Weiyong did his best not to blink or stare into the flashes as dozens of bulbs went off in front of him. Journalists crowded along the path, jockeying for the best angle as world leaders or their notable subordinates made their way through.
“Avatar.”
Fire Lord Oshi’s voice called behind him, snapping Weiyong out of his thoughts.
“Fire Lord Oshi,” he quickly turned and bowed, “How have you been?”
As he righted himself, Weiyong saw two new additions to the young man’s face, slashlike tattoos starting at the jaw below his ears and sweeping up to his cheeks, ending parallel to his eyes.
“I’ve been alright,” Oshi gestured with one hand, “Kinda been on a ‘spiritual retreat’ in the boondocks.”
“Well it looks good, kid,” the Avatar smiled. The Fire Sages in tow, however, frowned.
“Or uh, your highness.”
The reporters flocked as they met, prompting the two to pose congenially. He hadn’t seen Oshi in a few years, basically before adulthood, and even though they regularly corresponded, Weiyong realized he really missed his young friend. They clasped hands and nodded toward the lenses.
“Hey, do you wanna watch from my box?” Oshi inquired, still looking out into the crowd.
“Dunno if it’s the diplomatic thing to do or not, but yeah, I’d like that,” the middle aged Avatar replied.
“It’s not like Kamala’s gonna mind, right?” Oshi was done posing, ready to move on.
So he’d noticed too. The distinctive lack of yellow robes meant a political protest from the Air Nomads. Weiyong frowned. They’d been issuing requests and pleas to stop the launch of Tenshin 1, but to no avail. The overwhelming response from the United Republic, as well as the telecom giants across the world, was that it needed to go up. The world was struggling for another technological surge on the level of Old Republic City, and instant global communication was seen as one of the keys to moving forward. Everyone but Kamala and the Air Nomads had seemed eager. Weiyong had mostly wished they were there in an act of solidarity.
“Sir?” an OWL agent looked to him.
“Oh, sorry, uh, yeah, I’d like to spend a little while with the Fire Lord, if that’s manageable.”
The White Lotus agent mumbled into his radio and issued a curt nod.
One of the Fire Sages had to stand, but for the Avatar, it was an easy deference. It was a little crowded due to the teams of security, but they all fit.
“How’s things back home?” Weiyong asked.
“Eh, same as when I was out and about,” Oshi waved, “Still kinda seeing some problematic employment numbers, but crime is at least not increasing. More reports of Void Spirits, but they don’t really bother anyone.”
“You know I’ve still never seen one?” Weiyong’s brow creased.
“Really? I’ve had one visit anytime I’m studying,” the Fire Lord looked surprised, “You’d think spirits would feel pretty comfortable around the Avatar.”
“Maybe the airbenders are right and something’s off about ‘em,” the elder man suggested.
“They’re harmless as far as I’ve seen,” Oshi shrugged, “I just figure if there’s anyone to be curious about, it’s you.”
“I’m not that interesting.”
*******
More stuff
Intelligence Agencies
The Office of the White Lotus retains its status as an international entity, and offers a Secret Service type force for the Avatar. As a subset of the United Republic, they struggle to stay ahead of the game, having discovered moles from various nation states around the globe. Their strengths rely more on chi blocking, technology, and public relations than on spy games, which means their efforts are more reactionary and investigative than anything.
The Dai Li forms an overarching network of spies, drawn from individual agents from every former Earth Kingdom state. From police, to military officials, to scholars and a few politicians, they form a covert group that manipulates each of the independent states at the highest levels, often instigating border wars to maintain the facade that the Earth States are definitely their own thing and not another rehash of the old monarchies. Effectively, the shadow government that secretly unites them.
The Fire Nation is fairly adept with their own. The Order of the Blue Spirit is an organization that was formed by the Fire Sages that began as an informal group of vigilantes aimed at eradicating nationalist factions dedicated to Fire Lords from the Hundred Years War. They have thus remained removed from the attention of the Fire Lord, and later the Ministry as a way to ensure a power hungry figurehead couldn’t repeat the travesties of the past.
Lately, however, they’ve taken on more subversive roles, both as spies and secret police. Abroad, they clash with the OWL and Dai Li to further Fire Nation economic interests, as the situation at home is getting more precarious. Strike breaking has been one function that has been gaining traction, as society decides what a “functioning modern economy” actually means.
Fire Lord Oshi
Mid twenties, a little less serious than is expected, Oshi came to prominence when traveling with the Avatar. Then Prince Oshi was an endearing, younger brother figure to Weiyong, who as mentioned kept in touch ever since.
Oshi has actually met Blue Spirit agents on these adventures, but neither he nor the Avatar managed to correctly identify them with the group itself.
The scars on his cheeks are gifts of the Sun Warriors, who he studied under for about half a year, in order to understand them in a more personal way than the clinical reports he’d receive from the department tasked with their protection. He met a potentially serious love interest whom he intends to return to, and was accepted as warrior in their tribe.
Master Kamala
Head of the Air Nomads, with degrees in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Kamala is deeply immersed in the science and spirituality of space. An earlier ally of Weiyong, they often differed on priorities, but are longtime friends, and helped shape the goals of Avatar’s Peak. Now a world class scientist, Kamala has actually laid the theoretical groundwork for the satellite program, which would have been fine, until the appearance of the Void Spirits.
For whatever reason, no one listens to airbenders.
Void Spirits
Inspired by the “Mormnock” entry in the Legend of the Elements book, Void Spirits are vaguely humanoid blob spirits who seem to observe and sometimes mimic a lone individual’s habits. They disappear or generally flee when confronted, or even merely observed directly by the target of their interest, and have caused curiosity rather than harm.
Air Nomads are extremely wary of these visitors, as they seem to perturb other spirits, and have an unearthly aura about them. To draw on mid 20th century mass UFO sightings, Air Nomads (and other very spiritually attuned humans) have started speaking out, claiming they’re not from "our”world, or even what we know of the Spirit World-- they’re from space! As such, they don’t vibe with more terrestrially based spirits, don’t understand bending as we do, and are generally curious about what we’re doing here. They have avoided the Avatar entirely, as a beacon of Earth’s spiritual and material forces.
The way I envisioned them arriving is via spirit/electromagnetic phenomena, like the “Spirit Roads” or “northern lights” were in Book 2 of Korra, and that the Air Nomads would see humanity’s reach into space as a potential avenue for these beings we don’t really comprehend. You can flip the script on the Air Nomads as well, saying that their astronomical research and spiritual grasp into the void is equally or more likely for the attention of these visitors. In any case, magical interplanetary travel is an easy way to introduce aliens as opposed to the regular tech based sci fi, and I feel is a bit more in tune with the setting.
If you’d like to use them as Book level antagonists, this could be the “apocalyptic event” that so many ATLA futurists envision for the setting. Void Spirits on both the “street” and “kaiju” levels would probably decimate humanity unless it were united against it, and even if they were, who would be left to pick up the pieces? For giant monster battles, the Deep Spirits could probably be roused in defense of the Earth, because even if they despise what humanity is doing, look at these freaks and what THEY’RE doing, right?
Weiyong and building an Avatar
RAW, multi-bending characters can happen, even willy nilly. You could easily make a tri-bending antagonist if you like, but the way to get all four elements is one of two ways-- switch Playbooks and take new moves from there (a bare minimum of 5 Improvements and 1 Advanced Improvement), or find a Master Shaper character to teach you the basic Moves.
I feel like this doesn’t gel so much with the Avatars we’ve seen, who could kind of figure some small things out themselves, especially Korra, who was bending everything but air as a small child. So for brand new, 0 Improvement Avatars, I suggest the following:
Pick one Shaper Playbook, and have the other three elemental Moves available to use, but the three others all roll at a strict -1 until they either take the appropriate Move or learn it from a Master, at which point they roll from their typical stats.
The Avatar State is a bit different in the mechanics too, having to build up a unique stat AFTER having accessed the Worldshaper sub-Playbook and purchasing the Move. I say, give ‘em the move, but stick to the fact that they have to wage peace to gain Spirit in order to use it.
For those who haven’t read Legend of the Elements, basically the Avatar Move gives that character a sixth stat, Spirit, and it starts at 0 and can even drop to -1, because the game punishes the Avatar for committing soulless wanton violence. I love that, and see that as fitting given the fact that Raava is the other half of the Avatar spirit. When you enter the State, you use Spirit as the stat for every bending roll, regardless of the element, which I also really enjoy, because it can get up to +3, and it means that whatever your character wasn’t so great at before is rightfully ignored by the power of the Avatar State, even as a brand new character.
It also means that the Avatar themselves has to play peacekeeper more often, so it’s not a character for people who want straight up bending wars. You can be more lenient in cases of constant unavoidable conflict, giving the Avatar kudos for at least trying, or for other reasons entirely, such as in a Void Spirit induced apocalypse and a need for a more active Avatar. It’s up to you and your players to determine how often this is necessary or fun.
If you only care about stats, skip this one. Your post is coming soon.
If not, delve further below.
How inventive blizzard must have felt introducing the night elves in Warcraft 3. Now here we are, years later, with at least six different flavors of the knife-eared stringbeans, depending on how you count them. It’s no surprise, then, that the WoW RPG didn’t exactly account for all these racial variations.
In fact, the official stats for Blood elves were the exact same as the stats for high elves, with the exception of losing some weapon proficiencies, and a tiny bit about using demon blood to slake their magic addictions. It’s clear that, at the time, blizzard didn’t exactly know how to distinguish the two races - the racial stat block for blood elves even has a little ‘coming soon!’ blurb for their racial class.
No really, I’m being serious.
However, silly as that might be, I’m not entirely convinced that it was the wrong decision. Blood Elves, after all, are for all intents and purposes the same species as High Elves, albeit slightly tainted by fel magics. The same can be said for Void Elves and even Felblood Elves, to a degree. Each of these types of elves branched out only recently from their High Elven kin, and their transformations were triggered by fel or void energies. That being said, the products of these transformations are very much different from their parent race, and players should be able to express these differences through gameplay mechanics.
I’m coming to a point, so thanks for sticking with me. On this blog, I’ve tried to expand upon the options available in the WoW RPG while trying not to overshadow any of the core races and classes. At the same time, I try to make sure I design things in a lore-friendly way, while making each choice feel like it adds something to a player’s character.
So, in essence, I think the best solution to these problems is a new option for WoW RPG characters: The Alternate Racial Class.
This removes the need for another set of races to balance and design, and instead builds upon a core race with a solid mechanical foundation. This means that a 1st-level High Elf Mage and a 1st-level Void Elf Mage would operate exactly the same, but each would diverge more and more as they took levels in their respective racial classes. This way there’s less design overlap when it comes to races, but players that really want to explore a Void elf’s heritage can do so. I really like this method of design, as it brings some key Elven fantasy to the forefront - how far will you go to unlock these mysteries? How much will it cost you? Power changes people, after all.
Anyway, the following few posts will present some new Alternate Racial Classes for players to use, starting with Void elves. My first focus here is the High/Blood/Void elf issue, but I am considering expanding this mechanic to other races as well, particularly ones who diverged more recently from their parent race, or vice versa.
