My good friend Matthew Rossi's Wouldn't this be cool? post took hold in my brain at just the right moment in time to spark my own crazy idea. Wouldn't it be cool if there were another draenei ship out there, lost to the stars, that Velen somehow found a way to rendezvous with? The draenei version of the Battlestar Pegasus could be out there, floating in the dark, those inside not knowing of the continued threat of the Burning Legion or Velen's flight from Draenor and triumphs on Azeroth.

Let's face it: After The Burning Crusade, the draenei were shunted off into a corner and never heard from again. We saw a naaru in Wrath, and there were those draenei in Borean Tundra being refused by the Alliance military, but that was it. The draenei were even less present in Cataclysm, with their corrupted Broken brethren actually getting the lion's share of the shaman roles in the most recent expansion. Velen has been reduced to a punch line.

"I thought we had lost them."

Everything we know about the draenei, we know from those we've met. Velen is our only fountain of draenei knowledge and culture. What if there were a separate faction of draenei not content with running from the Burning Legion and instead hell-bent on taking the fight to them? These are the Triumvirate draenei, ruled by a three-party war council, who travel the stars taking the fight to outlier demon worlds. Velen thought they all had died, because each ship had jumped in a different direction. One landed on Draenor; the other was lost.

We know the draenei as a patient people. They live an awfully long time in comparison to the rest of the races in their Alliance, seeming odd and out of place with nothing endangering them on Azeroth. They are embroiled in other people's conflicts, and that makes them set pieces rather than characters to build upon.

Imagine the other side of draenei society, the ones who took their pious and unwavering belief in the Light and their naaru benefactors as gifts of power. I want to see the true militaristic might of the draenei, a society of warriors dedicated to the fight against the Legion in a way that shakes draenei society to its core.

Challenge of the Triumvirate

Velen is boring because he is an authority with no conflict. By default, Velen is correct in everything he does and everything he predicts because there are no counter-voices to his predictions. The character has no conflict; therefore, we take what he says as fact because we have no other alternative.

What if the Triumvirate were winning the war against the Burning Legion, or at least dealing considerable blows? What if these were draenei who'd never known of corrupted orcs or Azeroth or any of our foolishness for the past two wars? These are beings looking for a few good allies. When Velen's own people start to find fault in his predictions or a wavering commitment to his people's future and instead see the light in the militaristic arms of a strong-willed, proud people fighting their eternal enemy on even ground, Velen might finally have to defend himself. And we might finally get some of his power to seep out.

Conflict breeds captured imaginations. Give Velen some conflict. Show us the other side of the draenei.

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Tags: draenei, draenei-lore, draenor, naaru, velen, what-if, wouldnt-this-be-cool

Filed under: Lore