Idk why you’re surprised about the tauren stuff, really. I know you like your IRL comparisons, but in (this) fantasy, Shamanism is just kinda… weak magic. It has its place, and it can do thing that ‘traditional’ magic lacks the methods to do, but it shouldn’t be surprising that the brokers think Shamanism is a flop belief.
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The other type of “Lovecraftian” horror.
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Still waiting on my copy before I weigh in. still waiting on the Blizzard store to give me an update when to expect it.
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Maybe he was but whatever he did to get the cold shoulder from Her Majesty might’ve changed that. Also Bwonsamdi took over from Mueh’zala, so maybe the Winter Queen wasn’t too thrilled with Mueh’zala slacking off and giving his duties some mortal. Like how Beerus leaving Freeza to do the ‘destroying’ was frowned upon in Dragon Ball Super. That does pose the question though, where did Mueh’zala come from? And we still don’t know what exactly caused the rift between the Winter Queen and Bwonsamdi.
This one is interesting as we know Wild Gods can be born from non Wild God parents. Such as Ashamane.
This one makes sense given that Proto-drakes were elementals (my money is still on Firehawks) that grew flesh to survive the ordered Azeroth after avoiding the whole elemental plane business.
This was kinda implied in the Ardenweald afterlife video.
This but confirms that every time we ‘die’, it is not our time.
Or it could mean that they didn’t make themselves known until the Drought had started, which is what happens in the game. Keep in mind that no-one, not even the Archon knew about the Forsworn until the attack on the temple of purity.
I had a feeling this was the case. Domination runes = mourneblade, like Frostmourne and Kingsmourne. While Maldraxxus runes = regular runeblade.
This does pose the question though, what exactly is Shadowmorne? Is it an actual mourneblade or just a crude attempt at making one?
Not really. Just because the House of plagues blowing up happened after the Primus disappeared does not mean it happened right afterwards. Maybe it was business as usual until Kel’thuzad came in and began climbing the House of Rituals ladder. The House of Plagues being destroyed is because of Kel’thuzad as we found out in questing in 9.0 and the necrolord campaign. This way it still happened after the Primus went MIA. You have to remember, it was Kel’thuzad who convinced Sin’dane and Gharmal to do the things their houses did.
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If The Maw and the Realms of Torment were created by the Eternal Ones then Revendreth and Torghast may have had a different purpose.
Infact if the Archon was ascended to her position as you suggest who says it was the First Ones who did it?
For all we know only Denathrius, the Winter Queen, the Primus and Zovaal were appointed by the First Ones and the Archon was appointed by Zovaal to get him Souls to subjugate.
Where did he get Souls before then? Probably from the Primus’s defense of the Shadowlands. Infact Zovaal was probably created to judge attackers and send the more easily broken to Denathrius where he’d send a couple to Maldraxxus for the Primus’s armies while he himself broke the stronger willed into the service of his personal tower of Torghast.
The Archon I’m hoping is merely part of Zovaal’s turning against the First Ones’ Purpose which I’m assuming is merely to protect the Shadowlands, return Wild Gods to life and sentence invaders to Revendreth or severe torture.
I went through Amazon, and I’ve been recently informed that I will receive it on 9/23/21.
So depending on how Blizzard is handling the shipping orders, I feel the end of September is a good bet for everyone else to get their copies.
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Yes, I knew shaman can use decay magic. Also screw him for calling it low magic and I still want to give him a face full of lava!
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that’s so disorganized. Some people actually got them on release day. why should people who bought it from Blizzard directly have to wait? gah.
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Druids couldn’t stop Deathwing.
Paladins couldn’t stop Deathwing.
Death Knights couldn’t stop Deathwing.
Priests couldn’t stop Deathwing.
Mages couldn’t stop Deathwing.
Warlocks couldn’t stop Deathwing.
Jaina, Tyrande, and Malfurion could not and did not stop Deathwing in any timeline.
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The whole thing’s been a mess.
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Shamanism is probably a form of low magic because it doesn’t scale to a cosmic level. It is instead a kind of magic that comes from cosmic manifestations on the material plane specifically.
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Thanks for putting all this together, Baal. It must’ve taken a while to do so. Some stray thoughts I had while reading it:
Tauren - The continual crapping on tauren beliefs has become uncomfortable. I don’t know why they’re doing it, but I really wish they’d stop. Shadowlands could’ve been a great opportunity for the tauren to shine due to their Spirit Walkers, but lol nevermind they’re all just delusional idiots. I honestly don’t understand their motivations to keep doing this.
Shamans - I’ve had a thought about why the Brokers consider shamanism to be “low” magic. If you look at the Brokers’ cosmology map, they don’t even have a name for the mortal universe. It’s just the place where the Great Cycle between Life and Death interact. It’s just the small place inbetween the great, glorious realms of Life (Gardens of Life?) and Death (Shadowlands).
I’d also put forward that elemental magic is the only magic school that is entirely native to the mortal plane. Light, Void, Arcane, Fel, Life/Nature and Death/Necromancy all have their own, dedicated planes of existence. They’re all of the “higher” planes, while still able to be used in the “lower” mortal one. Elemental magic, however, has no “higher” plane. It’s comprised of and powered by the elemental energies that seem to only exist in the Great Dark. So given the Brokers have such a condescending view of the Great Dark and its inhabitants, I could easily see them referring to the native magic there as “low” magic that can’t be counted on.
Zovaal and Torghast - I’m hung up on the fact that Zovaal’s true form is an Uber Death Knight/Lich King/Maw Armor Dude. If the First Ones created Oribos, and Zovaal was the original Arbiter, then shouldn’t his true form match the First One imagery in Oribos? You could say that Torghast was his original home and he matches its style, but if that’s the case why did the First Ones even build Oribos to begin with? And why’d they put a creepy edge lord in charge of assigning souls to their intended afterlives?
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Even if it’s true, it’s a crap thing to put in a crap book about a crap expansion that only exults the Alliance whilst tearing down the Horde any and every single chance it gets.
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You’ll get no argument from me that it’s a crappy thing to do. Shaman, Death Knights, Forsaken and Tauren should’ve been all over this expansion. I think it’s a GIANT mistake that they haven’t been.
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It’s not that shamanism’s weak magic; it’s that the Brokers seem to have a particularly condescending attitude toward the living world, and it’s increasingly looking like shamanism and the elements are the “native” magical force of the Great Dark Beyond.
So to the Brokers, Light and Void and Disorder and Order are existential “peers” to Life and Death (though naturally “lesser” peers in their eyes), while shamanism seems to them a “low” magic derived from a plane of existence that - in their biased opinion - exists solely to provide fuel for their own.
The narrator frequently dismisses tales of other realms’ interventions in Death as mortal superstition or ignorance, but they aren’t right. Even the mention of Kyrians observing other domains’ “claim” on a soul is framed as weird and hard to wrap their heads around, because as far as the Brokers are concerned the First Ones created all of existence solely to prop up and support the cycle of Life and Death, so why would any other force’s claim to a soul take precedent over the continuing cycle?
Which makes sense given their limited experience with foreign realms even within the Shadowlands, let alone beyond. The narrator handwaves Tamaala’s claims of waiting for Cairne as delusional nonsense, ignoring the fact that she is there speaking of her personal experience in Death, which syncs with the tauren beliefs.
For all their claims of seeking knowledge, the Brokers as presented in the Grimoire maintain an air of already thinking they know everything. Like they’ve gone into their pursuit of lost knowledge with a heaping pile of longstanding assumptions that brook no contradiction, causing them to laugh off or even feel offended by information that doesn’t reinforce what they went into their search already expecting to find.
The impression I get from it is that they presume to think their home plane is the be-all, end-all wherein the laws as they understand them are hard-and-fast, when in reality it’s just one of six existential realms (perhaps seven) full of a trillion loopholes, exceptions and even norms when interacting with one another that escape their narrow understanding of how things work.
Take any assurances by the narrator of this or that mortal concept being wrong with a grain of salt; the Brokers know a lot less about their own plane than they pretend to, and even less still about planes outside their own.
Incidentally, it’s nice to have something I hypothesized confirmed; Grimoire describes the Brokers as walking around in “encounter suits” for the purpose of ingratiating themselves to the Attendants and Maw Walkers by adopting an approachable and semi-familiar form. Meaning the true forms of the Brokers might not even be humanoid.
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8 Forces: Light, Void, Disorder, Order, Life, Death, 7th unknown Force and the Elements.
Al’firim for what it’s worth theorizes that the 7 Realms outside the Great Dark Beyond seek dominance over the Great Dark Beyond because they subconsciously fear yet another unknown Force bringing the Cosmic Forces up to 9!
That gives us: Elements, Light, Void, Order, Disorder, Life, Death, 8th and 9th.
But it wasn’t shamans who defeat Deathwing. Deathwing was defeated tnx to the Dragons = tnx to the Titans…
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So why didn’t the dragons wield the dragonsoul?
Because Deathwing explicitly enchanted the Dragon Soul against any other creature of Azeroth utilizing it, due to his extreme paranoia about someone else someday turning it against him.
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