This is a bit of an unfair question because Lilian was introduced before the current magical restructuring that happened around WoD/Legion, but even though she’s been a character for 11 years I’ve never been quite clear on how Lilian’s magic works.
The default presumption is probably Void since her visuals are purple and she can even go into Shadowform like SPriests, but in BfA when the Void had already become its modern depiction her abilities didn’t resemble the newer Void spell visuals.
Is it Death? She said she was made into a weapon by the Scarlets, so was giving her Death magic a sort of “fight fire with fire” thing?
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I’m not even sure the writers know. From what I understand she started out as a reference to another series and they decided to run with the character despite the obvious oddities surrounding her existence.
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I believe a lot of the Scarlets started manifesting more darkness/shadow powers in Wrath. I assume she was being groomed to use similar powers before she died and maybe her rebirth boosted her abilities or maybe she was just on track to be a really good shadow user in life?
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The raven priests yeah. I could easily believe a connection between those and Lilian, but I don’t know if those were ever explained either besides that Mal’Ganis was behind it. Though given the current dreadlord retcons I suppose Mal’Ganis being behind the raven priests hints to them being a Death thing; I don’t know if Death was their intended magic at the time though.
Death is the likely guess. Death’s Shadow is a brighter Purple than Void’s Shadow to say the least!
I heard Lilian’s some special forsaken class, like Lightslayer or something but I’m 95% sure I’m misremembering the name.
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I can’t weigh in fully here, but the Scarlet Onslaught was doing a lot of crazy stuff. It’s something I’ve meant to revisit the questline of to re-explore more fully. But yeah, their stuff gets a little crazy, I think the implication (or maybe it’s outright stated) is that the dreadlord’s influence them into using new magic.
That said, the powers I’ve observed Voss employ in Cata are:
Basically Gorefiend’s Grasp
Jumping on enemies head’s and doing the cannibalize animation (I’m not sure what this is meant to represent, exactly).
Enemies killed by her are left shadow priest purple and burning with purple flame.
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She’s apparently not a reference. I’m actually inclined to believe them since they’ve been upfront about things like Velen’s name being a reference so it’d be weird to pretend this one isn’t, and the fact that the person she’s supposenly a reference to actually doesn’t share the same powers.
Liliana Vess is a still alive necromancer that makes deals with demons, is a caster and can walk through the multiverse. Lilian Voss is an undead rogue with powers over shadows.
Outside of a name being similar, they actually aren’t similar.
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It might be worth considering if subtlety rogues and the source of their abilities is relevant here. Not to lean too heavily on Legion order hall champion spec roles as indicative of character lore, since they’re obviously influenced by gameplay and characters can be portrayed as multiple specs across expansions, but Lilian was indicated as a subtlety rogue for the purpose of the Legion mission table, and they’ve got the whole affinity with the shadows (whatever that means) thing going on. If one wants to take Hearthstone into consideration (and that’s admittedly a big stretch), she may have been trained as a rogue while alive by the Scarlets. Beyond that, I don’t know. She’s really good at being sneaky and stabbing people with purple stuff. -shrug-
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I think it’s somewhat important to remember that Rogues do use magic, shadow magic. Remember in one of the cinematics, we see a rogue literally go invisible. Rogues aren’t just really good at blending into the back ground, they actually turn invisible.
Lilian Voss being a rogue with shadow powers is par for the course, it’s just she has a more volatile version of it that lets her melt faces.
Who knows maybe one day our rogues may unlock that power.
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I was just under the impression she was multispecialized? She has training as a Warrior, a Rogue, and within the Arcane. The last of which is why she can self-teleport and self-immolate.
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The nature of Voss’s power is partially to do with her training while she was living and partially to do with her nature as an undead.
She was raised seemingly specifically to hate and hunt necromancers. Her training and abilities seem to have been honed specifically to that purpose, so while she is a rogue her daggers are imbued with a magic that burns long after the first cut is made and she seems to have advanced physical and magical combat skills to move in a stealthy and unpredictable fashion.
After she is raised from the dead these skills are seemingly augmented by the feral ferocity usually associated with ghouls as well as the limiter being removed from her muscles, allowing her to leap about and perform feats of strength a living mortal would find difficult.
Combining her unique training as an assassin with her nature as an undead makes her a truly fearsome, unyielding, and unrelenting opponent more akin to a villain in a slasher movie than your typical rogue.
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In some ways, she’s close to being a Shadowhunter. At least, she’s as to a Troll Shadowhunter as a Night Elf Priest is to the Priest class.
If Shadowhunters were to be added into game, Voss could be how the class is introduced to the Forsaken.
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I wonder if holy/ light touched paladin undead would be purple/ blue instead of white gold all ik is the concept of Lilian being some kind of Undead holy avenger is dope and i now want Undead tauren paladins
for what it’s worth, the spell graphics aren’t gonna be all that helpful in determining a magic’s type. affliction warlocks and shadow priests use the same magic, but one is bluer than the other. further, any magic you see is gonna fall into one of the cosmic forces. it’s probable that she uses shadow magic, which is arguably the most commonly used among the forsaken
I think they just wanted to make another cool undead that isn’t Sylvanas. And Lillian is that. I think they copied alot from Leliana Vess from MTG too.
Lilian is a shadow ascendant from the old RPG books, which back when she was written were still canonical. Now, she is pretty much the only echo of the utterly forgotten cult of the forgotten shadow.
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