Pretending I forgot all my previous questions.
If Draenei/Eredar do go to Azeroth heaven, I run into the new problem of oh god I don’t have a back story for Juspion and his sister developed.
I think for the two of them, to know their family’s souls weren’t burned up to be used as fuel for the Legion he’ll be happy just knowing that. He doesn’t have any pressing loose ends he would want to wrap up, just know that his friends and family’s souls passed on and they found peace. Then it’d likely derail into a big dumb Juspion family reunion and everything that could go wrong will go wrong.
All they had to do was expand on the “it’s infinite” thing and say these are purgatories normally accessed by Azeroth and similar planets etc
Instead they went with “you’ll see balls of energy for things you’d have no frame of reference for!”
Vanndrel’s going to have some interesting conversations with his family (lost to the Scourge during the fall of Quel’thalas).
Going to probably have a bit of a breakdown if/when he comes across anyone he knew in Theramore (or worse, anyone he knew in Theramore who ended up in Ogrimmar…)
Going to straight up /kick Kael’thas in the taint when he sees him.
Jian will probably apologize to the ghosts of those he’s killed since he left the Wandering Isle.
My hunter…he’ll look for the former members of his outlaw band who betrayed him, and kick their stuff in again.
I may be speaking for most, if not all Death Knights here, but, Arthas.
I also don’t imagine it being that simple for most characters to cross into the Shadowlands, but with the way Blizzard so casually employs retcons, anything is possible. Death Knights should be able to do this without any trouble at all, because at least one starter quest mentions it, and the ability Wraith Walk quite literally has your character “step into the Shadowlands,” albeit temporarily.
Mufasa is the only ghost I’m excited to see
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Que’ will actively be avoiding people. She fled during the battle for Quel’thalas; she believes people will not take kindly to that, so finding people she knew who had died? Probably not the best idea.
Ael’akor, on the other hand, will be yearning to get out of Revendreth to find his father the moment he realizes what’s going on. /If/ he can find him; if the Shadowlands are as “infinite” as they say, tracking down an individual might be quite the challenge. But he’ll do it, no matter the cost.
Also he wants to punch Kael’thas.
Really hard.
In the face.
Ironically enough, from the Sylvanas short story where she Hari Kari’s herself onto some Saronite spikes, we’re given her two encounters with the afterlife.
As the Banshee Queen she goes to a place called the “Abyss” where the worst of the worst are being tortured by Old Gods or entities that she thinks are Old Gods, but when she died as just Sylvanas Windrunner to Arthas back during the sacking of Quelthalas, the flashback had her identity melting away into a vast sea of the Light, a sensation of pure bliss and calm as the Light consumed her.
We later on learn that Naaru and Void Lords both eat souls to sustain themselves, that the Legion uses them as a power source, and apparently when a soul passes into the Afterlife, it creates or brings with it a valuable resource called ‘Anima’, which may literally be what sustains beings that feed on souls and what powers the Light and the Void.
So yeah, apparently dying as a Light worshipper means a horrifying cross between being digested by a Sarlac and some End of Evangelion-tier stuff.
Yay.
I recently had the realization that I don’t really enjoy WoW lore anymore.
I’m pretty sure any rules established in Shadowlands will be retconned within three years or less.
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I mean, hey, if it feels like pure bliss and calm I’m probably not going to feel too bothered! Nom that soul right up. I don’t need it anyway.
I’m not sure, as a Maghar Orc, i have many questions, do the souls of my people end up in this afterlife? If they end up in this Afterlife, how can we talk with our Ancestors? Or are the Shammans in the clan lying to us when they say they talk with them? or worse, are they being lied to? if so, with who we talk?
For the moment, i guess i have more interest in were Thralls mom is, though as far as i know, that’s Thrall base universe mom and not the UA Draenor one
If the soul of the People from AU draenor end up here too, he would be really pissed if he find any Lightbound in Bastion (After all they have done, and they are seen as “noble souls”? Let the fell consume this place!, and if the his clan members end up in one of this places, i imagine in the same place as Thralls mother, so he may want to check that place up and maybe pay respect to his anscestors that died fighting the horror of the Lightbounds)
Ok I used to be so confused about the whole “do beings from other planets go to the Shadowlands” but I think I’m finally understanding the cosmology here. (or at least forcing myself to understand it for sanity purposes)
If you look at the cosmic map from Chronicle you can infer that Argus, Azeroth, other planets, and all other alternate timelines all exist within the “Reality” sphere as they wouldn’t fit under any other category. There are two rings branching off from Reality connecting it with the Emerald Dream and the Shadowlands, implying that under the right circumstances any beings from the realm of reality can also access those planes. The other things on the Chronicle map like Order, Chaos, Light, Void are not other planes but just cosmic forces.
Some other “planes” as we know them such as the Elemental Planes, Ny’alotha, etc. appear to just be pocket dimensions on Azeroth and not their actual own “true” planes of existence.
At least… this is how I’m going to explain things in my own headcanon. I don’t expect Blizzard to have a better or different explanation than this.
What I wish they’d do, and what they really ought to do, and what they most definitely will NOT do, is this:
Add a selection of scenarios or even very short encounters in the Tower of the Damned that allow us to glimpse a few of these pre-existing afterlives.
Keep the 4 covenant afterlives as different types of purgatories, that’s fine, we have purgatories for a range of needs including those who want to serve.
But keep the Orcish afterlife. Keep the Tauren afterlife. Let us glimpse one for the Night elves, or an endless hall of revelry for the Dwarves.
Hell, even if it’s because the Maw is consuming so many souls that it’s “leaking” and there are maw-creatures (just re-use the sha model but make it all black or something idk) that we must cleanse – because the inhabitants have already been sorted to a purgatory by the Arbiter and “done their time”, passing on to an actual realm of peace so they need us, the resident murder hobos, to visit heaven and do the killing (lul).
Or, you know, all species chill as vamps, zombies, fae or alien angels instead >_>
I’m pretty sure all those afterlives still exist and weren’t magically erased.
Bolvar says “the Shadowlands are infinite” in the features trailer and I’m going to take that to mean that the four covenant zones we see are only four possible options / the ones we’re currently able to access.
No one said the other culture afterlives had to go away because of this expac, unless I missed something.
Yes they exist, but I want to see them!
Or, at least, have some in-game acknowledgement of the fact.
But I’d love to get a few glimpses!