I’m sure this was talked about before, and since it was kinda mentioned a few posts ago, I figured it would be good to talk about it again: San’layn and free will.
We’ve seen several members of the Scourge able to gain some semblance of who they were in the living when breaking free of the Lich King’s control. Aside from the main examples of the Forsaken and Death Knights, there are liches, banshees, geists, ghouls, and more. They were able to gain a form of free will back and in some cases, were able to be themselves again. Some more than others.
Keeping that in mind, why would San’layn be an exception to that?
Their becoming undead and vampiric was from the Lich King. As I said before, when we beat up Arthas, that should’ve freed them from control, even with Bolvar taking the role of Lich King again. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that they wouldn’t for the most part.
The only logical thing I can think of might be related to the Vampyr curse, where there could be a being (not the Lich King) that controls those under the effects of the curse to a certain extent. I think I’ve seen similar lines of thinking in vampires of different media. If this were such a case, then it would be a cool thing to do in-game, where you help free the San’layn from being under control of wherever power could have control over them. It could even tie into Kael’thas’ redemption in helping to free his people and working to get them accepted back into Silvermoon and become members of the Horde.
Sure, maybe not all of them would become good. We’ve seen some of the Forsaken become those of low moral fiber and do questionable things, but that isn’t all of them. Some San’layn could still become corrupted with the temptation of power and domination, but it wouldn’t be the norm for them completely. If this is the case for Forsaken, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be the case for San’layn.
Of course, this is just one possibility. There are several ways to work with San’layn and leading them into becoming a playable Horde race. Mostly, I was thinking in terms of the Vampyr curse and how it could function. Granted, if Arthas had the power to put the Vampyr curse on others…then where did it come from if not him? And who gave him the ability to do that if he didn’t have it to begin with?
If it were up to me, I’d have the San’layn just gain free will soon as Arthas died, with them going into hiding because people would hunt them as monsters while they’re trying to get their bearings straight having become self-aware again and seeing they’re undead vampires. I feel like this has a lot more to work with and gives San’layn a lot of character and also interesting storylines to work with.
Just some ramblings I wanted to type out and see what others think. It’s not perfect what I typed out, but still something worth pondering, in my opinion.