Hello gamers, this thread topic is something that’s been bumbling around in my head for quite a while now, so I thought I’d finally get around to putting it to the forums for discussion. I don’t think I’ve actually seen a thread specifically about it yet, either.
With TWW’s pre-patch in full swing and the expansion itself near on the horizon, I assume we’re all familiar with the Radiant Song by now – the SOS being sent out from Azeroth, warning the (presumably) good and worthy of the myriad peoples of the impending, Void-driven crisis. We know that besides the host of main characters (Anduin, Jaina, Thrall, etc) it is being heard “all across Azeroth”.
So, my question is this: do you think that the Radiant Song is something that we, as roleplayers, can or should reflect in our roleplay? Does your character find themselves subject to these strange, foreboding visions and songs? Or is your character perhaps more aligned to the darker forces at play, finding themselves with the voice of the Harbinger, whispering in their ear?
For my part, though I haven’t seen or heard of it being used yet, I think it’s a cool option for roleplay and something we 100% can depict for our characters. But I’m curious to see what others think about it.
I have seen it a few times already, even use it myself.
It’s not shown that it’s big heros only, but something azeroth wide. So… I don’t see a problem with using/ referencing it.
Like getting a 4am phonecall from a “quirky” ex up to some tomfoolery and needing a ride.
I think having visions veers into the super special protag RPing like claiming to have been there when Arthas fell. We don’t know the canonical extent of this distress call thingy and it’d be really awkward to RP it only to read it’s exclusive to a handful of lore characters in Chronicles 5.
Based on the quest text it doesn’t seem to be limited to the Justice League of Azeroth, it’s just that they are the ones who have Magni on speed dial and do something about it.
Now with that said I don’t plan to roleplay my warlock hearing it on account of the wards he uses to render himself immune to psychic/scrying/temporal magic.
That and the lore around who hears what seems to be so ill-defined that I don’t really see the need to incorporate it. My character’s fine without this quirk.
Its described both IC and by the Devs as being “heard all across Azeroth” and Jaina even has the Tidesages looking into it because they’re “familiar with mysterious voices” which implies that a pretty hefty number of Tidesages are at least hearing it as well to be able to better understand it.
With that in mind, I don’t see too much of an issue with it, especially because it seems like its being caused in part by Azerite becoming even more frequent and significant in its power - to the point where its now creating memories of historical events, so it should be pretty easy to say your character is hearing “strange voices” or “warnings from something”.
Edit: forgot to mention, but Locus-Walker also describes the voice affecting his entire planet and almost all of his people hearing it, especially towards the end before the Void consumed them and it went quiet.
it’s literally described as an experience that people all over the world have, what are you talking about
by that logic we shouldn’t use anything that comes from any future content under the assumption that it may just get retconned later.
there’s a time and place to play the paranoid elitism card, but this ain’t it chief
anyway, one of my characters did experience some vague vision, only that he interpreted it as the Light calling him into its service, because he has been pondering that for a while before he had the vision, so from his perspective it simply feels like his thoughts were answered and he was pushed on a path to wield holyfire in righteous fury.
Yep, but we honestly have no clue since it seems the old lore of Titans being of Planets and worldsouls being their “ethereal form” is basically entirely gone-lore at this point and I’m not sure if we know enough about their new lore on Worldsouls/Titans beyond that they exist with [vague hand gestures].
All I’m saying is that I’m not comfortable RPing something with such a profoundly important effect on my character without the reassurance that these visions aren’t supposed to be an isolated plot device.
The broad concept that “many” are experiencing it does not equal it being particularly common. It just feels like we’re hitting the same old brick wall of a lack of lore elaboration creating problems. See also San’layn, dark rangers, access to the shadowlands etc etc.
In terms of the voice, its honestly best not to think too hard about this one beyond “oh, hey, loads of people are hearing a funky voice in their heads asking them to help it.” because so far on the Beta for TWW that’s also how its treated by general NPCs so all we really know for sure is:
A lot of people are hearing it, and it seems to be completely random because everything from citizens to heroes are hearing it.
Beyond that its uh. . .kind of not really mentioned much, but there’s also a lot of encrypted cinematics so who knows, maybe it gets more screentime in those.
As an aside, I wonder if they’re going to remake Kossak’s old musings canon; his answer to the whole “azeroth titan” thing was actually that Azeroth had already fallen long ago, but used what remained of her Titanic power to empower the people of Azeroth to act as champions and heroes to beat back the darkness:
“It’s too late. Azeroth will never wake up. He was the Titan’s last hope.
…But a bit of his spirit dwells within every hero of Azeroth, every mage who picked up a wand, every warrior who took up a blade, every champion from any world who took root in Azeroth and decided to defend it as their home.
We mortals are all that stands between the Light and oblivion, but so long as this world is our home we’re lit from within by the heroic spirit of a dormant Titan.”
It would be a cool idea, but so far everything we’ve seen (with the Heart of Azeroth, BFA, Azerite, ending of Shadowlands and now in TWW) it’s more like a living thing reacting to abuse rather than some dead cosmic thing emitting magical spasms whenever we kick it.
That and we should have got a whiff of Azeroth being dead if Argus managed to nuke the Arbiter.
My first thought when reading the quest texts was that it would be great fun to incorporate it into RP. But then I tried to find out what exactly the song is, and how it’s being experienced.
Jaina says:
People are experiencing visions of a “Radiant Song” all across Azeroth. We have reason to believe it’s a warning of some kind. Meet me in Silithus. Perhaps Azeroth’s Speaker can shed some light on what this warning might mean.
Thrall says:
There’s strong evidence that the Radiant Song is a warning from Azeroth herself. A cry for help. That’s why we’re here. If this vision truly is Azeroth’s message, Magni will know what she’s trying to tell us. He should be in the Chamber of the Heart. Let’s go.
Magni says:
I know why you’re here. It’s the visions. Azeroth’s voice, heard all across the lands. Ye thought I would know what she’s trying to tell us.
Well, ye thought wrong.
My greatest hurdle here is that none of this tells me what exactly it is the “radiant song” looks, sounds or feels like. As far as I can see, we’re not given any description of the sensation, nothing to actually act out in RP. If I’m to decided that my character hears/sees the song, I feel like I should be able to describe exactly what it is they perceive, even if they can’t quite understand it yet.
The TWW trailer has the song! It seems to range from a sort of ‘melodic humming’ to an outright screeching plea for help. Beyond that we don’t know anything, in large part because nobody else IC knows anything about it either.
Oh, that is actually very helpful! I definitely missed that, I’ll give it a rewatch. But besides that, it’s also somewhat confusing that several NPCs seem to refer to the song as either visions or a voice.
Yeah, there’s a lot of encrypted stuff I don’t have access too cinematics-wise so my knowledge is very shaky; but the TWW trailer does also cut during the screech-part of the song to a sort of giant ball of azerite-esque light so that’s probably what people mean by “visions”.
I wouldn’t pay him too much mind. Man only seems to come out of obscurity to be bitter nine times out of ten, then dissappears again.
That said, Desartin here has experienced the vision, but he does not know who or what it is that is calling for help, so he’s now gone to try and look into it by delving into libraries, to see if something like this has occurred before.