I think Elves are stated as being raised directly from Trolls via Elune. They were still on their original generations when the War of the Ancients happens, or at least the first handful. I do not remember how the Well was formed, but I think it was the Titans putting all Arcane in one place. Not sure how Elune came about, and I do indeed have a personal interest in how its working in this universe. Elune is cool.
With that, both trolls and elves change pretty quickly too. I will give you that orcs seem to show cosmetic changes in their overall skin cover over other traits, but trolls do upon exposure to other environments. Sand trolls, Snow Trolls, Forest Troll, etc. Not sure how much of that is actual genetic difference vs phenotype, even before getting into magic. My theory is that Orcs show their affinity via skin much like trolls, and the pre-fel brown orc is one dominated by Elemental Energies. Which leads well into my next point.
Blood corruption for the Orcs. Mannorath (sp?) was the source of the blood they drank, but most fel orcs seemingly came about due to corrupting their own blood. So the original Pit lord blood is more a vector then a dominating influence. Its more dominating when applied in many doses over time, as shown by the groups that served after Draenor shattered/Illidan killed. So they were basically irradiating their own blood, and now all orcs carry around slightly more magical blood then their ancestors did. Granted it carries a bit of a boiling content, but the direct demon taint seems to be severed with Grom's whole deal.
Also Gilnead has alot of druidic stuff in the Old Way. The werewolves were able to be summoned due to all sorts of nonsense involving the Drust, some insectish race and their necromatic civil war faction, and their own entombing themselves in the country side. I do not think it is much of an institutional tradition as a folk tradition, but it is still the biggest druidic tradition i know of outside the night elves.
Not sure what comment you made caused me to write this note, but being Grok is suffering. Orc hero exists to suffer for other's idiot mistakes, because at some point all heros have to take up other's actual burdens.
As to Sargaras's condition, the difference between demonic whispers and just general exhaustion is sorta negligible. At least drawing from the assumption that he fell due to hopelessness, the environment/history would give most weight to the views expressed the most times to him. He has spent countless ages chasing a bunch of demons back and forth, yet didn't seem able to grasp the way to kill them in the Twisting Nether. While I can chalk that up to Blizzard writing, I'll be nice and say it was due to his nature as an Arcane being. So naturally he gave into the most commonly expressed and supported viewpoint he experienced in his existence.
Having said that, its amusing to think about the fact that Blizzard had the Titans do a version of their own demonic respawn. Maybe old dogs learned new tricks huh?
For the bigger elemental thing, the expressed lore does say that greater elementals have sapience. Sapience and power are correlated. Which opens up the issue of where to draw lines? We have that issue now, as some folks find it quite abhorrent to harvest Beef. Where is the line to be drawn for Harvesting power from Elementals? Especially because their highest authorities (the minds one looks to as to define a society) are warring against each other to harvest all for mystic scraps. Its a fuzzy issue mate.
Yeah no. The elves originate from a group of dark trolls that lived on the shores of the well for
generations. It took a long ass time for them to turn into what they became and they started to worship Elune during this period, thinking she was asleep in the well, but she's never been to Azeroth in a provable form. As for proof that no they were not on their first generation, well night elf archeology determines they've been worshiping elune for 14,000 years (to note the tribe that migrated to the shore moved there around 15,000 years ago). The war of the ancients was 10,000 years ago and the natural elf lifespan is merely long not truly immortal. + They also had time for a massive war with the Amani and Zandalari empires during this period.
The well happened because Amon Thul ripped one of the old gods (Yarsaj the dead one) out of Azeroth and it left a gigantic bleeding wound.
It was not an intentional creation, it is literally what was left after the titans launched an emergency surgery after scooping out a massive chunk of world soul, which was itself filled with titan blood. As I understand in time the thing was meant to turn into a vast crystalline scab.
Because its titan blood is why its a vast source of arcane power, as the titans are the embodiment of the arcane.
Elune is weird, we know she exists on numerous planets, that she's connected to the light some how (an artefact of hers was able to activate a prime Naaru and all) she's capable of procreating (Cenarius is her child via Malorn supposedly) although practically speaking Ysera was his adoptive mother and she does have a titan connection, with the titans doing things like naming a pillar of creation in her honour...but for all that said she's never physically appeared and I certainly agree she's interesting.
Troll Phenotypes have been seemingly stable for a very long time, but again did not happen over night. The Amani seem to be the "original" troll group who formed the high cast of the Amani empire, although one that they've enhanced through magic and blessings from the Loa over time, while the other phenotypes descend from lower members of the caste system that left to found their own empires. There's actually a pretty decent map showing the spread of Trollish populations at their height, which was around 15,000 years ago and it was around this time that most of the modern troll phenotypes started to emerge after long term exposure to their environments, after already being somewhat differentiated due to millennia of servitude to the Amani.
Anyway the timeline seems to be.
-16,000 Trolls emerge as the most dominant of Azeroth's peoples (that are not titan in origin), Zandalari empire is created.
-15,000 Trolls split off from the Zandalar and go found empires in the places that solidify their natural phenotypes over a long period of time.
Two big ones are the Amani who create the forest trolls and Gurubashi that create the jungle trolls, Zuuldrak goes north to codify the ice trolls, dark trolls initially lived under mount Hijal some still do, but a large population migrate to the well of eternity and begin to mutate into night elves. However, the Night elf connection to nature also originates from the dark trolls, who were described as trying to attain a peaceful connection to the land.
The trolls also fight a world war against the Aquir during this time. Curse of flesh also starts around now. Finally sand trolls are an evolution of the Jungle troll, starting off as Gurubashi garrisons (predominantly the Razorbranch tribe that renamed itself the Sand Fury Tribe) stationed against the Aqir and were separated by the sundering, which also turned Tanaris from a jungle into a desert.
-14,000 the night elves appear, worship of Elune begins, using the well of eternity they're able to fight back the Troll empires.
-13,500 the high born emerge as Night Elves start going fully down the rabbit hole of arcane magic.
-11,900 Zaldalari troll wars against the Pandaren
-10,000 war of the ancients
In essence near as I can tell it took at least 1000 years for these phenotypes to develop, which is a long time for a setting where magic can change entire species incredibly fast.
Actually I think brown is just the default orcish skin colour. This comes from two points
1. Apparently in a generation or two at least one blizzard writer felt that without a fel "booster" orc children will start reverting to it, which makes sense as the orcs have been "sweating" out the fel magic they took in for ages, but most orcs are not connected to the elements directly.
2. Shamanism (and indeed the orcish species as a whole) is actually not that old at least by the standards of the setting.
That latter point needs more explanation, but essentially the timeline goes like this, Orcs only emerged at max around 1200ish years before the first war. Orcs being seemingly the end point of the breakers "shrinking" after they defeated Bootan the last spore mound. From the colossal that were Grond's direct descendants and fragments of them turned into the Magnarons. Spores from Botan filled with life energy turned the previously stone Magnarons into fleshy Gronns, some eventually gave birth to the Ogron, then the ogres and finally the orcs.
Note this all happens
incredibly fast compared to Azeroth, but again I think it goes something like this.
-1200 the Apexis empire of the Arokokra blows itself up...literally, the Gronn empire takes advantage and fills the power vaccume. Orcs first appear and immediately get far away from the Gronn, with a majority of their people living in a big cave complex under Gorgrond.
-1000 The leader of the Skalaxi (its complicated one of the two big factions of the old empire, but the Skalaxi are probably the good guys in this situation) Yonzi sees the enslaved ogres and seeing a way to hit too birds with 1 stone offers the enslaved ogres a deal. They get taught arcane magic, if they rebel, the Skalaxi get to dig up caches of Apexis tech held by the Gronn and Ogron.
Because the ogres have a very powerful connection to the arcane due to their descent from Grond and Aggramar (and let me just say it is very nice to have that confirmed
) they took to arcane magic like fish to water with their best student Gog, not simply rebelling against the Ogron, but going two steps further unifying
with the Ogron to kill the Gronn and founding the Gorian empire.
-800 With the Gronn gone the orcs finally poked their heads out of their caves and were able to explode across draenor now that they had both space and food. Those that remained underground became the black rocks which is where their colouration comes from.
At some point during this period the shadow moon discovered the elements sharing the discovery with the tribes who took up shamanism seemingly universally and the throne of the elements is created as a temple to them.
-403 the Gorian empire under Imperator Mar'gok sends a military expedition to clear the orcs from the temple and investigate the elemental magic so they can take it for themselves, which caused explosions and elemental imbalances across draenor.
The orcs launch an all out war against the ogres both out of practical necessity and religious fury. The Ogres respond by attacking civilians and force the orcs entire population to require military training. It doesn't work, but its neat to know where that bit of orc culture comes from. The ogres create red pox when the orcs lay siege to Goria the ogre capital, which cuts a massive swath through the orcish population and lacking other options the shamen call on the furies to destroy the city. They do and the Gorian empire shatters.
-200 Draenai arrive when the Genedar/Oshu-gan crashes, this is also when orcish ancestor worship becomes a practical thing.
Anyway, point is orcs default as brown because I think that is just their normal state and I'm not sure that elemental magic does cause them to change colour. After all elemental magic is the most "natural" magic of reality, where as the prime source ones are a lot more picky and aggressive in showing their "mark" if you will and it certainly didn't have time to touch every orc as directly Gul'dan.
Also the orcs only being like 1200 years old as a species does help to explain a lot of the cultural immaturity they've got going on.
Manaroth sp? Special? Well he's supposedly their leader, but his ability to use his blood as a fel booster no he's not, we even see this taken to its logical extreme by Illidan who uses Magtheridon (the pit lord who took over outland) as a blood bank to mass produce fel orcs. (Also side note the first fel orcs of the horde were explicitly members of the burning blade clan). He
is special in that for some reason fel orcs made from his blood turn
grey for some reason, but here's the thing
But anyway, I've already made this point before, but Manaroth's blood does not seem to have done anything but drugged the orcs and given them the sensation of power while enhancing their emotions, not it did not give them any additional strength (aside from turning them green.) However, additional doses of fel power
will turn them into fel orcs
or drinking a higher concentration blood straight from the source. The reason for the grey thing happening is that on the alternate draenor when Gul'dan did his wee take over, he only took over a much smaller part of the horde giving each member a drastically larger proportion of blood than he was originally intended.
As far as the original timeline is concerned, "grey" fel orcs only appeared for the ones who were so addicted they tried to drink the dregs of his blood and it only made them speckled grey not full on grey, which I view as another point in concentration being important.
Anyway yeah they've been irritated as a species, but for the most part its at a low enough level that without top ups it bleeds out of their system (at least enough that they go into a malise) in around 13 years (the drink the blood in year -3 before the first war and the malise hits in year 10 as they're taken to the camps just as the second one ends. I'd imagine it was probably coming in before and being defeated made it go into over drive.)
However, Manaroth seems to have never had like a geass over the orcs, he was essentially their drug supplier, (well and source) which he could leverage. Symbolically Grom freed them from him specifically using that against them and demonstrated that they did not need his blood to be strong etc. but the "curse" was broken long before due to the orcs essentially sweating it out.
I assume you mean the Harvest-Witches, who were extremely minor practitioners living on the fringes of Gilnean society, the Drust were a thing exclusive to Kul'Tiras and due to the order of the thorn
they are the human society with the best understanding of druidism. However even then the Order of the thorn summoned no wolves to fight the Drust and again the Worgen were summoned by archmage Argrul by breaching the Emerald Dream and yanking them out after Malfurion imprisoned them in there. Also I can't find anything about insects? Do you mean the vilebrood? Also the necromantic faction...is very annoying cause I know who you are referring too I just can't find them! However, my understanding is that they were the eco terrorist ones, but did not have a strong presence in Gilneas.
Anyway TLDR it seems to go Night elves, Tauren/trolls sharing second spot, Drust/Kul'tiras third Gilneas a very low 4th place in terms of druidic ability.
I mean possibly, but by all accounts life was pretty good until he found the world spirit.
I generally draw the line at "can it speak to me in its own intelligible language that I can learn and speak back to it" and vice versa.
I cannot learn bovinimum and moo it at a cow to get informed consent to milk her, a shaman
does learn Kalimag to ask a minor manifestation of fire if they can enter into a partnership. For example the response of a minor manifestation of fire to that question is to prove your worth by proving yourself in combat, waiting until you are ready to do so and when you win agrees saying
"T ma suz'ahn reth T ma fiilrok tadrom dra T krin os nuk talsa reth krin shone sto toro tu ko zoln reth"
I am eternal fire. I am forever reborn and I will be the light that will guide you when it is most cold.
They then become the elemental in your fire totem.
Like no mate it really is not fuzzy at all!
That was just an elemental created from a torch, not the spirit of a blazing wildfire or anything and it displayed sapience and awareness.
Furthermore there isn't really a correlation of power to sapience amongst elementals, some of the most powerful elementals in existence are entirely animalistic like the corehound Magmadar, many incredibly weak elementals are sentient like Pebble.
You're creating "fuzziness" where none exists, we should all be able to agree on the maxim do not enslave people, we should all be able to doubly agree on "do not enslave people essentially for their organs."
Furthermore the elemental lords are
not doing what we were trying doing. Ragnaros is a bastard on numerous levels, but he does not need to enslave his people to work with him, as he seems intimately familiar with the carrot and massive **** off hammer method of encouraging cooperation and it works! In fact none of the elemental lords are questioned by their subordinates most of whom serve willingly, and those who are dissatisfied with how things are being run like Lord Roccor simply made fusses and managed to get themselves ejected from serving under them directly.
However, Lord Roccor still held loyalty to Rag, his disagreement was with his fellows being a bunch of backstabbers.
Point I'm trying to make is the elemental lords are not fighting for scraps of power, they don't need to.
Its a pretty alien view point to most, but it is also the closest we have to a friendly source on Necromancy without spending many actions on the Forsaken. Given that we are about to meet the Scarlets, I would rather not start off trying to diplomance both factions at the same time.
Its the magic of despair, doubt and panic + the magic of the most evil beings in the setting.
Like the reason its something the shadow moon know is because of the dark star (a fallen Naaru) and it is something they're explicitly forbidden from tapping into. Alt timeline Ner'zul uses it so well because he's fallen so deeply into despair.
Anyway, I'm not happy with Grok learning it on many levels
(especially not from one taught by Gul'dan of all people!) but even less so when there is a half escaped super powered faceless one
extremely close by.
WELP, I shall assume that due to time differences I should do an @Doomed Wombat to not clog up the thread with double posting. Hello Wombat, I shall try to be concise while not diminishing my replies to your points.
Ah my apologies, and yes it was the dead of night when you posted this. I hope I have done the same and I tried to do proper research into the various bits and bobs.
Grumbles, WOW's timeline and lore makes a certain degree of sense
before you get to the events of the game, grumble grumble.
