In one of the recent interviews, from what I recall, I think it was implied or suggest that all the Cosmic Forces have greater Pantheons.
But the Cosmic force of Disorder doesn’t. Probably because it goes against the very force of Disorder. So that could explain why Sargeras in Legion was trying to recreate his own Pantheon for Disorder, because of his Titan nature to create Order where there is Disorder.
I don’t think this is the first time that the Titans have tried to reorder cosmic systems that may not have had Order and looking at the Shadowlands it seems like this was a Cosmic Force that had been reshaped unaturally by the Titans Influence.
We assume that there is a Pantheon for all of the Cosmic Forces but maybe they are not as structured as the Titan Pantheon and the nature of this universe leans more to disorder.
Sargeras was essentially using the souls of the Titan Pantheon to create a new pantheon of disorder, but we stopped him. Those long term lore implications though that Sargeras may have had a hand in creating other pantheon’s or that his connection with the pantheon of Death may have facilitated this through the use of souls.
That’s a question that we have to ask when approaching the idea of an established Pantheon of Death, is, was there already an established pantheon of Death? or was a pantheon of Death artificially created by the Titans as a way to order the plane of Death?
The Attendants in Oribos state that the First Ones gave them the Purpose and the Purpose is what the Arbiter chooses in her infinite wisdom.
The Arbiter at the least was created by the First Ones as was Maldraxxus so at least 2 members of the Pantheon of Death were established by the First Ones themselves!
The artificially structured nature of the Shadowlands is all due to the First Ones.
Why the First Ones created 2 members of a Pantheon(namely the Arbiter and the Archon) to be so rigid that they are more Orderly than Titans themselves is beyond me!.. Of course the Archon’s orderly rigidness could simply be the result of implanting a Rune of Domination that serves as the Key to Korthia inside herself!
Or she wasn’t always so rigid and like any ideological system became more rigid and dogmatic over time? Who knows, perhaps before the “extreme lengths” for impartiality were employed, there were a lot of bias’d “oops to Hell” from early Kyrian’s in her service. Bias is a hard thing to overcome, like it or not. That being said, Death being one of the more orderly domains doesn’t bother me. As life, its counterbalance, is extremely disorderly and organic in concept.
As for the Pantheons of each Cosmology. I would wager Fel has no natural pantheon, as its antithetical to Disorder. Void probably has a leadership in infinite flux. The Light either has a very small group of leaders, or a single entity serving that role, due to the “True Linear Path” idea. Order has the Titans obviously. Life also probably has multiples in their Pantheon.
We know Sargeras imprisoned countless demons in reality into Mardum, which was a pocket dimension within the Twisting Nether, and then he went crazy and became Lord of the Burning Legion with KJ and Archi, but it’s still very much possible that deep within the Twisting Nether there is a Demon Pantheon of Chaos.
there very well could be but since Disorder seems to be in it’s own plane of existence I don’t think it follows the same parameters as it didn’t have the Titans to order it.
It’s more likely that disorder rose out of nothing as an opposing force of Order, the nature of disorder itself would abhor the order of a pantheon.
But that’s such speculation on the order of the universe I really have no idea how far disconnected the Twisting Nether is from out own reality. In chronicle is seemed to be explained only as a higher astral plane. It’s hard to tell if the Twisting Nether even exists in our own universe.
I mean, we have Word Of God (Danuser) confirmation the First Ones created the Eternal Ones, not the Titans.
Twisting Nether exists as a cosmological plane definitely though, what is unclear is if Reality is the cosmological plane of order or if there’s a plane we haven’t been told about yet.
I think the Shadowlands, may be one of the highest planes of existence. If we are gonna compare it to some Jacob’s ladder type system, Shadowlands would be near the very top.
One of the things I remember from Chronicle is it says that the First Ones came to be in the Twisting Nether. There is so much we don’t know about the Twisting Nether, It’s not just the home of demons.
I know they don’t mention the First Ones but they touch upon the origin of the Universe, even if it’s abtract. You seem like you would know what a Kabbalism Tree of Life looks like, yeah?
Yeah and Blizz reused the Sefirot motif with the Soulbinding interface device thingy, which was interesting.
But I think while there is an internal “top down” hierarchy (in one interview I think Danuser said that Revendreth is “closest” to the Maw, whereas Bastion and Ardenweald can both easily access Reality and the Veil) within each Plane of Existence™, I don’t think there is a hierarchy between each Plane of Existence.
So example: We know Nyalotha was a sort of “inbetween” plane superimposed upon Azeroth we could enter via portal, which is very similar to the Emerald Dream. Likewise, we know the Veil is not in the Shadowlands, but between Reality and the Shadowlands.
So I think Blizzard is going to continue on this method, where “next to” Reality is a sort of transition plane from which you can access other Planes of Existence, so:
Reality -> Emerald Dream -> “Gardens of Life” (term was used in Maldraxxus)
Reality -> The Veil -> Shadowlands
Reality -> Nyalotha/Equivalent -> Errr Voidlands?
Reality -> Light-adjacent-space -> Lightlands
The only exception might be Twisting Nether and Order Plane, which may occupy the role of “Speed Force Wall” and/or the “Source Wall” within the DC Cosmology, as a sort of bubble containing creation.
how do you feel about the upper trinity of Light featuring Life<Light<Disorder
and a lower trinity of Order<Shadow<Death.
I would have thought that Order would be in the same trinity as Light and Disorder being in the same trinity as Shadow but then it may not be indicating anything as Order and Life seem to be in an adjacent pillar and Disorder and Death share a pillar so maybe they were not suggesting Order as relating to the Shadow as they are saying that these forces are in alignment with each other Order< Life and Disorder<Death. this is the only thing that confuses me about the cosmic chart, but you peaked my interest of getting a new cosmic chart in the Grimoire! I’ve already purchased it I’m excited to see if it gives any new insights.
I think it all depends on what they plan to do with the cosmology:
Example 1 = A Pantheon of Equal First Ones Creator Beings
If 2, Elune + An’she, each being able to use all or 5/6 cosmic forces
If 3, Elune + An’she + A Betrayer First One
If 4, Elune + An’she + Earthmother + A Betrayer First One
If 5, Elune + An’she + Earthmother + Skyfather + A Betrayer First One
If 6, If 7, etc etc etc
Example 2 = Creator Pantheon but then WoW-equivalent of DC Source/Presence or Tolkien Eru Iluvitar
If Singular God, maybe it’ll be like Diablo/Zoroastrianism where Creator separated Darkness from Themself
If Duality, some Supreme Being of Life Light Chaos and Supreme Being of Order Void Death. Maybe WoW will end with us having to kill both Gods.
If Trinity, idek
It’s just funny to me WoW is unable to keep a cosmology going when DC Universe has gone unchanged cosmologically for decades, even through the “universe resets”.
I knew you’d know about this, this makes me happy.
Could you see something like Gnostic Sophism?
Elune falling from grace as a astral being , into the material plane and mating with An’she as a the material god to form first the demons and from the demons the rest of mortal existance? Why put demons among mortal beings if they are not going to do sort of Paradise Lost thing with them?
Something you’d find interesting was I found some lost PTR knowledge that in MoP they considered telling a Shadow pan myth about the Sun and the Moon being married and them being locked away by, I’m assuming, Lei Shen. But they instead went with the story of the Sha.
i find the concept of Elune and An’she “being locked away” really interesting especially in context of the Shadowlands. Maybe the First Ones were locked out of reality and that’s why we only feel Elune and An’she as omnipresent and yet distant beings.
I just feel like they already plagiarized heavily borrowed from Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism in the Diablo universe, I am hoping they won’t do it again :V
Re: this theory, I think it’s interesting the Art Books said the Maw “traps Light”, and the whole thing looks like how the sun looks when a hurricane is clearing (very specific, but well, I’ve been in hurricanes lol)
What I’m hoping for: An’she sacrificed himself to trap some sort of Dark First One in with him in the Maw, like in Tolkien they tossed Morgoth beyond the Door of Night.
What I would be deeply disappointed by: The Solar Being Of WoW is The Big Bad of the First Ones.
I feel like Elune could also be some type representation of Tiamat. The way Tiamat and Epsu are depicted in babylonian myth mirror the primordial forces of the cosmos. When Tiamat descended into the underworld, and the mortal plane she married a mortal god named Kingu and bared his monstrous children. Kingu is very similar to An’she. An’she is the Father of the Wild Gods, but not Malorne but I’m sure many a night elf and Tauren have disagreed over this myth.
I think Elune may be in the Shadowlands. She’s clearly tied to Ardenweald.
See I on the other hand I’m betting on Winter Queen being a Persephone myth: a daughter of Elune that was taken by Zovaal (who was originally King of the Dead ie Shadowlands rather than King of the Damned).
During beta, and removed just two weeks before actual launch (one week after original launch), all Night Warriors were “destined for Ardenweald”. So I was thinking the Night Warrior and the Winter Queen is WoW’s equivalent of Hekate being tasked by Demeter to keep her daughter company.
I don’t know where Elune is, but I think the First Ones are generally beyond the edges of the cosmology map.
How do you feel about the possibility that Elune maybe a Void Lord (i know it’s a fringe theory) and the ‘Mother of Light and Shadow’ would that be pushing the allegory too far? The nature of the Narru is they have Light and Void states, maybe so does Elune. The “mother moon” reflects the Light, the Eclipsed moon reflects The Shadow.
if she is in fact the divine marriage partner of An’she then she would represent the Shadow to his Light, just like in the Tauren myth that Mu’sha reflects the Light of An’she.
at the very least them being the parents of the Eternal Ones would feel satisfying.