The Vision for Allied Races

Reading through the latest D&D book, I found that there are three new sub-races for Elves (adding to a previously existing three,) a new one for Dwarves, and two variants on a race that had been only NPCs, the Gith.

D&D works very differently from WoW, and given the discretion that each group or dungeon master has over the material they produce, it's really never much of a burden to add stuff to the game.

Allied Races have seen a massive explosion of playable race options. They're designed to be easy to add, which is why we'll be seeing some coming within patches beyond the "end of the expansion" or "beginning of the expansion" patches.

There are a total of eight officially announced Allied Races to be in-game at some point in Battle for Azeroth. We have four of these already implemented.

Classes require constant tuning and balancing, and there's also a player expectation that the classes will get re-worked each expansion to some degree or another. If you look at the spells my Warlock casts now compared to what they did in Burning Crusade, I think the only rotational spell that I still have from that era is Shadowbolt (and that's now Demonology-only!)

Races are much easier to fire-and-forget in terms of design. Sure, you sometimes have racial abilities that need updates (anyone remember Perception? That was an odd thing for Humans to have,) and we did have the big model update in Warlords of Draenor (Goblins and Worgen are due for one, and while it's announced, there's no timetable for it.) Still, the only obligation that the developers have for these guys is to occasionally throw an Allied Race NPC in there. Frankly, I think it just gives quest designers and writers new options, but without a huge obligation.

So is there any downside to adding more allied races?

The only one I can think of is for those of us who are completionists. I've leveled up by Lightforged Draenei and Void Elf characters all the way to 110, and thus have the heritage armor for these races unlocked (which thankfully is account-wide and usable at level 20 if I ever decide to make a different character of those races,) but even as the huge altoholic I am (see the name of the blog,) even I'm starting to find the Cataclysm-through...Cataclysm level climb a bit tedious, as I've done it so many times. (My Nightborne Hunter is in Dragonblight, and I think I'm going to wait until 8.0 so that Survival becomes more enjoyable before I continue with her.)

Without new classes, of course, if you're an altoholic, you're probably leveling up classes you already have.

There was a time, of course, when there were actually more playable classes than races (only in Vanilla, and that was when Paladins and Shamans were faction-specific,) but except with the Pandaren, we've tended to get races in pairs roughly every other expansion while we've gotten classes one at a time on those other expansions (Pandaren and Monks came at the same time, of course, but then we didn't get anything new in Warlords except updated models.)

But now that we're getting eight new races, that balance is entirely out of whack, and it really pushes even the hardcore altoholics to have to make some tough choices about which races to play.

I'll say this: there's a good chance that my Kul Tiran Druid could supplant my 12-year-old Night Elf Druid as main druid amongst my characters (I've got Night Elves covered with my Demon Hunter, which is a class I enjoy more.)

Still, if you're sentimental like me, it's going to be pretty hard to take on these new races and play them fully. If I were to wipe all memory of my existing characters, and were to choose new races for each of them, I very well might make my Human Paladin a Lightforged Draenei (though given that I've always conceived of him as being nuanced and enlightened, it might make more sense for him to be a standard Draenei.) I have a Lightforged Draenei whom I enjoy playing, but the idea of just carrying that character forward as my main in BFA and beyond fills me with a kind of nauseous sense of betrayal.

So does that consign all of these allied race characters to being alts?

Certainly I realize that other players probably have very different attitudes toward their RPG characters, but I have to imagine that for a lot of us, there's a strong impulse to stick with the character they created way back in the day.

But to be clear: that's fine. I'm ok with there being plenty of playable character options that I don't really partake in. I'm always happier to see diversity amongst the options in the game. Even in I'm going to stick with my dusty old goofball of a human paladin, I (and he, RP-wise,) would be super-excited to see all these different people showing up and transforming the landscape of the world in different ways.

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

Happily, my copy arrived six days earlier than it had first been suggested (yes, I feel guilty getting it online rather than from a local game shop.) I've done a brief skim of it, naturally searching through the Bestiary for cool stuff.

So, what do you get in the new D&D book, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes?

On the most practical level, there are stat blocks for high-level monsters here. In addition to the Demon Lords reprinted from Out of the Abyss (no new ones, but we got a pretty decent selection in that, so it's not too bad,) we also get a number of Archdevils - though some of the main movers and shakers of the Hells aren't here. Still, we get Moloch (he of the famous statue from I want to say the 1st edition Player's Handbook,) Geryon, Zariel, and a few others. These guys are generally in the 20-ish CR range. There's also a ton of new demons and devils that aren't individual legendary creatures.

We also get some higher-powered Drow and Duergar creatures, with other assortments. Notably there are a lot of constructs, like the terrifying-if-you-get-it-on-your-bad-side Marut, a Lawful Neutral contract-enforcer that, for example, automatically hits a target for 60 damage any time they attack.

There are a lot of super-creepy critters here, with a whole slew of Shadowfell entities (including the pants-shittingly terrifying Nightwalkers, who are technically from the Negative Plane,) along with a group of explicitly Lovecraftian "Star Spawn" creatures that, tragically, only have one illustration amongst them. On the plus side, like for those of demons and devils, there are special cultist abilities for some of the Elder Evils (my interpretation is that Elder Evil falls within the category of Great Old One, but that GOOs could include beings of any alignment, or more frequently, unaligned entities.)

There's not much in the way of good creatures here - which I actually think is a bit of a shame, as I think fleshing out the potential conflicts between, say, Celestia and Arborea, would be a cool idea. Not every creature in the book is a towering monster, but the focus here is clearly on providing challenges for higher-level adventurers.

Much like Volo's Guide to Monsters, there's a great deal of lore in this book, focusing its first chapter on the Blood War - the conflict between the Hells and the Abyss, as well as having chapters on Elves (including the Drow and the Eladrin,) the Dwarves and their conflict with the Duergar, and then some races that don't tend to find much in the way of conflict, namely the Halflings and Gnomes.

For DMs, I think that this book serves as a pretty high-priority acquisition. Like Volo's and Xanathar's before it, this book is going to give you a lot of fuel for multiple campaigns.

Now, I just need to get a bigger bag to hold all my freaking books!

Ravnica's Guilds and the Blending of Colors

So I talked in the last post about the use of Magic colors as a kind of alignment system - one that side-steps questions of good and evil in favor of other ideas that the player can interpret as one or the other. One of the nice benefits of Magic's colors over alignment is that you can blend colors that are even opposites of one another.

There is a loose and not really mechanic-enforced idea within Magic that colors next to each other on the wheel are "allied" colors while those opposite the color are enemies. That gives each color two allies and two enemies. As an example, White and Green agree a lot on the interconnected nature of reality, that things ought to cooperate and synergize with one another - which is a direct contrast with Black's self-centered worldview.

But you can combine just about any two colors and find common ground - even between enemies. Red and Blue, for example, are opposed based on the idea that Red is passionate and impulsive while Blue is cerebral and logical. Yet both value a quick wit and the perfectly timed action - the difference is really more about how they determine that perfect timing.

Two-color combinations are the major theme of Magic's Ravnica setting, which they'll be exploring a third time in the upcoming Guilds of Ravnica set. It is one of the most popular settings - both thanks to high-watermark design quality and a really cool concept that allows for a diversity of styles - and I think one major reason for this is that they really nailed just about every color combination, finding not just a decent combination of the colors' values, but more finding the common ground where those values overlap.

So as long as we're talking about character alignment in RPGs, we can also talk about the attitudes of the various guilds of Ravnica. Spoiler alert: I'm pitching Ravnica as a really cool setting for a D&D campaign. Wizards has put out a number of Plane Shift articles suggesting how you could adapt other settings for such a purpose. They've done so with other very popular settings (which sadly came after I stopped playing MTG,) Innistrad and Zendikar, and I'll be pretty shocked if they don't make an article for Ravnica with the upcoming release. So let's talk guilds! I figure to quasi-randomize it, I'll just go with the guilds as they were introduced in the original block.

Selesnya Conclave: White and Green

The Selesnya are all about collectivism. Their leader is a group of dryads, and they focus a great deal on interconnectivity. Their style is less about self-sacrifice than it is for people all lifting each other up at the same time ("Lift as we climb" is a good ethos for them.) It rejects the idea that everything has to be a zero-sum game, and pushes everyone to come together to achieve great things.

Boros Legion: Red and White

The Boros Legion is all about fighting shoulder to shoulder with your fellows. There's always a fight that needs fighting, but together, the Boros can win that fight. Glory and righteousness guide the Boros ethos.

Golgari Swarm: Black and Green

The Golgari are focused on the cycle of life and death, and unlike the Selesnya, they do see things as a zero-sum game. But it's one in which equality and justice is served by ensuring that the cycle of life continues unimpeded. There's no end to the way that resources can be redistributed, and while it's a shame that some things have to be destroyed, doing so brings about the new.

House Dimir: Blue and Black

House Dimir is all about secrets. Controlling information is the way to control the world, and you can do this by both acquiring knowledge and depriving your foes of it. The Dimir ethos is the enigma, preferring that people aren't even aware of their existence, which allows them every opportunity to operate unimpeded.

Izzet League: Red and Blue

Experimentation is the key to acquiring knowledge, and you can only discover new knowledge by testing your limits, regardless of how dangerous that might be. The Izzet are fearless and brilliant, but this also makes them reckless, passionate and eager and with a certain cerebral dissociation that allows them to ignore the risks in the name of science.

Orzhov Syndicate: White and Black

The Orzhov look after their own. It's a dangerous world out there and you're justified in doing whatever it takes to exploit and cheat your way to prosperity, but once you're in, you're in. And that means you have a responsibility to those within your organization. In exchange, you enjoy its protection.

Gruul Clans: Green and Red

Civilization ruins the natural splendor of the wilds, and as one of the Gruul, you are there to keep it in check. Freedom is the greatest value of the Gruul Clans, and you can't let anyone tell you what to do. And if anyone does, it's time to fight them.

Cult of Rakdos: Black and Red

Nothing matters. Do whatever you can to have fun and enjoy yourself, whether that means hedonistic excess or gleeful destruction. It's all about how much you can enjoy yourself, so go crazy!

Simic Combine: Green and Blue

Things can always be improved, and to deny that improvement is both arrogant and self-defeating. You can either be part of evolution or you can be left behind by it (also known as going extinct.) Perhaps in participation you might guide the future toward what you'd like to see, but you've also got to be open to the idea that the future will shape you as well. Don't be sentimental about the past.

Azorius Senate: Blue and White

Laws are the only way to ensure that order in the universe is maintained. And when all is in order, everything is smooth and beautiful. You see, without rules and restrictions, the Azorius contend, there is only chaos and disorder, and who would want to live in such a world? Besides, how hard is it really to fill out a few hundred-page forms a day? It's a small price to pay for a well-functioning society!

I tried to write these out in such a way that they talk more specifically about the guild philosophies than the specifics of their roles within Ravnica's society so that you might think of them as more universal alignments than to be used specifically in a Ravnica-set RPG. And the good news is that they mostly work pretty well that way!

I think you could use this, along with the five primary colors, to create a sort of character-alignment system. Obviously there's some potential cross-over - a Rakdos Red/Black character would very easily fall into the Chaotic Evil category. But thanks to the fact that "evil" is less explicit in Magic, you could create a lovable Rakdos character who is more Chaotic Neutral (good might be a stretch.) Similarly, while Green and White are both often portrayed as "good guy" colors, the collectivism of the Selesnya could translate into a kind of brainwashed cultishness.

But if we also just kind of move away from the idea of calling any given character good or evil, it frees the narrative up for a great deal of nuance. The Azorius might really just want a safe and orderly world, but the callousness of their bureaucracy winds up making a lot of people miserable. The Izzet could be doing great work and making terrific discoveries, but doing so endangers everyone around them.

I'll be super curious to see the new take on the setting in the third block, and definitely keeping an eye out for the Plane Shift article should it come out.

Magic's Five Colors versus D&D Alignment

I'm going to hazard a guess that far more people are familiar - even if they've never played it - with D&D than Magic: The Gathering. D&D is obviously a couple decades older, and I think that the flexibility and openness to player-created content makes D&D a somewhat more welcoming game.

I'm a relative neophyte to D&D, though I think at this point I'm decently familiar with a lot of its systems and I'm getting better at DMing.

One of the central concepts to D&D is the alignment system, which becomes much more significant once you start leaving the physical plane and going off to the Outer Planes, which are sort of these alignments at their essential levels, and house beings who represent the alignments in a pure form.

Even if you haven't played, you're probably familiar with how it works: There are two spectrums that you can think of as being like a Y axis and an X axis, and your character falls at some point on that graph.

The X axis is Law and Chaos. It's pretty open to interpretation, but you can think of it in the most simple terms as those who play by the rules and those who don't. There's a lot of room for ambiguity, of course. Say you're a member of the Time Police - your job is to ensure that the timeline remains unchanged. That's a very Lawful position to take. But what if there's an event that you're witnessing in which a great empire crumbles, falling into anarchy. That's very Chaotic. So you might have an irony in which allowing or even promoting chaos might actually be a lawful act, even though someone who is more interested in the here and now and not the vagaries of time travel would see the only reasonable lawful action as to fight against this collapse.

The Y axis is Good and Evil. To say that this is a complex issue is perhaps the greatest understatement one could make - this is stuff philosophers have been arguing about since philosophy became a thing.

But what's interesting here is that there are things in the D&D cosmos that are literally good or evil by definition. And that's one of the main ways that an entity - particularly a powerful, outer planes entity - is defined. A devil is going to be both lawful and evil - it's just their nature.

Now granted, in practice there's a lot of wiggle room. The Nine Hells - D&D's default Lawful Evil plane - is filled with backstabbing archdevils who are always plotting against each other, which I do think strains the definition of Lawful a bit. None of them simply seeks anarchy, though. The Hells are an evil empire by definition. Still, one could imagine the Lawful Evil plane as a place of infallible loyalty - only that that loyalty is to some evil end.

So Wizards of the Coast also makes Magic, which is a far younger game (though it's not terribly young - it started when I was about seven.)

Central to the mechanics, but also the cosmic order of the game, are five colors. Magic, as conceived of in Magic: The Gathering, comes in five different colors: White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green. Each of these colors represents different worldviews and methodologies, which are reflected in mechanics and the flavor of the cards.

White magic is all about authority and equanimity - it is a cooperative philosophy that allows for a hierarchy and expects respect for leaders, but also expects fair and even treatment - generally in a way that benefits everyone, but White also often requires that acts of destruction be just as equal - affecting everyone.

Blue magic is intellectual and curious, and values abstract thought and wit above all else. The pursuit of knowledge is Blue's highest virtue, and the clever and sometimes circuitous application of that knowledge is paramount to achieving greatness.

Black magic is based in ambition and results. Black magic practitioners believe that nothing should stand in the way of gaining power, and that every person should be responsible for themselves. Rational self-interest is the rule to live by and moral questions cannot distract from the pursuit of one's goals.

Red magic is the color of emotion and passion. Red magic is reckless and active, not worried about making mistakes. It is impatient and irrational, and is probably the most destructive form of magic, but it also gets results quickly.

Green magic is the color of nature and life, encouraging things to develop but also trusting nature and the survival of the fittest to ensure that the strong survive. It is a color of instinct and growth.

So what is interesting to me about these colors is that they're a bit more nuanced. One could certainly assign some of D&D's alignments to them, but it's never totally accurate. White Magic certainly skews Lawful, but you could find examples of that in Blue, in Green, or in Black even. Black magic is, certainly aesthetically, largely evil. But a tyrannical regime that enforces a strict moral code against acts and beliefs that have been arbitrarily designated as immoral would be White. Black might have to stretch a bit to be truly good, but you could easily have neutral characters who are in it for themselves but don't mean anyone else any harm that would fit the Black mold.

There's some really cool stuff you can do with the Five Colors. One of Magic's most popular settings, Ravnica - which is an entire plane covered by a massive cityscape - is built around ten guilds that are made up of each two-color combination - giving them the mechanics of both, but also exploring how these philosophies intersect and complement each other. One of the reasons that they're making a third card block in this setting is that the guilds really nail this blend in a way that almost makes it feel as if there are ten different colors with their own rather distinctive philosophies, rather than making them feel like two distinct things stapled together.

So I'll admit that part of my preference for the Five Colors is that I'm just more familiar with it. I started playing Magic when I was seven or eight. But I think it would be a really interesting way to think about your RPG characters, either instead of or in addition to your existing alignment system.

Magic Going Back to Ravnica After Dominaria

Man, so if we want to talk about nostalgia...

I don't play Magic: The Gathering anymore, partially because of what my friends are into and partially because Hearthstone is so convenient given its mobile format and the fact that you can (somewhat gradually) earn cards for free.

But there were two major periods in which I played - from Third Grade through Sixth (aka 1994 to 1998) and then for a couple years in college (mainly 2005-2007 or 2008.)

I recently posted about how Wizards went back to Dominaria, its original "home plane" setting for the game that they hadn't been back to since 2002 or so (with the Onslaught block, the second half of a kind of two-part literally post-"Apocalypse" series of card blocks.) That really took me back to those old days of childhood.

Now they're going back to Ravnica, which was the block during my Sophomore year of college, and when I was playing the most on MTG Online (which I needed a PC emulator to play on my Mac.)

It's not the first time they've come back to Ravnica - there was a "Return to Ravnica" block a few years back - but I can't say I'm all too shocked at their decision to do so. Ravnica had a ton going for it. The concept of the plane was really cool - a plane that was just one enormous city - but on top of that, they basically came up with ten new really distinct flavors in the ten guilds that run the city by finding the logical combination of each pair of Magic's five primary colors.

The idea worked out brilliantly, and it also really encouraged different deckbuilding styles by giving each of these guilds distinct mechanical strengths.

There was a confluence of good mechanical design and good flavor that made the original block very successful. I don't actually know how well received the second block was, but as an outsider mainly looking in on the game for its art and concepts and perhaps the little D&D supplements for running a game set in one of the Magic planes, I'm really excited to see more of my favorite plane they've come up with.

And in case you're wondering, House Dimir all the way. Not that House Dimir exists, of course. What was that? Never heard of it. Sorry, who are you? I've got to go.

Per-Server Characters Slots Rising to 18 - More Allied Races Incoming?

We originally got ten character slots per server, which was actually enough to have duplicate classes and races per server, even with both factions. Once we got Blood Elves, Draenei, and Death Knights, things evened out very nicely with ten races and ten classes. We then got new character slots with each additional class (Monk and Demon Hunter) so that you could have one of each per server.

We didn't get new ones for Worgen or Goblins, and if you had a full server, you were really incentivized to go with a Pandaren Monk if you wanted to play both a Pandaren and a Monk.

With Allied Races, however, we've gotten a new slot for each race added - if you stick to one faction per server (prior to Cataclysm, I had all my toons on a single server, but transferred by Hordies to a different one to make room for new alts, some of whom are my class-mains now.)

With the current live patch, we now get sixteen slots per server, allowing you room for one of each Void Elf, Lightforged Draenei, Dark Iron Dwarf, and Kul Tiran Human if you're Alliance or Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, Mag'har Orc, and Zandalari Troll if you're Horde.

But on the Beta, we're not getting eighteen slots. Por que?

Well, it could mean we're going to see four new Allied Races added beyond the eight that are currently announced.

Allied races are of course far easier to implement than traditional new races, as they tend to use the skeleton and animations of existing races and their "starting zones" are really just a static area (usually one that already existed, Void Elves having the exception, though it borrows some assets from elsewhere) where you get a quest essentially saying "hey, go be an adventurer." Only Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran Humans look geometrically distinct from their base races, though I suspect they still use the same basic skeleton (indeed, female Zandalari have the same posture as their Darkspear antecedents.)

So what might we be getting in 8.2 or whenever?

This is all speculative, but given that it's based on somewhat spoileriffic content, I'll put a cut here:

Possibilities of the "New Lordaeron" Undead?

My favorite Horde race has got to be the Forsaken. Not because I'd want to hang around them, mind you, but because I think they have a fascinating story.

I've always liked monstrous or seemingly monstrous people who struggle to be good. You get that a fair amount in World of Warcraft, whether it's the Orcs reckoning or failing to reckon with their brutal history, the Draenei trying to escape their demonic kin and do right by the universe, or the Worgen trying to reconcile their beastly and human natures.

On top of the crisis of identity that they share with the Worgen, the Forsaken also have to reckon with the fact that they're not even alive anymore - and whether that means that they might not even be the same people they once were.

I've written about the idea of having some Forsaken try to join the Alliance, recognizing their past as the human kingdom of Lordaeron and rejecting the culture that Sylvanas has imposed on them.

Well, it appears that in the preview chapters for Before the Storm, the pre-BFA tie-in novel, there are some hints that such a thing is not so far outside the realm of possibility.

Predicting Classes for Kul Tirans and Zandalari

While Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag'har Orcs are on the Beta, thus giving us a pretty clear sense of their playable classes, it looks like the primary inhabitants are going to take a little longer to unlock, possibly as late as 8.1. I suspect you'll need to go through some major stories to get there.

So what classes will these guys get? Let's speculate!

Zandalari: Announced with BFA, the Zandalari Trolls are obviously going to be the biggest population on Zandalar. Theirs is the oldest humanoid civilization on Azeroth (if you don't count Titanforged, who are more Giant/Mechanical.) Now, there are some classes that are easy to detect via datamining - specifically Druids and Shamans, who have their animal forms and totems respectively. So let's go down the line:

Warrior: It's really harder to justify not having Warriors than otherwise. Blood Elves were the only race ever to not have Warriors, and that ended in Cataclysm.

Paladin: This one's a bit controversial - there were actually Zandalari Paladins loyal to the Loa, but there are NPCs who explain that their order is so tiny as to not really be a thing anymore. As a Paladin main, I'm always happy to see new flavors of these guys (and a Paladin-themed Raptor mount could be really cool,) but I'm skeptical we'll get them.

Death Knight: Hero classes appear to be out.

Shaman: I think we've got totem models for these guys, and Trolls have a long shamanistic tradition.

Hunter: Like Warriors, Hunters are pretty universal, and Trolls have always had good hunter traditions.

Rogue: Again, unless you have loud hooves, there's nothing really culture-specific about Rogues. And with all the intrigue in Zuldazar, you'd have to imagine they've got spies and assassins galore.

Druid: This we know from the various dinosaur models. Trolls' connection to the Loa mirrors the Night Elves' to the Ancients, which is of course all just the same worship of the Wild Gods. Malfurion's status as the first Druid is maybe a little in question, though it's possible that the Zandalari (like the Darkspear) looked at this tradition and said "hey, how come we're not doing that?"

Demon Hunter: Again, hero class, so no.

Monk: This would actually be tricky. The Zandalari were literally thought of as monsters to scare children in Pandaren society before the Mists receded, and I could imagine that a lot of Monks would want nothing to do with these ancient allies of the Mogu. On the other hand, Pandaren are very chill and forgiving. Still, I think Blizzard would be totally justified in denying Zandalari Monks.

Mage: As an ancient society that has certainly done some work in Arcane magic, no reason not to have these.

Warlock: Very few societies are really happy to have Warlocks, but I doubt that there's any special taboo against dabbling in the Fel among the Zandalari that would prevent them from trying this out.

Priest: With the importance of the Loa and specifically navigating the kind of politics between them, Priests are a hugely important part of Troll society. So yeah.

So it looks like with the possible exception of Monks, Zandalari might get the same suite of classes as their Darkspear brethren. Zandalari Paladins would be cool, but they seem to be backing away from that possibility.

Now, we move on to Kul Tirans!

Kul Tirans have a mix of influences - we can obviously look to Stormwind Humans to get a good sense of their capabilities, though we also want to look to Worgen, as Kul Tirans were originally Gilnean colonists (though that was three thousand years ago.)

Warrior: Like above, practically guaranteed.

Paladin: This one's less obvious. Personally I felt that it was weird Worgen couldn't be Paladins, but it's a question of how widespread the Silver Hand was. There's definitely examples of Paladins in Stormwind and Lordaeron, but we don't know if Kul Tiras has that tradition. Among NPCs there, there are no clear examples, except perhaps the Witch-hunting Order of Embers, which would actually be a pretty badass Paladin order with a very different flavor than we've gotten with other Human Paladins.

Death Knight: I'd actually argue that this should be available, but Blizzard really seems to be taking hero classes off the table, so no.

Hunter: Kul Tirans have a long tradition of monster-hunting, so this is another practical guarantee.

Shaman: This is actually kind of an interesting question: we actually know from some datamined dialogue that the Drust were not entirely wiped out, and that some have worked alongside the Kul Tirans to train them in their ways. This seems primarily to be about their creepy form of Druidism, but I don't think it would be a huge stretch for it to extend to Shamanism. No anchor-themed Totems, though, as far as I can tell, so probably not. There are also the Sea Priests in Stormsong Valley that dress in cloth like Priests, but have a deep spiritual connection to the sea and storms, which frankly feels pretty shamanistic to me.

Rogue: Um, Pirates. Definitely definitely yes.

Monk: Unlike the Zandalari, there's nothing saying the Pandaren couldn't come and teach the Kul Tirans some unarmed combat.

Druid: This we know from datamining, and it's a super-cool different take on Druidism that is far darker and seems to employ both Life and Death magic. I'm totally rolling one of these.

Demon Hunter: No hero classes, and this wouldn't even make much sense even if they were considering them.

Mage: Hello Jaina. So that's a big yes.

Warlock: If Worgen and Humans can have them, I don't see why you wouldn't find some Kul Tiran Humans who practice the dark arts.

Priests: There's a whole tradition of Sea Priests on Kul Tiras, so unless they make them all shamans (unlikely, though I think justifiable) I think this is a lock.

More than the Zandalari, the Kul Tirans seem like a bigger departure from their base-race. Ironically, they might feel more like an Allied Race variant of Worgen than Humans, especially given the English accents (personal pet peeve - it's a fantasy world. We don't all have to be English.)

Distinguishing Great Old Ones and Fiends when Building Your D&D Setting

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not really satisfied with my solutions to the problem I want to talk about. When you're creating a fantasy setting, particularly for a fantasy RPG like Dungeons and Dragons, you're going to have a few terrifying monsters - the heroes need something to fight.

Demons, a kind of catch-all for evil magical beings in most folklores and mythologies (though the word actually originally meant just spirit in general, meaning you could have benevolent demons,) serve a pretty strong role in most fantasy settings as the ultimate bad guys. They are by their nature evil and are inherently magical and powerful.

Tolkien, a pretty important author if you want to talk fantasy, borrowed a lot from the Catholic tradition (he was a devout Catholic and wanted his setting to be consistent, even if it was separate, with Catholic theology and philosophy) had its demonic creatures like the Balrog and Sauron himself, be fallen spirits - once good, but fallen to corruption. His universe's big bad is Melkor, is later renamed Morgoth (equivalent of Lucifer becoming Satan,) and has the same basic Lucifer origin story - once the highest of God's creations, Morgoth defies God and tries to usurp his power, and is cast down for introducing evil into the world.

But a lot of fantasy writers instead play on the idea of demons having always been so.

D&D is built to be customized, but its usual framework generalizes demons into a broader group known as fiends. With its alignment system, there are seven "Lower Planes" and seven "Upper Planes," with two morally neutral planes to represent pure Law and pure Chaos. The beings of the Lower Planes are generally Fiends, and those who occupy the Lawful Evil plane are Devils while those in the Chaotic Evil plane are Demons. And then there are things like Yuggoloths, Night Hags, and Rakshasas that are also fiends but don't count as devils or demons.

What this means is that you've actually got a really wide selection of demon-like creatures with all sorts of different forms, attitudes, and powers.

Now, another staple of fantasy, more toward the horror end of the perspective, is entities that can generally go under the umbrella term of Eldritch Abomination. The most famous of these beings is Cthulhu, created by H. P. Lovecraft.

Now, Lovecraft's creations were in a kind of odd limbo between fantasy and science fiction flavors of horror. Their general character was that of being utterly alien and bizarre while also supremely dangerous and capable of shattering minds simply by knowing about them.

You can make distinctions here, but I think the problem you run into is neutering the scariness of fiends if you invest all of that terror in your Eldritch Abominations. Fonts of madness, dark magic, cults, and disfiguration could all work perfectly well with a demonic source.

Of course, Lovecraft was writing with a particular world view in mind - one that emphasized the indifference of a universe in which humanity was an insignificant speck (not to mention a terrible fear of the "other," which for Lovecraft meant both fear of alien life and also, unfortunately, racism.) There's no benevolent monotheistic deity or righteous pantheon to punish monsters and evil here. Lovecraft uses terminology associated with the demonic (or the demoniac, as he often uses, meaning the same thing) to describe his abominations. But Lovecraft was blurring the lines between fantasy and science fiction - some of his stories come off more as the blueprint for 1950s alien invasion stories (which, to be fair, H. G. Wells really codified with War of the Worlds.) Indeed, when Lovecraft actually goes into detail describing his monsters (such as in At the Mountains of Madness,) they often come off as the kind of floppy foam-rubber creations one could imagine seeing for cheap in a 1950s drive-in.

In this way, Lovecraftian horror is often best sold by having the actual monsters absent. Only one of the vignettes in The Call of Cthulhu talks about someone who actually saw the thing. Seeing, instead, the depravity of those who worship these things, and perhaps even seeing them physically transformed simply by attempting to make contact with these abominations, is a good way to sell them as monsters.

One could make the argument that abominations and demons fit a similar role in related by distinct genres. But a lot of fantasy world give us both. So how do you draw the line?

I think the first thing to consider is intent: Demons, or fiends in general if you want to go with D&D's terminology, have malevolent intent. In D&D, where the cosmic balance is defined by genuine good versus self-identifying evil, fiends actively seek to spread evil, either by committing willfully evil acts or corrupting others to induce them to do evil. So murder and cruelty here are end goals, not just methods, and your fiends can relate to characters within the human framework of morality. They can be bizarre and alien, but their intent, however couched in complex and incomprehensible logic, is still working toward the same end - they wish to see the multiverse suffer.

Intent for Abominations, on the other hand, is very different. I think the default alignment for such creatures (usually listed as Aberrations as a creature type) ought to be unaligned. They aren't going out of their way to create suffering in mortals. It's more like they don't even have a concept for what suffering is. It's more that their mere presence is enough to alter reality around them enough that it is harmful to be there. The end result is suffering, but the abomination does not do it intentionally - nor, and I think this is just as important, does the abomination care in the slightest.

Now, there are beings like the Ilithid who are given a certain alignment - lawful evil - but I would play these aberrations less as conniving villains who long to see other civilizations collapse, but rather those who honestly don't consider any of the mortal civilizations to be any more complex than a termite colony. They don't feel any true contempt for humanoids. They simply don't believe there's anything wrong with sucking their brains out or using their bodies as incubation pods for their offspring.

And Ilithid are only the most humanoid-like versions of these entities.

I do think there's certainly a place for madness-inducing demons and devils, but perhaps one way to draw a line between them is to think about what causes this. A demon would induce madness as a form of cruelty - attacking someone's mind in order to bring them low and disrupt their ability to live the life they had previously.

An abomination, on the other hand, would probably do this passively and without real intent. Sure, the Ilithids use Mind Blasts to attack enemies, which kind of undercuts this, but you could imagine that simply seeing some greater abomination would cause psychic harm - or perhaps not even harm. One idea I've had is for an alien race (and eldritch abominations can be just particularly alien aliens) that communicates psychically by simply arranging the thoughts in another individual's head. Their neurology might allow for their brain (or brain-equvalent) to hold this foreign set of thoughts separate to their own and be able to understand it as simply extremely thorough and efficient communication, but to we weak mortals, it might come off as total mind control. The abomination might even be pleasantly surprised that everyone on this world they "speak" to is so willing to do anything they suggest.

Demons and abominations both ought to be far from mundane - they're both alien in a sense. But demons can be more closely linked to the mundane world, whereas abominations are defined by their distance from it.

Granted, one of the great elements of cosmic horror is the discovery that what is thought to be alien is anything but: a protagonist might discover to their horror that they are, in fact, partially alien, or even that their entire society is secretly the byproduct of abominations' actions.

So it's tricky.

There are two approaches I think you can take, to synthesize the two as being related to one another. In Hellboy, for example, the Ogdru Jahad, which are sort of the ultimate eldritch abomination as seven entities in one, are actually the dragon mentioned in the book of revelations, created by an angel, ultimately putting them into the Christian dichotomy of good and evil, but with the aesthetics of Lovecraft.

The other is to suggest that Eldritch Abominations are far more powerful, but also more apathetic. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, "pure demons" are far more bizarre and alien, while the horned humanoids one tends to encounter are actually hybrids with humans (and vampires are actually the most human-like of demons, being demonic entities that inhabit undead human bodies that have lost their souls after dying.)

It's certainly a lot simpler to have one type of thing and not the other, and perhaps borrow the aesthetics of the one you're counting out. But while difficult, it is possible to carve a space out for both types of entities in your cosmos. While it's certainly ok for characters within your world have a hard time telling the difference, you as the creator (or DM) should have a good sense of how they differ.

Returning to Darkest Dungeon

So I got Darkest Dungeon years ago, intrigued by its Mike Mignola-inspired art and both setting and gameplay that really effectively drive forth the idea of cosmic horror.

The weird thing is that I think I'm getting the hang of it, and that's making me nervous.

I play the game very conservatively - I try to do all the easier missions until I've got my heroes upgraded to high levels, gear, and abilities. I also definitely tend to get them more provisions than they need. I keep the light level nearly at 100 most of the time.

But I also think that now that I've figured out how to swap out abilities on each hero, you can really build some powerful combos. (To swap out abilities, you first have to make sure that you have more than four trained at the Guild. You then click an ability on their character sheet - which you get by right-clicking the character in your roster - and then click the ability you want to use instead.)

As an example: the Occultist has "Wyrd Reconstruction," which is a heal that has the potential to heal a lot (it's a range from zero to some high number) but then has a chance to put a bleed on the target. I believe the bleed is only one damage a turn for three rounds, which usually makes it a net positive, even if it prevents you from capping someone's health. On the other hand, the bleed is often resisted.

But if you mix him with a Witch Doctor, you can get a heal (whose name I don't recall) that heals only a hit point or two, but also removes all blight and bleed effects - including that of Wyrd Construction.

Together, you can lay some pretty significant heals down in a game that is extraordinarily stingy with healing.

Learning how to build a party really makes the game much smoother. For example, with the guild you can first unlock all of a character's abilities, and then you can pick the ones that suit certain positions - for example, you might put an Arbalest in the back and give them a bunch of long-range attacks (which generally require a back position.) I like to have my people specialize, which does mean that when enemies use knockbacks and pulls you can get out of position, but you can usually recover.

There are also kind of "builds" that work for each class. The Jester, for example, has a lot of abilities that buff "Finale," which is an ability you can only use once in a battle. If you assign the Jester's abilities to focus on this, however, you can buff Finale to something like three times as much damage, which then allows you to hit for a massive burst of damage that will generally one-shot anything but a boss.

Now given the horrific nature of this game, I'm certainly wondering whether my current tendency toward success will prove to inflate overconfidence, thus getting a bunch of my dudes killed.

Still, another useful skill that I've figured out is trading out heirlooms - the currency you use to upgrade buildings in town. Next to them is a little "exchange" symbol that you can use to exchange one type of item for the other three. I suspect that this is less than a zero-sum exchange, or else you might as well have all the same kind of resource, but given how just about every upgrade needs house seals, you'll often find you have tons of busts, portraits, and deeds that would be more useful as something to trade for seals.

Anyway, fun game.

The Mag'har Orcs, the Draenei, and 35 Years Later in Draenor B

So you know how I was talking about how the biggest problem with the Horde is how there's so little reason to actually hate the Alliance? Every time conflict arises, it's either a measured and proportional response from the Alliance that gets blown into all out war by the Horde, or it's the Horde attacking without provocation.

Well...

The Tidepriests of Kul Tiras

The other day I ran Shrine of the Storm, the dungeon in Stormsong Valley. Without getting too much into story spoilers, the dungeon is an ancient shrine where the Tidepriests of Kul Tiras (led by the local nobility, Lord Stormsong) bless Kul Tiran ships so that they can sail swiftly and safely through any ocean weather conditions. The blessings here are what make the Kul Tiran navy so special, and the Tidepriest tradition is pretty unprecedented among human cultures we've seen in WoW - halfway between a shaman and a priest.

I guess we should use a spoiler cut before we talk about what happens in the dungeon and the quests before it...

Future Races and Hero Classes

Allied races are increasing the options for playable races at an explosive rate. Announced races in BFA alone are going to give us just as many as the original World of Warcraft had, and Blizzard has explicitly said that more will be coming (though not explicitly in BFA itself.)

This actually means that some old sacred concepts are starting to change: Druids, for example, have been mirror-image balanced between the factions since Vanilla, but as the Horde gets both Highmountain Tauren and Zandalari Troll druids, the Alliance is only getting Kul Tiran Humans (who, in my opinion, have by far the coolest druid forms, though I can also appreciate the appeal of the Zandalari dinosaur forms.)

We don't know if the "Allied Race" term will always refer specifically to these variants on existing races, or if we'll get brand-new races that follow a similar pattern, starting at level 20 and not really having a starting zone.

But one issue that seems to arise is the question of hero classes.

Hero classes, of course, are a bit different than the other classes. Generally, the way I'd define them is that most classes in the game are something that an ordinary person, perhaps with certain talents, but none that go beyond natural ability, can pick up, and with enough training and willpower, can grow more and more skilled in the techniques of the class.

A Hero Class, by contrast, requires a fundamental change to the character's physiology. Their class is not like a job or lifestyle that they can quit and just become a regular person when they're done adventuring - it's ingrained in their very being. Death Knights are straight up undead. They literally start to suffer from withdrawal symptoms if they stop hurting living things. Demon Hunters have become half-demons, with a demonic soul sharing their body, and if they ever stop struggling with that demon within, they will become its instrument.

It's a big commitment, basically, and not always one taken by choice.

The fact that it's a physiological change sort of justifies the fact that you start at a higher level. So much of your power was imbued into you that you do sort of emerge from the process far more powerful than some guy who just took up a bow and decided it's time to be a Hunter.

But I think another aspect of Hero Classes is that they have a far more specific story. Of the non-hero classes, I'd say Druids and Paladins had had the most specific backgrounds and traditions. Yet we're seeing the mololithic nature of these class traditions break down, even as Legion had them join together in class orders. In Vanilla, all Paladins were Knights of the Silver Hand, because you only had Humans and Dwarves. Then you got Vindicators and Blood Knights (Blood Elf Paladins even got a different ability that Alliance Paladins during BC that pushed them more toward Ret while Alliance ones got a better ability for Prot,) and then Sunwalkers. While these all boiled down to using holy magic to fight off evil monsters like demons and undead, the source of that tradition varied widely. (A Draenei Vindicator who hears Uther the Lightbringer described as the "first paladin" would, very respectfully, call that absurd.)

Druids have been more explicitly a single tradition, but we're seeing that break down as well. In Vanilla, you only had Night Elves and Tauren, and the latter, while they claimed an ancient and vaguely-remembered period of having practiced Druidism long in the past, ultimately learned the tradition from the Night Elves, before the Alliance and Horde turned them into adversaries. While Gilneas had Harvest Witches who practiced a rudimentary form of druidic magic, it wasn't until they were afflicted with the Worgen curse and taught by the Night Elves that they learned true Druidism. The Darkspear are a little trickier - Blizzard has gone back and forth on whether the tradition had existed earlier or if they had mostly learned it from the Tauren.

Well, there's none of that ambiguity in the new druid races. Sure, the Highmountain far more explicitly are connected to Cenarius and Malfurion (Huln was blessed by Cenarius with those moose antlers,) but the Zandalari connection to their dinosaur Loa looks like it has nothing to do whatsoever with Malfurion, and one even wonders if the tradition long-predates Malfurion or even the existence of Night Elves. Meanwhile, the Kul Tirans' Thornwatchers almost certainly derived their form of Druidism by learning the magic of the Drust, which makes them unique amongst Druids as mistrusted outcasts amongst their people.

But if there used to be a specific origin for Druids, the two existing hero classes are way more specific. Because they have a unique starting experience, both classes have a specific time in which they start, within a specific organization, regardless of race.

And the fact that the time period is specific makes adding new races complicated.

Death Knights begin right on the eve of Wrath of the Lich King, when Arthas has left the Frozen Throne to begin his campaign. Demon Hunters actually begin a little before that, literally during the raid on the Black Temple (like, literally the Raid where you might have fought Illidan during BC) before having a ten-year time jump.

That means that adding new races is complicated, especially if they're literally new races. The Void Elves, for instance, seem like they'd make perfectly good Demon Hunters. They clearly have no qualms with experimenting with dangerous magic, and as former Blood Elves, they have just as much of a reason to hate demons as any son or daughter of Quel'thalas. But, you know, there were no Blood Elves when Illidan was training his demon hunters. Similarly, Nightborne existed, but they were trapped in their bubble while Illidan was traipsing through the Tomb of Sargeras, just across the narrow waters from their city.

The only time either hero class got new races was in Cataclysm, when they decided to give them Goblins and Worgen (DKs are even the default class for Worgen when you start a new character.) Goblins were easy, as they had been plentiful in WoW since vanilla (though the connection to the Bilgewater Cartel and the Horde specifically was less obvious.) Worgen had been in the area, for sure, though generally in Silverpine, where the Scourge was less of a threat. Still, despite the fact that the Worgen of Shadowfang Keep (for those who came into the game in Cataclysm or later, SFK used to be "the Worgen dungeon") were all feral, the notion was that some had escaped Arugal's abuses and been taken by the Scourge, and that the process of Death-Knighting a Worgen calmed the rage enough to make them useful soldier for the Scourge.

But Blizzard hasn't done this since, and they've even backed down on ideas of adding things like Dark Iron Dwarf Death Knights.

Now, one reason is that this makes the earning of heritage armor sets way easier if you can do it on a hero class, to the extent that people might feel pressured to play a DK or DH in order to earn this achievement.

Still, the prospect is that these classes might not get any new race options for the rest of WoW's lifetime, even as the other classes get more and more.

Personally, I think that as long as new races are getting added, every class ought to get a new option or two. So how would you do that?

First, I think you could just think logically:

Illidan had more than Night Elves and Blood Elves in his employ. With Naga and Broken Draenei NPCs within the Demon Hunter class hall, it would make perfect sense if either were to be added to make them an option for the class.

Death Knights could really encompass anyone who might have been in Lordaeron prior to Wrath. Kul Tiran humans, for example, would not become isolationists until after the Third War, meaning you could easily have some Kul Tiran death knights dating back to those early days. There was, after all, a rather prominent Kul Tiran mage who was fighting the Scourge in the very early days. If we ever get an Undead allied race, they would probably fit this too.

But another option would be to change the way that these classes start:

Allowing the story to move forward for these classes, you could craft a different starting experience - maybe a shorter one, more like the allied races, who more or less get a welcome package and boot in the ass.

While the threat of Demons specifically is probably far smaller than it was during Legion, Demon Hunters could easily start training new recruits in their methods, perhaps offering a path to revenge against other supernatural threats.

And with the way that Bolvar is acting, we've seen three very prominent new Death Knights created during Legion - there's absolutely nothing preventing them from raising new DKs from amongst the other races, and the Ebon Blade doesn't seem to worry too much about whether people want to become Death Knights either.

I don't know if either of these are likely to happen, though I think the former is more likely, as it would require less content design work.

But it also remains to be seen how Blizzard is going to keep implementing new races.

What is Thros?

If the word in the title is unfamiliar, I'll just say we're going to be talked about datamined stuff from the BFA beta. This isn't accessible in the beta yet, as far as I know, and appears to be part of the campaign quests that you'll complete at 120.

I'll also warn you that if you're sick of me talking about the Shadowlands, this is going to be one of those posts.

So let's start with what we know, and we'll put it behind the spoiler cut just in case.

Can 2H Frost Return?

As an icy harbinger of doom, the Frost Death Knight is meant to be the embodiment of the icy chill of Northrend, the frigid cold of death.

If you ask me, (and this is my post so if you're reading that's kind of the equivalent of asking me,) the image of the Death Knight evokes the idea of an executioner or the Grim Reaper. Swinging a massive weapon just feels right for the class. Ghouls and zombies are there to savagely attack the Scourge's foes, clawing and scratching, but the Death Knight comes in to end things. The most iconic weapon associated with the Death Knight is Frostmourne, a two-handed sword. Executioners' axes are two-handed, the Grim Reaper's scythe is two-handed.

It just feels right.

Now, way back ten years ago when the Death Knight was first introduced, they decided that it would be the only plate tanking class that wouldn't use shields. Instead, they'd have other ways to reduce damage to compensate. Instead, a Death Knight's equipment would be either a two-handed weapon or dual-wielded swords.

For whatever reason, Frost always seemed to be the spec that allowed for dual-wielding, but from Wrath through Warlords, they always allowed Frost DKs to make a choice between using a two-handed weapon or dual-wielding.

Personally, I loved the style of two-handed frost, with its massive and very satisfying Obliterate crits. The class and spec fantasy - of being that implacable doom marching toward your foes and then executing them with cold, unfeeling efficiency (see "Killing Machine" as one of Frost's major procs) - really fit with that playstyle.

But in Legion, with a single weapon type available for the spec, they decided to go with dual-wielding. It makes sense, to be honest. As the only spec that ever really allowed for dual-wielding, they'd either need to make Frost use two weapons or just get rid of the idea that Death Knights would ever dual-wield. You'll notice that no class got all weapons of the same type. Warlocks and Priests got two specs with staves and one with a dagger and off-hand each, and so forth.

And I'll certainly acknowledge that there is a place for the idea of dual-wielding fitting a certain type of fantasy for Frost - where you sort of emulate the bitter, frozen winds by striking relentlessly.

But let's talk about whether they can walk that back.

Now first, you could ask the question of whether they should. Frost has a very simple and easy way to identify itself amongst the DK specs - it's the dual-wield one. By going back to two-handed weapons, the distinction between Frost and Unholy becomes a little (only a little) more subtle. Still, as an old fan of the look and feel of 2H, I'd like to think about whether it's possible.

I think the biggest challenge is pretty obviously how to balance between two weapon loadouts. Unless you got rid of dual-wielding entirely (which would mean losing a ton of transmog options, for one thing) you'd have to ensure that both styles were viable. Blizzard has come a long way since the days of "there's one right spec to play" back in vanilla. So there would have to be reasonable parity between these two sub-specs.

One piece of good news for this prospect is an under-the-hood mechanical change that actually de-emphasizes the importance of a weapon's damage. Ability damage in BFA will be based entirely on Attack Power, and not on weapon damage. The only thing that weapon damage will be used for is your autoattacks. So unless I'm mistaken, this might actually mean that your Demon Hunter can use their proficiency in daggers without paying a price in damage.

And what that also means is that, assuming that having the same item level weapons for DW and 2H gives you the same value of strength and secondary stats, the damage of Obliterate and Frost Strike shouldn't change at all with your choice of weapon(s.)

Easy enough, then, right? So that fixes it?

Well, the problem is a little rune called Razorice (also any talent that activates on auto attacks.) Two-handed Frost never gets this buff to Frost Damage that you get with dual-wielding. This was sort of off-set by the massive Obliterate crits, making 2H a more physical-damage based spec and making DW more Frost-damage-based, which of course also changed the value of Mastery and... yeah, it got complicated.

With two weapons, you get the benefits of both Fallen Crusader and Razorice, while 2H generally just went with Fallen Crusader - the big strength buff was kind of hard to pass up.

Allowing two weapon runes with dual-wielding inherently unbalances the system. Even if all other things are equal, you need some way to counterbalance this or Dual-wield will always come out better.

Beyond just giving you Razorice automatically if you are wielding a two-handed weapon (and even then you have the problem of the frost damage it does on application - something that happens more frequently while dual-wielding) you'd have to play some really tricky games with the Runeforges to make this balanced.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I think it's not the fire-and-forget kind of design Blizzard would look for. Restricting the spec to only DW has, I'm sure, made it far easier to balance.

But if we're talking class and spec fantasy, I do really feel like we lost something when 2H frost was taken away.

We've been told that Frost is getting some significant changes in BFA, but those changes are not yet in the latest build. I'm certainly looking forward with interest to see to what degree things are changing - so far, Frost has been more or less identical to its Legion incarnation on the Beta.

At the risk of going down the rabbit hole, I do think Frost needs some rethinking to the base rotation.

Killing Machine, as a proc, was once really important to the spec, largely because it got consumed by multiple abilities. KM used to be consumed by both Frost Strike and Obliterate, and depending on your weapon set-up, you wanted to use it on one or the other. This meant that the game with Killing Machine was avoiding wasting it on the wrong ability. For example, in Mists and Warlords, if you were using a two-handed weapon, you'd want to make sure you had some runes open to spend on Obliterate, and not wind up blowing KM on Frost Strikes while you're hoping for Runic Empowerment to proc.

Nowadays, however, there's not a lot of interactivity with the proc. You basically just try to use it when it goes off, but if you don't get it, you still want to use Obliterate to generate runic power. And there's no fear of losing it for using it on the wrong ability.

It does help set the rhythm of the spec's rotation, but it's not as crucial as it once was. I wonder if Blizzard is satisfied with it as a kind of pacing proc, or if they want to go farther than they did with Unholy (which to be fair, changed a lot more in Legion - significantly for the better if you ask me) and really look at the core rotation.

Maybe there's room in a big redesign for 2H frost to return.

Vampires in Azeroth

I would certainly accept some arguments about the classic horror movie types being somewhat different, but if you wanted to come up with a triad of spooky monstrous races, you would cover a lot of ground with zombies, werewolves, and vampires.

Interesting, then, that two of these three are represented by playable races in World of Warcraft. The Undead are obviously a bit more complex than zombies - having regained their free will and their minds, the Forsaken have to navigate a crisis of personality to decide whether they are the same people they were in life or if they should embrace their new nature (Sylvanas has clearly chosen the latter.) Werewolves are also given more detailed background in the Worgen, with their ties to Druidism and Night Elf culture, again on top of that question of identity as to whether they're just humans with an affliction or if the "curse" has given them a new identity and life (Genn has clearly chosen "human.")

Vampires are a far less broadly represented type in World of Warcraft, but we certainly have some examples.

First off, the Nathrezim, aka Dreadlords, are Demons who share a lot with the classic vampiric archetype. They tend to be haughty, manipulative, and mysterious. I don't actually recall if they are said anywhere to actually drink blood, but one thing that distinguishes them from the modern mythos surrounding vampires is that they aren't undead. They're demons. In a sense, they're already in a more profound state of evil than mere vampires. Were the lore a bit different, one could imagine them corrupting the first mortals to become vampires.

Next we have a pretty explicit example: the San'layn. These are Blood Elves who fought alongside Kael'thas in the Illidari's march on Icecrown, falling to the Scourge and transformed into bloodsucking fiends. We of course dealt with these guys a fair amount in Wrath of the Lich King. What's interesting is that they are apparently putting in an appearance in Battle for Azeroth, aiding the Horde in their fight against the Alliance. Given that they are undead elves and the Scourge seems far less unified under Bolvar than it was under Arthas, it's not too crazy to think that the San'layn would make natural allies of the Forsaken, and some are speculating that they might be a new Allied Race. As much as I'd like a playable vampire race, a fifth Elf race (and the third from Quel'thalas, though I do think you can get around the old "how are there so many people in this place that was supposed to have lost 90% of their population to the Scourge" question thanks to the fact that these guys could have been part of that 90%) is maybe a bit much. Even Elder Scrolls only has four, and that's counting Orcs!

Finally, we have most non sequitur: the Vampirates in Stormheim. There is basically no explanation given for why there's a group of pirates in eastern Stormheim who have all become vampires. They seem to largely be human, but with a Vrykul leader.

If we set aside the Nathrezim, one could speculate on a connection between the San'layn and the Vampirates. The Lich King clearly has a great deal of control over the Shadowlands, and while Chronicle kind of dismissed my long running theory that the Lich King was actually a Shadowlands entity first before Kil'jaeden got to it, it's not so crazy to assume that there's some real connections there. Similarly, while never explicitly stated, it seems likely that Helheim is a part of the Shadowlands. That would make Haustvauld a portal into the Shadowlands themselves, which puts these vampiric sailors very close to a portal there.

So perhaps there's a general source of vampirism that both the Lich King and Helya tapped into in the Shadowlands.

With the Legion gone, I've been arguing that Blizzard really needs to expand the lore of the Shadowlands lest we wind up with all Old Gods all the time as our recurring bad guys. You want some vampires? I know where you can find (or rather put) some vampires.

The State of Gilneas after the Fall of Undercity

Gilneas is in an odd limbo state in the current game world, and lorewise, as far as I know.

Worgen players begin in Gilneas, first succumbing to the curse and then aiding their fellow countrymen (many of whom, including the king himself, are also werewolves) in fending off the Forsaken assault on the country and then fleeing to safety in Darnassus.

Maybe the most frustrating thing about the Cataclysm leveling experience was that Worgen players never really got to resolve this story. Some of that story carried over into Horde quests, but you wouldn't really see them on your Horde character, with only the Battle for Gilneas battleground as any sort of revisit to your home territory. The zone itself, outside of a quest for the Rogue legendary daggers from Dragon Soul, is barren and empty after questing there.

Ironically, Alliance players might be left to believe that Gilneas is simply occupied territory, held by the Horde, when Horde quests actually complicate that narrative.

The quests in Silverpine Forest actually have you enter Gilneas itself - in a different phase so that you don't encounter any Alliance players. The fight against the Worgen, particularly the Bloodfang Pack (which existed prior to Cataclysm if I recall correctly) is a vicious one. Ivar Bloodfang and Darius Crowley employ some pretty hardcore tactics, like allowing one of their scouts to get killed just to lure the Forsaken forces into a trap, or convincing the remaining humans on Fenris Isle to drink Worgen blood and become afflicted by the curse so as to prevent Sylvanas' Valkyr from raising them (but, you know, condemning them to being Worgen for the rest of their lives.)

The Silverpine chain ends with Sylvanas capturing Lorna Crowley, Darius' daughter, and threatening to have her killed (and possibly raised) if he doesn't pull back from Silverpine. Darius accepts, which I guess gets him points that Agamemnon really needed but leaves the military situation ambiguous. For one thing, it's not obvious if he's surrendering the whole of Gilneas or just those parts that had existed beyond the Greymane Wall (notably, said northern territories were his domain as a member of the nobility.)

Theoretically there might have been some clear terms written down in the treaties signed following the Siege of Orgrimmar, but with war reignited, that seems out of the picture.

The pressure would clearly send the Gilneans back to their homeland. As Teldrassil burns, they are losing their adopted home, but with Undercity destroyed, the giant threat that first forced them to leave in the first place has itself been pushed into exile.

And when you consider that Undercity is not going to be available for the Alliance to set up shop, it seems only logical that they would make a big push to secure, fortify, and repopulate Gilneas.

So for the people of Gilneas, this war - assuming it doesn't kill us all - might actually wind up being a positive in the long run.

Now let's talk about Gilneas: the country, the culture, and the curse.

Lordaeron is about to see a seismic shift in power. Despite the fact that five of the seven human kingdoms were all situated on the Lordaeron subcontinent (it would be way less confusing if Lordaeron the country and Lordaeron the subcontinent had different names, but here I am writing this in America, which is a part of North America and not the other way around, so it's not like it's unrealistic,) the Alliance has had only a loose grasp of its territories since the devastation of the Scourge.

After Undercity, though? The Scourge hasn't been a major threat (or at least an obvious one) since the death of Arthas, and this played quite well into Sylvanas' ability to consolidate her power. But when she is forced to flee the Undercity, that leaves a massive power vacuum that the Alliance can easily fill. Though certainly devastated by the one-two punch of the Cataclysm and the Forsaken, Gilneas seems to largely be intact, ready for people to move back.

Genn is super old at this point, but it seems as if the Worgen curse has reinvigorated him, to the extent that he can beat down Varok Saurfang (watch the BFA cinematic!) Still, while his older child Liam has died, he does have an heir in Tess (very ironically a member of the Uncrowned) and so there is hope for continuity of the Greymane line should something happen to Genn. With the scars of the Northgate Rebellion healed over and frankly moot, and bad apples like Lord Godfrey no longer there to poison the kingdom, not to mention the shared trauma of having to leave their home, there's a great deal of unity among Gilneans.

And that's particularly impressive given that about half of them are werewolves.

The Worgen were monsters that other Gilneans hunted down, and their swarming attack on the capital is part of what allowed Sylvanas to invade in the first place. But it seems as if at this point, the Worgen have proven themselves so reliable and in control of themselves that the rest of Gilneas seems pretty chill about them. It probably helps that their king is one.

Still, I feel like there's territory to explore here. One thing in particular that I find interesting is the fact that the Worgen curse is not passed from parent to child. Except in rare cases (and never in-game,) you pretty much don't see Worgen children. Generally, if you're strong enough to survive being bitten by a Worgen long enough to become one yourself, you're probably a rather hale and hearty adult.

What this means is that it wouldn't be too crazy to expect that many in Gilneas expect the curse to be a temporary thing - just the affliction of the current generation, to be forgotten as a bizarre and traumatic time for their people.

And yet, I have to imagine that some people wouldn't want to go back. The curse has not only protected them from the Forsaken use of necromancy and blight, but it has also given them a new perspective on life - putting them more in tune with the natural world and their feral instincts, and even opening up the path of true Druidism for them.

Now, as long as there's a game, no one on Azeroth will know a lasting peace, but one could imagine that if Gilneas is liberated and re-settled, you might find that the cultural unity in Gilneas starts to feel strain between those who want to go back to how things were and those who want to maintain their Worgen nature.

It's pretty clear that things have changed significantly in Gilnean culture. Prior to the fall of the Greymane Wall, Gilneas, and Genn in particular, felt that they were the strongest nation and did not need to help others. He was an isolationist, only to discover that they couldn't make it on their own. That's reflected already in the way that Genn is taking a pretty huge role in the Alliance lately - spending a great deal of time counseling Anduin and acting as an ambassador when we got to Kul Tiras, not to mention more or less running the campaign against the Horde.

Might we see Gilneas arise as the Alliance's major capital to the north? It stands to reason that if any nation is positioned well to restore Lordaeron to human control, it's Gilneas. There will certainly be conflicts to come, of course, with Stromgarde clearly set up to be a continuing area of contention, but I really can't think of any Alliance group who will benefit more from driving the Forsaken out of Undercity than Gilneas.

Still, questions remain: what will Gilneas be in this long-awaited return? Unlike the Draenei, the Gilneans get to actually rebuild in their homeland. Prior to the Forsaken invasion, Gilneas was a nation oriented around isolation and self-sufficiency. But that is so profoundly different from the way that these people live now that I can't imagine it just returning to the way that it used to be.

Remember, Combat in D&D Takes a Long Time (Though Not Lorewise)

I just felt the need to post that I just ran a session in my D&D campaign in which the party fought a group of ten Taheen (a humanoid race I borrowed from the Dark Tower series by Stephen King) and the fight took I think six hours.

Which is funny, because in the story of the game, a fight like that takes less than two minutes.

The party: two wizards, a fighter, a paladin, a rogue, and an NPC bard. One of the wizards wasn't there, however, and so she was "dealing with food poisoning" and couldn't fight.

The monsters: One Hexblade Warlock, three Gladiators, three modified Archers (with automatic rifles as described in the DMG.)

The situation: the party returned to a town where they had burned down the shrine to an eldritch abomination of a deity, not realizing that the Taheen, which in my setting are natives of the Shadowlands (my equivalent of the Shadowfell, where the town is) are sort of inquisitors who were sent to punish the town for their heresy. The Taheen there are executing civilians and had killed the crazed but harmless priest of the monstrous deity, labeling him a "martyr."

The party had a truck (that was already messed up from an earlier crash) that they pulled up to the town and when they realized what was going on, they decided to free the town.

The wizard (the one who was there tonight) sent his familiar to scout out the town, but the Taheen saw it and one of them shot the familiar down, and they started organizing a defense.

Two of the riflemen approached their truck, and the party attacked them, killing them. The wizard and rogue went to the rooftop of the inn to scope things out, while the fighter had gotten the keys to the truck and drove the bard and paladin through an alley, toward the gathered crowd.

The wizard summoned a bunch of mephits, but this drew the attention of the warlock, causing him to hit the wizard and rogue with a spell that dropped concentration on the summoning spell.

I ruled that this meant the mephits did their death explosion, obscuring the alleyway where four riflemen had prepared to fire on the oncoming truck. Now blinded, the fighter drove the truck through the alley, hitting the four riflemen and knocking them prone.

The fighter fought three gladiators while the wizard and rogue focused their attacks on the warlock, and the paladin and bard fought the injured riflemen.

Eventually, two of the gladiators went around to try to get on top of the inn, but the paladin and bard went up too. The bard charmed on of the gladiators, sending him away, while the fighter attempted to hit the warlock with his truck after fending off the last gladiator for a bit.

Then, the wizard, rogue, and bard were holed up on the roof while the paladin had to go and heal the fighter.

Everyone except the paladin went unconscious during the fight at least once. I think every spell slot was used and nearly every healing potion they had.

That was the most epic combat encounter we've had yet, and that's after last session when they had to use oil of etherealness to make the paladin a death ninja to kill fleeing Night Hags.