That is the rather unfortunate situation facing Cormack, the central character of Blizzard's newly released World of Warcraft: Forever short story, Unbowed.
Published on October 26, the story follows a former member of the Scarlet Crusade who has been raised into undeath as one of the Forsaken. His old beliefs have not simply vanished along with his heartbeat, however. Instead, Cormack must confront a question that has haunted Warcraft's undead since the earliest days of the franchise: can someone condemned by their own religion still find a place within it?
It is a surprisingly thoughtful subject for a game preparing to launch on November 4, especially when so much of the recent WoW Forever conversation has focused on new dungeons, redesigned classes and changes to Classic Azeroth.
But there is a good reason for Blizzard to tell this particular story now. Forever is not simply revisiting the original World of Warcraft. It is exploring a different future for familiar characters, factions and beliefs. And few factions have more unfinished business with their past than the Forsaken.
A Scarlet Crusader Becomes Everything He Hated
The Scarlet Crusade has always occupied a particularly uncomfortable position in Warcraft history. Its members began with an understandable objective: destroy the undead Scourge that had devastated Lordaeron. Unfortunately, their religious conviction gradually became inseparable from fanaticism, paranoia and the unfortunate habit of treating practically everyone outside their own organization as a potential enemy.
For years, Scarlet Crusaders were familiar opponents in the Plaguelands and Scarlet Monastery. They wore magnificent red armor, spoke passionately about righteousness and generally attempted to murder anybody who arrived without the correct religious credentials.
Cormack belonged to that world.
Now he belongs to the Forsaken.
Blizzard's official introduction describes a man struggling to accept his undead existence while confronting the beliefs that once defined him. The premise is simple, but its implications are enormous. A Scarlet Crusader does not merely regard undeath as an inconvenience. It represents the corruption of everything sacred.
Being transformed into a Forsaken therefore creates more than a physical problem. It destroys the distinction between the righteous crusader and the monster he was taught to despise.
This is also why the story fits so naturally into Forever's larger exploration of Lordaeron. Blizzard has already returned to the region through Warcraft III's new Forsaken Kingdom campaign, which explores the establishment of Undercity and the emergence of Forsaken society.
That campaign connects directly to the developing Forever storyline. Rather than treating the Forsaken as an established faction whose complicated origins can be summarized in a loading-screen paragraph, Blizzard is revisiting how an entire civilization of newly independent undead might understand itself.
Somewhere between rebuilding Lordaeron and surviving its enemies, the Forsaken also have to answer a much more personal question.
What are they supposed to believe in now?
The Holy Light Was Never Quite as Simple as the Scarlet Crusade Believed
One of Warcraft's more interesting pieces of religious mythology is that the Holy Light does not operate like a conventional judge deciding who deserves its power. Faith, conviction and the ability to channel the Light have frequently mattered more than whether a particular character's actions could reasonably be described as good.
The Scarlet Crusade itself provides a rather alarming demonstration of that principle. Its members can wield holy magic while committing atrocities in the name of their faith. Apparently, righteousness is considerably easier to claim than to practice.
Undead characters complicate matters further.
The Forsaken have been able to serve as Priests since the original World of Warcraft, although wielding the Light is traditionally associated with considerable pain for the undead. Its restorative power does not automatically make an undead body comfortable, and a Forsaken healer's relationship with holy magic is considerably more complicated than that of a living human priest.
This makes Cormack's dilemma especially compelling. If a Scarlet Crusader becomes undead, does the Light abandon him? Or does the real challenge involve abandoning the prejudices that once convinced him the undead were beyond redemption?
Forever is already experimenting with the mechanical side of that relationship. As we covered in our examination of Priest changes and returning racial abilities, Blizzard is rebuilding parts of Classic's religious class identity while preserving the differences that originally made each race feel distinct.
More dramatically, Forever introduces playable Forsaken Paladins, a combination that would have sounded thoroughly improbable to veterans of Vanilla Warcraft.
Blizzard has even created a Forsaken Paladin Charger among Forever's new mounts, giving the once-unthinkable combination a recognizable place in the game's visual identity.
That does not mean Cormack has been confirmed as a Paladin, nor does Blizzard's announcement establish that his story explains the entire new class combination. But the thematic connection is difficult to miss.
Forever is asking what happens when the boundaries of old Azeroth begin to shift. The same world that once treated holy warriors and undead as opposing ideas is now making room for characters who embody both.
WoW Forever Is Becoming More Than a Classic Nostalgia Project
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Unbowed is how neatly it fits into Blizzard's wider storytelling ambitions.
Forever has already demonstrated that its alternative version of Azeroth will not simply follow the familiar expansion chronology. As we explored in our article about Forever's alternative timeline and its approach to playable races, Blizzard is deliberately building on the older Warcraft world rather than automatically importing everything introduced during two decades of expansions.
That creates room to revisit stories which the original game touched upon but rarely had time to examine properly.
The Forsaken are a perfect example. Players remember Sylvanas, the Royal Apothecary Society and the unpleasant green waterways beneath Undercity. But the ordinary people of Lordaeron, suddenly transformed into undead citizens of their own ruined kingdom, have always offered an extraordinary opportunity for smaller, more human stories.
Forever's new content is already using that setting. The Ruins of Lordaeron dungeon sends players into the remains of the former human kingdom as the Forsaken confront another necromantic threat.
Meanwhile, the game's revised class system is exploring unusual character identities. The Protection and Retribution Paladin overhaul is not just about improving tanking and damage numbers. It is part of a broader attempt to make the traditional fantasy of these classes more meaningful.
And the recently revealed return of the Shockadin shows how even established interpretations of holy magic are being reconsidered.
Unbowed approaches those larger questions from the opposite direction. Instead of beginning with abilities and talent trees, it begins with a character whose identity no longer makes sense according to the rules he once believed were absolute.
That is a much more interesting problem than deciding whether Holy Shock needs another ten percent damage.
Blizzard has presented Unbowed as a narrated fireside story, written by Sean Copeland, illustrated by Surfside 3D and performed by Jesse Burch as Cormack. The presentation is unusually intimate for Warcraft, a franchise normally quite comfortable explaining its mythology through enormous dragons, burning cities and apocalyptic magical explosions.
Here, the central conflict is smaller and arguably more uncomfortable.
A man who once knew exactly who the monsters were has become one of them.
And he must decide whether everything he believed about those monsters was wrong.
As World of Warcraft: Forever approaches its November 4 launch, stories like Unbowed suggest Blizzard understands something important about returning to old Azeroth. The original world was memorable not merely because its roads were dangerous, its dungeons were enormous or its quest rewards occasionally consisted of entirely inappropriate trousers.
It was memorable because places like Lordaeron carried the weight of a terrible history, and the people living among the ruins had not finished dealing with it.
Cormack is another reminder that the most interesting thing about the Forsaken has never been that they are dead.
It is that they are still trying to live.
Watch or read Unbowed: Blizzard has made the narrated story and a downloadable PDF available through its official World of Warcraft website.
Post a Comment