While scrolling through Tweetdeck, I see the MMO Champ post about NEW LORE for Lor’themar. The new short story has been posted! Excited, I alt tab from losing Warzones to overgeared Imps to read the story. Maybe there are some questions answered about the current state of Blood Elf lore. Maybe they talk about tearing down all those tacky Kael’thas statues, getting rid of the Fel Crystals, maybe some awesome High Elf/Blood Elf action, oh yeeaaahhh. Maybe this can be a chance for me to jump back into WoW-RP! Oh how I’ve missed Lanuria!

So, I get to reading and realize the title sounds awfully familiar.

And it’s based during Wrath?

And I coulda sworn I’ve…

“Lan, you do know this is the story that won the fiction contest in 2008, right?”

Varendil looks at me from across the bedroom, scrolling through his Googlereader. “Yeah, right here on WoWinsider, ‘While it is not a new story…’”

But..but..

IT SAYS NEW LORE RIGHT IN THE GODDAMNED TITLE.

This is just…awful, a spit in the face of RPers everywhere, honestly.

This story was written in 2008, during Wrath. Since then, we’ve had Arthas die, the Scourge basically destroyed, we’ve had the Horde taken over by Garrosh, we’ve have the world torn apart by dragons, our closest ally become a little crazy and we’ve had adventurers from Silvermoon go off to new places to defend their homeland that wasn’t even affected by the goddamned dragon and this is what you give us? A story from goddamned 2008?!

The first Leader Short Story was Garrosh’s, published on December 3rd, 2010. It has been over a year since we were introduced to new lore of our faction leaders and the goddamned Belf story is just a repost!?  Why the hell didn’t you just post this story when you introduced the Leader Short Story page, since it was already written?!

ARRRGGHH. I am just so utterly pissed right now. There have been a lot of developments with Blood Elves, but we don’t get a real story to help answer questions? What is going to happen to fel magic users in Silvermoon? How do they feel about High Elves now that the Sunwell has been reclaimed? How does a Blood Elf in the Horde Military feel about Garrosh being a complete and utter dick to anyone that isn’t an Orc? But I guess Blizzard doesn’t care about that part of the lore, since it isn’t about Thrall and his baby mamma or about LO’GOSH and awesome Mary Sue wolf powers~

Every. Single. Fucking. Race in WoW has gotten something new and improved in Cata, minus the Draenei and the Blood Elves. Sure, we got TBC, a whole expansion for our races, but it’s been since 2007, we deserve some goddamned  updated lore on those races. Just give us something, anything, please? We didn’t even get updated starter zones in Cata and now you do this?

I wonder what the Draenei story is going to be about, if they even write the damn thing. I’m sure it’ll be all about Anduin Wrynn’s super happy fun adventures with Velen just sitting in the corner, saying a few Yoda like things to the human kid. Because, ya know, those belfs and spacegoats had a whole damn expansion to themselves, they have enough lore already, right?

Right?

If you’re ever on the Lord Adraas server, feel free to send us a message. We are both playing Republic, myself as Gevi, Varendil as Kerem. If you’re Imp, you are icky and wrong and you should whisper Andissik, my little eye candy Sith boi.

I really miss you guys.

Click to embiggen. I blurred the parts I thought had the best chance of being real names.

Well, we’ll be packing our things, because we’re out of a job! This guy has provided all the humor we need (well, him and WowCrendor) as a Warcraft community. There’s just no room left for bootstrappy humorists like us.

If anyone needs a poster about how one needn’t be crazy to work here, but it helping, feel free to contact me. I’ll turn in my timecard and access to employee discounts. There’ll be a raffle for my place in the employee fridge, with the proceeds going to the church roof.

I’ll turn in my uniforms on Monday. Tricia, you’re gonna have to deliver my Girl Scout cookie order to my house now, as I won’t be here to pick it up. I have direct deposit, so I won’t have to stop in for my next check, I should just get that, right?

How can we make this better? See what running a not-that-funny joke into the ground looks like now, sir?

Can you spot the problem area?

I guess the more fitting question is “does one rape make one a rapist?” How about many rapes? I’m having fun imagining some fellow  - like a Bill Nighy looking chap – in a bow tie being the counterpoint on Situation Arena with Wolf Blitzen or whatever it is going “Actually, to be a rapist, it must be habitual…”

I don’t know about you, but when I go looking for sexual partners, the statistic I sort the table by is Number of Prisoners Raped. Per day, if I can get it, not just overall, because I want efficiency. And of course someone raised with draenei social norms will be the one doing the assault. That makes perfect sense.

Maybe it only sounds crazy to me because I’m not the kind looking for shemale partners. Like… wouldn’t I prefer someone that wasn’t a habitual rapist, because that way I know they’ll care about my needs? Maybe if I was into that, it’d all click in my head. “Oh! Of COURSE I want the rapist! How couldn’t I?”

Sheesh.

Believe it or not, the announcement of a big old missing island-turtle of Pandas, or whatever – I’ve skimmed – has some big implications here at RPL.

For one, it cements my not renewing my WoW account any time soon. Not sure how Lan feels about that.

Two, it marks a big old shift in lore and perspective on Blizzard’s part. You might argue that X in the Emerald Dream doesn’t fit, or that a redone Outland and renewed battle against the Legion would feel like Cataclysm 2 on a different continent. Those concerns may be valid. However, by centering everything on Pandaria and wholly internal conflicts there, this simply doesn’t feel like World of Warcraft anymore. Mantis and koi people aren’t the Legion, they’re not even the Old Gods. From a roleplay standpoint, it’s utter crap. Every paladin who has studied a lifetime to defeat undead, or draenei who has worked tirelessly to combat the Burning Legion, needs to drop everything and hoist themselves over to Pandaria. Metzen’s stated that there’s 15,000 years of lore built up in Pandaria. That’s great, but it’s not Azeroth. It has nothing to do with Azeroth. It’s an entirely different thing dropped onto, not even into, the existing continuity and treated like it’s always been there. I’m sure that for monks and pandaren it’ll be great. Lots of personal vengeances to deal with. As for everyone else? Why the fuck should my human/dwarf/gnome/orc/troll/tauren care about leaving their work with the Circle or Argents or Hand of Argus or whatever else and going to help fuzzy people deal with their problems?

Sure, there’ll be token demons and likely servants of Old Gods. But everything Pandaria related feels like an entirely separate game. Imagine if Aragorn, on his way to Gondor, went into a cave and came out on Athas. And I haven’t yet mentioned my extreme dubiosity (it’s a word to me, dammit!) toward the changes to the mechanical side of things.

Anyway. Back to RPL. We’re not playing World of Warcraft at the moment, and we’re starting to get that feeling that there are only so many lessons to teach when it comes to not doing intensely stupid shit in one’s roleplay. There’re many occasions when we receive a submission that’s terrible, but we just want to ‘prescribe’ an old post instead of writing a new one. We’re just so lazy!

We’re certainly not shutting things down. But content may slow a bit. We still love submissions, though we’re still terrible at getting back to everyone that sends us an email. Please, keep sending it! Especially gold star characters! And most of all, we’re still around, even if it’s not in newspost form here. The Roleplayer’s Lament Facebook page is typically quite active with discussions of Warcraft-related stuff, and we ask the same questions and make the same remarks on @RPersLament, our Twitter account. For personal stuff from either of us, check @tpvincent and @lanuria.

We don’t know how much anyone else might want to hear “Hey, just bugging you to let you know we won’t be bugging you as often!” But we had to say something. Without all of you, I don’t know how to value myself!

Click to embiggen

There might be quicker turnarounds in the history of the site, but this one’s the steepest.

“((Important OOC note after the description. )) ((Also please note, I use Giant Growth Potions for the effect, because of his IC height. I am NOT one of those GodModer, 12 foot Worgen breserkers, or w/e ))” For those of you learning about humor, that’s what we call the setup. The punchline will be later.

“M—- is most often found in his worgen form. His glowing purple eyes gaze out at the world, almost always lit up as part of the false mask of happiness he ‘wears’ in public.” Oh, you can tell a worgen’s health by the sheen of their coat and the wattage of their eyes. S’why I always feed mine eggs.

“His body was covred in soft, pale brown fur. Like most worgen, he had the usual clows, teeth, all that jazz.” Clows are also a strong indicator of health. “However his claws and teeth seemed to be oddly a bit longer.” Remember, ‘like normal but [better/deadlier/more masculine or feminine]‘ is the new normal.

“Overall, his worgen form seemed Bigger. He was taller than the average worgen male, and his body was built thicker, though he seemed to lack even an ounce of fat.” He was therefore killed when his unprotected heart slammed into his ribcage.

“When in his human form, he seemed fairly average beyond being a bit taller and more muscled than average.” Noticing a theme? While it’s true that in real life some people just do win out in the gene lottery, selling your character to us in that way is simply going to make a large number of us cluck disapprovingly and shake our heads.

“IMPORTANT!: On his left arm, the fur seems to be darkened in a strange pattern of leaves, vines and symbols of bears, such as claws, paws or roaring mouths. In human form, this exists as a tattoo.” Just mouths everywhere? Gibbering beasts are the symbols of bears now?

“Scars: -Bite mark on his right shoulder. This was the scar from the bite that eventually turned him into a Worgen. -Long, deep gash starting on his left shoulder and running down his body, ending on his upper-right thigh.” So how deep is it that it crosses the place where his vital organs are and manages to neither kill him nor chop his dick off?

Ready for that punchline now?

((Important OOC NOTE!! If you don’t like this, then simply don’t RP with him! And NO, I do not make this to Overpowered in RP. Its usually subtle.

M— had the fragemented soul of a long dead elven Arch Druid, whom is trapped in bear form, sealed inside his body through a bloody and sacrifical ritual. (Think Zul’Aman, but it’s not an Animal god)” And you thought being stuck as a hawk forever was the worst that happened if you went over your two hour animal limit. This guy was a bear, died, and then got sucked inexplicably into a worgen. “This spirt has augmented M—’s Bear form and combat prowess, aisde form protecting him from Mental assault. After all, who can beat two willpowers?))” Any wizard, bard, or psion worth their salt?

“Theme Song: Remember the Name – Fort Minor.” A theme song like this doesn’t make you hardcore. It means your character is pretending to be like people that are pretending to be hardcore.

How can we make this better? By taking a look in the mirror, you sod.

You’re not one of those godmoding worgen berserkers! The main difference is that you’re a foot or so shorter and have an elf trapped inside you for no good reason!

Call me an effete literary type, or out of touch, or whatever else, but being normal Plus Better isn’t how you make a character. You need depth, flaws, and those sorts of things come from personality, not from a story about an elf being chained within worthy of an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 at best.

As a commenter pointed out to us, and as was found on Reddit, this funeral drama might be more drama than funeral.

This marks the second time we’ve been duped by people that claimed death, though this one wasn’t a subject of the site.

Really, our suspicions should have been raised when we received this message from someone named “Corky Romano:”

Greetings, and hello,

 First of all, I would like to thank you for putting up such a nice post about her. I’ll cut to the chase:

Unfortunately, I am here to politely request that you take down the post in its complete entirety. Her family does not wish any sort of publication about their daughter to be made. We found this through Google and we are not happy.

We asked that the news stations and tv people not make a specticle of it and so we are asking you, too!!

Please remove your post on her and thankyou.

Friends and family of someone we love

I had the privilege of  roleplaying with ‘Carrot’ and the Blood Knights many moons ago and those times are always looked back on with a smile and a laugh. Caritrina was a fantastic roleplayer. She was always looked for ways to make her guild fantastic and ways to improve the image of it. She was also a fantastic person and it is such a shame to see someone like that leave this world.

Because I knew her and roleplayed with her and I am sure anyone who had a belf on MG had an encounter with the SMBK, I wanted to pass long that there will be a small funeral for her in game at 8 server time at the Shrine of Dath’Remar. I wanted to let you all know of this so you could pay your respects if you wished to do so.  EDIT: The funeral is a smaller occasion, so unless you knew her, feel free to pay respects on the realm forums or elsewhere in your own way. 

Things like this are always depressing. It’s always hard when you a character dies, but the person behind the screen is still there to make a new one, to continue on, or chat with you on vent or AIM or whatever.  But when a person is gone, both IC and OOC, there is no rerolling, it’s so real and you have to deal with the loss in two ways, through a character and through your own emotions.

It’s my hope, even if you didn’t know the person behind Caritrina, that we all take a few moments out of our day to enjoy not just the character your roleplaying with, but the person who developed that character. Take a few minutes to enjoy the company of those people in guild chat or vent and tell them how you feel. Life is much too short to hold it all in.

Light’s Blessings, Caritrina. Rest in peace.

Click to embiggen

The name is a typical, Blood Elfy name with an unnecessary Y in it. Spelling things with Ys makes them cool, y’know. Take it from Varendyl and Lanurya.

“You look upon this Elf and the first thing you notice is his age. He is but a child, equal to the age of ten of a human.” Okay. If we know that a character and their parent are both the same person, is it still fair to wonder where the hell your mother is? “He wanders around in the tiny armor that was custom made for him, and tiny replicas of weapons the adults use.” D’aww. He’s an adorable little twisted mockery of the actual existence of child soldiers.

“His voice is curious and imaginitive, slightly deeper then [sic] average.” It’s nice to know this kid’s so mature he sounds like Barry White or something. Lots of ten year olds have hexed Fluttershy’s voice. How, though, can you hear how imaginative  someone is from their vocal cords?

“Another thing you can notice about his is his ears. They are short, very short. And are pointed and stick out to the side rather than straight upwards. ((Think of Link’s ears from Legend of Zelda.)) His eyes are yellow instead of Fel green… There is a chance he might not even be an elf at all…” But you called him one yourself earlier… with a capital E… that apparently also stands for ellipsis…

“K—’s father, T. S. , is a mage.” Evidently these Hylian elves shed one letter of their parent’s name traditionally every generation. “His mother, J, is a sneaky rogue.” One parent gets an adjective and the other doesn’t? Guess we know who he loves more. “K— likes to hit things.” That’s not a profession, that’s every ten-year-old ever.

“((Now me and a friend have come up with a small branch of race of Sin’dorei. Im not creating my own lore but this does sound legit with no holes.))” No, not your own lore, just your own dictionary where every word in the second sentence, including ‘im,’ means something entirely different than it does in English. That’s the only way to make this not entirely contradictory.

“If you notice, K— looks nothing like a Blood elf, but his father is a Sin’Dorei.” Then he looks at least 50% like a blood elf. “His mother, however, is not. His mother is known as a “Salican Elf.” Ah! Salican is right here in my Big Book of Elven Branches, right above Sellickan elves, which all wear terrific mustaches. “A small branch race of Quel’dorai [sic] that came around when the Sin’dorei did. They did not suffer the mana addiction, and the Sin’dorei enslaved them for being ‘Impure.’” So a branch of people broke off ten years ago from a group with a mana addiction and discovered that by shedding a letter from their names and six inches from their ears that they could free themselves from their symbiosis with magic. And the blood elves, who haven’t had anything else to do for the past few years, enslaved them. “Now they hide in unknown locations, living in peace.” Like most slaves. “Some, however, leave the village or are sent away to find love outside their peaceful homes. This causes the Salican genes to be passed on and grow unnoticed.” The goal of any tribe is obscurity. “K— simply took alot of his Mother’s Genes, but he considers himself Sin’Dorei.” Actually, he took half of his mother’s genes. Because that’s how sexual reproduction works.

How can we make this better? By not being it. Seriously. Children in combat really don’t stand a chance, so if you’re doing anything other than pacing Silvermoon on this fellow, you’re asking for trouble.

The elephant in the room, the Salican elf thing, is a big ball of nothing. It’s being special for the sake of being special, and that’s not only pointless, it’s unattractive. It’s the roleplay equivalent of those giant glasses girls wear or shirts that have the name of the company that sells the shirt on it.

You are creating your own lore, it’s not legit, and it has lots of holes. Draw a big old line through it and stick to one of the existing kinds of elves.