All they need is to grab someone or something to teach them proper necromancy. I came up with a few choices to help them with their body problem.
First they could bring back an organization similar to the Cult of the Damned. This cult won’t spread plague and undeath but assemble people who wish to become undead. These cults and cabals would be in most massive cities and some smaller populated areas. In game all it would be is easter eggs, mostly so that it wouldn’t be intrusive to the overall player experience.
Secondly I would go for a living population residing within the Forsaken’s territory. Let’s start off with a few villages of Lordaeron citizens. The next stage of this is to absorb the Kingdom of Alterac into Lordaeron. This of course would require an expansion to their territory. Mostly the Plaguelands and the Alterac kingdom. There will be no seizing territory of reasonably legitimate Alliance claims.
Finally the most risky of the choices is to rehabilitate intelligent ex-Scourge or rogue undead agents into joining the Forsaken. This can help with amassing necromantic knowledge and power.
Utilizing potent necromancy and having a fresh supply of willing bodies would fix the Forsaken’s repopulation problem. There will be no aggression or war towards the Alliance. The dead will stay within their borders until the Horde calls them to serve the Warchief.
There is a continent full of undead up north and Bolvar doesnt do a whole lot more than chillaxing on his chair because he wants to remain concealed, i was under the impression the vomiting evil on the carpet bits was the path they chose.
Also since im here Val’kyr were a mistake, sure every other major character as plot armor (until they dont) but no other leader has literal one-ups. Hell, people nearly had a heart attack when they found out Anduin lives until he’s old but sylv gets away with it somehow
This one has potential, but im not sure if the forsaken having spies everywhere is good for balance. They’d just be like the alliance space ships, meaning ignored.
This one is actually pretty cool and it would a long ways towards making the forsaken less Scourgelite, but i dont think its possible as long as Nathanos and Sylvanas are calling the shots- since they’d just kill and reanimate everyone.
Plus if the forsaken get along with living humans again you’d have to make it so they have reasons to hate the alliance specifically rather than the living as a whole, and while Anduin “goodest boi” wrynn is calling the shots we bois in blue are literally incapable of evil or even holding grudges.
Their repopulation problem hasn’t weakened them in the slightest since it became a plot point in Cata. They haven’t been any weaker for losing valkyr, and certainly the fact that apparently non-humans can now be raised by those very same remaining valkyr means that repopulation isn’t actually a concern now.
Even Sylvanas’ big play in Stormheim was… to enslave the Queen of the Valkyr and become better at raising more undead.
I had the same idea for the Cult of the Damned back during Cata too. If you introduce a group of humans who actively want to become undead, you quell the free will argument AND the debate about why they’re raising more.
Now, the repopulation problem is literally just “why do they need to repopulate in the first place?”
My post isn’t really about Sylvanas or finding purpose for The Forsaken, it’s just solving an issue that they have been presented. Although I am sure that Sylvanas and the Forsaken’s future purpose will undoubtedly factor in solving this problem.
Now to respond to Gharion-
I didn’t really see them as spies but I suppose that would come up. I could certainly see nobles with power delivering secrets hoping for dark rewards. Maybe as a way to combat the Cults of the Forsaken is to use the Order of Embers.
I feel like killing the humans off would just be foolish, even for Sylvanas. The living settlements are essentially a resource to be farmed. If the dead don’t want to be raised then some of their parts will be used. I’ll have to come up with something that explains Lordaeron and Alterac acceptance but not Alliance acceptance. It shouldn’t be too hard.
The rehabilitation route was always how I would have pointed the Forsaken post Lich King. There is no point in antagonizing the world when you could help heal it in your own way.
It usually depends on the authors interpretation. Some authors make it so as long as the creature’s soul and corpse remains, it can be reanimated; others put an artificial limit on them. Incidentally, Game Balance tends to be a common reason why you can’t reanimate a corpse multiple times, with the lore simply acting as an explanation of it.
Warcraft has a very whimsy washy magic system that I don’t think even the main writers can tell how works.
Other than destroying their head, and Undead cannot really be killed off. You could lop off every limb, stab them in the heart, then cut off the head, but unless you destroy that head, they are still there.
That’s according to canon. But each writer has their own take on it, so it changes from time to time what actually kills an undead.
Given how poorly said rule is followed, the head rule about killing Undead is probably a random piece of obscure lore added in by an author that’s never really been paid any real attention to, and simply remained there.
Just like how Night Elves apparently had frost resistance due to some pact with the Dragons, but how many people knew about that piece of obscure lore can be inferred by how often it is acknowledged in the game.
It is why I often like to compare Blizzard’s lore to a loose patchwerk of loose and only occasionally interconnected ideas.
The cult idea works really well for a constant supply of potential Forsakem to raise. They could even see being raised as a second life. Build a population of living to live along side the Undead so that they’d see nothing out of the ordinary about them, at least the children, and things can go from there.
To the topic of just reanimating undead who have died, the Lich King has the raw power to do this almost as many times as he liked (a great example being the Black Knight who was resurrected no less than four times in a row before losing his body and becoming an angry spirit) but there are cases in lore where the cost for other individuals has been too great.
There seems to be some deterioration inherit to the process. Even a fresh corpse, newly resurrected can come back maddened, self destructive, or simply feral. There seems to be a chance of this happening with each subsequent resurrection as well, with it becoming more likely that the undead will be… defective, thanks to the process.
Then there is the case where it seems that if enough time passes the reanimated are much weaker and unintelligent than they once were. This was the case with Onyxia when her brother (who had been resurrected by their father) tried to piece her back together. While she was still a powerful monster she was not as durable as she had been before and she wasn’t capable of speech, only crying in despair and pain upon her second death. It’s also possible Onyxia was not willing to be resurrected, which seems to factor into success.
Enough power could reduce these risks, but then Sylvanas has been trying to secure such power since Legion and so far has been unsuccessful. The best bet for the Forsaken at the moment is to focus on reanimating the few willing among fresh corpses, despite that being an obvious gamble as well.
Should the act of becoming Undead be a ritual in of itself?
That your death should come at your own hands, making it your choice to die, in the manner in which you want to die.
Or should your death come from an outside source?
And who decides if you are ready to become Forsaken? Is there a committee, do you decide if you are ready? What if you join this cult and the forsaken don’t like you, are you kicked out?
Yeah, the durability of Forsaken is one of the biggest moving targets in a lore base full of moving targets.
Are they frail, slowly deteriorating corpses held together by the discarded magic of a fallen foe and whatever strength remains in decaying bone and tissue?
Are they tireless sentient weapons that can be brought back from nearly anything and are better in every way from their mortal selves?
Both are demonstrated in lore. There isn’t the consistency there to make much in the way of declarative statements.