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I love to roleplay my characters in World of Warcraft. And I also love to level my characters and really enjoy the gameplay. But often these two loves conflict with one another. For example, my fire-ballin' mage Emeralde on Moon Guard absolutely abhors the killing of innocent critters -- she's well known for reprimanding others who slaughter bunnies and fawns for sport. So when the new statistics and achievement system was introduced with Wrath of the Lich King in November 2008, I was appalled to learn that Emeralde had killed hundreds upon hundreds of critters! How could this have happened, I wondered? Then I realized that her arcane explosion must have caught some critters in its field unintentionally. Well, not just some, but a LOT of critters. I'd never even noticed I was a mice murderer until I saw the cold, hard numbers. So Emeralde has been forced to embrace her critter killings as a professional necessity, but to be honest, I really miss this little quirk of hers. This got me to thinking ... could I faithfully roleplay a character's quirk from the start without any inadvertent mistakes, and still achieve max level? I think I can ... and I even have an idea. My character Emeralde is currently with child in her long-running roleplay relationship with Lord Valherst. The couple think she is pregnant with a boy, but recent complications with her progress (too fast!) and her pet whelpling (behaving oddly and viciously attacking Emeralde) have inspired me to introduce a surprise ... TWINS! One of these will be a boy they will name Victore and train as a mighty warrior befitting his heritage as the son of a strong paladin and gifted mage. But Emeralde's unique condition hides the fact that she has another child, lurking in her womb and reluctant to be born. This unexpected child will be a girl they will name Victorie, and she will rebel and become vindictive. Almost from birth, Victorie will refuse to obey her parents or anyone else for that matter, will run away at an early age in anger and confusion, and absolutely refuse to harm another living creature. In her late teens, Victorie will encounter a whelpling in Redridge Mountains and crack, unleashing years of anger, confusion, and hatred upon the creature. From that point on, she will pour all of her rage into killing dragons, yet still stubbornly refuse to kill any other creature. And, over the course of her character's lifetime, I will explore her hatred for dragonkin through roleplay.
So, the challenge is: can I level a character that ONLY kills dragonkin, reach maximum level without having killed any other type of creature? Statistically, I can track this -- Victorie's character stats in the World of Warcraft Armory will record how many types of creatures she's killed and the type she's killed most. If I can meet this challenge, my statistic would show "Different types of creatures killed: 1," "Creature types killed the most: Dragonkin," and "Critters killed: 0." Naturally, this character would have no honorable kills either, as she would not kill other player nor enter battlegrounds. Can I do this? Well, I'd like to think so ... but it's going to be very difficult. The lowest level dragonkin is a level 13 Black Dragon Whelp in Redridge Mountains. So she has to get to level 10, the lowest level she can realistically tackle a whelp, WITHOUT KILLING A SINGLE CREATURE! Yikes. From that point on, she can go nuts killing whelps in various zones. The highest dragonkin not in an instance or raid appears to be a Stormpeak Wyrm, which goes as high as level 80. Unfortunately, there aren't many of them. So this is likely to take a very, very long time. So my intention is to make Victorie a human rogue, so she can sneak past mobs she refuses to kill and sprint from those chasing her. A rogue has no special abilities (like an AoE) that would inadvertently kill something else until the highest levels, so she should be safe from murdering critters and non-dragonkin. But I'll need to be careful, probably keeping weapons unequipped until she needs them. And, naturally, this will preclude Victorie from completing a great number of quests, so she'll be killing a LOT of dragonkin. The mind boggles at how many whelps she'll be slaughtering. Virtually all instances will be off limits for her as well, unless she can stealth past other mobs successfully. And, of course, she has to get to 10 without killing anything at all. So when Victorie runs away from her parents in the RP story line, she'll be running through zones to gain experience ... a lot of zones and most assuredly a lot of deaths. Can I do it? How long will it take? And will I go as crazy as Victorie along the way? Click here to read all the installments of The Dragon Slayer and find out what Victorie is up to!
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Morrigan Aesoth Delacroix
Draza Goldfox
