Cosmology of Shadowlands

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I've been away for awhile, so apologies if this has been discussed too much already.

What does the expansion Shadowlands say about Blizz's concept for the afterlife?

• Nothing really changes, just moved to different zones?
• Why would denizens of the afterlife consider themselves shadows? Would they not consider that existence more real?
• Do denizens from all parts of the cosmology chart end up in Shadowlands after we kill them? If not, which ones? Where do the others go? Are there multiple shadowlands?

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...?maxWidth=1200

[Aucald]

• Most of the dead who arrive in Oribos to be judged are sent to bespoke realms that are idealized to some degree, though there is considerable overlap and a number of shared afterlife scenarios beyond the Covenant Realms (e.g. the Inn of Forever, Craftenium, Nirem-Ahn, Ra'zunesh, etc.) It is also possible to move between the realms, albeit not easily done - as some souls like Irik-tu and the Brokers have managed the feat.
• It varies, really. The act of dying as a mortal transfigures the consciousness of the soul, changing how it sees itself and relates to the Shadowlands as a new existence. For some souls, the notion of death leaves them feeling as if they were an after-image or echo of what they previously were, whereas others adopt their new state of being with little to no concern for their former lives. It all comes down to the specific soul, their beliefs, their state of mind, and ultimately where they come to reside in the Shadowlands proper.
• Insofar as we know, the Shadowlands are reserved as the destination for souls that are bound to the mortal realm, or the physical reality Azeroth resides in. Though the Shadowlands has denizens of its own, only mortal souls are brought before the Arbiter for judgment and assigned to an afterlife scenario. As we saw with Argus, the souls of beings that are not intrinsically mortal don't really work so well with the machinery of Death and cause horrific issues if they somehow manage to enter the conduit of souls funneled into Oribos. The Shadowlands are infinite in scope, with Oribos and the four Covenant realms serving as a hub of sorts, but with innumerable other realms existing within the liminal space/dimension known as the In-Between. Beings of the other primordial realms aren't called to the Shadowlands on death, but are instead called to their home realm, or else dissipate entirely into formlessness. Demons are called to the Twisting Nether to reincarnate over time unless slayed in the Nether in which they cease existing entirely. Titans are presumably called to the realm of Order, and it is unknown what occurs to them (if anything) afterward. Naaru and other beings of Light would be called back to the Light, and similarly for the Void and beings of the Void like the Old Gods or Voidwalkers.

[Aucald]

To add to that last point btw, there ARE some exceptions to the rule regarding mortals and the Cosmic Realms however. There likely is a portion of Uthers soul that is one with the Light (and was communed with in Legion btw I'm pretty sure), and some beings such as Archimonde and KJ, or someone like Deathwing even, if pumped with enough energies from a different cosmic force, would be sent to that realm when they fall in the Mortal Plane. So Deathwing would likely be in the Realms of Darkness/Void, and KJ and Archimonde would go to the Nether and NOT the Shadowlands.

To add to the above, the process of death and judgment in the Shadowlands is not an absolute one, nor impossible to alter. There are plenty of cases where the souls of the dead wound up in realms other than the Shadowlands. The souls of multiple Druids (e.g. Elerethe Renferal, Thaon Moonclaw, Cenarius) are bound to the Emerald Dream and appear there. Mortals can also become demons through saturation with Fel energies, and find themselves bound to the Twisting Nether instead, arriving there on death in the physical universe to undergo reincarnation/rebirth. It isn't known if it's the same with a saturation of Void, Arcane, or other essences, though it seems likely that's the case. Still other souls can linger in the penumbra of the Shadowlands (the monochromatic realm a PC finds themselves inhabiting on death) seemingly indefinitely, becoming ghosts, banshees, or specters that can even manifest in the physical universe despite their death. Necromancers and Warlocks can also have their way with souls, consuming them or forcing them into undeath, and even possibly recalling them from the Shadowlands itself to return to the physical universe once more.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

The Shadowlands feel fine as zones to game through, but don't strike me as all that great for afterlife destinations. First of all, life is pretty much the same as Azeroth (or Draenor, or...) with the same frequency of hostile mobs causing the same kinds of problems. Secondly, you get stuck in one zone for eternity lol, and the choices we see are somewhat bleak: either a soul-draining dungeon, gothic horror and torture, sparkly fairy land (where you might never hatch if there's a draught), or if you're really lucky: a kind of heaven where you lose all your memories and forget everyone you ever knew.

No matter mortals hang on as long as they can.

[Auxis]

The Shadowlands feel fine as zones to game through, but don't strike me as all that great for afterlife destinations. First of all, life is pretty much the same as Azeroth (or Draenor, or...) with the same frequency of hostile mobs causing the same kinds of problems. Secondly, you get stuck in one zone for eternity lol, and the choices we see are somewhat bleak: either a soul-draining dungeon, gothic horror and torture, sparkly fairy land (where you might never hatch if there's a draught), or if you're really lucky: a kind of heaven where you lose all your memories and forget everyone you ever knew.

No matter mortals hang on as long as they can.

That's kind of the theme that was explored in Shadowlands and the covenant stories. Souls sent to the covenant zones are pretty much expected to serve the covenant and the Shadowlands as a greater whole. They had no say in the matter: if you wanted to rest eternally upon death but were a righteous defender of Good, you were sent to Bastion and put through rigorous trials to lose all identity and emotions - this being why there was a splinter faction of dark Kyrians (I forget their name. Their leader saw the injustice of Uther and bypassed Arthas' passing through the Arbiter and threw him directly to the Maw).

[Feanoro]

[U]What does the expansion Shadowlands say about Blizz's concept for the afterlife?

Every belief system in Azeroth has been tossed out the window and rendered null and void. Not a single character has uttered one word of shock, disbelief, or even mild surprise.

[Maljinwo]

Every belief system in Azeroth has been tossed out the window and rendered null and void. Not a single character has uttered one word of shock, disbelief, or even mild surprise.

Well, trolls already knew about their afterlife so

[Auxis]

Every belief system in Azeroth has been tossed out the window and rendered null and void. Not a single character has uttered one word of shock, disbelief, or even mild surprise.

Except it hasn't.

Tauren still intact (likely own section of Shadowlands, we know that one of their 3 gods is (surprise!) a god (Elune/Mu'sha). We still don't know what An'she is if anything, but the Earth Mother is more than likely their (unknowing) intereptation of the First Ones)

The Light/Church of the Holy Light is still intact ( mortal souls go to the Shadowlands. Would take a large amount of power from the Light to intervene and directly bring into the Light's realm given the Void lords had to pool energy to create the Old Gods in reality)

Emerald Dream/druidic still intact (in fact it's probably more fleshed out now)

Orcish still intact (similar to tauren)

Every animalistic race is likely intact (Emerald Dream/Wild god ancestor situation).

[Nymrohd]

I still don't understand the exact path that wild gods take tbh. At end of Emerald Nightmare we see e.g. Ursoc who is just killed show up in the Emerald Dream. Do they show up in the Dream, fade from there to Ardenweald (per the 2D short), get raised on Anima until the moment of ascension or however it was specifically called and then go back to the Dream from where they can eventually go back to the mortal realm? Am I wrong at some step? Seems very convoluted.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Still holding out for Blizzard to introduce some other, if not smaller, afterlives. Yeahyeahyeah... I get it. The Shadowlands is the main afterlife for the entire universe of the Warcraft franchise. We even have places like De Other Side being established as just a pocket dimension of the Shadowlands...


...so I hope Blizzard showcases some other pocket dimensions, or outright separate afterlives for different forces. For example, I'm holding out to see the realm for the Holy Light. Crusader Bridenbad's soul was spirited away "to the realm of Light away from the Shadowlands" and perhaps Tirion Fordring's soul went to the same place.

[Skildar]

I still don't understand the exact path that wild gods take tbh. At end of Emerald Nightmare we see e.g. Ursoc who is just killed show up in the Emerald Dream. Do they show up in the Dream, fade from there to Ardenweald (per the 2D short), get raised on Anima until the moment of ascension or however it was specifically called and then go back to the Dream from where they can eventually go back to the mortal realm? Am I wrong at some step? Seems very convoluted.

I might have misunderstood that whole part but my take is the following :
Emerald dream and the nightmare are planes where you can export a version of your conscience. Malfurion did this multiple times with his body staying in reality. So I take it that Ysera and the many victims of the emerald nightmare raid displayed themselves there to thank the adventurers while already being present in the shadowlands.

So I guess you can be in death, elemental or nether realm and still cast your conscience into the emerald dream which makes it a pretty useful way of communicating.

One thing that I'm still struggling a lot with is the Anduin cinematic where he sees both Varian and Saurfang hold his blade. These do not seem to be ghost or spirit but memories either stored in the blade or in Anduin. I like the idea that memories can take form and act as ghost, etc. We've seen something similar with a few characters that purposefully stored memories in artefact, like Aegwyn's warning in the cathedral and tomb of Sargeras.
I often enjoy fantasies where memories become some powerful tools though not entirely controllable etc. So I'm curious to what it really aimed to be in this cinematic and what we should expect from there.

[Aucald]

Still holding out for Blizzard to introduce some other, if not smaller, afterlives. Yeahyeahyeah... I get it. The Shadowlands is the main afterlife for the entire universe of the Warcraft franchise. We even have places like De Other Side being established as just a pocket dimension of the Shadowlands...

...so I hope Blizzard showcases some other pocket dimensions, or outright separate afterlives for different forces. For example, I'm holding out to see the realm for the Holy Light. Crusader Bridenbad's soul was spirited away "to the realm of Light away from the Shadowlands" and perhaps Tirion Fordring's soul went to the same place.

There are few such instances that already exist. The Emerald Dream, for example, receives the spirits of Druids such as Elerethe Renferal and Thaon Moonclaw who persisted there well after their deaths. Based on what we know of the Emerald Dream, it may itself be a pocket dimension of the greater realm of Life. Similarly, there is a construct known as the "Shadow Realm," which may also be the Realm of Shadows visited by Death Knights and containing Shadowy Tormentors, which is occupied by Arrakoan spirits and may be a pocket dimension of the Void. Other dimensions like Helheim and Thros are connected to the Shadowlands but not actually part of it, which may also be the case with De Other Side (although unlike Helheim and Thros is accessible more or less directly from Ardenweald).

[Nymrohd]

We do know that the Titanforged (and thus also the Titans on a much larger scale) had the capacity to manipulate extradimensional space, i.e. to create bounded realities with specific traits. Ra and Helya created the Elemental Planes to house the elemental spirits of Azeroth that otherwise belong to the mortal realm (this ties in with the current expansion; removing elementals from the mortal realm is indeed deeply unnatural since in this cosmology they are not just building blocks of reality, they are part of it as seen in Draenor). Helya used the same concept to create Helheim and the Halls of Valor and Freya did it to create the Emerald Dream. The interesting part is that these areas do not simply house realities, they bend cosmic rules that the Shadowlands recognize. The Shadowlands know to send elemental souls back into the Elemental Plane even though it is an artificial part of the cosmology. Perhaps in other planets, the naturally occuring Wild Gods there do not have an Emerald Dream and their cycle of rebirth is entirely bound to Ardenweald without the truck stops. Heck the Nathrezim could manipulate the ties of souls to planes on a massive scale given they managed to move Argus' soul into the Shadowlands.

[Athorha]

Rhonin not being a kyrian has me a little spooked, I don't think its possible for the lead writers at blizz to say they simply forgot about him. He broke fate many times, including in self sacrifice at death, maybe Nozdormu in wota knew to plant that idealism in his head back in wota. Maybe he's pelagos, idk what mana bombs do to your souls memory.

In fact, were any mortals who directly worked with time magic involved in the shadowlands? I mean garrosh was in sanctum, but off the top of my head I cannot remember of another character who nozdormu specifically ushered in life who then ended up in the shadowlands definitively? The caretakers of Korthia have very mysterious vibes, theres a lot untold about the shadowlands, open endedness that begs the question of us to first confirm what blizz has definitively stated versus what have we read between the lines too deeply on... calling the shadowlands the afterlife is an odd thing to start, I mean technically the forsaken / undead are living a "state of afterlife" that in itself nulls the phrase afterlife as all encompassing under the shadowlands terminology.

[DarkTZeratul]

Rhonin not being a kyrian has me a little spooked, I don't think its possible for the lead writers at blizz to say they simply forgot about him.

You could say this about countless characters. They couldn't possibly include every character that's ever died, and we know too that there are an infinite number of other realms that the dead could be sent to if not one of the four Covenants' domains. Rhonin could just be chilling in Mage Heaven with a glass of arcwine and a giant book of spells, swapping stories with Antonidas and placing bets on when Medivh will be back (and for how long).

[Athorha]

You could say this about countless characters. They couldn't possibly include every character that's ever died, and we know too that there are an infinite number of other realms that the dead could be sent to if not one of the four Covenants' domains. Rhonin could just be chilling in Mage Heaven with a glass of arcwine and a giant book of spells, swapping stories with Antonidas and placing bets on when Medivh will be back (and for how long).

Not every character who dies deserves to become eternal. I'm saying of all of them Rhonin seems like a no brainer for the kyrian / the arbiter to be an influence on future troubled souls. Many warriors who died would be nothing but handicaps creating nothing but illogical dispute between the houses of maldraxxus, so a sacrifice like Brox or Groms does not hold the same ground under eternal combat, maybe they exist but I'd think their sacrifice(glory) would be diminished if their lives were extended to an afterlife as well. Antonidas while performing noble acts and serving righteous causes in life still confined himself to one house of thought in life, mages.

Honestly right now refreshing myself on Antonidas I'd see him as a plague doctor in maldraxxus, I mean he's finally dead, why not do the one thing he was directly opposed to in life.