I've been pondering on this subject for a bit. Divine Magic,

"The divine (aka divine magic) are forms of magic on faith in gods or spirits." - Wowwiki.com/Divine

Is Divine Magic -only- granted through one's faith in an Eternal?

In a more global sense the 'divine' when used to describe an action brings with it the idea that the energy or force used is not that of the person but rather the person is summoning the magic from some other entity.

So I would assume that 'divine' magic in WoW is more of the will of the worshiped entity being transmitted through their faithful rather than magic being used and controlled by the one attempting to cast the spell.

So short answer is yes, divine magic would be only available to the faithful of a particular higher power as that higher power chooses to use that person and their conduit.

Hehe, I've written this many times before on this forum.

In WoW, divine magic does not come from a greater being, it comes from within the worshipper and is produced by faith. Elune does not grant her worshippers power - they get power by genuinely believing in her. The Holy Light is a philosophy to humans; it doesn't even HAVE any power to give. Yet those who believe in it completely "ignites a divine spark" in themselves, creating that power on their own, which is the reason the Scarlet paladins can use those powers too, even though they have strayed from the Holy Light. They still believe they're following it.

The faith can be in anything really, not just eternals; but it is unlikely that anyone can have that much faith in something that is not very very powerful.

Whenever I see this question come up... I immediately think Star Wars and the Force. ::giggles::

Faith driven magical abilities can be fun and wacky.

Nataszja, you're probably the most expert lore master I know, so I'd generally defer to you on this stuff. However, wouldn't it be fair to say that divine magic can be given to a mortal by a higher being?

For example the power of troll priests seems to be given to them by the loa patrons.

The paladins of the draenei were "given" their powers by the naaru.

The initial blood knights "stole" their powers from a naaru.

What you describe is what we read in the PnP book, I know. That book is published by White Wolf and their description of "divine magic" is suspiciously similar to True Faith in the World of Darkness setting. Given what we see in WoW I think that description is incomplete.

Seems to me that both paths are possible. One can develop an inner faith in something and tap into divine magic, or one can gain access from an outside source like a naaru or loa.

Could it be that their faith in these loa or naaru or Elune or a moral code (the Light) that is actually what is providing the divine magic? Perhaps, then, the blood elves were not actually stealing something quantifiable, but since they believed they were, thus their power was born. Something interesting to think about!

Reminds me of a character in an anime who believed so strongly in a monster god she made up that she was able to cast curses (and potentially do other things) in his name because she was just that crazy in her beliefs.

But the Naaru bestowed holy light on the Blood Knights when they kidnapped that floating space alien. All this time they thought they were magically raping the poor fella, when all along he was a willing captive who knew the part he had to play in the grand scheme of things.

Now, that being the case. Would either of the two options be any more correct?

1) The Naaru really did bestow powers on the Blood Knight Order, so that it might bring them into the fold once Kael betrayed them?

2) They believed and had so much faith in themselves that they were raping this poor naaru, that they sparked power in themselves? Sort of like a placebo effect.

The troll priests do follow these rules - they think they're being given the powers by the loa. The priestess of Elune probably think Elune gives them the powers too. If they started thinking that no, maybe the powers do not come from the loa after all, that'd likely be a lapse of faith and they'd not be able to use them anymore.

I freely admit that the Naaru mess the previously established Holy Light lore up something fierce, so I can't say anything about that with certainty, but if you look at the Aldor Netherstorm questline, you'll find a draenei paladin who tries to resurrect his dead companion, but fails repeatedly after he's lost faith in the Light. Distraught, he turns away from the Light and falls under the sway of an Eredar lord. When his former mentor, the Aldor High Priestess, sacrifices herself for him, he has his faith restored - immediately afterwards, he resurrects her. It's one of the best examples we have of faith = power in the actual game, I think.

As for the blood knights - and I'll answer Apho's question here too - I think that there are two possibilities. Either the faith-based placebo thing, that their faith in their new world order was so strong that it gave them powers... but that seems like somewhat of a stretch to me. It is more likely that they actually -did- find a way to steal the power, but said power was generated through the -naaru's- faith, if that makes sense.

I appreciate being called a lore expert, but there -are- plenty of conflicting or unexplained things in Warcraft lore and when it boils down to it, much of what I say is just opinion. I can't find a way to get the human Holy Light lore and the draenei Holy Light lore to peacefully coexist, because it's so different, as an example. And I still don't have a clue if Knaak's altered War of the Ancients timeline is what happened in "our" Warcraft. Stupid Knaak.

I just tend to think of Draenei vs. human as different denominations of the same faith. The general practices may be waaaaaay different, as may be several of the beliefs, but the ultimate end is the same.

Also, I don't have a link to back this up, but i"m pretty sure Metzen has backed up Knaak as canon.

And yes, you are an expert :-D

From what I've seen in ZG and ZA the troll gods seem to directly imbue their priests with powers. Granted these are not the same powers that player characters can use, but I take that as a game mechanic. Raid bosses need to have new powers to provide new challenges to players.

For me the faith placebo arguement is not strong enough. I think it makes more sense to take both explainations at face value and say that there is more than one path to divine magic. I agree that faith is a stronger path, but I don't see why a god, or demi-god, couldn't share some of their power directly from time to time as the story seems to indicate.

Well, I think it's important to establish that it is very likely that few - if any! - even KNOW about the whole faith = power thing. Obviously most people do not. They go about their lives thinking that gods and greater powers do intervene, and do hand out boons and powers, when the truth is a different matter.

As for ZG and ZA, I've seen nothing that directly points to the loa handing out powers. In ZA at least, the animal gods are being drained of their powers with da voodoo, mon!

The only issue with the whole "internal faith" thing is that it's from the RPG books with little support in-game, and it's becoming increasingly obvious that the WoW Lore Team isn't taking any lessons/ideas/content from the supposedly canonical WoWRPG literature.

I used to participate in a play-by-post with one of the RPG writers, and when quizzed, he said that while they did get input from the main lore team, they were most often encouraged to come up with material on their own, and were rarely asked for input on any WoW lore in the other direction (understandably).

Being an avid Troll Lorehead, this is especially apparent. Almost nothing troll-related that exists in the RPG books also exists in-game. There is a long line of orphaned ideas in the RPG that either (1) never made it in-game or (2) were directly contradicted by in-game material. It would be interesting to look back and re-read some of the books to see how the authors handle it more closely.

Well, many of the things in the RPG books were changed to suit an MMO, or simply to be more politically correct for a mass market. Troll females were supposed to have no say at all in troll culture and basically exist to produce more trolls, but since Blizzard didn't want any differences between genders, they yanked that. Same with no female night elf druids, same with no male night elf priests, night elf shadowmeld, etc etc. It's not an issue exclusive to the RPG books.

Divine & Arcane Magic though, I think that lore is perfectly compatible with what we see in game. The Aldor paladin I mentioned is a good example, and Arcane is more or less exactly the same in the RPG books as in the MMO. Furthermore, the lore on divine magic survived the transition to the WoW RPG, based on the MMO (as opposed to the Warcraft RPG, which came before the MMO and was based on Warcraft 3).