Dumb Thoughts : Demon Hunter tattoos and their meaning

Wyrmrest Accord
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So this popped into my head as I was leveling a Demon Hunter tonight.

We know that the Illidari are inked with tattoos of arcane design, intended to cage and control the ‘Demon Within’ that is both the source of power, and bane of, every Demon Hunter.

We know that the Dreadlords, who are supposedly one of the sources of this source of knowledge (The others being Illidan re-purposing Titanic script, the ‘original’ arcane language, into individualised wardings focused on the individual Demon Hunters they were applied to, or that these are ancient Demonic runes that were stolen, altered and re-purposed from the Demons that Illidan dominated, consumed and/or brought into the fold), and we know the Dreadlords were servants of Denathrius of the Shadowlands, and they used the Runes of Domination.

Rogue, possibly medication-and-crippling-pain-and-fatigue-fueled, thought here, but are Demon Hunters using bastardised Runes of Domination, powered by the Arcane, to contain the Fel they have consumed along with the Demon, and that’s why their bindings are unstable and constantly need to be enlarged and re-inforced as their ability to control the Fel increases, or else they risk losing control and the Demon they ‘consumed’ takes over?

As much as it makes every iota of my soul burn to admit it, does everything lead to the Jailer in the end?

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I think ultimately this is all a case of cosmic forces coming from a singular source and thus produce similar and or similar looking languages. Kind of in a similar way that multiple languages derive from Latin. So I think it’s less that everything leads back to the Jailer and more the Runes of Domination are just one of many weird magic languages in the universe.

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Yes.

:neutral_face:

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Following your trail of connections, I think it’s highly plausible that Illidari tattoos are made up at least partially of Domination runes, but I don’t think that necessarily means they lead back to the Jailor in the sense of him having intended it. He didn’t create Domination magic and it hasn’t only been used for his purposes. While it was created to be used on him and was later used by him, I don’t think we have to assume that those are the only two contexts in which it can exist. Revendreth/Denathrius/the Nathrezim could have adopted the runes for their own use to some degree before Denathrius ever actually allied himself with the Jailor.

I also think “partially of Domination runes” is probably true, and that the “partially” is why they would be unstable, as they’re not successfully synthesized with other things they’re partially made of, such as Titanic script and perhaps additional types of demonic runes that aren’t from the Nathrezim.

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I would rather the tattoos literally translate to “Illidan was here” than that. Anything but that, please, have mercy on our souls!

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I suddenly want a Demon Hunter with a booty tattoo that reads exactly that, and a Eredar Draenei walking past, sees it, and spit-takes as a result.

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Female night elf demon hunter walks past with tattoos that say “Omg Tyrande I miss you so much.” And your Eredar’s just like :eyes:

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If we put all the Demon Hunters, in order, side by side, would they spell out “{Redacted} in bio.” …?

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Kai’s tattoo says things I cannot type on the forum.

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Transformers
More than meets the eye
Transformers
Robots in Disguise
Titans wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of…
…The Jailer!
THE TRANSFORMERS!

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Right in my damn childhood, but yes.

It does make me wonder if all the languages of the Primal Forces all did derive from a singular language, these mysterious ‘First Ones’, and as the battle lines were drawn and the Pantheons formed up, this ‘Language of Creation’ got distorted and muddled.

Each Pantheon reshaped it to better suit their Primal Force, ie the uniform and concentric circles and geometric patterns of the Arcane, the jagged and brutal runes of the Fel, the writhing cuneiforms of the Void, all of them twisting the Language of Creation to better control and reshape their chosen element, but losing something irreplaceable in the process, and being such a fundamental force in the framework of reality, once they’d made the alterations, there was no way to go back.

This could also apply to the Runes of Domination, which even the Dreadlords speak and are somewhat resistant to, something nothing else in the setting seems to be without MacGuffinites like the Crown of Will to shield you from its effect. A bastardization of a bastardization, in an attempt to shackle Zoval, Primus created a new variation of the Language of Creation, this one emphasizing control and forcing whatever these runes were carved into, or spoken at with great willpower behind them, to twist, contort and reshape into what these Runes of Domination ‘read’ as.

It might actually be a ploy on the part of the First Ones, that rather than being lost or distorted, only when all six Primal Powers are brought together, all six versions of the language are used together, will the Language of Creation be remade. Unity, harmony, between the competing and at-odds Primal Powers, to unlock the last, and most crucial, legacies of the First Ones, or even to summon them back to this level of reality and for them to restore balance to a universe gripped in unending and pre-destined cycles of violence, corruption and destruction, each more destructive and calamitous than the last.

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You’re overthinking it.

With the reveal that both the Titans and Pantheon of Death are Robots made in a Myst Age (Of naturally evolving pulleys and gears), then it stands to reason the various “languages of creation” all boil down to simple 1s and 0s.

It’s not as nuanced as Elder Scrolls explaining the Dev Console via CHIM, but the endpoint to WoW’s metaphysical lore as it exists in this moment, it acknowledges it’s an aging MMO digital landscape held together by increasingly corrupted lines of code.

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That’s literally my whole schtick.

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And I still have happy memories of you and I just going ham on the conceptual lore aspect, trying to justify a story and world that increasingly had its wheels falling off.

I love the fact you’re still out here throwing garlic and mint into the rancid batter of the lore when I finally threw my hands up in disgust with Shadowlands.

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Something just popped into my head.

Demon Hunters use the Arcane to bind the Fel within them. There was a quest-chain back in Legion that I’m hunting for that explained how certain Runes that embodied the six Primal Powers interacted with each other. We know that Illidan was given a Naaru Rune of Light during the Stormrage Novel that was described as, from memory, burning against the Fel for a brief moment before harmonizing with and disappearing into the Fel within Illidan.

Can Demon Hunters absorb and contain, and potentially use, the other Primal Powers? Not just the Fel, but we know they can use the Arcane as their binding agents, and possibly other sources of power? Could a Demon Hunter of sufficient will and with enough training, and the correct Runes added to their bodies, begin to use the Light as well? The Void? Life? Death?

Is that what the Golden tattoos on the Light-Forged Draenei are? Xe’ra’s version of Illidan’s binding tattoos? But in their case, it appears to be a thin layer of metal directly fused to skin, bone and flesh, possibly to act as a more stable anchor than mortal flesh, even that of the impossibly long-lived Eredar of Argus?

The idea of the Demon Hunters altering their mandate and producing new Illidari that focus on hunting down the Void, or rogue agents of Death, suddenly becomes very appealing to me the more I think about it. How far can the technique be modified before it collapses, or requires an entirely new system, to pursue this goal?