hi there, according to the latest phase 8 of sod is potentially changing the events that happen with the ashbringer and how the comic went. instead of darion mograine taking the ashbringer it was a scarlet crusader, and instead of going to the monastery to confront renault the crusader goes to tyr’s hand for the raid.
also, it appears the ashbringer sword has been shattered, and we will need to restore it, and then cleanse it in hyjal through a questline, which will be completely different to the comics (instead of darion purifying it by self sacrifice at lights hope). https://www.wowhead.com/classic/guide/season-of-discovery/ashbringer-unlock-questline
it also seems like the council at the scarlet monastery may have been resurrected in tyr’s hand raid. as the crusader left with the ashbringer in naxx, this means darion never went to the monastery to confront renault.
Early on in Season of Discovery development we met with Chris Metzen to talk about the narrative in the season. In that meeting we mutually agreed not to treat Season of Discovery as any sort of alternate history for World of Warcraft. The term that Chris used to describe our narrative approach to Season of Discovery is “found photographs”. This basically means you are finding little bits of information about characters or locations that fleshes them out a bit more as fixtures that are part of the living world of Azeroth, but doesn’t change characterizations, motivations, or reframe any storylines in a major way.
despite saying it doesn’t reframe the story though, this completely does. so whats the situation? is ashbringer comic canon, or has it been retconned by sod? is now the original vanilla story back?
blizz also posted a new video on their channel confirming sod is ‘new lore’ going forward, but it also recaps the old events of the ashbringer comic …
As OP cites, the narrative-lead decision is for SoD to be canon lore. One can agree or disagree with that decision, but it’s the latest ruling that I could find as well.
Doesnt that whole thing not change relatively important parts just as… well… That the deathknights even become a neutral organization?
Because I remember Darions purification of the ashbringer having -alot- of influence on the ebon blade being not terminated given that this was a display of pure selflessness and sacrifice coming from an enemy (Darion) against an even greater one (the blue lich king).
Could also be that Blizzard just doesnt know what they are doing and rather retcon things left and right before making the effort to organize their lore to make it consistent.
SoD has some great lore and it is canon to the story, as mentioned above. As with all things Blizzard, there will be inconsistenties, of course. I don’t know enough about the Ashbringer to comment on that part, though.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag, because while I agree the lore that is given in game is more valuable because it’s easier to be experienced across the playerbase, SoD is an entirely different game essentially and the crossover for players isn’t necessarily going to be all that large. So in reality we’re in the same situation, where I view SoD as a supplemental material in the same way I do the books, it’s content that some will engage with and others won’t.
the other problem I noticed is kel’thuzad is defeated at this point, so he won’t do his big attack on lights hope and force darion to sacrifice himself (even if he had ashbringer) and raise him into a DK.
does this also mean renault is still alive in the monastery? sally survived until mop after all.
blizzard posted this video confirming SoD is new lore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugd3f4GVt6M which at least seems to follow the initial early lore, but emphasizes the player character uses ashbringer to confront renault in the monastery (and alexandros is wearing his scarlet tabard).
the thing is it’s being treated as new lore, not suppliments or alternative reality. in blizz eyes its canon.
That from what we already saw in S1 and S2 of SoD, events are clearly changing and its either an alternate timeline from the start, or its becoming one due to some mysterious influence?
This is going to lead to some bloody headaches down the line given that it happens at the exact same time as Classic but also has notable, important changes to classic lore, for example both normal Deepfathoms and Raid Deepfathoms being canon simultaneously, despite some persons of import being alive and dead in either version. Gnomeregan is another good example, or Sunken Temple.
I don’t really know what the actual solution is, or which one Blizzard is using to justify it. Is everything Dragonbreaking? I.e., all events are simultaneously canon and non-canon at the same time? Does Classic still override? Does SoD override Classic?
Practically, this would mean Darion never managed to save Light’s Hope Chapel, and also never became a DK raised by Kel’Thuzad to later become Highlord and return the Ashbringer to Tirion at the battle for Light’s Hope therefore, practically, I would say that the proper Canon is still Darion takes the Ashbringer > Light’s Hope > Becomes a DK > Gives it to Tirion.
Reading through the quest description honestly gave me a strong sense of nostalgia and it fits the expectations people had at the time of vanilla on how to actually cleanse the Ashbringer, especially the part about going to Hyjal. I never really liked the comics so for me at least this is a big plus (why did they give Darion the visually clashing Cloud hairstyle from FF7).
How it ties into the Ebon Blade’s formation as a breakaway scourge faction way later down the line is anyone’s guess, but it’s not this impossible challenge some people make it out to be.
Crap, it seems I got new lore to absorb, even if I am not sure I like the past stuff being changed now. I reckon I will stick to the old stuff in rp and if it does somehow come up, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
I don’t know what is or isn’t canon anymore. But again, this foul tradition of including important events into books and other sources unavailable or not even mentioned in the game has to be gone forever. If SoD isn’t canon, they should just say so openly, otherwise it’d be treated this way in the absence of alternative PoVs in the game.
I would say the attack on lights hope has been adverted due to the players raiding naxx and killing kel’thuzard. as we know in the comics darion infiltrated naxx with a small group, only to kill alexandros and the left leaving the kel’thuzard alive.
unless the assault on lights hope was supposed to happen somewhere between darion’s raid and the player raid. but that would mean darion should have the ashbringer and not a random scarlet. so i guess it never happened.
as you said it’s effectively a dragonbreak, but reverting back to the vanilla lore before the comic.
I hope and pray SoD becomes/remains the ‘pseudo’-canon for retail, simply becasue of the fact it implies my character supposedly (from what I’ve heard/been told) game-ended Lilian Voss , as a Scarlet RP’er since WOTLK, that feels very therapeutic.
so they’ve posted some updates to the raid: https://www.wowhead.com/classic/news/possible-scarlet-enclave-boss-models-found-season-of-discovery-phase-8-376298
looks like alexandros mograine is in a scarlet tabard? are we going back to the vanilla lore where he led the crusade?
SoD is an alternate universe. The Void wasn’t really a thing in Vanilla, yet SoD talks quite a bit about it and we have Not!Xal’atath show up several times.
It’s just a fun little spinoff, don’t take it too serious.