Demon Hunters and Immortality

Argent Dawn
21

Haha guys are we going on this route again?

I don’t think there is a source on what magic does the with longevity. Blizzard often write worlds but never goes too deep into depth and leaves a lot to interpretation.
I like that because as an RP setting, the lore is a good guide, but gives people enough freedom to roleplay the way they want.

Discussing about how a fantasy world should work, without any proper sources, is a bit childish to be honest. It goes to the “No I’m right. No I’m right!” real fast.

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Elves live so long because of the Well of Eternity, night elves were immortal because of the dragon aspects’ blessing on Nordrassil.

There’s more to them than just arcane magic, it’s not “Well, I’ve used magic long enough to become immortal”. Human magi can live long, for an example, but they also age quicker. Wielding arcane is incredibly stressful, fel can sap your own life force if you aren’t careful.

You’re putting every magical force together as just “magic”, he only feels young in his worgen form. While human he still feels his age, though even Anduin notes he’s stronger than you’d suspect.

Uther was a paladin. Paladins are Lightforged lite. They are infused and embodies the Holy Light itself. Again, though, Light = / = Arcane. The Light, Anduin theorises, can be used to extend someone’s life. If you take Gul’dan’s raid encounter as an example, him beefing himself up on felroids might as well be as canon as Garrosh hulking up on sharoids, considering neither of them seem to have changed by the end of the fight, as shown by their respective cinematics.

Gul’dan’s clothing even repaired itself.

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/lore-tidbits-thread-4/136258/24
Blessed be the forum’s own lore wizard.

23

For most Demon Hunters, death will more likely be a case of the wards keeping the demon contained failing, followed by the demon consuming the Hunter’s soul and returning to the Twisting Nether to slowly reform.

Illidan is a special case as his forming was unique (being gifted the power by Sargeras himself, then eating the Skull of Gul’dan) and the Slayer is considered notable and no NPC has taken that title to confirm that another immortal DH exists.

You can totally still call people ‘mortals’ though

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Which was… what exactly? What powered this well? Arcane energy.

Genn Greymane dukes it out in human form with Nathanos as I recall in the Stormheim intro, I think it’s pretty clear he’s not a regular 70 year old man.

The Light, Anduin theorises, can be used to extend someone’s life.

And we’ve seen the Arcane do this too. Medivh, Aegwynn, all Guardians were immortal. Trolls evolved into long-lived elves thanks to Arcane energy.

In his youth his hair had likely been ebon black, but now it was already turning gray at the temples and along the beard. Khadgar knew that this happened to many mages, from the stress of the magical energies they wielded.

How old is this? Probably from the days that the RPG was still canon.

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I think it’s pretty obvious he is precisely that, and Nathanos is just a wimp.

Touché atheists.

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We’re talking arcane energies of a quite literal titanic degree. It’s the lifeblood of the world itself, not just arcane energies. It’s an unimaginable amount of it.

For a brief period of time before being goaded into shapeshifting. It’s also worth noting WoW-humans aren’t IRL humans.

Medivh wasn’t immortal. Aegwynn wasn’t immortal. The Guardians aren’t immortal. They are long lived because they were talented magi in their own right, but were further empowered by their peers to become the Guardian. There’s more to it than just arcane magic, the birth of the elves included, who evolved from trolls due to being exposed to a near titanic level font of power. That’s the difference you’re not seeing. They are not simple mages.

That doesn’t make it any less canon + we still see it in the form of Jaina, whose hair was bleached white as a result of exposure to vast amounts of arcane energies.

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It sure does if other stuff since has contradicted it. If that’s The Last Guardian it’s from 2002 and written before Warcraft 3 was even out and introduced the Night Elves and their immortality. Arcane Magic making you age faster and being corruptive is RPG lore that’s since been retconned.

It also has concepts like a Druid growing a plant faster is actually the equivalent of casting ‘Drain Life’ on it which I doubt is still canon considering it doesn’t seem like something Druids would do.

Hair can go white from stress ( her home got nuked ) and she was exposed to WoW’s version of the atomic bomb. The Light can both heal and burn you. I’m not saying being fireballed makes you live longer. We have plenty examples of magic expanding lifespans.

Rastakhan was also centuries old.

Sure, but you don’t need titanic amounts of magic to live longer.

He is now.

Was she not? She lived for over 1000 years.

Turalyon’s supposedly lived for 10,000.

And Illidan is IMMORTAL immortal, even though as far as I know the only ‘demon’ he ever gobbled up was Gul’dan. It was the huge influx of Fel he got in Warcraft 3 that made him half demon and gave him an immortal soul.

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Arcane magic being addictive and corruptive has remained a fixture in WoW to this very day. But no, old lore is only retconned if newer lore contradicts it - thus far, arcane magic being a corruptive form of magic that can unnaturally age its wielder has not been contradicted. The night elves are also not an example of someone being immortal through arcane magic. Their immortality was through the Dragon Aspects blessing Nordrassil.

Her hair went white as a result of being exposed to that magic bomb. I’m saying magic as a whole can make you live longer, but it’s far from as clear cut and common as you seem to believe it is.

Rastakhan was literally kept alive by the powers of a god. He started ageing rapidly after Rezan’s death.

No, but that’s what made the night elves long lived. They didn’t achieve immortality until Nordrassil was blessed by all dragon aspects.

After being restored to life.

She’s a very potent mage and the Guardian, but living for over a thousand years isn’t immortality.

A thousand years and a few decades. He’s Lightforged.

Yes. Because vast amounts of fel magic turns you into a demon. That’s been my entire point all along. You paint all of these forms of magic with one broad brush, but arcane doesn’t turn someone into a demon, the light doesn’t.

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Assuming it doesn’t kill you outright.

Excerpts from A Thousand Years of War - Part I

The debris washed up on a shore of black rocks. A lone figure stumbled along, his skin dry and pale and weeping with sores. He lurched toward the water and picked at the wreckage.

He lifted a charred plank. Sniffed it. His tongue flicked out, licking one of the embers. It sparked and winked out with a hiss. His eyes pulsed green. He smiled.

“More… I need… more…”

The stage thus set, our intreprid Nightfallen hunts for the source further along the beach. What he finds is a seemingly lifeless figure.

He pulled the black cloak away from the corpse. An orc. Green skin. Pulsing with dark magic and strange markings. He had never seen such a strong aura. It would sustain him for… Days? Weeks? Years?

His fingers curled above the body, drawing a taste of the potent radiance. It was vile. And it was beautiful. He drank deeply.

He felt power. He felt fire. He felt might.

He felt pain.

He felt the corpse’s green hand close around his throat, squeezing hard.

He felt fear.

The orc was standing. Not a corpse at all. Never had been. Glowing red eyes looked into his. “You have not paid the price for that power, not as I have,” the orc said. The eyes narrowed, and the lips twisted into a smile. “But please, have more.”

The exile shrieked. Torrents of corrupted fel surged into his mind. He lived on magic. Now he drowned in it, suffocating beneath an endless ocean of green fire. He was filled to the brim, and yet more flooded in.

Then, in an instant, it was all gone. All of the orc’s magic. All of his own. Drained to the last drop. Nothing remained but emptiness and agony.

Yet as his heart went still, he realized he would do anything to wield such might again…

tl;dr don’t do fel kids

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30

Arcane is literally the magic of ORDER in today’s lore. That very much counters the old RPG lore about magic being corruptive and chaotic.

And what do you think is in the water at the bottom of Nordrassil? What made it grow so big? Water from the Well of Eternity.

So magic.

Source on the Well of Eternity not making them… Eternal?

With… magic…

Maybe, but it’s proof of Arcane Magic prolonging one’s life considerably, whereas you claim it to be aging.

Magic

We’ve seen every type of magic prolong someone’s life or make them immortal at this point.

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Yes? It’s still a corruptive and inherently chaotic force when wielded by mortals. All magic is corruptive in modern WoW’s lore. Arcane isn’t an exception.

Which has nothing to do with the night elves being made mortal.

From a literal god. Not just magic.

The Well of Eternity made them nigh-immortal. They could live for thousands upon thousands of years. The Dragon Aspects blessing Nordrassil, in particular Nozdormu, rendered them immortal. It’s why Fandral Staghelm grew Teldrassil, that entire tree was nothing but a petty attempt to regain their immortality. Which is why Nozdormu refused to give his blessing to it.

Please do not I never claimed it to be only ageing. I said very potent magi can extend their lives with arcane magic, but they only do so for a few centuries unless they are the level of Medivh or Aegwynn. Both of whom were the Guardian.

Light, not arcane.

Through different means, different ways and not simply “this makes me immortal”.

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It literally can’t be ‘chaotic’. It opposes ‘Chaos’ on the cosmic scale. It’s the magic of Order.

If I am to believe you saying the Well of Eternity doesn’t make them Eternal, yes. The problem with that is that you’re mistaken. The Well made them immortal.

Probably because the second Well was much weaker. But the first made them immortal.

But you also said magic ages you?

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Don’t expect an invitation to the Slaughtered Lamb’s christmas event. :triumph:

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Yes. It can. We’ve seen it repeatedly. In game.

The well made them nigh-immortal. That’s quite literally how the lore puts it. They don’t achieve true immortality until Nordrassil is blessed by the Dragon Aspects.

You know they aren’t mutually exclusive, right? Wielding magic is a stressful business, it can age you horribly if you do it wrong. Or get exposed to vast quantities of magical energies. But a very potent mage can also extend his life past a normal human’s lifespan, but you need to be exceptionally powerful to do so without ageing.

And in the case of the Guardian, being further empowered by a cabal of the world’s greatest mages.

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I’ve asked for your source for this several times now. It’s called the Well of Eternity not the Well of Longevity.

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I believe it can be enriching to have an immortal trait, but it needs to be handled with care
if you are already unkillable and is the type to seek revenge after, probably don’t

if your character is a wet sock or just well rounded so far that death is always an option, it may be interesting to explore how it affects your characters mentality that they can’t die.
will they become more careless, or avoid harm because I would imagine it is gonna hurt and unlike most, you will live to remember that pain.

I known warlocks who make use of the soulstone to achieve this effect of immortality.

37

Samesies and it’s honestly quite a fun twist under the right circumstances.

(Giving your character blanket immunity from consequences is not the right circumstances.)

It’s basically a narrative tool same as with a lot of other character traits. I’ve found it works by far the best with antagonistic characters/NPCs rather than regular RP characters, but that might just be me.

This is honestly the reason the Burning Legion remains one of my favorite armies of evil, period.

Even if you somehow manage to overcome the near-impossible odds of survival and claw your way to victory against them, you’ve only won a stay of execution. When they return, and they will return, they have all the memories of how you beat them the last time. So you’ll have to think of something new.

38

Shoving your soul into a container is a well trod practice, especially when the player characters are too stupid to actually destroy the phylactery soul stone.

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I think there are plenty of examples where magic causes longevity (especially arcane magic). We’ve got elves in general who, if not immortal per sé, do live for thousands of years because of that exposure to magic. We’ve got mention in one of the older books about how human mages can get up to 200 years old (presumably because of their magic). I believe in Wolfheart the Highborne mages are noted to look younger than the other elves (despite not actually being younger), but I may be wrong about that one.

Prime example Aegwynn has already been mentioned. She extended her life till ~800 years, which is quite a feat. So even if magic doesn’t make you immortal, it does seem to passively extend your lifespan (at least that is true for Arcane magic).

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https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Teldrassil:_The_Refusal_of_the_Aspects

Mesmerized by their discovery, the dark trolls settled along the Well of Eternity’s shores. Over generations, the energies radiating from the lake suffused the trolls’ flesh and bones, elevating their forms to match their graceful spirits. They transformed into highly intelligent and virtually immortal beings.

Chronicle 1, page 93. The night elves were virtually immortal because of how long lived they were, but didn’t achieve true immortality until Nordrassil was blessed.

They did. Which was due to exposure to a titanic amount of arcane energies; well beyond of what the average mage might ever encounter, which was my point. Your average human mage is nowhere near the level of Aegwynn.

Khadgar wondered if Medivh’s mother was here when the land rose, or sank, or was struck by a piece of the sky. Eight hundred years was long even by the standards of a wizard. After two hundred years, most of the old object lessons taught, most human mages were deathly thin and frail.

Aegwynn’s 800 years was well beyond even regular mage, who, while long lived, kept ageing. Aegwynn was a powerful mage before she became the Guardian, which achieved through a process where the chosen mage is furthered empowered by some of the most powerful mages in Azeroth. It’s not a passive extension of your life.

The same book also includes this passage.

And Medivh was there, for to Khadgar it could be no other. He was a man of middling years, his hair long and bound in a ponytail in the back. In his youth his hair had likely been ebon black, but now it was already turning gray at the temples and along the beard. Khadgar knew that this happened to many mages, from the stress of the magical energies they wielded.

Which has been my point so far. Magic can extend your life, but it isn’t through mere exposure to arcane energies, but it can also have the adverse effect on you as well. And in the case of the elves, where it was done through passive exposure, it required a truly titanic amount of magic to achieve it and likely generations of continued exposure to it.