Blood Elves and Wretched

[Jassart]

What makes a Blood Elf turn into a Wretched? I've run the starter quests in Eversong and looked this up on WoWWiki. All I was able to find is "The Wretched are blood elves who have failed to control their magical addiction."

How would a blood elf lose control of their magical addiction? Casting spells endlessly? Drawing on too much mana? Snorting mana residue? Is the transformation sudden or do blood elves slide into Wretchedness slowly? If it is sudden, are there any warning signs?

I know this is a lot of questions, but it is pertinent to the background of Jassart's sister Edriandra. Thank you for any help!

Jassart

[Vythica]

Wow these are great questions ! Sounds like something I would want to know haha.


I would guess that maybe its overuse of their ability to draw mana? Maybe too much makes them go looney? They cant ever get enough?

Like drugs ...one too many hits and you go over the edge.


Mana intervention ? :D

[Kallindra]

Bah.. I wish I had paid closer attention to the dialogue in Freewind Post.

There is a quest in Freewind Post that a a former Magistrix of the Blood Elves gives you. She wants your aid in obtaining some items to help her thesis in regards to the Blood Elf Magical Addiction and Turning into the Wretched.

I believe that questline may give you insightful knowledge that you are seeking, but it may not give you a A-B-C of turning into Wretched.

[Skafloc]

Thats my understanding.. basically The Wretched are washed out mana junkies..

[Daedraug]

The tabletop game offers a system in which the rolls needed to not become addicted to magic are increasingly dificult to make as you gain more magical power; even moreso for blood elves, who are exceptionally prone to such addiction.

The resulting addiction should one fall into it is much like heroin or hallucenagenic addiction where the person disconnects further and further from any reality outside magical experience.

So yeah, Skafloc's assertion is pretty dead-on. This post = mostly useless :)

[Visca]

I was under the impression (I read it somewhere, I think) That Wretched are those who got a massive amount of magic then were cut off suddenly. I do know in the encyclopedia that they mention mental and physical harm are possible if attempt to go "cold turkey" as it were. Are the wretched that the harm mentioned?

[Villayna]

I think the resemblance to say, heroin addiction, is correct. The physical appearance of the Wretched isn't going to happen overnight, but depending on the amount of mana they are overdosing on and their attempts to fight the addiction, it will happen faster for some than others.

[Rand_Shea]

According to the quest in freewind, it seems to be a purely physiological response to the addiction/lack of mana to draw on.

It also seems to me that the Wretched are mostly the surviving 'poor' of Silvermoon... people who couldn't really afford to get any treatment needed to help control their addictions, so they deteriorated into that state. That quest chain in freewind seemed to me to be that NPC's attempt to find a holistic and cheap solution to the addiction problem.

[Ashagga]

From what I understand (and, again, this has pretty much been stated here), when a Blood Elf becomes severely addicted to magic, through rampant indulgence of his Mana Tap ability, he slowly becomes a Wretched, less and less able to control his addiction and more and more feral and mad. The biological changes, I suspect, are the result of the addiction, like the way heroin or the like affect a human's physiology.

[Swerto]

I was under the impression that Wretched were those who did not deal with their mana addiction, I.E. using fel energies.

[Qabian]

It's probably a combination of those who lose control and go overboard and those who don't have access to enough resources so they lose their minds. Q doesn't fear it in the least while he indulges in his addiction. Whether or not he is capable of losing control and going over the edge to Wretched-ness doesn't really bother him because he has comfortable easy access to mana whenever he wants it, so he doesn't feel the need to tap the hell out of anything within reach.

[Ashagga]

So Wretched are all rogues... no easy mana on hand, they have to tap others, and they lose control.

Blood Elf rogues are all doomed to become Wretched.

Better kill them all now.

Only way to be sure...

[Qabian]

Haha, not necessarily. I was thinking evocation and potions and no qualms about using whatever's handy. Elves with moral hangups about getting their mana might let themselves go insane. Elves who really aren't sure where they're going to get their next fix might let themselves go insane, and siphon so much that they completely degenerate. Could be rogues. Could be anyone.

[Ashagga]

... I'm just wanting to murder someone. Don't weird it up.

[Qabian]

*gets weird all over Shaggy* Mmhm.

[Ashagga]

Dammit, I've been trying to make that happen IN CHARACTER for a little while, now... if I'd known it was that easy, I'd have just done that!

[Qabian]

Step 1: Actually play Ashagga and accost Q for more than detective work.
Step 2: Worship the very ground Q walks on and demand that everyone around you do the same.
Step 3: Profit?

/derail

[Xiphus]

When you see a Wretched, show them some mercy and end their misery swiftly. That is a hundred times more merciful than throwing them into prison.

Addiction is tormenting, and this is a no-easy-fix problem, and probably a no-solution problem. Might as well just end that torment and be glad that yet another pitiful soul has been given peace.

[Sulajin]

"I need more!" So what do I do?

I murder an Arcane Golem and lodge his power core between my ribs. "Ohhh yeah... that's the good stuff..."

[Malorii]

For Blood elf rogues i had always figured, but the nagain i could be really really wrong. Since they don't really have a mana pool and don't go day by day useing magic that their pretty much better and the occasion mana tap from an enemy with a mana pool would be like the everyonce in awile bong hit.