Why don't the draenei reproduce?

[derpkitteh]

In Rise of the Horde, I'm pretty sure they reference draenei having low fertility and parents being especially celebrated and given high priority (along with their children of course).

Aside from the Forsaken though, all races are capable of and regularly reproduce. We see night elf and dwarf children in-game, but they're mostly just shrunken versions of the regular models or they reuse the child models of other races (.i.e. Belf child model for nelf child, human child model for dwarf child).

the draenei are touched by the naaru, that's a light gift. they shouldn't have any fertility issues since light gives life.

and no, it's pretty clear now that their maturity rates are, at the least, very similar to humans. isel is a child 35 years in the past, while a grown woman in outland.

[Granyala]

Of course, it looks like Blizzard is hoping that nobody wonders about the perfect Draeni society that still exists on AU Draenor. Like why for example arent they helping us assault Argus? Where is Grom, where is Yrel? Those chars seem to have already been written off as best left forgotten. Blizzard is just sweeping all of WoD under the rug and hoping the stink eventually goes away.

Aye, I'd loved to see some AU-Draenor involvement. Esp since Yrel stated "we will be here if you need us". :/

@Topic: they are a long lived race. They think in millennia. They are not in a rush.

[Trollokdamus]

IIRC there is/was an entire generation of young draenei who have never seen Argus (at least on the alternate Draenor). Many of them did not share values of their papas and mamas and formed Sargerei.

According to Velen, it took every resource they could scrounge from the wreckage of the Exodar and every moment since the crash just to build the Vindicar.

This makes me wonder why they didn't just go to Outland and reclaim Tempest Keep. They would also be backed by A'dal and his Naaru faction. And ye, don't get me started on the alternate Draenor. Yrel even promised to help us should the Legion invade in the final cinematic. Too many inconsistencies and plot holes to which the only answer is "because Blizzard wanted it that way".

[Techno-Druid]

the draenei are touched by the naaru, that's a light gift. they shouldn't have any fertility issues since light gives life.

I don't think the light or the void gives life definitely, although considering the extremely high amount of life magic that was flowing throughout Draenor, I could see the draenei experiencing a period of high fertility.

I thought Velen said something about draenei having low fertility in Rise of the Horde.

and no, it's pretty clear now that their maturity rates are, at the least, very similar to humans. isel is a child 35 years in the past, while a grown woman in outland.

Never said anything about that...

[derpkitteh]

Never said anything about that...

i know you didn't, there was another guy that said it.

the light gives rise to life too, as life magic stems from it. it's how the universe got life in the first place, in the form of elementals.

[FuxieDK]

They may only go into Pon Farr every 70 years

This is not Star Trek

[cparle87]

Well aside from the fact that it's a relatively family friendly game (compared to most at least) and so there's very little talk of kids and sex, we have no idea about draenei physiology. For all we know half the female population could be pregnant right now, but have gestation periods of hundreds, if not even thousands of years. I mean hell, we don't even know if they are mammals, there could be clutches of draenei eggs hidden all over the exodar.

It's also a matter of their lifespan. In nature beings with longer livespans have a lower sex drive because needing to reproduce is less of a concern. Compare two extremes for instance. How many babies does a rabbit have compared to an elephant? If humans reproduced like rabbits we'd have 30 billion+ of us, if we didn't self destruct in some horrible disaster. Comparing lifespans humans are the rabbits to the draenei elephant.

There was a short story where young Durotan and Orgrim meet the draenei. One of them goes to flirt with this younger looking draenei girl while the other listens to their guide. That one asks the guide why they don't see any children. The guide replies they live so long they don't have many children. I think he actually said they haven't had any children since they arrived in Draenor, which was over 200 years ago. The flirter was astonished, and a bit freaked out, that the "girl" he was flirting with was at least 10x his age.

Elves also often have this problem in fiction, having one child every few centuries at most.

- - - Updated - - -

the draenei are touched by the naaru, that's a light gift. they shouldn't have any fertility issues since light gives life.

and no, it's pretty clear now that their maturity rates are, at the least, very similar to humans. isel is a child 35 years in the past, while a grown woman in outland.

It's not a matter of maturity rates, it's a matter of how often they have the desire to, or are capable of, having children. There was a short story where Durotan and Orgrim are flat out told the draenei haven't had any new children since they arrived on the world, about ~170 years prior.

[derpkitteh]

It's not a matter of maturity rates, it's a matter of how often they have the desire to, or are capable of, having children. There was a short story where Durotan and Orgrim are flat out told the draenei haven't had any new children since they arrived on the world, about ~170 years prior.

well, that's entirely noncanon now. yrel was born on draenor. we see children learning in school as well, and isel.

so WoD made that bit noncanon.

[cparle87]

well, that's entirely noncanon now. yrel was born on draenor. we see children learning in school as well, and isel.

so WoD made that bit noncanon.

You know, I can't even find that short story clip. I checked Durotan's, Orgrim's, Restalaan's (their guide I mentioned), and Velen's pages, buth MU and AU and can't find more than a two line summary. I can't find the whole thing anymore. I was gonna go look up if I was misremembering about the 'no children since Draenor'.

[derpkitteh]

You know, I can't even find that short story clip. I checked Durotan's, Orgrim's, Restalaan's (their guide I mentioned), and Velen's pages, buth MU and AU and can't find more than a two line summary. I can't find the whole thing anymore. I was gonna go look up if I was misremembering about the 'no children since Draenor'.

i believe it likely existed. but in the old lore, probably in the old rise of the horde lore.

the second chronicle covers that area, where the draenei and orcs speak. don't believe it says anything like that in it.

[cparle87]

i believe it likely existed. but in the old lore, probably in the old rise of the horde lore.

the second chronicle covers that area, where the draenei and orcs speak. don't believe it says anything like that in it.

Yeah, it's in Rise of the Horde. Still it's probably a genetics thing. The draenei are biologically immortal, so they likely have a very low sex drive, females become fertile very infrequently, or both. These circumstances can become a major hindrance if such a race ends up in a war because, as many have said, it would be very difficult for them to replenish large numbers of their power lost in a short time.

[derpkitteh]

Yeah, it's in Rise of the Horde. Still it's probably a genetics thing. The draenei are biologically immortal, so they likely have a very low sex drive, females become fertile very infrequently, or both. These circumstances can become a major hindrance if such a race ends up in a war because, as many have said, it would be very difficult for them to replenish large numbers of their power lost in a short time.

i don't believe they're biologically immortal. velen has showed signs of aging, and that wouldn't happen in anything immortal. there's older draenei revered for their age as well.

so incredibly long lived, but not outright immortal.

i definitely feel that anything gifted by the light wouldn't have fertility issues. the light just gives life as a byproduct of its existence.then you have the fact that draenor was incredibly rich in spiritual life energy. there's just no reason at all.

they have enough children around to say they're capable of breeding with success. there's so many children you rescue during the attack on the exodar.

[Rustedsaint]

They do reproduce there are children in game /end thread. We can't honestly say how many there are currently since cities and populations aren't built to scale otherwise the human population would only be like 200 in the Warcraft world

[Biomega]

isel is a child 35 years in the past, while a grown woman in outland.

True, but we don't know how old she is as a child, I don't think. For all we know, she could already be 50 or whatever and still appear childlike to us. Nothing says Draenei maturity must be completely linear, it could come in spurts or whatever. Of course, for simplicity it's often assumed most races simply mature the same way humans do. I doubt the devs thought much about it.

i don't believe they're biologically immortal. velen has showed signs of aging, and that wouldn't happen in anything immortal. there's older draenei revered for their age as well.

That says nothing in and of itself. Most immortal beings depicted in fiction do, in fact, show physical progression of some kind or they'd all be babies if they never ever aged at all; elves in WoW, for example, seem to stop aging around what would be human age 25-30 or so, i.e. peak physical condition. But in the end it's just a matter of how you handle the immortality, and whatever fictional explanation you come up with. The physical changes observed in Velen could also simply be related not to natural aging but to something like emotional state (in humans hair has been known to lose color as a result of stress, for example), or to his exposure to the Light (much like Fel changed the appearance of the Legion-aligned Eredar). Or it's just a story-telling device, to make clear to the player that this is quite some time in the past.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that you're right and they're not immortal, just very long-lived.

[Felrane]

Everything that has happened since BC to now has only been ~5-7 years. So even if they had alot of children they wouldn't be very old. The orcs did use draenei in breeding camps to make more soldiers. Gul'dan used magic to forcefully age them then bind their minds to his will. Most of the half breeds were killed in the war because they were used as front line soldiers. Garona and Lantresor the only two shown ingame.

For all we know only a few hundred Draenei were saved from Argus and they had a population boom on Draenor over the 300 years they were there. Plus WoD had alot of characters that didn't believe the stories of the legion being evil and willfully joined them.

[Knightsword]

Also remember many of the adult Draenei may have had children already that ended up murdered at the hands of the Orcs.

" I think it was the sounds of the draenei children that unnerved most of them... You never forget... Have you ever been to Jaggedswine Farm? When the swine are of age for the slaughter... It's that sound. The sound of the swine being killed... It resonates the loudest. Those are hard times for us older veterans."
-Saurfang

Now think of what those events did to the surviving Draenei and why they might not wish to bring more children into the world.

[derpkitteh]

True, but we don't know how old she is as a child, I don't think. For all we know, she could already be 50 or whatever and still appear childlike to us. Nothing says Draenei maturity must be completely linear, it could come in spurts or whatever. Of course, for simplicity it's often assumed most races simply mature the same way humans do. I doubt the devs thought much about it.

That says nothing in and of itself. Most immortal beings depicted in fiction do, in fact, show physical progression of some kind or they'd all be babies if they never ever aged at all; elves in WoW, for example, seem to stop aging around what would be human age 25-30 or so, i.e. peak physical condition. But in the end it's just a matter of how you handle the immortality, and whatever fictional explanation you come up with. The physical changes observed in Velen could also simply be related not to natural aging but to something like emotional state (in humans hair has been known to lose color as a result of stress, for example), or to his exposure to the Light (much like Fel changed the appearance of the Legion-aligned Eredar). Or it's just a story-telling device, to make clear to the player that this is quite some time in the past.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that you're right and they're not immortal, just very long-lived.

immortality is completely meaningless if you age into a decrepit old person after an infinitely small portion of that eternal life.

old loola, a draenei in shadowmoon valley, shows clear signs of dementia as well. an immortal being isn't going to be able to be afflicted with anything like that, otherwise it would again defeat the purpose of immortality.

imo, the fact that loola's age is so old it's deemed remarkable enough for her to be titled "old" is proof as well.

about isel, if that were the case she would have had a smaller than adult body. anything that stays a child for so long would also stay a teenager, and she wasn't a teenager, she was clearly an adult draenei.

[Magnagarde]

Being a Vindicator or Exodar guard used to be enough to provide for a family. Now that the security and engineering market is saturated with other Alliance races, it is very hard to find a well-paying job as a draenei.

[pateuvasiliu]

It's the same thing as with Night Elves and most other incredibly long lived/immortal species, they just breed far less because the odds of death are smaller, too. It's a fantasy trope in general that elves/immortals breed less while humans/orcs breed like rabbits.

If the Night Elves had a kid every year for 10,000 years... do the math.

[shadowmatrix]

And yet, everyone leveling a non boosted character has no choice but to be reminded of its existence!

The worst part of WOD was the content drought and that is gone. Anyone new jumping on the WOD sucks train is merely doing so to try to be cool.