So for those of you who don’t play Hearthstone, the new set was announced today and while Hearthstone exists in a sort of “alternate spit take” version of the World of Warcraft at times there has been frequently more and more overlap occurring in the lore, either through event references, crossover characters, or card text / quotes.
“The Darkmoon Faire seems related to the Old Gods” has been a fan favorite theory for a long, long time and the next set is Madness at the Darkmoon Faire. How does this jive with the existing conspiracy theory? Does this seem like just a throwaway nod to the community about said fan theory, or is this them all but confirming it?
Didn’t they already have, like, two Old Gods sets already? I haven’t kept up with Hearthstone since like, Karazhan.
But, regardless, I feel like the implement more stuff from Hearthstone than they ignore these days. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they break out the Old God Faire thing, in an expansion or two, when they think we’re not sick of Old Gods again.
It’ll be weird having to do it IC after the fact, though.
The Void doesn’t have to always be evil and I would love to have a lighter take on the old gods and madness in WoW. It reminds me of Magic the Gathering and the Rakdos guild of Ravnica.
I admit that I love the evil carnival trope though.
Just the one, I think. They updated C’thun for one with a mechanical variation, but otherwise I think most of the old gods are confined to just the one set.
This theory was always fun, but with all the old gods “”"“dead”""", I think the eyes associated with the Darkmoon Faire are just aesthetics and nothing more. The Hearthstone sets since post Blackrock have always been ‘what if’ scenarios for Warcraft.
Real talk though, I both love and hate how they used the carosol music from the DMF. Love it cuz it’s one of my favorites in the game, hate it because the beat feels kind of wrong to use as a song. Kind of like many of those “If Insert Game Had Lyrics” done by anyone who isn’t Brentalfloss…or early Brentalfloss.
The core universe has been a warped funhouse mirror version of itself for about four expansions now. May as well take any goofy thing as canon, the canon is so twisted it can accommodate basically anything with no pressure to make a lick of sense.
The Darkmoon Faire is my literal favorite thing in World of Warcraft and I have been wanting a Darkmoon expansion for Hearthstone since its inception, I still have the special Darkmoon promo cards for the physical TCG, and I really really hope those get referenced in some way.
I don’t play Hearthstone any more and haven’t for years, but I always felt the little arc of expansions involving villains from past sets taking control of Dalaran and turning into a floating fortress of doom was actually a pretty fun story that would have made a decent actual expansion in its own right.
Silas Darkmoon is just the fifth Old God that’s been MIA. Instead of moving forward with nefarious plots to undermine the material realm leading to inevitable defeat, it’s decided on the lucrative business of offering novel experiences and confectionaries at exorbitant prices.
It’s important to remember that authorized spokespeople from Blizzard have told us that we are to take all lore sources (quest texts, npc statements, texts on found objects, storytellers, etc.) as being told from a personal point of view. In other words, they’re all unreliable narrators. The tale of Azeroth is like Rashomon.
As RPers we’re free to believe that purple tentacles are under the carousel whirling it around. We’re equally free to interpret everything we see at the fair as about as real as Disneyland. Or something in between.
RPing is not as much about how we as players interpret the varied and contradictory sources as it is about how our characters see the world and respond to it. And that gives us a lot of leeway on the midway.
Personally, I enjoy leaving it as a mystery. Once you see the boogeyman he’s not quite as scary. There is definitely some sort of magick being practiced there - along with things about as authentic as the Fiji Mermaid. Most of my characters see the Faire as a fun place to visit, with a bit of a Something Wicked This Way Comes subtext.
