The Thalmor, the Frenzied Flame, and Gnostic Horror

 The very first movie that my family got on DVD was The Matrix. My dad had gotten a G4 Macintosh that came with a DVD-ROM drive, and so what was then a new home video format had now become available to us. I had seen previews of The Matrix, but the marketing campaign for the movie cleverly kept the actual premise of the film secret, enticing viewers with its slick, stylish, mindblowing visuals (having invented "Bullet Time," a technique that put dozens of still cameras around a scene, hidden within a greenscreen environment, so that you could freeze time while the "camera" moved around the scene).

The story, of course, is well-known at this point: Neo discovers that the world he inhabits, which resembles a dreary urban 1999 with soulless office work, is actually a virtual environment operated by tyrannical machine overlords, who instead use humanity as batteries while lulling them into complacency by trapping them in this digital limbo. (My dad, ever the pedant, complained about the fact that human bodies would take far more energy to maintain than they'd put out, but I think that A: they're not a source so much as a capacitor for energy, and B: there's either an element of contempt here or a kind of "Zeroth Law" thing where the machines are technically protecting humanity by keeping them in this state.)

The movie blended a whole lot of philosophical ideas while also drawing heavily upon Anime as an inspiration at a time when the medium was far more niche in the West. After its sibling directors, the Wachowskis, both came out as trans women, though, looking back on the movie, you can see the way in which its story works as a trans allegory, a metaphor for breaking out of a rigid system of cultural expectations (including gender roles) to live as oneself - in particular, the villainous Agent Smith insistently refers to Neo as Thomas Anderson, the name that he was given at birth but not the one he chose for himself. I wouldn't learn the term Deadnaming for about two decades after seeing the movie, but this is exactly what Agent Smith is constantly doing.

Still, I don't think the movie was meant to be purely read as a trans allegory, and can be more broadly viewed as an allegory for breaking out of all manner of dehumanizing systems, from patriarchy to capitalism.

But beyond that, the central kind of fantasy of it all: that the world you know is not the real world, and that one might attain a higher level of power and wisdom by escaping into the true world beyond, is a potent one at the center of fantasy as a genre (the Matrix is obviously more sci-fi, but tonally it could be seen as a fantasy story as well).

Gnosticism is a tradition within the history of early Christianity that, of course, is a lot more complex and nuanced than I'll be able to cover here (and I'm not any authority on this anyway,) but one of the central concepts is that of the Demiurge - a being who appears to be godlike, but is actually inherently corrupt and only pretends to be the true divine creator, and the false reality that the Demiurge has created.

The Demiurge might be malicious, or might be ignorant and foolish, not even realizing that they are lying.

But the idea is that while the true creator created a pure and holy spiritual universe, that the Demiurge created physical reality, and by doing so, trapped flawless, perfect souls in profane, weak physical forms. Salvation, to the Gnostics, was achieved by discovering the truth of one's pure origins, and would allow a kind of escape from the profane physical world to ascend into the true universe beyond the material.

The Gnostics were considered heretics by the early church, but the ideas that they presented have, I think, become part of Western cultural thought, and even link up in some ways with philosophies from other parts of the world.

Surely, the world we exist in includes suffering. Quite a lot of it, in fact. Three is certainly an appeal to the idea that one could escape all of it.

But... what if they're wrong? And what if this went beyond mere philosophical speculation and into the realm of action.

To be clear, I'm not going to talk about anyone doing this in the real world, but I think we can draw some parallels once we look at two examples.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, taking place centuries after the events of the previous game, we find an Empire that has been forced into a subservient position by the neighboring Aldmeri Dominion. The Dominion has within it a kind of agency called the Thalmor, who were described by the developers as a faction that, no matter where your loyalties lay in, say, the Skyrim civil war, you were meant to hate.

They are not only a kind of secret police, but also a kind of inquisition, imposing religious laws that the Dominion had forced upon the Empire that forbid the worship of Talos, the a human who had ascended to godhood.

Why do they want to do this? Well, because Talos is evidently the lynchpin that keeps the physical universe from being destroyed.

And why would they want it destroyed?

Because they are basically Gnostic fundamentalists: they believe that the elves (or "mer,") were once free spirits that roamed the cosmos in a formless state of bliss. As long as the physical world exists, they are held back from returning to this state.

Which... makes things a bit complicated. After all, if they're right, might it actually be better to allow for this collapse of reality as we know it? The High Elves (Aldmeri) view Lorkhan, the Demiurge-like figure who helped create the world, as a villainous monster who imprisoned their souls. But humanity, or at least the Nords, revere him as the god Shor, who led humanity to fight off oppression and tyrants (notably, the elves).

The Thalmor are pretty universally hatable. It is their imposition of these religious laws upon the Empire that leads to the civil war in Skyrim. And in a modern, tolerant, secular view of the world (one that I certainly hold but is clearly not universal) it seems pretty clearly villainous to undercut the core of another peoples' culture. But the Thalmor believe that the end - in this case the end of the world - justifies the means, and that this apocalyptic fate would actually be better for everyone, and not in a "mercy kill the universe" way but a "usher in an endless golden age of spiritual freedom" way.

I think a similar concept is at work in Elden Ring.

Of all the dangerous threats in the Lands Between, the most mysterious and horror-coded is the Frenzied Flame. There's no one single demigod or faction associated with it - it wasn't until the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that we got a proper boss aligned with the Flame.

But if we follow the path that leads to the Three Fingers, and we get Hyetta to serve as our Finger Maiden for them (even if we wind up using Miquella's Needle to cleanse ourselves of it and thus have our cake and eat it too - too bad Melina never shows up again to let us explain how we accomplished this,) she explains that the belief associated with the Frenzied Flame is that, at the beginning of time, there was the One Great, but that the One Great divided itself, no longer held together in wholeness and allowing for different things to emerge from the fractured whole.

Hyetta claims this was a mistake, and that all suffering and pain has been a result from this fracturing. The Flame of Frenzy, though, will melt everything down, ridding the world of all that divides and distinguishes, and restore the One Great to its original, undifferentiated form.

I think that this idea runs parallel to that Gnostic idea. In this case, the One Great is sort of both divine creator and demiurge, but we might say that the part of the One Great that remained in a position of divine authority, the Greater Will, is really playing this role of Demiurge.

So, the Frenzied Flame is this force that works toward the reconstitution of that original One Great. But... it does so in a manner of pure horror.

One of the things that I've always felt was really fascinating about the Flame is that we don't really see a lot of people talking about it. It seems to arise in places of despair - the tomb of the wandering merchants is where the Three Fingers can be found, but we also see how Midra's Manor was once a beautiful place that was burned by the Hornsent Inquisition, its master impaled with a truly horrifying torture implement (how is he not dead with that thing going directly through his brain?) But even little minor places, like the village on the Weeping Peninsula (not sure what they're despairing about, but the name of the landmass doesn't imply it's the happiest place) or the Leyndell soldiers trapped on the slopes of Mt. Gelmir, resorting to cannibalism as they're cut off from reinforcements and supplies - these are all places where the Frenzied Flame has power. (Oh, I forgot the place up on the Consecrated Snowfield. No clue what is going on there, actually.)

But the point is, there are these weird parallels with the Golden Order. One might even see how the Shamans' ability to amalgamate with others' bodies might be viewed in this manner. The Law of Regression - is that a little hidden nod to the Frenzied Flame within the Golden Order?

What is interesting is that in all of these cases, there is this feeling of a crime or mistake that has ruined things - that the imposition of a physical world was an evil act.

And this goes in pretty stark contrast with the more widespread and popular conceptions of creation - that the world's birth was a good thing, and that the fact that everything exists is good, even if there are flaws in it. And likewise, isn't the classic heroic fantasy narrative about saving the world from destruction?

When Melina makes her last plea to the Tarnished not to take on the Frenzied Flame, she speaks specifically of how it will prevent "births," which I find pretty interesting given that it's not a word we hear elsewhere in the game, as far as I know. What she specifically means is, of course, open for debate (this is FromSoft, so everything's always open for debate). But I think this is an appeal to the idea that the physical world allows for new possibilities, for new ideas and things and people to arise.

There's something appealing, certainly, to an endless and eternal state of perpetual bliss. But by complicating things, by making a world of texture and color and distinctions, we actually have something - we have meaning.

Swashbuckler Rogue

 The only reprint that sticks with its original name, the Swashbuckler is actually one of the most iconic rogue archetypes. In the One D&D playtest for 5.5, they originally planned to have the Swashbuckler as the PHB's fourth Rogue subclass, and as much as I like the Soulknife, I do think that this is far more of an obvious, core Rogue fantasy that really deserves to be one of the basic options.

This is the Rogue who doesn't hide in the shadows, but walks into the false-king's banquet hall pointedly holding a poached deer. It's the most classically-heroic Rogue, potentially, though typically in the role of a scrappy underdog. Through wit, charm, cunning, and rakish audacity (so to speak,) they make fools of their foes.

Now, because this is appearing in the WoW book, let's give a little history of the Outlaw spec, which began its life under a different name.

In WoW, all three Rogue specs dual-wield melee weapons - there's no ranged Rogue, and they're the only pure-melee class that cannot perform the tank role (Hunters and Shamans each have a melee spec, but they're more often fighting at range). Furthermore, the other two specs, Subtlety and Assassination, fight only with daggers, while these Rogues fight with a larger array of weapons - swords, maces, axes and fist weapons.

When WoW came out, the spec was called simply "Combat," and while it was, actually, often the best spec (back when the balance of the game was far worse and certain specs were truly just better than others,) its flavor was... you fight with larger weapons.

However, come the Legion expansion in 2016, Combat was renamed to Outlaw, embracing a far more specific and flavorful identity, and changing up a lot of its abilities, including incorporating a pistol that the Rogue would draw and fire to use certain abilities (not equipped as a piece of gear, the pistol was more of just a visual for the abilities). Outlaw can be interpreted as having more of a pirate/swashbuckler vibe, though there's also a bit of a Wild West gunslinger (with a bit of a gambling theme - true to both archetypes).

A spec I avoided like the plague because it was so boring prior to this, Outlaw is actually very fun now, and while I still love Subtlety best, I do have a secondary Rogue character in WoW who goes Outlaw.

Now: the D&D subclass, however, does not appear to be in anyway pulling on the WoW spec for its mechanics. This looks to be almost purely a revision of the existing subclass that was last seen in Xanathar's.

Let's get into it!

Level 3:

Fancy Footwork:

When you make a melee attack against a creature, it can't make opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn, whether you hit or miss.

    This is, I think, unchanged, but also strongly enables you to get up into melee as a Rogue. With your bonus action no longer needed to disengage (unless you get up in front of multiple foes) you free it up for either a dash (to get back away from that enemy you just attacked) or to make an off-hand attack (though thanks to weapon mastery, we're probably not worried as much about that, though we might if we get the Dual Wielder feat), or have some other thing to do. It makes us very mobile, which is great.

Rakish Audacity:

You get a bonus to your Initiative rolls equal to your Charisma modifier. You can also use Sneak Attack without advantage if you're within 5 feet of a target and no other creatures are within 5 feet of you and you don't have disadvantage.

    Again, I think this is unchanged.

    Rogues can afford to be fairly "SAD" (single ability score dependent) and so you can actually manage to have a decent Charisma. It's already a Dexterity-focused class, so you'll have a pretty good initiative bonus anyway, and if you get something like Alert, even better.

    Now, the second part here is the real boon: We can basically always get sneak attack. While it might be hard to do if we want to strike a foe surrounded by its allies, I think we can usually find a space to stand where we'll only have one foe within melee range. If that space is within 5 feet of an ally, then we're probably getting Sneak Attack anyway because they're also likely within 5 feet of our target.

    The only bad scenario here is if we can only get into melee with a foe while an ally is just out of reach of the foe. But that's pretty unlikely, and so what I think this means is that we can be very confident we'll get sneak attack - if we're going into melee.

    Again, I think this is identical to the old version, but this is another feature that I think makes this subclass a popular choice for 3-level Rogue dips.

Level 9:

Panache:

You gain two new Cunning Strike options.

    Just as a note: I love the idea of Cunning Strikes. But I do think that their deep flaw is just that Rogues are already struggling to keep up in terms of damage, and so sacrificing damage for utility feels a bit unfair when you have, say, Battle Master Fighters getting utility on top of damage with their maneuvers. If Sneak Attack did significantly more damage (some have suggested even letting it scale every level, so you have a d6 for each Rogue level) this might work out better. But that's not this subclass' fault, nor is the fact that their second subclass feature doesn't come online until level 9.

Goad (1d6): The target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they have disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than you until the end of its next turn.

    So, this is a taunt, though with a save to avoid it, unlike what, say, Ancestral/Spiritual Guardians or Armorers get. The real question, though, is... do you want to taunt a foe? Rogues do have one solid defensive reaction, but it only halves incoming damage. Here, though, I think this becomes far better if we are fighting from range, where they won't even be likely to be able to target us in the first place.

Awe (3d6): Creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you make a Wisdom save or become Charmed until the end of your next turn.

    An AoE charm can be very good, defensively. Hard to use outside of combat, of course, given that you have to land a sneak attack. A real flavor win, though, as this feels like a great thing to use when you're alone in a room full of enemies and have to beat a hasty retreat.

Level 13:

You get even more Cunning Strike options:

Invigorate (2d6): One creature within 30 feet adds 1d6 to their attack rolls and saving throws until the end of its next turn.

    This is kind of fascinating. I believe (again, the wording here isn't precisely what's printed in the video I'm using as a source) you could target yourself with this. But if you have an ally concentrating on a really important spell, or you have some friend who has some really great buff to their attacks, this could wind up being very nice to hand out. We lose 7 damage, but that might be made up for by this bonus.

Parrying Stance (2d6): You add 1d6 to your AC until the start of your next turn.

    Especially given the melee focus on this subclass, getting a way to boost AC will be nice. While by level 13 we should hopefully have capped our Dex (even with three General Feats, if we start with 17 we will be there) and thus we should have comparable AC to someone in half-plate, a little extra is certainly nothing to say no to. But this really is a weighed choice between better survival and a chunk of our damage.

Level 17:

Master Duelist:

Immediately after using Sneak Attack, make another attack against the same target, provided you're within 5 feet of it and no other creatures are within 5 feet of you.

    This looks pretty good, but we have to temper our expectations a bit: that second attack can't trigger Sneak Attack by definition. Also, if we miss on our attack, we don't get this. I do think that this really, really encourages a Swashbuckler to dual-wield, and even take the dual-wielder feat, which is already pretty helpful for any Rogue.

Overall Thoughts:

    I think this subclass is fine, and good, even, but we do have to grade on a curve for Rogues. If we pumped the Rogue up a little bit (and moved the second subclass feature to, like, level 6) it'd be amazing.

    I think you can potentially get the same kind of Errol Flynn-like swashbuckling flavor with, say, a Valor Bard and might actually feel like you're pulling the whole archetype off even better that way. But if you do want to play a Rogue, I think this is going to be a good choice that does enable a lot of what you're looking for.

Path of the Spiritual Guardian Barbarian

 The Ancestral Guardian Barbarian was introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. While perhaps overshadowed by the Zealot, which wound up in the 5.5 PHB, this has also long been a pretty well-established and effective subclass. Notably, Ancestral Guardians are one of a handful of subclasses across any class that is built to truly play a "tank" role in a group.

I actually have a ton of familiarity with the original version of this subclass, because one of my players in my 6-years-and-counting Ravnica campaign plays one. And I will tell you: he might not put out the most damage (though with an artifact weapon that deals an extra 2d8 damage along with other benefits, he's no slouch) what he does do very well is protect his allies. The key is, not only does he impose disadvantage on attacks against other targets than himself, but the soft-taunt debuff also extends damage resistances, to the point where, especially if the monster is doing any non-bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage, they truly do less damage to anyone else.

The subclass is renamed here as Spiritual Guardian, which I guess just broadens out which spirits you might call upon. What I will say is that in the Ravnica game, I have had NPCs talk to the Barbarian and refer to him as a Shaman, because he literally is one - having a connection to unseen spirits upon whom he can call for aid, which is more or less the actual definition of a shaman. So, ironically, while I don't think the Barbarian is the best class to emulate a WoW Shaman, in this case at least the subclass literally has you play a shaman using the real-world definition.

Now, the rough concept of this subclass is to make it work for WoW's Enhancement Shaman. Don't get hung up on this too much: it's nothing like Enhancement. Actually, honestly, the Elements Barbarian is closer to what Enhancement feels like, while to get a real Elemental Shaman feel you'd want to go with something like a Circle of the Land Druid and focus on elemental damage types like lightning and fire, or maybe even just go with an Evoker Wizard (or a Genie Warlock, actually). The "ancestral spirits" theme of Shamans is really secondary to its "primordial elements" theme in WoW. And while Elemental and Restoration Shamans can both take the "Farseer" Hero Talents (a system that works as a kind of secondary subclass that is role-agnostic) that do actually have ancestor spirits appear and fight alongside you, Enhancement is the one spec that doesn't get this option.

So, really, even more than other suggested subclasses, we should kind of set aside the WoW of it all and truly treat this as its own, setting-agnostic option. I'm also going to try to take it on its own merits, in part because while I see the Ancestral Guardian in play, I'm not often looking at all of its features laid out in front of me. Naturally, my experience with the subclass will color my impression of this one. Will this be like the new Grave Cleric, where it would be good if we didn't have a better version that existed previously? Or will this one shine and actually be an improvement over something that's already solid? Or maybe it will be just a lateral move.

Let's get into the features.

(Credit here goes to the Dungeon Dudes, using their video ranking the WoW subclasses.)

Level 3:

Spiritual Protectors:

When raging, when you hit with a weapon or unarmed strike, you can choose one effect:

Distract: The target has disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than you or another Barbarian with this feature until the start of your next turn.

    The key change here (other than having two other options to use) is that this no longer imparts resistance to the damage of those attacks if the monster decides to go after your friends regardless. That actually does wind up being a pretty big nerf to this, as a monster might still decide they'd rather risk disadvantage to hit a target that will take full damage from their attack rather than hitting the Barbarian.

    It's very unlikely you'll have two Spiritual Guardians in the same party, but then, my party has two Storm Sorcerers. Obviously, this is the standard "soft taunt" that you see with Armorer Artificers and Cavalier Fighters, though I don't think they have carve-outs for others of their subclass. However, if you do have one of those two characters in your party, you should both blanket the target with disadvantage. I will say this is less exciting if you're using a weapon with Sap, though it does apply to all attacks.

Hinder: You can apply the Slow weapon mastery in addition to another mastery.

    Slow doesn't stack up, but if you really need to keep a foe from fleeing, this can help. Indeed, combining Distract and Hinder will help you lock down foes and keep them from hurting your friends (though if you slow them enough that they can't get to your friends, Distract is kind of redundant). Probably the most situational choice.

Strike: You deal an extra 1d4 of your choice of Cold, Fire, or Lightning damage.

    Ok, this is interesting. it's not a ton of damage, of course, but unlike other Barbarian damage buffs at 3rd level, this is going to apply to all attacks. You thus get slightly more value out of it if you're dual-wielding or can weaponize your bonus action through something like Polearm Master. 1d4 ain't much, but it's not nothing either when you can apply it to every attack. And this also gives you a good option when you just want to pour out as much damage as you can.

    Generally, I think the taunt has taken a nasty nerf, but the existence of these other options does make this a bit interesting, and not strictly worse. What it does is push this subclass a little away from the tank archetype - not fully away, but lets you play one that is more about damage.

Level 6:

Spirit Shield:

While raging, you can use a reaction when another creature within 30 feet takes damage to reduce the damage they take. Roll d6s equal to your rage bonus, and reduce the damage by the number rolled.

    I think this is the same as the old version (the math on how much you reduce might be different,) but this is going to help you mitigate what damage does go through. (Actually, now that I check, the damage mitigation scales up slightly faster, as you'd get d6s added at levels 10 and 14, while the rage bonus goes up faster than that).

Level 10:

Consult the Spirits:

Once per short or long rest, you can cast Augury or Clairvoyance without a spell slot or material components. The sensor for Clairvoyance takes the form of an invisible ancestor spirit.

    This is unchanged. It's also only rarely impactful. It's not that these spells aren't good, but this is a pure utility boost, and doesn't do anything for you in combat. Now sure, giving Barbarians stuff to do outside of combat is great, but you're not going to feel much of an impact here at this level.

Level 14:

Spirits' Fury:

Once per turn, when you roll an 18-20 on the d20 while making a melee weapon attack as part of the attack action, you can make one additional attack with the same weapon.

    This is a totally different feature from the old version, which would let you deal force damage to the attacker that triggered Spirit Shield. But what do we think of this? Well, first off, I do think this is the one real nod to Enhancement Shamans, who imbue their weapons (they always dual-wield) with elemental magic, most famously "Windfury," which lets their attacks trigger additional attacks that hit at the same time. Baseline, this is going to be going off about 15% of the time, though if we're always using Reckless Attack (or getting advantage some other way,) we'll have a 27.75% chance of triggering this, and with two attacks, that becomes a 48.8% chance. If we're dual-wielding with a Nick weapon, it can become a 62% chance to get it (though we'd prefer to get this on our main-hand attack, as we probably don't have the Two Weapon Fighting Style.)

    So this actually has a decent chance to happen, though I suspect you'll be very sad if you go through a few combats without seeing it trigger. I think I'd have to see it in play to get a feel for how fun it is for this to go off versus how frustrating it is when you never see it happen.

Overall Thoughts:

    My gut tells me that this is a bit like the Grave Cleric revamp, though less of a nerf when you break it all down. The big elephant in the room here is that the World Tree Barbarian is probably the best "tank" Barbarian - while that doesn't have any taunt-like feature, it is probably overall better at protecting allies. And this version, losing the blanket resistance it imparts to anyone the target hits, truly loses its most potent tanking feature. (As a DM, I'll often think "why even bother going after someone else if I'm getting disadvantage and doing no more damage on a hit than I would to the Barbarian?" which is precisely how a tanking feature should work.)

    So yeah, I don't think this is necessarily bad, but by pushing the subclass away from tanking and a bit more toward damage-dealing, it loses some of its identity. Now, the math on said damage-dealing is a bit of a question mark. I suspect that it's not going to keep up with Berserkers or Zealots, though, meaning that you're sort of straddling the "pump damage out" and "protect allies" roles, while D&D generally rewards specialization.

Oath of the Holy Paladin

 My "main," the character that I prioritize in WoW, bringing him first into any new expansion or patch content, eager to get him leveled up to the current level cap and then geared up as best I can in the current season fastest, is a Paladin. While I generally play Protection, the tank-focused spec, most - especially as they've leaned into allowing tanks to deal decent damage so that it's not that tedious to "solo" on them (while WoW has a lot of group-focused content, a lot of the game can be played on your own, especially with the introduction of Delves in the previous War Within expansion) - I have also had a fair amount of experience playing as a Retribution Paladin, their DPS spec.

Having played this character since my first days in WoW 20 years ago, and having spent about 19 of those years with this character firmly as my "main," you might ask me: how's the healing spec?

And my answer would be... No clue. I've never healed a dungeon on him.

See, in WoW, group roles are much more clearly delineated than they are in D&D. While healers do have damaging abilities (in part to help them when soloing,) their real, primary focus, is on casting healing spells to keep the party up. You're expected to keep every character at max HP, or as close as you can, and only if things are going very smoothly do you ever turn your attention to the bad guys.

This means that the game of a healer is very different than that of a tank or DPS character. DPS characters just try to most efficiently kill the enemies, while tanks will work to ensure that all the enemies are focused on them through a mechanic called Threat - but the way that tanks generate threat is by... damaging enemies. So ultimately, if you're used to playing a melee DPS character, tanking isn't really all that different, except that because the enemies are paying attention to you, you need to be the one pulling them into proper positions, as well as more closely monitoring your own HP and using damage-mitigation abilities to help your healer keep you alive.

Healers, though, are playing this weird triage/whack-a-mole game that I have never, in 20 years, gotten the hang of (largely I'm sure due to the fact that I don't really enjoy it and thus don't get practice).

I put all this forth to say that healing is very different in WoW as compared to D&D. D&D healing spells, even after the buffs in 5.5, are more about slowing down the gradual draining of HP over the course of a day, and often it's more efficient for a healer, be they a Cleric, Druid, or in this case, Paladin, to kill monsters rather than top up their allies. After all, if you do a Cure Wounds for 15 HP, and then the monster does 20 damage to your target, would it not have been better to hit that monster and potentially killed it before it could hurt your friend?

Now, the Paladin has always had a bit of healing available to them in D&D. In 5E, they both have a fair number of healing spells like the Cleric that they can prepare, but also their Lay on Hands pool, a predictable and very flexible healing feature that can be perfectly titrated to the amount of healing that is optimal for the situation (such as slapping a friend with just 1 HP to get them up if they're still making death saves during a fight).

Now, here's another nuance:

In WoW, your spec can change a lot of the fundamental ways your class works. Since 2012's Mists of Pandaria, which revamped how specs and talents worked (there another major revamp in 2022's Dragonflight, but these changes remain,) a Holy Paladin has, for example, more Mana to spend on healing spells.

In D&D, though, subclasses (even the big Death Knight and Demon Hunter ones) really can't mess with some of the class fundamentals (for one thing, it'd be a nightmare for multiclassing,) which means that Paladins are always going to be a half-caster. This means that they won't have any kind of resurrection magic until level 9, and won't get something like Greater Restoration until tier 4. And with slower spell progression, even their basica healing spells like Cure Wounds can't be upcast as much. Like the Alchemist Artificer, this kind of hamstrings them in comparison to something like a Cleric to be a really dedicated healer.

So, can this subclass make up for it? With all that preamble out of the way, let's take a look:

Oath Spells:

1st: Cure Wounds, Healing Word

2nd: Lesser Restoration, Prayer of Healing

3rd: Dispel Magic, Mass Healing Word

4th: Aura of Life, Death Ward

5th: Greater Restoration, Mass Cure Wounds

    This is a healer's toolkit for sure. It's not terribly exciting given that these are all spells a Paladin could prepare anyway - while that "frees up" a bunch of other Paladin spells... you could have prepared those instead anyway. This will, obviously, make sure that you're always packing a ton of heals. Is it maybe redundant? Yes. Will these spells come in handy? Sure.

Level 3:

Beacon of Light:

As a magic action, you can expend a Channel Divinity to wrap an ally within 60 feet in holy energy. For 1 minute, any time you heal a creature other than the affected ally with a spell or your Lay On Hands, the chosen ally also regains half as many HP.

    Note here that you can't actually target yourself with this, as it's an "ally," and I think the game defines that as someone other than yourself (while "a willing creature" would include yourself). This lets you do a kind of half twin-spell for a minute on healing spells. I think the ideal use case here is actually out of combat. You pop this and then start running Aura of Vitality (another spell that's actually really great outside of combat) and then put this on the person who needs the most healing, then go around healing all less-injured allies. To maximize this in combat, you'd need to be healing kind of every turn and then also hope that the target actually needs that healing each turn.

    As an out-of-combat heal-booster, this is actually pretty sweet, though.

Level 7:

Lightbringer's Aura

Whenever you cast a spell or use Lay on Hands to restore hit points to a Bloodied creature within your Aura of Protection, the creature regains an extra 1d6 HP.

    Now, the good thing here is that you're more likely to be healing allies if they are bloodied. Once again, though, this becomes insane when you're out of combat. There is nothing stopping you, if you aren't worrying about 6-second-to-6-second intervals, from just hitting an ally for 1 point of Lay on Hands at a time, which means that this turns, again, out of combat Lay On Hands, from a pool equal to 5 times your level into a pool equal to basically 4.5 times your level, which makes it far more efficient at healing. Just... only out of combat. If you're pumping in 15 points of LOH, this winds up boosting it to 18.5 average, so rather than a 350% increase, it's only a 23% increase.

Level 15:

Infusion of Light:

Whenever you cast a spell that deals Radiant damage, you refresh your Lay on Hands pool by a number of HP equal to the total rolled for the spell's Radiant damage, up to a maximum of 5 times your Paladin level.

    Given that your max LOH pool already is 5 times your Paladin level, this feels redundant unless this could push you over your max, which I don't think it would.

    But this is actually a really cool idea: If you use Divine Smite on a crit (and Divine Smite, remember, is now a spell, and of course it always did Radiant damage,) you could get a whole lot of LOH back. Now, there is a sight bonus action traffic jam here, but if you healed a friend for your full 45 LOH pool on turn 1, and then you do a 3rd level divine smite, that's going to look like 18 (or 22.5 against a fiend or undead target) LOH back to you.

    Genuinely, this is a very cool idea, and the ability to recuperate your LOH does help a bit with the fact that you're still a half-caster.

Level 20:

Holy Deliverance:

As a bonus action, you can imbue your Aura of Protection with holy power for 10 minutes (or until you end this for some reason). You can do this once per long rest, or restore a use by expending a 5th level spell slot. You gain the following benefits:

Healing Power: Whenever an ally starts its turn Bloodied in the aura, that creature regains HP equal to your Charisma modifier plus your proficiency bonus.

Sunlight: The aura is filled with Bright Light that is sunlight.

    By level 20, you would really prefer not to let anyone go unconscious, but this will prevent friends from having to roll death saves. More to the point, it's going to give them a moderate heal. How big of a heal? Well, at best we're looking at 11, or possibly 12 if we go for a second epic boon that boosts Charisma. That's not very much healing, to be honest. Also, sadly, Healing Power doesn't work with Lightbringer's Aura because this isn't a spell.

    So while it's not as bad as the Death Knight level 20 ult in that it actually does something on its own, I can't say it's the most exciting thing.

Overall Thoughts:

    There's a cool idea here: building a subclass that can make a Paladin act as a true full healer. The problem, again, as I said in the preambles, is that "true full healers" aren't really a thing in D&D. Even a Life Cleric is probably going to be doing some offensive stuff unless they're fully RPing as a pacifist.

    The best idea in this subclass is Infusion of Light, which rewards the Paladin for doing what the class is best at (smiting the hell out of monsters) by letting it do what it is decently good at (healing) more. But that doesn't come until level 15.

    Truly, I do think that this is a good healer, if you're talking about healing as specifically "restoring hit points," but it thrives after the battle, not during it. And other things a healer wants to do, like removing conditions or protecting allies from taking damage in the first place, are not really something this subclass gives you, at least not at a time that makes up for the slow spell progression.

    Funnily enough, while this was before even my time (I only played at the tail end of Vanilla WoW,) there was apparently a time in the early days, when the very first raid, Molten Core, was current, when people would bring Paladins into their raid purely to buff everyone outside of combat, and then have them leave and hop onto other characters who were better-optimized. So, here, that "these guys are useful when we're not fighting anything" identity is actually preserved.

    (Blizzard got a lot better at balancing the game over the years, and all three Paladin specs have had their moments as the top-tier performers in their respective roles.)

    I will say, though: given that D&D Clerics get to wear serious armor and wield big old weapons, I really feel like if you truly want to play a heavily-armored healer-warrior... just go with a Life Cleric?

    So far, to be honest, the only WoW subclass that has blown me away is the Mystic Brews Monk, and while some are doing really interesting things, I again feel that the desire to replicate WoW gameplay in D&D holds a lot of the design back. Mystic Brews shares nearly nothing in common with the Brewmaster Monk from WoW on a mechanical level, but it captures the flavor (so to speak) of the spec excellently.

    Much as I feel that 5.5 would have benefitted a bit with a less slavish devotion to rules established in 2014, I think this book might have benefitted a bit by striking out on its own with new mechanical ideas inspired by WoW's lore and vibes more than its game mechanics. And, look, that is a bit of this to an extent.

    Also, to bring some perspective here: this is a truly unique Paladin subclass that is doing something very different than other Paladins do, and I applaud that. But it's also evidence that I would love a design for half-casters that allows subclasses to turn them into full-casters, which I think would be a bold new avenue for subclass design that would also really help with a lot of subclasses that seem to gesture toward that without actually accomplishing it.

    We're nearly done with our WoW subclass round-up, and by Tuesday I should actually have access to the book myself. For now, thanks again to Insight Check for posting all of this. I believe the only ones we have left are the reprints/revisions, the Swashbuckler and Spiritual Guardian (formerly Ancestral Guardian).

Shadow Domain Cleric

 Buckle up and manage your expectations.

In WoW, there are several "hybird" classes, which are classes that can perform roles other than Damage. (In fact, only four classes our of its 13, the Rogue, Hunter, Mage, and Warlock, are DPS-only classes). Priests are not the only ones with just a single DPS spec - the same is true for Paladins and Monks, and when the Demon Hunter and Evoker came out, each only had two specs, so they also only had a single DPS option, though each has since been given a second dps spec. But what makes Priests unusual is that they still only perform two roles - healing and DPS - but they have two healing specs, Discipline and Holy.

Furthermore, until the Demon Hunter's Void-themed Devourer spec was added earlier this year, most classes had a pretty consistent aesthetic and theme - a Paladin was a wielder of the Holy Light regardless of whether they were a tank, damage-dealer, or healer. Similarly, a Shaman was calling up on elemental magic. But Shadow Priests take a class that looks quite classically heroic and good-aligned and went very dark, embracing dark magic, driving foes to insanity, and consuming them with necromantic plagues.

Over time, admittedly, Discipline has started to take on this "balance of light and shadow" theming, but Shadow Priests have only changed as the game has sort of narrowed in on what Shadow magic really is - initially kind of a catch-all for dark magic, but now more specifically related to the Cosmic, Lovecraftian Void, playing up the madness angle (interestingly, one of their key spells, Devouring Plague, was recently reflavored as Shadow Word Madness) and also having a lot of weird aberrant creatures emerge through their spells.

Thus, if we weren't getting any new subclasses in this book, you might actually consider playing something more like an Aberrant Sorcerer or Great Old One Warlock. Given how I understand this subclass will wind up looking... you might still want to consider that.

But let's try not to let others' opinions shape ours and look at the features on their own terms.

Domain Spells:

Level 1: Dissonant Whispers, Shadow Word: Pain

Level 2: Crown of Madness, Mind Spike

Level 3: Summon Undead, Vampiric Touch

Level 4: Evard's Black Tentacles, Psychic Horror

Level 5: Dominate Person, Void Eruption

    Few things - Shadow Word Pain, Psychic Horror, and Void Eruption are all new. I believe that SWP is basically a DOT - which as I've mentioned before, doesn't work as well in D&D as it does in WoW, and I think the damage is quite underwhelming even for a 1st level spell. Psychic Horror if memory serves is a Fear/Stun spell, possibly with some damage along with it. Void Eruption is a big burst of AoE damage. Note that while I think Summon Aberration would have arguably been more appropriate here, Shadow Priests also do have a thing where they periodically shoot ghostly apparitions at their foes. This is all on-theme, and Summon Undead is really good (good damage and really good debuffs on foes). Dissonant Whispers is also quite good, though not all the spells here are as amazing.

Level 3:

Shadowform:

As a bonus action, you can expend a use of Channel Divinity to take on a shadowy form for 1 minute, or you can dismiss it early. It also ends if you become incapacitated or deal radiant damage with a spell.

    This last part is a bit rough - in WoW, the original version of this (which lasted until cancelled) would prevent you from casting healing spells. But in modern WoW, where they can curate the spells that each spec gets, it no longer does that. This will shut down a lot of great Cleric spells, though if you have your Spirit Guardians doing Necrotic, I think you can manage this.

Shadow Stealth: When in an area of Dim Light or Darkness, you can take the Hide action as a bonus action.

    I don't really see this shadow stealth come up a lot, to be honest. And we can't use this on the turn we activate it.

Void Empowerment: When you cast a spell using a spell slot that deals Psychic or Necrotic damage, you can add 1d6 to one damage roll of the spell.

    Ok, this could be pretty good, but let's also break down how it will work: does this buff Spirit Guardians? Only for one damage roll. Used on an instant-cast AoE spell (like I believe Void Eruption will be) this will be pretty good. I'd have just let this be added to cantrips as well. Toll the Dead getting an extra d6 would be pretty great, but alas.

    Really, I feel like this should do more - a d6 on all Necrotic and Psychic damage would be, I think, appropriate given that this isn't even an always-on subclass feature and still requires a resource. I also think something like Temp HP or a higher AC would be a better defensive feature (granted, Clerics in D&D are much better-armored than Priests in WoW).

Devouring Plague:

When a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see fails a saving throw, you can cause the creature to take 1d10 Necrotic damage. If you do, you regain HP equal to the Necrotic damage dealt. You can do this Wis times per long rest.

    Ok. The damage here is pretty low given that it's limited uses, though we'll see if this gets better. We are of course also getting healed with it, so the damage shouldn't be that high. I do like that there's A: no action required and B: doesn't have to be a fail against your spells and abilities. I'm going to keep an eye on this - if it sticks at this damage/healing to level 20, I think it starts to look kind of useless, though I will say that without any action required, it's not like you'll ever stop using this - it'll just be kind of a marginal benefit.

Level 6:

Dispersion:

When you are hit with an attack roll, you can use a reaction to disperse into shadowy energy. Until the end of your next turn, you have resistance to all damage (including the damage of the triggering attack), but you also cannot take any action, bonus action, or reaction. While dispersed, you gain a fly speed of 40 feet. When the effect ends, you can spend up to half your total Hit Dice, regaining HP as if you had finished a short rest.

You can do this once per short or long rest.

    First off: weird feature to translate into D&D, of all of the Shadow Priest abilities. But also... I kind of hate this. And part of the reason I hate it is because there could be situations where it's useful, but it's a real feel-bad ability. I mean, you are sacrificing your turn, more or less. You don't even get a free disengage with this. You can, sure, fly away from a foe that just hit you, but not as part of the initial reaction, and you also literally cannot disengage to avoid an opportunity attack. Is this actually going to really save you that much pain? In WoW, this feature does prevent you from using other abilities for a couple seconds, but WoW is so much faster-paced than D&D. A full turn without an action is utterly brutal. I hate this.

Level 17:

Vampiric Embrace:

While Shadowform is active, whenever you roll the d6 to add extra damage to a spell, one creature of your choice within 30 feet of you regains that many hit points.

    I try to keep my tone civil and constructive with these.

    Are you fucking kidding me?

    This is a d6 of healing, 3.5 average, at level 17. On a limited-resource buff you place on yourself, which also requires you to expend spell slots.

    As a point of comparison: the Life Domain at this level gets to just treat every healing spell like they rolled the maximum amount. A 1st level Cure Wounds with a +5 to Wisdom will thus go from an average of 14 healing to 21, or 7 extra healing, which is more than you could possibly get with this ever.

    And by level 17, you're probably not casting a lot of 1st level spells in combat.

    Truly, this is just a tiny little F-you for sticking with this subclass to tier 4.

Overall Thoughts:

    This whole subclass feels like a real missed opportunity, which makes me pretty sad.

    I think you could have built it as a Cleric that really focuses on damage-dealing. Giving us ways to heal allies when we deal damage does, sure, match a very minor theme in the WoW version, but that's the primary vibe of the Discipline Priest/Cleric. Instead, this should have been all about pouring out damage and eldritch madness.

    Broadly, my main critique of the WoW book's new subclasses is that by focusing on bringing recognizable spells and abilities from WoW into D&D, they've forgotten that these games just work very differently. But in this case, the actual Shadow Priest abilities they've chosen to recreate here are also not what I'd consider defining traits of the spec.

    Shadowform, certainly, is an iconic Shadow Priest thing, but to be frank, it's mostly because of the visual. You enter Shadowform and you will look like you're perpetually in vaguely purple darkness. You just click it on and forget about it.

    Much like Affliction Warlocks, though, this is a spec that in WoW is very much focused on stacking up multiple damage-dealing effects (though Affliction goes far harder on this,) which is just not something that works very well in D&D. If this subclass were instead focused around something like frightening creatures when you deal psychic damage to them (not entirely unlike an Undead Warlock's Form of Dread,) or something where you could, say, as a bonus action, send out Shadowy Apparitions to any creatures of your choice in a given range and deal either low guaranteed damage or perhaps have them save to take damage scaling with your Cleric level (and maybe limit it to a certain number of uses per day,) this would have, I think, better captured the actual feel of this spec.

    I also think that we need more dark-themed Cleric subclasses, and while we have the Grave Domain, sure (though I think Horrors Within tried to fix what wasn't broken and wound up nerfing it) I think Shadow in general would be a really evocative domain to play with. It's a shame that this is what we wound up with.

    I think the Oath of the Holy Paladin is also available to check out, which I'll visit next, but which I also suspect that I'm going to not love, as I think that it again tries to make something that makes sense in WoW work in D&D when it probably shouldn't (echoes of the Alchemist Artificer and trying to make half-caster healers).

Discipline Domain Cleric

 In WoW, each class (with the Druid as an exception) gets three specializaitons, which are essentially their equivalent of subclass. "Specs," as they're referred to by most players, will also define your group role - whether that's Tank, Healer, or Damage (often referred to as DPS for damage-per-second). Every class has at last one damage spec, while only some classes can tank or heal. Usually, if a class can tank or heal, they only get one spec to do either of those roles, so, for example, every healing Monk is a Mistweaver.

Priests are the sole exception: they have two healing specs. The Holy spec is built around direct, conventional healing - just good healing spells that restore HP to their targets like you would expect, and a reasonable-enough analogue to the Life Domain.

Discipline is a bit different.

First, a caveat: I've been playing WoW for 20 years, in every expansion. I've probably healed in a number of dungeon runs I could count on both hands with fingers to spare. Healing in WoW is something I just don't have the sense for, and given that I'm very comfortable tanking (another in-demand role,) I haven't ever felt the pressure to play a healer. So, basically, healing is a part of the game that I have comparatively negligible experience with. But I do at least have a broad sense of the way that the various healing specs work thanks to being on the receiving end of them.

Over the years, Discipline has had sort of multiple mechanical identities as well as flavor identities, but the broad gist is this:

First off, WoW classes and often specs will tend to be much more narrowly focused on certain damage types, and while Holy's handful of damage spells (to let you solo in the game or contribute damage if the party isn't taking much damage) all do Holy (equivalent to Radiant) damage, and Shadow's damage spells do I think exclusively Shadow damage (which sort of amalgamates what in D&D would be Psychic and Necrotic damage,) Discipline mixes the two.

    (As an aside: in WoW's early days, there were strictly 7 damage types - physical, fire, frost, arcane, nature, shadow, and holy. You could get gear that would increase your resistance to one of these types, which was necessary to make for certain raid bosses, though there was never any "holy resistance" and physical resistance was just armor. Around the second or third expansion, they got rid of resistance on gear. Similarly, they stopped having monsters resistant to any type of damage players could do. Even when fighting through the Firelands raid, a Fire Mage or Destruction Warlock, both of whom do a lot of Fire damage, will still work just fine despite fighting a bunch of fire elementals. Instead, damage type has become a kind of keyword for certain class talents to key into, like having a feature that temporarily boosts all Shadow damage done. At some point, they started introducing hybrid damage types, like Shadowfrost, combining Shadow and Frost, or Radiant, combining Holy and Fire, which would benefit from buffs to either but if something temporarily shut down that type of damage, like a spell interrupt, you'd be locked out of both types. I'm actually not sure if some of the newer damage types, like Cosmic, are hybrids or just brand-new ones (I could imagine Cosmic being, like, Shadow and Arcane maybe?) Anyway, damage type is a big part of the defining aesthetic of classes and specs.)

Next, from the earliest days, Discipline has had a theme of creating damage shields - the equivalent of Temporary Hit Points - as a major part of their strategy, preventing damage proactively rather than waiting for friends to take a big chunk of damage. But at some point, I want to say around when Legion launched in 2016, they got a pretty extensive revamp to incorporate a new central theme: Atonement, which allows you to heal your allies by damaging enemies. Discipline thus became the "damage to heal" spec (a similar theme used to be a major option for the Mistweaver Monk, though I believe that has been deemphasized, even if the Monk was doing this first).

The theming is very faint in WoW, but Discipline is vaguely flavored as kind of an Inquisitor-like figure, though this is barely hinted at in-game, and mostly revolves around its willingness to us both the Light and the Void.

So: how do we translate this into D&D?

Domain Spells:

1st: Guiding Bolt, Shield of Faith

2nd: Arcane Vigor, Magic Weapon

3rd: Prayer of Mending, Protection from Energy

4th: Guardian of Faith, Stoneskin

5th: Circle of Power, Destructive Wave

    First off, Prayer of Mending is a new spell that basically heals an ally and then can jump to additional allies. I do wonder why we'd want Arcane Vigor as a Cleric, as it's kind of a crappy heal that's just there for classes that don't get any healing otherwise. But yeah, some decent stuff here, though the best stuff is already on the Cleric list.

Level 3:

Holy Bolt:

As a bonus action, you can use a Channel Divinity to make a ranged spell attack against a creature within 60 feet. On a hit, they take Radiant damage equal to 2d10+Wis, and you can choose a creature within 60 feet of yourself to regain 1d10+Wis HP.

    This isn't great for the following reason: the healing only happens if you hit the target. So you can spend your Channel Divinity on something that might totally whiff. I'll also say that this could probably use some better built-in scaling, maybe having some fraction of your Cleric level added to at least the healing. It is a bonus action, which is nice (and something Clerics I don't think are always using) but it feels like, especially at higher levels, this will just not be worth using. (The healing is just slightly higher than a 1st level Healing Word.)

Atonement:

When you cast a level 1+ spell that restores HP to one or more creatures, each of those creatures gains a blessing that lasts until the end of your next turn. Whenever you cast a spell that deals damage using a spell slot, each blessed creature regains HP equal to the level of the spell you cast to deal damage.

    This is a pretty direct translation of the WoW ability, more or less, though in that the healing is based on the damage you deal, as spell slots aren't a thing in WoW. That, though, is the rough part of this: at the very most, this could give 9 HP back.

    And I think this is going to be an issue in general with how healing works in WoW versus how it works in D&D. In WoW, if you're in content that is of an appropriate challenge based on your level and gear, healers are going to be constantly casting healing spells on the party, constantly topping them up, and so a kind of constant "ambient" healing is really great. But in D&D, no Cleric is casting a healing spell on every turn in combat unless things are going really bad. That being said, things going really bad might be where this shines. If the party is fighting a dragon, for example, and takes a big breath weapon attack, you might cast Mass Cure Wounds, putting Atonement on the whole party. Then, the dragon recharges its breath on the next turn, and three of your party members all go down. Well, just shoot off a Guiding Bolt at the dragon and all those unconscious allies will pop back up with 1 HP.

Level 6:

Luminous Barrier:

As a bonus action, you can expend a Channel Divinity to place a magical ward on each creature blessed by your Atonement. The creatures gain Temp HP equal to your Cleric level plus your Wisdom modifier. While a creature has these Temp HP, they have resistance to all damage.

    This is the reason to take this subclass.

    So, we do need to have some big AoE heal, and sadly we cannot do Mass Healing Word on the same turn as this. I do believe that Holy Nova (a WoW spell) is being added to the book as well, which is basically a "heal my friends and harm my foes" emanation spell, which could work for this. But at this level, you're going to be giving your allies probably 10 Temp HP that, thanks to the resistances, is more like 20. It's not quite Twilight Domain territory, of course, and is more resource-intensive. But this is the feature that I think is going to make players really strongly consider this subclass. Just to check out the math, this eventually becomes 25 THP that kind of counts as 50 thanks to resistances.

Level 17:

Ultimate Penitence:

Holy Bolt gets more powerful in the following ways:

Ascending Step: When you use Holy Bolt, you can teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 30 feet before you make an attack roll.

Ascending Volley: When you use Holy Bolt, you can expend a spell slot as part of the bonus action to hurl a number of additional bolts equal to the spell slot level expended. You can direct the bolts to hit one creature or several, making separate attacks for each bolt.

    Why the hell would I want to use Holy Bolt anymore? I mean, ok, let's take this on its merits. This basically lets you get some scaling at the cost of a spell slot. If I burn, say, a 5th level slot, that's 5 bolts that each hit for 2d10+5 (presumably,) so like 16, and thus about 80 damage as a bonus action. Ok, that's actually not terrible, though we're expending both a pretty hefty spell slot and a Channel Divinity for it. And each bolt that hits is going to be doing about 10.5 healing.

    I think the problem here is the resource cost. This only looks really good if we're expending a high-level spell slot that we could probably use more effectively with an actual spell. Holy Bolt doesn't have any inherent scaling, and given the massive power of Luminous Barrier, I really don't want to be wasting my Channel Divinity on it.

Overall Thoughts:

    Boy, this would be a pretty bad subclass if Luminous Barrier weren't propping it up. But while Luminous Barrier is genuinely a very good feature (though only if we don't hold it to the same standard of the overpowered Tasha's domains) I think there are enough other good Clerics that I don't think I'd recommend this one.

    Again, I think one of the central problems (and this is a bit of a theme in this book) is that WoW and D&D, while thematically similar, are ultimately very different games, and strategies that are amazing in WoW (like constant streams of small heals on everyone in the party) are not nearly as effective in D&D. In a similar manner, damage-over-time effects are a huge part of how WoW plays, because you can be fighting even a minor monster out in the world for around 30 real-world seconds, meaning that DOT could tick like 15-30 times, whereas in D&D, combat rarely lasts more than 4 rounds, so ticking damage is only going to have a few opportunities to do anything. In the interest of re-creating the feeling of WoW gameplay, I think some of the design here suffers from being poorly optimized to work in D&D.

Newcomer's Guide to Orcs in Azeroth

 Orcs are, arguably, the most iconic people of the Warcraft franchise. While orcs have actually been part of folklore and myth dating back to Ancient Greece (Orcus was another name for Hades/Pluto, and orcs were like spirits of the underworld,) they became a staple of fantasy thanks to JRR Tolkien (among so many other genre staples). Tolkien's Orcs were universally evil - kind of the ultimate "army of bad guys," and it's something that Tolkien actually struggled with: he wanted there to be an evil army for the heroes to fight, and that they be monstrous, but Tolkien also felt, within his moral worldview, that there is no such thing as a sentient person who is born evil and can never be redeemed.

Tolkien never really came up with a definitive solution, though adaptations of his work have embraced an idea that he worked on in his drafts, which was that orcs were elves who had chosen an evil path, and went from preternaturally beautiful to distorted and hideous as a reflection of this evil. This connection between elves and orcs is reflected in other franchises, such as the Elder Scrolls, where Orcs are actually just one of the several Elf subspecies, or even in D&D, where there's an ancient rivalry between the elf god Corellon and the orc god Gruumsh.

Still, until even as recently as D&D 5.0, Orcs were assumed to be evil (and even half-orcs in the 2014 PHB were presented as, at best, resisting their evil nature).

However, there's a whole distinction drawn in fantasy between "Tolkien Orcs" and "Warcraft Orcs," because the Warcraft franchise was the first, or at least the first widespread and popular, property to approach orcs with nuance and treat them like their own people with a complicated history of both heroics and villainy.

It didn't start that way: In the first two real-time-strategy games before World of Warcraft, the Orcs were the bad guys. They had their charm, and I think WCII started to at least introduce the idea of them as a more nuanced group with internal politics. But their mission was still kind of genocidal conquest.

However, 2002's Warcraft III totally rewrote the story of the Orcs, and I think popularized the idea, now embraced in D&D 5.5, that Orcs should be counted among the many options for heroic fantasy peoples, no more likely to be bad guys than elves, dwarves, or humans.

So, what is the story of the orcs of Azeroth? Well... it doesn't start on Azeroth.

In the Warcraft cosmos, some planets have a Worldsoul. This is a sentient presence at the core of the world that is kind of an embryonic god. Azeroth, the primary world of the franchise, has the most innately powerful Worldsoul known in the cosmos, which is why so many cosmic forces are trying to possess it.

But while other worlds we've been to in WoW had Worldsouls, like K'aresh and Argus, the world that would be the Orcs' homeworld, and would be dubbed Draenor only a thousand years ago by the Draenei, did not.

In WoW, there are four classical elements, but there are two kind of additional elements that both bind the other four together, but in diametrically opposed ways. Spirit is the element of harmony and balance, leading to a flourishing of life. Decay, its opposite number, is one of domination and dissonance, polluting and destroying.

Worldsouls, like a fetus drawing nutrients from their mother, require a ton of Spirit energy to grow and sustain themselves. On Azeroth, the resulting deficit of Spirit caused the elements to constantly rage against one another. But on Draenor, there was no Worldsoul, and so the elements were in profound harmony and balance.

It was actually a little too much.

The resultant surplus of spirit caused plant life, concentrated in massive living structures called Sporemounds, that grew and grew without stopping, and threatened to ironically choke out life on the planet. Excessive life might have led to the snuffing out of life on the planet.

It just so happened that Aggramar, one of the Titans of the Pantheon, saw this world and took an interest in preventing this dark fate. To cull the Sporemounds and restore balance, he created a massive giant of stone called Grond, to cull the excessive growth.

This wasn't like the Titanforged of Azeroth and the extensive Manifold, comprised of countless sophisticated facilities across the planet. This was just one massive stone giant the size of a mountain.

Grond succeeded in breaking apart the three massive sporemounds, but the plant (and fungal) life that came from them also affected him, eventually breaking him apart as well. The fragments of Grond would become still-massive but smaller giants, and eventually, the spirit essence of one of the sporemounds transformed the smaller fragmentary giants into beings of flesh and blood.

Over time, these more biological giants would evolve into smaller but more intelligent forms, leading to the ogres, and then a smaller off-shoot that would come to be the dominant humanoid life form on the planet: the orcs.

While the ogres were probably the first truly sapient descendants of Grond, and built a great empire in their time (led by a magocratic elite), when the orcs arose, they had greater numbers and more diversity of culture and practices, allowing them to eventually topple the ogres' Gorian Empire.

    (As a side note, the words "Orc" and "Ogre" are etymologically linked, so it's fitting that Warcraft Orcs are the descendants of ogres.)

For untold generations, the orcs lived in disparate tribes across the planet, the harsh and deadly planet instilling in them a culture of hearty resilience. The various tribes differed significantly in their cultural practices, but ancient traditions provided for the temporary creation of a Horde, which would see the tribes unite to face a common threat.

About a thousand years before the events of the Warcraft games, a strange, massive crystalline meteor landed in the lands of Nagrand (the site where Grond fell). This crystal, called Oshu'gun by the Orcs, was actually a space-faring vessel carrying with it the Draenei - Eredar refugees from Argus who had fled into exile rather than joining the demonic Burning Legion.

The Draenei settled on this new world, and with their advanced technology and magic, were able to build great cities and temples. For this millennium, the Orcs and Draenei treated one another with respect, mostly keeping their distance, but sometimes trading with one another and exchanging knowledge (it's probably for this reason that the Orcs call their homeworld Draenor, which means "Exile's Refuge" in the Draenei language).

However, Kil'jaeden, one of the two most powerful demons in the Burning Legion, eventually tracked the Draenei there.

The Draenei had seldom been able to stop on a world for very long (though when you live tens of millennia, a short period of time might be quite long from a human perspective,) but Draenor seemed safe to them, especially with the wisdom of the orcs to help them navigate the wild world. And so, they were lulled into a false sense of security.

The leader of the Draenei, Velen, had been one member of the ruling triumvirate of the Eredar people on their homeworld of Argus. He had actually been part of it when it was just a duumvirate, and it was Kil'jaeden who was his longtime partner in this role. The two had seen one another as brothers, and so when Velen left, Kil'jaden took it personally, vowing to exterminate the Draenei.

The orcs appeared to be his best bet.

Kil'jaeden began to work on the Orcs. His two biggest coups were Gul'dan and Ner'zhul.

Gul'dan was a pariah and outcast from his village, a spiteful and evil, but physically weak orc. Kil'jaeden had no reason to deceive a person that greedy for power, and so taught him the secrets of fel magic and coordinated with Gul'dan to form a secret base of power, a Shadow Council of other Warlocks. (Gul'dan is probably the worst person in all of Warcraft lore - there's not a single bit of "well, from my perspective I'm actually fighting for the greater good," instead just pure malevolence and contempt.)

Ner'zhul was the most respected and wise chief among the clans, ruling over the mystical Shadowmoon Clan. Ner'zhul was old, and his beloved wife Rulkan had died years earlier. Kil'jaeden appeared to Ner'zhul disguised as Rulkan's ghost, and warned Ner'zhul that the Draenei were plotting to turn on the orcs, to steal their lands and slaughter their people.

Ner'zhul, having such great respect among all the tribes, was able to convince the other chieftains that this threat was real, and they invoked the ancient tradition of the Horde.

The Draenei were blindsided, having existed in harmony (or at least peaceful respect) with the Orcs for a thousand years. Outnumbered several times over, the Draenei nevertheless put up a good fight, using both their technology and holy magic to defend themselves.

With the orcs desperate to defeat what they believed to be treacherous invaders, and frustration with the lack of decisive victories, Gul'dan made his move: Taking blood offered by the Pit Lord Mannoroth, he dared the orcs to drink the demon blood and gain its fel power. The chief of the Warsong Clan, Grom Hellscream, was the first to take him up on the offer.

The demon blood acted like a super-soldier serum, driving those who had imbibed it to utter bloodlust, dispelling any fear or trepidation, and any mercy. Fueled by this foul magic, the orcs overwhelmed the Draenei, and as the Horde fell into this bloodthirsty frenzy, toleration for abhorrent magics grew as well.

The Horde was led by a Warchief, and Gul'dan installed his puppet, Blackhand, the chief of the Blackrock Clan, in that role.

Most of the Draenei were slain in the genocidal campaign against them, with the few who survived going into hiding.

But the fel magic that the warlocks had used was both changing the orcs and changing Draenor. The environment began to die - fel magic was poisoning the land, and would lead to famine. At the same time, Kil'jaeden's master, Sargeras, had long desired to take the world of Azeroth.

With a bloodthirsty army desperate for new lands to conquer, Sargeras, through the possessed mage Medivh, and Gul'dan opened the two ends of The Dark Portal, linking Draenor and Azeroth.

Emerging into the remote Swamp of Sorrows on Azeroth, the Horde marched forward and invaded the human kingdom of Stormwind. Taken even more by surprise than the Draenei had been, Stormwind mounted an admirable defense, but ultimately fell.

However, for reasons that are a little complex to get into here, Gul'dan ended this "First War," as it would be called, catatonic. Without him to maintain control of the Shadow Council and thus the Horde, there was a new opportunity for Blackhand's second-in-command, Orgrim Doomhammer.

Doomhammer saw that the Warchief was a stupid, weak-willed puppet of the Warlocks, and so he took this opportunity to assassinate him, claiming the Warchief's mantle for himself. By the time Gul'dan reawakened, Doomhammer had all the power, and would not be a puppet.

While Doomhammer did not allow the Shadow Council to dictate the goals of the Horde anymore, he did still continue the campaign of conquest, moving north to claim the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms.

However, in part because Gul'dan ran off the moment Doomhammer didn't have him fully locked down (getting himself killed, I should add,) the tide turned against the Horde during this Second War, as the humans organized into The Alliance to combat it.

Ner'zhul, panicking that the demons of the Burning Legion would come and slaughter them, gathered a bunch of powerful artifacts on Azeroth and then fled back to Draenor, and there created numerous Dark Portal-like gateways to other worlds. But doing so was disastrous: the planet was shattered by the magical stress of all of these portals, partially drawn into the Twisting Nether. While fragments of the world remained, now called Outland, and were bizarrely still somewhat habitable, overall the planet was thrown into chaos, and mages of the Alliance would come and close the portal to prevent the magical chaos from engulfing Azeroth as well.

With their home cut off from them, and Doomhammer defeated in single combat by the young paladin Turalyon (though he was not killed,) the orcs on Azeroth (most of the species at that point,) were taken prisoner and kept in internment camps.

What had been intended as a temporary measure continued on for decades. At the same time, those orc warriors who had drunk the Blood of Mannoroth now found themselves undergoing withdrawal-like symptoms. Likewise, as the bloodlust faded, they had to reckon with the terrible things they had seen and done, which their Alliance captors thought was some kind of magical illness they called "Lethargy."

This indefinite internment of soldier and civilian alike led to abuses and cruelty against the captured orcs. Eventually, feeling an obligation to his people, Orgrim Doomhammer organized a rebellion, breaking free of his camp and seeking to liberate orcs from the other camps.

Among the people he liberated was a young orc called Thrall. Thrall was born on Azeroth during the First War, and was now coming of age. He was a talented Shaman, having studied under the wise old sage Drek'thar, and Orgrim saw within him a potential future for the Orcs - here was someone not tainted by the genocides and atrocities under Blackhand, who could look forward with optimism and idealism.

Doomhammer took Thrall under his wing and began grooming him as a successor. In the Arathi Highlands, though, one of the camp liberations went poorly, and Doomhammer was slain by one of the camp guards, a spear through his back. With his dying words, he named Thrall as the new Warchief.

The young Warchief continued the campaign of liberation for his people. However, not long after this time, the Undead Scourge began to break out in the kingdom of Lordaeron. Thrall was visited by a vision of the long-dead Guardian, Medivh, who announced that he would need to lead his people across the sea to fight an apocalyptic threat.

Thrall heeded the prophecy, leading the Horde to Kalimdor. There, he led his people in the fight against the Scourge and the Burning Legion, even teaming up with the human Jaina Proudmoore, who had received a similar prophecy from Medivh, as well as the local Night Elves.

Thrall also secured the membership of the Darkspear Trolls and the Tauren in this campaign. He and Grom Hellscream confronted Mannoroth, slaying the demon whose blood had poisoned their people.

Following the war, the Orcs settled on the desert peninsula that Thrall named Durotar, after the father he had never met, Durotan, and built the great city of Ogrimmar, named for Doomhammer.

Now, that just gets us to the beginning of World of Warcraft, and there have been a lot of developments since then, but you get the general gist.

There is only one variant on the Orcs, so we'll talk about them here:

Mag'har Orcs:

The demonic influence on the early Horde left a lasting impact: Fel magic, the magic of demons, is generally green (sometimes if concentrated enough, it becomes a deep red, but mostly it's expressed in green). The orcs, even those who did not drink the Blood of Mannoroth, slowly changed color over the years, which is why they're green.

However, this is not how they look naturally, instead having more earthen tones of brown.

When the Dark Portal was first re-opened, the Horde (now a multi-species coalition) sent an expedition back to the Orc homeworld, and there they found some orcs who had refused to join the Horde back in those early days. Some objected to the malign influence they sensed within the Horde, while others were simply left behind by the militaristic, fascistic leaders of the Old Horde who saw any physical weakness as something to be excised from their culture.

But these Mag'har, meaning uncorrupted in Orcish, were somewhat amenable to this reformed, evolved Horde.

However... Ok, we have to talk about Warlords of Draenor.

Warlords of Draenor was the worst expansion WoW has had. I know some people say Shadowlands is the worst, but I think they must have blocked this one out of their memory if they actually believe that.

The biggest reason for this is actually just a gameplay thing: the expansion was underbaked, and you spent most of it hanging around and waiting for NPC champions to complete missions for you.

But another big flaw was that it was a convoluted nightmare of a premise:

So, in the prior expansion, Garrosh Hellscream, son of Grom, who had been (foolishly) put into power as Warchief when Thrall was needed to focus on his Shaman powers, had gone full-on racist, fascist tyrant, forcing the Horde to rise up in rebellion against him. Garrosh was defeated and de-throned, but he broke out of prison with the help of a rogue bronze dragon. The dragon took him back in time, but also to an alternate timeline, in a version of Draenor prior to the Horde's demonic corruption.

Seeking revenge on both the Alliance and Horde for his downfall, and believing that "pure-blooded" orcs would be unstoppable, Garrosh met with this timeline's version of his father (in a timeline when he had never been born, so Grom had no clue who Garrosh was) and offered, instead of demon blood, a whole bunch of modern, industrial technology instead.

Garrosh maneuvered his father to become the Warchief of this "Iron Horde," and invaded Azeroth with it. Naturally, the Alliance and "vanilla" Horde responded by traveling through the Dark Portal, which had been attuned to this alternate Draenor, and struck back against them.

As it turned out, having modern technology is not as much of a trump card when you're fighting two superpowers that also have that technology, so the Iron Horde was swiftly put on its heels, and the alternate-universe Gul'dan unseated Grom, getting them back into that whole Demon Blood thing.

However, this period was probably very short, and only a fragment of the Iron Horde remained to undergo this demonic corruption. Grom fought alongside his former foes from Azeroth against the demons and corrupted orcs, and this timeline was ultimately left with a Horde that could sort of step back from all of this evil warmongering and a Draenei population that had not been devastated by genocide at the Iron Horde's hands.

Strangely, the timeline of this version of Draenor kind of "caught up" with Azeroth's a few years later (from Azeroth's perspective,) and something about the world - whether the timeline had been unstable, or the demonic corruption was still poisoning it, or if the zealous Draenei had drawn too powerfully upon the Light - was killing it. The surviving Mag'har, a generation or two after the time of the Iron Horde, were invited to come to Azeroth and join their alt-timeline brethren.

Now: if you read this blog, you know me: I'm all about bizarre timeline shenanigans. But this? This is too convoluted even for me.

Notably, since the quests that unlocked the playable Mag'har, we've basically not touched at all on any of this story, and that's fine with me.

I believe the WoW D&D book is going to have a variant Orc species to play as one of the Mag'har (though maybe not? The PHB Orc ought to work fine for either,) but unless you want to try to fix the narrative here with your own deuterocanonical ideas, I'd say just have the Mag'har in your campaign be from prime-universe Outland rather than alt-universe Draenor.