Who should be the next Warmonger?

[Archmage Xaxxas]

I personally had Hope, that when Blizzard torched Teldrassil in Battle For Azeroth, the point was to initiate another 20 years (IRL storytelling years) of Alliance and Horde racial conflict.

(As would, dare I say, realistically happen in the context of the setting.)
The thrill of the classic 'Old Hatreds' returning with vengeance was something I revelled in, where it applied.

Of course, as awesome as 'Old Soldier' was, that whole plot dashed my Hope.... Killed it even.. lol, and in the Expansion that probably should have reignited the flames of war forever with an act as horrific as Teldrassil's Burning, decided instead to be the Expansion that douses the flame..

Well, thankfully not entirely.
While somehow Teldrassil goes as the most forgiven War Crime in recent ingame History, a few Characters came out of Battle for Azeroth with some New Hatreds, and a few Old ones being resurfaced.


Here are a few I'm excited to see play out, but please do share anything you've thought about in this regard.

------------------------------------

Princess Talanji: Oh man I love a good ol' spiteful Troll. No less, she's the ruler of a badass dinosaur riding Empire, and has the ear of the lower Troll clans. Aye, I recall reading as a kiddo in the manuals, how Trolls above any other races seem to harbor the most hatred for other races. ESPECIALLY Humans.

RIP Rastakhan, but he died honorably in service of sustaining the Torch of War. Jaina in her haste, seiged Dazar'alor and alongside the Alliance's finest, brought a swift death to the long-lived Ruler of Zandalar, leaving his only daughter Talanji devastated, and angered.

Talanji has my approval in any retaliation, but wouldn't it be a little more fun if say, a Human were to instigate another war this time?

Danath Trollbane & Turalyon: I pair these two up because Two Bitter Old Humans is more likely trouble than One. Now, put a Crown on each of their heads, inspire them with the Fourth War and their Victories at the Battle for Stromgarde.. This storm is brewing juust right.

Both Danath and Turalyon have seen the worst of The Horde during the Second War, and each in their time in Outland and beyond have also been exposed to some very large scale, otherwordly possibilities. While some would argue, and for Turalyon I agree this applies moreso, that surely they would have only been Wisened by these experiences, I tend to lean into their flaws, being Humans after all, winning over their wisdom.

I will mourn for this franchise the day there isn't a Racist Human alive ingame. Wait wait, this isn't going political. Let's just be honest, there's no Internet or NWO Globalists in Warcraft to make sure everyone just gets along like we have IRL, for better or worse. These guys aren't going to be able to see the bigger picture the way you and I were born and raised to. Turalyon in particular, having seen so much, could very well feel far more righteously entitled to making 'The Call' on whether or not The Horde is just Sargeras' Cosmic Mistake. Just an idea.

Danath on the other hand, right up in BfA was seen calling Eitrigg a 'Green Skin'. More of this Blizz, please. How about we put his family name to the mettle and have him rile up Talanji?

And we shan't forget of course, what both of these guys must think of The Undead and their place in The Horde following Shadowlands. Genn Greymane for example, has been fortunate to see the other side of The Forsaken, seeing them as just that.
But to these grizzled, hardened men, the deeds of Sylvanas and the absolute magnitude of those actions should definitely call Danath, Turalyon, and really just ALL Humans to question whether or not The Undead should even be ALLOWED to exist.

Edit: Last minute Addition:

The Dreadlords: Honestly, let's just finally use these crafty Shapeshifters like Skrulls or something. Have them kidnap and replace someone, and have us try to guess who might be legitimately a Warmonger and who is a Devil in Disguise. Let them stir up a mess and watch it boil up into madness. Just once!
------------------------------------

So those are my two* picks off the top of my head. Please do share your own ideas, contest the ones above as you will!

Really though, if you're just looking for the HvA faction conflict to end, surely you've probably not read most of what I wrote in haste to make sure we all know how much you want that. So just expect the same treatment of your reply? To those who did read, ofc I'm only teasing, thank you for your time.

If the creative juice and will to tell the story to it's end is there, Faction Hatreds won't feel played out or repetitive. It's only when the substance behind working together, or fighting eachother doesn't sink in or make sense due to a Creative Tug'o'War over the franchise's moral implications, that these things feel tiring.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Time for the Alliance to have a heel turn, imo. Turalyon is being positioned (currently) behind the scenes to be capable to taking on a quasi-warmonger role if they decided to pull the trigger on it.

[Kayb]

If they really have to go warmonger again then make it an Alliance character thanks. Greymane or Turalyon would be my picks if it had be a faction leader. Outside of faction leaders though, I'm sure there are mountains of Alliance characters that could/want to go full hell on the Horde.

It is insanely boring the have the Horde only ever be the 'bad guys' per say.

[Okacz]

If they really have to go warmonger again then make it an Alliance character thanks. Greymane or Turalyon would be my picks if it had be a faction leader. Outside of faction leaders though, I'm sure there are mountains of Alliance characters that could/want to go full hell on the Horde.

It is insanely boring the have the Horde only ever be the 'bad guys' per say.

To be honest, I wouldn't even mind it. What's the point of making "Red" and "Blue" factions if you have them grey anyway. I'd let Alliance guys be the "good defenders" if Horde got to ever be aggressive without being immediately told that "No, this is bad, you should be ashamed for playing this faction, and your leader is going to be a raid boss".

Shadowlands muddied the waters so much anyway that for a new player it must be confusing as fuck why there's even any PvP in the game. Horde and Alliance sitting in the same room and saving each other.

[Talrath]

i think that every character has the potential to become the next warmonger, the question is who will experience an event that makes him or her a warmonger. In BFA (before it released) i thought for the alliance side it would be malfurion and tyrande. Seeing their lands beeing ravaged and their people slain (man/woman and child) and burned alive would for sure have changed those two if the story was told consistent. Malfurion, after survived the blow from saurfang, starts to immediately open nordrassil powers to the remaining elfs. The elfs of the guardian of hiyal and cenarion circle are given a choice, join us (the leftover elfs) or never be given permission again to come back home. Most elfs would take the offer since they surely must have had family that died cuz of the horde. Tyrande does the night ritual.

Very easy to make a warmonger if they had just thought before executing the story.

So for the next warmonger, malfurion can still be chosen as the next warmonger since tyrande chose renwel, blegh. The final straw for him to drastically change would be the forsaken starting to settle in ashenvale. The horde, when we left to the shadowlands, was still the stronger force in azeroth so the forsaken can quite easy take over ashenvale, screwing up lakes, animals, dryads and so on. Effects of it oozes to the edges of darkshore where malfurion find a deformed dead child and that is the last straw.

[owbu]

Basic Campfire will burn them all!

[thegoodbroham]

probably no one, not without a good reason. there's a reason why BFA & Shadowlands storytelling is pretty garbo, and its due to stuff like this.

Starting a convo with "who should the next warmonger be" *assumes* the discussion of "should there be more faction wars" took place and landed on a conclusion. But it didn't, we're simply asserting that there needs to be another warmonger and starting from there? Okay... so pretty much any result we land on is going to be forced, inconsistent, nonsensical, etc etc etc. All of the reasons why the vast large majority of players, by far and large, did not consider Teldrassil to be... you know. A good story? Hell, the entirety of BFA is two different stories. If you play Alliance, you get one story of all the dead civilians. If you play Horde, you get an entirely different story in the SAME TOWN about only taking civilians as prisoners, interrogating them for some intel, and releasing them peacefully after.

Stormsong Valley? Brennedam? Same thing. Alliance gets evil Horde NPC's dropping in to sack a town and slaughter everyone. On Horde you... are never involved, never hear of it, never even encounter Alliance until they attack YOU and its just a simple "oh, humans are attacking, defend the fortress"

Don't you see? They literally couldn't even make a cohesive plot, the entire narrative is split into two mutually exclusive stories that are logically inconsistent with each other, disguised by the faction wall in hopes you don't notice. How did we get here? Because the entirety of the BFA faction war was forced nonsense and there was no way to make a meaningful plot to agree with it, soooo we end up with an insultingly bad mishmash of conflicting stories.

The faction war is a tired and outdated plot device that now costs more than we get out of it. It could have, should have tapered off after Legion, with more minor domestic disputes and racial tension. Hell, even a failed attempt at unity would be more interesting than a full-on war. Give me a quest where a human accuses his troll neighbor of cannibalizing his missing children, only to find out the troll's children are also missing and the human was the cannibal! Give me civil unrest, peacekeepers struggling to maintain order as faction loyalists duke it out in the streets after hours like gangs. But also give me orc peons and human farmers running out of ale and going on an adventure, as a group of uneducated laborers, raising money to save their favorite tavern from going under.

Any of those things sounds incredibly more interesting than whatever warmonger you choose, and the fecal-tier mosaic of story elements "borrowed" from past faction wars shoehorned together in spectacular mediocrity. Seriously. No one.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

A mostly well said argument.

I appreciate your thoughts here, and I can certainly agree with the reflections you have on how things definitely went with previous stories, especially Brennedam.

Though I must point out that your projection of the next Warmonger story assumes/asserts as much as I have, which I indeed have, in my post.

"Okay... so pretty much any result we land on is going to be forced, inconsistent, nonsensical, etc etc etc."

This isn't a given. Is it likely? Ya maybe, but just as it's not a given the Faction War -should- continue, as I feel it ought to, it's not a given that if a competent storyteller wanted to turn the current setting into a 'naturally occuring, consistent, sensible, etc etc etc.' story, that they wouldn't be able to.

I get that faith isn't all around high in this regard, but sometimes miracles happen. :'( Maybe Danuser is granted a lunch with Metzen and they just hit all the right marks again like the good old days, put out something that resonates. Maybe some new blood at Blizz has all the ideas and hasn't been given a voice just yet.

[Nasuuna]

Probably Thrall or Baine

They are all thats left right? Alliance can't be the primary aggressor according to my headcanon and precedence

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm tired of Horde vs Alliance. I have no faith in the modern writers to deliever a satisfying faction or racial conflict. As bad as the Janitor is, would you really want to see your favorite faction/racial leaders like Talanji or Genn corrupted into villains to be unsatisfyingly killed off? At least with new OC villains like the Janitor, your emotional investment in your favorite characters isn't being toyed with.

[shoc]

A radicalized Turalyon would be dope. An Alleria that totally loses it would also be dope. Lich King Anduin could be the premise of an entire expansion.

[melzas]

Void elves went really fast from being kicked out of silvermoon for being assholes to "let's join the alliance and murder all the blood elves we called family few weeks ago". Seems like it's a thing for thalassian elves to just go from one extreme to another. Pretty sure blood elves aren't too happy about their existence either. That's some pretty good core for another faction conflict.

Also Night Elves Vs Nightborne. Wasn't too long ago Tyrande (even if a bit cold) helped the Nightfallen in their little insurection, they paid off very nicely by joining the horde and helping them burn down teldrassil...

There is also this sky captain human female that name eludes me (Rogers?) that was with us in MoP and then later during Valrajar campaign, she seems to be very obsessed with killing any horde she sees.

Greymane and worgen probably aren't over forsaken even if Sylvanas took most of the blame.

I also feel most orcs, trolls, forsaken and goblin didn't hesitate too much when Sylvanas ordered to burn down teldrassil. They probably were more like "sure, why not" than "omg this is awful but orders is orders". Just because Jaina and Thrall are all BFF again doesn't mean most orcs and humans are as well.

They could also give some extra spotlight to minor characters that are faction conflict oriented like Volrath and Tremblade. Also, do you remember those world quest givers during BFA faction assaults, Grumbol Grimhammer and Usha Eyegouge? I loved their voice lines, we need more of that duo.

[Kathranis]

If they're gonna spark up a new conflict, Turalyon should certainly be the one behind it, right?

[Jastall]

probably no one, not without a good reason. there's a reason why BFA & Shadowlands storytelling is pretty garbo, and its due to stuff like this.

Starting a convo with "who should the next warmonger be" *assumes* the discussion of "should there be more faction wars" took place and landed on a conclusion. But it didn't, we're simply asserting that there needs to be another warmonger and starting from there? Okay... so pretty much any result we land on is going to be forced, inconsistent, nonsensical, etc etc etc. All of the reasons why the vast large majority of players, by far and large, did not consider Teldrassil to be... you know. A good story? Hell, the entirety of BFA is two different stories. If you play Alliance, you get one story of all the dead civilians. If you play Horde, you get an entirely different story in the SAME TOWN about only taking civilians as prisoners, interrogating them for some intel, and releasing them peacefully after.

Stormsong Valley? Brennedam? Same thing. Alliance gets evil Horde NPC's dropping in to sack a town and slaughter everyone. On Horde you... are never involved, never hear of it, never even encounter Alliance until they attack YOU and its just a simple "oh, humans are attacking, defend the fortress"

Don't you see? They literally couldn't even make a cohesive plot, the entire narrative is split into two mutually exclusive stories that are logically inconsistent with each other, disguised by the faction wall in hopes you don't notice. How did we get here? Because the entirety of the BFA faction war was forced nonsense and there was no way to make a meaningful plot to agree with it, soooo we end up with an insultingly bad mishmash of conflicting stories.

The faction war is a tired and outdated plot device that now costs more than we get out of it. It could have, should have tapered off after Legion, with more minor domestic disputes and racial tension. Hell, even a failed attempt at unity would be more interesting than a full-on war. Give me a quest where a human accuses his troll neighbor of cannibalizing his missing children, only to find out the troll's children are also missing and the human was the cannibal! Give me civil unrest, peacekeepers struggling to maintain order as faction loyalists duke it out in the streets after hours like gangs. But also give me orc peons and human farmers running out of ale and going on an adventure, as a group of uneducated laborers, raising money to save their favorite tavern from going under.

Any of those things sounds incredibly more interesting than whatever warmonger you choose, and the fecal-tier mosaic of story elements "borrowed" from past faction wars shoehorned together in spectacular mediocrity. Seriously. No one.

Nothing more needs be said. The faction war has been a source of shit plotlines and empty character villain batting and deaths for all of WoW's lifetime. Not saying that no faction war = Hemingway tier writing all of a sudden, but it's still going to mean far fewer characters getting put under the bus for the sake of a stupid war the devs blatantly don't care about but for its marketing potential.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Hopefully no one because it would suck even worse than BFA, with the level of the current writing team, and that it would just butcher the plot and characters more.

Faction war has been overdone to death.

[loras]

I personally had Hope, that when Blizzard torched Teldrassil in Battle For Azeroth, the point was to initiate another 20 years (IRL storytelling years) of Alliance and Horde conflict.

(As would, dare I say, realistically happen in the context of the setting.)
The thrill of the classic 'Old Hatreds' returning with vengeance was something I revelled in, where it applied.

Of course, as awesome as 'Old Soldier' was, that whole plot dashed my Hope.... Killed it even.. lol, and in the Expansion that probably should have reignited the flames of war forever with an act as horrific as Teldrassil's Burning, decided instead to be the Expansion that douses the flame..

Well, thankfully not entirely.
While somehow Teldrassil goes as the most forgiven War Crime in recent ingame History, a few Characters came out of Battle for Azeroth with some New Hatreds, and a few Old ones being resurfaced.


Here are a few I'm excited to see play out, but please do share anything you've thought about in this regard.

------------------------------------

Princess Talanji: Oh man I love a good ol' spiteful Troll. No less, she's the ruler of a badass dinosaur riding Empire, and has the ear of the lower Troll clans. Aye, I recall reading as a kiddo in the manuals, how Trolls above any other races seem to harbor the most hatred for other races. ESPECIALLY Humans.

RIP Rastakhan, but he died honorably in service of sustaining the Torch of War. Jaina in her haste, seiged Dazar'alor and alongside the Alliance's finest, brought a swift death to the long-lived Ruler of Zandalar, leaving his only daughter Talanji devastated, and angered.

Talanji has my approval in any retaliation, but wouldn't it be a little more fun if say, a Human were to instigate another war this time?

Danath Trollbane & Turalyon: I pair these two up because Two Bitter Old Humans is more likely trouble than One. Now, put a Crown on each of their heads, inspire them with the Fourth War and their Victories at the Battle for Stromgarde.. This storm is brewing juust right.

Both Danath and Turalyon have seen the worst of The Horde during the Second War, and each in their time in Outland and beyond have also been exposed to some very large scale, otherwordly possibilities. While some would argue, and for Turalyon I agree this applies moreso, that surely they would have only been Wisened by these experiences, I tend to lean into their flaws, being Humans after all, winning over their wisdom.

I will mourn for this franchise the day there isn't a Racist Human alive ingame. Wait wait, this isn't going political. Let's just be honest, there's no Internet or NWO Globalists in Warcraft to make sure everyone just gets along like we have IRL, for better or worse. These guys aren't going to be able to see the bigger picture the way you and I were born and raised to. Turalyon in particular, having seen so much, could very well feel far more righteously entitled to making 'The Call' on whether or not The Horde is just Sargeras' Cosmic Mistake. Just an idea.

Danath on the other hand, right up in BfA was seen calling Eitrigg a 'Green Skin'. More of this Blizz, please. How about we put his family name to the mettle and have him rile up Talanji?

And we shan't forget of course, what both of these guys must think of The Undead and their place in The Horde following Shadowlands. Genn Greymane for example, has been fortunate to see the other side of The Forsaken, seeing them as just that.
But to these grizzled, hardened men, the deeds of Sylvanas and the absolute magnitude of those actions should definitely call Danath, Turalyon, and really just ALL Humans to question whether or not The Undead should even be ALLOWED to exist.

Edit: Last minute Addition:

The Dreadlords: Honestly, let's just finally use these crafty Shapeshifters like Skrulls or something. Have them kidnap and replace someone, and have us try to guess who might be legitimately a Warmonger and who is a Devil in Disguise. Let them stir up a mess and watch it boil up into madness. Just once!
------------------------------------

So those are my two* picks off the top of my head. Please do share your own ideas, contest the ones above as you will!

Really though, if you're just looking for the HvA faction conflict to end, surely you've probably not read most of what I wrote in haste to make sure we all know how much you want that. So just expect the same treatment of your reply? To those who did read, ofc I'm only teasing, thank you for your time.

If the creative juice and will to tell the story to it's end is there, Faction Hatreds won't feel played out or repetitive. It's only when the substance behind working together, or fighting eachother doesn't sink in or make sense due to a Creative Tug'o'War over the franchise's moral implications, that these things feel tiring.

Why stay at thwo angry humans when you can have three with the addition of Greymane?
Honestly a human resurgence leading into a grand civil war would rid the alliance of being so monotonous in the humanity aspect.

Let us see a "civil war" which ends up in the reestablishment of the kingdoms of, at least, Stromgarde, Lordaeron, Gilneas and maybe even Alterac as well.

Hell let Alterac and Lordaeron side with the horde out of political necessity or something, Lordaeron for needing to maintain friendly relations with the forsaken and Alterac for being duplicitous bastards.

Oh and let Kul Tiras retake and rebuild Theramore, either as a "forgive us bae" by Thrall or as an outpost to keep tabs on the horde.


And keep in mind that a civil war produces more grumpy humans, eventuslly finding common ground on account of some third party schmuck needing his or her face caved in. Which would naturally be the Horde, deserving or not.


Also keep in mind that only a few elves are in the Shadowlands, so do not count out night elven vengeance just yet!
Hell perhaps Sargeras got loose and Illidan returns to his people somehow?
He'd be angry and could easily go "vengeance!!!111" while whacking orcs upside the head in his trademark hypocritical style.

[DatToffer]

Turalyon, Danath and Genn would be a good team on that. Just remember that since BFA they only have peasants to recruit for their armies (lol).

Bonus point if we get a cameo of Tyrande saying the lines "Did you think we had forgotten ? Did you think we had forgiven ? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the kaldorei !"

[melzas]

Turalyon, Danath and Genn would be a good team on that. Just remember that since BFA they only have peasants to recruit for their armies (lol).

Bonus point if we get a cameo of Tyrande saying the lines "Did you think we had forgotten ? Did you think we had forgiven ? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the kaldorei !"

Well after 9.1 Tyrande going back to vengeful is unlikely but there are other Night Elves who could take up that role. I'm sure Maiev isn't too happy what happened with Teldrassil and Sira, she could be the new warmongering night elf, seeing how vengeance has actually been her thing since w3.

[DatToffer]

Well after 9.1 Tyrande going back to vengeful is unlikely but there are other Night Elves who could take up that role. I'm sure Maiev isn't too happy what happened with Teldrassil and Sira, she could be the new warmongering night elf, seeing how vengeance has actually been her thing since w3.

Yeah. But if she gets that "renewal" before the end of Shadowlands, nothing keeps her from getting back to vengeance business once she returns to Azeroth xD

[Morae]

Yrel and her fanatics.

Along with some light vs void theme expansion.