“A Knight In Shining Armor Has Never Had His Mettle Tested”
So when I first started posting here, checks notes, SIX years ago - Jesus Christ where does the time go - this idea was pretty skubtastic but I think at this point between Teldrassil being made out’ve dry pinewood and oily rags, or Tyrande choking the Banshee Queen and this somehow being effective, I think it’s safe to say dogmatic adherence to lore is a fool’s hobby.
Thing is though undead Paladins don’t actually violate the lore. From the very start there were undead Light wielders who never made a fuss about it. In Vanilla Tirisfal you’re outright encouraged to study Light magic and your first class quest is using it to heal a wounded Deathguard. Nobody even sort of suggests doing this is any different from any other magic wielding.
The idea the Light is anathema to Undeath, at least in regards to strictly WoW lore and specifically the Forsaken’s use of it, comes from a post Wrath Ask A Dev interview. Because apparently the Wrathgate and Edge of Night wasn’t insulting to Forsaken fans enough. Now we’re actively torturing our PCs if we pick one of their most iconic class pairings.
So frankly I’ve rejected that notion on the grounds the Light operates purely on belief so it only hurts when it’s users believe it will.
And not without sound lore reasoning. WoW’s crawling with undead Paladins who unlike their Priestly cousins cannot be said to only wield the Light for gameplay reasons.
Of course we have Sir Zelik. Who is being puppeteered by the vile magics of the Scourge but still wields the Light like a true Paladin. And seriously actually extraordinarily grimdark to think the poor guy is begging you to flee as he literally has no control over his body. Just a completely helpless passenger in his own skin. Yikes.
But he’s definitely a hero character and they operate on their own rules. But, of course, Zelik is far from the only undead paladin.
The Scarlet Risen is just lousy with them. Particularly amongst the Scarlet Risen in Tyr’s Hand. Both Crusader Lord Valdelmar and Scarlet Commander Marjhan are undead PC race characters who are explicitly Paladins, and generic NPCs in the area like the Scarlet Praetorians use both Paladin armor and Paladin spells.
And that’s where I think the Forsaken should get their Paladins from. The Risen are technically defeated lorewise but frankly so were the Sin’Dorei and the Draenei used to be weird toothy monsters that looked more like Jawas than the swole space Slavs we know and love today. So I’m going to file that under “a you problem” if that of all backgrounds isnt lore compliant enough.
But let’s take stock here.
The Forsaken for the moment have no direct method of at least large scale recruitment. We have the rightful Queen of Lordaeron sitting on the throne. And the Ex-Scarlet Lilian Voss is part of the Forsaken’s governing body.
So now seems an extremely good time for the Forsaken to go rescue all those undead Scarlets from the chains of Balnazaar. I figure they didn’t bother before because even though they’re undead brethern - they’re still crazed zealots. Who would probably still jihad against the Forsaken even as they desperately tried to help them.
But times have changed now. Even theocrats operate on their own moon logic and how could they possibly say they’re retaking Lordaeron when the rightful queen has returned, and is also undead, as are they?
So I figure we have a story beat where Belmont and Velonara free the Risen. Which I think would make for a great cameo appearance by literal sexy devil Denathrius. Then Menethil and Voss come in and Belmont’s expecting this to go south but to everyones surprise Scarlet Commander Marjhan falls to her knees and pledges her sword to the Queen.
I also figure with Alonso Faol still kicking around Lordaeron he could also just empower new Forsaken Paladins as he did kinda invent them in the first place. And that’s your option if youd prefer to not have a character connected to essentially Fantasy Catholic ISIS.
Anyway I figure we just say Marjhan is their leader because every Paladin Order needs it’s theme and in Blizz’s great tradition of p̶l̶a̶g̶i̶a̶r̶i̶s̶m̶ homages to other great genre titles, we take a page from everyone’s favorite Space Mother Superiors, Warhammer 40k’s Sisters of Battle;
Now Ben, I imagine you saying, this is transparently an attempt to have a bunch of goth murder nuns running around and you’re clearly into that for reasons that go way deeper than “It’d be cool”.
And to that I say you’re absolutely right.
But I also think it’d be neat on a lot of levels.
Now obviously this Undead Order who I’m just gonna refer to as Templars as I don’t think anyone has that yet would not be strictly girlboss only. But I would make it deciedly matriarchal in theme. Because WoW used to have a lot of female led organizations like the Sentinels and Dark Rangers but at this point they’ve either stopped doing that or worse have such a terrible record it kinda comes off as unintentionally insulting.
So we go with a new militant sorority group and this one from the start is both decidedly more villainous and completely unhinged.
I figure their base of operations could be a rebuilt Scarlet Palisade in Tirisfal. Which I’d also have lead to an outright Forsaken dockyard but undead pirates is a topic for a different thread.
As mentioned we call them Templars and I figure they’d differentiate themselves from the standard Forsaken military in a fashion similar to the Blood Knights by them having their own aesthetic.
I’d go with black and white as their colors. Both to give allusions to the historical Knights Teutonic and to make it very easy for Blizz to give them their Holy Steed. Just take the existing Vicious White Bonesteed mount from BFA PvP Season 3 and give it’s caparison black stripes.
Now fundamentally this group would still be very Scarlet Crusadey. I picked Marjhan to lead them as she’s loudly racist and probably wont be thrilled about having to work with the “cow men” as she called them.
Most of the Scarlet Risen have assimilated to broader Forsaken and Horde culture but these would be the stubborn hold outs still clinging to their initial mission statement, just one revised to now protecting Lordaeron at all costs.
Nobody really trusts them. Least of all Belmont and Faranell but Voss holds out hope they’ll, ironically, see the light eventually and Calia’s just happy to have subjects who don’t find her creepy.
So they’d be a great way to revisit Lordaeron’s original themes of being the most devout of the human kingdoms, while also letting us revisit the OG Forsaken’s racism toward the western Horde, while also giving the Forsaken a new villainous venue distinct from the mad science shenanigans of their past. And I actually quite like the idea of some of the more radical Templars being the sort of people who gross out RAS abomination stichers.
So in summation not only would this give a OG race a new class, but it’d expand on their lore while revisiting it’s storied history, and grow the sort of fantasies the Forsaken could offer and by extension what stories could be told with them.
Plus yeah. Goth nuns walking around cutting people in half. Get out of my face if you don’t think that sounds awesome.
But anyway what’s your ten copper on the topic?
