WoW RP Blogs

[Aeladrine]

I'm not entirely sure this is where this thread should go... But it seems like the right place!

For the first time on my, uh... seven years on WoW, I'm going to RP. I've RPed before, but not on my favourite game, and I'm giving it a shot with a friend!

To celebrate, I made my own RP blog. Sorta. It's not for RPing, but where I plan to record experiences, talk about stories, and etc.

Does anyone else have RP blogs like mine? Or am I alone in this strange adventure?

[Azunara]

I have no problems with it being here. I certainly give it my blessing.

I can't say I have a WoW RP blog, because I shamefully don't do as much WoW RP these days as I'd like, and certainly not in game these days. Which is kind of upsetting, because I really enjoy RP. Just don't really have the community for it in-game, and I'm insanely out of practice anyways. xD

[Lupis]

Similar to Azunara, I don't RP enough in-game to do a blog, but I've considered it many times. I used to adore in-game RP, though, so I hope you have fun! I still ache to get back into it some day, but I'm a bit too afraid of people. I'll definitely be following your blog closely!

[Aeladrine]

I made a very, very long post on that blog just now, and I'm wondering what everyone else thinks! Though this isn't quite the topic of the thread, I think it still fits well enough to go here... So, a post from my blog.

So as I said last night, we ran some dungeons. It was fun, it got us better gear, and it most of it won’t be part of their canon.

But we also ran Shadowfang Keep. Now, I’d never run that dungeon before, since my main is ally and I haven’t been that low level since BC. I don’t usually do the alt thing, don’t get them very far (the last alt I had was in Wrath, and she only got to level 38). So, this was new for me.

We queued up and actually got in pretty quickly, even though Gils is specced shadow and we both had to go DPS.

The first dungeon was kind of whatever. Got me back into the frame of mind for dungeons, since I’ve been rather busy with old heroics (mount farming) and the billion and one dailies there are for endgame on my main. It took a long time, partially because it was a long dungeon and partially because it was just a kinda silly group. We didn’t wipe or anything, though, so I’ll consider it mostly a success.

Then we queued up again and got Shadowfang Keep. Now, the dungeon itself wasn’t so exciting that I would want to make it part of their canon; it ran smoothly, the story wouldn’t really impact either Matthias or Giltine in any real way, since they’re both blood elves and largely don’t care about the going ons of forsaken, and we hadn’t done any of the quests leading up to it. We’d been leveling with Orgrimmar in mind, not Undercity.

No, it was the group itself that’s making this part of their canon. We had a monk tank, Matthias (who, I have neglected to mention, is a demonology warlock), and three priests.

Three.

We had a holy priest healing, of course, which rubbed Gils the wrong way because that used to be her in situations. But then we also managed to get a level 25 shadow priest in our group. Who had shadowform.

I chose Gilly’s spec to be shadow for very, very specific reasons. Everything I say about how I think shadow priests work is personal headcanon, not fact. It is how it works for Gilly, but I’m not going to run around and tell you you have to follow the same thing.

I think shadow priests are those whom the Light once loved but has now abandoned, for whatever reason. For Gilly, it’s because she willingly took Matthias’ addiction into herself. Because she allowed herself to start becoming a Wretched to try and save him. As of right now, she can barely heal or shield anyone, and it’s far easier for her to use her powers to hurt them, which is only driving her farther from the Light.

Now, shadowform. I, personally, cannot see a body being able to handle that, even in a fantasy game where people turn into ghost wolves and demons and a million different animals and even angels sometimes. The difference, to me, is that each of those is a complete change. Even when you can stay in those forms all the time, it’s not your usual body.

Shadowform is. You’re actually changing your permanent form, not just using another form for a temporary period of time. And the models for it are… Well, I find it pretty creepy. You’re translucent, you kind of smoke, and you’re a shadow. It’s creepy. And you’ve done that to your actual body.

My whole idea with shadow priests is very interwoven. I don’t think people like them at all. Nor do I think warlock are well received. How could either be? Shadow priests take a person’s mind and rip it into shreds. Our starting spell is called Mind Flay.

Yes, you can learn to be a shadow priest in Stormwind Cathedral, but I think that’s more a hindrance of it being a game. Yes, there are warlock trainers in Orgrimmar, but, again, it’s a game.

So my personal headcanon (I am trying to make it as obvious as possible that this is something I have come up with, not something everyone needs to follow) is that shadowform is destructive. Personally destructive. You’re trading an increase in power for… what? Your character looking smoky and purple and rather like a standing shadow? Cool, no big deal. People are going to be freaked and probably not talk to you, but whatever.

But I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think it’s that easy. I think you have to trade something much more important.

I think shadowform makes you very, very ill. I think it destroys your body from the inside out. I think it gives you more power, but has a very definite expiration date. I think it gives you an expiration date.

And again, no one else has to think that. I’ve said before that I mostly only RP with Matthias; this is still true. I’m not going to go up to some random shadow priest and tell them if they don’t get out of shadowform they’re going to die.

But it certainly does affect Gilly. She’s already started to drop into it in RP; she flickers in and out of shadowform, and you can bet Matthias is very, very worried. She’s sheltered; she doesn’t know what’s happening to her, and it doesn’t bother her. She hasn’t started to get sick from it, she’s just gotten the power boost. And she loves it.

So seeing that other shadow priest last night will affect her a lot. She watched how much more powerful he was than she is. She watched him kill people easily, watched how it didn’t affect him at all. And she wanted to be him.

We’re finally starting to hit the main part of our RP, and I’m very, very excited.

Do you guys have headcanons for certain classes or specs? If so, what are they?

[Azunara]

asdfdhhgkjg god Faile way to make me want to RP

As for headcanons...

I've always treated healing a bit differently with my druid. She's a feral druid, and I decided that meant that shapeshifting was easiest--Elune's moonfire didn't come at her call, and she didn't like healing. The reason for the latter is I always decided that healing was more of a transfer of energy. Namely, life energy. So if my druid wanted to heal someone, she would have to take energy from herself, and then from people or things around her, to heal people. And she doesn't like that. At all. So she doesn't heal very often.

[Aeladrine]

Yeah, I treat healing in a similar manner. Like Gilly's whole problem stems from the fact that, when the Sunwell was destroyed, she was trying to heal Matthias' addiction and keep him from becoming Wretched. Except that means, for her, taking it into herself. Eventually she'd learn how to heal where the problem doesn't go to someone else, but early on I wanted her to heal with a more Exalted type system. Healing sucks in Exalted, because you have to take the damage onto yourself.

It makes things much, much more fun, though.

(And yes, wanting to RP is good. :U It's actually got me interested in WoW again, so I'm very happy with it.)

[Mozag]

Mmm, love reading your blog posts, makes me want to get back into RP as well.

Headcanon...yes, I guess I have a lot of it really.

Druids - Mainly I see shape shifting as something slow and quite painful, not a BOOM, I'M A CAT! type of thing. I also visualise it as something that would really mess with you, you'd probably start taking on the qualities of a bear or cat, because you have turned into one. If I ever RP my baby bear tank, he will essentially turn INTO a bear. That means no talking, no human behaviour, and a constant battle within himself to come to terms with the fact that he is slowly turning into something else. Also, coming back to his usual form is something I would imagine he'd not willingly do, and that probably gets harder and harder as he stays longer in his bear form. An eternal battle within you where your feral, animal nature battles with your humanoid nature. I don't personally play either of my main druids as shape shifters, the healer doesn't ever go into tree form (except in raids when I have to to heal, but that's outside of my RP life) and my boomkin hasn't been a chicken since the glyph came out.

Warlocks - These are people who by the definitions of our times have sold their souls to the devil. They consort with the worst powers, they have twisted themselves into something that cannot be redeemed. They deal with demons who they have wrested from the Nether to do their will. I do not see most demons as being very willing to do your bidding (unless it coincides with their own plans), but they must because you have bound them with ancient words and spells, but most will always be looking for a way to release themselves, or trick you or to hurt you. They must resent the power you have over them, and a warlock must always be one step ahead to avoid any harm that a legion of angry demons would cause them. Secondly, warlocks are not and should not be accepted in any society, barring maybe the Forsaken. If you walk around with a demon out or in demon form or happily stating that you are a warlock, you are considered BAD, nobody normal wants to consort with you. You have shown yourself to be a deceiver, a trickster, a power-mad magician who gave up their souls to follow a path of power at any cost to themselves and others. You are effectively an outcast. When my Affliction warlock's mate found out that she was a warlock, he left her instantly, packed away their daughters and cast her away from his heart and their home, even though she had become one unwittingly due to wanting to repay a hurt he had been caused.

Mage - If you use fire spells, you burn your hands. You don't shoot bolts of fire or frost out of your hands at no personal cost. This also goes for Elemental shammies who cast lava bolts and lightning at their enemies, but unlike shammies, mages cannot heal their hurts. My fire mages have always had hideous, blistered and burned hands, although as they have been trolls it regenerates and heals fast, but that doesn't stop the pain when using the magic.

Priests - I agree with you, Aela, about Shadowform and have always visualised it that way myself. Also, Forsaken using Holy spells causes them intense agony. These are the very few who have the presence of mind and will to be able to channel holy light through them at a personal cost to themselves. The holy despises anything undead and here is an undead channeling it, it shouldn't make sense. It doesn't, but to make it less of a lorelol, I simply imagine that those are the very few undead who try against all odds to fight the evil in themselves, and probably lessen their "lives" by doing so.

DK - Similar to warlocks, yet perhaps even more horrifying. These are dead people who were resurrected for the sole purpose of bringing pain and suffering to others. Their old master is gone, so I don't really understand how they can still remain animated because his will no longer moves them. One of my DKs I roleplay as being a mindless drone. She is a corpse after all. When the LK was alive she did his bidding fully, without question. When he died, her mind became "free" to be used by someone else, and she is now controlled by her sisters who try to make her act like a living, breathing person. It's not really working, but as she is an animated corpse with no soul or mind or will of her own, this is the way it will be until her body decays. My other DK is the other end of the spectrum, I am trying to RP her with an echo of a personality that has returned now that she has her mind back. Yet she is still a dead being. All her relatives and friends shun her, she is an abomination. She hates herself, she wants it all to end. She is in constant torment because she is not fulfilling her purpose as a killing machine. She certainly doesn't hang around in pubs having a drink.

There are some other finer points and opinions I have, but these are the ones I most strongly feel about when I RP my own characters. And if I see someone acting in a way opposite to this, my character will react to it accordingly. I'll always be impressed when a mage doesn't scorch their skin when they cast a pyroblast, or marvel at the cat druid that popped in an out of their form as easily as if they were changing their socks. I will always shun warlocks when playing non-dark characters, and I will not consort with DKs unless forced to.

[Aeladrine]

I know that with forsaken priests, there's an entire church they made because the Light has shunned them after their rebirth. If I remember correctly (though this may be me mixing up things I've decided with official things), using holy magic actually is very painful for them, and they can't really do it very easily. Then again, I doubt shadow magic would hurt them much since, well, they're already dead. (On a side note, I view the destruction of the body via shadow magic as something that can either be very slow or very fast. You fall into shadowform, and you can either get out of it or you can't. It causes a sickness where you basically puke up your insides in black goop, and it can happen slowly or quickly. \ovo/)

With warlocks it's like... Why would the Horde, of all factions, allow warlocks? I mean... We remember that orcs were enslaved by fel magic, right? That was still a thing? So I see it as a kind of... Warlocks, especially in the Horde, have to hide what they are. It probably actually flies a little better in the Alliance, but not much.

Of course, that's all my personal headcanon (minus maybe the bit about forsaken? I don't even remember anymore), but it seems logical to me. uvu

[Aeladrine]

I didn't actually post this on my blog (it was, instead, sent to thewowbitch), but I thought you guys might enjoy it! Any discussions on it would be totally cool and appreciated. Also, I think this turned more into a "let's talk about Aela's headcanons" thread than an RP blog thread.

(This ended up mega long, and I'm really sorry about that.)

So I've been reading up on your guys' Death Knight headcanons (which are, by the way, really cool and well thought out), and I kind of heavily disagree with them. I wanted to tell you guys why, though, and see your responses! Thus, a long submit I hope you will answer (and allow others to see, to get more people in on the discussion).

There are really only two things I want to touch on, actually: free will and if they are truly dead.

With the first, it would actually be impossible for them not to have some sort of free will! We exercise free will almost constantly with everything from picking out clothes for the day to what time we want to go to bed. In fiction, there is an established, commonly accepted hinderance to taking away something's free will. Without it, they can only react to direct commands. It's like verbally driving a car. Ghouls are actually shown to be rather like this! However, Death Knights are not. Both NPCs and our own player characters are constantly being seen making decisions; on top of that, having some of your most useful tools only react if you're constantly talking in their ear would make them next to useless.

From a player character perspective, the Lich King is shown constantly talking in our ear before we free ourselves from him. However, he's not really ordering. He's goading us on, pushing us to do what he wants, but I cannot recall a time he actually gives a direct order. When we are killing Scarlet Crusaders and Peasants, he doesn't tell us which ones to kill; that decision is up to us, the player, and is further evidence Death Knights have at least some semblance of free will.

However, it is quite obviously suppressed. Ignoring the fact that most Death Knights would likely not be killing people as vehemently as we do, let alone the arguably innocent townspeople the Lich King has us slaughter (though the true Scarlet members may be another matter), as it's something all player characters kind of do, there's still evidence for a suppressed will. I'm only going to list one example, because I think we can all agree that free will in Death Knights is, at the least, suppressed.

I only have one Death Knight, and she's a blood elf, so this quest, which is a pivotal changing point in every Death Knight's (including non-RP ones) storyline, may be different for others. The Scourge has captured prisoners, and you know one of them. You're told to kill them, to help prove you are still completely under te Lich King's control. Or maybe the quest giver just finds it funny. Regardless, you have to kill a former friend.

In the blood elf quest, it goes something along the line of, "NAME, what have they done to you? Don't you remember me? All those years we were childhood friends? Emotion, emotion, emotion?"

The implication, at least to me, is that the Lich King has suppressed your free will by suppressing and/or twisting your memories. Even if that's not accurate, you hesitate in killing her, despite the fact that you're given direct orders to do so! You only do it when she begs it of you.

I hope that's enough evidence to make my point on the first, because this is already ridiculously long and I don't want to make it even worse.

For the being completely, fully dead headcanon, I really only have one point: rigor mortis. It sets in incredibly quickly. But our Death Knights are melee fighters! If rigor mortis had set in, they wouldn't be able to move their limbs as well as they have to to use a sword/axe/whatever. They would likely have to be spellcasters to really do much. If their bodies were actually dead, they wouldn't be able to do much of anything. And, considering resurrection, it wouldn't be completely without merit to say they could've fallen on the battlefield and been brought back to true life.

Maybe they're kind of like 2nd generation Death Knights, where they're neither truly alive nor truly dead, but my opinion says it's probably just another suppression thing. Either their heartbeat is suppressed enough that they can't feel it beat, or it has to do with the suppression of their free will. The Lich King could make it so it's just not something they can register, force them to believe they're dead, and use it to have more control over them. Since I can't see him being able to take away their free will without rendering them useless, he'd have to pull a lot of little tricks to force them to serve him. Altering memories, twisting their perception, the whole shebang.

Though I love to read up on lore, I am by no means an expert. There's a lot I don't know about, and my knowledge in certain areas is very sketchy. I hope this can lead to a good discussion, though!

[cowmuflage]

Um about rigor mortis I did a google search and got this "In humans, it commences after about three to four hours, reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 48 to 60 hours after death" So they could be fully dead and still be able to move.

[Aeladrine]

Um about rigor mortis I did a google search and got this "In humans, it commences after about three to four hours, reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 48 to 60 hours after death" So they could be fully dead and still be able to move.

Well, frick. Regardless, the point about resurrection still stands!

[cowmuflage]

Um about rigor mortis I did a google search and got this "In humans, it commences after about three to four hours, reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 48 to 60 hours after death" So they could be fully dead and still be able to move.

Well, frick. Regardless, the point about resurrection still stands!

I think we both learned something new today as that is the first time I've heard about that!

[Aeladrine]

I think we both learned something new today as that is the first time I've heard about that!

From what I've always understood, the body always stays kind of still and hard to move after death. Guess not, though! But, for some reason, I feel like Death Knights would be more useful if they weren't completely dead; there's so much more they can do for the Lich King if they aren't.