Before all of this begins, of course, the character must be rolled.

First Things First

First choice: which server?  My gut reaction was to roll a toon on Proudmoore-US, a PvE server.  Proudmoore, for those not in the know, has a vibrant and accepting LGBT community.  The frequency of homophobic comments in trade chat there is markedly lower than on other servers, in my experience.  It also is a PvE server, which would limit ganking.  But this comes with a downside that was brought to my attention in a Vent conversation just the other day.  The fact that Proudmoore is a PvE server, as well as something of a social anomaly, means there are less opportunities to make ethical (or unethical) decisions.  This is not ideal.  In other words, as a guild-mate pointed out, in real life you constantly “…have to choose whether or not to punch the ignorant *****bag in the face.”  Also, I’m bringing my real-world ethics into the game.  I would not choose to ghettoize myself in the real world; I will not in the game world.  A server is a community, and while there is nothing wrong with the Proudmoore community, I do not live in West Hollywood or San Francisco’s Castro or any other predominantly gay neighborhood.  I’m content living as a minority, outside of the ghetto.

So this character will not be born on Proudmoore, but that still leaves a lot of other options.  PvP or PvE?  RP or not?  My very first server was an RP server.  I lived on Feathermoon as a lowbie for quite a while, so I do have a soft spot for such places.  Nonetheless, the in-game RP component of this experiment is nearly non-existent.  From time-to-time you may hear directly from the Ethical Alt or read snippets of his journal here, but in-game RP will likely be limited for a couple reasons.  First, this is not an RP project and I don’t want to disappoint anyone who was hoping for a fully fleshed out character biography or storyline for the Ethical Alt.  Second, I can get easily distracted, and so avoiding the potentially pleasant diversions of RP will help this project to stay on task.  Finally, the ethical dilemmas that I truly wish to explore are not the ones that player storylines create via RP.  They’re the ones that Blizzard has introduced via the game itself.

But that still leaves me with the Big Decision:  PvP or PvE?  Part of the Ethical Alt’s purpose is to explore the ethical dimensions of the game and its players and how the game world reflects and reacts to the real world.  Since I moved off of Feathermoon, world PvP (also known as ganking, corpse-camping, auction house griefing, etc.) has been a big part of my experience in game.   While sticking to a PvE server would make it easier to suss out the ethical fabric of questing without interruption, the real world isn’t like that.  Life is full of interruptions and sometimes violent ones.  External annoyances raise our blood pressure and sometimes nudge us towards a course of action we otherwise would not have—or should not have—taken.  While I don’t plan to suddenly become a raging asshat during this project because someone decided to camp me for three hours while in Zangarmarsh, I do think that world PvP still involves scores of ethical decisions, some of which can be influenced by one’s current temper.  So PvP it is.  Stormscale-US, to be precise.

Other Minor Details

Oh, but now I have to name him.  And what will his race and class be?  Obviously Death Knights, Rogues, and Warlocks have huge ethical issues surrounding their skillsets.  Inflicting very painful diseases, ventilating other players, or cursing them and corrupting their very souls… these do not seem to me to be particularly pleasant ways to go.  Reflective of my own ethics, I don’t feel that torturing my foes is a necessary action.  This also rules out several Priest abilities of the Shadow school and the entire Fire school for Mages.  Indeed, even the Shaman’s mastery over Lightning could be considered unethical.  (Emperor Palpatine, anyone?)  Indeed, just about every class has abilities that would constitute clear violations of the Geneva Conventions, let alone my personal ethics.  Perhaps, then, it’s best to focus on a name or race selection first.

From the standpoint of selecting a faction that is reflective of my personal ethics, this may not be quite so easy as I thought.  Humans are out, as are Dwarves.  Both tend to focus a bit too much on all that glitters and too little on how their mining and archaeology negatively impact the ecology  of their world.  Also, if ever there was a faction that promoted the killing of small, basically defenseless, proto-sentient tribes… it would be the Humans of Stormwind.  The Gnomes are problematic for the fairly obvious reason that their unconstrained lust for technology has managed to render their original home uninhabitable.  The only truly eco-conscious factions in the Alliance are the Draenei and the Night Elves.  But one crashed their stolen spaceship into a remote island, causing (unintended) ecological catastrophe, and the other seems to have a problematic relationship with large invasive tree species.  (The fact that the planting of Teldrassil was opposed by Nozdormu is not insignificant.)  And the Worgen?  Too savage to even contemplate seriously.

So the Horde… this may not be much better.  The Blood Elves seem too focused on sating their magic addictions, and too careless of the consequences.  The Forsaken, it should go without saying, are out for obvious reasons, “Death to the living!” not least among them.  While Thrall seems to be a decent fellow, the Orcs of Orgrimmar in general do not always follow his creeds.  <cough>Garrosh<cough, cough>.  The Darkspear Trolls might be a good option, except I’m not keen on tusks.  Goblins would be an option, if not for basically everything about them.  Even the Tauren aren’t perfectly ideal, given their bloody reclamation of Mulgore by force from its centaur inhabitants.

Not As Easy As I Thought

Maybe if I come up with a name, that would be better.  A name that’s reflective of qualities I feel are noble, ethical, and desirable.  It should be reflective of a desire for peace and unity.  It should embody a respect for the spirit of the world and all things living in it.  It should personify ideas of liberty, diversity, and justice.

I can only think of one such name.  Ayenwatha, follower of the Great Peacemaker of the Iroquois, uniter of the League.  Had Ayenwatha not helped to bring the Five Nations together, the entire history of our planet for the last five hundred years would most likely be incomprehensibly different in ways we cannot understand.  You see, it was not from the distant and ancient Greeks or Romans that the American farmers, brewers, shipwrights, and barrel-makers took their strong concepts of individual liberty.  No, it was from their Native American neighbors next door.  It was from early and frequent contact with societies so alien to that of the hierarchical Europeans that the tired, poor, huddled masses developed their yearning to be free.  And like any good idea, this one spread like wildfire.  Not from ancient Athens in the East, but from the roots and boles of the great forests of the American Northeast, where even the lowliest Iroquoian was free.  Indentured servitude, slavery, Jim Crow, fascism… all these are not casualties of American exceptionalism, but of the unstoppable force of Native American idealism.  This seems like as good a time and place as any to commemorate that.

The following quote is taken from a translation of the Gayanashagowa, The Great Law of Peace which formed the constitution of the Iroquois.  It sums up with near precision what I believe to be the most noble qualities of a leader.

So Ayenwatha it is. It seems now that a Tauren Druid is the best choice, given the name. If anyone would like to join me, Ayenwatha will be exploring his starting zone tomorrow on Stormscale-US tomorrow night at 7pm Pacific.

Tags: character creation, ethics, Iroquois, The Ethical Alt