Ardenweald is more class tied than anything else, probably the one that is most tied to a class thing like Hunters and Druids (and to some slight extent maaaaaybe shamans.
I didn’t really see many palm trees in Zandalari culture. There were huge big spiraling trees, which I would have liked more of sure; but yeah. Palm trees seemed to just be a Darkspear thing, and that was mostly because they were on a sorry-excuse for an island as a home.
I would had liked more collapsed trees, with spiraling archs and more imagination depth with it - such as perhaps creating waterfalls over those collapsed spiralled trees, and having a cave through one of them that reveals a hidden Loa Wildseed pod, with anima droplets dripping onto it from the center of the tree-roof-cave.
Honestly I’d like if they later plotted out that the realms we see (Revendreth, Ardenweald, Bastion & Maldraxxus) are simply the ‘capitals’ of the respective factions and they have further & larger territories of their realms through the infinity of the realms of the Shadowlands they were simply cut off from when the anima-drought struck.
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Bastion and Ardenweald are boring as hell anyways.
Ardenweald is just confusing to me because IDK if the spirits and fae are soul stuff or which ones were mortals etc. Idk what happens with souls that go there (like night elves) I know some are supposed to rebirth etc, but wouldn’t that kinda explain why the drust are there? but they are just terrorizing the zone instead?
Revendreth/maldraxxus makes more sense I suppose, Revendreth has that “purging of sins” thing going on.
Bastion is just Cult of angels.
From what I understand, if it’s that glowy blue you see when people Soulshape around, it’s a dead guy and they don’t get reborn. Only the magic animal gods do; Vol’jin’s a weird exception for Reasons because apparently it’s never happened before. I don’t know why Bwonsamdi doesn’t count for that, unless he’s just never ever died as a loa.
Although there was one soul that just wants to sit around and be grass for all eternity, but whatever floats their boat.
Drust are invading because they can’t permadie and it’s torture and I think they’re trying to steal anima power to specifically be reborn just to die again and be free of it.
I think Bwonsamdi died and Mueh’zala just brought him back tbh
The only people saying the identification with Night Elves is based solely on trees are people mocking the idea.
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I already had someone reply with a genuine concern about the trees concept / why. 
Though, I provided my intake on their reply nonetheless.
I’m only up to renown level 20, but at the moment I have roughly the same reaction to what you’re saying as your reaction was to the claim that it’s more Troll than Night Elf.
It feels pretty evenly mixed, with a bit of tauren and kul tiran thrown in. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, since it’s resolving plot arcs from both factions simultaneously. Like if you didn’t play the Horde BFA campaign you’d have no idea what all this business is with the loa in the Maw and Zul’jin.
It’s only a really good zone for people like me who played both sides in BFA on a character like mine who in my head-canon isn’t all that hostile towards the Horde (with the obvious exception of Sylvanas).
Otherwise you’re going to be a Horde player wondering why you care about saving Tyrande, or an Alliance player who is rubbing elbows with troll gods while you’re like “Excuse me literally who are you and why should I care?”
And then The Doctor comes and turns them all into the Key of Time. 
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Than go Super Saiyan on all things forever, because of a power myth that never actually existed
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You are among my favorites posters in this place
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Love ya too Xama 
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Keep de loa works in fightin’ Nelfies alts!
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Hmm… Do trolls have Exodia pieces? Or do we have something else?
You have de Heart of de Cards, mon.
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I am going to point out that is something you are bringing to it yourself. Which is fine and very normal. You are making a connection yourself. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as you don’t assume intent.
The zone was actually heavily inspired by the Celtic afterlife. Specifically Tír na nÓg. Notice all the ‘Tirna’ names? The whole Fae thing is pretty heavily Celtic as well.
It really was not designed around Night Elves. And the look is actually not that close to the Night Elf zones.
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Almost 2k guys
A key factor to all the trolls that became Loa (Bwonsamdi, Zanza the Restless, and possibly the ones with troll-faced idols in Zul’Drak such as Zim’Abwa, Dubra’Jin, Zim’Rhuk, and Zim’Torga) is that they did so when they were alive, while Vol’jin has obtained this inkling of spirit-god-power after death. If all worked as normal, Bwonsamdi would presumably get sent to Ardenweald to be restored if he got taken out.
Guess I’ll do my part to contribute to getting this thread to 2K… or mercilessly kill it with a wall of text. Only history may judge.
I’ve already contributed twice to this thread, but I did actually do a writeup on the topic last month. It can be found on Scrolls of Lore.
But for those who aren’t a fan of SOL’s color scheme - enjoy:
I’m fortunate to be able to say that in my life, I’ve had several chances to travel. I’ve seen Rome, I’ve partied in Paris, Dublin was okay, and Vienna was sort of fascinating.
Vienna is covered in Franz Joseph Statues and it kind of seems like in some of the architecture, he was trying to LARP as Napoleon Bonaparte, who himself was trying to LARP as Caesar. Franz Joseph lived in Schönbrunn Palace, and if you go there… let me just say - I knew that the Hapsburgs liked to LARP as Romans, but I didn’t know they did it quite this hard. Walking around the palace gardens you get the impression that someone said “yeah, I’ll take all of your Roman looking statues. Just put them everywhere. Fetch me a toga while you’re at it.” I have to admit that I was quite entertained at the lengths these discount Germans were willing to go to do this - especially when I remember that it used to be way, way worse.
We have that palace because some time ago the “Holy Roman Emperor” bought the land for it. We have the Holy Roman Empire because some Franks, some Germans, and some Lombards, etc. thought it would be fun to LARP as the Roman Empire - which is kind of funny because there already was a Roman Empire at the time. Several hundred years before, the real Roman Empire split itself into the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, with the former based out of Rome and the latter out of Constantinople (not Istanbul). The West fell, but the East kept going for another thousand years. They called themselves Romans, other people, including their enemies called them Romans, and they kept up a fair number of Roman Traditions - like what had become a theme at the time of the Western Empire’s Fall: Christianity.
And because they had the Vatican, the “Latin” church could from time to time claim to be the center of Christianity. Now, if you’re a Roman at the time, you might be thinking “who do these LARPing Barbarians think they are? Weren’t these the guys who SACKED Rome?”, but the LARPing Barbarians did eventually pretty much swipe Christianity as a theme. Sure, Orthodoxy lumbers on, but these days they do it largely from Russia, and let’s be honest here. They don’t have the Vatican or its vast repository of statues of naked people.
Now, if you’re a “Byzantine” (that’s the name the LARPing Barbarians would later give to the Eastern Roman Empire, to avoid confusion with the Holy Roman Empire) refugee in 1453 - sure, you can stamp your feet about how your people started this whole Christianity thing, and curse out the LARPing Barbarians for sitting by and munching popcorn as they watched Constantinople get swiped by some Turk (who, by the way, also is now LARPing as the “Caesar of the Roman Empire”), but all of that won’t change the fact that Christianity isn’t “your thing” anymore. It hasn’t been “your thing” for a while, actually. If it’s anyone’s thing, it’s the LARPing Barbarians’ thing.
That’s sort of how I feel about Night Elves and druidism. It’s Night Elf in appearance more often than not, but Blizzard is usually careful to throw up a wall between the playable faction and the druidic content. I would regard content as being “someone’s” content if they derived a benefit from it - a continuing thing that can be incorporated into their society. It’s hard to argue that such is happening when Cenarius and the druids have pretty much washed their hands of the Night Elves in their time of greatest need (twice now). Yeah, we got Malfurion back for five minutes, and some druidic elements have returned, that’s nice. But Night Elf druidism doesn’t seem, for the most part, to be a thing that matters for the playable Night Elf faction - it matters, frankly, for the LARPing Barbarians.
The possible exception here might be Ysera, who claims that she would have fought for the Night Elves if she was alive. Oh, neat. So where was she in Cataclysm? In Hyjal? Okay, how about Mists? Chilling with Cenarius, got it. In BFA, I guess being dead is a pretty good excuse, so what about her brood? Because I missed the part where green dragons cared enough to intervene in the War of the Thorns or do anything in the wake of it. I’m going to have to call BS here. This kind of looks like Blizzard thinking that if they say something, it’s just as good as if it was actual content, which, ha ha - no.
So, yeah, I am feeling just a bit bitter about Ardenweald and its continuation of this neutral druidic content trend. I certainly don’t feel like this content is “for me”, and I’m a bit resentful of the idea that if the opposite faction guts me and wears my intestines as a hat, that I should be grateful because we’re experiencing “my content”(s) which they don’t even like anyway and are angry about having to wear.
Speaking of…
Of what we can firmly call Night Elf content - that which matters to the playable faction - we have Shandris, Tyrande, and the rescue of Night Elf souls from the Maw. That’s good I guess, even if I hate this expansion’s whole premise, it’s better than nothing. I watched the questline and as much as Tyrande annoys me, and as much as I hate the word “Minn’do” now - it’s still a good thing that all of those people that the Horde killed won’t eternally suffer.
What I don’t like is that it’s possible for a Sylvanas loyalist - who during BFA wouldn’t shut up about how the Night Elves deserved it, how Sylvanas did nothing wrong, how much they hate Night Elf fans (or the secret mastermind who they think is REALLY behind it all), and how they shouldn’t get what they gave because they pay fifteen dollars a month - to now play-act as the savior of the Night Elf souls that they put there as they sicc Shandris on Night Elf players in Warmode. I think that’s actually pretty disgusting.
In fact I think it’s disgusting that the Horde even has the option to help out here. I am aware that many legitimately did not ask for this, but I didn’t either, and the faction and unfortunately the character involved here largely didn’t stop taking Sylvanas’s orders or doing Sylvanas’s bidding until they worked out that it was no longer in their interests to do so. Sylvanas didn’t change the Horde’s culture or sell them on something different - she tricked them into committing, and staying committed to a war on the basis of a pre-existing ideology, and pre-existing interests. Reacting to her saying “the Horde is nothing” by telling her to pound sand is not redemption in my mind.
For those Horde players who didn’t want this, I’m sorry, but what I just described above needs to have at least some consequences. That means I don’t think that Tyrande should stomach working with you. I don’t think even you should get to play-act as the savior of the Night Elves. If you want to do that, roll a human.
Those are pretty much my thoughts. I get a steady drip-feed of spoilers, but admittedly, I didn’t do the kind of diligence to get myself up to speed as I did with Legion or BFA - I can’t be asked to with this snoozer of an expansion concept. I’m mostly looking for things that would appeal to me as a longtime Night Elf fan who would love to come back if they gave me compelling reasons to do so. I’m not finding them here. In fact I think this zone manages to make things worse for Night Elf fans in general for the reasons I described.
So, Ardenweald? Thanks, I hate it.
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What about those Horde players who said “I don’t like it either”? You don’t want them to be able to have their character do something to wipe out the “stain” of BfA? Do you want to hate them forever?
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