Forsaken Heritage Armor Questline

Lore Story Forum
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This is what I think would fit for the forsaken undead as a heritage armor questline/scenario. Based upon the plot developments in Before the Storm, BFA, Shadows rising, Shadowlands, and Exploring Azeroth: Eastern Kingdoms.

It will mainly take place in Tirisfal and the above ruins of Undercity. As the blight there have started to dissipate and with some more time and some cleanup work we would probably have it be visitable soon.
We learned in EA:EK and BTS that the people of Lordaeron never wanted the Menethil crown (a metaphor for royal line) forgotten, the very real Menethil crownā€™s location is also now known.
Lilian Voss is currently acting as the voice of the Forsaken but itā€™s a position she has no interest in and she does not want to lead. On the other hand, we have another person very interested in the Forsaken and their place in the world, that also attend meetings between world leaders learning from Lilian. It just so happens that this person is also from the old Menethil royal line and the person next in line for the crown.
I hope you can see where Iā€™m going with this.

The Heritage quest will be the coronation of Calia Menethil, of the Lordaeron kingdom, Queen of the Forsaken. She will serve as a bridge between the undead of Lordaeron and the living, between the Horde and the Alliance, as she is on good terms with both.

Now for more of the details of the quests themselves.

We start up by talking to Lilian, Calia, and Alonsus Faol.
Then there will be several quests where we get things in order for the Coronation, some decoration, etc, but also quests where we talk to Lilian, Calia, and Faol on what it means to be forsaken, and more importantly a Lordaeronian. (I decided on this from the Worgen heritage armor, where they discuss how itā€™s not the curse that makes you a Gilnean. As I think it fits.)

Then weā€™re also sent to go retrieve the crown of Menethil, hidden in the shallow grave at the Stormwind lighthouse.
When weā€™ve done that, itā€™s time to witness the Coronation.
It takes place in the throne room of Lordaeron, the crowd reaches all the way outside though. In the crowd is forsaken but also living Lordaeronians that returned to witness the coronation and meet their long lost forsaken friends and family without the fear of death.
More notable characters will be the Horde leaders, but also Anduin, Turalyon (this paladin is originally from Lordaeron), and her friend Taelia Fordragon.

Voss will give a speech, signifying her stepping down and leaving them in good hands, Faol will place the Crown of Menethil upon Caliaā€™s head and she will sit upon the throne. The same throne her father and forefathers sat on.
And the bells of Lordaeron will chime in celebration with the cheers of her people (a callback to wc3 with the bells and cheers when Arthas returns home), from both the living and the dead on this day.

Thoughts on this?

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I canā€™t use the F word here but help me fill in the blanks when I say this.

____ no.

EDIT: I fired off at the hip there. That was an extreme knee jerk reaction. Let me go into detail.

Calia Menethil is the antithesis of all of the themes that make the Forsaken story what it is. She needs to be removed from the story, not included further along with it.

Lilian Voss is a better fit than that and sheā€™s not even Forsaken in anything other than in curse.

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Ooft. Sorry to say, but thisā€™d be terrible. Why would the heritage quest include the opposite faction in a positive manner?

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To put it as delicately as possibleā€¦ absolutely not, this would be extremely tone deaf to the theme of the faction and genuinely dissatisfying as a conclusion to what was previously a very upsetting expansion storyline for them.

For starters, Iā€™ll give my average Calia spiel. Calia, in my opinion, is not an inherently BAD character. But sheā€™s been undead shorter than your average cockroach vendor, and she really hasnā€™t experienced any of the prejudices the Forsaken people have. Calia was raised by close friends through the power of the Light, and sheā€™s more or less been welcomed with open arms by everyone she meets. Anduin, Jaina, all of her old friends still love her.

Contrast that with Lilian - immediately after becoming undead, her own father called for her execution. Lilian may not be the most veteran Forsaken, but sheā€™s sure as hell at least experienced how the world treats them. Further than that, the only people Calia has actually managed to counsel through undeath have been people who were undead for shorter periods of time than her - like Derek or the Kaldorei Dark Rangers. Say what you will about Sylvanas now (I certainly have no shortage of criticisms), but at least she was able to be a relatable leader to her people. Calia, as someone who ran off and hid through most of her peopleā€™s sojourn after the Scourge, isnā€™t.

Then we have Faol. If I may be a Male Human Paladin for a moment, I donā€™t want to see Alonsus Faol become a Horde character, or at least any kind of enemy of the Alliance. He means a great deal to the story of places like Stormwind or groups like the Silver Hand. To see him turned AGAINST the Alliance would be, frankly, disheartening. Past that, he also runs along the same lines as Calia - heā€™s pretty much been in hiding for as long as she has, so I donā€™t see any reason why heā€™d be any kind of authority for them in their current state.

As for the coronation itself, letā€™s take a look at the guest list;

Anduin Wrynn, the King of the Alliance who very recently mounted a fullscale assault on the Forsaken capital that culminated in its destruction (albeit not his fault, but letā€™s not kid ourselves), who is also currently very lost in the Maw.

Turalyon, the current sitting commander of the Alliance and a living embodiment of the thing thatā€™s extremely deadly to Forsaken, whose latest actions include torturing and interrogating Horde civilians. Also kinda racist towards undead.

Taelia, who isā€¦ someone Calia knows I guess? She stands next to her in Oribos, so I meanā€¦ theyā€™re acquaintances at the very least.

Put bluntly - this scenario is terrible, and nothing like what the Forsaken Heritage quest should be. A Heritage questline should be a celebration of the race it focuses on, and DEFINITELY not a celebration of the opposite one. The Forsakenā€™s story is one of tragedy and triumph in a world where the people in this scenario shun them and see them as monsters, and while that perception might be on the improve, it would do their narrative a disservice if the story that was meant to honor them focused on them both holding hands. If I went through this questline, you might as well award Forsaken players with the Stormwind Garrison set from Warlords as their Heritage armor.

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It is interesting that you mention the Gilnean heritage questline as inspiration as I have the same response to this as I did that: This scenario treats everything that has happened to the race post-curse as something ā€˜wrongā€™ to be overlooked/ignored/repressed, the message being that they ought to return to how they were decades ago.

Also, Anduin considers Lordaeron to rightfully belong to the Alliance (as per his dialogue prior to attacking it), and I think Turalyon would have an aneurysm seeing some abomination wearing Terenasā€™ crown.

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The only thing salvageable from this post, which I donā€™t think is even mentioned is Forsaken Heritage armor potentially being repurposed old Lordaeron stuff.

Everything else screams ā€œI wanna piss off Forsaken, and Horde players.ā€ So color me impressed, you managed to create a firestorm in your first post.

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No worries, I do understand why.

Indeed, Calia shares very little in common with the average Forsaken. In fact as you say itā€™s as if sheā€™s the reverse.
But despite that, she is showing care now for them right now. And she is clearly being set up as some kind of leader by being so present at all important leader events and being of royal blood.

I picked Anduin as he knows Calia and helped raise her into her new undeath.

I picked Turalyon as he is from Lordaeron and served her father before he went to Outland. Now him wielding the light is not really an issue here as itā€™s the very thing thatā€™s animating Calia.
And his animosity to the Horde or at the very least the undead might decrease or even cease with Calia leading them.
Even Genn learned to not hate other races as much as he had in the past.

I see no problem there being Alliance characters if theyā€™re friends to Calia, just as there wasnā€™t a problem with Alliance characters at Thralls wedding. Thereā€™s also currently not a faction war going on.

I donā€™t mean to make him a Horde character, just as him being important to the Silverhand does not make him Alliance. Or Nomi helping the Nightborne with wine make him Horde.
He will just be there for the Coronation and hold the ceremony with Voss placing the crown on the head of Calia.

Well, even if it is not what the forsaken have been about before, it seems that Blizzard is pushing for them to turn a new page with Sylvanas gone and the Calia things, as well as them establishing that the forsaken arenā€™t necessarily against meeting up with their old lost family, or the Menethil family. Not to mention the crown being found.
Which is what makes me think this scenario is very possible, or something similar to it. Even if itā€™s not the heritage armor questline then it might be another in-game event for players of other races then forsaken as well.

Thank you for posting such a detailed reply though.

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So a lot of your responses here are ā€œx is important to Calia,ā€ which I can succinctly answer - who cares? Calia isnā€™t the Forsaken. Calia is the absolute antithesis of everything it means to BE Forsaken. The Light is animating Calia, but itā€™s horrifically toxic to the rest of the undead. Anduin and the Alliance are friends of Calia, but they just were at total war with the Forsaken after years of prejudice and torment.

Also, you compared this to Thrallā€™s wedding, but that was not an orcish celebration or a major Horde event. That was a situation very specific to Thrall, and as such, it made sense that Thrallā€™s friends would be there. If Anduin were to get married, Iā€™d expect Baine Bloodhoof to be there, but I wouldnā€™t expect to see him in a Human Heritage questline - because Baine is important to Anduin the individual, not Humans as a race.

And therein is the major issue with this scenario. This is a Calia story, not a Forsaken one. Thatā€™s why itā€™s a terrible fit for their Heritage quests.

The only real argument Iā€™m getting for Queen Calia of the Forsaken is that it SEEMS like sheā€™s being set up as the Forsakenā€™s leader - which is entirely debatable. And even then, itā€™d be absolutely (to be frank) gobsmackingly stupid to see the Alliance carry such a heavy presence in the coronation of a Horde leader. If the Forsaken want to make peace with the Alliance, they can do so elsewhere. Not at the coronation of their new leader, that time is for them and them alone.

Look, I can appreciate you taking criticism well, and I donā€™t really just wanna have bad things to say about your scenarioā€¦ but by god, I do. I literally cannot look at what youā€™ve written and think of anything good to say about it, past unblighting Lordaeron perhaps. Itā€™s just really really terrible, and very clearly written from the perspective of someone outside the lens of a Forsaken fan.

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Thrallā€™s wedding having members of the Alliance is not a reasonable comparison. Fairly sure there were blood elves at Magniā€™s funeral and another Horde race there to show respect to him. The same way that there are Alliance characters at Thrallā€™s wedding - itā€™s a wedding, and Thrall had ties to Alliance characters (or whatever, Iā€™m not bothered phrasing that properly - you know what I mean).

Compare this to the inevitable forsaken heritage quest. The focus is on the forsaken, their pride, and presumably it will establish their connection to the Horde. Repeat: itā€™s about the forsaken and the Horde. Calia is not the spotlight. Just because Calia has Anduin and co on her Steam friends list does not mean they get an invitation to this event (if itā€™s an event). Nope.

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Fair point, I just thought that some of her friends there would be nice. But as you say it should focus more on the forsaken.
I might have explained it poorly but I wanted it to focus less on the undeath and more on the fact that theyā€™re Lordaeronians.
Like the Worgen heritage quests focused on that theyā€™re Gilneans first and foremost, which I enjoyed. But then again I saw earlier in the thread that it was not that popular either.
Which is why itā€™s important at least to me to have the living Lordaeronians there as well. Itā€™s not as much Alliance and Horde, but about Lordaeron.
And having a new leader be crowned is as important to the people as to the one being crowned, itā€™s a new page in the story of the Forsaken, and of Lordaeron.
Calia has not been shunned, she is accepted by the living, and by the undead as well since we see her always accompanying Voss. She helps the newly risen that struggle with their curse of undeath. She can act as the bridge between all Lordaeronians now that Sylvanas and her irongrip is gone.

The heritage would not focus on their pain of undeath, but on the older heritage and bond of Lordaeron.

It would also as another poster pointed out above give some awesome Lordaeron-based heritage armor.

Now, I can understand why fans of the current forsaken would not enjoy this as itā€™s quite different and they enjoy the gloomy shunned forsaken. Not afraid to do horrible things if the need is there. But Iā€™m sadly not too huge on that personally.

Thanks again for your elaborate post.

And to anyone reading, what would you rather have as a heritage armor scenario that would be more fitting for the forsaken-fans?

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You managed to come up with a forsaken heritage questline/story without including the forsaken at all.

Good job.

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Thatā€™s where we disagree, then. Whatever bond Lordaeron had with anyone post-Undercity is dead and gone. That is quite literally the focal point of their existence - soldiering on despite everything. The forsaken narrative seems to be going past the ā€œpain of undeathā€ focus, true. But your proposed questā€¦ celebrates nothing about the forsaken, as others have said.

You can still have that heritage set without having the quest go as you say.

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Personally I think this idea would be even worse than the worgen heritage questline because ā€œat leastā€ they had the pretense that not the entire playable race had turned worgen. And as far as I know, the curse hasnā€™t really shaped their outlook on anything except maybe Genn canā€™t afford to be a nationalist.

But with the forsaken, there isnā€™t a currently-living horde-side Lordaeronian, period. They didnā€™t just die; the entire civilization and culture died with them, and was risen as something new and a little twisted. It affected everything about them, from their behavior, their government, their allegiances and even their own religion, and the prejudice that came along with them being visually indistinguishable from the monsters that killed them in the first place.

Itā€™s one thing to reminisce about how things used to be, but whether the faction likes it or not, those days can never come back.

And while Iā€™m not opposed to the idea of the forsaken eventually reconciling with the alliance (somehow), I think it needs to be done with an actual, older forsaken character that the horde player can identify with. Caliaā€™s just a weird skin graft.

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No, Iā€™d rather shred up the villain bat and eat each piece individually murmuring to myself (If this is the alternative Iā€™d rather be evil) while plunging each capital in blight and forcing everyone to experience the Afterlife than willingly experience or approve of this.

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But thatā€™s not the most important part of their race now, and not just because the Forsaken arenā€™t comprised solely of Lordaeronians. The Forsaken are marked primarily due to a mark of survival and the curse that binds the majority of them. The Gilneans, however, arenā€™t marked entirely by the curse - it just afflicts a large number of them (but even then, the worgen Heritage quest was upsetting likewise because it framed the worgen curse as a bad thing).

The Forsakenā€™s history as Lordaeronians is not as important as their history as the Forsaken. They havenā€™t been Lordaeron as a kingdom for a long time, and the Menethil monarchy pretty much died with Terenas.

Then the Forsaken clearly arenā€™t for you, which is why the scenario youā€™re offering for them is a bad one. This is a Forsaken story written by someone who doesnā€™t like the Forsaken. You wrote a story for a Horde race thatā€™s tailored to suit the opposing faction.

Iā€™m sorry, but I think your explanations only make this scenario tremendously worse by leaps and bounds. Iā€™ve seen a lot of submitted ideas for a Forsaken Heritage questline, and a lot of them have been controversial. Please forgive me when I tell you this is genuinely the worst one Iā€™ve read.

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Itā€™s a heritage quest line. The key word is heritage. Itā€™s about celebrating the core concepts and themes of the race, not whitewashing and reinventing them wholesale.

Will the Troll heritage quest have them giving up Voodoo? Did the Tauren heritage quest focus on Tauren being terrible warmongers? Was the Blood Elf heritage quest about Lorā€™themar finally deciding to become king?

Also Calia leading the Forsaken is just not happening. Blizzard has made it clear itā€™s not happening on several occasions. It is complete fanon theorycrafting.

Stop trying to change the Forsaken. Stop holding the Forsaken to standards you donā€™t hold any other race to. The Forsaken built a new society on the ruins of Lordaeron, that has been the theme and legacy of the race for over a decade since Arthas stabbed Terenas. A new order that will shake the very foundations of the world.

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