Nor did I assume that is what you suggested, hence it being an unrelated tangent. They followed the Old Ways as seen in Gilneas, but we’ve no idea what that even means beyond basic druidism. It’s something Blizzard could’ve gone in depth about, but simply didn’t. We could’ve gained the Titans as venerated, godly figures; at least Tyr, but instead we only got the ‘Old Ways’.
Edit: But on the topic of this thread, I do suppose that a settlement of pious, Gilnean believers in the Old Way could work for the idea Garatt had. Because while all races period are lacking in Viking anything, Vrykul included as they’ve only gained the bare minimum, what little we know of the Old Ways means there’s plenty of space to work around with, though I doubt they’d sacrifice men, women and children to the Gods, or pillage their neighbours and go viking on longships.
Because Thoras Trollbane was originally drawn as a horn helmeted barbarian king. It’s old school warcraft. Functionally, they were just as much a palette swap of other human kingdoms, though in eternal medieval stasis.
King Thoradin, founder of the empire evidently dressed like an orc. Some old viking-esque primitive aesthetics aren’t out of the question as old pride of Arathor but I don’t think it goes further than a fur cloak over your modern platemail.
Have we accidentally given OP a concept by discussing something completely unrelated? A band of Arathi warriors who want to “return to the old ways”, and head north?
And in this very artwork, I’d hesitate to call him a barbarian king. It takes more to make one a barbarian than wearing a horned helmet. Large, certainly, he is wielding a double-headed two-handed axe and wearing spiked pauldrons. But his clothing isn’t otherwise much different from the other human kings present and he is more clean shaven than all of the other characters present in this artwork with two exceptions - a female high elf and Aiden Perenolde.
I mean, with that logic, paladins in the Second War were barbarians too since they too wore horned helmets. Is it not too late to give Desartin a new helmet and a furcloak?
This does sound very interesting, and seems more plausible than trying to fit the narative I was looking for into a Northrend based plot.
Plus, the concept of a Arathi warriors returning to the old ways is something that seems like it could happen as the land settles following the recent war in those areas?
