I mean, let’s not pretend that Alleria won’t heavily feature, likely as the primary protagonist.
I’ve also got a nasty hunch that we’ll need to begrudgingly accept Xal’atath’s aid, only for her to reclaim the Dark Heart at the end and bring about the start of Midnight. Here’s hoping that I am wrong, but I really get the feeling that they’ll try this in an effort to cement her as the ultimate manipulator.
Also, looking back at the origins of the Ethereals, learned via Ask CDev, there’s a chance that they might not be the same race but that Brokers were instead another K’areshi race that lived outside of the Ethereal cities, that devised a method of escaping the calamity of K’aresh instead of trying to endure it.
K’aresh was an arid planet, home to a thriving ecosystem and several sentient species before the arrival of Dimensius the All-Devouring. How the void lord found K’aresh is still hotly debated among the surviving ethereals, but the effects of his coming were unmistakable: he opened countless gateways into the void and the Twisting Nether around the planet, bathing K’aresh in arcane and dark energies. Using every scrap of its advanced technology, one of the mortal races hastily attempted to construct magical barriers around its cities, but it was only partially successful; although the dark energies were blocked, the unimpeded flood of arcane energy tore away the mortals’ corporeal shells and infused their souls with enough energy so that they could subsist without a body… barely. Members of this race, now called ethereals, took to binding themselves with enchanted strips of cloth to provide their souls with enough structure to survive. This altered state proved to be a blessing in disguise, as their enhanced minds and magical abilities allowed the ethereals to fight Dimensius and his limited forces to a standstill. Over the years, however, Dimensius eventually grew powerful enough to summon armies of fellow void creatures, forcing the ethereals to flee into the Twisting Nether.