#Pandaren shaman

[trainsg1rl]

just came into possession of the BEST WoW name

[sinsimps]

Been a while again. Might’ve gotten sucked into Minecraft and World of Warcraft just released a new expansion.. so whoops, there went all my time lol.

I started playing around with the idea of drawing wow characters and one of my guildies gladly gave me some screenshots of her Pandaren Shaman, Choe.

And here she is.

I am so proud of this drawing. It took a LONG time, but every time I make a new piece I’m learning new techniques and gaining more confidence in what I’m doing. It’s absolutely wild to look at the stuff I’ve made and actually come to terms with “holy.. I made that.”

[cr4zyst4r]

[sekhithefops]

Got a doodle done of my pandaren, Zhan-min Irontummy, by the exceptionally talented @xhyperwolfx! Go to their page and give them affection and snootboops. I COMMAND IT BE SO! OwO

[thetantiger]

Flicker - Ascendance

A shaman's Ascendance form gave me the idea for this drawing, of molten rock forming over Flicker right before she pops that form, so, here!! Have Flicker looking badass

[sarenthar]

also my shaman is firey and adorbs until i find her a blue transmog outfit!

[sekhisadventures]

Zhan-min Irontummy, Shamanbrewer of Pandaria

Important Stories:

A Barrel of Hozen: As a young man in Pandaria, Zhan-min first encounters the members of Avalon in passing.

Villainess: Now a grown man and a shaman, Zhan-min aids Avalon and Savage United in Zereth Mortis against an unexpected foe.

The Shamanbrewer: After Avalon returns to Stormwind City following the defeat of Zovaal, Zhan-min encounters them in the Golden Keg.

Race: Pandaren

Class: Shaman, Enhancement

Eye color: Brown

Birthplace: Halfhill, the Valley of Four Winds

Residence: Stormwind City, Old Town, Avalon House

Personal Rune: "Festival"

Abilities:

Shamanism: Zhan-min is a shaman, able to hear the voice of the elements. He focuses on melee combat when the situation calls for fighting, preferring to use a specialized pair of stylized maces to channel the elements in a fight. To his senses, the voice of the elements is a faint whispering on the wind, accompanied by the smell and taste of various ales he's made in the past.

Alecrafting: Zhan-min practices a unique style of beer brewing he calls 'Shamanbrewing.' His maces are actually reinforced beer kegs, which he fills with beer base and elemental reagents prior to a fight. During a battle his powers channel through the ingredients, transforming them into heady brews that have magical properties. For examples of shamanbrewing, click here.

Ale-cension: As the ultimate expression of his connection to the elements and his love of his craft. Zhan-min can consume whatever ale is currently in his maces in one go with the power of the alemental who merged with him to transform himself into a massive alemental. In this form he looks like a giant Pandaren water elemental, but amber colored instead of blue with muscular arms and a mask that resembles the fur patterns on his own face. While transformed he can spray a blast of ale with the force of a water cannon, generate a rain of fresh beer infused with water and spirit to heal his allies, and is immune to any sort of physical damage whatsoever as such attacks simply pass through his now-liquid form. Any foes that are hit by his ale cannon run the risk of intoxication unless they're immune to it (that ale has a KICK!) and will find fighting his allies that much more difficult. After he changes back he cannot transform again until his maces are refilled, becoming the alemental consuming whatever is within them.

Tool Crafter: While not skilled in martial blacksmithing like Dareley he is skilled in making tools and other useful things for non-combat purposes. He learned these skills making and maintaining alecrafting tools and the like as a young man in Pandaria, working for Gao Stormstout at the Stormstout Brewery.

History

Zhan-min's life began in the Valley of Four Winds. Born in the farming community of Halfhill, he always had a real knack for working with the elements. The small elemental spirits of the land were his friends as a child as much as any pandaren. He was a cheerful kid, always quick to laugh or joke, and very curious about alecrafting.

He saw how much happiness it brought the villagers, especially being so close to Stormstout Brewery and with local brewers like the Mudmug family, and when he got old enough he took a job working at the brewery doing just whatever needed doing. Tool repair, cleaining, barrel making, transporting hops and other ingredients, and the like.

Then the bulk of the Stormstout clan left to seek new ingredients, leaving the brewery in the hands of Gao Stormstout. Gao was well meaning, but ill equipped to run the brewery and almost immediately things began to go south. Hozen began stealing their stock, virmen managed to infest various storehouses, and at it's worst was Gao's mishap with brewing which caused a massive angry Alemental to manifest inside the main production floor!

Zhan-min was there when it occurred, and his connection to the elements made him feel the fury and confusion that the ill-brewed alemental was experiencing… until four adventurers burst through the doors to the room. Avalon's members of Dareley Steelhammer, Shalandrae Deeproots, Nelen Fullmoon, and their newest recruit at the time Jaie Swiftpaw fought back the Alemental, the fight ending with Nelen freezing it solid using a massive evocation of ice so Jaie could smash it to pieces with a flying kick.

As they cleaned up the production floor however, Zhan-min kept one of the fragments of the alemental and took it home with him…

He melted the frozen chunk and using his own connection to the elements he reanimated the creature, and the two started talking. It turned out the Alemental wasn't evil, but Gao's fumble-fingered brewing techniques had animated it in a state that caused it extreme distress, making it frenzy!

Zhan-min was amazed. Gao had, by accident, created a whole new school of Shamanism that merged elemental magic and, of all things, alecrafting! He knew what he had to do. He saved his money, worked with some friends who were good with metal and woodworking, and commissioned a unique pair of weapons: miniature reinforced beer kegs made into one handed maces! He vowed he would use this knowledge to make his name as well known as Stormstout's own. By combining his elemental magic with alecrafting, he became the world's first and currently only Shamanbrewer!

Some years later he had travelled to Zereth Mortis in the Shadowlands, eager to see what unique ingredients the fabled realm of the First Ones had, and was compelled by the elements to protect a young shamaness named Sekhi from a dire threat. He succeeded in saving her life when the incubus, Cenoon, threw her off a cliff while she was too befuddled by his magic to fight back, joining the fight against the tratorous warlock Dissonantia.

After Avalon returned to Azeroth he ran into them in the Golden Keg in Stormwind and finally realized they were the adventurers he'd seen in Stormstout Brewery all those years ago, offering his services to them. He's been a part of Avalon since.

[citnamora]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT IS TRENDING RN???? SINCE WHEN??

[taleless-panda]

Finished it! A little wow drawing of my two main lads!

[riverlilyarts]

Hello! I go by Riverlily, I'm a Fantasy/Anime artist who's held house at twitter for the last year or so but due to the state of the site I've decided to try out different sites. I will be posting a lot of my art here over the coming days.

I represent myself through my World of Warcraft Pandaren mascot, "Xiaoshu Riverlily", a scribe and novice hydromancer. If you have any questions regarding, well, anything really don't hesitate to do so.

I haven't been on Tumblr since I was an emo teen so bear with me here.

Here's a list of accounts and usernames: Twitter: RiverLilyArts Furaffinity: RiverLily

[laurenwalshart]

Druids, Shamans, Monks, and Naturalists: The Distinction of Nature Magic Users in Warcraft

As a Druid roleplayer I run into this question a lot “why can’t my mage be a druid?” “Why can’t x be a druid?” To be honest I get it. The distinction between nature magic users in the universe of Warcraft (Naturalists/Green Mages, Shamans, Monks, and Druids) can be extremely confusing especially when they also have a lot of overlap and no clear canon guides like most TTRPGs do. It can feel like you are getting a “No” with a confusing explanation behind it. As you dive into each of these versions of Nature magic users there is a clear distinction between them. Once broken down it comes down to two things 1)How you get your power and 2) what goal your character has/what goal they serve.

Shamans The main goal of Shamans is to bring harmony to the elements and to serve as spiritual leaders in their communities. This is done through the use of totems and the elements of Spirit or Decay to commune with the Elements or bind them to servitude and access the Elemental Plane. It’s likely through this bond with Spirit that they are able to transform into a ghost wolf and access other planes of existence to commune with their ancestors.

Their distinct traits are the following:  Goal: Creating harmony or disharmony with the Elements and Spirits Source of Power: Using totems or Spirit/Decay to commune with or bind the Elements and tap into the Elemental Planes, or commune with the spirits of the land or their ancestors.

Monks Monks are the masters of Chi or their inner Spirit and the self, making their journey a very personal one outside the bounds of say protecting Pandaria. Receiving boons from the August Celestials, which are Wild Gods and bound to the Dream, may give them some access to the flowing spirit of the Emerald Dream and lead to the appearance of their magic being a Jade/Emerald color. There is some evidence to support that the Dream is “near’ in Pandaria based on the Faerie Dragon Sprites in the Jade Forest which are a clear sign of the Dream being “near” and the rare encounter Nuoberon in the 10.2 Dream patch where a Pandaren child dreams up wild things into existence in the Dream.

Their distinct traits are the following:  Goal: Creating harmony and balance with your inner spirit and mastering the self. Source of Power: Chi, the mastery of the self and inner spirit, the August Celestials/Wild Gods/Loa, and possibly the Emerald Dream (see Jade Forest).

Naturalists/Nature Magic Users Some of our best examples of Naturalists come from the Valewalkers, Naturalists in Suramar, the High Botanist Tel’arn, and Shen’dralar Milicent Serene and her Naturalist experiments. From the High Botantist Tel’arn we learn that his power is achieved through the use of Arcane, Light, and Nature which also lines up with what we’ve learned in Palawltar’s Codex of Dimensional Structure that magics anchored to one or more magic types makes them more stable. Everything done by Naturalists seems to be through standard mage/arcane means through their more Orderly understanding of magic.

Their distinct traits are the following:  Goal: Entirely up to the user. In some cases it is mastery of the art, seeking knowledge, or experimentation. Source of Power: Everything is through Knowledge of Order magic/Arcane and tethering one or more magic types like Light and Arcane.

Druids These shapeshifters are caretakers of the wilds. They have strong bonds with the Wild Gods/Loa, Nature, and the Dream. All of the cultures that practice Druidism are bound to the Wild Gods in some way through worship or curses. One of their main tenets is to maintain the balance, a delicate equilibrium of the cycle of life and death. All of the current races that can play as them have extremely close ties with the Earth, the Dream, or the Wild Gods/Loa. Even the Drust, which at first seems to be an outlier, are connected to the Dream and Thros, the Blighted Lands. Much like how the afflicted of Gilneas were able to learn how to become Druids because of their previous knowledge of “the Old Ways” after essentially being bound to the Wild God, Goldrinn, and there by the Dream via the Worgen curse, so too are the Kul Tiran Thornspeakers through their same Gilnean understanding of the Old Ways and their bloodline connection to the Drust and Thros. Their distinct traits are the following: Goal: Maintaining the balance of nature and the cycle of life. Source of Power: Connections to the Wild Gods/Loa, the Emerald Dream, and the Spirit of the land (see previous posts on Spirit magic in nature).

Overlap and Distinctions As we can see many of these classes have some overlap in a few areas. 

Connections to the Dream and Wild Gods Both Monks and Druids have varying degrees of connections to Wild Gods and the Dream. While a Monk is not as directly tied to the Wild Gods and the Dream like Druids, they are present forces in one way or another in Pandaria. The distinction between these two classes then is in how they access their power and their goals.

A Monk while possibly influenced by or receiving boons from an August Celestial (Wild God/Loa) and the Dream does not directly gain their power from them like a Druid, rather it is from the harmony and balance of their own spirit. Another example of this is the Zandalari; their racial allows for boons/buffs from the Loa, but this does not make all of them Druids. The goals of Monks reflect this as they appear to be personal ones or aiding the personal goals of their people or others. In contrast the goals of Druids is specifically in maintaining the balance of nature and the cycle of life. 

Shapeshifting Ability Both Shaman and Druids have some sort of shapeshifting ability in game, however, one is incorporeal and the other physical. The Shaman ability then might be a transformation of their body into pure Spirit as is not bound to any specific Wild God, more of a manifestation of one’s spirit like with Wild Shape in Ardenweald. Whereas Druids after being bound to a specific Wild God/Loa are able to take on the physical form of spirit they are bound to or hold a totem or relic of. 

Use of Arcane and Light Druids and Mages both use forms of Nature, Arcane, and Light magic. As discussed before, Mages approach to Nature magic is through the lens of Order magic and the Arcane. Druids still use the Arcane in some Balance spec spells, but it is distinctly named “Astral magic” which is defined as a combination of Nature and Arcane. We can assume then that Druids are accessing Arcane magic through the pathways of Nature, similar to how Sunwalkers (tauren paladins) access the Light through their devotion to An’she.

Connections to Spirit and Decay Druids, Monks, and Shamans all share a connection with the element of Spirit and their “darker” counterparts inversely with Decay.

The easiest way to think about these connections to the element of Spirit and Decay is based on the class - Monks are in tune with their own inner Spirit or Decay, Shamans are in tune with the Spirit and Decay linked to the Elements, and Druids are in tune with the Spirit and Decay linked to nature and wildlife. 

Monks very clearly have a link to Spirit through their use of Chi. The inverse of this and their manifestation of Decay may be the Sha which has ties to the Old Gods and possibly madness (see my previous post on The Nature of Memory Magic). Shamans are easy as well since Spirit is one of the elements and Shamans may use it to commune with the elements and access the Elemental Planes and Dark Shamans use Decay to bind and enslave them. Druids also have access to the element of Spirit through its flow through nature and the Emerald Dream (see my previous post on The Nature of Memory Magic). Obviously for life to be in balance Druids must walk a fine line between Spirit and Decay, but out of control Decay in Druidism presents as the Nightmare and Thros/the Drust. You could also make the argument that the Druids of the Flame is Spirit out of control, but that’s for another paper on another day.

A quick little fun addon after my exploration of teleportation, memory, and Spirit in my previous post on The Nature of Memory Magic, this connection to this element of Spirit may explain how Monks are able to cast Zen Pilgrimage, Shamans are able to Astral Recall, and Druids are able to cast Dreamwalking.

All of this lines up with what we recently found in Palawltar’s Codex of Dimensional Structure. Each one of these classes have their connection to Spirit, Decay, and Nature magic, but they are all from different pathways to access that power. Once again proving that it’s how the magic is acquired that makes you one of these classes in a similar way to Clerics, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks in D&D 5e.

I hope this exploration of how these four nature magic users are distinct and how they intersect is helpful to you. Aside from the workload of making a bunch of new assets for Druids to be available to all races it seems to me that there is a need for a culture to have some sort of deep connection to the Dream or Wild Gods/Loa for them to access that ability. I do find it interesting that Druidism only seems to occur on Azeroth. We do see Shamanism on both Draenor and Argus, but curiously no form of Druidism. It seems that only the native races of Azeroth (Tauren, Trolls, and subsequently Night Elves) and those cursed to be bound to the Dream or Wild Gods (the Drust and Gilneans) have access to this ability. Races that are alien to Azeroth, descendants from Titan constructs afflicted by the “curse of flesh,” or those that were altered by Order (the High Elves and Nightborne) all lack this ability or pathway to Druidism. I’m interested to see if Blizzard ever explores this, perhaps in future patches with Elun’ahir and the Harronir. If and when they do I’ll be fervently exploring the topic. The Nature of Memory Magic As always my intention is never to police the roleplay of others, but rather to provide more canon centered explanations for those interested

[lolygagger]

Silluz, Kikee, Inatish. have any art of them? :)

I really need to draw all of them more, but here are some of my best refs of them! Thank you for the Ask!!!!!

My fiery druidess, Silluz ~ big sister energy. She was an outcast of the Bloodscalp Tribe at an extremely young age. Zelun’jin and Amareh are the closest thing she has ever had to family. She is more than happy to tell you her mind, and she is very passionate in all that she does.

I love Kikee so very much because she reminds me of that pure hopeful optimism that I had as a child. She is a shaman and astronomer. She loves to learn about anything, and everything. She can usually be find high up on the mountains of Zuldazar with her journals and telescope. She is half Zandalari and half Gurubashi (specifically Darkspear).

Inatish is the epitome of chill. He is full Zandalari, and was originally part of Zul’s strike force against Pandaria. As soon as he was able, he defected from the army, and adored the Pandaren way of life. This led to him becoming a monk <3 He is also Kikee’s older half brother! (At one point I actually drew him with brown eyes, but decided since he was full Zandalari, to commit to glowy blue eyes)

[doddsmountain]

My World of Warcraft toons

Horde side (US - Ravencrest)

Prissella, Blood Elf hunter, with her pet Barbee

Dolaneer, Orc death knight

Cryptessa, Undead warlock, with her incubus Zehevad

Serral, Dracthyr evoker

Goreduk, Orc warrior

Leyander, Blood Elf demon hunter

Argenteena, Goblin hunter, with her pet Brassyl

Norbar, Tauren paladin

Rennia, Vulpera hunter, with her pet Sekhan

Guanli, Pandaren monk

Thaegryn, Night Born hunter, with her pet Sekhan

Kilnarie, Tauren druid

Chiborgi, Undead rogue

Opet, Troll hunter, with her pet Narlap

Qualicum, Tauren death knight

Kagda, Maghar Orc priest

Alliance side (US - Uldaman)

Kazzus, Dracthyr evoker

Harrie, Human hunter, with his pet Cuno

Vessaria, Night Elf hunter, with her pet Chase

Belanny, Dwarf shaman

Thanria, Night Elf demon hunter

Trynddi, Gnome warrior

Sineah, Worgen warlock, with her void walker Kragzazt

Penelopey, Human mage

Falgarth, Gnome death knight

Sybil, Kul Tiran Human hunter, with her pet Errol

Leikrah, Lightforged Draenei warrior

Morfahr, Draenei warrior

[nsfw-muses-of-fantasy]

Kicking off the new year with...

Shí léi, The Pandaren!

She is a shaman. A retired, yet still young adventurer. She fits this blog because... well what's a retired adventurer to do besides talk to the elements? I suppose bodily adventuring is in order for the lass~

[lilylonewolf]

World of Warcraft Streaming 24th February (Valentine's Day 2.0 for fun), around 11.00 AM Swedish time on Twitch, will stream maybe more than one time same day :) https://www.twitch.tv/faeleecya

I have decided it will be a Pandaren Alliance, but will it be a Shaman or a Monk? Help me decide and what name to have :)

And if there will be a Onewe Youtube/Instagram Live I will watch it and continues after that! ^^

[thetantiger]

So I suppose I'm gonna be putting my art on here now! Have this of Flicker, lol