Near-human

The near-humans (also simply known as the humans) of Draenor were an in-universe speculative race used by Garona and Medivh to interpret the former's non-orcish heritage.The Last Guardian, 198
This concept dates from after the retcon that the orcs spent more than ten years in Azeroth after the opening of the Dark Portal until the launching the First War,Warcraft: Orcs & Humans manual, Chronicles of the War in Azeroth, 583 and from before the Lost Ones were retconed as being mutated draenei. As such, the existence of a near-human race on Draenor was required in order to keep Garona's background coherent.
The final, canon story is that before Garona's heritage as a half-orc/half-draenei was revealed,Conflicting Loyalties Gul'dan deceived her into believing that she was half-human.Secrets
==History==
In The Last Guardian, Garona makes various statements that there was a different group of humans living on Draenor than those the orcs later discovered on Azeroth, who were possibly rendered extinct some time before. When first explaining this to Khadgar, Medivh surmised that her homeland had "humans, or near-humans, or at least had them within living memory." Later on, Khadgar saw a vision of Gul'dan's quarters on Draenor, in which he kept "preserved things, some of which might have once belonged to human or humanish creatures" inside one of the cabinets along his walls.The Last Guardian, 234 They were similar enough physically, mentally, and culturally for them to give Garona insight on humans of Azeroth, discovered through the newly opened Dark Portal.The Last Guardian, 232
Garona believed that she was half-orc and had half-human heritage from these Draenor-born humans. According to her, it was Medivh who "made [her] feel human. And [she hadn't] felt human in a long, long time."The Last Guardian, 228 She specifically stated that she was "of both Orc and Human lineage"Warcraft: Orcs & Humans manual, The Destiny of the Orcish Hordes and "neither."The Last Guardian, 207 Orcs only "[saw] the parts of [her] that [were] human;" they said her "human hand" was "too slender to be really useful, [did] not [have] enough muscle to hold an ax or bash a skull in properly—too pale, too weak, and too ugly."
==Speculation==
*The mentioned similarities between human and draenei cultures could be their shared worship of the Light.
*Considering the reveal that Draenor was visited by the titans, the story of near-humans might date back from a time where Blizzard Entertainment imagined both planets as actually having true humans.
==References==
Category:Races
Category:Humans
Category:Draenei