So, after watching the new Doctor Strange (Holy hecc certain character played by absolutely not terrifying person is terrifying) I figured on an interesting subject.
If your character was to have multiple versions of themselves across the many universes, what is it that would be the one ongoing constant between them and that would help to drive their character?
Nope, this is not actually a spoiler. This is a thing to poke at since I had to craft how not to spoil
Poor decision-making skills.
I’m yet to see the movie! Sounds exciting though!
Fun fact I actually did this in game, but never ended up RPing it lol. Sorta quit the game before getting a chance to play around with it.
Mainline Sarestha is a Forsaken, obviously. In short the backstory would be the same up to a point. She grew up in Lordaeron city in a fairly religious family (father was a priest, mother was a paladin) and largely enjoyed a very peaceful and happy life. She was about 13 on the day that Arthas returned from Northrend, killed his father, and unleashed the Scourge upon the capital.
In the main timeline her mother was killed that day, and her father, a pacifist who previously refused to use the Light combatively at all, was forced to destroy his wife’s reanimated body. This broke Sarestha’s father, and led him down a path of anger and extremism that eventually led him to the Lordaeron remnants that became the Scarlet Crusade. He took his young daughter with him, which led to her being rather indoctrinated with extremist ideologies, until her own death defending the Scarlet Enclave from the Death Knights of Acherus as an adult, some years later. (How she became a death knight, as it were).
In this alternate timeline for Alliance Sarestha, it was the other way around. Her father was killed, and her mother survived. Believing the rhetoric of Jaina Proudmoore, the family followed her to Kalimdor, alongside other Lordaeronian refugees. Thus, instead of going east to the Plaguelands, Sarestha went West, and ultimately came to be citizen of Theramore. Alas, her mother still dies in this timeline, but much later on, when Garrosh Hellscream unleashed his mana bomb upon the city.
Across both of these timelines, Sarestha’s strong desire to restore lost happiness remains, albeit on a level she doesn’t quite understand herself. On both sides she’s nationalistic, obsessed with Lordaeron restorationism (with either the Forsaken or the Alliance at the helm, depending, but the same core ideology). But in reality a lot of this comes from a subconscious yearning for the life she had before the Scourge - a life of peace and prosperity. This leads to something of a no-compromise attitude. Mainline Sarestha doesn’t despise the Alliance, at least not anymore, but she regards them with great suspicion, fearing that they plan to reclaim Lordaeron at any moment. As far as she’s concerned, the Forsaken are the rightful heirs of Lordaeron and the Stormwind-led Alliance has no claim whatsoever. Alliance Sarestha actually does hold the Horde in contempt - the destruction of Theramore and Teldrassil makes them as irredeemable in the Scourge, in her own opinion. Unsurprisingly her attitude to Lordaeron (and Dustwallow Marsh, even) is total Alliance control, believing that the Horde do not deserve these lands.
Anyway I’ve really only thought about those two particular possibilities. I’m sure there’s a universe where Sarestha remained Scourge, where she remained loyal to Sylvanas, and others… but I haven’t thought about them quite so much.
I kinda toyed with the idea of different servers being different timelines with my toons at the beginning of the expansion when I transferred over. I made an Undead version of Calnos back on my old server, even wrote a short story about him. Not to spoil the movie, but man now I’m inspired…
As for the actual question, the basic pitch for Calnos has always been “Footman who became a Warlock.” So the questions alternate universe versions of him would tackle “How did he become a Warlock this time? How does his past as a Footman inform him now? If he made different choices as a Footman, would he still become a Warlock later?”
There’s probably an alternate universe were he stepped aside at Stratholme and became a paladin instead, for example. Could be fun to explore the concepts.
Being rabidly Nationalistic (right up until a series of unfortunate events forced him to re-examine his own biases).
Juspeon was already a stupid multiverse idiot baby before it was cool.
Essentially during a session Juspion peered into the void, saw all the possible realities and decided to visit all of them. Which may or may not have had a few portal and timeline malfunctions.
One of his dice master abilities was Juspion turning into a different multiverse version of himself which depended on the dice roll.
Sometimes he was an Eredar overlord ordering an orbital Fel bombardment or a simple Draenei redneck farmer in a simple straw hat with a sawed off shotgun. It would be fun showing up to events in really weird transmog outfits.
Anyway now that I’m guildless I might tone him down a bit since it will make finding RP easier when or if I return to the game.
An iteration of my warlock has existed in every mmo and online multi-player game that I have played with my wife. I’ve played him in WoW, FFXIV, Wildstar, Fallout76, D&D and BESM to name a few. My Mordesh Engineer/Medic in Wildstar was my absolute favorite version of him.
His typical common theme is he’s a brilliant but absolutely insane scientist and inventor obsessed with technology and experimentation. He’s also an egomaniac and total narcissist.
Did our characters meet in the multiverse as versions of one another? Cause Arradaer is pretty much the same.
Oh God. We both have double letters in our names too. Is…is this a crossover episode now?
Nah, it’s probably the movie where AU Vanndrel is the twist villain that is revealed to shock everyone.
Nah, that’s honestly to be expected more than being a twist.
The twist would be the reveal that MU Vanndrel is actually the villain and has been this entire time.
Ǫ̨̧̛͚͕͙͖̟͙͉̃͛̆̏́͂͘p̨̙̱̗͔̜͉͆̂̿͌̀̓͛̔̍̕e̷̥͖͍̖̺͔̬̰̔́͐̽̽̈́͑̊̃͢͡n̮̼͚̮̙̙̟̓̏̇̽̉̃̕͢ t͍̳̟̪̦͖͖̱̞́̑̍̏̃͂̓́̏h̶̡̻̜͉͇̟̲͙̜͑̾͂͒͋̂͟ę̢̳̦̥̺̊͂̎͗̚͡ Ď̨͇͚̝̦̲̄͑́͒̔̏̕̚͝o̱͕̥͓̿̏̅̒̏̉͟͞o̶̻̟͉̣̞̲̯͔̦̩̊́͑͊̂͗̕͡r̵̭̟͚̭̭̼̐̀̌̿̔́͝
̡̗̥͉̳̮̈́̈́̓̅͊́̕͟T͈͉̯͇͋̉̆̆̃̒̕ͅữ̷͍̝͇̻̗̮̦̿̃͊̐̍ͅr̡̛̪̜͉͖̥͙̯̯̓̒̄̂͢͡n̨̩͇̝̰̝͎͓̍̈́͗͂̾̈́̓͆ t̷̲͚͙͔͖͉̋̌̇̾͂̃h̛̞̬͈̮͋͊̚͢͝͠͠ę̢̥̹̳̬͙̼͇̮̆̐̊̅̈̐̚̕ K̶̼̰̟̮͇̗͒̊̒̊͆̏͘e̴̡̧̡̪͔̹̲̳̿͐̾̈͗͘͟ŷ̸͉̭̟͕͚̽̅̽̾͑̉͘
̢̛̘̪̥͇̝͕̭̮̙̑̆̐͒̅͒̾͡Ś̨̛͎͙̙̠̘̳̼̄͊̓͟ė̵̹͙͖̣̮̜̓̋̑͐̓̓̓̆̚ẗ̶̟͙̞͙͇͕͚́̿̏̄̓̔̚͞ U̯̺̮̩̘̲̒̒͋͂̉̔͘͠͡s̨̛̝͓͓̞̹͓̲̒̊̾͗͘͟͡͞͞ F̴̨̬͕̖͙͐̈̅̄̒̕ŗ̠̝̙̖̬̟̠̮͇̄̋̉̒̕̚̚e̡̨͙̹̱̫̜͌̔̄́̓͜͟͞é̮͚͓͍͍̈̊͒̑̈́̓̊̅͞!̴̝̤̻̬̤̄̿̽̀͆͑̏͢͞͡
Solving problems by running away from them.
True, but we have MU Vanndrel slotted to appear in at least 3 more movies.
My horde main Karr ( arcane mage) has been a wibbly-wobbly time-lord sort since about cataclysm. The background i came up for for him was that durning silvermoons fall he lost his wife and 2 daughters. He refused the fel, and traveled to the time caves in search of the bronze dragonflight. Hoping to enhance his small chronomancy talents and travel back in order to save his family.
The bronze flight obviously noped on that.
So he sat on the idea, and instead served the bronze flight, subsisting off the raw arcane energy from the sands of time to sustain his mana-addiction. (This has had various effects on him, turning his skin a sort of sandy-beige and causing it to be coarse to the touch. Hes also kept his Quel’dorei blue eyes which i was thrilled they finally added as an option for customization.)
Once wod happened, and he discovered that time magic could also be used to visit alternate timelines, that became his new focus. He basically noped out of our timeline and travels to alternate azeroths in hopes of finding one where he was killed during the fall, but his wife and daughters lived. So that his little family could be reunited.
I had a tumblr for a while where i posted his “journal entries” from traveling to these alternate azeroths detailjng the things that were different from our own but haven’t done one since early bfa.
My favorite I came up with was an alternate where Jaina put on the helm of domination instead of Arthas, and succeeded in culling the world of life. Was sort of a zombie appocolypse situation with only a few pocket holdouts of adventurers and one or two main npcs still clinging to life in remote places.
I might of accidentally made this very concept with a future DnD game about to take place with my friends this Friday. I made the guy as a sort of ‘i’m bummed out the other one never took place and on perma hiatus I don’t really care myeh’ and before I knew it I made a bloody SCP.
Forsaken elf that ate the forbidden time-sand in search of knowing everyone’s fates as a sort of peace and tranquility to all turns into a time-torn insane man. That’s the short version, the long version involves listening to The Twinning several dozen times while playing half life one. It hurts to voice him but worth.
The fun thing about ghosts is that they’re an extremely universal cultural phenomenon. Pretty much ever single culture independent of each other has come up with the concept of people lingering after death for one reason or another. So Bates’s core concept of being a ghostly protector/patroller can be transplanted into pretty much any era, setting, or genre.
Wanna give him a motorbike a la ghost rider? Check. Wanna make him a hologram instead of a traditional spirit? Cyberpunk Bates! What if he survived the First War but fell with Lordaeron? Time to patrol Silverpine Forest, the second best zone in WoW. The possibilities are endless!