Ask a Lore Nerd: Babies babies babies
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 10th 2008 at 4:00PM
Let's jump right in with Tom's trio of questions...
We know what happens when a human and orc cross-breed, but what about elf/human intermingling? Is it possible for the other races on Azeroth to breed and are there any such results of that union?
Elf/Human crossbreeds are definitely supported by lore, as well as a whole mess of other combinations. Arator the Redeemer in Hellfire Peninsula is a Human/Elf Hybrid, for example, and there are plenty more around. Other combinations are valid as well. Rexxar is an Orc/Ogre Hybrid. Gross, I know, but oh well. There are a lot more examples you can add to those that are scattered around the world(s).
There are no hard rules in place dictating who can and cannot interbreed, but it's pretty safe to assume the races similar to one another are compatible. I would bet Dwarves and Gnomes can shack up and spawn, for example, but probably not a Gnome and a Tauren. That's just me talking, though. I could be wrong. Let's pray very, very hard that I'm not wrong.
Why the distinct lack of children for most of the Azerothian races in WoW? Humans, Dranei, Blood Elves, and Orcs are prevalent - where's the rest?
They exist, they just aren't heavily represented in WoW itself. They only really seem to design child models when they're going to specifically put them to use. An orphanage somewhere, or the Children's Week holiday. They just don't have a real reason to model out children for every single race. They do have baby forms of many of them, though. Go check out the orphanage in Shattrath, they have Tauren, Gnome and Night Elf babies that I can remember off of the top of my head. There may be more.
There's no lore reason why there aren't more children, I am sure there are some people going at it like bunnies somewhere. Generally, adventurers just aren't going to go finding a murder of children for no good reason.
In-game mages can portal to capital cities and a couple select towns. In WC3 it seemed as if most mages could portal anywhere. What happened to this magical knowledge?
Again, just game balance. I don't imagine there's any lore here. It'd just be pretty crazy if you could teleport around wherever you wanted, and pretty amazingly unfair to the other classes. As it is, Mage transportation is way superior to everyone else.
Reeferhoof asks...
What's the raid instance behind Stratholme? After you kill the last boss, there's a portcullis located off to the side. In there is a raid instance portal that's barred off, what gives?
I can't say this with 100% certainty, but that portal probably was supposed to go to Naxxramas, or whatever the first incarnation of Naxxramas was on Blizzard's concept table. It's possible Naxx was just going to be a raid deeper in Stratholme or something like that, we don't really know. So far it's unused, and unless I'm mistaken we don't have any solid indicator of where that was supposed to lead. Naxxramas is a safe guess, though. They just found a better way to implement it.
VSUReaper asks pair of questions...
What is the big tree-like thing outside of Thrall's chambers? Is it a dehydrated skin from a pit lord or something?
Edited for clarity: That's almost exactly what it is. It's the armor of Mannoroth, the demon Grom Hellscream killed at the end of Warcraft III, hung on a tree-thing.
What is the big rotting skeleton from in HFP, near the pools of Aggonar?
That big rotting skeleton is... Aggonar! He was a really ridiculously large Pit Lord that got ganked and now his bloodcandies have poisoned the surrounding area.
An anonymous individual wrote in to ask...
My question is simple, why can't Night Elves by Paladins?
As far as the overall lore of Warcraft, they probably can be Paladins if they devote themselves to the Light, no problem. Almost anyone is capable of it. When it comes to WoW, however, the classes that races can play as are just the classes that would be most common across their entire population. Most Night Elves worship Elune as their primary deity and center of faith and the concept of The Light is pretty new to them. They're certainly capable of being Paladins from a story point of view, but from a gameplay point of view they just picked the 'most likely' classes.
There are Human Hunters in the lore and even as NPCs in WoW, but you can't play one. I'm certain Blood Elves have Warriors in their ranks, but they'd be a minority since it's not really a lifestyle many of them would take given their culture, so you can't play one of those, either.
Ian wrote in to ask...
Is there any reason in lore to explain why Blood elves dont have Warrior as a playable class?
Hey, how convenient! Check out my answer to the previous question.
James wrote in with our last question for today and it's quite a doozy, and it contains Wrath of the Lich King spoilers. If you want to stay spoiler free, you can skip straight down to the Comments section to ask any questions you may have for a future installment.
I saw the videos of the Death Knight starting quests, where Darion Mograine wields the Corrupted Ashbringer. It led me to a few questions: Where is ol' Alex the Ashbringer Mograine these days? How did his son get the sword? I did some digging, and found out that the old paladin tier 3 vendor from Light's hope cathedral is up in Northrend, and when talking about Naxxramas, he mentions that Mograine disappeared after the events in Azeroth, and has not been seen since, and nobody is sure who has taken his place in Northrend's Naxx. As cool as a read as this was, it brought up more questions:
How did he manage to abscond from Naxx? Is he semi-antonymous? Any idea what has happened to him after he gave the sword to Darion? Is Darion the son who was mentioned in at the Scarlet Monestary during the old Ashbringer event, or is there another unrevealed member of the Mograine clan?
In addition, I have one very nagging question. If you've seen the video of the battle for Light's Hope Cathedral (and if you haven't, I suggest that you do) you may have noticed a few things. First and foremost, when the Lich King confronts Tirion Fordring at LHC, he is unable to prevail. Earlier in the fight, Tirion mentioned that Arthas "Knows what lies beneath this chapel."
What could be buried beneath LHC, that would pose a threat to even Arthas?
I really, really wish I could give you a concrete answer on these things, but right now there isn't one. Blizzard is going to be putting out a comic about Alexandros Mograine starting in early September, and hopefully that will clear quite a bit of this up. The whole Light's Hope Chapel, Alexandros and Darion Mograine, Ashbringer mess will hopefully be more or less cleared up. Right now, we really have no idea what the deal is except that Naxxramas needs a 4th Horseman. My money is on Baron Rivendare simply because it'd be awesome.
Kind of a side note to the above, Darion Mograine passes the Ashbringer to Tirion Fordring. Although Inquisitor Fairbanks once told us that the Ashbringer was beyond cleansing, the blade seems to be purified in an instant. Any idea what's up with this sudden reversal? Could the thing beneath LHC have led to the cleansing of the uncleansable?
As far as what Fairbanks had to say... well, unless the comic book takes us to Outland to retrieve Darion, you can probably consider it null and void or chalk it up to him being a crazy, addled undead coot.
That's all for today, folks. I'll be back next week to answer more of your questions, so if you've got 'em, post em!
Ask a Lore Nerd is here to answer all of your questions about the lore and story of the Warcraft universe. From the religions of the universe to the 'evils' of Azeroth, everything is fair game. If you want more in-depth answers to some of your questions, you may find what you're looking for in Know Your Lore or the WoW Insider Directory.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King, Ask a Lore Nerd
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
trogdor7 Aug 10th 2008 4:14PM
On the hybrid thing, there's a draenei-orc hybrid in Nagrand, Lantresor of the Blade.
dAnixx Aug 10th 2008 4:41PM
But arent they like sworn enemies?
Ves Aug 10th 2008 5:18PM
That doesn't mean they can't breed, it just reduces the chance said breeding was consentual.
Cal Aug 10th 2008 6:13PM
Well as far as I know Orcs and Draenei lived quite peacefully before the first war, which took place, what, 20 years before WoW? There's no reason why they couldn't have interbred before then, and the result becoming an adult (or in Lantresor's place, what seems to be an old man).
Piper Aug 10th 2008 6:18PM
They weren't always at each other's throats, though. There was a long period in there where they were trading, and probably even friendly. Then the Legion came to corrupt the orcs and Draenor went to pot, ending up with atrocities like the Road of Glory and the shattering of the planet.
Since most draenei NPCs seem to remember the peace with they had with the orcs, and several orcs remember the time before the corruption, I'd say it's safe to say that a hybrid baby would easily be able to live through the corrupted Horde, though it'd take one tough bastard to survive it with that heritage. Lantresor seems to fit the bill perfectly.
Suzaku Aug 10th 2008 6:55PM
In the lore, there are high elf + human hybrids, called half elves, there are ogre + orc hybrids called half-ogres (or mok'nathal), and there are orc + draenei hybrids and orc + human hybrids, both called half orcs.
They typically aren't accepted into their dominant races. Half elves tend to join the Alliance, half ogres almost exclusively keep to themselves but are loosely allied with the Horde, and half orcs are moderately well recieved amongst the Horde, albeit still misfits.
Further back in history, the cross-breeding of various demigods and other deity-level beings gace birth to a number of other races.
Soriel Angelfyre Aug 10th 2008 10:36PM
lore for Garona was ret-conned to make her an orc/draenei hybrid (formerly she was considered orc/human) this of course makes sense in that there are no known (non time travelling) orcs that came through the portal before medivh opened it, which was only a short time before the events of warcraft 1, (in which garona is already at adulthood)
also, the ogre lords may be either a step down from the gronn (evolution wise) or are a cross between gronn and ogre (makes you wonder how many of these were "consensual".....i think i just gave myself nightmares for a month :p)
Deusmortis Aug 10th 2008 4:23PM
Hey, thanks for posting my questions, even if there aren't any concrete answers! I sincerely hope they do more with the Ashbringer storyline, as it is something that a lot of the paladin players are interested in.
DarkRa Aug 10th 2008 4:24PM
I have to correct you, the thing outside Thrall's chambers is in fact a tree, on which the demon plates of Mannoroth were chained as a monument to Grom Hellscream. Mannoroth's body went boom, same way Magtheridon's does when players kill him in Hellfire Citadel.
As for the Ashbringer, for more insight on the story of Alexandors and Naxxramas in general, I'd suggest looking up the dialogues of various mobs of the 7th Legion in Wintergarde, Dragonblight. Very informative. *wink**wink**nudge**nudge*
Super Guest Man 9000 Aug 10th 2008 4:30PM
As far as the mage teleporting I could see a lore reason behind this as the mages doing this in WC3 were Arch-Mages a hero class, our playable mages arnt that "advanced" you could say.
Badger Aug 10th 2008 4:56PM
Nice post, Alex! The subject of Lore races cross-breeding is something I've been curious about since I heard about "Little Arator."
Jones Aug 10th 2008 5:08PM
Blood elves should be able to be warriors, spellbreakers anyone?
brucimus Aug 10th 2008 5:17PM
Belfs...."Warriors of Curtain Shopping and Show Tunes"
SushiPillow Aug 10th 2008 5:21PM
I'm guessing the thing beneath Light's Hope Chapel is a Naaru. =P
brucimus Aug 10th 2008 5:28PM
or Jimmy Hoffa
Berethed Aug 10th 2008 6:12PM
I've said this before somewhere, but I really, really hope it's not a Naaru. So very bored of those things, yes they were alright for the whole Outland theme, but please, no more, make it something fresh, epic and exciting and slightly dangerous that lies under LHC!
Suzaku Aug 10th 2008 6:55PM
The dialogue, specifically the mentioning of tormented souls who were slain by the Scourge, gives me the impression that it's probably built atop a catacomb or where Paladins killed during the Third War were interred. Their souls protect the chapel using the holy light, probably similar to the way that Uther's soul still resides around his tomb.
Ais Aug 10th 2008 5:23PM
"My money is on Baron Rivendare simply because it'd be awesome."
Don't thinkso, Baron is at the DK starting area, giving up some quests, you can look him up at wotlk wowhead.com
Zarkharaan Aug 10th 2008 5:34PM
Thassarian is an Alliance questgiver in Northrend. Koltira Deathweaver is a Horde questgiver in Northrend, as well. The Lich King appears frequently in Northrend. Gothik the Harvester, Noth the Plaguebringer - both make an appearance as questgivers near Acherus for DKs, but end up as Naxx bosses again.
Remember - when you're a fledgling DK is long before when you're a DK in Northrend, so in that time things can change.
So, it's not unlikely Rivendare abandons post in Stratholme and heads out to Naxxramas to fill in as a Horseman.
Kalken Aug 11th 2008 1:03AM
The DK starting Area takes place before WotLK and the battle of light's hope chapel occurs right before WotLK begins. It's instanced off to provide a private time zone of sorts for the DK's. If you look around you can find a bunch of other Naxx bosses.
I'd like to see Taelan Fordring as the fourth horsemen, it would have a heavy helping of lore attached and he fits the bill of a future Death Knight.
It is revealed what is beneath Light's Hope Chapel or at least the name of the mysterious... thing. It is known as the Light of Dawn which is most likely a relic, urn, or talisman of some sort that completely negates the unholy.
My biggest question would have to be; Why is Arthas the "final" boss of WotLK? From a lore standpoint an Aspect would be much stronger than some Death Knight who commited Patricide, threw on some magic armor and grabbed an Artifact weapon. In the War of the Ancients, even after transfering a part of his power into the Demon Soul and after the Well of Eternity's use was locked out, Malygos used his power to erase a piece of existance with a wave of his claw. Now if being erased from life doesnt one-shot a tank I dont know what will.