Kalimdor before the Horde and Alliance arrived...?

[Grubjuice]

What was the state of diplomatic interaction between the Tauren and the Nightelves before the Orcs, Humans, and undead servants of the Burning legion arrived in Kalimdor (as depicted in WCIII)?

[rhoark]

I think the night elves were isolationist, and the tauren were losing a war of attrition with centaurs.

[Mihalik]

None.

The forests belonged to the elves and they rarely or never left them. The plains "belonged" to the Tauren (but the Centaurs were beating them), and they stayed away from the Forests as the Night Elves had the habit of killing anyone entering the forests. The Tauren feared the Elves and seen them as mystical creatures. Keep in mind at that time the Elves were still immortal.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Tauren#Tauren_relations

Tauren and night elves have coexisted on Kalimdor for centuries, and tauren have long seen the Kaldorei as a mythic race of demigods, possessed of great magic and steeped in natural powers.[4]

[Trassk]

Tauren and night elves mostly. And they kept themselves to themselves and never crossed boarders.

[leaks]

The elves were busy dyking it out while the men slept and the tauren were wandering around being nomads and avoiding centaurs.

[Lastlivingsoul]

Coexisted. Night Elves don't kill anyone who simply enters the forests. They kill off anyone who comes in and destroys them. Tauren don't do that. Coexisted. It's pretty easy to coexist with Night Elves so long as your not an imperialist asshat.

Quick Edit: I agree...

[khalltusk]

Play the game Warcraft 3 or read the lore before you speak. The Orcs were cutting down trees with souls attached in record numbers. They retaliated. Also the Orcs did this on someone else's property.

If you go to your neighbors lawn and poach his dog expect consequences. In either case Orcs and Elves have never gotten along.

Unfortunately the Orcs did not know that anyone lived there they thought it was uninhabited and the "souls" were the warcraft 3 whisp unit which does not quite count.

[Grubjuice]

Unfortunately the Orcs did not know that anyone lived there they thought it was uninhabited and the "souls" were the warcraft 3 whisp unit which does not quite count.

wisps could probably considered souls and or sentient beings, considering that dead night elf becomes a wisp, and wisp becomes becomes an ancient/protector/treant.

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were Tauren druids part of the cenarion Circle before the destruction of Archimonde and Nordrassil?

[Deleted]

Coexisted. Night Elves don't kill anyone who simply enters the forests. They kill off anyone who comes in and destroys them. Tauren don't do that. Coexisted. It's pretty easy to coexist with Night Elves so long as your not an imperialist asshat.

Indeed, both races have high respect for mother nature.

[Deleted]

I always wondered that too. In the end, the night elves were south in Silithus... so they had to cross tauren lands in the end, did they not?

[Deleted]

yes they would. But seeing as how Night Elves aided the Tauren in Thousand Needles at the height of a faction war when humans and dwarves were busily supplying the Grimtotem with arms and intel, it's safe to say the two races do not like to engage each other at all if they don't have to.

True, but I'm more wonder, Silithus wasn't really night elven land... nor was it tauren... yet in the War of the Shifting Sands, only night elves fought. What were the tauren doing?

[Netherspark]

As I understand it the Night Elves and Tauren, although friends, barely had any contact with eacthother for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Generally that was just because they occupied different lands, plus the Tauren's nomadic lifestyle and thin population would have made chance encounters rare.

wisps could probably considered souls and or sentient beings, considering that dead night elf becomes a wisp, and wisp becomes becomes an ancient/protector/treant.

The Orcs didn't know that. Some simply called them "dancing lights", while others thought they were some kind of haunting spirits.

were Tauren druids part of the cenarion Circle before the destruction of Archimonde and Nordrassil?

No. There had been no Tauren Druids for many generations.

[TheWindWalker]

Indeed, both races have high respect for mother nature.

The tauren kill other animals and use their flesh and bones to make their buildings. Can't really see how that's "respecting mother nature" in contrast to not cutting down trees. Always thought the "trees are sacred" mentality was phenomenally childish.

[Surfd]

True, but I'm more wonder, Silithus wasn't really night elven land... nor was it tauren... yet in the War of the Shifting Sands, only night elves fought. What were the tauren doing?

The tauren as a full out culture might not even have existed that early in the timeframe. The war of shifting sands was how long ago exactly?

[Netherspark]

The tauren as a full out culture might not even have existed that early in the timeframe. The war of shifting sands was how long ago exactly?

The War of the Shifting Sands was 1000 years ago, the Tauren's culture is MUCH older than that. The Tauren weren't involved because they were just sparse nomadic tribes, who probably had no knowledge of the Qiraji and the Night Elves wouldn't have bothered recruiting help from them.

The tauren kill other animals and use their flesh and bones to make their buildings. Can't really see how that's "respecting mother nature" in contrast to not cutting down trees. Always thought the "trees are sacred" mentality was phenomenally childish.

Respecting nature doesn't mean you are vegan or anythng like that.... The Night Elves respect and adore nature but they still eat meat and wear animal skins, so did the Native Americans etc.

[khalltusk]

wisps could probably considered souls and or sentient beings, considering that dead night elf becomes a wisp, and wisp becomes becomes an ancient/protector/treant.

- - - Updated - - -

were Tauren druids part of the cenarion Circle before the destruction of Archimonde and Nordrassil?

Thats the thing as someone commented in a post or two above, the Orcs saw some dancing lights etc. For gameplay reasons the whisps were attackable but pretty much the Orcs had no idea about the place and just thought it was some spirits or ghosts/dancing lights about. Until some night elves came storming over

[TheWindWalker]

Respecting nature doesn't mean you are vegan or anythng like that.... The Night Elves respect and adore nature but they still eat meat and wear animal skins, so did the Native Americans etc.

I'm about to blow your mind. "Native Americans" weren't a single people. They weren't a couple nations. They were thousands of different cultures with dozens of seperate languages and hundreds of dialects who varied from those who roamed the plains and fed on Buffalo to those that lived in the forests of the South-East used wood to build the structures of theirs. Some of them lived in relative "cave man" style. Others formed armored platoons and attacked other settlements for food, materials and prisoners.

"Mother Nature" is a construct of a religious mentality. Nature has no thoughts, has no feelings and has no concern for the plant kingdom. We are no further from nature than the amoeba and slime mold living in the stagnant water in the upturned cap of a dead mushroom that was growing on the corpse of a whale carcass. Four different kingdoms, by the way. None of them of any more concern to nature than a piece of alloyed steel.

[MoHo]

The tauren as a full out culture might not even have existed that early in the timeframe. The war of shifting sands was how long ago exactly?

Taurens are mentioned to helping out the night elves in the war against the legion during the sundering.

Some of the night eleves did see the tauren as savages, but still somewhat accepted the help. This was some 10.000 years ago

War of the shifting sands was way later, but yeah it did not seems to have involved the taurens

There is however night elf ruins all the way down the coast of kalimdor down to silithus so maybe that explains some the reason of them being so far away from their current homestay.

[Lynneiah]

True, but I'm more wonder, Silithus wasn't really night elven land... nor was it tauren... yet in the War of the Shifting Sands, only night elves fought. What were the tauren doing?

For the longest time, Tauren lived as separate nomadic tribes, much like the Centaur or Quilboar (though infinitely less savage). It wasn't until after WCIII that they started uniting under the Bloodhoof tribe.
Because of this, it's unlikely the tirbes individually were powerful enough to contribute much of anything to a war like that, and it might have been deemed not worth the effort to try and unite them all (possibly because of time constraints).
Night Elves, on the other hand, were a single nation with a strong military, and the dominant force on Kalimdor. Makes sense for the Bronze Dragonflight to go 'let's ask those guys for help'.

[serenka]

the trolls ruled most of the south, the night elves most of the north and the tauren were bullied by the centaur.