Blood Knight Pet Hates

Lore Role-playing
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Now, I’d like to start by saying that this is in no way directed at anyone in particular, a ‘call out post’ or anything of that nature. I’ve RPed a Blood Knight since TBC and there’s just a few things that grind my gears, so I’d like to offer a fairly short advice post, since there are already so many Blood Knight RP guide out there that I love and are fantastic.

If you’d like a comprehensive guide and are totally new to Blood Knight RP, https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/13901300183 is an excellent read!

  • So, first things first. With the events of Legion and the paladins of the world united under one banner, the reformation of the Silver Hand, the Blood Knights did band together with other holy orders to combat the threat of the burning Legion. However, they’re not Knights Of The Silver Hand. With Legions end and BFA war kicking off, Blood Knights are still an elite Thalassian military force that have been seen in Darkshore and are probably fighting on most front lines during BFA. (Please give me more lore and confirmation Blizzard.). So your Blood Knight is therefore, Horde aligned, probably off fighting on the front lines, for the Horde… They’re no longer part of the Silver Hand and the two don’t particularly mix well right now.

  • Second thing is one I see on a daily basis that makes very little sense to me, but in all fairness is a very easy mistake to make and I can understand why this happens so much. Blood Knights are not law enforcers! They are not police, they are not guards. They’re a specialised military unit, created to originally combat the Scourge after Arthas’s invasion. They won’t concern themselves with petty crimes on the streets of Silvermoon, or even guard-like patrols! Yes Champion Vryesh ‘patrols’ Silvermoon, but he’s not policing the streets, as it’d almost be the equivalent of the SAS starting to patrol the streets of London and do you in for bar fighting.

  • To follow on from that, seeing Blood Knights patrolling down Murder Row in full uniform, tabard, the works… Is a little jarring. I’m certain there’s quest text or some text in the lore that states guards themselves don’t even patrol down Murder Row, but I can’t for the life of me find it.

  • Multi-profession Blood Knights! Now, if your Blood Knight is a blacksmith, skinner, etc fine. Everyone has skills and talents right? But a Blood Knight with seven different jobs is just… Are you not busy fighting in the current war that’s going on across Azeroth?

  • KNIGHT-LORD. The Knight-Lords of the Order are mentioned and named in Blood Of The Highborne, as it says in the guide above. RPing a Knight-Lord means you are essentially RPing lore characters. Would you RP as the Ranger-General of Silvermoon? It pains me to see every Blood Knight as a Knight-Lord, or even a Master to be quite honest. Those ranks are high, high inner circle and mostly reserved for Lore characters. If you want to be a Master, that’s more plausible, but stay away unless you know exactly what that role entails and probably stay away from it unless you’re high up in a Blood Knight guild or something of the sort.

But, at the end of the day, you pay a sub-fee, you’re free to do whatever you like with your character! This is purely my opinion and if anyone has corrections, more pet hates to add, disagreements, feel free!

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Saw a half-elf Blood Knight the other day… Half elf.

Half elf.

I think people need to be referred to the guide written a while back, it’s a bit annoying to see factions that people have dedicated a long, long time to RPing and making successful, excellent guilds not being taken seriously anymore (Or ever? I’m unsure, I’ve seen as many people sh!t on Blood Knight’s as I’ve seen people sh!t on SI:7 because it’s done badly so much) because sometimes people don’t read the lore or want to RP anything but the fancy title, eh?

Each to their own!

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What was the other half?

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It wasn’t specified, but I’m hoping it’s imaginative.

Half-Elf Half-Orc Blood Knight. A real powerhouse.

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I’m gonna make a half elf half tuskarr blood knight now.
He’s the High Lord of the Silver Hand. And has Ashbringer.

Fight me.

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I think the removal of the quests contributed a lot to there being misconceptions about their role when roleplaying. I remember being on the old account and doing them - being very young - and absolutely confused about the morality. It was great. I was a Blood Knight yet I had to kill a Blood Knight?! Ten year old me couldn’t comprehend, my parents had done most of the levelling so I probably missed quite a bit, but I probably shouldn’t have been playing either.

I feel as if before the Sunwell and that whole rather nasty Arthas business nobility reigned supreme, it was an aristocracy of course! I think. Most of this is head canon but I’ve met/interacted/known lots who influenced my understanding of the lore (forced their opinion on me!!!), and it mostly relies on the in game interactions in Farstrider Square with the NPCs. (‘THEY STOLE IT AND USE OUR TRAINING GROUNDS?!’) And there was a power vacuum left, we all know how many elves died, (they talk about it enough…) and it makes sense personally that a significant amount of civilians/soldiers survived as opposed to an insane amount of important nobility who weren’t well versed in fighting. I can’t imagine the Queen surviving an invasion but Prince Harry could - if that makes sense? I feel as if the highly valued members of nobility who were left fell somewhat out of favour in regards to being head honchos, they still carried/-y weight but they’re not the big I ams anymore (Maybe they are now?) And the space left was filled in by the military. Farstriders looked down upon, especially by this new blossoming Order of Egotistical morally questionable soldiers. A two-faction state for a while, Farstriders Vs Blood Knights. One was powerful but many died, the other the new guard promising hope and hell, were quite a lot better at killing undead.

I’ve had fun over the years with both classes (?) being in a sort of unwarranted, tension filled battle of passive aggressive comments over who’s better than who, without much actual mettle behind it, and who was no better than just one of them Silvermoon City guardians. A brief stint on the US servers one million years ago was great for this. A crime happened in front of my characters, and two Blood Knight’s very eyes. Someone running out of Murder Row. My Farstrider was instructed to deal with it, to her absolute horror. But she tried and not even the criminal would listen, because ‘it was your fault my family are dead!’ - I’ve also had somethings similar to this on AD over the years but names/times/everything escape me as I am an old woman now :frowning: Something with a DK maybe? Frostweaver, I can’t recall so if you read this I am terrible sorry! Granted some of this was TBC, some in Wrath and the lore has moved on a hell of a lot from there, I assume, cause blizzard won’t tell us??? please tell us??? But she’s caused no fights really as happiness is mandatory after all.

I also think Champion Vranesh just does it to annoy people. Condescending bastard! But is Silvermoon still under martial law? Cause otherwise none of what I said in this horrendously long reply makes sense. pls tell us.

But if you want to RP your Blood Knight as more of a guard, go ahead. No one can force you what to do which is the beauty of RP!
Maybe it’s a punishment with a more subtle undertone. Can’t have people thinking their own ranks are weak, or something. “You did bad, we need you. You can do a pathetic job instead of what you’re trained for for the next two weeks to learn some humility.”

I apologise for how awfully long this was and how it had no real point.

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So, they’re alright taking orders from an undead slaver who is resembling the Lichking more with each passing day? Sounds like you’re trying to justify it a tad bit.

Nor are soldiers in our world, but they get the job done when the actual Leos are unavailable or untrained for the situation.

I was going to say something then involving the T word, but I’m not going to be baited into getting silenced again.
All I will say is, it could happen if the situation was dire enough.

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I don’t quite understand the relevancy of the first bit personally, I think that can be said for every single order around Azeroth that’s Horde based right now. Are any of them alright with it? I think that comes down to a character’s personal view, but soldiers do what soldiers must do, heck as do police.

I don’t think SAS would ever police London but that’s because they’re there for faaaaaar more important things that aren’t things we’ll ever hear about most of the time, unless we get taken over that is. And a big take-over I’d imagine at that! Which I highly doubt, and the army could be called in at certain points if there’s a mass amount of civil unrest and there’s no police numbers at all, and even then they aren’t police - but I’m digressing! Silvermoon as far as I know is still under martial law, so while it’s possible - there are Thalassian soldiers for that that aren’t the elites, and as long as we have the Silvermoon Guardian NPC’s in game, I’ll be taking it that the situation isn’t dire enough for that! Especially not when you have two randos with BK in their class who haven’t really read what that means patrolling whilst every other BK is out doing whatever. There’s no consistency in the roleplaying community for that right now for various reasons, nor is there anything in lore that I know of myself! :slight_smile: But that’s my other two cents, on a post that isn’t even mine, so apologies!

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As a person of the Night that watched their home burn for the lols. I highly endorse this response.

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As someone who’s been a bit unsure on quite how to roleplay as a Blood Knight despite having done so for a few months now…I found this pet peeves forum quite helpful to find rookie mistakes in order to iron them out!

Personally I don’t think however bad the T situation gets they’ll never deploy somebody so elite to deal with the issue, although I do think maybe the less elite parts of the Military might be involved in a martial law esq situation. Blood Knights have more important and likely far more sensitive issues to be resolving.

Just my view!

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  • Blood Knights take their orders from Liadrin, who takes her orders from Lorthy, who takes his orders from Sylvanas. I never really mentioned her, or the fact that -all- the Horde probably aren’t happy taking orders from her, so I’m not entirely sure what point you were trying to make here or what you’re implying I’m trying to justify? Little confused at the comment there.

  • Soldiers in our world are only ever deployed under martial law for very short periods of time to restore order. I was more talking of the RPers who walk around every day, patrolling and spilling up bar fights or drug dealers in Murder Row etc. It’s not in their job description unless SMC has been under martial law since TBC, which it hasn’t been to the best of my knowledge.

  • Not quite sure what the relevancy of ‘the T word is’ even is in this context because… Well… We don’t have that going on in Silvermoon city, or even in WoW in general, so why would there be a need for BK’s to be deployed to act as guards or peacekeepers on a regular basis?

I think you’ve misunderstood some points, or I’ve misunderstood or don’t really understand what you’re trying to get at?

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I have played little on Horde side, but after reading this (and the guide in the link), I still wonder:

Are all Sin’dorei paladins Blood Knights, or can one be “just an adventurer” who goes through the training?

(Are all the blood elf paladin trainers Blood Knights? If so, I guess they might not want to train those not of the order?)

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I see a few Blood Elf Paladins that aren’t Blood Knights and I think it’s more a matter of personal opinion to be fair! I think back in TBC, you -had- to be a Blood Knight, since the Elves general opinion was that the Light had abandoned them and they as a whole, generally lost all faith in the Light.

Thats why Liadrin was no longer a priestess and was WELL up for commanding the Light, as opposed to praying and asking, since it had screwed them over by not helping them when Arthas came.

But now I think it’s reasonable to say some Blood Elves may have reclaimed their faith in the Light and now have the willpower to wield the Light again. -However-, personally I think they’d be priests, rather than Paladins as it was the BK’s that learnt to -command- the Light as a paladin does, where as a priest prays and asks. But I could be corrected on the difference between priests and paladins.

I wouldn’t agree with someone claiming to have gone through Blood Knight training and -not- be a Knight, as the Order is highly exclusive and such a band of brothers, it’s unlikely they’d train you up in their ways and just let you be a sort of freelancer, if that makes sense!

But to answer the question a little more concisely; unless there’s a good reason for your Elf to wield the Light as a paladin outside of the BK order, you’d be a BK.

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By their nature as Light users and paladins it’s actually quite natural for blood knights to enforce the Law, more so post rekindling of faith.

Aside from that I agree with pretty much all your sentiment.

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Almost right. Liadrin actually takes her orders from Halduron Brightwing instead. As Ranger General he is the absolute head honcho of all Thalassian forces. Lor’themar is now the Political ruler of Quel’thalas , King in all but name. Lor’themar, in the Farstrider order, Is actually the Rank below, he made it to Ranger Lord, but was never Ranger General, before Kael’thas appointed him as Regent Lord instead Lor’themar then appointed Halduron to command his Military (the two were good friends and well aware of each others skill) Interestingly Halduron was the First Ranger General to be appointed by their ability, rather than who their parents were.

We see a lot of Liadrin, because she is not only Matriarch of the Blood Knights, but it is heavily implied and outright stated by Halduron at one point, that her and Lor’themar are a very low key ‘Thing together’.

If you want an example of the dynamic between Lor’themar and Halduron, we used to see it the Zul Aman raid (Or just outside it) Halduron has invited Vereesa and the High Elves to join with the fight against Zul’Aman. Lor’themar sends a messenger saying the High Elves are not welcome, and Halduron sends the messenger back essentially saying “With all respect, you gave me this job because you thought I could do it. The High Elves stay”

Lor’themar grumbled about it, but Halduron was right. He -had- given him the job, and in the Military, Halduron held the command.

Its like the dynamic between the Queen of England and her top generals, The Queen is head of state, and is effectively, her Generals Boss, However if her Generals advise her a military action is unwise, she defers to their judgment.

The Role of Ranger-General, whilst the top Rank a Farstrider can reach, is actually the tradition name for the Commander of the whole military, and was so even before the Farstriders were founded. Technically, as bizarre as it sounds, it seems you don’t have to be a Farstrider to be Ranger-General, by that description, though 100% of them have been, so far…

Sorry, I get well picky on Blood Elf and Ranger lore, I know, I know.

It has not been, post TBC it is not under Martial Lore, the Fel crystals are gone, and it is essentially a Benevolent Autocracy. The actual Guards, are the appropriately named ‘Silvermoon City Guards’ Who finally got a model update.

Blood Knights are an elite Cavalry unit, they do not have any powers of arrest above and beyond any citizen of the City, they are emphatically Army, not Police. That’s the Guards. Farstriders is interesting also, apparently they also do not have any right of arrest above and beyond any citizen of the City, however outside of the City Walls, they seem to have authority of arrest. This actually sense from a lore point of view, they were formed to project the Will of Quel’thalas, and extend it. In practice this seems to be more “Hunt down criminals who flee the city” rather than “Police the roads” That’s still the guards.

I think the answer there is ‘Yes’ one can be a Paladin and not a Blood Knight. Its rare, but does happen. Tarethar Sunstrike is definitely a Paladin, and a Blood Elf, but is not a Blood Knight.

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I suppose I can’t blame the players anymore, especially when WoW’s own lore writers are hardly any better…

Glares accusingly towards Rhonin

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