I’m just a visitor to the server but I’ve been having a doozy of a time with my character and people being a bit overzealous in claiming it is a hard lore-break. So i wanted to see what the more Horde centric, and tangentially thanks to the Forsaken, undead centric server’s thoughts would be on the matter!
My character concept isn’t as important, but in short she was a druid in life, brought back and still preaches Druidic lessons while very vaguely hinting that she is now practicing Blood Magic or another form of corrupted Life magic.
Is Undeath/Death Magic Opposite Life Magic?
While it may seem like a no brainer question, ive noticed that more often than not Undeath/Death magic is counter to Light magic, while Life magic’s closest direct opposition is Elementals. Im sure that more has to do with forest preservation and wildfires but I digress. I’ve also found a twitter post from a dev referenced a lot where he said Blood Magic is a tortured form of Life magic and that is used pretty frequently by Undead.
Are Ghosts Undead?
Again this feels like a “no duh” type of question but I’ve seen decent to strong points made both in real life and in game that what we think of as ghosts are more like echoes of things as compared to a conscious continuation after death. I ask because I have found a few Undead Druid mobs that are ghosts, and have had quests related to them.
Is Life Magic Learned or Gifted?
This is the one that I’m just struggling to get a straight answer despite it being referenced in lore. Some magic schools in WoW just require the knowledge to perform them like Arcane and Death, and others require that you channel it through something like Light via Will or the Elements through Elementals.
Life magic talks a lot about it being pulled from the world around you, but is that an agreement or just the origin of the resource?
Well put @Thelydahlia. As I enjoy leveling this character I have been struggling with this very thing and whether or not I could properly and convincingly pull it off due to Night Elf lore. Blood DK is surprisingly engaging and fun.
Afterthoughts:
As I ponder it, blood is life and death and decay are a part of the cycle of life. Death Knights and other undead or ghosts just take a more active role. It really wouldn’t be any different than an adventurer meeting their death at the gnashing teeth of a pack of wolves.
I don’t understand why anyone would call this a hard lore-break. There’s no reason why becoming undead would have to erase a person’s living memories or opinions, and undead characters do blood magic all the time.
I haven’t seen any indication that Life magic is opposed to Elementals or Elemental magic myself. Light does seem to oppose Death, Shadow, and Void, and it’s hard to say whether it’s intentional that it opposes all of them or just confusing because in the past they’ve been the same thing.
I personally go with the idea that Light and Void are opposed and Life and Death are opposed, but also that Light/Life and Void/Death are related.
It seems to depend on the school of practice. Nelf druidism seems to be heavily characterized by an attitude of partnership with and/or service to nature and the creatures, spirits, and gods thereof, and nelf druidism is the style that we see most often, but I don’t think it’s meant to be a representation of the only way Life magic can be used. I do suspect, though, that if Life magic were being drawn forcefully, it would be more likely to manifest in (or be perceived as) a corrupted form.
If you haven’t already, you might want to look into Kul Tiras quests that have to do with Kul Tiran/Drust druidism. I’m not very familiar with the content, but I have the impression Death magic is involved in that druidic tradition to some degree.
There’s no reason why such a character couldn’t exist. While death can be a huge change, there are plenty of undead characters that not only retain the big parts of who they were in life but even use the powers they did in life. For example, Alonsus Faol is an undead priest that retained his religion and personality to such a degree that Turalyon outright admits he’s still his old friend despite appearance.
Yes, Life and Death are opposite cosmic forces; at least according to the chart. But that doesn’t quite mean they are opposed to one another. Just like Light and Void or Order and Disorder, they’re meant to counter-balance each other.
And that’s the actual beauty of Druidism that I think a lot of people misunderstand. It’s all a BALANCE. Every aspect of the world has to live in harmony. Tipping the scales too far in one way can lead to a huge shift that is irreversible. That’s why we fought against the Legion in the Legion expansion. That’s why we went and quelled Death in the Shadowlands expansion. That’s why we fought against the Primalists in the Dragonflight expansion; It’s all for the sake of keeping those cosmic forces in check.
Druids should canonically be the most powerful class in game. They really have the power to do absolutely everything to some degree. It’s why they should be so rare and why they can be interpreted in so many ways. It’s not just about trees and animal shapes. It’s literally standing to keep the world in perfect harmony.
I’ve always said that they should remove life and death as fundamental forces. You can still have them as magic, like time.
What is life? A being of order or chaos are alive, no? Does that make them less than 100% pure?
If life is a force, then yes, they are fake. If life is not a force, then no, they are true.
If a thing can be killed and death is a force, then that thing was not pure. By removing the life and death force, you can have the beginning and end of anything.
As to druidism in Forsaken, i think that is a learned trait/discipline after death. Mostly because no human or Elf were really druids before the Scourge, but also because whatever magic you used in druidism while alive, is severed in death. Just as Necromancy is Necromancy, no matter the magic, druidism is druidism. Only this time, it’s shadow based.
Life and Death are diametrically opposed cosmic powers in WoW. Light and Death are not diametrically opposed, but are on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
Undead can wield the Light.
Undead shouldn’t be able to wield Life.
Just like Void Elves shouldn’t be able to be paladins. Or even non-shadow priests.
But Blizzard doesn’t play by any rules including their own, so go nuts.
Oh, and aren’t the Drust some kind of death druids? I don’t know, but whatever. Play what you like.
Death is part of the cycle of life, you could have your character lean into that. Life is important but you can’t have life without death. Uncontrolled life will eventually destroy itself, so death is needed to keep the balance.
You could even lean into mushrooms as your druid magic plant theme which is cool.
I imagine the route blizz is going is that all magic is not necessarily good or evil and the different cosmic forces balance each other something something y’know.
I think this argument presumes that because the words “life” and “alive” are related and because we tend to use the word “alive” to refer to anything that is animate, aware, and sapient, it must be the case that if there is a force called Life then that must be the specific force that infuses anything that is animate, aware, and sapient.
This doesn’t need to be true. A mortal humanoid animated by Life and an arcane wraith animated by Order may both animate, aware, and sapient, and we might call both “alive” because that’s just a colloquial way in which we use that word – and if the arcane wraith is destroyed and its energy converts into Chaos as a result of the terminal disruption of its Order, we may say it has “died” without meaning that Death force was involved.
First of all, let me be the first to apologize if anyone here has given you a hard time (outside of trying to be helpful) for the character idea. In short, I think you’ve already done a commendable amount of research to figure out if and where the character fits into lore and how best to manage that without infringing on anyone else’s immersion.
Being the lover of (un)dead things that I am, I’ll weigh in here. My personal take is that undead druids might fall into the same category as undead priests: absolutely lore friendly (and quite cool if I do say so myself)— ahem
—but also an anomaly, simply due to the fact that preserving the cycle of life and death seems to be quite important to certain deities in the world of Warcraft. Death magic itself also seems to now have been gently separated from “undeath” in the canon with the addition of the “necromancy is necromancy, regardless of the magic used” claim by Margrave Sin’dane.
Arhuu said it quite well: balance is everything, particularly with respect to druidic magic. And like Eledris, I would highly encourage you to go quest through Drustvar, because it’s a beautiful zone with an incredible aesthetic and also has a lot of druidic lore that concerns the Drust and the Thornspeakers, who carried their druidic teachings into the present era. They shed some light on the idea that druidism is just as concerned with death as it is with life.
For the purposes of understanding how these cosmic forces relate to your character, “Life” magic itself might be better understood as “nature” magic (since Nature is the manifestation of Life in the Great Dark, similar to Holy being the manifestation of Light, Shadow being the manifestation of Void, etc.). Unlike holy magic, nature magic doesn’t seem to directly harm or destroy the undead in a significantly effective way. From an in-universe perspective, perhaps this is because the domain of Life is less concerned with “order” (lowercase O, as in “the natural order of life and death”) than the domain of Light (since Light has its “one truth” and seems very intolerant of anything that goes against it).
Ironically, I think Life is closer to the disorder side of things due to its unpredictable and tenacious tendency to spread and reproduce (insert obligatory Jeff Goldblum quote here). Take for example Aman’Thul’s dismay at Eonar having planted Elun’Ahir in an effort to combat the corruption of the Old Gods during the era of the Black Empire. Not being an instrument of Order (capital O now), Aman’Thul promptly uprooted the nascent world tree.
But picking apart these things and finding the best “correct” answer requires more of a deep dive into cosmology than I’m willing to muster these days. I cannot claim the highest degree of expertise on WoW’s magic (even though I try), so take my comments with a grain of salt.
As for your other questions:
They certainly seem to be, but I don’t think this is a hard and fast “always” or “never” answer. There has definitely been lore that’s stated that ghosts are angry phantoms caught between life and death, and that their apparent lack of awareness of their present state is simply a byproduct of the trauma of undeath.
I’m inclined to say that it’s more in line with most schools of magic that are learned. As far as I know, Spirit is what grants shamans their ability to commune with the elements, not necessarily Life—however, there does still appear to be some connection between the two, so maybe it’s a bit of both. Druids, however, don’t seem to be as dependent on the “gift” of their powers as shamans.
I think, like Spirit (which can be twisted into Decay), Nature magic can be twisted and bent to one’s will. I think this falls in line perfectly well with your druid: if she is undead, perhaps she’s struggling to maintain her control over nature and so has turned to darker means. Undeath has been shown in many cases to warp the personality of the one who is raised, causing them to become something of a dark reflection of their former selves (not necessarily evil, just changed). While this isn’t always the case, I think it provides some very interesting potential for character development.
Hello, unofficial undead druid here, and I fully endorse your character.
As others have said, it’s pretty adjacent to a lot of the magic domains and I imagine a majority of offensive healing spells interweave life magic and the spell’s base domain.
They certainly can be, a shaman and undead could argue this for years.
Who are some of the ghost druids? I’m a bit of a druid enthusiast, you see.
I’m inclined to say that the direct source for life magic usage hasn’t been officially nailed down, at least not from what I’ve read.
As for learned verse taught, I think it can be a mixture. Learned, talented and hybrid. I hear hybrids have the best mana economy.
Life magic being pulled from the world around the user makes sense, you could even go so far as the weather affecting the potency of life magic.
A favorite interpretation includes the life experience of the caster, not necessary draining their life but as in using meaningful moments as a sort of casting conduit.
This makes my point from another angle. If life and alive are different, then Blizzard needs a better distinction of what life and death are compared to alive and deceased.
That mortal isn’t of the life branch, we are in the middle of all the forces. Once you leave the center, there needs to be more defined boundaries between the forces to distinguish themselves from one another.
It wouldn’t just be easier to remove life and death rather than change the meaning, it would more closly connect WoW to the real world by both having four fundamental forces.
I have always believed that it’s not the choice in the source of power, Life or Death, Light or Void. It’s how the individual chooses to wield it. Why you choose to do what you do with that power is the most important question you can answer.
Getting shoehorned into an uncertain storyline and then being yelled at by the Elf you thought was meat fodder, basically destroyed Arthas on an atomic level.
So that may be the case to permanently kill an undead.
Someone mentioned the Drust upthread. Drust magic is mostly Druidic but also incorporates undeath and some unique things like wicker constructs. It’s probably worth checking out the Drustvar quests for more info. Unfortunately, this is one of those cool ideas that Blizzard never developed in more detail.
my old undead was basically a druid HEAR ME OUT but they were infested with bees and they were doing natures work by spreading beneficial pollinators across azeroth and if you try to stop them I’m calling DEHTA
So here are the mobs I found that are explicitly druids and undead in some manner. They also oddly are all elves save for the Demented Druid Spirits that appear capable of spawning as Tauren from what I’ve found.
Tortured Druid: A mob in Silithus that uses Moonfire and Healing Touch. They used to be a part of a quest to put their souls to rest but since Cata no longer have any related quests but remain.
former subject of “The Spirits of Southwind” and “Hunting for Ectoplasm”
Severed Druid/Keeper: Quest mobs in Ashenvale Horde side where you are sent into a Barrow Den to silence the howling dead. I list them together because the druid looks more ghostly and the Keeper looks corporeal. The Druids cast Rejuvination and Wrath, the Keepers cast just moonfire.
subject of “Dead Elves Walking” and “The Forest Heart”
Demented Druid Spirit: Removed in Cata and given the undead status after being uncategorized, they were adds spawned during the Ysondre world Boss fight. I can’t find any record of abilities so most likely they were just creeps.
(Edited to fix the numerous typos. Please Blizz, use my phone’s autocorrect )
Interesting finds and a walk down memory lane, as I can remember complaining constantly to a friend about all the traveling for “The Spirits of Southwind” and “Hunting for Ectoplasm”.
Night Elves and Druidism are inseparable, so it’s really not odd at all that these locations would be haunted by the previously alive enclaves of druids, as they tended to travel Azeroth to investigate troubled regions and events.
The demented druid spirits could be green dragons who have been lost to The Nightmare. That or they’re really dedicated to a joke, who knows.
It may also interest you that in my ongoing research into undead druids I decided to look into the Dor’Danil Barrow Den and discovered another quest that definitely states that the druids present are undead.
from the Alliance quest “Insane Druids” given by Gaivan Shadowwalker
“The druids are dead, killed by their leaders who were driven insane by the Horde tainting the Forest Heart!..”
This quest includes killing three druids who at their addition were all marked as undead. Two of them have since been reclassified as Humanoid but I have a theory that was a mechanical change that ill get into later.
Taneel Darkwood: Changed from Undead to humanoid in Cata, he also strangely uses Mind Blast and Renew instead of druid spells.
Mavoris Cloudsbreak: also changed from Undead to Humanoid. Uses Chain Lightning and Lightning Cloud. While nature related more shaman than druid.
Uthil Mooncall: still marked as undead…except when he shifts into bear form and is listed as beast! He shifts between undead elf and beast bear. He also casts Moonfire and before Cata he would cast Rejuvination.
