Been thinking about TLT a lot more as we move closer to it. This post could contain minor spoilers so you have been warned.
It’s highly speculated that we’re going to the Worldsoul, or the planet’s core, whatever we want to call it in 12.2. Xal’atath is after Azeroth and while we don’t know why, it’s likely she wants to become or absorb the world soul.
What if she succeeds, or partially succeeds in this endeavour and the reason we’re going back to Northrend is because of Ulduar? Within the halls of Ulduar is the Celestial Planetarium where the constellar Algalon wanted to send a reorigination signal to reset Azeroth. What if we need to use this same technology to send an SOS beacon to the Titans (and Illidan) at the Seat of the Pantheon where they’re holding Sargeras prisoner?
We know the World Soul saga is supposed to conclude the last 30 years of Warcraft story, and that story really begins with Sargeras discovering a world soul corrupted by the void and cleaving the planet in half and then setting out on his Burning Crusade. His greatest fear coming true if Xal’atath becomes Xal’zeroth.
This would also tie Iridikron back into the story because we know he wants to see the Titans destroyed. He can’t do that unless they come back to Azeroth.
Edit: Thought I had posted in Story Forums, moved it.
That’s where Illidan comes in. He’s helping keep Sargeras at bay, the Titans would be communicating and learning more about Azeroth and how resistant it has been to falling to Void or Fel corruption. He convinces them a reset isn’t going to cut it and that we need the people of Azeroth to defeat Xal’atath and the Void.
I hate to say it, but Shadowlands is likely to matter. Sylvanas showing up, saying the SL is too ordered. Which it is. The Purpose schtick was always someone’s lie and we know the history the residents believe is at least partly false. Why are there pieces of territory missing in the in-between from before the anima drought? Why are the devourers seemingly based on Automata?
Zovaal was gonna re-originate the universe from Zereth Mortis. And he was gonna use Azeroth’s Worldsoul to do it. The way is open, And Iridikron could try to use that machinery to remove the Titans from existence and re-order things the way he wants. Perhaps he’ll only use the Halls of Origination in Uldum (which is what Algalon was going to do) but somehow the Shadowlands are going to be involved.
There’s also the weird little hints of Astalor and his anguish which is totally not anima! Wink wink, nudge nudge. Not like anima is derived from the experiences of mortals. And those mysteriously cosmic seeming containers he puts it in. And the fact that his old boss Kael’thas is doing penance in Revendreth alongside a Naaru who can never go home. Denathrius is also on the loose and he’s one of the few popular parts of Shadowlands.
All of this may be used minorly or become a huge plot point, but expect at least some of it in some fashion. Astalor may just be being the mad scientist he always was.
We know Metzen said we will lose at some point here. So expect Xal to maybe claim part of Azeroth’s soul. It might also be worth noting in Tauren lore Azeroth has already birthed several entities. One of those being the Winter Queen/Blue Child as well as Elune and An’she. We could end up using Zereth Mortis to drain Xal’atath after she ascends. There’s just a lot of little ins and outs of how all that goes down and who is in what position.
But if she wins at the end of Midnight here. Which might be the case cause it’s the middle of the trilogy. We go to Northrend cause the Titans return at Ulduar, as Iridikron wants them to do and is why he helped Xal. How all that machinery figures in could get weird. Everything from the Eye of Eternity to Azjol-Nerub to Wyrmest and the Dragonshrines, to Ulduar, and Wintergrasp, to ICC are on the table. There’s a ton to work with. And a ton of places to secure.
I hope when sylvanas shows up again to retcon shadowlands she says midnight was part of it. which is why she was able to appear at the sunwell too. because midnight is arguably worse for the lore at this point.
the reorginstion thing was a VERY VERY last resort
like hey this planet is infested with super space cancer that if isn,t treated will lead to end of the universe AND THATS bad therfore we nuke with all radiaiton possible to wipe cancer otu (and sadly the other life) but its betetr then alternative
I agree, the revisit of Shadowlands is probably going to be pivotal to everything.
Another thing to add to the mix, I was running Dawn of the Infinite on one of my 90’s for the first time (as I had entirely skipped Dragonflight) and went down a rabbit hole of speculation about TLT, which led me here to this thread, and I found myself agreeing with pretty much all of this.
Obviously we have Iridikron there, who basically kicked off Xal’atath’s whole plan, but it also showed Galakrond and how the necrotic energies from his remains started resurrecting proto dragons. And apparently (I never read the Dawn of the Aspects book) he hungered for life energy and created undead proto dragons called the Not-Living.
And it just so happens that in TLT, we’re going back to Northrend, a continent jam-packed with undead and the location where the door to the Shadowlands was opened, and Galakrond’s bones are right there. I don’t really know what they’ll do with this but I’m almost confident there’s something there that might be linked to everything since DF – Iridikron siphoned Galakrond’s “endless hunger” to create the Dark Heart, which Xal’atath used to create the Voidspire, which allowed her to burrow into the Worldsoul… which was ultimately Iridikron’s plan to raise a red flag to the Titans etc…
Maybe I’m reading too deep into this but I feel like they’ll do something more with Galakrond.
And on the note of Iridikron, my gut is telling me they set him up working with the Infinite Dragonflight so that we can have an “alternate timeline” excuse for completely ending the current WoW lore with TLT, and giving the franchise a reset.
Yes he’s part of the whole wyrmreast temple/5 dragonshrines in dragonblight. He was very centered (literally to an extent) as far back as WotLK.
He’s also thematically on point as his overthrow is reminiscent of the Titanomachy in ancient Greek myth. The overthrow of the titans by the Olympians. Obviously the WoW Titans aren’t the same, but generally inspired and it is a classic theme beyond Greek myth. The Titans whole thing is also very Chaoskampf obviously.
Just to add something I find quite relevant: They are remaking a whole continent, not just Icecrown and Stormpeaks, and the geography that’s already there has to shape the content to some extent as well. There are not only undead and Ulduar, there is a whole zone of frost trolls, a lost civilization of nerubians, there are tons of Vrykul with large fortresses and villages that want to be used in the Fjord and the coasts, there are the Taunka, there are three seperate dwarven groups around, there are areas blighted by undeath and areas blighted by elven magic, there is Saronite, there is Wintergrap, there is Bolvar’s Scourge, there are the somehow unendingly persistent Scarlets. there is… a fricking lot. And all of it has to be either included in the new story, left as embarrassingly dead space, or destroyed and changed in the remake. The great Quel’thalas remake was 2 small zones. Okay, three if you really want to count Quel’danas. Northrend has 10.
There are tie-ins to basically everything, without ever touching the cosmic plot of the last decade. So they will have a very hard time cutting their cosmic plot into something that can be channeled through what’s already there, because they sure as hell don’t have questing time to waste, if they want to finish anything.
Something tells me the whole continent of Northrend wont remain unscathed once the Titans arrive. I suspect Blizzard will sink some parts of it especially considering we only really get 4 zones per expansion.
My guess on the four zones are:
-Dragonblight(maybe incorporate a small portion of Crystal Song)
-Stormpeak and Icecrown will be merged into one zone
-Scholazar, Borea Tundra and Wintergrasp merged into another one
-My guess is one of the remaining three(Howling Fjord, Zul’drak or Grizzly Hill) will become some destroyed mess and the rest merged as the final fourth zone
Oh, I don’t doubt that they will merge some borders, but that’s a bit beside the point, when I was talking about the content within the borders that they somehow have to account for. Zone-wide destruction is of course a possibility, but that’d be a pretty radical one compared to what they did before. Not that it couldn’t come out quite nicely, but destroying stuff that players have fond memories of is always some risk, and I’m not quite sure I can see Blizz doing that here. But we’ll see, sure.
I can’t imagine they wouldn’t do something with Zul’Drak, considering the focus on the Amani with this upcoming patch and Ula’tek. Like, I know the Amani are not the Drakkari, but every time I think about the TLT I’m left with an afterthought of “but how might this connect to Shadowlands?”.
So in Zul’Drak’s case, we have a tribe of Trolls who all sacrificed their Loa (or tried to in some cases) in desperation to combat the Scourge (and my favorite thing is that it mostly worked), which is thematically parallel to the story they’ve established for Zul’jin and the Amani Loa. And now we have Malacrass’s spirit back doing evil machinations to put that whole plan back at the forefront with Zul’jan.
And if we’re talking about Loa, we’re talking about Wild Gods, which means we’re talking about Ardenweald… which brings us back to Shadowlands, and possibly Vol’jin? And then that brings us to Bwonsamdi and I gotta admit it would be aesthetically perfect for Bwonsamdi to have a role in Zul’Drak.
I expect Odyn to make a scene in Howling Fjord near Utgarde or near the Vrykul areas of Icecrown (or all of them). Trying to get the old troops back in order for the Titans. That and/or he just takes over the Forge of Wills in Ulduar.
Betting on;
Playable, neutral Vrykul
No new class sadly
A few race/class combos
If we’re lucky, 1-2 new specs on existing classes (pulling for tank shaman at least)
Capitol is a massively updated Wyrmrest Temple
Zones will be Stormpeaks, Icecrown, Dragonblight, Scholazar.
Borean Tundra’s fate will be part of a mini patch, it collapsed deep into the earth, where Nerubians and some deep titan constructs from Scholazar are duking it out.
Most of Zul Drak is gone, taken by the Titans forces or sunk into the ocean because the devs clearly don’t want to write trolls.
Grizzly Hills is merged into Dragonblight thanks to the green dragons
Crystalsong is a wasteland of scourge pouring in from IC following the events of SL’s intro.
Fjord is a major patch zone dealing with Odyn shenanigans.
I agree we’ll have to call on the Titans to fix whatever mess Xal’atath is going to cause. Predict we’ll be working with the titans (or at least some of them.) The Titans “bad” narrative will be turn into a “point of view” thing like some of the post Shadowlands lore. Ulduar is the main base of Titan operation and we’ll be tasked with fixing machinery across Northrend as the main story to purge Xal’atath corruption instead of re-originating the world. My other prediction is the other cosmic forces will try to interfere to make Azeroth a Titan aligned with them.
Is it wrong of me to be more interested in what they do with other zones and places rather than the obvious? (Ulduar, Sholozar Basin)
I’m much more interested in places like Crystalsong Forest - will that be updated to have Highborne ruin buildings, like Nar’thalas and Zin-Azshari?
What’s going on in Icecrown and Icecrown Citadel now? Arthas’ machinations during that time? Can we gain access to places like the Halls of Reflection or the Pit of Saron in the outer world? The Scarlet base, off Icecrown’s West coast - that’s still active and has a sizeable amount of Scarlet Warriors and Paladins. What’s happened with them?
What about Howling Fyjord and the Vrykul? Corrupted by the Void or have they gone further down the path of their own necromancy?
What about New Hearthglen in Dragonblight and the Scarlet Onslaught since the latest lore still has Scarlet Crusaders around the town and the dockyard they built.