and as the Zandalari trolls are some of the oldest around, it is possible that they too once had a Loa teach them that path, a Loa like Gonk.
But I suppose That is just speculation.
Yes and, absolutely you’re both right. In Cataclysm Gonk also grants the power to the Trolls to enter the Emerald Dream.
But originally this was something only the Night Elves could do.
Much like, originally, druidism itself was exclusively Night Elven.
And Elune, was exclusively Night Elven.
And the Ancient Guardians, were exclusively Night Elven.
And Cenarius, was exclusively Night Elven.
Each one of these when taken on their own are not too bad, but little by little, they start to pile up.
Also, regarding the Trolls. Even before they were given the druid class, they had the Loa priests and Loa prophets, mostly appearing in dungeons and raids. These Loa devotees could unleash the natural powers of their patron Loa and turn into animalistic avatars in their image.
They still exist and they’re still very cool when they appear, I would have really preferred if the ‘druid’ fantasy behind the Troll druids was this, instead of what they went for in the end.
Well it’s a different situation in here and I elaborated why I don’t think it’s an issue because Tauren see the moon in different way than nelves do. Heck even the legends about Malrone and the moon is noticeably different to nelf one.
But with one I agree - the tauren needs a huge amount of love to make then distinct from nelves. For many years they were nothing more but nelf sidekicks, never receiving a story where we explore their background and culture and their own understanding of thing. The examples where they had a spotlight was in base questing in Barrens and vanilla had more of it than cata revamp, in Hyjal where Hamuul is burned alive and barely made it out, and the last time Tauren truly made any initiative on their own that would mean something for their people was back in MoP with Dawnchaser expedition.
They were horribly neglected and defanged with the likes of Baine taking the spotlight. So I am with you when it comes to giving development that would separate tauren from nelves when it comes to druid culture, they need their own distinct philosophy and approach. And the first thing they should do imo is to be against the approach where trees and forests have to be everywhere, and they could use cataclysm examples where nelven obsession with forests caused natural disasters.
Was he though? For quite a long time he didn’t really interact with nelves until Malfurion reached out to him. He being involved with Nelves after they expanded greatly was a novelty. So I wouldn’t say that he was like tha from the start, he had his role in making nelves transition from the arcane society to nature revering.
But to be honest, I don’t know each instance of the Cenrius interacting with nelves, I just always had impression that he still priotized the condition of nature over mortals affair but unlike other wild gods he did care for nelves as well.
With Sethraliss I just know that she wants to be revered by poth species. She was maintaining the climate of Vol’Dun and her death turned this place into a wasteland. So I think that her return could improve living in Vol’Dun (but I don’t want for it to be completely remade, this desert is absolutely gorgeous).
Well then you should have issue with this human guy that was able to shift to ED by himself despite not having any druid training.
And nothing I wrote was incorrect. ED was aplane made by Titans it was Azeroth’s blueprint. And the reason why nelves had access to it was because Malfurion had a deal with dragons.
ED is a place for wild gods and green dragons primarly, nelves were allowed there because of the above pact.
So I really don’t understand your problem with Loa- who are wild gods - to enter the plane. We don’t know much of troll practices within the ED, because troll practices were always limited to revering the Wildgods in exchange of getting power boost or access to something. Their druidism is primarly focused on tending the beasts and making sure that the wildlife in their country is flourishing.
Back in time only 2 races could be druids so the reason why they made tauren and nelves share their efforts wasn’t imo that unreasonable move.
Silver hand was Alliance Organisation and ER was Horde one. But in Legion Silverhand took over identyty of Horde Paladins, and ER was hijacked by space goats and dwarves. In fact there is no class hall that has strong Horde presence or Identity. This is why I despised this expansion.
The demigod became fond of the night elves, and he spent a great deal of time teaching them about the natural world in Val’sharah, his home and the birthplace of night elven druidism.
Under his guidance, the night elves developed a strong empathy for the living forests of ancient Kalimdor and reveled in the harmonious balance of nature.
Cenarius guided the night elves when necessary, pleased by the wisdom and benevolence that thrummed in their hearts.
He was later pushed away from the Night Elves by the Highborne-driven expansionism and meddling with the arcane, but as Malfurion shows, the rest of the Night Elves never forgot his lessons or his legend. This also goes in support of that:
Azshara and her highborne began to practice their spellcraft with reckless abandon. Cenarius and many of the wizened night elf scholars warned that only calamity would result from toying with the clearly volatile arts of magic. But, Azshara and her followers stubbornly continued to expand their burgeoning powers.
Then, later on after the War of the Ancients, he became one of the three leading figures of the Night Elves as well as one of their great heroes:
The few night elves that survived the horrific explosion rallied together on crudely made rafts and slowly made their way to the only landmass in sight. Somehow, by the grace of Elune, Malfurion, Tyrande, and Cenarius had survived the Great Sundering. The weary heroes agreed to lead their fellow survivors and establish a new home for their people.
And, obviously, who can forget the most clamorous appearance Cenarius made with the Night Elves:
Who dares defile this ancient land? Who dares the wrath of Cenarius and the night elves?
Let battle be joined!
I’m going to throw in two more quotes in here, because Cenarius’ badassery cannot be overstated:
“You cannot defeat me! I am the heart of the land!”
"Demon-spawned wretches! You will all die!
Yes, Lucan Foxblood is, in my mind, up there with trash characters along with Med’an in terms of how bad a concept he was.
Worst thing Knaak could have pulled in an effort, which, I assume, was to diversify the character cast for Stormrage. I despise him with a burning passion.
You misunderstand me, I don’t have a problem with Loa entering the Emerald Dream.
It is a case of the Emerald Dream being one of the Night Elven themes, that in WoW’s time has been squandered off to other races as well.
In Warcraft 3, the first thing you discover about the Night Elven druids is that they are locked in slumber within the Emerald Dream.
You later discover that they have been sleeping for centuries and millenia in order to tend to this Dream, some of them (the Druids of the Claw) even lost themselves for its sake. This, you learn, is because they have a pact with Ysera, they have a duty to perform in her service, even if it puts them at risk and far from their loved ones.
Which is maybe best exemplified by Tyrande’s “My heart sleeps within the Emerald Dream”
They have a sleeping trance to enter it and only they held this knowledge, in fact in druid questing, the Night Elves explicitly call the trance theirs.
The Emerald Dream was their charge, it was monumental in showing that the Kaldorei people were not just spoiled with great blessings of immortality and power from the dragons, but that they were also giving in return by dedicating their lives to it.
But now as it stands, it’s no longer something so uniquely Night Elven, along with many other things.
Small correction here, the Barrens were in fact a lush jungle before the Great Sundering and Naralex was attempting to restore life to them.
The problem in his plan was that the Emerald Nightmare infiltrated the jungle he was creating and began forcing the flora and fauna to grow exponentially instead of how he planned.
That, was what caused the issue, not any obsession on the Night Elf’s part:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Overgrowth
However, the jungle was invaded by the Emerald Nightmare through the Nightmare Scar at the center of the forest. The Nightmare’s influence caused the wildlife to change and mutate, and the plant life to grow uncontrollably.
This is going solely by what you see in Warcraft 3? Correct?
I mean, how deep was the lore there ; You could argue because you didn’t see it, it wasn’t there, on the other hand, if you didn’t see it, it doesn’t automaticly mean it wasn’t there ;
Like you mentioned the ancients, I take it you mean Ursol, Ursoc, Aviana etc, they weren’t mentioned in warcraft 3? There was only the Demi god Cenarius and the Goddess Elune, from what I recall, but do point it out if I’m wrong.
Nothing that tied the wild gods specificly to the Night Elves, same for the green dragonflight, or the other flights for that matter.
In WC2 you only had Alextrasza and her offspring and Deathwing.
As for Druidism…as pointed out in another thread, that was actually a (High) Elf thing, but it got retconned in favor of the Night Elves when WC3 came.
There’s also nothing to say that the other races didn’t have Druids, what if Blizzard hard written the scenario as following ;
Thrall and his orcs and new Troll allies land on Kalimdor.
By happenstance he runs into en embattled Cairne Bloodhoof and a group of his tribesman - They join forces and become bloodbrothers.
Cairne, with the help of the new Horde, retakes Mulgore and calls out to all the other remaining tribes to join him.
Now, amongst the other tribes are ones like the Runetotem tauren, tauren that kept the arts of Druidism of their people alive during their trials and hardships as nomads fighting the marauding Centaur - And you couldn’t make a case against tauren druids, because, to put it simply, the tribe you knew from WC3 were the Bloodhoof, known to be mighty warriors, but you didn’t know much of the tauren race(Or trolls for that matter) aside from those few examples you saw in the Warcraft 3 campaigns, and the Frozen Throne.
In the Frozen throne Blizzard introduced the SpiritWalker; Spiritwalkers or spirit walkers are mystical, white-furred tauren(gamepedia/Tauren) casters. They can enter an “Ethereal Form”, allowing them to avoid physical damage. Believed to be the ill omen of a coming age, white tauren are held in near reverence by their people, often becoming reclusive priests who wander the land in search of kindred spirits.(gamepedia/Spiritwalker#cite_note-1) Spiritwalkers maintain the balance between the world of the living and the spirit realm(gamepedia.Shadowlands). They can travel into the memories of the dead to glean clues about the past.
What the tauren called the ‘Spirit realm’ may also be the Emerald Dream -It would link into the information about Tauren ancestors residing deep within the Emerald Dream. speculation obviously, but I can’t agree with the assesment that your sum up was all that exclusive to Night Elves from the get go.
WoW is the continuation of the lore we know from WC3 and obviously allot more indepth, so you get to see new dimensions of races that were only shallow in WC3 and the Frozen Throne.
Oh and added for relevancy, this entails the Highmountain tauren and the developers view on them;
://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/20241588/legion-zone-preview-highmountain
This was before the actual release of Legion and long before we were able to play Highmountain as an allied race; Matt: Yeah, the Rivermane have always been the diplomatic, reassuring caretakers. The Rivermane just care about the agriculture and their shamanistic ways. They’re very peaceful, and you’d never see them getting into boxing matches or big fights like the Bloodtotem.
The Skyhorn are essentially the wise masters of the skies. They can get to places no other tauren can because of their relationship with the eagles in the area, and help players navigate all the way to the peak.
Because of that, the Skyhorn are also the tribe that’s sort of “running the show.” But that’s caused some tension with the Bloodtotem—the first chieftain of all the Highmountain tribes was a Bloodtotem, and they’ve long felt that they’d make the best leaders because they’re the strongest. That’s made them more reclusive, and unwelcoming to outsiders. They also have a predatory side—you’ll walk into their area and they’ll be watching you, but you’ll never know it.
Zachariah:That’s where you get all of your Feral and Guardian Druids—the savage bear forms. They were the warriors of the tribes, the enforcers.
They were not an ‘asspull’ or a ‘retcon’, they were simply absent from the zone, which I think is a shame, but here they’re mentioned, from the getgo.
This is not entirely true. Bear in mind that I’m referring to the Ancient Guardians, and not all of the Wild Gods.
Besides Cenarius (his bond with the Night Elves alone disqualifies your statement), who is already one of the most powerful of the Ancients you could find shrines in Night Elf zones dedicated to them, such as the Shrine of Aessina:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Shrine_of_Aessina
As well as all the shrines on Hyjal in later lore, those were all Night Elven.
And at least in a few occasions, there is the mostly speculated idea that the Ancient Guardians might be the other gods in the Night Elven pantheon, mentioned a few times in cases such as this:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Cowlen
What could I have done to give the gods cause to lash out at me with such ferocity? All that I cherished is gone - dead or destroyed.
Then there is also Aviana, revered by the Night Elven druids of the Talon, Ursoc and Ursol, revered by the Night Elven Druids of the Claw.
The Ancient Guardians were definitely tied with the Night Elves in much of their legends, as well as having a strong presence in their faiths and beliefs when it came to druidism.
This is also incorrect.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Ruins_of_Loreth%27Aran
The night elves who once inhabited this city were blessed by the Green dragonflight and its queen Ysera, and the Dragon Riders of Loreth’Aran rode these powerful green dragons into battle while also living alongside them.
With the creation of the World Tree Nordrassil, the kaldorei druids were bound to Ysera, and her realm, the Emerald Dream, in which they spent centuries of their immortal lives.
So yes, they were definitely tied with Ysera, the Emerald Dream and the Green Dragonflight.
Well, I presented the evidence that I believe shows how these themes were indeed themes dedicated to the Night Elves for particular motives that came to define their people.
Oh I wasn’t disputing that, I explicitedly mentioned Cenarius in the post you quoted, as he’s unmistakenly tied to the Night Elves, even if you go by Visuals alone.
I was aiming at the other Wild Gods, and I did ask you if you were going by WC3’s lore?
All the stuff you linked is from sources that came After WC3 and the Frozen Throne, the point I was trying to make is that lore evolved since then and just because certain things weren’t seen or spoken of in the Original WC3 lore, doesn’t automiticly mean they shouldn’t be or weren’t there, hence my remark about the Wild Gods - You mentioned the Druids of the Claw and the Druids of the talon, I don’t recall them mentioning Ursoc or Aviana.
Or there even being a mention of Aessina either before WoW, but as I said, perhaps I’m wrong.
Same with the Dragonflights(Green in this case), this is all added lore that came with WoW…Do you see where I’m going?
I’m not disputing that they are linked to the Night Elves, or that they’re Night Elf themes, I’m saying that this is stuff we know now, this could easily apply to other races too.
It’s not that I just disagree with what you wrote, I just think we’re arguing different things here.
It’s not really the fault of characters like Thalyssra or Lor’themar, as why Sylvanas and Nathanos were written badly. They were written badly, because Blizzard wrote them badly.
I mean, with this line of thinking, do we blame Thrall, Ji, Vol’jin, Baine, Lor’themar, Sylvanas and Gallywix for how Garrosh ended up?
I’d have loved to have seen more interaction between Thalyssra and Sylvanas.
uhmm, or I’m blaming…you know, the writers?
You should note that because I like a controversial character like Sylvanas, or Nathanos, it doesn’t automaticly mean I dislike the rest, they just don’t stand out much in comparison for me.
I mean, why did a person with the skill and knowledge of Thallysra suddenly have to get overpowered by Jaina? I mean yeah, plot reasons, but come on.
Also why did Thrall turn his back on the Horde amidst the Legion’s invasion? Again, plot reasons, but it doesn’t help.
And Baine…well, I try to like him, he does have his (small) moments but after Cataclysm and the Shattering he became very much unlikable for me.
That isn’t the character’s fault, but Blizzard chose to portray him that way to us.
Same as Sylvanas suddenly torching a worldtree with a city etc on top, painting a huge bull’s eye on her own forehead….that’s the writing’s doing.
They’re just fictional characters after all.
At first, I raged at this, but let’s think about this logically.
It’s like showing your grandparent a new laptop or phone. They know the basics, but it’s a new thing - a new source that they haven’t seen before.
Now Suramar has no navy like Kul’Tiras, Zandalar, Silvermoon or Stormwind and their is a reason for that. Suramar was nowhere near the coast when Elisande erected the bubble.
Also, Thalyssra wasn’t present in Lordaeron, so not having first-hand knowledge about how the ship was controlled is something that would intrigue her, being a Mage, herself.
She is inquisitive, as a character and that’s just her. Asking Jaina about the ship is not all as bad as what people make it out to be.
The Shen’dralar are the living proof that age does not equal, knowing all things.
But they aren’t Horde anymore.
As far as current factions go, only Tyrande seems to be the most controversial because she isn’t towing the “let’s be friends” line.
That story was dedicated to her and Delaryn.
Her being “Arthas” and Delaryn being a past “her.”
The only good I got from that was the fact that I’m a RP’er and I managed to create one hell of a story for my Blood Elf Mage, who was exiled from Silvermoon for aiding night elf refugees and teleporting them to Azsuna, to escape the madness.
As far as the core story goes, I’m not defending it. It was clear where Blizzard were writing it, right from the word “go.” It was a “Quel’Thalas 2.0 disaster” and as we’ve seen many times before (WoD), 2.0’s never go down well and aren’t as good as the originals.
As I know magic can be used as your weapon in a mak’gora but you cannot use more than one weapon. But the rules of mak’gora is something that people argue a lot about and I can’t really confirm that what I said is true, it’s just what I heard lol.
