Blizzard shows everyone in small amounts to be done and seen by a PC in one quest. Then they have the NPCs react appropriately. Like Tryande being able to go off and hunt Sylvanas because the Night Elve souls have been freed.
Blizzard does this all time. Blizzard considers it solved. You can convince your self they are out to get you. But that won’t change anything.
You can accept this. You can quit the game. Or you can keep paying Blizzard a subscription fee so you can keep hating them.
This is all that comes to mind to me when we are told the Kaldorei are “nearly” wiped out.
The Kaldorei I think will be fine. The Sundering was a WAY bigger kick in the teeth and they rebounded from that. And Blizzard has wisely refused to give specific percentages as they learnt their lesson from giving those for the Quel’dorei. It has always haunted them ever since.
So, yeah. There will be as many Kaldorei as the story dictates, really.
To be fair the living have the claim to Lordaeron when it comes to historical statutes, but with the advent of Calia Menethil as the leader and surviving heir to Terenas joining the Forsaken. This now is solidly contested and so long as she has precient claim even as undead and since pass that title to her fellow undead. The undead can claim Lordaeron as theirs by birthright.
The living however also share the claim as they are also born from Lordaeron stock and many actually birthed there. So it’s now a matter of who’s might is stronger not so much who’s birthrights are more legitimate.
If the Forsaken want their people to ever have a future now that they cant propagate their existence on others. They will need the living to inherit their lands once their bodies collapse due to old age and rot. I doubt Calia Menethil will be encouraging new people to be given the curse of undeath.
Sort of a weird thought though. Can they? Does Human law recognize the undead, or does their right to land end when they die. That sort of stuff I am always fascinated by.
Why would the forsaken care about what human law says though? That’s the least of their worries 
Historically it’s the living heirs like Weldon Barov mentioned. He considered their claims moot. We also had Admiral Rogers affirming that as her opinion. Lordaeron belongs to the living, but outside of comments from extreme partisans especially Barov who’s claims to his inheritance is based on titles and deeds, as well as his very selfish nature, can we take it at word value?
They could claim it without Calia since they ARE Lordaeronians by birth and death. They’re the ones that stayed.
The Forsaken discarded any claim they might have had by waging war on what remained of Lordaeron’s legitimate government, betraying the kingdom to the Horde a’la Alterac, swearing fealty to a Thalassian foreigner, and numerous unprovoked crimes and massacres against their former countrymen.
To say nothing of the fact that their very souls have been twisted and turned into something altogether different.
Calia has actually abdicated her claim to the throne.
Valeera Sanguinar says: Lady Menethil, may I ask if… oh, forgive me. Should I refer to you as princess, or are you now a queen?
Calia Menethil says: Lady Menethil is fine. Calia is even better. I gave up my claim to the throne long ago.
So it seems that the people with the strongest claim now are Calia’s missing daughter, Weldon Barov, or Turalyon.
Alterac was a separate kingdom, one of the Seven.
And who gets to decide legitimacy?
Yeah, and the most infamous part of its history was when a small portion of its population (namely the Perenoldes) sold out their kingdom and humanity by effectively joining the Horde. Much like how the Forsaken did.
The guys with the biggest and baddest army, which in this case is the Alliance.
In fact, nobody actually recognizes in any practical sense the idea that the Forsaken are the political successors to the Kingdom of Lordaeron. Nobody in the Alliance does and not even the Horde does, because if they did the Horde would be whining to them about the internment camps and Garithos and whatnot.
Instead, that whining is directed at the Alliance, which is a de facto recognition of the Alliance’s status as Lordaeron’s political successor.
Not that what the Horde thinks actually matters in this case. What Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff think matters far, far less than what Gilneas, Stromgarde, Stormwind, Kul’Tiras, and the former Kingdom of Lordaeron’s provincial governments believe.
None of them recognize the Forsaken as Lordaeron’s successors. They might be convinced to allow the Forsaken to remain in Tirisfal, but it won’t be on the basis of Forsaken legitimacy vis-a-vis Lordaeron, it will be on the basis of pity.
I still think one of the best ways going forward to handle the Lordaeron situation once and for all is to simply split the Kingdom between Humanity and the Forsaken. Perhaps one group takes Stratholme and the Other takes the Ruins of Capitol City and those become the new Kingdoms of Human & Forsaken Lordaeron. I love the idea though of Turalyon becoming the new King of Lordaeron if there’s no Menethil.
There’s also the option for Human Lordaeron of building a new capitol city somewhere in Hillsbrad. It could be built on the former ruins of Southshore (Which we know the Alliance has retaken and is cleansing) or perhaps in the Old Hillsbrad fields area they could construct a new city. Either way it could serve as the new acting capitol of Alliance Lordaeron.
I am not sure that is really feasible, every RL parallel I can find of dividing a nation between two competing powers have ended very poorly. Unless they keep taking in new dead the Forsaken will erode away anyways, so I cannot imagine a forsaken Lordaron being a thing for long.
…It is also worth noting that Stratholm is uninhabitable because it is apparently cursed to burn forever.
I could imagine a fair number Humans like Zelling facing that black tunnel might actually opt to have themselves raised as undead.
They have no reason to now that we know that there’s an afterlife. The only people who would opt to be raised as undead are people who are pretty sure they’re going to hell, precisely the last kind of people you want to raise.
Generally, people turning themselves into monsters because they’re afraid to die and want to live forever is a villain arc.
It’s wasted opportunity for Blizzard to not recenter the Forsaken as “race of undead being given a second chance to avoid Hell and in service to the Primus”, which allows them a metaphysical purpose for existing and also retains the Victorian Gothic-Southern Gothic-20th c Zombie-Traditional Folklore Horror elements
Which means they won’t do it at all
I don’t even know how more forsaken will be made at this point given the Val’kyr peaced out with Sylvanas and are now very dead. The only path for that to occur is if they somehow strike an accord with the Primus, and he has one of his liches assist them.
The fact that they have no metaphysical purpose for existing is central to why they’re a tragic race. Undeath is by definition a violation of the natural order, and one of the driving themes of undeath in folklore is that trying to continue existing long after you were supposed to die is far uglier than simply dying.
The moral of these stories is usually to make peace with death and to recognize that when the time comes it should be welcomed as a friend, not feared as an enemy. Having undeath be granted a material purpose in the natural order completely undercuts that theme.
Agreed to a point, it is by the grace of the Alliance that Tirisfal was ceded back to the Forsaken after the Fourth War was over, but the Forsaken have lost most of their original lands to the Alliance. The Forsaken however are given some credence thanks to Calia Menethil as much as she decries and claims her abdication of the throne should remove her from legitimacy, but her name still carries weight. I think the Alliance somewhat understands where some of the undead are coming from as the original inhabitants. Especially Anduin, but not so much king Greymane or Sky Admiral Rogers, or the surviving Barov and the other nobility especially Turalyon…
At least the Alliance retains much of the Hillsbrad Foothills and Southshore was taken. Tarren Mill exists, but for how long? Silverpine is pretty much worgen territory as Fenris Isle and Shadowfang Keep are solidly Alliance. This basically stops Forsaken from having any significant presence in the forest.
The Argent Crusade controls much if not all of old Eastweald aka the Plaguelands. So the Forsaken don’t even have much outside of the one remnant territory within Tirisfal. The Alliance basically took all the theaters of war, and isolated them within one section of the continent. I just wish we could see that in game.
Not in WoW, where undead are a playable race that will continue existing so long as the game exists.
Playable races need a narrative reason to exist
yup, just talked about it in my Forsaken Customization thread
Their narrative reason to exist is that they already exist so they might as well see things through until true death takes them like it will everyone eventually.
They can exist without making more undead. As you said it’s not like they’re going to be removed from the game. Perpetuating undeath isn’t a necessary condition for them continuing to exist for the game’s lifespan.