Tauren Shamanism, Night Elf Druidism, and Human Light Worship

[Skytotem]

Over the years, Blizz has introduced a lot of different magical systems tied to the various cultures.

Many of the orc clans have their own spin on their shamanism, Trolls mix loa worship into their shamanism, and the Draenei have a direct line to the Light through the Naaru. Tauren explicitly use Night elf style druidism but developed their own take on it into 'Sunwalkers' even if Blizz has shifted away from considering them sun druids despite that flavor fitting better.

But the original forms of Shamanism, Druidism, and Light worship with the tauren, nelfs, and humans have sort of fallen by the wayside over the years.


What are some ways that they could be developed and given some depth?

[Lupinemancer]

One way, is like they did with the Orc Heritage Armor Questline, which focused on the culture of the Orcs. The idea is they focus on the various Races and their cultures, simialr to how we focus on the Dragonflights in this Expansion. Obviously not all Races will be focused on at once, cuz there are alot, but that could work.

[Amnaught]

One way, is like they did with the Orc Heritage Armor Questline, which focused on the culture of the Orcs. The idea is they focus on the various Races and their cultures, simialr to how we focus on the Dragonflights in this Expansion. Obviously not all Races will be focused on at once, cuz there are alot, but that could work.

When BfA was announced, I was so sure that's what we were going to get as the primary plot. What Legion had with Order Halls, we should have had with our racial capitals. Even just breaking each faction campaign into "warmonger" and "peacebringer" subfactions could have been enough.

[Skytotem]

One way, is like they did with the Orc Heritage Armor Questline, which focused on the culture of the Orcs. The idea is they focus on the various Races and their cultures, simialr to how we focus on the Dragonflights in this Expansion. Obviously not all Races will be focused on at once, cuz there are alot, but that could work.

Exactly, they need something AT LEAST that quality for the nelfs especially.

Some ideas...

Tauren: Some shamanism that actually does something with their BIG totems, the ones at their buildings, they could provide regional benefits and such. I know the tauren are hard to write for though because Blizz used First Nations aesthetics for them which makes them a very sensitive issue, but it shouldn't be impossible to handle tactfully. (There's even a First Nations figure called 'slayer of alien gods' which is perfect for an ancestor-deity ala bwonsamdi that is specifically geared towards fighting Old Gods and Titans)


Night Elf: An owl wild god seems overdue, they've tossed so much moon priestess stuff into druids in general though it's tricky. But a focus on the nocturnal aspect of nelfs can't hurt, and having the Cenarion Keepers / Dryads, and the various ancients more firmly aligned with the nelfs as they were in darkshore would definitely be a plus. Especially more focus on the 'tree of ages' type ancients.


Human: The Three Virtues from the RPG would be pretty nice to focus on, and expanding the actual ranks of the bishops / archbishop role getting filled again. Show them clashing with nobles, helping the poor, or one who goes too zealous getting reigned in by the others. Maybe even show them as taking a different path than the Naaru have or a different route to the same goal.

[Lupinemancer]

When BfA was announced, I was so sure that's what we were going to get as the primary plot. What Legion had with Order Halls, we should have had with our racial capitals. Even just breaking each faction campaign into "warmonger" and "peacebringer" subfactions could have been enough.

Exactly, focuz on the races, the capitals, the cultures and exploring the world, that is what we'd like to see one day.

[Triceron]

Being psuedo religions, having some actual traditions or even some micro-holidays based on these faiths would help. This is all meant to build culture after all.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The religions should have been kept vague as in pre-Legion. Fleshing them out, ie making the truth known, would have made them much less interesting.

[Amnaught]

Being psuedo religions, having some actual traditions or even some micro-holidays based on these faiths would help. This is all meant to build culture after all.

Micro-holidays based on different races' priests would be fucking incredible.

[Mace]

Over the years, Blizz has introduced a lot of different magical systems tied to the various cultures.

Many of the orc clans have their own spin on their shamanism, Trolls mix loa worship into their shamanism, and the Draenei have a direct line to the Light through the Naaru. Tauren explicitly use Night elf style druidism but developed their own take on it into 'Sunwalkers' even if Blizz has shifted away from considering them sun druids despite that flavor fitting better.

But the original forms of Shamanism, Druidism, and Light worship with the tauren, nelfs, and humans have sort of fallen by the wayside over the years.


What are some ways that they could be developed and given some depth?

Especially with the Elves. Night elf druidism is a core part of the elven identity, arcane and nature hand in hand, and all those arcane spells in the suppsed blaance between arcane and nature , and yet, we see no other elven sub-race able to be druids but so many other races now adopting the once excsluvie night elven male class..

they hvae definitely been dropped by the wayside. til now the blanace druid lore is so thin, and Nightorne who'd have been perfect to r eally enter that area seem to have completley forgotten both the arcan'dor and Farodin, where those should be now a core part of their idnetity along with their arcane affinity. At the veruy least Nightborne should be druids.

there is a case for sure for Void elves - study natuer adn the void, with the desperate need for the emerald dream to defeat the nightmare, it's way up their street. . And despite showing multiple times that high elves love nature too, they've done nothing to sure up elven druidsm by these races taking htem on.

I can definitley see blood elves coming to druidism via the nightborne and being a balnace druid or resto heavy, we already saw signs of this in the botanica, and thier botanists do a very similar thing..

Sadly the original druidism isn't being expounded on.

As for the light, the human light stuff ell away to the Draenei, and now Forsaken have more involvement with the light than living humans do in terms of lore exposure.. rofl huh.

[bloodkin]

It would be nice if every race (shard with allied race ofc) their own unique spell effects for more racially bound/religious classes such as druids, shamans, priests and paladins. You could tie in a nice little quest chain for every race to get them, something like green fire for warlocks. This shouldn't be so hard to pull off and should add some much needed depth and variety to the spell effects.

[Triceron]

It would be nice if every race (shard with allied race ofc) their own unique spell effects for more racially bound/religious classes such as druids, shamans, priests and paladins. You could tie in a nice little quest chain for every race to get them, something like green fire for warlocks. This shouldn't be so hard to pull off and should add some much needed depth and variety to the spell effects.

That would be the dream.

Just an overall set of glyphs tailored to certain races or cultures would work for me.

Trolls and Zandalari could get Voodoo and Loa glyphs for all casters. Summons get Loa Beast options, cooldown abilities invoke a ancient Voodoo masked spirit with accompanying chanting, rotational spells get Shadowy trail effects or potion tossing FX.

Pandaren could invoke the Celestials, summon Pandaren Ancient spirits, and get Jade and Mist themed spell FX. Even Fire abilities could get the Asian style swirly fire and smoke effects we saw used much in MoP.

[Shadowferal]

I'd differentiate "elementalism" from "shamanism." Shaman will have talent trees regarding ancestors and spirits. Incarnations and archetypes will figure heavily, leaning on racial culture. (Such things should always differ by race. And as such, the label "shaman" will also be different. Trolls will have "witchdoctor" for example.)

Nature gives druids shapeshifting. And that talent tree should be all about it. Not just "feral," but a variety of forms.

[Skytotem]

Micro-holidays based on different races' priests would be fucking incredible.

We should also have Micro-Holidays about when the Alliance and Horde first formed, where each race celebrates how they joined.

[Myradin]

The religions should have been kept vague as in pre-Legion. Fleshing them out, ie making the truth known, would have made them much less interesting.

The more we understand the universe the more religions look silly.

That said, I think another big problem is that so much storytelling is not in EK or Kalimdor. So you're constantly sent away from easy reasons to interact and develop the main cultures of the franchise.

[Maljinwo]

We should also have Micro-Holidays about when the Alliance and Horde first formed, where each race celebrates how they joined.

I can just picture the Forsaken trying to hide the fact that they just joined to use them as tools while they developed another plague

[Skytotem]

I can just picture the Forsaken trying to hide the fact that they just joined to use them as tools while they developed another plague

It'd be interesting to see a few different forsaken's takes on it, with one admitting that openly, another saying it started as that but they made genuine friends... and the last saying they hated joining the Horde because he fought in the second war but since then has had his life saved multiple times by horde members and is actually starting to like living in the Horde.