Kyrians are very problematic. The Arbiter is down so every soul they ferry into the Shadowlands ends up in the Maw. I don’t understand:
Why don’t they simply stop!
If they won’t stop, why won’t they just do what Devos and Uther did to Arthas and circumvent the whole Oribos process?
This could really help with the anima drought in the meantime and stop the Jailer from accumulating more and more power. Once the Arbiter is up and running again, they could bring those souls back to her to be reassigned to their true afterlife like the redeemed souls of Revendreth.
Because their job is to ferry souls to the shadowlands, thats it. Doesn’t matter where they end up in the shadowlands, just take them to Oribos and call it a day.
I think a big theme of the covenants will be questioning “The Purpose”. It is presented in such an obviously unquestioning way that it would be weird for it to not be addressed by the end. The Kyrians acting Lawful Stupid to a rather evil degree really cements this.
The Kyrian were rather easily set into civil war as soon as a few people were willing to question The Path, which Kyrians are not supposed to question whatsoever. Maldraxxus fell apart probably because its dog eat dog culture it was designed with doesn’t actually inspire adherence to The Purpose, as allying with the Jailer is just another power play of many. And who would have guessed edgy vampire land about punishing sinners into redemption would produce self centered, egotistical jerks. Ardenweald is more of a victim of circumstance than the others, as my impression of it is that its a relatively peaceful existence but without the forceful dogma of Bastion. Which is why their main problems are invaders and consequences of the anima drought.
The Archon is clearly on the Jailer’s side. Why else try to immediately silence Devos, when she points out that the Jailer is moving, and continue to feed the Maw after it’s known that the Arbiter isn’t working.
actually, I doubt that is the case. The real reason is that they can’t risk letting those who are a danger to the shadowlands be in a realm outside the maw, so they have to let everyone go to the Maw.
Isn’t much consolation for the souls that get Maw’d while she contemplates. I really do hope the expansion ends with the gates of the Maw being propped open to let everyone out. Maybe time in the Maw can be counted as double time in Revendreth as a consolation prize.
There’s a quest about this in the Kyrian campaign.
Summary
They basically say that it’s not their job to send the souls to the right realm, just to get 'em to the Shadowlands. Then, later on, a Night Fae sacrifices herself to help the Kyrians make more Ascended to ferry more souls into the Shadowlands to be sucked into the Maw.
They keep doing this because they need to be completely impartial to the souls and their destinations, that’s their whole thing. They also can’t drop souls off in Oribos because some souls are violent and powerful and could endanger the rest of the Shadowlands. However, it’s still stupid that after millennia no one made a backup plan incase the Arbiter stopped working.
I’m not saying interment camps for souls would be the right answer, but basically yeah, an interment camp for souls would be pretty useful right now. The Kyrian, while protecting the rest of the Shadowlands from potentially malicious souls, are also ensuring the Jailer’s plan keeps working.
Because that leaves all the souls on the mortal plane. To either get gobbled up by one of the other cosmic powers or just turn into ghosts, wraiths, banshees or other types of harmful spirits. And presumably on the scale that could make the Scourge blush.
Well for starters that isn’t actually any better for solving the problem. The Covenants are already in deep trouble without untold numbers of souls that aren’t meant for those specific afterlives falling into their care. So either they can’t harvest anima from them and thus this is an even greater drain on their already vastly diminished reserves. Or they have to start doing what a lot of people assumed they were always doing and force souls to give up their anima by an unwilling process.
Once you’ve been in there long enough, the Maw essentially chews you down to oblivion. As far as horrific death realms go, it still doesn’t hold a candle to White Wolf’s Stygia. Blizzard’s afterlife is horrific because it’s broken. Stygia is horrific by design.
Are you saying that these things are worst than what’s happening to souls getting tossed in the Maw or are you making a case against the Kyrian knowingly and willingly tossing souls into that Maw i r Confucius.
On that note does that put them in the same boat as Sylvanas; I know “knowingly and willingly” tossing souls into the Maw is one of her transgressions.
Lastly, isn’t what the Kyrian are doing a threat to the Shadowlands, which is another one of Sylvanas’ transgressions?
It’s more chaos. Spirits running rampant means more mortals dying, which means more souls that aren’t collected which means more spirits running rampant etc… etc… For now the crisis, terrible as it is, is mostly confined to the Shadowlands. With some Scourge becoming active again on Azeroth as side action.
It’s not what I would call good but, at least for now, it’s the path of least immediate harm to the universe as a whole. Which is a good indication of just how screwed the situation has become. The kyrian are also one of only a few groups that are both capable and interested in solving this problem. And, at least for me, that does factor into deciding if they’re “bad” for doing this.
How about they just ferry spirits to the non apocalyptic-if-souls-are-sent-there realm instead. Like you know, the place that anima starved.
It’s not like realm are close and spirit are there permanently either. People(dead one) seem to going in and out of each realm all the time. When everything is fix they could just restart the process.
Well, only the Arbiter has the power to create the individualized realms that most souls go to. So the Shadowlands main production line, so to speak, is already shut down at the moment with no way to turn it back on that we’re aware of. That leaves bringing the souls to the existing realms, like the ones we’ve visted. But they’re in the middle of an anima drought. They can barely support their own limited, specially chosen populations at the moment. Let alone hefty portions of the entire universes dead getting dumped on them all at once.
But at least they’d have anima then right? Well, yes, assuming they’re now willing to force people not suited to their domains to follow their methods for anima extraction. There is no “neutral” method we see for taking away a souls anima outside of just destroying that soul and taking it. Which, okay, if you get right down to it is better then letting the Jailer do it. It’s also a massive betrayal of everything the Shadowlands stands for.
It’s also worth considering that the various powers only recently learned about what was causing the drought and what their effects on it have been. The idea that braking with tradition might help is a relatively new one to the situation and one that, arguably, they don’t have to lean on yet. After all, we’re in the Shadowlands now. The Maw Walkers, intentionally plural, are pulling more souls out of the Maw every week. And we’ve got a plan to wait through 3-4 content patches and get this problem sown up real nice.
Imagine for a moment that the Venture Co. gets wiped out by Gallywix creating a new Goblin Cartel back on Azeroth. Now, imagine all those Goblin souls being sent to Ardenweald to mill about and supply the Groves with anima, since it’s suffering the worst.
What do you think those Goblin souls would DO to a place like Ardenweald? Especially once they realize the Broker Cartels exist.
For another, imagine that the Scarlet Crusade suffers massive casualties from the resurgence of the Scourge. So, their souls are stored in Bastion. A bunch of fanatical rubes like them suddenly in what amounts to paradise would feed into their own delusions so badly, and the moment they realize most of them end up in Revendreth and what that is like is the moment they create a brand new problem for the Kyrians in Bastion.
There just isn’t a situation better than what we have right now, unfortunately. The Shadowlands are hanging on by a thread and souls running rampant is going to cause problems.
My guess is that at some point Kyrestia (the Kyrian leader) is going to capture Helya, wipe her memories, ascend her into a Kyrian proper, and then Helya is going to use her powers to create pocket dimensions, and then souls will be stored in those. Helya was able to make the elemental planes as well as Odyns little sky fortress and more besides, so she really is the Deus Ex Machina solution to the problem of feeding souls to the Maw.
