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

I am starting to wonder what warcraft demons are.
Are they made of smoke? Emotions? Evilness?
As a stranger to WoW, I guess "evilness" is a good answer.
Your questions are interesting though, maybe someone has a better answer than me.

Also a bunch of them want to destroy whole worlds? Wouldn't that leave them with fewer sources of magic though and fewer sources of people to torture?
There are always MOAR WORLDS. It's the same logic applied to Chaos in Warhammer, IMO
 
There eventually won't be more worlds though? All the same yeah I hope someone more familiar stops by because I feel like I melted my brain reading the wiki page.

Also Satyrs being demons feels very weird to me.
 
I am starting to wonder what warcraft demons are.
In short, this is a question which the source material has little inclination to establish. Blizzard (the company) tried to establish a specific continuity in the 'Chronicle' series of books, but then they almost immediately started contradicting this in various ways. As such, don't feel especially stupid for not understanding it, its not as if Blizzard do!

Demons, as far as I'm aware at least, started off in Warcraft 1/2 as basically the christian demons, beings from hell which were evil etc. Then After Warcraft 2, the world generally started to drop a lot of the christian influences and actually started building a culture for the orcs for example.

The Warcraft cosmos is made up of various cosmic forces (life, death, light, shadow, order, disorder) and their interactions or struggles. The Void Lords, for example, and the Old Gods to a lesser extent, are 'made' of shadow, and want to corrupt everything and make it all shadowy. Demons, comparably, are made of the Fel, the fundamental force of Disorder in the cosmos. They are primarily opposed to the Titans, who are made of arcane magic, the 'order' force.

When Warcraft creatures/people are exposed to these fundamental forces, they're basically mutated by them. This happens in various ways but is universal, so for example trolls were mutated into elves by arcane magic, Draenei are mutated into Lightforged by exposure to the Light, etc etc. For demons, the Eredar, is the original name for the Draenei (which means 'exiled' or something i dont know), while yea the satyrs are mutated elves etc.

Although I don't think this is specifically established anywhere, I suspect the first demons were just normal creatures (probably on other planets than Azeroth as the Warcraft universe features other planets), who got mutated by the Fel. The first demons may or may not have been the Nathrezeim, or the dreadlords. Other races were then also mutated, till you get lots of them like the Pitlords, the Mo'arg, that sort of thing. Lots of these races have a specific place in the hierarchy of the Burning Legion so maybe they went shopping around for them to serve in particular functions, eg the Pitlords are generals/champions, moarg are engineers.

Alternatively, the first demons might have been like in Warhammer where they're just sort of manifestations of cosmic energy that achieve sentience. The Naru'u are that for the Light, they're literally crystalised Light energy, so maybe there's crystalised Fel energy somewhere for demons.

Now I've mentioned the Burning Legion. Sagaras, a Titan and therefore Order God, had gone about fighting demons and other cosmic stuff, and imprisoned all the demons somewhere. Then he found a planet which had been infected with spooky shadow stuff by the Void Lords. He cut the planet in half (he's a big dude), to destroy the infection. The other Titans told him off, so he killed them all. He then freed the demons and formed the Burning Legion, which he dedicated to the destruction of all life in the cosmos, which he thought would starve the Void Lords. As such he's kind of a good guy, it's sort of like the Emperor's plan in 40k to starve Chaos of worship by being atheist etc.

You're right in that this would starve the demons, but tbh I think this says more about Sargaras maybe being mad? He was sort of driven insane by his eternity of war against the cosmic whatevers, so maybe the demons are just fine with doing what he says.

As for serving food, demons are frequently dominated by mortals for various purposes. Feldad is a powerful warlock, he can control demons for doing chores etc in the same way a mage might enchant a broom to do some sweeping.
 
Wow thank you, that was helpful! It seems info-post worthy even though I understand your leeriness on that.
 
Wow thank you, that was helpful! It seems info-post worthy even though I understand your leeriness on that.
I would, but it's not really much more than the wiki says. I'd also note that at present, the cosmology of the Warcraft universe isn't really relevant to the plot, people don't need to know it really. The burning legion hasn't even really been around
 
[X] Plan Haggle
-[X] State the intention of Grok's journey to Hammerfall offering admittance to the warband for a chance of future battle and glory before coming back to Ogrimmar.
-[X] Concede that while he has made good progress on that, the situation of fellow clansmen left behind for Kalimdor under the warchief's banner means a different approach will be needed as honor to his own people and duty to his current superior demands it.
-[X] Admit that while he studied the blade of his forefathers, he is not by nature a diplomat to see any easy solution but is willing to arrange dialogue between Hammerfall and respective parties involved starting with Stromgarde to sort it out.
-[X] Inform them of the debt that the prince of Stromgarde owes Grok which will be the best negotiating position to use to sort out at least a temporary solution of neutrality to buy time for the final decision or for the situation to change.
 
I'm going to go ahead and formalize my earlier suggestion into a plan as well then.

[X] Plan Battlefront Reduction
-[X] Entice Drum Fel and the Orcs of Hammerfall to have the Warsong/Frostwolf/Hammerfall alliance raise their forces for an extended campaign, offering the promise of not only battle but also the potential reduction of three battlefronts to only one.
-[X] Assure them that Grok can lead their forces, along with his Warband, to victory against the Witherbark Village, destroying/scattering the enemy trolls, eliminating one front. Suggest a joint command with a commander of their choosing if they seem reluctant to hand over control over their combatants.
-[X] Suggest an armistice/cease fire with the Alliance to campaign against the Scourge, describing both the necessity to end the Scourge and the potential elimination of another front through avenues of diplomacy (strongly hinting that the Orcs send a diplomatic representative/representatives to facilitate such endeavors).
-[X] Insist that this path offers not only battle and glory to the local Horde elements but also presents a path to a sustainable, secure future.

I left out the intent to poach some of their forces as I doubt Grok wants to broadcast that in a pitch. But that outlines pretty much everything I had in mind, I think.
 
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Btw all, my notes on your comments etc, so this will compose what Grok will be pointing out


Target prioritisatioon, being realistic,

Emphaise relative Alliance friendliness or willingness to diplo

Send someone, or give warriors to grok

Emasise long term situ

Pick up and leave

Truce?

Honour vsd scourge

Recognition, these are battles that will change the world,

Alterac
 
[X] Plan Haggle

There eventually won't be more worlds though? All the same yeah I hope someone more familiar stops by because I feel like I melted my brain reading the wiki page.

Also Satyrs being demons feels very weird to me.
On "no more worlds", thing is, the interests of the mad titan Sargeras-as-Legion's master, the interests of Eredar lords that lead the Legion while Sargeras is unavailable, and the interests of separate demons are different things. Sargeras has his whole "destroy potential titan souls" mission, the Eredar lords seem more interested in magic sources and dragging realms into the Twisting Nether for easy access, and your average demon is not that different from a normal person or beast, if only more intense due to the whole fel overdose thing.

As a rule of thumb, consider Warcraft demons closer to "alien mutants" than to (anti)divine corruptive forces. As in, they are corruptive, but that's because Fel magic is a prime mutagen juice that changes you physically and chemically, not because they feast on people's sins, morality, and so on. It's a more materialistic take on fantasy. Heck, people take to being Felsworn differently. Amongst the chaos orcs, Grom Hellscream and Kargath Bladefist pretty much went mad on fel, and the already savage clans like the Bonechewers got pretty much feral, while the Dragonmaw members that got stuck on Draenor took to it with little issue, no worse for the wear.

Satyrs are a weird case of a whole group becoming classified as "demons" due to heavy fel mutation. At their base they are mutated night elves (who were, in turn, mutated dark trolls). We don't actually know how exactly must one be mutated to be classified as a "demon". Random dogs across plagued Lordaeron became "demons" after being corrupted by the Legion/Scourge invasion. But fel orcs aren't usually considered demons.

What really is hard to wrapped one's head around is the "demons being singular per the multiverse". It just barely works with DC's New Gods, but here, when anyone can become a demon if they really try, it just doesn't work, especially when even the top demon lords of the Eredar had chronicled "pre-corruption" lives, so their existence in various universes becomes paradoxical.
 
speech stuff

general success (modified by good planning and decent skill) 91 nice
reception of new clan 3 massivelty against
warsong 23 modified by meeting them
frostwolves 23 modified by meeting them
Proximity of naxx mission 94
policyh of strom 86

Stone interlude? = 41, on the way
FractiousDay threw 7 100-faced dice. Reason: D100s Total: 361
91 91 3 3 23 23 23 23 94 94 86 86 41 41
 
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mutated night elves (who were, in turn, mutated dark trolls)
Well, this World of Warcraft is indeed weird and original compared to the classic fantasy clichès.
Imagine trolls -> night elves (-> satyrs) as a possible route of origin for, say, Warhammer elves and trolls. Or even better, for the Lord of the Rings.

One of the basically holy elves of the third Age, a solemn elf on a background of light in Rivendell or Lothlorien, says:
"In the blessed land of Aman, under the Light of the Two Trees, the Elves were not faded at all. Before some lost their way, and especially before the Enemy came, in Valinor all was good"
...
< cue an image of jolly green Warhammer orcs having a club brawl. A tall hungry troll passes by, burping loudly >
 
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Well, this World of Warcraft is indeed weird and original compared to the classic fantasy clichès.
Imagine trolls -> night elves (-> satyrs) as a possible route of origin for, say, Warhammer elves and trolls. Or even better, for the Lord of the Rings.

One of the basically holy elves of the third Age, a solemn elf on a background of light in Rivendell or Lothlorien, says:
"In the blessed land of Aman, under the Light of the Two Trees, the Elves were not faded at all. Before some lost their way, and especially before the Enemy came, in Valinor all was good"
...
< cue an image of jolly green Warhammer orcs having a club brawl. A tall hungry troll passes by, burping loudly >
Haha, well, it's just Warcraft Trolls are not so brutish, outside of a specific Dire Troll mutant type, they have huge noses, tusks and ears, but are otherwise comely, in an "exotic native" sort of way. Night Elves also were (at least originally) depicted as somewhat savage, more well-toned, hairy and stronger-looking than their High Elf cousins, so their relation to the Trolls wasn't so weird. I'd say Highborne->Naga transformation gets a bit weirder.

Warcraft also doesn't have the LOTR's theme of the past world being better and the future world regressing. The Old Gods and their races are generally unpleasant, so nobody but crazy cultists wants to go back to their times, and the only ones lamenting their old empires afterwards are the Trolls.
 
speech stuff

general success (modified by good planning and decent skill) 91 nice
reception of new clan 3 massivelty against
warsong 23 modified by meeting them
frostwolves 23 modified by meeting them
Proximity of naxx mission 94
policyh of strom 86

Stone interlude? = 41, on the way
That went well I think? Except for the new clan.
 
Haha, well, it's just Warcraft Trolls are not so brutish, outside of a specific Dire Troll mutant type, they have huge noses, tusks and ears, but are otherwise comely, in an "exotic native" sort of way. Night Elves also were (at least originally) depicted as somewhat savage, more well-toned, hairy and stronger-looking than their High Elf cousins, so their relation to the Trolls wasn't so weird
Tbh, it's a bit weird that WoW decided to move away from the standard 'big dumb troll' established by norse mythology and then translated through Tolkein to the fantasy genre. I suppose its the same as when they were inventing all the other races and basing them on sterotypes.
 
Arathi 9
Arathi 9

speech stuff

general success (modified by good planning and decent skill) 91 nice
reception of new clan 3 massivelty against
warsong 23 modified by meeting them
frostwolves 23 modified by meeting them
Proximity of naxx mission 94
policyh of strom 86

Drum Fel asks you intentions, and you will give them, before all these witnesses so that all know.

"I would speak with you, I would save you from a slow death, and I would lead you, if you'd have me." you reply, voice raised.

They at least give you the respect to listen, and that's a good sign.

"I am young, but I have fought battles." you begin, "My first was amidst the fume of Dreadmist Peak, among demons and spirits, and it ended with thousands dead and Ogrimmar sundered, the Warchief wounded and lying in a deep sleep for many weeks. I tell you then, by my honour, no help will come from Kalimdor."

Murmurs run through the crowd, and you see the Frostwolves and Warsong you'd talked with speaking among themselves.

"You are hemmed in a narrow place, far from allies, you are three clans, yet you battle three enemies all around you. They are greater than you, and whether the Amani come down out of the hills in force, or the Alliance march out of Lordaeron to finish the Second War, you don't have the numbers or the equipment to win. I have seen the Scarlet Crusade, fought beside them, I have seen knights and gryphon riders, cannons, elvish rangers and Paladins of the Silver Hand. Saiden Dathrohan leads them, and Tirion Fordring fights with him, who among you will oppose them? What do you intend? I tell you then, by my honour, whether in a year or five, you will not survive if you remain here, valiant though you may be."

You pause. The trance of your sight falls over you, and once again you see the vision you saw before the battle of Stromgarde. You see the dead lying in mud, you see men and orcs both, and you walk through gore.

"I have seen visions of our people." you announce, "The Spirits have shown me much, I have seen death and death again, of all peoples. I have seen a scattered, weak nation, fleeing before enemies. I have seen clans brought low by treachery and feuds. Never by cowardice or weakness, never by a lack of strength, but I've seen our traditions fade away in pointless battles and wars."

You step forward, the Fireblade on your shoulder, the banner of your clan fluttering in the wind, arms wide, "Where is our honour? Where is the strength of the Breakers? Where now is the power of the Horde? In this place? Squabbling for scraps? Scrabbling at the dirt to eke out a living? You live like," you pause, realising you'd been about to use the word 'bandit', but that there's no similar word in Orcish, and you smile for a moment at the mistake, perhaps you've spent too long among the humans, "You live like outlaws," you finish, "Where will you find honour? Not two months ago I slew a death knight in a duel, I cut him down and sent his spirit into the Twisting Nether. My warband held against twenty thousand of the undead while we Blademasters fought the lich who commanded them. We triumphed, creatures of death and decay falling before us. That victory opened up half of Lordaeron for the Crusade, and they march now on the Dread Citadel, Naxxramas. I ask you, all of you, from all clans, what can you be proud of? What have you done to safeguard the world, to throw back the enemies of our people? Ner'zuhl commands the Scourge, it is said, and the battle against the undead is one for our people as well."

You look back, waving an arms to the Scarlet and Stromic soldiers in your warband, "I have honour indeed, and pride for my clan, for I command not only orcs but even humans. I received honours from Dathrohan before his army, I spoke often with Fording, I tell you then, on my honour, that even Kul Tiras, who's chief the Dragonmaw slew, are willing to speak with us. Honour may be had as their allies, and they'll give food, equipment and support to those who fight with them."

You're wandering now, you have enough self-awareness to know that. You don't have the skill in speech others do, and even now you can see some of your points were muddled. No matter, it is enough.

"Battles are going on which will shape the world, and ours is the most valiant people. We have been the death of empires, the Breakers of Draenor. What you do is your affair, whether you wither here in squalor, whether you barter your axe-skill to the Alliance in return for passage west, whether you stay and reach some settlement with the humans… Whatever you do, know that we have a part to play in the future of this world."

You leave them then. A row breaks out almost immediately, and it's too chaotic for you to properly hear. The New Clan, by their nature, have no leader or traditions . Drum Fel leads one side, wading in, gesturing with his spear, calling for calm, for caution, while Shatterskull and several other senior warriors advance their own positions.

You haven't convinced them, none are calling for the settlement to step up and follow you, but as the discussion goes on you see at least some are considering it. For the most part, all that's being argued for is a plan, some way of resolving the problems you've illuminated, and it's clear Drum Fel won't be able to regain his position of command, too many now question him.

It goes on into the night, the warriors call for food again and you recuse yourself, sending out your sergeants to gather intelligence. It's better you don't involve yourself for now, the situation is too complex and you don't actually understand the whole situation.

"It's enough." you murmur into your bowl, sitting beside Vark.

Your brother nods, "They needed it, it's a shock to them, a wound even, but they'll be forced to do something at least."

"So be it."

You reflect as you eat. The hearts of your people are not an enemy to overcome with your blade. The Blademasters were known for their philosophy, their will, their skills, but little for their persuasive abilities. Indeed, you'd never heard of one known for such a thing. Even Jubei'thos, perhaps the most famous of them, had been known for skill and command, he slew and lead, he didn't use words...

Should you be the same? Blackhand had charisma, as did Thrall. You'd seen that in the arena in Orgrimmar, Thrall had meant to strike a blow with words, and it was only by a narrow margin that you'd been able to avoid it. Something to consider perhaps...

Then again, hadn't you essentially threatened Galen Trollbane into submission? You'd held a drawn blade before him, not won him over with great speeches.

It went over and over in your mind, but as you slept you found yourself in another land, and you felt the press of stone all around you, you felt chains on your limbs, were these the chains of duty or shame? You'd worn both in the last few years...

Were the chains those on your people? Those of the Alliance and the internment camps?

The morning dawned dull, and a stooped figure darkened your tent, his robes the rags of the Twilight's Hammer.
 
Then he found a planet which had been infected with spooky shadow stuff by the Void Lords. He cut the planet in half (he's a big dude), to destroy the infection. The other Titans told him off, so he killed them all. He then freed the demons and formed the Burning Legion, which he dedicated to the destruction of all life in the cosmos, which he thought would starve the Void Lords. As such he's kind of a good guy, it's sort of like the Emperor's plan in 40k to starve Chaos of worship by being atheist etc.
Point of order he didn't just find a planet he found a baby titan in a planet, so got piss afraid of what happens if a titan corrupted by the void lords became a thing.

So instead he became a titan corrupted with the fel and essentially a walking annihilation reaction.

As for his plan, it was more "if there's no existence then the void lords can't corrupt it."

So not as much starving them as deciding that a lack of existence was preferable. Bloody nut bag.
 
Point of order he didn't just find a planet he found a baby titan in a planet, so got piss afraid of what happens if a titan corrupted by the void lords became a thing.

So instead he became a titan corrupted with the fel and essentially a walking annihilation reaction.

As for his plan, it was more "if there's no existence then the void lords can't corrupt it."

So not as much starving them as deciding that a lack of existence was preferable. Bloody nut bag.
Sargaras :I can stop the void lords by destroying the universe they cant courrpt it if they is nothing left
 
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