Druid lore 101: Bears

I'm big in to WoW lore, I love it.  There is so much storyline to the game in all the different area that I'm totally amazed.  The creators do a great job of giving the game an almost real world feel to it by adding in all this back story or "history" to the game.  You get a real feeling of continuity as you play if you take time and read the quests and listen to NPCs.

With all this lore, I thought I'd jump in to a little bit of Night Elf lore.  More to the point, Druid lore and how the bear form played a huge part in Azeroth and still does today.

Druids have played a large role in the history of Azeroth.  The first druid was *Malfurion Stormrage, taught by Cerarius, who is not only thought of as the most powerful druid in Warcraft lore, but one of the most powerful beings in all of Azeroth. Over years upon years, Malfurion taught some of the Night Elves the druidic ways.  How to harness the power of nature and how to take the forms of other beings in nature.  One of these forms was the bear form.  This form was thought of as one of the strongest and resilliant amoung the creatures that roamed Kalimdor. These druids, knows as the Druid of the Claw were a large help in the War of the Ancients during the first attack of the Burning Legion which lead to the Great Sundering that spilt the world continent in to what we see today.

Years after the Great Sundering, When the world tree Nordrassil was planted and the Night Elves were given the gift of immortaility and access to the Emerald Dream in order to protect Azeroth, Malfurion and other druids locked themselves away in many different barrow dens where they would sleep for centuries, protecting the world.


This would be short lived, by Night Elf standards, as the Burning Legion would once again threaten Azeroths very exsistance.  Awaken from the long slumber, the Druids of the Claw would take their fight to the Burning Legion and to Archimonde.  After the defeat of the Legion once again, the druids decided to remain in the waking world, feeling that so much damage had been done that the natural order of things itself had been scared.   


Seeking to heal the world around them, the Night Elves teamed up with the druids of the Tauren. Together they work to restore the balance of order on Azeroth.  Working for a common goal, the Night Elf and Tauren druids consturcted a druid sanctuatry in The Moonglade. Here, Tauren and Night Elves coexist peacefully, united by their reverence for the spirit of nature. Conflict between the races in Moonglade is not tolerated by its protectors. To the druids in The Moonglade, the Alliance and the Horde are of no concern to them.  They are druids first and foremost. 

If you are in to lore, RP or just really get in to your character, be proud of your druid.  Your druids history is one full of keeping the world safe.  If you are not, then I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit of geekdom where WoW is concered.

Remember, keep up the good work bear!  We gotta show those other tanking classes how it's done!

*Althought Tauren lore would have them believe that they were infact the first druids, A blizzard post back at the start of wrath stated that "The Taurens believe they were the first, the Night Elves WERE the first of the druids." A link to this post will be placed here once I find the post again.