That said cause this is bothering me, but @FractiousDay when you get back, what is appropriate restitution for three excellent riding Wargs? Yes they were given and their owner knew they'd likely die, but I can't imagine they won't want something in compensation
Well it's not a purely selfish thing, you were on 'official business' as it were so the horde generally and you could bear the burden. This isn't like a favour from the Warsong to your clan, and even if it were you're blood brothers with Vark, who's warsong, so it's not as big of a deal. You could certainly pay it back if you want and that's would be considered to be a very nice thing to do, but a voluntary one
Well it's not a purely selfish thing, you were on 'official business' as it were so the horde generally and you could bear the burden. This isn't like a favour from the Warsong to your clan, and even if it were you're blood brothers with Vark, who's warsong, so it's not as big of a deal. You could certainly pay it back if you want and that's would be considered to be a very nice thing to do, but a voluntary one
Of course, but that's not really the point IMO. I mean there's all kinds of selfish reasons for wanting to thank them, but to Grok personally, who isn't used to relying on others, but is very honour bound, I think wanting to "repay" them for their trust. I realise as I'm writing this that it makes it sound very RPGish/transactional, but I swear its not intended like that. Its more me trying to get into Grok's head and think in his honourbound way, that "yeah they're doing it out of duty, but I feel like I owe them more than that."
mmm...I guess I see it similar to how we were with the Trolls, feeling a sort of need to help them out even when we could have just wandered off.
If nothing else, I'd want to thank them for giving us the best bois
[X] Confront the Duke
Also lets try it. Hopefully the arguments of the thread will impact Grok.
[X] Confront the Duke
Send Kartha and Scorn to warn the city and ride for the canyons yourself to confront the Duke. Your companions won't be able to answer all the questions the Warchief or others may have, which will make the inevitable confrontation with Forneus less informed, but you may be able to confront the Elemental yourself, and at least delay him. Forneus is unlikely to listen to reason, summoned up by the hatred of the Kolkar, but perhaps you can at least delay him, even if it costs you your life.
[X] Warn the City
You have critical information regarding Forneus, including the conditions of his summoning and his origins. Without knowing the context how can the shaman of Orgrimmar be expected to match him, if they're able to do so at all? However, if you go to the city there's little change of giving them much warning and you'll have no impact on Forneus himself.
No repentance. Let's see if we can annoy the mountain into chasing us instead.
As for what information reaches the command... what information is relevant to putting him down? Perhaps the actions of the Kolkar and the elemental's allegiance should be emphasized to impress upon our command the nature of the threat we face... but how much do we ourselves know about it?
As for what information reaches the command... what information is relevant to putting him down? Perhaps the actions of the Kolkar and the elemental's allegiance should be emphasized to impress upon our command the nature of the threat we face... but how much do we ourselves know about it?
Depends what you mean when you say putting him down.
Cause Thrall and co are going to prefer to resolve this peacefully, in which case our actions with Proudpeak, the Kolkar killing themselves and the exact scale of the demon summoning are likely all relevant.
If you mean fight then, specifics on who he is, but I think Scorn and Kartha know their name.
So here's the thing....I don't think we can do anything to slow Forneaus down, realistically what would happen when a Huge rock elemental encounters a tired,somewhat injured orc that challenges it is just that the giant rock elemental smushes the Orc in about 15 seconds and then goes on back to what he was doing before, the only reason there could be to choose to face Forneaus is to do so as a sort of repentance.....although maybe if we somehow roll all 100s we could pull a Grom and take it out with us I guess? I doubt that would happen but still...going to face the huge elemental will make for a better story so fuck it might as well.
So here's the thing....I don't think we can do anything to slow Forneaus down, realistically what would happen when a Huge rock elemental encounters a tired,somewhat injured orc that challenges it is just that the giant rock elemental smushes the Orc in about 15 seconds and then goes on back to what he was doing before, the only reason there could be to choose to face Forneaus is to do so as a sort of repentance.....although maybe if we somehow roll all 100s we could pull a Grom and take it out with us I guess? I doubt that would happen but still...going to face the huge elemental will make for a better story so fuck it might as well.
mmm. My perspective is that either we can get him to start talking before he smushes us, in which case we can likely drag that out a bit, get on him which causes him to waste time trying to swat us, or we can start running away from the city. We certainly can't keep up the pace that is required, since he is both giant and presumably doesn't get exhausted (although I am hopeful we can make him burn a limited reserve of energy), but even then him moving backwards even 15 minutes for a total delay of 30 could make a big difference when heading straight for the city seems to have even odds for arriving at the same time.
I'm also not leaving out potential deus ex machinas like showing enough repentance to be able to call on the spirits of the air to wind walk, which would likely increase our odds of keeping him occupied a bit.
Edit: also I am not certain that we won't have Thrall arrive much earlier than expected. With ariel scouts combined with shamans, even discounting the adverse weather I would be entirely unsurprised if Thrall had left Orgrimmar to confront Forneaus before there was a risk of him hitting the city.
Irregardless, I get what you mean by not necessarily disagree, so all I can do is ask you consider it when deciding how the character arc continues. Its a perspective thing as always, but intentionally or not, no matter what we end up doing Grok's going to be relying on other's to save him more than he ever has in his entire life, since he's extremely dead either way without them.
There are certainly a few clashes in terms of theme and personality, I'll fully admit that. For one thing we've got the 'fel vs elementals', the 'colonists vs natives', the 'traditional vs modern' and so on, but I think the central clash here, and perhaps of this arc is the two traits you've got, Honourbound and Prudent. Yes you've generally been independent, whether for your own reasons or because you're forced to, but this particular choice is a way of summing up the central contradiction, whether you want to follow honour like Akinos has said or whether you want to reject the philosophy that got him and his tradition killed for no reason.
Also I'll note an issue where like some other quests I'm vaguely concerned by people reading this in X time and thinking it's all a drag of like 50k that they have to slog through leading to an unpleasant conclusion etc, so I'm trying to be careful with the scope of the character development and focus it more closely on a particular idea. In any case I welcome the feedback. If you had particular ideas about the character development that do or don't align with that or particular concerns do let me know and I can see if I can assuage them. As I said I don't want this to become the arc everyone always regards as rubbish and useless etc.
if Thrall thinks this an internal Burning Blade matter, he's likely to think 'oh I can't let these idiots out of my sight for a second, can I', and thus censure the clan,
Well the last time a Warchief 'censured' a clan it went very poorly for the demon-worshippers in question. Doomhammer here pictures 'censuring' the Shadow Council:
For example, do the shaman prepare a ritual to calm the elemental or fight him? Is diplomacy possible at all? That would be one important issue that Thrall wold consider in his preparations.
Adhoc vote count started by FractiousDay on Apr 3, 2021 at 2:29 PM, finished with 22 posts and 8 votes.
There are certainly a few clashes in terms of theme and personality, I'll fully admit that. For one thing we've got the 'fel vs elementals', the 'colonists vs natives', the 'traditional vs modern' and so on, but I think the central clash here, and perhaps of this arc is the two traits you've got, Honourbound and Prudent. Yes you've generally been independent, whether for your own reasons or because you're forced to, but this particular choice is a way of summing up the central contradiction, whether you want to follow honour like Akinos has said or whether you want to reject the philosophy that got him and his tradition killed for no reason.
Also I'll note an issue where like some other quests I'm vaguely concerned by people reading this in X time and thinking it's all a drag of like 50k that they have to slog through leading to an unpleasant conclusion etc, so I'm trying to be careful with the scope of the character development and focus it more closely on a particular idea. In any case I welcome the feedback. If you had particular ideas about the character development that do or don't align with that or particular concerns do let me know and I can see if I can assuage them. As I said I don't want this to become the arc everyone always regards as rubbish and useless etc.
Clashes yes, but that's a good thing. To make clear what I was talking about was dealing more with how we see certain actions impacting his beliefs etc.
To try and engage more with what you put it maybe indicative of me being uncreative/lazy, but I do try to reject the dichotomy of vs. While I make exceptions for things like fel* under almost all circumstances I think its generally unhelpful to consider them like that, because it locks you out of options. For example I see no difficulty in being pragmatic and honourable, but that's likely because what my conception of honourable is is rather different to the Orcish one, which is entirely too much bound up in a blood hungry ideal of "glory" where honour is found in the greatest quanities usually by killing something by any means that doesn't involve just stabbing them in the back. Even then I'm relatively confident the majority of the Horde lorded Blackhand for having the King of Stormwind assassinated, so it does seem like for the Orcs honour/glory were turned into tools by Gul'dan/the dark council to placate their population and distract them from the fact that they were butchering people combined with the demon blood. Grumbles about Grom again.
*mostly cause fel is essentially the designated perpetually designated evil magic of the setting so the only way I would trust it is if we were to learn it entirely on our own from first principles and even then not fully.
Anyhow depending on how Grok and wider Orcish culture interprets honour or pragmatism this could be seen as a very stupid, but honourable decision, or a pragmatic yet dishonourable one.
Which is more honourable? Duty to the horde which is a comparatively recent thing in orcish history, but has defined their people? But at the same time devotion to the clan is seemingly placed at a much higher level of importance in orcish society over all, so would it be seen as doing one's duty to run to Thrall or cowardly? Is it honourable to go and distract Forneaus, not fight him, since that isn't exactly avenging one's fallen master, but then again Forneas didn't kill him either, so will we be doing our honourable duty distracting him, or a fool making a problem worse.
Like many things I think these are often decided after an event is over. If it worked out then its usually honourable/glorious for the majority of the horde even if the leaders privately think it was a disaster, if not it was dishonourable from the start.
What I'm hoping Grok comes out of this with is the realisation that honour as his people practise it is a rather toxic thing. See Grom again. Its been years, but he is still renowned as a hero by the Warsong specifically and the horde at large despite the fact he is a mass murderer and in my view a very weak willed person. Not in the sense that he's weak to torture, but weak to his inner demons, with a love of killing (and the means to do so) so intense that even when he realises it he quickly reverts. He was the first to drink the demon blood and even afterwards was very quick to return to his days as essentially a butcher when they hit Kalimdor, first vs Jania's forces then the unprovoked attack on the Night Elves. I think it was a point that Mannaroth was deliberately affecting Grom, but even then he very quickly succumbed after disobeying his war chief whom he had specifically supported because he was not like himself or Doomhammer. A new generation whose hands and honour were not stained with the blood of innocents.
"You have seen me when the bloodlust has come upon me. You have seen me wade in blood up to my knees. I have killed the children of the humans ere now. But we gave all we had fighting in that manner, and where has it brought to us? Low and defeated, our kind slouch in camps and lift no hand to free themselves, let alone fight for others. That way of fighting of making war, has brought us to this. Long have I thought that the ancestors would show me a new way, a way to win back what we have lost. It is a fool who repeats the same actions expecting a different outcome, and whatever I may be, I am not a fool. Thrall was strong enough to defeat the finest we had to offer. He has tasted humankind's ways and turned his back on them to be free. He has escaped from the camps and against the odds managed to find me. I agree with his choices here today. One day, my old friend, you, too, will see the wisdom in this."
The point I'm trying to make here is that yes Grom did eventually kill Manneroth with his sacrifice, but that doesn't absolve him of his sins. Canonically one of the biggest barriers to making peace with the night elves is that the majority of the Orcs (I imagine Thrall as well) won't acknowledge that it was orcs/the warsong that killed Cenarius (I'm not sure about whether Thrall admitted that Grom seemed intent on starting a war with the Night Elves unprovoked) instead that it was Fel Orcs and the Horde came back and killed Fel Orcs again. Seemingly missing the point that it was Grom, mind clouded or not he had the opportunity to resist and instead he followed his honour like he did the first time the demon blood was offered.
"Opportunity to kill stuff? Get that shit in me mate!"
Grok is getting to see where true honour can end, but also where "traditional" horde views of honour lead too as well and how its really bad for his people. Further more he is currently experiencing the problems of pragmatism and expedience.
Which is why honourbound should hopefully evolve into a code of ethical guidelines. Maybe a few hard set rules that he feels "no I cannot ever do these" with a lot of other things being left to judge in the situation. Its not perfect, but its the sort of thing that is capable of growth and evolution which is good and is perfection's enemy.
Apologies, for my rambling me brain is going weird I think.
Well the last time a Warchief 'censured' a clan it went very poorly for the demon-worshippers in question. Doomhammer here pictures 'censuring' the Shadow Council:
TBF that was the shadow council some of the most evil bastards in the setting. The only sad bad part about that image is that it its some random Warlock being clobbered not a comatose Gul'dan. At that point Doomhammer was already being called a backstabber wot did he have to loose
That said if people are correct in theorising that fel-dad was about to do some internal purging anyway then he could weasel out of it by arguing that with the exception of his son, all the culpable parties are dead (sans us) and gloriously so slaying a massive force of the hordes enemies. Thus if someone is to take the fall then I imagine daddy dearest will throw us under the bus. The question would be if Thrall does deeper investigations into them and finds the demon connection goes a lot deeper
For example, do the shaman prepare a ritual to calm the elemental or fight him? Is diplomacy possible at all? That would be one important issue that Thrall wold consider in his preparations.
And of course we're not really shamen enough to know which bits of info we have would be relevant to letting him make such a decision.
To make an uneducated guess, I'm going to assume that the IC known element of the Kolkar's sacrifice and the fact that they've got a connection to the princess of the earth elementals means that any diplomacy will be much harder.
The former squarely moves this into "impactful" territory while the latter means that if he doesn't give it a good go they can potentially face meaningful consequences back home from his boss.
Which is more honourable? Duty to the horde which is a comparatively recent thing in orcish history, but has defined their people? But at the same time devotion to the clan is seemingly placed at a much higher level of importance in orcish society over all, so would it be seen as doing one's duty to run to Thrall or cowardly?
What I'm hoping Grok comes out of this with is the realisation that honour as his people practise it is a rather toxic thing. See Grom again. Its been years, but he is still renowned as a hero by the Warsong specifically and the horde at large despite the fact he is a mass murderer and in my view a very weak willed person
"I am no honourable Orc. Ptuh!*spits on the ground*" - future Grok'mash sporting a Hound helmet.
There is an underlying question here: what is honour? Doing the right thing, or being seen and recognized as doing the right thing? Ultimately, is it rooted in your principles or in widespread consensus and conventions? The first definition is less shallow, for sure, but at that point can it be called honour at all, or is it duty instead, like Kant's moral imperative (hah, the comparison can not enter in-character reflections).
Once you know your duty, who decides what is the best course of action? Do you know better? Surely, such things can only be faced on a case-by-case basis.
Indeed. If this were DnD I'd recommend learning simulacra ASAP, but I don't think that's a thing here and DM's tend to use that as an excuse to up the action creep
Still, currently we have our personal goals, duty to the horde and duty to clan, which as Fractious Day has pointed out many times we've been trying to thread the needle of doing all three and...well I'm not sure if its not worked out, but I think in this next line of the quest we may want to try out focusing on one thing at a time.
It reminds me of a DnD tale of my friend's character who got separated from the party and was trying to catch up with us. An assassin came after him ya see and she was quite dangerous, good damage, ranged attack, caused bleeding. Now thing is our DM designed the encounter well, he knew that if my friend turned to fight he was tough enough and did enough damage that barring some really bad rolls he would almost certainly win especially since he only needed to drop her health pool until she retreated. On the other hand due to feats he was a bit faster than she was, so if he kept running he'd be able to out pace her and catch up with us, he'd just need to accept damage from her ranged attack, which was less than her melee.
Thing is he started off running, then decided to turn and fight. Since he'd been worn down by the ranged attacks she downed him before he could get much done, but he also hadn't run far enough that our characters could hear him cause we were a few bends a head.
And that's how we all collectively learned a pretty good lesson for DnD and a lot of RPGesque experiences, mechanically and practically in a lot of situations if you commit to a course of action, keep committed, don't spread yourself too thin. Its not a constant thing, sometimes you just have to and if you learn you've been working for the baddies all along don't go "welp I've started now I gotta finish" but I think the general point gets across.
There is an underlying question here: what is honour? Doing the right thing, or being seen and recognized as doing the right thing? Ultimately, is it rooted in your principles or in widespread consensus and conventions? The first definition is less shallow, for sure, but at that point can it be called honour at all, or is it duty instead, like Kant's moral imperative (hah, the comparison can not enter in-character reflections).
Once you know your duty, who decides what is the best course of action? Do you know better? Surely, such things can only be faced on a case-by-case basis.
Exactly and like a lot of things there's a reason we've been arguing about them for a very long time.
In my head I think I'm trying to divide orc's "honour" into two categories.
There's the external concept of Glory: which orcs apply to others externally. This is what Grom is lorded for. The actions are not necessarily "honorable" but they are liked by wider orcish society.
Internally there's a Code: Which is what an individual orc believes to be honourable shaped by personal experiences.
And metaphysically there's what is "right": Which I suppose is the incredibly nebulous notion that there is usually a "right" thing to do. However, I'm going to go with the more utilitarian "the least dickish" thing to do, because its one thing to fight in a war its another thing to murder children.
Looks like Forneus flubbed somehow, and took/inflicted massive damage.
Thrall and the defenses of OG also failed, but then suddenly Feldad came to the rescue.
If this is somewhat accurate, it's going to cause some interesting waves in the culture of the Horde. The Earth itself wages war against the self proclaimed Sons of the Earth, and the Shamans themselves are helpless against this menace. Only for a Warlock to save the Horde using the power of Fell.
Looks like Forneus flubbed somehow, and took/inflicted massive damage.
Thrall and the defenses of OG also failed, but then suddenly Feldad came to the rescue.
If this is somewhat accurate, it's going to cause some interesting waves in the culture of the Horde. The Earth itself wages war against the self proclaimed Sons of the Earth, and the Shamans themselves are helpless against this menace. Only for a Warlock to save the Horde using the power of Fell.
An alternative is that the roll was for Forneaus's reaction to our discussion and the damage he did while trying to pound us into paste, the five was our survival check.
Thrall I imagine has very low DCs and high bonuses for Shamanism, so 21 with Forneaus distracted might have been enough, while Feldad's roll could have been saving our life.
it occurs to me, though, that Feldad getting one over on Thrall probably doesn't bode well. I mean, assuming that Thrall, as a shaman, isn't able to calm this guy down and botches the defense of Orgrimmar, when Feldad comes in with an epic roll and saves the day.
that's probably going to undermine him in the eyes of the other clans a bit, or maybe feldad's actions will even out our failure in the mountains?
it occurs to me, though, that Feldad getting one over on Thrall probably doesn't bode well. I mean, assuming that Thrall, as a shaman, isn't able to calm this guy down and botches the defense of Orgrimmar, when Feldad comes in with an epic roll and saves the day.
that's probably going to undermine him in the eyes of the other clans a bit, or maybe feldad's actions will even out our failure in the mountains?
Like with most Warlocks it's probably just for power. And when he inevitably gets betrayed and dies because of it we'll be forced to pick up the slack. If we don't die here of course.
I'm not so familiar with wow lore after the frozen throne, but if I were to hazard a guess, it's either he's serving the legion out of personal desire for power or that he believes he's serving the horde or a greater good, but is simply a pawn for the legion and is too blind to see it.
Like with most Warlocks it's probably just for power. And when he inevitably gets betrayed and dies because of it we'll be forced to pick up the slack. If we don't die here of course.
I'm not so familiar with wow lore after the frozen throne, but if I were to hazard a guess, it's either he's serving the legion out of personal desire for power or that he believes he's serving the horde or a greater good, but is simply a pawn for the legion and is too blind to see it.
mmm. At least in the RPG his handler is feeding him false information in the hope that he'll slip up and Thrall will kill him.
Backstory wise he's meant to be young (30s) and so hasn't been affected by Fel magic much, which doesn't line up with how he's been presented so far.
The weird part is that canonically Thrall knew that he's a traitorsince adventurers go into Rage Fire Chasm, kill the searing blade peeps and report back to him that Neru's behind it, yet he remains alive until Garrosh kills him in Mists of Pandaria.
Maybe Blizzard just forgot about that plotline, but there is a room for him not to be a traitor I suppose.
mmm. At least in the RPG his handler is feeding him false information in the hope that he'll slip up and Thrall will kill him.
Backstory wise he's meant to be young (30s) and so hasn't been affected by Fel magic much, which doesn't line up with how he's been presented so far.
The weird part is that canonically Thrall knew that he's a traitorsince adventurers go into Rage Fire Chasm, kill the searing blade peeps and report back to him that Neru's behind it, yet he remains alive until Garrosh kills him in Mists of Pandaria.
Maybe Blizzard just forgot about that plotline, but there is a room for him not to be a traitor I suppose.
Honestly, i just don't see someone dealing in the demonic stuff to stay loyal for too long. I may be taking a 40k mindset to this, but my general impression for fel is that eventually you're going to start to become a slave to demonic masters, having corrupted and forgotten the original reasons the person began down that path to begin with, whether it be for good or ill.
, but still has a point)