Greetings Traveler! Stay a while, and listen.
The brilliant strategists and infiltrator known as the Dreadlords were designed by Sire Denathrius as an army, put in the hands of Zovaal his brother whom he helped power up the Maw, escape, take his sigil back, break into the Sepulcher with his very uni-directional plan to tamper with the Pattern of the First ones. A plan set on a doomed path of deafeat, as foretold by many ancient prophecies. All while the dreadlords now continue working on some master plan, even after Zovaals defeat… Makes one wonder what Denathrius has been skeeming all along in his 5D chess.
What ancient prophecies you say? Heh, you must’ve not been paying attention Hero! From our escape from the Maw, to the other First one Waystones that react to us only, to finding out the first one secrets being part of the pattern, a revelation that was to be known only when the time is right. By now surely you can see this was all designed to happen, including Zovaals rise and fall, perhaps more.
Zovaal is a cosmic essence that was bound to an automa, a first one built body, just like the bodies of the prototype Eternal pantheon we defeat in the Sepulcher of the First ones. Just like Pelagos will now be bound and fused into the new Arbitrer, so was the cosmic essence that made Zovaal. Their minds and personalities were forged and channeled to serve their purpouse, as you can see in the automa bodies designed for them, otherwise they’d just be roaming cosmic entities, energies that exist & clash at a cosmic level into an universe in continuos change. Entities that were given purpouse here, the Purpouse.
His motivation is not well explained, but it’s a no brainer, Zovaal used to be the Arbiter, he experienced the lives of all the souls that lived during the Black Empire and before that. He lived the madness the old gods, inflicted on the worlds they corrupted. He witnessed the mallice of Fel demons, the atrocities of the Light zealots, the coruption of Nature hives unhindged, even the impartial Titan justice that reordered the known mortal Universe (like the experiments done in Uldir). Pretty much everything my dear Hero. And that, all that painted a clear picture in his head, its what drove him to decide to use the engine of the First Ones to rewrite reality itself, and it’s what got him bound by domination runes and banished in the Maw by his brethren.
While he was the Arbitrer his mind expanded, with all the souls he judged, countless generals, orators, kings and queens, assasins and archmages, fighers and strategists, diplomats and spies, all of their finite lives were analyzed in detail by Zovaals mind, that was his power, his Purpouse, something that will happen soon with the new Arbitrer too, an Infinity of knowledge, know how, an infinity of experiences, thus the infinity simbol.
Having all this acumulated knowledge, its no wonder he was able to understand domination, break loose, create a master plan, cold, calculated, ruthless. He got in contact with Denathrius and started once again to pursue his goals, through his agents and his allies, infiltrating all the other cosmic planes, playing 4D chess, morphing the souls of the monsters banished in the Maw into an army, his army, the Mawsworn. He broke his chains and turned them into a weapon, became the Jailer, the entity behind the Lich King and the voice that persuaded mages to join him and form the Cult of the Damned. With their help he tainted many souls with undeath, and all those touched by the Scourge will later become the Forsworn. He architected the fall of the Shadowlands, all the way to sending a tortured Titan soul to shut down the current Arbiter, causing the Anima draught, while fueling his Torghast tower to grow feed his army, he used Revendreths anima to expand the Maw, pull out a piece of Korthia and the Guardian of the First Ones from Zereth Mortis.
Being an eternal like Denathrius (who had to be bound inside the sword Remoria for eternity) what happens with Zovaals eternal soul/essence now that we defeated his vessel you might wonder? We are in the land of Death afterall, deafeating him does not mean death per say. His cosmic essence, will be of importance soon.
And well… What happens next is at a God level! As the new Arbitrer will start ascending, expanding its mind, unlocking knowledge, it will give it insight on how the previous Arbitrer fell, it’ll find out and tell us how a tortured titan soul that lived milenias knowing only pain, a soul unlike those of normal mortals, arrived and overloaded the Arbitrer with his pain, putting it on a processing looop while it went through all the experiences of Argus. This was what was happening with the first Arbitrer we met. But there is a way to help Argus! Yes the fallen titan, the one with the power to make and unmake things, and while it might take time, restoring Argus brings great hope, as he will grow and be nourished in the Shadowlands by merging it with none other than Zovaals primoridial cosmic essence. His power will aid at restoring, remaking the broken souls destroyed by the Jailers machineries, a task that the denizens of Shadowlands will begin, something that was not possible, until now. Possible only if we can recover the fallen titans essence and heal it by taping into the cosmic flux ( quest chain will follow ) ( war like effort )
Hmm, interesting? Yet expected!
Another mystery will be revealed: the soul fragments! Like shattered parts of a mirror, the can be remade, can be put back togheter. So now we seek the light side of Arthas, and fragments of many other heroes, Varian Wrynn!
It’s clearly obvious Arthas’s soul was fragmented just like Sylvannas, and the dark side of it, the Lich king essence was used in the forging of the Mourneblade. That part got destroyed when fighting Anduin, but where is the other fragment, perhaps it was hidden long time ago, in the depths of Icecrown Citadel ? Surely players aren’t naive enough like the NPCs to think this was it, the end of that the poor young paladin that was twisted by Frostmourne. Sylvannas and the others have been wrong before, they all were clueless til recently about her soul being fragmented, and an exact soul prism like the one containing her soul, was containing Uther’s soul fragment, and similarly one was used when the mournblade was made from Shalamayne. Clearly there’s more of Arthas, elsewhere, and what’s left is, can help put all his pieces back togheter. By all means the light side of Arthas Menethil never reached the Maw! We must find him, and others! As a Tower Ranger, I can tell you, yes there is more to be found in Torghast!
Earlier we found out Hero, that Bwondsambi has been keeping souls for himself, protecting the Zandalari from being used by Mueh’zala and Zovaal schemes. One be wonderin’ what other souls he might be hiddin’? How did Bowndsambi intercept and what has he been keepin’ Saurfang? Nathanos ? More ? Hehehe, time to make som barganing mon!
But no story is complete without the last piece of the puzzle: Sylvannas Windrunner.
Oh how the tables have turned, from hero to villan, to a strong willed soul able to break through domination, to the leader of a forsaken folk, to Hero of the Horde and Bane of the Alliance, a Warchief. Her path has been filled with challenges that would have kneeled any ordinary mortal. But this one, is no ordinary soul, divided from her pure heart, She was no longer mortal now, was she? A ranger-general of Silvermoon, whose leadership acumen and martial prowess were without equal, a sharpened mind, trialed by attrocities such as having her compassion ripped out, her people slaughtered, manipulated, turned into addicts, her homeland scorched and tainted by undead scourge and then demons, all while she’s was turned into a decaying walking corpse cast aside by all the living, except … the Tauren!
Some might have forgotten the taurens had a spirit walking connection, that allowed them to speak with their ancestors. An’she, the earth mother kept a lot of her childrens souls home, not all souls travel to the Shadowlands hero, only those lost that choose so. The tauren saw her, saw the forsaken for who they are, souls trapped in decaying bodies, the taurens were the one faction on Azeroth that gave them redemption, a chance, a place in the Horde, when the entire world slaughtered them on sight.
But this is not the story to be told now Hero, lets return to Sylvannas Windrunner.
Exausted, after the defeat of the Lich King, and freshly returned from the Maw of darkness, bounded to new sisters, Valkyr (hero vrykul souls) perverted to serve the Maw, Sylvannas had to ponder what it all meant, why these mortal fleeting lives were doomned to enter an eternal cycle of servitude, without the freedom of choosing their own path. If death was just the begining, we were all just pawns in a machine that used us as anima batteries and turned us into servants, for eternity, all bent to the wills of Bastion, Maldraxxus or Revendreth, while those doomed spent eons in torment being fragmented, consumed and ripped apart by the abominations born in a world without light…
Would you like me to continue ?