Unused Character Concepts

Wyrmrest Accord
1

What’s a character idea you’ve come up with that you really enjoy but for whatever reason just never, or will never, put to use?

I have:

  • A draenei woman who was a jack of several trades–a skilled shaman, channeler of the Light, and cunning scout

  • A young male orc warrior who was born to a swamp witch, was taken on a pirate ship in his early teens and enslaved, was set free by Horde troops and enlisted out of gratitude but went through profound disillusionment post-Teldrassil and is now trying to figure out who he is in such a world and without the Horde

  • A Kaldorei markswoman sworn to revenge against the Horde, coloring her face and hair with Teldrassil’s own ash, and becoming a driven and ruthless soldier (this one was much less refined and saw the least iteration.)

So. What do we got?

2

I have a few bouncing around in my head.

  • A first gen DK - an orc spirit in an undead human body, who genuinely regrets his/her actions under Gul’dan and Gorefiend back in the day, and wants to rejoin orcish society… despite being a rotting human abomination. That’s always intrigued me but ultimately I don’t think it’d be fun. It’d mostly be depressing as he’d never quite fit in as a Forsaken OR an Orc.

  • Moonclaw Worgen have always intrigued me. They’re a bunch of NPCS in Feralas who don’t do anything but they appear to be worgen who’ve joined the Night Elven Sentinels. I sorta like the idea of playing a Gilnean woman from a lower class family whose only hope in life was to become a seamstress or something… but then she gets the worgen curse in Cata, gets rescued by some kickass awesome warrior women in Kalimdor and decides “This is awesome. I can be so much more in this society.” and joins up, thus breaking out of the mold of her own society. The main reason I don’t do this one is that I already have too many Alliance characters to RP!

  • A young orc man, recently of age, born and raised in the internment camps, whose mother died in childbirth and whose father is unknownm doesn’t even know a thing about what clan he’s from, before spending a lot of his life in the Orgrimmar Orphanage. I like the idea of sorta rediscovering culture - what does he think it means to be an orc. But tbh I’ve never been able to get into Orc RP as much as I’d like.

  • An elderly Shen’dralar Highborne magus who actually sees the damage magic did to his/her own society, and furthermore sees how it appears to have “corrupted” the Shaldorei and Sin’dorei… and who actually goes anti-magic. Learning druidism despite YEARS of experience doing something else. A bit of a “teach and old dog new tricks” RP. To make it fulfilling though I think I’d want a druid teacher, so someone to like, RP with.

  • Using the little Kel’thuzad toy… a Gnome Lich! I’ve literally not thought of this idea any further than that, I just think a tiny Lich would be funny.

3

Gun toting demon hunting Priestess of the Moon. Basically holy amazon Doomslayer. I decided I wanted to focus more on the character tied to the Hunter I was going to portray this one on.

A designer fruit vendor who uses magic to help make their product. This one was originally meant for a Nightborne but I lack the motivation to get it going.

Basically Pandaren Apollyon. I mentioned her in a story recently so I might still use this.

Orc Blademaster who seeks to become a Monk, as she sees the act of fighting without weaponry to be the zenith of martial prowess.

Naga Pirate. I wrote one for use as a side character related to one of my others but I’ve yet to find a use for her.

A former Kul Tiran pirate who follows the Way of the Monk in hopes of being a better person and having a better life. I actually have a Monk for this character, complete with finished profile and such, but I’ve currently lost the motivation to do much with her.

The lingering spirit of a powerful Highborne Soceress, bound to Azeroth’s leylines. I had a similar character in a story once, but this one would be slightly different.

Highborne Lich seeking a means to restore a deceased loved one. I’ve only ever thought about it a couple times; probably won’t actually develop it further.

A Pandaren bandit; a wildwoman living in Zandalar after being stranded there at a young age. She’d pounce on traveling merchants in Zuldazar and demand food and such in broken Zandali. It’d very much be a joke character…with all of one, arguably not very funny and potentially offensive, joke. Even if I wanted to portray a pure joke character as anything other than a temporary npc it’d require too many specific conditions for it to work the way I’d like.

A Highborne Mage who received the Worgen Curse during the War of the Satyr and later regained sapience through arcane magic. I tried doing this earlier this year but I couldn’t retain my enthusiasm. Perhaps if a time comes where player Worgen can use Night Elf models for their Non-Worgen forms I may try again.

Kul Tiran engineer who specializes in vehicles and devices powered by enchanted water.

1 Like
4

I’ve always had this idea for a Forsaken priest who is not strong willed enough to call on the light so instead he runs a neutral clinic to treat the wounded.

5

A Forsaken monk who brews alcohol in their stomach and gets a kind of simulated drunkenness as a byproduct.
A Horde priest who identifies as a chaplain and preaches in all faiths. Alternatively, a Shaldorei priest attempting to spread Elune’s influence.
A Forsaken rogue or warrior who is still attached to their living family but would rather they think that they are dead. They reconnect with a bandit or guardswoman daughter and saves her life by abducting her prior to a Forsaken troop movement. I had a whole plot in mind of their spouse remarrying and having a second family. It doesn’t go well.
A Gnome priest who is a former adventurer and is trying to guide new generations of heroes.
A Forsaken mummy. I can never find an obtainable mog for it though.
A treant brought to Stormwind with the other refugees, trying really hard to adapt.
A Druid perfumer.
A Human using the Kul’Tiran model who grew up in Booty Bay and practices voodoo/ Loa worship.
A Shaldorei warlock or priest who formerly offered curses as a service to their clients to sabotage rivals in court.
A half-Goblin/Half-Gnome spellcaster. This is mostly to provide a kind of sequel to one of my original vanilla RP characters who fell in love with their rival.
A pair of Pandaren siblings: One who is a treasure hunter inspired by their grandfather’s stories, the other believes that their grandfather is delusional. The latter would always be pursuing the former on their quest, trying to drag them back to their parents. Much brawling was to be had.

1 Like
6

Watching this thread so I can steal concepts for future characters

7

All of these are amazing.

(I swear I’ll discuss mine at greater length soon, I have family down in Lousiana right in the path of Laura so things are tense right now)

1 Like
8

A storm witch with a thundering cloud serpent as her companion. Usually a night elf.

9

I think the orc was the one I was most eager to make use of, but due to 1) not being subbed these days, 2) not really finding the right IM-based RP for him, he gathers dust. Another reason is that I had a very specific vision for the type of weapon he’d wield and there’s just no model in game that’s even close. But really, he would have become another disillusioned orc wary of the Horde and I just always end up shelving those anyway.

i also had a concept for a world-weary Pandaren wrestler who became a thief and overall lowlife after a profound personal loss, and while I was able to play him for a little while, he proved too tricky to play so he ended up back in the box too.

10

Demon Hunters are cool in a lot of ways and I’m disappointed I never did anything with the pair I had, in pve or rp.

I enjoyed the concept I had (that I’ve mentioned a couple times distantly here before, sue me) for a Blood Elf Demon Hunter who just sort of threw away all of the brooding and the angst after being imprisoned for a decade only to find out that actually Azeroth, and his people, his pride, carried on and basically did all the things without him. I wanted a sarcastic and otherwise snide but optimistically nihilistic attitude for him that sort of took warcraft’s insane scales and convenient wins at face value.

Breaking into any RP is hard enough on it’s own but honestly I just couldn’t bother enough to play an Elf.

1 Like
12

I’ve thought of making a character who is completely covered in scars with a stern outlook…but is an absolute klutz and all their scars are self inflicted due to running into things like rose bushes and tripping on a rocks etc etc.

1 Like
13

MU Flowerpicker Orc diplomat! Serves as an ambassador to the Alliance and has helped construct some of the major peace treaties between the Horde and Alliance in the past.

14

Draenei disc jockey that used crystalline components and holographic constructions to produce his music.

I’m sure I’ve got more hidden away (my deleted roster can prove it) but I’ve always thought about this idea off and on for a while now.

1 Like
15

Below are some character ideas I have had over the years for WoW-RP and elsewhere:

  • A Human brigand who would discover he could call the Light because of his stubborn belief in his actions’ righteousness.
  • A Gnomish treasure-hunter who favored rudimentary Goblin engineering (enough to know how to make dynamite), with a broader understanding of technology (not just machinery), and whose curios were viewed as vendor trash more often than not – yet would still occasionally find real treasure.
  • A Forsaken farmer who decided to sail across Azeroth just because he could, and gradually became a foodie over the course of his voyages.
  • A Forsaken warrior who was convinced he was a Lich even though he wasn’t, and would not believe anyone who tried to tell him otherwise; however, his “minions” went along with it, so long as they could benefit from his delusions.
  • A Pandaren apothecary who – well, unfortunately, I never got past the general concept.
  • A Grimtotem Tauren defiler who became a psylosopher after learning the craft from a few Forsaken consultants.
  • A Goblin scribe who dabbled into tarot cards and Shadow magic, became an independent contractor of mysterious repute (beholden to nobody), and seemed to know more than he should about ancient relics.

Below are a couple more unconventional character ideas:

  • A Grell who served a warlock ostensibly with the desire to become fel-corrupted into an Impish form, but actually wanted to learn enough dark magic to surpass his “master” and become a warlock par excellence; however, he’d probably be too smart for his own good.
  • A Fleeting Plainstrider – look at the Lost Tallstrider Hearthstone artwork on the Tallstrider WoWpedia article and tell me it is not awesome.
16

When I unlocked Kul Tirans, I had my character concept all ready. I was going to make a grizzled sailor who somewhere along the way got charmed by a siren and now does her bidding, running errands into town and making cryptic comments about his mistress.

…And then the name Thornman was available and I made a goofy Thornspeaker.

4 Likes
17

I have an eredar who, upon the Legion’s defeat, hid out in Vol’dun. She was discovered by a vulpera hermit and figured that was a good way to fly under the radar.

So she stole their identity and was waiting for a chance to claim power as a demon warlord what with the Legion power vacuum. All the while acting as this cranky as heck hermit who ends up displaced by the BfA events and stuck in Orgrimmar.

I actually have the character, they’re a level 60 shaman. But it’s hard to, first of all, play a crabby character since people aren’t going to want to RP with them in a walk up setting. And then I couldn’t figure out a way she could hide from demon hunters that didn’t instantly make her suspicious. So she’s been relegated to NPC background character duty.

18

I’ve had this problem often in the past and always have mixed feelings about it. Like… on one hand, yes, I get why most would avoid crabby characters, but at the same time I met a lot of people who would get shockingly angry OOC about it.

An example is… ~ two years back, I’m on my tauren DK, some rando belf DK approaches and starts abrasively ordering him around, he tells her to go urinate up a rope and I get jabbed with a whisper of “[[Um??? why??? are you so angry???]]” Mild paraphrasing there but this was a real, baffling encounter.

I never played racists or aimlessly abusive characters, either–they always had a reason for a guarded mood, or only reacted badly if first provoked. But I burned out on dealing with hypersensitive people so characters like my haunted pandaren pirate just ended up shelved.

1 Like
19

I’ve found RP takes a lot of reading the room to have a good time with everyone. Walkups are sort of a highly social experience, often taking place in the tavern. So naturally, the more successful characters are the ones that are amicable. The ones people would want to talk to in real life.

Now that’s not to say other characters won’t be successful in other environments. I imagine closed RP among friends would allow folks to play those characters in more satisfying ways. I just spend most of my time in walkup situations which makes it harder for me personally.

Plus. Yeah. You never know who you’re dealing with so you could be ending up in some OOC drama.

1 Like
20

More a head-cannon than a character, but hear me out.

  • Quel’thalas has massage and body salons. Orcs, Trolls and Tauren have no idea what this is, but some smart-:peach: Sin’dorei decides to get one back on the ‘Twue Hoawde’ nits they’re dealing with and tells them that it is a Trial of Bravery that Sin’dorei undergo.

  • Orcs go in, thinking this is rather dull, terrifying the poor masseuses, until we get to the acupuncture and full-body waxing stages.

“You dispute my honor?”

“No, sir, but this is … I don’t think you really understand …”

“Do your worst! I fear nothing!”

And outside the room, all these Orcs grumbling about sissy Elves and their fancy froo-froo trials hear Gromblar the Champion go “Lok’tar O-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” as the wax comes off during the back, sack and crack wax and immediately think something hardcore is going on in there.

Fast forward a few years, its something of an initiation prank for fresh Orc Grunts to be assigned to a ‘bender’ in Silvermoon City by their seniors, and there’s just these dead-eyes masseuses who’ve had to deal with this for years whose only fear is a Tauren or Troll (both have fur) who come in for this Trial and get really sad when told it can’t be performed on them.

Fast forwards to now, when the Mag’har join the Horde, and the rest of the Horde is just waiting with ill-concealed impatience behind whatever flimsy disguises they can scrounge as a whole new generation of machismo idiots sign up for the ‘Trial of Courage’.

This is also how Silvermoon avoided bankruptcy.

A character concept I have repurposed for my Shal’dorei Warlock is a Sin’dorei Mage whose career before the coming of the Scourge was being a Barista at Sunbucks, the Sin’dorei version of Starbucks.

Completely unflappable. Has seen everything. Photographic memory because you don’t screw up Prince Kael’thas’s upside-down double-mocha frappuccino with extra nutmeg. Would bitterly laugh about how he’s so glad that his people have a 5k year lifespan because it is going to take at least that long to pay off the student loans for his Mage training, and on Sunbuck’s pay-rate. Uses magic to basically make the foam, heat the drinks, perfectly mix the drinks and Water Elementals to purify the water and/or cool the drinks.

Then I started to imagine the rest of the Horde discovering coffee.

Imagining how terrifying it would be for these poor barristers to have to deal with Orcs who, already aggressive, have just discovered coffee and don’t understand you don’t chug down tankards large enough to hold a Gnome inside of this stuff, are now standing on the other side of the counter, jittering uncontrollably with blood-shot eyes, demanding refills of these giant, spike-covered mugs.

The moment the Horde discovers the Sin’dorei serve up a mean Chai Latte and you’ve got Tauren asking for extra milk in theirs, and the poor Elf trying to not say “Can’t you do that yourself?”.

I don’t know why, but the whole clash of cultures there just appeals to me. It’s a sitcom that writes itself.

1 Like
21

Here’s another I neglected to mention. A demon who is a former Demon Hunter, in similar vein to the Felsouls and other Illidari defectors, but is independent of the Legion and still supportive of the Illidari cause. This is an alternate character I wrote for my DH; the sister of main DH character who reached this point in a perceived bid for survival sometime between the assault on Black Temple and the opening events of Legion. I’ve barely had many opportunities to roleplay my Demon Hunter as the actual Demon Hunter, so you could imagine how scarce opportunities for this character would be.

Also some additional words on this:

The idea was to have this Pandaren Warlord character who seeks to incite incidents and build an army of elite fighters for the purpose of conquering Pandaria and subsequently the rest of Azeroth (in Pandaria’s name). She was meant to be a person from humble beginnings whose outlook on the world was largely shaped by experiences with the worst elements of the Alliance and Horde and their conflict with each other. This leads her to the philosophy that both groups are essentially monsters, mephorically, symbolically and behaviorally, and the only means of lasting relative peace is to subdue both using a monster of her own. To oversimplify, because I found it mildly amusing, ‘Non-Bear People bad. Bear is best.’

I also thought up a bit with her about fire and passion which is meant to be similar to Apollyon’s Wolf and Sheep thing.

I’m not really sure when I even came up with this character. I suspect it was early into this expansion cycle or slightly before as, given the faction war theme, that would make the most sense.