Warcraft Lore and RPG Discussion

Ritual Casting is OP edition

Discuss the lore and viability of Warcraft as a tabletop setting.

Previous thread:

The Sundering was caused by pure magical energies of Arcane, so it wouldn't have such effects.

The Cataclysm was caused by Aspect of Earth, so while he caused the destruction, he would not devastate the world that completely, as it likely would affect him just as much.

Not mentioning that setting isn't up to scale, so much that Broken Isles, tiny in the world sense, have areas about as big as Lordaeron.

>TOO SOON! YOU HAVE AWAKENED ME TOO SOON, EXECUTUS!

Reminder that the Light has been ruined by Blizzard's retcons and lore rewriting.

There is something on lore that was not ruined?

Quilboar.

Quick question, what's the news on people planning to RP on Nostalrius?

Instead of giant draenei futa cocks it is gonna be about night elf beastiality.

Has it? I think too many people mix their interpretations with the lore to ruin it more than it actually is.

I believe most of the Lore hate has to do with people just reading the summary available online, where a lot of the stuff seems really half-assed and heartlessly implemented. As soon as you go and play and experience the lore pieces first hand, I believe they are much easier to accept.

No, she was made to be bred. And then they made her infertile (probably; I don't think it's ever actually been stated that all dragons are infertile now, but we know the blues in Azuna at least can no longer breed).

She should take tauren mortal form instead of an elf tbqh

In essence, you are right. NPCs ingame still practice the Light with the same intention to do good and follow a system of constructivism and community.

However, the uproar is not about the people's perception ingame, it is about the cold, hard truths of canon that come unfiltered from Blizzard, released onto the web as summary texts that they use to announce new content.. While the Naaru as Light elementals would be pretty cute and not much of a deal, the entire reasoning for their existence however is an absolute game changer.

Before the Draenei retcon, the Light used to be something that the practitioners made good, because their religious teachings helped them focus their inner devotion and willpower and use that collected mentality to cast spells that ultimately are for good. After the Draenei retcon, the Light became a force that inherently is good and that is why people worship it. We have a swap of cause and effect here, which in turn changes the otherwise fairly anthropocentric narrative of WoW into a dichotomy between objective good vs. objective evil. This takes a lot of character away from WoW as a franchise because it reduces complexity. With people such as the Scarlet Crusade wielding Light magic despite being terribly radical and violent, a lot of philosophical potential existed as to how deluded they must be to view their actions as good when they recklessly murder any living person they suspect to be plagued or an Undead sympathiser - Under the old Light lore, that is. New Light lore compresses all this into "They just tap into the Light plane lol".

And that is how a lot of people feel it was ruined.

[cont.]

The Shadow, on the other hand, has been equally simplified. In the context of the Old magic lore, Shadow existed as a twisted and egoistic version of the Light, based on the same mechanics of devotion and willpower, with an altered religious doctrine that changed community and constructivism into a means to an end. The new magic lore defines a very clear source of Shadow and implies nothing that it is possible to tap into the Shadow without the Voidlords at least acknowledging it in some form. Again, we have the swap of cause and effect. People don't make the Shadow "evil" (for a lack of a better word), it is inherently "evil" and therefore it is used by people who want to do "evil".

This seems especially weird when things like Arcane, which used to be the inevitable gateway drug into dangerous magical practices, have been made more and more neutral by separating it from the demonic in the form of Fel, and even Fel receives more and more neutral portrayals thanks to player Warlocks maintaining a fairly good composure by willing demons into submission and stating ingame that there are demons opposed to the Burning Legion and thusly will actually help you save the world, making it apparently possible to tap the kool aid and not burst forth in all consuming anger.

I miss the times when it was kidna-sorta-ish implied that the Twisting Nether was outer space. That was kinda cool.

>Wrathion having children
How will he and Anduin be able to procreate?

Well Anduin is a little bitch so it wouldn't be too surprising if Wrathion gets him knocked up.

>the "New Aspects" are Wrathion the Black, Thrymjaris the Thundering, Aeosera the Stoneskin, Zaurac the Windwing, and Neltharaku the Fel

>Chromatus is also kept in their basement as a secret weapon
>Wrathion funds Warlock experiments to stabilize the Netherwings
>Thorignir reveal how it is they've had Golganneth-power this whole time

>Alex still pouty about Wrathion not letting her raise him, especially now that she can have no more children of her own
>Wrathion spins the story so it all sounds slightly creepier than it is, because that's just the kind of thing he does

Fund it.

Well, perhaps Sabellian has a daughter or two stashed in the safe bits of Outland. They're close cousins at furthest, sure, but the Black Dragonflight seems to have no incest taboo.

Also, Wrathion is technically still a whelp, so that's a 'not yet' thing. Seriously he's what, five years old?

>Wrathion goes around punching proto-drakes and stone drakes to make them serve as temple guards since they're not intelligent enough to represent themselves
>turns Goriona into his fucktoy to keep the Twilights in line

I'm ok with this idea if it manifests itself as a friendly TLPD flying around Wyrmrest Temple

fuck Goriona's voice actor though

>Alexstrazsa getting N O F U T U R E 'd by Wrathion
I like this idea

This is where Warcraft lore stops being fun for me, when it loses its anthropocentricity.
There's so many gods and demons and dragons and other ridiculously powerful beings now, the existence of any PC race characters seems almost futile. And when some orc or human or night elf does succeed in slaying some cosmic power, it just feels cheap and unrealistic, completely killing my suspension of disbelief.
This is why I enjoy faction conflict-themed content above anything else. It's not that I love the faction conflict that much (The factions in general are silly and their game mechanics have put lore writers in a tight corner). It's the fact that it's orcs vs. humans or some equivalent power. The stakes feel realistic, difficult but surmountable. They involve characters that are relatable in their experiences rather than extraplanar beings and cosmic horrors.
Fuck dragons and demons and loa and a million other impossible powerful beings. I want to experience the struggles and conflicts of Greymane retaking his homeland and the orcs eeking out survival in a hostile environment and the forsaken playing clever politics to continue existing in a world that universally hates them. That makes for compelling lore.

He'd probably end up finding his own place far away from the Wyrmrest Temple.

Maybe somewhere in Pandaria or Uldum.

The thing about the mortals vs. Gods story is that it can be done well. AQ is a good example. Sure it's mortals against an Old God, but it was 40 of the strongest champions on Azeroth, with the armies of both factions at their back. After vanilla less and less emphasis gets placed on the unity of mortals and more on the players themselves (who, thanks to the intervention of the spirit healers, are effectively immortal) effortlessly surmounting every obstacle placed in front of them

That was never the case. As far back as the first time the term Twisting Nether shows up, it was treated as distinct and separate from the Great Dark Beyond, which is outer space.

>"They just tap into the Light plane lol".
But it doesn't. The Light and Void are still the underlying composition of the universe, that exists within everything and connects everything. There are just places where these forces are purer. There is Void and Light in everyone.

You are adding the interpretation that all of the Shadow and Light that people use is coming from somewhere else, when the lore still clearly states that Light and Void is already fucking everywhere. That's even what all of the ingame preachers say about it. The Light and Void are omnipresent.

So what are the risks of the Fel, beyond "it makes your mind full of demons?"

Green tan.

Other than making you a beacon to the Legion, slowly turn into a demon, and a pariah among all civilized races? Nothing, knock yourself out buddy

Corruption
You know, wow's version of cancer

Double dip makes you red, triple makes you purple/black.

Not mentioning that Arakkoa are using both Holy and Shadow magic without being worshippers of Light or Void, but through being worshippers of their Wild God-equivalents.
Likely same case with Trolls and Loa.

>They just tap into the Light plane lol
Are you also the guy who made stupid assumption that Mages use Fire Mana or tap into Elemental Plane of Fire to make Fireballs? Because it looks as if you have not read actual lore in Chronicles and simply looked at images.

Unless it's past its best before date, then you just turn grey

Kel'Thuzad has not been ruined

Well, the Arakkoa actually talk about the Shadows telling them things, and have phrases about the "Shadows smiling upon you". I think Anzu taught them how to use it, but they don't get the power through worshiping him.

Still, I think it's meant to be shown that the Void isn't a wholly negative force, but its emotional alignment tends to that direction in its more extreme forms. I believe that a CDEV answer once stated that the Shadow tends to encompass survival instincts, rather than more idealistic drives.

ITT: Mental gymnastics to justify bad cosmologies

>t. Blizzcuck

Blame WC3 and its connected books like Lord of the Clans. They turned the Orcs into Dindus of the Demons, introduced the Night Elves, made Medivh into the vessel of Warcraft Satan (who himself turns out to be more than just a demon lord), and introduced the Dragonflights. This gets to the point WoW tells us there's an Age of Immortals that suddenly had to end.

Don't forget the Dindus, favoritism, retcons, warping the setting or plot for whatever they put into the game (see Blood Elves joining the Horde to raise their playerbase), and lack of consistency within a single Expansion let alone a series.

Is Warcraft the definitive ''Just turn your brain off bro'' fantasy series?

No...and that's part of the problem
It wants you to keep track of all this cosmic shit. It wants you to know which Old God is which dragonflight is which loa is which tangible divine concept. Every major plot is somehow related to this.
If you "turn your brain off" you'll be even more confused than normal.
If anything, it's the reverse -it takes its cosmology way too seriously and acts as though it's terribly clever and unique.

Yes

Which is the edgiest class, DH or DK?

>tfw your to intelligent too take Warcraft seriously

DH by far

See, I'm kind of the opposite. I loved the sense in vanilla and TBC that there were things Bigger Than You out there, because the whole point of the game back then was that you needed to band together. Ogres were almost always elite, as were non-wyrmling dragons, and even regular enemies had rarespawns that could kick your ass. It made the conflicts seem much more meaningful than now, where we can solo practically anything we lay our eyes on.

Remember when a single doomguard could put fear into an entire city? Those were good times.

>DK
>"Well, seems I was raised from the supposedly eternal sleep of death to be a goddamned smart zombie that's fated to eternal damnation once I pop my clogs again. Better make some good use of it, then; where dem fraggin' demunz at?"

>DH
>Too stupid/incompetent/lazy to go and learn an actual class
>Shoves demons down their throats on hopes of absorbing some of their power, knowing that, if they even survive the process, this'll brand them as demons and outcasts by everyone, forever
>Not to mention that, according to the DH class hall campaign, giving in and getting corrupted is a matter of "when", not "if", they'll fall for the sweet nothings the demon you've bound to your body whispers 24/7
>Cry to everyone, the cat, and the kitchen sink about the "great" "sacrifice" they've made
>Still keep fucking things up, falling to corruption left and right, and expecting others to clean up their messes

There's nothing wrong with things being bigger than you.
It's when everything is unfathomably bigger than you.
It's fine when it takes 40 people to kill a particularly nasty demon. Like you said, it encourages banding together.
It becomes shit when it takes a space windchime to kill a particularly nasty demon.

I don't know, I think there's certain things that should be out of reach of mortals. No one complained about us needing help from the blue dragons when we fought Kil'jaeden.

Of course, that doesn't mean the writers should rub it our faces how outclassed we are. At best it should be a rare glimpse, a peek into a world we're better off staying out of. A Lovecraft canapé, if you will.

And honestly, that was very visible in what threats we were facing back in those first raids. Ragnaros was infamously awakened too early, Onyxia and Nefarian were only the children of an Aspect, Hakkar had only recently been brought back to life (by your own hand, incidentally), C'thun was still just a shell of his former self, and Kel'thuzad was just a regular lich with a lot of backup. The open world bosses were just regular dragons. Even in TBC, most of the raid bosses before Sunwell Plateau were just mortals (and one really big gronn), not counting Archimonde who gets killed by wisps, and Magtheridon who'd been held captive for years.

> WC.. without WC3

Please bitch... Pretty much Star Wars without ESB.

There is nothing wrong with WC3 NE, WOW ruined with them but on WC3 they were unique and fine...

You have like 666666 other settings where Orcs are just evil villains and the humans are the snowflake of the heroism if you care so much about that... and Medivh was just a "BWAHAHAHA POSSESSED BY DEMON NOW" far before WC3 if I remember well. never liked that too but whatever we had wrost things like the "Guardian" that can fight Satan himself and bullshit like that far before Wc3.

How is it that a single race can be so much better than literally every other race in so many ways? Why even compete?

Pic unrelated, I presume?
Actual master race coming through.
In case that those SLANDERS about Kazzakus being actually a dragon (which are FALSE), mind that this particular dragon recognized true master race and assumed its form.

why indeed

What an ugly face. Does it look that way because of Theramore? Did she get it in an accident?

I don't know how else to tell you this.

"Light" and "Shadow" as being a classified energy wave signature, for lack of a more fitting term, is what has changed the game. Before that, "the Light" was a philosophical ideal in the religious instance and then again, in the sense of spells, as a psychic manifestation of people following the religious tradition, existing in that moment of time and space where people where mentally in harmony with their ideal and thus able to channel the mystical power into the shape of the Light. Shadow had the same ground mechanics, however was channelled through a different mental ideal coming into its own psychic form. This is how it used to be when the Light was an Azeroth-only thing.

With the addition of Draenei, the principle of "the Light" appears as something pre-made so that Light elementals can form from it. With the addition of Chronicles, it becomes the one true source of creation whose absence begets void, which is the consuming force. These forces now exist like water in the river and can thus be harnessed from wherever. It is, in that sense, something to be accessed, rather than shaped. This is ultimately what causes dissatisfaction.

Yes, I am that idiot. You can take that as me not having my sources in order, as well. That whole thing was based off of some obscure note about the Bloodmage using the Phoenix spell, which IS a creature summoned from the Elemental plane of fire, so I tried to bring that in a hypothetical order with how the rest of Arcane spellcasting works. My apologies.

I still stand with my statement about the Light.

As far as I am aware, Warcraft 1 just had him as an evil warlock who collaborated with the Orcs for some non-descript reason. It was only through the Last Guardian bringing him into accord with his positive characterisation of Warcraft 3 as far as I can tell.

>don't even finish the work of the gods
>master races

Such an amazing job of finishing work of the gods you did there, Lei Shen.

Light still needs conviction to use it. A person without any shred of self righteousness would not be able to use Light.

Also, Of Blood And Honor, by Chris Metzen. Tirion gave his word to Eitrigg, because he's an honourable man. Uther does not give a crap, because that's an Orc, so it would not be a stain on Tirion's honour to execute that orc in Uther's eyes, despite Orc saving Tirion's life, so him owing the honourable orc his life. And then they excommunicated Tirion, because he rescued Orc. And excommunication means he couldn't use the Light, because they separated him from it. He regained his power through his conviction, faith, and righteousness, not through conscious tapping into other planes for pure Light.

Nothing of what we know about Light is implying direct tapping to Light through knowledge of how to do that, instead of using their own conviction.

BTW: Summoning spells are unrelated to attack spells, which is why Mages likes to summon Water Elementals, which happens to wear binding bands on their "arms" after being summoned.

Best mon is coming to da Nexus

The thing I like most of the Heart of the storms:
It tends to take an interpretation of the character with all the good traits.

This guy before Vol'jin? Come on Blizzard.
At least give him the cool arm blade from WoW.

The Light was always described as omnipresent. So it already existed in everything, even if they didn't realize it. The teachings of the Light and Shadow were long described as manipulating the universe through ones connection to it. The set up was already there for Light and Void to be the basic underlying composition for the universe.

I know it's not Warcraft, sorry about that, but I wish Imperius could join the game.

trying to think of interesting character concepts to level as well as roleplay as for the fresh server.

Orcish Beastmaster Hunter - may not use ranged weapons
Dwarven Rifleman Hunter - may not tame pets (funnily enough 100% viable for end-game raiding)
Monk Warrior - may only use staffs and leather/cloth gear
Rogue Brawler - may only use fist weapons

>RPing on a legacy server

Why.

>Imperius
Who?

>50808059
Nvm, now I remember.
Question is how to make him different enough from Tyrael.

save me nephilim reeeeee

He's tsundere

S-stupid Nephelim! I-it's not like I NEEDED you to save me or anything!
Baka!

de Amani neva give up
we neva forget
we neva die

you wanna stay? you stay here forever
we gonna bury you here

It was brought up in the last thread and I wanted to know if the people who had replied to that had taken any further steps yet.

>Zul'Jin
>Literally translates to "Great Leader" in Zandali
>Has been such a legendary name among Trollkind that even Darkspear Headhunters proclaim to fight to avenge him
>Vol'jin
>Some dude who lived the NEET-life on an island because his tribe got kicked out of their ancestral home until his dad got killed and their island got sunk
>Has been doing nothing noteworthy until several years later when he pissed off a choleric orcish manchild and was promoted into a position simply because he's buddies with the boss
>Has a total of a single military campaign before he gets offed and plays translator for people only he can hear to proclaim the undead elf his successor
>The latter is supposed to be more noteworthy

With or without bladearm, Zul'jin is the one and only troll that matters.

>YWN play a forest troll
>YWN pretend to be a two meters tall upright walking sloth man who regenerates lost limbs and murders invaders
>YWN have quests that are all about showing the elves who's the Jin in the house
>YWN ERP with elves who just want a good troll domination

This. Zul'jin is the only important troll after the end of the Troll Wars. Vol'jin is a fucking nobody who would be dead if Thrall didn't need ranged units

Are jungle trolls the worst of all troll kind?

I thought Night Elves were the worst of all troll kind.

The Elves have long lost any claim to purity. They're all their own new brand of shitters.

vanilla Zandalari > Amani > MoP Zandalari > Drakkari >Gurubashi > Farraki > a literal pile of shit > elves > Darkspear

Who tripple dipped?

I don't think anyone ever triple dipped, but the Draenic Fel Horde in WoD all turn grey from making the blood pact with Mannoroth's 2 year old blood

Where's Dark Trolls a.k.a. The Proto-Elves?

Remember when Dark Trolls were the cavemen of all trolls thanks to the TTRPG?

>class balance designed by a blue haired furry that literally players with a graphics tablet instead of a mouse
>corruption corruption but illidindu is the chosen one who dindu nuffin
>Sylvanas is a dindu feminist heroine even thouhh she tried to screw over the world and
>Sylvanas controls the Horde after spirits say so
>Developers are spending more time on socjus shit like exboyfriend dummies and Fembuster gnomes to fix up legendaries and classes.

shieet.

I'd this real? If so

Shieet.

I think that was Archimonde's blood.

So it's more likely that more powerful demon blood makes you turn grey.

So does Whitemane's history with the Mograine family ever get adressed during the Death Knight storyline, or is it exactly as shallow a piece of fanservice as I expect it is?

Because what you really want on your idiot nostalgia server is even less care paid toward role-playing then what you get on official rp servers..

>"So. You and my brother. Did you ever-"
>"Why do you care?"

What else could it really amount to? The story of the Mograines is done, as is the story of the Fordrings.

Gul'dan has it before Archimonde shows up though.
It could have been someone else's, but it's much funnier if it's Mannoroth's blood that's gone off and that's why the fel orcs are all fucked up, so I choose to believe that until there's evidence disproving it

>Gul'dan has it before Archimonde shows up though.
Gul'dan drank Mannoroth's blood earlier, as did the other green orcs.

there were no green orcs in WoD other than Gul'dan, who turned green from practicing warlock magic

Not true! The other orcs in the Shadow Council are green. I suppose they could have turned green from warlock magic, but I seemed to remember a short story somewhere mentioning that Gul'dan had drank the blood.