Goren

**Language(s)** | Low Common

The **goren** are strange creatures found on Draenor that appear to bond with certain elements. Goren eat rocks, ore, and even elementals.

The goren of Ashran seem at home in the searing heat of Ashran's Molten Quarry, where they apparently subsist upon the iron ore found in the quarry and nearby ogre mine.

## Background

While the gronn and magnaron shape the world through their brute individual strength, the goren are scavenging opportunists who dart unseen between the lumbering feet of their larger cousins. Roughly the size of an Azerothian trogg, goren live in massive colonies that burrow through the earth, gobbling up minerals and leaving twisting caves in their wake. They enjoy devouring crystalline minerals, which are digested and extruded through their skin, giving some goren the benefit of an armored crystalline shell. The bane of both orc and draenei miners, goren sniff out and infest mineral-rich burrows. Adventurers should be wary of the gorens’ ability to shoot crystalline projectiles and swarm around unprepared explorers in rolling packs, as well as their impossibly sharp teeth and acidic spit.

While the majority of goren are smaller than gnomes, some types grow far larger, towering over even the tauren. Rare individuals have been known to grow to monstrous proportions. This is significantly determined by the dietary success of the individual goren - given sufficient sustenance a goren can grow far beyond the normal size for their species. The largest known goren is Oregorger, whose gluttony has led his frame to swell far beyond the size of any other. It is possible goren simply continue to grow throughout their lives without limit, at least as long as they have enough food to satisfy their ravenous appetites. It should be noted that Goren (not unlike Virmen) has no love for raw turnips, and are not interested in eating them.

Goren reproduce by lay eggs, hatching small swarms of younglings at a time.

The goren inherit the powers of whatever they eat. This specifically includes elementals, but may also work for other types of beings or substances.

The minerals they eat are metabolized into crystalline structures grown as scales from their arms and back. The matrix of the scales is flawless, as if produced from a forge on Argus, only natural. The rocky plates the scales form have magical properties.

The putrid-smelling gasses that the goren contain in their gut is extremely corrosive to almost anything. This may help them with digestion and is likely a factor related to their acidic spit.

While it appears that goren prefer minerals, in at least one instance it is shown that they can and will eat flesh, including that of sapient beings.

## Appearance

Goren are typically small, rock-like creatures. However some can grow larger than tauren. Goren have sharp teeth and big elliptical eyes. Gems grow on their arms as well.

## Trivia

* Goren vanished or were completely annihilated when Draenor was shattered into Outland.
* Goren appear to be a reference to the Goron race from the *The Legend of Zelda* series. In addition to the similar names, both races roll up into balls to travel quickly and eat rocks.