One of the Kyrian covenant quests has you go down to azeroth with a kyrian ascendant. You’re sent to pick up the soul of someone who died heroically saving his family and friends.
The ascendant takes the soul to Oribos and the soul automatically gets sucked into the Maw. The kyrian reacts in shock as obviously the guy we just picked up did not deserve to go to hell.
That reaction confused me because at this point in the story it is already well established that every soul is being sent to the Maw. It’s a plot point that is revealed literally as soon as you start the expansion.
So my questions are:
How could the ascendant and the kyrian leadership not know about the Maw situation at this point? If mortals figured it out in the first 30 minutes of the game, how do they not know in a quest that takes place like 3 weeks later? Or maybe they do know?
Which leads to my other question…
Suppose they do know about the maw situation. Continuing to send ascendants to collect souls would make them evil. If they are evil, what’s the point of making every new ascendant realize that they are feeding souls to the maw? That would only accelerate the amount of kyrians who go to the forsworn side.
And finally…
Are there any drawbacks to just leaving souls in Azeroth? Is it not better to just leave them floating around until we fix the arbiter? Why continue to feed the maw?
They did, but they kept doing it because it’s their “eternal charge”. They say so in the quest.
Same as question 1.
I’d say quite likely. God knows what, though. But the fact that they STILL do it when they’re just damning them to the Maw says one of the following
a) They literally have to otherwise something bad happens
b) Their adherence to “The Path”/their literal job makes them duty bound.
They don’t see themselves doing it as evil, in their point of view their duty is to ferry souls to Oribos, it’s the path they have set out for them. They say that they will continue doing it despite feeding all souls straight into the maw, as others are trying to fix the whole arbiter/straight into maw problem as it’s not the kyrians duty to fix that.
To be honest, if they were more flexible then they could just stop ferrying souls to Oribos and instead straight to other realms, essentially stopping feeding the jailer and revitalizing the other realms, the only problem would be to decide which soul to a place where as it’s not an easy task to find a good fit.
Souls stuck on Azeroth are usually very demented and stuck in loops reliving parts of their life. We don’t know if it has any problems outside of starving the shadowlands of anima though (not really a problem now as it’s all funneled to the maw anyway).
TL;DR: The Kyrians refuse to stray from their duty/path set out for them, and think it’s better to feed the Maw and empower the jailer further then stop until the Arbiter is fixed.
They are duty bound to follow to the Purpose. Their Purpose, is to move souls pass the veil to Oribos. What the Purpose does with the souls after that, is not their problem.
The souls being damned to the Maw sure does suck. But I’m certain the Purpose has a reason for it. Best we just keep doing our jobs until the Purpose resolves this hiccup.
It wasn’t until it became clear that the Jailer is actively involved did the Kyrians even consider doing something other than just continuing their jobs…but they will of course continue their jobs while they contribute to stopping the whole mess because can’t just stop following the Purpose now can they?
If there’s one thing I’d call the Kyrians, then it would be Lawful Stupid. Refusing to temporarily stop their task despite knowing it dooms countless souls to the eternal torment in the Maw and empowering the Jailer, the very same guy that broke the system in the first place. While they and their allies starve of anima.
Its weird that the story puts emphasis the “duty” angle. Because there aren’t really any better options for them to do right now. If they just leave mortal souls on the mortal plane they’re going to start pilling up very quickly. They’re going to start turning into ghosts and wraiths and banshees, because they’re now trapped with no where to go, and start hurting people. In numbers that would make the Scourge blush, across the entire universe.
And the kyrian aren’t equipped like the Arbiter was to know where a soul is meant to go, let alone to be able to create specific afterlives for special cases. Meaning that the kyrian can’t just start dropping off souls at whatever realm that looks like it could be the right fit for them. That or just take them all to Revendreth to have the anima forcibly drained regardless if the soul deserves it. Which is still, you know, not good.
Kleia was shown to not know. The Kyrian ascended who guided her did, and claimed that the Archon was working on a solution. As such, probably the only Kyrian who do know are the ones who are ascended, the ones who have been directly able to see it for themselves. Presumably, they are keeping this information from becoming common knowledge in order to keep it from causing panic, especially if they believe that the Archon will soon correct the situation with the help of the other Eternal Ones.
Define what you believe makes them evil. If you mean malicious in that they want souls to go to the Maw to suffer, then I disagree. As mentioned above, the Kyrian believe the Archon is working on a solution, a solution they believe might become more complicated if those souls are not within the Shadowlands. For all we know, a soul left to fend for itself might suffer a worse fate, or even be scooped up by another power (fel powers too, could feed on souls). As such, yes, the Kyrian are feeding souls to the Maw, but the intention of it, based on what they have been told and what they believe, may make their sin one of ignorance rather than maliciousness.
Again, we don’t know, but presumably it’s something pretty bad for the Kyrian’s job to be so vital to the Shadowlands.
The potential collapse of existence seems like a pretty decent drawback to leaving souls on Azeroth.
Souls contain a lot of power. If the Kyrians stop bringing souls to the Shadowlands, how long will it be before the Void or the Light start snatching them up to grow stronger? Existence itself is maintained by the delicate balance of power between the six cosmic forces. If one grows more powerful than the rest, it will destroy everything.
We don’t know what the consequences of stopping would be. It might damm the souls to becoming wandering undead such as those that haunt Karazhan or the Highborne ruins of Kalimdor.
The nature off Crapsack Worlds frequently means that you have nothing but bad choices.
Not great, but at least placing them in another realm, even if not the fully correct one is more preferable to being dropped into the Maw which is just super hell, for both the soul and for us that are against the Jailer as we won’t empower him that way.
Good point. I think you’re correct that we would have a lot of angry spirits in the living world and that can’t end well.
