Fair opinion, and I agree.
And back then the Twisting Nether was arcane energy and also the ancestral plane all smashed together, and none of the cosmic forces as they currently exist existed at the time in the imaginations of the writers or the devs.
Moot point; lore is too old and half that novel contradicts modern reality of the magics it names
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Even if that were the case, there is no new lore that directly rewrites this specific bit of canon.
I’m not denying the fact that other bits have been retconned or adjusted.
But these, apparently, have not.
Not by Blizzard that is.
I’ll repeat that even if you chose to interpret new warlock information differently, if this story had indeed been retconned, you’d need Blizzard themselves to come forth and explicitly rebuke these points.
For example, if Affliction warlocks were just void casters, what’s their difference with Shadow Priests? These excerpts explain such.
How come certain Warlock classes are considered such, even if they specialise in schools that have nothing to do with Fel? These excerpts explain so too.
How come Draenor was corrupted on a planetary scale, if most of the Warlocks never really used any Fel spells?
I’m sorry, but in absence of new clarifications, these are the best and only explanations we have regarding how these Warlock practices were used, and how they corrupted Orcs.
So, as things are atm, they stand as the canon facts.
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There is: if shadow magic were corruptive in the same sense as fel magic, Void Elves would’ve had the same process as Felblood, or the Maghar Shadowmoon who use shadow magic.
Alas, here we are.
There is none narratively if you don’t want there to be.
The gameplay classes are not lore classes.
Dalaran’s majors at mage school are not divided between Fire, Arcane, and Frost, etc.
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Nowadays, it’s easy to forget Warlocks have always been the shunned class. they used to only practice underground because they were the black sheep. They never represented the majority, and Mag’har are no exception.
Humans were always the epitome of light, it didn’t change the fact that one became the lich king and spawned more death knights.
Nobody is suggesting Mag’har as a culture should accept these warlocks, because they usually aren’t in most cultures.
An individual is free to do as they please
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I’m not saying that Void is corruptive as Fel. I’m pointing at the fact that, if we are to assume that Warlocks indeed use Void, they certainly are using a variation that corrupts.
That the Shadow spells used by Warlocks aren’t the same as the ones used by Shadow Priests.
Much like a Fireball/Lavaburst isn’t the same as the shadowbolt a Destruction Warlock conjures.
But you need one!
Otherwise, you end up with the contradiction you pointed in your other post.
Shadow/Void spells used by Warlocks, need to be different from those of other Shadow/void users.
If they arent, then the Shadowmoon Valley would’ve also been corrupted in WoD for example.
There are other bits in the novel, as well as in other books such as Lord of the Clans, that highlight the fact that Warlock magic was essentially a “shortcut” towards the source of power of other magic users.
It’s not far fetched, given excerpts such as the ones mentioned above, that just as Warlocks use of fire is but a “perversion” of the Shaman approach, they’d do similarly with the Void.
Turning Fireballs into Fel blasts, and Void into Affliction curses.
As shown above, the whole theme of the class is about perverting other magics, not only about Fel.
That’s why I think that the only viable alternative for the Mag’har, is to discard all the traditional Warlock approaches, and have the game create custom iterations for them that fit mechanically even if in the story they aren’t the same.
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Not all warlocks have to use Fel, as I’ve said, the lore allows for this
Gameplay CLass divisions aren’t Lore Class divisions
Again, you are wrong. Shinfel uses Old God magic.
Again you are wrong
Ritsynn summons fire from the Firelands, like a Shaman
Shadowmoon use Void. This is well established. Warlocks use void. We summon Voidwalkers from the Void with Void magic form a Void portal. Shinfel uses Old God magic and the lore behind the Phantom Singularity spell is that it’s from Twilight Cultists, and that Harvest Life is from the Cthun-affiliated Aqir.
You are not familiar with Warlock Lore, it is evident. You need to actually read upon on it.
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The issue here, and I think that I’ve repeatedly mentioned it, is the conflation of two concepts:
- “The Mag’har” as a faction.
- The orc clans of AU Draenor.
You can belong to the second and not be of the first. Why? Because in order to be of the first, the “requisite” goes with the name: You need to be Uncorrupted.
Traditional Warlocks would be disqualified, as seen with the examples we’ve had so far in both MU and AU.
Could some orc decide to abandon the “Uncorrupted” and become a Warlock? Sure.
Just as a Draenei that decided to not be Lightforged. Or a Blood/High elf to not follow Umbric investigation.
But just as it would happen with those cases, an impossibility would occur with said individual:
- You can’t label a Corrupted Orc as part of the Uncorrupted bunch.
- You can’t label as part of the Lightforged faction, a Draenei that didn’t go through the Lightforging process.
- You can’t be considered a Ren’dorei, if you didn’t go through the Void infusion or were “cured” from it.
With the Mag’har, traditional Warlock practices represent an oxymoron.
Once you are Corrupted by them, you can’t consider yourself as part of the Uncorrupted.
Which again, it doesn’t mean you just cease to be part of the Orc Clan.
You are still part of the AU clans.
But given the faction is limited to the requisite of being Mag’har too, then you are disqualified from it.
You become “just” an orc.
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I think a Mag’har Orc who becomes a warlock is still part of their clan, unless they choose to leave or are exiled, but they are no longer a Mag’har orc.
Well good thing that warlocks in the narrative are wide and varied in the narrative and have been for over ten years now since the Black Harvest was first invented by Xelnath in his spare time as a developer
Your preconceptions are wrong and born from an ignorance of warlock lore
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Exactly. That’s not really an hypothesis in fact, that’s factual.
Edit: Minor correction, a clan can actually expel an individual. So the worst case scenario is having said individual be a “Former X Clan member”.
This is actually confirmed by the Lord of the Clans novel by Grom Hellscream when he’s talking to Thrall. He states that while the effect of magic may be the same, the magic is still very different. He compares a lightning bolt to warlock fire. In both cases, he says, the victim will be burned to death, but lightning is a natural phenomenon, you summon it by asking, while with the warlock’s fire you make a bargain and that bargain costs a piece of yourself each time you summon it.
Edit: Noticed that you briefly touched on that in your post but yeah, there’s a basic expansion on that point.
Never said they had to.
I’m not talking about the gameplay here. I’m talking about the fact that both classes, in lore, conjure the Void energies differently.
As evidenced above in the Warlocks case.
And yet, Shinfel isn’t a Shadow Priest and Ritssyn isn’t a Shaman.
That because, even if they took inspiration of, or sourced their new power from those places, the usage and ways they conjure them, were different.
Currently can’t link the quote as I’m out of my house and do not have access to the ebook but there is an explanation given by Drekthar on how even if both go to the same source of power, Warlocks and Shamans obtain and employ it differently.
Also, you may want to reconsider naming Shinfel there, as she went explicitly looking for the kind of power Cho’gall wielded.
You know, the second most important Warlock of the Shadow Council.
If your point was to use her as an example of Void/Old God power wielding without Warlock interference, maybe you shouldn’t name the case of the Elf that went after the knowledge of Gul’dans apprentice.
True.
And yet, Shadowmoon Valley wasn’t being corrupted in AU Draenor.
Whereas MU Draenor, as seen in the excerpts above, was already being corrupted through the Warlock equivalent use of Void.
That means that the usage Warlock and Shadow Priests give said energies, is different.
And yes, as weak as the gameplay argument is, there is a reason why Blizzard created two different classes instead of dumping all into the Affliction branch of the Warlock class.
That’s why we have Shadow Priests as a separate class.
You can try and discard this argument, and I wouldn’t blame you, as gameplay is some weak means through which debate narrative. But it serves to further prove the distinct made on a narrative level, regarding the different usages of the Void.
Sorry but that’s your opinion. Just because I disagree with you, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
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Except when the patch drops, Mag’har warlocks will be uncorrupted, and there are plenty of ways to handwave it.
Mag’har orcs discover a spell that repels fel corruption.
Mag’har react differently to fel on MU Azeroth then they did on AU Draenor. Same fel, different world.
Our Mag’har champion discovers a space hamster named Boo that cleanses fel corruption around them. Puts hamster in pocket, becomes warlock.
There. That’s just three ways a Mag’har warlock player character can work and it doesn’t destroy the world in a puff of broken lore.
Any way they decide to handle the lore, they do need to handle it. Warlocks do not need to be added to Mag’har orcs without some justification.
People need to remember that their headcanon is not lore.
Every single point you’ve brought up is backed up by novels or lore evidence, it’s kind of amazing how people will gloss over that and insist you’re wrong when all they’ve got is “This is my opinion on how this works or how it could work.”
And to be clear I’m not against headcanon, if in your head that’s how you justify something working then shoot for the moon, but bringing up headcanon as something to argue when the other person is bringing up lore is like bringing a slingshot to a nuke fight.
If you could theoretically shadowbolt a playable mag’har orc hard enough to turn him green, is that a forced race change?
If Warlocks are all fel-corrupted, then it’s criminal that Blood Elves don’t have Felblood Elf customizations.
You’re not wrong, but I feel those combinations should have been given to Blood Elf Demon Hunters instead of Warlocks.
After all, Warlocks just use fel magic, and while it does corrupt them, it isn’t ‘I drank demon blood’ levels of corruption, where as Demon Hunters actually have to consume demon blood and flesh to keep their powers in check so they should have those customization options.
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