The people of Lordaeron even some of the undead have a Germanic tone to their accents which is appropriate as Lordaeron was based on the Holy Roman Empire which we all know wasn’t holy, roman or much of an empire. That said. When I think of Lordaeronian that’s one of the accents that come to mind. Especially for those who are “Deus vult” and “mad scientist/apothecary.”
Yeah but most of them also just have the generic American broadcast voice. Your options are either that or English. If you’re a good guy.
Vaguely Germanic or Slavic if you’re a bad guy. Obviously. Because no one with a British or American accent ever did anything wrong.
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See though they’re kinda proven wrong by the Argents. Who’s experimental approach to the Scourge and rainbow coalition recruitment policy allows them to ultimately triumph over the Lich King, while the Scarlets wither into an extremist cult either hiding on the fringes of society or becoming the very thing they swore to destroy.
It’s actually one of the better stories WoW has told.
It’s just has to exist in the same setting as the faction conflict. Which as I think we’ve proven at length here will not allow the Alliance to do anything morally dubious. And even when it does those actions are retroactively absolved, proved righteous or made non-canonical.
Which is why it sucks.
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To be fair, the Scarlets only became weird human supremacists when Balnazzar took the reins, from all we see. Alexandros chides Abbendis for being bigoted against dwarves, and the Monastery’s Hall of Champions has monuments to multiple high elves and dwarves. The true OG Scarlet Crusade, pre-Vanilla, had its own Ranger-Captain.
Then yet again, the same Wrath-era comics with the Alexandros/Abbendis interaction also retcon everything cool about Alexandros, from his Scarlet founder status to his receding hairline, so that the “Blade of the Scarlet Highlord” was never even in the same room as anyone who’d ever been a Scarlet Highlord.
Maybe I’m weird for it but I don’t think it matters if they only became human supremacists after a dreadlord took over the organization, because the followers still bought into it and gleefully perpetuate it themselves. And I actually like that they’re still that way, because that’s a very human kind of evil that the game can let you push back on without reservations or equivocating about whether or not you’re just as bad as them, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Balnazzar was just working with what he was given. Abbendis’ bigotry was his own, Marjhan’s bigotry is her own, as is Herod’s and Renee Lauer’s and Isilien’s, even Alexandros’ and Saidan Dathrohan’s. But in Vanilla and in Wrath-era comics alike, Alexandros is shown as a very different influence.
I still think that’s the lamest twist in game.
A once noble organization descending into wild eyed paranoia, fantasticism and supremacist thinking is not exactly an uncommon thing.
Especially given the ruthlessness of the Scourge it’s actually pretty understandable. Not excusable but ya could see how even the best amongst us might completely lose it in such an unthinkable circumstance.
Ah but nuts to that Azeroth’s humans are way too boring to ever have actual human flaws. No, the devil made them do it.
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I think it works, barely, because we get to see some of these ideological breakdowns that are reasonably independent of Balnazzar, even when it comes to working with dwarves and especially when it comes to working with the Horde. I don’t think the only reason all these crotchety leftover paladins mistrusted orcs was their aiding the Forsaken - but it was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
And hey, even Drek’Thar said nothing could be so terrible.
Drek’Thar paved a road with genocide and has Forsaken actively within his ranks. That old coot is just farting out of his mouth.
The Forsaken actively revive like 60% of their confirmed kills and recycle the rest. Truly the epitome of benevolence and sustainable, uh, ‘living’.
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Be interesting to see a faction of Scarlets embracing the worgen curse, so they can more effectively continue their crusade against the undead, since the forsaken don’t actually have anyone currently powerful enough to raise the worgen
Adds a nice little extra bits of stakes to the game and give us a morally grey faction of scarlets
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That would be the most logical solution. The Bloodfang Pack are a mix of Lordaeronian/Gilnean citizens from Silverpine. The Hillsbrad Pack are from the survivors of Hillsbrad and Southshore. It would only be to the benefit of the Scarlets to become Worgen and retain some of their humanity rather than chance in becoming undead.
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Ya know I’m really doubting the people who can’t even stand the Tauren are going to volunteer for that sort of thing.
As previously stated I think it’d make a lot more sense for the Scarlets to force a reevaluation of the Worgen curse in Gilnean society. Because I feel the Scarlets would just indiscriminately murder them anyway as even if they’re not werewolves they’re friends with them.
Which would help Gilneas become the Werewolf faction again. Which it isn’t anymore according to it’s own heritage quest.
Because ya know the Alliance really needed more human content.
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The idea that the Scarlets, who refuse to see the forsaken as humans instead of evil monsters and consider their curse as a sickness that needs to be extinguished, would ever want to become worgen is baffling to me. That’s just, uh, no. That ruins the whole point of the Scarlet Crusade, imo. Nor does it make them morally gray in any way. They’re a deservedly morally black organization as-is, and I feel adding worgen scarlets to the mix only weakens them as effective villains.
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Seriously. Not everything needs to be morally gray. This is a fantasy action RPG. Our chief means of interaction with the world is violence. We definitely need things we can slaughter by the bushel.
Literally only the faction conflict needs to be morally gray. That’s it. That’s the one thing. Otherwise it’s cool to have more nuanced villains but genuinely if I’m going to be rooting through their corpses for nicer pants I don’t really need to know they came from a broken home or whatever.
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Not only that, but the Scarlets as-is are the only proper villain the horde even has to being able to fulfill the faction’s intended role as a trope inversion at this point; of playing monster races that can be heroes. To see that trope through to the end, the horde’s best villains are those that look like proper, upright holy knights in shining armor that are the backbone of western Euro fantasy, because the alliance sure as hell isn’t even coming up with token NPCs to fill that role in PVE content. It’s taking what’s classically considered good and showing you its ugly side, while taking the classically ugly group and showing how they’re not all bad.
I think as soon as you add a worgen (or even a draenei) to the mix, you start screwing with that and render the entire exercise worthless. That’s why I don’t even like the idea of worgen and forsaken sharing them as a common enemy; as soon as that happens, you rip away even more of what little sympathy is left for the forsaken because “well the worgen really are the victims and the forsaken had it coming”, undercutting their own narrative justification for existing as an organization.
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See I kinda feel the Worgen should you know. Be regarded as monsters. Because they’re monsters.
They’ve failed as a concept basically from the word go because Blizz just doesn’t have the stones to have the Alliance internally regard them with suspicion. Even though they put them in Darnassus so surely you could’ve had the Eastern Alliance really mistrust them.
While simultaneously never letting the Alliance be morally dubious. So the Worgen are really cool approximately twice; in the Silverpine Horde questline, and the Booty Bay neutral questline, where they actually get to serve as threatening antagonists.
Beyond that they barely show up. And any idea of them being some unhinged, savage race on the Alliance has been so completely abandoned that now apparent being Gilnean has nothing to do witn Worgenism.
How asinine is that. It’s outright false advertising is what it is. No one and I mean no one saw the werewolf race leering with glowing eyes in a gothic forest on the character creation screen and went;
“I sure hope what this is really about is just British people with top hats”
Nah. Nuts to that. Let the Worgen go beast mode. And the best possible group to do that on is the Scarlets. Because they’re basically N@ZIs. Drown them in their own piss if you want it’s fine.
What’s the fun of being a werewolf if you can’t tear mfers to shreds? That doesn’t really work on the Forsaken. They’re the only race who are uneffected by the loss of limbs, organs and don’t even have red blood. They’ve green ichor. I’m pretty sure it’s more a gelatinous substance too so you’re not even going to get satisfying blood splatter.
Scarlets on the otherhand? Ah. Now they have red blood that’ll steam in the cool night air of the northern EKs. And if you bite their throat out they’ll gargle and fall to the ground writhing.
All of the monstrous fun being a duck mothering werewolf should have. With no moral dubiousness.
I’m not seeing any alternative where the Worgen are ever going to get to do that. Guess you can mangle an Orc or Troll up but like, I don’t know what organs of theirs are vital. But ya jam a clawed fist into a human’s stomach cativity and ya got a pretty good sense of how much damage you caused.
Guess they could maul up the Belves. They’re certainly human enough. But again Alliance so, you’re not getting anything that cool. Scarlets though? Yeah let’er rip.
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The only way I would want to see them back would be as part of an Alliance instigation of the Fifth War. Bring them out of the closet of the Stormwind Cathedral of Light.
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Until Blizzard retcons their strength, the Scarlet Crusade in Lordaeron as of now are totally, entirely and completely irrelevant.
The only Scarlets slightly worth mentioning so far as actual power is concerned would be the Scarlet Onslaught, and even they don’t have leadership.
There’s no possibility for the Scarlets to return. By now, everyone is aware of their deeds, their fanaticism… I can buy some individual Scarlets surviving, but them grouping up? Nah, not even remotely.
Then again, Blizzard’s certainly done worse. (see: BfA, SL execution, and more)
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I’d like to see the crusade openly recruiting in Stormwind. Why does the Alliance have to expunge their weirdo fringe groups? The uncompromising zealot is the other, ugly face of the paladin coin. Just like the blood-drunk berserker is the other side of the noble horde warrior coin.
The Horde have the option to indulge this darker side of their faction fantasy, the Alliance are typically denied it.
The Warsong clan are true blue, dyed in the wool buttheads. But they’re OUR buttheads! The alliance needs agitators. They need trouble-makers. They need malcontents and rabble-rousers. They need those in their ranks that will sabotage the peace process. The alliance needs The Crusade.
The scarlets have appeal. They speak to everyone’s inner Space Marine and Sister of Battle. You know you want to burn the heretic, kill the mutant and purge the unclean. At least a little bit, right?
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I say the alliance needs less scarlet crusade and more people like Greymane and Sky Admiral Rodgers from legion.