How are characters supposed to enter Shadowlands, RP-wise?

Wyrmrest Accord
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Sometimes the scope of this game’s overall story goes well beyond the plebeian dilettantes of Azeroth. “How is my humble cupcake vendor supposed to explain their presence (or awareness of anything actively happening) in Argus?”, as an example, has been a recurring question for roleplayers.

This narrative gap is further aggravated by the enduring presence of The Champion of Azeroth™ as an actual (if nebulously-defined) lore character, symptomatic of the unfortunate reality that as the setting of Azeroth continues to grow, its narrative impact vitiates. “I felt more involved in the game’s plot when I was a grunt killing forest trolls outside Hammerfall” isn’t an uncommon sentiment anymore.

This time, though, the stakes are even higher. With the (combined?) forces of the Alliance and Horde laying siege to the penultimate autocracy of death itself, the question bears repeating: “why would my roleplay character be involved with, or be aware of, anything involving the Shadowlands?” Problems arise for the average roleplayer when you weigh out the following likelihoods:

• Most people don’t care enough about Sylvanas to go chase her. Not only are most (nearly all) characters uninvolved in her gambits, a considerable number of players out-of-character are suffering “Sylvanas fatigue” at this point and just want her story to end.

• Nobody really cares about Anduin, Baine, Thrall, Tyrande, Jaina or whomever, either. World of Warcraft was never really about these centralized figures to begin with; they were little more than elite mobs sitting in the center of town, seldom interacted with, doing nothing while you were collecting bijous for the Zandalari Tribe to more efficiently punch Hakkar in the mouth. (And even if you didn’t raid, your character’s perspective almost certainly didn’t directly involve these major lore figures.)

• You can’t just “visit” the Shadowlands, as it is effectively Azeroth’s equivalent of purgatory. Prior to Sylvanas ganking the Lich King, there was no means of reaching it other than dying (and thus no way for anyone, even major lore figures, to have a comprehensive understanding of its existence.) Similarly, it’s not clear whether or not you can bring anything from the Shadowlands back to Azeroth. Which means…

• Everything concerning, and residing in, the Shadowlands is absolutely brand new lore. Your preferred RP character can be a decade old, and they would still have no connection to the four major Shadowlands coalitions, nor the Jailer, nor the Arbiter, nor anything else. There is very, very little opportunity for a layman character to not only reach the Shadowlands, but get invested in it.

This thread’s title already asks the key question, but it bears reiterating: how are any of you people going to jury-rig a viable in-character excuse to get involved in Shadowlands lore? And if you can’t, what the hell do you do then?

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Spoilers, but Old Emma, an elderly and somewhat senile woman who just wanders Stormwind all day, got there lorewise by just casually walking through the Stormwind portal to the Shadowlands.

If she can do it, I’d say a great many people can.

I think it depends on the character, frankly. There’s all sorts of motives. In the case of Sarestha here, she was, at one point, a devout Sylvanas loyalist. Nearly to the point of worship. Over a long series of roleplays and some surrounding story events, Sarestha renounced that loyalty… though now feels a responsibility to bring Sylvanas to justice. She doesn’t have the power to do so herself, by any means, but she can help. She’s not going to sit in Orgrimmar talking about the weather, she’s going to go do something.

So like, sure. A cupcake vendor isn’t going to go to Shadowlands. But why is this a new question? The cupcake vendor probably also didn’t go to war, or fight the Legion, or journey to Draenor, or whatever. What your character does depends on your characters motives, affiliations, and how they justify participating in whatever they feel they must participate in.

Now, does “being involved” mean “following the quest experience to the letter”? No, of course not. Sounds like the average person can’t go to the Maw, for instance. But there’s places we can go, and there’s stories to be played out in the background of all this.

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PnP runs on Saturday morning cartoon logic. I don’t know what the guild’s official take on Slands will be but we did joke about a buncha drunk Dark Irons some how mole machining into Shadowlands. “Oi! This isn’t brewfest!?”

If they can mole machine to Outland and weird alternate in the past timeline Draenor then why not Shadowlands?

So whatever is decided by the guild it’ll run with some sorta silly logic that’ll works with this game’s incoherent silly story.

Otherwise outside of the guild stuff, Juspion is a time traveling crystalmancer that has gone to places no one should go, so for him to go to Shadowlands would be just another Tuesday for him.

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Is there really just a portal to Shadowlands in Stormwind that anybody can take? What sense does that make? Attacking the Dark Portal was conveyed as a massive military endeavor, more or less restricted to competent Alliance/Horde agents. Why is traversing the path to the literal afterlife even easier than boarding a metropolitan subway?

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Because that’s the point of it I guess. The afterlife is broken. It’s had a big hole ripped in it, and connected to our world. It’s not as detached from Azeroth as the afterlife ought to be, not any more at least. It’s not a distant ethereal thing anymore. For good or ill it’s right there.

Which I’m not arguing with to be honest. I mean I was surprised it’s SO easy but I think expansion plotlines should be at least accessible.

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This is straight up not true. When Bates got the news that Andiun had been kidnaped he was devastated. He swore an oath of fealty to House Wrynn, so to have the last living descendant whisked away to most likely his death is a major blow to not only him but anyone else who rps a Stormwind knight.

Ultimately it’s on us as roleplayers to figure out how and if our characters fit into the story being told. Maybe to your cupcake vendor it’s something that they hear about through the grapevine and nothing more. Maybe for your Ebon Blade death knight they get thrown straight into the Maw to fend for themselves. Blizzard has presented us with a scenario: the veil between life and death is broken and needs to be fixed. How we fit into that scenario is what roleplaying is all about.

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100% this!

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I’ll admit I do think it’s kind of stupid how literally anyone can apparently just… walk into hell, essentially. But I guess it’s not anymore dumb than time shenanigans ala WoD where you were supposed to be stuck but not really.

I don’t think I’ll be involving myself ICly still right away, but the option is there.

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Obviously I can’t/wont dictate your character, but I assume he’s not directly involved with the Wrynn family in any way.

Wanting to serve your faction and protect (or in this case, rescue) its leader isn’t unusual. What is unusual is having them get kidnapped in-story, a la Princess Toadstool, and demanding players care about that on an interpersonal level. Varian Wrynn spent however many years in a sewer, guarded by naga.

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That’s not unusual. It seems to happen fairly often, in fact.

That part is unusual, but it doesn’t stop Blizzard from trying.

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I think that’s the beauty of RP though. You can decide what works for your character. Like I wasn’t really involved in WoD stuff in RP at all. Don’t really RP Draenei or Orcs a great deal, and my characters didn’t feel like they fit the story. Sarestha does fit the Shadowlands story a bit though, purely because of her conflated ideals of justice if nothing else, and so… I’m going in this time xD

That said I tend to pick and choose my involvement in terms of what makes sense for the character. Like I can’t see Sarestha joining any covenants. She’s there to bring Sylvanas to justice, not pledge her allegiance to some place in the realm of death she hopes to avoid. She’s already sworn to the Ebon Blade and to the Forsaken - she’s not swearing fealty to anyone else.

With that in mind I don’t know that there’s a demand that the average person care, at least not in a roleplay sense. Invariably some characters will care and others will not. That’s where you choose how to be involved, and to what extent.

Personally I will say this: Sarestha found the mass-Scourge-invasion FAR more concerning than Thrall and Baine getting kidnapped. Surely that’s something that would concern most people. Even the Orgrimmar Cupcake Vendor might be alarmed by sudden Scourge :stuck_out_tongue:

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Well that’s the thing, me as a player? I’m separated by a screen and the real world and don’t have a connection to the faction leader of fictional Azeroth. Sir Thomas Bates of the Brotherhood of the Horse? He cares VERY much what happens to his king.

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I mean honestly I don’t think very many of my characters are going to eagerly jump at the opportunity to venture into the after life. They’ll keep the porch light on while the others go out and have fun.

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iirc those interdemnsional merchant dudes can smuggle a person on for a metric ton of cash.

That would in some sense explain singular characters. But I’m curious as to how guild storylines will pan out, because I know of a few that are just opting out of the realms of death thing and doing something else. At least until a patch where the story shifts in some manner.

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My Death Knight got there when some suspicious hooded individuals in a white van pulled up in front of Stormwind and said “hey kid do you want some free fighting for eternity” and then black bagged him when he went around to the rear doors.

Woke up in the Shadowlands and it turns out they weren’t lying!

Happy endings all around!

My Paladin will be told she needs to deploy there and by sheer sense of personality and duty will manifest there immediately with a crisp salute.

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Soljeron vibes in here… shivers

Maybe we’re already in the Maw

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you can just walk into the shadowlands

there are open portals to it in both sw and org, and the dks have been traveling through it with death gates for years

death isnt harder to walk into than fire, earth, air, water, space hell, or the realm of actual dreams, it seems. just a matter on why youre there, really.

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Engineering.

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The one true answer.

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Total randos wandering in and out of the Shadowlands at will tickles me in a way that “the Ashran portals are OOC” bit never could. Please, someone, do a guild arc where we accidentally unleash an invasive species in the afterlife.

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