Chapter 2: Races

A visit to one of the great cities in the world of warcraft overwhelms the senses. Voices chatter in countless different languages. The smells of cooking in different cuisines mingle with the odors of crowded streets and/or poor sanitation. Buildings in sharp architectural styles proudly show each cities unique heritage and traits. And the people themselves—people of varying size, shape, and color, dressed in a dazzling spectrum of styles and hues—represent the many different races, from the inquisitive gnomes and stout dwarves to the fierce orcs mingling among the calm tauren.

Scattered among the members of these more common folk are the true exotics: a hulking ogre lumbering through Orgrimmar pushing his way through the crowd, a wise high elf wandering the streets of Stormwind, proud yet sorrowful. In the neutral cities of the goblin cartels, orcs and humans begrudgingly live in a tense peace while trying to sabotage the other without getting caught. And occasionally you might find a worgen or forsaken wandering through, feared and hated by those they would call ally.

Choosing a Race

In the world of warcraft, no race is as common or as driven to succeed as the orcs and humans, however they live among tauren, trolls, dwarves, elves, and other fantastical beings. Your character belongs to one of these peoples.

Your choice of race affects many different aspects of your character. It establishes fundamental qualities that exist throughout your character’s adventuring career. When making this decision, keep in mind the kind of character you want to play. For example, a gnome could make a good choice for a powerful mage, a tauren makes a tough warrior, and a pandaren a wise monk.

Your character race not only affects your attributes and traits but also provides cues for building your character’s story. Each race’s description in this chapter includes information to help you roleplay a character of that race, including personality, physical appearance, features of society, and racial alignment tendencies.

These details are suggestions to help you think about your character; adventurers can deviate widely from the norm for their race. It’s worthwhile to consider why your character is different, as a helpful way to think about their character’s background and personality.

Racial Traits

The description of each race includes racial traits that are common to members of that race. The following entries appear among the traits of most races.

Ability Score Increase

Every race increases one or more of a character’s ability scores.

Age

The age entry notes the age when a member of the race is considered an adult, as well as the race’s expected lifespan. This information can help you decide how old your character is at the start of the game. You can choose any age for your character which would provide an explanation for some of your attributes. For example, if you play a young or very old character, your age could explain a particularly low Strength or Constitution attribute, while advanced age could account for a high Intelligence or Wisdom.

Alignment

Most races have tendencies toward certain alignments, described in this entry. These are not binding for player characters, but considering why your dwarf is chaotic, for example, in defiance of lawful dwarf society can help you better define your character.

Size

Characters of most races are Medium, a size category including creatures that are roughly 4 to 8 feet tall. Members of a few races are Small (between 2 and 4 feet tall) and tauren are Large sized (8 to 16 feet tall)! This means that certain rules of the game affect these characters differently. The most important of these rules is that Small characters have trouble wielding heavy weapons while Large creatures have trouble wielding small and light weapons, as explained in Chapter 6.

Speed

Your speed determine how far you can move when traveling (chapter 8) and fighting (chapter 9).

Languages

By virtue of your race, your character can speak, read, and write certain languages. Chapter 4 lists the most common languages in the world of warcraft.

Subraces

Some races have subraces. Members of a subrace have the traits of the parent race in addition to the traits specified for their subrace. Relationships along subraces vary significantly from race to race. The subraces for dwarves have tried to start working together while the blood elves view high elves as traitors.