Spoilers. Duh.
How is it ever explained how exactly Sire Denarthrias caused the entire anima drought?
I was under the impression that the souls going to the Maw was the problem, but somehow it’s Denathrias’ fault?
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It is really weird. Even if Denathrius caused the Arbiter to go to sleep (seems probable since it was a red bolt that did it) that doesn’t explain where the anima he’s hoarding came from, it should be going to the Maw not Revendreth.
Remember that, in the main quest, the reason you’re initially sent to Revendreth is because it is universally regarded as the most anima-rich realm. Your goal on entering the zone is to convince Denathrius to share his stockpiles with the other realms to help alleviate their problems.
Also remember that souls in Revendreth can take a very, very long time to redeem. Centuries, easily, and providing streams of anima for that entire duration. The lack of new souls entering the zones shouldn’t be such a big deal for them, since that problem only started a few years ago at the most. Their existing wells would be far from dry.
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I get that Revendreft could have a huge stockpile of anima. That part is fine.
But people are talking as if the drought itself is because of Denathrias.
Considering any bad souls HAD (before it broke) to go to the venthyr to be drained before being allowed to serve in other realms, they seem poised to have the most by design.
Not suggesting anything ulterior but makes sense. A lot hinged on this one guy not being a turncoat
Edit: he may be withholding certain souls that had finished their time and instead drained them, but that’s specific cases and I don’t know if we know that much about the system to know what that would do in those specific cases.
What if draka had to atone for some stuff before being a necrolord and was instead held indefinitely by an evil venthyr?
What’s that loss of a soul/anima do to the necrolords? Not just the meta story, but the realm of death that it is and that relies on it’s inhabitants anima/souls.
It kinda suggests that Revendreth is the anima powerplant of the Shadowlands, providing the other realms with addition anima that they extract during the reconditioning of a soul. Denathrius seems to have been hoarding it for a while, not even sharing it with his own realm.
I’m guessing that all the people that died during Teldarssil and the 4th war went directly to the Maw to power the Jailer… to empower Sylvanas, so she could beat up the Bolvar… Still not sure what her role is.
A surge of souls from a cataclysmic event like the Fourth War shouldn’t have effected the Shadowlands, since all the realms aren’t getting addition work, there shouldn’t be an increase in anima requirement.
Yes from what we can gleam, Denathrius is the reason the Arbiter went night-night.
Yes we all know he’s hoarding stockpiles of anima and doesnt share it, but the actual drought, caused by the Arbiter’s sleep, is something he personally takes credit for.
And it makes the most sense, it’s a red bolt of anima/magic that is aimed directly at her like an attack, one that is shot at her from the in-between, meaning it came from within the shadowlands. Denathrius, using his own power and the help of his reverse and probably some Jailer aid, put the Arbiter out of commission to fuel his Master in the Maw and caused the drought
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There are a few reasons. Revendreth is unique in that its occupant souls produce an excessive amount of anima, and also he was tithing every single member of the Venthyr, even if it had to come out of their own energy, on pain of incineration in the ember ward if you said no. Of course he said it was for the good of Revendreth, but we know he was hoarding it all.
The other realms were trying to operate normally, and relied much more heavily on new souls and their anima to come as a constant flow to keep systems operational.
This is particularly true for Ardenweald which has the extra strain of maintaining the seal that keeps the maw bottled up coming out of its reserves. It honestly seems trying to drain Ardenweald and break the seal was the major goal, with everything else a bonus.
Also…
https://i.gyazo.com/e861454858cefafcd8762c57315f7650.png
…he was sort of actively stealing additional anima right out from under their noses.
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Interesting idea about the “red bolt” from the Arbiter cinematic… have to admit I had not considered it.
When I saw the cinematic, I viewed the stream entering at the top of Oribos to be a stream of incoming souls - not something connecting Oribos to any other SL realm. The “red bolt” to me was a red soul… and my first thought as to the identity of that soul was Sargaras.
Sargaras is an embodiment of pure Chaos. The Arbiter appears to be an embodiment of pure Order. Destruction is sure to be the result when such opposites meet.
The timing works. We know that the “red bolt” event happened after the death of Ysera - in Ardenweald we are told she was one of the last souls to arrive at the Forest before the Drought. The first truly significant Azerothian entity to “die” after Ysera is Sargaras. Also, Sylvanas doesn’t start to show vastly increased power until BfA, which was started by the defeat of Sargaras.
Another tiny observation that might just be coincidence… the color of that “red bolt” isn’t the same as that used for anima from Revendreth. It is more muted, less “red”. What it does pretty much match though is the color of the “star” that shows up in Azeroth’s sky when Sargaras is defeated.
The stream entering Oribos generally is souls, but if you watch the cinematic, that Red bolt or w/e it is, doesnt funnel down and swirl about around her like all the other souls, it shoots down straight through all the other souls towards her, it was an aimed attack. If that red…thing, was a soul like a lot of people suggest…wouldnt it have swirled about around her like all the others?
Sargeras isn’t dead. He’s imprisoned at the seat of the pantheon.
Denathrias caused the drought in Revendreth by hoarding all the anima they were producing and levying heavy anima taxes from the ones producing it.
He did not cause the drought in the entire Shadowlands, that was caused by all souls being funneled to the Maw.
If Denathrius hadn’t been a traitor, then Revendreath would have been the only zone to not be afflicted by the drought, because the penance process produces a crap ton of anima.
They send you specifically to Revendreth because that is where the anima is supposed to come from. Souls going to the maw shouldn’t effect the Shadowlands as it did. No more new souls means no more new workload.
Every realm produces anima as just part of their normal business. You’re sent specifically to Revendreath because they can produce the most, by a large margin.
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And they supply that anima to the rest of the Shadowlands. The amount of anima Denarthrias poured into the maw wasn’t just Revendreth’s personal share, it was what everyone else was waiting for.
I think the implication is that Revendreth is such an anima rich zone that they could have single-handedly kept the other three zones up and running with just their leftovers (i.e. the amount leftover after taking the total minus normal operating cost of their “process”).
The sheer ludicrousness of the amount of anima Denathrius funnels into the Maw is meant to indicative of just how greedy the aristocracy of Revendreth is: they had more anima than they ever could have used even if they tried, such that they were operating almost-okay even though 99% of the anima was being removed from the system and hoarded—much like real wealth.