Corruption

Corruption is a common thing inside magic and iits properties can vary massivly. What I ask is... how far can magical corruption go? and how far can its more... "transmofpical" properties go?

Well, at it's worst it does this:

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Don't forget Doomguards and Terrorguards, too. They are pretty heavily corrupted. Doomguards were supposedly originally Titan servants until the Legion got a hold of them, the most heavily corrupted ones have a second mouth growing out of their chest (Terrorguards).


Fel magic is Arcane in origin, twisted by demonic blood and so on. Fel magic is the one that does most of the corrupting, the Arcane isn't wholly corrupting in and of itself. The lore gets very contradictory and confusing around this point. But generally Fel magic is evil and Arcane magic is relatively neutral. The main issue with Arcane magic is that if you get set on becoming more and more powerful it leads you inevitably into Fel magic. Think of it more as a gateway drug than the really problematic one itself.

Someone is now going to storm in and we'll have a debate for several days due to how contradictory the lore is. *prepares for combat*

Armor change included /nod

So is only arcane and fel corrupting? so, Shadow/void, Light, Nature isn't (I don't include fire/frost for the reasons that they are more a manipulation of arcane than anythign else)

Tnecniw wrote:So is only arcane and fel corrupting? so, Shadow/void, Light, Nature isn't (I don't include fire/frost for the reasons that they are more a manipulation of arcane than anythign else)

To my knowledge neither Light nor Void magic corrupts you as you cast it. Nature isn't corrupting at all, unless you count Malfurion's wings and horns as corruption - apparently this kind of thing happens to Druids over time, so maybe you could count that as corruption but it isn't particularly negative.

Well, depends on how you see it? How about the botani? They use naturemagic and as far as I know they do some pretty "corrupting" stuff.

I'm guessing you mean corruption as using magic a lot.

Arcane has it's own side effects of course not something as bad as Fel of course.

On the matter of arcane stuff you could read [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] It's right at the top pretty much.

Fel: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Another contender is the void/shadow (whatever you call it) or as a example I guess would be necromancers.

That tends to usually in the extremes makes you turn into a undead possibly.

Whatever leads to what is it's own debate.

A good example of arcane 'corruption' is the nexus in Borean tundra, as well as the blue flight corrupted areas in dragonblight. Take a look at the local wildlife and plant life.

On the topic of Furion:

Unlike most other night elves with antlers (a blessing of Cenarius[18] considered to be a sign of future greatness[19])

Since Malfurion's spirit spent many years in the Emerald Dream while his body slept, it started to take on attributes of his animal forms: He gained the attributes of a bird, a cat, and a bear.[20] There are also glowing blue bolts along his arms, shoulders, chest and stomach. His beard has also grown much longer than before.

The light really doesn't have anything with coruption.

For the botani, well that's more what one does with something creating fungi plant zombies or I dunno gonna guess that's what it is. Not sure if nature is corupting on it's own.

I see... I am mostly looking this up cause I am concidering making my character become corrupted (or the like) transforming her into a monster. I am just wondering what could cause that.

Fel Corruption also makes you hella sexy / badass
Honestly this is the route my original Blood Elf RP char would've gone if she hadn't -died-. Shame all my RP ideas are like 3 expansions too late.

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Fel corruption will eventually turn you into a demon.
Shadow corruption will eventually kill you due to aging. Though it can just make you nuts instead.
Necromancy corruption does the same as shadow but without the madness, and it also has a chance of turning you undead.

Anyone, feel free to correct me.

Interesting... but every type of magic DOES affect you if you cast it enough, yes?

All type of magic affects you in some way... If we're speaking in general.

But you're talking about coruption/bad side effects /monster making, no?

Jack Noodlemeister wrote:Fel corruption will eventually turn you into a demon.
Shadow corruption will eventually kill you due to aging. Though it can just make you nuts instead.
Necromancy corruption does the same as shadow but without the madness, and it also has a chance of turning you undead.

Anyone, feel free to correct me.

Slight correction in that divine shadow magic (the kind shadow priests use) doesn't age you. Necromancy does indeed corrupt your life force and push you towards undeath. For example Arthas never died and simply decayed into undeath due to Frostmourne's influence. Old God shadow magic does mess with your mind and is presumably the same kind as shadow priests, but this is unclear. Could be a different kind of shadow magic.

Also worth noting: The corruption that orcs and elves go through when dealing with magic is NOT something everybody experiences. Elves change their eye color to indicate what magic school they're using, such as for high elves, blue for arcane and green for fel, or for night elves, golden for druidic magic. Orcs change their skin colour when they're around fel. Drinking demon blood and such will mutate everybody but just passively being around magic won't have severe physical effects on most races to the point that elves/orcs do.

Divine shadow is the thing which confuses me the most in WoW lore. Are there any sources on it?

I belive divine shadow is just a mere term used by people to better try to diffrence shadow priest (mainly undead) shadow/void use. Divine becouse it's a religious thing or well something else i'm not too sure...

But all in all trying to difirence what is what in exact detail is painful nor there is enough lore on the thing to do so.

I think it's counted as

Divine shadow = shadow priests and friends
other shadow = you're generally using arcane to manipulate shadow (kind of like fire/frost and such)

Least that's what i think it is... When people use that term.

The distinction is between divine magic (holy magic, druid magic, elemental magic, shadow magic) that manifests itself naturally and as such make up the natural world perceived in Azeroth. Arcane magic is, well, arcane magic. All schools of magic that originate from arcane are part of this type of magic. Arcane schools of magic are the ones that most often corrupt your body etc because you're actually drawing from a power source, unlike divine spell casters that never act as a conduit, only bidding the natural forces of the world to aid them (most obvious in the case of the shaman, who needs to command the respect of the elements or they'll reject his call for aid). Examples of arcane schools of magic are: Arcane itself, fel magic, necromancy, arcane shadow magic.

Shadow magic is a confusing school because it seems to be represented both as arcane and as divine magic, and as such when a raid boss uses shadow magic, it's often unclear whether or not it's the natural/divine shadow, like shadow priests, or if it's the arcane kind that for examples warlocks seem to use (fear, shadowbolt, shadowfury).

Divine shadow magic gets confusing very quickly. I look at divine shadow as being cast by Troll Witch Doctors and the like as being 'gifted' by a loa (much like the Light magic is 'gifted' by the Light/Naaru/Elune).
And then there is arcane void magic which involves twisting the void much like you'd twist the arcane. It's all kind of confusing, but it boils down to this:

1. If you are a priest/shaman of some kind (your magic originates from something you worship rather than strictly yourself), then it is divine shadow. This encompasses and includes the Old Gods, but they are somewhat a special case due to how insanely powerful they are (personally I'd distinguish Old God magic, but that is just me).

2. If you are not worshiping anything and drawing your power from your own study/knowledge/spellbooks/the Void in general then it is more Arcane based shadow magic.

It isn't the best way to look at it, it could be wrong, but it hurts my head less than the alternatives.

I generally see shadow as shadow no matter the source, and it has the same effect, no matter the source. Divine shadow is a player made term, as far as I know, and which is why I generally discard it completely.

Some links which may be of interest.
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Divine shadow is a thing afaik, in that there are mages who study shadow just like any other magic as some other posters point out. That isnt the methodology of a shadow cult, say like the forsaken.

I personally think however if you want to talk about corruption then you should start from a moral PoV. Fel for example will make you addicted to its use and will change your body, but in RP terms the most important thing imo is the why question; Why did your char start to use magic like Fel. It would be hard to say they were ignorant of what it will do to you.

Maybe they are arrogant and think they are the lock who will master it, RP around hubris. Maybe it was from a noble pov, like a gilnean who used fel magic to try and save their city. Whatever it is that is the true corruption imo, what flaw that char has that made them seek out the power, fel in the example I gave. Once you have that part of your char down you simply add to that char the affects of your chosen poison and you are away.

In summery I would spend more time working on the cause, the true corruption. RPing the affects of the magic is far easier.

Night Elf shadow priests are divine magic practitioners, for one, in that they're getting their powers from Elune, and not through study and academics as void casters do.

The distinction is this: If you're gaining your powers from faith in a God or God-like entity, you're practicing divine magic. If you're gaining power through study and practice and require no middleman to cast your spells, you're practicing arcane magic. Shadow magic exists in both of these two forms and don't appear to overlap between the two. It seems like it's two entirely separate schools of magic that just happen to do the same thing. Again, the distinction is in how you obtain the power.

For the record, this isn't headlore, take a look at this quote from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The arcane (a.k.a. arcane magic) is a general term for the various domains of magic in Warcraft lore — used in contrast with divine magic. According to lore, many of the types of magic found as "schools" in World of Warcraft are actually all forms of arcane magic. Unlike in the MMORPG, fire and frost are actually part of the arcane rather than being separate forms of magic. Lore also includes some so-called "shadow" spells as part the arcane as well, as magic practiced by warlocks and necromancers.

and from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The divine (aka divine magic) are forms of magic on faith in gods or spirits. Most of the divine beings of Azeroth (known as Eternals) are distant entities. They exist to assist those caught in the conflicts of a cruel, violent world. Never directly intervening in the affairs of the world, they use divine magic as a proxy. With their many healing and protective spells, practitioners of divine magic are at the vanguard of the gods' efforts to ensure their peoples' survival.

Examples of divine shadow magic, among others, include troll voodoo, where powers of shadow magic are gained from worship of the Loa, the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow, as seen in Forsaken society, where they get their shadow powers in the same way a paladin or a priest would gain access to the holy light. And, of course, night elf shadow priests, who gain their powers from their worship of Elune.

Either way could argue things for forever, even night elfs and shadow priests and all that but it always comes down to what Lex said.

Except Lexgrad didn't actually answer the question posed in the OP, however intelligent his point may have been.

Honestly, the theory that divine shadow can come from Elune is very strange in my opinion. Both Divine Shadow and Arcane Shadow do the same things, this has been stated in this post. But I don't think Elune would grant anyone the powers of shadow, since it's an evil magic (Doesn't mean the caster him/herself is evil, but the magic is evil). I doubt Elune would even have these powers herself, since she loves peace a lot, and shadow contradicts that.
Anyone else agree?