"I did this. I don’t remember doing it, but it cannot be otherwise.
I have committed sins in my life before. I even killed a man once who didn’t deserve it. But this is different.
I am changed.
These murders were not my choice. A beast lives inside of me.
I will be hunted and shunned. I need to hide. Run. Bury the bodies.
I start to walk outside when I realize what truly bothers me.
I feel no guilt."
Torment of the Worgen
Now while I have affection for all of the creatures of the night, I’ve always felt a special connection to werewolves. Between growing up with professional guard dog trainers, a WW2 vet grandpa who had to make sure all his progeny could survive in the woods and the sort of mental illnesses and addiction problems that have frequently lead me to wake up in a bush with at best just a missing sock, I just relate to them.
Don’t we all in a way? What you’re telling me you’ve never had a night you can’t seem to remember? Never had scratches, bruises or muck under your finger nails you can’t seem to place? Never had a weird piece of meat stuck between your teeth from a meal you can’t seem to place? Never just woken up inexplicably but weirdly exhausted and strangely full?
Are you sure you did was sleep soundly in your bed? How would you even know? You weren’t conscious!
So imagine my repeated frustration when the Alliance’s repeated portrayal of the Worgen is,
I’ve said it before but I think the solution here is simple.
First and foremost is the Reclamation of Gilneas. There is no reason in lore the Worgen shouldn’t have this territory. As a matter of fact the Forsaken Silverpine storyline ends with a hasty armistice and the Worgen falling back behind Greymane’s Wall while independent paramilitary groups like the Bloodfang continue to wage war on the Forsaken from Gilneas in Hillsbrad.
The Forsaken and Worgen make peace and start having a cross factional friendship that makes the Tauren and Kaldorei look like one awkward dinner date. Certain factions within them can’t quite bury the hatchet but on the whole the spooksters get along well and mainly argue if it’s best to serve man with a side of beans or corn on the cob.
Almost goes without saying but make Tess a worgen and have her coworker status with Voss and Belmont from the Uncrowned a running gag.
Shift the Worgen’s nemesis to being predominantly Orcs, Tauren and Vulpera. They seem designed to terrorize Orcs as they completely invert their traditional physical supremacy over humans and would confuse their worg mounts. The Tauren because who doesn’t want minotaur VS werewolf fights? Vulpera because well the English introduced a whole invasive species of the catdogs to Australia. Cant get enough fox-hunting. This rivalry writes itself.
Alter but don’t retcon their lore to actually be a corruption of the forbidden Goldrinn wolf form. Since it’s still insane to me famously cooperative wolves are more disagreeable wildshapes than wildcats, bears, owls, or owls mixed with bears and stags.
Tie their curse into the Drust / Harvest Witches who will also come to live in the northern EK.
That last part is both to separate them from the Kaldorei lorewise. But more importantly as the Worgen also celebrate Halloween as a national history that’d mean between the Briar witches, Worgen, Forsaken and Darkfallen we’d have the ingredients to turn it into a proper;
Honestly Worgen Druid is the fastest I’ve fallen in love with a Class Race pairing since Forsaken Priest. Just wish the lore matched the vibe. Because between Balance being OP again and stealth I’ve been crushing it in BGs.
I’ve long believed that the worgen would benefit from having the threat of succumbing to their rage remain a danger to themselves and their allies. The possibility was hinted at with Tobias in the Cataclysm revamp of the Stalvan Mistmantle quests, but it’s never really gone anywhere since.
Moreover I think a faction of “bad worgen” as antagonists, provided by some surviving Druids of the Scythe creating a new Wolf Cult that curses humans and night elves into more enthralled enemy worgen (while also recruiting malevolent individuals who want the power it offers) could provide a suitable angle for approaching the darker side of their cursed dual nature.
Honestly going to disagree hard on the cross-faction friendship. Like, I get the splinter groups that don’t, but Forsaken vs Worgen is and was one of those things that got me into this game, and completely writing out one of the main conflicts that still has a chance to keep going feels wrong, and like 10+ years of waiting just went to utter and complete waste.
Maybe after something to do with Belmont vs Genn with the splinter groups opposing it, but certainly not right away.
I do want to add on a potential friendship between Void Elves and Worgen though. I’ve rambled about it elsewhere, but two cursed people teaming up due to potential prior allyship among commonfolk with similar reclamation goals is just juicy. Eldritch and Victorian aesthetics go hand in hand too, so it’s a pretty no-brainer thing just from the rule of cool factor.
Worgen want their homeland back. Void Elves help get an ally’s land back closer to their own home they want to hit, and having Darkfallen in their ranks now would bring extra tension to it all - potentially with spies and defectors.
Getting a good mix of races - Kaldorei would obviously be included - would help deeply with the Alliance’s lack of overall aesthetic diversity. And that’d be gothic aestheticbomb for both factions.
Well I think that’s a weird reason to get into the game because it’s fictions most one sided rivalry.
Mainly because the Forsaken’s desolation of Gilneas never happens in the Forsaken storyline. This is a war you didn’t ask for and are being forced to fight by an insane dictator who’s so disrespectful to your leader his choice of words had to be redacted.
And even the Worgen storyline feels kinda half hearted about it seeing as your last enemies are Orcs. Before the storyline abruptly ends and you’re directed to Darkshore for lack of anything else to do. Then just continue to be the Alliance’s tagalong literal lapdog for the better part of two decades.
It’s a dumb rivalry. The Forsaken have zero rancor toward the Worgen. Which makes it just come off as sad. The only time it became relevant again was briefly in Legion, years later, and Genn immediately gets his rear kicked. But scores the phyrric victory of just smashing a lamp which sounded like a W but turns out Sylvanas was a crazy person working with the Dull Devil so, win win for everyone involved.
The Forsaken’s beef has always been with humans. The Worgen ‘rivalry’ just underlines how pathetic and go-nowhere they are as a faction. It’s basically just;
Disagree entirely.
Worgen are humans, just cursed.
It’s not a dumb rivalry; it’s cool, and in an IP based around faction wars, Werewolves vs Zombies is cool. The Forsaken hit their country, and Belmont clearly does not seem to be in line with other members on the council, and could easily not want to give land they won back to the Alliance of all things - aka: a lot of humans.
We don’t even need to bring the Jailer into this. The Jailer was likely not even a thing back when Cataclysm was written, at least, not in the state he came out in if that is the case.
I feel like we’re playing entirely different games here.
The Forsaken destroyed Gilneas. Sylvanas was not the only one involved with that, and the bulk majority of those forces are likely still unalive and would all have different thoughts on what to do with Gilneas.
And that includes people not wanting to give it back.
We’re at the point on social media any conflict, if it makes sense or not - and this one absolutely does - is bad in faction IP, and frankly, it’s driving off people who play the game for what it was for 20+ years.
Gilneas is handed over without resistance from anybody, and the soul of this game is dead.
That, on the other hand, I can never see being done on a large scale. At least not while Genn is king. He’s calmed down on his hatred of individual Forsaken but he’s still very vehemently against them as a whole. I can see some friendships forming, but not at a faction-wide level.
100%, that’s one of the things that frustrated me immensely about the Worgen heritage quest.
But… why? Like, I get the cool factor of big werewolves fighting orcs and Tauren but there’s no actual reason for them to be such bitter rivals. Especially not with the Vulpera, they have no reason to hate them at all. If anything, Worgen and Tauren should be somewhat agreeable since they have a shared friendship with the Kaldorei and a respect for nature.
I don’t really quite understand this. Their form is already a corruption of Goldrinn’s wolf form.
I can see Drust having some tie to them culturally, given that Kul’Tiras was formed by Gilneans that broke off from the mainland. But their curse has no bearing on the Drust.
Now this is just ridiculous. Not only because the Worgen curse itself originates from Kaldorei druids, but because the Kaldorei have such a close friendship with the Worgen. It was the Kaldorei who helped them calm the beasts within so they wouldn’t lose themselves to rage. It was the Kaldorei who brought them into Darnassus and allowed them to rejoin the Alliance, sheltering them when they had nowhere to go. And when the Kaldorei lost their home and tried to reclaim it? It was the Worgen who stepped up above the rest of the Alliance, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Kaldorei in Darkshore.
You can’t separate the Worgen from the Kaldorei. It’s like trying to separate the Darkspear trolls from Thrall’s Horde.
Oh is that why they turn into humans when you kill them?
Or why there are Worgen souls in the Shadowlands?
Their true form is the Worgen form. They’re just as warped as the Forsaken but the sugar plumb faeries taught them how to pass.
Simple as that.
The Darkspear are literally more connected to the Zandalari. Dazar’Alor has a transportation line to the Echo Isles. The place they moved to explicitly to get away from being the Orc’s sidekicks during Garrosh’s reign.
Meanwhile they got a whole ride with a raider quest to get you from Sen’Jin Village to Razorhill because someone realized walking there is boring af.
Orcs somewhat make sense, especially with their presence with the original assault, and them being the face of the Horde. They’re essentially - when it comes to conflict time - the enemy of the entire Alliance as the “main” Horde race.
Vulpera just sort of exist and vibe. Unless they show up in decent numbers to aid another attack, most races on the Alliance have no reason to be hostile towards them? Like, most I can think of is some sort of furry rivlary, but that’s more in line with Goblins vs Gnomes than full on war.
Tauren I can see being a group that opposes any future conflict too for the reasons you’ve stated. Like, it’s over. Enough with the plague, we’re not coming to help, sort it out yourselves if you’re gonna do it sort of thing.
Which is a good thing.
Dynamics with these things matter to make it feel more realistic, and for certain player groups to feel like they can opt in themselves if they want, but opt out story (but not gameplay) wise if their race doesn’t align.
Yeah that all makes sense. Having some sort of rivalry with other races totally makes sense. I mean, Orcs and Humans are classic rivals but they’re also rivals with the Kaldorei. Them having multiple nemeses isn’t a bad thing, I’m more simply gainst the idea of them losing the Forsaken as a nemesis considering the way the lore has pitted them against one another ever since the Worgen’s introduction as a playable race.
Edit: Hell, ever since Vanilla, actually, considering the Forsaken were dealing with Worgen in Silverpine then, and it only escalated to full-blown war in Cata.
There is a difference between “I didn’t like something” with Wrath and “this entire expansion contradicts both preexisting lore and itself at almost every turn with almost every justification for its existence being a complete and total butt pull” with Shadowlands.
As oppossd to all of WoW lore that’s constantly contradicted itself from minute one?
This is a series whos deeplore constitutes a failed Warhammer Fantasy licensing deal abd outright fragrant rip offs Ralph Baski and Richard Donner’s filmography. It’s had more effort put into random movie references than any actual lore consistency.
Look familar?
No one and I mean no one would even remember this series if it didn’t have the bright ideas of one Chris Metzen who had the then the radical idea of going;
“What if Orcs were also people?”
I’m sorry but this worship of WoW lore feels like I’m in a ‘Planet of the Apes’ scenario where people started worshipping the deity known only as Golden M, what with all the McDonalds signs surviving by sheer volume.
I know it’s a selfish PoV of mine but the forsaken/worgen conflict was incredibly mood-killing when I went through it, and I felt like it only served to help start ruining the parts I liked about Sylvanas and the forsaken as a whole only for the worgen to “steal” them, and my game experience would be better if it was never touched on again. Silverpine left me frustrated enough that it was one of a few reasons why I quit Cataclysm.
Either way, I can’t deny that yes, WoW lore does often go through retcons and changes. This is partially due to the fact that when WoW was made, Blizz didn’t expect it to get as big as it did so they didn’t necessarily have a plan, which is why you had Illidan, Kael’thas, and Vashjj arbitrarily being villains in TBC.
That said, there’s one thing that Warcraft lore has always had since its inception and that was heart. Metzen made mistakes with his lore at times and changed things. But whatever change or addition he made, be it for better or worse, was done with heart. You can say what you will about his quality of writing, but there is absolutely zero doubt that Metzen absolutely loves Warcraft. It’s his baby. He adores it and wants it to be good, even if he messes up sometimes.
And what expansion did Metzen have absolutely zero hand in?
Shadowlands.
And Shadowlands feels heartless. Ironically, soulless. It feels like they changed things not because they thought they were better, but because they wanted something that they themselves made. They wanted their own thing, and it feels completely disconnected and insulting to any of the love that has been put into Warcraft since the 90s.
Warcraft lore isn’t perfect. Far from it. I have numerous lore change complaints from things that happened under Metzen’s watch, but I still accept them. Because they were done with love and care for the world.
I think a Forsaken and Worgen team-up does sound cool, but I think it should be a rare exception rather than a longstanding friendship. Like having the worgen and Forsaken set their own conflict aside in the long-theorized Light antagonist expansion, so they can both go Monster Mash on some evil inquisitors.
Though to get a similar feeling, it might be more fun to get a Forsaken and worgen buddy cop pair in the Argent Dawn or so, where they can get all the ‘oh, you enjoy stalking your target in the dark until the sheer terror gives them a heart attack even before you start rending them apart? Me too!’ dialogue while letting their main factions remain bitter and spooky enemies.
For that rivalry, I do wish that the Forsaken side referenced Gilneas refusing to accept Lordaronian refugees from the Scourge a lot more than the story currently does. There’s a lot of juicy drama there left criminally underutilized.
I quit during Wrath and still adore the Silverpine conflict.
Because playing from the perspective of a newly resurrected Forsaken you’re shown these werewolves are probably mad at your people for good reason. But are killing mfers who had nothing to do with whatever is happening.
Then you get to Silverpine and learn this entire conflict is just caused by the cracking of the warmaster’s whip.
So you knuckle down and wage a protracted combined arms war with the Worgen that see’s you both drafting humans into the conflict on either team Edward or Jacob.
And ends with a stalemate at the gates of Gilneas with the Worgen decidedly keeping Gilneas.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I had just presumed there was an Alliance Capitol beyond those walls and had just assumed everyone was too busy with Legion content to gank me.
Finally got my flyer and in a feat of daring do I buzzed the city to find it completely empty not only of players but NPCs.
I mean if that was your interpretation, fine. But from it’s very inception this was a commercial product made to sell computer games.
Idk what else to tell you;
This isn’t a labor of love or going artistic merit. It’s just Gen X and Millenials have aged out’ve the 18-25 demographic and they’re no longer flirting with us.
Plenty of things that are made for commercial purposes still have heart behind them and there is no doubt in my mind that Metzen always had heart when it came to Warcraft if you ever saw him talking about it.
