Orc Quest; or, A Critical Examination of Agency Through in Interactive Fiction (Warcraft)

[FractiousDay]

Anyway weren't you the one telling us that Grok got this not just because of the ol nepotism, but because he had proven himself as a commander despite my personal views on the matter.

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Perception vs reality. Grok does have some command experience and successes, but that's always been supported by the clan because you're the heir, which might cause others to consider that you'd gotten there by nepotism. You've also never fought a war or sustained conflict at the moment and generally you're missing a lot of particular experience in terms of command. Eg, against a variety of enemies, away from supply, defending a particular point, transiting through hostile territory, assaulting fortifications, all that.

Yes we can do that, and by doing so we'll do what we did last time, spread ourselves too thin and accomplish nothing.

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So I'd say to look at it from the other angle. There are a lot of different things you could do in this arc, for example

• Ascertain general situation of different parties such as Forsaken and Scarlet Crusade
• Try and get the Kul Tirans to back off back home
• Generally try and improve diplomacy between Horde and Alliance through discussion with people like Prestor and Fordragon
• Assist with the actual crusading, clear bastions of Scourge activity etc
• Ascertain specific situations of particular parties, eg Dalaran, Dragonmaw, Quel'thalas, Amani
• Get involved in the above polities' situations
• Get involved in any spooky or sneaky stuff that might come up with various parties if you notice weird stuff about them
• Regain spiritual connection
• Investigate Light
• Investigate Arcane
• Investigate Necromancy
• Train other skills that might be about like ranged combat
• Find out what happened in Alterac and with Jubei'thos

Some of these are 'the plot', the main events that will occur, others are optional like the training stuff. Maybe Grok doesn't want to learn much about the Light or about some other thing, maybe he just wants to concentrate on a particular issue. It would be impossible to do all of these things of course, but you could certainly get some good stuff done well.

As you're aware the problem is previously you (the collective you) has generally been trying to do everything in the space of an arc. For example wanting to do shaman stuff when you've never been a shaman, or the previously mentioned 'smashing your head against walls' of history and tradition. In the last arc you were trying to tackle BB/Horde stuff, do blademaster things, get better at heiring, do more shamanism, kill centaur and then you got occupied by the Dreadmist stuff. You were moderately successful at all of those things. Yes you killed some centaur, yes you were starting to do more shaman stuff and getting better with your sword, you at least understood what was going on with the Blademasters even if you didn't 'fix' the problem, you got closer with Feldad, and then Dreadmist happened and 'Hunted' came back into play. Still though, you did accomplish stuff last arc so well done and so on.

I would generally say to think about doing specific things and having specific objectives. The 'actual' objectives you've got were helping the crusade and checking out Alterac. You don't have to go see the Amani, Vok'fon can just do that on his own, you don't have to investigate necromancy, Keldran will be doing that in the background. It's about what you want to do and understanding what you can achieve. Now do you want to approach this as 'what do we do each turn', or as 'what do we want to do in additional to the plot stuff during this arc', that's up to you, but again consider it as what you can do, not all the things you can't do.

On an economics point, if we say 6 actions each of 12 turns, you've got 72 actions. Now that might go up or down depending on various factors, but that's the sort of thing you could look at. Lets say you take half of those options above, so maybe 6 general objectives for the arc. That's about 12 actions for each of those things. You will not learn to be a mage in 12 actions. You won't 'fix' the situation with Kul Tiras in 12 actions. You could however train to be more stealthy or use a ranged weapon in 12 actions, that would be fine, and you could also find out what happened to Alterac in such time.

 

[Doomed Wombat]

Also cause now I am actually annoyed I'm going to go do a rant on the shadow/the void and why it is objectively the worst magic for anyone who wants to be even vaguely heroic to pick, why I'm so ****ing hung up on it and why it is a terrible idea even before you consider that we have two other magics we were already investigating and finally why if we keep doing this we're going to likely end up dead or at least even worse off than before.

Part 1 the void is useless this is why

Setting aside the obvious consequences upon one's mental state upon using magic which generates feelings of "despair, doubt, and panic" in the users mind while also hiding reality half-truths yet also doing the assassin thing of saying "everything is an equal option" (if you don't see where I'm going here its the magic of being a ****ing positivist, the only thing that matters is me fuck everyone else I can do whatever I want) the void is useless!

I don't mean this in a poetic sense I mean this in a very objective sense, shadow magic's main deals are

1. Mind rape
2. Corruption
3. Curses
4. Drinking other people's souls.

Note anything? Why yes, every other tradition can do the same.

Void has nothing unique to it, so what's the main difference? Ah yes, scale and potency.

You know what else? I am very uncomfortable with the idea that to get actual use out of this tradition Grok needs to essentially break the minds of people, I was uncomfortable with the decision to sacrifice POWs to make an evil dog daemon powered by their tortured souls, but at least fel can chuck fire balls, Void magic's main attacks are shadow word pain and mind flay! One strikes the target down with agony the other literally turns their minds into pudding.

That is bluntly speaking useless to us both in an ethical sense, but also in the sense @Jasten wants, for "new traditions."

It does not have anything that especially benefits a warrior, whose job is to kill their opponents, but it doesn't have that at low levels.

What about at high levels? Well if you want to create not one, but three different races of evil bug people it'll help you do that. One was more than enough why did the Old Gods feel the need to saddle Azeroth with three different varietals I don't know! In fact its four if you want to get technical, just to really hammer the point home, because apparently blizzard really has no originality.

Its also great if you want to build a parallel dimension powered by billions of tortured souls or seemingly irrevocably corrupt a dragon flight...or make fish elves.

Also very good for torturing people double checking what the void is good for really helps explain why so many torturers in wow use the stuff its perfect for their work.

None of these are things that are useful to Grok, which leads into the next point, that's a good damn reason that there were no void traditions on Azeroth or Draenor until otherworldly forces showed up (The orcs and a dying Naaru respectively). The void has no use in society much like objectivists it is anti societal magic, down to the fact that the citizens of the black "empire" were explicitly insane and needed faceless ones to more or less point them in the right direction. Its also the reason that of the two "long standing" shadow traditions, the one founded by Seline ended its first edition by murdering her because she preached caution, and the other is the twilight fucking hammer!

Even going into a more mechanics focused sense and to reiterate why its not a great thing to use void magic is the only type that is actively excludatory. First to use it one must shove their head into the void, (if you shove yourself in even further the mechnic that represents how long until you have to pull yourself out is called insanity I wonder why?) Not only is this a thing of doubling down on the magic, but it also inhibits using spells from other traditions. Bliz eventually got rid of it, because priests found it frustrating to unable to heal, but the original lore justification stands.

Perhaps we can make our own techniques, say a shadow blade. However the actual gods of shadow/void use it this way and I somehow don't think its because they want to try and be special and unique I think its because this is what void magic is best for. Every magic has a wheel house of things that its good at and this is what shadow magic does. To get it to a state where its not that we'd have to first

1. Invest excessively more effort into it.
2. Waste time doing that when we could be trying out another tradition that can do the same things for a fraction of the effort.

We could say use it to create a shadow sword like Jub's. I say why, when we could learn arcane magic and create a teleporting one, go back to elementalism and get our damn light sabre back, or a water sword to create a bendy one and that's just for swording people, never mind anything that isn't for stabbery.

To put it very simply, there is a reason only 1/3rd of a single class actually uses void magic, but there's an entire class dedicated to using fel one is literally too evil for people to play as it. One is evil incarnate, the other is the thing that evil incarnate dedicated its existence to wiping the fuck out.

Part two, time management matters

I have reiterated this point so many times I feel like a ****ing lawyer, but we need to actually focus on getting shit done. In part this is due to personal life experiences and changes, but I also think that it should be common sense to everyone that focusing on things gives results, especially when said things are really complicated. Kinda like how you have to dedicate your life to science for years just in the hopes of becoming a surgeon not study for it in a few weeks.

Much like a surgeon Grok also needs to learn because if he does not people will die. Unlike most surgeons if he doesn't learn he might also die as well.

While Jub is specifically hunting us I do not fancy Grok's present chances against say a Necromancer or Death Knight. Hell I'm even cautious of an abomination quite frankly if an Ogre would be pushing it, Ogres are just occasionally too dumb to feel pain, they don't literally not feel it.

Then let us recall in the skies above is Kel'Thuzad, with an entire army of the same and worse (lets not even get onto my assumption that Akinos is being turned into a member of the four horsemen, but given that he was apparently not even in the top three I guess I was overestimating him.) That's just the worst, but point stands Grok is very mortal and there are many things that can kill him when he was already having trouble with an oversized bat.

As such we need to focus, and lacking muscles we need magic, but magic is complicated all magic is complicated really. So why the insistence on self-sabotage?

Unlike our survival we do not have time pressure on getting knowledge of shadow magic, there are a disturbing number of users who are far too willing to share, nor are we anywhere near to creating a magic tradition of our own, for that we'd need some actual goddamn magic. The thing we don't have and are likely to never have at this rate given how slow it is to learn 1, never mind two types of magic, adding in a third is just utter foolishness, particularly now.

Part 3 why this might kill Grok.

This relates to both sections above, but first Grok is depressed and this is not my opinion.

main ways to get over depression,

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Hell the GM just reiterated it a little up the page very convenient for me thank you.

This is the perfect state for using shadow magic, it is after all the magic of what was it again "despair, doubt, and panic?" Ah yes, exactly the magic he needs pumping into his fragile brain at this point, the same magic that turned a large proportion of the orcish species into a nihilistic apocalypse cult.

Fractious has never been shy about pointing out that he will punish our actions well let me make a prediction (hubristic I know) that a depressed person, who starts using shadow magic, is going to turn into a nut job.

I can even back that up

This is Archbishop Benedictius

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/w...est/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20210327234530

I don't know why the pictures are not inserting, but I'll keep on!

Anyway he's a good chap Archbishop of the light in Stormwind, general good dude. Also as of right now real ****ing depressed!

And why wouldn't he be, he got pushed to his breaking point during the first two wars, then the scourge hit, he's questioning the light, his purpose, he's lost and he doesn't know where to go too or who to turn too. Then the twilight hammer showed up and he learned a bit of the shadow, and it offered him an out.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/w...ctus_HS.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170731104215

"Freedom" it said and so he the Archbishop became the Twilight Father, successor to Cho'gal, attempted assassin of both Wyrnns and almost managed to let Deathwing destroy the world, from zero to monster in around 2 years in WoW's canon time line considering his corruption happened during BC and his death in Cata.

That's what I'm afraid of cause while Fel amplifies emotions like anger, Void actively produces negative emotions the ones designed to trap you in a cycle of hopelessness, offering false truths of an "out" but that out is essentially embracing the void AKA the nihilistic, somewhat objectivist oblivion that precedes literal oblivion.

Based on what we know yes Grok could be very strong in the Void rn, arguably there's no point in his life where he'd be stronger, and that's the ****ing problem.

As for the other I've already stated repeatedly that I think we're setting Grok up for death by not trying to make him strong enough to face the threats he wants to fight in his somewhat suicidal mind or the threats that are going to be fighting him whether he likes it or not.

Though given "Absolute worst" is a pretty high bar, I'll admit to beginning as a heavily skeptical party.

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It is the absolute worst as certified by Warcraft Satan.

I don't trust his judgement on most things, but I am more than willing to believe him on this issue, when looking at the evidence.

If people who would otherwise traiters are given avenues to utilize their talents productively and disincentivized from being sketchy the sky is the limit. But without at least trying nothing gets done.

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This would indeed be quite valuable.

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Yes, it does not have to be the burning blade however and I do not think we have a proper way to stop them from being sketchy considering how many of them are likely current members of the burning legion fan club and how the magics they operate work.

alot the famous schools of the Ancient world here started as people sitting around in clearings chatting. I believe that there are enough intelligent orcs in the Burning Blade to explore both magical research/applications, and the actual theory to use it safely if given the chance.

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Ok from a historical perspective this a funny thing to read considering how yes they were areas for discussion, and while they were very good at pushing thought, they were also wrong about a lot of things.

This maybe my personal hated for Plato talking, but I also find Aristolte especially amusing for how literally every scientific "fact" he discovered was logically correct, but wrong and how his influence managed to kill off the answers of people who were closer to being correct like Democritus.

Also lets me comment on another thing, too many cooks spoils the broth. Having a lot of perspectives is good, having too many is not.

Not specifically. The Cult are the undead organisation, but shadow priests exist outside of it. They may be remnants of Seline's tradition but without the old god influence from Xal, or they may be others who've independently discovered it. Some shadow priests are in the cult certainly, but not all. I also imagine people like the Night Elves have their own shadow priest traditions like the 'Guardians of the Crescent Moon' or something to do with the moon and shadows.

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No the cult is explicitly founded by undead who found a bunch of her books which she stored away, apparently she stored away a lot of them all over the place. This is the canonical explination of where they all come from and while the cult is specifically the forsaken, given that they're all pulling from the same mentor and same source material I think they're broadly the same.

Also no if they do I imagine they were destroyed.

First, because Elune is almost certainly a being of the light, AKA the polar opposite of the void and seemingly one of the most powerful beings of the light in the entire universe.

Second they fought a massive war against the Quiraj and C'thun, only 900 years ago, did not leave a good impression.

Third, the emerald nightmare.

They've had nothing but bad experiences with it and the moon diety they worship would absolutely not appreciate it.

I suppose I should reiterate, but there is a reason no faction that isn't out to destroy the world entirely that also has a shadow tradition, not the ancient Zandalar, not the Mogu, not even the goddamn Pandaren.

The only one is the cult and well...I'm not 100% sure they're not either.

Akinos is also canon, I tend to use canonical characters when convenient.

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I am aware, I was making a joke about it.

There's a particular action relating to Jub's delay which will bring this issue to the forefront somewhat.

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Oh noooo how many people are going to die for this one I can't wait to see

Unclear, the rpg says there's stuff there at least, though I think if there was a massive city with lots of Nightborne in it there then someone would have noticed by now. I'll consider it more when you actually get there.

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The city's sealed itself up in a massive barrier, that is also invisible or at least not permeable to light.

Hence why its pitch black inside.

 

[FractiousDay]

So in aid of the discussions around Elementals and Grok's ideas, I'll list a timeline of when and how Grok has encountered elements, shamanism and so on. This will give some points on his possible ideas, and where to move forward.

• Grok spends the first part of his childhood in the Cleft of Shadow, interacting with various magic users. Shaman are poorly represented.
• In the New Horde, shaman are only one of a variety of magical traditions, they no longer hold their priveleaged place in Horde society
• Grok is very much aware of the history of shamanism in teh horde, both the diversity of traditions, and the Elements abandoning the Orcs on Draenor
• Feldad doesn't necessarily dislike shaman, but doesn't respect them and isn't quiet about that, Grok desires Feldad's approval, and to an extent internalises this lack of respect
• Grok is sent to the Valley of Trials to hide his weak puny body from people, during this time Grok is identified as spiritually sensetive, but not enough to be a Shaman, Grok instead pursues the warrior 'profession'
• Grok has an unusually high ability in Seeing, but again not high enough to be noticed for Shaman selection
• Grok studies the Flamebender's Tome, learning about the Burning Blade specific traditions of shamanism, largely grouped under the umbrella of 'Dark Shamanism', a form distinct from the New Horde's largely Frostwolf orthodoxy.
• Grok pursues his studies further, but is told to stop and be more respectful by two experts he asks about it. Grok conspiciously ignores these reccomendations
• Grok crafts the Saptas, further pursuing the Burning Blade traditions
• Grok assaults and binds Elementals, binding the Firechild to his sword, breaking it in doing so, and being unable to overcome Proudpeak
• Grok is tugged about between Thrall and Feldad, who exposit the virtues of their respective systems
• Grok seeks training from a Shadowmoon Shaman, but doesn't progress extensively in his studies. Grok is advised that Elementals can be varied in temperment, aspect, sentience and so on
• Grok departs to the Barrens, developing his magic slightly with the Rage of the Firelands spell, relying on his anger and shame to power his magic
• Grok receives no additional shaman training while at Dreadmist ,but encounters additional traditions of magic
• Grok fights the Dreadmist battle, experiencing the revenge of Proudpeak and the march of Forneus, observing that elementals can be very dangerous
• Grok tries to reason with Forneus, and is rebuffed, partly proving the capricious and arbitrary nature of elementals
• Both Forneus, and the shaman previously, think that Grok is smelly, probably because of his association with Fel magic, while Grok doesn't necessarily dispute this or think its unfair, the Frostwolf-aligned systems distaste for his very existance is also internalised to an extent
• Grok observes that Thrall and the shaman are unable to repel Forneus, and that Feldad and the warlocks are hte ones to succeed
• Grok is subsequently prejudiced against Thrall and by extension shamanism due to Thrall's political actions
• Grok loses his elemental connection, essentially due to depression etc
• Grok travels to Lordaeron, encountering new magical traditions, being particularly interested in the Light
• Grok takes symbolic revenge for Dreadmist during the Battle of Anderhol, regaining his Elemental connection]
• Grok is praised for Blademastering, and given accolades and rank

Now, these can be interpreted a number of ways. Firstly, you might say that Grok is simply too scared of elemetnal stuff now to investigate further. This probably isn't so. Secondly, Grok has seen the error of his ways in Dark SHamanism and wants to do happy Frostwolf/Thrall stuff now. Again, this isn't so, mostly because of the thrall/feldad interactions. Grok will be unconsiously associating Frostwolf-pattern SHamanism as a largely failed tradition, one unable to protect his people from threats. However, I also don't think there's a massive impulse in Grok to go full Dark Shaman and start enslaving elementals left and right.

Grok's actions and ideals will depend on thread discussion, as they have previously. For example, a lot of people want Shamanism for utilitarian reason. Grok also is aware of this, he wants to get stronger etc. This will be a belief of a lot of Orcs of his generation, and the more passive Shamanism of Thrall and the Frostwolves is less appropriate for this use.

Open to thoughts on this, certainly there's room for discussion.

 

[FractiousDay]

Right so the issue is becoming somewhat complex so I'll try and address each point. Sorry if I miss something and feel free to ask qs.

Being a 'Dark Shaman' doesn't necessarily force you to do anything in particular. I've been considering how to explain it, and I've been thinking about vegetarianism. Would you regard a cow being milked or a pig in a sty as slavery? Possibly, what about an ape in a testing facility? Again, possibly. While some Elementals are indeed pretty much just weird humans, sentient, desiring various things, being able to feel emotions, others definitely aren't, and this distinction is present in various ways. Some elementals are unknowable, some are friendly, some are capricious, some are hostile, it really varies. What we certainly can say is that some people in Warcraft are absolutly fine with enslaving them, in the same way you'd 'enslave' a horse to pull a cart for you. Similarly, others are fine with killing elementals in the same way you'd kill a rapid dog that was biting people.

Grok's 'development' puts him on one side of the debate. Not deep in that side, really just over the line. Even Thrall practices Dark Shamanism on one occasion, so it's not unknown to do such a thing, ultimately lots of shaman do put humanoid welfare above elemental welfare. Grok therefore isn't going to be forced to enslave every elemental he comes across or actively seek out ones to attack (unless voters want to I suppose). I want to be really clear on this, the only thing I'm railroading you into (and its not even that), is a broad philosophical perspective.

Grok will, for example, be suspicious of elementals, be more inclined to distrust them, or to return hostility rather than turning the other cheek etc. That's about it for the immediate impacts. He's still a pretty sensible guy though, so he wouldn't stupidly pedantic about always thinking elementals were out to get him etc.

You might also ask whether Grok is necessarily enslaving something, or perhaps guarding it. Is it ok to use prison labour? That's a debate to have although its not massivelt relevant, but I basically want to point out that the specific realationship between Grok and Myzrael can be considered.

Yes indeed, Dark Shamanism, although having a pretty bad name, is common among Orcs. Some do it more, notably the Blackrock and Burning Blade. This has been established in story, your first taste of Shamanism was the Flamebenders Tome after all. I've written before about differing orc perceptions of shaman, Grok certainly holds a few views around this, to him elementals have never been this deep spiritiual unquestionable thing because Feldad has always told him about how the Elementals abandoned the orcs etc and how all the shaman became warlocks.

Grok was tricked. Zaruk presumably wanted to kill Fozruk the Giant to release the other elementals Fozruk had been guarding, Zaruk perhaps didn't know Myzrael was trapped too, however, once he did realise it, he took what steps he could to recover the situation. Grok meanwhile trusts magic users genreally and falls for Zaruk's trick because of his previous issues (eg trauma from Forneus). I hope this came though, it seemed pretty reasonable to me and in character etc.

One thing we might generally look to consider is whether problems are with me the author writing particular things and directing you in various ways, or instead with the actual presentation, I do hope at least that the presentation was sufficient to show why stuff happened.

To assure people on a few points, although sure there are consequences to everything, the actions taken here will be understandable to most people. Grok was advised by an expert that kill Myzrael would free her, which would be bad, so he bound her instead. Other experienced shaman might disagree, but this was ultimately a logical and reasonable thing to do at the time. This isn't helped by Zaruk doing some very quick talking after the event to deflect suspicion, assure Grok he did the right thing etc. Grok was very tunnel visioned at the time, I was writing as sort of confusing stuff with Forneus which I suppose you might say is sort of stress response.

Additionally, I'm probably going ot have a short timeskip after Naxx, so I'm fine with just awarding you actions/spells. You'd have had to spend them anyway to train in various ways, but I can handle this through narration. This won't result in a load of mandatory actions.

Nothing terrible will occour because of this. Forneus breaking through the world caused a mini-cataclysm and has made Deathwing breaking out easier, or Pandaria being reavealed more proximate, but Myzrael wont have those sorts of far reaching effects, maybe there was a local earthquake and a couple of dry stone walls fell down.

Nor is Myzrael about to jump out and be all 'ohohoho you shouldtn have imprisoned me', Grok has indeed learned the lesson of Proudpeak. I tend to foreshadow stuff like that but I wouldn't want to take away shinies unless I was going ot replace them. You lost your first sword for exampl ebut then you got a better one pretty soon after. I suppose there are some circumstances where I might do such a thing but it seems unecessarily mean.

As a general point around discontent, sometimes bad stuff happens and you have to deal with it. I as the author enjoy throwing curveballs at you, and you therefore have t omanage how to resolve conflict etc. There's several I've been hinting at waiting in the wings which may or may not be revealed. Additionally, sometimes there's suboptimal events forced on you. Partly this is because events of the world are moving aroun dyou, partly its because Grok isn't necessarily equipped to see the best option. I would generally encourage you to see this as a challenge rather than as something to be concerened about.

This specific development, the whole Dark Shaman thing, has been foreshadowed a lot. I did indeed give the thread a taste of this at the Battle of Stromgarde, where Grok chose orc welfare over elemental welfare. This wasn't the final switch etc, this is a general development of Grok's character and experiences over time. Although I'm not necessarily thinking about agency as much as at the start of the quest, this is still certainly a theme of the quest.

Around lesson learning, this is indeed a lesson. It might be a confused one, it might be an emotive one, but Grok is very much imperfect. For him, what is the 'lesson' of Proudpeak? Don't attack and kidnap people perhaps? Maybe sure, but it might also be simply that you need to be more powerful before doing so. What might another lesson be around Forneus? That sometimes Elementals just jump out the ground and take massively over the top actoins (from your perspective)? Possibly it might also be that Elementals are inherantly untrustwothy and unknowable, and should therefore be opposed.

On Grok's existing connections, the Spirit one is the only one you have inately, like from childhood etc. The fire stuff is slightly more complciated, you are carrying round an ancestral sword with a ancient and powerful fire spirit in it, so that's notable. It's a complicated matter anyway. What defines a shaman? Spiritual ability? Knowledge of meditation and practices? Why can goblins become shaman then given that they're neither? etc etc.

On teachers, we're doing Alterac after Naxx so I'll just use Drek'thar, I was planning a meeting with him anyway where you can visit the Frostwolves, so that's certainly something to bring up. They can certainly offer a challenge that might make him think, but Drek'thar also cannonically begged on his knees to be taught the Fel, so again, it's a complicated cultural practice there are no easy answers.



I think that's everything for the moment, but happy to exposit on particular points

 

[FractiousDay]

"Alliance land"? Excuse me?

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So I'll refer back to previous remarks in this thread about the problems of interpreting 30 years of lore which has been through many iterations and a few radical retcons. For example in Rise of the Horde, the Frostwolves are a very small clan of like 40, whereas in game they're all over the place, with hundreds in Alterac for example. As the GM I have to interpret this to form a sensible narrative, so just as it's come up before it'll happen again. I'll try and refer to a central timeline of broadly accepted events though, and I tend to favour sources like Chronicle as that for example is a specific (failed lol) attempt at making a consistent timeline for the story.

For example on sources,

The Stormpikes operate only on the "sovereign imperialistic imperative" by King Magni.

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this is pretty biased right? Like clearly Blizzard as noted before aren't great at representing politics well, and therefore went for an unreliable narrator approach? We also have 'The Frostwolves reacted with the most brutal and uncivilized act of aggression the Alliance has experienced.' so I think it's ok to question clearly partisan stuff which has been designed to provide the barely fig leaf of reasoning. At least it's a step up from the usual quest of 'I want X item, go get it for me.'

There's lore stuff that still gets through and we can learn stuff from that, but it's hardly something like, for example, the Witcher, where high politics is the central mover of events.

I don't remember anything about Frostwolves taking part in the First War,

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To establish a timeline that combines some elements of old and new lore:

1. Orcs invade, destroy stormwind. The Frostwolves take part in the First War, but at some point before the Second War leave. The Frostwolves are seen as reliable enough that Durotan has fairly high office and respect, and we can compare this to some clans which were left behind on Draenor (Laughing Skull for example). Therefore we know they served under Blackhand, and besides that bear some of the collective guilt for the whole Draenei thing.
2. The Frostwolves somehow make their way across a whole continent, presumably killing quite a few people on the way. They establish themselves in Alterac Valley, which at that point is presumably unoccupied.
3. The Alliance is formed out of human kingdoms, with some representation from other races. At it's base this is a supernational collective security pact, but it does have the ability to levy taxes etc (as seen in the schism over paying for internment camps). I note this because clearly there's some element of super-national juristiction going on here.
4. The Second War happens, toward the end of this, Perenolde allies with the Orcs to prevent his kingdom's destruction, and betrays the Alliance in various ways. A Stromgarde intervention force retakes the passes, leading to Doomhammer's defeat. The Horde retreat and are defeated at Blackrock Mountain and the Dark Portal destroyed, leading to the conclusion of the war.
5. There may or may not have been some additional Alterac skullduggery.
6. In the aftermath, the Alliance establishes the camps system, as well as discussing what to do with various other leftover orc clans who have escaped capture. Again, due to discussions on aid to rebuild Stormwind, I again would assert that the Alliance appears to be more than just a defensive pact, and has more juristiction.
7. Orcs start appearing again, not really important but the Alliance invades Draenor. Important point is that random bands of Orcs are still a threat and the Alliance regard them as such, whether more organised (Dark Horde) or less.
8. The Alliance debates what to do with Alterac, whether to balkanize it, or to establish a new king, or what.
9. Aiden Perenolde maybe dies etc (I've chosen to have the Alliance execute him in this quest), and his son takes over, trying to build his power through the Syndicate, a bandit confederation led by former Alteraci nobles.
10. The Frostwolves, who have lived somewherein Alterac since the First War, are still living there. They shelter Orc fugitives such as Thrall and Doomhammer when they come to visit, and are otherwise pretty friendly with other Orcs. I have decided that they also raid humans, like all Orcs tend to on occasion, though I'll acknoledge that this is interpretation rather than backed up by a particular source. The Frostwolves then play a significant part in the destruction of the Camps system, and the stealing of the Alliance's fleet at Southshore, as well as the liberation of fugitive Orcs like Hellscream.
11. The Third War and the Scourging of Lordaeron happen. I would argue it's implied (and have therefore represented in this quest) that W3RoC's bandits are part of the Syndicate, and hostile to the Alliance. The Syndicate survive the wars, hold up in Alterac.
12. Following the war, at least some Frostwolves return to Alterac, indeed, quite a large number. The Horde maintain several outposts to monitor certain situations, including Hammerfall and the Frostwolves.
13. At some point a Dwarven expedition presumably takes advantage of the lack of authority in northern Lordaeron, and sets up shop in Alterac too (though partly this is no doubt because of the needs for two groups being opposed for a BG in WoW.

My point in writing all of this out is to demonstrate that the Alliance has pretty good reason in this quest to be skeptical of the Frostwolves claims to residency. They were part of an invading army, fought their way north through several kingdoms, actively sponsored the alliance's foes, and then took part in war against the alliance. They can have no claim of 'oh we've just been living peacefully all this time chilling with the elements'. The Stormpike don't seem to be there for the land, original it seems to be a somewhat expansionist dwarven effort, potentially also surveying for Titan stuff or minerals, but that's not really relevant. Similarly, whether the Alteraci actually want the alliance there, or acknoledge the Alliance's juristiction over them is also somewhat irrelevnat. The Alteraci are regarded as a criminal state, unworthy of recognition and in active conflict with Alliance forces across various theaters.

Now we might say that maybe some of this unreasonable and the desires of the Alteraci who've been disenfranchised by nobles making decisions for them all the time might be sad abotu this, or object. Similarly, we might argue that the Frostwolves also don't really want to be in perpetual conflict with an invading Dwarves force, and that they perceive Alterac Valley as their land.

However, from the Alliance's perspective, notably from Dathrohan's perspective, the person who's saying all of this to you, that doesn't matter. Dathrohan is interested in expanding the Alliance's juristiction and power as much as he can to fund his war effort. Does the original charter of the Alliance have legitimate authority to arrange the affairs in soverign kingdoms? Dathrohan would argue it does.

I also note that if you were actualyl talking to any of these parties, obviously they would present different views, but you haven't yet, so I feel the need to note these various points.

 

[FractiousDay]

How are you going to explain that narratively?

Click to shrink...

I mean fairly easily really. We've all been discussing 'oh what if Thrall is angry' for a while after all, turns out he is. Or, maybe people just think he is, I would emphasise that there's at least 3 dreadlords wandering about this region after all.

But, as a thinking exercise for myself while I'm planning out the next few chapters, let's map Thrall's actions toward Grok so far. Speculation or challenge welcome.

• Thrall is warchief, the Burning Blade are regarded with a degree of suspicion, but honour.
• Grok's father, the nominal chief of the BB is the Elder Warlock of the Horde, their most expereinced user of Fel magic. Thrall finds this beneficial, but generally dissproves of the Fel
• Grok is about, and is probably someone Thrall has at least heard of, but then eventually turns up with a couple of reports, which remark positively regarding his conduct. Thrall intercepts him and brings him in to present a bit of political theater, apparently having heard that Grok is wanting to be a Blademaster. Thrall sees Grok as a potentially promising subordinate, and admires his dutiful and honorable nature, but fundamentally also sees him as a pawn in his intrigues.
• Grok begins to integrate back into the BB, and does some miltiary stuff for Nazgrel. In taking down Darkstorm, Thrall begins to think maybe Grok is being used as a way for Feldad to 'wash' his reputation
• During this time, and previously, Thrall is gathering infomation across Kalimdor, and knows BB are hiding stuff. This includes, but is not limited to, deniable warlock assets, secret bases, dubious allies, and most pressingly a large force in Desolace, an area Thrall has little intel on. Thrall firmly believes that the BB are relatively well organised, and are unified, though perhaps not under Feldad. Therefore every report of a rouge warlock or evidence of someone doing some human sacrifices is suspicious to him.
• Nothing happens for a while, then suddenly Forneus strides over the horizon and Thrall has to defend Orgrimmar. He and the shaman fail, and its' Feldad who defeats Forneus with a powerful Fel spell that Gul'dan used once to torture the elementals of Draenor.
• In the aftermath what exactly happens slowly becomes clear from the reports of Vark and Kartha, but the problem is Feldad and the BB's fame has rapidly risen while Thrall's been in a coma or something. However, the upshot of it is that while Thrall doesn't necessarily blame Grok for the destruction of large parts of Ogrimmar, and the mini-Cataclysm that's happened, clearly to some extent the BB are responsible.
• Thrall tries to use Grok as a pawn again, to give him the ability to bring the BB down. He plays up the demon worship, etcetc, and things are going pretty well till Grok torpedos the whole thing by taking responsibility for it and defusing the situation. Thrall could have pushed here, but his legitimacy as Warchief is inherantly shaky due to tribal politics, and his advisers encourage him to let it lie for the moment.
• Grok is exiled, it's a bit of a mess allround, and Thrall busies himself with reconstruction and consolidation. Meanwhile, he knows Feldad is being sneaky in various ways, and that Feldad is enjoying previously unforseen popularity. Most devastatingly, Thrall observes that Feldad's influence has now cause the pendulum of 'fel good or fell bad' to swing dangernously toward 'good' again. Thrall's whole political philosophy is brought into question and public debate bubbles. If Shamanism is so cool, why couldn't Thrall his friends stop Forneus?
• Grok has largely passed out of Thrall's mind, but then stories arrive about BBs fighting in Lordaeron. Thrall is initially quite confused, but over time the stories becomes clearer. Grok has infiltrated the Crusade and gained the respect of various people there. Thrall personally has mixed feelings on this. On one hand, he wants peace with the Alliance, on the other, he himself was a human slave.
• Politically however, this is quite damaging. Thrall derives his legitimacy from the inherant defensive pact the Horde composes. He has essentially abandoned the Forsaken. No one necessarily blames him for his, but it does open him to accusations of weakness from his detractors. Feldad is included in these, but Feldad doesn't even need to say anything, he can just 'observe' that his son is there fighting against the Scourge.
• Grok's fig leaf of 'exile' is preserved because Thrall can't find any evidence of Orcs actually leaving to go join Grok. Grok is getting all his support from local tribes, the Crusade, and the penal batallions formed by Stormwind. This is also very awkward for Thrall because it makes it look like Grok isn't a BB pawn but is a legit exile. But surely that can't be?
• Grok wins several victories, increasing his fame. Though not a challenger at present, Thrall, who's busy rebuilding and fighting fires, finds it difficult to contest the developing narrative. At this point Feldad and others aren't necessariyl trying to take Thrall down, and Thrall knows this, but intrigues continue.
• Suddently 10k Forsaken turn up in Desolace, devastating the local centaur and fortifying the region. They openly associate with the BB fortress there. The Forsaken can only have gotten there by a demon portal, confirmed by Thrall's intelligence services and own shamanic senses, which infers a number of things. Firstly, Grok may have been sent to Lordaeron deliberately to bring the Forsaken over, which means he also may have been sent as a wider strategy, mastermided by Feldad. Every action Grok takes begins to look deliberate. While Thrall knows Grok isn't necessarily the cleverest guy (given Grok has previously been fairly naive), there's an open question as to Grok's agency in all of this. It might be that he's acting independantly, or it might be that he's opeying clan orders.
• Grok takes Anderhol, the newest height of his rapid miltiary career. This is the first time an Orc has led a significant military action since the short war against Kul Tiras. This builds on Grok's (reasonably) successful defence of Dreadmist. Rumours spread from unknown sources regarding Grok's skill and honour, and the fact that he's been acknoledged as a Blademaster. While once that was a quaint thing when Grok first turned up, with two victories under his belt this becomes more credible.
• Thrall hasn't heard from Hammerfall in a while, but then one day he gets a message (I dont know by spirit phone or something) from there or from Drekthar saying that Grok turned up, is working for the humans, and recruited some of their dudes. This is dangerous for a number of reasons because it looks like Grok is trying to build up his forces, and threatens the security of 'loyal' bases, and from the report it seems that Grok is working on his own, rather than just being a pawn. Worse, Grok has continued his dubious relations with Elemetnals, and has bound a powerful one. Grok fights the Alliances enemies, implying that he's willing to probably fight orcs too in order to increase his power.
• Grok takes Naxx, fighting various fearsome enemies. Grok has been associating with famous human warriors like the original members of the Silver Hand (who I've noted in this quest are well known and respected among the Orcs), and he's now beaten Mograine in single combat. Thrall (as far as I can tell) doesn't have any notable martial feats. He is, after all, a shaman. He had a reasonable gladiatorial career, but Grok's significant skill in combat eclipses his quite comfortably. These are all hits to Thrall's authority again.
• Grok makes for Alterac, the known location of demon-worshiping Orcs and a (preusmably) functional demon gate.
• Grok leads his army into Alterac Valley, bearing down on the Frostwolves.

What happens next I've yet to actually write. This will involve some rolls, but what I want to demonstrate here is that there is at least a significant amount of room here for misconceptions, intrigues, implications, and finally rash action. I rolled for what orders Drek'thar had received from Thrall, this would represent to a degree what Thrall has told Drek'thar to do, and also Thrall's opinions on Grok's actions more generally. This quest doesn't have alternate viewpoints so I don't intend to tell you actually what's going on, though there are indeed things in the background. For example, as mentioned above, there are Dreadlords known to be in the area, who would definitely benefit from the destruction of the Frostwolves and further isolation of Grok. I'm not saying that's actually what's happened, but one of the narrative strengths of this quest is Grok's limited internal perspective.

Also, from an external perspective I suppose, with me as the author, I rolled a 1 on an important roll. This wasn't failing a miltiary action or something, this was for Thrall's position, a powerful figure who can to a greater or lesser extent dictate your future. You rolled the worst possible roll you could, a roll that's traditionally reserved for truely calamitous events. I must respect that and arbitrate how that'll work.

Also, as I know they'll be coming, and to defuse any objections that a single roll will dictate the future of the quest, or somehow lock you into a particular outcome, no it wont. Come on we're 200k in, you're aware that's not my style.

 

[FractiousDay]

Right, I need to do a post on orc population numbers in order to estimate how many of them there were in particular clans now.
Firstly, we know that the Orcs are a violent and technologically primitive race, who were also oppressed in a hostile enviroment by various factors. Apparently there's already some sort of corruption or decline even before the Dark Portal, but there's also the Primals and Evergrowth, as well as the more powerful Ogres. Those are all external factors, but internally I might also remark that there's going to be some selective infanticide, as well as a generally bellicose culture. Tribal warfare is one of the most brutal types, so we're going to see a large amount of deaths from that too.

As such, I'm going to say that there was at most 1m Orcs on Draenor in recent years, based on population estimates for hunter-gatherers. This will increase and decrease at various points, and the Horde's formation is certainly a low point. Things evidently aren't going great, but Gul'dan poisons everyone with the Red Pox and accelerates the enviromental degredation by annoying the Elements. The Orcs hunt the Gronn to near extinction which presumably has some sort of metaphysical effect, then strip the land bare, even having to eat their warbeasts before coming to Azeroth. In addition of course the Orcs defeat the three other powers of Draenor, the Arakkoa, Ogres and the Draenei, which presumably further deflates their numbers. Let us imagine therefore that the Orcs have at least halved in population, down to 500,000, if not further.

During this period, Blackhand ordered various reforms, including accelerating the Horde's technological development, as well as ordering the clans to specialise. Strangely, the Frostwolves go from being one of the smallest tribes of around 50 individuals, to being a respected part of the triumvirate of Blackhand's generals. I shall assume therefore that part of that specialisation was for Blackhand to order that smaller tribes be absorbed into the larger ones. Blackhand deployed one part of the Horde first, the most disciplined clans and presumably a large part of the warriors, leaving the less disciplined clans (and presumably the non-combatants) behind.

Notable for being left behind were the Warsong, Shattered Hand, Thunderlord, Laughing Skull and Bonechewer. Comparably, those going through included the Blackrock, Blacktooth Grin, Bleeding Hollow, Burning Blade, Dragonmaw, Frostwolf and Twilight's Hammer. Absent from that list are the Shadowmoon and Stormreavers. It may be that these clans were small enough to either not be mentioned or simply be less relevant at that point. The Stormreavers are a clan almost solely composed of Gul'dan and his warlocks for example. There are also a large number of minor clans, either smaller or less prestigious, or extremely specialist like the Mok'Nathal.

I shall briefly note here that in older lore the Burning Blade are the most chaotic and bloodthirsty of all the orcs, and were left behind. Not according to newer lore which builds up them as samurai.

Again, to give us some numbers to work with, let's imagine that 200,000 Orcs follow Blackhand, and engage in his campaign, while the rest remain in Draenor, apparently degrading pretty quickly to Fel corruption and hunger. In the first phase of the First War, Blackhand moves steadily forward, taking high losses against the humans, and significant setbacks in the Siege of Stormwind itself. After the first siege fails, Orgrim assumes the mantle of Warchief, attacking Stormwind again, which no doubt is just as bloody as the first attack. At this point, let's assume 50,000 losses, leaving Doomhammer with 150,000, still a respectable force.

Doomhammer is at least moderately concerend though, and calls on the other clans in Draenor. They're busy fighting each other though, and only a small number come along, which explicitly doesn't include Grommash which is rather embarassing.

The Second War begins 4 years after the Opening of the Dark Portal. Doomhammer leads the Horde on a largely futile series of campaigns, including such brilliant tactics as smashing his face into Ironforge, and then smashing it into Silvermoon, and finally after he's walked off his headache, smashing it into Lordaeron. Unfortuantely this doesn't work. Doomhammer leads the Horde to traverse the entire continent, presumably proceeding at a fast pace and not spending much time tending to the wounded. Meanwhile at this point the Horde has no shaman, they're all either depowered or have turned to the Fel. Several clans basically wander off to do their own thing during this time, including the Dragonmaw, Bleeding Hollow, and Frostwolves. He ends up losing the war and taking significant casualties, losing half his force, which was already depleted in the First War when Blackhand had command. Doomhammer is defeated at Blackrock Spire, the rest of the Horde being imprisoned, approximately 6 years after the opening of the Dark Portal. In this time, I think we can conservatively imagine that Doomhammer has at most around 80,000 Orcs in his entire force.

Gorefiend and a few others, perhaps hundreds at most, presumably the Horde's remaining cavalry, manage to escape back through the Portal. Meanwhile, significant elements of other clans are able to escape captivity, notably some Blackrock and Blacktooth Grin in the Spire, the Warsong, Frostwolves, Bleeding Hollow and Dragonmaw. For the sake of argument, lets say we've got the best part of the 80,000 interred by the Alliance, and with tens of thousands escaped, either into the wild places of Azeroth, or in more collected forces like the Dragonmaw.

In what's quite an admirable move, the Alliance don't decide to just kill all the orcs. They intern them, where they sit around being sad for 20 years. Presumably mayn waste away, and there's very few children being born because everyone is very sad.

Meanwhile, the Orcs on Draenor aren't doing very well. They're weak enough that they don't have the strength to try again even if they wanted to. Instead, Grommash leads the remaining clans through the restarted Portal to go on an artefact hunt. Grommash sits around making a nusiance of himself while Gorefiend and Wolfbrother go after the loot.

Grom apparently just sits around until Ner'zuhl blows up Draenor, and then the Warsong and several other clans disperse.

I've remarked in previous infoposts about the Horde's modern clan structure, the experience of internment, and the broader implications of this series of demographic catastrophies. In general terms the Horde's population has suffered massive shocks, and events have prevented them from rebuilding till the present, with Grok being one of the first generation of Orcs born in the Horde. The point I want to make is that if they had high numbers, these have been devastated by warfare.

I'm not going to count the Clanless, as no sort of census will have been done on them, but of the larger clans and their consistient or cadet branches you'll have:

• Blackrock - Have always been the largest and most powerful clan, and retained enough numbers to split the clan under Rend and to start to specialise their forces again. Additionally, have enough forces to support cadet branches like the Demonsword Clan. Also allied with the Black Dragonflight, which provide them some techs which help. Relatively strong, and continuing to use the artificial aging techniques to get stronger, 80,000 individuals split between the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor following Thrall and Rend respectively, and also including the random groups of people wandering about and hill clans.
• Frostwolf - 'True' Frostwolves relatively few, perhaps 2,000 at most, but having absorbed a large number of Clanless orcs under Thrall's leadership, one of the stronger political factions in the Horde, 30,000 individuals.
• Bleeding Hollow - Fought the trolls, but then stayed relatively safe and retreated to Draenor. Perhaps 10,000 individuals in total, split between a larger part on Draenor, and a smaller number of Azeroth.
• Dragonmaw - Stayed fairly independant, and somehow managed to keep a lot of their dragons. Active trade and alliance with the Blackrock, so population exchange and aging tech likely in return for air support. 20,000 individuals, all in the Dark Horde.
• Burning Blade - Mixed fortunes generally, with Neeru choosing to excise elements of the clan deliberately and specialise voluntarily. Likely small numbers, split between Orgrimmar, smaller settlements like Dreadmist, and then a secret sect in Desolace. Likely 8,000 individuals, with most of them in hiding.
• Warsong - Militaristic clan, stayed out of the First War, and free from captivity after the Second, likely causing them to absorb other clans more. Suffered setbacks like a significant number becoming Fel Orcs and dying on the Legion's side at Hyjal, but then were still trusted to be relatively independant by Thrall. Around 18,000 individuals, many in Ashenvale.
• Shattered Hand - Former slaves, likely absorbing some smaller clans by force of will, but also significantly degenerated in the modern day. Specialising as spies and assassins, likely <1000 individuals.
• Thunderlord - Vigorous, but decreased, no evidence of large numbers, specialised into beast tamers. <1000 individuals.
• Laughing Skull - Regarded as insane and treacherous even before drinking demon blood. Very few individuals in Azeroth, though some in Draenor. Likely fewer than 2000 individuals.
• Bonechewer - Another clan with a poor reputation, similar situation to Laughing Skull.
• Twilight's Hammer - Not a clan anymore, but a widespread cult. Not even specialisation in the Horde, almost entirely gone from open Orc society.
• Shadowmoon - Almost nonexistant, no independant settlements, will be gone in a generation. <100 individuals.
• Stormreavers - Destroyed, <100 individuals, with it being unlikely that anyone of them would declare themselves openly.
• Mok'Nathal - Nonexistant as a clan on Azeroth, <1000 individuals in Outland.

Consider these as informative, rather than fixed. Putting numbers to things is never a good idea in this sort of worldbuilding, but it does at least give me a starting point to specifically note down particular points.

Also, in reading about some of this stuff, apparently in current WoW orcs can now be priests and now actually have a lore reason to use the Light, also there's a really interesting and competently written quest series which goes into internal orc politics which is frankly just enraging. We had expansion after expansion of nonsense. Where was this writing during that? Extremely vexing.

 

[FractiousDay]

Right so you've just got a tribe of fel orcs, and at some point sooner rather than later you're going to have to deal with it in a leadership position.

The Orcs first encountered the Fel when Gul'dan/Ner'zhul fooled the Orcs into thinking Kil'jaeden was a powerful ancestral spirit who had a new type of magic for everyone.

There are a variety of ways the Fel can be administered, but essentially it makes the user physically more powerful at the expense of mental instability. To some, this isn't a big deal, but the Orcs over time clearly understand that the Fel has negative effects to the wider environment, as well to what we might describe as 'public health'.

Like any social issue, there seem to be a number of ways to describe people's opinions on the Fel. These stem from the spiritual or cultural views of the individuals. For example, lots of the southern tribes, notably the Bleeding Hollow, Bonechewer and Laughing Skull, have a hostile relationship with their natural environment anyway, so I don't think they'd see a difference between the Evergrowth killing their guys vs the Fel poisoning things.

Comparably, with the exception of the Frostwolves, all the other clans are also fine with dominating their environment to a greater or lesser extent, for example the Blackrock are frequent users of Dark Shamanism and the Dragonmaw and known for taming creatures.

I think that most Orcs would be familiar with Gul'dan's trickery, and the idea that the Fel isn't actually that great. The issue though is that the Fel is undeniably powerful, and you might just forget at some point that they were doing something bad because it's just that useful. Even orcs like Blackhand when they felt the Fel had failed them in military affairs, didn't seem to have an inherent stance against it, it was merely a tactic or group of people who'd failed.

Doomhammer comes in, but there then emerges a question over the next few decades about whether the Fel is inherently bad, or whether it's something that stems from something bad, and is actually ok. It massively depends on the person's position in society, what they might think about Gul'dan for example. If you're one of the younger generation who don't remember Draenor, and didn't see the worst of the Fel-orcs under Grom for example, you might feel that the Fel is just an especially destructive magic. What fundamentally is the difference between a troll witch-doctor who sacrifices a prisoner and uses magic against an enemy, when compared with a warlock who also uses sacrificial magics to fight?

I think essentially the Fel and people's perception of it would be a matter of considering your individual position. Even Thrall, who had a pretty good reason to distrust the Fel, is ok with warlocks existing. If you do take a position that some amount of Fel is acceptable, you've already gone far enough that you're then just negotiating about how much. Unless you take an absolute position like the Kaldorei did, you have to accept a certain amount of corruption.

Now as to things like Fel-Orcs, can we assume that all the Warsong ones were killed and only Grom was cured? Or was there some sort of purification ritual for them too? Perhaps, but the Fel would have probably been fairly difficult to cure if it took loads of work, so maybe the Fel-orcs just all got killed.

In any case, there will be some Fel-orcs in the Horde, even in Thrall's Horde. They may be disliked, even disenfranchised, but they remain some of the most physically powerful warriors in the Horde, and the Horde still needs them as shock troopers. If you can throw some Fel-orcs at the problem instead of sending your own warriors, that's advantageous. In some clans, perhaps Blackrock, certainly Burning Blade, Fel-orcs are more accepted, but they're still not at the forefront, which is partly why it's so unusual that Grok walks about with a Fel-orc in such a prominent position as his trainer/adviser/guard.

I think that in many cases, this is another example of Thrall's inability to make a firm decision. He's caught in between wanting to control warlocks and use their formidable abilities, with the great utility Feldad brings for example, and his hatred of them due to their representation of the betrayal of his people. Someone like Feldad, who goes about pretty openly talking about the Fel, and who so famously won against Forneus while Thrall was unable to do anything, is an embarrassment for him.

On Grok taking on the Demonsword Clan, this is partly tied up with the military implications. Grok is already dangerous to Thrall, having thousands more warlike orcs is even more dangerous. The Fel-orcs themselves, or the Demonsword's reliance on Fel generally, is indeed gravely concerning though, and will continue to be so over time. Firstly, because if they can be controlled it demonstrates that they're pretty cool actually which really impact's Thrall's policies saying the Fel is bad. If they can't be controlled the implication is that Grok might be just as bad as the worst of his clan. There are other implciations, but those are perhaps the main ones.

On Grok's personal stance, this is an extremely complicated matter. Grok personally doesn't have anything against the Fel. Feldad has been very careful to not expose him to the bad sides of the Fel, and has carefully controlled who meets him, eg he sent Sesk and Ishi to demonstrate that Sesk is actually a controlled guy even when he has Fel stuff. Similarly, though Feldad demonstrates signs of physical corruption which might be unsightly, that's not really a big deal. In terms of Grok's personal stance, he's refused the Fel before, but he personally isn't necessarily opposed to it, he just personally hasn't had it. Grok has a general dissaproval of the Fel because of his personal beliefs, but that doesn't necessarily extend into a political stance. In terms of his official stance, Grok would be presently unable to denounce his father, due to the extreme responsibilities of leadership and personal attitudes Grok has toward Feldad, and he can't therefore lose 'face' by criticing the Fel. He takes a stance like with teh warlocks, by saying that he personally doesn't subscribe to his father's ideals, but still respects his father as clan chief, and obviously a parent.


I don't actually recall what prompted this post so have probably forgotten why I was writing it, just remembered that I was indeed going to remark upon it. If anyone has questions add them and I'll edit the post.

 

[FractiousDay]

Spoiler: Warchief points

Given how much Thrall seems to be on the outs and even not doing the actual, what would a Warchief Saurfang, or even Neeru look like in say the first six months, or so? How would ether work with the Tauran, Darkspears, and Forskane? Or even dealing with Theramore and the Kul Tiran colonies? Or the Alliance itself?

Click to shrink...

em a saurfang as warchief that would be interesting since unlike thrall saurfang knows what things were like on dreanor before the horde and unlike thrall witnessed and knows how horrible the things are (High Overlord Saurfang says: The winter after the curse was lifted, hundreds of veteran orcs like me were lost to despair. High Overlord Saurfang says: His act could not erase the horrors we committed,. this implies to me saurfang doesn't stright blame warlocks and in bfa he says blackhands bloody legacy) but as we know saurfang can give up hope in the horde. but saurfang is mostly in thrall camp so apart from being a bit more aggressive cant imagine to much of a difference

Click to shrink...

He has his work cut out for him. Orgrimmar is still rebuilding, the Horde just been kicked out of Ashenvale outright, the Burning Blade is on the up along with the friendship of the Forsaken. All while the Alliance itself is at odds with itself and the Zandalari are making moves, and this Trade War and the Scourge is making moves on their own.

Click to shrink...

Thall thinks about who to choose as succsessor when he's thinking of stepping down during Cata. He's very much aware that his need to be a shaman is outweighing his need to be a Warchief.

I've written about Thrall's policies before, I think they're extremely flawed in many ways but I don't necessarily think that makes him a bad character, his lore is reasonably written as someone who is torn between different priorities, and finds it extremely difficult to resolve the contradictions of his beliefs, strategic situation, and other aspects.

The Warchief of the Horde sits in an unclear constitutional settlement. It began as a tool to help the Burning Legion unitfy the Orcs against their enemies, and people don't forget that. One of the problems with that of course though is that where the Warchief was once the military and political executive, but now functions as sort of that, but where's the war?

Thrall specifically attempts (and utterly fails lol) to transform the Horde from a genocidal military force into an imagined community based on the idea of collective security and familial bonds, this is the 'Horde as family' concept. This works really well between clan-based, shamanistic societies living in primitive communism, notably the orcs, tauren and the Darkspear. However, the problem becomes when Thrall tries to translate this political constitution onto the international stage, and where cracks start to emerge.

Some international theories would state that all states regardless of constitution act the same on the international stage, here that's partly true but wildly not in other ways. For example, Thrall's and the Horde's historical concerns do inform their deployments, but they also find it extremely difficult to form a proper international settlement with the Alliance on simple issues, probably because Thrall doesn't have the burecratic tools to actually make people listen to his plans.

The Warchief has a number of functions in the modern Horde:

• Realistically, the Warchief is usually the Orcish racial leader, this is true in the Old, Dark, New and Iron Hordes, and the Orcs overwhelmingly dominate the other races until the Forsaken start to increase their power later in the timeline. The Darkspear for example, while prosperous, remain one tribe which split off from the wider Gurubashi some time ago. As such, the Warchief needs to either represent Orcish interests, or at least be well enough respected by the Orcs in general to rule them.
• The Warchief is also the Horde's primary military leader. This was more the case with Blackhand and Doomhammer, but Thrall somewhat reinforced this, as did Garrosh. This doesn't mean the Warchief has to be the best fighter, but due to the nature of the Mak'gora, the Warchief must at least be sufficiently good a military and personal combatant to be credible to the martially inclined orcs.
• The Warchief is also the leader of a tribal coalition of Orcs. This means they must maintain the confidence of the confederation and the differnet elemetns of the nation. That means that when Thrall's tribe tries to attack another clan, that causes his authority to massively weaken.
• Lastly, the Warchief is, by virtue of being the executive, the main representative of the Horde diplomatically. Canonically Akinos for example did indeed go to Stormwind on diplomatic trips, but Thrall is the main representative, and in theory can speak for the whole Horde.

Thrall thinks about who to replace him, and considers both Saurfangs and Cairne. He rejects Cairne for not being an Orc, rejects Saurfang for being too old, and rejects the other Saurfang for being too dead. This I think tells us something about the constituional settlement of the Horde more broadly.

I've been through the different candidates below. I think there's a lot of general points that can be further discussed. To build on this, you could discuss what someone like Saurfang would do. For example, does he have a significantly different idea of the political settlement of the Orcish people than Thrall does? I don't really think he feel strongly about it. you might also question people in terms of 'what do you think about the Fel', Garrosh for example is willing to use molten giants, which are forbidden by the Earthen Ring. Comparably, the other main point would be foreign policy. Feldad for example would probably make a poor warchief because he doesn't have a number of aspects necessary, and is also heavily corrupted by the Fel. We might also understand that Feldad might prefer to operate as the chief magic dude, and might enjoy ruling through a proxy in some sort of shadowy councillor role. Some sort of Shadow Council perhaps. If only he had a willing pawn to use that he could trust to carry out his will, somoene young and vital, vigourous in battle and respectful of traditions......

Warchief	Power	Political settlement	Foreign policy	Internal affairs
Blackhand	Absolute, though dependant on Shadow Council	Horde as a genocidal army, secretly directed by demons	Expansionist, lebensraum	Military affairs prioritised, allies accepted
Doomhammer	Moderate, forced to compromise several times, subject to desertions	Horde still seeking their own land, no longer as aggressive regarding demons	Still expansionist	Forced to compromise with allies, clans etc
Thrall	Moderate, strategic situation forces compromise, personally charismatic and popular	Horde as family and collective security community	Non-interventionist, somewhat intentionally sabotaging the orcs due to guilt, but also desperate for allies	Cooperative, forced to take unsavoury allies like the Forsaken though
Garrosh	Strong, powerful legacy and vision of the Horde	Horde as imagined community, but under Garrosh's politics	Expansionist, but no longer genocidal, accepting of other races as long as they serve	Orcish supremacy, industrialisation, militarism
Vol'jin	Weak, compromise candidate, respected but with little power. Sits about for an expansion and then dies in the next one.	Recovery after various wars, especially civil war. Likely conciliation efforts	Like also conciliatory, attempting to preserve Horde settlements taken by Garrosh, but without angering the Alliance	Again, working on repairing Garrosh's damage, likely providing assurances, subsidies etc to the injured races, eg Belfs
Sylvannus	Moderate, open rebellion leading to the 4th War, but the ability to somehow still bind the Horde together. Also personally powerful and respected.	Horde as collective security, some rhetoric around avenging Vol'jin etc	Expansionst, but secretly working for the Jailer, so actions must be interpreted in that light	Attempting to prevent rebellion while also creating death to help the Jailer out.

 

[FractiousDay]

On Death Knight generations, we have:

1st Gen: Horde shamans turned warlocks, potentially mostly Shadowmoon and Stormreaver, resurrected by Gul'dan using void magic in Alliance knight bodies. Largely just mounted spellcasters, limited necromantic and martial abilities. Turn out to be extremely weak to Light magic use by Alliance paladins. Notable are Teron Gorefiend et al.
2nd Gen: Mostly paladins, warriors and other martial individuals. Chosen by the Dreadlords to lead the Scourge. Either dead or highly corrupted human nobles mostly. Primarily generals and leaders of undead, with emphasis on individual martial prowess. Potentially also a response to the need to have a counter to Alliance Paladins. Led by Arthas, but with other notable individuals like Mograine.
3rd Gen: Start of mass produced DKs in the Ebon Blade. Codification of DK traditions, aescetics. Technological development within the Scourge, use of more advanced alchemic preservations, use of DK techniques and abilities eg use of bone stuff for anti-magic abilities, use of Runeforging. Less individually powerful than previous generations, because they aren't exceptional people anymore, but still formidable combatants. Includes Player character DKs.
4th Gen: Late stage Scourge DK development. Combination of final technological development of the Scourge. Use of both exceptional individuals, and also tech like Saronite equipment or rare reagents. People like Bolvar or Deathbringer Saurfang. Was the Lich King's plan for Icecrown raid.
4 and a half Gen: Darion Mograine's innovations and continued development in the independent Ebon Blade. No significant changes, but some development during Legion in the pursuit of artefacts and various other learnings for example, just like the other Class Orders developed technologically. Relatively few examples of these, mostly just the new 4 Horsemen. Also though in my Peggy Sue Saves Azeroth fic I've got Vark as a DK doing this sort of thing.
5th Gen: Some sort of Shadowlands nonsense I don't know they can use fire now or something.