(SPOILER!!!) The Fara (aka plant-people)

[Halanad]

This is about story seen in the WoD beta! Do not read if you do not wish to be spoiled!


With the many enemies we have in Warlords of Draenor these guys are very interesting to me.

They come in many forms. The Botani are the tree-men with the Zandalari troll skeleton and seem to be the driving force of the Fara. The draenor Ancients seem to be equivalent of military commanders within their ranks and lead their troops into battle. Podlings are murloc-ish little terrors that swarm and are surprisingly cruel and gorey, lurking adventurers into ambushes and brutally killing them. The Botani use the corpses of their victims to grow three-headed plant-hydras called Mandragoras and cultivate massive plant monsters called Genesaurs. The corpses they don't use as plant food they infest with plant matter and turn them into shambling plant-zombies.

Their goal seems to simply be expansion. Like a virus they spread their rapidly-growing jungle across Draenor to extend their control. In Gorgrond, they are in open war with the Gronn for control of the wastelands. Thus far, due to their rocky bodies and burrowing the Gronn have held firm, but the Fara are surprisingly clever. They have invented ways to rid themselves of their obvious weakness to fire, either by taming Water Elementals or deliberately burning themselves to create a protective layer of charcoal. They have also figured out a way to infest the Gronn's bodies.

However the most interesting part is these plant creatures seem to have some connection to the Titans. The Lumber Mill chosen Alliance quest line involves finding a way to defeat a particularly large genesaur named Iyu. The Dark Iron dwarves seemingly dig up a Titan artifact they name Heart of the Genesaur which causes Iyu to assault the base in a desperate attempt to retrieve it. This ends in a fight to distract Iyu until the Dark Irons can aim a giant cannon at him and blow him to bits. One can even find Titan caches around Gorgrond sealed by the Fara's thorny jungle growth.

This leaves an important question about the Fara; what is their connection to the Titans? The jungle they grow is clearly out of control and disrupts the natural order of things, similar to the Silithids and their nests. Are they some kind of corrupted Titan race or the spawn of something sinister? Why did they feel so threatened by a Titan device and how did they know the Dark Irons found it?

[Bill Nye the Spy]

If this was Azeroth, I'd say they'd be minions of the Emerald Nightmare, aka Old God(N'Zoth).

Seeing as this is not azeroth, maybe it's another Old God's minions

Or maybe it isn't