The Cult of the Forgotten Shadow

The Cult of the Forgotten Shadow is a really well fleshed out Forsaken institution. Has an interesting philosophy known as Divine Humanism which is basically ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves’ taken to it’s logical conclusion with it’s tenants of Respect, Tenacity and Power. They even have their own mirror version of the Scarlets called Lightslayers who have askewed the balance preached in favor of Shadow zealotry.

It’s all really compelling stuff. Unfortunately, it’s all from the RPG. And thusly non canon.

The CotFS in WoW. Well it’s certainly there. I’ve played a Forsaken Priest both in Classic and Live, and the CotFS boils down to a SPriest essentially saying;

Yeah I know Shadow is pretty on brand for us but you did role a Priest so learn to heal”.

Then that’s about it. Theres Dark Clerics and Shadow Priests scattered around the expansions. Healing and occasionally leading.

Anyway then it falls apart in Legion. Off screen for unexplained reasons. Then it’s restored when it’s founder Natalie Seline returns her soul to her body and triumphantly rises from her grave in Raven’s Hill Cemetery… as a completely normal human. Despite by definition being undead.

And that’s the last we’ve heard of it since then.

Well with Sylvanas’s Cult of Personality being defunct this would be an absolutely perfect time to strengthen the CotFS. It’d be pretty easy to.

First off, make Natalie Seline undead. She already is. Just give her glowing violet eyes and a more ghostly outfit and we’re golden.

Secondly build them some actual churches. None of this has to be new assets. I really wouldn’t mind if they just took the existing human models and recolored them to be spooky.

Thirdly - just use what’s already in the tabletop RPG. It’s already way more fleshed out than most faiths in WoW and it doesn’t contradict anything. Shadow Ascendants are just Void Form and Voss is already a Lightslayer in everyway but title.

This is like the easiest thing they could do. It would flesh out a faction they needlessly took a sledgehammer too. And it’d just make the game world a bit more interesting.

Also let me wear one of those Sith Pope hats while we’re at it.

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The Cult Of Forgotten Shagdow do have a presence in the MMO and there are NPCs, down to even a long Lightslayer in the game. That said, a lot of the content is from the RPG, simply because there is no other resources. Much of the RP community treats the RPg books as canon, until there is MMO content to cover that content…because in many cases there is no content.

The Cult Of Forgotten Shadow is a multi-headed hypdra. Alas, they were largely overlooked and ignored in terms of Forsaken story, because much of the content written has been a hyper focus on Sylvanas and the Forsaken being her blight throwing goons. For too long there has been a serious lackof depth.

That said, the Cult Of Forgottgen Shadow is a path of personal enlightenment and divine humanism. It is about self empowerment. Making Sylvanas the central figure to it? Nope. The Cult is a fractured scattered thing with no central formal organization.

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The CotFS is such an underutilized story piece imo, and really shines as not only an incredible piece of Forsaken lore but Priest lore in general. I remember really delving into the RPG content and reading something along the lines of Forsaken Shadow Priests’ ultimate goal being to shed their rotting corpse and become an actual shadow and that was so badass to me. It’s sad it never really got explored in much capacity within the game.

I feel like Priesthoods in all facets of WoW kind of get the crap-end of the lore stick. There’s so much rich lore that could be explored with the Priest class alone with literally every race having their own brand of the class but the most we get is stepping stones into Paladin or the blandest Order Hall of all time.

I was stoked to see Natalie Selene, confused as heck when she wasn’t undead and even sadder when she just turned into a nameless Order Hall lackey I could send to get Highmountain rep tokens. At least they updated her model slightly since adding the new human customizations to make her the PoC she is intended to be.

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It’s just so ripe with opportunities. There’s a lot of Old Testament the Light would never do.

But the Forgotten Shadow? Well;

Their holy ability was called Devouring Plague. A ghost that zooms around killing first borns kinda doesn’t seem out of their wheelhouse.

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I unironically want the Cult of Forgotten Shadow to form the basis of a new post-Sylvanas authoritarian theocratic form of government with Natalie Seline at its head.

Natalie Seline > Calia Menethil.

Light vs. Void expansion when?? Give please.

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Absolutely not.

I’m interested in Azeroth. I don’t give a crap if yellow bloom effects can beat up purple particle ones.

Go watch a Window’s music visualizer if that’s a must see.

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To be clear a Light vs. Void expansion in my mind would be completely set in Azeroth, beginning with an AU Yrel invasion of MU Azeroth. No Shadowlands/Lightlands/Voidlands nonsense.

But I’ll do you the favor and not derail your own thread because you hyperfocus on that. This thread is about the Cult of Forgotten Shadows after all.

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I’m just saying they’re the fundamental Ying and Yang of the setting’s universe and they’re representatives are the least interesting things imaginable imo. Yellow geometric shapes VS purple blobs. Count me out. In fact I think Blizz should hire an employee who’s only job is to pointedly load a revolver if CDev broach the topic of blob based main villains again.

But enough about my dream job. I actually think stuff like the Shadow and Light should be expanded upon while still being kept vague.

For example I think the Forsaken’s Shadow Priests should be more Raven themed than anything else. That’s a bird that means Death to some cultures and Cleverness to others so fits right in. Likewise the Darkspear could have more bat themed Shadow magic. Nelves could be more Darkside of the Moon.

Obviously not a lot of this is going to be reflected in moment to moment animations or spell effects. But as someone who didn’t play Priest until Legion then rolled one in Classic, it’s immensely dissapointing what was the most unique by faction class got turned into Team Wind Chime or Team Tentacle. Especially because it leaves Discipline out which tends to be more fire of self determination based.

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I’m totally down with anything that helps with the Forsaken’s growth as a nation, and their spiritual and philosophical beliefs is important in that regard. They are, and should be more than just humans, and elves with a skin condition, and murderous cannibalistic impulses. The writers should be demonstrating how the Forsaken’s experiences in their post-life existence are informing their new religious and cultural beliefs. For most of them, or at least for most of the humans, the bulk of their existence has been as undead, and that should be where they draw most of their knowledge. This would help the Forsaken nation in moving forward instead of constantly having them look backwards. Sadly, that also includes not looking backwards too much at the Sylvanas Era, or more specifically, at Sylvanas as a central figure, because at this point, the Sylvanas topic is just kryptonite both in-universe and out-of-universe.

However, I think one of the fundamental difficulties Blizzard’s writers have, except for when it comes to Legion’s Illidan apparently, is that they struggle with the idea that anyone that isn’t extra lawful good must therefore be either outright evil, or a sympathetically ignorant individual that simply requires the brightest lightbulb in the room to light the way and keep them from eventually genociding everything. So when you ask them to not write the Forsaken, or the Horde in general as horrible, and evil monsters, they interpret that as if we’re asking them to turn the Forsaken into “Defenders of all Life”, or that they are lost little souls in need of salvation from someone morally superior.

Their idea of nuanced is to simply flip the alignment switch on something that is traditionally good, and make them evil, and vice versa. Rather than giving a morally good character reasonable justifications for committing acts of dubious morality, or having an obvious villain consistently and without fail committing acts of good, because they stand to gain something from it.

I see this a lot within the VtM community as well. Many roleplayers can’t conceive the idea that a creature, whose primary relationship with humans is as parasitical blood leeches, aren’t inherently or necessarily monsters despite that. A human might instinctually feel that way about vampires, but there’s no reason why a vampire should agree with that take. Especially if they never actually kill. Those roleplayers often complain if anyone tries to roleplay a vampire as anything other than happily unrepentant, or as eternally depressed, and traumatized by their diet, and condition.

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The Cult of the Forgotten Shadow is a really cool concept and one of the casualties of Blizzard’s little massive cosmology rework in Chronicle. It shovelled the Cult into the realm of Old Gods and Void Lords and this shackled them to certain aesthetics and themes, as well as making the power they wield ‘the bad one’ instead of a fundamental force of creation.

And Lightslayers are also just a really awesome concept and I want them more represented in game.

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Pretty much a lot of this.

The Shadow Ascendant is a legit plot and at this time a few characters can fulfill it, Sylvanas, Anduin, Alleria, Nathalie.

There has been a lot of Jungian shadow work references in Shadowlands. I think this is a facet of spiritual storytelling ingrained in the lore.

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I still maintain that Calia should have been a Forsaken from the get go, and one of the leaders (and chief rival if Sylvanas) of the Cult.

But nope, special undead female Anduin.

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You know Im into that.

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Didn’t even have to be a chief rival. Just someone that was always there helping her people, but using a different identity for “insert any number of good reasons”. Which wouldn’t be too hard for an undead. Probably wouldn’t have been too difficult even if she was human hiding among her people. Not like they have photographs or videos of their royalty plastered around everywhere. No one, not even the other aristocrats recognized Ciri while she was moving around the refugee camps in the Witcher. Calia would’ve simply needed to hide or get rid of any signet rings or any other identifying baubles to hide her identity. Maybe exchange or nose and jawline with someone else’s if she really needed to make sure no one close to her would recognize her.

On the upside maybe they’ll finally have a Priest character do something cool with Priest magic.

Was seriously bewildeing to me they had Anduin running around in plate and taking out a super heavy battle tank with a sword. Why get rid of Varian if you’re going to have Anduin do his shtick?

Like you could’ve had him Shining Force the tank from a trench to blast it upside down. Or use Mind Control the operators and crash it. Or use Fade and phase right through the hull and attack the crew on the inside.

Instead he straight up jumps on it and wacks it with a sword. Which seems like something a desperate and not terribly bright WW1 soldier would do. Only here it works because his sword is magic.

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This sounds really interesting. Do you trust that the current writing team could handle it competently?

Luckily they wouldn’t have to. It’s already written in the tabletop RPG book. Just copypaste that.

There’s actually a lot of great stuff in those books and I’ll never understand why WoW never used it.

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At least Draenei and lightforged have Valen.

RIP everyone else :hugs:

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Officially it’s decanonized since Cataclysm but they do pick a few idea from these books like the name of Boralus for BfA.

Frankly, because they keep picking one idea or two i tend to consider that anything not contradicting the current lore in these books is canon.