Seems I heard a rumor awhile back that Forsaken might start looking more like Calia Menethil, that she might raise the dead using the power of the light.
Going forward in lore, how will new Forsaken come into being?
Given that writers have apparently acknowledged that no one is excited for the Forsaken becoming Calia’s new narrative toy (since as of 9.2.5 she’s just one of the five members of the Desolate Council), I’d say that Ligthtforged Forsaken is… not the most plausible option. Fortunately so.
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That would be horrendous. And besides, it retcons what we know about the light. It doesn’t raise zombies, but is capable of fully resurrecting someone
Unless we take Sindaine at her word, which is…bizarre at best.
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I’d love the option to be a zombie in service to the light. An un-rotten forsaken would be nice.
That may be a possibility, we will have to see where this Calia narrative goes.
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Not leading the Forsaken hopefully.
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If it’s just the look you want, roll a Death Knight. That’s basically what they are.
I think they’re asking for basically a undead lightforged character. Which…kind of defeats the whole idea behind rolling a forsaken to begin with, but that may just be me
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I think lightforged undead is an extremely cool aesthetic and I would be much more interested in that kind of undead than the … very 80s Cartoon, for lack of a better term, aesthetic that the Forsaken have going on. It’s also a popular vibe with the Souls series, and we know how much WoW likes to crib from the zeitgeist.
It also terribly violates their own lore put forward and trying to shoehorn them in with the Forsaken makes no sense. tbh I’m surprised they did not make such an Alliance allied race using the Vrykul skeleton. You’d answer a lot of desires in one.
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People saying that lighforging undead makes no sense from a lore perspective need to realize that resurrection magic has always been closer to a magical resuscitation than anything else. Every piece of actual lore surrounding the magic presents it as something used not long after death.
All the naaru did with Calia is bind her soul to her body using light magic instead of death magic and then use light magic to animate it.
Gul’dan did the exact same thing with fel magic when he reanimated Manneroth to serve as a raid boss in Hellfire Citadel so the concept of necromancy being accomplished with energies other than death magic has already existed.
That being said, I’m glad they decided to relegate Calia to simply a member of a council rather than giving her sole leadership. And I’m pretty firmly against light forged undead being playable unless they give a really good narrative reason for it.
I would like to see some of the undead left in the plaguelands join the forsaken. A large portion of the Scarlet Crusade was raised as undead during Cataclysm and it would be a nice twist of irony to have them join the forsaken years later. And even though these undead aren’t light forged, I could see them naturally gravitating more towards Calia than forsaken raised during WC 3 of Cataclysm do.
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Metzen did the best he could as one man. But Blizzard shouldn’t have left any loose ends. They should have tied everything up over multiple expansions after legion and then closed down wow forever. If they make a new thing? So be it. But we should have gotten closure to these burning decades old questions.
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Blizzard has been kinda stubborn about Calia story and her relationship with the forsaken. They still trying to turn them into these loving cute light worshippers - Alliance puppets.
I remember how vanilla Forsaken were just a bunch of metalheads, satan adorers that wanted to turn everyone into zombies and burn the world. I don’t know why Danuser and Golden want to erase that identity.
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There’s three ways to handle this imho;
- The population just isn’t addressed.
This is fine because population doesn’t matter in this setting. The Belves had 90% of their population wiped out, fought in every major war for the next decade, and just an emo book club of theirs had the numbers to field a standing army.
There’s always just enough.
- We Found More Valkyr In A Hedge
This is also a pretty easy solution. Shadowlands was practically lousy with a goth angel chicks. Either the old Valkyr came back through God’s broken window or some Mawsworn kyrian decide to do their own penance quest by helping out the people Sylvanas betrayed. Or, as I said there’s just some more they found on the side of the road that fell out the back of a truck or whatever.
- The Sickness; Owahahaha
With RAS now having access to Maldraxxus notes I’m sure they could come up with yet another New Plague. Perhaps Cherry Plague seeing as we’ve Plague Classic and Plague Zero already.
I’d favor this the most as it’s always irked me the Forsaken can’t spread their dark gift with a hickey despite being vampire zombie ghouls.
Idk I feel there’s a lot of rich narrative soil in someone slowly becoming undead via infection rather than the stab, plop, zap and away we go method we’ve now. I wouldnt hold out hope for this option but it’s what I would personally want.
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The Nine pinky promise they won’t serve any more evil masterminds.
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What masterminds? Arthas’s grand plan was to invite the world’s strongest Paladin and a crack team of the most elite adventurers on Azeroth into his living room because he figured he could take them.
And I still don’t know what Sylvanas’s thought process was. Which is particularly weird as there was a whole book about it from her first person perspective and I’m still confused why she figured Frownbad the Soul Slaver was on the up and up.
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I kind of like the idea of there being a culture bridge between “Old and New” Lordaeron so to speak.
The Forsaken are already quite inclusive, in the sense of “It doesn’t matter what you are as long as you are dead”
I could see it like, Calia is there and House Menethil is present, and the Forsaken kind of start leaning into the People of Lordaeron sense of identity. But Calia never becoming like another Banshee Queen.
Almost like a Queen of England Vibe. She has power and influence and she is there as a symbol of culture and tradition, but you have the Desolate Council making most of the decisions. Then you Lilian Voss serving as the Forsaken Representative to the Horde Council.
I don’t really see a reason why any of that couldn’t work.
I do feel bad for Forsaken Players, because what BFA and SL did to Sylvanas kind of screwed up their whole identity. But hopefully a “People of Lordaeron” sentiment can be a good replacement for that. Idk.
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Oh yeah. The weird hyperfixation on Sylvanas and Death as a theme. but only really on her. Because were not going to talk about the struggles of any of the forsaken or literally any of the Deathknights after the SL into. Probably because of writer ineptitude. They just weren’t up to par to finish what they started. And that might be because the people who are creating the story for the game might have never even played it. They don’t know how to write these characters because they don’t know who they are. The old lore matters. Decades old character arcs matter. And if they don’t do a good enough job they should be booted.
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Light Undead will be the next Horde allied race. Calling it now.
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Considering how the Darkfallen became a customization option, if light forged undead were to be a thing it could easily be a customization option over a race.
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That sounds extremely dumb so you just might be right.
Of course there have never been a lack of Light wielding undead. The Cult of the Forgotten Shadow outright insists you study it, as one must know the Light to comprehend the Shadow it casts. To say nothing of the Argent Dawn who have more undead per capita than any non Horde faction.
Plus there’s the Scarlet Risen. Who have tons of undead paladins just ready to be playable whenever we get the word go. Could do an interesting thing there. Now undead Scarlets finding a home amongst the people they once saught to eradicate.
A character staying true to their faith even after it has been shaken to it’s core is inherently compelling. Job doesn’t have crap on Alonsosus in the hardship contest.
Tons of fertile fields to explore the nature of death, undeath, faith, the legacy of Lordaeron and it’s future under the Forsaken.
Or you could just shrug and say there’s celestial citrus powered good Christian flesheaters now.
So yeah probably column B.
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