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  1. #1

    Question for the lore buffs

    Just wondering what people know what happens to people after death.

    I'm thinking of making my dormant Shadow Priest have a Grim Reaper sort of storyline, someone who has seen beyond the veil of death, etc.

    Though he'd be fallen, for some reason or another, so he wouldn't be all powerful, just a mortal that knows the secrets that lie beyond death.


    So far all I've been able to find is that everyone who dies said they only saw "darkness"

    thanks?


    Edit: When I say a "Grim Reaper" sort of story line, I mean he's probably just an "Employee" of sorts. One who's been fired maybe. I guess just "reaper" would be a better term for it, rather then GRIM.
    Last edited by XangXu; 2013-03-02 at 02:44 AM.

  2. #2
    there's no real direct lore about the afterlife aside from that hell Sylvanas temporarily went to and where Arthas went.

    I believe that some paladins think that if you're good you go to what's basically an allegory of heaven. I don't remember any cited source though. I wouldn't really say that there's enough information to be able to properly play your character in such a way, as it would take far too much speculation on an idea that, to be quite honest, pushes lore in its own way already.

  3. #3
    truth be told, warcraft does not describe afterlife. there's the spirit realm we go to when we die, but the vortex on the sky leads me to think that's temporary.

    sylvanas went somewhere dark and painful when she killed herself, so that must be the WoWhell.

    a'dal promises us that crusader whatshisname would taste only paradise in the afterlife, so there must be a WoWheaven.

    but no grim reapers detected yet. I'd suggest you to keep away from this kind of stuff. blizzard may come tomorrow and say "grim reapers don't exist in WoW" and that would shatter your RP story. work with what's confirmed.
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  4. #4
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by XangXu View Post
    dormant Shadow Priest
    First off I would like to know what you mean by this?

    And secondly, Madgod is right here. The afterlife has not really been touched on at all. Even the mentions from paladins, maddy is referring too, aren't in any texts as far as I remember and really only come from quick 1 line blurbs from random npc paladins. As far as the Cult is concerned though (Keep in mind this is more personal opinion but heavily supported by established lore) that death is it. You are death and gone or you master death and transcend it. Thus keep living.

    Personally I would say that there is nothing after life (or undeath) in WoW.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by checking facts View Post
    truth be told, warcraft does not describe afterlife. there's the spirit realm we go to when we die, but the vortex on the sky leads me to think that's temporary.

    sylvanas went somewhere dark and painful when she killed herself, so that must be the WoWhell.

    a'dal promises us that crusader whatshisname would taste only paradise in the afterlife, so there must be a WoWheaven.

    but no grim reapers detected yet. I'd suggest you to keep away from this kind of stuff. blizzard may come tomorrow and say "grim reapers don't exist in WoW" and that would shatter your RP story. work with what's confirmed.
    the closest things to grim reaper in WoW are the spirits of redemption or what ever they're called, the ones that revive you and prevent permanent death for our characters.

  6. #6
    I guess it depends on how you die, since certain beings can capture your soul for their own gain or to twist it into something darker, there are spirits stuck on the living plane, but there is also mention to moving on to an afterlife. people mentioned A'dal and sylvanas already, also the quest line in jade forest where you open the portal thing for the spirits being used by the mogu to move on. that's as far as mortal life goes, demons and elementals get sent back to their original plane, unless killed in that plane, then they are just obliterated into nothingness I suppose

  7. #7
    The Insane apepi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nonfictionless View Post
    First off I would like to know what you mean by this?

    And secondly, Madgod is right here. The afterlife has not really been touched on at all. Even the mentions from paladins, maddy is referring too, aren't in any texts as far as I remember and really only come from quick 1 line blurbs from random npc paladins. As far as the Cult is concerned though (Keep in mind this is more personal opinion but heavily supported by established lore) that death is it. You are death and gone or you master death and transcend it. Thus keep living.

    Personally I would say that there is nothing after life (or undeath) in WoW.
    It was somewhat touched in Bridenbrad quest line

    A'dal says: Fear not, young one, for this crusader shall not taste death.
    A'dal says: In life, Bridenbrad was the bearer of great deeds. Now, in passing, he shall taste only paradise.
    A'dal says: The light does not abandon its champions.
    Time...line? Time isn't made out of lines. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round. ~ Caboose

  8. #8
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by maldias View Post
    the closest things to grim reaper in WoW are the spirits of redemption or what ever they're called, the ones that revive you and prevent permanent death for our characters.
    For Lore purposes I would disregard these entirely. These are strictly a game mechanic and as far as my knowledge goes there has never been any mention or hint of them in Lore.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Nonfictionless View Post
    First off I would like to know what you mean by this?

    And secondly, Madgod is right here. The afterlife has not really been touched on at all. Even the mentions from paladins, maddy is referring too, aren't in any texts as far as I remember and really only come from quick 1 line blurbs from random npc paladins. As far as the Cult is concerned though (Keep in mind this is more personal opinion but heavily supported by established lore) that death is it. You are death and gone or you master death and transcend it. Thus keep living.

    Personally I would say that there is nothing after life (or undeath) in WoW.
    yet there are people who have even after a long time of being dead came back, case in point lei shen the thunder king.

    so there is an afterlife, its just few who come back remember it.
    and the only ones who have made note of their nature have been undead, whos nature could be the reason for them knowing.

    beyond that the spirit realm that the trolls interact with seems to be the closest we've seen of an actual afterlife.
    Last edited by mordale; 2013-03-01 at 01:37 AM.

  10. #10
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by apepi View Post
    It was somewhat touched in Bridenbrad quest line

    A'dal says: Fear not, young one, for this crusader shall not taste death.
    A'dal says: In life, Bridenbrad was the bearer of great deeds. Now, in passing, he shall taste only paradise.
    A'dal says: The light does not abandon its champions.

    Hmm....even so this is not enough to base a whole existence of an "heaven" like place for the departed, nor is it enough for something like a grim reaper. These accounts are few and far between. For the religion and it's leaders there is no consensus.

    Quote Originally Posted by maldias View Post
    yet there are people who have even after a long time of being dead came back, case in point lei shen the thunder king.

    so there is an afterlife, its just few who come back remember it.
    and the only ones who have made note of their nature have been undead, whos nature could be the reason for them knowing.

    beyond that the spirit realm that the trolls interact with seems to be the closest we've seen of an actual afterlife.
    An afterlife and a spirit realm are two different things. We can see the spirits assisting in-game and we know the belief systems for the Tauren. Also this doesn't mean it applies to all races. As for the thunder king, not enough lore has been released to use this as a good example yet. And for the bolded statement do you have a source? Because from what I have read I can't remember a single one remembering being in a spirit realm.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Nonfictionless View Post
    For Lore purposes I would disregard these entirely. These are strictly a game mechanic and as far as my knowledge goes there has never been any mention or hint of them in Lore.
    actually there's at the very least one lore spirit healer: Anara. azuregos' girlfriend.



    on the azshara questline, kalecgos tasks you with finding the blue wyrm azuregos (a very funny wyrm who was both a world boss and a quest giver for the shifting sands questline in vanilla). you discover someone who knows where he was, and this person opens a portal for you to go to him. the portal leads you to fall to your death, and as a spirit you meet azuregos and anara in the spirit realm. you convince azuregos to go back to the world of the living and help kalec. anara than gives you one free resurrection.
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  12. #12
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    Ah Horde quests, my puerperal downfall. But this is just a named spirit healer. No information is given about her. She doesn't say or do anything (other than the obvious resurrection) that gives us any insight. All this really reinforces is that there is a spirit realm but due to many other examples we know this to be true already.

    For the main question of this thread though this doesn't provide any help.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Nonfictionless View Post
    Ah Horde quests, my puerperal downfall. But this is just a named spirit healer. No information is given about her. She doesn't say or do anything (other than the obvious resurrection) that gives us any insight. All this really reinforces is that there is a spirit realm but due to many other examples we know this to be true already.

    For the main question of this thread though this doesn't provide any help.
    actually there's quite a bit of information on it. not about afterlife, but about what's in between:

    "She has a name, you know. Anara. You'd do well to treat her with the respect she deserves.
    How many times have she and her sisters brought you back from the grip of death itself? You're just all kinds of inconsiderate, aren't you?"


    this means there are more than one spirit healer, and they are all "sisters" (either all having the same creator, or they belong to some sort of sisterhood). it also appears there are only female spirit healers.

    "Do not worry young one. I knew that our arrangement was... temporary. I will be fine.
    You though, do not belong here. It is not yet your time. I shall aid your journey back to the realm of the living.
    This one is on me."


    it appears the spirit healers exist to bring you back to life in case you die before your time is up, which is a hint towards the existence of "fate" in warcraft.

    they sound kind of like the very opposite of a grim reaper. instead of taking people to the realm of the dead when their time is up, they bring people back from the realm of the dead when it's not their time yet.
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  14. #14
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by checking facts View Post
    actually there's quite a bit of information on it. not about afterlife, but about what's in between:

    "She has a name, you know. Anara. You'd do well to treat her with the respect she deserves.
    How many times have she and her sisters brought you back from the grip of death itself? You're just all kinds of inconsiderate, aren't you?"


    this means there are more than one spirit healer, and they are all "sisters" (either all having the same creator, or they belong to some sort of sisterhood). it also appears there are only female spirit healers.
    This is stretching to say the least. And after researching some more this is the only instance of anything mentioning the Spirit Healers. We try to steer away from stretching the lore too much.


    Quote Originally Posted by checking facts View Post
    "Do not worry young one. I knew that our arrangement was... temporary. I will be fine.
    You though, do not belong here. It is not yet your time. I shall aid your journey back to the realm of the living.
    This one is on me."


    it appears the spirit healers exist to bring you back to life in case you die before your time is up, which is a hint towards the existence of "fate" in warcraft.

    they sound kind of like the very opposite of a grim reaper. instead of taking people to the realm of the dead when their time is up, they bring people back from the realm of the dead when it's not their time yet.
    This refers to the one "hero" of Azeroth. As RPers we separate our characters from this. No one character can claim credit for any of these quests. And as we can see from almost every other NPC these spirit healers do not interfere with any one other than this "hero".

    Again from an RP stand-point these spirit healers are more a game mechanic than anything else.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Nonfictionless View Post
    This is stretching to say the least. And after researching some more this is the only instance of anything mentioning the Spirit Healers. We try to steer away from stretching the lore too much.




    This refers to the one "hero" of Azeroth. As RPers we separate our characters from this. No one character can claim credit for any of these quests. And as we can see from almost every other NPC these spirit healers do not interfere with any one other than this "hero".

    Again from an RP stand-point these spirit healers are more a game mechanic than anything else.
    they were a game mechanic until they were put in quest text. after that, they became canon lore. I'm not stretching anything, I'm just working with the info blizz gives us in the quest. while no one can say "I did it, lorewise", we know that someone did it, lorewise. that means spirit healers exist and they take your soul back to the world of the living if you die before "your time".

    the reason we only know of one single NPC who ressed on a spirit healer according to lore (azuregos himself, he hooked up with anara because people killed him many times and she revived him many times) is probably because dying before your fated date must be an exceedingly rare occurrence.
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  16. #16
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by checking facts View Post
    they were a game mechanic until they were put in quest text. after that, they became canon lore. I'm not stretching anything, I'm just working with the info blizz gives us in the quest. while no one can say "I did it, lorewise", we know that someone did it, lorewise. that means spirit healers exist and they take your soul back to the world of the living if you die before "your time".

    the reason we only know of one single NPC who ressed on a spirit healer according to lore (azuregos himself, he hooked up with anara because people killed him many times and she revived him many times) is probably because dying before your fated date must be an exceedingly rare occurrence.
    No one is arguing this fact. But going with anything past what is simply stated is stretching lore as there is nothing else support anything further. So as for the question my answer still remains correct and after all that is what this thread is about. That is why I would consider spirit healers to be solely a game mechanic for the purposes of this guy's question.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Nonfictionless View Post
    First off I would like to know what you mean by this?

    And secondly, Madgod is right here. The afterlife has not really been touched on at all. Even the mentions from paladins, maddy is referring too, aren't in any texts as far as I remember and really only come from quick 1 line blurbs from random npc paladins. As far as the Cult is concerned though (Keep in mind this is more personal opinion but heavily supported by established lore) that death is it. You are death and gone or you master death and transcend it. Thus keep living.

    Personally I would say that there is nothing after life (or undeath) in WoW.
    As in I haven't played him in forever.

    Still though, the whole "secrets of death" is intriguing honestly. And the fact that the afterlife hasn't been touched on is kind of interesting. I could RP my character to never reveals the secrets of death, simply because doing so would not only break tons otherworldly laws, but because describing death is something that would most likely drive anyone insane.

    It could also be a lovecraftish thing, where simple language doesn't have the words that describe it, and no moral, including him, really has the tongue of mouth to pronounce the descriptive words.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-02 at 02:41 AM ----------

    From what I've read of this post, it also seems like Blizzard has been writing everything around death to be particularly vague...


    I'd be playing my character the same way.
    Last edited by XangXu; 2013-03-02 at 02:39 AM.

  18. #18
    That still doesn't resolve the fact that you're essentially equating your character to major lore characters and further.

    I mean Sylvanas died and she wasn't deemed fit to return to life by the Spirit Healers. She was brought back to life by the Val'kyr. What makes your character special enough to have crossed beyond the threshold of death and be returned by Fate? What makes your character deserving of that chance?

  19. #19
    Scarab Lord Loaf Lord's Avatar
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    Might vary on what your race is. Trolls probably roam around in their spirit world serving their Loas or w/e. Orcs have some sort of spirit world too. What leads me to believe this is that quest from blades edge mountains where you collect the mok'nathal artifact and at the end you get contacted by a dead chieftain. Worshipers of the holy light probably become one with the light, kinda like in icecrown with that crusader who was afflicted by the plague.

  20. #20
    It really does depend on the race. Undead seem to be cursed to go to the dark place automatically when they die. In the crusader Bridenbrad quest there is someone who was exposed to the plague and his fellow crusaders are afraid that if they allow him to slip into undeath, he well never be welcomed into the light.

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