How would had you written Zovaal?

Argent Dawn
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Everybody knows so far on how the most INFLUENTIAL and SMARTEST warcraft villain of all time ended up as, I´m not gonna ramble on how it went here, I want to only ask how would had some people written him if you were given the reigns on the story of the SL´s.

I would had straight-up written him as as an straight up evil bad guy with a bit more charisma and expression he showed in he SL´s trailer, not as a thanos wannabe but more like his actual inspiration, Lucfer/Satan. Pretty much ripped from Dante´s Inferno, I imagined that keen intelect and growing hunger for knowledge and power is what lead Zovaal to betray his role as the Arbiter of the Shadowlands and go against the design of the First Ones. Mayhaps he discovered something more sinister along the way of his pursuit for knowledge of their magic and machinery? The true purpose of all that they made, and his own.

Later on as he was casted down into the Maw and bound by Primus with domination magic, becoming half dressed doctor manhattan, years of being imprisoned by his brethern left him with wounds of betrayal that slowly twisted his being into more of his source of inspiration.

The Jailer I would had written would act move and act more like Molag Ball from the Elder Scrolls series as well, more obsessed with torture and domination after learning to harness and like the very same power that Primus used to imprison him.

I can´t do much for else of the other bits of the story and retconned lore, I quess I could just have Zovaal being more of a planner who constantly suffered a bitter setback as he tried to manipulate the ongoings of the cosmos for his gain with the dreadlords of Denathrius. More of an improviser who had few lucky chances found and used, those of the likes of Sylvanas, Legion and Argus.

That´s all that I could get out of my head, can´t wait to hear your ideas!

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As the Arbiter, Zovaal came upon a soul whose life and personality struck a cord untouched for aeons. Unwilling to send the soul to the afterlife decreed by the order of the Shadowlands (perhaps the mind wiping Kyrian), Zovaal chose to permit this one soul a choice. The choice of where to go.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished and, when confroting Zovaal with his perceived lapse in judgment, the other Eternal Ones saw not the Arbiter for a person, but a machine they relied upon to perform its task ceaselessly. Fearing that this instance would be the first of many to follow, threatening the systems put in place in the afterlife, they gave Zovaal an ultimatum. The errant soul would be retrieved and judged according to custom, or the Arbiter would be replaced by an obedient automaton.

This sparked the conflict between Zovaal and the other Eternal Ones. He rejected their ultimatim and forbade them from again entering Oribos, which they obviously took offense to. Insert a series of escalating events and there - The Jailor of the Maw, locked away in eternal anguish among souls none other would ever want.

Undoing the entire ordering of the Shadowlands is no longer a nebulous motivation, and his reliance on Domination magic, while reprehensible and monstrous, serves a very specific end. Far from the once sentimental Arbiter, he has become the unpredictable fiend his kin once feared he might be. The monster they created.

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I wouldn’t have written Zovaal at all.

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Why would I write a villain, let alone an entire expansion, that has nothing to do with Azeroth when this world is in a dire need of being updated? I’d make Cata 2.0. If we need to go off Azeroth, we’ll go back to Outland and update it in a patch.

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Vast cosmological concepts should have been left well alone even if we did end up going into the Shadowlands. Don’t just stop at no Jailer. No Eternal Ones having anything more than a footnote appearance, no grand ancient 6D interdimensional conspiracy.

Sylvanas should have been cast as the main big bad, no redemption arc. She’s cut deals with unscrupulous sorts in the Shadowlands for her own ends, for her own power.
Castle Nathria raid could have been written as her allies she’s made bargains with in the Ven’thyr coming to fruition, perhaps instead of Denathrius, Sylvanas found Kael’thas’ and Garrosh’s souls and offered them a chance at the revenge they wanted.
Kel’Thuzad could have had basically the same role he had, with the same motivation - power.
Figures like Devos could be retooled into actual antagonists, Sylvanas might have been the one to make her doubt the system in place. I’d give a more prominent role to Mueh’zala and Bwonsamdi too.

The whole Arbiter going offline was also done in co-ordination with the Maw, who’s “Jailer” is more of a conceptual “force” rather than an actual character (or thanks to Danuserverse writing, caricature), more akin to the Eye you have haunting the place pre-9.1 The Jailer sees all, but cannot be released from his bindings, as he is a fundamental part of the Maw. hence why Sylvanas has a more active role, an outsider who upends the whole cycle of Life and Death, and the Jailer benefits from that in the long term.

None of this 3D printing 9.2. Instead 9.2 is the culmination of Sylvanas wanting to “free” everyone from the “pain” and “shackles” of mortality and launches an invasion into Azeroth itself. A resurgent Scourge across the world, bolstered with the Maw’s forces bleeding into reality.

You could have an ESO type scenario with Sylvanas trying to pull Azeroth itself into the Shadowlands with similar “anchors” as Molag Bal tried. The raid could be based around destroying these anchors in various locations across the world before the climactic duel could be atop Icecrown Citadel, giving a callbacks to the Lich King fight in WOTLK. Sylvanas is defeated and her soul is cast into the Maw for permanent condemnation and the cycle is repaired.

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The jailer entering the last raid fight

also yes the cinematic would be unskippable

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I wouldn’t even have gone to the afterlife at all, atleast, not to this extent. The Shadowlands should’ve been left as this quasi-mysterious place where some souls go, some beings live, and where death knights can traverse through.

But, if I absolutely -had- to make Zovaal work somehow, well… ill get back to you all on that one, I can’t think of a way now :frowning:

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I wouldn’t of. Seriously

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I’m scared, Elenthas has been writing for a while now :frowning:

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I wouldn´t have done afterlife or even the crap fiesta that is Zovaal, Maw and Shadowlands story. However, if I were forced to, I´d do it along these lines:

Shadowlands were not created by some forge thingy, they simply are. Infinite, offering all sorts of afterlives, perhaps even spawning new ones naturally as various faiths develop and the worshippers genuinely believe in afterlife of their religion. It simply gets made through this shared faith (maybe have it connected to Anima in a way, as an energy source that reacts to faith of the living).
Not only can mortals create new afterlives, but powerful, godlike beings can do so too. For example troll loa. Some of these powerful beings were Eternal Ones, who chose to make Shadowlands their home and create their own realms in it, each representing their personality and fulfilling a role (ferrying SOME souls for Archon, defending realms for Primus, giving new life to godlike beings for Winter Queen, party time combined with redemption for wicked for Denathrius, and a place to keep the worst of the worst, whose souls might even be dangerous to Shadowlands, for Zovaal).

Now, as ages progressed, Zovaal was becoming more and more tired, or ambitious, or just listened to his prisoners, could be any reason (arguably the most unclear part of my idea, and also difficult thing, to make villain´s turn to villainy believable), and eventually chose to attack the others to take over their realms. Small part of Shadowlands, true, but having 5 realms in them is still better than having 1. He was defeated by them, but had enough of a big brain to realize he was about to lose before he got completely crushed, and made some precautions:

First, he allowed himself some backdoor so he could see what is happening elsewhere, and second, allowed himself the ability to contact others. So, when he was imprisoned in the Maw (convenient place for it, as it already had means of imprisoning the evil souls) for his attack, he was able to keep contact with outside world.

He used his ability on dreadlords, creations of Denathrius, to bring them to him and infiltrate other forces. This didn´t work that well, as some dreadlords turned against him and towards new lords, including those serving Legion.
So he went for new pawns, often failing, sometimes getting at best cool new servant in the Maw because he turned people to be super evil in life. He kept working on breaking his chains and after a time became ruler of the Maw once again (but in secrecy, oooo, mysterious).

He kept working on new pawns, throwing seeds into the wind and seeing what works. Eventually he stuck with Sylvanas, persuading her that having some souls get sent to artificial afterlives instead of natural ones, is wrong (which it frankly would be) and he wants to break that.
Him opening the way to Shadowlands would also be a sort of hailmary, as he can´t break the final set of “walls” on Maw alone, and bringing in mortals to screw everything up could be another opportunity for him to use and maybe persuade some to join him and steal sigils from Covenant leaders to unlock the Maw again.

Of course, he doesn´t really want to break that to free the souls, but take over, which would become more obvious with time, while at the same time, other Eternal Ones would start figuring that maybe it´s not that cool to have Kyrian carry some souls to afterlives they chose for them. Our goal wouldn ´t as much be save the universe, but make sure that this psycho does not get to own part of Shadowlands, including souls in them.

Also, Jailer would have been way more charismatic, similar to Denathrius.

And that´s my improvised TED talk.

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I wouldn’t have written Shadowlands at all.

But…if we have to.

First, I would change the nature of the Maw entirely. Instead of a realm of coordinated Mawsworn, the Maw is a realm of chaos. Zovaal was the Arbiter once not because of his fair judgment but because of his insatiable need for knowledge which he absorbed from each soul that passed by his judgment. Alas, insatiable means insatiable, and in a bid to learn more he stepped beyond his station, beyond the realm of death. He made to join the Shadowlands with reality, to absorb the knowledge of all realms and timelines, and become unto a true god.

He was stopped by the other Sepulcrists. His power was taken and used to create the Maw in the first place, binding him to it utterly. Unable to escape, unable to see beyond its limits, unable to learn as he had before. He ‘rules’ the Maw in name only. In truth it’s a realm of anarchy with the worst souls that ever existed constantly fighting amongst themselves, being born and reborn over and over again. You might see one or two carve a small niche of power, a citadel here, an outpost there, but such positions are fleeting and could be here one day and gone the next.

Zovaal however, doesn’t care about any of that. He dwells solely in Torghast and only dreams of finding a way to wrench his essence from the Maw’s chains and return to his rightful place. Torghast is Zovaal’s tower and sanctuary, but also his laboratory, the creatures contained within the results of his experiments and the chaotic magic that flows through the realm.

Instead of a big bad, Zovaal is a bit-player, one unassociated with Sylvanas whatsoever. He’s a threat, however, because more souls are going into the Maw and if he draws power from them, the Sepulcrists fear that Zovaal could free himself, and in so doing pose a threat to the weakened Shadowlands.

Killing Zovaal destroys the Maw. It’s still there for gameplay purposes but in lore we purge it. What happens to all the souls that we didn’t rescue before doing so? It remains unclear. Ooh, mystery! Maybe they got obliterated, maybe they got re-judged by the Arbiter, maybe they flew away to the far edges of the Shadowlands. Maybe some or all of the above.

The deactivation of the Arbiter wasn’t due to Argus’ soul or a plan eons in the making, it was Denathrius, who - ever the ambitious one - had finally tired of sharing leadership of the Shadowlands with his ‘siblings’. Without the order of the Arbiter, the souls are drawn to the chaos of the Maw. Denathrius created the drought specifically so that he could make use of his stockpile of anima to overpower them and crown himself absolute ruler. He remains the prime villain of 9.0, as the most proximal threat.

The Forsworn aren’t influenced by the Mawsworn, they’re a natural result of the Kyrians.

The Maldraxxian infighting isn’t due to any untoward influence, it’s a natural result of the culture they’ve built up over the years. The Primus isn’t captured, he’s in hiding, observing, watching to see how Maldraxxus changes like a sociopathic child tugging at the wings of a fly.

Sylvanas remains a villain, and most of our exposure in the zones is us following her trail as she undermines the order of the Shadowlands. Bastion is the first zone we do still, and we meet Sylvanas (or see a vision of her) in which she explicitly states her problems: The Shadowlands is corrupt, its beuracracy evil, and she’s going to tear it all down. At times it seems like she is deliberately leading the player character (wrecking ball that they are) towards specific aspects of the Shadowlands so that they can see it’s broken.

She did still kidnap the faction leaders, in order to draw the player character in and make sure they followed. You are, after all, her trump card. Even if she’s unsuccessful, you’ll finish the job for her.

This comes to a head in 9.1 where we face her down, and kill her for her crimes past and present. She dies smiling, not smug, but satisfied, because 9.2 is fixing the Shadowlands. We dismantle the Covenants, either by force or by the leaders accepting the folly of their plans. No longer would souls be judged, instead they will drift in the aetherial sea vast realms going where their heart draws them, and then we seal it, for good, forever.

The knock on effect is that once a soul passes through the Veil, to enter the Shadowlands proper, they are gone for good. Resurrections? Better be quick or no dice. Sapient undead? Basically impossible to create new ones unless it’s immediate. Calling up spirits? Not likely bucko.

The Forsaken are now an explicitly endangered species and can’t replenish their numbers. No new Death Knights either. This realm is the only one we have. The realm of death is sealed.

…in lore, at least. Obviously they’re not gonna lock it off for gameplay purposes.

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I wouldn’t completely shut off the SLs, tho…
Orcs, Taurens etc still need their ancestor worship and Kaldorei their wisps :frowning:

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Okay REALLY quick, but!

If it were me, I’d have not touched the afterlife at all - and rather made the Shadowlands a kind of weird “Between worlds”/purgatory state.

You know the blurry grey version of Azeroth we see when we’re running around as ghosts whilst dead in game? Yeah, pretty much that place!

And the Jailer, rather than being the 4d chess god behind the entire Warcraft story (for real guys, we swear), is instead just a big evil parasite thing. Long story short, it turns out that the vast majority of souls aren’t able to pass onto the afterlife, because this evil parasite jailer has been trapping them in purgatory.

Sure, he’s been doing this since WC3, but rather than the events of said game being part of his master plan you’re just too stupid to comprehend, he’s just been quietly feeding on the souls we’ve accidentally been sending to him.

For her part then, in this case, Sylvanas’ motivation is now to defeat this giant soul parasite so people can actually get onto the afterlife (which we never actually see) rather than - whatever the hell she’s currently doing, I don’t have the time to get a PHD to comprehend this stuff!

ALSO, because he’s now a parasite rather than a cosmic genius, his appearance changes; he’s now literally a giant evil bug thing rather than blue Thanos.

If my calculations are correct, this would keep everyone happy AS!

  • It doesn’t touch or need to endlessly retcon established lore

  • Sylvanas’ motivations hopefully make a tiny bit more sense

  • The grey blurry place we see when dead is ACTUALLY something we’ve seen before (especially if you’re as bad at content as I am), and therefore is infinitely more familiar than blue Ancient Greece.

I mean sure, they could expand on blurry grey place with weird ghost cities and things, and still have that the Jailer is harvesting souls to build an army, but minus the carnage they’ve wreaked on the lore we all knew and loved.

He’s been hijacking off the rest of the story, not running the show behind the curtain.

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You can worship them, maybe they still ‘watch over you’, but they’re not getting summoned as before. It’s a status quo shift for sure.

Created before the NElf passes through the Veil, so those are still in play.

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I dont know… He did that thing all Warcrafts Villains do by invading Azeroth, then forgetting about it for a very long time to get the important thingie thing very important bedingjethingie. If he was great at scheming that should have been first on his list.

Being the lazy procrastinator that he is, it would at least been neat for the heroes of Azeroth to attack his chamber, only to find him lazying about on the couch watching the tellie, while Sylvannas who’s now bound in a loveless marriage is folding his socks.

Then we have a epic raid to bring him to relation therapy, and have to fight off his youth trauma, such like his father only letting him ride on the donkey after his bigger brother.
After the heroes succefully saved the main villain for once, instead of murdering them like we always used to, we leave Sylvannas and Zovaal to their restored marriage and return to Azeroth to play World of Warcraft again.
The End.

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better.

(3 more characters needed to be able to post…this is more than three now and more than the jailors notes have been.)

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also this! just really big time this! Once you actually show what there is after death in a universe you destroy just so much. What does any “victory or death” mean now that you know you can fight on in Maldraxxus or chill in ardenweald anyway??

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would have pointier nipples

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