Work in Progress
https://giphy.com/gifs/work-coffee-television-4oHyOIBIt57ag
Going to try and consolidate the Horde situation regarding its racial leaders, past and present (Only going back to WC3). For this, I’m including any Character that was specifically mentioned in the story as the leader or was listed as leader on the Worlds of Warcraft website. Probably going to take a few edits to get everything so, please, bear with me.
BACKGROUND
Character names in bold indicate a WC3 character.
Orcs:
Current - Thrall
Previous - Saurfang (status: Deceased, killed by Sylvanas)
Garrosh (status: Deceased/Villain-batted, killed by Thrall)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Orc
My emphasis added.
Trolls:
Current - Roh’Khan
Previous - literally noone (There was a point where the WoW website had no leader listed for several months)
Vol’Jin - (status: Deceased, but still in the story)
Sen’Jin - (status: Deceased)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Darkspear_tribe
My emphasis added.
Tauren:
Current - Baine
Previous - Cairne (status: deceased, killed by Garrosh)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Tauren
My emphasis added.
Forsaken:
Current - Voss/Calia? (Ambiguous, but assumed at this point)
Previous - Sylvanas (status: Villain-batted)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Forsaken
Blood Elf:
Current - Lor’themar
Previous - Kael’Thas (Status: Deceased/Villain-batted)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Blood_elf
My emphasis added.
Goblin:
Current - Gazlowe
Previous - Gallywix (status: Villain-batted)
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Goblin
Pandaren:
Current - Ji
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Pandaren
SITUATION
Of the seven (7) core races (4 primary, 3 added with expansions) only two (2)* are currently led by the character that they were introduced in WoW with (Blood elf and Pandaren). Three (3) including Thrall, though he left the Horde for a time (pre-cata through post-BFA) before recently returning as the Orc racial leader.
The Horde has lost eight (8) racial leaders to death, villain-batting or both.
Of the current racial leaders:
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Thrall hasn’t been racial leader for five (5) expansions.
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Gazlowe has been a neutral but Horde leaning character since WC3 and only became leader of the goblins post BfA.
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Voss only recently became more engaged, though still limited, in the Forsaken story.
Opinion:
The current Horde racial leader roster lacks depth, though there is potential for more depth if done correctly.
There is, also, the impression of weakness not just for the racial leaders but the races themselves.
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Orcs: have a strong link to shamanism that was diminished in favor of the unfair bloodthirsty aggressor approach.
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Trolls: cannon (and canon) fodder. The tribes being divided is the greatest downfall of the race as a whole. Again, however, there is potential for development.
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Tauren: another race with strong ties to shamanism and (cenarion) druidism. Also a race of distant tribes with potential for growth.
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Forsaken: unlimited potential for expansion given they are no longer held down by Sylvanas. The canon states that many races were raised into undeath and that gives a platform for developing the Forsaken beyond the undead lordaeron humans.
PROPOSAL
A) Building Racial Leaders
Racial leader has become synonymous with Horde Council member. In contrast to the iconic Warchief position which, historically, became a single point of failure, each member race appears to have equal say in the operations of the Horde as a political/military entity.
This, on paper, looks like a good idea. However, the strength of the council is limited by those of its representatives. For example:
Thrall: Reluctant to be in a leadership position again, but has a robust background and strong ties to orc shamanism.
Baine: Needs a LOT of work to lose his Alliance-lover image.
Roh’Khan: heresy incoming Should get more focus than Vol’Jin since Vol’Jin is, apparently, ascending to the rank of Loa.
Voss: Must take the Forsaken leadership position seriously. But, more heresy because Calia appears to be an advisor this can be expanded easily.
With that in mind (yes,I know there are other races and allowed races but I’m only using the above as an example) Here is the proposal for racial leaders.
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Make each racial leader position within the Horde council two seats. That is: each race has 2 leaders representing them similar to the American Senate. This will require building both the current (more well-known) representative and, likely, build up a secondary character that has been neglected.
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The second racial leader (council member) must NOT be a yes-man to the first or a mirror image. We don’t need 2 Baines representing the Tauren. The second representative should be as close to an opposite of the first as is narratively possible without causing outright hostility, though the internal politics could lead to some spicy (There I said it, Baal!) development.
–OR–
A bit more aggressive in change would be for each race to have a delegation varying in size based on its constituents. This would require rolling most of the Allied Races into the primary race delegations as well as adding offshoots of each race that were formerly neutral, hostile or otherwise.
B) Developing Secondary Characters
C) Building The Horde Narrative
–1. Internal focus
Because of the diversity within the Horde, there is plenty of room for developing the races both in relation to themselves as well as the other Horde races. Below are just a few examples of what this could look like.
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Orcs: Having them move away from a collection of disparate Warrior tribes to a more shamanistic race with varying tribal traditions (actually showing the difference between Frostwolf and Shadowmoon, etc.)
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Orcs: Members in conflict, though not coming to blows, with reconciling if Azeroth, Outland or (AU) Draenor is the best home for the Orcs.
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Trolls: Uniting the tribes would be a monumental task in and of itself. Certain tribes have been enemies for long time and seeking that tension wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, be accomplished overnight.
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Trolls: More emphasis on the Loa and their place not just with the trolls but Horde society at large. Seeing other races interact with and invoking the Loa would be amazing.
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Tauren: Rogues (!)
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Tauren: Building on their worship of the Earth Mother and An’she and possibly creating some tension regarding spirituality in tauren society.
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Tauren: Reconnecting with the Yaungol and Taunka.
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Forsaken: Having additional undead races and everything that goes with it. This can create some internal tension if other races (for example, Blood Elves) feel that undead Blood Elves should be integrated with the rest of the Blood Elves or with the Forsaken.
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Forsaken: Can they be more than mindless, undead killing machines? Yes. It can be shown in the same way as other races.
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Blood Elves: REBUILD QUEL’THALAS!!
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Blood Elves: Develop their anti-magic corps as a foil for the every increasing magical strength imbalance.
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Goblins: Build stuff that works without exploding. How about building that floating Necropolis for the Forsaken?
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Trolls vs Trolls: Tribal infighting (mostly political with some cloak and dagger).
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Trolls vs Goblins: Goblins suffered under Zandalari rule for a long time. Do goblins hold grudges? Do the Zandalari still look down on them (figuratively of course).
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Blood Elves vs Forsaken: Do the San’layn represent the elves or the undead?
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Tauren vs Tauren: Would the Yaungol want to be seen as equal or superior to their descendant races?
I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of developing the Horde from within WITHOUT RESORTING TO CIVIL WAR!!.
–2. External focus
The Push/Pull Approach
One of the biggest complaints from players on both factions is being able to “push back” when pushed themselves. This concerns being pushed by the opposing faction as well as 3rd party entities.
For your consideration, let’s look at a few expansions and how they lent themselves to the Horde narrative:
WotLK - Both factions were pushed by The Scourge. Both factions were allowed to push back with the ICC raid. However, canonically, the Alliance sequence of events is what transpired up to the encounter with Arthas. As we know, Tirion Fordring (3rd party - Argent Crusade) got the KB.
Impact:
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One of the bosses of ICC was Drannosh Saurfang as a DK and unwitting agent of the Lich King. Following his defeat/death (at the hands of the Players), his father has a touching moment with him that is diminished by the fact that it would otherwise have been the Alliance witnessing it.
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Sylvanas (No Forsaken at all) were present for the KB and subsequent end of Arthas after being decrowned. This was probably the most unfair way to end the thread connecting the Forsaken to the Lich King. Though most races on Azeroth had a grievance with the Lich King, no others had the Lich King as intrinsically woven into their story as the Forsaken.
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Narratively, this would be the equivalent of the Blood elves going to Argus and reclaiming the planet from the Burning Legion instead of the Draenai. Speaking of The Burning Legion…
Legion - Both factions get pushed by The Burning Legion and lose their faction leader (Alliance for the first time, Horde for the 3rd). Both factions push back against The Legion in the ToS raid. However, canonically, it is Illidan (3rd party - Illidari) that gets the KB on Gul’Dan.
Impact:
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Gul’Dan, an orc and chief Architect of Kil’jaeden’s plan to corrupt the orcish race into a bloodthirsty horde. MU Gul’Dan died (or was shown to have died) prior to the events of WC3:TFT. AU Gul’Dan was basically no different than his counterpart. The orcs he sought to corrupt had no hand in his defeat.
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Canonically, Velen (Alliance), Illidan (Illidari) and the Grand Army of the Light (3rd Party/Alliance) defeated the Legion forces on Argus and helped the Titan Pantheon imprison Sargeras. Both Orcs and Draenai had a grievance with The Burning Legion though the orc relationship is directly responsible for a lot of the Horde’s interactions with the Alliance. This is not reciprocated, or at least, not reciprocated in a meaningful way.
PROPOSAL
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Stop giving 3rd party/Neutral characters the KB on bad guys when it would be more appropriate for a faction character to get it. For example, Malfurion getting the KB on Fandral.
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Story threads should be taken to their logical conclusion with the appropriate entities having agency in working towards that conclusion. For example, Sylvanas being present for the downfall of the Lich King or relevant Horde characters being present when taking down the Burning Legion.
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Do NOT fix (big) problems for a faction using characters from the opposing faction. We saw this with the cleansing of The Sunwell and it isn’t reciprocated. The Blood Elves literally owe their sanity to the leader of the Draenai.
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If a story thread is created that logically only involves 1 faction, do NOT try to shoehorn the other faction into it. Do NOT ignore the other faction either, create a different story thread for that faction. this will be expanded on in a hypothetical at the end of this section
HYPOTHETICAL
Azeroth, once again, finds itself staring down the barrel leveled by a big bad. I don’t care what it is as long as it’s big and it’s a bad. The whole world, including some as of yet player explored areas, is burning/baking/freezing/drowning etc. Each faction, including neutral organizations, are doing everything they can to survive. Both primary factions are resorting to what would otherwise be considered desperate measures. Denizens of Azeroth are attempting to close the rifts used by the big bad to assault their world. However, with each rift successfully closed the remaining get larger (and harder to close) and bigger/meaner/stronger minions of the big bad are able to invade.
It is at this point, with several lesser rifts closed on both sides that there are some concerns. Occuleth, being an expert on portal type magic is able to close the rifts (when the necessary preparations are made) cleanly. This leads to little, if any, collateral damage when the rifts are successfully closed. The Alliance rift closers, spearheaded by Jaina of course, are less surgical about the process and are mostly brute forcing them closed. This leads to a form of feedback that causes physical and magical damage to the area and people around the rift. The severity of the feedback is relative to the size of the rift. Both factions are communicating about how they are handling the rifts (almost competitively) when Occuleth recognizes what could happen if they keep haphazardly closing off rifts with brute force. He proposes closing all the remaining rifts simultaneously to prevent them growing larger and unleashing more BBEG minions. This process, he says, will take some time, how much he is not 100% certain. The Alliance, already struggling to hold back the BBEG minions assaulting their holdings disagree with the plan and want to continue shutting rifts forcefully but quickly.
This is a good place to highlight separate story paths for the factions.
Horde: Focus is on acquiring the items/spells/people etc. for Occuleth to cleanly close rifts. This takes them to previously unexplored areas on Azeroth (such as The Dragon Isles or Tel’Abim). Dungeon for this story path is the Horde beating one of the BBEG minions to secure a key component for the rift closure. Alliance can explore this area to but the justification is keeping an eye on The Horde.
Alliance: Focus is on closing rifts around areas that are more difficult to defend. They need to defeat many more BBEG minions (in quests and dungeons) to accomplish this task. Horde can explore this story beat but the justification is learning about the BBEG minion weaknesses.
As the rifts continue to get closed (cleanly or otherwise) Jaina begins to have trouble choosing the larger rifts. Reluctant to ask the Horde for assistance the Alliance instead asks Mechatorque to create a device to assist with closing the rifts. He gleefully takes up this challenge. Meanwhile the Horde are fighting for all they are worth to give Occuleth the time he needs to close the rifts precisely.
Eventually, Mechatorque finishes his device and makes use of it with Jaina and the other Alliance rift closing team to successfully (though still a bit messy) eliminate one of the remaining 2 rifts over the Eastern Kingdoms. This leaves 1 rift each over EK and Kalimdor. But something is different. Whenever 1 rift had been closed the remaining would grow in size proportional to the size of the rift closers and those remaining (like equivalent exchange). However, the remaining 2 rifts vastly increase in size and composition unlike previous rifts. Additionally, these last 2 rifts are slowly growing on their own.
Communication between the factions is spotty at the best of times and the rifts are disrupting all kinds of magic. The Horde was in place and had been making progress on closing the last Kalimdor rift when the Alliance, using Mechatorque’s device, had closed 1 of the EK’s remaining 2 and caused the last 2 to expand rapidly. Now the Horde is regrouping to deal with this newer rift that is growing on it own.
After fighting through more BBEG minions The Alliance is once again in a position to attempt to close the final rift. Mechatorque has set up his machine and is waiting to activate it. A few of the leaders think they should close the rift immediately but Jaina and a couple others are hesitant after the previous closure. Reports from the Horde are spotty but they surmise The Horde will be ready to close their rift soon. That’s when the BBEG him/her/itself shows up. Or, rather, 2 halves of the BBEG, one each through the open rifts. It’s big, like, very big.
Fighting the BBEG halves is something straight out of the God of War franchise. It necessitates the heaviest hitters from each faction being active. Because of her NW powers, Tyrande gives the Alliance an edge when combating their half on the EK relative to the Horde. Of course, the Horde isn’t giving up. Thalyssra makes liberal use of her time magic to try and undo damage from the BBEG half on Kalimdor. In spite of their efforts, both factions are losing ground either to the BBEG or the ever expanding rifts. They decide closing the rifts should be first priority and will hopefully weaken if not outright neutralize the BBEG halves.
The Alliance rift closers start the process of closing the EK rift. They need only activate Gelbin’s device to seal it. He and the other leaders are waiting until the Horde is ready to close the Kali rift before doing so. It’s taking the Horde a bit longer because of the precautions being taken by Occuleth. The BBEG half on the EK can no longer be held back and is about to engage the Alliance rift closing team when Tyrande flips the switch on Gelbin’s device finalizing the process of brute forcing the rift closed.
To quote Douglas Adams:
The EK rift is closing fast. The EK BBEG half violently collapses into a tiny, sparkling ball of dark light energy and shoots its way near instantaneously to the Kali BBEG half. The EK rift closes causing feedback that reaches from Aerie Peak all the way to Lakeshire. Nearly all the Alliance heroes are knocked out with the exception of Tyrande, though she is staggered. At the same time this happens…
The Kali BBEG half violently collapses into a tiny, sparkling ball of dark light energy that merges with its EK counterpart centered on the Kali rift. The rift changes in composition again, becoming a massive ball of dark light energy that engulfs the land from Camp Mojache to just south of Astranaar. In an instant, the rift disappears taking everything (living or otherwise) it covered with it (the terrible, ghastly noise). All that remains is a singularity of ever-shifting dark light energy at the center of what used to be the mega rift and a perfectly smooth crater.
