Re-watching the Warcraft Movie, something that twigged is that Draka almost immediately goes into labor upon entering the Dark Portal.
Now, this is in-part due to Draka being significantly pregnant at the time, possibly in the last few weeks given her comments to Durotan during their private moments in their tent, and possibly because they needed to alter the events of the Timeline significantly to fit within the Movie they created.
But it got me thinking, what does magic do to people who are in a delicate state? Not just people carrying children to term, but the injured? The maimed? The terminally ill and the constantly sick?
The Fel would, given its nature, be disastrous to introduce to somebody who is sick, or weak, without a strong will and a secondary individual on standby to prevent the Fel from consuming them from the inside out, but what of other magics, and other ‘delicate’ situations?
Something I’ve written about in my stuff off-site is a syndrome called ‘The Hero’s Curse’, wherein over-use and abuse of magical healing, be it spells or potions, that greatly accelerate natural healing and/or provide instant healing, causes a slow, creeping cellular corruption that, if ignored and magical healing is continually abused to keep the combatant upright and ready to fight, will cause cellular degradation that will spread throughout the whole body.
There’s something called the Hayflick Limit, in which a cell can only divide so many times before the information contained within that cell begins to corrode, or rather to break down and become corrupted. And even if magic can provide that healing, sometimes that spell is going to have to urge the body to make new cells to replace what is lost.
In the Illidan Novel, when Illidan is facing the ‘Heroes’ who assault him atop the Black Temple, the novel describes many of the injuries he delivers to the Heroes as being healed, and in such a manner that blood flows back into the wound, and wounds seal and seemingly reknit themselves closed.
This seems to imply that most magical healing has some form of reversal effect to it, rather than just replacing lost fluids and tissue, but there’s also the issue that these were high-level Champions, the best of the best, that managed to fight their way through the Black Temple, overcome all of Illidan’s generals and defences and champions, and then be able to take the fight directly to the Lord of Outland.
The Hero’s Curse is a syndrome that, by over-using healing magic, by suffering horrendous injuries that are then healed, suffering more trauma, being healed again, over and over again, without giving time to recover naturally and relying solely upon magic, this accelerates the Hayflick Limit to its breaking point and introduces several factors into the body. Wide-spread cancer, organ failure, small, parasitic, non-functional versions of existing organs, and basically anything that comes about from a rapid division of damaged or corrupted cells.
And since the only way to effectively be hit with this is over-use of healing magic on an absurd scale, only a ‘Hero’ throwing themselves into the jaws of doom would have the justification to receive such a horrendous amount of healing magic in a short period of time.
And because the syndrome is created by healing magic in the first place … magic can’t cure it, it only accelerates the ‘curse’ in the patient because while the healing spell can indeed deal with the injuries the patient suffers, the healing magic is also further degrades the information in the cells in the damaged areas and accelerates the decline of the patient’s health.
Now, to be fair, this isn’t “I hit you with Renew and now you have stage 3 cancer in your everything.”, but its something that high-level adventurers face, because we’re talking lethal damage on a daily basis, sometimes several times per day, over the course of months, if not years, during all the conflicts we’ve had on Azeroth over the past …
Counters all twelve fingers and several toes
SEVENTEEN YEARS of nearly non-stop fighting between the Alliance and the Horde, and the Alliance, the Horde and … basically everything and anything that moved, that means veterans have been exposed to hideous amounts of magical healing.
We can see this again in Hallowfall where, despite the faith of the Holy Light being everywhere, and quite fanatical, with almost every second soldier using Fire or Light-based magic, the wounded are still laid up in bed, waiting to heal naturally. Why, in a society saturated with the Light, is there not just Priests and Paladins everywhere? Why isn’t magical healing the order of the hour? Because the Light can heal, but overhealing, and given the constant state of injury and trauma the Arathai stranded in Hallowfall face on a daily basis, would end up killing them faster than the Nerubians, the Kobys or anything else could.
Its fairly obvious to see some forms of magic are just not worth the risk when one is injured, pregnant, sickly or otherwise physically compromised, unless one has a trusted ally or plot armor to keep you alive and intact as you wrangle the Fel or the Void, and you’re never safe as both of these Primal Powers are notorious for being volatile, even actively spiteful and treacherous to their wielders at times, but what about the other Primal Powers, and the ‘untyped’ forms of Magic like Shamanism?
Fel tends to kill 9/10, and the rare few individuals that are exposed to it without the right training or plot armor that survive turn into either wretched individuals, or true monsters. The Legion actively weaponises this, infusing Fel into any and all life-forms they come across, forever seeking newer, deadlier life-forms to ‘Demonize’ and add to their rosters of immortal, undying Demons and Demon-kin.
The Void mutates, and the ultimate end of any Void user of Mortal stock is a screaming, lashing, horrific pile of cancerous flesh the moment they lose control over the Void that they channel, as the Shadow Beasts and Fleshlings infesting Void-infused areas on Argus, Outland and Azeroth can attest. And again, just like the Fel, only the strongest survive, with the weak either being consumed, by their companions or by the Void itself, or being amalgamated to create an ever-more chaotic, stronger minion for the distant, malevolent Void Gods trapped on the far side of reality.
But the Light? The Arcane? Life and Death?
Light seems to be relatively benign … but answers blindly to a strong belief, as we’ve seen several times where even an excommunicated Paladin was able to call upon the Light, not because a council of his peers denied him, but because the Light only answers to a strong will, and an unflinching belief.
But we’ve also seen the Light has an agenda, and can have an effect on a Mortal form, both beneficent and subtly malign. The Light-Forged Draenei are quite literally washed out, devoid of all color and hue but the palest of greys, silvers and golds, and the process of Light-Forging attacks the mind, seemingly focusing on the Id part of the mind, either destroying it or reducing it to a non-issue, leaving behind the Ego and Super-Ego, a process which is notoriously lethal to adherents and would-be members of the Army of the Light, to the point that fatalities are expected even amongst well-trained acolytes and warriors.
And this means that there’s no more rogue thoughts, no ‘abyss’ moments, everything is calm, rational and balanced now upon the Ego, which formerly balanced the Id’s selfish and primitive impulses, and the ‘Reality’ around the individual, and the Super-Ego, which is represented by our culture, our upbringing and our moral codes informed by these factors. Its not that Light-Forged individuals can’t be impulsive, but rather the ‘rogue’ nature of the mind is burned out, a traumatic process that leaves the individual almost becalmed for a time before they recover, much like a traumatic head injury can lead to a concussion and short-term memory loss, but unlike a concussion, the Id is ‘cauterized’ and does not seem to regrow, leaving the Light-Forged Draenei, and presumably any other Light-Forged individuals who would survive the process, free of subconscious impulses and ‘abyss’ thoughts produced by the Id part of the mind.
Light-bound, by contrast, seem to run the gamut from actual Lightforged Orcs, Ogres and Draenei, to mind-controlled Orcs and Ogres who functioned more like meat-puppets and fodder-troops whose consciousness had been burned out by the Light-Forging Process in massive numbers, to create a loyal, subservient army for the Draenei and their ‘Light Mother’. All of these ‘Light-Bound’ that we have met are marked by glowing golden eyes, a complete lack of commentary, even in combat or when being slain, blind obedience to the Light-Forged or any Naaru, and a suicidal fighting style where the only thing that matters is that the target dies.
In this case, we can see a total collapse of the ‘higher’ parts of the psyche, as well as extreme truncation of the Id, removing any sense of self-preservation or instinctive response or reflex, reducing the Light-Bound to the status of a golem made of meat.
Presumably, Light exposure to a sick, injured or fragile individual would, in the short-term at least, be overwhelming beneficial as the Light is, at least on the surface, a benevolent and protective Primal Power that benefits from having more entities calling upon it, sharing a singular vision, and working together as a cohesive unit rather than the individuals of greater power fighting against each other as we see with the Fel and the Void.
But with the Light-Bound, and the Light-Forged, we’ve seen the Light does, in extreme doses, alter the target. Extended lifespan is the most obvious side-effect of Light saturation, as well as health and resistance to illness, disease and even injury caused by strain or exertion, given the natural effect of the Light on the flesh and blood of Mortals. But its mental effects might be far less understood, over-riding aggressive or selfish impulses that might, in turn, render a population more docile and compliant, in turn rendering them ‘unified’ under a stronger will or force.
The Light, in a positive sense, uplifts people and subtly compels them to be the best version of themselves they can be. The Light, in a negative sense, domesticates them and makes them compliant to anyone whose will is stronger.
The Arcane is a weird one in that, unlike the Fel and the Void, you don’t need to fight it all the time for control, and unlike the Light, you don’t need a hyper-focused will and absolute belief in yourself and your cause for it to answer.
You just need maths. That’s it. Arcane is being able to do advanced mathematics in your head, make squiggly rune-circles in your mind, and then flash-fry people with a miniature sun.
And yet, we’ve also seen the Arcane mutate, as much by its absence as its presence. The Withered and the Wretched are two primary examples of what happens when an Arcane-saturated life-form is suddenly left without Arcane energy, either to consume or simply to have circulating in their systems, but we’ve also had, in older versions of the game, warnings that using the Arcane is addictive, and could produce a similar high to using the Fel, albeit at a much reduced potency, and ‘Arcane’ energies from the Twisting Nether were more corrupt, and produce a greater feeling of intoxication and pleasure than the more pure and harder to find Arcane energies from Azeroth’s native ley-lines.
This was also why one needed to have a strict education and many rules regarding the use of the Arcane, even policing its users, because over-use of the Arcane would not only draw Demons to the location of the caster, but it was entirely possible for a promising young Mage to channel so much Arcane energy while under the effects of this ‘high’ to crystalize themselves and do tremendous amounts of damage to the surrounding regions. We’ve even seen partial crystallisations in Northrend where a World Tree exploded due to a confluence of events including arrogant Druids, an Old God’s meddling and Titanic safeguards, but in areas where there is large Arcane saturation, the formation of purple or blue crystals, the saturation of life-forms into purple or blue colors, and the sudden explosion of creatures with magical abilities unrelated to their environment, such as teleporting crabs, Dryads able to hurl gouts of magic, vampiric Elves and similar, are all on record.
Rather, I’d argue that the inclusion of Arcane Energy in a being with a fragile mental state, physical maladies, a pregnancy or similar delicate situation and the target wasn’t able to control and circulate the energy, we’d see them either start to crystalize, in the case of excessive arcane energy, or begin to develop sorcerous powers, as the Arcane is, despite everything, a force of Order. Assuming the host’s body can withstand it, the Arcane will inevitably try to rebuild and refine the host on some level. But there’s no guarantee that any recipient of this ‘Wild’ Magic or uncontrolled arcane infusion will be able to consciously access this magical wellspring within themselves, or indeed, be able to exert any form of control over it.
Life and Death.
Life basically mutates you like the Zerg unless you have a mediator involved, ala the Loa, the Wild Gods or the Drust, or so it seems. We’ve seen Life without control in the Wailing Caverns, in the parasitic jungles of Draenor and in the Alternate Timeline where Life overwhelmed the Titan Watchers and Keepers and turned Azeroth into a darwinian hellscape.
Death? You get to a free trip to the Shadowlands … and you get to stay there. I really don’t we need to dive into this too much.
Shamanism, Blood Magic and other magical schools, energies and types I will tackle later, I’ve been at this for an hour and I want to physically hurl myself into a brick wall. I’ll touch on this again tomorrow.
But what are your thoughts? Anything I’ve missed? Any furniture need throwing at my head? Any posse forming to forcibly roll me on the grass?