I know that there’s more to paladins than just being armoured priests but if I’m being honest I don’t personally care for the distinction and I do, in fact, just want to play a priest with a plate armour and a shield, and I think that is personally a fine class fantasy for really any of WoW’s races
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Because everything we know about the worgen curse is incompatible with the Paladin ritual. To become a Paladin (Silver Hand style) requires the Paladin to undergo a ritual of empowerment where the Church empowers the candidate with the Light, scrubbing them clean and refilling them back up with the Light. It serves as a symbolic death of the self and being reborn. Doubt is something a Paladin must be able to let go of, as it’s implied the ritual will fail and the Light will smite him there and then. It’s adjacent to Lightforging which is also shown to kill all who fail to let go of their doubts in the process.
The worgen curse amplifies fear, doubt, and rage. A worgen will never be rid of them, and can at the best of times “manage” them, but they will always eat away at a worgen. If the Paladin ritual requires complete detachment of doubt, a worgen cannot safely undergo it without being destroyed, because their amplified doubt is etched in their very soul by the curse.
Moreover, the Church has extremely strict standards for Paladins. You don’t “just train” to become a Paladin — you must live a life of virtue and be a paragon of morality and virtue. The Church doesn’t allow Paladins to be moral failures; they excommunicate them for failings of character. The reason for this is that Paladins are symbols of humanity and pillars of the community. A Paladin can serve as a judge at the discretion of a local magistrate and opinionate on a judgment, because people must be able to trust them to be fair and unbiased — Turalyon talks in Beyond the Dark Portal about how the life of a Paladin is one of sacrificing all of your personal wants and desires in the name of doing the right thing. Always. You’re a teacher, a healer, and a public servant first and foremost per an official decree by Uther and Faol. A Paladin’s actions carry weight because the people look to them for guidance on what’s right and just.
Since worgen are unable to ever be truly rid of their fears, their doubts, and their wrath, the Church will unlikely ever allow one to be elected as a Paladin candidate in the first place because they fail to meet the extremely strict criteria expected of every single Paladin. Even if they did, as outlined above, they are unlikely to be able to survive the ritual. Even if they did, it’s still a matter of time until the curse makes them act out in a way that forces them to be excommunicated and stripped of Paladinhood. Paladins are not allowed moral failures.
That’s 3 stages at which the worgen is prevented from Paladinhood.
Per Wolfheart, it’s shown that the Ritual of Balance only gives your humanity a hand on the wheel. It’s not a perfect fix, nor does it afford perfect control. The beast within is still always trying to actively steer you off the road violently, and a worgen who has undergone the ritual is still at risk of going feral if they let loose. The worgen form amplifies the effects of the curse and those who spend too much time in it find themselves rejecting their humanity if they’re not careful. One of Genn’s Greyguard almost lashes out and attacks Varian out of rage when Varian first vetoes them from joining the Alliance, proving his point.
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what if we just lightforge them
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The far shorter answer is that they’ve not yet made an aesthetically appropriate paladin faction for Worgen, which would be far cooler to have rather than to shove them in the Silver Hand, having genuinely the coolest cathedral model out of the entirety of Azeroth. At the end of the day, it really comes down to that. Aesthetics.
Tirion Fordring got de-ritualized and he refounded the Silver Hand, as well as became the Ashbringer, and I wouldn’t call him any less a paladin, and the most recognisable one after Uther at that, for it. There are different races with different takes on being a paladin - but it would be lame to homogenise yet another fantasy race into the same human-led, white-brick-and-gold aesthetic. Everyone said as much in Legion, so, let’s not complain about them heeding that.
This, I lead into the question of shamans. Can you play a worgen shaman? I guess. A Gilnean could’ve found himself researching and communing with one of the many elemental circles in the Arathi Highlands, or simply could’ve been taught by someone of a race of the Alliance that practice such things, but the problem lies in the following:
Unless you do something unique with it, and acknowledge it as outlandish (for the time being) with your character concept, you will have to heavily borrow from other races’ aesthetics to a point where it might be questionable why it isn’t simply easier and far more interesting to just roleplay that race instead, such as the many cases of ‘Vulpera but basically a Human’, etc.
It’s a tricky thing to approach, but it is not impossible. Just don’t be surprised if people in-character act a little bewildered by your worgen (non-playable-class).
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They could actually use the Greyguard for this, which would be pretty dope and a cool name to boot!
I think people get too fixated on specific terminology to begin with, especially re. paladins. Could/would a worgen be able to become a Knight of the Silver Hand (as specified in one of the Arthas novels)? Maybe not. Could they become a holy warrior with comparable skills? I see absolutely no reason why not – if they can be priests, they can strap on plate and fight for their own holy order.
Sunwalkers, blood knights, and so on all have their own ways of becoming what are, effectively, paladins. Even if they don’t fit the mold of what a capital p Paladin was way back when.
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The Lightfang Order establishing itself after seeing firsthand how the Church’s faith is not the sole method by which to access it. The Scarlets were fanatics and monsters, and still yet the Light still heeded their call.
The Church teaches respect, tenacity, and compassion, but the Lightfang have no need for these. They have their rage, their primal urges, and their burning vengeance. As base emotions as kindness, yet ones the Light responds to all the same.
The Lightfang do not serve the Light. They wield it as a weapon that serves them. Their faith is not in its grace and gentle warmth but its searing purification. They trust in the Light the same way one would trust in a sword, and through it they harness their rage.
Or, you know, something like that. If they could learn Shamanism from watching Wildhammers, why not learn Paladinism from Scarlets? May as well have some use for their ridiculous involvement in the Gilneas reclamation quests.
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Ever since we got Tauren and Zandalari paladins I’m not convinced there’s any hurdle for a playable race to be a paladin. All they need is some random order retconned into the setting, rediscovered by particularly zealous Light worshippers and then establish that group.
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Well. For the Light, we have the following representation:
‘The Light’
Naaru
An’she (The Sun)
The Titans (Order)
Elune (The Moon)
Wild Gods / Loa
I believe fire too? We know that the Light can be found everywhere, and have a connection that can be obtained if you are righteous enough in your belief. The whole morality thing, nope, Scarlets pointed out that it wasn’t needed. The Light can reconnect to the Undead as well. We have enough methods.
(Edit: Forgot Elune/Wild Gods/Loa, sorry Night Elves and Trolls!)
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Really I think the “paladins for all races” was soft confirmed at the end of Shadowlands when every race got a priest option - because every race in WoW has some form of belief in a higher power - and I know there’s the whole distinction of “capital P paladins” where they’re part of the silver hand but like
Again I just personally prefer them as “armoured priests” and not “dudes who must fall under every list of criteria” because frankly I find the latter boringly restrictive and wholly uninteresting. I don’t care about the Silver Hand, I just want an armoured wolf-man who casts healing spells and throws hammers.
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Both of these were introduced in a rather obtuse way, meaning that they were absent from the setting up to the moment they needed Tauren and Draenei (Eredar) Paladins and/or a Light-aligned group within Outland.
Similarly Blizzard can just add the ancestors of House Goldfartmane that have been resting in a long forgotten Gilnean catacomb, only to be unearthed sometimes during War Within to reveal a Light-Goldrinn Cult with the rituals to create Worgen Paladin supersoldiers.
With the list, they do not really need to invest anything. I mean, races can see the Light in wild gods/Loas, so, Goldrinn would easily serve as an image of the Light.
Pretty much the only paladin race I’d really struggle to argue a justification for is Void Elves because…you know, Void. But even those idiots still got Priests that aren’t locked out of Holy/Disc specs.
(Mecha)Gnomes: Frontline, armoured combat medics. They’d be specifically oriented around prot/holy specs, rather than retri.
NElf: Elunite warrior, using Elune’s light.
Worgen: Lightfang, see above.
Kul Tiran: Kinda weird they don’t have them already.
VElf: Disc Priests, but Paladins.
Goblins: They bought a Paladinning for Dummies guidebook for 5 copper at the market and wouldn’t you know it just kinda stuck? Well worth the buy really, those rubes didn’t know what they were sellin’…
Orc: Same thing they did for Orc Priests…but with armour on top.
Troll: See Zandalari.
Undead: Disc Priests, but Paladins.
Highmountain: See Tauren
Mag’har: See Orc
Nightborne: See NElf.
Vulpera: That Duneblessed headcanon stuff is kinda neat, go with that.
Pandaren: Golden Lotus training+Chi-Ji’s fire=‘Paladins’.
Dracthyr: Maybe if they’d been given some proper lore opportunity content instead of barely half a patch there’d be more to go on with the scalies. Oh well. Under Ebonhorn’s guidance, they also come to revere An’she, and become Sunwalkers.
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Good thing they added that Void Elf Paladin NPC so we know there’s no such icky, lore-authentic limitations such as not being allowed to be a Holy crusader Void Creature .
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MechaGnomes and Gnomes could easily be under the Titans or ‘The Light’
Night Elves, Elune indeed.
Worgen, ‘The Light’, or Goldrinn.
Kul Tirans (Is odd they don’t either but yeah), ‘The Light’ for them.
Void Elves (There is already some, not happy about it. I see them as Void Knights), ‘The Light’ or shroud of Light within the Void.
Goblins, just like priests, bribery and scams.
Orcs, with the help of the Mag’har, they already have backgrounds of Light forced on them by Yrel, could learn further from there - or “ancestors”.
Troll, well, Loa.
Undead, even the dead can reconnect to the Light without being lightforged, seen that before.
HM Tauren, indeed, An’she or ‘The Light’.
Nightborne is a little iffy but Elune is an ancient of theirs before they put their whole belief in the Nightwell.
Vulpera is indeed there to run on Duneblessed’s ideas.
Pandaren would 100% be by the Celestials, mainly Chi-ji and Xuen.
Dracthyr, I would rather not see have it, but rumors has it that they’ll soon get priests (together with Warrior, Hunter, and Rogue) in early TWW. So, theirs would be the Titans.
I wish to be a bubble knight.
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I would recommend working with a mixture of the old human traditions, and the sensibility to the wailing spirits of the lands around the Gilneans, in the same fashion they rediscovered druidism.
The Elements can teach their chosen, even if briefly. Using a Wildhammer or other sorts of shaman can help with mentorship and guidance too if you were to need it, but I believe the more pure elemental route a la Nobundo may work, although the elements in Azeroth are markedly more destructive and fickle.
hehe me mentioned.
Blizzard’s writing is bad because they keep retconning things and have no respect for continuity, but also Blizzard should retcon the lore to fit a class I want to play
the duality of man
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The Orcs already have the Lok’osh
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For the record I don’t want Worgen Paladins. I prefer them being available to certain races and the writers respect the limitations that eg. you listed earlier in the thread.
What I don’t see is them doing that and instead just introduce some mcguffin to justify X race getting paladins when they shouldn’t be able to be one.
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