A few days ago, I made a post asking about additional zone ideas for Shadowlands, but I don’t think I worded it quite correctly.
Essentially: if they were to have made additional zones in 9.0, what other realms of the Shadowlands would you have wanted to see?
Obviously, there’s plenty of smaller realms we could go to (i.e. Craftenium), but I’m wondering if you guys had any ideas for zone themes that could carry a story similar to the other four realms of the Shadowlands during the leveling experience?
Doesn’t necessarily have to be relevant to the lore of the Shadowlands, either. Anything goes!
I think a lot of people Horde Side would of been a lot more happy if there had been a realm of the ancestors.
TBH the way I would set it up would be that so long as you come from a culture with ancestor worship you are permitted to remain in this realm to guide your descendants so long as they regularly sustain your existence through donations of Anima via honoring you. Once you are forgotten for long enough, you pass on into the rest of the Shadowlands and go where the Arbiter deems you should be.
Really would’ve liked to see more of their ancestors and the deities they worshipped as well. The whole “Pantheon of Death” feels like they’re homogenizing the different cosmic realms and it’s a bit bland imo.
The most Shamany shaman zone that ever shamaned. A Forest of totem polls that tower like trees situated in some beautiful if savage wilderness, populated by spirit guides and the souls of the Ancestors of the many tribal races. Maybe then Baine could have had more to do in the story than be a damsel in distress.
Other than that, a fully fleshed out and independent Da Other Side, filled with Loa and the souls of dead Trolls that’s basically like a perpetual Mardi Gra (because ya old friend Bwonsamdi be in charge, of course.) Composed of floating ziggurats and primordial jungles from the dawn of time.
Lastly, something a little unexpected, like an afterlife specifically for machines. Like it turns out everything that mortal create has a dork of life in it, and it turns out that when they break down (or blow up) that there’s a gleaming technopolis in the afterlife waiting just for them. It’s a weird idea, but I think it could be fun.
Frankly, I would’ve liked to have seen a portion of the Shadowlands that the Scourge had carved out for itself. Kel’Thuzad disappears a lot for a guy whose phylactery had never been destroyed, so finding out that was what he’d been up to for all of these years could have been cool.
Make muehzala an eternal One so there’s someone on the Pantheon of Death we vaguely already are familiar with.
Make Shamanism intrinsic to the metaphysics of death, maybe ancestor worship races are conscripted into the protection of the veil (which is a thing in various IRL religions particularly of Amerindigenous and African and Asian peoples)
The zone has 6-7 subzones like all the others and are divided by shamanistic race, including some Alliance races like dwarves in addition to Orcs and Trolls and Tauren
Each racial enclave has one chieftain, so Orc Ancestor Chief is Durotan, Tauren Ancestor Chief is Cairne, KUL Tiran Ancestor Chief is maybe Arom Waycrests or the original Lord Stormsong, Dwarf ancestor Chief is Thaussarian or something, Pandaren ancestor Chief is Emperor Shaohao
This AS the shaman zone is probably the single best idea I’ve ever heard, and if you don’t mind, I might try and incorporate this into a little project I’m working on. This is such an awesome concept.
They do talk about that Craftenium place in the sinstones, but to see it fleshed out a bit more would be cool.
Aside from Craftenium which has been mentioned but not seen:
A non-joke version of the ‘Great Gym’ I mentioned in the other thread- make it more like a giant ancient Greek Olympic training field. Thematically, it would exist ‘between’ Bastion and Maldraxxus. It’s for monks/warriors who were not about glory but enlightenment via attempting to intersect physical and spiritual perfection.
A fbigger Troll afterlife that’s not just a dungeon. Could still be connected to/a part of Ardenweald due to the overlap between Loa and Wild gods being the same sort of beings. Related, a an Orc/Tauren ancestral land.
My apologies for not seeing this in the last thread. This sounds like a really neat concept, and is definitely something that would’ve been cool to see in-game.
This would also be cool. It would’ve been cool to see more of this in Ardenweald tbh
What a well thought-out counter to my assertion, you’ve certainly changed my mind.
The only thing that really ties shamanism to death is the ancestor worship that the heavily shamanistic races partake in. But that doesn’t actually have much to do with the act of being a shaman itself. IE every orc on old Draenor was into ancestor worship but not every orc on old Draenor was a shaman.
Yeah I was actually hoping he’d actually be on our side against Zovaal for corrupting Arthas, given Kel’Thuzad is foremost Necromancer Dad of Azeroth and Primus is literally the Father of Necromancy.
So we get to the Shadowlands and forced to work with him and Alexandros vs Vashj vs Draka vs Kel’Thuzad vs Emeni complaining about Azerothian history, Marileth in the background chasing down Kevin