Heya AD!
I was curious, due to a lot of the dislike of the Shadowlands, I see a lot of comments about folk not accepting Shadowlands as canon, or ignore it on their OCS. I was wondering how much of that is hyperbole, so I made a little poll! Ill share the results of the poll at the end of January, if there is intrest!
Link to the Poll: https://forms.gle/ipXD2xKTTnxiNrGx5
As I mentioned in my response, despite all the flaws of Shadowlands, there were some worldbuilding elements which I found were ultimately for the better. We finally received a description of the orcish ancestral plane, which was described as a eternal hunting fields stretching into eternity reminiscent of Nagrand where the ancestors feast and hunt.
This is important because the Chronicles 1 made all planes of the Shadowlands out to be a nightmare-scape, which cast some question into the previous mention of the ancestral plane in The Shattering and War Crimes for orc and tauren respectively.
Thereâs worldbuilding choices I strongly disagree with, but in between the lines thereâs genuinely good things too that Iâd hate to have to ignore. Ultimately the lore is the shared foundation on which we write out stories, and it creates really awkward situations when two people meet where one person adheres to the lore and the other lives in a parallel reality with their own made up things.
Your character doesnât need to acknowledge the events of the Shadowlands - in many ways it would be difficult for them to find out about the main plot of the expansion and often requires the player going out of their way to upload that info their characterâs brain from the wiki.
Like it or not, and Iâm sure itâs mostly not, Shadowlands is canon.
Responded to it as well. The problem with what little good is there is that itâs far too easy to miss while the messed-up parts are out in the open. Itâs been said many times before, but it breaks far too much and gives far too little in return but hopelessness and desire to avoid this hell overall. And apparently, only the demons, the Old Gods and Bwonsamdi have the will and ability to save people from it. Which doesnât look too inspiring. So may it be forgotten and never brought up again in-game.
Iâm trying to avoid any debate about if it is canon, because it is. No matter what, Slands in canon, just wondering how ppl tend to treat itâs events IC
I´ll post what I wrote in the survey:
The question of what comes after death is arguably the greatest question humanity has asked. If we ever got an answer to it, it would reshape our society and culture in ways we cannot even imagine. This is why so many fantasy authors leave this question unanswered.
Unfortunately, Blizzard has never bothered to ask how this revelation would influence the world and instead the characters treat Shadowlands as some normal place and the fact that everyone goes to Hell is glossed over. Azeroth just keeps on going as if nothing happened.
But, in RP, we often ask these questions and RP their consequences. This is why you have so many characters that just don´t get over Fourth War, or how there were disproportionate amount of Horde Rebels during BfA compared to lore. If implications of Shadowlands became known in RP, it would break many character concepts, motivations and pretty much everything.
Ironically, all of this could be worth it in the end if the lore of the expansion wasn´t so terrible. It´s the penultimate nail to the coffin: Even if you vibe with the theme, you´d be forced to acknowledge what was arguably the worst storytelling in WoW´s history and somehow follow it.
The final nail has come with Dragonflight and subsequent reveal of World Soul Saga. WoW is moving on from Shadowlands into story arc focused on old world, Titans, Light and Void. Shadowlands will be left in the trash bin of history for at least 5 more years. The only reason to involve Shadowlands in your RP is if you really love it, because you sure as hell won´t be getting any âmy RP tied itself into the main storyâ payoffs, or RP opportunities from crowds of other people RPing in the same zones as you.
So, with all the negatives and absolutely no positives I can think of, why ever poison my RP with a nonsensical story I absolutlely detest?
Amirdrassilâs existence and the Fae around it mean that my Druid must acknowledge Ardenweald.
To what extent does that effect my roleplay? Very little, if at all. A Nature-based afterlife isnât a novel or unwelcome idea for my character; and they have little knowledge of the Shadowlands beyond.
Luckily, given how self-contained Shadowlands as an expansion was, my characters can be largely ignorant or clueless about the afterlifeâs inner workings. The worst they would have been exposed to is the new Scourge invasions, the big hole in the sky above Northrend and yet another war criminal Warchief disappearing and somehow responsible for a new calamity.
The two characters that had been to the Shadowlands would also remain tight lipped about the ordeal, seeing as theyâd come across as a raving lunatic if they spilled the beans about the inner workings of Oribos, the covenants and whatever has been discovered, or they would turn others into raving lunatics as their beliefs and ideals would be shattered by my charactersâ revelations.
While Shadowlands is (to my extreme chagrin) part of Blizzard lore, I agree with everything Syelia said. I would gladly erase it from continuity if I could.
Thankfully, none of my characters roleplay in environments where anyone is likely to talk about the Shadowlands, and if someone does, theyâre going to disbelieve it. So as far as Iâm concerned, from my charactersâ point of view, the Shadowlands donât exist.
The lore of the Shadowlands is not good, imo. Even having Roleplayed in Shadowlands, being an Ebon Blade guild, we had our ups and downs during the lore and chose to focus more on personal stories during that time.
The negativity of Shadowlands leaked into roleplay and I encountered a fair number of people who did not take any of it as canon, claiming that they did things that negated what was occuring (Such as saying they bypassed the maw and sent souls to their afterlives) or becoming hostile OOCly when events were mentioned.
Despite the flaws and downsides of the Shadowlands, it is canon and those who deny that it happened generally are willing to ignore other lore as well for headcanon.
IC denial however, is fine. Nothing needs to be acknowledged IC. This is all the OOC attitude that then affects IC RP.
I have characters who know of shadowlands and have been to the shadowlands
however it is a very minor part of everything onwards.
The only lasting thing Iâve used was the concept of anima, and its in the context of a character of mine who is trying to create a knock off power source using demon souls instead of mortal ones.
Itâs not a good part of the lore, but itâs still part of it, so I donât get to decide to just ignore it entirely if I wanna roleplay consistently.
I have some characters whoâve visited the Shadowlands and understand it to a surface level, but definitely not to the extent the protagonist / Maw Walker would. Most of them only know of the shattered sky above Icecrown and how it was eventually mended.
It was a confusing lore chapter that my guild(s) made use of for more philosophically charged stuff, pondering life and death, meeting or looking for lost loved ones, and so on, which worked out very well. With the veil being mended, we kinda consider the place inaccessible without drastic means or explicit âpermissionâ (like what the Kyrian / Spirit Healers seem to have).
Tl;dr, itâs a black spot on the lore, but itâs still part of it, and you can forge some great RP outta what it added to the world. So I fully acknowledge it, but I make an angry face while I do so.
If it was up to me, I would have done away with Shadowlands, claiming it to be a feverish dream brought forth by either the Emerald Nightmare, a Burning Legion plot, or mindgames from an Old God.
Alas since that is not happening, with exception of my Death Knight and Druid, none of my characters have knowledge or want knowledge about the Shadowlands.
My Death Knight has the most overall knowledge of the Shadowlands, but it still is very much surface level since he fought against the rampaging Scourge during the time of the expansion.
My Druid has the most basic knowledge of Ardenweald, which he simply sees as a deeper layer of the Emerald Dream, where the Faeâs like Moonberry live, and which is ruled by a Wild-God calling herself the Winter-QueenâŚ
I acknowledge it as canon but my approach is my character never went there and doesnât know about anything that happens or happened there, so his perception of the shadowlands would at best be the viewpoint chronicles 1 paints about it
Theyâre not letting it die because theyâve referred back to it several times and will likely keep doing it. In that sense I do feel like the Shadowlands are here to stay lorewise, case and point: the new dragon world tree
I do have my own theory tho about the shadowlands which kind of justifies it, basically it was all about exposing us to the zereths which are mechanisms of control imposed on the different forces. If only it didnât take a big old smelly stinking turd on previously established lore, that was its biggest and imo major crime that caused people to just not want to deal with it.
The jailer as a mastermind 5d chess grandmaster of all that came before it is in my eyes what made the shadowlands lore irredeemably bad, he wouldâve been better as a shrewd oppertunist who made use of the consequences of past events, rather then outright being the mastermind of everything
Also no way these death pantheon bozos are titan level, if they were Anduin would be a pile of disenchanting dust before he couldâve even pointed his sword at Kyrestia
I could never forget Renathal and Denathrius 
Ngl they are 2 of the better parts of Shadowlands.
The Nathezerim being from the SL is cowđŠ, tho!
I would say SL is canon in the lore of course. Iâd also say the majority of people in Azeroth have never been there or seen it for themselves, so take that into account. The whole SL campaign probably took place with mostly just the people who entered at Icecrown with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. So from that perspective, most characters could happily RP that they had no involvement in what transpired, and treat it like a myth, or legend, and a healthy degree of skepticism.
SL is canon, but as it was said, the events there were confined into there mostly, so unless your character went there, they donât need to know. The only exception are Death Knights as it touches their lore, regarding necromantic magics and runes and they can slip trough the way, and Ebon Blade itself went there, so your DK was most definitely there and is aware of what happened. Thornspeekers seems to be connected to Ardenweald aswell so your Kulâtiran druid will probably need acknowlegment of SL lore, and of course, all Night Elves since they get new seed there, no need to know details like Jailer and such, just that Tyrande was cured of that Night Warrior crap and got the new seed. All characters should probably know that whatever threat was there, it was stopped and Sylvanas had her trial. Your character also might have fought with Argent Crusade to put down the Scourge. The Cult of the Damned submit itslef the Mawswarn and they went to Azeroth, so your character might have seen some of them, but not much, especially if fought in Northrend. This includes Argent Crusade itself. Then we have seen Khadgar going there to study SL so Kirin Tor might have obtained some info aswell, factions too. But a peasant, a guard and the commons in general doesnât need to know much and it can be ignored.
Itâs absolutely canon, but I donât think Iâve had it mentioned IC more than a handful of times throughout Dragonflight.
Itâs acknowledged but itâs hardly if ever gonna come up ICly for me, and thatâs for the best anyway. That said, knowing about Oribos, or the four realms you see in SL changes very little when the various peoples of Azeroth already actively interacted with spirits and various forms of the afterlife in the past, going so far as knowing thereâs a special place for each of the creeds â knowing thereâs these 4 extra places with very little relevance to my own character doesnât really change much. Their relationship with anything related to death is just very different from anything IRL.