By David T. Valentin
In the upcoming World of Warcraft folklore companion World of Warcraft: Folks & Fairy Tales, the book reveals one of their original characters, Chromie, short for Chronormu, is trans in a very unique, fantastical way.
Chromie has been around since the very beginning of World of Warcraft. Introduced in late 2004, the character belongs to the race of Bronze dragonflight, a race of dragons that police the timeline, keeping it on track and defeating anyone who dares to alter it.
The bronze dragonflight woman is mostly known for the questline the Deaths of Chromie, a storyline in which Chromie knows when and where she’ll die, but there’s someone out there who is trying to bring her death even sooner.
And although Chromie is a male bronze dragon (Chronormu actually being a male dragon name), she prefers to take the form of a female gnome.
Luckily a few fans were able to snag early copies of the upcoming folklore book and shared the news across the internet, of course with appropriate spoiler warnings. You can read the bit of text below in a tweet by a World of Warcraft player where Chromie admits she prefers to keep the form of a woman.
Despite the character always being referred to as she/her pronouns since her addition into the game, some players have begun to misgender Chromie with he/him pronouns. But luckily love for Chromie and her transness far outweighs the hate. Fans have taken to the internet to show their support for the bronze dragon with commentary, fanart, and some beautiful cosplay.
Blizzard’s approach to including Chromie as a trans woman is a perfectly creative and fantastical way to create some inclusion and diversity for their characters. In a world with magical blood elves, Lovecraftian beings and gods, why would it be considered so unreasonable for a person with magic to shapeshift into their desired form?
Hardcover, kindle, and paperback editions are all available on May 25th, next Tuesday.
Warcraft’s first trans character was revealed in December 2020, when Pelagos was explained as trans. Pelagos is a male-presenting Kyrian Aspirant (basically an angel-in-training) who lives in the heavenly realm of Bastion, an afterlife set aside specifically for those who devoted their mortal existence to the service of others. But unless you join the Kyrian—which is only one of four post-mortem factions players must choose between—and go out of your way to chat up Pelagos, you won't hear him recall that he had a female-presenting body when he was alive.
Comments