All Death Knights not alligned with the Ebon Blade get hunted down and slaughtered.
All Demon Hunters can fly freely.
Warlocks are banned from Stormwind.
You need a license to be allowed to summon portals.
I’ve been hearing a lot of stuff like this that, from what I’ve been able to find, have hardly any base in lore whatsoever. Am I missing something? Are these things confirmed?
Feel free to add any other vague lore/headcanons you might have heard of to this thread, I’m sure there’s more than just what I’ve got listed here.
Not a single one of those are true… or founded in lore.
The Ebon blade is nobody’s favorite bunch, but neutral/un-aligned ones have never been hunted, unless as scourge, or guilty of a specific individual crime. Thrall and Varian welcomed them into the Horde and Alliance.
Demon hunters flying? down to the individual. In game they can all glide, and gain momentary flight, but there’s nothing in lore or books to say they can or can’t flap about.
King Varian recruited warlocks into the Alliance army.
Portals do not require licenses, who in hell would even enforce this? There’s never been anything mentioned in game or books to indicate this.
People making stuff up to suit their own RP agenda then forcing it on others is a problem most commonly associated with those thirsty for control. Either over you or to inconvenience you. Usually carried out by Military/militant groups or people that want an ace up their sleeve in conflict with you.
I’m unsure about the rest and they may as well be a bunch of nonsense, but there IS a lore piece about these portal licenses.
“. We realize it’s easy for a mage to create a door to anywhere, so our only way to combat such potentially deadly acts is to make it punishable by death.
Special Issue License D-6 permits open portal usage, but is rarely issued. Speak with your local Portal Trainer about qualifying for this license.” - a book “Thinking with Portals” that lies somewhere in Dalaran.
If it’s in Dalaran, I’m gonna make a real bold presumption and say that it most likely only really applies to Dalaran. I’ve seen at least 1 or 2 stormwind guard guilds with portal permits in their book of laws.
Not surprised to find that the majority/all of them are baseless though, they sounded like an attempt at powergaming at best.
People seem to RP Kirin Tor as the “mage police” that for some reason has a right to act in Stormwind. Yeeeah, that confuses me too. So do the “sanctions”. If we look at the guard guilds’ laws, the Void appears to be forbidden. But if this was the case and it was illegal… why’d one even recruit elves that are known mainly for, you know… studying that Void? How’d we have Demon Hunters too if Fel was outlawed? I’m not buying the idea of sanctions issued by Kirin Tor.
Well in truth, the Kirin Tor used to be exactly that. The mage police. They monitored all uses of magic, and there is a possibility that they have moved back into such a role, but nothing is confirmed.
Honestly, that book (and other books from Dalaran) seem to be written as some type of a joke. You know, Blizzard employees had to write some books, so they sat down, had some fun and came up with books that are filled with crazy stuff, rules and references to other video games.
In reality, there is only one rule about portals: If plot demands from mage to make a portal, they will make a portal.
The end.
On top of that, the whole idea that your character needs a license to make portals because it is absolutely easy to do (so it needs to be regulated) is absurd both from lore point of view and RP point of view. In lore, this book is in Dalaran. You can literally shrug it off and say “rules of Dalaran don´t apply in Stormwind” and that´s it.
RP-wise, this comes down to one thing that I think many RPers fail to even recognize: You can give anything to your character. I can say that my character has license D-6 and that´s it. My character can now make portals and what would you know, I can use them for literally anything I want. Why? Because I have license. And can you say anything against it? Not really, because the only information about this license we have is its name and what it allows you to do.
So instead of having logical rules against creation of portals (it takes some effort, may take some time and therefore cannot be used as an easy and instant way out of dangerous situations), we should require characters to have made up licenses? Is that what good RP is?
Oh, my, no, these portal licenses are falsely interpreted. They are meant IG as encouragement to use portals more safely as they strain the ley lines. Any and all mages are free to make portals to major cities, and lore characters bear an importance that surpasses these guidelines anyhow!
The consequences of over-the-top portal usage are quite notable, though. That doesn’t mean that you won’t get away with making random portals, but it surely does mean that other mages may quite well frown upon you. The licenses are real, still.
I would like to chime in with some experiences that I had with these types of RP elements, with these licenses and passes: People who give you a hard time over these things will try to find an excuse to discredit you owning such things by any means necessary.
At least, based on any of my experiences, when I was trying to get by with saying “I am allowed to do this or that *shows license/pass”, there would be a pause, followed by the person saying “No you don’t! Or it is a fake!”
I am under the impression that the people who try to enforce these licenses and passes in order to do basic magic/go somewhere, often are connected with one another and log people’s character names to see who is officially playing along with their fantasy and who is saying they do in order to have them go away.
I don’t know what they sounded like, but restriction on portals is very much in-line with the mage fantasy. If you think that other societies creating similar rules for the same reasons is a ‘baseless’ assumption, then you’ve not been paying attention to how portals actually work. Unless you think that being outside of the Kirin Tor naturally qualifies you as someone who can destroy the world?
Because that’s the consequence actually described; mages, regardless of their origin or affiliation, should understand that portals are a strain on Azeroth. The elephant in the room is Outland, for that matter, entirely submerged in the Nether due to extreme, uncontrolled portal-making (and that’s what the Nexus War in WotLK was about—yeah, there was a recent mage-war about the integrity of the Ley Lines!). While it is entirely headcanon that other societies have a law based on that, it’s definitely something we can expect them to know. And would they really, willingly, go out destroying the world for the sake of convenience?
Instead of making something arbitrarily difficult for no explainable reason, they have made it into a moral decision. In my opinion, that’s better.
I mean, this right here is kinda the purpose of this thread. To divide headcanon stuff and actual established lore. To say that other places have the exact same laws as Dalaran without any clear evidence of that is kinda nothing more than headcanon, however reasonable.
The problem when it comes to effects of magic on the world and using Draenor/Outland as an example is that Azeroth has been through much more than Draenor/Outland, yet it still exists.
Fel destroys life. Well, sure it does, but how do you explain utter destruction of Draenor´s ecosystem by bunch of orc warlocks while Azeroth has been through 3 full-scale Legion invasions yet is still fine?
Secondly, Ner´zhul opened lots of portals at the same time, destroying Draenor, yet Azeroth has 10000 years of history of magic and portals, including creation of multiple portals that allowed Archimonde and Kil´jaeden go through, yet nothing has happened there. Of course, the real reason why Draenor was shattered is not that people were travelling by portals, but rather creation of unimaginable amount of portals at the same time. You are not shattering Azeroth by making portal to Stormwind.
And the issue with making portals into moral decision is that, as the book says (and how Morrowburn correctly pointed out), everyone is allowed to make portals into hotspots. So, if we go by this book and these rules, making portal to Stormwind or other capitals is alright. Making portals to other places is something you need license for.
And I would even argue that it´s not really a moral decision, because the book makes it sound as if making portals to these drop-off zones is no big deal. So instead of making portals into something difficult, you make them into something extremely easy.
If the faction leaders allowed DK’s in to their cities, I think it’s safe to say they’re not going to get hunted down for leaving the Ebon Blade. So long as they don’t participate in Scourge activities, who cares what they’re doing? It’s RP’ers policing RP.
DH’s flying, that’s purely up to the character. Illidan can hover in the BT encounter. I would assume it takes a tremendous amount of effort and energy to stay in sustained flight though.
Warlocks, as mentioned, have been directly employed by the King of Stormwind. They have their own place in the city, under the Lamb, where they can freely practice their magic. Vanilla questing -had you fight your Voidwalker in the city-. Anyone who says Warlocks are banned from the city, or need a “sanction license” are talking right out their er. It’s another case of RP’ers policing RP. (I main a warlock, I am passionate about this)
Read above for Mages. I think these books in Dalaran were, as mentioned in a previous post, a jokey thing the devs put in because they were bored, or had to meet a quota. I’ve not come across any Mage RP’ers that have stated it’s a requirement to travel.
It’s all down to people trying to police RP “for the best interests in mind”. They assume all ‘rogue’ DK’s are uncontrollable monsters, so they need to be hunted down and killed. They assume all Warlocks are demon worshipping fel huffers that are going to summon the next Legion, so they ban them from interacting with everyone else.
It’s all baseless assumptions to inflate their ego and to feel bigger and better than everyone else. Same applies to when there was that mass exodus on Void Elves. Anduin said it’s OK, the players said it wasn’t. Gotta police the RP for the children. Can’t have insane void whisperers walking in our cities now-- Oh wait… Benedictus.
Ok, then let’s expand on the lore and understand why this baseless assumption is, for the most part, correct (other than the aforementioned reasons, ‘destruction of the world’, and all).
While the Kirin Tor did act as a sort of mage-police around the world, the Kingdom of Stormwind was more specifically exempt from this because they had a Guardian. In the novel The Last Guardian, it is Medivh who investigates criminal/rogue-mage activity around Stormwind, including Stormwind’s own court sorcerers’ activities. In the same novel, the Kirin Tor’s frustration at that fact is mentioned as they make constant attempts to expand their influence towards Karazhan (by sending mages of their order to apprentice under Medivh). After his death, they succeed. That’s not written in a novel, but is rather displayed in the game through the Violet Eye and Kirin Tor guarding and looting the tower.
Stormwind has, currently, no magical enforcement unit. In the established canon, aka, ‘what is directly stated’ mages should technically be able to run rampart and create portals without anything other than their personal judgement affecting them. And that’s a valid way to interpret modern-day Stormwind. The absence of lore, however, does not make this interpretation correct. Equally so, there is nothing to state that Stormwind and other cities/factions have no laws of their own—it’s simply not mentioned. So by your own judgement, this too is headcanon. Would you say that a functional government and society can continue without limits (laws) in place? Do you think it’s a valid interpretation for an immersive world? I do not, because it’s blatantly untrue.
TL;DR: Saying that Stormwind has a law for portals is headcanon. Saying that Stormwind has no law for portals is also headcanon. Why? Neither is stated. You need to realise that you fall into the fallacy which you accuse others of.
(I’ll make a second post to reply @Dorlas, since this is getting too long)
Context, that’s how. Draenor underwent the changes it did over the span of over 10 years—entirely uncontested full-blown siphoning of the planet. Azeroth’s invasions were contained within specific zones, and we do in fact see what happened: Plaguelands, Felwood, the entirety of the Broken Isles/Shore, and the absence of 2/3s of the world. Draenor’s slow decay was instrumental to the Legion so that the orcs go out to seek and invade Azeroth—thus, it was assured that Draenor does wither. Azeroth has opposed every invasion, and even then, suffered.
Which is something I’m not disagreeing with. My bad, I thought we’re on the same page. However,
While not untrue, there is a point that is expanded on in detail. It’s not about making one portal—you’re not the only mage in the world. There’s hundreds, if not more. Hundreds of portals being constantly created left right and center disallows the slow healing of the Ley Lines—an apparently exhaustible source. Will that end in the same way as Outland? No, of course not. What will happen, though, is a much slower decay. Considering (again) the context, it is precisely because Azeroth is going so much (Cataclysm, Azerite, +) that these ‘small’ things end up piling up much faster than before, making the consequences more severe.
And to bring up the conclusion from my previous post: where does lore end, and headcanon begin? Is it when something is not directly stated, or are individual connections of established and confirmed pieces of lore adding to the a larger canon universe?
Dalaran is also completely destroyed in Warcraft III and in WoW, Stormwind is portrayed as being separate from Dalaran when it comes to magic, with its own academy.
About magic regulation, my whole point is that:
If we consider the only book about portal regulation there is a hard canon, creation of portals is allowed for anyone as long as they lead into drop-off zones. So this whole point about how portals are destructive to the world and their creation is controlled falls apart, because mages are allowed to create them anyway with only one condition: That they lead to few selected places.
The book itself is clearly some minor bit of lore that can be retconned literally at any point. Maybe if someone tweeted at devs or asked this on QnA on Blizzcon, we would find out that these books are not canon. This means that going by what is written in these books can be really dangerous, because they are such a minor detail that they can become non-canon easily. This goes even for bigger stuff…did I ever tell the story of how I RPed Shadow user who refused to use Fel because it was too corrupting and how said Shadow user died few weeks before Chronicle was announced (the book which came up with Void as the most corrupting and evil force)?
These books are clearly made to comply with game mechanics. As I mentioned before, it doesn´t make sense that portals are both dangerous and straining on Ley Lines, so their creation is punishable by death, yet everyone can create them as long as they lead to capital cities and pay a fee in form of reagents. Now, what does it remind me of? Oh, yes, in-game mechanics of portal creation in Wrath of the Lich King.
These books in Dalaran are often completely basic (Schools of Arcane Magic does not even include Evocation, even though it mentions it), are clearly made for laughs and filled with references and comply with how portals work in the game instead of how they logically would work in the setting (where mages should not be able to use them if they are so dangerous).
It seems that you clearly misunderstand/don’t know the purpose of the ‘hotspots’ then.
The Kirin Tor restore and maintain the Ley Lines. If every person on Azeroth uses only a single Ley Line, that makes its restoration easier (containing the problem). If mages continuously use other ones, the restoration becomes more and more difficult. Say you’ve got 30 friends and you’re trying to coordinate a party. Would you prefer carrying a single phone, or 30 individual ones?
This answers 1 & 3.
‘Clearly’, according to you. We cannot argue lore by dismissing lore. That’s not how this works. We can argue lore by providing lore and reaching logical conclusions in the context of Warcraft canon. I honestly don’t see why you think they’re some sort of a joke—they are supported by evidence from many major events, and further add detail to them. Just because I consider Sylvanas and her approach to war to be laughable and illogical doesn’t mean it’s suddenly not canon.
It’s a rhetoric that we can’t follow small tidbits of lore because they’re forgettable. Blizzard retcons major and unimportant lore alike; to them, it’ll make no difference. It’s like arguing about blood elves having golden eyes: sure, Blizzard had intended to add them, but they remained non-canon until they were implemented. So until what we understand about portals & their effect on the world is retconned, I suggest we don’t RP based on ‘it might get removed…’.
Mage portal licenses are a thing. I am not sure why you would discredit in-game books, especially books that are as basic as the dalaran ones. Dalaran is a magocracy, a city of mages, so it stands to reason you’d have plenty of magical rules and regulations. We know these rules are also enforced. Whether or not they apply to the rest of Azeroth, who knows, but I think the arguments to discredit in-game books and what not above are strained, at best.
So in essence, I just want to echo Faceslinger. Mage Licenses are a thing, don’t try and wave it away or bunch it together with actual headcanon. This is established lore.
Because WoW´s lore changes constantly and sometimes, things are not declared non-canon even though they are not supported by newer lore. And looking at intent with which something might have been written is just as important as talking about whether new information contradicts the old, because you may find out that maybe, some bits of the lore should not be seen as hard rules that we need to follow in RP.
Years ago, I would completely agree with you. But years ago, I RPed Shadowmage who refused to use Fel, because it was too corrupting. Luckily I stopped RPing him few months before Chronicle was released, so I never had to face the realization that my RP concept that was completely fine according to the lore in 2013 and even at the beginning of 2016 (based on available information) suddenly became contradictory to the lore with release of one book.
That´s why I believe that RPing according to rules in in-game book that should lorewise apply only to Dalaran (because it´s headcanon to assume otherwise) rather than to logical rules that don´t allow “lol, we can just escape to Stormwind through this portal that I made easily and this big dragon won´t do any harm to us” situations, is not the right way to RP. If you want to RP like that, feel free to, but you may find out that your concept changes many times simply because some quest in new zone states something contradictory to your concept.
![:poop:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/poop.png?v=6" ":poop:")
er. It’s another case of RP’ers policing RP. (I main a warlock, I am passionate about this)