The Scarlet Crusade

Lore Story Forum
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See that’s why I miss them and also why thus far I’m cautiously optimistic about DF. Fighting centaurs again sounds great.

Because the nature of MMOs means the stakes can’t ever meaningfully raise all that much. As you’ll still be killing boar and bandits no matter what you’re doing. Only now they’re Maldraxxxi necrohams or Venthyr sinstealers or whatever. We’ve crossed the veil of life itself to go do the same ish we were doing in Durotar and Elwyn. The game can tell me this is more important but it sure as hell can’t show me as whatever way you spin it I’m still collecting ten hog heads for Farmer Bob. Calling him Agricultist Bobbaelax doesn’t change anything it just makes the story incomprehensible.

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This setting followed up the content where we were piloting a protoss ship with a holy orbital laser fighting xbox zerg with mountain dew fire with a single woman shooting cannons from a single flying ship.

Before that, we had fully mechanized airship carriers with fighter wings that were somehow supposed to be about equal to a blimp with rockets stuck on it

I dunno, I feel like the power parity is so bonkers already that’s one of the best parts to ask for a mulligan on so we can try to get things making sense

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Plus the world is framed as never losing it’s threat level story wise. Varian might have had a skull for a level but he nearly got his from a crockolisk in the Southfury River. Likewise one of the Dark Rangers on their way to try to help Nathanos kill a god gets mangled by an Arathi raptor.

I actually wish everything scaled with you to max level. Between having all your abilities, talents, item level power creep and flight I’m pretty sure the starting enemies in say Durotar or Dun Morogh will be very easy to kill. But not completely harmless. And I do like that sense of danger to the world.

Plus with the Scarlets the implication here is for whatever reason the rest of the Horde and Alliance can’t back up their respective monster mash member states. Hence why the Forsaken and Worgen would have to work together to some capacity. And as both of those nations aren’t at full power yet the Scarlets don’t need to be an apocalypse tier threat to menace them.

I’d actually kill for an expansion that’s sorta Vanilla 2 where we’re focused mainly on regional threats with unrelated big bads from patch to patch. WoW actually has a pretty good rogue’s gallery. The Scarlets, the Burning Blade, Venture Co., Bloodsails, Cult of the Damned and so on.

I think this was really well illustrated by expeditions. The surprise 2nd half villains in that game mode can be anything from hostile trolls to pirates to upset elements.

Seriously two maning those on normal with a friend has been my favorite way to level. There’s only 11 islands but they had the bright idea to switch up where the ships land, so I can rarely navigate from memory. Likewise the Azerite springs up in different spots. And with a rotating cast of enemy AI that would probably be enough to make sure now two matches feel samey. But then they went above and beyond with the 2nd half villains also coming from rotating rosters. Who all present different challenges

Such an underrated gameplay mode. If they hadnt have tied it to the AP grind I think it would’ve been much better received. Because my only salient criticism is there desperately needs to be an aggro radius.

Because those scraps with the enemy AI can take you pretty far and wide. And not being able to mount up because a stationary void tendril on the other side of the map still thinks we’re fighting is supremely frustrating…

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Sure. There is a room for niche stories. But where can they go? Relegated to nostalgia and leveling? A zone wide event for a patch cycle, like an Invasion of sorts, at best? I suppose I try to attach some Gameplay purpose to prominent antagonists.

I would laugh if :

The Scarlets make a subtle play for control of the Nobility of Stormwind. They are able to gain a foothold of trust within Stormwind - and that is when they make their move.

It is revealed that The Scarlets were given visions of a Light Crusade, and shown how to summon it to Azeroth. They summon this Crusade into Stormwind - and are dismayed that instead of Humans, its ranks are filled with Draenei, Orcs, and other species.

The Scarlet Leader says something racist, and Yrel smashes him with her War Hammer. Then, she commands her legions to pour through the portal, and claim Stormwind.

In the aftermath, the Alliance begs the Horde for help to liberate the city. And we have a Patch Cycle with a Raid.

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I’d honestly just keep them around to be a regional threat to Lordaeron and Gilneas.

Because if it’s your enemies that define you then we are some dull duck motherers, let me tell you that. No reason we can’t have them stick around. Batman can harp about his moral code all he wants but truthfully we know he keeps the Joker around to keep things interesting.

They’re fun to kill. What’s the fun of being a creature of the night if you can’t fling open the doors of a basicalla and desecrate it with the blood of the faithful as their cries for salvation fall upon deaf ears of their false god?

Plus these are basically N@ZIs so it’s actually a morally upstanding thing to do for once.

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That is why I would love a cinematic where :

That does not have to be the end of them. They could be an LFR wing of a few Scarlet Characters in Raid with Yrel and her Lightbound. The Scarlets can also exist as remnants, like they tend to do.

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I mean villains who are zealots or villains because they’re zealots are overdone. We can have villains who aren’t motivated by ideology or desire to destroy everything.

:point_up:

You got it.

Ow, the edge!

Jokes aside, one problem is too many people want villains to be nothing more than punching bags, either for a power fantasy or to play moral king of the mountain. They want their villains to be nasty this way either to use them as stand-ins for whoever or whatever they hate in real-life, to say “I may do ‘x’ wrong, but at least I’m not as bad as ‘y’, so I don’t have to better myself.”, or both.

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If you’re gonna have an enemy, you need one or the other, though I disagree on the idea you can somehow have an non-ideological world destroyer. If the threat isnt world ending, an existential threat to your direct existence, then it is ideological as it a direct challenge to the way ones entire way of life and existence, the structures in which they live in and benefit from.

Ideology surrounds everything. You cannot be isolated from it and have antagonists, or protagonists, do their thing without its motivation. Becoming a knight within the Stormwind Royal Guard is ideological - one that, at the very least, tolerates or accepts monarchy is an acceptable form of governance. Still believing in the Horde as an institution has a level of national self-determination ingrained within it in addition to, now at least, a belief in a representative republic. To be a follower of the Old Gods/Deathwing, Defias, Argent Dawn, Garrosh, Sha’tar, Keal’thas, Gul’dan, Cenarian Circle, etc etc is to believe that their ideals have merit and line up with your values, or are at least more preferable to whatever order of things you had known. That is an ideological choice. It can be the incorrect one, but one nonetheless.

Most every big bad villian and the ones in between have been given some reasoning to their motivations, given some ideological formation. Well written or not is a different story, but regardless have been given something.

Wanting to punch theocratic fascists in a game is just as ideological as somehow having an issue with doing so under the guise of this radical centrism bit going on. One at least knows where they stand whereas the other is so steeped in their own ideological outlook that can’t see beyond it.

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I’ve always been a huge fan of the Scarlet Crusade story and I definitely second their revival. I think as long as there are living descendants of Lordaeron there is a case to be made for Scarlets to exist, even on the fringes. I know it’s cliche and overdone, but I just like the imagery and they’re actually INTERESTING as an organization in that you can somewhat see how one could travel that path so blindly.

I will say, I prefer them WITHOUT Dreadlord influence. I think we can all agree from real life experience that religious zealotry on it’s own is enough to be blatantly evil without external workings at play.

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Yeah the Dreadlord bit was always kind of a weak twist, and a pointless one at that. Because Varimathras with the Forsaken and Balnazaar & Mal’Ganis pulling the Scarlet’s strings never lead to anything.

Varimathras just pulls a really bad attempt at a coup on his own. For reasons that make even less sense now as he was presumably also working for the Jailor. Seriously that’s maybe the silliest part of the Sylvanas book. The Dreadlords are cosmic masters of deceit and spycraft older than some stars and Varimathras’s big gambit is to go “Hey come over here to this dark windowless room with a buncha guards covering their faces for no reason I’ve got something important to show you”.

And then it almost works

When the Scarlets just going insane because they’re isolated fanatics dealing with a foe pretty much designed to spark paranoia makes sense to me. Plenty of IRL groups set out to build a shining city on the hill only to descend into violent theological schisms, witch hunts and intense xenophobia. You don’t really need a literal devil to make that happen.

Plus they’d just make good prey for the Worgen and Forsaken. If they’re going to actually remake Gilneas that’ll require also redoing at least Silverpine, and the two factions sharing a border are going to need something to fight other than eachother. Because this is a RPG so if there’s ever a peaceful, stable region it’ll only remain as such for the intro before ish goes pear shaped.

And the Scarlets are just good fodder for the two Halloween factions. It’s the superficially monstrous appearing Forsaken and Worgen against the ostensibly heroic but inwardly atrocious Scarlets.

I think that would get WoW back to it’s disobedient fairytale roots. In WC3 the handsone fairytale prince with the square jaw and great hair is the villain who nearly damns the world. And the mean mugging Orc on the other cover is the chosen hero who gets a mythical weapon and saves the world by helping to unite disparate, squabbling nations against a ruthless, catastrophic foe.

So in a similar vein we show a well tread fantasy trope; blessed knights in shining armor taking the fight to creatures who wouldn’t look out of place chasing Linnea Quigley around a cemetary. But it turns out here it’s the knights who are the real monsters. Nothing pulitzer worthy but it’s a decent disobedient fairytale beat that gives both factions something to do that’ll be nostalgic for old timers and fresh for newcomers.

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I think the silliest part of the Sylvanas book for me (and her entire story post-LK defeat) is just how STUPID they made her for the sake of plot, this particular scene included. She was already a well fleshed out character and we KNEW she wasn’t a moron, so it just felt like a slow, grueling descent of a much beloved character because they needed her to be a moron for their lame story. It screams the same vibe as Varys in GoT when he suddenly became a blabbermouthed idiot after years of being portrayed as one of the greatest players in Westeros.

Speaking of Gilneas, I feel like there would be a case to be made as well for Gilnean Scarlets with a particular ire for Werewolves. I always felt like Lord Godfrey’s story didn’t truly end where it did, or at least his ideals. It would be interesting to have a Gilnean sect, I feel like their armor/design could be tops.

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Pretty similar honestly. I really do feel like at one point that book was supposed to be for a different plot. Because going back to Sylvanas’s past and adding more context to some of her pricklier moments would make sense if she was going to take on a more heroic role. Which I still do think was the idea at some point as they have her framed as unambiguously heroic in both the Legion cinematic and loading screen.

But as presented it was just a baffling story. The framing device in particular made everything kinda hilarious. As she’s going over all these incredibly personal and intimate moments of her history with a captive Anduin who is little more than a colleagial associate she’s maybe shared 20 words with previously.

Shame it never got a cinematic. I’m picturing Anduin sign waving between boredom and bewilderment as Sylvanas works her way through several bottles of wine. As telling more or less a stranger about that time I asked for it rough after my parent’s murder just does not seem like the type of information I’d soberly volunteer.

Everything about Gilneas feels really rushed. I mentioned before how I was actively confused when I got to Darnassus. As Red Silverpine sets up a parallel Blue storyline. You frequently arrive at the aftermath of some daring Worgen raid but never confront nor even see this crack Worgen commando causing the Forsaken such a headache. I’m convinced that was suppose to be the Alliance players and at some point it was going to be a bit like Ashenvale with parallel storylines.

Instead though Gilneas’s story is as abrupt as it is incompatible with the Forsaken’s.

“Oh no you are now a beastman with but tenuous control over your feral instincts and-”

Ah it’s fine. Some purple dudes turned up with moonjuice. That’s all sorted.

“Oh no the Forsaken have seized the city and it’ll no doubt take-”

Ah it’s fine. We got a milita together to chase them out’ve the capitol.

“Oh no the full might of the Horde is baring down and you! The Banshee Queen plans to detonate a massive bomb poisoning the whole region-”

Ah it’s fine. Turns out those purple dudes from earlier can coordinate the evacuation of an entire country with about 20 minutes head’s up. Just once though, apparently.

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Pointing out that having ideologues as villains - especially religious ones - are overused in WoW isn’t radical centrism.

Religious zealotry as villain motivation is so 1995, give us some other zealotry for a change in WoW.

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It’s pretty good motivation for villains who want to bedevil the Forsaken and Worgen. Who are the main point of this. The Scarlets are a preexisting faction who’ve continually announced their intentions to retake Lordaeron and have recently shown their contempt for the Worgen as well.

Why invent a new enemy who’s going to have more or less the same motivations when we already have an iconic preexisting one that multiple characters have either an intimately personal relationship with or a somewhat similar ideology to that would warrant reappraisal by their presence?

Because this is a RPG if they’re going to actually revisit Gilneas and Lordaeron they’ll have to put content there. Which means we need something to fight. And if they’re no longer killing eachother then they’ll need a mutual enemy. And the Scarlets are absolutely perfect for that job.

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Don’t you see how it cheapens the “survivors of Lorderaen” narrative if the only ones we see are fanatics only trotted out whenever the player characters/authors want a punching bag?

Why invent a new enemy? Because it would allow the writers to open up different story avenues and add new characters that can carry the story on. They don’t have to have the same motivations, just the same actions. The “disobedient fairytale” is going full circle, soon it’ll be disobedient to have a WoW story where the shining knights are actually heroes and the grotesque are the villains.

The Scarlet Crusade offshoots are as milked as Garrosh was in Revendreth.

Even the most entertaining pre-existing enemies can get boring through overuse.

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And Garrosh fans were pissed because that was his end - it was not enough for them. They wanted that character further milked.

For all the complaints about Sylvanas hogging the screen from people who hated her to begin with, she had fans who were over the moon with her arc, and are eagerly awaiting news about her exploits in the Maw.

It is almost like people enjoy different things.

Clearly, there are Warcraft fans who enjoy the Scarlet’s role as villains, and want to see their story presence return and expanded. You simply saying : "I hate when faith in religion is used in a negative light " does not mean every one else shares your view.

Many fans are looking forward to either Yrel and her Lightbound or the Scarlets making a play - because they have been teased. And Turalyon has spoken about reclaiming lost Alliance territory, so people are waiting to see what that will look like. The Light has been slowly set up over multiple expansions as more than just some vague power people revere and draw energy from. Some of us are waiting for the pay off, instead of more loose threads that go no where.

It is a matter of taste. I would not say quantity is the major factor - quality is.

Something can be used often, and it can maintain its entertainment value through quality. The Old Gods are used as villains much more than the Scarlets, and people still clamor for Old God lore. Probably because it lifted heavily from Lovecraft’s cosmic horror. If people complained about Nzoth in BfA, it was that he was given short shrift, and he deserved more. Not that they are over used.

That seems ludicrous. You want Blizzard to develop an enemy out of no where, to fulfill the same purpose and do the same actions as the Scarlets - but with a different motivation? Just because you do not like faith in religion being maligned? That is part of the problem with Warcraft lore - Blizzard rushes to develop new stuff while leaving perfectly good older stuff in limbo.

The survivors of Lordaeron who want to chase out the Undead and reclaim the land for the living has been part of the Forsaken identity since its inception. It is already part of the narrative.

It is only quite recently where the Alliance started considering respecting any Forsaken claims for Lordaeron, and mostly through Anduin’s commands and Faol’s presence. That may not stick.

Having survivors of Lordaeron attempting to reclaim their land from the current denizens does not cheapen their narrative, if that has been their narrative for a long time.

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Well for starters;

Now this isn’t strictly speaking necessarily as populations don’t matter in WoW. But my idea was to have the Scarlets pull up and help save Elywnians from the unleashed Scourge. Rehabilitating their image and then selling younger disenfranchised humans on the idea of a reconquista. On restoring humanity to it’s halcyon days of the 7 kingdoms.

I don’t think the Alliance would explicitly side with them. Especially not when they attack Gilneas. But you could have multiple characters who don’t actively discourage them. The Forsaken are a pretty formidable threat as their soldiers can shrug off the sort of damage that’d be fatal to anyone else. Wanting to keep them preoccupied could come from a place of pragmatism.

Besides the sensible human Lordaeronians haven’t gone anywhere. The Argents are still around. There’s tons of living Lordaeronians in Hearthglenn. I know because you go into the still infected areas to grab stuff they had to abandon for them. They’re just happy to be home and don’t mind Orcs or Undead hanging around if they’re chill.

In fact the Alliance starting to actually recognize the Forsaken as the actual heirs of Lordaeron they have to show a modicum of respect to might trigger a wave of resentment. Especially after an unleashed Scourge attack.

You mean like the Jailor? Yeah that went great. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The Scarlets are iconic baddies who have a cool look and are fun to fight. Anything new is just going to be a watered down version of them.

Bruh Stormwind gets more than enough screentime and their standard unit is a knight in shining armor. They kill demons, void monstrosities and all other sorts of ugly creatures in it. What are you even talking about?

They haven’t been a major presence since Vanilla. They’ve had cameos in Cata and Legion post Wrath but that’s about it. I wouldn’t count pamphlets in BFA most players didnt even notice as a staring role.

Good thing they’re not overused then. The Amani have been more relevant than the Scarlets. They had a neighborhood in Dazar’Alor and a minor role in the Sylvanas novel at least. The Scarlets were just a minor obstacle in the Priest and DK class hall questlines.

And even if they were - the Forsaken and Worgen working together absolutely is something new. They’re a ready made antagonist for the two Halloween factions with a preexisting reason to attack them both.

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I think you’d be exactly the type of player that would be duped into joining the Scarlet Brotherhood. They are a rising threat in the Alliance. The Scarlet Brotherhood are a threat to the Forsaken, they are a threat to Gilneas. trying to whitewash them will only blow up in your face.

It seems like the Scarlets have switched from religious zealotry to political zealotry, and it’s no less insidious.

Yes, this. Trying to whitwash the long history of them being the villians of this franchise isn’t going to make them “new and fresh” it’s just sweeping the mess under the rug and calling the house clean.

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Tbf it was always both. Hence the CS Lewis quote about theocrats.

I do find this reinterpretation of them as harmless doofuses to be bizarre though. The Scarlets are pretty explicitly shown to be bad news.

In Vanilla they cause one of the saddest. You find a dying Forsaken prisoner who’s dying wish is to recover his wedding ring and return it to his wife. The Scarlet Inquisutor ripped it off him and gifted it to his own spouse.

So you do and the Forsaken wife doesn’t go on some vengeance speech. She’s just completely heartbroken. She’s lost everything now. Can you imagine that? You’re a victim of the Scourge but are one of the ones who manage to break free. And somehow against all odds so is your husband. And then he’s captured and tortured to death by people you used to call your countrymen.

To this day that’s one of the bleakest quests in game. They also murder Tirion’s son. That’s another sad af quest because you’ve gotten through to the young Fordring. He sees the Scarlets for what they are and goes to join his dad and they kill him.

Plus their return could allow us to shed more (no pun intended) light on pre war Lordaeron and Gilneas. Lordaeron was always a very religious place and Gilneas never got along fantastically with their neighbors. We don’t know much about Gilnean belief structures but we do know they had Harvest Witches, had no Paladins and their Kul Tiran cousins eschew the Light entirely in favor of the Tidemother.

So were there always cultural tensions there as Gilneas at least didn’t follow the Light as strongly as their big neighbor.

Plus we could explore Voss’s past a bit. I’m convinced she was murdered in her sleep by the Scarlets. In Deathknell everyone but her vividly remembers dying. She doesn’t, and acts as if she’s trapped behind enemy lines until you show her a mirror. Then later a Scarlet sent to execute her remarks how she was too dangerous in life and is certainly too dangerous as a ‘Scourge witch’.

So my hypothesis is she was always a bit controversial as they taught her how to use Shadow magic. But it was seen as an ends justify the means thing. But then Voss gets older and starts questioning the Scarlet teachings. So her dad has her offed. And they clearly killed her in a way where there wasn’t a struggle. Maybe it was posion or a knife in her sleep but either way - no recollection of how she died. Never saw it coming.

Plus there’s still the Scarlet Risen kicking around. It remains bizarre to me that the Scarlets became the very thing they swore to destroy and then there isn’t even an undead character on hand to remark on the irony. Plus you’d think the Forsaken would want to free the ones enslaved by Balnazaar. They have a complicated history but those are still enslaved undead. The Forsaken get pretty touchy about that.

There’s just a lot of fertile ground to explore there.

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It’s easy to dismiss the papers as being the ramblings of a harmless doofus, but we also have to think about the source and who wrote them. Joseph the Crazed (or Joseph the Awakened as he calls himself) is currently awol and unaccounted for. The person who wrote those pamplets has intimate knowledge about the inner workings of the Alliance. He knew about the Gathering and what happened. Someone who could infiltrate the Alliance if needed.

I bet Joseph is going to make an innocent reappearance soon. Jospeh says a line of dialogue that is pretty interesting, he says “The Light is the true path.” Turalyon has also said these words. This is where Turalyon and Joseph’s paths with converge. Hypothetically if Joseph did write those pamplets, Turalyon is clearly the person he would support for King.

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