Thursday, March 15, 2018

Druid Form Images Essentially Confirm Kul Tiran Human Druids, also Kul Tiran Humans

If you thought dinosaurs were exciting (and yes, they are,) check this out:

(Care of MMO-Champion.)

This simple image tells us a couple things: Given the overall shape and familiar moon-like sigil on the shoulder, this would be a Druidic bear form. The gnarled wooden appearance heavily evokes the Kul Tiras zone of Drustvar.

We can thus, with a fair degree of confidence, that this means A: Kul Tirans have a druidic tradition, which does make sense given their connection to Gilneas. While Gilnean Harvest Witches were only scratching the surface of the practice until the whole Worgen curse came along and the Night Elves started training them, it's not impossible to imagine that the humans of Kul Tiras also developed these techniques (with Zandalari and potentially standard Trolls, we're seeing Druidic traditions not immediately descendant from Malfurion's teachings.)

Of course, if Kul Tiran Human Druids are going to be a thing, that means that this more or less confirms Kul Tirans as a playable race, and likely the Alliance's fourth allied race. Especially given the existence of Mag'har Orcs, it makes sense that the Alliance would get a variant on their flagship race as well, not to mention that they also mirror the Zandalari Trolls as the dominant race on their respective continents.

Personally, I've always wanted to see a darker side of Druidism in WoW, and while Worgen certainly come a little closer to that, this goes a big step farther by making these druid forms reminiscent less of animals but of the creepy wicker-man creatures found in Drustvar.

These days when you hear pagan or druid, unless you're in a very religiously conservative community, you probably think more of hippies and new age types, but there is of course a long tradition of seeing such things as terrifying - the province of witchcraft (again, if you meet someone who calls themselves a witch these days, you might roll your eyes but you're probably not afraid that they'll actually curse you.)

But that old-fashioned view of paganism has been a great source for horror fiction, and it's something I'm pretty excited to see in Drustvar. With their creepy looks (and we haven't seen the other forms yet,) it'd be cool to find that Druids in Kul Tiras are a sort of shunned and feared part of society, much like Warlocks are for most races or Mages are for Night Elves.

And yet, the bigger takeaway in all of this is that this pretty much confirms Kul Tiran Humans as a playable race. Again, it makes a ton of sense from a lore perspective, but I wonder, then what their class options might be:

Warrior: It's harder, I think, to justify a race not having Warriors than the other way. The only time we ever had a race that couldn't was Blood Elves during BC and Wrath, but they got them during Cataclysm, so here we are. And the burly Kul Tirans are very unlikely not to have any sort of classic martial tradition.

Paladin: This is up for debate. Gilneas apparently doesn't have a Paladin tradition (that seems to have been more of a Stormwind/Lordaeron thing among humans.) Still, Kul Tiras was less isolationist than Gilneas, so it's not that hard to imagine they'd embraced it.

Death Knight: I'd argue this ought to work - Kul Tiras didn't have a huge presence in Lordaeron from the Third War through Wrath, but if we can accept that some Argual-associated Worgen could be turned, I don't think it's a stretch for some Kul Tiran members of the Alliance to be turned as well (Jaina was certainly fighting the Scourge, though to be fair she was there more in her capacity as a Dalaran Mage than Kul Tiran royalty.)

Hunter: Much like Warrior, this one's harder to justify excluding than including. And especially given that Kul Tirans are supposed to be big monster hunters, this is an obvious fit.

Shaman: The only human-like people with a real Shamanistic tradition are the Vrykul, and as burly as Kul Tirans are, they're not Vrykul. I wouldn't say no if it was offered, but I doubt this one.

Rogue: Slightly less than Warriors and Hunters, but again it's pretty hard to imagine a race that can't have stealthy assassins, and certainly with all the pirates sailing out of Kul Tiras, they've got to at least have Outlaw Rogues.

Demon Hunter: I can really only imagine them ever adding Naga, Broken Draenei, or possibly Fel Orcs as Demon Hunter races beyond the ones that already exist. Which is a shame, because I could have totally rocked a Worgen Demon Hunter.

Druid: This is kind of confirmed and of course the impetus of the post. I'm really hoping for a creepier take on Druids in a game that has historically treated them as one of the most unambiguously good-guy classes.

Monk: If they're allowing Nightborne Monks, then this isn't really about cultural traditions as much as their willingness to deal with Pandaren, so I wouldn't rule it out.

Mage: Jaina's a pretty huge precedent here, and there is some mention of a local tradition of mages on Kul Tiras that Jaina was initially sent to Dalaran in order to represent.

Warlock: Where there are Mages, it's not hard to imagine Warlocks coming as well. Kul Tiras doesn't seem to have a particularly strong holy/righteous vibe to it, so I see no reason to rule them out.

Priest: Priest is another broadly applicable class, and given the very Lovecraftian sea-priests we seem to be getting in Stormsong Valley (I'd love to see a place called Innswitch or Dunsmouth) there's clearly also some Shadow Priest stuff going on there.

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