Druids
Guardians of the wild who take the shapes of beasts. For ages only night elves and tauren walked the druid's path. In Forever, the Skyborne of both factions join them, with forms of their own, and Mount Hyjal calls druids home.
Who can be one, and where they learn
Alliance: Night Elf, High Order Skyborne (new in Forever). Horde: Tauren, Windshaper Skyborne (new in Forever).
Trainers (Classic's data) in Darnassus, Stormwind City, Thunder Bluff.
Class quests: Body and Heart (level 10, teaches Bear Form, Classic's quest); Power over Poison (level 14, teaches Cure Poison, Classic's quest); Aquatic Form (level 16, teaches Aquatic Form, Classic's quest); The Great Cat Spirit (level 20, teaches Cat Form).
The client's character-creation text: Druids live in a state of unparalleled union with nature. Tightly bound to the plant and animal kingdoms, they are natural shapeshifters, and so they know firsthand the abuse visited on their wild brethren. In consequence, despite their numbers, druids tend to be wary, reclusive, and difficult to spot. Few outsiders have plumbed the depths of their secrets.
Who they are
Druids live so close to nature that they can become part of it: bear, cat, sea lion, travelling stag. They are protective, secretive and hard to find.
In consequence, despite their numbers, druids tend to be wary, reclusive, and difficult to spot. Few outsiders have plumbed the depths of their secrets.
From the game client: Druid, the class description in the WoW Forever client
Their place in Azeroth now
The Cenarion Circle in Moonglade brings night elf and tauren druids together across the war. A young druid's forms are earned from animal spirits, which the class quests below mark: the bear's strength, the sea lion's grace, and in Forever a quest to the Great Cat Spirit. In Year 1 druids have plenty to do: corruption in Felwood and among the furbolgs, and a wounded Mount Hyjal.
Warcraft background: The demigod Cenarius taught the first night elf druids, led by Malfurion Stormrage, who slept for centuries in the Emerald Dream. Tauren druids learned from Cenarius too. Moonglade is sacred to both peoples, and its Lunar Festival celebrates a druidic victory over an ancient evil.
In WoW Forever
In WoW Forever: Both Skyborne orders can be druids, with druid forms made for them. The client adds new druid factions: the Guardians of Hyjal, a splinter of the Cenarion Circle; the Nightclaw Druids, secretive druids of Zephras Isle's Shadowgale Forest; and the Earthen Ring, which counts Horde druids among its members.
RP hooks and character ideas
- A Skyborne druid taught by the Nightclaw Druids, whose forms look like nothing the Cenarion Circle has seen.
- A night elf druid who woke from the Emerald Dream to a world at war, and finds the tauren easier to talk to than the Sentinels.
- A tauren druid of the Cenarion Circle who fought at Hyjal and joins the Guardians to heal it.
- A young druid who has only just earned bear form and thinks they're invincible.
- A druid who spends more time as a cat than as themselves, and has started to prefer it.
Sources
- WoW: Forever Meet the New Skyborne (Blizzard)
- Druid class guide (ForeverDB)
- Lunar Festival (World events)