Worgen Roleplaying Guide

I firstly want to make it clear that all of the information contained here is not meant to serve as a rigid guide to role-playing a Worgen. It is not –required- for anybody to follow this guide, and certain parts of the guide are based on individual interpretation of lore, rather then lore that is set firmly in canon.

Rather then a terse set of rules, the guide is meant to provide both ideas and a few guidelines for those who are seeking to role-play a Worgen. I have certainly been approached by a fair amount of people in-game about the peculiarities of Worgen role-play, so I decided to make this guide that outlines a lot of the answers I’ve given. I also want to give thanks to the following people:

Oswyn/Rucifel: Helped me with Grammar. Macgillavry: Expanded on hunters and advised for a Duskwood Section. Eredis: Expanded on Death Knights.

Beginning of the Worgen
Perhaps the most important question is -how- the Worgen came to be in the first place. Unlike most other races, they are not beings that evolved slowly and naturally on Azeroth. Rather, they are beings that were birthed into the world dramatically and suddenly, by the hand of a group of druids called the Druids of the Pack.

Druids of the Pack
If not for the Druids of the Pack, there would be no Worgen. They are, in many ways, the progenitors of the Worgen, despite the fact that the first form they assumed was not that of the Worgen. They were druids in an age after the War of the Ancients, yet before the Cenarion Circle was formed. Thus, there were little restrictions around what a druid could practice, and what a druid could not practice.

As druids historically worshipped and revered certain ancients to obtain their forms, the druids of the pack worshipped a particularly feral ancient, Goldrinn. Goldrinn takes the form of a large, savage wolf in the physical plane. He fought alongside the elves in the War of the Ancients, but was also notorious for supposedly offending the Moon Goddess herself because of his sheer violence.

This led to other druids becoming wary and suspicious of the Druids of the Pack. Nevertheless, they would continue to dabble in Goldrinn’s essence until they found a suitable form, which they named “Pack Form.” They found that this form embodied the fury of the Wolf Ancient himself, and granted them great power, along with even greater bloodlust.

It was not very long before Malfurion caught wind of this. Upon discovering how difficult the form was to control, he quickly banned its use, and the Druids of the Pack reluctantly concurred.

Druids of the Scythe
This was far from the end of the Druids of the Pack, though. The night elves were currently involved in a war with the Satyr, and the Druids of the Pack were eager to aid with the war, believing that their newfound forms could be used to help the Kaldorei. They attempted to convince Malfurion Stormrage to let them use the form in the war, but he was firm in his original ruling.

It was during an attack against the Satyr that the Druids of the Pack directly defied Malfurion’s ruling, and embraced the form given to them by Goldrinn. It did not work out very well for the Druids of the Pack. They became lost in the feral bloodlust of Goldrinn, attacking friend and foe alike. Malfurion managed to catch a large number of them, and thereby -ordered- them not to dabble at all in Goldrinn’s form.

However, two Kaldorei still wished to delve into the Pack Form, largely to continue the work of a fallen colleague. Yet they knew that simply going straight into the Pack Form was far too dangerous, and they needed something to temper it. One of them was a Priestess of Elune named Belysra.

Belysra had recently lost a lover and Druid of the Pack, Arvell, due to the banishment of the Form. Arvell, who swore to uphold Malfurion’s orders, did not shift into the form Goldrinn had given him, even when he was being attacked by a group of Satyr.

Belysra met up with Ralaar, leader of the Druids of the Pack. Taking ancient elvish mythology as their own inspiration, they believed that using the powers of the Moon Goddess could ‘tame’ druids while in the Pack Form. They fused together a fang of Goldrinn with a staff of Elune, and then began channeling the Scythe’s newfound power into Ralaar while he was in the pack form.

What happened next was truly astounding. The staff did calm the savage nature of the Pack form somewhat, but it also transformed it. Ralaar now stood upright, as a Worgen, both blessed by Goldrinn and the Moon Goddess. Ralaar was the first of the Worgen, and the beginning of their long, dark history.

End of the Druids of the Scythe
Ralaar and Belysra first seemed to be successful. This new form granted them dominion over Goldrinn’s gift, and it did seem that Elune had ‘tamed’ the beast. The other Druids of the Pack readily accepted the transformation, now named “Druids of the Scythe” in remembrance of the Staff that granted them some degree of control over their form.

The Satyr were decimated by the invigorated druids, who no longer turned on their own Brethren. However, soon after being defeated, Ralaar called for Malfurion’s death, believing him to have murdered Arvell by banning the Pack form. As Kaldorei moved to defend Malfurion, many of them were bitten, and transformed into Worgen themselves. Malfurion and many Kaldorei escaped, who soon planned to strike out against these Druids of the Scythe.

Malfurion banded the other druids together into a new organization called the Cenarion Circle. He convinced Belysra to grant him the Scythe of Elune, which could be used to banish the Druids of the Scythe into a tree in the Emerald Dream, where they could peacefully sleep for an eternity. Using the Scythe of Elune he successfully banished the druids to Daral’nir, a tree that soothed the Worgen.

Not truly the end...
As they were imprisoned in the Emerald Dream, it turned out that Malfurion himself had made a dire mistake. Instead of soothing the spirits of the Worgen, the tree only led the Feral beasts into greater, and greater madness. They became even more violent and savage due to the imprisonment, although they had no way to leave the Dream.

However, the Scythe of Elune was still floating around, and it would eventually be gifted to a night elven sentinel named Velinde Starsong. She summoned the worgen using the Scythe, to aid her in fighting back demons- but eventually lost control of the very Worgen she summoned. Her tale, while fascinating, is not necessarily integral to the plight of the Worgen you are going to be playing, so I will leave that to yourself to read up on.

More important perhaps is Arugal, who is an Archmage of Dalaran, who fled towards his homeland of Gilneas after Dalaran was burnt down. He was a true Patriot of Gilneas, and also in possession of knowledge that detailed how to summon the Worgen into the Material plane from the Dream. The first mage to find this knowledge, Ur, had advised against summoning them into the world, for he believed they would only be a blight upon it.

Nevertheless, the Worgen fascinated Arugal. He persuaded King Greymane to allow him to summon the savage wolf-beasts, in order to fight back the Scourge that were plaguing Gilneas. Reluctantly, Greymane agreed, and soon enough the Worgen managed to push back the scourge. However, the Worgen turned on their summoners, intent on taking the lands of Gilneas for themselves.

Types of Worgen
So there we are! That is a basic out-line of the story of the Worgen! If you wish to learn more about their story, as well as some fun theories, I advise going to WoWinsider and seeing what they have to say about them. Now we come to translating this all into Role-playing, and deciding –who- your Worgen can be. As far as we know, there are a variety of different kinds of Worgen.

Gilnean Worgen
The most common of the Worgen we see today, and also the kind that most people tend to Role-play as. Gilnean Worgen are the ones we actually create in the game. They were either born, or simply lived in Gilneas at the time when the Worgen curse fell upon the land of Gilneas, and were bitten.

Worgen of other human kingdoms
These are  also entirely possible, albeit a bit trickier to do. Your character would have to have been bitten by a Worgen somehow, and then have regained their sanity somehow. I will explain the ways that Worgen can calm themselves or re-gain their sanity later, as it is fairly important for all kinds of Worgen!

Hillsbrad Worgen
Now, these are a fun case. They could simply fit into the above category, but there’s also something else you can do with them that gives them a very unique backstory. In a few Forsaken quests, you saw humans from Southshore, survivors of Forsaken assaults, having fled to Fenris Island. These humans drunk from the Blood of Worgen, and were able to assume the form this way. Why? Because it granted them immunity from being risen as Undead!

Night Elf Worgen
These ones are -interesting-. These were the first Worgen, after all. Is it possible that one of these Worgen, like the ones summoned, somehow regained sanity. It would be a unique concept to role-play as; however, I don’t advise it. It would be difficult, albeit -cool-, to pull off successfully. You would also probably want to roll both a Night Elf, and a Worgen OOC, to get both models.

==Duskwood Worgen and their story. == If you have taken the liberty to read the little blurb on Tobias Mistmantle, you'd notice that his brother, Stalvan, because a worgen while he was around Duskwood! He's not the only Duskwood worgen who seems to have some hint of humanity, in fact. There are a few other npc's, but I'm not going to list them all out. Anyhow, I feel it's important to understand the nature of Worgen in Duskwood, if you -are- Role-playing one from Duskwood, or even if you are not.

So it all started up with this wonderful Scythe of Elune. We did not really talk about Velinde Starsong, but I'll give a brief overview of her since she's mildly important. She was a night elven priestess who received the Scythe of Elune when she prayed to Elune (Although it was Goldrinn who probably gave it to her). After receiving the Scythe, she begins summoning worgen to help her out, and -naturally-, they turn on her!

She went to Darkshore to search for more information about the beings. All she found was 'whispers' about our old friend Arugal who summoned them. She went to seek him out, and took the Scythe along with her. However, it turned out she was being followed by a group of Feral Worgen who wanted the Scythe for their own purposes.

When she discovered she was being followed, she sought out refuge in a place called 'Roland's Doom', a cave in Duskwood. The worgen were onto her though, and attacked her at the entrance of the cave. She quickly retreated into the mine, but dropped her torch while the worgen were attacking her! This attacked the cave, killing both the worgen and Velinde, the step ripe for the taking by a jittery pansy named, well...Jitters.

Before he found the scythe, Jitters was a fairly normal guy. Perhaps not the most exemplary of men, but certainly not the worst either. He was in cohorts with the Defias Brotherhood, and frequently refers to them in his journal. He was off venturing around Roland's Doom with a few of his 'Brothers' when he found the staff.

He 'accidentally' summoned Worgen with the staff. This led to a very large population of Worgen being introduced into Duskwood, who began to immediately infect Jitters 'Brothers' with the curse. Jitters however, managed to escape successfully with the staff, although he was plagued by guilt. He decided to hide in a barn out in Duskwood, near a house that was home to a small family.

Soon enough, the husband leaves the house, and 'Dark Riders' from the Deadwind Pass show up in Duskwood. It turns out that Jitters using the Scythe has somehow alerted this group of its location or presence, and they are now seeking it out for its own purposes. Right now, we don't quite know -who- the dark riders truly are, although there certainly are plenties of theories that are floating about.

The Dark Riders made quick work of the small family, and Jitters left the staff in the barn, hoping that the Dark Riders would stop following him if he did so. The scythe eventually got to Gilneas in some way, but we don't quite know how. It was possible that the Dark Riders were servants of Arugal once he went mad, who had thereafter found the staff, and returned it to Arugal.Once again, we don't quite know.

So ends the Story of Jitters. A few more things happened, like the husband (Named Sven Yorgen) discovering what occurred, but nothing much of note. Now we move to present-day Duskwood, where there are some exciting new developments taking place!

Meet Oliver Harris. Worgen refugee and Alchemist, who's working on curing the worgen that have been released into Duskwood. You can do all the quests to recieve the full-story, but the basic gist of it is that there's a movement in Duskwood, primarily being led by Oliver Harris, to give the 'Salve' to Feral Worgen and give them their humanity back.

Role-playing one of these cured worgen from Duskwood could be very interesting, especially because many of them may not have gone through the ritual of Taldoren yet! Gilneas is a long ways off, and its not very easy to take the ritual, given that it requires the Scythe to actually perform. Thus, your character will likely need a steady supply of the salve to keep them from going completely insane.

Grizzly Hills Worgen
We've talked about Worgen from both Duskwood, Gilneas, and the possibility that one could come from other human nations. Now, we're about to explore another interesting kind of Worgen that can exist: Ones from the Grizzly Hills. Up in the Grizzly Hills, there was a small trapper and trader community, who primarily lived in a moderately sized town called Silverbrook.

We don't quite know how or when this trapper and trader community formed, which makes it interesting. They might have formed when the Alliance first led their expeditionary force to Northrend to kill the Lich King. They may have formed a bit before that, living as a sort of isolated community that sailed to Northrend for Elune knows what reason. Or of course, they could be descendants of the original Vrykul. We don't really know, which is why these folk are intriguing.

Now, while these trapper folk were all fine and dandy, Arugal was in the middle of being killed by a group of adventurers. He was later resurrected by a San'layn, however, and the Lich King intended to use him for his own dire purposes. He ordered Arugal, who had somehow got his hands on the Scythe of Elune,  to head over to the Grizzly Hills and make 'em into Worgen.

And so Arugal, or rather the 'shade' of Arugal, immediately set to work on creating a 'wolfcult'. A wolfcult is basically a cult of humans who are granted with the ability to become a worgen, yet keep their human form for indefinite periods of time. Anyways, most of the humans either joined the Wolfcult, were killed off, or fled.

Your character will likely be one of the ones who willingly joined the wolfcult. There are really two options you can go with here. Those who joined the wolf-cult did not appear to be completely feral. They could still think, they could still feel emotion, however, they -also- were partially insane. They want to spread the worgen curse to as many people as possible.

Unlike the worgen that have gone through the ritual of Taldoren, they -can- still spread the curse. Now, if you want a way to make your character not quite as insane, you can always say that someone found them or gave them the salve, or some other mixture that quelled some of their feral rage.