Lucid nightmare and future Old God location (speculation)

[WolfRider]

Entirely possible. Good investigating. However, the name "K'Tanth" could also be the name of the Broken Shore/Thal'dranath when it was in control of the Old Gods. That's fitting with the way battles and wars are usually named historically, and we know of another Old God location (Ny'alotha) named after another Lovecraftian Outer God (Nyarlathotep). Though, it is also fitting that her name could have been K'Tanth. At the moment, we only know what she has told us - which is good and bad. Everything she says makes sense, and we have no reason to not believe her. But we are also warned that everything she says is a lie in the in-game lore, as well.

However, based on everything we know, it would make sense for her to be an Old God of murder/assassination. Another fitting theme would be sacrifice, considering that is what she's known for. Or, encompassing both - the Old God of Blood.

It could be the name of the place, but I doubt it was the name of the location, since when the Old Gods came, it was a primordial Azeroth with no smart races. And I doubt the Elemental Lords named lands or had some geographical needs.
If it was a place, it would be a city. And there wasn't big Old God cities known pre-Black Empire era, except the city that Xal'Atath has mentioned, described by the word "grandeur".
So K'Tanth could be a city, but the name seems close to C'Thun, and the meaning in ancient Greek could be more related to an organic being than a city.

I've been reading about Nyarlatothep, and it hits me now:
It's a thing that can take human shape, walk the earth, friendly, manipulate people for his own agenda or Outer Gods' agenda. He looks like an egyptian Pharaoh.
Ok wait, we know somebody like that: Wrathion

Is he related to N'yalotha ?

[Venziir]

It could be the name of the place, but I doubt it was the name of the location, since when the Old Gods came, it was a primordial Azeroth with no smart races. And I doubt the Elemental Lords named lands or had some geographical needs.
If it was a place, it would be a city. And there wasn't big Old God cities known pre-Black Empire era, except the city that Xal'Atath has mentioned, described by the word "grandeur".
So K'Tanth could be a city, but the name seems close to C'Thun, and the meaning in ancient Greek could be more related to an organic being than a city.

I've been reading about Nyarlatothep, and it hits me now:
It's a thing that can take human shape, walk the earth, friendly, manipulate people for his own agenda or Outer Gods' agenda. He looks like an egyptian Pharaoh.
Ok wait, we know somebody like that: Wrathion

Is he related to N'yalotha ?

Nyarlathotep is not once considered "friendly", nor does Wrathion at any point look like an egyptian Pharaoh. However, the Black Prince is, somewhat, familiar to the Black Pharaoh, but that's about the only thing.

[Deleted]

I just wonder where Wrathion got his human appearance from. I always got an impression he's an asshole. Ktant could be a play on Chton (like C'thun is) - underworld.

[Destinas]

It could be the name of the place, but I doubt it was the name of the location, since when the Old Gods came, it was a primordial Azeroth with no smart races. And I doubt the Elemental Lords named lands or had some geographical needs.
If it was a place, it would be a city. And there wasn't big Old God cities known pre-Black Empire era, except the city that Xal'Atath has mentioned, described by the word "grandeur".
So K'Tanth could be a city, but the name seems close to C'Thun, and the meaning in ancient Greek could be more related to an organic being than a city.

I've been reading about Nyarlatothep, and it hits me now:
It's a thing that can take human shape, walk the earth, friendly, manipulate people for his own agenda or Outer Gods' agenda. He looks like an egyptian Pharaoh.
Ok wait, we know somebody like that: Wrathion

Is he related to N'yalotha ?

Her quote about "grandeur" on the Broken Shore is as follows:

Xal'atath whispers: That fel edifice towering over this land pales in comparison to the grandeur of what stood here long ago.

Considering whatever she's talking about is in reference to the Tomb of Sargeras, it would seem she's talking about a building that existed there. However, as far as what that building was for, we also have a clue:

Xal'atath whispers: This was always a place of power. Aegwynn was drawn here, and before her, the elves, and before them, the trolls. And before them...

The Black Empire itself was built after the Old Gods arrived. They defeated the Elemental Lords and started spewing out Faceless Ones and Aqir. We see from Chronicle in this piece of art that the cities in the Black Empire were huge and populated. You can see insectoid creatures (that don't look like the ones we know of so far) and Faceless Ones walking around inside that city - look close enough and you see humanoid slaves chained together, pulling cubic stones on the building on the left side. Xal'atath certainly existed as a blade at the time, since it is the "Blade of the Black Empire" - whether she was an Old God or a claw of Y'Shaarj, she was always used for sacrifice. She was most likely used as a sacrificial weapon against those enslaved humanoids during the Black Empire.

It should also be noted that the Black Empire lasted a long, long time. The span of time between the Old Gods arriving and the Titanforged imprisoning them isn't even measured in Chronicle. Their establishment of the Black Empire was most likely called "the Scouring" based on another quote from Xal'atath:

Xal'atath whispers: This land has seen so much upheaval. The Cataclysm, the Sundering, the Scouring. You really have no idea.

Note that each cataclysmic event she's talking about is going back in time, meaning the Scouring was a huge apocalyptic event before the Sundering. If she is an Old God, and she arrived at the same time as the other Old Gods, then she was able to see part of the beginning of the Scouring until she was destroyed by the other Old Gods. She was then turned into a blade for the latter part of the Black Empire. We don't know how long of a time frame we're looking at here, but it's definitely not a short span of time. Entire races could have been created and sacrificed before written history.

The Old Gods and Elemental Lords also had different areas of influence during the Black Empire. Things like cities and buildings are known to be part of the Empire, but they would also probably name certain areas in certain fashions. The current Aqir-descended races still own land from that time - Dread Wastes is the area, Manti'vess was the city. Azjol-Nerub is a city, but also an area that holds another city (Ahn'Kahet) inside it. It's likely that areas were named for the Aqir that existed at the time.

From what Xal'atath says, it seems more likely that K'Tanth was the place of power that N'Zoth and Y'Shaarj fought over in that battle. That works as a name for a city, building, or overall geographical location. The meaning of K'Tanth works for that as well. Ny'alotha has "towers of sacrifice" according to Xal'atath. Nyarlathotep's name has the Egyptian word for "peace" or "satisfaction" in it anyway (hotep), which isn't exactly ominous in Lovecraftian terms. Blizzard certainly has done a lot of work with this artifact, but sometimes they choose names that simply sound cool. It's not like we see as much of a family tree between the Old Gods as there are in Lovecraft Mythos.

tl;dr - There's a lot of info that she gives us, and it all sort of makes sense any way you look at it. I'm just leaning toward K'Tanth being the name of the area that is now the Broken Shore when it was in the Black Empire.

[Deleted]

I mean the lore contradicts itself in-game we have a book stating that there are 5 old gods but the Real life book(chronicles) says there's only 4. So truth be told who knows if its 4 or 5.

It's 4 old gods. chronicles is right. In game books are not reiebable lore, we as real life people know more about the Warcraft world then our characters. The people of Azeroth liekly thought the Master Glaive thing was an Old god. when it was found out it wasn't the book claiming its 5 is still an in game book and like out of date books in our world are just wrong.

[KrakHed]

Their establishment of the Black Empire was most likely called "the Scouring" based on another quote from Xal'atath:

Close, but I somehow doubt that. A Scouring would be a cleansing. Not exactly the best term for an infestation. I'm quite sure the Titanforged invasion and the original creation of the Well of Eternity by tearing out of Y'Shaarj qualifies as something easily on par with the Cataclysm.

[WolfRider]

The Scouring is somehow referenced as a catastrophe, same as the Cataclysm, because when the Titanforged fought the Black Empire, Y'Shaarj was killed and pulled off from Azeroth and that made her suffer a lot and She bled Arcane blood. This pain dissuaded the Titans to kill the other Old Gods.

[Selastan]

That's not how it works. Chronicles is supposed to be the absolute truth of the Warcraft universe. If Chronicles says there were 4 Old Gods during the time of the Black Empire, that means no more than those 4 Old Gods could be alive today (and presumably only N'zoth out of those is left). This doesn't mean Blizzard couldn't change their minds in the future, but if they did it would be a retcon as it would very much contradict Chronicles. And from what I can tell, Blizz is trying not to retcon Chronicles since it would kinda defeat the whole point of the series. Sure there have been a few alterations between what we see in-game and what we see in Chronicles here and there, but only minor things. I doubt something as significant as the amount of potential living Old Gods would get changed.

Well, they didn't outright say there were only four Old Gods, just that the Titans FOUND four Old Gods. One could have been devoured like the shadow priest dagger sometimes hints at, one could have hidden or been small enough for Titans to notice, and one could have arrived in the millennia after the Titans abandoned Azeroth. There are also minions of the Old Gods, remember the effect that the C'Thrax had on Tirisfal all those centuries after it's defeat? I also have other theories, but they are HIGHLY speculative and bordering on outright fanfiction, so I won't mention them here. But we have seen with Argus that Blizzard is willing to withhold info from Chronicles, so there might easily be something they aren't telling us.

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Also interesting is a gnome called Gibblewilt. He seems to be crazed, and mentions that "the darkness beneath Tirisfal will consume us all!" which seems like the effects of the madness of Zakajz is effective even in Gnomergan

[Al Gorefiend]

Does Xal'atah have any new special dialogue in 7.3 or throughout this riddle?

[Adoxe]

There was talks of 5th unknown old god before Chronicles came out and confirmed that there's only 4. Deciding to go back and retcon Chronicles just to include a 5th old god afterall would be terrible. N'zoth is near Eastern Kingdoms but that has nothing to do with Lucid Nightmare as it's very loosely connected to the Old Gods, "Nightmare" is the only reason it has a few old god related clues.

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Well, they didn't outright say there were only four Old Gods, just that the Titans FOUND four Old Gods.

Yeah, I'm sure the people who originated the planet and battled the Old God armies with their minions would somehow not see a giant 5th tentacle monster embedding itself into the planet.

If there is more than 4 Old Gods in the Warcraft universe, they would be on different planets, not on Azeroth.

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Does Xal'atah have any new special dialogue in 7.3 or throughout this riddle?

No, of course not. It's optional fun content, they won't put story into it.

[Konteil]

there were 5 old gods one was devoured but he other 4 and one was ripped from azeroth. teh shadow priest artifact is a claw of the one that had been devoured.