User blog:Sasstoreth/Astoreth's Advice for Warlock RP

''I wrote this elsewhere in response to a friend's request for advice on how to play her new warlock. I liked it, I think it's valuable and I want to share it. But I'll be the first to admit that it's highly biased and opinionated, so not at all suited for a proper wiki page. Hence blog! ''

The key recommendation I can make for roleplaying a warlock is one that should be obvious, and yet a lot of people miss it: think long and hard about why and how your character became a warlock in the first place. By which I mean: figure out why and how they became an arrogant, sadistic, power-hungry, self-serving son of a bitch. And once you have it figured out, never forget it.


 * The road to hell is paved with good intentions. – traditional proverb

There are no lawful good warlocks. There are no accidental warlocks. There are no innocent or naïve warlocks – and any warlock who starts their journey good or innocent or naïve either wises up quick or they get eaten alive. There may be nice warlocks, but there are no sweet or soft-hearted warlocks except as a front to disguise a more sinister intent. When you play a warlock you are committed to a character who is at best an antihero and more likely a straight out antagonist, and even your best-intentioned warlock has been a villain at some point in the past and may be so again.

At some point in their past, either recent or distant, your character made the decision that the best defense was a good offense, and the best way to fight fire was with fire. They decided that the ends justify the means, and that power was a suitable end in and of itself. They chose to make deals with devils both literal and metaphorical, and recognized that all of these choices meant they would walk the path of the feared outsider, and they either accepted or embraced that consequence.

It takes a certain kind of person to make these choices. It takes a certain kind of person to live with these choices. It takes a certain kind of person to track down and murder two innocent men in cold blood so their pure hearts may be offered as bait for a succubus. It takes a certain kind of person to steal the very souls of other sentient beings from their still-writhing, shrieking bodies and use those souls to further one’s own power.

Of course people kill each other in war; an Affliction warlock makes certain their target suffers as much as possible before they die, slowly and in agony, as their very soul is violated and the last wisps of their being consumed. Any mage can employ some kind of fire magic; the felfire employed by Destruction warlocks gives a whole new meaning to the term collateral damage, as the warlock harnesses the same destructive power the Burning Legion wields to lay waste to their enemies and scorch the ground on which they stand. And speaking of the Burning Legion, Demonology warlocks are those who are so tightly bound to their demons that they flirt with becoming a demon themselves; every time they harness their powers of metamorphosis, it becomes just a little harder to come back.


 * “The loss of Wilfred Fizzlebang, while unfortunate, should be a lesson to those that dare dabble in dark magic.” – Tirion Fordring, killstealing bitch Highlord of the Argent Crusade

One doesn’t really dabble in warlockery: once you’re in, you’re in for life. Maybe the first hit was free, so to speak… but the ones after certainly weren’t, and by the time you first log in to your shiny new level one warlock with that overeager little imp hopping around their ankles, that fresh-faced baby ‘lock has already either made bargains with or directly overpowered some very powerful, spiteful beings to get the demonic power they have – and they’ll do it again. And again. And even if they stop for some reason – even if they turn over a new leaf and swear off the fel for good – they never can truly leave it behind. The temptation will always be there… and even if they resist the allure of power, it’s just a matter of time before the demons they’ve bound and bargained with come looking for payment in some form or another. Some warlocks may go deeper into karmic debt than others, but every warlock is ultimately bound to their choices. It is the rare warlock who does not eventually find that years of consorting with demons and channeling fel power has taken a heavy toll on them in mind, body and soul.

Warlocks are bastions of willpower. They have to be, or else they would be destroyed early in their careers, dominated by the very demons they endeavor to control. Remember that while warlocks may be anywhere along the spectrum of morality from grey to black, demons are absolutely and irretrievably evil. They want power, they want control, they want destruction. Most demons fight their masters frequently, if not constantly, to gain their freedom and take revenge on those who subjugated them before taking off to wreak havoc on Azeroth. This isn’t to say that demons can’t be pleasant or willing to work with their warlocks – demons are immortal unless killed (and even being “killed” on Azeroth just banishes them), and many of them are playing a very long game in which it may benefit them to cooperate with their master in the short term. Some of them may even develop a kind of twisted affection for their warlock. But they never stop being demons, and the warlock who forgets that and starts thinking of them as their friends is in for a rude awakening – probably in the form of a humiliating and agonizing enslavement and a painful death.

This isn’t to say that all warlocks are the same; far from it. They all have different backgrounds and different motivations for choosing this path to power. But they all have this common core of darkness in them. The old orc shaman who drank the blood of Mannoroth and liked what he found in the blood rage. The jaded sin’dorei aristocrat who gets off on the sadism and the danger of her craft in a way that drugs and alcohol don’t do it for her anymore. The Forsaken who clawed his way from the earth to find that everyone and everything else he loved is gone, and his only remaining joy lies in watching the world burn. The gnome who eventually got sick of being pushed around by people bigger than she and sought out “friends” even bigger than the bullies. The quiet and reclusive human who joined a cult as a rebellious teenager and now, despite these nagging feelings of doubt and regret, can’t seem to stop writing karmic checks his soul may not be able to cover.


 * “You’re so... nice.  You’re not good, you’re not bad, you’re just nice.  I’m not good, I’m not nice, I’m just right. I’m the witch!  You’re the world!” – The Witch, Into the Woods

Remember that the warlock’s primary crowd control power is fear. It’s easier for a warlock’s friends to call a healthstone a ‘cookie’ than to think about the fact that they’re getting those cookies from a soulwell and those little green stones are made up of other people’s souls. Back in the day summoning a Doomguard meant performing a ritual with a handful of your raid-mates, one of whom would die during the ritual to bring the demon across the void for a few minutes. And that’s how your warlock treats their friends! When it comes to strangers – well, depending on what city you’re in your warlock may or may not be outright arrested for walking down the street with a demon at their side, but you will certainly be avoided by many and possibly harassed by a brave few. Anyone who is not afraid of your warlock (or at least exceedingly cautious) either doesn’t really understand what a warlock does, or they are flat-out deluding themselves as to the dangers of associating with warlocks.

It is technically possible to play a warlock for whom their dark magic and stained soul isn’t a big part of who they are or what they do. I’ve run into a lot of “nethermancers” who claim airily that warlockery is just another kind of arcane magic (it’s actually not), no less respectable or more intrinsically harmful a path than any other. Ignoring for the moment the possibility that these characters are simply deluding themselves as to the true nature of what it is they engage in as a form of psychic self-defense, it is my firm and wholly biased opinion that if you really want to play an academic willworker of that sort then you should play a mage instead. To whitewash or outright dismiss the darker elements of the warlock’s path is to neglect what makes them unique and interesting to play to begin with, and really robs yourself of the ability to have a deeper experience with your character. No other class except death knight is so neatly tailor-made for playing a disturbed, disturbing character (and death knights put a different spin on it, not only in their focus on melee combat but in the simple fact that they do not choose their path as warlocks do). You don’t have to play a cackling villain – I certainly don’t – but there’s really nothing to be gained by half-assing your warlock, especially in light of what you might lose.

So think about your warlock as a warlock. How did the choices they make bring them to where they are today? How do they feel about their class – whether a calling or a curse? This advice is sound for any character, I believe, but essential for warlocks, as their class so heavily influences who they are.