Every planet the Pantheon orders has its own Shadowlands that is said to be linked to all the others, in our case it would have been created by Freya with assistance from other Keepers, perhaps Mimiron or Odyn. The location of the Shadowlands in the cosmology chart is analogous to that of the Emerald Dream, which was created by Freya as well for the purpose of having a backup copy of the planet to re-originate to if necessary. This explains why only those entrusted with the Heart of Azeroth are able to return from the Maw, an allegedly inescapable zone, as we’re functioning as Azeroth’s constables to either rectify or destroy the wayward jailer, Zovaal.
We also see that the four present custodians there, the Winter Queen, the Arbiter, the Jailer, and Sire Denathrius, had prototypes in the Zereth, along with other robots. We know the Keepers had to experiment with their own first generation of Titan forged that failed in the form of the Troggs, before getting it right with the Earthen and Vrykul. They are another trial run by certain Keepers. Perhaps Freya tried making them herself, and requested Mimiron’s assistance after the failure. We also know that the architecture made by the Keepers is different, with the original classic wow Marudon having a very different look than that of Uldaman, or what we see in Khaz Algar now. Who then created Sire Denathrius? It seems like a very Ra Den type of construction.
The Titanforged did not make the Shadowlands.
The First Ones made the Shadowlands.
The Pantheon of Death in the Shadowlands the Archon, the Winter Queen, Sire Denathrius and the Arbiter/Jailer are actually Divine Souls bonded to Automa Constructs by the First Ones.
As per the Dungeon Journal:
Bereft of the cosmic spirits of the Eternal Ones, these incomplete host bodies can only carry out their base directives without mercy or compassion. With the enemy at the gates, Lihuvim has little choice but to activate these dangerous prototypes.
The Pantheon of Death is Death’s counterpart to the Pantheon of Order which are the Titans not the Titan Keepers.
The Pantheon of Death was bonded to Zereth Mortis’s Automa Children just as the Titans learned secrets from Zereth Ordos.
The Winter Queen is an Avatar of Elune’s Sister. Elune is stated to be of the Pantheon of Life.
Furthermore the Pantheons of Death and Life is considered a Pantheon of Gods while the Titans are considered a Pantheon of God-like beings.
The Titans emulate Gods like Elune in that they take the form of Celestial Bodies but unlike the Gods who pour themselves into Avatars while their Bodies remain spherical and dormant the Titans shape their Bodies into Humanoid Entities.
Also on the Emerald Dream: it’s actually a part of the Realms of Life claimed by Freya for her Construct Nymue in order to provide Azeroth with a Blueprint to rebuild itself with in case it needs to be Re-Originated by the Forge of Origination in Uldum.
7 Likes
First off there is no “Death” or “Order”, they aren’t entities of any sort. They’re just conceptualizations at best or descriptors. I wasn’t asking whether or not the Titan Keepers made the Shadowlands as that’s a given, but rather more generally which Keeper was responsible for which Custodian.
You’re placing a huge amount of importance on Azeroth’s keepers. The Shadowlands is bigger and older than Azeroth. Mimiron and Ra Den and Freya have nothing whatsoever to do with the Shadowlands.
3 Likes
The cosmology chart pretty explicitly places the Emerald Dream (created by Freya) to be an analogy of life to the Shadowlands. The power scaling, architecture, fundamental purpose and lore with our characters and Azeroth’s connection all solidify its special relation to Azeroth itself and its creation by the Keepers. This is why all the characters we meet in the Shadowlands, a supposedly infinite realm, are from Azeroth.
Now, the Shadowlands IS in fact infinite, as, like I said, the Keepers of all the worlds create a Shadowlands to sort the souls born from the life the Pantheon sets down, but there’s an Oribos, Maw, Revendreth, for all those worlds.
It is basically pointless to try to maintain Chronicle I’s coherence post BFA. The people who hijacked the story didn’t care, they just ignored it to realize their own diarrhea soaked vision. It doesn’t matter that Shadowlands was supposed to be a mirror to the Emerald Dream, because unreliable narrator! Renewal! I will never serve!
4 Likes
Well Danuser was retconned in DF (read: no longer works at Blizzard) so whatever anyone says about “POV” works in exactly the opposite way.
And if they want to insist that “Order” is some force and that "man’thul, a Titan of Time is somehow an “Order” agent while there’s literally a Titan of the Arcane, Norgannon, then they’re just badly misinterpreting the Chronicles cosmology chart, but interpreting it nonetheless.
DF reinforced the First Ones having existed.
2 Likes
Yes he was let go midway through DF I believe, there are probably still people who have similar ideas as him working there, and as TWW was being worked on during DF at the latest, what we’re seeing is likely just vestigial remnants, and will be brushed aside quite easily.
I didn’t play DF or SL, and personally I don’t like them for many reasons, but the direction where dragons are so often depicted in humanoid forms is a major problem in my opinion. Just let the big beautiful dragons be dragons.
cause shadowlands wasn’t in the original manga written by metzen and was an anime original ep
3 Likes
Shadowlands is linked to all of physical reality, not just Azeroth. This can be seen in the Chronicle’s own cosmological map. The Shadowlands have existed since mortal life emerged in physical reality.
1 Like
The Shadowlands as referenced by early Chronicle as a “sphere” adjacent to Azeroth and counter to the Emerald Dream is more the localized Veil (i.e. the ghostly grayscale “intermediary” realm that dead players experience, the place that Sylvanas tore a hole through and what Kyrians cross through to collect the dead in the Great Dark) than the actual Shadowlands.
It’s in keeping with the “Titan-themed” world scale for that to be the limited scope of Chronicle’s presented knowledge of Death at the time that the earlier volumes came out.
It also fits with theories that the Emerald Dream may be Azeroth’s particular version of similar localized Veils between living worlds and the realm of Life.
The Shadowlands we went to is of course Azeroth’s specific pocket of the Shadowlands, which is why our connection and designation by the World Soul allowed us to freely move into and out of the Maw, and also why the Zereth was specifically connected to ICC, and also why all the characters we meet there were ones from Azeroth, with no other NPCs except for the Brokers being otherwise.
The Shadowlands proper is however infinite as I’ve said before, as the Titan’s Keepers set them up on every world they formed and created life on. In order to nurture life and protect it, the Titans order cosmic forces using their control of all of them to keep them from overrunning the universe, and creating the Emerald Dream to serve as catalogues of all the worlds and life they’ve created in their intended state.
Why are people from other worlds in Azeroth’s specific Shadowlands?
Then why are there NPCs from other planets in ardenweald. That one horse NPC in the NightFae covenant storyline is a dude from another planet (not azeroth) who went through something similar to Tyrande’s Night warrior ritual.
That would mean the shadowlands is connected to multiple planets regardless of where they are, which would mean the Jailer didnt need to go to the trouble of getting Azeroth characters to directly like Azeroth and Argus the way they do so when Argus dies he is sent to the Arbiter (Argus dying is what bricks the Arbiter and causes the anima drought).
Shadowlands is a mess of a story from a lore perspective, and Chronicle doesn’t help.
Well of course one might immediately ask why was the Jailer’s tower sitting directly above ICC when the veil broke? Pure coincidence?
Because his Dreadlords literally purpose-built ICC where it was to interface with Torghast for this express purpose?
The Titan fanboys here seem to have a good day going. The ignorance is mind blowing. Wether we like it or not the Shadowlands are the afterlife for the whole universe. That is current canon of al the stuff.
1 Like
Where can I find my fellow Titan fanboys?
Danuser got retconned.
No…the Shadowlands is still the mortal afterlife for the whole universe. Nothing has actually undone that; myriad characters we encountered there are souls explicitly from planets other than Azeroth.
2 Likes