First of all, this game cannot exist without D&D. D&D invented the fantasy RPG. All RPGs, pen&paper or electronic, only exist because D&D does.
Second, the average person on the street probably can’t spell Warlock much less tell you what it means. There aren’t many uses of ‘Warlock’ in the public domain outside of fantasy novels.
Third, word evolution exists, whether you agree with it or not. Just go browse Urban Dictionary for a while to make your head explode. WoW is 17 years old. D&D was created in 1974 (~48 years ago). That’s more then enough time for the usage to adopt new meaning.
Warlock is a common “mastery” or “class” in video games and isn’t always gender specific in those cases. It is not unheard of to use the “masculine” counterpart to encompass a fantasy for male or female, it happens quite frequently. Games I can think of off the top of my head: World of Warcraft, Rift, Grim Dawn; “Warlock” is still warlock regardless how you make your character. I think calling the term gender-neutral in these cases is correct.
Yes, and like we have mentioned in the past adding gender options is something that isn’t unheard of in the future. It’s just something we couldn’t realistically do before 1.0.
You are wrong. It says as much in the definition YOU posted. Warlock being tied to a gender didn’t start until the Scots did it. What was it before that? As has been mentioned, there are many examples where the Scots gendered use is not what is being used.
LE could just be going with the “breaker of oaths” or “deceiver” usage of the word.
When they say can be male or female they are referring to “witch” not warlock.
“A warlock is a male practitioner of witchcraft. The most commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English ƿǣrloga, which meant “breaker of oaths” or “deceiver” and was given special application to the devil around 1000. In early modern Scots, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (which can be male or female, but has historically been used predominantly for females).”
As a non native speaker Warlock as a female doesn’t sound wrong. I often played my warlock in WoW as a female character.
And i do like “Warlock” it’s kinda stylish. Whereas “Hex” doesn’t sound fancy enough.
Right… thats because you had a gender choice, and they had to chose a class (one class). Choosing the class name “Witch” would have been female, “Warlock” male.
The only way to avoid this conundrum was would have been to find a more gender neutral term… they went with Warlock. So roughly 50% of the time it was correct.
Wow giving gender choices on a gender specific class doesn’t remove the meaning of a word.
The situation here is odd because… 1) the gender is locked, and the chose the opposite gendered name.
I don’t know how many times I got to explain this.
All jokes aside, I wouldn’t overthink it. I wasn’t working at EHG when the mastery class names were discussed but we could have picked Warlock because it sounded cooler than Witch. I know you wouldn’t want that answer.
I think the passion in this discussion fascinating.^^ To add my 5 cents, if you look up the words in an English dictionary such as Oxford or Cambridge, they clearly refer to warlock as male and witch as female. Hence, you need to understand the confusion among some people. There is a reason why the book / game /series do not refer to Geralt - the witch of Riva…
That said, clearly the English dictionary does not prevent more lose applications of the expressions, so whatever^^
That’s defenitely a gender neutral name. Not sure if this is the goal of the topic. I read it more as a suggestion to change warlock into something female.
But your suggestion lacks style and is too long. I’d defenitely go with mine.
