Tauren Druidism

[Rubykuby]

All righty, first things first, Blizzard sucks.

Now that's said, the Tauren lore along with the druid lore... Is confuzzling. According to the Tauren lore, Cenarius was the baby of the moon (Mu'sha) and a great stag who has recently died, tangled in the stars (he who invented this was drunk), and taught the Tauren of druidism.

Now here comes my first question, were Tauren the first druids? Following this lore, they are, but Blizzard says, "Tauren believe they were the fist, Night Elves WERE the first." And then, did they learn druidism apart from each other, or did the Tauren learn it from the Night Elves?

And have the Tauren ever forgotten druidism, and have they recently relearnt it? Or have they only recently relearnt the nature and healing paths of the druidic ways, instead of just the animalistic path that they have never forgotten? Or have they never forgotten it at all, but just rejoined the Cenarion Circle?

Nuff said, discuss.

[Nexi]

I've read that they recently relearned it after the Third War from Malfurion. It says here: "Elements of druidism, which had been taught by Cenarius and then forgotten over millennia, have been recently reincorporated into tauren society, further highlighting their service to nature.

The night elf druids were recently joined in the Cenarion Circle by the Tauren. During the war, Malfurion had befriended Hamuul Runetotem and taught him of druidism. Hamuul later became the first tauren to join the Cenarion Circle and later the archdruid of the Tauren race."

To me, this suggests that they may not have lost -everything- to do with Druidry, just a few aspects of it. Hania's profile, for instance, not only states that he chose the path of the Druid, but the timeline of it suggests that this choice was made -before- the end of the Third War, which would've been impossible if it's true that the Tauren had no knowledge of Druidry before Malfurion befriended Hamuul. This may or may not have been an error on my part, but since it was accepted, I'm assuming the GM's accept the version of the lore that states the Tauren knew of it just as the Night Elves did.

And yes, Blizzard does suck. ^.^

[Harmonic]

Like Nexus said, Tauren had lost the ways of the druids, before regaining knowledge in that area a long while after. Blizz did kinda turn things on it's ear again with it, but technically it's a toss up between which race were druids first. Night elves have been around for a long, long time, and with Tauren, it's not exactly known how long they've been around, since they have been fairly low-key up until the third, and now the fourth war.

[Nostra]

The Tauren fought together with the Earthen and the Night Elven army during the War of the Ancients, they were, however, regarded as brutes by a large portion of the nelf soldiers.

[Dilly]

But... If going by the version that the Tauren re-discovered druidism very recently, wouldn't that mean that their power in this would be greatly limited? Like in, wielding only a few basic forms? Because Night Elves had milennias to practice to reach the power in this they have now.... (Referring to old Druids.)

[Maulbane]

The Night Elves have been teaching them. It's much faster therefore, they're like "Here's everything we took thousands of years to learn lawl"

[Rubykuby]

From my aspect, they rejoined the Cenarion Circle, not completely retaught. The Night Elves taught them some shizzle that the Tauren did not know of yet or have forgotten, end of the story. And what Maulbane says is partially true, but it must be noted that Tauren were already familiar with druidism, meaning that their training goes quicker because of that and because of the knowledge of the Elves.

I'll tell you what, two articles, one stating that Tauren are new to druidism, one stating... Heh, druidism, ah well okay, we know that.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Runetotem
http://www.wowpedia.org/Mistrunner

As you see, the Runetotems were specifically new to the path of druidism... Or well, retaught. The Mistrunners are "just druids".

And then, what dilnikas says is pretty disencouraging and game-breaking. One would be forced to be limited to a few forms and spells, meaning that you're underpowered for decent Night Elf druids. Sure, Night Elves make better druids, but for the sake of fair RP, Tauren could do just as fine, but they shouldn't be some powerful kick-ass druid. Neither should Night Elves RP one.

[Mikain]

I'm not sure the Tauren were ever a part of the circle before the third war, or not a big a part as they became. Taking everything into account I think a fair compromise in the lore would be that Tauren Druidism and Night elf druidism, while similar and resulting in the same thing, were gone about differently. Obviously the Tauren can't sit in the Emerald Dream for the hundred of years that the elves can, so they've had to adapt the lifestyle to fit them. This way the Tauren had their druidism the whole time, albeit sort of a back burner class in society, and after the third war and joining the Circle both races shared their differing ways.

For example, the Tauren would have respected a female druid as much as a male, and thus this is probably where the elves got the new-to-their-culture ideal and more female night elves followed the path. In turn the Tauren learn more about the powers that come from the Emerald Dream side of Druidism and the more elvish type of powers, like Moonfire or Starfall.

The Tauren probably had more open druids, with abilities from multiple paths, but not particularly far along in any one path. Where the night elves had skills in one path and focused more on that, such as the Druids of the Talon or Claw. With the merging of ideals now most druids seem to follow a broader path encompassing both sides of the spectrum.

[Rubykuby]

It should be noted that a lot of Tauren druids are animists, and thus, they learn druidism other than Night Elves, but reach the same effect. Animism has been in the Tauren culture for a long time and is adapted by shamans, too. However, shamans go one step further, they are animists, yet believe that everything contains an element, making them elementalists. Tauren druids don't deny the fact that stuff contains an element, but they have little to do with them. This also proves that shamanism and druidism are very similar

Night Elves, on the other hand, have little to do with spirits. They are... Well, they are Elves. They cast their nature magic just as well as a mage casts arcane magic.

[Dilly]

Well, as it was stated somewhere in WowWiki, when stuff comes to this, one part of the lore opposes another.
And Ruby, if not Blizz, Warcraft wouldn't be here in the first place, so saying they suck might be too much, lawl . Even if they do XD