A not insignificant amount of Pandaren perished as a direct consequence of the conflict between the Horde and Alliance.
The Purge of Dalaran played into it, involving the Kirin Tor who stood by idly as Vereesa engaged in the disgusting and depraved act of allowing the Silver Covenant to huntdown innocent civilians to assault, murder and torture.
This escalated further into the campaign surrounding the Throne of Thunder.
I realise it was a long time ago but all of this played into server campaigns and thus server lore back in the day. So I can sympathise with any Pandaren who bears a grudge and wants nothing to do with an organisation that was a gleeful participant in the campaign that not only brought the Sha to the forefront but culminated in the destruction of large swathes of the continent.
With all that said, it can lead to some interesting role-play and conflict so hopefully that is the case!
I could be completely wrong; but weren’t Ronin lone Samurai in feudal Japan? Historically speaking. Not that it really matters, but I think they’re at least right about the name.
Your guild’s namesake is Ronin—that’s a deliberate naming choice? That’s a legitimate historical term to refer to masterless Samurai in Feudal Japan. If you didn’t want your guild to be perceived as Feudal Panda Japan, maybe a different name could have been more fitting? More accurate to the setting?
I’m not involved with the Dalaran community, nor did I frequently attend the markets they hosted. However, I took a moment to look at the event description for their latest gathering:
Every Tuesday, Dalaran’s stores opened into the evening, offering goods, services and amusement all across the city. The city is gone now, and the people need aid. Those who ran those businesses need a chance to pick back up their lives, civillians need food, shelter and more besides. The Artisan’s Consortium has stepped in to help, taking the city’s concept on the road and trying to support the city’s diaspora.
Dawn’s Blossom is described as a village that has chosen not to align with either the Alliance or the Horde, and its inhabitants are not portrayed as particularly distrusting of outsiders.
If a foreigner were to approach the villagers with a proposal to organize a neutral market there—aimed at supporting those who lost their livelihoods and homes following the fall of Dalaran—I don’t see why the locals of Dawn’s Blossom would be strongly opposed to the idea. Such an initiative could potentially benefit the local merchants as well, considering the settlement already has its own market. Furthermore, Dawn’s Blossom does not seem to carry a particularly religious or militaristic identity, which might otherwise complicate hosting such an event.
I think drawing a comparison to hosting something like this in Astranaar feels less relevant, given the stark differences in history between the night elves and the Horde. Astranaar has been directly attacked by Horde forces on multiple occasions, which naturally influences the sentiment there.
As for the market events in Dalaran, while I didn’t attend them often, I recall there being plenty of vendors offering goods beyond magical items. To my memory, I don’t recall many (or any) merchants who were directly part of the Kirin Tor either. Of course, hosting something akin to a Magic Faire in Dawn’s Blossom would likely be an entirely different situation.
I understand the frustration of people disregarding the lore behind an area, but I’m not quite sure why this particular market concept is so abrasive?
What’s slightly sad is that most of the people complaining will probably -not- be RPing in Dawn’s Blossom on a semi-regular basis. Meaning if they had their way the village would be as empty and devoid of RP as 90% of Azeroth: Just another wasteland barring the odd guild-lead event.
Now, again, I do understand some of their concerns (I believe any of the Goblin settlements are a better choice - Everlook’s nice this time of year!). But at the risk of repeating myself: Considering it’s only one night a week, the situation isn’t that bad. In fact, as you’re saying, it seems like the organizers are taking the criticism on board?
As far as I know, they’re not using it as a daily hub in some wicked scheme to expand non-Pandaren, orientalist, colonial themes into the whole continent - thereby ruining the experiences of everyone else. I’d like to see an example of that.
The Shado-Pan are, to anyone with a functioning eye, clearly based on ninjas, which are Japanese.
Then of course there’s this OG art https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/8/81/The_First_Pandaren.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/743?cb=20210221225203 where the sword is - I hope we can all agree - clearly using a more Japanese style grip compared to typical Chinese blades.
Pandaren have always been a blend of eastern Asian elements - primarily China, but but you see influences from elsewhere also. I don’t know why this would be in question, or why you’d think the use of the word Ronin is especially out of the ordinary for Pandaren.
With the presence of a Saurok samurai NPC in the Arena of Annihilation scenario, I sort of doubt that in Pandaria the term means more than a trained swordsman these days in the absence of feudal hierarchy and other issues coming along with the name. Not everything here is a copy of the reality by the word, and nor should it be.
I actually agree on this. 100%.
I remember visiting… what was that, a World Tournament held in Pandaria, and I just wanted casual RP, so I spent like one hour and a half searching for a pandaren character that could give me a tour of the land.
I let you figure out how that went. It was confusing and disappointing. But. Others were having fun?
What I do not like a lot however, is that some pandaren here are going a bit for a “these guys shouldn’t be here at all” stance. I am not going to find an exact quote to get some kind of gotcha moment but, here is what I recall.
There have been what, 15-30 posts of people telling the Market should be held in Valdrakken, Tanaris, and whatnot, with the argument being led by members of the Pandaren community, and with them constantly demanding that people uninvolved with the organization have to somewhat find reasons for said organization’s decision to host in Pandaria. And when some of those reasons were actually provided, they doubled down on criticism.
So while it may not be explicit, some of the above negativity does come across as them not wanting this group there, or trying to paint them in a bad light.
This is not directed at you, Flyntus, and I actually think that the best thing to do is to acknowledge that not all kinds of role-play need to meet. Just like you did. If you want two different kinds of role-play, as per the example of the two events which you have described, then Pandaria is large, and one event in a small town can easily be ignored/overlooked. Otherwise, there is room for cooperation from what I get, and so people bash these future RP partners on the forums may not be the nicest of things.
Because of how it’s arranged and implemented. On weekly basis the town mayor’s residence, which is also the town dojo, is used as a fashion studio in complete disregard with the building’s original purpose. Not to mention, yes, that when the local tavern is manned by the outsiders that just don’t have Pandaren food available it sort of isn’t the nicest way to treat one of two biggest Pandaren towns. Again, imagine if the same treatment was being implemented to a druidic grove in Kaldorei territory, with an NPC druid having to sleep through all of this, or even a temple of Elune. Neither sounds like a good picture.
Is it time to work together to make sure both sides are happy?
Add some pandaren flare, a Shado-Pan observer, some additional local staff and wares sellers?
Whilst there is a certain comedic accuracy to a bunch of foreigner Dalarani acting like Americans and descending upon some poor, unsuspecting Pandaren (European) village that they consider their ‘ancestral homeland’ I have to say it doesn’t overly fit with the vibe we get of Pandaria very much being a nation that both the Alliance and Horde, at the end of MoP, pulled out of quite rapidly. We only know that they now maintain a smaller, diplomatic presence in their Krasarang bases as of Exploring Pandaria.
An Event/Community Initiative should not ever just be using an area as “set-dressing”, it should be thematically, aesthetically and narratively fitting of the purpose of the event and or initiative. This shouldn’t even be a controversial take. Dawn’s Blossom isn’t even a foreign market town like Half-Hill is, why on God’s green earth was it the first place of choice out of the numerous places the Kirin Tor has an actual presence / other, more fitting neutral areas.
