Reposting from reddit, have a feeling it’ll get more traction there than here but eh.
Late night thought, but here what I’m noticing is missing from the narrative: Shamanism was not centered at all in Shadowlands. Death Knight Shadow Mages™ sustain the portals, Mueh’zala was featured but not explained, The Other Side ie the Troll Afterlife was rendered an instance (Like Zul’Gurub, Zul’Farrak, Zul’Drak, Zul’Aman, Dazar’Alor, Atal’Dazar, King’s Rest, i.e. every single major city or area of Trolls except Echo Isles), and in general Shamanism hasn’t been explained.
It didn’t have to be this way. Was discussing this on the forums today:
Blizzard could have made Shamanism as part of the core metaphysics of WoW in the following way:
Make Mueh’zala one of the Eternal Ones, and have Bwonsamdi be his usual envoy on all things while he’s off doing Mueh’zala things.
The Shaman Land (lets call it Guineeland, based on IRL voodoo afterlife) = the Other Side.
The Duty/Job of Shaman land is two fold: 1) they are in charge of guarding the veil (separate from Maldraxxus who guard Shadowlands proper and are allowed to enter reality to stop other forces) and cannot manifest in reality under any and all circumstances and 2) they are in charge of sustaining lines of communication between the Ancestors and their people
This ancestral communication is important because the living must listen to the dead, whether through history or literally, in order to help guide people into a better future. Also, the veil needs guarding, and Maldraxxus is too brute force for it.
They get anima by extracting a tiny bit every time someone accesses the Ancestors, and another bit every time someone enters Guineeland fully; same way Ardenweald takes some anima in exchange for the Soulshape power.
Guineeland doesn’t have its own “natural” geography, but rather each people is based in small city-temples.
The Shamanistic races in WoW are: Orc (MU and Maghar), Tauren (Mulgore and Highmountain), Dwarf (all three clans), Troll (Zandalari and Otherwise), Vulpera, Pandaren, Draenei and Kul Tirans
The center of Guineeland would be Bwonsamdi’s/Mueh’zala’s Necropolis, but the rest of the zone would feature a copy of Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, a giant tipi on a plateau like a supped up Spirit Rise in Thunder Blufffor the Tauren, a Dwarven Citadel like a supped up Hall of Thanes (like the inside of the Lonely Mountain from the Hobbit movies), a copy of Atal’Dazar for all the trolls (and the vulpera!), a supped up golden pagoda structure like in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms for the Pandaren, a copy of Auchindoun for the Draenei and a copy of Shrine of the Storm for Kul Tirans.
The narrative tells us as planets rise and fall, and shamanism expands and shrinks, the realm’s geography changes. Maybe add a subzone where dead culture’s temples are seen, like the realm in American Gods where dead gods are forgotten.
The ancestors speak to the living through a magic pool located at the center of each location; these locations are intentionally modeled after places in reality because that is why spirits can “appear” at these locations (like Shadowmoon Burial Ground) or in certain interfaces (like the Tauren and Orcish Spirit Pools). They are where the veil is “thin”. The pool requires anima to be activated, but also takes anima from the living upon use, so usually a net gain.
Normally, Mueh’zala is the formal ruler but takes a laissez faire yolo attitude, he leaves Bwonsamdi in charge, and Bwonsamdi has a council of one representative per major enclave
The Elder Council could’ve been: Cairne for the Tauren (SO WE GET BAINE DEVELOPMENT), Durotan or Grom for the Orcs (SO WE GET THRALL PARENTAL REUNION), Rastakhan for the Trolls (SO WE SEE WHAT HAPPENED AFTER BFA), Dwarves get Madoran Bronzebeard (or Thaussarian! To be spicy), Pandaren get Emperor Shaohao, Kul Tirans get idk Daelin Proudmoore, or the original Lord Stormsong from long ago (Jaina development!), and Draenei could get Vindicator Maraad
The plot would be: discovering Mueh’zala has betrayed the Eternal Ones (the dungeon could stay the same, but changed to the Gates of the Other Side similar to IRL Gates of Guinee), he’s been stealing Loa/Wild Gods from Ardenweald, he’s been letting Maw Shades into the veil (ergo the Vol’jin questline, the Talanji coronation allied race questline, and the Tauren heritage questline), he kidnaps Cairne/Durotar/Daelin/Madoran and sends them to the Maw and we have to rescue them with Rastakhan, we manage to subjugate Muehzala same as we have now, but before we managed that Mueh’zala sapped all the anima from the spirit pools of each temple! Oh no!
It really could’ve been something cool if Blizzard had been willing to engage with themes, cultures, and characters they usually don’t engage with or empower within the story, and would’ve been a cool way to “validate” but also “correct” in-game metaphysics of shamanistic practices on the “ancestor worship” end.
I like it. It dives into existing plot threads that are left dangling.
Daelin Proudmoore is not a good fit for a Shaman zone, but he does evoke some interesting themes of ancestor worship. Not sure how I feel about him.
I’m also a little meh about the idea of the zone being entirely urban. You’ve gone full in on the ancestor worship/spirituality aspect of Shamanism/Voodoo, which is good. But if you’re not going to cover the elemental aspect of Shamanism, then you should probably just call it an ancestor worship zone.
Hard pass. Because this way you’d stomp on tauren and orcish beliefs, and make them share stuff they’re not meant to share.
While I do want to shamanistic covenant, mixing it up with the Other Side is imo a huge disservice to Tauren and orcish and other shamanistic communities as well as to trolls.
the Other Side is established as Troll after life and I’d rather to keep it this way.
Would I love troll covenant? Sure, I’d gladly work for Bwon to thwart Jailer.
But at the same time I would rather keep it exclusive.
Maybe I wouldn’t mind the Other Side instance, if we would go there to stop Jailer taking souls from it, make encounter where we go help trolls, and for it ending where souls of Rastakhan, Zul’Jin and Sen’Jin step up to give last blow and Secure the Other Side for good.
That would be so amazing that I wouldn’t mind if it was just an instance.
It would give justice to troll heroes and would have nice enough plot.
What I cannot stand are unnecessary gnomes, redundant Hakkar and some weird alien.
And apparently, that’s it.
Which is frustrating because trolls have so many things to learn about, and almost each thime there is a content about them they’re watered down and there are lots of unnecessary distractions/ focus on stuff that shouldn’t be the focus.
Like Uldir and blood trolls instead even more Zandalari culture.
I am a massive troll fangirl but that doesn’t mean that I want to stomp on other races lore and dismiss it and watch how my favies take over which was meant to be the theme of someone else.
First, I understand your point of view. Faction themes getting diluted sucks, and the best case scenario is always that we get faction themed content that everyone else has to play.
However, three observations. First, we got 4 afterlives, this is a hypothetical 5th afterlife. Tauren, Orcs, trolls and other ‘shamanistic communities’ don’t make up 1/5th of the player base. We’re going to have to share.
Second, as much as we might want them to be, trolls are not Night Elves, Blood Elves or Humans. They’re simply not popular enough to get race exclusive content every expansion. Blizzard blew its troll load, metaphorically speaking, in Zandalar. They’re going to need at least one expansion to recover.
Three, the Alliance needs to play this content too. And while the Alliance do fit better into 3 out of 4 of the other zones in game, it’s not because those zones aren’t actually Alliance flavored. They’re simply generic themes and the Alliance are made out of generic themes. I’m not going to say it’s unfair to ask Blizzard to honor the more unique themes held by a faction that doesn’t accommodate generic themes very well with 2 zones, but frankly I’m surprised we got Maldraxxus.
I get it, hence why I said that while I would like to have troll covenant I was not expecting to have it. And I’d be fine with the Other Side instance, if it was done right, if it had proper flavor, where we meet important troll characters and they have their time to shine.
I’d be 100% happy with just that.
With shamanistic covenant I’d also be fine and it’s much desired, but it should be split to various Zones where each one is dedicated to different shamanistic community/ understanding of afterlife. And I could see trolls even going in there because they have to pass it to reach the Other Side.
What I do not like are Baal’s idea to merge everything and make it that Troll entities run this thing. Especially when it clashes with already established lore where Mueh’Zala was always cruel and his afterlife would be nothing but pain and suffering. And it’s making tauren and orcsih beliefs lesser by extend.
But that’s not the first time where Baal comes with idea to erase something that was established for a long time because he has “better idea”. (kinda like current wow writers).
As For Zandalar, - that also could’ve been done better because I was fully expecting that after it there will be a pause with troll content. While it has it’s highlights it also had lots of truly upsetting stuff as well.
Tauren and orcish lore already was stomped on a lot. And I wouldn’t want to see them becoming lesser even in afterlife. I know that now isn’t better but at this moment I can still pretend that there is shamanistic afterlife plane and it’s much better than what is written above.
Maybe a planets elementals are calmed or even able to be communicated with with the help of the Anima the ancestors give the world? Just a bit goes a long way etc.
Ties Anima and Spirit
Can’t have your cake and eat it too sadly.
The Shadowlands could’ve both validated and corrected Shaman beliefs in a way that promotes narrative cohesion and factional/racial unity, so well no.
We simply don’t know enough about anyone’s Shamanism outside of Orc and Tauren practices (who we know both have spirit pools traditionally in their world of origin).
Western Themes*
Ah yes the birthplace of Necromancy that is the cause of Forsaken existence and six months into the expansion doesn’t have any Forsaken development nor indications it is coming so far.
Expecting a troll only entire zone in the Shadowlands just for Bwonsamdi is both unrealistic and actually does a disservice because it doesn’t tie a long standing Loa of Death (who aren’t wild gods) to the greater Pantheon of Death and doesn’t tie Shamanism together for the sake of unity promotion.
Muehzala/Bwonsamdi could’ve easily been part of the Eternal Ones.
Because he hid them lol that’s the point. All that Bwonsamdi is was given to him by Mueh’zala. The necklace around Muehzala’s neck is the symbol seen all around what we usually associate with Bwonsamdi.
It isn’t, but my point stands, we hardly know anything about Tauren Shaman details.
And wouldn’t you rather TWO key figures of Troll lore be part of the cosmic eternal death Pantheon while also retaining the canon Bwon is partial to Trolls (let’s say the President of the Council is always a troll Bwonsamdi picks)? Why settle for a small, inferior realm when Bwonsamdi could’ve been an eternal one?
Side note: it’s illuminating to me how many people are more okay with Ardenweald retcon’ing Wild God lore and being a Nature realm in the Deathlands than with an Ancestral Realm that wouldn’t use any Western Themes lol
It makes no sense. There should be milions of souls in this afterlife by now how to hide such a big amount of souls. Sure the power was given to Bwon but Him being elevated to Loa should give him power to create plane on his own. Just like Quet’zun did creating a small pocket of hell for her own followers.
What I understoof was that Bwon created this plane to steal.souls from Mueh. The Other Side is that hideout.
So why not developer them independly?
Because I am not obsessed with power fantasy. I am already happy that trolls have deities that simply care for them and assist them with not just blessings.
All I wanted for trolls to have nice hubs around the world and few meaningful military victories against their valid enemies. And then Trolls would be perfect to me.
Maybe Bwonsamdi’s place in this hypothetical could be pared back a tiny bit into being just one of Mueh’zala’s envoys, instead of the main one? That would leave room for other races to have their own connections while letting Bwonsamdi keep more of a troll-favored connection.
And possibly crib a bit from Bastion’s memory-storage thing so that the realm’s also a communal archive of knowledge, providing a source for why people call spirits back for wisdom in the first place. A spirit participating this way could also generate anima through its interaction with a mortal, giving them a pragmatic reason for reaching through instead of just for the sake of saying hi to your 10th removed cousin or something like that.
I can still see it happening in a future patch. There is no immediate need to save that realm, unlike the other covenants. since it has its anima revenue coming from communication with the living. Only part of revenue is from death.
Trolls have a ton of capitalism, they can share their culture around death with the other races. They already do with loa and ardenweld.
Oh, sucking the anima out of the living? I had a crazy theory that Ardenweald steals anima from other covenants through wisp’s, slowly pulling anima while they are near the living.
My thing is we don’t see that anywhere outside of Trolls and Mueh’zala is called by even the Spriggans and Boggarts of Ardenweald as “the true god of death”.
Tbh I feel like Blizzard forgot what Shaman originally represented down the lane further with WoW. In Vanilla / BC, aside from the elements they also seemed to be tied akin with the spirits & spiritual realm. Then later on it kinda seemed to be ‘Just elements’ and they brought in the spiritual side only out of convenience.
I’d be 100% okay, if this expansion they had a Shaman-only questline where they strengthen their bonds & ties to the Shadowlands to have a deeper connection with the spiritual realms & powers.
Additionally – in the last book ‘Shadows Rising ’ had a lot of references to the Shaman ‘sensing a great disturbance’ among the dead & spirits, so it would seem silly not to have a questline regarding it or further references to it.
I was looking forward to Shamans having a moment to shine with the spiritual side; especially given the references made in ‘Shadows Rising ’ … But then Blizzard came through like a toddler destroying the nicely built castle and slammed their Death Knights in the middle of the table “LoOk aT tHiS !”