Tauren (playable)



The tauren of Thunder Bluff is a faction of tauren that start in the Red Cloud Mesa, an area of rolling plains atop the high cliffs in southern Mulgore.

Background
For countless generations, the bestial tauren roamed the plains of the Barrens, hunted the mighty kodos, and sought the wisdom of their eternal goddess, the Earth Mother. Scattered across the land, the wandering tribes were united only by a common hatred for their sworn enemy, the marauding centaur. Seeking aid against the centaur, the chieftain, Cairne Bloodhoof, befriended Warchief Thrall and the other orcs, who had recently journeyed to Kalimdor.

With the orcs’ help, Cairne and his Bloodhoof tribe were able to drive back the centaur and claim the grasslands of Mulgore for their own. For the first time in hundreds of years, the tauren had a land to call their own. Upon the windswept mesa of Thunder Bluff, Cairne built a refuge for his people, where tauren of every tribe is welcome. Over time, the scattered tauren tribes united under Cairne’s rule. There are a few tribes who disagree about the direction their new nation should take, but all agree that Cairne is the wisest and best suited to lead them towards the future.

Though the noble tauren are peaceful in nature, the rites of the Great Hunt are venerated as the heart of their spiritual culture. Every tauren, warrior or otherwise, seeks identity both as a hunter and as a child of the Earth Mother. Having reached the age of maturity, you must test your skills in the wild and prove yourself in the Great Hunt.

Reasons for racial traits
The tauren are some of the most physically imposing creatures to ever walk the earth.
 * Their natural body structure grants them not only great strength, but an incredible Endurance to damage.
 * Their immune system is compounded with a deep connection to the natural world, thus they have a passive Natural Resistance to everything from poisons and acids to the weather.
 * Being great huntsmen and natural wanderers with a certain natural affinity, the tauren developed a deep knowledge of the botanical life of Azeroth, using it in various shamanistic rituals, as well as for medical treatment. Because of this the tauren are natural herbalists.
 * Hunting the kodo and wandering the wilds has not been easy for the tauren, and facing the centaur has made it no easier. All tauren are born with the ability to communicate with the spirits in times of need, beseeching them to shake the earth and stun their enemies. This ability has been nicknamed the War Stomp by the tauren's enemies.



Character size
The tauren character model is large. In the beginning, tauren player characters will not notice this; everything is tauren-sized, and is scaled to the tauren point of view. Later, when the character interacts with other races, the difference becomes apparent. Occasionally, tight quarters will hamper the tauren player character's movement, especially when mounted and/or having any size-increasing buffs. It is recommended that any tauren experiencing such hassles to use items that can either decrease one's size or alter their appearance (such as a Noggenfogger Elixir or a Savory Deviate Delight) as a workaround.

Mounts
Because of their size, tauren used to have the most restricted selection of mounts of any race. Among the racial mount vendors, the tauren could only use the their own kodo and the orc's dire wolf. From the racial PvP mounts, they could also select the troll's raptor. Mounts beyond these must be hardier, because the ones available to the Horde can all bear a tauren. Oddly, the tauren had no restrictions on flying mounts.

These restrictions were lifted in patch 3.0.8.

Classes
Tauren characters may play as druids, hunters, shamans, warriors, death knights and, as of patch 4.0.3a, paladins and priests. This currently makes them the only race to have every available class that has the ability to tank and/or heal.

Along with trolls, they are the only Horde races that can play as a druid.

They are the only Horde race that cannot have characters of the rogue class, and are also the only race in the game that cannot become a mage.

The hypothetical tauren rogue is a common joke among Horde players. For the tauren, the rogue profession is an alien concept and therefore rare (if not non-existent) among its peoples. The same holds true for the arcane-wielding mage. The renegade Grimtotem tribe however possesses the rogue and sorcerer class.

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