Break the cycle, break the hatred, make the game - humans emergent in the horde

[Aquamonkey]

The details are fuzzy about the difference between Warcraft III's Lordaeron Alliance and World of Warcraft's Stormwind Alliance, but Garithos clearly did not represent Stormwind.

It is the same Alliance, as emphasized by Genn going to the Darnassus summit for "Re-admission" into the Alliance (Wolfheart). The Alliance during WC3 was based in Lordaeron. Garithos' forces rallied behind him because he was the highest ranking officer there. The Dwarves even sent reinforcements to him.

As for the second part, where does that actually come from? That was never shown in game, and as I said, it doesn't line up with what we know about the Alliance. If it's canon, it's a very lazy piece of writing obviously put there to justify them being a Horde race instead of an Alliance race, not any proof of the Forsaken being tragic victims of terrible prejudice.

"When I clawed my way out of the grave, I thought my family would welcome me with open arms. Instead, they drove me out of the village, screaming in a language I could no longer understand."

Lady Sylvanas Windrunner says: With Arthas gone, so too was the control he held over the undead masses of Lordaeron. After recovering my body, I freed the remaining Scourge that were left behind.

When the Lich King’s grasp on his vast armies faltered after the Third War, a contingent of undead broke free of their master’s iron will. Although this freedom seemed to be a blessing at first, these former humans were soon tormented by memories of the unspeakable horrors that they had committed as mindless Scourge agents. Those who did not descend into madness were faced with a chilling realization: the entirety of Azeroth sought their destruction.
In their darkest hour, the renegade undead were rallied together by the former ranger-general of Quel’Thalas, Sylvanas Windrunner. Defeated during an attack on her kingdom and transformed into a powerful Scourge banshee, Sylvanas had also regained her freedom from the Lich King. Under their new queen’s guidance, the independent undead – known as Forsaken – established the Undercity beneath the ruins of Lordaeron’s capital. While some Forsaken feared Sylvanas, others valued the security she provided. Many of the free-willed undead, however, found a purpose to their cursed existence through the banshee queen’s burning desire to destroy the Lich King.
Despite not being affiliated with the Scourge, the Forsaken came under threat from humans who were dedicated to eradicating all Forsaken.

[Khaza-R]

will end all the horde hate when undeath gets a cure, but one that doesn't always work.

Think about it..all the alliance fan "horde favourtism" QQs may disappear altogether when humans also play a part in the horde by undeath being healable.. but not at 100% success rate, allowing you to still role an undead character or a horde human.

Would be a perfect intro with the new race models too. The story goes that some druid or Alextraszaa or a Naaru maybe even Elune implements a cure for undeath, but it restores some undead fully, partially works in others, and not at all in some. So you have the Forsaken group now made up restored humans/Elves and undead. To prevent human immortality, raising to undeath cannot be something that works all the time either, so it's success rate is going to have to change dramatically too.. burning to ashes or cutting someone to pieces should prevent them ever returning as undead too.

What do you think? it would give the horde a legitimacy for holding land in Azeroth the alliance fans can never complain about again, we could also finally give them their beloved High Elves, and i'd probably shift horde leadership to the Blood Elves again. Human forsaken will never forgive alliance humans for trying to exterminate them when they demonstrated they were free from the mindless scourge control and needed help rather than extermination. Maybe in light of that it's better if Blood elf priests find a cure.

Horde humans would have an additional character creation customisation - undeath scars or healing undeath which will allow you to have a fully normal human, or one wtih a few bits of rot that are "in the process of being healed" but not quite yet.

If I were a Forsaken turned living again, I would hardly forgive the Alliance just because I was alive again.

[Gamevizier]

Garithos was a military officer of Lordaeron, which was at the time a member of the Alliance.

Forsaken fans, however, are always quick to tell everyone how the Forsaken are the true people of Lordaeron. To which I say fine, great, that's swell. But my question is, how did the sins of Lordaeron somehow get dumped on the other kingdoms of the Alliance just because Lordaeron went undead and faction-changed to Horde?

Same thing with the bellyaching over the old orc internment camps. That shit was Lordaeron, man, go tell it to the Forsaken.

Sylvanas isn't even FROM Lordaeron. forsaken do not have to be from Lordaeron and they don't represent the people of Lordaeron. the surviving members of Lordaeron are the very same people that are being butchered by the forsaken and thrown into experimental camps like sludge fields, so in reality the forsaken are TRYING to appear as true rulers of Lordaeron by butchering Lordaeron people and turning them into undead and therefore eradicating the actual people that represent it.

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I can't see how the forsaken support killing other living beings and raising them as forsaken while they themselves were victims of such action. if the forsaken truely see their undeath as a curse inflicted upon them and are the true victims then WHY THE F*** are they trying to kill and then raise other living beings as undead ? While even they themselves don't view undeath as a gift...so what is the reason behind this ideology?

[Aquamonkey]

not true, Garithos was the commander of the Alliance forces in Lordaeron. that's why the Blood Elves were assisting them in the first place, and that's why the Blood Elves left the Alliance after Garithos' stupid actions.

I wasn't talking about Garithos on that part. I was talking about the Scarlet Crusade.

Stormwind is not "the alliance" it is a member of alliance, in-fact I don't think Stormwind was a major player until Lordaeron was destroyed by the undead. (Stormwind was rebuilt by the rest of the Alliance during the war with Orcs.)

Stormwind was Terenas and the Alliance's biggest supporter after the 2nd War. SW was rebuilt after the 2nd War.

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Sylvanas isn't even FROM Lordaeron. forsaken do not have to be from Lordaeron and they don't represent the people of Lordaeron. the surviving members of Lordaeron are the very same people that are being butchered by the forsaken and thrown into experimental camps like sludge fields, so in reality the forsaken are TRYING to appear as true rulers of Lordaeron by butchering Lordaeron people and turning them into undead and therefore eradicating the actual people that represent it.

The majority of the Forsaken are from Lordaeron purely by the method of their creation. The Plague only turns humans into Scourge and that shit was spread all over Lordaeron. If you want to compare populations. The entirety of the Lordaeron cities Captial City, Andorhal, and Stratholme were converted to Scourge. You really want to compare the few measly people who survived from small towns?

And the Sludge Fields was done by a rogue Forsaken and the experiments done there were also done on other Forsaken.

The Forsaken are even sometimes referred to as citizens of Lordaeron (Edge of Night).

Lady Sylvanas Windrunner says: The people who called this land their home in life, do so in death as well.
Lady Sylvanas Windrunner says: But the Alliance does not recognize our rights. They claim this land as their own while attempting to invalidate the claims of the founders of this kingdom.

I can't see how the forsaken support killing other living beings and raising them as forsaken while they themselves were victims of such action. if the forsaken truely see their undeath as a curse inflicted upon them and are the true victims then WHY THE F*** are they trying to kill and then raise other living beings as undead ? While even they themselves don't view undeath as a gift...so what is the reason behind this ideology?

Their problem isn't with being raised into undeath. They've come to accept/embrace their state. Their problem was with the LK mindslaving them and feeding on their souls.

"With the blessing and power from the Dark Lady, I have freed you from death's grip."

"As you can see, not all of us have resigned to our fates. I'm glad to see that you're at least willing to work. Valred will be a valuable asset to the Forsaken. As for the other two... there is not much we can do. We cannot force them to join us."

[Grimble]

"When I clawed my way out of the grave, I thought my family would welcome me with open arms. Instead, they drove me out of the village, screaming in a language I could no longer understand."

In other words, in the aftermath of a civilization-destroying outbreak of undeath, this guy thought he was just going to take his flesh-rotting ass back home and put his feet up and have his wife bring him a sammich. So basically he's not very good at thinking things through. Meanwhile all his family knew was that Dad's moldy corpse came barging into town one day waving its arms and going "Acka blugga anal kek!" or whatever.

Not that it isn't traumatic, but it seems like maybe the correct idea is to go sit down and learn how to speak your own language again, and then maybe write your family an eloquent letter explaining your dilemma.

[Gamevizier]

I wasn't talking about Garithos on that part. I was talking about the Scarlet Crusade.


Stormwind was Terenas and the Alliance's biggest supporter after the 2nd War. SW was rebuilt after the 2nd War.

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The majority of the Forsaken are from Lordaeron purely by the method of their creation. The Plague only turns humans into Scourge and that shit was spread all over Lordaeron. If you want to compare populations. The entirety of the Lordaeron cities Captial City, Andorhal, and Stratholme were converted to Scourge. You really want to compare the few measly people who survived from small towns?

And the Sludge Fields was done by a rogue Forsaken and the experiments done there were also done on other Forsaken.

Their problem isn't with being raised into undeath. They've come to accept/embrace their state. Their problem was with the LK mindslaving them and feeding on their souls.

and many of them are not forsaken but mindless undead, the forsaken are a fraction of the scourge that broke free from the lich king's grasp (many do not retain their sanity.)

So those measly people must die and then turned into undead? this is exactly the sort of shit that the Argent Dawn was created to fight in the first place : to protect the people of Lordaeron from the undead. but for unknown reasons Tirion is turning a blind eye to what Sylvanas is doing.

And the alliance at Andorhal were slaughtered by Sylvanas, Liam Greymane was also killed by Sylvanas (thus making the matter very very personal with Greymane.) , Galen Trollbane was also killed and ressurected as a forsaken (regardless of Arathi not being part of Lordaeron, this shows that the forsaken do try to gain more lands.)

so you're saying that the forsaken see the undeath as "gift" and want to give this gift to the living regardless of the individual's preferences? and don't say that they give you an option when they raise you as undead. That's like infecting someone with AIDS and then tell them : ok now, you have AIDS, now do you wish to stick with us people who have AIDS just like you or do you want to wander alone ? I'm sure if you ask them before you infect them with aids they'll have a very different opinion.

[Mace]

No, allowing Horde humans would not stop Alliance complaints, it would make them worse. You're suggesting that the Horde gets new race options, one of them being an Alliance race, and the Alliance gets nothing in return. I would support the Forsaken and Lordaeron returning somewhat to normal, it makes the most sense considering their history, but this specific way would only cause more drama.

Alliance will get their high elves playable. SO you essentially get humans, Elves and Panderian able to choose both factions but in different ways.

and I think it has a good chance of ending the horde favoritism squabbles that are really resulting I think in allaicnce players feeling the horde as usurpers and invaders that have no right to even exist on Azeroth, even though the horde is made up of Azerothian natives..the impression is fuelled by older players because of the Orc dominance, and the Orcs not being Azeorth natives and being ugly and brtish. it just appears in just to them.. they would not feel so strongly about whining over every piece of territory if the horde was blood elf led and humans were part of the horde through the forsaken faction.

Lorderon would be back in the game, Lorderon would be a human place albeit with undead humans also, it would be like the old alliance, except it owuld be horde, .. they'd find it hard to hate that trust me. You'd have 2 pretty races on the horde too, not just one and they'd have a race to identify. Par tof the problem with the horde in lore that i think has force blizzard to heavily emphaisize it is because it had no humans, and face it, humans are what most players identify with.

Make horde forsaken humans available and the QQ horde bias will drop dramtically, give the alliance high elves playable as compensation, you'd find a different dynamic arise... but it won't be so story bias intensive ..and can go back to genuine rivalry

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I have better idea !!! How about night elves find an artifact that will turn them back into trolls, and then make peace with vol'jin ? Think about it !! All QQ will dissappear when trolls also play role in alliance !!!

ooo.. ooo, can it affect blood elves too pretty pls

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If I were a Forsaken turned living again, I would hardly forgive the Alliance just because I was alive again.

exactly...nothing short of divine intervention would cause that. No way a forsaken human would be friendly with an alliance human.

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Sylvanas isn't even FROM Lordaeron. forsaken do not have to be from Lordaeron and they don't represent the people of Lordaeron. the surviving members of Lordaeron are the very same people that are being butchered by the forsaken and thrown into experimental camps like sludge fields, so in reality the forsaken are TRYING to appear as true rulers of Lordaeron by butchering Lordaeron people and turning them into undead and therefore eradicating the actual people that represent it.

----

I can't see how the forsaken support killing other living beings and raising them as forsaken while they themselves were victims of such action. if the forsaken truely see their undeath as a curse inflicted upon them and are the true victims then WHY THE F*** are they trying to kill and then raise other living beings as undead ? While even they themselves don't view undeath as a gift...so what is the reason behind this ideology?

it would be an incredible mind f**k to be able to restore their humanity and cure undeath, even if it was not a 100% success rate on all the treated. Imagine how it would change them.. but i'm sure it won't really change their hatred for the alliance aligned humans.

[The Stormbringer]

I thought the waters in pandaria can cure death or undeath?

I dunno. I don't think any Forsaken tried throwing themselves into the pool to find out. Would've been neat if they had. Imagine someone shoving Sylvanas inside and her emerging soaking wet (awesome) and alive again...! That'd be a shock, wouldn't it?

[Aquamonkey]

and many of them are not forsaken but mindless undead, the forsaken are a fraction of the scourge that broke free from the lich king's grasp (many do not retain their sanity.)

So those measly people must die and then turned into undead? this is exactly the sort of shit that the Argent Dawn was created to fight in the first place : to protect the people of Lordaeron from the undead. but for unknown reasons Tirion is turning a blind eye to what Sylvanas is doing.

They're been raising hundreds of corpses each day from graveyards for nearly 2 years game time. The majority of their "reproduction" resurrections happen on people who are already dead. The resurrections they do on the battlefield are for strategic purposes. They don't invade territories just to mass-convert populations into undead like the Scourge. And again those raised have free will, they aren't mindslaves with their souls being fed upon by the LK.

And the alliance at Andorhal were slaughtered by Sylvanas,

So what? It was a battlefield. Sylvanas won. The Alliance was expanding into territory that wasn't theirs. The vision of the future shows the Alliance attack on UC comes through the Bulwark from Andorhal. Kind of makes that location strategically important for Sylvanas to hold for the security of her people.

Liam Greymane was also killed by Sylvanas (thus making the matter very very personal with Greymane.)

The entire Gilneas campaign was by order of Garrosh.

Galen Trollbane was also killed and ressurected as a forsaken (regardless of Arathi not being part of Lordaeron, this shows that the forsaken do try to gain more lands.)

The original quest chain to find Trol'kalar where Galen was killed was given by a troll in order to use against Zul'Gurub... All Sylvanas did was resurrect someone who was already dead.

And all Galen does is give the exact analogue chain of quests to reclaim Trol'kalar. The only Forsaken base in Arathi is a small camp with 3 people near the wall. And most of their quests involve killing Syndicate. The major Horde base is Hammerfall, run by orcs. To pretend this is some kind of Forsaken invasion is ludicrous.

so you're saying that the forsaken see the undeath as "gift" and want to give this gift to the living regardless of the individual's preferences? and don't say that they give you an option when they raise you as undead. That's like infecting someone with AIDS and then tell them : ok now, you have AIDS, now do you wish to stick with us people who have AIDS just like you or do you want to wander alone ? I'm sure if you ask them before you infect them with aids they'll have a very different opinion.

Obviously it's not the best reasoning, but you're the one who claimed they were hypocritical to raise people because they hate it. This clearly isn't the case. They embrace their undeath. And again, they aren't "gifting" this to the living. The vast, vast majority of resurrections happen at graveyards on people who are already dead. They don't go around invading places just to resurrect them as Forsaken. They attack places for strategic advantage or under orders. They then raise those on the battlefield also for strategic advantage or just to not waste the corpses.

[Shelly]

Let's go with no and here are the reasons why:

1) There is legitimate beef with the forsaken. They worship the dark like the light and have NO PROBLEM mind controlling the living and enslaving what living are left in Lordaeron.

2) They are involved in an expansionist policy, covering down into South Shore and even into Arathi and old Stromgarde, to say otherwise is ludicrous. Just because it's a small base camp doesn't mean it's not a forward outpost heralding a much larger invasion. This is to say nothing of their incursions into Gilneas. They want the upper regions of that continent all to their own, shared only with the Blood Elves and even that's rather suspect.

3) They have no regrets using bio-chemical agents to destroy an area. In fact their basic survival may indeed depend on using these agents to change the environment of an area into one plagued. Which means that they make the area unlivable for any other species excluding one willing to be plagued. Which pretty much means gnolls and other wildlife.

4) They devour other humanoids raw for food. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure a lot of humans in Stormwind like a good steak, I just don't think they are getting one by cutting up a Tauren. Forsaken though don't feel any sort of compulsion, meat is meat, even that of other undead.

So yeah, cry me a river about how the poor forsaken is oppressed and unloved. Fact of the matter is that they are genocidal, cannibalistic, fascist (that doesn't say much as all factions are fascist and in some cases fascist theocracies), commit what we'd call war crimes and will do immoral crimes to give themselves holds on areas. Galen did not ask to be resurrected, but by doing so the Forsaken now have a claim to Stromgarde, as they also have to Gilneas through the various citizens that they've resurrected to now fight on the Forsaken side.

There's not much of a moral gray area here. They aren't fighting just to survive and they never have, maybe they did once as individuals, but as a race and faction they are the most warlike and pragmatically immoral of all the races on Azeroth. That's what their entire purpose is to be and to use them as an outlet for "humans in the horde" is actually rather insulting.

[Aquamonkey]

1) There is legitimate beef with the forsaken. They worship the dark like the light and have NO PROBLEM mind controlling the living and enslaving what living are left in Lordaeron.

The Forsaken are not mind-control or enslaved. They have free will and are free to leave the Forsaken at any time.

2) They are involved in an expansionist policy, covering down into South Shore and even into Arathi and old Stromgarde, to say otherwise is ludicrous. Just because it's a small base camp doesn't mean it's not a forward outpost heralding a much larger invasion. This is to say nothing of their incursions into Gilneas. They want the upper regions of that continent all to their own, shared only with the Blood Elves and even that's rather suspect.

Southshore is Lordaeron territory and a major Alliance port near Forsaken territory. The Alliance have made incursions into Alterac and WPL, right on the Forsaken's borders.

The Forsaken have made no aggressive moves towards the Alliance or Stromgarde in Arathi except under orders of the Horde or in reclamation of Trol'kalar for Galen (BTW, it's his sword. He has every right to it). They are not invading jack shit with 3 people. 1 of whom just wants his sword back. The other just wants to settle a personal vendetta at a farm. And the 3rd just wants you to kill some Syndicate.

If they were going to invade Stromgarde they would have Bighted the shit out of it. The major base there a Horde base controlled by orcs.

3) They have no regrets using bio-chemical agents to destroy an area. In fact their basic survival may indeed depend on using these agents to change the environment of an area into one plagued. Which means that they make the area unlivable for any other species excluding one willing to be plagued. Which pretty much means gnolls and other wildlife.

Completely wrong. Blight was designed to kill undead and living. It's just as deadly to the Forsaken as it is everyone else. Forsaken have determined Southshore to remain at lethal levels for a hundred years.

4) They devour other humanoids raw for food. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure a lot of humans in Stormwind like a good steak, I just don't think they are getting one by cutting up a Tauren. Forsaken though don't feel any sort of compulsion, meat is meat, even that of other undead.

Those people were dead already. So what if they eat the corpses?

Galen did not ask to be resurrected, but by doing so the Forsaken now have a claim to Stromgarde, as they also have to Gilneas through the various citizens that they've resurrected to now fight on the Forsaken side.

So now Sylvanas is going to use political maneuvering to claim Gilneas and Stromgarde through resurrection? Why would anyone think that would work? The humans already invalidate any claims the Forsaken have. And Sylvanas only attacked Gilneas because Garrosh twisted her arm.

Galen doesn't have any problems with being Forsaken. He's free to leave just like all the other Forsaken. Just look at Godfrey, he didn't like being Forsaken so he shot Sylvanas in the face.

There's not much of a moral gray area here. They aren't fighting just to survive and they never have, maybe they did once as individuals, but as a race and faction they are the most warlike and pragmatically immoral of all the races on Azeroth. That's what their entire purpose is to be and to use them as an outlet for "humans in the horde" is actually rather insulting.

Except that since Silvanas' encounter at ICC, her sole motivation has been survival. And putting a kingdom of undead between herself and the afterlife. All the crying about Sylvanas' "expansionist" policies can be explained in that context. Southshore? Major Alliance naval port from which to attack the Forsaken. Andorhal? The Alliance invasion of UC is shown to have come through Andorhal. Putting a tiny camp at the Arathi wall? Forward scout to alert if Alliance attempt a land invasion now that their seaport is destroyed.

The only crimes the Forsaken are guilty of is medical torture in development of Blight and exploiting the confused state of newly resurrected on the battlefield.

[Lazuli]

I dunno. I don't think any Forsaken tried throwing themselves into the pool to find out. Would've been neat if they had. Imagine someone shoving Sylvanas inside and her emerging soaking wet (awesome) and alive again...! That'd be a shock, wouldn't it?

A shock to my penis, that's for sure.

[Cyrops]

Guns don't kill anything that moves, my crazy hunter with an ichy trigger finger does.
Bullets don't care what they hit.
There will be blood.

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I dunno. I don't think any Forsaken tried throwing themselves into the pool to find out. Would've been neat if they had. Imagine someone shoving Sylvanas inside and her emerging soaking wet (awesome) and alive again...! That'd be a shock, wouldn't it?

Please leave Sylvanas alone, you forget one major thing - undead Sylvanas doesn't say no.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

No, just...NO. It would be lore breaking AND ruin the RP elements of picking a side and race.

[Talen]

will end all the horde hate when undeath gets a cure, but one that doesn't always work.

Cure Undeath and the victim simply dies.

That's not an issue for the Alliance who see the Forsaken as imprisoned souls trapped in their own rotting flesh and corrupted by foul necromantic energies but it'd be kinda naff for gameplay to simply have one faction keel over.

A cure for Undeath might be possible. It appears as if it wears off anyway. Mass resurrection of thousands of people? Not likely. As a storypoint for one, maybe two individual? Galen Trollbane or Liam Greymane? It could work. Not for the faction as a whole.

EJL

[Ghul]

luckily the "undeath" is not a curse or a sickness that can be reversed.

just imagine, if you use the valkyr to turn a dead human into a forsaken and then just un-undeath him, you basically successfully brought him back from the dead without any turn-downs.

imagine, they could bring uther lightbringer and other famous people back from the dead just like that. this would break everything 8>

[Aquamonkey]

Cure Undeath and the victim simply dies.

How is that a cure? They can go in and "cure" them all right now.

[Volitar]

Honestly, I can totally live with Human/Dwarf/Gnome being cross-faction and Tauren/Troll/Blood Elf being cross-faction as well. This Warcraft "All races have a hive-mind" crap gets old.

Yeah, I always thought this was stupid and make the lore of the game shallow as hell. Look at this expansion, Garrosh is basically Orc Hitler and I can't choose to leave the Horde and Fight for the Alliance?

[Grubjuice]

is it weird that in this univers there is both resurrection from dead to life and resurrection from dead to undeath (not mention resurrection from dead-undeath back to undeath?)

why does undeath even exist in a universe where it's really easy to just resurrect people to life.

[Aquamonkey]

is it weird that in this univers there is both resurrection from dead to life and resurrection from dead to undeath (not mention resurrection from dead-undeath back to undeath?)

why does undeath even exist in a universe where it's really easy to just resurrect people to life.

It's not easy to resurrect people to life. All the shit we do in game is just a gameplay mechanic. Lore resurrections almost never happen. It took Aegwynn 20 years to gather enough power to resurrect Medivh.