Who should rule the Darkspear?

[zlygork]

A new troll character that they'll develop properly.

Otherwise, Zuni revived and empowered by the old gods.

[Deleted]

Rastakhan, when all Troll tribes jion the Horde.
Or otherwise one of Vol'jin sons.

[Zulkhan]

Well it's obvious why Vol'jin denied the call.. If it's war you seek i will stand against you. something Vol'jin said during the trailer of the Zandalar patch.

And he did that again even after Garrosh tried to "dismiss" him. And everytime the Darkspear followed him. Rastakhan may be less active than Zul but not less responsible of the current Zandalari's ambitions. He gave Zul a naval armada to send him and his nefarious prophecies away but also granted him freedom to do whatever he wanted to do in case Zul's visions came to pass. Plus, a so called Herald of Rastakhan caused the whole mess in Dun Morogh during the 5.3, implying he was under direct command of RKhan, not Zul. Lastly, is Vol'jin himself mentioning Rastakhan and holding him responsible as much as Zul of all the shit happening in the 4.1.

Who says he doesn't care? there is always this thing of why did the king deny Zul about the cataclysm like 3 times, did he know about the path he was going to take? Zul was all about reuniting and conquer all. The king just sat there doing nothing.. maybe he knew about Zul.

Both Cho's tale and journals in the IoT unmistakably implied that Rastakhan was not able to predict the events to come and even dismissed Zul several times until shit didn't become real. It's also implied an overall inability in helping his people where Zul, despite being generally disliked and distrusted in Zandalar, gained quite the following by offering a guidance (through his dreadful visions) RKhan couldn't provide, materially sustained by the powerful fleet RKhan himself gave to Zul.

I agree we don't know much about the king but hes listed as king of all trolls

All I know is that he's called "God King" but apart that there's nothing implying the extension of such power over any Troll tribe. Amani and Gurubashi never saw RKhan as their king, even less the Darkspear. Again, the Zandalari gained influence and respect over trollkind but they do not dominate it. RKhan does not command anything more than Zandalari trolls.

They could go down this path of him trying to find peace and through the Darkspear horde this could be possible.

Even if this was the case (which I find unlikely, given the hints) there's no reason the Darkspear would accept RKhan as anything but an ally. They wouldn't surely accept him as leader and any other Darkspear leader has no reason to bend the knee to him. So far RKhan is definitely NOT blameless for the current Zandalari situation and Vol'jin denied the Zandalari's leadership twice. There would be no point in backtracking now.

The point is,that it wasn't King Rastakahn at all. Hell he could be mindcontrolled and stoned at fuck back then who knows.

Which doesn't make him any more trustworthy. Again, he could be an ally, yes, but nothing more.

The Darkspear as a tribe should just disband. There must only be a tiny number of them left; they were very few to begin with and their numbers must be extremely low. They can find cultural identity within the Horde instead and by practicing troll religion.

Numbers mean nothing in Warcraft, especially when these are not officially stated and were vague from the very start.

[Hallowseve17]

Unfortunately we don't have too many Darkspear troll characters to choose from. I voted Rokhan, because he's been around for a while in lore, but they've barely done anything with his character. They need to give him some personality or something and start developing his character again. He has potential...

Vanira is yet another Darkspear troll neglected. They say she's the "secondary leader" of the tribe, but she hasn't done anything in forever. I only remember her from reclaiming Echo Isles and that Mount Hyjal quest, where she appears as a possible companion. Where has she been all this time and what is she up to? Vanira needs development.

Another Darkspear troll not listed on here is Zen'tabra, who has arguably done more than Vanira and still remains somewhat relevant. She's that troll druid...she helped reclaim Echo Isles, she took part in the Darkspear Rebellion and she's recently helped the Cenarion Circle. She has potential to be developed as well, but they'll probably ignore her too.

Gadrin is another established character, just a little less relevant than Rokhan. He's been camping out in Sen'jin Village for years and he's supposed to be some amazing witch doctor and Vol'jin's mentor. They could easily incorporate him into the ongoing story...both him and Rokhan. Gadrin would be a good leader, especially if he was an advisor to the former Darkspear chieftain.

Volrath...well, he could be developed as a prominent warlord in the Darkspear military (if they even have one) and the Horde as a whole. I don't see him being a racial leader, but he definitely has potential to be something.

Man...all these Darkspear trolls they could be utilizing and don't. Lots of potential. Blizzard could also create some important Darkspear characters in line with some of those cool Horde characters introduced in MoP. I liked Sunwalker Dezco and all those other characters created during that expansion.

[MrExcelion]

Council of Elders like in Throne of Thunder

[Maljinwo]

Council of Elders like in Throne of Thunder

I'd be ok with this.
But who should be the elders? Should they represent the classes the Darkspear can be? i.e: a Mage representative, a Shaman representative, etc

Or would it be Vanira and the other tribe leaders such as Gadrin?

[Ramz]

Well I believe it should be Vanira. It could be quite refreshing to have a female chieftain and could flesh out troll females a bit.

Vanira is meant to be Vol'Jin's right hand and was vice-leader of the tribe anyway. She was prestenst at Zalazane's fall event and was helping Vol'Jin deal with Zar'Jira. She is a shaman but with proper tweaks to her design she could be made into very interesting character - I'm actually at this moment preparing concept artwork for her and how to make her unique, which I'm gonna publish on my blog.

There is one problem though - she is basically a blank slate. Just like Rokhan is.

Zen'Tabra has more story for her (not that good either tbh) than those two.

So devs would have write her in a way to flesh her out.

With Rok'han he always appeared to me a guy that prefers to go on action rather than manage things, but WoD made out of him a garrison's secretary so it's still an option. He is also a shadow hunter and that is also a factor that matters.

How about a house plant?


Just genocide this race. They are COMPLETELY useless at this point.

So were a space goats gomes and worgen for years. Darkspears just recently were hit with regression bat. I don't know how devs want to undo this disaster, it would require a lot of work and dedication to make this race develop new heroes. And devs only like to make gear/ items troll related, they don't bother with their lore, just their aesthetics.

Throrough the years there were impressive troll NPCs that appeared and which were quite promising. Sadly Blizz never bothered to use them for more, and they ended up as mere questing flawor. And that is quite a pity as those NPCs were very competent in my opinion, and if you didn't like Vol'Jin you could like those guys instead.

In Vanilla the most impressive was Witch Doctor Zin'Jil that captured night elf druids and make a concoction to poison and kill them mocking their powers. in Cataclysm he appeared again and made empowering wand so Horde soldiers could fight off grimtotems easily. He has quite a personality and wasn't a goodie two-shoe.

In TBC while they had a presence in Zangarmarsh and a bit in Hellfire Peninsula there wasn't any big characters other than that love triangle. But there was also Shadow Hunter Denjai which was meant to have a short temper. In WoD he made a cameo but mostly as a daily quest giver and quatermaster. He had one specific line that imo would lovely show both his personality and Darkspear battle style:


Watch your back in Bleeding Hollow lands. They fight dirty.

'Course, we fight dirtier.

In WotLK no particulal NPC cought my attention unless we count liberation of echo isles which introduces Zen'Tabra.

In Cata I was really impressed with 2 shaman NPCs Earthcaller Torunscar and Earthmender Norsala. Both of them were very competent, and both had unique voice actors. It was thanks to their efforts that Therazane was willing to cooperate. Torunscar was the one who negotiated with her and made sure that restoration of world Pillar is complete even if the tauren that was in charge got killed by Twilight cultists.

Torunscar appeared in Twilight Highlands too, and he was the mastermind of earthen ring operations in that zone. It was he was managing people and who was organising stuff.

I found it incredibly disappointing that neither of those guys made it to Shaman Class hall. Sure in Hour of Twilight Torunscar appeared and it was shown that he was thrown away and killed/ buried in avalanche, but that could've been easily retconned (far easier than Vanessa Van Cleef, which we were meant to personally kill). Since he is shaman he could've survive stone avalanche, and in case if he was thrown in the air by tentackles, - he is a troll he could broke his legs but could survive. Those species are much sturdier than any others.

In Pandaria Vol'Jin was mostly promoted, however Darkspear stuff was overshadowed by the action of Sunreavers in Isle of Thunder. (I wish it was Darkspears who were there instead, to continue their involvement from patch 4.2.)

And in WoD Shadow Huntress Kajassa appeared to me as the most competent troll hero. She saved the player, during questing in Telaari station she was holding for you entire party of warsong warriors, which she eventually killed. There was also Bru'ja that discovered soulgrinder but becuase of it's dark magics she was captured and beaten by ogres, which not only survived, but ofter you released her, her regeneration tickled in and she was ready to combat.

Quite some NPCs, if only Blizz would use them once in a while then Darkspears wouldn't feel so empty when it comes to representatives.

as for now the most outstanding hero is Zen'Tabra and she is no alligned more with Hippie Circle rather than her own tribe.

[Sangris]

I don't get why Rokhan would be the leader of the Darkspear. The guy is nothing more than a scout. His greatest accomplishment is appearing in WC3, and even there, he only silently followed Rexxar and had maybe 3 lines in the entire campaign.
I'd rather have Master Gadrin as the darkspear leader than Rokhan.

[Maljinwo]

I don't get why Rokhan would be the leader of the Darkspear.

Because Blizzard was like "yeah, warcraft 3 guy"

[Zandalariprelate]

Blizzard is focusing in our characters so bad that most of the warcraft leaders and characters are left in the oblivion, not even Sylvanas and Manduin had survived this and Khagdar is just a quest npc at this point

[Magnagarde]

Rokhan (according to a GM) is only watching after the day-to-day things.
Ion "RNG" Hazzikostas said that the trolls don't have a leader because they are still 'figuring things out'

Whatever that means

He is the Underboss of the Darkspear crime family, overlooking day-to-day operations.