Post by Aroh on Jul 27, 2009 16:45:07 GMT 1
Prepare for wall of text!
A bit of theorizing on creating and developing Tauren back ground stories.
Lately I have been trying to think of ways to enrich my characters' background stories. I guess the process started from a chat I had with Grail at our latest RL guild meeting. We talked about how so many things of the character's background and their motivation for doing certain things is left unexplained. I personally don't think it is realistic to start lamenting about the past traumas in one's life that have shaped the person, while casually talking to a tribesman at a campfire. It would take a whole lot more interaction for those things to come to light.
For example Aroh hasn't really shared his past with the Tribe, except for maybe short mentions about the loss of his parents. I doubt anyone knows his life has pretty much been shaped by his fear of abandonment and the very few things he knows of his parents' ill faith.
While little stories written on our forums, like the one I just wrote the other day, offer insight into what is going on in a char's head, it in the end isn't very productive of role play. I mean, no one's character can really KNOW, that in a acute case of emo-ness Aroh wrote that note and sent it sailing in Stonebull lake, and thus figure out he still misses Revàtha alot...
So while bored at work, I was trying to think of ways to tell stories of a character's past life and his background, without it feeling artificial or writing them on the forums. And this is what I came up with. I hope you find it useful.
Constructing a background story through places
This was partially inspired by a book called "Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache" by Keith Basso. He is a linguistic anthropologist who was thought and shown by a Apache man named Charles Henry, how the Western Apache around Cibecue, Arizona have named places they live in. If you want food for thought (and/or to find out how a place came to be called "Shades of Shit"), I highly recommend reading chapter 1 "Quoting Ancestors", which can be found here
...or the whole book if you can get your hands on it. Anyways, to the point.
Tauren are a tribal society. Everyone carries the name of their tribe and is known by that name. Being part of a tribe also means, that your family is not just your parents and sisters, but a larger group of people who are somehow related to you. Our guild is a bit of an exception, collecting under its wings tauren from several tribes.
Tauren have been a nomadic race for thousand years due to Centaur driving them away from their sedentary camps. Only at the end of 3rd War with the arrival of Thrall & orcs on Kalimdor and their help, were the Centaur driven out of Mulgore to allow permanent settlements like Bloodhoof Village and Thunder Bluff. This was only 9-10 years ago. Generations and generations of nomadic life and hate for the Centaur will of course leave a huge mark on all aspects of tauren life. It is referred to in the way we explain IC:ly longer absences as "call of/return to the nomadic ways", but I think it should show more in our rp.
If you think of life that has lead you and your tribe from particular place to another, regularly at certain times of the year, year after year, those places must be very meaningful to your tribe and thus character. Aroh is about 40 years old, so he has traveled with his tribe from place to place in Barrens for about 30 years of his life, before settling to Crossroads and later Thunder Bluff. This means that things have happened to him in certain places in Barrens. He was thought his Ancestors were created by Earthmother is place A, His tribe got its name from place B, He himself was born in place C, he killed his first beast in place D he lost his parents in place E, his tribe was attacked by Centaur in place F etc etc. Basically his life is "written in the land", along the paths the tribe traveled.
But if you want to take things even further, you could do this:
Reinventing the map
There are many interesting places on wow map that can be "claimed" for your own purposes. There already are places with names that can tell powerful stories of warcraft history (some too old for anyone to remember), like Master's Glaive in Darkshore (where Titans may have killed an Old God) or Hammerfall in Arathi (where Orgrim Doomhammer was killed). Those aren't in Tauren lands, but serve as examples of events that changes the course of history and thus were carved into people's memories by naming the places accordingly. I am here thinking of doing the same thing on a tribe level.
What are the stories your character has grown up listening to about this cliff or that river? Who was killed in that cave and gave his/her name to it? Did a certain place host an event that caused your Tribe to get its name or to be parted from another Tribe?
It is good to keep in mind that the land has changed alot in the last, say 10 years. There were no human and thus no Northwatch Hold; no Silithid on the Fields of Giants, no oasis across Central Barrens and no Dwarfs digging artifacts.
There is no reason (and it fact it makes perfect sense) the places should have same names as written on the "official" map. They tell the story of your tribe and thus your character. Of course your neighbors in another tribe may not share the same story, which is just fine (We don't want to godemote, now do we). Very few places in the area Tauren would have roamed hold names given by tauren. I doubt any of the towns and camps, (like Camp Taurajo) were there 10 years ago, if tauren had to keep moving due to fear of Centaur. So we clearly should have places all over (our) map named by Tauren tribes that lived there.
This can mean:
- Renaming places:
-Going back in history:
-Going far back in history
I see no reason why tauren stories can't go back that far to tell what the place was like before Sundering or what happened when it struck. Some of the tauren myths in the official lore are even older.
-Creating stories for the current names:
Good candidates that come to mind:
A side note about druids
Tauren have a thousands of years old tradition of druidism. It was Cenarius who thought the tauren how to communicate with Nature. How ever, in the passage of time the the teachings of Cenarius were forgotten. It is stated in Wowwiki, that Hamuul Runetotem was the first druid in 20 generations. The Night Elf Malfurion Stormrage ”taught Hamuul many secrets of the wild and blessed him with the touch of nature” during the Burning Legion invasion of the 3rd War. Again, this is about 10 years ago. Keep this in mind when you are timing your druidic studies. Your family can't have a long line of druids. How ever, Tauren way of life is all about honoring nature, which is not a huge leap from being a druid of Cenarion Circle.
Just a few ideas I had. I don't claim to know warcraft lore by heart. If you notice mistakes and or have other comments, I'd be happy to hear. =)
A bit of theorizing on creating and developing Tauren back ground stories.
Lately I have been trying to think of ways to enrich my characters' background stories. I guess the process started from a chat I had with Grail at our latest RL guild meeting. We talked about how so many things of the character's background and their motivation for doing certain things is left unexplained. I personally don't think it is realistic to start lamenting about the past traumas in one's life that have shaped the person, while casually talking to a tribesman at a campfire. It would take a whole lot more interaction for those things to come to light.
For example Aroh hasn't really shared his past with the Tribe, except for maybe short mentions about the loss of his parents. I doubt anyone knows his life has pretty much been shaped by his fear of abandonment and the very few things he knows of his parents' ill faith.
While little stories written on our forums, like the one I just wrote the other day, offer insight into what is going on in a char's head, it in the end isn't very productive of role play. I mean, no one's character can really KNOW, that in a acute case of emo-ness Aroh wrote that note and sent it sailing in Stonebull lake, and thus figure out he still misses Revàtha alot...
So while bored at work, I was trying to think of ways to tell stories of a character's past life and his background, without it feeling artificial or writing them on the forums. And this is what I came up with. I hope you find it useful.
Constructing a background story through places
This was partially inspired by a book called "Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache" by Keith Basso. He is a linguistic anthropologist who was thought and shown by a Apache man named Charles Henry, how the Western Apache around Cibecue, Arizona have named places they live in. If you want food for thought (and/or to find out how a place came to be called "Shades of Shit"), I highly recommend reading chapter 1 "Quoting Ancestors", which can be found here
...or the whole book if you can get your hands on it. Anyways, to the point.
Tauren are a tribal society. Everyone carries the name of their tribe and is known by that name. Being part of a tribe also means, that your family is not just your parents and sisters, but a larger group of people who are somehow related to you. Our guild is a bit of an exception, collecting under its wings tauren from several tribes.
Tauren have been a nomadic race for thousand
If you think of life that has lead you and your tribe from particular place to another, regularly at certain times of the year, year after year, those places must be very meaningful to your tribe and thus character. Aroh is about 40 years old, so he has traveled with his tribe from place to place in Barrens for about 30 years of his life, before settling to Crossroads and later Thunder Bluff. This means that things have happened to him in certain places in Barrens. He was thought his Ancestors were created by Earthmother is place A, His tribe got its name from place B, He himself was born in place C, he killed his first beast in place D he lost his parents in place E, his tribe was attacked by Centaur in place F etc etc. Basically his life is "written in the land", along the paths the tribe traveled.
But if you want to take things even further, you could do this:
Reinventing the map
There are many interesting places on wow map that can be "claimed" for your own purposes. There already are places with names that can tell powerful stories of warcraft history (some too old for anyone to remember), like Master's Glaive in Darkshore (where Titans may have killed an Old God) or Hammerfall in Arathi (where Orgrim Doomhammer was killed). Those aren't in Tauren lands, but serve as examples of events that changes the course of history and thus were carved into people's memories by naming the places accordingly. I am here thinking of doing the same thing on a tribe level.
What are the stories your character has grown up listening to about this cliff or that river? Who was killed in that cave and gave his/her name to it? Did a certain place host an event that caused your Tribe to get its name or to be parted from another Tribe?
It is good to keep in mind that the land has changed alot in the last, say 10 years. There were no human and thus no Northwatch Hold; no Silithid on the Fields of Giants, no oasis across Central Barrens and no Dwarfs digging artifacts.
There is no reason (and it fact it makes perfect sense) the places should have same names as written on the "official" map. They tell the story of your tribe and thus your character. Of course your neighbors in another tribe may not share the same story, which is just fine (We don't want to godemote, now do we). Very few places in the area Tauren would have roamed hold names given by tauren. I doubt any of the towns and camps, (like Camp Taurajo) were there 10 years ago, if tauren had to keep moving due to fear of Centaur. So we clearly should have places all over (our) map named by Tauren tribes that lived there.
This can mean:
- Renaming places:
- Mirkfallon lake in Stonetalon for example sounds like it is elven or name and it very well could have been an important place to stop along the yearly route for a Tauren tribe living around there, just under a different name.
-Going back in history:
- Charred Vale in Stonetalon must have been called something else before its current state.
- There must have been something else where Northwatch Hold stands today.
- There was a holy tauren site where Bale Modan dig site is now.
-Going far back in history
- Thousand Needles in general was a riverbed before the Sundering 10 000 years ago. Time and Sundering have just taken their toll and carved the land to a deep deep crater. Maybe the Sundering caused Shimmering Flats to be filled with salty water that has dried out since.
- Same thing with Barrens. I dried up after and ”died” after Sundering, as well as gaining a sea coast.
I see no reason why tauren stories can't go back that far to tell what the place was like before Sundering or what happened when it struck. Some of the tauren myths in the official lore are even older.
-Creating stories for the current names:
Good candidates that come to mind:
- Windbreak canyon in Thousand Needles
- Field of Giants in Barrens
- Dry Hills in Barrens
- High Wilderness in Feralas
- Twin colossals in Feralas
etc etc.
A side note about druids
Tauren have a thousands of years old tradition of druidism. It was Cenarius who thought the tauren how to communicate with Nature. How ever, in the passage of time the the teachings of Cenarius were forgotten. It is stated in Wowwiki, that Hamuul Runetotem was the first druid in 20 generations. The Night Elf Malfurion Stormrage ”taught Hamuul many secrets of the wild and blessed him with the touch of nature” during the Burning Legion invasion of the 3rd War. Again, this is about 10 years ago. Keep this in mind when you are timing your druidic studies. Your family can't have a long line of druids. How ever, Tauren way of life is all about honoring nature, which is not a huge leap from being a druid of Cenarion Circle.
Just a few ideas I had. I don't claim to know warcraft lore by heart. If you notice mistakes and or have other comments, I'd be happy to hear. =)
