So lore freaks, lets do some clean up on aisle WoW

It has dawned on me that in order to really and truly retcon Teldrassil/Night Elf Genocide as well as Forsaken guaranteed extinction with no more Valkyr, We will have to turn the clock back to the end of Legion…where Sargeras plunges his sword into the heart of Azeroth…but before the BFA pre-patch events…right?

So my question / thought experiment, How would YOU like to see it done? How do we go from where we are to back to LEGION expansion? Clearly, N’zoth would not be viable as he was introduced in BFA as the big baddie 8.3 (end of BFA) meaning “It was all a dream of N’zoth” excuse would not really work as N’zoth is still imprisoned in Nazajtar. Chromie time?? End Time Dungeon prophecies? Infinite Dragonflight successfully corrupts the timeline?

How would you do it? Can it be done? Would you be fine with it?

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Well, for that level raw retconning, you’d still need something like the Old Gods in terms of sheer WTFery power.

But… that’s not that hard to come up with or imagine. The sword Gorribal (name may or may not be cannon at this point, but referring to Sargeras’ planet poker) would easily qualify. Let’s say that the blade, in blasting Sillithus into the crater it became, also fully finished off C’thun - wholesale dissolved it, consciousness, soul, and all. This is an Old God that is 100% indisputably DEAD.

All the residual energies of that Old God, rather than getting to form into a new set of Sha, combined with the evil Titanic magic of Sargeras and the bleeding out of Azeroth herself resulted in this massive planetary hallucination which we only now escape. The sheer power of it was such that even though it didn’t “really” happen, certain aspects (say, the gear we acquired) still solidly manifest in reality after the fact.

Confusion and chaos reigns for a few months as the world tries to come to grips with what happened and how much of it was real, but in the end, life goes on. The dying dreams of C’thun quietly fade from memory as any other dream, no matter how long or shared it may have been, but any deeper questions as to how much was prophecy and how much was nothing more than illusion gets cut off by the next great threat, whatever that happens to be.

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Khadgar: “Ah, Champion! You’re finally awake. What’s that? The Shadowlands? The Maw? The Fourth War? Void Elves? What are you talking about? The Horde and Alliance are joining forces in Silithus to save Azeroth, along with old allies and foes turned ally. King Rastakan of Zandalar has forged an alliance with the Horde. Wait, by Void Elves did you mean the members of the Silver Covenant under Alleria’s command and studying the Void? But we’re getting distracted. Come! Azeroth is dying and we must save her! Magni believes the answer may be found on a continent on the far side of our world.”

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As much as or anyone else here may want to, They are not going to retcon it. If anything the last thing they mentioned is the story will continue forward with the genocide and however the night elves, forsaken etc will reach to whatever happened in SL.

This is just a hard fact people will have to accept.

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Honest to God I’m willing to pretend this just never happened.

We just move on.

If anyone asks any questions you shrug and say you didn’t play those expansions but you heard it had problems.

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No, they won’t. It’s nice to think they would.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for one gigantic retcon though. As in, WoW 2, starting from Vanilla with a different set-up and avoiding all the horrible narrative pitfalls they fell into, while embracing what worked well.

Greetings Traveler! Stay a while, and listen.

The brilliant strategists and infiltrator known as the Dreadlords were designed by Sire Denathrius as an army, put in the hands of Zovaal his brother whom he helped power up the Maw, escape, take his sigil back, break into the Sepulcher with his very uni-directional plan to tamper with the Pattern of the First ones. A plan set on a doomed path of deafeat, as foretold by many ancient prophecies. All while the dreadlords now continue working on some master plan, even after Zovaals defeat… Makes one wonder what Denathrius has been skeeming all along in his 5D chess.

What ancient prophecies you say? Heh, you must’ve not been paying attention Hero! From our escape from the Maw, to the other First one Waystones that react to us only, to finding out the first one secrets being part of the pattern, a revelation that was to be known only when the time is right. By now surely you can see this was all designed to happen, including Zovaals rise and fall, perhaps more.

Zovaal is a cosmic essence that was bound to an automa, a first one built body, just like the bodies of the prototype Eternal pantheon we defeat in the Sepulcher of the First ones. Just like Pelagos will now be bound and fused into the new Arbitrer, so was the cosmic essence that made Zovaal. Their minds and personalities were forged and channeled to serve their purpouse, as you can see in the automa bodies designed for them, otherwise they’d just be roaming cosmic entities, energies that exist & clash at a cosmic level into an universe in continuos change. Entities that were given purpouse here, the Purpouse.

His motivation is not well explained, but it’s a no brainer, Zovaal used to be the Arbiter, he experienced the lives of all the souls that lived during the Black Empire and before that. He lived the madness the old gods, inflicted on the worlds they corrupted. He witnessed the mallice of Fel demons, the atrocities of the Light zealots, the coruption of Nature hives unhindged, even the impartial Titan justice that reordered the known mortal Universe (like the experiments done in Uldir). Pretty much everything my dear Hero. And that, all that painted a clear picture in his head, its what drove him to decide to use the engine of the First Ones to rewrite reality itself, and it’s what got him bound by domination runes and banished in the Maw by his brethren.

While he was the Arbitrer his mind expanded, with all the souls he judged, countless generals, orators, kings and queens, assasins and archmages, fighers and strategists, diplomats and spies, all of their finite lives were analyzed in detail by Zovaals mind, that was his power, his Purpouse, something that will happen soon with the new Arbitrer too, an Infinity of knowledge, know how, an infinity of experiences, thus the infinity simbol.

Having all this acumulated knowledge it is no wonder he was able to understand and repurpouse domination runes, thus he breaks loose, creates a master plan, cold, calculated, ruthless. He got in contact with Denathrius and started once again to pursue his goals, through his agents and his allies, infiltrating all the other cosmic planes, playing 4D chess, morphing the souls of the monsters banished in the Maw into an army, his army, the Mawsworn. By breakin his chains and turning them into a weapon, he became the Jailer, the entity behind the Lich King and the voice that persuaded mages to join him and form the Cult of the Damned. With their help he tainted many souls with undeath, and all those touched by the Scourge will later become the Forsworn. He architected the fall of the Shadowlands, all the way to sending a tortured Titan soul to shut down the current Arbiter, causing the Anima draught, while fueling his Torghast tower to grow feed his army, he used Revendreths anima to expand the Maw, pull out a piece of Korthia and the Guardian of the First Ones from Zereth Mortis.

Being an eternal like Denathrius (who had to be bound inside the sword Remoria for eternity) what happens with Zovaals eternal soul/essence now that we defeated his vessel you might wonder? We are in the land of Death afterall, deafeating him does not mean death per say. His cosmic essence, will be of importance soon.

And well… What happens next is at a God level! As the new Arbitrer will start ascending, expanding its mind, unlocking knowledge, it will give it insight on how the previous Arbitrer fell, it’ll find out and tell us how a tortured titan soul that lived milenias knowing only pain, a soul unlike those of normal mortals, arrived and overloaded the Arbitrer with his pain, putting it on a processing looop while it went through all the experiences of Argus. This was what was happening with the first Arbitrer we met. But now, we find out there is a way to help Argus! Yes the fallen titan, the one with the power to make and unmake things, and while it might take time, restoring Argus brings great hope, as he will be reborn and be nourished in the Shadowlands by empowering it with none other than Zovaals primoridial cosmic essence. Argus will aid at restoring, remaking the broken souls destroyed by the Jailers machineries, restoring him and aiding him will be task that the denizens of Shadowlands will begin, something that was not possible, until now. But! possible only if we can recover the fallen titans essence, using Kyrian paragons to mend hismind and while we heal his titan pod by taping into the cosmic flux ( quest chain will follow ) ( war like effort )

Hmm, interesting? Yet expected!

Another mystery will be revealed: the soul fragments! Like shattered parts of a mirror, the can be remade, can be put back togheter. So now we seek the light side of Arthas, and fragments of many other heroes, Varian Wrynn!

It’s clearly obvious Arthas’s soul was fragmented just like Sylvannas, and the dark side of it, the Lich king essence was used in the forging of the Mourneblade. That part got destroyed when fighting Anduin, but where is the other fragment, perhaps it was hidden long time ago, in the depths of Icecrown Citadel ? Surely players aren’t naive enough like the NPCs to think this was it, the end of that the poor young paladin that was twisted by Frostmourne. Sylvannas and the others have been wrong before, they all were clueless til recently about her soul being fragmented, and an exact soul prism like the one containing her soul, was containing Uther’s soul fragment, and similarly one was used when the mournblade was made from Shalamayne. Clearly there’s more of Arthas, elsewhere, and what’s left is, can help put all his pieces back togheter. By all means the light side of Arthas Menethil never reached the Maw! We must find him, and others! As a Tower Ranger, I can tell you, yes there is more to be found in Torghast!

Earlier we found out Hero, that Bwondsambi has been keeping souls for himself, protecting the Zandalari from being used by Mueh’zala and Zovaal schemes. One be wonderin’ what other souls he might be hiddin’? How did Bowndsambi intercept and what has he been keepin’ Saurfang? Nathanos ? More ? Hehehe, time to make som barganing mon!

But no story is complete without the last piece of the puzzle: Sylvannas Windrunner.

Oh how the tables have turned, from hero to villan, to a strong willed soul able to break through domination, to the leader of a forsaken folk, to Hero of the Horde and Bane of the Alliance, a Warchief. Her path has been filled with challenges that would have kneeled any ordinary mortal. But this one, is no ordinary soul, divided from her pure heart, She was no longer mortal now, was she? A ranger-general of Silvermoon, whose leadership acumen and martial prowess were without equal, a sharpened mind, trialed by attrocities such as having her compassion ripped out, her people slaughtered, manipulated, turned into addicts, her homeland scorched and tainted by undead scourge and then demons, all while she’s was turned into a decaying walking corpse cast aside by all the living, except … the Tauren!

Some might have forgotten the taurens had a spirit walking connection, that allowed them to speak with their ancestors. An’she, the earth mother kept a lot of her childrens souls home, not all souls travel to the Shadowlands hero, only those lost that choose so. The tauren saw her, saw the forsaken for who they are, souls trapped in decaying bodies, the taurens were the one faction on Azeroth that gave them redemption, a chance, a place in the Horde, when the entire world slaughtered them on sight.

But this is not the story to be told now Hero, lets return to Sylvannas Windrunner.

Exausted, after the defeat of the Lich King, and freshly returned from the Maw of darkness, bounded to new sisters, Valkyr (hero vrykul souls) perverted to serve the Maw, Sylvannas had to ponder what it all meant, why these mortal fleeting lives were doomned to enter an eternal cycle of servitude, without the freedom of choosing their own path. If death was just the begining, we were all just pawns in a machine that used us as anima batteries and turned us into servants, for eternity, all bent to the wills of Bastion, Maldraxxus or Revendreth, while those doomed spent eons in torment being fragmented, consumed and ripped apart by the abominations born in a world without light…

Would you like me to continue Hero ?

Hit this with a :heart: and I just might.

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Realistically, Blizzard is never going to retcon Shadowlands. The people behind it have heard criticisms towards the story, but the thing is that (by their own admission) THEY THEMSELVES are really proud of their “final chapter” in this book of the Warcraft saga. And at the end of the day, the current guard cares more about how they feel about their story rather than their players.

On top of that, a major retcon of four (more if you count some stuff from Legion) years of story has essentially never been done. They were building towards something, and garbage as it is, this is what the payoff has turned out to be.

So there isn’t going to be a retcon, because the people behind it don’t see a need for one - the echo chamber they’ve sealed themselves in doesn’t include anything that treats the story less than genius. The most we’ll get, if anything, is them sliding most of Shadowlands quickly under the bed to make way for whatever they do with their blank slate.

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We didn’t survive the cleansing of Sargeras sword without severe physical and mental trauma. We’ve been in a coma for years, and nothing happened. People recovered from the Legion War and only now have people started hearing the whispers of the Drowned God. He seems to have enjoyed your nightmares…

Not only will Blizzard not retcon entire expansions, but they shouldn’t. And this isn’t because the expansions were necessarily good but because once you’ve established the precedent of retconning entire expansions because people complained enough about them, you don’t have a story anymore. You have an extremely poorly run D&D game

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In my opinion, the only way to not invalidate multiple years of player investment while still holding to the spirit of this prompt would be the Infinites.
Not just changing history, have them actively shatter the timelines in some near permanent manner. Story could focus on ‘settling’ the broken time bubbles to whatever timeframe is most ‘stable’ (ie the narrative handwave to undo Teldrassil).
It has a lot of issues in the same place as any ‘time travel’ narrative, since Warcraft has always had a bit of a soft ruleset for time travel.

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That’s not the worst idea ever. I could see new Zones being alternate timelines.

But, knowing Blizzard, if they ever made an expansion like that, it’ll be revealed that your character is a Timewalker, and you’re the most special person in all existence, and you’ll borrow power from the Bronze Dragons, and save all existence from some Infinite Dragonflight guy who it turns out was the real mastermind behind the Jailer.

The most stable timeframe would probably be something along the lines of pre-WC1 Azeroth though

Resetting the timeline for the sake of stability seems like it would actually pretty badly hurt the Horde, whose existence as we know it is intrinsically tied to instability and change.

stability not in terms of ‘did anything important happen’, rather 'which timeframe isn’t prone to almost literally exploding*; it’s a handwave for the narrative to do whatever it feels like.

Anduin: Heroes, we saved the day! Thank you for your efforts!

Tyrande: Hey, guys, this magic device the Jailer wanted to use is still here… and a lot of night elves died …

Sylvanas: What? When? Was I there? (Lots of glares at her)

Uther: I could try flying in there and grabbing their souls…

Everyone: No

Taelia: So, dad, we going to go do father/daughter stuff?

Bolvar: Uhh, I have some Lich … uhh something stuff to do with the Scourge or …

Calia: I can help!!

Basically everyone groans.

Tyrande: Whatever, jerks, I’ll figure this out on my own.

MAGIC DISCO BEAMS

We wake up in the Azshara-era of Azeroth wondering how we ended up in the past.

Tyrande: Worth it.

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If you could go around mucking up timelines an obvious time and place would be Argus to assassinate Archimonde and Kiljadeen before their powerups and stop the world of warcraft from ever happening.

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I really don’t think Blizzard will retcon everything from Shadowlands back to the tail end of Legion. That just seems to cause more problems than it solves on so many levels. It is hard to discuss it as purely a lore imperative, when it would impact the whole of the game.

But if they chose to, they have a few options, even if we count out Nzoth and the Old Gods.

The Bronze Flight/Infinite Flight could be involved. They could pull all sorts of time or dimensional shenanigans. Maybe they take us so far back in time, where the Alliance works with Earthen and the Horde works with Trolls, in an ancient primordial Azeroth.

Or maybe some one figures out how to pull the universe apart with Arcane Order magic, and remakes it.

Or maybe we find a supreme genie god, and he starts handing out wishes. Maybe Tyrande wishes Teldrassil never burned, or that Azshara never summoned the Legion. Maybe Sylvanas wishes she could go back in time and kill Arthas, Medivh, Guldan, and a bunch of other people she thinks are to blame for her loss at the battle of Silvermoon.

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then they may not have a game for much longer…they have made the lore into a joke…and they joked about the Night Elf genocide.

Playerbase just can’t overlook that.

you made me weep for my beloved game…thanks. :frowning:

You are most certainly right…I just thought it would be fun to see how people would retcon BFA/SL out of existence…

I think I would’ve been fine with the way things have already played out if the story was told a bit better and wasn’t rife with plot holes and redundancy.

BfA’s story just had way too much going on to realistically have a satisfying conclusion. The Faction War should have been a stand-alone expansion with a realistic conclusion leading into perhaps a void-themed expac where N’Zoth is the end-game. I’m not sure how they would’ve worked it in, but Azshara should’ve been an end-expansion boss. She’s too important in lore to have been a hokey sidekick to tentacle dad.

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