Whatever happens next, Calia is going to be a fairly relevant character to the Forsaken. Some people have decided Calia is simply beyond exoneration. An inherently bad idea doomed to have not only no value but to actively inflict detriment on the game. In the hands of the current creative leads I would agree with that assessment, but that’s my opinion of the entire enterprise at time of writing.
But I do not believe her to be a bad concept.
Thankfully Calia’s such a nothing character atm that I think it would be very easy to course correct her. I mean hell the ships still in the harbor at this point, its more picking a better course than correcting one.
Here’s What I Recommend;
- She Needs To Be Undead;
Yes I know she is technically undead. But she’s about as technically as the concept’s ever been for this setting. I wouldn’t call Whitemane or Zelik Forsaken, but I would call them undead. Calia is described as smooth, unblemished and glowing from within with an arresting light. I’ve never described a lover that charitably, using it to depict a a member of the living dead is so off brand as to make her sound like a creature of heaven, not the night.
(Side bar no disrespect for Roux- that is what Calia looks like and she didn’t invent the character)
So how do we fix it?
Simple. You know what shows off blood really well? A white dress.
The undead are fundamentally apex predators; insofar as they’re predators that eat other predators. All the WoW races have forward facing eyes, even the Tauren. They all hunt, kill and eat other things. And undead happen to hunt, kill and eat them. Not in the literal sense of that, not all of them at least, but the Death Knight’s craving for sadism and a Lich’s hunger for souls is just the same idea with extra steps.
And as Calia is to be Forsaken, she’s going to forgo the extra steps. I speak with some authority as an undead Priest main when I say I don’t know the taste of someone else’s blood but I do know the taste of in combat mana regen. And it is sweet.
- She Needs To Learn To Be Forsaken
To start we’re going to have to bloody up that dress, or more to the point, her teeth.
How brutal we want to make this is up to you. Personally, I’d have her throat slashed. And to add insult to injury I’d have it during an encounter with her brother’s soul. As Sylvanas described him as a scared child in EoN I’d have him at least appear as that for a minute, maybe even having a genuine moment with his sister, before morphing into what he truly, and let’s face it always, was and attacking. All monsters were just scared children, once upon a time.
But however it happens a slashed throat is pretty immediate short hand for undead; having a grevious, fatal injury and walking around. And more importantly it would prevent her from casting spells. And I’d have her being unable to heal someone, watching them die, embrace them but then… well;
to heal herself.
Now if we want to make that a feature someone like the Primus or whatever told her about, or some dark instinct taking the wheel - that’s up to you. As is who she chugs like a wild cherry Capri sun. Some hitherto unknown hastily introduced generic friendly soldier quest giver would probably be the safest option. But maybe it could be like the Accuser or Morgraine SR to give it some oomph. Personally I nominate Baine. That’d be a roundabout fulfillment of the Tauren’s pledge to cure the Forsaken (via being the catalyst for their true queen’s dark rebirth), I honestly think nobody would care if we just started fresh with Hamul leading - he’s a similar blank slate but I’m not the gut to tell you how to do him right (I love the Tauren but just as a friend) and c’mon something in orbit of steak tartare has to be a much more palatable for your first time.
But when it’s all said and done she needs to eat somebody. And that needs to make the shadowy parts of her undeath start to take over. But she’s also 50% Holy, mind you. So yeah her nails grow long & sharp, her lips turn from red to violet, and her hair becomes more unruly. But that unblemished face starts to look like a cracked porcelain mask and that arresting inner light glowing from within is still there- but now it’s more lonely lighthouse glimmering through a fog in the dead of night than heavenly. Oh yeah and now she craves flesh.
Why?
- She Needs To Learn From The Forsaken, Not About Them
This is seriously the only aspect of Calia I find genuinely offensive. How dare this character, who’s been undead for all of sixteen minutes, come over and Lightsplain to the Forsaken what the agony and ecstasy of undeath is like.
She needs to come to them as a prodigal princess, in need of aid, in need of guidance. Undeath doesn’t change you that much. She can still be herself. And in fact I kind of like her being a well meaning but oblivious idiot. She’s royalty- that is unfathomable levels of shelter; wealth and privilege in your formative years, of course she’s like that.
But we show her ‘living’ with the Forsaken. Learning to master and revere the Shadow as much as the Light, and proving herself as an asset to and phenomenal leader of the Forsaken.
In the end we’ve someone still fundamentally Calia; which is to say very friendly and not particularly observant, but now she’s a goth cannibal with a face that looks like the icon of Torment.
Why is any of this important?
- There Must Always Be A Dark Lady
I really loved the concept of Sylvanas as this eerily beautiful queen of the living dead. Someone wrathful and vicious to their enemies but gentle and fair to her people.
Even if we do get a Desolate Council revival I still think having a new Dark Lady would be fun. Calia being the newly dubbed Raven Queen. Replete with a baleful Dark Archangel spell that gives her jet black angel wings.
Crackled porcelain face dark queen + ravens = Icon of Torment is still super relevant. The arrows don’t have to mean anything about Sylvanas. A ish ton of national iconography has arrows - its just short hand for "we know how to kill people btw’.
- But Why Calia?
Well… because she makes me laugh. Not intentionally but any creative worth their salt should know “Sure… I meant to do that…” can be helpful now and then.
The thing I fundamentally love above all else with the Forsaken is that they have a near omnipresent sense of dry, awkward and gallows humor. The charm of it is that it never feels out of place, either. It’s just realistically how even the mundanities of a society of the living dead would function.
Having a as beautiful and terrifying as nightfall queen who’s also a bit of a polite idiot would absolutely track with them. The Forsaken toy with some of the darkest subject matter in WoW. Being a credible spooky threat and also chalked full of comic relief is a hard line to walk. But it’s a lot easier when you remember the Forsaken are monstrous, but not monsters.
PS: I’d have the Forsaken be a constitutional monarchy. A 4 person Desolate Council and her would be the Royal Quarter WPVP boss fight. I’m picturing her less as a composite class and more her ‘Hero Class’ ability being able to use all 3 Priest specs at once. So maybe she’s the healer but if you kill the DC then she goes into shadowform.