Torrg on Tauren

It's been a while since I posted some of my in character analysis, I've been posting lots of art of my toons and while that's all well and good it's only half of why I made the page, so I figured I'd talk about Torrg's connections to the Tauren.

So when I first started World of Warcraft, I created Torrg originally as a warrior. I've always enjoyed the strength and nobility of the orc, their tenacity never to lay down their arms and give up in a battle. Kind of my mentality, I'm hard headed as all-get-out. The Blizzard twist on the orc story line and actually giving them a pivotal role, making heroes and villains out of them instead of the whole "Orcs are Evil" kick that popculture had made them out to be. As fate would have it though, my roommate started playing on another server, Moon Guard when it first opened up, and wanting to join him I re-rolled him. I've always been into shamanism and the spiritual aspects of that class, so instead of making him a warrior I rolled him as a Shaman.

Now being furry irl, I'd always been intrigued and fascinated by the tauren culture as well. Not because they were furry, but because of their animal aspects, their respect to nature and close kinship with the Native American culture. Until Hawksfeather I hadn't had a stable wanna-play Tauren, so when I wrote Torrg's first story, I wrote him falling for and getting together with a Tauren, sort of a clash of my two favorite cultures. I dove into it and he fell into the culture hard. I really love the tribal nature that I gave Torrg, long flowing hair, feathers and leather gear to really heighten the experience. In game of course you're not much if you don't play the armor you're supposed to, so Torrg in character is almost exclusively in leather, unless battle or a mission mandates it otherwise.

The older Torrg got in character, the more involved he became with the tauren community spiritually and thus I enjoyed to write about him more. Instead of becoming a curmudgeonly old orc, he's more the wise, calm and patient old bull that happens to be... green at the age of 50. With this diversity in culture, it's also opened up Torrg's mind to accept other races into his life, he has fought alongside Gnomes, Dwarves even Humans among the rest of the Horde cultures. Like me though he isn't much of a fan of the Forsaken. His respect for the Worgen, Draenei and Night Elf races surpasses the rest of the alliance races due to their common beliefs and cultures. Torrg is a very empathetic character, he doesn't sympathize with the alliance plights, and he is not a traitor in any sense of the word, but he lives strongly among respect and honor, no matter where his allies may come from. Growl getting together with him was just basically the climactic point, a merging of two factions, while unsanctioned directly has its own exceptions among the Horde while Growl is openly a traitor to the Gilneans, seeks refuge among the horde's people.

Storywise, if I were to continue on... might end in disaster for Growl. Crossing the boundaries like that while not unheard of, would likely result with him at the end of some human's blade, or worse, the claws of one of his brethren. I'm not sure if I will continue that storyline, as Torrg already lost his first partner Thorne to violence, the openness he shows to other cultures and the indifference with who he partners with only seems to show a vicious cycle. Torrg would live on, but he might start to feel a curse for anyone he comes to love.