We’ve seen there are various quality of undead. With the quality of the body being more defined by how much power the necromancer commits than anything else. Undead like DKs or San’layne (who are of superior make) truly do not seem to have to worry about decomposition, because they themselves are so saturated in Death Domain magic. But he Scourge? They weren’t meant to be of quality. The only consideration for them was quantity. And a WHOLE lot less power was forced into their corpses and souls for that transformation. Giving them those rotten forms.
This is sort of supported by that Nathanos short story where he gets his upgraded body. Outside of using a living sacrifice for material, an enormous amount of necromantic power was smashed into him during the ritual. Giving him a body more akin to DK. Where physical senses (like smell) he had lost ages ago were actually returned, along with his improved physical aptitude and durability. He didn’t seem to decay.
Well, in a way I for sure agree with you. The more power you force into a rite the longer the body will hold on, but the necromancy is still always going to be fighting the natural forces trying to divorce body and soul and decay the mortal flesh away into dust.
If you force enough power into it, you get something that seems eternal, but… I bet that Nethanos, if you waited long enough, would begin to decay again. He was only pretty a few short years, really… he basically stole away his Nephew’s years. Without special precautions, no mortal necromancy lasts forever. It would take continual upkeep to keep it going and the normal scourge dont seem like they were designed to be recharged; they were as you said shock troops. In the Shadowlands you do not have that entropy to fight with, which means a body just lasts, and lasts, and lasts.
For DKs this power requirement admittedly might be met by their “hunger” to regularly slay living beings. For San’layn it seems to be feasting on the life force (blood) and souls of victims, etc.
If they go with the soul split i think it will be combined with the thinning veil. The veil was thin in ICC and she was compelled to commit suicide and make the Sylvanas Valkyr pact. When Jailer was ready she was compelled- controlled to start the forth war and here we are.
It makes about as much sense as if in the middle of endgame Iron man yelled at Thanos “Yield and we may spare your life” after thanos grabbed the gauntlet
I know why nerzhul is a failure to the jailer now, in the raid he says “He said I failed him, a flawed herald. . . Usurped by another.” So exactly how I thought, his failure was he allowed Arthas to usurp his station as Lich king thus preventing him from performing his duty, maybe my thoughts on Arthas are right.
Arthas usurped him the second he sent what’s left of his Soul(the child) into Frostmourne(the Novel outright mentions that the child was the last piece of his Soul).
If the Jailer had control of him before he sure did not when the last piece of Arthas’s Soul was fully removed and shoved into the Mourneblade!
Perhaps Domination Magic requires a Soul to work…
Ner’zhul was Dominated by the Jailer only to be blindsided by something that Domination Magic could not work on: a Soulless Shell.
The Soul of Arthas for what it’s worth tried to convince Arthas to not kill the Paladins and Arthas at the end of the siege of Quel’Thalas made it quite clear he would have spared the High Elves if they simply let him waltz over and Re-Animate Kel’Thuzad!
I’m quite certain if the High Elves were diplomatic and asked Arthas why he had come to Quel’Thalas they could have struck a bargain that only he and his Retinue could come to the Sunwell and that they would make sure that the fuel for Kel’Thuzad’s reanimation would not require him being physically placed directly into the Sunwell!
Arthas’s Soul Fragment was a lot more diplomatic than his Soul as a whole was from the looks of things! And on top of it all it tried to make Arthas turn back from his path only for Arthas’s brain to decide to shove said Soul Fragment against it’s will into Frostmourne.
In all likelihood the Hot-Headed Side of Arthas was what wound up inside the Mourneblade while the calmer side remained inside the Body until the Body rebelled against the Soul Fragment and shoved it into Frostmourne to join the rest of the Soul.
Presumably, prior to the SL redesign, it was temporary relief for Sylvanas in exchange for eternal freedom after the deal was complete.
The more reckless Sylvanas was, the shorter their sentence, then they spring free. Its a Lupin style jailbreak.
Edit: It could have been interesting if Sylvanas burned through all of them, we killed her, then they came back and subjugated the Forsaken, and were WAY WORSE. Then we go to the Shadowlands to free Sylvanas and Anduin (who’s there because mcguffins), to use their combined plot power to free us from Helya and the Valkyr.
You are talking like the whole point wasn’t to bring the Legion in, which would wipe out the High Elves anyway, and that allowing defilement of a vital and very sacred icon is a reasonable ask. And that the Scourge would hold back whatsoever.
Defiling the sunwell was literally killing the survivors. Destroying the sunwell was also literally killing children and elders who had somehow managed to escape the scourge’s extensive scouring of everything including the evacuation fleets, and it would probably have been required in the immediate aftermath of Kel’thuzad’s resurrection whether undead were being chucked in the pool literally or not.
The good soul of Arthas still sounds like it was pretty fine with genocide after all so I guess just chuck the whole thing in the maw.
but we never see what happens when they died