'cept when orcs are orcing all over the heartland. Target acquired, exterminate.
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Dracthyr, imo, could easily fall under the âLight of the Titansâ way of dealing with it as it were, it fits them perfectly. Theyâre a race of super soldiers who are very orderly and, as weâve seen in-game, tend to panic without a sense of order/leadership/direction around them. Itâd be extremely easy to have them merely follow the Titans way of using Light as a means of order and law whilst upholding Tyr/Odyn as a symbol of the Pantheon/Titanâs divinity.
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If I were to give theme
I would suggest the red flight as the base of their identity.
I they are soldiers but also untouched clay, a wing forming around the core ideas of the red flight of defending life would be a good paladin order, in my opinion.
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Only Silver Hand Paladin have written lore about how they under go their ritual of empowerment. because all other paladin did not get half the same lore attention.
However in Legion they did something to bring all Paladin together.
Where Blizzard basically said, and I know a lot of people, likely including you, did not like the fact that: âAll Light is the same Lightâ. Silver hand, Sunwalker, Blood knights, and Hand of Argus are all just the same kind of Holy warrior.
Which led me to belief that if all of them are just the same kind of Holy warrior, each with their own Cultural Identity/practices, they would also share similar steps to become a holy warrior.
What sets a Paladin apart from a Priest in plate? Well them being blessed by the light, radiating a Holy aura. Being able to call forth the Light not just through prayer but also Willpower.
And of course being trained as a frontline combatant.
Blood knights wield the light through the Sun Well, they empower themselves, much like Paladin do in their cathedral.
Hand of Argus have a similar direct connection with a Light source, being the Naaru. Their race being blessed by the Naaru as a whole. so to become a Hand of Argus, they just need to excel in their faith and skill.
Back in TBC, the new paladin got lore for being empowered much like the Paladin did in classic. During Cata Blizzard didnât really give much extra lore to Tauren paladin. Aside from where their light comes from, what their order stands for. but seeing as 3/4 Paladin all had their own ways of Empowerment. its safe to assume Sunwalkers likely also have something. we just do not have any lore written for it. We just know they go about their paladin-ing in a more Shamanistic way, with them using Sun totems in Arathi.
Prelates even have lore about their Blessing. Being blessed at birth. and later by the Loa.
So being blessed by the light, is not just a Silver hand thing. it is a fundamental Paladin thing.
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I mean, let´s not pretend like this was some deep thematic lore choice instead of something they did because they were doing Class Halls as a feature of the expansion and went with one specific theme for each. Unfortunately for Horde paladins, that theme was Silver Hand.
At least BfA destroyed that abomination and returned Silver Hand back to what it was before Legion.
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I like to think people wouldâve made less of a fuss if the Legion Paladin-order had been the Argent Crusade instead. It already had members of Horde races in itâs ranks and it would feel less out of place. Whereas the Silver Hand was always an Alliance organisation.
This, I recently read the Tides of Darkness novel again, and I seem to recall the paladins were made not just to combat the orcs, but also to be able to lead the troops in battle if need be. That does imply you need a martial tradition. The civil servant part is definetly an important part of their identity too, but it came after the war was won.
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They were so fun at the start of BC. âStealingâ the Light from a Naaru to power themself. It will forever be a shame Blizzard turned them into boring normal Light users during the expansion.
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I agree. Specially since it also went all the way to basically make them the same as Silver Hand knights.
It couldnât have lasted, unfortunately. The downsides to forcefully using Mâuruâs magic forcefully essentially had the blood knights be emotionally volatile, PTSD addled wrecks (which would have been nice to know back in TBC alas). A shame the narrative was rushed but in the grand scheme of Blizzard writing itâs not as bad as what the Sunwalkers got or the closure more modern narratives have recieved.
Comparisons of the old race-class quests are a good contrast between them too.
âGo help these orphans with this dwarfâ v âlight this fire (always be ready to gut someone).â Thereâs probably a better example to chuck in but iâm travelling at the moment (and i donât want to derail the thread).
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Itâs actually still neutral it seems according to Dragonflight and Turalyon just has an Alliance sect of Silver Hand with him. The Dragonflight Silver Hand order has both Human and Blood Elven thematics sprinkled throughout.
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Merged with the Argent Dawn into the Argent Crusade and thus being neutral since Wrath of the Lich King, which is the reason why the Silver Handâs HQ is literally in the basement of the Argent Crusadeâs HQ, and why the Silver Hand is led by the leader of the Argent Dawn?
https://youtu.be/M8g4vbrDYcc?si=ZorcSYRNbwg3wN0t&t=714
Something that BFA absolutely didnât demolish because Shadowlands added the Silver Hand-held Utherâs Tomb that has a big fat Argent Crusade sigil right in the middle of it?
BFA didnât change a single thing. People saw yet another case of Blizzard misplacing organisations, tabards, and banners for inconsequential, nameless NPCs throughout BFA (see: Multi-racial Korâkron in Dazarâalor until it was pointed out, Forsaken with Warcraft 3 Scourge tabards) and people ran with it so hard that they outran the lore.
Only Fordring´s bunch which were formed at the end of his questline in Vanilla, after all the quests where paladin trainers in Stormwind call the player character âpaladin of the Silver Handâ.
Ironically, as far as I´m aware, there´s total of zero named paladins affiliated with Tirion Fordring in that time, they´re only referred in NPC speech from 1.11 that gives them a throwaway mention.
And, since the Stormwind and Ironforge paladins didn´t join Argent Crusade in Wrath (nor were they present at Light´s Hope during the battle), it´s pretty logical to assume that the Alliance paladin organization didn´t cease to exist just because Tirion Fordring made a speech.
The idea that Tirion Fordring was somehow the sole owner of Silver Hand guild tag is a very common misconception.
You mean that pet project of one guy from Blizzard art team?
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I highly doubt the memorial of a dead character whose ghost was one of the major characters of the expansion (an expansion with an entire major patch of cut-content and then some) in which this memorial was updated was something that some one dude from the art team decided to do after waking up and listening to A Call to Arms 10 hours extended version in an expansion with enough work behind it that it took nearly a year to release its first major patch.
Except it got updated at BfA launch and had no story tied to it.
Edit: And here´s the source to it (you can trust the random person from Blizzcon or not, up to you)
https:// www.mmo-champion. com/threads/2451847-Uther-s-tomb-probably-isn-t-anything
All Light is the same Light no matter the source, but that doesnât mean they do not wield it differently. Most notably the Prelates and Blood Knights do - a lot of Prelates wielded it through Rezan and lost the ability to call on the Light with his death, a lot of Blood Knights draw on the Sunwell to wield their Light; formerly they did so through a Naaru.
All of these are holy warriors, they are what they game classifies as a paladin, but they are not Paladin.
A Paladin is set apart from a priest in plate by being infused with the powers of the Holy Light in a ritual that all of these other holy orders lack.
Warrior clerics are a thing in human culture.
They wield the Light through the Sunwell, they are not infused with it as the Silver Hand Paladins are.
Same with these.
Only Silver Hand Paladins have as far as we know a means of empowering themselves, itâs a vital part of how these Paladins are made. Blood Knights, Vindicators and Sunwalkers do not have this. Nor do Prelates.
Blessed, yes, infused no. Silver Hand Paladins are Lightforged lite.
Yeah, 'cause the Order of Northshire was decimated by the Horde so Alonsus decided the Alliance needed men and women capable of both fighting and healing, and as it turned out, would prove to be amazing counters to the Hordeâs death knights. I never meant to imply the Silver Hand lacked a martial focus, mind you, itâs definitely there, but itâs not comparable to that of the Blood Knights.
âHere, go kill one of our own members to prove yourself worthy of wearing our tabard.â
Human and dwarven paladins have always been referred to as Knights of the Silver Hand in both Vanilla and Cata.
Forsaken have worn this tabard since Cata for some reason.
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So the same expansion that showed a single nameless Silver Hand NPC in Arathi also has the only Silver Hand-related model added into the whole expansion have an Argent sigil right in the middle of it, in an expansion where there was no lore about the Silver Hand (Legion) rejoining the Alliance or moving their HQ from the Argent Crusadeâs HQ.
I donât know. Again, I donât think theyâre changing anything drastic âagainâ, I just think people overthought the existence of a single NPC so hard they spawned a community-made explanation that didnât turn out to be reflected in canon.
Itâs probably due to misusing the wrong asset, as Iâve said. There is a mixup in the file names of the game due to some injoke about Chris Metzen not managing to get the devs to get that the Forsaken and the Scourge are two different factions, so forsaken stuff is named after the Scourge, and Scourge stuff is named after the forsaken.
Itâs not even a joke, you can legit check it yourself by searching âforsakenâ and âscourgeâ in the TRP icon list.
And what do you think all Alliance human and dwarf paladins are part of? Silver Hand in Stormwind has been a thing since Vanilla, as I´ve been telling you. Those paladins didn´t cease to be members of that Silver Hand just because in Legion the blanket organization for all paladins was named Silver Hand, or because a single paladin banished from Silver Hand before Third War decided to make his own Silver Hand (with blackjack and hookers) and then merged it with Argent Dawn.
âItâs day 2 of you being here? Go collect me this greater demonâs heart from under Orgrimmar. Might let you join the club after some other jobs though. Maybe.â
The attrition rate in blood knight training must be bad tbqh.
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Turalyon was leading the Silver Hand into battle at Stromgarde.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/e/ed/TuralyonSilverHand.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20181109155003
They were there in full force.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blessed_Banner
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=150748/nella-slagheart
Hereâs a named NPC wearing the Silver Hand tabard.
In Vanilla both human and dwarven paladins are referred to as Knights of the Silver Hand.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Consecrated_Letter_(quest)
Finally! We meet face to face, brother to <brother/sister>. I welcome you to Northshire. This will be your home for a short time while you learn the ins and outs of how things are done, but know that Stormwind is not far off, and sooner or later, your path will take you there. But until then, be patient⌠Knight of the Silver Hand.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Consecrated_Rune_(quest)
So, youâve made it! And not a second too soon. Thereâs much to be done in Coldridge Valley and beyond. Iâm gonna need your help as much as youâre gonna need mine!
Youâre a Knight of the Silver Hand now, be ready to play the part.
These two quests were updated in Cata, after the Silver Hand had merged with the Argent Dawn. The quests still referred to them as Knights of the Silver Hand.
It just means those who survive are either the best of the best or suffering from PTSD beyond imagination.
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Maybe Blood Elves really are built different.