In fact, all the examples you cited are discussed in detail later on in the article, under the Speculation section with the following disclaimer…
And the bolding for emphasis was not done by me. Wowpedia is a fan site run by fans. They attempt to form a coherent and consistent body of lore, but what gets posted is not official and is prone to just as much headcanon as anything else.
This is what I mean when I say the official lore regarding what happens to peoples’ souls when they permanently move on beyond the corporeal world is rather weak to nonexistent, and open to a lot of interpretation.
dk starting zone has us going into the shadowlands to meet up with…that horseman guy.
dk ability has wraith walk (tooltip says we sidestep into the shadowlands)
a bit of questing in Northrend and you meet Arthas in the Shadowlands, says he remembers being a shaman
I think the wowwiki covered that one, where the term used was “realm of shadows”.
Now that’s a definite example. This ability was introduced in Legion too, so a clear example of the term “shadowlands” to refer to the actual land of the dead prior to BfA. I don’t edit Wowwiki, but it should be worth adding.
This one I couldn’t find a reference for. Did he call it “shadowlands”? But on an even more interesting note (for me at least), when was Arthas a shaman?
Hoping that there is a good chunk of Priest/Death Knight world building with this expansion as akin to the Emerald Dream being very heavy in Druid world building.
Maybe even Orcs in terms of Ancestor worship? Iunno, we’ll see
I actually liked RPing in WoD, as I could ignore the expansion when RPing on Azeroth, or visit Draenor when desired. Hoping this one works the same, but fear they will some hit the bad spot by implying Azeroth is all scourge-invaded, but not show it.
I feel like this is something to look forward to, honestly, so long as the death stuff isn’t fully inclusive. I’d like to think a spiritual people like the Tauren do more than just become mindlessly obedient to the order of arcane owls or whatever.
I thought the souls of creatures that died went on to live in the Dream until they were reincarnated. The Wild Gods lived in the Dream until they were reborn. G’hanir is literally a giant tree in the Emerald Dream that houses the souls of all the birds.
Outside lore sources like wowpedia say this, but so does the Artifact Knowledge book text for (I think - I know resto and bear do) all the druid artifact weapons.
“Many Wild Gods perished in the war against the Legion. Ursol and Ursoc remained together, fighting back to back, using Freya’s gifts to bring down waves of demonic enemies. But their strength had limits. An unending tide of felstalkers finally overwhelmed them, and they both died in battle. Their spirits traveled together to the Emerald Dream, where they stayed for millennia.” - The Claws of Ursoc, Part Eight
“As life flourished on Azeroth, generations of animals came and went. Soon the Emerald Dream was filled with the spirits of countless beasts.” - G’hanir, the Mother Tree, Part Three
“It was more than a tree; it was a source of life, healing, and peace. Aviana spent years melding her power into the tree, and soon all living winged creatures on Azeroth dreamed of spending the afterlife flying through its branches.” - G’hanir, the Mother Tree, Part Four
And I think somewhere it says you’d find the souls of powerful druids there as well.
Druid lore on the afterlife is established, at least for wild things and some really connected to nature. Obviously this doesn’t cover everyone’s afterlife, but I’m still kind of peeved that they’re making some new area Ardenweld that goes against everything that they’ve taught the druids for 15,000+ years up til now.
My question was regarding what happens to a human.
Druids definitely talk about what happens to Wild Gods, animal spirits, and possibly powerful druids. They go and regenerate and come back. And from what we’ve seen about Shadowlands so far, that’s still the case.
But it pretty much nothing to say about what happens to the soul of say, a human, when they die.
So this kind of begs the question of does the Shadowlands act as a host to all soul across the WoWverse? And if so, is Blizzard going to tease new races that are from other planets or naw.
Will we see Ethereals that suffered from the Void Lords consumption of their planet? Do Void Lords consume their victims souls similar to the Maw?
Sanhe is going to end up basically just… showing up in places. The reason for this ability won’t be obvious, but she’ll pretty much just find every hidden door, every secret passage, and end up inside to ransack the place for stuff to sell where it’s safe.
Also in terms of the shadowlands being restrictive. Bwonsamdi also has a place in there, a dungeon, suggesting every afterlife is another section. We’re just seeing the default rooms, basically the unclaimed baggage section where all the souls who don’t have anything else claiming them get sent. Everything on Draenor was Naaru keeping souls from moving on. Tauren have an endless prairie. Yes, these will probably be glossed over, which is for the best, really. I want just enough to say the possibilities are endless, not every answer for every race.
For what it’s worth, in Bolvar’s voiceover of the shadowlands features overview he mentions the realm of shadow, and then a few seconds later refers to it as the shadowlands. I’m not sure how official a promotional video is but it’s what we’ve got so far.
Not excited about the RP prospects. As has been said before, RPers will certainly find a way, but it’s just not the kind of RP I’m into. Like many others, I like engaging in the current content and storyline while RPing, but I prefer having a more grounded experience that doesn’t revolve around the heroes of the universe. Hopefully it will be fun, but it’s not a direction I’m keen on.
