How do you roleplay as a warlock?

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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Simple question for the people who roleplay as a warlock. How do you do it? Do you stick to your warlock’s opportunistic rules? Do you put your demon away when you enter capital cities?

I generally in game am immersed in my warlock character and am usually roleplaying at all times. But I’m curious how others portray their warlocks?

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Shang Tsung is the only legitimate inspiration for a warlock.

#fightme

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Though I’ve never gotten far with the Warlock characters I’ve made, I’ve long been fond of the more scholarly side of them; those who become Warlocks in interest of learning more about demons and/or fel magic. Many of the qualities I once wrote for Warlock characters are currently used in my Demon Hunters nowadays, as I personally find that class more appealing, but I digress.

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I tend to portray a more gul’dan psyche with my warlock. The opportunistic highly motivated type of warlock who thirsts for power. I have the tendency to kill the warlock trainers in goldshire so that they can’t train more warlocks.

I"m still new to roleplay though and trying to figure out how to write a profile well with my total rp 3 addon. I know how to make the profile I just don’t now how to write my warlock’s story in it and make it look like a good story.

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I roleplay my warlock as a disgruntled, former Kiran Tor. He was an ok mage and was picked on by his KT peers. Fed up with not being powerful enough to impress them, and fed up with their bullying, he started studying Shadow Magic. He understands the usefulness of fel but for the most part is not a big fan. His favorite spells are shadow and the demons he summons have become his closest, and only, friends. Always on the lookout for more knowledge, he has recently taken to exploration and delves. Other explorers find him to be weird and don’t generally have any relationships with him outside of professional transactions.

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Always put your demons away. I have a separate talent set up that I use for RP (without Inner Demons spawning Imps.)

Dude I’m going to steal this and base a backstory on a similar concept! This is awesome!

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I have a draenei warlock that I’ve RPed as sort of a parole/Bonds officer for Man’ari Penitents. Meeting regularly with them, taking note of their welfare and health. Hunting down, binding and banishing those that are acting in bad faith.

When part of your population are now full demons, you need a means to control and enforce order.

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Its interesting how you matched a mage backstory with aversion to fel (fire).
I’m guessing if it was pre wotlk? / chaos bolt era you could’ve ran a more fiery approach connecting his past to a mage, but seeking a deeper understanding of fire/earth without fully embracing the fel (highlighted in tbc/gul’dans effect on smv).

I think most classes can fit a pre warlock story, shaman and mage probably being the most relatable, but for others starting with an understanding of where other classes derive their power and then expanding on it to develop personality/character traits that fit the conversion. An extreme example being something like a nightelf druid after the burning of teldrassil finding demons in the flames(lingering dark magic caused by the satyr).

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I’ve built a few different warlock characters for various roles throughout my history with WoW and formed a few core rules that I always reference when it comes time to play them. Of course these are literally only applicable to myself and I don’t even follow them all the time but I found that it helps me create warlocks that I enjoy playing.

  1. Antihero, Jerk, or Villain?: I believe the most important thing to consider when creating a warlock who is going to be specifically using forbidden/evil magic is how you want them to be perceived by other players over multiple encounters. Before even considering how I’m going to approach the little parts of adding depth to a character I decide whether I want people to view them as someone using forbidden magic to help others at a cost to themselves, using it to serve their own means with out much care for others, or actively going out of their way to dominate and harm others.
  2. Forbidden School: Simply enough the next step is deciding whether they comes seen in game where they are using fel magic and summoning demons or if they are one step deeper into 'Lock Lore and using some other forbidden form of magic. I feel like this is just as if not more important than their greater culture because an Orcish Warlock summoning demons is going to play very different than one using ‘Profane Pyromancy’ that they stumbled upon during their shamanistic training.
  3. Get a Bit Quirky: This is probably the least important of the core rules but I feel like it helps warlocks feel a lot more alive than just having them entirely focused on their magical practice. After all warlocks are dabbling in magic that was not meant for mortal minds, so why shouldn’t they have some odd habits or mutation that can help single out their predilections.

So using these rules as a guideline I can breakdown how Nekimada functions as a warlock:

  1. Kima’s a Jerk: She doesn’t particularly hold malice or contempt for others around her but she is only following The Path for her sake. This dictates that while not actively hostile or antagonistic with other characters, she can act in flippant ways that come off as rude. Just the same it gives the flexibility for her to form favorites with characters she interacts with frequently and be more than just another Evil Warlock.
  2. Kima is a Felcaster: She does utilize fel magic but it is far more focused in demonic pyromancy than summoning or rituals. By defining this feature I built out her understanding of magic and a few character traits such as her transmog, physical description, knowledge and of course capabilities.
  3. Kima is a Space Cadet: The last bit was thinking about other ‘evil’ pyromancer characters and looking at their traits. With most of them being hyperactive, destructive, erratic nutbars I thought it may be more interesting to play Kima as someone with their head in the sulfur clouds. So even though she is just as destructive and disengaged with reality as another warlock who has given themselves up to the flame, it’s less manic and more like a vindictive hippy.

From these 3 core rules to her character I built out her little quirks and her history of how she formed into this person. I personally feel like this creates a more ‘complete’ character that could easily slot into the rest of the warlocks seen in WoW while still being distinctive enough that you aren’t completely typecast into being an evil mage.