My need to touch grass intensifies
Time Rifts explodes into a whole Expansion where we're going to these Alternate Timelines/Realities we encounter in 10.1.7 because things are getting gnarly and since none of these Timelines actively know how Timestreams actually work, they're just invading us and each other with an eye to conquering everything, not realising they're risking complete destruction of everything by causing temporal paradoxes, specifically fatal ones, in the process.
Despite victory after victory, several Timelines are nearing collapse and our own is badly ravaged and the Six Primal Powers loom over us, furiously tearing at each other to lay claim to the one remaining Timeline that is both stable and capable of fulfilling their separate agendas and it becomes clear that everything is going to go to hell no matter who wins.
The Bronzes and the Infinites dive into the Original Timeline, from which all others, including ours, sprang from and find the very moment things go to hell, and prevent it, causing all time past this point to blur, melt together and collapse, creating a new, singular timeline.
As a result of this, all the Primal Powers are trapped outside of the ‘True’ Timeline, and can only rage and beat against the barrier that separates them from it. They can create followers within it, but the days of Titan Keepers, Old Gods and the like is done. At best, Faceless Ones and similar levels of power are available, and even that is a monumental effort. No more Re-Originations, no more whole worlds turned to the Void or consumed by the Light, but the Timeline proceeds forwards and we learn certain things are inevitable, even with the Primal Forces exiled outside of reality.
The Draenei still flee Argus, but that’s because Archimonde is a Sorcerer addicted to the Fel and called in the Legion because he wanted to rule the world. Kil’jaden and Velen flee with what they can of their highly advanced civilisation in Dimensional Ships, Velen lands on Draenor, Kil’jaden takes the soldiers and goes to find allies against the Demons, forming the Army of Light. Orcs get recruited for the big fight, but also some Clans get corrupted by Demons who followed the trail of the Dimensional Ship.
Meanwhile, on Azeroth, without the Old Gods and the Titans, the Age of Elementals gave way to the Age of Flesh where the Proto-Dragons, Trolls and Yaungol evolved, then Cave Elves came into contact with Azerite and accidentally blew up a chunk of the surface, creating a small wound that rapidly scabs over with semi-solid Azerite, which also elevates the Trolls and other races who came to the region into more intelligent life-forms. Naturally, conflict over access to this ‘Well of Eternity’ boils over, the Haves and the Have-Nots have an argy-bargy and chunks of Azerite are taken and scattered across the world, forming multiple Wells, and the eventual World War between Azshara, who has begun calling upon Fel and Void magic because the Primal Powers are still out there, just reduced to messaging rather than getting involved directly, and triggers a detonation so terrible it splits the original super-continent in half, mutates most of the Kaldorei into Naga, and those that were far enough away, either fighting other battles or escaping their megalomaniacal Queen, are spared from both drowning and becoming Snek Peeps.
10,000 years of rebuilding. Humans and Dwarves start being born amongst the native giants of Azeroth. Hybrids between these two developing races produces Gnomes. Eventually these spread to the Eastern Kingdoms, fully colonizing the northern half of this continent. The southern half remains Troll territory and both sides spend thousands of years arguing over whose land is it anyways. The Kaldorei warriors loyal to Queen Azshara are trapped on the Eastern Kingdoms realise maybe she was crazy and divorce themselves from her legacy, forming the Sun Elves, eventually calling themselves the High Elves. The Kaldorei on Kalimdor fracture into several groups, Pro-Queen, Anti-Queen and Just-Leave-Me-Alone-Please factions. Anti-Queen is led by Tyrande and Malfurion. Pro-Queen is led by somebody else who you really want to punch in the throat. Leave Me Alone is led by Illidan and Maiev who saw how dangerous the Demons that Azshara summoned during the final days of her reign and formed the Wardens and the Demon Hunter factions respectively to police rogue sorcerers and hunt down any ‘Outsiders’ from beyond the material plane before a second Sundering can happen.
The Wild Gods exist because Azeroth has a World Soul and it spins out crazy stuff like that. The Titan Watchers and Keepers are instead Elemental Beings who want to keep the planet under their authoritarian control and end the Elemental conflicts, while the Elemental Princes exist as a chaotic rulers who value freedom, so long as it doesn’t affect their rule, who see the Eternal Conflict as an essential part of their life-cycle.
In all seriousness, I would like to see the Timelines collapse and be remade and have the whole Warhammer 40K doom and gloom angle muted for a bit. By all means, let’s go metal, lets go schlocky 80’s action hero cartoon, but let’s dial down the entropic “You are boned no matter what.” nonsense.
We play WoW to escape from that, not pay $15 a month to get it shoved in our faces again.
Chromie you done goofed