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Q & A
Outland has been calmed more than it was, but it's still a giant cesspit of demonic activity and general ne'er-do-wells. Nagrand and Terrokar are the most reasonable places to live, and Netherstorm is less of a problem now though there are remnants of Kael's forces left I believe.
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All righty. A thing I've seen used quite a lot recently... Speaking animals.

Be it druids or shamans, they're speaking. How? I have no idea. Which brings me to the question: Is it possible for a shaman or druid to speak while shapeshifted?

I would say no, for multiple reasons. First off, most animals don't possess vocal chords nor is their mouth built to speak. A human's mouth is actually a musical wonder, for it can make most sounds. We can mimic snakes, birds, cats, etc. But cats cannot mimic anything at all. And yet then, why would a shapeshifted druid want to speak? Being shapeshifted is basically all about being close to nature, communicate with other cats or stuff.

I've seen a night elven druid bird in Dalaran and a troll shaman wolf in Shattrath... Lolwtfbbqsauce? No offence, I still love you people, but this is basically against the principles of druids and shamans, as well as their races. A night elf would never go to Dalaran, it's the city of arcane magic. And sadly, the night elves hate arcane. And atop of that, druids hate arcane even worse. My druid, Marr, would kill any arcane user, as long as there are no guards (thus not in a city) around and Marr has an advantage. And to my knowledge, druids rarely visit cities. Thunder Bluff and Darnassus are nothing like cities, Dalaran, Shattrath, Stormwind, Orgrimmar, they're all worth to be named a city. And yet then, being shapeshifted in a city/town is a no-no, unless you're at Nighthaven. Of course you want to brag about your druid forms OOCly, so do I, but I'd rather go into the Barrens and be awesome there, rather than being awesome around Ratchet.

The troll shaman, well, I don't know. It just doesn't seem right to me that a shaman visits Shattrath. Of course there are the Broken, and they have a reason to be there, but trolls are a whole different kind of shaman. The Loa, and wut wut wut. But yeah, a ghost wolf, people would really frown upon that. My draenei was like... What the f**k. Not to ruin the troll's RP, I simply RP'd my draenei as tongue tied and shut up about it.

And last but not least, lolcatspeak. Say a druid's in cat form, would he be able to understand Common, Orcish, Darnassian or Taur-ahe? Myself, I have RP'd that my druid could, although I'm not sure. I'd say a shapeshifted druid's senses are somewhat similar to a humanoid, but have some tweaks here and there and a greatly increased instinct. However, would my cat be able to understand a bear? Or would my tauren be able to understand a bear? Or would some random beast be able to understand lolcatspeak? Or would a druid be able to speak lolcatspeak while being a humanoid? Or would- You get my point, is a druid able to understand any language he might know in whatever situation he is? And are random beasts able to understand him while he speaks an animal language? Or perhaps, there are no languages at all?

That's it, sort of. Happy reading this, because upon looking back at this, it confuzzles the fel out of me.

ALSO, to anyone that might find himself in my examples, don't go all mad at me, because neither am I mad at you. It's just something I've been wondering for a while. Feel free to post your own opinion though!
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Actually, according to various sources, druids and shamans cannot understand or speak any other form of, uh, language (Well, a bird's squawking is a form of language, right?) when shapeshifted. Like, if they become massive bear, they can understand other bears and communicate with them, but the mortal peoples couldn't understand or communicate with the bear-dude.
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One problem solved, more to go ^^
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Why and how shamans/druids shapeshift is something that should vary in degree from char to char IMO. However,

Spirit wolves for example are spirits first, then animalic in nature - with them I find it credible that they could communicate - not talk.

In the case of other shapeshifts, maybe the druid/shaman inside could -emit - or try to recieve - communication. Again, ceirtainly not speaking.

The machanic I use on my druid is that if the animal form is not agitated and not threatened, the druid inside the animal may understand what another person is trying to communicate towards it, and even try to emit back. This is heard "as a vibrating whispered voice" by others, and if this occurs, reverting back into "caster form" soon follows, as the calming needed to atune back to humanoid communication standards basically consists of a gradual shapeshift (spirit-shift, actually) back into Kal'Dorei.

Animal-to-animal communication (by anything like speaking) is certainly the most far-fetched. What would be awesome to see however is RP simulating how animals DO communicate with one another.

2 cents in.
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For Rubykuby, I think you have to expand your belief of something sometimes, I mean you already believe that someone can transform into other animals, why not just push it a bit farther? I also doubt that when you are aware of transforming into a different creature that you instantaneously forget a language, as such you would probably be able to process speech, or at least do a personal journey to learning how to talk in an animal form or install some sort of vocal producing organ through Alchemy. Or even the ability to contain a vocal organ even after transformation, who knows!

With any other language or instinct though, you become accustomed to it. You'd assume after years of being around and transforming into Bears, Cats, Birds, etc. that you could eventually understand them in and out of the transformation (for Druids and Shamans) which goes for really any language you've been exposed to in real life even.

As for davemwow, not only that, but animals use instincts to communicate with just about anything and everything. A Bear and Cat can't directly say, "Hello", but a Bear or Cat can certainly tell instinctively when they need to defend from aggression or branch out in mutuality. Its understandable to not substitute emotions for words.
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On being in locations: While they should RP a good reason to be there, and act uncomfortable (ceirtainly not relaxed enough to shapeshift), I don't think actually being in a location like Dal should be seen as lore-breaking.

And Shattrah is a very New-York-ish mix of all kinds IMO.

Druids/Shammies have too much raw evil and corruption to deal with to be too dogmatic about their anti-civilisation-ness these days. Many of them are just opposed to Too Much civilisation, anyway.
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Well since I sometimes use Tongues. I can say that when in shapshifted forms you should be able to speak, that forms language. And understand any normal language you may have already known. But still only be able to speak, in said form's language.

I.E You can understand common, taura-he, Orcish, blah blah blah. But not understand say, Bear, bird, trent, or owlkin unless you were in that form.

It just varies, but there does need to be some sort of acceptable Standard.
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Communicating -even understanding- a spoken language in animal form should obviously be at least as hard as it is to understand animal laguage in humanoid form. Just RPing that "you heard what he said" is a bit of a stretch. I recommend making nice long attune-ing RP before any sort of interaction from animal form, and ceirtainly not in the middle of a crowded city.

Physically everything's changed, perception is completely different, emotions and instincts are different. But yea, chat me up. :)

This of course shouldn't hinder RP plot progressing - but being shapeshifted should be seen as a very intimate and deep process IMO, not like cartoon dracula batform.
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I believe animism has a great roll in Druids' society, which is a way of believing everything has a spirit inside itself; even the plants and the earth we life on. Druids spent a lot of time understanding the 'flow' of one's spirit; this way the druid can communicate with said spirit, would it be a rock or a tree, when he has learned enough to do so.

I think with animals it can be seen as the same. One Druid could learn from an animal's spirit if he was to observe them long enough, that till they are far enough to understand the animal's intentions. I don't believe animals work with rational speech; it's all in their body language which reflects on what's inside; their instinct. So, learning to speak their 'language' seems like something that's impossible to achieve in the first place. Body language, however, is a different story. A druid could come to learn to 'speak' with his body language just as the animal he has shape-shifted into, and thus being able to communicate as it were with the same animal he has taken the shape from.

Just my thought on said subject.
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-I don't think druids in animal form can talk to random people around them, but I do think they can understand normal languages and respond by nodding or growling and other body language.

-Druids in animal form probably can communicate with other druids in the same animal form or with animals, but I can't think of a way to realistically RP that.

-People are going to RP in whatever places they want on whatever characters they want and it really doesn't matter. The GMs are never going to "ban" Night Elves from Dalaran or stop Trolls from going to Shattrath, so just RP and let RP.

And now for a question: What happened to Scryers' Tier? I assume that the Scryers all went back and joined Silvermoon since the Sin'sholai formed, but I doubt that everyone else in Shattrath would just leave a big empty space there with no people. Did the Aldor take it? Are the Shattered Sun using it as a base in Shattrath? What happened?
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Sheppard Wrote:People are going to RP in whatever places they want on whatever characters they want and it really doesn't matter. The GMs are never going to "ban" Night Elves from Dalaran or stop Trolls from going to Shattrath, so just RP and let RP.
I think it's a given that the discussions here are about RPing well, not RPing well enough not to get banned.


I really think that while it's a natural player tendency to think that you'd still understand your native language, it can't be the case. The way you percieve things when shapeshifted (physically and spiritually and istinctually) is too different for language to make sense. You could communicate real well if you will, as well as the best trained animal in this fantasy universe, but not "understand speech". You may get what the intentions of someone of your kin towards you are in the right context, but not the specific content expressed through speech.
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Quote:I think it's a given that the discussions here are about RPing well, not RPing well enough not to get banned
By ban I meant ICly banned from the city, not OOC banned from CotH.
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Same thing, it takes common sense to stay out of some cities. Anyway, that's not up to me. Question's been answered. I thank you.
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Something to take into consideration, at least with Druids and their forms is.. they -can- forget things. From what I've been told, they can forget things, even that they're Night Elf/Tauren. If they remain in their forms too long, the animal spirit basically takes over and they become more of.. an animal. A theory is that this would take perhaps a few weeks to a month of constantly being in said form for the Druid to almost completely forget him/herself, and sleep while in that form could possibly speed up the process.

But also, with Druids, if they ignore their forms, they may lose their ability to become that animal. Druids, in my opinion, are all about balance. With -everything-. I don't RP my druid as being against hunting animals, in fact, he enjoys hunting the occasional stag as a cat, or snacking while a bear. This could possibly be wrong, but this is how I see druids and their forms.

As for going into cities in their forms, yes it would probably be rare for a Druid to travel to a 'real' city(something not NElven), but even in NElf communities, it's probably not normal for Druids to be prancing around in their forms. It may be tolerated, but it may bother some. They're still beasts, and still have bestial tendencies, imo.

And yes, people will RP where they want, etc. etc. I personally feel, if you can think up a good reason for being there, more power to you, but not "Hey, I see alot of people RPing here, let me just randomly appear even though it makes no sense for my character." But if say, a Blood Elf is in a Horde city, well that just makes no sense. There's war going on, so yeah.

My.. <Counts> four cents!
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