Shadowlands lore still hurts me to my core

You can’t please everyone and some folks you can’t please at all.

IIRC Vampland is only for those so stuck in their evil ways and sadism that they’d be a danger to the working order of the shadowlands if not given “therapy”.

If you’re a “Just following orders” dude who punted babies off a cliff because your superior ordered it, you’re more likely to be a Kyrian, and if you’re a brutal warmonger who did things out of pragmatism or a code of honor, Maladraxxus.

Which isn’t to say the system works well. It clearly does not!

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Grimoire of the Shadowlands and Beyond, as well as in-game references.

When a mortal dies, a Kyrian Watcher will find the soul and look at it, see its last acts, etc, to determine if it is ready to pass on to the Shadowlands. If it is the Watcher will ring a bell to summon a Kyrian Bearer, who then carries the soul to Oribos where it is judged by the Arbiter.

However, not all souls are ready when a Kyrian Watcher finds them. Some souls refuse to accept that they are dead and refuse to pass on. They become ghosts that we see around Azeroth. Others refuse to pass on because they have unfinished business or something holding them to the mortal plane. This was the case with Tamaala Bloodhoof, Baine’s mother, who refused to leave her life-mate’s side and continued to watch over Cairne until his death. It is also the case for Cairne, who likewise refused to pass on into the Shadowlands as long as his son still lived, so his soul watches over Baine to this day. In all of these cases, the Kyrian Watcher acknowledges that the soul is not ready and rather than force the soul to move on, does not ring the bell and summon a bearer for that soul, choosing to wait until a time comes when they are ready to move on.

Finally there are those who do not pass on to the Shadowlands because another cosmic force has a stronger hold on them such as Night Elves who become wisps due to the hold that the cosmic force of life has on them, and Sir Bridenbrad, the Argent Crusader in Northrend who was taken by the Naaru, beings from the cosmic realm of light. If a Kyrian Watcher runs into a soul that has a strong cosmic pull on it, they will not summon a bearer and instead will leave that soul to be taken by the other cosmic force, no matter what that force may be.

Actively praying for Murozond out of no where causing time shenanigans that somehow erase the Shadowlands as we know them forever.

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But wouldn’t any change to the timeline merely be an alternate one? Fated to fade into oblivion while the prime timeline continues trucking on? :joy: like I get WoW explained that changes to the prime timeline are big bad, but just seems like it creates an alternate timeline to begin with.

Depending on context, you’d either wind up at Revendreth or the Maw under the old regime.

It’s like everything else in this setting’s metaphysics.

It just works.

Todd Howard joined the chat

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And there may be souls that the Watcher never gets to. Such as the souls sacrificed in dark rites to the Outer Gods. Such rites bypass the entire system and deliver those souls directly to the Old Ones for whatever purpose they deem.

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Was there anyone in Revendreth that wasn’t a criminal on like a global scale, or a vicious sociopath who enjoyed torture and killing?

See the weird thing is Dragonflight is not treating alternate timelines as if they will fade. It is taking a much more Loki angle on alternate timelines where they are not inherently unstable… which makes me wonder now if the Bronze flight prunes them also.

The one true timeline must be upheld, all false timelines must be destroyed.

They did this way before Shadowlands. Back in Cata actually as a way to explain why Azuregos, a world boss was ‘respawning’.

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It originally was that they just fade after springing forth, unless it was tied to the prime. It was how alternate draenor didn’t fade into non existence, but whatever. Seems a moot point now.

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Oh yeah, I know. Dragonflight seems to be framing the Bronze as keeping the one true timeline pure… but if all false timelines self destruct what is there to keep pure? The only logical answer I can come to is that the One True Timeline is more… the timeline Aman’thul wants to play out at the cost of all others.

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And this is why I’m gonna be mostly against time travel in a narrative, it gets really REALLY messy.

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Calling it now, the reason it didn’t fade into non existence is because Yrel decided to anchor it using light magic.

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I was about to say Blanchy but then there’s this.

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Banged my head against that notion a bit as well. If there is one true timeline and the others disintegrate, Bronze seem to waste a lot of time “fixing” doomed timelines. Then you’ve got one Burning Legion existing across all realities to further complicate things, because that similarly implies the same of cosmic forces. But we ourselves time travel to a world where Old Gods and Aspects exist (which necessitates Titan/Keeper involvement) to steal an alternate Dragon Soul. Then you’ve got the AU-Mag’har coming on over to our world and the Bronze Flight is just like shrug.

This is what happens when you make a time travel expansion and answer every question about time travel with “this isn’t a time traveling expansion.”

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I think, at least in TBC, the idea was that crime travel didn’t create parallel realities, only 1 actually existed linearly and fully. And that by destabilizing it, that stability would ravel, and the single ‘true timeline’ is gone as a result, and it is doomed to just poof like all those other realities…

By this point tho its impossible to not look at it and see the really glaring retcons. For all the good DF does in making the narrative team go hands off for the questlines- it does also lead to other things that don’t make sense: such as the Void Elf and Lightforged Time Wardens arguing if Time is like the Void - infinite and all possibilities, or the one true path like the Light sees. When obviously, since the Bronze Flight upholds that 1 true timeline Aman’thul taught them of, the mortals they make their servants and agents seemingly should also be of that mindset in order to retain membership?

Hit the nail right on the head there, it requires you to operate solely on rule of cool and nothing else. No thought nothing.

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