An excerpt from the forthcoming anthology of lore, Folk and Fairy Tales of Azeroth for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has finally revealed that Chromie the NPC is WOW WoTLK Classic Gold transgender and uses her/his pronouns. Due to be released later in the month on May 25th, the publication titled World of Warcraft: Folk and Fairy Tales of Azeroth contains short stories that enhance the lore in the realm of the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game.
The first time Chromie appeared in the game was in 2004. Chromie is a time-travelling bronze dragon who chooses the form of a female gnome at the Visage Day ceremony to interact with mortals playing the game. For a Bronze Dragon, the name she uses is Chronormu that is thought of as male since it uses”ormu” as the “ormu” suffix, whereas female names for bronze dragons typically have the “ormi” suffix. An recurring character in WoW, Chromie appears throughout WoW’s numerous expansions with quests available to players and is also a playable character in Blizzard’s recently abandoned MOBA, Heroes of The Storm.
According to PCGamesN the fans who received an early copy of Blizzard’s forthcoming Folk and Fairy Tales of Azeroth storybook have discovered Chlomie’s favorite pronouns are explicitly revealed in the story “Visage Day”. It is in the tale that Chromie takes on the role of a female gnome in the Visage Day ceremony, a celebration of coming of age where bronze dragons select their mortal form. After deciding on her mortal form, Chromie is asked why she specifically chose to be a female, to which she answers “It is what I want to be.”
Fans quickly used Twitter to reach out to WoW’s narrative writer and lead character the story Steve Danuser for further clarification on Chromie’s gender. Since Chromie is mortal in her dragon form of her, fans were keen to know whether she was gender fluid, male in the form of bronze dragon, or woman in her human form. Luckily, Danuser cleared it up for fansby stating that the use of the pronoun in Chromie’s tale was deliberate, and that “Prior to Visage Day ceremony Chronormu will be interpreted as him/her. In the following days, she/he appears can be seen in dragon and mortal forms.” Although the forthcoming book will finally prove Chronormu’s gender identity, Chromie will be transgender in the future, she’s not the first in the game, with Pelagos as a prominent NPC of the WoW WOTLK Classic expansion identified as transgender at the time the expansion was released in 2020.
Although the World of Warcraft community has often speculated on the gender of Chromie’s identity, it has never been confirmed by Blizzard until now, which should be a welcomed confirmation for fans to finally put their theories and confusion to be put to. Though it took Blizzard almost 17 years affirm that Chromie is actually transgender, her story is an additional step towards a greater diversity and LGBTQand gender-based representation in video games.
