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[AlbusDumbledore]

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

I honestly expected these guys to be playable by now. This shouldn't be taken as any sort of slam or slight on worgen ... I'm very eager to see what Blizzard dishes up for our new canine PCs. But if you've played WoW for a while, you've probably run into the furbolg in Ashenvale or Felwood or Winterspring. Dating back to the time before the coming of the titans, the furbolg rank alongside trolls and tauren as native-born to Azeroth itself, with an oral tradition that dates back countless millennia. Not created by alien visitors, conquered by old gods or changed by magical pools, the furbolg have inhabited the forests since before there were three continents. Survivors of the Sundering, even to this day the furbolg live in the wooded areas of Northrend and Kalimdor, honoring the eternal bear spirits of Ursoc and Ursol.

Furbolg have long been cordial, if not actually allied to, the kaldorei (night elves) who share their forest home. Furbolg are, as you might expect from humanoid bears, powerful physically. But they're also gifted seers and shaman and clearly even understand the druidic arts to some extent. While the Stillpine who inhabit Azuremyst Isle have forged an alliance with the draenei and the ones in Felwood and Ashenvale were once friends to the night elves, it's worth mentioning that the furbolg have no real animosity toward the Horde, either; they simply haven't had that much contact with them aside from a faint respect for the tauren.

However, recently the scattered furbolg tribes on both Kalimdor and Northrend have come on hard times. The furbolgs of Ashenvale and Felwood have been in many cases twisted by the corruption of the Burning Legion, which left scars on their forest homes and in their very spirit, while in the ancestral furbolg home of Grizzlemaw, the corruptive force of a primeval terror has tainted even the very bear god the furbolg honor.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The furbolg

Know Your Lore: The furbolg originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:00:00 EST.  Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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