Humans, am I right? The most boring species to play, one might argue, given that as far as I'm aware, the only people ever to play D&D are, in fact, humans in real life.
And yet... there's something I find compelling about playing a human in a fantasy world, perhaps because it's easiest to picture them in just about any genre tropes (or genre-bending tropes). You sort of know the gist of what it's like to be human, so you can move on to other questions of identity and the place in the world from a familiar kind of bedrock.
Humans are the founders of the Alliance faction, and among the most populous humanoid species on Azeroth. But there's been a lot of crazy stuff that has happened to humans, and some of WoW's playable races, and by extension, the new playable species in the D&D book, are humans who have undergone a transformation.
Let's talk the broad origins of humanity in Azeroth, because they're a bit unusual compared to other fantasy settings:
Ages and ages ago, the Titans came to Azeroth, finding it overwhelmed by the eldritch horrors of the Old Gods and their Black Empire. Seeking to protect the embryonic Worldsoul within the core of the planet, the Titans tried to excise the Old Gods, with the leader of the Pantheon, Aman'thul, physically tearing the Old God Y'shaarj from the surface of the world. This... didn't go well. While Y'shaarj died, he (it?) unleashed a curse with it essence called the Sha, and the physical trauma of this extraction tore a hole in the surface of the world, with the magical blood of the planet pouring out like a wound.
The Titans changed tack.
First off, they decided to imprison, rather than destroy the remaining three Old Gods. They would also build a complex set of world-spanning machinery known as the Manifold to protect (and also kind of control) the Worldsoul and keep it safe from the Old Gods' corruption. To do this, the Titans created the Titanforged, myriad species of sentient constructs who would serve as technicians and guardians.
Among the Titanforged were the Vrykul, hulking half-giant warriors who were the primary soldiers of the Titanforge armies, tasked with fighting back against the armies of the Black Empire.
The Old Gods defeated and sealed away, and the Old Gods' creations driven to hide underground and out of the way, things seemed pretty good.
But gradually, the Titan Keeper Loken was driven to madness by the Old God Yogg-Saron. Amongst his treacheries, Loken installed a glitch into the creation forges that built new Titanforged - something almost like a computer virus, which came to be known as the Curse of Flesh.
This hit several of the Titanforged, including the Earthen, Mechagnomes, Mogu, and Vrykul. No longer constructs of stone and metal, they were now beings of flesh and blood (in theory more easily corrupted and mutated by the Old Gods).
Society continued onward, and without the Pantheon to intervene, and Loken's treachery sending the Keepers into total disarray, the Curse of Flesh spread and took hold of most of the Titanforged.
It's not explicitly clear that this was the further effect of the Curse of Flesh, but at some point in the distant past, the Vrykul began to give birth to stunted children. Vrykul kids were historically born capable of walking, and would grow to be, like, twelve feet tall by adulthood, but these tiny children were born weak and crying, and even by adulthood would only sometimes even grow beyond six feet.
In other words, they were humans.
When the Vrykul King Ymiron declared that the "malformed" children should be put to death, lest their weakness spread through their people, many Vrykul took their human children and fled. The Keeper Tyr, tireless champion of justice and good, took many of them with him when he fled monsters sent after him by Loken.
Tyr, who had lost his original hand to the mutated dragon Galakrond and replaced it with a fist of pure silver, would remain a powerful figure of myth and legend in human culture. Taking them south to the lands that would be known as Lordaeron, Tyr ultimately fell in battle with one of the C'thraaxi monsers Loken sent after him, but the humans settled in those lands, their disparate tribes eventually forming into a unified empire known as Arathor, or the Arathi Empire.
For centuries (at least - the timeline is not explicit) the Arathi Empire grew, clashing with the nearby Amani Trolls. Finding the High Elves of Quel'thalas, and intrigued by the elves' command of magic, the humans made a deal to aid in the defense of the elven kingdom in exchange for one hundred humans being taught arcane magic.
These mages became known as the Kirn Tor, and founded their own magic city of Dalaran.
Eventually, the Arathi Empire splintered into seven different kingdoms. The nobility of the empire went northwest, to found the Kingdom of Lordaeron, centered in Tirisfal Glades (where Tyr fell). The royal line of Emperors, though, traveled far to the south, past the Dwarven and Gnomish lands of Khaz'Modan, to build the kingdom of Stormwind.
Dalaran remained something of an independent city-state, while the kingdom of Alterac was created in the mountains in the center of the subcontinent. On a peninsula to the southwest was the kingdom of Gilneas. Then, on islands to the southwest of the subcontinent, Gilnean sailors settled and founded the kingdom of Kul Tiras. Those who remained behind in the old imperial heartlands created the Kingdom of Stromgarde.
Seven kingdoms. Ok?
Stormwind Humans:
The standard "human" in WoW is from Stormwind. While Stormwind historically found itself with hostile neighbors from the Gurubashi Troll Emprie to the south and the Dark Iron Dwarves to the north, for the most part Stormwind thrived and prospered until the coming of the Horde.
The Guardian was a position created by the Kirin Tor in which a single mage was empowered with immense magical energy to serve as Azeroth's greatest protector. Unfortunately, Aegwynn, a woman who had remained Guardian for centuries, extending her life magically, had allowed an insidious bit of corruption to enter her when she was fighting an avatar of the Dark Titan Sargeras.
While Aegwynn herself was not really affected, her son, Medivh, was. Aegwynn saw to it that when she finally gave up the mantle of Guardian, Medivh would take over. But Medivh carried with him a fragment of Sargeras, and when he reached adulthood, this fragment utterly took over him, possessing him. Sargeras, ever eager to claim Azeroth for himself, used Medivh to open The Dark Portal, which connected Azeroth to the planet Draenor. There, Sargeras' lieutenant Kil'jaeden had manipulated Draenor's native Orcs into forming the Horde, which was then a force of pure brutal conquest and genocide.
The Horde invaded without warning, attacking Stormwind as the nearest major civilization. Such an enormous force ultimately proved too much for Stormwind, and the First War ended with Stormwind overrun and conquered, its young king, Varian (after his father King Llane was assassinated) had to flee to the north as a refugee.
Unsatisfied with their conquest of Stormwind, the Horde pushed north across the continent, up through Khaz'Modan and into the subcontinent of Lordaeron (where the other kingdoms other than Kul Tiras were). However, this proved an overextension (there were also a lot of moving parts, including a whole thing with Deathwing, the mad Black Dragon aspect) but the ultimate upshot of the Second War was that the Horde was defeated, with some of it fleeing back through the Dark Portal and a large number of Orcs (including lots of civilians who had followed the armies) being put in internment camps indefinitely.
Varian, now an adult, was able to lead his people back to rebuild the kingdom, with the newly-formed Alliance at its back. Since then, and especially after the devastation of Lordaeron in the Third War by the Scourge, Stormwind has been the most stable bastion of humanity.
Lordaeron and the Forsaken:
Lordaeron, after Stormwind's conquest, was the largest and most powerful of the human kingdoms. This is probably the reason that it was targeted at the outset of the Third War by the Legion using its new weapon, the Scourge.
As Stormwind rebuilt, Lordaeron was struck with a devastating plague. Horrifically, this plague began to turn those it killed into mindless zombies and ghouls. The crown prince of Lordaeron, Arthas, was apprenticing as a paladin under the first human paladin, Uther the Lightbringer. But as the Scourge spread across Lordaeron, Arthas' methods grew more and more extreme. Desperate to find any weapon that could defeat Mal'ganis, the Legion demon who was overseeing the spread of the Scourge, Arthas gave his soul over to the runeblade Frostmourne - actually a tool of the Scourge's Lich King. Arthas returned home victorious over Mal'ganis, but he had become a Death Knight, murdering his father, the king, and unleashing undeath upon the kingdom that he had technically just become sovereign over.
For a time, the vast majority of Lordaeron's population had been converted into mindless undead, slaughtering their living friends and family.
However, after the Third War, the Lich King had broken the Scourge free of the Burning Legion's control. Illidan Stormrage, having led a coalition of allies to Outland, was confronted by one of the Legion's masters, Kil'jaeden. Kil'jaeden extorted Illidan into trying to destroy the Lich King, and back on Azeroth, he began a powerful magical ritual to sunder the Frozen Throne and thereby cut off the Lich King's power.
While he was interrupted, the damage done to the Lich King loosened his grasp over the undead, and fully of half of Lordaeron's undead suddenly regained their free will. Confronted with the horror of their condition and the knowledge of what they had done as part of the Scourge, the Plaguelands (that which had once been the kingdom of Lordaeron) fell into undead civil war.
Rising to lead the free-willed undead was Sylvanas Windrunner, the former Ranger-General of Quel'thalas whom Arthas had raised as a banshee. Under Scourge domination, she had been one of his top lieutenants, but now she plotted to assassinate him.
Sylvanas would unite the free-willed undead and push against both the living humans trying to reclaim the Plaguelands as well as the Scourge forces that a group of Dreadlords trying to reclaim the Scourge for the Legion had taken control of. The Forsaken, as they came to be known, emerged victorious.
Still, fighting against a persistent Scourge threat, as well as fundamentalist religious extremists in the Scarlet Crusade (who never recognized the Forsaken's humanity) and also mysterious assassinations of ambassadors to the kingdoms of the south led the Forsaken to extreme isolation, and something of an embrace of the "wicked and evil" way that they were perceived by others.
However, the Tauren, having heard of their plight, reached out, hoping to use their understanding of nature and life magic to restore the Forsaken to true life. Through the Tauren, the Forsaken were brought into the Horde, and have generally served as the faction within the Horde most willing to use... morally dubious methods.
Notably, Sylvanas Windrunner ascended to the mantle of Warchief following the death of Vol'jin, but betrayed the Horde in a complex plan that she thought would have removed Death itself from the world, but actually would have lead to the domination of all life on Azeroth. So, she's currently in the Maw (basically Hell) searching out all the souls that are there unjustly to send them on to the afterlife they deserve.
Meanwhile, the Forsaken are governed by the Desolate Council, a group of prominent members, including Calia Menethil, sister to Arthas, though she has emphatically refused to take the crown of the fallen kingdom.
Worgen of Gilneas:
The kingdom of Gilneas was a major industrial power of the Alliance during the Second War. When the Horde was defeated, the Orcs were captured as war prisoners, and the Alliance was left with a conundrum: a huge population of people who had just tried to wipe out humanity.
A very dark decision came before the leaders of the Alliance - either to keep the orcs imprisoned, or to kill them all. The vote between the seven kingdoms went 4-3 in favor of keeping the orcs alive (though a longterm plan to integrate them into society or, like, anything else, was left unresolved). Genn Greymane, the king of Gilneas, was among those in the "kill them all" camp.
Frustrated at the costs that his kingdom had incurred in defeating the Horde, Genn withdrew Gilneas from the Alliance, cutting off all diplomatic ties to the outside world and constructing a massive wall to cut off the Gilnean peninsula from the rest of the continent.
Now, this didn't prove to be universally popular. The Greymane Wall was built through the lands of a nobleman named Darius Crowley, cutting much of it off from the rest of the kingdom. Crowley organized a rebellion against the crown, sending Gilneas into a civil war. While Crowley was ultimately defeated and imprisoned, this left the kingdom weakened and divided.
But there was something else going on:
Thousands of years earlier, Night Elf Druids were exploring new animal forms to take. Their Druid forms were based on various Wild Gods - the Bear form an expression of Ursoc, and Cat form an expression of Ashamane. The Druids of the Fang sought to create a form based on Goldrinn, the Wolf God. But it turned out that Goldrinn's ferocity was overwhelming, driving the Druids to feral madness. Malfurion had the Druids of the Fang sealed away on a remote peninsula and locked into sleep within the Emerald Dream.
Ages later, the Gilnean Archmage, Arugal, sought out some new means to combat the rising threat of the Scourge. Finding obscure texts about wolf-like creatures that were immune to disease, he summoned some of these Druids of the Fang from the Emerald Dream. But while they were effective against the Scourge, their ferocity was infectious, and as they bit humans, those humans became Worgen, basically werewolves.
The Worgen became a terrifying threat to humans and Forsaken alike. Eventually, a massive pack of Worgen broke through into Gilneas city, infecting a massive swath of the population with the Worgen curse.
Years later, Gilnean alchemists developed a concoction that could, at least for at time, restore the human mind to a Worgen. Around the same time, the Cataclysm struck, which, among other things, saw the Greymane Wall crack and partially collapse. The Forsaken, seeing this as an opportunity to expand their territory, invaded Gilneas with the help of a few traitors who were disgusted by Gilneas' embrace of the Worgen back into their citizenry.
In the face of a Horde-backed Forsaken invasion, the Gilneans were desperate, and mounted an effort to evacuate. They were aided in this by the Night Elves, taking responsibility for the Worgen given that it was in what would become Gilneas where the original Druids of the Fang were sealed away, taught the Worgen techniques to manage their transformation further, and helped bring them back into the Alliance.
Genn Greymane is still king, but has learned a great deal of humility in his transformation into a Worgen. There are still plenty of fully human Gilneans, but it seems that for the most part, the population has gotten used to the fact that about half of them are werewolves.
Kul Tirans:
Ostenisbly, the people of Kul Tiras are just humans, no different physiologically than those from Stormwind (or Stromgarde or Dalaran. Er... Alterac kind of got destroyed in the Second War after they betrayed the Alliance to the Horde, and of course Lordaeron and Gilneas we've covered already).
So, take the rest of this with a grain of salt, because this is my headcanon, though I think it's reasonably well-supported in the game.
The first Kul Tirans were Gilneans who sailed out to an archipelago off the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms. They settled down in a sound in the center of the archipelago, but after they had gotten established, they were attacked by a people known as the Drust.
The Drust are mysterious - there's only one known living Drust we know of, but they are a druid who remains in their shapeshifted form at all times (also, this druidic tradition seems totally different, as he doesn't even recognize the word). However, it seems they were half-giants, and I have always interpreted them as being a branch of the Vrykul.
Now, while there was warfare and bloodshed between the Kul Tirans and the Drust, this wasn't universal, and it's likely that the hostile Drust were those particularly led by a leader known as Gorak Tul, a master of death magic (different than classic necromancy, and more kind of witchcraft).
Given that there are a lot of very big and burly Kul Tirans (if you play one in WoW, you'll play one of these) that are, like 8 feet tall, my interpretation has always been that the Kul Tirans actually have a lot of Drust ancestors mixing around in their gene pool. (And given that humans are descended from vrykul, they'd be easily compatible genetically... though there are also half-elves on Azeroth, despite elves and humans having profoundly different origins.)
Anyway, Kul Tiran culture is centered around the sea. Religiously, they don't have much of a tradition of worshipping the Holy Light, and instead have a priesthood called Tidesages who bless their ships to be able to sail safely through any storm and revere a being called the Tidemother, who is probably unbeknownst to them actually Queen Azshara (see the post about elves for a brief explanation of who Azshara is).
While never isolationist like Gilneas, Kul Tiras is naturally, quite literally insulated because it is an island nation, and so its culture has odd nuances, like the aforementioned Tidesages, as well as a tradition of witch-hunting Inquisitors.
Other Humans:
These four nations are represented via playable races in WoW, and I believe that Worgen and Forsaken will both be presented as D&D species. Humans from Stormwind, Kul Tiras, Dalaran (which isn't a huge population because it's just a city-state with very little land of its own) and Stromgarde are likely only to be represented with standard D&D humans.
While the kingdom was destroyed in the Second War, I don't think there's anything really stopping you from playing someone from Alterac, either someone who remained loyal to the Alliance or maybe hides their past treachery. Or maybe you were just a kid at the time. (Notably, the treachery was due in large part to the dragon Deathwing disguising himself as a human noble named Daval Prestor and manipulating his way to become the leader of Alterac, so while Draconic Sorcerers are most often going to be Dracthyr Evokers, if you're willing to go for archetypes that exist outside of WoW options, you could tie this into a backstory).
There are humans from elsewhere. On Kalimdor, there is a group known as the Wastewander Bandits, usually hostile, who wander the southern deserts. Where they actually come from has never been explained, though it stands to reason that other populations of Vrykul might have undergone the same process that created these humans.
There's also a weird question of the Hallowfall Arathi, a group who live in the deep underground realm of Khaz'Algar. Humans with some elvish ancestry, the Hallowfall Arathi claim to come from The Arathi Empire, but seemingly one that still exists. This truth of these Arathi is unknown, though my current theory is that they're from an alternate universe.
No comments:
Post a Comment