I'll chime in just to say that neither Fel or Shadow magic is evil. Fel seems to involve destruction/unraveling, while Shadow is about endings or 'negative' emotions. They demand more specific uses for the betterment of sapient society then more benign Light, or the more orderly Arcane. But they have a space if one is willing to work for it.
Orc Quest; or, A Critical Examination of Agency Through in Interactive Fiction (Warcraft)
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On this point in particular, there's not really anything to be debated, or at least I don't see anything. If people up and accuse the orcs of destroying stuff he can't do anything but admit that, and maybe take the trusted route of blaming Gul'dan, though given Grok takes stuff personally I don't think he'd do that. Grok knows the likely questions he's going to get but there's not much reason to have any other stance that the default in my mind. If anyone has any views on that then sure let me know, but I can't see anything on it.
Somewhat unfair. Physically? Yea sure. On other things, no not really. He's the best fighter, he beat all the aspirants back in the last arc, including Sorek, I've noted somewhere that he's better than Vark because he's more skilled and Vark relies on strength etc. You've not talked to Keldran, Kartha, Vok'fon or some of the others much but none of them are paragons. Vok'fon sure is a skilled fighter but he's a bandit and a discontent, not some epic hero. Keldran is a squishy warlock/necrolyte without massive experience in either tradition. Sesk and Ishi are massively more powerful sure, but that's because they're experienced Blademasters. Really you're the 3rd most powerful person in the warband, and the most powerful under your command given Sesk and Ishi are just dudes who hang around, they're not directly under you. You've also got better skills in non-combat stuff than lots of people, Vok'fon is good with diplo, but so are you. You haven't got stealth really where Kartha has but that's one skill.
This would be nice to write from a GMing perspective too lol
Once again directing this toward the general thread, if you don't pick being a wizard in chargen don't be expected to be good at magic? I understand the frustration, but yes obviously you have to put in work to get better at stuff. You're an expert fighter, better than professional soldiers, that takes a lot of investment and effort. For example, IRL my 'class' would be scholar or whatever you'd call the profession most tertiary sector jobs would be. I occasionally like making things, craft stuff basically, and while I've occasionally had successes or made stuff that looks nice I can definitely see that to actually get good at it there's a reason people become apprentices and train hard and so on. I don't just say one day 'I'll multiclass blacksmith'.
Is there a specific issue you're worried about? As has been noted, the wow system doesn't work on alignments. However, if it did, what makes you think Grok would be anything other than Lawful Good? He's altruistic, honourable, respectful, supports traditions and established structures, all that sort of thing.
There's some mildly interesting stuff around alignment though I'd say. Naturally the system is pretty dumb, but for example the Burning Legion could be represented as altruistic, driven, ambitious, organised, all that. They've got a massive empire, there would be demon bureaucrats organising the fel iron that goes into the fel factory that makes the fel cannons etc. They ultimately want to destroy the Void Lords, which would be a good thing.
Also on the 'is it evil' debate, thematically, yes most certainly. Almost all the people who practice shadow or fel magic are evil, they are sustained by evil means, they've got spiky architecture and they're all called 'Lord Deathfucker' or whatever. Can these means be used for good? Yes, certainly, for example Illidan is probably a net good and he used the fel. Sometimes Blizz try and bring in nuance, for example shadow magic being about freedom or self-determination or whatever, or the Light being this smothering, binding force, but everywhere else its represented as bad pretty consistently.
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Grumbles.
Ok I personally find this argument really frustrating, its a bit like "no the power of baby sacrifice isn't evil, its the user, its just all the users are always evil and the power requires you to sacrifice babies...which is evil."
Broadly speaking I am in agreement, they're no more evil than gravity is, but I'm not about to jump out the window because gravity is just doing its job and doesn't give a shit about me personally.
Warlock magic is powered by burning the souls of others as fuel sources, that's why people like Gul'dan are so powerful, its no where near as good if you're not horribly torturing and killing people to extrac their souls then break down via setting them on fire and feeding them to monsters beyond the veil.
But no it isn't innately "evil" its just the only way for sentient beings to use it in a manner that is effective is completely wrong on pretty much any reasonable moral or social level.
Similarly shadow magic, sure its not "evil" its just the magic of extreme depression and cynicism that claims to show you every possible option and lets you "choose" the right option.
Just you know its the magic that requires a state of depression and cynicism to function which is not conducive for choosing paths that are socially acceptable in anyway, because in the shadow induced nihilism you're going "what's the point?"
These are the magics that break down society, one is the destruction of everything and the other is the literal annihilation of everything that's their job their reason for existence much like IRL entropy. The difference is entropy does not passively modify your mental state nor has anyone managed to weaponise it.
I'll respond to the rest in a sec, but thank you for ninjaing my point
And yes, alignment is very dumb I am reminded of that every PF2E or DnD session, and the burning legion is even dumber when you remember that the burning legion is just doing the void lords job for them, what with their end goal being the destruction of the universe. Hence why I'm very confident Sargaras was just corrupted.
Even then you have to remember everything Illidan did. There's a reason that he's the villian in the burning crusade he's enslaved vast numbers of people. is destroying outland again for its resources and in general has just been a massive prick most of his life. That he's a net good does not change the actions he used to get there and what's more his actions are arguably entirely ****ing useless since canonically we beat his arse.I
The Outland's suffering and defacto sealing its death warrent was pretty much pointless.
As for the light, well its a narrative thing in most stories that the bad things are almost always bad, but the good ones can be subverted for evil very easily. The light and arcane are probably the easiest, arcane literally is just knowledge and the light merely requires you to believe in the righteousness of your actions/cause, hence why the Scarlet Crusade keeps working and why Tirion's powers could not be removed.
Arguably there's no reason Arthas after he picked up Frostmorne and up and went full death knight couldn't still use the Light, its not like he ever died so it wouldn't gib him for being dead and he certainly believes in the righteousness of his actions.
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I think they canonically stop working after Stratholme, rather than when he takes up Frostmourne. Even if we can see in hindsight that yea that was probably necessary to do, I'm entirely fine with the loss of light power representing him mentally breaking etc.
Comparably supposedly Uther took away Tirion's powers when he was exiled which I've always thought was a bit off so not using it.
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I'd take the somewhat more nuanced approach that Gul'dan simply exacerbated, enflamed and gave an outlet for problems that were already there.
If we had time to pontificate I'd say something like this.
Orcish society has always been very fight focused because of where the orcs are from with ruthlessness also a prized skill due to the enemies like the Gorian Empire (given that it was gone by the time the alliance went through the dark portal, I'd describe it as dalaran, but all ogres/Cho'gal who originated from there).
However, the Orcs were a young race in a then vibrant world, and while we lacked the knowledge of what Gul'dan was or who his masters were and while the world was dying around us due to their actions the fact remains we still took his deal of our own free will, jostled towards it as we may have been. Even I know that there were potential alternatives, asking the Draeni for help for example, but our stubborn pride meant that we'd rather turn to Gul'dan than confront the fact there was an enemy we could not simply out fight or out wit and looked for the "easy" way out all of this before drinking the blood as well.
I can't not blame Gul'dan for his innumerable crimes and betrayals, but he also serves as a fig leaf for our people, who cower behind his shadow to shield their honour from the truth. We were not mind controlled into his pact and many of my people drank the blood a second time and drank deeper of it out of a lust for glory, but of their own free will.
(am concerned about this given Varak is here, but I'm just musin.)
This might be a spicey hot take especially given who is there, but if I hold any one person responsible its Doomhammer. Blackhand was wilfully culpable with Gul'dan, but Doomhammer engaged in a disputed Mak'gora, then massacred the Shadow Council, but instead of changing anything he kept the horde going down the same route, even keeping Gul'dan alive and using him until invariably he betrayed him. Its hard to put all the blame on Gul'dan when the reason Gul'dan kept on getting to do things was because the Orcs refused to back down.
Certainly doesn't feel like that much of the time such as when you have Vark taking out mr super bat captain America style, nor does it really feel earned when the main reason Vark isn't better than us is that he's uninterested in developing his skills for instance.
Sesk and Ishi are one thing and I don't recall facing all the aspirants or Sorek in the last arc, but I don't have a perfect memory by any means.
To clarify once again I'm not directing the above at you, but I am getting frustrated that you've repeatedly emphasised that we can't expect to get good without putting in effort, but then see people arguing for spreading our effort out. What even is the point then?
Thing is as long as he believes he's in the right it should have been fine. So he could loose thenm around Stratholme, but if was ever inclined could theoretically regain them after breaking completely post lich kinging (as for when...no idea, he has them in WoW3, but game play kinda requires he has them.)
Well "supposedly" as it doesn't even last till the end of the book its basically a mental trick. Him loosing his powers there was entire that Uther did a big ritual and Tirion thought "well they must be gone." Because he thought that had happened he couldn't use them, its only after he reaffirms that no he did the right thing and Thrall points out to him that something so fundamental can't be cut off from you that he realises it never left he just thought it had.
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On the one hand, yeah. Consider how in WC3 when you GET the Frostmorne Arthas still uses the Light spells he'd been wielding up to that point. On the other hand...
It's mentioned that Frostmorne whispered into Arthas' mind, driving him to madness, until he came back to Lorderon and slew his own father, and does the rest of the Undead Campaign.
It's the 'drove him to madness' bit I'd like to focus on.
Because as I see it, 'Resisting FrostMorne' was Arthas while he was using it to True-Kill Mal'Ganis. But after that, for Frostmorne to bend him to it's will, it had to break him down first. And well...
If you're giving in to torture, if you're doing something to make the pain go away? You know, probably not even with much if any real denial or delusion, that what you're doing is Selfish, at the very least you can't say it's for the greater good, it's to save your own skin.
That doesn't jive with Light's 'understand the connection to others, and do good for all!' theme, and as I see it, that's kind of the problem.
The philsophies behind the magics counter-balance each other. You can't believe 'what's the point?' while simultainiously going 'I want to make every happy forever!' (Well, Priests in Wow might be able to use Light and Shadow at the same time so oy vey on that note of flavor...)
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I mean that doesn't happen at once, first he goes to Icecrown, slaughters his surviving soldiers, gets some snazzy new armour etc. killing his father was just one more step in the long series of events and I'd imagine he was very insane by step one of that point.
Also note not true killed, Mal'ganis is fine apparently or at the very least was just zapped back to the shadowlands.
mmm, thing is self delusion does work with the light, fine. It also works with shadow fine too.
The true way to combine light and shadow is anti nihilism. "There is no point to everything, so I'll make a point!"
I joke, but am serious and wish that was shown as a possibility.
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"There is no meaning to Life, but that which we give it?"
Well, it explains the light and Shadow thing Priests do at least.
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Very good, will integrate.
Look at it the other way around, Vark's main strength is his strength, that allows him to be fairly unskilled. That comes with detriments (which you'd know about if you actually interacted with him lol), such as a disinterest in strategic planning or strategy. Remember when he wanted to kill the Kul Tirans and you persuaded him out of it?
Also
Huh, was wrong about Sorek, he beat you 3-1, you beat all the others though, and since then you've improved with direct instruction from various Blademasters so yea you're the best in martial stuff so far.
On this point, be aware not everyone is aware of WoW stuff and the setting etc. Some people will be coming from rpg games or whatever and will assume like in DnD that you can just learn magic instantly and cast it etc. There was all that stuff in chargen where people didn't really get what druids did and I wrote the infopost with various points.
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Small addendum if I can, but the description of the Gorian empire should really be "Dalaran, but with muscles."
I know (trust me I don't like that interact with him properly is never on our list of things to do.)
And the fact remains that state of affairs lasts until he comes up against a problem he can't casually snap with raw brawn, he's not unintelligent and could learn to be very skilled very quickly I imagine.
I am aware, but it still is weird. The backstory for DnD spell casters in most cases is that they spend most of their youth if not longer learning to be whatever whether it be book learning to bend magic to their will, theology and meditation to call on their god or sorcerors simply learning to control their abilities, or whatever class you end up being* most back stories will paint what you have as like that with learning spells instantly being a pretty clear case of abstractions, with the lore reasons being that you have the foundation to grow on your own with some degree of safety and you do have to find new spells pay costs of time and gold etc.
*the main exceptions are things like Witch or Warlock where you are being given magic as part of a contract.
Magic (that doesn't instantly bite you in the arse) takes work as does learning to use a sword.
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At the moment its more a question of Grok rebuilding his faith in himself, overcoming his depression and continuing to question the assumptions/actions that got him to cutting himself off in the first place, which is best achieved through living his life rather than meditating on things for now.
But for me sleep.
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Ah the original Chaotic Good "Hmm maybe I should tell my brother my actual plans... Naaah" anti-hero.
Yet I still like them better than Tyrande.
He reminds me of Starscream. Should've schemed with the highborn to exile themselves thanks to his secret stockpile of arcane water so they can continue what they did oceans apart from their cousins but instead he did it in secret right at home thinking he'll get away scot free. That didn't turn out well.
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If I could add another layer to my musin (my apologies), I'd say that while he takes responsibility personally and doesn't deflect for his people as a whole I think he should probably make an argument for this.
At his age he'd have been born in year 10, so shortly after the second war etc. depending on where the burning blade were at the time its entirely plausible for Grok to be born in one of the camps. Kartha almost certainly was as the Azerothian members of the shattered hand clan were defending the dark portal and were captured there.
No matter how you slice it, the orcs as a people have been terrible on Azeroth until very recently and Grok's still got many concerns about their direction even with Thrall at the head, but the point I'd make is that they are not their parents and while it is easy and understandable to judge for the sins of the parents that does not make it any more right.
They're will within their rights (Stormwind most of all) to distrust us, we're not here to beg for clemency after all we're here to demonstrate contriteness through killing the enemies of humanity and the world over all, but the fact remains most of Grok's band are younger orcs (as I understand) so we should ask them to give us the chance to either prove to them that we can be more than just ruthless killers, or at demonstrate their assumptions correct through our own actions.
(Basically, give us a chance if you can't give orcs as a whole a chance and let us meet the bar you set or fall below.)
Also these musings are getting very long, but we can also point out that there are orcs who are very well well aware that what the old horde did was wrong. Grok's own mentor is the obvious example, but if we know stories of him Saurfang is another good one, whose so regretful of his past actions that its impacted his entire life, to the point of not being able to eat pork anymore, which is to put it mildly something of a staple in the orcish diet. Despite this he (and I wouldn't be surprised if Akinos as well) essentially created a therapy group for old orcish soldiers like them to try and find some way of coming to terms with it.
Perhaps the best example we can use since it'd come from a human is Etrigg. I'm not sure at any point in the book which details the event does Etrigg ever actually speak in his or Tirion's defence to the point I don't even know if the Alliance was aware that he was one of the chief lieutenants of first Blackhand and later Doomhammer instead of some random orc that Tirion was oddly attached too. So we can tell the orcish side of the story and Tirion might be able to recount his experiences with Etrigg personally.
What's arguably better is that Etrigg regrets what they did in the war and can also demonstrate that orcs suffered because of the horde as well, his children betrayed and killed for petty stupid reasons. However he might also be used as something of a "however!" to them as well. Cause as Tirion can also relate what happened next was unjust by any means. He had been living in hiding near Hearthglen for years because while he abandoned the horde he also did not want to go into the camps. It is somewhat understandable, this was shortly after Thrall had liberated the orcs from the camps so I imagine anti orc sentiments were at an all time high, but still in no way justifiable that executing someone for the "crime" of not wishing to be placed into the hell of the concentration camps/the crime of there no longer being concentration camps, or exiling Tirion for feeling a debt of gratitude to someone who saved his life.
Hell I don't personally believe this, but they'd have had more legs to stand on if they had known Etrigg was one of top leaders of the horde and were trying to execute him for that since it didn't work well for them when they let Doomhammer live the first time.*
*Side note while Doomhammer wanted to free the Orcs I am in no way convinced that he wouldn't have tried to start the third war just its orcs again edition. He just died before he had the opportunity. After all he told Thrall he'd lead the Orcs to victory and peace, but note that its victory first peace afterwards and given what happened last time...that said I am glad that of all the things Thrall picked up from him it was his willingness to make deals with non orcs, the Amani foremost although that may have just been more part of Thrall as a person.
Theoretically most of the magical Training actions should help in some form or another.
Of the "Higher Order" energies
Light is linked with Fire and Spirit
Shadow is linked with Earth and Decay (opposite of spirit?)
Arcane is linked with Earth and Water
Fel is linked with Fire and Air
Necromantic/Death with Air and Decay
Druidic/Life with Spirit and Water
By learning about those energies, concepts and such should have at least some cross over back to the elemental energies.
Alchemy would likely help due to dealing with the magic inherent in plants/animal parts in the world. Grok originally had to make a Sapa/potion to meet the elementals. Knowing more about how potions work could only benefit.
Doomed Wombat
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Yeah.
Spirit's also called the element of life or growth, while decay is the element of death.
And to expand on what you said and the little calculation thing yesterday Grok's strongest affinity for the prime magics from strongest to weakest are.
Light=89/90
Arcane=84
Shadow=80/81
Nature=75/76
Fel=59/60
Death=42
Probably not accurate, but neat to think about.
Welp, have a final round-up of my thoughts on :
- Why Shadow Magic?
- Personnel - This is the magic source of the Burning Blade Expedition's sole Caster-type Hero. Grok is taking steps towards getting his Shaman/Caster on, but for the moment Keldran is it. He also represents the best route the thread has right now of understanding and countering any actions from the Old Gods, Void, or general Shadow users. He also represents the chance for the Burning Blade to provide knowledge to the Crusade and their allies they would have no other easy method of accessing. His way of channeling the Shadow is likely unique, given the odd history of the Necrolytes. It stands to reason the the Shadow Priests who come at it through the Light, such as the Forgotten Shadow cult the Forsaken seem to have, would come at it different way. Finally, investing actions here now gives the potential for more home grown casters later down the line. The thread has had some suggestions of asking the Crusade for Light-wielding resources, I believe this would compliment that. The sooner Grok knows what he is about, the sooner the thread will be comfortable utilizing him.
- Plot - With the Paladin preaching, and the upcoming summit, it seems like this arc will have good chances to confront some specters of the First and Second Orc/Human war. Keldran is as intimately tied up in this as Neeru is, given that they both survived the purges between the two. Learning more about his rapid aging, and his experiences with the wars would provide another interesting viewpoint on this all. Grok-wise, his current naivety/general ignorance of magical matters makes this useful as well. The fluff text for the Light action involves him asking about the differences between a priest and a shaman. Having that next to a discussion about what sort of church Gul'dan wrought opens up more chances to sort these things out in a constructive way. Find the lines between horrid things to outlaw, useful things to grudgingly use, and actual good things to carry forward involves looking and sorting. Finally, by knowing more about Shadow Magic Grok and the thread will learn more about the similarities/ differences between it and the Necromancy which scars Lordaeron.
- Potential - A very meta reason, but this is very much a start as one means to go on. WOG says that even the Black Dragons are not beyond saving, so its worth it in my humble opinion to invest actions learning about the forces normally used by mainly by antagonists. Keldran is apparently strong enough in magic to be considered important in a mainly Warlock clan. That shows he is worth learning from, even if Grok never touches the Shadow for himself. But given his generally high magic skill and the lack of current build commitment, taking a wide range of learning actions as opposed to mono-focusing seems a worthwhile path.
- Personal - Having tried to remove my own opinion for the last few points, this is all my bias. I like the idea of the taking advantage of the Orc's lack of living magical traditions to make new ones. I prefer a rounded approach to things before committing to any build. I personally think that establishing a trend of taking multiple different Magic training actions will lead to a better story, as I would like to one day vote for studying Arcane/Fel side by side too. Nature/Necromacy is a bit harder to think how to pull off, but its still cool!
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Some small rebuttals/points.
Not his sole magic source he's a fel-shadow user and not especially great at either of them, if he was he would already be long dead.
I disagree with the assessment that we need shadow magic to counter shadow magic, fire and the like works very well and using shadow on the old gods traditionally backfires.
Incorrect, they've got access to the works of Nataline Seline Natalie Seline, in fact several of the crusade leaders likely knew her personally, in fact there's a cache of her teachings in Lorderan right now, which is where the cult of the Forgotten Shadow comes from there are more in Dalaran's ruins and scattered all over the place to ensure they wouldn't be lost.
Sorta. The alliance tradition got started because Seline researched the fel through observing necrolytes. Furthermore different in this case does not mean better to restate once again, Keldran was only taught because he was taught to a certain level and no further, while lacking the talent necessary to progress much further on his own otherwise he'd have been executed or brought with Gul'dan/Cho'gall when they did their betrayal.
Furthermore what he was taught was filtered to him through Gul'dan. I'd argue there'd be legs to stand on if it had been Ner'zul whose shadow magics came from the Shadowmoon's study of a Na'ru turning into a Void God, but Gul'dan's is quite literally from the legion, right down to the name which he lifted wholesale from an Eredar named Satiel.
Thus we're left in an ironic situation that by learning about the scourge we're probably learning about a more unique branch of necromancy than the one Keldran was actually taught and the most popularly learned ones since discounting any shadow lands stuff the Scourge are a combo of Legion/shadow moon methods.
And I'd say hold your horses since down the line is very far down the line and again I reject the premise that in order to know what Shadow does he needs to be able to do it himself.
It also makes him potentially vulnerable to manipulations from these people...also Church of Gul'dan?
Now there's a nightmare scenario.
As for that last bit I don't see that as especially useful. The line between what is and what isn't acceptable changes a great deal with the situation, but as I've gone to pains to emphasise when the entry level of the discipline involves soul mutilation that should get an automatic hard no.
As far as I'm concerned the answer is to get strong enough that we don't have to use things like the giant soul torture murder dog in the first place.
My argument would be that two wrongs do not make a right. Instead of using shadow magic to try and purge the influence of the literal gods of that magic instead opting for an alternative that is supposed to be its natural weakness might be a better idea. That and its usually used by the antagonists for a reason, lets poke it when it won't eat us.
As for important in a mainly warlock clan, well aside from the irony of what his NPC counterpart does in game
where did you get that he was important and not just the only person they had for the job who could be spared.We're already trying to do two separate magic traditions at the same time, that's the opposite of monofocusing, furthermore as has been banged on about repeatedly, wide range means we also get nothing done.
Your aspirations don't mean anything if they don't actually go anywhere.
As Grok becomes more skilled in magic his ability to learn other things isn't about to go down, it goes up especially since its that lack of knowledge which has been holding him back. So no taking a wide array of options has the same problem that taking a wide array of options does in real life, without mitigating circumstances usually you end up doing a bunch of them poorly instead of a few well.
And I would agree with you, I would also like to point out that it has been less than a year in universe for Grok in which time he has successfully unlocked then lost one magic tradition and is making progress on unlocking (and when we invariably fuck up again I'm sure loosing) another.
At the same time we are already committed to a build its called being a blade master, otherwise there is nothing that's going to lock us out of any tradition aside from Grok dying* which is a genuine risk.
*I was going to say some kind of reforging, but given that they managed to light forge a freaking Nathrazim I think that's not a risk either chief.
As you say I'm sure you won't be torn up if the shadow thing doesn't win, but my view remains the same, our time crunch is in "can we get strong enough that Jub does not gank us...again" not "does Grok have enough talent/time to theoretically learn this magic stuff." He clearly has the talent for everything not involving wind, and has the curiosity to try, but we've got to temper that with reasonable expectations and practicality
Currently going down the light chain is likely to help get Grok in a better mental state, which in turn will help get him his Shamanism back as well as prepare him for Jub by giving him something which really screws over the undead, which means he can get access to things like say the library of the Kiran Tor. Lots of doors open to war heroes who've fought bravely against something like the scourge.
To also advocate a bit for why the light would be good on a more plot level, this would be an Orc the heir to a very infamous warlock clan no less, learning the light which is a very important cultural thing to the humans and something that has never happened before. The special snowflake in me is interested and also thinks that as far as making an impression on the alliance goes we can't really get much better than it if we pull it off.
To condense thoughts to rebuttals/points. Apologies if anything you feel is important gets lost in the contraction
The more sources to study from the better. Having some measure of understanding of the tradition of the Necrolytes would likely make future study of the works of Seline more fruitful, both due to knowing what was on the other side of her observation and simply having had more time/exposure to that area of thought.
On the topic of Keldran's knowledge level, several points.
-Surviving a purge often has more to do with how you appear then one's actual characteristics.
-He has come with the try and further his art, showing ambition to grow. He has had many intervening years to grow as well.
-Grok knows absolutely nothing, so any actual ignorance can be dispelled through further study. Plus the knowledge of this sources shortcoming are obvious, as Keldran admits his limited skills himself.
Down the line gets there faster if you actually take steps on the path though. Besides, learning about how the Sapas worked was a separate action then doing anything involving them. Training involves learning, not being inducted into a cult. Just being told what the cult does and how good the tax write offs are. (to abuse that metaphor a bit)
To coalesce this, who is saying anything about picking up a full magical tradition?
This is about learning what's the deal with this apparently Universal Force. FelDad sent the 'best' authority they had along, it makes more sense to me to tap his brain as well.
At no point does this start him on the course of being a Necrolyte, doing any soul murdering, or even maiming. At least as far as I am aware.
But Metaphysical Universal Forces are big things, so its worth looking at them before embarking on a full magical building spree.
My best hopes are that training up all these connections will feed back into the Blademastery tradition.
This cannot be ascertained without at least looking.
Blademastery has thus far been mostly using a martial tradition/totem to channel Elemental energy. It has been pointed out that all Elements have ties to the other big energies. It stands to reason that exploring those will help.
I am not sure why your earlier logic about not expecting large buffs from any one action is different here though. I do agree that going down the path of learning more about the Light will yield good rewards, I simply disagree with the fact that any are close enough to be worth sprinting for. Getting two doses of whatever the Scarlet Crusaders believe would be better with specific aims, such as one action focused on priests/healing, one of paladins/warriors. However I find it hard to believe that anything extra learned from an additional action would be worth it.
As for the mental state, he's a big boy from a tribal culture. It does not make sense that he would not speak to the closest thing to his own shaman that is on hand. He is still going and learning about the Light. He is fighting next to a literal army of Crusaders, with Priests, and receiving sermons. That thing you wanted is there, and will continue to be likely the rest of the story. But hearkening back to the tribal culture part, he brought his retinue with. Its very hard to integrate things back into a powerbase if one is unaware of the issues. To fix whatever damage is there due to the Necrolytes, you have to actually know about them. Mixing with the Warlocks back in Orgrimmar did not make Grok a Warlock. It led to him being well aware of the costs associated with the Fel, and then not taking the Fel.
The more sources to study from the better. Having some measure of understanding of the tradition of the Necrolytes would likely make future study of the works of Seline more fruitful, both due to knowing what was on the other side of her observation and simply having had more time/exposure to that area of thought.
On the topic of Keldran's knowledge level, several points.
-Surviving a purge often has more to do with how you appear then one's actual characteristics.
-He has come with the try and further his art, showing ambition to grow. He has had many intervening years to grow as well.
-Grok knows absolutely nothing, so any actual ignorance can be dispelled through further study. Plus the knowledge of this sources shortcoming are obvious, as Keldran admits his limited skills himself.
Down the line gets there faster if you actually take steps on the path though. Besides, learning about how the Sapas worked was a separate action then doing anything involving them. Training involves learning, not being inducted into a cult. Just being told what the cult does and how good the tax write offs are. (to abuse that metaphor a bit)
As for that last bit I don't see that as especially useful. The line between what is and what isn't acceptable changes a great deal with the situation, but as I've gone to pains to emphasise when the entry level of the discipline involves soul mutilation that should get an automatic hard no.
As far as I'm concerned the answer is to get strong enough that we don't have to use things like the giant soul torture murder dog in the first place.
My argument would be that two wrongs do not make a right. Instead of using shadow magic to try and purge the influence of the literal gods of that magic instead opting for an alternative that is supposed to be its natural weakness might be a better idea. That and its usually used by the antagonists for a reason, lets poke it when it won't eat us.
As for important in a mainly warlock clan, well aside from the irony of what his NPC counterpart does in game
We're already trying to do two separate magic traditions at the same time, that's the opposite of monofocusing, furthermore as has been banged on about repeatedly, wide range means we also get nothing done.
Your aspirations don't mean anything if they don't actually go anywhere.
As Grok becomes more skilled in magic his ability to learn other things isn't about to go down, it goes up especially since its that lack of knowledge which has been holding him back. So no taking a wide array of options has the same problem that taking a wide array of options does in real life, without mitigating circumstances usually you end up doing a bunch of them poorly instead of a few well.
And I would agree with you, I would also like to point out that it has been less than a year in universe for Grok in which time he has successfully unlocked then lost one magic tradition and is making progress on unlocking (and when we invariably fuck up again I'm sure loosing) another.
To coalesce this, who is saying anything about picking up a full magical tradition?
This is about learning what's the deal with this apparently Universal Force. FelDad sent the 'best' authority they had along, it makes more sense to me to tap his brain as well.
At no point does this start him on the course of being a Necrolyte, doing any soul murdering, or even maiming. At least as far as I am aware.
But Metaphysical Universal Forces are big things, so its worth looking at them before embarking on a full magical building spree.
My best hopes are that training up all these connections will feed back into the Blademastery tradition.
This cannot be ascertained without at least looking.
Blademastery has thus far been mostly using a martial tradition/totem to channel Elemental energy. It has been pointed out that all Elements have ties to the other big energies. It stands to reason that exploring those will help.
I am not sure why your earlier logic about not expecting large buffs from any one action is different here though. I do agree that going down the path of learning more about the Light will yield good rewards, I simply disagree with the fact that any are close enough to be worth sprinting for. Getting two doses of whatever the Scarlet Crusaders believe would be better with specific aims, such as one action focused on priests/healing, one of paladins/warriors. However I find it hard to believe that anything extra learned from an additional action would be worth it.
As for the mental state, he's a big boy from a tribal culture. It does not make sense that he would not speak to the closest thing to his own shaman that is on hand. He is still going and learning about the Light. He is fighting next to a literal army of Crusaders, with Priests, and receiving sermons. That thing you wanted is there, and will continue to be likely the rest of the story. But hearkening back to the tribal culture part, he brought his retinue with. Its very hard to integrate things back into a powerbase if one is unaware of the issues. To fix whatever damage is there due to the Necrolytes, you have to actually know about them. Mixing with the Warlocks back in Orgrimmar did not make Grok a Warlock. It led to him being well aware of the costs associated with the Fel, and then not taking the Fel.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
It probably would, but there's no reason to do them now, especially when we could do them side to side.
No it'd have been because he was an initiate if he was anything else he'd have been Doomhammered and afterwards Gul'dan killed off every student who showed promise in order to make the death knights stronger.
See how well having "ambition" is serving Grok in the area of actually actually accomplishing jackshit with magic when you have no teachers or resources to draw from.
Which we can do without learning the actual magic.
That logic is completely circular.
If I get what you mean we should spread ourselves thin cause later down the line we'll have to take actions that we need base line knowledge for rather than starting from scratch, but again what is the fucking point if by spreading ourselves thin we never reach those options!
This is a time management problem, if we have to invest extra time into it down the line why the hell would we double the time needed to get there? To torture a different metaphor it'd be like refusing to advance far up the paladin or warlock classes because you might miss out on one of the horses.
The bigger problem is because of that you get no fucking horse!
You.
I don't know how I could have gotten that impression from the option that is basically waving and going "this is the option you pick to start learning it."
You are also the one looking to be "embarking on a full magical building spree" when Grok literally cannot fart sparks at this point.
Your argument seems to be that if we don't try to get connections to these we won't be able to take them later when that is not the case.
Again the only reason we won't be able to is if we're dead. Which is much more likely if we don't have some magic backing us up in the near future due to ya know the evil death knight chasing us.
Also even as a side note, traditions grow and change over time. You do not need every single thing in it from the start and Grok does not need to be the one to do all of it either, even before considering how many traditions of magic get around 100% fine monofocusing on one of them. Better than fine really.
Aside from the fact that at this point it'll be sunk cost fallacy in play?
And we can look later, like we can look at the Broken Isles later, shadow magic is not going anywere.
No kidding its almost like I've noted that going by Grok's connections to said elements the Light's his best one.
Oh really?
Ok for one we're not learning from the Scarlet Crusade we're learning from Tirion, for a second we don't have the option to specify what we learn most of the time and three we currently need to learn how to use the light in the first place!
That's what the two actions are for, so we can actually do any fucking magic! And I certainly believe that an extra action is worth it, because it represents Grok investing significant time and effort into a single thing, which produces much greater results proportionally compared to spreading them out, likely helped by having quite possibly the first good teacher he's every actually had in terms of magic.
He's also extremely fucking depressed at the moment, and comes from a culture that vilifies that as weakness, and no he will not be learning about the light via osmosis., the humans would not preach to the orcs back when they were in freaking internment camps!
A lot of the humans in this camp actively want his head on a platter and they're not about to let him to to church with them.
But instead you think that what he can learn how to use the light by sitting in the bannisters as priests give sermons? Cause its so freaking easy to learn battle magic, and doesn't usually take people their young adult lives.
So no that thing I wanted is not there, its like saying that Grok would naturally pick up shadow magic if he hung around the twilight hammer, or I could learn quantum mechanics from my DnD buddy cause he talks about it occassionally!
And he didn't go there to learn to be a warlock he went there to find out what their problems where, this is the not case with this action, where he remarks that he doesn't expect to learn his magic immediately.
(side note, if it turns out that the counter to shadow magic is shocker your own magic, I will be entirely unsurprised.)
- Location
- Italy
Yeah I'd also like to point out that right now we have access to possibly THE Best Light stuff teacher imaginable, one of the very first paladins and the most willing to deal with an orc in good faith to teach him, If we have to spend time learning from someone I'd rather it be him instead of learning about shadow magic from a somewhat knowledgeable journeyman.
Then there is my personal preference, and I really want to try to go for an Orc paladin, I think it would be very interesting and a cool way to build a new tradition of Light using blademasters (if we survive), the blademasters lack purpose? The light has purpose in spades, not to mention it fits well both for our affinities and our ultimate purpose to defend Azeroth.
I want to make use of Tirion's guidance now that we have it, there's no telling what could happen and there is no better teacher for a future Paladin Grok than him
Then there is my personal preference, and I really want to try to go for an Orc paladin, I think it would be very interesting and a cool way to build a new tradition of Light using blademasters (if we survive), the blademasters lack purpose? The light has purpose in spades, not to mention it fits well both for our affinities and our ultimate purpose to defend Azeroth.
I want to make use of Tirion's guidance now that we have it, there's no telling what could happen and there is no better teacher for a future Paladin Grok than him
- Location
- United Kingdom
Vote is currently tied, generally I'd say be chill about it. Indeed neither the light nor shadow isn't going to disappear anytime soon. If you want to learn more about it I'm fine with creating situations for you to do so, it doesn't have to be this arc
@Cryos
One action would still be spent studying under his tutelage. I believe that it would be helpful for learning how paladins use Light, as well as how to potentially mesh that back with his Blademaster and Fire spirit talent.
He is also going to remain involved with the Crusade for the foreseeable future. While he could die, it's more likely more actions will be possible in the near future as the Burning Blade fights along the Crusade to kill undead.
I know I will keep voting for more Light studying actions in the future as well. But doubling down is more committment to fully making Grok a paladin in the near future to get things out of it. I would rather pursue several things at once so they all have time to blend together. These are the Light derived blademastery skills/spells, heres one or two shadow, maybe an Arcane blink, etc.
I think a paladin orc is cool, but I think an orc bladesmaster/scholar is slightly cooler. Hopefully I have done some small bit to help you think so too.
One action would still be spent studying under his tutelage. I believe that it would be helpful for learning how paladins use Light, as well as how to potentially mesh that back with his Blademaster and Fire spirit talent.
He is also going to remain involved with the Crusade for the foreseeable future. While he could die, it's more likely more actions will be possible in the near future as the Burning Blade fights along the Crusade to kill undead.
I know I will keep voting for more Light studying actions in the future as well. But doubling down is more committment to fully making Grok a paladin in the near future to get things out of it. I would rather pursue several things at once so they all have time to blend together. These are the Light derived blademastery skills/spells, heres one or two shadow, maybe an Arcane blink, etc.
I think a paladin orc is cool, but I think an orc bladesmaster/scholar is slightly cooler. Hopefully I have done some small bit to help you think so too.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
The ironic thing in all of this is if I had a choice I'd go for arcane magic, as its usually been my preference.
1. Its not commitment to becoming a paladin, (hell even if it did it does nothing to stop Grok from studying all the rest at a later date), its just commitment to establishing a light connection. Paladin, is a societal thing created by the Alliance, so the statement would have more legs if by picking light we became incapable of doing any other kind of magic or otherwise limited ourselves, but that flat out is not the case.
2. And again that falls into the problem that we need power now and none of those things are easy to do. Like my issue is you want to create a tradition that essentially produces magical polymaths, which is either unlearnable to all but maybe 1 or 2 people per generation tops or is just bad-average at everything.
Two things.
1. Its not commitment to becoming a paladin, (hell even if it did it does nothing to stop Grok from studying all the rest at a later date), its just commitment to establishing a light connection. Paladin, is a societal thing created by the Alliance, so the statement would have more legs if by picking light we became incapable of doing any other kind of magic or otherwise limited ourselves, but that flat out is not the case.
2. And again that falls into the problem that we need power now and none of those things are easy to do. Like my issue is you want to create a tradition that essentially produces magical polymaths, which is either unlearnable to all but maybe 1 or 2 people per generation tops or is just bad-average at everything.
And step one about being a scholar should also be to know your limits. Once again you can have aspirations of learning things, but you have to actually give yourself time to learn them otherwise you're just a hipster.