So are venthyr truly vampires? They die in the sun? Do dreadlords have that weakness?
If they get anima by draining evil souls does that mean that WoW afterlife needs evil folks to live and die in order or the Shadowlands to function?
Also why would the group supposedly cleansing you of pride/evil be so full of pride themselves?
That animation was complete tonal whiplash from Ardenweald. It was hilarious in its way, but quite the 180 from how the other zones were portrayed in Afterlives.
Hiding the response behind headings in case you aren’t interested in spoilers.
Denathrius is the ‘sire’ of the race as its progenitor, all of the Venthyr of the zone were once mortal beings that underwent the same punishment, sometimes over centuries or “millennia” to purge themselves of sin in a way that is not altogether different from the way the Kyrian do it. One obtains penance through pain, the other through distance. While the Kyrians simply destroy the expelled emotions, letting the anima seep into the ground and then extracting it later using pylons, the Venthyr seem to harvest these red Sha-like emotional manifestations of anima.
Each soul, when it begins its penance, has a sinstone that is engraved with a number of their sins. One of the newer ways of torturing souls, we discover, is affixing the stones to the soul as a physical weight that must be carried (ala Jacob Marley), we see that this is considered particularly cruel as souls will become maddened from the burden of the weight or be crushed into nothingness by it.
Anyways, back on point, it used to be a choice whether the soul went on to another afterlife or become a Venthyr to perpetuate the cycle. Several of the leading Venthyr are ‘sired’ directly by Denathrius, while the majority are instead transformed by lesser Venthyr. Their sinstones are then stored away as a relic of their past lives. Some of the leading Venthyr are granted a portion of Denathrius power through talismans that allow them to break the thought/reality barrier a little and grant them greater control over Revendreth itself.
What we learn, however, is that this process is not perfect, and what is considered appropriate penance is dictated by the Venthyr overseeing each soul. A Venthyr can champion for a soul they think has earned redemption to end their torment early, or, more often, a soul is judged at a rather arbitrary time whether they have achieved penance or are irredeemable, making Revendreth very political. During this process, they are ceremonially renamed.
Because these Venthyr, unlike the Kyrians, maintain a memory of their past life, we discover they are embarrassed by the sins stored on their sinstone and there is a bit of power behind knowing the ‘true name’ of the Venthyr. Because of this psychosomatic link, knowing the sins of the Venthyr and calling them on it and by their true name appears to allow one to have magical power over them. For some, however, that have truly moved on from their original sins, the sinstones have no real power.
Also, they do acknowledge a couple of times in the zone and story that some Venthyr do need to be sent back for re-evaluation if they begin to exhibit their old sins, however I get the impression this is more a political decision. Similarly, this does not prevent the soul from committing brand new sins as a Venthyr. It seems that specifically Avarice and Gluttony are permitted as a ‘lesser sin’ among the Venthyr as a way to keep them in line - if they are encouraged to dump all their sin into one pool, it is less likely they will commit offenses that may hurt the souls in their care.
The Shadowlands does need Anima to function, and it appears that for this specific afterlife to work, it does depend on the existence of evil.
Whether normal sunlight would burn the Venthyr is unknown, however this 'L’ight does. Another interesting question is whether souls from other regions would burn here, or if its just a peculiarity of the Venthyr and the Lights philosophical disagreement with Denathrius.
I thought anima was necessary for the entirety of the shadowlands and the Venthyr are essentially the ones that farm it.
Also - why are you being sent to the Revendreth for penance unless you were judged evil? And since they then use these evil souls to farm anima, doesn’t that mean you need evil souls in the first place? That’s where I’m confused. Or can you be not evil and still get sent to Revendreth? Who would be an example?
Hmm. The Revendreth one feels a touch at odds with what we’re actually shown in the game. Not super off, but…
I saw nobles giving their own anima instead of forcing their underlings to give what they couldn’t.
In the end, the actual zones will help people decide, and those who decided on these videos alone might be surprised to see what actually happens.
Every afterlife has its own method of farming anima - since every soul is made of it, every region has its own wellspring, in a sense, as well as a method of gathering it for themselves. Think of every afterlife as its own ecosystem, harvesting anima from the souls sent there. Revendreth has a particularly… brutal method of extracting the anima and thus has enough for export, so to speak.
That is an amazing question philosophically.
Because what defines sin can vary wildly by culture in real life, when you take into consideration that the Shadowlands have the souls of Every mortal plane, planet, and timeline being sent there, what is defined as evil in every conceivable computation of reality means the sky is the limit.
For the purposes of the game however, most of the folks encountered that are being punished there had a rather high body-count in life or committed a number of easily identifiable crimes to our moral standards. The only soul I have questions about is a certain horse. I don’t know WHAT that horse did to wind up in Revendreth, but it must have been massive.
We also have to take into consideration that these are people that the Arbiter thinks can somehow be redeemed.
I found the video pretty meh. Only thing I learned was the edgiest of edgelords finally have a home now in Revendreth. I do put it higher than Maldraxxus as at least it had some story to it.
Bastion and Ardenweld were by far the best 2. Other 2 were not great.
Having read your spoilers, I came to this conclusion.
Light And Shadow launching attacks on the Covenants in Shadowlands. Definitely a cosmic war going on.
The animation, the details… the voice… the story…
This one is poetic!
gg.
Glory to Sylvanas Windrunner!
She will set us ALL free!
I don’t particuliary like those kind of animation, so I didn’t even took the time to fully watch it…
That is a very interesting perspective of that realm, I like it!
for me the Bastion Team wins hands down. The “light save my soul” on a fade to black screen gave me chills. Also when Uther’s soul is split half light half void that was epic. Bastion team beat all the other vids hands down.
i want to sign up for the save Garrosh team and make him our next warcheif
Garrosh needs no redemption, he did nothing wrong, and he should be our warchief now
The cinematic shorts are all out of the ballpark good. Blizzard always manages to make the best looking… well… everything. I love this game and they have managed to make it even better. Sometimes we hit the valleys and sometimes we hit peaks and this expansion will almost def be a peak.
As far as Artie boy… I have to agree that his “All I see is darkness” monologue was a bit lacking indeed. A blue lady with wings is grabbing at me would have worked much better. Great job Blizz, as per ALLLLLWAAAYYYS!
What’s up with the horrible graphics?
Edit: It looks like a failing indie company did the graphics and not a AAA game company.
uwu
…i mean zug zug