Necromancy can and does take souls from the Shadowlands
Character versions from different dimensions are somehow kind of the same, time doesn’t matter anyways in Shadowlands, because they say it doesn’t.
Souls that were closely connected might or might not ever meet again in the Shadowlands.
Forces like the Light can intercede in what happens to the dead, like with Crusader Bridenbad
Within the infinite realms of the Shadowrealms, there are places that don’t have important tasks like the ones we visit do, so souls might have more of a chill existence there. Possibly.
We might visit other realms in time.
The devs love having the questing linear again.
The “Spirit” element might be related to anima, but not in any way that counts.
They chose Drakka as a character because they wanted to tell a story about her, duh.
It was a totally interesting new experience for them to take things like Scourge themes in Maldraxxus and subvert the monstrous expectations they bring. They wanted to people to care about characters there, even though they were ugly zombies with strange personalities. If only there was a player race they could have tried that on…
Maldraxxus is the place where of the necromancy we see in Azeroth was originally formed.
Cosmic forces balance each other out while each is trying to topple the rest. Genius.
Maldraxxus’ troops can be used in offense against other realms.
The Primus is a strategic thinker and knows what he is doing. He left on his own accord.
The Blizz team thinks hard about every name they chose. So they chose Maldraxxus because it sounds bada$$.
Golly, I feel this interview really reflects the story side of the Shadowlands addon quite well. So very… unnecessary.
But they seem to really feel smart talking about all of it, in long-winded explanations about ropes and other metaphors, so good for them.
I don’t understand how Uther and Kyrian lady ended up waiting for Arthas though, if time is not object in the SL. Surely the notion of waiting for a soul to arrive means Time is a thing, because waiting doesn’t mean anything unless there is passage of time.
So I get the soul strands thing (I think). Say Garrosh of our universe dies in year 33 for example. When Garrosh manifests in the SL this occurs at this year 33 for us, but it may be year 52 in another universe when he dies there, and year 70 in another. Essentially when the character enters the SL all of their strands “have been lived out” and unite despite time and space separating them out, even if in our year of 33 in another universe Garrosh is still alive at that point. His SL form is formed from all of his lives having passed along. I kinda get that
But it doesn’t explain why the deeds of one timeline appear to take precedence.
It doesn’t explain why the denizens of Shadowlands end up waiting for souls to arrive if they don’t experience Time.
It seems to me an explanation to “brush off” questions about AU and time, but it doesn’t actually deal with them properly and the end result is a Shadowlands character who behaves and exists as if they’re from only one timeline, and arrived at a certain point in time, which makes the explanation pointless.
You may as well have just said “ahhh, that’s a mystery”.
In life, for a living being, the soul is anchored to the body through the force of Life. It is a living body, therefore Life is a force that’s holding the soul to it.
-while we know now that souls are from the realm of the Dead, so, Nature realm has some kind of union with the realm of the Dead. Maybe this is the thing about what Winter Queen was saying (my sister). Maybe there is some kind of Summer Queen, that rules the Emerald Dream?
So that same rule that we established in Legion for a being of an influence goes back if it’s killed in the mortal realm or some other realm, it goes back to it’s home realm, it’s home plane. That’s true for demons and that’s true for other forces as well… Each cosmic power has their place where creatures reborn. So if Naarus are fighting in the mortal realm for example, a Naaru is struck down; its essence would go back to the realm of Light and would reconstitute there
-so, creatures like druids and LOA, who are from Life realm are really don’t belong in the Shadowlands! Ardenweald does not belongs to Shadowlands!
He also touched on the unique situation Forsaken and others raised by Death find themselves in on Azeroth, admitting that being raised through Death can impact their souls and personalities based on the methods used. This could explain how some recently-raised characters, like the Night Elves in Battle for Azeroth, underwent large personality shifts. (taken from Wowhead).
-so, Night Elves actually were controlled in some way.
Next addon will be about Turalion and the army of the Light from Draenor, trying to take the world! Mark my words! =)
Yeah, this is a bit strange… Ardenweald is a place where certain beings get reborn… so by the explanation above… their souls get connected to bodies through the forces of Life. In the Shadowlands? Well… I’m sure it totally makes sense.
Like you added, te Night Elf part is from WoWhead’s interpretation, not the interview. And it’s nothing new. We always knew that undeath can twist the soul. Even in BfA Lilian Voss quite clearly stated that, for example.
I think what is meant by the “cosmic entities have their own realm where they are reborn” is that each has a place in Shadowlands.
Ardenweald is the realm where this occurs for wild gods and natural spirits (Life), it means there is probably a parallel of Ardenweald elsewhere in the Shadowlands that exists for the same purpose for Naaru and light beings (Light), one for Void etc.
This certainly makes more sense than the Light having the power to transport souls to a realm completely different to the SL. Rather it has the power to intercede and transport people directly to the part of the SL where Light exists without them being judged by the Arbiter.
I may be wrong, but Shadowlands doesn’t really explain anything if it alone isn’t the sole plane for souls. To me it makes more sense that the “Shadowlands” is just another word for “Reality” but for immaterial souls, rather than living creatures, and in this “Reality” there are several world’s some of which are linked, and these worlds are places like Ardenweald. But there’s Light worlds too. That’s infinitely more sensible than there being “afterlife stuff” completely separate from the SL despite the fact we’re told that the SL transcends worlds and time.
Nope, there is actually a Kyrian only World Quest (some dialogue Here), where you have to decide if certain souls should be collected now or not. And beings like Fire elementals aren’t collected, they go into their own realms, in that case the Firelands. So yes, Naaru will have their own plane, not just their own subrealm within the Shadowlands. That’s why the case of Life an Loa is a strange one.
Also he mentioned, that the Light have interacted when paladin Bridenbrad have died, and took him. Same like DH could became demons, which means that their souls will come to the realm of the Chaos after they die.
And that also can be count as a spoiler about the Elune. Because there is a quest where Elune have transformed a demon back to the Night Elf. So, like Chaos can transform the person from a Life realm, Elune can transform a demon to the creator of the Life.
In other words Elune probably something like a Life Lord, or something like that. That explains why when Elune took Ysera to the stars, Yseras souls appeared on Ardenweald, instead of some Elunes world, or Light world.
iirc so far there are only confirmed stories about the souls who did not reach Arbiter. Be it because of val’kyrs of both kinds, Devos, or spirit healers not calling for kyrians yet.
Maybe once they are fully “recycled” they will become one entity. Or maybe they are separated originally to generate as much anima as possible.
Well, this is interesting, especially since it’s not clear how it would combine with whatever Bronze / Infinite dragons can do.
There are like 5 examples of that, but it also could mean, that Calia never really truly died and was kept in some kind of “in between” state by Saa’ra.
Maybe, maybe not. This story is… a bit more complicated.
There is another interesting thing from a while ago (and not contradicted by this interview):
The souls of the undead (Forsaken, PC death knights, ghouls, etc.) are imperfectly attached to their bodies; the dark magic that sustains them is a buffer that prevents their souls from properly joining with their bodies. This is why undead feel only faint sensations of pain or discomfort from most physical stimuli, and why the Light is so painful to their existence.
Though painful, this does not cause any actual harm or damage on their undead bodies, even over long periods of time. In fact, some Forsaken with persistent contact with the Light over many years have even started to experience a return of their senses, which is not a pleasant experience given their rotted state.
To me it seems that somehow the light fixes the connection of the soul to the body?
Also, especially after Uuna story, it’s more or less established that there is not just the Light akin to naaru. but also the light associated with Elune. Not sure how that would affect undead.
Just saying
Xal’atath: Honor our bargain… free me to find my own fate!
N’Zoth: Go… but the blade must remain… to serve my will.
Maldraxxus should somehow be entertwined with the Forsaken story. It would fix all the problems they currently face. From population problems to a new leadership there are many possibilities.
By the end of the expansion Sylvanas might be able to solve the Forsaken’s problem about reproduction and population by binding them to the Shadowlands and officially making them Maldraxxus’ denizens.
This would mean that when a Forsaken dies on Azeroth, he would go to the Shadowland where he could regenerate and come back to Azeroth once again, as denizens of the Shadowlands can only be killed in the Shadowlands, just like the demons can only be killed in the Nether.
In this way their problems about population would be at least partially fixed…no Forsaken would truly die on Azeroth anyway
Let’s leave Sylvanas and the population non-problem out of it for now, but the basic idea might be interesting. The Forsaken have effectively been stripped of the identity they had since Cata at least. They are in dire need of redefinition and whatever form that takes, it will have to be something new. Players who like the Forsaken seem to fear nothing more than the Forsaken becoming some faction of victims and penitent criminals, the soft and the sad instead the hard survivors they once were. Well Maldraxxus might be a bit of an out there. Redefining the Forsaken as a fighting force against overzealous cosmic powers, like the Maldraxxi are, could be an interesting new direction - no matter if they move into the Shadowlands to do it or not.
But if that was the goal… well, the addon would have to move into an entirely different direction than 9.0 makes us believe, because in the first patch of the expansion there is no Forsaken-Maldraxxi interaction at all, and the only “Forsaken” (and I use the term loosely) that is within the Shadowlands is Calia, who doesn’t really represent this possible vision of the future.
Also Xera is not dead now, only back to the realm of Light [that is not in the Shadowlands]. But probably very angry so Xera will be back to help Yrel when she and her followers invade Azeroth to convert us all to the Light
