I’ve alluded to this before, but one of the reasons my night elf druid isn’t my main anymore is that her original character was an uncompromising Alliance hardliner who was kind of unsympathetic. She was always ready to mix it up in battle, be cruel to Horde sympathizing characters, and generally be a bit of a crazed warhawk.
It really stopped being fun when, instead of events softening Anyaka, the plot kept vindicating her. Which was NOT what I really wanted.
To this day every once in awhile I crack open DoW: Dark Crusade for a campaign playthrough.
I enjoy playing the Imperial Guard and using Fabian strategy to quarantine the enemy until I’ve built up defensive lines so absurdly fortified that every subsequent attack on the territory is just watching their stuff get blown to smithereens by a wall of turrets and shortly my beloved artillery.
“SOMEONE CALL FOR AN EARTH SHAKER?!”
Had a similar problem with my DK but in the opposite polarity. Sylvanas was making me do such deranged ish it wasn’t even fun anymore. What’s the point of being naughty if you’re not dissapointing someone?
Ironically though this worked out for Ben. I styled him as a moderate reformist for the Forsaken. So cannibalism, occult magics and alchemical warfare is still A Okay but maaaaybe we don’t raise all the enemies dead soldiers, at least not offensively. Plus c’mon be more sporting to let the peasants get a head start at least, right?
And I genuinely thought that was going to be a perpetual B plot he could try at. Was really just an excuse to have a Chaotic Good / Neutral character hanging around the Forsaken.
But then they actually had a weird revolution of sorts and now have a more moderate government who’ve toned down the “DEATH TO THE LIVING” policy.
So accidentally his story feels kinda done. Been hard to main him as for the life of me I can only picture him as a Magistrate or Executor of somesort helping sort out the civic concerns of the living dead.
Which yes is somehow 900% more interesting to me than dragons. I never said I was sane.
My current mains (well, the characters I’m enjoying playing the most) are a lot less jingoist, which worked out.
I have a Wildhammer who never met an adventure she wasn’t down for (and maybe that leads her terrible places on occasion but she does her best with it), a Disney Princess Dark Iron who’s just so happy to be on the surface world meeting surface creatures and have you heard about this thing called THE SKY because it’s actually fanastic, a cranky old sand troll who works for the Horde because it’s the closest thing he’s got left to a tribe but vaguely resents all whippersnappers (especially with the bad taste to technically be older than him), and a nice young dragon who is a bit of a hothead and spends most of his time following around goblins in case they make something interesting or explode.
Besides Gurda, the monk, they’re all fresh blood for this pack (the troll lock is technically a character from Wrath, but he was a female orc back then and he has a lot more refurbishing than a fresh coat of paint). I had a lot of cantankerous old warhorses on both sides, and it felt like a good time to give them a break.
Dark Crusade. The Tau ending should have been canon. It was their colony. It is just like with humans in WoW. The Space Marines always win.
Any powerful Sorcerer who knows of Tzeentch being in the possession of the Blue Scribes as a series of Tomes and Scrolls and realizes the implications has the means of seizing the position of God of Magic.
A shame that none realize the implications…
Imagine a Tau with knowledge on Sorcery that captures the Blue Scribes and learns that the Scrolls and Tomes are the Chaos God of Magic and that any good enough sorcerer with proper use of Magic could subjugate the Scrolls & Tomes becoming the God of Magic themselves…
The Tau wouldn’t hesitate to put forth an acceptable sorcerer in charge of usurping Tzeentch.
The other 3 who rule Chaos are Sentient Universe-sized Hurricanes of Warp Energy that are undefeatable but Tzeentch is nothing but Tomes and Scrolls in the possession of the Blue Scribes! He is the only one of the 4 who can lose easily!
They are not universe sized. They are all powerful yes but there is a slim chance of defeating them. That is waht the Eldar currently do for Slaanesh.
I’ve also largely moved my story to my alts. Germain Jevaudan is a Worgen caused by witchery who’s just started studying druidism in earnest.
He’s friends/potential romance with Mordracca, Ben’s half Orc nepo baby conceived after he helped some greens escape Durnholde in his breathing years. Thanks to the time jump she’s now a 20 something. Grew up with a lot of Frostwolf influence but also has weird Void affinities that actually doesn’t seem to come from her father, and nobody knew mom terribly well. So she’s figuring out WTF she’s trying to do here just like every other 20 something.
I’ve Vergil Augustine my Dark Ranger by way of Cowboy. He was actually a Stormwindian street preformer and sex worker who did the cowboy shtick as a routine for both clients. But became the real deal after being drafted, dying and raised into undeath. Turns out you can trial and error gunslinging if you’re somewhat death proof. He’s also figuring out what to do now with, well, eternity. Picked up the harmonica recently. Baffled how it works even when he isn’t breathing but he’s learned to not ask questions.
There’s my most militant undead Morgana Mageroyal. A former Gilnean detective who was banished beyond the Northgate after digging to deep into noble corruption. Has actually tried to assassinate Benedikt a few times during Warchief Sylvanas’s reign. She’s essentially a cockney cyborg commie ninja cop who’s also a goth girl. Either you’re sold on the concept or you’re not.
Sofia Morozov, a wizard killed and raised during the Worgen War. She stayed loyal to Dalaran and is more the Glenda The Goodwitch type. Though her undead nature keeps breaking through the cracks and despite herself has been spending more time in Tirisfal after the Reclamation.
And then Malithrac Pejorative Doomquill. The character I wheel out when I’m bored with WoW’s story. The joke is he comes off like a shifty conman because he is. But all the outrageous ish he says is true. Especially the lies.
The weird thing is I actually kinda like the Mag’Har being essentially the off-brand version of Orkz.
Their contribution to the Horde thus far are shockingly advanced war machines that work despite looking like they were assembled with scrap. And they all have the social skills of a honey badger who just quit smoking.
It’s just their implementation was insane and ruined arguably WoW’s poster-boy race. Seeing that the LForged also went berserk in that timeline I suggest we make it canon that AU Draenor is essentially in the Mirror Mirror AU from Star Trek. Where everyone’s “EEEEEEVIL”!!!
But cunningly Garrosh had everyone shave off the goatee that let’s you know they’re
Come to think of it the Dark Elves of Warhammer Fantasy Age of Sigmar defeat him in the end and capture him forcing him to vomit the Elven Souls.
Slaanesh was defeated by overindulging him in Souls followed by ambushing him while he was gulping them down.
Khorne in order to defeat also must be drawn out into an ambush.
Nurgle is the hardest to defeat since he can’t be lured anywhere.
Tzeentch is the easiest since the Blue Scribes carry him with them everywhere they go and he is a relatively defenseless collection of Scrolls and Tomes.
What I want is for the Forsaken to take more notes from the Von Carrsteins. Who shockingly were more nuanced than Sylvanas.
Seriously Vlad Von Carrstein had many a living Sylvanian who proudly marched alongside his undead hordes. Because yeah the guys a blood sucking monster but what politican isn’t? He got that backwater up to snuff and took a real (and literal) bite out’ve bloated bureaucracy and aristocratic corruption.
I genuinely love the trope of “Yeah we know the local lord is a vampire- thank God for that he won’t keel over and leave his dipish nephew in charge”. Which the Elder Scrolls also do with Janus Hassildor.
Because it raises an interesting question. If the best statesman in your nation’s history was still up and running, and just drinking the blood of death sentenced criminals - would you even care?
Because at this point for me absolutely not. Look I’m American two out’ve the four Presidents of my lifetime were friends of Epstein. Outright cannibalism sounds if anything less concerning.
Synsa Runesong, is a Sin’dorei Shaman who identifies more with being Horde then she does being Sin’dorei.
Her childhood was mostly acceptable as she played and practiced various magical techniques and she had her friends. Imaginary friends, or so her parents initially thought, eventually they realized the truth and for a time it didn’t matter.
That changed when Synsa’s mother began to advance up the ranks of the priest hood and found herself suddenly very aware of how the perceptions of her child’s unique nature could be taken. A quel’dorei cavorting with the likes of the Elements and Spirits. A quel’dorei commanded such things it didn’t befriend them. It didn’t negotiate and it certainly didn’t comfort them.
The die was cast and Synsa’s childhood was destroyed for political power. The ritual left Synsa in a rage she couldn’t remember the ritual itself nor could she remember her friends, but she knew she used to have friends and she knew they vanished because of the day she couldn’t remember the day her mother promised to take her somewhere special just the two of them.
The rage nearly killed her and did destroy her relationship with her mother. It wouldn’t be until the destruction of the Sunwell that Synsa would start to really heal. Without the Sunwell to fuel them wards woven into her being began to fail and Synsa nearly went mad as the Dragonhawk and Elements began to visit her again.
Her connection to the Elementals and Spirits weakened with the restoration of the Sunwell and Synsa was forced to confront her past as she returned home. There she found her mother a broken wreck her political career lost as her connections to that life were killed in the war and her rivals hadn’t suffered nearly as badly. With nothing to lose she helped Synsa hunt down those who had warded her and aided in breaking the wards.
The connection restored, though the memories remain lost, Synsa returned to the Horde and there met a young widowed Troll shaman… Rujuja a dark skinned troll adopted into the darkspear tribe, their romance would span worlds and time itself.
The rise of Vol’jin and later Sylvanas to Warchief gave them brief moments of hope, but ultimately they ended as they always do with more pain and suffering.
The worse though was yet to be. In the wake of Sylvanas shattering the crown of the Lich King Synsa learned her time with her beloved was come to an end. A disease ate at her without remorse and without cure. Treatments barely slowed it and within a few years of the sky shattering Synsa was sitting on the beach she’d met Rujuja on holding the cooling body as the sun rose on the third year of their marriage.
Two years later and her old friend Ebonhorn baited her out of her seclusion and to an island where the elements had gone mad and the dragons needed help.
You ever read the Batman vampire comics?
In them Batman meets Dracula. This Dracula is crazy though, he’d been the apex predator of humanity, and his immortal body wasn’t able to deal with toxins it had accumulated. He was actively being killed by his food source.
Just something I remember when people bring up vampires and immortality. It was interesting to me as it used science to explain why a magical being was dying.
Ya know if she needs a Forest Troll friend I’m still workshopping.
Quit SL just as I was really trying figuring her out. Definitely want to revisit the topic but unfortunately I definitely dig Worgen Druid more. But I hate Stormwind so. At a bit of an impasse.
Also thinking of revisiting a Zandalari Paladin who I’d not worked too much on. Idea was he was a rookie Prelate who signed up for a joint training operation where members of the Horde military got swapped out with eachother to learn different nation’s tactics.
He’d lost his parents between the flooding and Battle of Dazar’Alor, and his precious little sister was a promising young Priestess of Paku who really didn’t need his protection anymore.
So he decided to strike out and see the world. And wound up with the Forsaken. Admitably I hadn’t got much past using his culture shock and abject terror at horror movie shenanigans for comic relief.
Dude’s about to soil his golden pants because the ghost of a human child with no eyes and a broken neck just stuck their head through his wall and asked if he wanted to play.
And Ben his CO is just like;
“Hmm? Oh ya zat’s Sally. Vas hung in zee courtyard sixty somesing years ago. Tragic. No respect for personal boundaries but she’s just lonely und vants someone to play vith”
‘So the balls and giggling from the shadows…’
“… I vould hope a soldier of your golden Empire isn’t scared of bored children”
‘But she is the living dead!’
Long Pause
“Anyvay your rations from zee Revantusk should be on stock by Thursday. Apologies for zee misunderstanding. Your Darkspear cousins were more… amenable… to our appetites”
The extra joke is the cowboy got sent to Zandalar. So he’s out there doing this;
Thanks for the offer.
Wouldn’t be opposed to hanging out in game, though not much time for that at the moment.
I want to beat Baldur’s Gate before summer hits.
Sit down games are more problematic than queueing up and wandering off, coming back when the QUEUE POP noise blares. And sometimes I miss it.
I have a playthrough as (in shocking news) a very dutiful dwarf monk who is a good century or more older than the rest of the party, except maybe Halsin. Battle grammy brings me joy and dispenses annoying wisdom to everyone else and listens to (and punches) their problems.
And then I’m doing an Origin playthrough as Wyll because he is very sweet and earnest and I want to ensure he gets to bonk problems in the snoot.
It’s a good game.
Oh it’s S Tier. Truly.
But I’ve not actually beaten it yet. For much the same reason I left the Mass Effect Complete Edition unfinished.
On my old laptop Act 3 was outright unplayable. Just too many moving parts for the old girl to process. So not picturing a $1k device purchase in my future I did a no-no and looked up spoilers.
And I’ll say there are ways to get good endings for some characters but if you want to see the whole squad off you’re stuck with bittersweet all around.
It was particularly crushing to learn Lae’zel wouldn’t be into the decision that saves most of your friends. And credit to the games story because it’s completely paralyzed me.
My heart belongs to athletic foreign gal bully who apparently treats you like a rented mule in the sack. But I can’t in good conscious throw labrador retriever hellgirl or “It’s like I’m looking in a dark mirror and I’m into it” femboy aside so callously.
And Wyll and Gale are just cool. Definitely would party with them but good God are they horny / maudlin.
As for the others I love Slavic idiot bear tamer. Halsin is very much there. And I admit to a crush on Jaheria but only because my upbringing gave me a thing for aging women with Eastern European accents.
Weirdly Shadowheart does nothing for me despite on paper being goth girl bait. Such a whiner. Look lady everyone’s traumatized and has a parasite eating their brain atm I don’t care about your baggage. We all have it. Carry it like the rest or SFU. I’m over here playing with the dog. Learn to embrace the happy moments in between calamity.
Anyways sorry for the rambling. Lotta deleted comments as this really isn’t my personal place to vent.
But uh. Put bluntly everytime my life seems to be getting brighter the sky darkens to the point where potential cancer now only illicits a;
But I do genuinely appreciate all my SF friends who’ve continued to interact with me despite unhinged drunken rambling and probably out’ve nowhere insults and/or flirtation.
For all WoW’s faults this dumb thing on my phone has somehow become like 38% of the reason I come back.
That is why I feel WC2 should get a pass from the “orcs are evil no matter what” because they do kinda have very good reasons why they started the second war.
Just imagine that you are Orgrim Doomhammer, you removed the puppet Warchief and the puppet master is in a coma. You are still at war with Stormwind. Draenor, your home world is a fel ridden hellscape. Your only real choice is to win against Stormwind and pray that is the last of it. Only to find out afterwards that some escape, including Anduin Lothar and that there are more human kingdoms far to the north. So your choices are… fortify your position at Blackrock Mountain and pray that you can withstand a war of attrition against a foe that outnumbers you massively or try and launch a blitzkrieg and crush your soon to be enemies before they have time to react. Option two seems to be a no brainer given retreat is not really an option. And it almost worked until the former puppet master no longer wanted to be a puppet to anyone (Doomhammer or Kil’jaeden) and leaves to who knows where with a large amount of your army. And you decide it is better to see that traitor dead than defeat the Alliance. So you send most of your elite troops to hunt the guy down. Not to mention that Gul’dans betrayal also stopped your forces momentum in Quel’thalas, making Zul’jin and his forest trolls retreat behind the gates of Zul’aman. Cutting you off from a very important ally.
Although I think that last part is only in the WC2 orc campaign and is not reflected in other WC2 sources like the novels or Chronicles vol 2. Personally I feel that the hordes loss of momentum in Quel’thalas should come about from Gul’dans betrayal instead of Doomhammer favouring a conquest of Lordaeron at the last minute. Because there is no way that Orgrim would betray Zul’jin like that. Considering the two of them had a mutual respect for each other.
Does the horde do some terrible things in the second war? Yeah. But to Doomhammers credit, he tries to reel the horde in to minimize those when best he can. His only poor choice of judgement was thinking he had Gul’dan on a tight leash.