Shadowlands has a REALLY awkward unlocking sequence. Actually, several of them - unlocking Oribos, unlocking the zones, unlocking Covenants, unlocking Korthia, Zereth Mortis. It’s a marathon. BfA has an awkward unlock too, but nothing like as bad.
No way round it, and the devs are very unlikely to do anything about it now.
Just follow the quests, make maximum use of Wowhead, and above all READ THE COMMENTS!!
Comments are the real content on Wowhead. They were written by people who had the same problems you are having now.
For example:
I had problem, that Ba and Zo could not be interacted. I fixed it by finishing main introductory questline ending with The Path to Bastion. After completing that quest all NPCs finally showed and I could talk to them.
I’d call the entire Shadowlands questline, and the entire Shadowlands story, one big bug, but I doubt the devs would agree. I do think there is a way through, but it probably involves finding the quest to send you to the Maw at the Board or on the steps of Stormwind castle.
Apparently, something was fixed, or at least changed, in the recent patch.
This was posted recently:
According to
that character hasn’t done any quests in the Maw,
I have heard that the addon BTWQuests can be helpful in tracking down quest requirements, so it might be worth a try.