How to better distinguish and develop the human kingdoms ?

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

What do you think should have been done by the writers to better differenciate and develop in terms of history, culture and military the Seven Kingdoms of Azeroth ?

What are your headcanons, theories and ideas on the history, culture, clothings, architecture and mentalities for each of the human kingdoms from Stormwind to Alterac ?

[Aucald]

• Stormwind - I imagine Stormwind as one of Azeroth's more metropolitan and cosmopolitan kingdoms or at least one that aspires to be viewed as such. In truth, I'd say it struggles with its own identity due to the sheer number of different cultures all expressing themselves in its day-to-day life. Stormwind likely leans towards austerity in its architecture, with grandiose or ornate trappings largely confined to special areas like cathedrals, palaces, or military structures. I think ancient or medieval Rome probably best represents Stormwind.
• Lordaeron - Lordaeron more strongly cleaves to a humanocentric ideal, eschewing mixed aesthetics in favor of more traditional human trappings. The Church of the Light is strongly stamped into the culture itself, with soaring cathedrals and ornate churches everywhere you look, and the iconography of the Light and royal heraldry being omnipresent. For a real-world analog, I'd say a location like Prague best represents urban Lordaeron, such as Capital City.
• Stromgarde - Like Lordaeron, Stromgarde is also distinctly human but eschews Lordaeron's religious trappings and much of its ornate qualities. Stromgarde is streamlined and practical, with excess confined solely to military structures such as fortifications, guard towers, and city walls. For a real-world comparison, it would be something like a mix of ancient Greece or Persia but kept minimalist and purely functional.
• Kul Tiras - Kul Tiras is encapsulated pretty much perfectly in its in-game incarnation, a maritime civilization whose port capital pretty much expresses what it is on its face. Repurposing the hulls of great ships and rife with oceanic and marine iconography. There's a sense of the uneasy union of past and present in Kul Tiras, as the superstitious and deeply spiritual people pay lip service to modern ideas but always with one foot in a more rustic and savage past. For real-world comparison, I'd say Kul Tiras is equal parts Venice and Macau.
• Gilneas - Gilneas is pretty much Warcraft's take on proto-Victorian London: gaslight, stiff upper lip, and all.
• Dalaran - Dalaran is the cosmopolitan city that Stormwind aspires to be, a clash of many aesthetics and cultures and yet unique in and of itself. Fittingly, the Arcane is the city's primary imprimatur, with magic being promoted in both iconography and archaeology. Its designs seamlessly combine human and elven influences, with hints of dwarven and gnomish in its civic technology and infrastructure. In terms of the real world, Dalaran is probably closest to Paris, with a vibrant atmosphere but also an abiding sense of its own importance.
• Alterac - The smallest and perhaps least important of the human kingdoms, Alterac is rustic but vital, and its people combine the Stromgardian sense of national pride alongside the Gilnean sense of self-importance. Motivated to make a name for itself, Alterac City is most like Strom in miniature, albeit with a bit more ostentatiousness as its explorers bring back ideas and notions from Ironforge and Lordaeron.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

How to better distinguish and develop the human kingdoms?

This is a video game. It's an audio-visual experience. Yet, up until Cataclysm, all of the human kingdoms shared the exact same aesthetics and voices. Doesn't matter if you're in Elwyn Forest or Hillsbrad or Tirisfal. They all used the same buildings with the same blue roofs and the human NPCs had the same voicelines. They started differentiating Gilneas in Cata but it was too little, too late and only Gilneas and eventual Kul'Tiras wound up being differentiated in terms of aesthetics and voice. Also doesn't help that you stopped seeing Gilneas after the starter zone and people who never created the Worgen might have never seen their buildings at all, so for a lot of people Kul'Tiras was the one and only human kingdom they visited that was noticeably different.

Another way they could have helped hammer home that there were different kingdoms would have been for human players to have been able to choose which kingdom they started in at character creation. Ie, if you are a Lordaeronian human then your starter experience is either fleeing from the Scourge, or being a refugee in a Southern kingdom. If you are a Kul'Tiran human then your starting experience is that of arriving in the EK on a boat. Etc.

Could have also given the other surviving human kingdom leaders like Danath Trollbane a greater presence in the story. People know who Varian, Muradin, Jaina, Tyrande, etc are because they are very prominent throughout the game, but Danath is only known to hardcore lore nerds as he only occasionally shows up as an NPC is some obscure side questline maybe once every decade.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Alterac could be inspired from medieval Switzerland or Wales, with them being very organised and having a strong military with them having very dangerous pikemen and spearmen formations that can stop and crush superior infantry numbers and cavalry charges, and longbow archers, which they combine with their mountainous environment to good effect.

The kingdom was a mini-confederation with the cities having greater economic and political powers than most other kingdoms, having charters and relying more on it merchant guilds than other kingdoms save for Kul Tiras.

The irony is that the kingdom could have slowed down the Horde and helped in its defeat by playing its cards rights and/or asking help from Stormgarde if their king wasn't a cowardly slime.

[Mehrunes]

Why would you differentiate anything in the age of unification? If anything all other kingdoms should depose their rulers and accept Blanduin as their lord and savior.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Why would you differentiate anything in the age of unification? If anything all other kingdoms should depose their rulers and accept Blanduin as their lord and savior.

Because I am not Blizzard and I actually care about the lore.

[DatToffer]

Turn them into more races / allied races with their own perks that double down on their identities as realms.

That's what I came up with in another topic, after seeing the thin human Alterac concept.

Why would you differentiate anything in the age of unification? If anything all other kingdoms should depose their rulers and accept Blanduin as their lord and savior.

Well, they did kill the Gilneas and Arathi princes in Cataclysm.

[vizzle]

Make them all racist against each other. We'd see them naturally highlight ambiguous and irrational meaningless differences overnight.

[Shadowferal]

Make them all racist against each other. We'd see them naturally highlight ambiguous and irrational meaningless differences overnight.

I would use the term "ethnic discriminatory" in that regard. Although I don't think it'd work. It takes a diversity of cultures that we already have with different races.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Introduce some changes and differences in mentality and internal and foreign policy between the kingdoms, with some being more conservative or liberal in the economical domain, more or less friendly or tolerant of other races and attitude toward magic.

[Skytotem]

Flavor brainstorm like it's an RTS and then represent the 'unit's' and 'tech' ingame, then pair each human kingdom up with one or two of the other races in the Alliance.


Stormwind - Bronzebeards of course. They have the deeprun tram and everything. Nothing's going to shake their unity.

Stromgarde - Wildhammer, because of the proximity of Forest Trolls and the shared enmity, the humans of Arathor are natural allies to them.

Gilneas - Dark Irons industrial focus compliments Gilneas nicely. The Dark Irons can mass produce things and Gilneas can do fine detail work and ship things, they'd be an economic powerhouse again.

Kul'tiras - Can have enclaves for all the dwarves, but its naval location makes it perfect for setting up ties with the Frostborn in NR too.

Dalaran - Ideally it should shift back to the Alliance and be a center for all mages on the 'regulate magic' view of magic use. Prominently Nelfs, draenei, dwarves, with gnomes, worgen, and velfs on the 'lets experiment more' end of things.

Alterac I'd split into those raised as Forsaken or willingly living in the Horde with the expectation that they eventually turn into Forsaken, and living human survivors that set up a city-state somewhere else, or merge back into Stromgarde or join Gilneas/Kul'tiras. Functionally Alterac is a 'dead' nation.

Lordaeron - Blizz seems to be trying to kill the Lordaeron human identity post BFA, unless we see a 'light undead' allied race it seems like they're using the Forsaken for this, which I'm not a fan of since I prefer my Forsaken to view themselves as a new nation and to recruit undead from all nations. It's hard to say how Northern EK could be dividedup between the Alliance and the Horde now that Calia's in the mix. This thing is a whole mess.

[Khaza-R]

Pretty much just 4 human kingdoms at this point.

Lordaeron and Alterac are destroyed with no signs of returning.

Dalaran is no longer really a human kingdom but an independent, cosmopolitan nation of mages.

Stormwind, Gilneas and Kul Tiras are all pretty distinctive of each other as is.

This pretty much just leaves Stromgarde as the the odd man out. It was a shame this wasn't explored in BfA when Arathi was revamped. But I would like to see Stromgarge embrace its martial culture. Perhaps more of a warrior, barbarian society. Less advance and more rugged than its counterparts for constantly being under attack throughout its history. It would also be a good way to introduce flavor for human shaman given Arathi's natural connection with the elements.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Flavor brainstorm like it's an RTS and then represent the 'unit's' and 'tech' ingame, then pair each human kingdom up with one or two of the other races in the Alliance.


Stormwind - Bronzebeards of course. They have the deeprun tram and everything. Nothing's going to shake their unity.

Stromgarde - Wildhammer, because of the proximity of Forest Trolls and the shared enmity, the humans of Arathor are natural allies to them.

Gilneas - Dark Irons industrial focus compliments Gilneas nicely. The Dark Irons can mass produce things and Gilneas can do fine detail work and ship things, they'd be an economic powerhouse again.

Kul'tiras - Can have enclaves for all the dwarves, but its naval location makes it perfect for setting up ties with the Frostborn in NR too.

Dalaran - Ideally it should shift back to the Alliance and be a center for all mages on the 'regulate magic' view of magic use. Prominently Nelfs, draenei, dwarves, with gnomes, worgen, and velfs on the 'lets experiment more' end of things.

Alterac I'd split into those raised as Forsaken or willingly living in the Horde with the expectation that they eventually turn into Forsaken, and living human survivors that set up a city-state somewhere else, or merge back into Stromgarde or join Gilneas/Kul'tiras. Functionally Alterac is a 'dead' nation.

Lordaeron - Blizz seems to be trying to kill the Lordaeron human identity post BFA, unless we see a 'light undead' allied race it seems like they're using the Forsaken for this, which I'm not a fan of since I prefer my Forsaken to view themselves as a new nation and to recruit undead from all nations. It's hard to say how Northern EK could be dividedup between the Alliance and the Horde now that Calia's in the mix. This thing is a whole mess.

I don't see how any human would willingly turn into a Forsaken, and those who did were members of the Cult of the Damned during the 3d War.

[Skytotem]

I don't see how any human would willingly turn into a Forsaken, and those who did were members of the Cult of the Damned during the 3d War.

Oh I imagine there's plenty. horror stories about SL would prompt a lot of former syndicate members whose organization has collapsed to look to join the Forsaken when they die in exchange for a place to live, or just because they haven't done everything they want to do in their life. I imagine there are plenty of people since the 3rd war that would prefer to join the forsaken and just be undead, rather than join the cult of the damned and go on an insane assault against all that lives.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Oh I imagine there's plenty. horror stories about SL would prompt a lot of former syndicate members whose organization has collapsed to look to join the Forsaken when they die in exchange for a place to live, or just because they haven't done everything they want to do in their life. I imagine there are plenty of people since the 3rd war that would prefer to join the forsaken and just be undead, rather than join the cult of the damned and go on an insane assault against all that lives.

I don't think that the members of the Syndicate are insane enough to turn to the Forsaken to become undead, a fate much worse than death. And they have no reason to be more fond of these undeads more than the living.

[Soon-TM]

I don't think that the members of the Syndicate are insane enough to turn to the Forsaken to become undead, a fate much worse than death. And they have no reason to be more fond of these undeads more than the living.

I don't know if being a Forsaken is so much worse than being tortured for an extended time in Revendreth or being killed again and again in Maldraxxus. As for Ardenweald and nu-Bastion, comparatively the milder afterlives, I'd say that they are pretty much out of reach for your typical Syndicate member.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

I don't know if being a Forsaken is so much worse than being tortured for an extended time in Revendreth or being killed again and again in Maldraxxus. As for Ardenweald and nu-Bastion, comparatively the milder afterlives, I'd say that they are pretty much out of reach for your typical Syndicate member.

I strongly doubt that any Syndicate member has ever heard of these places or of the Shadowlands either.

[Skytotem]

I don't think that the members of the Syndicate are insane enough to turn to the Forsaken to become undead, a fate much worse than death. And they have no reason to be more fond of these undeads more than the living.

That's INCREDIBLY subjective, and there were plenty of people who joined the Cult of the Damned despite that leaving them part of an omnicidal cult, the Forsaken are a MUCH easier sell than that.

[Oneirophobia]

I strongly doubt that any Syndicate member has ever heard of these places or of the Shadowlands either.

Assuming they completely missed the entire sky above Icecrown exploding and the king of Stormwind getting kidnapped, the Scourge ran wild across all of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. You don't think anybody noticed? There were multiple lower-tier NPCs who waltzed into Oribos for the own means. It was basically a public park.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

That's INCREDIBLY subjective, and there were plenty of people who joined the Cult of the Damned despite that leaving them part of an omnicidal cult, the Forsaken are a MUCH easier sell than that.

The Cult of the Damned are long gone or at least disminished and I doubt that the majority of Syndicate, who above all want revenge and to keep their power as petty crime lords and tyrants, would want to sell themselves to a cult worshipping death.

- - - Updated - - -

Assuming they completely missed the entire sky above Icecrown exploding and the king of Stormwind getting kidnapped, the Scourge ran wild across all of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. You don't think anybody noticed? There were multiple lower-tier NPCs who waltzed into Oribos for the own means. It was basically a public park.

Lots of words and rumors and strange phenomenons that they can't explain and with surely a lot of contradicting reports on what is going on. They don't have TV with live news or the Internet.