Father of Sleep, Son of Time, the Night’s Friend, Mueh’zala ushered the dead of Azeroth long before Bwonsamdi made his first deal. He knows a god should rule, not beg for servants and worshipers. The plans he laid in ancient times to reclaim that power are coming to fruition, once he deals with his rebellious replacement.
Given Kyrians have existed for Eons™ this raises the following questions:
How long ago is long before?
How long have there been things going from Azeroth to the Shadowlands?
How was Muehzala a Psychopomp if Kyrians exist?
Does this mean Mueh (and thus Life On Azeroth) predate the Kyrians existing?
doesn’t look like Methuselah was a psychopomp outside of the word ushered being used. most likely kyrians would just ferry the souls to him before bwon, considering the necropolis is in ardenweald a realm of rebirth and Mueh is a god of sleep troll souls would go to his realm to sleep until they were reborn, but at some point he went evil and began devouring the souls instead.
also if the kyrians used to bring souls to mueh they would only bring ones the arbiter decreed would be reborn, with bwon as the ferryman instead all troll souls go to the other side which is much better for the death loas. this would explain why so many death entities don’t like bwonsamdi.
If Mueh has been ushering the dead of Azeroth (note: the dead in general, not the dead trolls of Azeroth) since long before, and we know Kyrians were made (Kyrestia is the Firstborn, she uses the word “we” when speaking about letting go of mortal lives), it implies Mueh was the “original” psychopomp of Azeroth, PreKyrian.
I mean if you want to read it in the worst possible light then sure but maybe an exercise in optimism is good for you
I’m more inclined to think they’ll just leave this lore ambiguity until kingdom come because they don’t care to give Troll lore any deep and meaningful analysis.
I haven’t looked at really anything about Bastion related content; I guess I just assumed that each of the ‘realm’ pretty much just kept to themselves.
Perhaps Mueh was the greeter at the door, and the kyrians were the receptionists? I don’t see a reason why the two positions could not coexist, and eventually the kyrians assumed Mueh’s position (for whatever reason)?
Because the current datamined Covenant Campaign questlines seem to indicate:
Ardenweald was made simultaneous to the Jailer being locked away
Kyrians other than the Archon were only made via a Vessel from Ardenweald being used to make the Crest of Ascension
Bwonsamdi is able to funciton as a Psychopomp such that there are no Spirit Healers (aka Kyrian Watchers) in Zandalar; and he derived his capacity from Muehzala who was the original Loa of Death
Kyrians are the Psychopomps, normally, of all beings of the cosmos. They can be “usurped” locally, e.g. Helya and Odyn, but the implication of Mueh seems to be that he had control over the dead of the whole planet.
My theory that the Shadowlands (plural) used to be Shadowland (singular) and that the Jailer was the original King/Judge of all the dead, but all that fell apart with the First Ones helped the Eternals launch a coup d’etat after the Winter Queen was kidnapped (like Hades did to Persephone) from the Dream thus making Elune mad seems increasingly likely.
All the souls maybe are supposed to originally go through Goroga the River of Souls? Like in Greek mythology with the rivers of the underworld.
If Ardenweald wasn’t there originally, and Bastion’s Kyrians came after Ardenweald coming into being, there was a prior order that everyone decided sucked.
We don’t really know the context of ‘ushered the dead’ here. It could just mean some in the way that Bwonsamdi only looks after some undead. Given Bwonsamdi is referenced as his replacement.