Part of the Reason I Love Forsaken

I roleplay almost exclusively Forsaken, but before I found my niche with them I flirted with the Alliance. I had played Horde exclusively on PvP servers since release, but I when I was looking at the character creation screen for my first RP server I found the Alliance reminded me of the Dungeons and Dragons races I was so familiar with.

The more I engaged in Alliance roleplay the more accurate that observation felt since - with it's taverns, Elves, Humans and Dwarfs - it does wind up feeling a lot like Dungeons and Dragons, or classic medieval roleplay.  The Horde - with it's Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren - feels a lot more distinctly Warcraft.

Don't take the previous statement in the wrong way.  I definitely had fun learning the ropes with my Human, Light-loving Priestess. And I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Night Elves after spending a lot of time with my Kaldorei Huntress, who was obsessed with the loss of her immortality and convinced she could feel her body dying with each breath. However, now that I've had a seven month long taste of Forsaken roleplay, I don't think I could ever go back.


Now, when I roleplay a still-living alt (whether Alliance or Horde) it's like a novelty. And I usually end up perpetually amused by the fact than I can type out how my character is breathing in order to emphasize their feelings, or by how I can allow them to have a lot of genuine passion and emotion in their choices and interactions.

While I can definitely understand wanting to play characters with passion and emotion I think the reason I find Forsaken roleplay to be the most engaging is because the Forsaken must deal with loss and tragedy on a scale and of a permanence that none of the other races have to deal with. Even the Worgen, who have do deal with the loss that comes with being cursed; they only have to deal with being cursed. There is still hope for them that one day, should they wish it, they could be restored to their former selves. The Forsaken on the other hand are dead. Yes, they have been reanimated, but that only serves to force them to have to deal with all the aspects of being dead; from their state of perpetual rot, to the breaking of all the bonds they knew in life. And if they were ever to stop being Forsaken? Well then they would just be dead. There's no going back, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, there's just coming to terms with what you are and what you've lost.

This is also one of the reasons I love well done Death Knight roleplay: While I am adamant that Forsaken and Death Knights are very different, roleplaying a Death Knight can give you the chance to roleplay any one of the races as if they had died and been risen by the Lich King. It gives us the opportunity to see how see all the races of Warcraft would view the world when seen through Forsaken coloured glasses, so to speak.

Furthermore Death Knights allow people to see the appeal of the Forsaken, which is what I'm going to get into.

Death is universal and, therefore, easy to get across.

At the risk of sounding like some kind of roleplay hippie: Roleplay for each race has a unique 'feel' to it. I think that good roleplay is about embracing the feel of your race and bringing your character to life  using the lore to communicate the ideas and concepts you have used to build your character; doing this successfully makes your character feel like a part of the universe. Your want your Draenei to feel pious and ancient, and your want your Forsaken to feel dead. Now, which of those two do you think is easier to convey?

Being a dead corpse affects every facet of your roleplay as a Forsaken, and you can literally call attention to it in everything your character says and does without going overboard. What's more, by simply showing your character is a dead corpse, you're succeeding at the particular 'feel' for that race.

It's a simple concept that anyone can pick up, but it also allows for a lot of depth and intricate story-telling that can only be mastered over time. But that's the beauty of it: Today, the new Forsaken roleplayer writes about how the ears on his character keep falling off and it makes him hard of hearing. Tomorrow that same character is lamenting the lack of sensation when the wind blows through their hair and tries desperately to remember what it felt like.

Not a lot of romance, and if it's there, it's really different.

I just want want to clarify that it's not my intention to belittle romantic roleplay. I know that a lot of people roll their eyes at it, but I think that with mature players it becomes a worthwhile endeavour, and it can be done well. That doesn't change the fact that it's incredibly overdone and frequently used by the kind of roleplayers that limit themselves to roleplaying beautiful characters who spend all their time being beautiful in “social” situations. Just by virtue of being Forsaken, your character can be exempt from that entire branch of roleplay if you want them to be.

I won't get into the specifics, but it's a given that the Forsaken have limited romantic prospects. They're rotting corpses. It's refreshing to play a Forsaken character and know the roleplay you're going to encounter won't have sensual themes to it. You also don't have to talk about your feelings in character, or go into a tavern. In essence you can avoid what I find to be the big culprits of stagnant scenes just by virtue of the race you picked.

If you do decide to pick up a romance story with another Forsaken, or walk into a bar, you have something very different to bring to the table. Are you and your Forsaken lover going to hold visible spines when you walk together? How are you going to drink that flagon of mead without a lower jaw? Roleplaying a Forsaken means being able to use themes like death and a diminished emotional sensibility to switch up common and possibly even overused premises like romantic relationships and taverns.