Gnome Priests – Power of Skepticism

Gnomes are notorious for not believing in any of the common religions on Azeroth.  Gelbin Mekkatorque himself, when presented with a mechagnome from Northrend, still could not be convinced to believe in the Titans.

For a long time gnomes did not practice the arts of the priest.  There was simply no faith to harness the power of, but in recent years it has been discovered that it’s not faith, but willpower that fuels the spells of a priest.  With that discovery, gnomes have been able to set about with a who new and different kind of holy healer, one who powers their magic with skepticism.

There is no denying that their is a life force on Azeroth.  It maybe called it the light, the loa, the ancestors, Elune, but in the end, there is a very real, verifiable and repeatable way to invoke this life force to heal allies.  There is also a psychic energy that can be harnessed and used to great effect to control or destroy enemies.

The fact that these two forces exist does that verify the mythologies and ‘gods’ that they are often associated with.  In fact, the wide variety of beliefs undermines the chances that any are correct.  If the light truly flowed from Elune, then human paladins would not be able to harness it to such efficacy.

Gnome holy priests are free thinkers, they study the theologies of all the belief systems on Azeroth.  They use the teaching and mythologies as a way to focus their minds to achieve success.  They don’t believe that Tir sacrifices this hand to fight against the darkness, but the imagery and the morality of the tale gives them a focus.  This leads to a situation where you might hear a gnome call out to anything from the loa to the naaru when healing their allies.

Gnome discipline priests are skeptics.  They have no use for the myths and legends that the holy priests use.  They study the light and shadow the same way that a mage would study arcane magic.  Both life force and psychic energy are naturally occurring phenomena that can be measured studied and understood.  They are able to channel their magics through confidence.  Their repeated testing and research have given them an understanding of how these forces are manipulated.

Gnome shadow priests are deniers and cynics.  They may not know exactly how their magic works, but that doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they know YOU are WRONG.  These gnomes use psychic energy to project their doubts and disbelief in to the minds of a target.  Once afflicted, the subject loses their own faith and their mind either submits to the will of the gnome, or is torn by the thought that everything they know and love is a lie.

Gnomes have no cultural concept of the divine.  They may not see value in the idea of worship, but these gnostics still possess the convictions and the strength of will to harness the powers of light and dark.

New Stratagy – Overwatch #OOC

Now that HotS has a recruit a friend reward option, I’ve realized I need to stop getting my friends to play Blizzard games.  I always ^&*% myself out of these rewards by getting everyone I know to sign off before they are available.

Not Overwatch.  I’m noting going to say anything about it until the Recruit a friend rewards are offered.  At this point, we know it will happen, the question is just when.  I want that Vulture for HotS more than any other mount, but I don’t know any more gamers IRL to recruit too.

If anyone wants to play, message me on twitter and I will give you my battletag.

https://battle.net/recruit/CKPDJ27Z2L

 

Villains Ascendant

@MatthewWRossi  made a great point in the Queue a few days ago about the importance of failure http://blizzardwatch.com/2016/01/22/the-queue-the-narrative-importance-of-failure/

No one does “Bad Guys Win” as well as blizzard does.  Arthas and Kerrigan are two of their BEST characters. It’s not just that the bad guy won, but I was cheering them on as they did it.

I think World of Warcraft could really benefit from this.  There is one catch though.  I don’t think they can pull it off, unless the downtime between expansions gets much smaller.  While it’s a great story for us to lose and be on the run.  A year plus of losing and running is probably more than most of us can stomach.

We also need a charismatic villain, one people clamor to put in to place, and then once they are supremely evil and ruling over all, they smile at us, say ‘thanks’, stab us in the back, and start destroying everything we love.

 

Gnome INVASION to HotS

While we are waiting for Mekkatorque as a new character in HotS.  What should Mekkatorque bring to the play field?   The question is, “What about Gnomes and Engineering is left that need representation?”  Goblin Tinker Gazlowe pilots a Mech and drops turrets.  Gnomish Engineering is more about Shrink Rays, Homing Chickens, Alarm-o-bots and Teleporting (Ultra-safe, I assure you!)  Most Gnome Tech is about Crowd Control, Mind Control, Control, control, CONTROL!

Thermaplugg would be a cool skin for Gazlowe

Gnomish Flying Machine/Tinkmaster Overspark as a skin for Falstad

Annoy-o-tron Skin for Murky

And of course Nova Gnome, AKA Gnome-va, AKA Gnova!

 

Image by: https://twitter.com/handclaw

Goblin Religion – Karmic Debt

Karmic Debt.

I like to think that goblins believe in karma, the kind of karma that you can BRIBE.  I heard someone on a Blizzard panel use the word “tithe” to describe the entirety of the goblins religion, but I think a more fitting concept for them is indulgence.

Goblins are BIG risk takers.  That works well for them in their crazy anarcho-capitalist system.  I also imagine they are somewhat superstitious.  If the gnomes version of the belief in the light is loosely parallel to the force from Star Wars (“In my experience there is no such thing as luck”) then goblins are probably exactly the opposite, (cross your fingers and hope “luck be a lady tonight!”)

So then how would the karma play in?  If you have unfairly, through deceit or theft, come into some money, you can pay an indulgence to a local priest.  That priest does ‘good works’ with your ill gotten gains and clears you of any jinx that might be on you for the transgression.

Goblin orders are probably based around who and what they would bless. If you are a traveling merchant, you would probably pay your indulgences or tithes to priests of “Safe Journeys” who in turn use the money to maintain and repair things like roads and lighthouses. (Get it!?  LIGHThouses! ha ha ha)  This would be necessary if goblins are indeed anarcho-capitalists, because they probably are LOATH to pay anything like TAXES to take care of public goods.

The discipline priests would be the bookkeepers.  Human justice may be blind, but goblin (and gnome) Justice is meticulously measured through a  magnifying glass.  It’s a goblin discipline priest that is called in whenever a moral issue comes up that needs to be resolved, and a dollar amount needs to be calculated for a misdeed.

Goblin holy priests are spendthrifts.  They take the money the church brings in and spend it on the the biggest and best, whatevers (it doesn’t matter the shopping is the fun part, right?)  Their job is to make sure all the money the priesthood brings in is put to ‘good use’. Holy goblins are probably first in line when Griftah opens shop, but he won’t sell to them. He knows ripping off a goblin holy priest in the morning means a goblin SHADOW priest will come knocking that night.

Goblin Shadow Priests are cynical enforcers of Karma.  A tithe collected by a goblin shadow priest functions as spiritual protection money, or ‘oops’ insurance.

So that’s how I personally role-play my goblins faith.  It doesn’t match up with what’s in game very well, but it works really well for me!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

((warning, this is head canon, THE WORST kind of head canon.  It directly conflicts with the official story))

@CEMOTucu They use willpower to wield the Light, driven by greed.

— Micky Neilson (@MickyNeilson) March 8, 2013

Gnome Zodiac – Aqueducts

From the gnome library archives

This except is from the diary of Illuminator Galixie Astrosurge written in the year 278 G.M.E. (Gnome Monarchy Experiment)  It represents beliefs of ancient gnomes that may or may not apply to today.

Race

Race vs Species #OOC

It’s weird that different species of hominids are called different races in fantasy settings.

When someone says, “Gnomes are for punting”  I want to say something like, “That’s racist.”  But I don’t because I feel like it would be taking a serious real world issue and reducing it to a joke in a way I am not personally comfortable with.

Kaldorei, the night elves; Quel’dorei, the high elves; Sin’dorei, the blood elves; San’layn, the dark fallen all appear to be different races of elves, while Harpies, Naga, and Satyrs seem to be different species.

Things get way more complicated when you throw undead in the mix.  The forsaken would be humans, that have the same DNA as other humans and could even be parent/sibling of humans, but are so different as to need some other category.

I’m not sure what should or could be done about it.  It’s just something that makes me feel awkward sometimes.

I’m maybe more keenly aware of it because my family is diverse.  I have a step-son that is mixed race.  He always makes light skinned blonde haired characters.  I tried once to counter him by making a dark skinned, black haired character.  All the races in game have dark hair as an option, but I found it weird that gnomes and blood elves (both races that are mostly limited to human skin tones) don’t include any dark skin tones as humans and dwarves do.

Hero Classes Could Go Further to Break the Mold

The Current Hero classes, Death Knight and Demon Hunter are REALLY cool.  I like how Death Knight tried to add a really unique resource system, and Demon Hunter tries to do things that no other class can.  But in the long run, they are built and balanced like any of the other core classes.

I would really like to see some “Hero” Classes that shake things up as far as play style.  There are few ‘challenge mode’ things that people already do in wow that could lend themselves to this.

For example, some people play a Pacifist. They don’t do quests or kill mobs, the level up through professions and other none-aggressive means. That would be a real game changing class.  At level ten you could pick between an Artisan, or a Diplomat for your specialization.  Artisan could increase your efficiency with your professions, possibly opening up extra slots.  and Diplomat could give you bonuses to reputations, let you learn other languages, and possibly make you neutral to the opposing faction.  ((this class would not be able to swap specs after they had been chosen))

Something similar could be done for the Ironman challenge, but that might work more as a template of restrictions for the current classes, rather than a whole new class.

LUNK!

 

More Barbershop Options

I’ve heard it said that Blizzard is unhappy about how the barbershop turned out.  I like it, and I think there is a lot they could do with it still!

They could tie things to achievements or quests the way so many other collections in the game are now.

Imagine if hitting a certain level with a profession unlocked a new type of feature?  It might be a way to work on those quivers and stuff they have been talking about.  Goggle headbands for Engineers?  New hair colors for Alchemists?  Glowing rune tattoos for Inscribers?  More piercings for skinners?

Each profession could have a backpack that gets more and more stuff as you level up!  You could wear it around , and other players could com interact with your pack for access to your profession!  It would be like each player was a tiny roaming Garrison building!

 

 

…Ok, I think I’ve strayed in to some pretty insane territory there.  My point is.. or was… That the barbershop could use some achievement based options.  Either base things like new hair styles and hair colors, OR entire new options like tattoos and scars.

Wardrobe Panic!

I panicked of the fate of my Wardrobe.  When WoWhead launched their Quest Wardrobe tool http://legion.wowhead.com/wardrobe I loaded my main in to it and looked at all the plate and weapons he had unlocked, everything was great, old quest stuff was in there, beautiful!

Then I logged in on a really old Alt.  How old?  Vanilla old.  When Cata came out, someone sent me a Scroll of Resurrection and I used in on this character, boosted him to 80, and transferred him to a new server.  How long has it been since then?  well, he’s level 81 so that should give you some context.

When I loaded this old character, I was HORRIFIED to find he did not have any Pre-Cata quest rewards.  I assumed (I think wrongly now) that the transfer had wiped his pre-cata quest history.

So I did another experiment.  My roommate had a character on my account who has not been played since BC.  He had something like 8 quest rewards total.  So I’ve finally managed to call myself down, I assume that these characters are not loading correctly or competently in to WoWhead because they have not been logged in to in so long, so their armory entries are probably not 100% up to snuff to pull the data from.

Crisis averted, heart rate slowing.  I’m secure knowing I’ll have most of the Pre-cata armor Avaiable to Warriors, Hunter and Rogues. I’m sad now I never managed to level a clothy pre-cata that I did not end up deleting.