The shadowlands afterlives post

Lore Story Forum
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Let’s face it: Shadowlands really killed a lot of the lore. I know we’ve all beaten this dead horse by now, but it bears repeating.

Not only did it strip away the mystery of death in Warcraft, but it also showed us that death is basically the worst possible fate. Think about it:

  • You could have your memories wiped.
  • You could be forced to endlessly atone for your sins.
  • You could become a seed and risk getting eaten—where you die for good.
  • Or you might end up fighting a never-ending war as some oozing, pus-riddled tumor.

And this is the fate for everyone—the old grandmothers who lived noble lives, the young who died too soon, the brave warriors who gave their lives in battle. Until, of course, the writers suddenly handwaved it all with:
“Uh, yeah, there are infinite afterlives… we just didn’t show them.”

If I were a writer, here’s how I’d try to honor Warcraft’s lore while reimagining Shadowlands. I’d incorporate real-world cultural beliefs, drawing inspiration from what we’ve already seen in-game and mixing it with different cultural references.

Example: Troll Afterlife – Trollhala

Why not give trolls their own distinct afterlife—Trollhala?

This would be a savage yet celebratory realm where trolls and their loa reside. Imagine a place like Valhalla but infused with troll culture. Trolls fight, die, and party endlessly alongside their loa. The loa are at full power here—so powerful they don’t even need servants—but they still love attention and offerings.

The landscape would be breathtaking: massive, floating pyramids; an enormous pyramid dominating the skybox; troll masks and artifacts everywhere. There could even be a humorous nod to trolls’ ritual sacrifices. For example, you’d meet a troll who says:
“Yeah, I was one of hundreds who got my heart ripped out as a sacrifice. Turns out the afterlife isn’t so bad after all!”

I know trolls aren’t necessarily as fight-happy as orcs or vikings, but it’s hard to imagine them settling for a completely peaceful afterlife. Instead, conflict here could be fun. The different tribes might gather massive armies to fight bloody battles on vast fields to honor their loa and earn their blessings. Trolls who fall in battle just come back to fight again. And when the fighting’s done? Everyone dances, drums, and parties endlessly.

Another Example: Elemental Spirit Realm

We should’ve seen an afterlife that embraces the spiritual connection to nature and the elements—a peaceful realm for those deeply in tune with tribal life.

This could be a place for shamans, hunters, and other tribal spirits. It would be a serene, beautiful realm, with landscapes reminiscent of Nagrand, the Barrens, and Mulgore. Orcs, tauren, trolls, and even tribal humans or other Alliance races could find their peace here.

The Earthmother could exist in this realm, guiding spirits. Hunters could ride wolves, perform rituals, and watch over their loved ones in the mortal world. There might even be quests where spirits peer into the land of the living, granting blessings or strength to their descendants—almost like guardian angels.

I could go on tbh. I mean, what about that thing with Odin and Helya? I thought they were afterlives and also i thought they did the thing of a “death realm” a whole lot better than shadowlands…

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De Other Side being just a dungeon was a let down. I would have loved a storyline where we actually saw the clash between Bwonsamdi, Hakkar, and Mueh’zhala.

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As much as I did not like SL, I really dont feel having a afterlife makes death a non-issue at all, we have mentions of the Shadowlands in the WoW universe for a very long time.
The issue of course is as you said, WoW’s afterlife is pretty horrible depending on where you land. I would like some kind of choice a soul has on where they wish to go maybe after some time atoning. It would of been cool to have a tier system you can work up in.

My largest issue was you can just “die again” making even having a afterlife pointless. I have to really head canon thats just not what happens.

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I could have sworn that there are an infinite number of afterlives. Did I imagine that?

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→ Craftenium: afterlife of perished geniuses. :bulb::robot:

Odd we never ventured there but funny if they probably could’ve countered the Jailer’s plans. :wrench::robot:

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There are infinite afterlives. What we visited were the main afterlives.

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Afterlives as a concept are way too complex to try to boil down into distinct mundane realms not entirely unlike those that already exist in reality. Like, me just being shunted into Real World Again, but After Death with all my flaws intact? Garbage. They would be better off doing some kind of souls are recycled energy in a closed circuit approach imo (basically take the idea behind Ardenweald and The Emerald Dream as a cycle and write it large). Instead, there’s no mystique, no spiritual awareness, no sense of wonder—just a neatly packed Afterlife Box we get chucked into by an automaton Hogwarts Sorting Hat. Even worse than that, we find out everything here is basically Titans again. BUT WAIT, THERE ARE MACRO TITANS OUTSIDE/BEFORE (?) REALITY AND OURS ARE JUST MICRO TITANS! GENIUS! GENIENSUEIIUSUSSSS! MY FARTS SMELL SO GOOD, OHMYGOD.

To be absolutely fair, writing a satisfying Afterlife is hard enough. Trying to write one for every culture in your world simultaneously was a fool’s errand.

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Dude, that is literally how we end Shadowlands by making Pelagos the arbiter and him mentioning he will actually talk to the souls so that they are actually given a voice as to where they end up.

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I know, that part is atleast fixed now but the other issues I still have to headcanon.

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Shadowlands was definitely a letdown in many ways. Your ideas about what to do with the Shadowlands are interesting. I particularly liked your take on the Elemental Spirit Realm. Not having such a place was very disappointing.

For my own ideas, I would have made Shadowlands less of an afterlife and more of a way point. In other words, Shadowlands would have been a place where souls go before going to the lands of the dead. Think of it as being similar to limbo or purgatory. Not necessarily bad or good just a function of Azeroth. Souls would go there to unburden themselves/deal with unfinished business before moving on. With the true realms of the dead there is no communication exception under extremely limited circumstances.

The different regions of Shadowlands in this version would be about unburdening yourself and/or dealing with any remaining regrets. Not every soul would be present there only those that need to be before moving on. Such a place would also be tied to Azeroth and not the entire cosmos. This would allow for a lot more cameos from familiar faces.

For a primary antagonist, instead of something like the Jailer I think something similar to Death from the Castlevania series would be a better choice. Not the least of which because, spoilers from the show, Death dons different guises to manipulate others for his goals. Said goal being to create more shattered souls as Death feeds on them and wants more. I would keep the maw, but instead of a place where we would adventure I would have it be a place to be avoided. If you stayed still for too long in certain areas or if you were affected by different things then you could dragged into the Maw, where your speed would slowed to a crawl, there would horrific voices and wailing all around you, you could not see far, and your health would be eaten away unless you found a way to leave. And make it persistent where players have to worry about being dragged back throughout the expansion.

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No, people just don’t pay attention to the lore. We just visited the 4 afterlives, and the maw, which are part of the first ones. That was it. There are infinite afterlives but everything was being filtered to the maw, hence we needed the first ones primus sigils or whatever to fix the afterlife.

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… no, their afterlife is Da Other Side and it’s own of the few we do get to see lmao. It just was a dungeon and not a fully explored zone, but they came out more unscathed than others. SL’s issue was not so much the specific afterlives not existing- that said people don’t understand the whole infinite afterlives thing right either. It doesn’t necessarily mean all possibilities, which is why the idea of a light, shadow and elune afterlife get argued about a lot because of statements and lore in DF that would not make sense with them having their own.

The number of afterlives is not itself the issue. The ones they made largely required massive retcons (except Revendreth tbh) and don’t make a ton of sense with the universe they were inserted into.

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Something I noticed is all bad story expansions bite off more than they can chew. Legion is like the single exception.

Shadowlands was a fools errand. A few random shadow realms on Azeroth where the spirit healers live is probably enough to fill an expansion by itself. It was never going to work, like time travel plots.

and “dude everyone you ever loved and died is tortured in teh shadowland” was a bad hook

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I feel something that contributes to this is that we never see any of these ‘infinite realms’ outside of Da Other Side. Even if we had something similar to the Legion invasions from 7.3, where you go through a portal on Argus to another planet and stop the Legion on those, it would help show that there are infinite afterlives. Make it that the Jailer has sent his mawsworn forces to invade these afterlives looking for more souls to harvest for their anima or something. The only other ‘afterlife’ we see outside of the main 4 and the Maw is Da Other Side.

Otherwise it is all tell, no show.

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The whole nihilistic idea that everything in your life; your faith, love, hard work, acomplishments and connections had no meaning. None of it mattered.

It’s all wrung from you and used as a currency. A commodity. Whatever is left of you is repurposed on the whims of some unthinking alien machine. Run through one indoctrination or another until you’re completely changed.

This is a setting they thought would appeal to people? It’s miserable on its very premise.

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tbh I only really see Ardenweald fall into this and that is only with respect to Wild Gods that were bound to the Emerald Dream originally, such as Ursoc.

We have known since Legion / Chronicles vol 1 that something akin to the Val’kyr exists and pre-date them. As Odyn got the idea of them from peering into the Shadowlands. Plus Chronicles vol 1 does say that there were some Val’kyr that rejected both Odyn and Helya following the civil war that took place. Choosing to live their life in the Shadowlands instead. Implying that these Val’kyr became Spirit Healers. That could still be the case even with the change that Spirit Healers are just Kyrian Watchers.

Maldraxxus I don’t see anything that massively retcons any pre-existing lore outside of tying their architecture to the WC3 scourge because reasons. Even though it was established that the scourge took it from the Nerubians (WC3 manual) and the Nerubians took it from Tol’vir that lived in Northrend (Cdev Q&A leading into Cata)

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I seem to be one of the few people who is OK with Shadowlands.

In the lead up to Shadowlands, during BfA, one of the reasons I sided was Sylvanas was because she seemed to know there was a looming danger in the Shadowlands that we needed to face. Something was wrong, and she aimed to deal with it.

We later learn that Sylvanas thought the way the Shadowlands was set up was bad and needed to be remade. So, she was working with the Jailer to remake creation. Only realizing at the end that his new cosmos would be a bummer for her.

In the end - she succeeds. The Shadowlands are changed. Just as she sought.

I understand we couldn’t see every afterlife out there. We went to the ones that run the machinery, and fixed those issues.

I don’t think it changed a lot of the lore, it just added a few layers to it. With all the infinite afterlives the various creatures of the cosmos go to, it makes sense that there is a sort of “middle man” that works with all of them, and judges/guides/sends the souls to where they should go.

I just saw the Shadowlands as the functional layer between the living and the afterlives their souls go to. With some souls ending up with the Covenants to help keep that function going.

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I like most of SL what REALLY kill it for me was the Mechanical part of it… it look unique for sure and was beautifully animated or illustrated, but I was NOT a fan of it. I do give em props for trying to create a unique theme for WoW.

SL left me with so many questions… that I’m not sure I will live long enough to know the answers if we ever get any. Also the Jailer being behind everything and then gets defeated was… a poor choice IMO to move forward the story, like really?
He was so cunning and smart he could not had a backup plan? Sire D with his short cameo seem more fit to be behind it all… but it was stated he was loyal to the Jailer… so… um yeah… I have so many questions… like what is worst than the Void consuming everything like stated in the Lore… what is to come??!
Darn it, wish we could just take his memory core like the Earthen and see the Jailers memories to understand better all that mess. :sweat_smile:

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I thought it was funny at the time that Sylvanas says:

“Sire Denathrius has been taken prisoner. What is our plan to recover him?”

It almost makes her seem naive. She is hanging out with some of the baddest baddies who have ever been bad, but she is still looking out for one of her gang.

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Our continual respawns in non-hardcore play didn’t do that for you?

Classic reincarnation trope and for the job that the Kyrian were created to do, it made sense.

Classic Greek mythic trope, rememver the stories of Sissyphus and Tantalus, only in Revendreth it would be the suject’s REFUSAL to atone that made it endless, or you souls like Garoosh that deliberately chose obliviion

That only occured because of the anima crisis deliberately caused by one leader’s sabotage of the system…the kind of mythic crisis that mythic Champions are made for.

Again as demonstrated by Vash’j WHO WAS OFFERED, the reestoration of her original Night Elf body but chose otherwise. It’s a volountary choice.

Because those are the five realms that are the engine under the hood, special purpose relams whose job is to keep the whoe works, Shadowlands AND the Lands of the Living in a working balance.

What single piece of lore did it kill? Warcraft had never explored the afterlife before, it expanded lore in a different direction. You might not LIKE the directions it took, AND THAT IS PERFECTLY VALID. But saying that it overthrew preexistiing material is simply not correct.

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