SPOILERS: Shadowlands Lore Thread

[Aucald]

How about Nathrezim making the armor FOR the Jailer. Jailer, out of sensing an opportunity, opts to give the armor back to Nathrezim so that they could put it on the Lich King, further earning KJ's trust after falsely claiming they stole it from Jailer. This would also give the Jailer control over the Lich King, to eventually betray the Burning Legion, without sacrificing his infiltrators, the Nathrezim. It would create a sense of irony in that the one known as the Deceiver, Kil'Jaedan, was the one who was deceived.

Also a possible construct. The key point here is that nothing about the known background of Frostmourne changes - it was given to the Lich King by the demons, and supposedly the Nathrezim forged it (a point that's briefly mentioned by never explored), but instead turns out they stole it or else it's true origin lies elsewhere (in the Maw). If there was some detailed story of a Nathrezim smith or Kil'jaeden himself toiling over the creation of the blade then I'd agree it's a significant retcon. Without that, though; I file it under expanded history as opposed to retired/retroactive continuity.

[Kiivar86]

Iiirc the Mogu also used Necromancy, right?

Of a sort, at least. Lot of spirit calling and twisting. Wouldn't surprise me if there's actual full on necromancy used by them too.

[masterjc]

i watched last short of afterlives - Revendreth

it sucks, but foremost
i wonder if there is mentioning that anima serves as food for denizens of shadowlands

Bastion seems to use it for constructs
Maldraxxus - no idea
Ardenweald - for wildseeds and reborning of wild gods
revendreth - idk

any other uses?
do denizens of afterlife require eating or drinking or sleeping?

[tommyhil622]

i watched last short of afterlives - Revendreth

it sucks, but foremost
i wonder if there is mentioning that anima serves as food for denizens of shadowlands

Bastion seems to use it for constructs
Maldraxxus - no idea
Ardenweald - for wildseeds and reborning of wild gods
revendreth - idk

any other uses?
do denizens of afterlife require eating or drinking or sleeping?

They drink it like vampires drink blood. That's the impression from the beta/video

[Combatbutler]

any other uses?
do denizens of afterlife require eating or drinking or sleeping?

Everything in the shadowlands consumes anima, which is why the drought is destroying the entire thing.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Soo... apparently Lady Moonberry drew a picture of Bwonsamdi's troll butt, but enchanted it so only you can see a message.

Imagine handing it to one of his past 'lovers' lol

[masterjc]

They drink it like vampires drink blood. That's the impression from the beta/video

what about in-game references?

[tommyhil622]

what about in-game references?

So in blizzcon they revealed that anima is used differently and/or drawn differently in each realm.

That's a pic they provided. Theres deep references in the beta that point to this vampire like subtext. Burning/dying in the light, mirrors, drinking anima etc...

[UndedoKoleda]

Dunno if it was discussed yet, but did anyone else find these statues in Revendreth strangely similar to the ones at the Dark Portal?



Do you think there is a connection, or are Blizzard just putting them for the sake of having something there?

[Nerovar]

The game serves to entertain and that entertainment is expressed in conflict from various groups with various values, some less moral than others. They are the providers of a product and to decry their own product and lambast its consumers is pathetic. Pulp fantasy lives off of this kind of thing. The Forsaken filled a very specific niche, the Horde filled a much broader niche, but both have little place in the eyes of the new writers. They're waging war on their own genre and while they're bound to fail before long, that won't leave those niches filled, it'll just leave their product poorer for its absence. Lose-lose.

There is much truth to this. It's like Blizzard's current writing team fundamentally misunderstands the appeal these races and their identites had for their respective players. The world will only become poorer because of this.

- - - Updated - - -

Also a possible construct. The key point here is that nothing about the known background of Frostmourne changes - it was given to the Lich King by the demons, and supposedly the Nathrezim forged it (a point that's briefly mentioned by never explored), but instead turns out they stole it or else it's true origin lies elsewhere (in the Maw). If there was some detailed story of a Nathrezim smith or Kil'jaeden himself toiling over the creation of the blade then I'd agree it's a significant retcon. Without that, though; I file it under expanded history as opposed to retired/retroactive continuity.

It would still fall under retroactive continuity because basically nothing this "expanded history" is based on existed prior to Shadowlands or was planned when the original story was written and it significantly reframes the events and the importance thereof. It also doesn't make sense as we know that the Legion was well-equipped when it comes to magic that involves stealing souls (which is Frostmourne's chief quality) and imbuing weapons with that same quality so why would they need to still a weapon like that to begin with?
Also the retroactive change that makes the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne creations of the Shadowlands is what sets this entire expansion in motion so I wouldn't say that it's a minor change either.

A retcon doesn't really need to alter "hard facts" in order to be considered a retcon (even though this is definitely the case in this example).

[MrLachyG]

come on dude, we both know this doesn't apply to 90% of the things blizz does
they retcon massive amounts of lore. Talrath even gave an example with the LK armour. it was outright stated kil'jaeden forged it, then it was outright stated that the nathrezim forged it, and now its becoming more and more obvious they seemingly just stole it/got it from the jailer. those are flat out retcons, and not a "story we havent heard before"
2 retcons, about the origin of a single armor. thats how inconsistent blizz is

do you really think that this particular aspect of the story was known to those writers who said that KJ/Nathrezim forged the LK armor? it's not like the entire story was written all at once back in 2003 and we're still following it. the WoW story has evolved and is still evolving and moving forward which sometimes make retcons necessary.

[Aucald]

It would still fall under retroactive continuity because basically nothing this "expanded history" is based on existed prior to Shadowlands or was planned when the original story was written and it significantly reframes the events and the importance thereof. It also doesn't make sense as we know that the Legion was well-equipped when it comes to magic that involves stealing souls (which is Frostmourne's chief quality) and imbuing weapons with that same quality so why would they need to still a weapon like that to begin with?
Also the retroactive change that makes the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne creations of the Shadowlands is what sets this entire expansion in motion so I wouldn't say that it's a minor change either.

A retcon doesn't really need to alter "hard facts" in order to be considered a retcon (even though this is definitely the case in this example).

I don't think anything is wrong with a retcon that doesn't alter "hard facts" in any real way, if retcon is being used in this very broad sense. No different than a new historical discovery forcing us to reevaluate our own history and re-examine things we thought we knew. It's a fairly minor change to the history of Frostmourne and the Helm, yes; a major change (and one more worthy of being called a "retcon") would be if the developers claimed that the demons never gave the Lich King Frostmourne or the Helm to begin with, but rather that they were later found or given to the Lich King by agents of the Jailer.

I'm aware the nature of the term "retcon" has gotten a lot more broad from its more specific origins, but if you want to call this a retcon then I'd say it's a minor one, and possibly even a beneficial one (since with the new usage of "retcon" makes that possible now).

[bagina]

Dunno if it was discussed yet, but did anyone else find these statues in Revendreth strangely similar to the ones at the Dark Portal?



Do you think there is a connection, or are Blizzard just putting them for the sake of having something there?

I don't know but I love those mysterious cloaked figures. They're positively ominous.

[naeblis495]

I don't know but I love those mysterious cloaked figures. They're positively ominous.

As far as i'm concerned, this statue is a better vilain than the jailer .

[Harbour]

Dunno if it was discussed yet, but did anyone else find these statues in Revendreth strangely similar to the ones at the Dark Portal?



Do you think there is a connection, or are Blizzard just putting them for the sake of having something there?

After reading Chronicles Pt 3 i am pretty positive about Legion influence in Shadowlands. Maybe the same servants who built these statues also helped to build the Dark Portal on Azeroth's side.

[UndedoKoleda]

After reading Chronicles Pt 3 i am pretty positive about Legion influence in Shadowlands. Maybe the same servants who built these statues also helped to build the Dark Portal on Azeroth's side.

With the new "Nathrezim are behind everything" narrative, I actually think they are setting this up to be the other way around. This look might be the original way the Dreadlords concealed themselves in ancient times. Is there a better way to hide ones features (horns, hooves, claws, wings) than a robe like this?

I read somewhere that these statues(or at least the Dark Portal ones) were meant to represent the original Death Knights- The Orc ones such as Terron Gorefiend. Would make sense for them to be somehow connected to the Shadowlands.

I have a wild theory that these statues actually depict entities that we haven't met yet. Maybe a race or an organization that is meddling in (or overseeing) the affairs of all the cosmic forces. I kinda imagine them like the Observers in Fringe(the TV series).

Maybe if we see more of them in the future expansions based on other cosmic forces we will start putting together pieces of the puzzle.

[masterjc]

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318043/...-campaign-spoi

[Alanar]

After reading Chronicles Pt 3 i am pretty positive about Legion influence in Shadowlands. Maybe the same servants who built these statues also helped to build the Dark Portal on Azeroth's side.

I think with the player interest all those years for those cloaked figure statues they could have though off some lore for them by now. Maybe they did already with the first ones, who knows..

The cloaked figure statues were around in vanilla and honestly they were just added because they look cool, but over the years the speculation on those increased. So its only a matter of time before we learn more.

I mean it would be foolish to believe they had lore for them back then. I remember one blizzcon eome one asked about one of those statues in duskwood I believe. The anwser was basically rule of cool.

[Darknessvamp]

So someone was clearly miffed at how they treated Baine in his "rescue" quest, they've now got a cinematic of him doing a last stand-esque fight against a bunch of Mawsworn where he eventually gets beat down and dragged into Torghast to be another target in "the afternoon stroll through the Halls of the Jailer to pick up some faction leaders with no issue" quest line intro for the tower.

Personally I'm still considering Ve'nari playing host to a clueless Baine who the Jailer didn't even consider worthwhile to keep in his Tower as canon, it fits his character far more. It's still a humorous change though.

[masterjc]

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318043/...-campaign-spoi

https://www.wowhead.com/news=318087/...story-spoilers
https://www.wowhead.com/news=318086/...bel87-spoilers


more lore if anyone interested