Final Campaign Chapter Discussion (Where Are We Going in 9.2 Onwards?)

Lore Story Forum
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A few things to take away from the final campaign quest:

  1. Zovaal was the original Arbiter. The current one was made as a construct. I think we all saw that coming.

  2. The Primus says “death is coming for your world.” I have a feeling 9.2 is either the Sepulcher, or a revamped zone in Northrend or something… guess we’ll see.

  3. The name of the First Ones’ realm is Zereth Mortis.

  4. Mal’Ganis escaped… I guess?

Underwhelming imo, but that’s what we got.

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Could get this tattooed nowadays

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Literally though. Just ask someone about something in WoW and they don’t need to say anything anymore. They just roll up their sleeve and point to the tattoo.

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Also the quest text ends with us feeling like we’ll Mal’Ganis when we confront the Jailer. So I guess either Blizzard lowkey confirmed Mal’Ganis will be a boss within the Jailer raid or be 7the NPC target that’s killed in a chain during the patch, like how Talgath was killed in the 7.3 quest chain.

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  1. Zorval was the original Arbitor who strayed from his purpose and needed to be punished. The Primus took his anima and created the construct of the current arbiter from his anima and bound him in the maw using domination magic in the form of ruins carved into his flesh.
  2. The Primus becomes empowered by all four sigils and the covenants pledge themselves to him as a means to stop the Jailer. (why just the Primus though? is it just because he’s the defender of the Shadowlands as the Eternal One of Maldraxxus?)
  3. Ma’Ganis didn’t need you to break him out when he prepositioned you in Revendreth but since you didn’t help him you don’t get the special privileges’ he was gonna offer you so he vows to kill you instead. He found another way to escape it’s setting up him to come back in a future Dreadlords plot which most likely involves Calia and Arthas in some capacity.
  4. Speaking of Arthas, Uther and Jaina have a heart t heart where they talk about the last time they spoke, which was at Stratholme. they both admit that they love Arthas and in the future, presumably when Arthas makes his first cameo in Shadowlands (as a boss which is heavily hinted at) that Jaina will use that love in a good way and not feel bad about failing him the past, there’s heavily suggestions about moving on from the past and not letting other people’s choices weigh on your conscience.
  5. Thrall opens up to Draka how how he feels like he failed Garrosh, he wanted Garrosh to be better than what he became, and Draka encourages him not to dwell on the fact that he set people on their path. He may have set Garrosh on his path but Garrosh chose to walk it. Draka also shares a idom Durotan used to say about how a wolf can choose to come when called or bite it’s master. Which I think is setting up Thrall to be in a more receiving place to accept that Sylvanas turned on the jailer, he may even use this advice from his mother to advocate for Sylvanas as well as the Horde if it ever came down to defending either from Tyrande’s retaliation.
  6. Darrion and Alexandros talk about Tirion, why Darrion believed that the Ashbringer was his by right and why Darrion was trying to recruit Tirion as the leader of the Horseman. There’s some allegory on how it had to be Darrion and how it was his destiny just like it was his father, but that doesn’t make them any less good people nor does it dampen their faith in the Light.
  7. Ve’nari is trying to find the realm of the First Ones, Zereth Mortis, and she wants the Keepers to break free from the Purpose which she thinks is limiting their ability to experience free will. Her and Tal-Galen share a discourse about friendship, and how you can’t have friendship if one is just trying to get information from the other and Ve’nari concedes that at some point he’s going to ask for her help and she’s going to ask for information in return.
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A quick checks says Zereth Mortis probably loosely translates to “perplexity of death”. So are the First Ones “dead”?

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When I first saw “Mortis,” I thought of death too (Latin, yeah?). I’m hoping they’ve made the decision to not make this stupid First One crud something that spans the cosmos and just something within the Shadowlands.

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in Bibilical terms in old hebrew “Zereth” is a unit of measurement.

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what’s cool about this translation of Latin is it’s in the female gender. the realm of the First Ones is a “she” Death in this translation is a she.

Mort is Latin for death in the male gender.

really not sure if they did this for a reason or they just thought these two words sounded cool together.

So presumably the realm of the First Ones is genitively female and connected to Death.

it reminds me of the whisper from Gul’dan ( I think in Legion) - “Death is coming for your world, and she will be waiting.” who’s the she he’s talking about here?

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I can’t wait until we solve the mystery of The First Ones… and learn about The Second Twos and The Third Threes.

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if all this circles back to the egg and the snake myth… why not just say it instead of being so secretive about it? sometimes I think this player base is way smarter than the writers give us credit for.

WoW over here trying to be all secretive about its story revolving around “mystery religion” but anyone with access to the internet has access to this stuff and most of us went through an “occult phase.” I would assume that a lot of people have some knowledge of freemasonry and stuff, Rosicrucianism, thelema, neopaganism, Golden dawn, Luciferianism… it’s so saturated in Western Media at this point.

Zereth Mortis… like… gimme a break. “The perplexity of Death”

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Good question.

I find this whole thing exhausting. I’m tired of the constant cut-offs. The only new info we learned was given to us in some paltry dialogue following this patch’s final story chapter.

The constant blue-balling is so annoying. It’s blatant, too (especially when Sylvanas nearly reveals the Jailer’s plan and Anduin interrupting her).

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Also the name of Death’s Horse/Cadillac in Piers Anthony’s Incarnations series. As frequent when it comes to magical steeds, she’s considerably smarter than her rider.

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I once again am asking blizzard to hire a team that includes:

  • A linguist trained in classical languages (1)
  • 2-3 people with knowledge of histories of various world regions/periods
  • 1-2 people with knowledge of culture/myth per world region
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It sounds interesting. I really, REALLY hope we go back to Azeroth for the next lot of content. Maybe we’ll even get a revamped Northrend expansion for fun Scourge times.

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I really hope they’re not pivoting because we all speculated the Sepulcher is on Azeroth so now it’s in *checks notes * "Confused Death in Latin"

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The Primus says: Four sigils represent the renewed hope of the covenants. I will use them to forge a key… though I must find something to replace the Arbiter’s sigil.

I suddenly find myself wondering if Sylvanas will offer to sacrifice herself to complete the key, and that will be her ‘redemption’ moment.

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Eh it’s just a dumb name for a fantasy place. Probably don’t need to overthink it. Knowing the WoW team they probably just thought “hurhur Mortis means death we’re so clever guys”

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I too am Confused and think the story should go to Death tbh

It’s a bad name for the realm of the First Ones since it’s so thoroughly tied to Death tbh

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In before its a “perspective name” given to the realm by a broker. :slight_smile:

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