Gonk, the Raptor

Gonk, the Raptor is a legendary druid minion card, from the Rastakhan's Rumble set.

Lore

This section uses content from Wowpedia.

Gonk, the Great Hunter, is the ancient raptor loa of shapes and master of the hunt. The Darkspear trolls heard many of the Zandalari's tales about Gonk. He taught both tribes how to be druids, and the Zandalari druids serve him as the Raptari. Gonk's high priest is Wardruid Loti. The followers of Gonk and Pa'ku do not get along.

Gonk taught the Darkspear tribe how to contact the loa in a different way than they had before, thus allowing them to serve all the nature spirits at the same time instead of only one at a time as they used to do as loa priests (witch doctors). The other loa, such as Shirvallah, were against this but Gonk forced their hands in order to defeat Zalazane, who had trapped several loa inside the Emerald Dream. Through this method the Darkspear became druids, though the other loa are not happy about it and want the trolls to continue worshiping them one at a time.

Unlike the Darkspear druids, Gonk did not just speak to the Zandalari. For his Raptari, Gonk is not just a fragment or piece of him, but physically there, a real voice they can listen to in person.

In Hearthstone lore, Gonk serves as the patron loa of Gonk's Raptors, the ferocious, shapeshifting druid team in Rastakhan's Rumble.

Rikkar thought Gonk and Wardruid Loti were examples of inspiring contrast. Gonk was one of the oldest loa, and Loti one of the younger competitors in the Rumble (not to mention an advisor to King Rastakhan! And one of the most talented shapeshifters in the world!), but the two of them joined forces to open the door for young Zandalari trolls to become Druids. Loti was the inspiring leader to a pack of howling, dinosaur-jumping lunatics. Maybe he could use that!

Trivia

• Originally during the development of Rastakhan's Rumble, Gonk's effect belonged to Spirit of the Raptor (then called "Shrine to Gonk") with the card text "Your hero has Windfury". Gonk himself instead gave a bonus when the player attacked and killed minions, at one point being considered as an 8-mana 5/5 that gave the player's hero "Overkill: Refresh your Mana Crystals." The effects of Gonk and the Spirit were eventually swapped since the designers found that giving their hero the ability to "attack a whole bunch" was the more exciting of the two and thus belonged better on Gonk. Furthermore, the accompanying deck needed more resources since players would spend so many of their resources on buffing their hero's Attack, so they felt that it made sense to give a card draw effect to the Spirit.
• At one point in playtesting, Gonk cost 5 mana. While this was fine in most circumstances, occasionally it would allow druid players to use Gonk in combination with Pounce and an already-equipped Twig of the World Tree as early as the fourth turn to rapidly escalate the game, which was "not an okay circumstance".

Gallery

Gonk, the Raptor, full art

Gonk in World of Warcraft.

Early iterations of Gonk's card art erroneously depicted him as green. He was changed to red at the end of the process to match his World of Warcraft appearance.