The difference being in-game we currently have a material solution: the Forsaken can be a new “house” of Maldraxxus, whose job it is to protect whatever-it-is-that-zovaal-wants-on-azeroth.
House of Rituals teaches them “true necromancy”, no need for valkyr ever again.
They could even use the Forsaken as a “get out of Revendreth” card. Want a do-over? Think you can be a better person? Become undead. Join the New Forsaken, the House of the Forsaken, lead by Margrave mumbles under the Primus.
(Options currently are Margrave Calia, Margrave Lilian, or, perhaps, Margrave Darion or Alexandros but that requires tying the Death Knights to the Horde)
For the Worgen, Blizzard has to walk back the Heritage questline, admitting error.
I mean, pretty much anything to do with humans is going to involve the Alliance in some way. You can’t really get around that, sort of like how you can’t really get around Orcs having something to do with the Horde, or Thalassian elves having something to do with Quel’thalas
Blizzard had a better source in all the undead in Northrend free of the crown. Given that Blizzard overlooked that, I doubt they’d give the Forsaken any ties to Maldraxxus, either.
I think this is still, in theory, a much harder sell than being granted the chance of coming back to life. The worgen option is just going from one form of life to another. If humans were that desperate for a power boost, I think lightforging would be the more sensible and relatable option.
They’ll still be tied to the Seven Kingdoms, which are tied to the Alliance. Unless you’re going to go back to pre-Arathor times or limit the selection to Alterac humans or something (not all of whom betrayed the Alliance) that’s still an infringement on the Alliance.
“Coming back to life” isn’t even how Voss would sell it, and, given how she warned Zelling that he might not even be himself any more, I don’t think she’d be big on being an unlife insurance salesperson.
No, but she still conceded when Zelling pressed the issue. And given that the true alternative to undeath in this scenario is remaining dead, rather than being a living human, I think the downsides of undeath suddenly start looking a lot more tolerable for those who aren’t ready or willing to move on. Even if they really should.
I also think that people are overstating Maldraxxus’ interest in propping up undeath on the mortal plane. They don’t even really do proper “undeath” per se since they limit their animation and zombie stuff to the Shadowlands, where everything is already dead anyway.
So? They’re all tied to the Alliance now, and doing things that affect their histories, even their pre-First War histories, still affects the Alliance by proxy. Like if the Forsaken decided to raise Barathen Wrynn, or Melredar, or Thoradin, it’d be madness to expect the Alliance to be okay with it.
What, the part about the “fur Lurdaeron!!” prideful scream while the gross of the actual survivors of the kingdom are still pretty much undead? And still paid the highest price posible, the loss of their very own genetical line? Cause as much suffering the Humans that managed to get away can have LIVING in other kingdoms, they still can reproduce and perpetuate their actual genetical lines. The undead? sorry, they already can´t… not really. Raising some rando is certainly NOT perpetuating their own genetical material.
Those people got effectively robbed of their futures, and this is the part that you love to ignore in favor of convenient development that erases their existence. That´s why “recovering” Lordaeron but more importantly kicking out the Forsaken is SO important for you people: cause if the “ugly zombies” aren´t there, then maybe the Human Lordaeronians can pretend nothing happened.
Zelling was an amazing example of this… the guy became a Forsaken by his own will (heck he basically blackmailed his way into undeath) and didn´t inmediately became a World War Z esque deranged murder machine, he pretty much still worked to provide for his family on his own terms just like he did before while he was your regular alive Human.
A shame Blizz decided to kill him for shock factor and in a failed attempt to give Baine any semblance of characterization (frankly, I rather Baine had died in that scenario instead of Zelling. Zelling was the type of Forsaken characters the race needed… not ridiculous one trick ponies lore aberrations like Calia, but neither Warden Stillwather levels of psychotic crazy).
I mean … when you look at it that way, you’re not wrong I suppose lol! Especially since we are now in the land of the dead, interacting heavily with both the foundation of the Scourge (and the apparent creator of the Helm of Domination), so like … theoretically we should at least be able to mitigate some of the consequences of undeath. As well as improve an undead’s quality of unlife substantially. Fixing the faulty staples that hold their souls to their bodies; Giving them more freedom to adjust the quality and capabilities of their form; and making it easier to potentially even nurse the countless slaves of the Scourge back to mental health.
… Yeah, I doubt Blizzard is going to think too deeply about the ramifications of us literally having the ability to join both the man who created the Helm of Domination AND the foundation the Scourge was based off of … but there are ramifications. Who knows? We might see a similar effect with the Worgen curse if we see a Life Expac.
We still don’t really know exactly what undeath is. It seems to be tied to domination magic, at least in the case of the Scourge, and one of the main features of domination magic seems to be the ability to literally reshape and transform souls.
The closest we’ve seen to a force that is able to return some semblence of normalcy to an undead is the Light, but that tends to make them suicidal because as it turns out, normal people don’t want to be undead.
Depends on whether or not the Scythe of Elune is still functional enough to make some proper moon juice, although I’m not sure if worgen fans would be happy to see that magic brain-fixer make a return.
It’s kinda weird, in my opinion. If anything, being worgen ought to be WAY worse on one’s mental state than being forsaken. That, and you’d actually be a walking disease yourself, whereas the undead don’t propagate normally outside of specialized necromancers.
In Silverpine, a bunch of Hillsbrad refugees become Worgen because
A) It provides immunity to undeath, and they’ve seen enough of undeath to know that you don’t come back the same person, and
B) They had no other way to defend themselves and figured that if they’re going to be butchered by the Forsaken they can at least take a few dozen with them. They were in a corner and they were virtually all civilians with no combat experience, no equipment, and no time or way to acquire either.
Ironically it’s the Forsaken themselves that spurred on the creation of most of the non-Gilnean Worgen.
Yes, I know. And that extra little flick on the nose really bothered me because I really wanted horde worgen.
But I don’t think that disproves my assertion that mentally, worgen should be worse off than forsaken. If I remember right, the only reason why the Hillsbrad villagers went along with it is because they figured they were going to die anyway; they hadn’t planned on actually living as worgen.
That’s weird, then. Why even bother to involve the scythe in worgen questing in the first place? I remember you needing to collect moon leaves but I thought the scythe was needed for the final part making the blessing work.
Blizzard had no idea what they wanted to do with the Scythe of Elune when the made the Worgen starting experience. Even the comic revamp of the story was only half baked with Sylvanas partnering up with Alpha Prime and trying to get it.
I don’t remember if Bloodfang told them about the druidic rituals that could calm them or not, but the impression that I got was always that they figured they were screwed anyway and this is the best way to protect both their souls and get what vengeance they can.
As for if it’s worse, I don’t know. Undeath accentuates negative emotions, or at best, dampens positive ones. The emotional changes that Worgen undertake seem to mostly be that they are addicted to rage, and the funny thing about anger is that it’s actually a somewhat positive emotion? In that it actually has more in common with happiness than sadness.
If anything the Worgen curses effect on ones mental state seems to be the opposite extreme of undeaths; a constant and overpowering emotional high bordering on mania.
Edit: In fact, I wonder if this is why Worgen seem to be a particularly effective anti-undead force; like Light users, they have immunity or at least high resistance to the psychological effects of facing undead, which is one of undead’s main strengths in warfare.