Unlike the release of previous Allied Races (as well as options like Dark Rangers and Eredar) there’s quite a bit of radio silence regarding Earthen guilds or guilds and groups that accept them.
It’s also not that surprising, given that they are the same as Dracthyr when we consider the race as a concept (artificially created blank slates who are mostly clueless about the outside world and are now in the process of discovering it and find their own footing in it as a race after being woken up by Azerite and defying their original directive their creators gave them) without the benefit of a unique class or being scaly fetishbait.
They are also not Elves or elf-adjacent. They are also not as Dwarfish as many have originally thought!
That said, I see plenty of good Earthen RP characters and great players putting some life into the race.
What I’d like to know is what groups and guilds accept Earthen and if there are any projects underway for Earthen guilds. If your guild, let it be staunchly Horde, Alliance or plain neutral, allows Earthen recruits, feel free to list them here so us titan construct enthusiasts see what’s on offer.
BOOMTEC also accepts Earthen! Any are welcome, but the Unbound / Machine Speakers probably would be most at home, given we lean into engineering / craftsmanship, and adventuring.
I think you raise an interesting question though Hatescale!
I wonder why there hasn’t been any kind of Earthen guilds or communities organised yet? Looking at the forums, we have 2 Arathi guilds alread; Lamplighters and Voice of the Emperor, which aren’t even an Allied Race, and those have some very healthy numbers already.
Dracthyr were VERY popular during the pre-patch and there are lots of Dracthyr RPers around even to this day. Yet not much Earthen excitement or buzz at all really, at least going by the forums as a metric.
Hallowfall being the best zone as well as Arathi being extremely easy to portray (just be a human or an elf) contributes a lot to this, as well as the faction and their culture being appealing to the sme crowd that has been roleplaying similar concepts in the Eastern Kingdoms for years.
The interest in dwarfs pales in comparison and Earthen don’t even fit that mold entirely either.
I certainly can’t speak for others, but I was regrettably a bit quick to dismiss Earthen as “another dwarf reskin” when they were announced.
Actually getting to play TWW and experiencing the story / the ins and outs of their lore and themes made me warm up to them really fast, though, to the point of currently planning out my own Earthen that I wanna try and RP as.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were others kinda in the same boat, still feeling things out, or something similar.
We arent a guild per-say, but if there are any Earthen Characters looking for some content, the ‘Hunters Accord’ roleplaying community are accepting Earthen. We have one onboard with us already!
My only, real, real complaint is the lack of Earthen being able to be druids. Aside from the fact we need more Druid races; the whole “Woldguard” (I think thats how its spelt) we were shown in Isle of Dorn was -so- cool and it’s a shame we can’t RP that concept.
I would have been completely down to RP, a Woldguard Earthen, travelling the world to see how nature has changed and evolved in other places.
As Hatescale said, dwarves are already a fairly niche race (not very, but fairly) and dwarf-only guilds are even more-so. Some of the things people like about dwarves (the accents, the clans and so on) also aren’t suitable for Earthen.
You can incorporate parts (they are still obsessed with feasts and mead, as indicated by the theatre plays and the existence of Cinderbrew), but overall it’s a very different take on ”dwarf”. Earthen-only guilds will likely struggle imo, but thankfully the largest dwarf guilds have already decided to accept Earthen! And I expect there to still be some Earthen-specific (or at least Earthen-targeted) initiatives eventually, even if they might not be very frequent.
From my initial bits of Earthen RP, it feels like a fairly big departure from what I’m used to, so personally I want to get a better handle on the race first. A lot of people likely feel similarly.
Earthen seem extremely far removed from Dwarves, they share similarities and some cultural aspects but essentially Earthen are constructs given limited emotions, that have developed more over time and now are experiencing true freedom for the first time.
They’re not just dwarves with rocks for skin, and this makes them hard to RP and this “alien” culture makes it hard to get your head around RPing them. This puts off your more casual RPer and the fact they don’t have any pretty boy/girl physical attributes or fluffiness to mitigate that means they’ll always be rarer than Dracthyr, Vulpera, Draenei etc.
I’m eager to make one myself, I just need to work up an initial concept for him and then decide on the nuts and bolts.
Earthen are a very interesting race to RP with the way that they have their specific groups with the Unbound, Machine Speakers, Oathsworn, Stormriders and Freysworn/Woldguard. They even have the new Awakened Earthen and new directives for some of their Earthen to simply explore Azeroth and return any knowledge they find to the archives. This makes them applicable for many guilds whether they’re adventuring groups or research companies!
The only stipulation is that nowhere does it state that Earthen truly join the factions, and the devs haven’t gone to the trouble of having Earthen talking about their allegiances to the factions like they did for the Dracthyr. This of course makes them awkward fits for faction specific guilds that RP/PVP without prior build up to them participating in conflict, as they seem to see the faction bickering as a headache above all else.
- Argent Dawn - World of Warcraft Forums (blizzard.com)