AKA, I have decided to main a new character and make them not part of the ‘main cast’ I normally RP/write about (IE not being involved in the story since the beginning of WoW), but I’m stuck between four different concepts that all tickle my funny bone in their own way, and I can’t pick which one I should run with.
So rather than pick favorites amongst my children, I’m gonna ask you to do so.
Mag'har Refugee from Outland
The concept of a Mag'har from Outland, needing to find a new place for their family and friends to settle with Outland dying around them, resources getting scarcer and more dangerous to claim, Demons raging in the Nether over the loss of Sargeras and needing to prove themselves, they join the Horde only to find all the 'great battles' are already won and the best they can find is scut work and clearing out caves of spiders.A mercenary, over-eager character who embodies that reckless need to prove themselves constantly, to repeatedly surpass their previous achievements and reach for ever greater heights of glory and feats of strength, and a character who isn’t a ‘nice person’ like most of my characters morph into. If they’re promised 5 gold for a job, they better bloody well get that 5 gold, and any question of their ability causes them to double down rather than consider if this was a valid question. Something of a Cast-Iron Idiot Trope where somehow, against all odds, this reckless idiot somehow manages to survive despite running headlong into situations that should have killed them ten times over.
Half-Draenei Half-Mag'har from AU Draenor
A bit of a more tragic character, born from a union in that brief period of peace and collaboration between the Frost Wolves, Draenei and Iron Horde forces after the end of the Warbods of Dadnor expansion, and got a front-row seat to watching both parents, and all those who refused to be Light-Forged, or disagreed that this was the Light's will, get either murked or Light-Bound for their heresy. Grew up mistrusted by the Mag'har around them as a potential traitor and outraged at the Light-Forged zealots for their treatment of their friends and family, a character driven as much by survivor's guilt and self-loathing as by vengeance and a desire to protect what they had left.Far more calm and detail-orientated than most young Orcs due to their dual heritage, but tends to break into bouts of homicidal rage when put into situations of extreme stress because trauma and social isolation, who doubled down on the Orcish half of their heritage before coming to Azeroth, going H.A.M. during the Azerite Wars because, oh look, LIGHT-FORGED DRAENEI, only to find after all of it that the Draenei they speak to are horrified of their stories about what happened on Draenor, and the few Light-Forged they can manage to speak to are outraged, not at his story, but at the heresy of forcing the Light onto people, rather than being an ideal they want to pursue and embody.
Their dreams of vengeance and justice have come to dust. They’ve estranged themselves from their Draenei heritage and they’re never going to quite ‘gel’ with their Orich heritage. The only place they fit in is now with the misfits and weirdos that are the Florida People Adventurers of Azeroth, and how do they now deal with this ball of burning hatred, anger and guilt that’s eating them from the inside out now that the only legitimate target for that hatred is now an entire reality away and, for the sake of Azeroth, hopefully forever beyond their reach?
Half-Orc from Booty Bay
People who abandon their nation out of personal agendas or disgust for what they are becoming is not new. People exiled for crimes they may or may not have committed in WoW are not new. But what happens when a Warsong Orc who ran when she saw the other warriors around her drinking from the Fel-tainted Moonwell in Ashenvale, and a Kul'tiran 'privateer' who decided his neck didn't look good in a noose and skipped town before the Proudmoore Guards could figure out his papers were forged, find themselves sharing a bunk-house, then a hammock, then a family?Many children, many cultural clashes, and the desperate need to be free and have space to yourself that only children who grew up with multiple siblings, parents who were deeply passionate about their relationship, and uncomfortably thin walls, can truly understand. The middle child of a large family who is desperate to get out and find out who they are, rather than follow in the footsteps of their parents and be sailors and dock-workers like their parents, to get away from siblings who likewise chafe at the lack of personal space and privacy, and long to be in control of their own lives for once. A more free-wheeling, down-to-earth character that doesn’t object to some skullduggery and shenanigans, who marries Human drive and inventiveness with an Orc’s belligerence and durability, and just wants to make it rich … if they can ever figure out what they actually want to do with their life.
Heir to the Warsong
No, I didn't take the wrong pills again, here me out.We know family matters a great deal to the Orcs. your parents, and grand-parents, and the actions they took, decide a lot of how you’ll be treated in Orcish society … so what happens when rumors about your grandmother was a ‘close assistant’ to the ‘Prophet’ of the Iron Horde? An Orc who claimed her child belonged to the Prophet, but before anything could be settled, the Dark Portal opened, the Alliance and Horde invaded, and Garrosh got manhandled and folded like an omlette in Nagrand. Many said she lied, others whispered she held the only heir to the Prophet’s legacy … and then the truth of what Garrosh had done, to Azeroth, to Draenor, came out, and the Orc and her child went into hiding amongst the other Iron Horde rebels, taking on a new name and burying her old identity, and the potential heritage of her child.
Fast forward to the grand-child of that Orc, now in Azeroth, and dealing with the revelations in their grand-mother’s journal that state bluntly that Garrosh took several lovers, but no mates, during the first, riotous years of the Iron Horde as his stories of great victories and devastating betrayals circulated amongst the Iron Horde and gained him legendary status, second only to the Warchief and his Warlords. Yet the book never openly admits to if the Orc really is of the Bloodline of Hellscream, and even if it did, looking at all the Hellscreams have done to three worlds now, do they dare to claim that legacy? And yet, they are not alone in this knowledge, as others amongst the Mag’har of both Outland and Draenor claim bloodline connections to the Hellscreams, and some forces, exiled from the Horde or laying low within its ranks, blindly ignore the cost and revere the ‘legacy’ of their ‘True Warchief’, and eagerly seek out any potential inheritors of the Hellscream bloodline. Do they surrender to destiny and claim the name, and risk becoming a target, both for those who lost so much to Garrosh’s ambition and those who would stubbornly try to revive the True Horde/Iron Horde, or do they stay quiet, and hide the truth, praying that the day never comes where they’re forced to face the truth, be it that they are the latest in a long line of monsters, or the inheritors of a great lie that only brings shame?
I’m leery of the last one, but I love the concept of the Heir to Villainy going to ground to avoid repeating a cycle of pain and disgrace, with people keeping going “Oh, you’re a great hero!” and giving him fame and glory when all they want it to avoid those things. The first and second strike me as fairly standard grim adventurer origin-stories, while the third feels both light-hearted and a bit chaotic with no fixed end-goal other than ‘not die and figure myself out’.
What are your thoughts?
