Do spells like rebirth and resurrection exist in the lore of wow?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Still, corpse running... lore?

That is part of the death penalty as a game mechanic. When you don't lose experience or even levels in WoW as a penalty for dying, all they can do is make you waste time by forcing you to run to your corpse from a graveyard and make it cost you gold.

[Sierra85]

Are us players considered a different entity to major lore characters like Thrall / Arthas / Jaina etc?

e.g. Arthas is dead in the lore of the game but if someone went and cast a rank 9 Ressurect on him, and this was written down in a book so its kind of legit, would that be acceptable?

[Thage]

Are us players considered a different entity to major lore characters like Thrall / Arthas / Jaina etc?

e.g. Arthas is dead in the lore of the game but if someone went and cast a rank 9 Ressurect on him, and this was written down in a book so its kind of legit, would that be acceptable?

We're kindasorta canon. Everything we do either goes to a lore character or is considered done by one (or a strike force of) AFGNAACP adventurer(s) as far as the books and short stories handle it, but in-game we're considered problem solvers who personally work with the faction leaders outside the traditional military chain of command.

In the Jade Forest, Nazgrim describes a dwarf death knight helping defend the Alliance air base as "An adventurer, like you: marginally-affiliated and extremely dangerous."

If someone published a book where Arthas was resurrected, it'd be canon unless someone in Creative Development (usually Dave Kosak, Metzen, or Alex Afrasiabi) came out and said no, it wasn't canon (or another Blue said so on their behalf).

[Ciddy]

Are us players considered a different entity to major lore characters like Thrall / Arthas / Jaina etc?

e.g. Arthas is dead in the lore of the game but if someone went and cast a rank 9 Ressurect on him, and this was written down in a book so its kind of legit, would that be acceptable?

Yeah. Player characters are just nameless "adventurers" as far as the lore is concerned. We do sort of exist, but we're completely nameless in lore. For example, Arthas was officially taken down by Tirion and "the Champions of the Argent Tournament" in the story. I think death and resurrection exist solely for game mechanics (because we can't have players with immortality or a max-level player's permanent death).

I don't think something like a "rank 9 Resurrect" even exists in lore terms, and is, again, only meant to be a game mechanic. It would be acceptable for someone to resurrect Arthas if Blizzard decided to do so, but they'd probably have to come up with some creative way to do it.

[IronRabbit]

I can remember doing the Talan Fordring quest line way back in vanilla. Talan dies at the end of it, and up comes his daddy Tirion on his charger, lamenting that his son was dead. I sat there thinking, you're a paladin for Light's sake. Did you not train your Redemption spell at level 12 like the rest of us?

And yes, I know that lore character death has to actually mean something, but the inconsistency is a problem with games of this sort. My own characters have been stabbed, burned, frozen, mangled, eaten, fallen off precipices, run over by tanks, poisoned, and blown up more times than can be easily counted. I can still run into Icecrown Citadel and kill Arthas every week if I want to. And yet Uther has to stay dead.

[Thage]

I can remember doing the Talan Fordring quest line way back in vanilla. Talan dies at the end of it, and up comes his daddy Tirion on his charger, lamenting that his son was dead. I sat there thinking, you're a paladin for Light's sake. Did you not train your Redemption spell at level 12 like the rest of us?

And yes, I know that lore character death has to actually mean something, but the inconsistency is a problem with games of this sort. My own characters have been stabbed, burned, frozen, mangled, eaten, fallen off precipices, run over by tanks, poisoned, and blown up more times than can be easily counted. I can still run into Icecrown Citadel and kill Arthas every week if I want to. And yet Uther has to stay dead.

Sadly, that's one of those things where video games have to segregate gameplay and story for the sake of a fun experience. If your character went through that in D&D, eventually their god of choice would likely send someone to let them know they're probably not meant to keep coming back!

[Deleted]

Go to 1k needles theres a questline when u help rezz a Troll (horde side only quest?) thats how difficult rezzes are - only trolls mastered them!

[Lothaeryn]

In earlier incarnations of wow's lore, death was permanent, when you died it was the end, no coming back, finito, but lately they seem to have pulled a 180 on that idea and decided that anyone can return if there's some legit excuse for them to do so.

Ultimately I think they need to start making permadeath a more prominent thing because atm, it feels pointless to just let everyone come back.

Lore wise, resurrections have happened and people dying have returned, again, its a matter of how important they are due to plot armor.

Its a pretty weak logic but apparently its the one blizzard goes by.

Its comic book logic, which is kinda why I've lost a bit of respect for Blizzard, their stories are good, but sometimes they just throw in random ideas that don't seem to fit the scope of their universe's lore, and just make you think "why did they bother to do that?" when they never really complete an idea or story arc and leave it halfway.

[Vilendor]

Perfect timing, Nobbel's video just came out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1GZBEGSfCo

You'll find the answer

[Lothaeryn]

I can remember doing the Talan Fordring quest line way back in vanilla. Talan dies at the end of it, and up comes his daddy Tirion on his charger, lamenting that his son was dead. I sat there thinking, you're a paladin for Light's sake. Did you not train your Redemption spell at level 12 like the rest of us?

And yes, I know that lore character death has to actually mean something, but the inconsistency is a problem with games of this sort. My own characters have been stabbed, burned, frozen, mangled, eaten, fallen off precipices, run over by tanks, poisoned, and blown up more times than can be easily counted. I can still run into Icecrown Citadel and kill Arthas every week if I want to. And yet Uther has to stay dead.

That is where suspension of disbelief comes into play unfortunately, RPG's can only be so realistic before the gears behind the scene start showing.

The in-game explanation of character death and resurrection comes from the Spirit healer though, they say "Your time has not come yet" essentially, and are willing to return you to the living to fulfill your destiny, whereas someone like Talen Fordring's time mustve been up.

[Spray]

In earlier incarnations of wow's lore, death was permanent, when you died it was the end, no coming back, finito, but lately they seem to have pulled a 180 on that idea and decided that anyone can return if there's some legit excuse for them to do so.

Ultimately I think they need to start making permadeath a more prominent thing because atm, it feels pointless to just let everyone come back.

Lore wise, resurrections have happened and people dying have returned, again, its a matter of how important they are due to plot armor.

Its a pretty weak logic but apparently its the one blizzard goes by.

I have to disagree. They didn't pull a 180 on anything like that - resurrection as we know it ingame is purely due to the game system and mechanics, permadeath is like, out of the question.

Resurrection in lore doesn't really exist, at least not in the understanding of bringing someone back to life, intact. You can't really revert being split into two by Warsong Howling Axe, like nothing ever happened.

However-

You can *reanimate* dead, but it's completely different. The said person is *living* again, but his/her body is often already rotten or malformed which is a burden beyond anyone's imagination. While it may work for the bitter and caustic faction of Forsaken, it's not a solution for permanent life.

As for the Scarlet Crusade - it's exactly the same. Saidan Dathrohan has been possessed by Balnazzar, it was still his corpse. Same with Sally Whitemane, she had the ability of a "permalife", she could resurrect herself because of an incredible attunement to the Holy Light, but just look at her - she was still a corpse.

So basically - glorious and happy resurrection doesn't exist, if someone dies, it's over. You can partially bring said person back, but it'll never gonna be a normal life again, it's miserable and dark. No matter how you achieve it, be it Holy Light, dark magic or demonic possession, you're still technically a corpse with all the problems coming with it.


Not to mention that if you're beheaded or chopped into pieces, the only way you can be brought back is either Thaddius/Onyxia-like monstrosity or the part of an Abomination. Yummy.

Yeah. Player characters are just nameless "adventurers" as far as the lore is concerned. We do sort of exist, but we're completely nameless in lore. For example, Arthas was officially taken down by Tirion and "the Champions of the Argent Tournament" in the story. I think death and resurrection exist solely for game mechanics (because we can't have players with immortality or a max-level player's permanent death).

Aaaaand this. Since we don't belong in the lore, we can bend some things into our favor. LK is a perfect example, same with Onyxia who was taken down by Varian Wrynn.

[Deleted]

It would take an exceptionally talented individual to Resurrect someone and then there would no doubt be limitations such as timing, ritual items etc if they'd been afflicted with a curse or the plague of undeath for example. I'd also think that it would depend on the person who is being ressurected. An orc peon for example would be easier to resurrect than say Arthas who was very powerful which would no doubt require more power.

As others have said it comes down to game play vs Storyline. We're only able to ressurect so easily for game play reasons, lore wise our characters would probably struggle to be able to cast a spell like that.

[Esandarius]

Could the power of the deceased person determine how much power is required for the resurrection?

In the Warcraft 3 Campaign Kel'Thuzad was so powerful that he required the energies of the Sunwell to be resurrected and tainted it in the process. So, definitely.

[Deleted]

I think it's the other way around. Rebirth, resurrect and everything is quite possible, from a lore standpoint.

Given a few Things:
- Hero. It required quite some willpower to be resurrected. That takes care of a lot of dead townspeople not ressing every 5 mins as well as your own corpse-runs. You still got to finish that achievement and kill the boss.
- The resurrecting guy is also very mighty and, that's the most important part, benevolent. The lich king, instead of returning the spirit to the body, bound them to his butterknife of soulthings and rose the body as a zombie. It lacks life-force, thats why its rotting. Break his grasp and the soul can return, if its not to late for them and they have enough willpower (i.e. forsaken)
- There are ways to prevent ressurection. These are usually limited to very potent poisons (Vol'jin, Baine, etc), curses (well, read the stuff up yourself) or transforming/destroying the body, with the spirit not attached. This is kinda the tool to allow permadeath.

Resurrection is a quite potent plot device, no point in NOT using it. Especcially if you like to kill everybody off all the time.

[Aquamonkey]

Anduin managed to resurrect Varian in a state of grief in Varian's Leader short stor

Anduin revived Varian in Varian's short story

Psure Varian didn't actually die. He was dying and Anduin healed him. It wasn't a resurrection.

[Eazy]

*3 expansions later*
[Cairne] Hey guys! I'm back! I hiked up a long-road to the middle of nowhere in the Twisting Nether and received training from a broken Draenei called King Jai!
[Garrosh] Holy shit.....his attack power is through the roof now...

[Garrosh]: What recount says about his DPS?
[Grom]: It's OVER 900000!

OT:
It really depends what do you mean by "death", I believe that some creatures are almost immortal. Like Yogg-Saron, we killed his body, but not his "soul", and he can come back.

[Elynis]

Psure Varian didn't actually die. He was dying and Anduin healed him. It wasn't a resurrection.

Thank you…someone actually read the short story right

Side note, I'm pretty sure if they were to ever make a lore character (outside gameplay) ever able to resurrect someone, Anduin would be the one they choose.

[Deleted]

Lore wise, resurrections have happened and people dying have returned, again, its a matter of how important they are due to plot armor.

Who was resurrected? I can't think of any true resurrections.

Kel'thuzad was raised as a Lich. Dread Lords never truly die. Saurfang Jr. was undead. Nefarian and Onyxia were an experiment gone wrong, basically falls into the category of undead.

Please name one true resurrection. The Ancients? They are eternals that always come back given the time. Cenarius? Same thing.

Who are you talking about that isn't immortal, has had a resurrection but isn't undead? Am I missing someone?

Yeah, Thrall has had that weird questline in Cataclysm, but did he truly die to begin with? I don't think so.

[Aquamonkey]

Who was resurrected? I can't think of any true resurrections.

Kel'thuzad was raised as a Lich. Dread Lords never truly die. Saurfang Jr. was undead. Nefarian and Onyxia were an experiment gone wrong, basically falls into the category of undead.

Please name one true resurrection. The Ancients? They are eternals that always come back given the time. Cenarius? Same thing.

Who are you talking about that isn't immortal, has had a resurrection but isn't undead? Am I missing someone?

Yeah, Thrall has had that weird questline in Cataclysm, but did he truly die to begin with? I don't think so.

Aegwynn spent 20 years gathering enough energy to resurrect Medivh and was still severely weakened even several years afterwards. Jaina claims that she and a couple others could have done it too.

“Because you brought Medivh back?”
Again Proudmoore had managed to stun Aegwynn with her perspicacity. She found herself unable to speak.
“We always wondered how Medivh came back from the dead after Khadgar and Lothar defeated him. It would have taken powerful magic to do so. I might have been able to do it, and so could one or two others, but if they had, they would have admitted it. You said you were drained by your fight with Medivh, but there is one thing that could substitute for that necessary power, and that's the bond between mother and son.”
Aegwynn nodded, staring off into space at an indeterminate point on one of the Bladescar peaks. “With what was left of the de-aging magic, I was able to scry in the well water and learn what was happening. I saw my son killed by his apprentice and his best friend—and I saw Sargeras banished from him. So I spent years building up the power to bring him back. When I did, it almost killed me. That was why the wards were Medivh‟s—I no longer had the strength to cast them. Or anything else. I still don't.” She turned to face Proudmoore. “That was my swan song, Lady Proudmoore. It cannot even begin to make up for all I have done wrong.”
--Cycle of Hatred, p. 243

It had been almost four years since she brought Medivh back. That had drained all her magic at the time, as she’d told Jaina—but the magic never went away forever. Two decades after she had escaped to Bladescar, she had built up enough magical power to bring back her son.
--Cycle of Hatred, p. 309

[Arewn]

I recall there being an old human pally quest where you had to go rez some guy near StoneCairn Lake in Elywyn Forrest. Not sure how quests are for lore... but eh.