The most simple direction would likely involve Calia becoming The Forsaken faction leader and setting them on a course of redemption, ala the Deathknights, fighting to protect Azeroth and such.
So what do you want? Mind you, it has to be able to fit into the gameplay, i.e. it has to make sense when picking up quests and defeating dungeon bosses and such.
The most simple direction to me is that they’re slowly going to water down and subdivide all races to allow for cross-faction play, and Lightbound Forsaken and Undead Night Elves are the first test batch.
Addendum: Gnomes are next when Mekkatorque wakes up as a weird Borg and tries to assimilate everyone, and their pairing will be some Goblins that found a Kajamite-like substance that actually makes them compassionate, civilized boys and servile. It turns out it’s light-infused.
I think a few are forgetting that the forsaken have done a lot of evil deeds, you cant simply just blame it all on sylvanas. She didn’t make her people hunt the living and turn them into spare body parts or to be used as living giny pigs for experiments.
I mean there was even some forskean npc who turned some living woman into some sort of mind slave - Theresa was her name the list goes on.
The forskean don’t need and shouldn’t be turned into some sort of these people need help - poor lost souls! They are what they are meant to be they don’t need calia she doesn’t fit at all to them to lead.
Like I said, they can do anything they want. That also includes not screwing Forsaken over and having them become another light worshipping race. Plenty of those around. Let’s keep one crazy and evil.
The forsaken have been part of the Horde for 15 years why is it so difficult for people to believe that after more then a decade of fighting and “living” beside the other races of the Horde most of the forsaken might not see it as an alliance of convenience anymore but consider themselves true members of the Horde.
I would say down the line you will see old school forsaken still with sylvanas but forsaken who were raised in more recent times not so much, something like 1st generation forsaken has a different mindset to new forsaken
They know that everyone else who isn’t forskean are noting but arrows in there quiver.
meaning the 1st generation fits more of the mindset of the forsaken starting vanilla intro.
Because the Forsaken are fundamentally warped through Undeath into an imperfect recreation of life. They’re numb, and mostly fueled by negative emotions.
Also just mostly their history. Lor’themar was pretty difficult about sparing troops to help the Forsaken even if the Forsaken were instrumental in the Blood Elves joining the Horde (to the point that they were defending Blood Elf lands which is why those Forsaken couldn’t go to Northrend). Most everyone expected them to peace out once Arthas was killed, and Garrosh for example didn’t mind throwing them into the Gilnean grinder because they’re just dead meatbags. Even Vol’jin thought that Sylvanas as warchief was bad news all along, and most of the Horde seemed to never truly trust the Forsaken either, as they shouldn’t. Lilian Voss, who is likely the most “pro-Horde” Forsaken lore figure even admits that at least to her most non-Forsaken will always shun you and that Forsaken share a special bond.
Then in BTS most Forsaken with doubts essentially yearn with melancholy for their old human lives, not really the Horde. It’s still fueled by loss and sorrow. It never struck me as if the Horde was ever much more than a vehicle for the Forsaken.
Calia is one of the most stupid things to happen to the lore, ever. Blessed undeath, done by a naaru? Gimme a break, seriously. It stinks even to me, and I main a bloody paladin.
The Forsaken in Classic did a lot more bad stuff than the things they pulled afterwards.
Having the Valkyr didn’t make them the ‘Mini-Scourge’. It just gave them a means to create new characters and expand them as a race.
Also, it was a means to preserve the ones already functioning, as seen with Nathanos short story.
The tag of ‘Mini-Scourge’ and the infamous spotlight their ways had during Cataclysm, would’ve still happened regardless of the usage of the Valkyr. People were already eager to draw said parallels back when they didn’t have their current weaponry.
There are ways to preserve said “Hero unit” and not be Scourge. See for example the reasoning behind Zellings resurrection.
Removing said element, would be another nail in the coffin for an already castrated race without a leader.
I would say the situation was a little bit more complex.
First of all, Forsaken back then were just a small strike force, not unlike Sylvanas’s Farstriders and not a massive military machine they became in Lordaeron.
Second, there was no need for necromancers, LK was losing control of the undead left and right, it was just a question of going and picking them up with speeches about building free undead kingdom and revenge on LK.
And lastly, even if Sylvanas and co. needed necromances, it’s not like they were just laying around. Scourge preety much had monopoly on those with fanatical Cult of the Damnned being their source.
If you remember in classic it was a pain in the butt to recruit even a few of them and Sylvanas gave priority orders to raise all necromancers they can find.
You missed my point. Yes, the Forsaken did messed up things in Vanilla/TBC. But their entire identity, their very core was 2 things -
They viewed their condition as a curse and absolutely hated necromancers for doing this to them.
They fiercely believed in free will and absolutely loathed mind controlling others - especially through undeath
Other than these 2, they were absolutely fine. They would happily inflict death on anyone. Blight was also fine. They would also betray anyone, and even possess others and trick anyone.
But they would never ress anyone in Undeath against their will. Especially not to go against their living comrades and their former friends.
That little titbit was literally what seperated them from Arthas’s Scourge. The Scourge’s whole philosophy was ress people and let them kill others to ress those people again.
With the arrival of the Val’kyr, that equation changed. Now the Forsaken were ressing people and making them go against their former brethren.
For the Scourge and it’s necromancers, Undeath was considered a gift. A way to immortality and absolute power. This distinction was erased when Cata started with Sylvanas ressing everyone left, right and center.
It’s time the Forsaken found that identity back again.
Also, as I said, numbers were never a problem. The Lich King has enough Undead to swarm the entire world, which includes both Alliance and Horde. It was to prevent this rampage that we installed Bolvar as LK in the first place. And just like the original Forsaken, they can also start regaining their minds and joining up with the Forsaken.