Shadowlands, Death, and RP

Shadowlands presents a very unique challenge for writing in World of Warcraft, so I thought I’d tackle the three biggest questions I’ve seen bouncing around. As always, this is just my general musing about the subject, and by no means a hard and fast rule book. Take what you like, drop what you don’t, and have fun.

Keeping death permanent!

Why not just pop over to the Shadowlands and hang out with a deceased loved one? Bring them back home for some tea? - Someone on the forums who was expressing a valid concern about story direction.

I take your question as a challenge, good poster!

As Orpheus traveled to Hades to find Eurydice, visiting the afterlife to talk to your loved ones is a tremendous feat from which legends are forged. Even with a gigantic hole torn through the material of the sky and making an opening to the other side, I imagine most people don’t have the mettle to travel there. I imagine it takes the intervention of a powerful entity, physical prowess to endure the strain of travelling across realms, or mental resilience to handle the traumatic sights at the end of reality. That doesn’t even begin to cover whether or not someone would trust you to go in the first place. Overall, you’re likely going to have a hard time getting there at all. We also know that as of launch, the PC will be the first soul to escape the Maw -ever-, or at least in a very long time. Travelling there is like an astronaut going to the moon in our modern day. Vetting, preparation, rituals, and all sorts of obstacles that make average travel impossible. Even the wealthy and influential can only start a mission to the Shadowlands, and by no means can they guarantee anything.

And to this end, it seems like very few things can come back from the afterlife. The Night Fae specifically hold the power to bring the spirits of nature back, such as Cenarius and Malorne, however the rest are there to stay. Or wait until their souls are allowed to move on and cycle once again. Kael’thas has died, Kael’thas will stay dead. We will interact with his soul and legacy in the vampire zone, but that’s about it.

You do not get to and from the Shadowlands lightly.

What is the average person doing in these times?

Which brings up its own question. How in hell are you supposed to RP in an expansion where the story is custom fit to the best of the best, the most exceptional legends and heroes? Well, I’ve got advice about that, too!

Azeroth is a vast, open world. The events in one area are not the only problems going on at a given moment. We know that swarms of the scourge will be loosed now that the Helm of Domination has shattered… And there are intelligent scourge who will prove a very dire threat if they are left unchecked. Your guild is free to move about and counter these terrestrial threats as the veil unravels. You can still be connected to the Shadowlands at that! Even on Azeroth, your enemies will be informed by the happenings in the Afterlife.

Maybe Tyranil the Lich is a Necrolord who seeks to further his master’s will, personally collecting souls by killing innocents on Azeroth. He hopes to ensure they are not sent to the Maw and plans to bring them to his master directly, increasing his power and by extension, elevating both of their positions in the Maldraxxus hierarchy. Your paladins rally on horseback and ride into the heart of the Plaguelands to bring Tyranil down, campaigning viciously against him tooth and nail, sword and board.

Maybe an ancient spirit of your clan is peeking through the veil. The afterlife promised has become unstable, and she needs her descendants to intervene. They are to be sent to gather powerful relics across her ancestral homeland and bring the souls back into tune and give them peace once again.

These ideas, and many like them, can extend the Shadowlands plot into Azeroth, and give you something to do with the set pieces on Azeroth. You don’t have to be goofing around in the Maw to engage in this thrilling campaign to come. If you don’t want to bother with Shadowlands at all? Don’t! Do craft fairs, engage in political intrigue, do archaeology, so on and so forth. This conflict is incredibly open ended, and leaves almost the whole of Azeroth untouched to do with whatever you will.

What about my afterlife?

The biggest concern I’ve seen is the worry that the four afterlives we’ve seen-that of the Necrolords of Maldraxxus, the Kyrian of Basion, the Night Fae of Ardenwald, and the Venthyr of Revendrath-aren’t really inclusive of your afterlife headcanons. This hearkens back to the ancestor plot hook I mentioned in the last section. It’s -critically- important to note, the arbiter and her four afterlives are not the only domains in the Shadowlands. These are merely the four realms that are most relevant in the current story, and thus are the only ones we visit.

We see that afterlives are still as they have always been, largely reliant on your race and religion. The trolls still have Bwonsamdi’s sacred halls in “The Other Side”, the Tauren have their ancestor worship seen just in the Heritage Scenario and probably have an afterlife of great endless pastures or something of the sort. It seems you go to one of the four covenants if you’ve nowhere else to go. Say if you’re an orc without any sacred places to rest your soul, like Draka.

Of course, over the past few years, all souls have gone to the Maw. That might be interesting to handle, hm?

Regardless, those are my thoughts on the three most expedient RP questions I’ve seen thus far. I hope you all have a great time writing. Blizzard is in hot water now, honestly for good reasons in a lot of ways, but I adore this community and the amazingly creative people who represent the best of what it can be. You all keep me going. Have FUN RPing in this story, enjoy the company of one another, embrace the writing and genius that RP can bring. Dress up in cool mog, make your characters smooch because you’re hopeless romantics. Just have fun <3

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I’m not even going to acknowledge the shadowlands in my RP. As far as Greyah knows the rumors of the Shadowlands opening up and people going into it are just fantastical rumors and she won’t believe it. It’ll be a non issue for me and my RP with her. This expansion is entirely for the “unnamed hero” and only them as far as I or Greyah is concerned

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I typed a few suggestions in another thread that didn’t really get attention but I still think they are potentially good ideas:

  1. There will more than likely be a portal network of some sort between the living world and Oribos. While portals in lore are hard to maintain, it’s possible to explain some of it this way. The Alliance and Horde have incredibly powerful arcane juice pumping through their mages so I wouldn’t be surprised if they could do it. Given the right circumstances.

  2. Classes that have connection or can make connection the the spirit realm might be able to do something similar once the above happens. Additionally, things like the Loa might be able to move you over for some kind of price. Bwonsamdi likes deals like this and seems like the best candidate. In BFA he’s definitely dealt with lower importance beings before.

  3. Depending on how the scenario goes, it could be pure dumb luck that you escape. It’s implied that there will be champions who don’t make it out of the Maw. But it never is said that none of them but the very best do. It’s certainly possible, but it’s something we have to wait and find out. If it’s similar to WoD’s tanaan scenario then a lot of champions don’t make it but a lot of nobodies do because they were lucky to be beside the big guys. If we get this, then this is the easiest one.

You have some good ideas if none of those pan out though.

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Thank you <3 Good concepts there, too. I hadn’t thought much about classes like death knights who would know the shadowlands a bit more than the rest. Good catch.

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I actually just found some confirmation that DKs and similar beings can feasibly do it. Dark Summoner Marogh from Legion has this as a description:

"A powerful necromancer has joined the cause of the Ebon Blade.

Dark Summoner Marogh has come a long way to us from deep within the realm of the Shadowlands. He will be a powerful ally of the Ebon Blade.

Speak with Dark Summoner Marogh to begin raising an army of ghouls for the Ebon Blade."

And given the Maw was eating folks then, its current enough lore.

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In ancient Sumerian myth, one of the goddesses (Ninsun or Ishtar I think) had to go to the afterlife for some reason and you would think being a deity she could just open a door and pop in for a chat with Ereshkigal or one of the other underworld beings but nope! She had to go through nine gates before getting to the other side. I forget what she had to do at each one, but she had to give up her power, status, jewellery, clothes and so on.

I highly doubt we could just find a tear in reality and visit the Shadowlands whenever we want. We’re not all the Hero of Azeroth, in fact I would say none of us are, and the Hero is a lore character themselves. It would be unwise and likely nearly impossible to go to the Shadowlands without dying.

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That’s Ishtar! She is actually judged guilty of hubris and killed. Her husband is later taken to serve her sentence in her place.

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In that Sumerian myth I believe it was Ishtar, her lover had fallen ill and died and she was more or less annoyed with the world for being lame, so she went down to hang out with him. The goddess of death was pissy about this and didn’t want to let her leave, so the ocean god created an androgynous person to go down and seduce the goddess of death to break Ishtar out.

The goddess of death in turn cursed the androgynous person to be scorned by society for the rest of time but also have awesome magical powers? So Sumerians thought being gender ambiguous meant you were psychic or something.

But yeah all that aside, difficult to get to the underworld.

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It’s been ages since I read Sumerian myths, so thanks for the refresher! <3

Also intersex and transgender and such have always been considered shamans and seers by many cultures.

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I honestly only know that one because it’s a reverse-Persephone which I got really, really into as a kid.

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My Trolls are going to have a blast. Especially Oba. She’s got a couple of family members there (some she sent herself) and she’s not too long for this world either.

I could see a lot of potential with Tauren and Orcs. They (along with their real world inspirations) are predicated on the idea that it’s possible to speak to, share food/gifts, and have relationships with the souls of the deceased. Some of the largest such celebrations in the western hemisphere just ended.

coughwhichiswhythereshouldhavebeenashaman/voodoothemecovenantcough

As for my more worldly and less religious characters, they definitely won’t be getting involved. Then again, they have a tendency not to get involved in the main story of any expansions, since I don’t tend to RP world hopping soldiers/bounty hunters/monster slayers in WoW.

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A shaman domain would have made more sense than Scourge town. I have a hard time believing the necrolords are gonna be good guys through and through, they’re just so… eeeevil in their societal structure which is reliant on ‘be strong or be meat’. Why not have the other side be one of the realms and covenants, and maldraxxus be the dungeon?

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Reminds me of one of the most humorous character encounters I ever saw mentioned on the forums. Seems there was this this farmer who knew for certain that bright light in the sky (Argus) was just a gummint conspiracy to tax his crops :smiley:

“How does this affect my character’s day to day life?” is a really good question for anything.

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I’ve never been particularly fond of looking for reasons you can’t RP in the expansion’s new zones. This is rather reminiscent of people who insisted we were trapped on Draenor and didn’t want to RP there either. Free travel may not be common when we first arrive but it almost certainly will be eventually, there’s a giant hole in reality right now, and just like there were portals to and from Draenor, there will probably be portals to and from the Shadowlands.

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Perfectly valid! I think the spirit was less that you can’t, and more a way to show you the reasonable obstacles to getting there to make the journey actually mean something narratively.

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Same, I have a feeling “… still exploring islands” is going to be what Sef does for a looooong time :face_with_monocle:

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Personally I love the concept of exploring the afterlife as an expansion, and just a few of the various realms souls go to. It seems like there’s a lot more than the few we’re going to, and the possibilities are pretty endless there.

Honestly, new lore is a welcome concept. When WoW relies entirely on old stuff instead of a mix of old and new, it feels like a theme park. When Legion rolled around, the thing I was most interested in was the Nightborne, as well as the artifacts that had not been heard of before moreso than the likes of the Ashbringer, etc. It feels like an actual expansion when they create new concepts and visuals, and Shadowlands is seemingly striking that balance for me.

It has the potential to revisit anyone we’ve killed and explore how death has changed their perspectives or worsened it. So long as they’re not in the maw, of course. Just the fact that we finally get to see Kael’thas again makes me giddy - I felt the dude got a raw deal in BC (who did’t, honestly) and seeing him in the repentance hell means he’ll likely go through a difficult redemption arc. And yes, I like redemption arcs when they’re well handled. I can see his arc being tied entirely to his pride and self-importance, as he believed only he was worthy to lead Quel’thelas after Anasterian’s death no matter the cost. I can also see that arc ending with him by some means coming to terms with the fact that no Prince rules fore–erm, I mean, that he must allow others a chance to stand in the eye of admiration of the people, and he personally declares Lor’themar as King rather than keeping him Reagent Lord.

As for my character, though, I can see him being softened by this. He will want to go on a journey to find his deceased mates, but odds are they wouldn’t be in any of the zones that we visit. It’ll probably send him into a period of depression. I don’t know. As for how he gets to the Shadowlands, we have yet to see if this is something the Alliance and Horde will send armies to, or if this really is going to be a one man journey by the hero that has gameplay supplemented by suspension of disbelief.

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I’m not sure how Lois is going to handle the Shadowlands. If she’s going to the same place most Undead are probably going to go, as of old lore that may or may not be canon any longer, she may not be so enthused by it. Probably as close to terror as she has been since she woke up as an Undead.

Isalenna is already terrified of death. Dying and being shoved into a soul-stone will do that for you. She’s going to find the nearest bed and hide under it. Perks of having lost weight, she can fit now without getting stuck as easily.

Hm… I don’t think any of my characters would really have any positive thoughts towards it. They don’t have anyone they’re looking forward to seeing again, by and large. Either they hated them, are absolutely indifferent or they’re still alive.

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Can’t wait for 8.3 so my nightborne death knight can smooch her withered ghoul husband in front of people. And then his eye falls out.

But ahem. Yeah, not sure what I’ll do with Altielle. She’s been semi current with events, having fought in the war, Nazjatar, and I have some plans for her with 8.3. But I don’t see her going to the Shadowlands. Might be a good expansion to focus on personal stories.

That said, I think my death knight, and others’, might have some good credence for being there. Necromancy likely has some interesting ramifications with the Shadowlands, and I could see it playing a role in RP and the Shadowlands.

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Y’know the reverse of this could be an equally fascinating question. For 2-ish years you know there’s a relatively easy way to go and see all your friends and family who you have lost. 2-ish years to get closure you couldn’t get before. 2-ish years to pick the minds of the greatest mages of the past. All you need to steal that gnome/goblins flying dirigible and make a mad dash above Icecrown. Do you take the risk or carry on knowing you had the chance and decided against it?

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