Excellently written guide, Desolaari. Eredar roleplay especially could really benefit from a guide like this, given how challenging a concept it can be to tackle.
As for Illidari-aligned Eredar, it’s a possibility to go with that angle, but being a long-time Illidari RPer myself, I honestly think one would be better off going as either penitent or evil. Being an Illidari demon is far from a free pass to being in public, as they’re never seen where other mortals are around. At best one might be let out to fight alongside their demon hunter handlers during times of war.
The demon hunters would be highly unlikely to be your buddies either, but rather a parole officer who, rather than waiting for an excuse to send you back to prison, is waiting for an excuse to kill and devour the demon’s soul. Unlike most mortals, these guys are more than capable of delivering true death.
So while possible to go with the angle of Illidari-aligned Eredar, I’d personally take my chances with the Vindicator escorts myself. Or go full mustache-twirling evil. Who needs redemption when you can have more power?
Contextually determined is a good point tbh, considering people will either honestly engage with Man’ari RPers making a genuine effort to try and RP one well, or they won’t.
As for the greater scope of using various ideas to be out in the world as a Man’ari, I’m going to 4th wall this a little and straight up say that I’ll never really judge a Man’ari for going to Stormwind, because that’s simply where the RP is.
I whole heartedly agree with Hartuum here, in that Man’ari shouldn’t really be seen outside of Draenei held lands, but there’s no RP there and unless you arrange for RP to be had there, you’re not going to find it.
Maybe there can be an effort to allow for this RP to be explored with a permissive element?
On the subject of Vindicator escort? Yeah, tried that. Both with a friend and with a TRP skinned pet using various buffs to simulate an NPC escort .
People either ignored the escort, whether they were a player or not, or they RP’d with the escort and ignored the Man’ari, again, player or not.
Frankly, I’ve not touched Man’ari RP outside of close friends since, hopefully that can change because it’s a really interesting character to play ^^
I nearly cracked my head over trying to remember which one it was, for I distinctly recall atleast one Man’ari that worked for the Illidari, and I finally found him.
His title even was Illidari Lord, so that does not sound like he was small-fry within the organisation either. Granted, so far this is the only named Eredar in the service of Illidan that I can find.
I’ve gone ahead and added a bit about where the “Man’ari” moniker first appeared and why - as as well a few paragraphs on the prospect of playing an Illidari-aligned example of such.
Speaking purely from my own experience, this is absolutely a valid point. Draenei lands tend to be pretty devoid of role-play outside of server events, though I’d be remiss not to acknowledge and appreciate that these events regularly welcomed demonic Eredar last year.
It is a niche of role-play however, so maybe it’d be an idea to create a community for the purpose. Or maybe I should just get around to finally join the Draenei discord.
Perhaps worth mention, is that while there is indeed only one man’ari NPC around in the default phase of the Exodar, there were more present for the Tishamaat. One by the name of Eranthi even hosts a lecture on demons in front of an interested group of draenei.
Also worthy of note is Velen’s rhetoric at that event. To hear him tell it, all eredar (he uses that name as a catch all term now) are reunited as one people in the aftermath of the rite.
While unlikely the case in practice (krokul are also wary of such), I don’t expect the status quo that existed right after the Seeing Red questline to 1:1 with the Tishamaat aftermath.
The community is already there, its just been a long time since something’s been done with it.
While I’ve been trying to bring back some life into it, my time as a GM is limited and there is only so much I can do by myself, it would honestly be great if more people did something for it.
As for why, there are many reasons to switch out from the Legion/Sargeras to Illidari/Illidan. Supposedly he cured their magic addiction, though I am unfamiliar with that particular part of lore as I never played a Warlock.
would they really be alright being reduced to next to no freedom of movement without three DHs constantly watching them like a hawk
It could well be strategic. With the Legion broken and no Argus to get your soul back, they might have realised their best chance of survival is to side with the ‘good guys’.
I think a demon that’s kept under the control of Illidari/Lightforged and being only let out in times of crisis could be a very cool concept. Or a Hannibal-style imprisonment where the Eredar is kept harmless and serves as a consultant on Arcane/Fel/Demon related matters.
Oh, fair enough. Although I do think that the Eredar leadership should be a Council of Exarch’s, with a Lightforged(Fareeya?), a Draenei(Velen), a Broken(Hartuun/Nobundo), a Lost One and maybe a Man’ari(Arzaal?) at one point in the faaaaar future?
Triumvirate obviously failed, and with the amount of different Draenic offshoots, I don’t think they’ll make a stupid decision to follow a evil God anytime soon, and its obvious Velen views them as equals in his new society
Also, now that I think of it, might want to add in that its not entirely smart to use, for example, a Ur’zul as mount even when RPing a Man’ari, seeing as they are created by defiling the bodies and souls of fallen (Lightforged/Man’ari/Draenei/Krokul) Eredar and twisting them into something… Well horrendous.
A Man’ari RPer is much better off using a Fel-infused Talbuk, or Wolf, or even boar!
I think it’d be better for the penitent to not ride around on fel-tainted wildlife at all, sort of sells the wrong image when you see them rock up with twisted, corrupt aberrations serving them.
Using fel all the time still is not a great sell for the whole ‘sorry’ arch, as it were.
