Kyrians and the Light

Lore Story Forum
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So, I’ve been wondering for a while if the Light in Revendreth is an indication that the Light harms all denizens of the Shadowlands, or if it’s somehow specific to the Venthyr. I got around to doing this week’s Kyrian chapter and found out the Kyrians aren’t hurt by it at all. Kleia and Pelagos escort us to Revendreth in search of some new upgrade for the Ascension Altar.

What I found interesting was how the Light in the Ember Ward affected Kleia. Two quests provided some interesting tidbits.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Skulking_in_the_Darkness

Here, Kleia describes the the Ember Ward as, ‘breathtaking,’ and then follows it up with, ‘terrible.’ She also becomes a bit more judgmental and justice-driven than we’ve seen from her before. In the past she wasn’t shown to be quite so suddenly inspired towards retribution. She’s always been a fighter but this was a very sudden shift. If anything it seems like the Light affected her in a more subtle way, making her more zealous and driven to punish the cruel and malicious.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Light_Respite

Here, we see a flip side of behavior where she notes how her heart aches for the plight of those Venthyr sent to the Ember Ward to be gotten rid of, rather than because they’re necessarily evil. She goes so far as to ask you to collect ingredients to make a salve from her own anima to soothe the pain of the Ash Ghouls. Again, this isn’t unexpected behavior from Kleia, who has always shown this kind of caring and protective quality before, but it is sudden, and in a twist, it’s a distraction from the duty she and Pelagos were sent to Revendreth in pursuit of.

The above is ultimately my personal take from the quests, but it was two sudden shifts in behavior that were just jarring enough from Kleia’s usual self to be noteworthy, and they both happened when seeing the Light in the Ember Ward. Is this evidence that the Kyrians might be susceptible to the influence of the Light? Am I reading too much into this and it might be more that Kleia herself is simply susceptible to that influence? Or am I giving the quest writers far too much credit to think they’d add something quite so subtle?

Food for thought. Part of me wonders if the purified, memory-less state of the Kyrians might not just make them very prone to being manipulated by the Light. If such a thing were the case one would think we’d have seen it mentioned before in the Shadowlands’ history, after all.

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I noticed that about Kleia as well.

What is even more interesting to me is… I wonder if Denathrius is actually even harmed by the light the same as the other Ven’thyr. If Sire Denathrius is like the Nathrezim you’d think he might be able to adapt to the light like Lothraxion.

As to why it doesn’t hurt the Kyrian? Maybe it has something to do with how their Anima bodies are made.

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If the Light does cause manipulation than Uther being the Light blessed half is aiding Devos because the Light wants him to! Once Lysonia reveals her true nature the Light immediately induces him to abandon her and the Forsworn cause!

The Light saw a flaw in Bastion and sought to rectify it only to discover that the ones attempting to rectify the situation sided with the source of the problem to begin with and switched sides to back the Archon!

The Light also sees Sire Denathrius’s abuse of the Venthyr as wrong and seeks to create comfort!

The Death of Bastion isn’t an abomination. The Death of Revendreth is. What makes Revendreth’s Death an abomination? It’s Dark Death not pure Death like Maldraxxus and Bastion.

Revendreth draws on the Echoes of Sin and Pure Sin is Darkness(there is a reason the Void-based Sha manifest from Vices) so it’s not surprising that the Death spawned from such Sin is unspeakable to the Light even though it is willing to comfort those unwittingly infected with such Echoes of Darkness!

Death from Revendreth, Mueh’zala(who outright uses Shadow and Blood Magic) and the Maw(including the kind that resembles Maldraxxus Death Magics) are all corrupted by Darkness and thus the enemy of the Light just as much as the Void and Fel are!

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Well I think we can always say the Light and the Void change/corrupt/alter who they affect. We have always seen signs of this, just we are normally led to believe the light does it for better.

It’s not worth it’s own forum post, but I have noticed and wanted to discuss before how just as the Light attacked Revendreth in the Ember Ward, we also learn about the time that the Void attack Bastion and killed Agthia the paragon of courage at the time. We’ve seen those outside forces still want to take over, because Light attacks the realm of darkness and Void attacks the realm of light.

We even saw in the memory Kyrian that fell to/were corrupted by the void. So yes I believe the Light could still influence our Kyrian friends now.

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TBH, I’m not certain how the Kyrians interact with the Light. So sadly I can’t really comment.

But from the Necrolord side of things, the one who requests you to go into that region is one of your to-order Abominations Roseboil. Her behavior doesn’t particularly change upon entering the Ember Ward, and she doesn’t seem to suffer any detrimental effects physically. She specifically requests you go into the area to help her give triage to those suffering the effects of the Light; and her healing fungus does give them tangible temporary reprieve. I wonder if this lack of effect has to deal more with the lack of tampering or alterations to Maldraxxie mortal souls? They keep a LOT of their living identities intact.

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This was something I was interested in learning as well; how people from Maldraxxus or Ardenweald fare in the Ember Ward. So, it seems like the Light there specifically only harms Venthyr, but also indiscriminately; it doesn’t differentiate between Venthyr who are actually doing bad, and Venthyr sent there because Denathrius just wanted to get rid of them.

For example, the creator of the artifact the Kyrians are looking for is an Ash Ghoul. The item he made turned out to be highly effective at purging souls of their sin. The Kyrians specifically noted how souls brought to them from Revendreth were unusually pure compared to those before and after. Turns out the artifact was highly effective in purifying sins, but it didn’t produce anywhere near as much anima as the more draconian methods. That is why it’s creator was exiled to the Ember Ward.

He was a Venthyr who created an effective and less cruel way to purify souls, so there doesn’t seem to have been a reason for the Light to specifically harm him, yet it did all the same.

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Since you mentioned that Kyrian’s seem emotionally susceptible to it … I wonder if it has to deal with “mortality”? Of the four Covenants, the Maldraxxie and the Nightfey rely on the least amount of tampering to the souls that find themselves in their service. In both Shadowlands, the retention of ones identity from life is not really frowned upon. To the point where mortal souls that are a part of those afterlives have some choice in form. There is a lot of freedom and maintaining of self in both.

This is not the case with the Kyrian and Venthyr, who pad their numbers largely through extreme “processing” of the individuals sent there. This is likely due to the nature of their functional roles requiring extreme impartiality, because they are so intimate and hands on with the souls in their care. Which is not really the case with the Fey (grovetenders) or Necros (soldiers). I wonder if its the “stripping away” process that makes the vamps and angels so susceptible to the Light’s influence?

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That’s an interesting thought. Arguably the Venthyr and Kyrians both represent two sides of the same coin in that regard. If it’s true, it’s rather alarming. I mean, the Kyrians are the psychopomps of the Shadowlands in general. Imagine them on a world being consumed by the Void or Light and becoming voided/lightbound. As for the Venthyr, maybe it’s part of how the Dreadlords Denthrius created were so uniquely suited to readily adapt to other cosmological powers? The tampering a soul goes through to become a Venthyr leaving them open to influence? Granted I’m not sure if the Dreadlords were formerly mortal souls or not. It’s said Denathrius created them, but not from souls.

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The fact that Denathrius wants Anima and not purified Souls pretty much says it all: The Death of Revendreth is impure. It’s tainted with Sin and Sin is Darkness(no idea what Darkness is aside from being Anti-Light even if it turns out to be separate from Void).

The Artifact could logically turn the Anima into pure Echoes of Sin rather than Echoes of Sin mixed with Sin!

The Artifact if used to purify the the Anima used to create Venthyr could have saved the Venthyr from the suffering the Ember Ward yet Denathrius couldn’t allow that as he wanted the Sins to be leverage for his treasonous goals!

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it’s really stupid if the light doesn’t hurt them.

this entire realm is death magic, everything within is suffused with it. death and light magic clash, it has always been that way, and that clash is why undead feel pain from the light.

i wish i could properly put into words how much i hate, with every fiber of my being, every single individual writing for this game right now. the complete and total lack of care that these people have… it just sickens me.

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Light magic hurts evil undead and spirits summoned through necromancy. It does not inherently burn all souls. It burns Venthyr and Maldraxxi, but not Kyrians or Night Fae, because the latter don’t use dark magics to manipulate souls.

What the heck do you think happens to good light worshipers like Crusader Bridenbrad who’s souls got sent to the light? That their souls got burned up because “light burns death”?

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Necromancy =/= death magic.

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https://games.no1geekfun.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/1599718847_Calia-and-Veleera-talk-about-the-future-of-the-undead-640x445.jpg

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It’s because Venthyr are vampires and vampires don’t like the Light? What? That doesn’t make sense in terms of the WoW lore? Yeah, but the developers wanted to put that into their game, doesn’t matter if it fits. Vampires don’t like the light.

What is death magic? The Chronicles Cosmology has undead/Necromantic/Death all in series as all the others, ie wild gods/nature/Life and Titan/Arcane/Order.

So is Chronicles officially non-canon now?

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the kyrian aren’t just a soul, they’ve clearly been manipulated to some degree by the magic of the shadowlands, or they wouldn’t look the way they do.

the magic of the shadowlands is death. it’s that simple. necromancy is the manipulation of death magic, there’s no difference between the two.

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It’s written from the point of view from of the Titans, therefor it’s not Word of God, i.e yep, it’s only cannon as far as blizzard decides which parts of Chronicles they find cool/useful to implement in game

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and no, it is NOT fine if the devs add something that doesn’t make sense just because they want it.

that’s called having no internal consistency or integrity. that’s called being a bad writer that shouldn’t have a job.

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I think that’s how WoW has worked since forever, though.

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I wrote that from a sarcastic point of view. The developers do whatever they want, doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not. They’ll let someone else try to piece it all together, which could take years to final get a concrete answer. Could just see the how the fanbase tries to make it fit and go with that solution.

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The Maldraxxi don’t seem to be affected by the Light in the Ember Ward, though.

So, it seems to me that the Light in the Ember Ward is specifically attuned in some way to affect only the Venthyr. I’m also unsure if they’re affected by all Light that way. I think the phenomenon might be unique to the Ember Ward. There is a Naaru somewhere in Revendreth, after all, and I don’t think it’s far from the Venthyr base.

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