Ascension in Warcraft

[Painkillah]

I'm not sure if everyone knows this but some Forsaken believe in this process. The only reference I found of it is tied to the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow and it says this:

"The ultimate goal of practitioners of the Forgotten Shadow is to ascend. Ascension occurs once a person achieves complete control over herself and the power to transcend death. A Forsaken who ascends becomes invulnerable, invincible and eternal. In essence, she becomes a god.
The Cult of Forgotten Shadow teaches that the Forsaken of Azeroth were too weak to ascend. Their undead state is a curse brought on by that weakness. Once the Forsaken learn to master themselves and control the world around them, they shake off that curse and become what they always should have been. Those on the path to ascension often become shadow ascendants."

This concept of ascension is obviously modeled after Stargate's ascension which is basically modeled after the so called spiritual enlightenment which, if you take a deeper look into, comes from various culture beliefs and such.

I'm planning a storyline based on this concept and I was wondering if you guys know any other references to ascension in warcraft lore. Perhaps quotes from roleplaying books or stories. Is this the belief of other races too? To what extent and which ones? Are there any written references of it? Spoken?

Please, discuss. ^.^

[Vrahn]

That is the ultimate goal of the Forgotten Shadow worshippers, however unfortunately that prestige class cannot be used in RP because you effectively become invincible. The idea is that the closer you align with the Forgotten Shadow ideals, the more you slip into the shadows and 'shed your mortal shell' they justify this by saying that our current forms are but shells of what we really are.

[Shivali]

Is the shadowform in game spell the same as the shadow ascendencence you are talking about here?

[Vrahn]

No, Shadow Ascendant is an actual prestige class.

[Shivali]

Yeah I understand that the shadow ascendant is a prestige class, but I was thinking that the in-game shadowform spell is blizzards way of representing the spiritual form that shadow ascendants take. I mean blizzard incorporates a bunch of prestige class abilities in the in-game classes. (Like the shamans getting totems, which were used by troll witch doctors lore-wise, or the warlocks having the demon form, which should only be available to demon-huntas.)

[Painkillah]

Yes of course I understand one can't use the shadow ascendant class. That's why I have linked that text to the actual page so nobody gets any crazy ideas. The ending goal for this storyline will definitelly not be ascension due to the various obvious reasons, one of which you already mentioned. The goal will be seeking ways to ascend and learning things along the way. But in order to do that I'd like to have some various thoughts on this and hopefuly create some guidelines for ascension. Only then I can actually have some background to work with during the story.

And no, I doubt Shadowform is the actual ascendant form.

Edit:
The reason I'm posting this is to have some generaly accepted ideas on ascension. Else I'll just throw in a few of my own (keeping in mind not to go too far) and make it so.

[Vrahn]

What I am saying though is that by following the Forgotten Shadow your goal is already ascension.

[Painkillah]

Yes but one can go further than that. It's not like they're all sheep and if one told them "Hey, the way to ascension is this..", they're all going for it.

The way I see it, the Forgotten Shadow teaches that you can reach ascension in the old fashioned way: evolution (bettering oneself over a period of time through knowledge and whatever else they teach). What I'm talking about here is reaching ascension through personal will, spiritually. Not just waiting for something to happen, you know?

Interpreting text from various books (even if wrongly) could be one way to do it.

[Shivali]

So like a group of forsaken priests traveling the world and practicing shadow magic in search of a quick way to ascension?

Edit: That is the sort of RP you are trying to start up, right?

[Painkillah]

Not necessarily priests but yes. Generaly speaking you've described the main idea in a few words. :mrgreen:

[Duraza]

Well, I think the key to ascension would be the Divine Humanism concept.

"They preach that if an undead was powerful enough to rise from the grave on their own freewill, and become sentient, the undead may strengthen himself by increasing his control of the world around him, thus becoming more godlike."

The idea of ascension is to become invincible and immortal. Perhaps through mastery of divine humanism one obtains the power needed to ascend.

[Shivali]

Since it has been discussed before that priestly magic comes from the power of someone's spirit and pure willpower, it might just be that a shadow ascendant is someone who has developed their shadow magic and willpower so far that it can live independently of their bodies. Like their spirit/soul/whatever you want to call it (which is where the priests magic power comes from) is powerful enough to survive on it's own.

Edit: Forgive me if I sound like I'm rambling, lawl.

[Painkillah]

Since it has been discussed before that priestly magic comes from the power of someone's spirit and pure willpower, it might just be that a shadow ascendant is someone who has developed their shadow magic and willpower so far that it can live independently of their bodies. Like their spirit/soul/whatever you want to call it, which is where their shadow magic's power comes from, is powerful enough to survive on it's own.

That's a very accurate asumption right there. I'll be thinking about this one for a while now. :mrgreen:
Thank you very much to all of you that care for the idea. ^^

[Nostra]

Other possible means to ascension could be the more conventionsl magic or perhaps the blessing of some god(s)?

I wouldn´t be surprised if some see for an example the Liches as "ascended" or the night elf wisps.

Though I´m not sure how related that really is to your idea, heh.

[Shivali]

Yeah about the god blessing thing, some shadow ascendants have been worshipped as loa by some northern trolls, so maybe the loa have a part to play in ascendancy. I mean I'm pretty sure there is some kind of loa god of death or shadow or something. The loa might tell them some sort of spell. Maybe there are many different ways to do it.