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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    I hope so, with Velen being a major player it seems promising - I just hope they don't make it something dumb like "and then the orcs invented shadow magic" as a way to tie it into the WoD orcs
    Few things to keep in mind. According to the Forgotten Shadow, there are some roots in Necrolyte rituals. There is also a Garrison perk called "Voidslayer", which refers to aberrations and undead. Furthermore, Ner'zhul has been dealing with a Dark Naaru in addition to indications related to the previous two premises. Thus, it is entirely possible to see a connection between our powers and necromancy along the lines of a universal definition of Void/Shadow magics.

  2. #22
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by deviantcultist View Post
    Thus, it is entirely possible to see a connection between our powers and necromancy along the lines of a universal definition of Void/Shadow magics.
    I could see all that, I guess I'm more just afraid they won't tell our lore well - rather than that it will be connected to the orcs (since it will). I'd like them to explore the Necrolyte connection, I'd like to know what Ner'zhul was up to on this front - and Dark Naaru are always my friends <3

    *stomps feet* It better be good!
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  3. #23
    Always thought it was just because of the fact that Shadow is in kind of a rough position as, even though skilled Priests can pull from shadow energy, it's a school that both in concept and thematically has more evil and sinister roots.

    We may see some things with the Dark Naaru and void energy but so much of Shadow, thematically, ends up being tied in with things like the Old Gods, the Forsaken's twisted shadow worship, the void, and even bits of necromancy. Warlocks are in a similar spot but while Warlocks have a "fight fire with fire" approach, the only real difference between a Shadow Priest and some of the villains we fight is just "we're on the good side." We're still the light forsaking and insanity loving masochists that prefer to mind fuck an enemy. It's really hard to explore that lore unless from the side of a villain.

  4. #24
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bullettime View Post
    It's really hard to explore that lore unless from the side of a villain.
    There is nothing wrong with exploring Shadow lore through the side of a villain

    Where I differ from Yogg Saron, or N'Zoth, or Y'shaarj - is that I accept that The Great Dark Beyond will consume the universe in time, regardless of our actions - only to rebirth a new universe in light and fury. To destroy a planet, as Deathwing dreamed - and N'Zoth through him - is so small minded - when the void will devour all life, all matter, all memory, and the very measure of time, in time.

    Look beyond our feeble mortal lifetimes, and bear witness to the grandeur of the void - the elegance of the unfolding plan - for what better way does a Void feast upon the emotions of a universe, than to allow it to unfold in due course - to fill it with people, children, love, and life. The Void lets us express and explore all that which can be made, all that which has or will become - for such is the feast that the void prepares: we shadowpriests are but sous chefs to this delicious purpose.

    Look into the darkness, beyond Elune - peer into the faceless visage of doom - for this we bear the light, for that great feast - we at times fight against the void, so that this feast would taste all the better for our earthly struggles. We salt and batter our own sticky deaths
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2014-05-03 at 07:49 AM.
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  5. #25
    Is Metzen the only author allowed to officially advance the WoW storyline? That guy is way too busy writing sweaty homoerotic orc on orc action to come up with intriguing Old God lore or god forbid Shadow lore.. they should hire Yvaelle for that.

    Can't think of a single prominent Shadow lore character. The closest thing that comes to mind is Father Montoy who betrayed the Argent Dawn after the fall of the original Naxxramas, and brought Kel'Thuzads phylactery to the Lich King in return to be turned into a Lich himself.. Oh, Liches are pretty much just undead frost mages, duh so much for holy priest gone bad. :|

    Also like the idea of Necromancy as a Shadow theme, eventhough the DKs somewhat had first dibs on it, there is enough overlapping themes with Shadow to share the whole raising the dead thing.

    Healers bring back the dead breathing and with their flesh intact, Shadow Priests shouldn't waste time with such trivial details.
    Last edited by Calamari; 2014-05-03 at 08:30 AM.
    Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
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  6. #26
    Priests are a hard class to accommodate in lore because each race has a unique diversity. This manifests in the Holy/Discipline specs too; why is my Night Elf priest using Holy Powers, and not Elune powers? Why is my Tauren using Holy Powers and not Sun-based powers?

    But this comes true especially in the form of Shadow Priests. See, you have a couple of races which fit the theme of Shadow very well; nominally Forsaken and Troll. But straight away, the two races are almost juxtaposition of one another, so it's hard to force a Troll's voodoo shadow themed magic on Forsaken, or Cult of the Forgotten Shadow on a Troll.

    Other classes don't really have this issue. All Druids have connections to the Emerald Dream, the only race where this is abit iffy are Trolls once again, but they swung it to them viewing the Emerald Dream as a haven for Loas and it works. All Shamans adhere to the elements, no matter the race. Again, there a few different approaches to how they conduct their actions with the Elements, but it's simply fixed with a few alterations to appearance (totems). All Mages are adept at using the Arcane, and all Warlocks have their powers based in the Burning Legion. Priests, and to a lesser extent Paladins, have this problem because their source of power varies so wildly based on race, so it's hard to enforce a source on other races.

    If, for example, Blizzard went the way to enforce Voodoo themes into the Shadow spec, it would be brilliant for Trolls but abysmal for every other race. Again, if they forced the Cult of Forgotten Shadows, it would only work for one race. If they forced corrupted Naruu (which truthfully I'm incredibly worried for in WoD), it would only work for Draenei and to a lesser extent Blood Elves.

    Basically, Priests offer a unique and difficult matter for Blizzard because there's no strict source on where a Priests power comes from. They tried to fix this a little by offering an Old God themed spec, but I know many people that aren't happy about that. Until a direct source is stated where Shadow powers come from, it's always going to be neglected a little.

    Or, they could go the way of Shamans and offer unique graphical differences based on race to enforce how varied beliefs are. Trolls, their shadow orbs could be little totems hovering around the Priest. Forsaken, it could be skulls hovering around, and for Draenei it could be darkened Naruu crystals. But this is likely too much work for Blizzard to accommodate, so instead, Priest becomes a class where lore is so muddled because they're essentially trying to cram five different religions into one spec (Voodoo, Cult of Forgotten Shadow, Holy Light, Naruu based worship and Elune), so they're unwilling to specifically devout a direct path for the spec at the risk of upsetting players based on what race their priest is.

  7. #27
    Cult of the forgotten shadows may be founded by the forsaken but they have members of every race and faction.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Crudelitas View Post
    Cult of the forgotten shadows may be founded by the forsaken but they have members of every race and faction.
    The problem is that, as outlined above your post, there's pretty big differentiations between the notable branches of Shadow. You have the whole Forgotten Shadows of twisting the light which is more notable in the Forsaken but we see Humans with it too, but then you have Trolls and their Loa worship which crosses between Shamanism and Shadow, then you have the Draene which we see represented in game as necromancers and soul priests (Auchindoun) and the exploring of the void theme with Dark Naaru, and last we have much of their kit being around insanity and mind melting which tie directly in with the Old Gods.

    Largely, Shadow is almost entirely represented in game from the side of the enemy and there's no defining element that unifies the branches in some way except for the shadow appearance. Exploration of void magic in Warlords would give some insight into a single branch of Shadow unless Blizzard starts explaining void magic as a direct opposite to the light and as what the Forsaken and Humans can bend the Holy Light into and is the type of magic that fuels the Old Gods and their powers. I could get behind that as a way to unify the spec themes but I don't see them really exploring it in that sense anytime soon. Priests aren't Warlocks after all

  9. #29
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    The cleanest explanation IMO is my one

    Where there is Light and Void, as paired antithesis - and we use many words to explore this dualism in a context our races were most familiar with.

    For the Undead, being ex-Human - they were familiar with the Light and so framed Shadow as the antithesis. As did the humans, and likely the dwarves and gnomes through their close contact with the humans.

    For Tauren and Night Elves, we framed it based upon our celestial worship - our gods are gods of light who swim through the very Void.

    For Draenei and Orcs, it would go back to Draenor, the Burning Legion, Necromancy, etc - all of which are an exploration of the antithesis of a power they were already familiar with (likely that of the Naaru).

    It was likely rare or even unpractised amongst the High Elves, but after the fall - the Blood Elves explored it as yet another expression of power and reverence toward the Sunwell and the Naaru.

    So, it's not about what words we use to describe the Void, the Light, and the path of Shadow - it's all fundamentally the same thing, but we are toying with concepts that no word can fully describe. When a Troll Priest speaks of the Void, they do so in the context of Loa so that other trolls can understand - just as when I council young elves on the path, I tell them of Elune, and the Great Darkness through which she sails.

    It is all metaphor for a power we priests struggle to ever fathom ourselves, and which non-priests cannot grasp a single iota of the true meaning. To comprehend the cosmos is an endless and impossible task, to walk this path is to touch madness, and insanity: and that is our connection to the Old Gods.

    There is something primeval here - something perhaps older than the Old Gods or the Titans - we reach out to comprehend the very universe, and the frightening thing is -though all we can do is manage a few words imbued with true comprehension - whose very utterance shapes reality - the universe reaches back to touch our minds. That is the duality of ultimate creation and destruction upon which we fathom - that is the long cycle that the Old Gods sought to escape, and perhaps succeeded - at the cost of their sanity.

    Perhaps they were like us once.
    Last edited by Yvaelle; 2014-05-03 at 07:09 PM.
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  10. #30
    We can all provide our explanations through our personal RP point of view. However, what we are lacking is further elaboration on the basic elements of our magics. Blizz once responded on the Shadow Priest Lore matter: "Working on it". I can see some light ( and darkness ) being shed on the matter as of WoD.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by deviantcultist View Post
    We can all provide our explanations through our personal RP point of view. However, what we are lacking is further elaboration on the basic elements of our magics. Blizz once responded on the Shadow Priest Lore matter: "Working on it". I can see some light ( and darkness ) being shed on the matter as of WoD.
    Which is the odd thing. Shadow Priests have spells that thematically pull from Old God territory but yet we're also seeing more "void" centered things like Void Entropy and more lore with Dark Naaru in Warlords.

    So does this mean the void and Old Gods are connected? And if this were the case, wouldn't Dark Naaru be indirectly linked? Because if those were the case, it would put the Old Gods on the direct opposite of the Holy Light. Instead of a sort of "heaven and hell" split, we would be seeing the Light, Elune, and the Naaru on the direct opposite send of the fence from shadow, Dark Naaru, and the Old Gods. We already know Naaru can basically implode into a void state. Why and what happens to force a Naaru, a being of pure light, to turn into a pure manifestation of void power?

    It's an interesting connection that I would like to see them explore. Lot of questions.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Bullettime View Post
    Which is the odd thing. Shadow Priests have spells that thematically pull from Old God territory but yet we're also seeing more "void" centered things like Void Entropy and more lore with Dark Naaru in Warlords.

    So does this mean the void and Old Gods are connected? And if this were the case, wouldn't Dark Naaru be indirectly linked? Because if those were the case, it would put the Old Gods on the direct opposite of the Holy Light. Instead of a sort of "heaven and hell" split, we would be seeing the Light, Elune, and the Naaru on the direct opposite send of the fence from shadow, Dark Naaru, and the Old Gods. We already know Naaru can basically implode into a void state. Why and what happens to force a Naaru, a being of pure light, to turn into a pure manifestation of void power?

    It's an interesting connection that I would like to see them explore. Lot of questions.
    Complete shot in the dark here.. but since the conflict of the Titans and Old Gods seems to be as old as the WoW timeline itself.. maybe the Titans quite simply draw their power from Naaru, and the old gods draw theirs from dead (dark) Naaru?

    On topic of Old God lore.. it's a quite boring stereotype that all the Old Gods in-game are portraid to be pure evil. Just like Sargeras proves that Titans can go down the deep end like any mortal, surely not all Old Gods are interested in bringing about nothing but evil and chaos.

    Might be worth quoting that one mantid boss in SoO: "Chaos is order unrecognized by a lesser mind!", maybe what he meant to say is that the Old Gods simply have their way of doing things just like the Titans have theirs.. except while the Old Gods went around turning constructs of metal and stone into living, breathing and feeling beings, the Titans go around the universe toasting everything that doesn't fit their ideals of "pure" like a bunch of super giant space nazi terminators.

    Where the inhabitans of Azeroth see living feeling beings, the Titans see only a disorganized pile of chaos that needs space lasering. From that perspective I'd say the Titans are FAR more evil than the Old Gods, the Old Gods at least let their subjects LIVE, while the Titan's would wipe out everyone on Azeroth just because "we dun taek kindly to your types aroun' here", how noble.

    Same applies to Demons, they were living and minding their own business until the Titans showed up, burned their homeworlds, and put those who survived into cages. It is no wonder they'd be pissed off enough to rally behind Sargeras after that.

    Quote from the Twilight Bishop: "If only you'd seen what I've seen.. then you would understand. There is no good.. no evil! No light.. there is only POWER. We serve the worlds true masters now, when their rule begins, we will SHARE in their glory!" As a shadow priest I'd know exactly which side I'd choose. :P
    Last edited by Calamari; 2014-05-04 at 02:57 AM.
    Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
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