It is indeed the true shadow and shadow works differently that any other force. It must consum to be maintain existence, no other force must do this
Conspiracy Accolon and Pyro came up with, it’s a “tell” of what posters are followers of whom
Death literally depends on life Zahir lol
The realms do it, but the shadowland exist even without anima.
Instead of moving into the cosmology and inviting a massive e power creep, we should’ve just been sent to other worlds besides Draenor and Azeroth. Still silly, still would’ve preferred to stay on Azeroth, but at least it’s semi-grounded that way.
And think of all the allied races Blizz could’ve introduced!
They literally said that without anima, all the realms will collapse (into the In-Between).
They do not exist without the influx from life.
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The realms are in the shadowlands but the in between, the veil, all of that exist without anima.
The shadowland is the medium in which every realm exist
Plus fel (i.e. Disorder) also propagates by reducing other energies down into more of itself.
While most obviously split along a six-sided axis, there’s arguably a creative/destructive two-sided association to the cosmology as well. Life, Order and Light represent creative processes of growth, expansion and building up while Death, Disorder and Void represent destructive processes of termination, deconstruction and contraction.
This hinted-at seventh agency seems implied to exist “outside” the paradigm of the rest. “The one outside the pattern.” Like it’s not part of the regular workings of the universe, or at least isn’t any more. Which makes me wonder if it could turn out to be the essence of some fundamental primordial chaos that existed before the six cosmic forces coalesced and were built into coherent systems by the First Ones.
Like perhaps when the First Ones came into being, everything was just a random cosmic “soup” of indistinguishable energies and forces in the absence of any purpose and definition, and when they built everything to have meaning and purpose it left that prime urge for directionless bedlam isolated as its own force, distinct and kept apart from what they’d made. That perhaps by necessity, structuring reality to have balance must in turn create an inverted potentiality for that balance to fail.
Honestly I’ve been wondering if the Jailer (and everyone else) might be dreadfully wrong about what sort of things lie in the Sepulcher of the First Ones. Any time ancient beings lock a door with secrets behind it, everyone assumes it’s something worth knowing. Everyone assumes it’s something they should want. Yet any assumption of forbidden knowledge as the key to power or applicable understanding being hidden there may be erroneous, and it could in truth turn out to contain forbidden knowledge of something horrible that nobody should know or want to know. Knowledge that the First Ones hid away to keep something awful from happening just by way of the denizens of the universe learning about it.
The Explorer’s League spent years digging around for the secrets of the titans to explain their origins, only to find out that their origins were only a tiny part of it all and some of those secrets were world-threatening monstrosities who were meant to be kept contained. What if Zovaal, the Brokers and everyone else lusting after the First Ones’ secrets are doing the same thing, presuming enlightenment, revelation and power await when it’s really something horrible that was hidden for good reason?
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Who cares?
Can we go to the Dragon Isles or Tel’Abim now? Undermine? How about retaking Gilneas?
This Cosmology stuff is boring garbage.
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You mean you’re not excited to see the Yellow Magic go to war against the Black Magic while the Purple Magic secretly infiltrates the Green Magic? Well, then let me show you the Red Magic…
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Same, but that’s exactly what I’m expecting going forward. It allows the devs to ignore our world, to build their ridiculous galactic hero story and to make everything worse.
Edit: It’s not cool. It’s really uninspired and boring.
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What concerns(?) me is the last page.
He mentions straight up:
“The Nature of the Six (Possibly Seven, Possibly Infinite)”
Now, the six are obviously Light, Shadow, Life, Death, Order, Disorder.
But then proceeds to talk about the nature of the realm of reality. That all six live in “balance” (perhaps within the “shadowlands”) but try to tug and pull on this seventh force: reality.
Imagine a Hexagon being stretched from one side to the other. That when certain beings die, they go to other realms within Life, Light, Shadow, etc…
What Bastion is to the realm of Death. “Ny’alotha” (insert void theme land name) is to the realm of Shadow.
Where do Old Gods go when they die?
Now mentioning “(Possibly Seven, Possibly Infinite)”
Could imply a WoD AU type scenario. That’s the secret of the First Ones, the secret in the Sepulcher.
There are infinite realities.
Infinite worlds and cosmic forces, one where Zovaal is the “good guy.” One where Yrel and the Light dominated the Cosmos… etc…
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So all this talk and these books and speculation put me in mind of the game Control and the creepy pasta type of items and books that it all alluded to. laughing Would be interesting if the Sepulcher is actually just a made up story/urban legend that someone took as fact and thus began the insanity that follows…
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Last I recall Pyromancer is someone who thinks Eonar or N’Zoth are behind everything! Ridiculous!
Eonar, the Titans and the Old Gods are not the Ultimate Evil of WoW!
I’d rather assume that the Shadows and Vorlons are behind everything than someone like Eonar!
The term First Ones and people on the forum mentioning similarities between Oribos and Babylon 5 makes me think the First Ones of WoW are based on the First Ones of Babylon 5 and that would mean a Shadows vs Vorlons conflict!
Incidentally the Chronicle itself mentions that the Light and Void we see aren’t the True Light or the True Shadow but shades of them! Even Xal’atath mentions True Light and True Shadow.
If the 6 Cosmic Forces(including the one that calls itself Void that is squatting on the Shadows’ former domain) are shades of the True Light(the Vorlons) while Sylvanas, Denathrius and the Jailer are shades of the True Shadow/Void(the Shadows) then things will become interesting!
Now that would match the Shadows’ MO perfectly! There is only Chaos and Evolution!
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What if the First Ones did create 7 cosmic forces, but the 7th was out of control, having no opposing force to “balance” it out.
So the Sepulcher of the First Ones was the four First Ones sacrificing themselves to seal away this 7th cosmic force. Zovaal discovered this and his goal is to unseal that cosmic force…
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I know we’re missing some pages, and it’s probably a plug-in for the grimoire, but even the lore reveals are frustratingly vague.
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MOAR BOOKS FOR MY COLLECTION!
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Something possibly of note from the content of these books is that it comes across like despite traveling all over the Shadowlands and interacting with the denizens therein, the Brokers are or were either kept thoroughly out of the loop by the Eternal Ones or rejecting parts of the Eternal Ones’ basic knowledge out of hand. Extremely basic facts about the mortal plane - like it containing many worlds and anima not really being a “thing” there - are treated as stunning and incomprehensible by Al’rilan, when such things would logically be common knowledge among the Kyrian, Night Fae, Venthyr and Maldraxxi, not to mention the multitudinous mortal souls under their care. All of whom would have been right there for any Broker to talk to at any time.
The latter entries’ condemnation of Al’rilam’s speculations as “heresy” even kind of flies in the face of the Brokers’ current portrayal as seekers and traders of secret knowledge and power. How does one widely engage in pursuing and collecting forbidden knowledge while also being governed by a mindset that dismisses such information as heretical?
It comes across like when Ar’rilam originally codified his findings the Brokers condemned the very idea of the other planes as heretical nonsense, yet have come around to accepting the idea by the time the players showed up. He contextualizes his accounting in an earnest, almost religious fervor matched by the in-game items’ object text condemning them as heretical ravings, neither of which really jives with what we’ve seen of Brokers since arriving in the Shadowlands. They all seem roundly pragmatic, businesslike and profit-driven, expressing no more than curiosity and professional interest about things that Al’rilam and his unnamed detractor(s) are shown here treating like earth-shaking revelations and dangerous heresy.
It’s almost as if at the time of Al’rilam’s investigations, the Brokers may not have been as we see them now, at least culturally and philosophically.
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It also wouldn’t surprise me if either his or Ven’ari’s investigations resulted in the Jailer finding about the Sepulcher and in hopes of finding out more about the 7 that are actually Infinite sought to search the Sepulcher and resorted to violence when the Eternal Ones refused to give him their Sigils!
The Broker asking us about Ven’ari in Oribos told us that Ven’ari will have to answer Questions: They have no idea who blabbed to the Jailer about their investigation and are suspecting both investigators of being the cause of the Jailer’s rampage!
Of course that means Sire Denathrius was attempting to subvert the other Cosmic Realms before the Jailer turned Villain against the Shadowlands in desperation for knowledge! Denathrius it seems only refused to give the Sigil until the imprisoned Jailer started making rants about tearing everything down which was well in Denathrius’s goals!
That also means the Lich King wasn’t originally in Denathrius’s plan for the Legion but an addition when he teamed up with the Jailer when he announced a plan to wash all away.
That means Nathrezim not only stole the Primus’s finest Mourneblade and the Helm of Domination(presumably created so that he can subjugate the Mawsworn the second they broke out) but brought it to the Legion as soon as Kil’jaeden made his plans to create the Scourge known!
A masterful stroke of opportunism even if not thought out as well as one expects! The Nathrezim had no plans for Arthas backstabbing Ner’zhul nor of the Jailer making his own schemes that undermined their own work in the Legion which naturally comes as a result of plan created on the spur of the moment!
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