Nah it could’ve borrowed from the common real-life idea that some of the ancestors “guard” the veil between life and death
If they’d kept Ardenweald and Bastion together like they originally intended, combining Elysian Hold with Tirna Achiad into a silver citadel in a tree like in Tolkien with Galadriel, then you have:
Bastionweald = Psychopomp realm, Kyrians bring stuff in, Fairies take stuff out
Maldraxxus = Defenders of the Shadowlands
Ancestor Zone = maintains the “veil” between Life and Death (the grey plane in reality), making sure nobody gets in/out that isn’t supposed to
If the warrior wanted to stop fighting and finally found peace in death, they wouldn’t be sent to Maldraxxus. Only those who love to fight, defend others or push past their limits go there.
That soul would probably go to a different realm we haven’t gone to.
This is kind of the opposite of how things worked though.
In the various shamanic traditions in WoW, the souls of the dead went to the spirit world rather than stay bound to the material. They interacted with Shamans, not because they were bound to the world, but because Shamans can literally travel across the boundaries between life and death (and other planes). Shamans can assume spirit forms and aspects (as well as elemental). Shamans can traverse the astral planes. Shamans can reincarnate.
Undead (Forsaken, Death Knights, ghosts, ghouls, zombieis, banshees, etc) are the ones that get bound to the material plane. They have, by definition, not passed on. The Light had no tradition of speaking with the souls of the dead outside of the above mentioned undead. Prior to Shadowlands, the prevailing model of the afterlife for followers of the Light was hoping the Naaru took your soul off to their realm- which wasn’t the spirit world. The Light’s relationship with dead pretty much began and ended with destroying/banishing unsent souls to the spirit world.
Similarly with Night Elves and their Druidism, seemed to have a thing where they’d either go to the Emerald Dream–which was not synonymous with the Spirit World back then-- and be reborn or go to wherever Elune is, but it’s not the spirit world. Wisps were also souls that, rather than moved on to the spirit world, remained on the material plane.
It was only really the shamanic traditions that seemed to have souls going to the spirit world while maintaining any kind of relationship with the living. Our first glimpse into the Shadowlands proper was during the Tauren heritage armor quest when Baine underwent a Shamanic ritual to interact with Cairne. Similarly, Bwonsamdi was all about getting souls to pass on to the afterlife, not keeping them bound to the material.
But Shadowlands threw out pretty much all of that and replaced it with new lore.
For starters, they stopped referring to the afterlife the spirit world. Now it’s the “Shadowlands”.
It’s also all of a sudden full of Undead. Ignoring the fact that Undead are souls that specifically do not live in the realm of the dead because they linger in material and have yet to pass on.
They also specifically invented a whole lot of afterlives: the psuedo-Christian Light got a Psuedo-Christian Heaven/Hell/Purgatory separate from the realm of the light realm of the Naaru. Also, they created a whole new afterlife for Night Elf Druidism in the form of Ardenweald.
And they did all this while downplaying/erasing references to Shamanism in general. We haven’t seen anyone using any of their abilities to speak with the dead in the realm of the dead.
All this is part of an overall trend lately to divorce WoW Shamanism from a relationship with the dead and make it more of an elemental mage thing anyway.
“Culture Heroes” is a good schtick. Martial Champions, respected rulers, legendary elders, etc. If your name goes down in the history books/genealogies of your respective society, you’ve earned yourself a place in the hypothetical Shamanic afterlife.
The covenant would be a council of figures in elaborate carved masks. Call them the “Forebearers”. Seeing as how Shamans are the mediums/emissaries between the living and the dead, these Foreberarers would be the mediums/emissaries in the Shadowlands. They have visions, provide military/philosophical/magical guidance and advice and travel across the Shadowlands with news with only so many being at the council at one time. Basically being semi-nomadic.
You can have the main conflict be between the more proactive and more contemplative wings of the Forebearers. For whatever reason, the Jailer shrouded their ability to have visions and project across the Shadowlands. One faction wants to take immediate, even violent action. One wants to sit and think/talk it out, even as time is running out.
Aesthetically, it’d draw on Tauren, Orc, Troll, Wildhammer Dwarf, Vrykul and other similar races aesthetics with an abundance of wooden longhouse/temple structures, strung up hides and furs, totems, bonfires, stone circles and altars, and various subzones with some mountains, tropical/sub-tropical forest and transitional grasslands.
I hoped that not many of their followers were making bank on that because that happened exactly ONCE… and it took an annoying long quest chain to accomplish.
Also, X’era didn’t strike me as the type to care about their tools once they were done with them.
It was also done as an in game tribute to a real life person who had passed from cancer. So the degree to which it’s supposed to be taken as canon piece of world building -as opposed to a heartwarming tribute- is debable there as well.
I don’t think the idea of every Night Elf soul getting reborn was a thing actually supported in game either. I think it was only stated that Wild Gods get reincarnated in the Emerald Dream.
The truth is that “souls go to the spirit world and Shamans can talk to some of them, also there’s a place of torment that Sylvanas experienced” is about the only real information we had on the nature of the afterlife before Shadowlands. So people had lots of headcanons.
And that’s why so much of the Shadowlands came as such a shock to many.
Blizzard just doesn’t give a sh*t about lore that is related to the horde. They do not want to work on developing horde centric content, unless it is for faction war.
History that was presented way back in Classic said that the Troll Empire predated that of the Night Elves. They also were far more ambitious builders as well.
We didn’t even know they had paladins until BFA …and they had loapriests, not druids according to old lore and no, loapriests are NOT druids.
So just because the civilization is older doesn’t mean they never picked up or adapted anything new, it’s logical that the night elves have the oldest mages and druids.
You’re going to adopt the position that they only started having them when BFA launched just so that you can preseve that Malfurion being the First Druid nonsene? The Zandalar are an old conservative civilisation. Anythin they have entrenched to that level isn’t something they just picked up yesterday.
And again, the Devs retcon themselves practically every other week. Anyone who watched Star Trek back in the old days should be used to this.
Shadow casters are not mages, that requires arcane magic. ( i mean, druids are no mages aswell, they use naturmagic, thats the reason they are called…druids;))
And you know, it’s ironic that you’re so willing to spend retcons on this, when one of the oldest retcons ever is that trolls are older than elves, originally the lore was written the other way around, the elves were the oldest race on Azeroth.
Tell me, at every opportunity you stand up for the trolls - at the expense of the elves - do you want to take even more iconic from the elves?
No it was’t. There were books hinting about this found in places like Gadgetzan even before Burning Crusade.
Pointing out facts is not “standing up”, or do you believe that lying to enhance the Night Elf image does anyone any good?
My enjoyment at playing Night Elves, and I main 3 and play 2 others does not rest on them having more “World Firsts” than anyone else.
I enjoyed the Night Elves and were drawn to them because they were such a role reversal of “Light skinned Elves good, Dark Skinned Elves bad” especially once Burning Crusade came out. That’s not something that anyone can take away from them. In fact it’s become even more significant now that 15 years later both Paizo and WOTC are catching on to ditching this old and deservedly hated trope.
i can even post you the old source…they still exist
Wait:
Thats from the first core rule Edition, and it appears at year: 2003 (september)
its the oldest kanon source we had after warcraft 3 the game…older as wow…older as every story about Trolls or elves.
So DON`T tell me because you are unknown to the facts around world of warcraft retcons history…that" i lie to enchance the night Elf image".
…because i don´t like this behavior of your, and its in my eye absolutly irrelevant what you think, if you have no idea, then ask for the source…i´m too long invested in this entire lore…to know even the oldest source of lore…
“before Burning crusade” its still a retcon…made to give the Trolls anything special…but it is in fact a retcon. Back then…as all this happened, the rpg books were still canon and even confirmed canon. Its one of the oldest and first canon this game ever had…by most people forgotten…
It was an aight idea, given often times fairy queens have bird wings rather than butterfly wings in depictions (a theme used recently in the Malificent movies with Angelina Jolie), and the logic that the same realm that brings souls into the Shadowlands is the one that returns them to life.
Plus if the Winter-Archon is the sister of Elune, then it adds to the whole Nocturnal-Spring goddess vs Daylight-Winter “goddess”.
You’re quoting the RPG , the first edition that was based on the RTS, not the second which was based on WOW itself which did not repeat this. I know this because I collected all the books for both. And even thought there’s a lot of good material that I wish was part of the game canon, wishing does not make it so.
The RPG books have been stated to have NEVER been canon for WOW. You’re also selectively embracing your sources as the second editon also pointed out that there were races far older than the Ngiht Elves extent on Azeroth. Such as the bugs who build their kingdoms underneath Northrend and Silithus as well as the Thousand Needles.
