I always envisoned it as a mixture of Doomguy, Kratos, Darth Maul levels of supernatural rage that sustains them and allows Warriors to do feats of defying physics and the like.
Berserker rage and hysterical strength are actual documented real world things as well, if you want to go down a more “realistic” (as realistic as azeroth can be) it could be a variant of said things in action.
The approach I take for my warriors that is more about skill than Superman-like feats also has lore backing, you know!
The most extreme end of that kind of warrior would be the raid boss Instructor Razuvious (he is technically a DK, but he uses no magical abilities, so for our purposes here he can be seen as an undead warrior). His technique was so potent he’d outright oneshot anybody who hadn’t studied under him - no amount of rage, shouting or stomping the ground helped! The method of defeating the boss is by mindcontrolling his apprentices to tank him.
Obviously none of my characters go that far, but you could be somewhere in between that and a beginner and still be a very effective force on the battlefield.
Yeah… but…
M U S C U L A R I T Y
I offer you all this trope
https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Peak_Human_Condition
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Part of the reason why I just have my Warriors be the most resistant to dark and corrupting forces like the Void and Shadow - they simply laugh, knowing that their foes are so weak as to rely on paltry tricks and foolish words over honourable combat! At the very least it makes playing a Dude With Sword a lot more balanced during RP battles when everyone else is gripping their heads and seeing tentacles everywhere.
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This thread has reminded me how dope Warriors are IC and how they don’t need an excuse to be absolute maniacs.
Skull-crushing Orc headbutt!
Honestly, this stuff right here is the funniest thing about roleplaying a warrior as a capital W Warrior.
Oh, you have to rely on magic to protect your mind? I just keep my head empty, no thoughts for evil to latch onto. Oh, your fantastic physical feats are augmented with the Light? I just hit really hard because I’m really strong and angry. Oh, you need the elements to increase your attack power? I just have to be really loud to do that.
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The ultimate summation of RPing a Warrior is just accepting they’re basically the Himbo Class and rolling with it
To the best of my understanding, chi comes about from a sense of inner serenity and calmness - it’s very similar to the force, in a sense. I wouldn’t consider it to be akin to a resource like mana, energy or rage. It’s more about the monk’s mental state taking ephemeral forms, from my understanding. I’m not sure if ‘evil’ is the term I’d use. “I suppose that depends on your point of view” would be the way to go here. A monk can probably justify some pretty poopy things with their own personal understanding of the world, but that won’t mean they’re necessarily ‘evil’ or ‘dark’. My idea of a ‘dark’ monk would be a perfectionist that wishes to have other people experience serenity, regardless of their consent in the matter. Possibly one that indoctrinates people.
I think ‘rage’ is a lot less nuanced. There are a lot of examples of berserker-esque types in various fantasy media and this is explained in a lot of ways. Beast essence in the blood, an internal sense of madness, heightened adrenaline, Hulk smash, etcetera. It’s not necessarily warrior specific. Like, a random dude who picks up an axe isn’t suddenly going to be able to push himself beyond his limits because he’s stubbed his toe. However, if he’s trained for a long time and is used to extreme situations, a heightened, angry combat madness is a very believable possibility.
Also think about cases IRL where people lose their collective poop and stop caring about taking damage. The human body is actually capable of a lot more when we’re not concerned about getting hurt. Rage definitely isn’t magic. It’s more akin to berserking, which is usually historically brought out via narcotics iirc. Still a state people likely achieve today via combat stimulants and the like.
But yeah. Imo, just keep it simple. If your character is actively doing warrior-esque stuff, there’s really no reason why you can’t justify /rage in situations that require it. I wouldn’t say it’s an ‘on and off’ switch. It’s just something that’s likely to happen if your character is forced into an extreme situation. Also keep it realistic - your hair isn’t going to go blonde and you’re not going to be able to fly. Think about what your character’s racial and physical limits are, and then amplify them to a believable-ish degree.
Worth noting about Nori as someone brought him and his cool sword that could cut an anvil in half:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/707949420896976916/832285066830938152/5d9de7316c60f9b1416d4064f2ceec01.png
He poured his emotions into his sword, creating the unstoppable blade. His grief, his love for his son, and his fury for the orc who took his son from him.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/707949420896976916/832285176829837312/a27ffc20663ccc95f0f824a83ecddbf2.png
He even rips off the orc’s arm with his bare hands after he gets stabbed with this unstoppable sword in the chest. Rage is just magic adrenaline if you know how to harness it.
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This is a figure of speech. It’s not like the blade became more powerful because he was emotionally disturbed.
The blade is strong because he is a good craftsman and his state of mind influenced the way he worked. Much like a person “puts their grief into work” irl, so he did here aswell, working at a fanatical pace and with a dedication he never had before.
I mean
why not?
Because that’s not how metaphors work?
Right, but who said it’s a metaphor when you’ve got dudes who are so mad that they can roar real loud and make a dragon head appear?
Is emotionally imbueing a blade to make it stronger really outside of the boundaries of Warcraft’s universe? No, in fact it is exceedingly reasonable, to the extent that they used the concept at least one other time in the Ashbringer comics.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/561287824964452363/839534235135770674/unknown.png
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Nori then uses the sword he has just created to literally cut an anvil in half with little to no resistance.
And it’s written off as in-game speculation (and something exclusive of dwarves): “There’s this popular belief that…”
To me, this is just basic reading. If you read somewhere “Saurfang felt a wound in his heart after he acted dishonorably” you don’t think he’s literally wounded even if he brings a hand to his heart.
If this is a universe where emotions can be called into being, it would both need further clarifications (why only dwarves can do it, if they can?) and it would make one wonder why you need an Old God curse for the sha.
It literally is
Others can too, it’s just dwarf craftsmen are both famous for it and happened to be used in both examples
sha makes it easier obviously
why can’t it be both lol
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Barnabas Grell, on the other hand (A forsaken Warrior from https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Crusader’s_Blood), is a fantastic example of a warrior in the game. He can take massive (and I do mean massive) amounts of punishment before eventually being brought low. He uses all his weapons really masterfully, even going as far as to say that fighting spellcasters is all about “choosing the correct tool”, afterwhich he uses a shield to advance on a fire mage before reflecting part of the spell back at her.
He is also unironically the canon guy who slew that Scorpion Deathclasp in vanilla wow Silithus that killed so many people lol.
Forward commander Onslaught (another forsaken guy) goes out equally epic, fighting off an entire pack of worgen before finally being brought down.
I think so too. I mean, Sha are the literal manifestations of your emotions, so it does not seem at all like a hard stretch that through sheer willpower somebody can make a blade out of all their rage.
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