Help me reconcile playing an Undead Holy Priest

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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I want to play a holy priest in classic because I love healing. But I absolutely cannot get over the fact that the lore seems to make out the undead holy priest to be completely illogical. I’m also not a fan of RPing the “he’s so crazy/fanatical” or “he’s the 1/1000000 undead that hates his own people/can magically use holy magic”. IDK. I need the RP masters of WoW to help me out. Otherwise I’m going to roll an undead lock, they have great lore, great class quests, and undead and warlock go together like apples and pie. But I really, really want the option to heal and I love Holy Priest and the Undead.

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It’s not impossible. Undead can be holy priests. The Light is powered by faith, not the circumstances of your body. Forsaken priests can use it without dying, but it is known to be painful and requires a strong willpower to endure.

For example, Alonsus Faol is a major forsaken holy priest and he gets on just fine. Though he’s not part of the Horde. Despite being undead he’s still largely who he was in life and uses the Light to help others. You see him a lot in Legion’s priest campaign and Before the Storm.

The Light will not be a popular choice among the undead, but there’s always exceptions out there who try different paths. Not all forsaken are inherently evil or turned to dark magic.

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Psssst…go troll priest. They’re fun. And if the vanilla racial spells are in, you’ll get a melee damage debuff and mortal strike effect via Hex of weakness and Shadowguard which damages people when they attack you.

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This right here. If you are going in Classic, what race you choose is a big factor. For a Priest Troll is one of the better choices. But that free PvP trinket though…

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I just don’t like trolls. I appreciate the flavor they bring to the Horde, but to me they are too gangling and oafish. The Jamaican witch doctor shtick isn’t something that appeals to me either.

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Well if you’re looking to reconcile the lore, then there’s nothing to reconcile. Undead can use Holy just as well as the living. It’s just really painful as the Light reawakens pain receptors and actual nerve endings so they feel the decay in their body. Most don’t like that and stick to Shadow. As long as your Undead has the will and faith, the Light will serve.

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7

You totally should do undead holy priest. You’d be like Monsignor from Astro City comics.

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I’ve decided to role play a story similar to the blood knights. Instead of using the light directly, I’ll use it because I’m harnessing it from some actually good being, and have some sort of protection in place to keep myself from going insane.

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The only way that worked for the Blood Knights is that the Naaru reestablished the connection to the Light by force and it came from a really powerful being of the Light. The BEs already knew how to wield the Light but they were just disconnected from it and the Naaru draining reconnected them but they didn’t need any level of faith to make it work.

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Wasn’t it later revealed that the naruu was actually giving it to them willfully they just thought that they were taking it by force? Something about the naruu knowing that his sacrifice was a means to the end which needed to come about or something? Been a while since I was into blood elf lore, but I feel like that’s how I remembered that story playing out.

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I think the naaru got caught willingly but the pain and forcefulness of the power was very real. We were really hurting it every time a new Blood Knight or Priest came to power and drained it.

But that still means that you need a really powerful source of the Light to pull it off.

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I’ve always found with the forsaken and alot of the horde, you need to not think like a human.

Just because you are of the group called the forsaken just means you are having a second life, and you are not yet allowed into the happy hunting grounds. It’s some other groups that view you as a monster (usually some humans)- but you are not.

That which is referred to as the light may have simply decided you still have a purpose on Azeroth - you still have some value to others or some great goal that needs completing - so go forth and wield the light as you were meant to :slight_smile:

A fav tv show of mine involving someone of the 2nd life crowd would be forever knight - Vampires are supposed to be evil, but in that series there are a few good ones :smiley:

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If I were to play an undead priest, I would still view it as a sort of necessary evil for the horde. Just like a Human Warlock can use Dark Fel magic, and undead can use the light For The Horde. They see it as well they have access to it, this might help the horde out in defeating the alliance so they should use everything at their disposal.

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You could also play him as sort of uber religious nut job. In life he was gung ho fighting against the Scourge and hell bent on wiping the undead from Lordaeron. After falling and being risen by the Forsaken, he still clings to his faith and feels that to fall to shadow would go against all he had lived for. He’s trying to continue his lifes work while in the clutches of undeath. He views the excruciating pain of channeling the Holy Light to be his penance for failing to remain among the living. You know, like those nutty Catholics who self flagellate.

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Hello! I am someone who has RPed an undead Holy Priest since 2008. Mal’valen has never been a fanatic or zealot - he just still holds onto his belief in the Holy Light from when he was alive. It hurts him tremendously to use it, for sure, but he’s always seen that as a kind of penance for the things he was forced to do as part of the Scourge (and he’s kind of gotten used to it).

Over time, he’s branched out into believing in their needing to be a balance between Light and Shadow, so he uses both forces pretty equally, but his belief is that the Light is ultimately still good to have in one’s life.

Anyone can wield the Holy Light as long as they have the willpower for it, so he wouldn’t be one in a million who could use it, just one of a few who voluntarily uses it.

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Unless you run all Dungeons/Quests IC, there’s no reason why you can’t spec Holy for content and then Shadow for a more imersive shadowy theme when you’re RP’ing. Since Priest and Warlock are both clothies, you can also transmog the same spooky looking gear.

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Ive personally always viewed priests holy magic as more of a devotion thing. I cant say that nf priests would be the same as a human since they care about elune. So their holy and devotion would be different than a humans. I hope im explaining myself well. Ive always had it in my mind that an undeads holy comes from his devotion to a certain deity or through following balance. With life comes death. Sticking to that maybe that could be your thing? Not focusing so much on “holy” as a good person. Idk thats kind of how I thought my nb was. Not a holy servant but a servant of balance.

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There are Holy Undead Priests in the Netherlight Temple. One of them I believe is an ArchBishop.

The Forsaken have no particular vulnerability to holy magic. They take the exact same damage a human would if they’re hit with Smite. They can be healed with holy magic the same way the living can.

There is no less logic for a Undead Holy Priest than there would be for a Blood Elven or Tauren one.

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Other than the agonizing pain.

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Factually incorrect. Lore refutes that statement.

As for the viability, all it takes to wield the Light is willpower. But for the Undead it causes dead pain nerves to reactivate and it causes pain to them. So yeah the undead can use the Light but there are issues with them using it.

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