Something has gotten all my cogs spinning recently regarding the worgen.
When we as players, play the worgen starting storyline, we become worgen by being bitten, so we know that this is, at least, one way the curse can be transferred. What I’m wondering is this:
Can all worgen do this? including in principle, us, the players?
Is there a 100% chance of turning if bitten?
Does the scythe of Elune “unferalizing” us in the worgen starting questline somehow mitigate this?
Regardless of if the gilnean (player) worgens can transfer the curse, we know that there are other worgen in the world which leads me to my other line of questions, which are those I find most interesting.
If new people can become worgen, who could potentially become one?
Humans we know from the game, and as all humans are technically the same species (or at least have the same ancestry, that should include Stormwindians, Kul Tirans, etc.
Once removed, this could mean that Vrykul could become worgen too, as they are the ancestors of humans.
Nightelves we know can become worgen from the game and the lore as well, and since all elves also share the same ancestry, I don’t think it would be far fetched to assume that Nightborne, Highelves etc. (Or even the Naga??) could become worgen aswell?
I think this opens up some interesting possibilities. I would love to see a stocky Kul Tiran worgen, a towering Vrykul worgen, or imagine as a boss monster, a void elf worgen with glowing tendrils coming out of their fur!?
Into deeper spectulation: This is just based on what races are already confirmed as being able to become worgen, any other species could be suseptible right? Or could they? I would love to hear some input. <3
I recomend you play the Silverpine questline (Horde). Plenty of these questions are answered there and i think you’ll appreciate better how Gilnean handle the curse, even if you are to see it through their enemies eyes.
Principally Worgen, even after all the ritual stuff, can still infect others, we have a few examples, the newest was in the Worgen heiritage questline where Tess tried to insist that her parents - or the player Worgen - should infect her with the curse. Whenever the plot demands it, it will work. This will not result in an uncontrollable spread of the Worgen curse in cities… because the plot will never demand it.
It’s not biology, it’s magic. Goldrinn’s wrath is not a genetic thing. You can’t really infer who will be able to be affected by their genetics. What we know is that gnomes seem to be unable to contract the curse.
Which makes things a little confusing; humans, dwarves and gnomes are all of the same stock, being Titanborn descendants. You’d imagine that would mean they are all equally susceptible to the same curses; further to that, you’d imagine that if humans can reproduce with elves, surely dwarves and gnomes ought to be able to as well.
Takeaway is that biology doesn’t really matter in a fantasy universe. Despite dwarves, gnomes and humans sharing the same ancestry, their descendants have wildly inconsistent responses to different stimuli. Why are humans seemingly the only race besides night elves that can be affected by the curse? Because humans are special. Always have been, always will be.
i have played the questline, but not since it original release in Cata, so i gotta admit I’m a little rusty. Crowley turns the people of Fenris Isle right? (Who would have seen that coming with that name?)
Might it have something to do with druidism then? The curse is druidic in nature, so a race must have some sort of affinity for nature and/or the Emerald Dream to contract it. Humans clearly do, Likewise the nightelves. Perhaps the other elven races have moved themselves too far into the sphere of the arcane and have lost their connection to nature, thereby excluding them from the curse? On the other scale, could this mean that races like the trolls or maybe even the tauren could become worgen?
Pure speculation, I just think some of these things could be cool to see in the game.
You also have dialogues regarding how the cursed was “tuned” to be more manageable, and a more stark dichotomy between those “feral” Worgen left under Ivarr, and those that were more “civilised” like Crowley.
We have additional information about how the curse would be transmitted through blood (more so than biting), and therefore more handy and easier to weaponise.
In all, it was always the best ingame representation of how Worgen (actual Worgen), fared as a viable military corp with the Alliance. As I said, this may be seen through their enemies eyes, but unfortunately, the Worgen playable experience is almost instantly roped into the NE one as soon as they exit their starting zone.
Aditionally, How do the worgen, more generally, maintain their numbers?
We often see them on the frontlines, and as horde, like Zarao mentioned, we get to be the ones killing them more than once, so there is a definite loss of life there.
It seems that the gilneans are hesitant to transmit the curse, only doing it when they don’t see any other way (Like in the silverpine questline) But maybe Ivar’s worgen are less bothered by it?
Another option would be that worgen numbers just are dwindling, but there still seem to be plenty of them in the game in the latest couple of expansions.
Then there is procreation. Can worgen even have children? and are their children worgen as well?
As strange as this sounds, the events of the Cataclysm ‘canonically’ only took place around 5-6 years ago (with every expansion being one year in timespan). If we assume a good 80-90% of the entire kingdom of Gilneas got infected, it’s probably just the case that there are an awful lot of worgen about, and that outside of Ivar’s pack they haven’t expanded their numbers yet, nor found any need to.
We do know that the curse is not hereditary, and that worgen children are just human babies (we haven’t seen this in-game, but it was confirmed on Loreology a while ago). The Curse of the Worgen comic also implies that the curse gives people an unusually long lifespan akin to elves, so it might just be that these original worgen will forever be the playable worgen in-lore.
Don’t pay attention to race numbers or else you’ll get a headache. Void Elves are one exiled squad of blood elves, and yet they have entire armies. Orcs have been massacred dozens of times now, and yet they’re still portrayed as the most populous Horde race. A race will have a population that Blizzard deems acceptable at the time; contradictory or not.
This was actually another question I was gonna bring up. That is really interesting, I would love if this was confirmed in game at some point.
(On the other hand, age and lifespans are things that the game seems to take a little lightly anyway.)
