Leaps of Faith
By falconesse | May 12, 2009
Worldbuilding fascinates me. When I dive into a new story, I’m always keeping an eye out for what the authors do with the belief systems within those worlds. It’s one of the things I consider during any kind of character creation, even if it might never come into play over the course of a game, and WoW is no exception.
Every race has its religion, and certain classes might lend more easily to a character being devout (or not!) As new content has been released, we find our PCs exposed to demons and demigods. There’s also plenty of room for embellishment — looking back at the lore, worship of the Light seems to be relatively new for humans. What came before that? A few of our Northerner-players have filled in the blanks with some very cool ideas.
Along the same lines, troll lore is hard to chase down — part of it is probably the sheer numbers of tribes, each having their own patron gods, or variations on one another’s gods. We got to see a bit more of it with Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman, but there is still much that is left to your imagination.
There are dragons and titans and spirits of all kinds. So much excellent fodder for RP.
Davien’s an atheist at heart. She doesn’t believe in gods, really, though she acknowledges that there are beings with powers that far surpass her own. She simply counts them as other races, their power worthy of respect (and, obviously, study), but not something to worship. The closest she comes to religion stems from her study of the arcane — she believes it connects everything, and holds things together, but it’s not sentient; it’s a power to be tapped into and harnessed. Malygos’ insanity and death have given her new things to ponder about magic and its nature.
Annalea felt that the Church of the Holy Light was far too stuffy for her tastes. She grew up mostly going through the motions at services, but not much liking what she heard. Then came the Kal’dorei and their moon goddess, and she headed off to the Temple of Elune to offer her services as an acolyte. It’s a much more comfortable fit for her, but she’s far from devout.
Threnn has the strongest faith of the three. She holds firm to the Light and its teachings, but unless someone else asks first, she keeps it to herself. Faith and prayer are very private and personal for her. When the Draenei came, and the Naaru with them, she suffered a minor crisis of faith. Here was the very thing she worshiped, spinning around and making windchime noises in the middle of Shattrath. She’s since decided that they’re creatures made from the Light, but they aren’t the Light itself. After A’dal appeared at the end of the Bridenbrad quest chain in Icecrown, she lost a huge chunk of respect for them, and any lingering doubts as to whether or not she should worship the Naaru the way she does the Light went away.
What do your characters believe? How has the lore that’s been revealed with new content affected or challenged those beliefs?
4 Comments
Bricu on May 12, 2009 at 3:11 pm.
Bricu, as per his inspiration, has a very flexible faith. He does not, nor will he ever, worship the Naaru. He believes that Light is a good philosophy to follow; however, the practitioners need to be exposed to their own values. The Old Ways speak to him on a fundamental level, but he just pays his respects.
As for Elune, Titans and all the others, Bricu will treat them all with the requisite respect due to all things–maybe a bit more given their ability to smite him out of existence–but worship, praise and faithful devotion just isn’t really his schtick. He believes in the empowerment/pursuit of perfection as described in the Light.
If asked to define it, Bricu admits to bringing the Light to the shadier places in Azeroth, taking inspiration from trickster figures (specifically Fox) from the Old Ways. The fact that he continues to linger in the shadowy places has gotten him in trouble with other muckity-mucks, but, that’s a comment (or a post) for a different time.
Itanya Blade on May 12, 2009 at 3:19 pm.
The whole Prophecy of Light has a very twisted view on the Light. Their founder, Lamis, both worshipped the light and desired to use it for the purpose of preserving the Sin’dorei
Dorri actually hates the Naaru. She calls them Light monsters, when she doesn’t spit at the very mention of them. Most of that hatred comes from the questline in Icecrown that culminates with the Naaru slaying the Argent Crusader rather than let him be corrupted. They never bothered to explain to her what made that human better than the Quel’dorei that suffered the transition to scourge or Forsaken.
She considers it all to be a lie and she’ll use her strength for what she needs it to be.
Then’liath believes, but she thinks that the Sin’dorei have lost their way. Her call for a return to the light was part of the reason why she was exiled from Silvermoon.
Pill believes much like Davien, but she’s less cerebral about it. (Let’s face it, Pill isn’t very cerebral. Not stupid, just doesn’t see a reason to spend a lot of time in thought.)
Arrens on May 12, 2009 at 3:25 pm.
Arrens the Forsaken rogue has flatly rejected all notions of religion and gods (save the Old Gods who are a threat and should obviously not be worshipped in the first place). Much as Itanya mentioned above, he believes no just entity exists due to his current existence as an undead.
Arrens the Human warlock, however, does believe and acknowledge the Light. However, since he started following the path of the warlock, he has been more distant from it and hasn’t been to a proper service since Dalaran’s fall. Instead, he’s devoted himself to mastery over demons so as to properly protect himself, his students and his friends from their influence should they decide to make an inevitable return to Azeroth.
Mommacow on May 13, 2009 at 10:03 am.
Rashona’s intensely devoted to the Earthmother, she’s just *quiet* about it. It’s so much a part of her that rhapsodizing about her faith is about as pointless as rhapsodizing about her horns. She’s very, very tolerant of the other Horde religions, though she’s got an unconscious superiority complex about hers, which boils down to “why serve lesser spirits when there’s a perfectly good Earthmother out there?” And Rashona’s religion vs. Scourge/Forsaken/plague would probably make a whole post on its own…
Then there’s the Light. Aside from a relative lack of understanding (the only Alliance culture she knows at all well is night elven, which is Elune-focused), the Light is, at bottom, an abstract and she doesn’t *trust* religions with no actual deity involved. (Which started out as an IC justification for Rashona’s hatred of pallies; she believes that people can easily talk themselves into atrocities when they’re serving an ideal. Which was directly triggered by watching a level 60 paladin slaughter most of Freewind Post one day. But I digress.)
(Also? I has a Draenei shammy now, whose basic approach to religion can be summed up as “The Naaru have not forgotten us.” “Says you.”)