So, I’m unsure if this will belong here. But, I have a question to ask. What are the lore reasons undead cannot be paladins again? I remember something about the Light hurting them or something, but if that is the case, why is it, in the Eastern Plaguelands at Tyr’s Hand, there are 2(?) Undead Paladins you have to fight, and they’ve been in the game since the early days? Crusader Lord Valdelmar and Scarlet Commander Marjhan. I noticed this again as I was questing in EP, and I got to that point and was really confused as to why these two undead looked and fought like paladins, even if they were once members of the Scarlet Crusade. And, Undead can even be Priests, which some significant Undead Priests use the Light, so, why are we not allowed Undead Paladins?
I’m asking cause, I just wanna understand why I’m being denied an Undead Paladin, when the Forsaken are my favorite race in the whole game.
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Undead Paladins are indeed possible though I can imagine them being in a lot of pain so Paladins require getting used to using the Light enough to use it 24/7 which takes time and years. It takes a lot of Willpower to willingly use something that gives you Pain 24/7.
Lightforged Death Knights and Undead Scarlet Crusaders(enslaved by Balnazzar) on the other hand have no choice but to feel the pain of the Light coming into direct contact with the Nathrezim Death Magic 24/7.
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Undead Paladins are possible; you might not be able to become a Paladin as a undead (that’s not confirmed i don’t know that for fact though) - but they are possible. Sir Zeliek still retains command over the Light even in death and as you mentioned; Valdelmar and Marijhan.
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Nothing in lore has ever stated that the Undead cannot use the Light. The only thing the lore has stated were the resulting side effects. All of which were not fatal to said undead.
Lightforged Death Knights and Undead Scarlet Crusaders(enslaved by Balnazzar) on the other hand have no choice but to feel the pain of the Light coming into direct contact with the Nathrezim Death Magic 24/7.
Nah LF DKS do be chilling, they don’t have the Holy Light in their bodies anymore. It leaves them once they originally die as a living Lightforged.
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It’s me, the one who wrote it. just meant to swap to this character for my account since i’ve been playing her a lot. i asked cause, there are significant priests who are undead, like Alonsus Faol, who are very prominent in using the Light. and of course we have the NPCs we have to fight like the two i mentioned who are still paladins even in undeath. i was asking cause, it seems like something that should be possible. and, i certainly want an option for horde that isn’t tauren, belf, or zandalari. since, Forsaken are of course my number one favorite race in the game
Searing / burning pain is NOT what happens to the Undead that channel the Light. Well it’s not supposed to be.
They still have all their Lightforged Draenei Racial Traits including the AoE Light’s Judgement(a big Pillar of Light blasting a target), Light’s Reckoning(where the Light bursts out causing damage on death) and Holy Resistance.
The fact they can use their Racials is proof that they retain their Light despite their demise unleashing a burst of Light upon their killers.
Speaking of Light’s Reckoning the Spell doesn’t even seem limited to activating upon death since Turalyon triggered it while following Alleria into a Void Portal in their Short Story causing a scream of pain while the explosion of Light went off.
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The fact they can use their Racials is proof that they retain their Light despite their demise unleashing a burst of Light upon their killers.
The fact that they can use their Racials is game mechanics.
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Like, if we were given the option in the future or something to become a Forsaken Paladin, I would 100% make one right away. Cause, questing in EP and going to Tyr’s Hand, plus the significant number of undead priests who use Light, really makes me just wanna know why we’ve been denied an undead paladin for so long. cause those 2 npcs in Tyr’s Hand were added very early on in the game, like 2006. so, they’ve been there for 17 years
Light, at least as I know as an absolute Lore Nerd ™, is supposed to hurt the Undead.
Though this has been a topic of discussion and debate since the beginning of wow, because of the fact Undead Priests exist in the first place, and as the whole class Priest focus on the Light. But, I believe the intention was to have Undead lore-wise only have Shadow Priest.
Despite this they did give room for Light-wielding priests, by describing that they do in fact exist, but with the caveat that it still hurts them. Paladins, unlike priests, all use the Light in some form or another.
As for the Undead Paladins we do find in the game, they are a product of being risen as undead in the first place, and being slaves to Necromancers that make them continue to use the Light against their will (See: Sir Zeliek https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Sir_Zeliek)
Though there could always be new lore, as with Calia Menethil, who was risen by the Light itself. She as of now is one of a kind, but anything can happen.
Paladin should be a playable class for any race that is open to both Warrior and Priest. because that’s what a Paladin is… a Warrior of the Light.
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See, Calia to me opens up the potential of more light-centric undead, or even helping the undead withstand the light to the point we could have paladins. cause i’ve been under the assumption that Valdelmar and Marjhan were of their own free will, with Valdelmar even exlaiming “The Scarlet Crusade is not over! Undeath is merely a setback!” when you aggro him. and these 2 are shown as being basically retribution paladins, wielding either a two-handed sword or two-handed hammer respectively. though they could be a result of Balnazzar, but their existence still gives me hope for undead paladins being a possibility. i don’t really play a horde paladin for the reason i can’t enjoy it much on the races we have available
That’s entirely fair and reasonable, if given it’s your preferred race and class. Like I said, anything can happen.
As for myself, I do prefer Blizzard to stick to what lore they have, at least to some degree. Yet it seems they’ve already shifted in the direction of “All races can be all classes”, so I guess this is a specific battle that I’ll lose on.
All I ask them is to give me a good reason, some lore to go with it, as they did reasonably well with Orc Priests.
that is fair. me wanting undead as paladins is a preference thing, cause i enjoy the Forsaken, my favorite race in the whole game, and i enjoy my draenei paladin on the alliance side. and, Calia is a potential lore point for undead paladins to exist, but there’s also the significant undead priests (like Alonsus Faol), who are very prominently shown as being heavily Light based. though if i recall right, it was cause in life he helped create the first ever paladins (as just my summarized knowledge of him, cause i try to learn everything about the Forsaken i can but my memory still has gaps). so, i can see him as well coming back to help in the creation of undead paladins, helping them withstand the torment of the light to where they can be warriors of the light.
(stupid thing didn’t show it was linked)
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As per the old Ask sessions it 100% is what happens to Undead channeling the Light.
An explanation I heard long ago was that while priests call upon the light, paladins are infused with it; undead can handle the first but not the second. The distinction is that the former is like using bleach to clean a stain, while the latter would be like injecting bleach into your bloodstream.
With all that said, Calia’s special brand of light-blessed undeath may be bending the rules just enough to allow for an exception. That, or they could write in a platoon of vanilla forsaken who happen to be just badass and crazy enough to pull it off on their own.
Why not have both? Give player the option to style themselves as a healthy, proper undeadadin tutored by Calia, and have others who say “I’d rather deal with the pain if it means I don’t owe nobody nothin’.”
I would personally prefer a bunch of undead who are just crazy enough to not care about constant pain to be paladins, but that’s mostly just a dislike of the light undead concept.
There aren’t any. Even D20 has had Paladins that became Vampires and still held to their ethos and alignment.
You can do it in Warcraft by taking the Dark Ranger skin customization for any class.
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Here are the current lore reasons why there are no Forsaken Paladins.
- Wielding the light requires a certain degree of willpower and belief that what you’re doing is the right thing. While the Forsaken can definitely have the latter, the former is more of a mixed bag, but that will be expanded on in the next two points.
- Using light magic as a Forsaken, or having it used on them, is extremely painful. To a Forsaken, being healed by light magic is like a human being ‘healed’ by having fire cauterize a wound. It’s extremely painful. For a Forsaken to use the light, that’s basically like setting yourself on fire and trying to do things while you’re on fire.
- Using light magic as a Forsaken has additional side effects as well, these mainly include restoring dead or dulled senses back to how they were before the Forsaken was killed. Meaning that after using light magic they will start to feel pain more acutely than they did before. They will also begin to taste the rot in their mouths, smell the decay around them and if there are any rodents or insects in their bodies eating at them, they’ll start to feel that too.
Reasons 2 and 3 are why, while Forsaken can use the light, many of them don’t, because the additional effects light magic has on them is too much to bear in many cases and they lack the willpower to endure it. It’s also why we’ve yet to see a Forsaken paladin in lore.
But what about the undead paladins that we have seen in lore? In pretty much every single case, the undead paladins that exist in lore did not have a choice on whether or not they wanted to continue to use light magic. Sir Zeliek was firmly under the control of Kel’thuzad, only ever able to control what he said, not what his body did. He was effectively a puppet watching his strings get pulled.
And the former Scarlet Crusaders were also not given an option, they were forcefully reanimated and had to grapple with the idea that their holy relics now burned their hands to the point where they couldn’t hold them, and their ability to use the light now hurt them. They still used those abilities though, because they had no choice, it was either use the abilities to fight against the Argent Crusade and the Brotherhood of the Light or die.
All that being said though, you’ll eventually get the ability to play a Forsaken paladin. Blizzard no longer gives a damn about racial lore and what that means for class selection so, just give them a few months, they’ll likely add it in a content patch somewhere.
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