Headcanon 2: Electric Boogaloo

I think somebody, in the previous forums, mentioned the possibility that Horde as a society are much more based on military action than the races of the Alliance are.

Perhaps the number disparities can, to an extent, be explained by the fact that majority of Alliance races (gnomes, dwarves, humans, gilneans, night elves,
Normal draenei), while numerically larger, also have a much higher civilian portion of the population, than those who work both peace-time duties and military ones.

Horde races like the tauren, trolls, orcs, pandaren, forsaken on the other hand seem to majorly consist of groups that handle both military and civilian duties. This would further explain (among the locations these races live in) why the Horde imports so many of its goods through trade, rather than practising large scale agriculture.

The only races in the Horde that seem to have clesr distinguishing between the civilians and combatants are Blood elves and the Nightborne, as well as goblins. That’s not to say that other races don’t have pure civilians: Forsaken certainly do!

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Well, there’s also the part where orcs were taken to a desert by Thrall.

Orcs are some of the best hunters in the world, they just aren’t used to having farms.

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Hence I said that the locations also play a role- Durotar is mostly a barren desert. Not much agriculture to be done.

I imagine there’s a lot of fishing going on, though. Especially with the Darkspear and their isles.

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The Darkspear Rebellion had a definite effect on the Horde’s numbers too, while the Alliance never suffered from civil strife during that time. Imagine how the scenery would have been had that not happened.

I miss Garrosh.

Orcs also have peons and War Crimes goes into the life of a civilian mushroom vendor in Orgrimmar who got roughed up by the Kor’kron.

In the modern Horde, you can gain prestige through dedication to your craft even if it’s not purely a combat based one. The mushroom vendor is really highly valued member of the society because he is known for growing the best mushrooms in all of Orgrimmar. Even the Warchiefs enjoy the fruit of his labour in their dinner tables according to the novel.

That being said, mushrooms =/= large scale agriculture.

As for why? Because the Horde relies on imports and an army marches on its stomach. The conflict in Cataclysm alludes to this as it started when the night elves cut off trade with Orgrimmar and civilians were starving. They had to take it by force after negotiations for supplies fell short due to the Twilight assassinations.

The Horde isn’t equipped for long term conflict with their logistics. The only thing to farm in Durotar/Barrens are pigs, as seen by the pig farms. Pigs alone don’t feed your army.

Every time we see the main Horde army achieve big victories, it’s always quick lightning assaults (Theramore, Teldrassil, etc) but yet they struggle in long term conflicts, as the Horde is now losing on all fronts across the globe in 8.1, “weeks away” from total defeat.

Orcs are the perfect race of hunters and can take on most races in smaller scale skirmish due to their racial advantage, as we see constantly portrayed. When going up against armies, the Alliance has the numbers and logistics advantage.

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As someone whose favourite colour is mushrooms, I beg to differ. We need to start a mushroom farm effort in order to supply more people with local, tasty mushrooms—in, and outside, of Azeroth.

We’ll just drop you off at Zangarmash, mkay? Hope you don’t mind a little bit of twisting nether ripping apart your farmlands

I like to think it’s because the humans and their allies have had a long time to build up empires with proper infrastructure that can support war - as Telaryn mentioned - while most of the Horde have only been actively developing their own in recent years. Rome wasn’t built overnight, after all!

EDIT: dunno why it quoted telaryn with mithralles’ question, dumb forums

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It is common for a Death Knight to have placed a rune on their gauntlet or gauntlets to death-grip their weapon back, would they be disarmed, after all, their weapon contains the most of their power, without it, they’re useless.

Yeah I think it’s insinuated that the Horde isn’t particularly a wealthy factions (beyond the Bilgewater Cartel), we know for a fact that Silvermoon is a few thousand gold in debt (which also kinda gives us a vague idea of how much money is worth.)

Headcanon, apparantly, looking at how people often react to it.

At best and at worst, the Ebon Blade and Silver Hand are neutral towards eachother. There is no war, open hostilities are frowned upon, and both are keeping a close eye on eachother.

I derive this from the Hidden Ashbringer questline, which, I do believe is wholely canon.

Highly unlikely imo.

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It is the only real questline tied to a hidden appearance, and involves major players of the Orders in question. The Ebon blade owes BIG to the Silver hand thanks to that thing in the campaign, the fact they are on talking terms tells me that at best, the big figures(including folks people on the server concider the actual leadership) are neutral with eachother.

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I mean, the Deathlord (me) and the Ashbringer (Liadrin) are Best Friends Forever™ so I’m sure that the Argents have forgiven me.

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There are four issues with that theory:

  1. Do you really think that the Highlord would waste time fishing and killing slimes while he has a war to win and an order to lead?

  2. If the paladin hidden appearance is canon, then what about the balance of power which has an even mor intricate questline?

  3. Do you really think the Highlord and the Silver Hand would willingly corrupt one of the holiest artifacts of humanity and paladinhood?

  4. If that’s canon then why doesn’t Liadrin hold the corrupted Ashbringer in the final cutscene of the Legion?

It’s likely just a homage to the Ashbringer hunt in vanilla with some added flavour. Nothing more.

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Nevermind the attack on Light’s Hope that the Ebon Blade committed during the war against the Legion when they attempted to claim Tyrion Fordring’s body.

There’s an easy explanation why Liadrin is all cool with us even after us kicking her sorry butt in Lights Hope:

Blizzard wanted to make DKs edgy badasses without thinking of the consequences so they simply slapped a nice, fat plot armor on EB, making Paladins look dumb in the process. Just like they put a plot armor on many of their short-sighted rule of cool ideas.

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To answer in order:

  1. Given the Highlord sifts through poop for the requisite fecal quest in each expansion, the rumour of such a thing and the power it MAY bring ? Yes.
  1. i personally see the balance of power quests simply happening after the hidden.
  1. stumped me there, I admit.

  2. given she uses the base version of it, and not the empowered Campaign version of it, are we by that logic to assume chunks of that questline are moot as well?

As for Koiffen, the theory is that all this happens after said attack.

That’s exactly what a true blood knight would do, just to take the piss out of the silver hand

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Quite likely aye. What we are shown is most of the time canon.

There’s quests for hidden, balance of power and even PvP appearances. Even for the Mage Tower appearances. So which one of them would be canon? Most likely none. It’s all just a flavour imo.