Forsaken Roleplaying Pitfalls III: The Kid

Unlike my previous entries on the Forlorn Spirit and Too Crazy Tom, the big problem with The Kid isn't that he fits awkwardly into Forsaken roleplay, or isn't true to the themes of it. Actually, The Kid is unlikely to exist. But more on that later.

The Kid

As the name suggests, The Kid is someone roleplaying a Forsaken child. The Kid tries to stay true to the themes of the Forsaken by building his character around a creepy 'children of the corn' archetype. He does this by having his character suck on lollipops made from bones, by metagaming to have them appear clairvoyant, or by constantly making innocent yet eerie observations. Sometimes The Kid will even speak in third person about their time alive or the people they killed.

What's wrong with it:

The Kid isn't a youth, which would be acceptable for a Forsaken. The Kid is anywhere from six to thirteen years old, and obviously so. The Forsaken are products of war, so to be consistent with that your character would need to be old enough to enlist, pick up a weapon and fight, or at least old enough to look like they could. I could see a fifteen year old in-life that ran off to join the army early because they were big for their age and their home life was unfulfilling, before their untimely end.

Child roleplay is a hot button topic no matter what race you're dealing with. I'll save the specifics of that controversy for another time. The important thing for us to note is that all the races except the Forsaken have children. The child refugees running through Shattrath come in many flavours like Orc, Blood Elf, and Draenei. There are Human children running through the streets of Stormwind, but there isn't a single quest, NPC, or bit of dialogue in game that mentions Forsaken kids, and with good reason.

It's very obvious from the Forsaken physiology, but just in case it needs to be stated: The Forsaken can't make bumpy, get pregnant and have babies. In fact, their inability to reproduce was the entire reason the Royal Apothecary Society was formed. (A solution was eventually found in the form of the Val'kyr, though.)

"But the Forsaken aren't made that way anyways!" You say, and it's true. Forsaken were created by the Scourge during the Third War and gained their free will when the Lich King was weakened in Northrend. Or they were risen by the Val'kyr. Looking at both those methods of Forsaken creation, The Kid still doesn't make a strong case for existing, and I'll explain why.

The Scourge had a very specific use for the children they killed, namely, they used their flesh and the flesh of women to stitch together a big boss in Naxxramas named Thaddius. If you've ever ran a Naxxramas raid, you may have heard the creepy echoing screams for help that resonate through the instance. They come from Thaddius, and they actually stop once you kill him.

It's also worth pointing out that the will of a child isn't going to be as strong as say, an adult. It's been long noted that the Scourge who broke free and became Forsaken when the Lich King was weakened in Northrend were those with the strongest wills. Time works against the idea of Forsaken children made by the third war as well, since we have an NPC with Cataclysm that told us the third war was a decade ago. If you were eight when the plague broke out, you're eighteen now.

So how about a child risen by the Val'kyr? While I'm sure it's possible, the bigger question is: "What is the body of a human child doing where the Forsaken can get their hands on it?" We have a Forsaken NPC saying they're shipping in bodies from the surrounding area. Even then, if by some chance they come across the body of Jane, unluckiest kid in Azeroth, in a live warzone like the Plaguelands where there are humans, why in the name of Sylvanas's rotting tits would they call over a Val'kyr to raise it? Kids aren't smart, or strong, and they're probably not going to take to undeath well. The Forsaken are a pragmatic race.

Continuing down the hypothetical path, if a child gets raised by a Val'kyr, what are they going to do? We covered what happens to the Forsaken that can't cut it upon their resurrection with Too Crazy Tom. You're not going to make it very far with the Forsaken if your small hands can't grip a weapon properly, and upon being risen you fall to your knees and start calling for your parents.

How to fix it:

There's only one way to fix The Kid, and that's to grow up. As I mentioned earlier, the Forsaken are the result of war. There's merit to a character that was just tall enough in life to enlist in the military and meet their end on the battlefield. You can have a character that was young, just not so young that they're extremely unlikely to exist. The life a Forsaken had left to live before death took them can be something that haunts them in undeath. A teenaged character could really empathize with the angst a situation like that would bring about.

The Forsaken can be winsome as well, and there's no harm in giving them a child like quality or two. Even the mighty Lich Kel'Thuzad had Mr. Bigglesworth, what's to say your character couldn't carry around a dirty old blanket from the crib of the baby they were going to have in life? As I always suggest, use a light touch at first and then build off that.