So, there are some new interesting Lore tidbits out there.
Odyn ordered the Titan keepers to keep quite a few truths from us stupid little mortals.
The Black Empire wasn’t as unilaterally bad as we thought. There was some interesting tech and seemingly some other upsides that have been systematically been kept away from mortals.
We pretty much knew about that one, but the Titans did not create that much but rather ordered what was already there. While not a shocker, depending on how far that goes it could be interesting.
They knew about the cosmic Zereth stuff and wisely kept it from us. Can’t fault them for that one, I guess, we really shouldn’t be dealing with cosmic stuff at that level…
So… pretty much everything we heard about Azeroth’s history from non-mortal sources was clear and deliberate propaganda. We can call it a retcon, but sice we weren’t really invested into any of that, I think it’s a reasonable one that gives them a bit more room to make Azeroth’s history more interesting. I’m actually a bit intrigued by the first command here. While Blizz had said that the Void wasn’t all bad, that claim seemed pretty dubious, considering what we thought we knew about it. Learning more about a Black Empire under dominant Void influcences with its bad, but also maybe some good sides, could be very interesting. Especially if we learn that all that titan tech we were busy hacking everywhere might not be as clearly titan as we thought, as the second command suggests. And considering this is an addon that will most likely be using time travel quite a bit, we might even see some of that.
And it actually fits quite well. We always knew the Titans weren’t exactly clear good guys. Forcing order on things is something they might do, even if it worked well enough without it. And controlling the narrative is a reasonable part of that effort, since doubting it could threaten stability.
And Odyn is clearly the authoritariab fall guy here. We knew since Legion that that guy deserved more than a few punches in the face, and he’ll probably be an antagonist at some point. But we also know that the other keepers created the dragon aspects against his will, so there is room for politicing and differing opinions within the titans. We will probably get a “Bad Order” story in this addon, yes, but we won’t be generalizing all of Order’s forces. And especially Tyr could be a great guy to meet when the time travel stuff starts up, since he was the most obvious champion of mortalkind.
And while I don’t like the idea of the Void being morally fine, I don’t have much of a problem with moral diversity within it. Maybe N’zoth was really one of the nicer tentacle monsters and worked towards helping us in some ways. Introducing politicing into the Void faction can only make what’s happening there more interesting as well. And it might help the concept grow out of its lovecroftian roots, and become something slightly more original, after some decades. And let’s not forget about a certain time dragon aspect switching teams at some point…
So yeah… I might be overshooting a bit, but this might well be a positive addition to the lore. We uncover new stuff and get some new twists without undermining what we cherished about the World of Warcraft. This is the first thing about DF lore that makes me think that this could actually be better than “inoffensive”.
i though it was pretty clear the theme of most of this fictional universe is that you can only really trust your selves gods and cosmic entities always have an agenda that is generally bad for you also odyn has been a toolbag ever since early chronicals
I mean… we kinda got a glimpse at the black empire in Pandaria und Uldum. And then in the raid. It was all madness, insanity, body horror and other nasty things. So im curious how they want to sell tentacles and “cmon dude, drown yourself in eternal darkness” as anything other then a dystopian nightmare. Because with everything we´ve seen with relation to old gods and the void, its a REALLY hard sell.
Which would be a problem, if they wanted to say that that wasn’t part of the Black Empire in general, and N’zoth’s part of it in particular. But they don’t really have to to say that it wasn’t all bad. Other parts of it under different voidy or non-voidy rulers could have been nicer, and there could have been better reasons to have the crazy parts than “because void”. I don’t want them to try to claim that the Old Gods were cool guys all along. But actually different characters within one dark faction? Yes, please.
Also, it doesn’t necessarily have to refer to the Black Empire at all. Everything the titan keepers told us can be BS now, and that includes them coming in to save the day. Maybe Azeroth was defending itself pretty well, before the Titans came to take the credit.
Eh, this is starting to stink like cosmic again. Blizzard never was good with storytelling nuances so their attempting a morally grey narrative either results in a muddied confusing mess or an unholy cluster .
To me it actually doesn’t. At least not in the sense I foud so problematic. Be it the Keepers being buttholes, the Black Empire, or dragonic time-travel, all of it is firmly rooted in our Azeroth, and on the same power-level we already dealt with. I had a problem with bringing in other dimensions, I had a problem with spaceships, I had a problem with entering the Shadowlands and I had a problem with visiting the Death development studios. That’s the cosmic stuff I find so objectionable. But going deeper into the factions on Azeroth? Even if they are non-mortal ones that are related to the 6 forces? That seems quite reasonable to me.
Of course they could have that lead to us rampaging through the Cosmos again at some point and have us beating up Titans in Zereth Ordos. And that would be crap. But they really don’t have to do that and if they do it, I wouldn’t expect it to be this addon. There is more than enough room here to fill 2 years on Azeroth with that story.
I found it objectionable in BfA, when it went to OG nonsense instead of following up it’s premise, Shadowlands was basically nothing but that kind of nonsense. Odyn and Loken already weresomewhat villainous, with Algalon having to be “convinced” that we’re worth keeping around, but most of the watchers were of the benevolent kind. Villifying the aspects and the formerly benevolent watchers, for the sake of going “void good” is more than a little stretch.
The more they try to explain about the void the less interesting it’s going to be, as always with Lovecraft inspired stuff. So keeping it utterly alien would be playing to it’s strongsuit.
We aren’t at “voidy good”, though. We’re only at “the Black Empire wasn’t all bad”. And “Really, if we told them about that they’d just run into voidy doom (while also messing our work up), so we should better keep that for ourselves” isn’t exactly villainy, either.
To be a lovecraftian presence in the background they already explained way too much for me. The cosmic horror is already dispelled for me, and they really can’t bring it back after we went all Super Sayian on N’zoth. At this point I’d just welcome a version of the Old Gods that’s entirely Warcraft. What they ruined is already ruined. I’d just like to see them make the best of it for the future. And that includes divorcing the OG’s from their now botched lovecraftian origins and explaining the difference.
Could say the same about a lot of things they’re revisitting such as dragons. So i don’t see how doubling down on a mistake would solve much of anything.
It is definitely a “interesting” direction to take the Void/Old God storyline, but upon closer thinking i think “The Black Empire was not THAT bad, Odyn just said it was for Titan politics” is not necessarily all that out of the left field.
One factor we should keep in mind is that logically Azeroth being born might not be a good thing for the lifeforms living on her, so from that perspective The Black Empire working to “prevent” her birth could be seen as a positive from a mortal perspective, especially considering how many mortal races are “tainted”, another is that i think the Old Gods actually seem to have a affinity for children considering the “Creepy kids in Goldshire” and the fact that im pretty sure the Horrific Vision of Stormwind has the orphanage kids be outright ignored by the horrors while they celebrate. And that is not going into the Darkmoon Faire (which im pretty sure is still canonically active since it keeps getting content), so a mortal born in the Black Empire being treated well by their sovereign and developing a high standard of living between the sacrifices and rituals and getting “Bread and Circuses” is not necessarily all out there, and with that in mind the idea that the information would be censored is quite logical, because as said, if Azeroth being born potentially puts their descendants at risk AND the Black Empire treated them better why would mortals even bother following the Titans directives and have her be born?
Though this honestly hinges on stuff like the End Time and the Horrific Visions being “Moments of Triumph” for the Black Empire where they are purging away the civilizations we know rather then the everyday status quo of the Empire as a whole.
Personally i would not be surprised if Xal’atath turns out to be the “Good Void” behind whatever the positives of the Black Empire Odyn is writing about were, this would also explain why the Ny’alotha we explore did not have such things since that was after Xal’atath went independent.
I don’t believe that the Chronicle has been contradicted yet, in saying that the Old Gods are mountainous planetary parasites meant to corrupt the world soul, with the Void. It’d still be born, but putple with tentacles. Aside from that the Titans are directly responsible for the creation of Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Orcs, Goblins and all their subraces, with an indirect hand in the evolution of the entire troll-elf genus, which i’m sure Dragonflight will do it’s best to retcon, with whatever the troll ancestors are called.
I agree that Xal is gonna play a role, whenever the void comes up properly again given her popularity. Blizz loves it’s 'member berries
My theory about the black Empire and why people succumb to old gods that fast is because they give them their own dream world, think about it Nzoth was Master of illusions, basicaly if you watched Naruto Nzoth had illusions so strong it could Rival Infinite Tsukyomi. It is some form of a bargain they make you free, you live inside your mindscape within your perfect reality and Old gods get to use your body for whatever they need it for. You are basicaly free of all burdens, responsibilities, and stress. Like Imperio curse in harry potter verse, it makes the one who is controlled happy and euphoric due to same reasons. If you want to controll someone torment and suffering would not work, but if you give them what they desire and free them from their burdens basicaly. Why else there would be cultists worshipping old gods even? If all they gave them was torment, pain, and suffering. Like obviously Titans would want to hide something like this for our own good and the good of the planet/universe. Azeroth/Warcraft verse is a verse filled with wars, pain, death, and suffering so If mortals knew they could escape this way who knows what the consequences would be.
people who think the old gods was not as evil as they seem are most likely the same people that think ff 14’s emet-selc the genocidal madman did nothing wrong
again. Blizzard never was good with storytelling nuances so their attempting a morally grey narrative either results in a muddied confusing mess or an unholy cluster 
.