A shadow-oriented draenei priest. Is it doable?

Argent Dawn
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Hiya there!

TLDR of this is that I’m trying to make a draenei shadow priest, but the lore on them seems kind of vague. I know that the Auchenai Soulpriests were considered shadow priests or death priests, but I couldnt find any other examples that displayed draenei being shadow/void-users.

I know that it might be a bit of a fringe project, but for a time since the Burning of Teldrassil I wanted to RP a draenei anchorite in training, who has slowly turned away from the Light after seeing atrocities in war, and has succumbed to darker magics in the face of death and suffering. While not necessarily evil, I wanted to ask any community opinion to discuss if that sort of approach could be considered viable in lore? With the heavy focused Light & Naaru themes inherent in draenei society, I just dont know if it could really be done, as what I would be most afraid of is being ignored or considered a snowflake, since what I really just want is to try a new take on something interesting.

Any and all opinions welcome please!! TY for reading :smile:

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Of course it’s doable. End of the day, draenei are people. If they see the Light fail (for example, teldrassil getting burned down), their faith might shatter and ultimately break, leading them to find other paths, instead.

edit: This does not apply to Lightforged draenei.

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Well, at least two thirds of their people once fell to darkness in the form of the Burning Legion so they definitely have it in them to turn to darker magics. Whether for good or ill is ofc up to each character themselves. I’m sure there’s Eredar who went with Archimonde & Kil’Jaeden’s choice without ill intent, just as there were those who went with Velen simply because they didn’t want to make a bargain with unknown forces, morality notwithstanding.

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See, there was a time where I’d eagerly point out how those were eredar. While biologically identical, their culture and world view was quite different to that of the draenei of today.

Of course, that entire cultural development was pretty much assassinated in Warlords of Draenor. The AU draenei saw the rise of the Sargerei from their own ranks, draenei disillusioned with Velen’s failing prophecies turning instead to the Legion and Gul’dan. So the cautionary tales and cultural changes didn’t quite render the draenei the staunch opponents of evil that was presented back in TBC.

Maybe that’s why the Lightforged was an added race. The hardcore demon-killers from space we sort of lost along WoD’s narrative turns. :tinfoil_hat:

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You are right of course, the Eredar are the original name of the species as a whole and their culture differs from what we see in the Draenei today, be they our Azeroth’s or the AU’s.

It’s the nature vs nurture debate, really. The “nature” part in my opinion does not exclude the possibility for any Draenei to embrace dark magics. The “nurture” part may stymie those urges in most Draenei, just like any culture trying to dissuade its people from crime and taboos within said culture, but it can never truly erase that part of nature.

In the case of WoD, we do see the divergences pretty clearly as you yourself pointed out pretty accurately. As much as our Azeroth can be seen as a crapsack world, the AU arguably has it worse - Their Draenei somehow miss that spark of optimism(and confidence in said optimism) that our Draenei do have. Which allowed Yrel & co to turn into the Draenic Inquisition of Lighty Purging rather than hardcore demon-killers from space.

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In Outland the draenei deathspeakers hand the adventurers drought of shadow which allows them to see into the Shadowlands and to guide the spirits to Auchindoun.

They also use soul mirrors to cleanse the souls with the use of Light and Shadow. They seem to use the Shadow for the purpose of working/communing with the spirits and to guide them to the fallen Naaru which they are trying to bring back to the Light state and which is under Auchindoun.

I would say a draenei anchorite using shadow for similar religious services would be more than alright to roleplay, it would be a different approach as opposed to the void and shadow manifested by the followers of the old gods or the Ren’dorei.
A good article on the shadow and its purpose in the draenei society is written by Drustai. It does not have the WoD lore so some of it might be retconed/updated now but the general idea is still solid and interesting.

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