Frostborn Roleplaying Guide

To quote the WoWWiki, *"The **frostborn**, also known as **frost dwarves**, are a race of dwarves native to the Storm Peaks. They have recently befriended members of the Explorers' League, and although they have differences with their dwarven brethren, they welcome Alliance members within their settlements.*

*They are led by Yorg Stormheart, "King of the Frostborn", who rules over them from mighty Frosthold in the Storm Peaks."*

Before we begin, please know there is very little lore regarding the frostborn and much of it will be speculation. I will provide evidence when I can, and clearly state what is speculation when I can't.

## **Physical Characteristics**

In-game we see that the frostborn are a race of blue skinned dwarves, they specifically use the old earthen model (but colored blue) with universally black hair. However, we also know they can bleed blood from the quest dialogue in "Missing Scouts" which heavily implies that the frostborn are mortal creatures, dwarves, not earthen. The earthen model is thus most likely being used because Blizzard had blue earthen and wanted to reuse them instead of taking the dwarf model and coloring it blue. It is also due to this that we don't see any female frostborn, as the earthen do not have that model.

### **Female Frostborn**

Yet, we also know that there are female frostborn when we visit "Thunderfall" in the Storm Peaks, usually during the quest, "Blowing Hodir's Horn". This is also one of two examples of how the frostborn fight, or at least how they used to fight, more on that later.

### **Height & Weight**

Due to their relative size in-game compared to Muradin, the Explorer's League, and the dwarf player, we can also assume they they share the same general characteristics as a normal dwarf in regards to height, weight, and other physical traits we see in bronzebeards for example. What is not known however, is if the frostborn are capable of transforming their bodies into stone like the bronzebeards can.

### **Cold Resistance**

I will also point out that the frostborn statues we see at thunderfall are not wearing shoes, this with their blue skin and native home taken into consideration makes it easy to presume that the frostborn have a innate resistance to the cold, likely exceeding the resistance we see in the bronzebeards. *That isn't to say their immune to the cold, but my personal guess is that the chill of Dun Morogh would barely even feel cold, a sort of pleasant cold breeze instead of the biting chill and bone-rending winds at the top of the world.*

#### **Natural Mountaineers?**

*Another bout of speculation here, but the Storm Peaks, their home high in the mountains. The Storm Peaks are famous for their towering mountains of stone and ice, which leads me to speculate that learning to climb these dangerous pillars is part of life in the Storm Peaks. If you can't climb, then what can you do? And so, it makes sense that the frostborn learn to climb young, like a human learning to swim.*

*I will concede that in the modern day the frostborn utilize the eagles of the land to get around, and that they clearly retain their expertise in digging and creating structures from stone and possibly ice (just look at Frosthold), and thus could have tunnels leading to the base of their mountain, I still stand by the idea of climbing being second nature to many if not all of the frostborn.*

#### **Stoneform?**

*My personal guess is that they cannot, if only due to their unique 'evolution' in comparison to the dwarves of Khaz Modan and that when they witness Muradin turn into an avatar they clearly have no idea what he just did. If they had stoneform, you'd think they'd at least be somewhat aware of what he did and even with Muradin becoming their King we don't see any frostborn using avatar or stoneform.*

## **Troops (Thunderfall)**

First, I will go over the tactics we see used at thunderfall, as their battle with the Sons of Hodir were perfectly preserved, even defying gravity. During this war they were fighting in service of Titan Keeper Thorim.

When it comes to discerning the 'classes' shown in this battlefield we must remember that this was during Wrath of the Lich King, and from looking at certain statues it looks as if Blizzard only used classes the dwarves could play to represent. This is why we see priest-looking spellcasters, riflemen/bowwomen, warriors, dagger-wielders, and a potential 'paladin' (even though paladins didn't become a thing on Azeroth until much later).

### **Melee Troops**

We see quite a lot of spear-wielding units, long with sword-wielders, two-handed axe wielders, some of the spear-wielders are depicted as throwing their spears.

We see frostborn with swords and shields, we see frostborn with only a single blade, some of which are female but most are male. At least one of the statues looks to be casting something, possibly referring to a battle-caster of some sort.

The spear-wielding frostborn are shown using them to both stab and throw, and even as 'grips' to avoid being thrown off of the larger giants while they stab them with daggers.

As a brief notice, there are no hammer-wielding frostborn, possibly implying that the hammer is not seen as a combat weapon in frostborn society and is reserved for tools.

#### **Mounted Troops**

The mount of choice during this conflict were the bears of the region. We can presume that these bears are the Icemaw bears due to them being the only bears native to the Storm Peaks and their primary den being found near the battlefield of thunderfall.

During this battle, we see a mixture of dagger-wielders and spear-wielders standing on their mounts, preparing to leap onto the giants from their bear mount or to stab upwards with their spears. Interestingly, the spears of the bear-riders are more intricate then the spears being used by ground troops.

### **Ranged Troops**

#### **Non-Spellcasting**

In regards to non-spellcasting ranged troops, there are several examples of riflemen. Although what type of gun it is is unknown (if it's a titan gun for example or a gunpowder gun), we can most likely presume they got those guns from Ulduar as Thorim might have seen fit to arm his chosen army.

We also see archers, and interestingly while all of the riflemen are male frostborn, all of the archers are female frostborn.

##### **Artillery**

The only time we see the frostborn using siege equipment are the typical ballista we see humans use elsewhere in the world. The siegecrew are all shown as male frostborn.

##### **Mounted Troops**

Some of the bear riders I mentioned earlier are wielding guns, most of them sitting properly on their bears but at least one of them is standing on their bear as if they were planning to jump. *This could imply the frostborn to be excellent at balancing themselves, and lend credit to the the mountaineer speculation I offered earlier.*

#### **Spellcasting**

Judging by the staves they wield, or the books they hold, the spellcasters of the frostborn appear to be priests, and we see both male and female spellcasters. It is plausible that mages were alongside these priests due to modern lore.

*In Wrath of the Lich King they had the lore that dwarves were remarkably poor at wielding arcane magic in one of the random book spawns in Dalaran. With Chronicles however, specifically Volume 2, they confirmed that creatures born from titan constructs (ogres in this example) are gifted in wielding arcane magic. By this logic, dwarves too would be good at manipulating the arcane, and indeed, the dark iron prove that they are very capable spellcasters when they summon Ragnaros the Firelord in the War of the Three Hammers. So, by extension, with considerations to how close the frostborn are to Ulduar, its not a stretch to claim that they have arcane-spellcasters (maybe not mages, but we do see rune-based casters among the vrykul and iron dwarves) of some sort.*

## **Troops (Modern Day)**

We see the frostborn in action once again in the quest, "Fury of the Frostborn King", where after obtaining a titan relic we are joined by a frostborn axemaster who escorts us to the quest completion. Outside, we see the frostborn fighting the iron dwarves. We only see two types of troops presented here, the first are the axemasters and the second are eagleriders who throw down hammers.

Interestingly, we don't see any bear mounts, possibly meaning that the Icemaw Bears we saw at thunderfall were 'loaners' from the Hyldnir group of vrykul who ARE riding the icemaw bears in the modern day and are dedicated to Thorim as well. Since Thorim recruited the frostborn, he may have gotten these warrior-women to loan them mounts for the conflict. Alternatively, the frostborn may have stopped taming the bears when they started taming the eagles which were better suited to the conditions in the Storm Peaks.

We also don't see any swords, spears, shields, guns, bows, or spellcasters (regardless if their priests). We do know that at some point they seemed to become cowards of some regard (giving up without a fight), a far cry from the giant-leaping warriors frozen in time at thunderfall. Velog mentioned when the jormungar showed up his father thought the entire hunting team was doomed.

Similarly, in the quest's actual text (Fervor of the Frostborn) they are sending the player to prove themselves, "I'll tell ye what... my people are warriors, straight and true. On the day a frostborn becomes a man, he has ta prove himself in battle. He has ta show us that he'll not let size hold'm back. (Yorg (aka Muradin))." And, to further use Velog Icebellow, we know that Muradin trained the frostborn into "even more fearsome warriors than we could have boasted during the time of our war with the Frost Giants." As such, it's not too much to imagine that the rifle/bow-wielders and spear-wielders are used for hunting instead of military conflict, and with eagles they no longer need siege equipment. The only tactics missing without an explanation are where the sword-wielders went and where the spellcasters went.

### **Axemasters**

They wear plate armor (based on the armor model, which is old plate armor) and dual-wield two axes. The fighting style may have been inspired by Muradin's style as his character model in the Storm Peaks is shown with two hammers.

*This could be supporting the theory that in melee combat the hammer is frowned upon due to its inability to rend and kill as readily as the axe and by the observations at thunderfall at the lack of hammer-wielding dwarves.*

### **Eagleriders**

As learned earlier in the questline, during the quest "Fervor of the Frostborn", that the frostborn have access to storm hammers, which function identically to those found in wildhammer clans. It is unknown how they gained these hammers, although it is possible that they created them after seeing Muradin's stormbolt that killed the jormungar in Velog Icebellow's story during the quest mentioned above, or that they may have stolen them from the iron dwarves as we do see those titanforged generally wielding lightning-based magic and weapons, which a storm hammer would be included under.

## ***Troops/Class (Speculation)***

Due to what we saw at thunderfall, we can safely assume that there are still hunters(bow/gun/spear-wielders), and spellcasters in frostborn society. As possible character class suggestions, here are a number of ideas based on classes dwarves can play:

**Warrior:** Very easy to play as a frostborn (as it is with every race in the game more or less), from the axemasters to the other troops we see in thunderfall. Honestly, you can go pretty crazy here, it's a warrior after all.

**Paladin:** While it is true that paladins as Azeroth knows them weren't invented until the Second War, it doesn't mean that you can't use the paladin to represent a magic-based warrior (even if its not the Light), or use the explanation that you became a paladin following the arrival of the Alliance Hero in the Storm Peaks (maybe fighting alongside the Argent Crusade in an effort to follow Muradin Bronzebeard into battle against the Scourge and deciding they want to wield the Light they saw the paladins wield).

**Hunter:** Also a very easy class to convey, in modern World of Warcraft both the riflemen/bowwomen we see at thunderfall can be represented as well as the speardwarves. You could also use the hunter class for an eaglerider, although warrior fits them better with how their shown due to stormbolt and the military-role we see the riders fill. Although, the pet-aspect of the class could explain a bear mount and an eagle mount / companion just as well.

There are also 'Frosthounds' which only appear the quest, "Sniffing out the Perpetrator", you ride this frost 'hound' (looks more like a wolf) in pursuit of an iron dwarf who stole Brann's communicator. They seem to be what the frostborn use to track things down and likely have a use in hunting as well, like how hunting dogs are used.

**Rogue:** Once again, an easy class to show, we do see Frostborn Scouts in "Missing Scouts" which can easily be tooled as scouts or hunters (the food gatherer, not the class), or even as ambassadors and explorers for the southern continents.

**Priest:** As noted, the spellcasters at thunderfall do appear to be priests based on their staffs. You could certainly play them as Light-based priests (since we do know Tyr did wield or at least create light-based artifacts, so you could be a priest following his example), or however else you want to Titanify the abilities of a priest. It can work, I would certainly recommend taking a very titan approach to it, although you could still play a traditional priest with the Argent Crusade being your mentors.

**Death Knight:** Being creatures native to Northrend, you could certainly play a proper Death Knight Frostborn, although I personally use the very pale-if slightly blue skin option to represent my very much living frostborn 'Yeula Icehelm' who is played as more of a rune-based warrior.

**Shaman:** It may surprise you, but this class can be very thematic for a frostborn as there are shamanistic taunka (who are harsher and tend to strongarm the elements into service) on the continent who could have taught the frostborn or at least inspired their own shamanism which could take after any of the four elements but given its name, storm and frost are two particular elements to pay attention to.

**Mage:** Although traditional mages as we see them in Dalaran are probably unlikely exist without influence from Dalaran (which is a very real possibility given how close Dalaran was during Wrath of the Lich King), you can easily take inspiration from the varied rune-based spellcasters present in Northrend, such as the vrykul, iron dwarves, and earthen.

**Monk:** Although you could play them as a sort of bruiser, the themes of a monk don't really fit a frostborn very well. But, if you can make it work, more power to you.

**Warlock:** Not a very thematic class for the frostborn I'm afraid, but you could have been taught by an Alliance member during the Wrath expansion, or maybe you bore witness to a Legion attack *somewhere* during the events of Legion.

**Druid/Demon Hunter:** Dwarves can't play these classes, and demon hunters make no sense whatsoever, but you could try and make an argument for druid given their less industrial lifestyle and maybe use the hunter class to try and represent druid-like features (except transformation obviously).