Pandaren are humanoids that resemble Giant Pandas. Their homeland is Pandaria, an isolated and well-hidden island off the coast of Kalimdor. Pandaren are generally isolationists, and very few ever leave the island. Those that do are strong warriors with a mastery of martial arts techniques; the typical Pandaren fighting style in our universe would be a mix of Zui Quan (drunken boxing) and Shaolin staff techniques. Pandaren also have an extreme fondness for alcoholic beverages (both creating and consuming them); those that do leave the island are often Brewmasters, wandering the world in search of new and exotic ingredients in their ale creations. The Pandaren are a shamanistic race very similar to the Tauren in this regard. They strive to remain neutral in those rare dealings they may have with outside races.

The origin of the name Pandaren is unknown, but it is worth noting that the Chinese word for man is “ren”, thus making the name “Panda-man” if taken literally in Chinese.

The conceptual origins of the Pandaren race can be traced to an April Fools joke [1] announcing the Pandaren as a new playable race in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. However, the overwhelming and positive fan response to the joke caused it to take on a life of its own, and eventually Blizzard retconned the Pandaren race into the Warcraft story. The Pandaren race made its debut in Frozen Throne as a neutral hero, the Pandaren Brewmaster. Blizzard later provided background information on the Pandaren in the Alliance and Horde Compendium sourcebook for Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game.

Pandaren would later be featured in a second April Fools joke in World of Warcraft, announcing a take-out Chinese cuisine service called Pandaren Xpress (based on the real-life Panda Express) which could be accessed from inside the game. This was a parody of EverQuest II’s /pizza command, which would open a web browser to order pizza. The Pandaren were long believed to be the fifth Alliance race in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, until the announcement on May 10, 2006 that the fifth Alliance race would be the Draenei.