New player seeking assistance to start roleplaying

Hello everyone !

I fell in love with the Draenei race ever since I’ve learned about World of Warcraft but as mentioned in my title, I’m fairly new to the game. Despite that, I’ve been willing to roleplay in this universe to be able to incarnate one of these beautiful space goat ! To do so, I’ve read a lot of things and listened to a couple videos. I’ve also played through some key part of the game to get my own point of view on what happens. I first picked an interest for WoW with the Legion expansion and I was thrilled to see so many things about the Draenei. I also played through the Warlord of Draenor since I was told it is focused on my race too…

Honestly, with all the lore I have gone through, I should just roll with a character and see where this is taking me but I guess something is bothering me. I don’t know if I will be able to get my answer but it will be nice to have other people point of view on this matter !

I don’t know how to hide my text to prevent spoiler so :

/!\ SPOILER ALERT

The Priest class is one of the few classes I enjoy playing in WoW and during the Legion expansion, they are gathered in the Netherlight temple where Light and Shadow live in a sort of balance. The Highpriest (us) is the embodiment of that balance, able to switch between light and shadow magic depending on the situation (depicted in different quests - recruitment of the last follower - and in our ability to switch from legendary weapon). This balance between light and shadow is again shown and necessary on Argus to defeat the Legion once and for all since Illidan refused to serve Xe’ra. We also learn that the Light can be as much oppressive as the Void with the campaign lead on alternate Draenor leading to the untainted Orcs to seek refuge in the Horde.

With this need of balance between Light and Shadow, I am wondering why the Shadow is seen as corruptive while the Light isn’t. Void Elves are a thing in the Alliance but I’m pretty sure many people are scared of them while they will see the Lightforged Draenei as saviors. With Stormwind having a Cathedral that is clearly Light oriented, I assume that the religion of the Light is something well spread on Azeroth. Since the people are used to the Light, I guess it kinda answers my question but isn’t there some force or group that should warn people about the risk of the Light ? Shouldn’t it be seen as corruptive like the Shadow ? I know that the Shadow drives people crazy quicker and it is much easier to swallow it as a bad energy than it is when we speak of the Light… But aren’t those two magic too similar (in a way) to start worrying about the balance of those energies ?

Because of this line of thought of mine, I’ve been wondering on how my character would react to this sad realisation. My race being taught by the Naaru the way of the Light, my character being gifted by this power, learning about Xe’ra’s destruction, seeing Velen accepting some concentrated Shadow magic to power the Netherlight crucible… And what about all those Broken ? Either on Draenor where my character first encounter them or back on Argus when we returned. They are part of my character’s race and family but they also can’t reach the Light at all. Following the path of the Light would mean abandonning them ?

/!\ SPOILER ENDS HERE

I don’t know if my long post is clear enough… I hope someone will be able to bring me some clarity on the relation between Light and Shadow.

Thank your for taking the time to read me.

The light is tricky because your character has to believe they are doing the morally right thing in order to harness it. So if your character thought the light was oppressive it might contradict that.

So it’s more a question on believing in my action than believing in the energy that is helping me ? Thanks for your input !

Well first of all this is quite subjective what I am about to write, everyone has a different take on things when it comes to how their characters react to something icly and so on.

I would say reason why people are afraid of void more than light is that in lore there are far more “evil” void users. When we see void corruption we see madness, tenctacles, mutations and what not. While on the other side light “corruption” is a litle more rare and less obvious. We had no clue how oppressive it could be until we saw X’era’s interaction with Illidan. Apart from that only other time we see light being oppressive is on alternative Draenor which a normal joe ie a citizen or a low tier “hero” has no way of knowing such events. Even if they do, lightforged there said that planet was dying because of orcs, Alliance being biased against horde might have no reason to believe their claims simply put.

Apart from that void wants to corrupt and consume everything while light from what we have seen in a thousand year of war audio story from blizz, wants to create perfect light dominated order. So their way of corrupting differs too.

So I would say a combination of light corruption not being too common (arcane and fel corruption too are far more common), it being less obvious and less “violent” seems to work in it’s favor. Also when someone taps in to void they tend to get assaulted by thousands of whispers literally…Light has no such effect.

How your character reacts is entirely up to you honestly. She can keep faith in light and the path it sees to order, she might feel disgusted, or she might feel that naaru was tainted and real light is pure who knows. You know your character!

On one final note think of light and shadow like this. They are two forces that are tied to each other, they are quite different…Same for fel and arcane, order and chaos. While fel corruption is far more common and easier to fell (no pun intended) than arcane they are still two faces of the same coin. Thats how I see it honestly!

I know it’s been long but I hope this post helps!

Sorry for necroing this, I just wanted to add, you can use this to give your character a sort of identity crisis: As you struggle with the news you learned about the Light, maybe it becomes temporarily difficult or impossible for your character to wield it?

And then after a while, your character concludes that Light itself is not bad, but some of its wielders might be. Thus your ‘faith’ is restored, and also your ability to use the Light.

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