The Interesting Thing About Being A Warlock

...is your sense of character. Is the class inherently evil?
A Warlock's primary elements are shadow and flame...sort of, well, Hellish, wouldn't you say?
They can summon, enslave, banish and even detect demons. Their connection with the netherworld is somewhat suspect. And without doubt, they are the tails to the Paladin heads.
I gotta say, the darkness is what drew me to the class. Flipping through the WoW manual when I first bought the game, I knew that I wanted two things: 1. To make a Horde character, and 2. To make a caster (or some class that used magic). An acquaintance of mine already had a shaman, and I didn't want to copycat, so I was left with Druids, Priests, Mages or Warlocks. So I rolled a Lock because it was a dark magic class, and because I could be Undead. Because really, what's better than a dark magic caster? That's right, a ZOMBIE dark magic caster.
And when I first started, I was like "Oh, hey, he gets some pets to follow him around. That's cool."
SO, 69 levels later, I find myself putting the nature of the class and its spells in perspective.
Not only are we shadowy, fire-flaming summoners of demons, but one of our most basic spells is actually quite insidious. And I rarely even think about it. The majority of Warlock spells require the use of a single reagent: a soul shard. Your healthstones, soulstones, spellstones, firestones, shadowburn, soulfire, and all demons save the imp require a soul shard to cast.
This reagent can't be bought from any vendor. It requires a simple spell to be cast in the final few moments of a victim's (i.e. mob not more than 7 levels below you) life. You cast Drain Soul, a channeled spell which refines the soul of the mob into a single soul shard. Pretty simple.
Anyway, I was doing Black Morass last night, and it wasn't going well. We were trying it with a 70 Rogue, 70 Priest, myself, 68 Paladin and a 68 Shaman. We never got past the first big boss, and kept wiping. I mentioned in passing that I was running low on soul shards, so we went on an extended clearing run to take out the outer trash mobs. The priest was asking me about the shards, and how many I usually started a run with. I explained that I start with probably 30-40 shards, or about 10-20 above my soulbag limit. This gives me the freedom to use as many soul shards as I want without fear of limiting my ability to cast soulwells or soulstones. I then explained that I usually just head to the little Windyreed Village just west of Aldor Rise and clear it out completely in two or three runs. I get as many shards as I need, and am set for an evening of instances if necessary. The priest then mentioned that that was a little creepy, actually. And I had to agree.
I go out and slaughter an entire village almost daily to feed my soul shard need. Now if that doesn't add to the darkness of a Warlock, then I don't know what does.
On a lighter note, those repeated attempts at Black Morass, combined with a few more successful runs of Old Hillsbrad, got me to revered with Keepers of Time, so I picked up my Continuum Blade, which allows me to finally make use of some of the offhand items I've picked up lately. Never been a mainhand-offhand person. Usually just like my staves and wands. But this sword is pretty damn cool :)
Of course, it sadly takes away from the ungodly crit bonus The Bringer of Death afforded me, but it'll make for a new look while I'm leveling enchanting for the +spell damage I hope to learn at some point. It's weird to find myself stockpiling different armor for different occasions now. I have some +crit items, some set items I won't use until I get more for the bonuses, and a few other odds and ends. Never been in a position to have different sets of armor. Welcome to the endgame, I suppose.