Steve Danuser:
- Obviously we had- we've seen Sylvanas through the course of Legion, and that intro cinematic, right, when the airships and everything and she's kind of giving Varian a hand. So, as we get into the Shadowlands we're going to be finding out a lot of Sylvanas' motivation and what her relationship with the Jailer is and when it started and we'll find out that it actually leads back quite a bit earlier in the timeline. You may be familiar with a story called Edge of Night in which Sylvanas lept off the top of Icecrown. And you saw part of the story there. But that was kind of the start of her interactions with the Jailer. And as for why Sylvanas would lend an arrow to aid Varian, there was a long term strategy where Sylvanas needed to get into a position where she could take over the mantle of Warchief, and she couldn't do that if she was aggro and everyone was against her, so she had to bide her time, and now we're seeing the fruition of that in Shadowlands.
Close enough. Let me have this. I don’t ever get to predict anything right.
And if you care to read a wall of text, I have some speculation to piece things together:
- Great rewards await those you push themselves to their limits to climb the tower. As you progress through Torghast, you’ll gather runes along the way that you can take to a runeforge, where the Runesage will help you forge legendary items. You’ll also be able to learn a bit more about origins of iconic legendary items such Frostmourne or the Helm of Domination.
Emphasis mine, because this is what we know about the origins of Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination, from World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume III Page 17:
- A group of dreadlords – Tichondrius, Balnazzar, Detheroc, Mal'Ganis, and Varimathras – took turns subjecting Ner'zhul to the most horrific agony.
The orc soon begged for death. Kil’jaeden agreed to grant it to him, but only in return for absolute servitude as the Legion’s new weapon. Death would just be the beginning.
Ner’zhul, his sanity cracking, finally agreed. Kil’jaeden passed the orc’s spirit through death and revived him as a spectral entity. The orc’s consciousness expanded a thousandfold, granting him extraordinary psychic powers. The dreadlords bound his disembodied spirit to a specially crafted set of armor and a mighty runeblade called Frostmoune.
This is to say, the dreadlords might have been to Torghast. And more specifically, Varimarthras might not have just known about Sylvanas’ plans all along, but the Jailer’s as well:
- So, your Alliance still endures. Longer than I expected, though she has already planted the seeds of its downfall. She is patient, that one.
When your thrones run red with betrayal… when your holy places burn and the shattered mask hangs above your hearth… only then you will know. And it will be too late.
It matters not. You are blind to the true darkness closing in around you.
So, she found me at last. Sent her underlings to finish the job.
Tell me, when she seized your throne of hides and bones, was your allegiance forced? No… I’d wager you surrendered it willingly… or were convinced you did.
It matters not. You are blind to the darkness in your midst.
The bold text leads us back to what Danuser said at the Q&A Panel. And the underlined leading us back to the next expansion:
Into the Shadowlands
The Broken Machine
The machine of death is broken, and players entering the Shadowlands will find the realm of the dead in disarray. In the natural order of things, souls are sorted and sent on to an afterlife realm appropriate to the lives they lived, but now, but over the past few years, all souls who have perished—including the innocents slain at Teldrassil—are being funneled directly into the Maw. The Shadowlands are starving for anima even as the Maw continues to grow from the glut of fresh souls.
Sylvanas has been seemingly perpetrating acts to bring about great amounts of death and destruction. In partnership with the Jailer, they have been working toward a common end for some time.
TL;DR: Looks like Before the Storm is getting retcons.
Please