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- barking
god damn it drak'thar we are not responsible for sargeras thats the dreadlords (and their creator)/j
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Orc Quest; or, A Critical Examination of Agency Through in Interactive Fiction (Warcraft)
- Thread starter FractiousDay
- Start date
- Fantasy
I am in favor of the Burning Blade including other mystical practitioners.You mean, another proof that shamanism practices can not be relied upon? Nor can shamans, for that matter.
I knew Grok would come around the idea that warlocks are the future.
We know the source of Grok's power is from a trapped earth elemental of dubious origins.
There's OOC knowledge but we have the painful experience of previous reliance on a trapped elemental.
There's using it in a controlled environment. I won't mind experimenting with experts on hand to make sure it works fine.
But now with an experienced shaman out to kill Grok I won't consider this one unless there's no option.
So it's a lot of reasons to say why i wouldn't consider unleashing the power of the trapped earth elemental rather than trying on the alternative that while it is just as untapped doesn't potentially let's a dangerous earth elemental loose by mistake unless Drek Thar manages to break it.
It makes a sordid amount of sense though. Feldad lived a lot and saw a lot while his son was just a pup unaware of the darkness within others claiming to be good.
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
I don't think the orders were for an elder shaman to attack Grok (and Grok's entire host) without provocation. For one, Thrall lacks the certainty in the successful outcome of such an attack, given the feats Grok has displayed.
There probably has been some miscommunication about the nature of the actions that needed taking, and I can easily interpret the roll as not being good for Thrall himself.
No notable character would stab themselves fatally with a quill, regardless of their rolls, but they can and will shoot themselves in the foot, literally or metaphorically.
Edit: I think there was a post about how to interpret rolls for actions taken by other parties. Can you link me to it?
I imagine it's about the perceived nature of our "crime" by revealing our power, a relapse into dark shamanism again, or a collusion/subversion by humans. I don't agree with that assessment myself, as neither looks all that condemning to me, since I never was one to refute dark shamanism, and the orcs hold some of the paladins in high regard.
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- barking
or they might mistake it for this Essence of the Pure Flame /s
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- PA
…
[x] Call on the Pure Flame
"Drek'Thar! After today, tell Thrall that if he values peace, he will wield the Blademasters.
And I am a Blademaster.
For if he seeks to put the Burning Blade down, he must realize others will seek to wield it instead! He can have no conplaints if they turn it upon him instead!"
Simple and to the point.
Thrall would reject the warmongering past of the Orcs, but that is not an option.
He took away some of our naivety, we cast him as holding onto his.
And hopefully, we don't get another miscommunication tango to force a Mak'Gora on us.
The idea is to take our role as political challenger, because if we don't accept this ambition cast upon us, we won't have the leverage to preserve what matters long-term.
The idea is to offer the 'shame' of dishonor to Thrall in exchange for getting to keep an eye on us. Yes he eats the hit, but he doesn't end up having to fight a massively empowered Burning Blade clan, or risking the destruction of the Horde.
And in turn, we get Grok in a position where Neeru has to play around his son again, instead of just getting to smugly name-drop us at meetings.
[x] Call on the Pure Flame
"Drek'Thar! After today, tell Thrall that if he values peace, he will wield the Blademasters.
And I am a Blademaster.
For if he seeks to put the Burning Blade down, he must realize others will seek to wield it instead! He can have no conplaints if they turn it upon him instead!"
Simple and to the point.
Thrall would reject the warmongering past of the Orcs, but that is not an option.
He took away some of our naivety, we cast him as holding onto his.
And hopefully, we don't get another miscommunication tango to force a Mak'Gora on us.
The idea is to take our role as political challenger, because if we don't accept this ambition cast upon us, we won't have the leverage to preserve what matters long-term.
The idea is to offer the 'shame' of dishonor to Thrall in exchange for getting to keep an eye on us. Yes he eats the hit, but he doesn't end up having to fight a massively empowered Burning Blade clan, or risking the destruction of the Horde.
And in turn, we get Grok in a position where Neeru has to play around his son again, instead of just getting to smugly name-drop us at meetings.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
And even then that only didn't work cause Archimonde got merked.
There's always the possibility of not mentioning it was Warchief's orders
or emphasise that it was Drek'thar acting on prophecy and possibily his deteriorating age Silly suggestions, but well
You say it yourself his mental state is considered questionable by some. Preferably we want plausible deniability so we don't kick start a civil war and I'm hoping Thrall didn't jump straight to icing Grok's green ass and this is Drek'Thar acting in a sort of desperate furvor to stop the future he saw.
They are meant to be connected so that's neat.
Not really.
We are currently fighting him and while talking is a free action, better not to do mini speeches IMO.
"So you'll create what you saw then?"
Cause, well...he's got his reasons, but ultimately we want to plant the seed of doubt in his prediction.
I think he means that the actions we take to survive will just end up confirming that Thrall and Drek'Thar were right to themselves and the orcs as a whole.
My point was more that it reemphasises why Thrall would be worried, not that its the root cause of the matter. Its more that it helps to paint Grok in an even worse light.
I mean its still kinda derailed things majorly since all we've accomplished is wasting time and getting our people killed, when the advantage of coming to the frost wolves or stormpikes was getting information and supplies so we weren't blundering into the Syndicates prepared (if possibly unexpecting) positions.
Now we've lost all of that shit, I imagine will loose a fair number of supplies and will be down orc power.
Feels like there were other people to pick. Varrok not so much at that instant, but put Carine in charge or something until he's feeling well enough to take over.
I'd have assumed sealing daemon gates was more his job as a shamen.
Shit I didn't know that, but yeah that has to be the case holy crap.
Much of it is tone control. What to say and trying to set Grok's tone/attiude. Not quite sure how that'd work in practise, but hey ho.
I presume the reason the assassins was worse, was because...dishonourable assassins, which betrays pretty much all Orc honour standards (or at least the usual ones) as opposed to simply most of them.
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My thought is this:
Thrall's current strategy is going to throw things into civil war, likely due to Dreadlord shenanigans.
We can't really avoid Dreadlords screwing us over, not at this point.
But I feel like there might be ways to throw them off.
At this point the play is 'retrieve the horde via getting Neeru to usurp the Warchief status.'
But, and this is important- we have not taken the Fel. The Leigon does not in fact own Grok. Grooming him, but not owned entirely, not yet.
And there's that young Warlock we got introduced to way back when.
I figure the Pure Flame, and it's teachings, aka the Light mixed with the extant Burning Blade traditions, could be used as a method to ah, 'reinvigorate' the Shamanism that wound up looking bad when Thrall failed to protect Orgrimmar.
But Grok does not get to apply said Pure Flame unless he's in reach of the Horde.
Thrall's current strategy is going to throw things into civil war, likely due to Dreadlord shenanigans.
We can't really avoid Dreadlords screwing us over, not at this point.
But I feel like there might be ways to throw them off.
At this point the play is 'retrieve the horde via getting Neeru to usurp the Warchief status.'
But, and this is important- we have not taken the Fel. The Leigon does not in fact own Grok. Grooming him, but not owned entirely, not yet.
And there's that young Warlock we got introduced to way back when.
I figure the Pure Flame, and it's teachings, aka the Light mixed with the extant Burning Blade traditions, could be used as a method to ah, 'reinvigorate' the Shamanism that wound up looking bad when Thrall failed to protect Orgrimmar.
But Grok does not get to apply said Pure Flame unless he's in reach of the Horde.
Despite such a shortcoming I'll just assume that Grok would want to make sure that Thrall really wants him and his clan persona non grata before deciding it's time to split and embrace it to see his own goals for the blademaster traditions to continue.
Given the situation as the Forsaken are to use the pun Forsaken would they be eventually accepted into the clan?
Kir the Wizard
The Sun King
- Location
- Ukraine
[x] Call on the Pure Flame
Use the Bubble, Grok!
Use the Bubble, Grok!
It's a more recent change that goes against older portrayals of both magics (before that light, druidism, and shamanism were the goodboy magics (though shamans were referred as using Arcane in WC3 manual - go figure that out...), arcane was dangerous and addictive magic for nerds, and fel was extra-potent twist on arcane for hardcore stuff, demonologists, and junkies), likely it was done to dress up the battle between Titans and the Burning Legion into metaphysical concepts, rather than just previous materialistic reasoning of "demon-looking aliens invade every planet they can find".
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- United Kingdom
Here basically, though it's somewhat outdated. For example I dropped bonuses on rolls. I'd generally say I just use them to simulate things like randomness, so for your purposes the roll doesn't really matter, just the result.feel free to ask qs etc.
Indeed, one of the ways Thrall might be able to get out of this is by blaming it all on Drek'thar and the Frostwolves. This still isn't great for him, he has to throw his clan under the bus which would enrage lots of people, but he might keep his position. There would also be a lot of doubt about it, because people might say that it's not likely taht Drek'thar acted as he did without approval etc.
Yes, but that requires time, which requires control of the surroundings, which requires a force to control it and so on and so on
Apparently Saurfang is too old, and Carine isn't an Orc. If only there was a young orc of proven martial skill and political ability about. HMMMMMMMMM
I'm currently thinking at the end of the arc that I'll have a write in when Grok is sitting on a mountain after conquering Alterac etc. That will have some space to consider such things, so hopefulyl tha'ts acceptable. For the moment Grok is concentrating on the stuff in his mission, not necessarily on wider political events. There's not much he can even do about them anyway after all.
Nah they're way way too big. A shared culture of like 10k undead is probably larger than any of the individual clans in the Horde in the first
Also, 18-1 for bubble-hearthing out of there, so vote closed.
place.
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- barking
thrall really should of put one of the older more mature orks (or any other ork really) in charge then the guy who charged at the high king of the alliance during a oh yeah an old god broke free lets discuss how to work together
- Location
- United Kingdom
It's a serious problem of Thrall's early talent management program tbh yes. Get a workforce planner in there my dude
SneakyWalrus
Is the Water Free?
You mean, another proof that shamanism practices can not be relied upon? Nor can shamans, for that matter.
I knew Grok would come around the idea that warlocks are the future.
It looks like only the Light is viable, and capable as a proper response against other forces, which is the fucking worst and I hate incredibly, because it falls exactly in-line with the exact same kind of bullshit video-gamified treatment of faith and religion in relation to magical standardization within WoW at the worst. The Light becomes the only viable faith, and everything everyone else believes becomes pointless and fucking useless in comparison. Shamanism and everything else is just shown to be fucking useless and utterly pointless, which happens again and again in every fucking WoW story.
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- barking
the problem as I see it is over focus on the light as the next big thing replacing the legion and the void since both in universe are seen as beaten all the old gods are defeated and sargerous is imprisoned in cannon so the lights all must serve isn't really able to be justified. Also I wouldn't call the others useless all have their strengths the strongest narru of the light was defeated by illidan using fel the elemental lords are some of the strongest beings in existence, the void can courrpt everything including those who were once subject to the light (dispite the light being the most controlling even narru fall to the void) while we haven't had much of the primalist but those elemental protodrakes they are showing how powerful elemtals can be to face the aspects but will most likely just end up void pawns like the elementals on azeroth tend to be.
Also in universe pretty sure deathknights are the most op class
Also in universe pretty sure deathknights are the most op class
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
I was assuming more throwing his teacher under the bus TBH. + My thought was he'd have to dance a fine line, but there's room for his orders to have been taken to an extreme by Drek'thar's vision/infirmity. And since Drek'thar is (chief?) highly respected by the frost wolves, if he said jump its fair that they'd follow his orders. So deflect from the frost wolves, "just following orders" etc. Like none of this is great, of course so...eh.
Sigh, you'd think for non fel using people, the proposition of closing a daemon gate would be quite popular.
That said, I am surprised the legion didn't take over Alterac. Even if they're not the largest daemon gate people's people.
Saurfang wasn't too old? The reason I recall from the cataclysm book was he was mourning Darrosh and would not be doing stuff for a while since he was going all the way to outland for that etc. and grumbles. Damn racism.
And yeah, that was Darosh. IIRC he was the prefered candidate, since he was meant to be like Garrosh, but without most of his problems.
I meant more during the arc itself, like if we have to talk being able to give greater input into a speech.
For IIRC zero fucking reason. Cept, Wyrn was like "oh crap its you." Which is an entirely reasonable response to seeing Garrosh honestly.
Not exactly, since the light looses like 99% of the time.
If someone goes bananas and they're a magic user odds are they started as a light user. But yeah, it is frustrating when light is presented with so few downsides beyond being weak and users tend to get corrupted.
I mean its a narrative thing, not about mechanics. And in a narrative sense, the light does tend to get special treatment, either as the uber special, or as something which is easily corrupted.
Like its one thing that annoyed me about cata, the ending feels like it should have been the elemental lords (old and new) channeled by Thrall taking Deathwing to the cleaners, for...well unleashing a cataclysm on them. Instead it was funny medallion go burr.
Also the Naaru don't fall to the void, if their light is taken away then they become void. Whole ying yang dichotomy there.
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gotta be honest I dislike thrall even being their like deathwing is responsible for stealing the aspects power, he destroyed most of the blue dragons, he helped the orks enslave alexstraza, thrall has no place there (like thrall dealing with the elemental lords 100% him with deathwing no)
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Nah, I mean something along these lines (bolded the relevant part):
Not "how they work"/"what is the answer to the question", but "what are they for"/"what is the question". Maybe the paragraph above is all there was to it, or maybe this has changed somewhere down the line.
I think my confusion stems from the description of the roll being "Thrall's reaction/orders". A "reaction" is pretty straightforward, with 1-100 being a scale of his attitude towards our actions, while "orders" mean an action by him, where 1-100 is a scale of how well does the action go, not whether it is beneficial for us (if I am reading "rolls are made by actors" correctly).
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
I mean, you can't really separate the two when Deathwing was backed by 2 elemental lords, attacked the other two and unleashed a cataclysm on the world. It makes sense he's there in his capacity as a Shamen IMO.
View: https://youtu.be/FtODbU9zjP4
Soon we might just very well have enhanced questing experience to see the lines voiced too.
- Location
- United Kingdom
So partly this is because WoW represents religion extremely poorly. Shamanism is represented fairly well I suppose, because of all the quests relating to helping out shaman, but the actual religion of the Light isn't really represented as strongly.
I do agree about magical specialisation, which is something I've pushed back against in this, by trying to represent different types of shamanism for example.
But I certainly wouldn't say the Light is the best or anything. The Light as a matter of 'utility' or as a type of magic, is highly personal. You can't enchant an item with the Light, you can't summon a Light elemental, you can't really affect matters beyond your immediate area, and it highly depends on your personal abilities. Comparably, a shaman's power goes up and down a lot because they rely on their whole stakeholder management magical tradition. A shaman who's bound a powerful elemental is super powerful, but only because the've borrowed a lot of power in the first place. Comparably, druids or mages have yet more different ways of doing things with different functions etc.
Will note in this quest that the Light will be a specifically good tradition against shadow magic, as it is in canon. In theory it should have no special abilities against demons, I think that's more of an atavism from the older lore. Arcane would be good against demons because you're throwing maths at a chaotic creature etc.
Physically? Probably yes, they're very powerful for various reasons, especially the later generations as the Lich King improves the process. In theory, a rouge or a mage can still be either as a death knight, they'd be more physically powerful etc. Anything a warrior can do, any items they're using, can be used by a death knight etc.
However in terms of 'power' its somewhat meaningless. In theory the class 'Executive' is the most powerful because they can order people around so their individual power level is irrelevant. Similarly, which is 'better', a sniper rifle or a tank etc? So is difficult to talk about
Ah, so in this specific circumstance, I hadn't yet rolled for what Thrall was thinking about you. You've been wandering about in Lordaeron for a while, and due to how I construct this quest you have no idea what Thrall is doing or thinking about you. As such, when you encountered Drek'thar, who was in a position to carry out Thrall's will, I therefore rolled.
That roll was for 1) What is Thrall's opinion of you, and 2) what therefore has he decided to do, and orders has he therefore sent.
So a very high roll may have meant Thrall was pleased with you, and ordered Drekthar to support you. But obviously you got a very low roll, the lowest in fact, so Thrall's reaction to your actions is as bad as it could possibly be. Here what I really wanted to know was what action Drek'thar would take, but that action depends on what orders he's had, and those orders depend on what his general opinion and reaction to your actions are.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Can't you? I imagine its not the same as making an arcane enchanted weapon (rarer, harder etc.) but I'm pretty sure you can.
Elemental sadge
I mean arguably a death knight would count as an executive, since their main role is really ordering around the undead
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gah maths my only weakness/s