I started play Warcraft 3 reforged the other day and in the opening cinematic it says that the burning shadow was coming to consume the living (when the human and orc are fighting) and it showed a brownish type shadow coming out of the sky.
So is this “burning shadow” mentioned in W3 where the shadowlands comes from? That shadow that exists apart of the realm of the living that comes to consume their souls/anima?
I’m just getting into the Lore, first by playing W3 and also reading the chronicles. So wanted to ask the WoW historians here. Thanks!
Pretty sure that references the Burning Legion. You can also check out Wowpedia dot org for more information on things.
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Burning shadow wast just a silly way to say Burning Legion. The Legion was a intergalatic army of demons that travelled the cosmos consuming planets. We defeat them in World of Warcraft Legion.
The Shadowlands are another plane of existence, the place where souls go to start their afterlifes. The Jailer controls one of the many shadowlands realms and he wants to remake the reality because of ??? (idk blizzard don’t tell these stories in game i need to read a lore book or something)
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ah ok so the shadow in burning shadow has nothing to do with the shadowlands.
So was Shadowlands mentioned before in any previous lore? Or is it something brand new that they just created for this expansion?
It’s been mentioned here and there (Wraith Walk said you sidestepped into the Shadowlands, for example) but there hasn’t really been a fleshed-out version of it until recently.
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I’m hoping they give us more information about the First Ones.
There was only vague hints at Shadowlands being a place before this xpac. edit: Most of the hints also suggested it was something like the Emerald Dream but for death/shadow magic stuff not really where souls go when they die. Before this we only had a vague idea that something happened to dead people and some could be brought back and some couldn’t.
It is likely that they didn’t really flesh out the idea for what shadowlands is beyond, the place that has to do with death stuff, until Legion at the earliest. That’s when we started to really get into the story of Sylvanus other than her first story arc of vengeance.
They have in my opinion put too much into this whole effort to tie everything that has happened so far (other then the random bbeg showing up out of no where) into being a secret part of the Jailers plan to escape. I guess they had hoped it would make him seem more threatening if he gave a variation on “it was all part of my plan all along!” but it just feels forced when all he does after that is stand there or turn and walk away so we can escape.
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Shadowlands has had references in the dk class hall campaign in Legion.
In WoD’s shadowmoon burial ground, Ner’zhul states he’s drawing power from the Shadowlands… so it’s been canon since at least WoD, at least, as it’s understood to be the realm of the dead.
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