[A-RP] <Hand of Ebon> Concept Development

Argent Dawn
82

Wh-what?
In other news, now let the author have his thread, please.
Edit: (Or simply, reboot it. Make a ticket to delete the thread, reboot it with a few more Q&A. Your call.)

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83

While I’m not personally a fan of the oath and general theme, I don’t really see a problem with a death knight order who holds on to those paladin-esque virtues. This guy here is only one example of such a death knight:

`https://wow.gamepedia.com/Ormus_the_Penitent´

Don’t exactly understand why some people find this iffy but are okay with some radical Sunwalker crusader-esque order (which is totally fine by the way, I like different spins on religions and cults in WoW because the setting allows it).

If you really want to go for such a guild, perhaps flesh it out a little further than just the oath. Make them really stand out and target a specific kind of good-aligned niche DK characters that try to have the focus on -fighting- these murderous urges and be good.

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84

Update: Background Story, Concept Tweak

I have updated the background story, and given the concept a tweak that might be more suitable than the original concept.

Constructive critique is much obliged!

85

So I’ve read the “updated” concept and background. Twice. Just to make sure I didn’t missed something or misunderstood.

I’ve tried to write constructive criticism but that thing is beyond salvage. Throw it in the bin, go back to the drawing board, figure out what exactly you want and read the damn lore of the Ebon Blade, Death Knights, and the Scourge before you get to work.

Look, I get it, you want to make an Undead assassins & rogues guild and throw in some espionage and infiltration stuff. In short, you want to make the Forsaken’s Deathstalkers on Alliance side.

Instead of bending backwards (both yourself and official lore) to make it work and slap it with the Ebon Blade label just try this on for size:

Create a non-player character or use your own Death Knight and have him, or her, be someone who favors such tactics (assassination, infiltration, sabotage, espionage etc) and uses a variety of creatures such as Wraiths, Shades, Geists, and other undead suitable for such tasks.
As he is against Sylvanas and the Forsaken, he sends his followers (or goes in person if it’s your DK leading this group) on his own initiative to hit the Forsaken when the Alliance encounters them and then leaves. Not an Alliance affiliated group, just an Ebon Knight acting on his or her own volition.

In addition…

Lose the “Ebon Stalker” thing or why not use it as your (or the NPC leader’s) nickname or self-given title. A Death Knight, no matter his/her backstory and acquired skill, is too much of a precious unit to use for this sort of work especially when there are many other undead creatures specifically created for such tasks.

Lose that Ravenholdt Assassin and SI:7 Operative’s backstory. You are overcompensating. The former or the latter is more than enough to give your character the necessary knowledge to plan and do such things. Being both is just overkill. In fact, just lose that whole backstory.

There’s no need to headcanon create a “new branch”. An unofficial group that does certain things and follow a specific leader is more than enough and allows you more freedom to do things and adapt the guild to changes easily.

In conclusion, it looks to me that you had an idea, you thought it was good, posted it here, got chewed up, and sloppily tried to “fix” it and in the process you managed to make it even worse.

Think what I said above, and well try to have fun.

5 Likes
86

Best of luck with the concept OP, always nice to see more Ebon RP!

If you seek to infuse Templar Knight and the Ebon Blade perhaps look into how undeath might taint that oath somewhat to better make it fit. Just my two cents, I hope your guild thread isn’t derailed any longer :smiley:

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87

Sylmarien makes some good notes, I’d definitely give it a read @Whittock.

On the note of the thoroughly beaten horse, I’m just not in agreement with the Death Knights all being so twisted by their undeath that they’re beyond all virtue or nobility.

We have the “do whatever it takes, to hell with what happens” DKs of course, but we also have the ones who go out of their way to save the unlives of their brethren in arms. Be it lingering compassion, a sense of brotherhood or simply a sense of duty, Death Knights absolutely can act against the mindset the Lich King meant to instill in them.

It might not come naturally to them at all, but to someone aware that their darker desires are a design by some evil overlord, rejecting them could well be a point of pride. “I’m still my own person”, that sort of a thing.

Suffer well.
mic drop

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88

By god, you are either neutral or not. This seems like a weird excuse to jump into rp-pvp campaigns, only to plead ignorance to your fellow death knights afterwards.

Edit: Please, just make this an Alliance DK guild, at least then you’ll get to affiliate with the faction without mental gymnastics.

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If a troll death knight was able to escape Arthas’ vanguard to pursue his love for fishing - I fail to see how others cannot be as dedicated (or stupid) as that lore-established character.

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Too everyone who have read the pre and post-tweaking of the concept:

Thank you for all the replies, you make some good points. It does help pointing me the right direction, and to remove what is too much.

The whole idea of making this guild – seen from my own perspective – is to have an “out-of-the-box” concept which of course remains within the “bigger-box” (the Lore), yet without being as the majority of Death Knights guilds are; shock-troopers. Most of those guilds are running the same way, but are still not agreeing, even if it’s the same concept. And that’s why I want to “burst the bubble” without causing too much of a ruckus, and which is why I’m asking for advice and ideas from the forum here, and from players who are more refined within the Lore on this subject.

Notes so far:

– Stealth-like contra shock-troopers
– Either stay neutral or Alliance
– Taint the oath to fit more to the undead aspect

Am I missing anything, or what else would be a good idea to add, remove or tweak?

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You’re only really bound to succeed in creating a smaller bubble, tbh. There’s good reasons for the bubble surrounding Ebon rp, most namely having no real place in BfA’s narrative.

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So your advice to me would be to either focus on being Neutral or Alliance affiliated, and not to bring in the “stealth-like” aspect into the concept, when roleplaying inside the “bubble” of Ebon Blade / Death Knight roleplay?

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I genuinely believe that if you wanted to do some stealthy DK stuff you’d be better off playing a scout-esque role of some sort in an existing guild, so you are an exception to the rule rather than, well, it being an Ebon Blade SI:7 guild.

It’d also save you all this setting up a backstory and everything which seems to be going okayish at best.

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94

My advice is two-fold.
Firstly, don’t bind yourself to the Alliance if you plan on making an Ebon guild. The Blade has been fully neutral since Legion.
Secondly, the scouting/reconnaissance concept makes little sense when you don’t plan out what you’re scouting for.

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95

I get that, though understand by idea here:

  1. The reason why I want to create the guild as Alliance affiliated is mainly because of the idea being against the Forsaken for Sylvanas’ power-hunger and wanting to destroy hope/life. In addition to that; I have always understood the Ebon Blade being “protectors” of the living – them fighting against the Legion for instance, and that they are not trying to hate or destroy the living, or else they would not be better than the Scourge. But that is my understanding – correct me if I’m wrong.

  2. The scouting / reconnaissance concept I put in place due to my characters background story of being a former operative of the Alliance. The plan what – or rather who I plan to scout for is mainly based on the Forsaken; due to Sylvanas’ power-hunger and wanting to destroy hope/life.

Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you, or wrong as a whole.

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You are likely to be wrong, but you would know this already if you’d read the quote that Arindha posted from the Ebon Watcher:

Evidently they don’t care for their living allies beyond revenge against the Lich King.

Furthermore, during the events of Legion the Ebon Blade had no qualms attacking both the Ruby Sanctum and Light’s Hope.

I can imagine there’s already an Alliance guild somewhere that would allow your character to perform reconnaissance missions aimed against Sylvanas.

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this is a big one. It’d be a tad weird to proclaim something as actively part of the Ebon Blade but have it very clearly side with 1 faction against the other. That kinda defeats the purpose of being part of a neutral order instead of, I dunno, being an alliance unit of DKs or something.

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Which does make sense. I don’t know if I’m phrasing myself wrong, or my ideas are just head over hills, but the idea was to not be against the Horde as a whole, but just the Forsaken due to – as explained before:

In some sense, the idea is being neutral, but against the Forsaken and Sylvanas’ reign – not against the Horde as a whole, despite Sylvanas being the current warchief.

99

I mean, that kinda works conceptually… but not beyond that. It’d be about as effective as going after Anduin and the Humans but claiming to have no beef with the Alliance.

Going specifically after a faction’s leader and a considerable other part of that faction puts you against that faction as a whole.

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100

That is exactly my worry. So I reckon it would be best to place it as Alliance affiliated?

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In short, yeah. If you wanna go at odds against one of the factions, remaining as actively a part of a neutral order doesn’t really cut it. It very quickly slots you into being either entirely standalone, detached from the EB, or it puts you in the opposite faction of the one you’re at odds with.