Something that has cropped up in the lowest levels of Dornogal, the areas of Azj-Kahet where the Black Blood exists in large quantity, apparently exposure to the Black Blood can allow one to transcend reality, peeling back layer after layer of ‘reality’ to expose a Void dimension, if one can survive both exposure to the Black Blood, and the insanity that comes with that exposure.
We knew N’Zoth was able to raise a version of the Black Empire and temporarily fuse it into the Mortal Plane, as if the Old God was attempting to fuse two different realities together and our level of Reality was fighting back against this ‘infection’.
We know that the Arathai Empire had a different way of seeing the cosmos, and our own knowledge was built heavily upon Titanic ‘knowledge’ from the Discs of Norgannon, which were in turn heavily edited by Odyn and his forces, which attributed the advancements of the other Primal Powers to the Titans and their Keepers and Watchers, and actively worked to keep Mortals from understanding the true scope of the Universe to keep them obedient and compliant to the Titanic ‘Plan’ for Azeroth.
What if we’re completely wrong about how the Planes work in WoW?
The Shadowlands literally ripped open directly above Icecrown Citadel. We can step into a Void-saturated realm with enough exposure to the right elements. The Elemental Plane was created by ‘folding’ space to contain the Elemental Lords and their followers by the Titans and their forces, but is still fundamentally connected to Azeroth and its World Soul.
What if these aren’t entirely separate, distant planes where we call forth beings across unimaginable spaces, but rather, reality is like an onion, Shrek memes aside. Layers of Reality that, as you peel them away, you find different ‘types’ of that Reality.
All the Primal Powers overlap with each other, and our Mortal Realm, and the reason that they don’t all bleed together is a form of cosmic magnetism, why we have Chaotic forces and Orderly forces who might otherwise share goals fighting each other as much as they do. So long as the balance of opposing forces is maintain, the ‘layers’ hold strong, and reality remains as it is, with the difficulty being in ‘peeling’ back those layers to gain access to the different layers because you are fighting against multiple different Forces all trying to push and pull at each other.
It is like being stuck between six equal and opposing magnetic forces, each of which is trying to pull the Core, in this case Azeroth, towards themselves, but they have an equal and opposing force also trying to pull Azeroth to it, and they have neighbours who exert a repulsing force against them and are also trying to draw the Core towards themselves.
If any of these six magnetic poles collapse, the whole system breaks as the balance sustained by the mutual opposition between these six magnetic poles collapses and the Core spins out of alignment, possibly hurtling towards the ‘Pole’ that now no longer has a direct opposite, or the remaining five magnetic poles reconfigure into a stable alignment to keep the balance as best they can.
But it got me thinking, if the Void is just a handful of layers removed from Azeroth, and yet it is so ‘cut off’ from our layer of Reality that the Void Lords had to hurl the Old Gods across the cosmos blindly in the hope of infecting a World Soul to release them, just how strong is the barrier between the Material Plane and these ‘Outer Layers’ of reality?
And is the barrier only one way? The Void Lords can’t reach us, but we can reach them, hence why Xal’atath is so keen for the Dark Heart, it will create enough of a disruption to allow her to peel back enough ‘layers’ of Reality to open a direct connection to the Void and bypass this system of checks and balances?
And if the Void can do this, and all the Primal Powers can do the same things, they just have specialities meaning to do the same thing might take one Primal Power more effort and energy than their rival, then does that mean if we start peeling back these ‘layers of reality’ in a place like the Sunwell, where the Light is strongly woven into the fabric of reality, or the Nexus, where the power of the Arcane has crystalized into the very earth, air and water, does that mean we could peel back these layers to start to touch into the realms of Light, and Order?
We know the Emerald Dream is both a thing, and has multiple levels, or layers, including places that are infested with the Void, while the Emerald Dream is supposedly a place where the power of Life wells up in chaotic waves, a place where even Malfurion and Ysera had to tread carefully because if they strayed too deeply into the Emerald Dream, even they might get lost and not be able to return to Azeroth.
That adds a level of horror to systems like the Portal Network of Dalaran, and the Emerald Gateways of the Cenarion Circle, in that these transportation systems may be less utilizing natural channels in Azeroth, but rather, they might be tunneling through natural weak-points between the layers of reality, where these Primal Powers have fused, in part or completely, with the Material Plane. We have had situations in the setting, both in the books and in the game, where those who recklessly attempt to abuse magical transport disappear, or find themselves lost in confusing, unnatural spaces where they are highly unlike to return to Azeroth, or even a place of familiarity.
What if that’s the kicker. Its not that the Void Lords and the Titans and the Naaru are unable to show up on Azeroth at will because of raisins, but because those same ‘magnetic’ forces that keep the Primal Powers balanced and equally distant from the Material Plane also affect their ability to directly approach Azeroth, and the more influence a specific Primal Power can exert on the World Soul, influencing the ‘polarity’ of the World Soul’s energy to more closely resonate with their own, could also force their rival Primal Powers’ to have to struggle to approach the World Soul in turn now that it is increasingly registering as a ‘opposing’ force.
And what happens when the ‘Core’ of the struggle, the World Soul itself, starts to fragment under all these ‘magnetic’ forces pushing and pulling, tearing and clawing, at the World Soul every second of every hour of every day, for hundreds of thousands of years at the least. Or is it instead being crushed as those competing magnetic forces push at it from all angles, all the time.
What happens when the World Soul wakes up in the Last Titan and decides it needs no Masters at all, and shucks the chains of Void and Arcane alike? Will that awakening completely destabilize the whole system of checks and balances and the Primal Powers spin out of control, no longer able to keep their distance from each other now that the carefully calibrated interplay of mutually opposed forces are thrown out of whack, or will those not outright rejected during that awakening of the World Soul instead be drawn towards Azeroth’s World Soul at breakneck speeds, tearing through those layers and using the sudden ‘acceleration’ to attempt to fuse with it in a last-ditch effort to ‘Win’ this Eternal Conflict between the Primal Powers?
Or do I need to be rolled violently on the grass again?