Different ways to wield the light

Argent Dawn
1

I am kinda looking for inspiration with this thread. Not even gonna pretend otherwise.

So we all know how the light is shown to be used in game and in RP. Usually involves a lot of beams, blasts, buffs and bashing with the holy stuff. All pretty standard stuff. But have you ever come up (or seen someone else come up) with a different and out of the box thinking way of wielding the light?

I know the usage of light is probably pretty strict since the way you wield is most often dictated by a doctrine (Church of the Holy Light, Silver Hand, Loa worship. Etc). But there has to be at least a few freethinkers out there who do things a bit differently.

2

Nothing reaches the Light but the human soul
Every heathen kingdom has to fall.

Prelates are a lie ! Do not listen to zandalari propaganda using false idols and animalistic magic !

1 Like
3

Whoa! Who say’s we’re not freethinkers?!

4

Shut up and stick to doctrine!

5

'Ate the light
'Ate the priests
'Ate the paladins
Simple as

6

As funny as the jokes are. I would legit like to hear if anyone has come up with something fun with the light.

2 Likes
7

Saw a paladin spread his divine wings to take flight. He failed and fell into the sea, but the idea was sound enough. Objects capable of physically interacting with the world can be created through the Light - albeit temporarily so. Hammers, shields, chains and such.

I guess paladins are basically Green Lanterns to some degree.

2 Likes
8

My Priest uses little Lightspawns in the shape of canaries/birds. I always enjoyed the idea of manifesting the light as little familiars of a sort to use as healing/hurting friends/foes. (Mostly hurting… Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds… :eyes:)

Alternative, chains manifested from the Light. Or a rope if we want to mimic Wonder Woman.

Consecration as scary grabby hands that grab n scratch n burn their retribution and justice into you…

I do like to think there is freedom of the way it looks creatively, as long as the execution is still lore friendly.

5 Likes
9

XD

I think the most geeky use i have seen to date was actually yonkers ago and based of a very specific quest involving Lightforged metal. Not the holy glowy space goats, but a metal found on azeroth that was never implemented outside of that quest (no idea if it is even available anymore).

The character in question forged a sword out of it, but instead of a blade, it was just a rod, which he would channel every bit of Light he could into it. He would be unable to cast ANYTHING else, but would effectively make a 'Light’saber that could slice through unholy anything like, well, a lightsaber.

1 Like
10

Divine Shield + empower strength via blessings.

You are now the Juggernaut. Enjoy.

11

Personally I find it fun to come up with inventive ways to use the Light. So far I have often had Desartin use it as a simple means to blind people by creating a bright flash. It’s something he often uses when he wants to stop people from attacking without actually harming them.

Another occasion would be the time where Desartin fought against Bearan and they tried to set each other on fire using the Light, using it more as a searing heat-attack.

1 Like
12

I had an encounter with what I can only describe as holy light ninja monsters hunters.

One thing they used which I remember clear as day, was teleportation.
it was pretty cringe, not gonna lie.

13

Once I was approached by a (human male) paladin wanting to join. He had a particularly long merit list. Among all his virtues I especially remember he claimed he could punch trough my iron armor with his bare fist using the light. Now how would that have made Me look? He didn’t get the job.

14

Pretty much this.

All I’ll say is, try to be wary of how powerful/versatile your want your character to be.

Perhaps you could use the light to obscure yourself for a specific duration of time? There’s a lot you could do honestly. Vague energy sources in this setting are pretty malleable.

15

:cold_sweat: in ten characters

16

Well, you could have essentially Light Constructs, like the Green Lantern, except shiny and gold.

If you can make a Hammer of Wrath, why not a chain? Why not a shield? Why not a helmet, or a sword?

Then there’s the idea of what the Scarlet Monks do, where they use The Light to empower their limbs to give them extra striking power, like actual Monks, but instead of using Chi, they use The Light.

Hell, this character is essentially a Paladin/Rogue hybrid. Sacrifice defense in favour of offence and utility.

Then you’ve got different variations on similar spells. Like a shielding spell is normally one-way, protecting you against projectiles and strikes coming at you. Who says it can’t be the other way around, acting as a prison?

What if there was an ability to weigh people down with their sins? Make their movements sluggish, like in a dream?

Why not have the ability to ‘command’? Both Light and Void have shown the ability to essentially dominate the minds of their worshippers. The Light might not be able to directly mind control, but a brief “STOP!”, with that extra weight behind it, might give some weaker minded enemies some pause for thought.

What about “Areas of Sanctity”, which are essentially circles that enemies of the caster find painful to enter?

You could also make The Light form illusions. Make yourself look all blazing and on fire, something truly terrible to behold, even though it’s just a trick and made to make you think the caster is more powerful than they are.

Since The Light is, you know, light, it could be used to light passageways.

The Light and Void are fundamental forces of the universe. They can do pretty much anything with the right mindset. The problem is whether your character is capable of articulating those thoughts in such a way that they produce results, since Light and Void probably don’t come from a purely logical mindset. Where Arcane deals with facts and mathematics (therefore being versatile), Light and Void deal in feelings and faith, which, while just as versatile, is harder to articulate unless you’re experienced.

17

Where can we find these? That sounds freaking awesome and makes me want to create a character like this.

18

My oldest character on Argent Dawn I play out as an Argent Templar; I drew some inspiration from some RPG material years ago, but obviously that isn’t canonical and it’s scarcely represented in game and keep it to things that aren’t beyond the realm of disbelief.

At it’s most fundamental level, the idea is a paladin who uses the Light in a much more primal, raw way - a Retribution-spec Doom Guy. Bruce Lee once said “take what works, discard the rest”, and to an Argent Templar, the religious beliefs, the desire to do good, to inspire hope – these things are not the goal, not anymore. The goal is simple; destroy evil wherever you find it - and the Light is a means to that end.

The Templars use the Light as fundamental force it is, attuning with it in a similar fashion to how demon hunters are infused with fel, though naturally not to such a dramatic extent. In exchange for wielding this more potent form of light energy, which manifests as holy fire, they lose the abilty in other ways.

They can’t heal others, or create shields to prevent harm, or bestow blessings that raise one’s spirit and strength. It’s less versatile. But what they can do is create this scorching holy fire – not as harmful against living beings, but against unholy things like demons and undead, it will unmake them - burn them out of existence. They don’t create shields to protect themselves – they just burn away evil magic as it comes at them. It’s blunt, brutish – and for the undead and Legion? … Actually sort of terrifying, knowing that the nature of their very existence isn’t something they can conveniently change to avoid suffering an extremely painful death by the scouring heat of holy wrath.

Some people feel they’re little more than zealots trying to weaponize something pure and good, but again - what some people think or feel is irrelevant to them.

Naturally, I get that a lot of this is creative liberty, so most of the time it only really manifests as just a very offensive-focused paladin who wields burning holy fire. I’d love to hear some other takes of a similar concept.

19

Most of the concepts I’ve seen that are ‘different’ are based heavily off the RPG. Like for example the Auradin, which is a paladin that specializes in having the most powerful auras he possibly can at the cost of everything else. Some of the old art from 2005ish actually showed this off, with a dwarf paladin being attacked by skeletons than having retribution aura strike out in little reddish flashes of lightening.

As for actually using the Light outside of niche concepts? Most people go the green lantern route but with a broader, more specific kind of theme in my experience. With a Zandalari I think you have a lot to play with.

20

Back in the day during my time in The Shield of Light, we roleplayed using the Light in a similar way as Jedi use the Force. That basically meant that the Light was everywhere, quite literally.

As an example; during a lesson we drew its power from a river.

I think it makes sense to somewhat connect the Light with a concept such as the spark of life, which we have seen throughout multiple expansions, particularly when used by titantic constructs.