Its like Anima, but spoiled or at least, refined?
I mean, i know Stygia is made when we punch souls in the face with violence until it is destroyed…
So it means Stygia is almost a anima waste after it was violently destroyed? For what purpose, besides being a currency? Lorewise speaking, it have some stronger “fuel power” than anima or something?
I’d imagine it’s a residual piece of anima that all maw dwelling souls comprise of. Unharvested and only empowered by the sheer suffering of souls. As we can see how Anima is such a plentiful source I. The extremely prideful, what would happen if such emotion was elicited?
The maw once was for the worst of the worst. Souls only befit for punishment and such anima from those souls were arguably scarce to harvest from. And the Maw is nothing but a hungering abyss.
Meanwhile after Sylvanas’s actions are so many souls entering and being punished and drained.
We also have some detail in the flavor text implying a soul’s destruction leaves Stygia as its remains.
I mean, the description on the currency explains it pretty well:
The byproduct of the violent destruction of a Soul within the Maw.
I may be revealing myself as a pot head, but it almost seems like resin in a “water pipe” from smoking pot.
The Name Stygia is a corruption of the word Stygian, which is an Adjective related to the river Styx.
What it actually is I have no idea as I don’t know if it can be used for anything.
Isn’t Styx a river of the dead or something like that? They were just probably looking for “deathy” words.
I think Faranoth might be the closest here lol.
Stygia just sounds like one of those ‘deathy’ words since it comes from Stygian to relate to Styx, and I think H.P Lovecraft used it in context of some sort of hell related to the old Gods (since that word appears in a lot of Lovecraftian inspired works).
I think in WoW it doesn’t really mean anything other than for us players to go “Oh, I’ve heard that word before. it means something something bad or evil.” and the developers needing a name for the currency we get.
I just assumed Ve’nari has been using it as a power source for her tech/magic. Even if it’s a diminished form of anima, it’s probably the best available option in the Maw.
Yes and no.
Styx was the River you had to Cross to reach Hades, but it’s Goddess (also named) Styx was also one of the First Gods to side with Zeus in the Titanomachy. These facts combined made it an incredibly Holy river you would swear vows on, that was also heavily associated with the underworld, hence the Word Stygian to mean ‘Of the Underworld’ (even if Cthonic was used more frequently)
I’m sure we’ll find out it’s purpose when Ve’nari uses it all against us as the final boss of the expansion.
There’s a shadowlands grimoire coming out. Maybe it’ll be explained there.
Yeah that’s not something people should tell others.
Does it really matter? At the moment it’s a currency. It serves as a medium of exchange and a measure of value. It’s just like all the other currencies we’re carrying around from previous expansions that are good for absolutely nothing.
We see it getting knocked out of Souls by Mawsworn hacking away at them. The violent destruction clearly means the the violence of a brute swinging an ax. There is no embedding chains into them and abruptly tearing apart and shattering them to get the Stygia!
According to Ven’ari the Souls are eventually reduced to the Rainbow Anima of the Mawsworn and become Shades before the Jailer turns them into Mawsworn themselves!
It’s Ectoplasm.
This. Ectoplasm is the material that composes the Soul whether in the form of Stygia or Soul Ash!
I just imagine that’s what the maw smells like now and gross. Just a land of resin, it would be overwhelming