How do Halls of Valor and Maw of Souls exist with Shadowlands?

[Mackeyser]

For warriors, the worthy go to the Halls of Valor upon death if they are worthy to join the Valarjar, the unworthy are sent to the Maw of Souls.

I think I have that right.

How does all that work with the Shadowlands? If all the souls are now going to The Maw, does that mean that the Halls of
Valor with Odyn and the Maw of Souls with Helya are not seeing new souls?

Maybe it's been covered and I just missed it, but does anyone know how they all fit together?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

They'll retcon the Halls of Valor as being one of the many afterlifes within the Shadowlands.

[Ronin2k]

I thought those two places only covered the zone of stormheim and the vrykul?

I mean the warrior class hall was supposed to be ",heaven" for all great passed warriors yet only vrykul are there so

[Krille]

For warriors, the worthy go to the Halls of Valor upon death if they are worthy to join the Valarjar, the unworthy are sent to the Maw of Souls.

I think I have that right.

How does all that work with the Shadowlands? If all the souls are now going to The Maw, does that mean that the Halls of
Valor with Odyn and the Maw of Souls with Helya are not seeing new souls?

Maybe it's been covered and I just missed it, but does anyone know how they all fit together?

What if the "Maw of Souls" is the Maw they reference in Shadowlands?

[Rootsbum]

Perhaps it has something to do with a deity of Valajar/Broken isles/Vrykul? Like a miniature domain of the afterlife?

[shuubu]

For warriors, the worthy go to the Halls of Valor upon death if they are worthy to join the Valarjar, the unworthy are sent to the Maw of Souls.

I think I have that right.

How does all that work with the Shadowlands? If all the souls are now going to The Maw, does that mean that the Halls of
Valor with Odyn and the Maw of Souls with Helya are not seeing new souls?

Maybe it's been covered and I just missed it, but does anyone know how they all fit together?

Titan's perspective.

Wow's version of "a wizard did it".

[Xanesh]

I think it's meant to be much like in the Forgotten Realms universe of D&D. There are many different planes where your soul can end up going depending on how you are judged after death. This looks to be very similar in WoW but with the Arbiter passing judgment.

We are only seeing a small selection of these realms in Shadowlands. Halls of Valor and Helheim likely fall into the Shadowlands too. Perhaps they are mainly concerned with Vrykul souls as we were lead to believe in Legion. I'm excited to find out more to be honest. Would be nice to see how Helya and the bargain with Sylvanas comes into the story too.

[valky94]

For warriors, the worthy go to the Halls of Valor upon death if they are worthy to join the Valarjar, the unworthy are sent to the Maw of Souls.

I think I have that right.

How does all that work with the Shadowlands? If all the souls are now going to The Maw, does that mean that the Halls of
Valor with Odyn and the Maw of Souls with Helya are not seeing new souls?

Maybe it's been covered and I just missed it, but does anyone know how they all fit together?

since odyn was in the shadowlands and made a pact with one of the beings there by trading his eye, he learned how to make his own val'kyr, and hes using his own val'kyr to intercept the souls before they get to the shadowlands, same goes for helya with her bein the first val'kyr

and those 2 are pretty much exclusive to vrykul souls only (with a few exceptions in legion)

[CreatureLives]

Well, we know Sylvanas has been working with the Jailer since Wrath. It's speculated that it was The Jailer that pretended to be a Loa to convince Vol'jin to make Sylvanas the Warchief in Legion and then she begins working with Helya in the same expansion. So the two maws are probably connected somehow. The Jailer probably sent Sylvanas to Helya.

But yeah, my guess is those 2 locations are places you can go instead of The Shadowlands. If Odyn and Helya get to you before you fully cross over. They also likely got their powers from The Shadowlands.

The Shadowlands is like a place in between heaven and hell that you go to if Odyn and Helya don't want you. And I think what makes Helya and Odyn special is that their dead can still interact with the living where as those in The Shadowlands can never leave unless they are fully resurrected and with The Maw now getting more and more powerful that might not even be possible anymore.

[Thetruth1400]

Maybe it's been covered and I just missed it, but does anyone know how they all fit together?

I think they're just doing a bunch of wild retconning to make it all fit.

We know that Souls get funneled to Helya, and we know they get funneled to Bwomsamdi, but come Shadowlands, that's apparently all going out the window and it all goes to the Maw to feed Sylvanas' sugar daddy.

[FlasKamel]

My impression was that both of those places were like bootleg Heaven/Hells put up by some selfish Keepers, kinda stopping the vrykul on their way to an actual afterlife. Custom DIY afterlife.

[Gaidax]

I think it's a sort of a hack setup by Odyn and Helya, they did something there that messed with the natural process. I don't remember this off the top of my head, but it is explained in Chronicles.

[Inukashi]

I thought it was like this:

You die and after your soul is lingering around a bit either someone comes and harvests it, or you get sucked into the Shadowlands.

The harvesting can come as e.g. a Valkyr getting your to Odyn or Bwonsamdi or when he was still alive and you were a king: Rezan.

So every Vrykulsoul that wasn't taken by Odyn or Helya also got sucked into Shadowlands and since Sylvanas broke Shadowlands, everyone lands directly into the maw and not the other areas.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Pocket universes within the Shadowlands or directly connected I'd assume. Much like the Other Side (Bwonsamdi's realm) and Thros, the Blighted Lands (Gorak Tul's realm) and others.

Perhaps it will be revealed the Shadowlands is much bigger than just 4 playable zones revealed to us.

[Kynario]

Blizzard will always retcon something if it means introducing new and fun gameplay. Simple as that.

[Aleksej89]

The lore is a mess, blizzard is just making it up as they go with no sensible planning or coherent story and character progression.

Blizzard will either mutilate the lore again or they will just leave it unexplained.
Gotta wait for shadowlands to find out which...

[Gaidax]

Blizzard will always retcon something if it means introducing new and fun gameplay. Simple as that.

I mean, it's not even necessary a retcon. People throw this word around too liberally really.

Shadowlands, Void, Light - we really don't know shit there, besides some pieces and bits of info and I am sure even Blizzard loremakers are pretty vague on what there is, before they actually sit down and focus on it.

They plainly stated that Shadowlands was a new territory and detailed lore was made right there for it and it's fine.

- - - Updated - - -

The lore is a mess, blizzard is just making it up as they go with no sensible planning or coherent story and character progression.

Blizzard will either mutilate the lore again or they will just leave it unexplained.
Gotta wait for shadowlands to find out which...

That's just plain bullshit.

Blizzard makes lore as it goes? Duuuuhhh... I mean, that's how this shit works, Blizzard or not.

I find it silly chiding them for universe building. Or what, you are one of those who think all lore in the universe was done in 7 days and is immutable since? *chuckle*

They will keep making, expanding and cleaning up lore as they go for decades from now and it's fine. Just like bloody Marvel went from basic stuff to multiverses and what not and guess what, it's OK.

[barackohmama]

There has to be a way. Let's figure something out.

[LolFrank]

I find it humorous that people who claim retconning or blizzard pulling story out their ass are the same people who don't even read the books and skip all quest text/NPC interactions. The same people that don't give examples of contradiction. Sad really.

[Aucald]

Lore-wise, the Halls of Valor aren't in the Shadowlands. They're an artificial construct made using the same magic that made the Elemental Planes (e.g. the Firelands, Abyssal Maw, etc. etc.) - a chunk of Northrend near Ulduar was dredged up and translocated to a new plane where it was worked into the Halls of Valor we see in-game. Souls don't naturally go the Halls, either; they need to be hand-selected and plucked up by Odyn's Val'kyr whereupon they are judged and if found worthy in Odyn's eye are shaped into his Valarjar entities.

Helheim is bit more trickier, as it doesn't have as much story to it. It is probably also a construct like the Halls of Valor, and therefore a pocket dimension and not explicitly connected to the Shadowlands proper. It's of note that Helya was originally a Titanic Watcher and sorceress who largely created the Elemental Planes - so she knows all about that kind of magic (she also helped Odyn create the Halls of Valor originally before she was warped into a Val'kyr herself). Like Odyn with his Val'kyr, Helya uses her Helarjar to bring the souls of Vrykul to her and turn them into the cursed Kvaldir - although she's not as picky as Odyn, and desires to take in all the souls that she can.