Based on stuff in the Beta and story details from Before the Storm, there's some potential to the expansion of Undead playable races.
As of yet, only three playable races have no associated Allied Race - Worgen, Pandaren, and Undead.
The latter of these has a lot of potential for allied races, largely because the category of "undead" is quite broad. Undead/Forsaken characters are effectively zombies with free will and intelligence restored - your classic risen corpse, but with the sentience to allow them as good guys or at the very least not pure evil.
Spoilers ahead.
The San'layn have a fair amount of potential, as we actually see them in-game assisting the Horde in BFA. Previously we've only seen them as evil minions of the Scourge, but then again, that's the whole premise of the Forsaken, taking former Scourge monsters and making them... marginally less evil.
Given that San'layn are the most common version we have of Warcraft vampires (we finally saw some non-elf vampires in Stormheim) it would seem that putting them in would fill a niche that Warcraft has really left open for a while. I'm sure that many people would relish the chance to play a vampire in WoW. They'd also be a perfect opportunity to add a new Death Knight race - something we haven't seen since Cataclysm.
There are some issues, though. First off is that San'layn are arguably more of a Blood Elf variant than an Undead one, and we've already got Void Elves. It's also not clear where they'd stand in terms of the Scourge and the Lich King. Bolvar appears to have the loyalty of most of Arthas' old minions, but on the other hand, we have seen some new factions breaking off, so it's not unthinkable that the San'layn or maybe a subfaction thereof might have broken off and made a deal with Sylvanas.
In terms of greater Horde geopolitics, anyone worried about Sylvanas' consolidation of power as Warchief would probably not be too happy about a growing undead bloc. The San'layn would make natural Sylvanas loyalists, given her both her Undead and High Elf nature. We already know that dissenters among the Forsaken are not safe, given her actions toward the Desolate Council, and the San'layn seem likely to be similarly zealous about the state of undeath, meaning reformational Forsaken would be further set back by their admission to the Horde.
Normally I'd also ask questions about numbers, but given Void Elves, I don't really think that's much of a question for allied races anymore.
Now, the "Redeemed" are not even canonically named that, and in fact, there's only one existing example so far: Calia Menethil.
In the events of Before the Storm, Calia goes to a truce summit where Forsaken and Human family members were to meet and try to reconcile or at least get to talk to each other. When some of the Forsaken there tried to defect to the Alliance, Sylvanas turned the place into a bloodbath - holding to her promise not to kill any of humans by instead turning on her own people, with one exception: Calia Menethil.
Arthas' older sister and the rightful heir to the throne of Lordaeron (I guess Lordaeron was a little behind the times, having Male Premogeniture rather than straight up Premogeniture) was shot full of arrows and died. But that wasn't the end for her. Alonsus Faol (Forsaken but with no loyalties to Sylvanas) and Anduin took her body to Netherlight Temple, where the Naaru Saa'ra channeled their priestly power together to resurrect Calia as some kind of holy-infused undead.
To be clear, Calia is the only example we have of such a person. But the very existence of someone who isn't straight up resurrected to normal life, but is somehow undead and yet filled with the Light, is quite the novelty.
Still, if it can be done with one person, one wonders if it wouldn't be impossible to do so with others. It's clear that there's a fair segment within the Forsaken who would prefer to live their old lives again, or at least not threaten their families with death and undeath. And someone imbued with the Light coming back from the dead might have the opposite effect on your average Alliance citizen that the other Forsaken have had - consider how people coming back to life in real-life religions are usually considered miraculous.
Of course there's the danger of making too many cross-faction allied races - you don't want faction identity to totally dry up, and the Undead are arguably the most polarized and polarizing race in the game. Still, story-wise, having a group of Alliance undead led by Calia would make a lot of sense. And with Undercity falling, there's no one better suited to re-establishing the Kingdom of Lordaeron than her rightful Queen.
No comments:
Post a Comment