Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Boomer Thor]

they might add another hbtq character when they commit some like retarded shit which should be any minute now.

but other than that i really dont see how any of that is relevant to anything.

[Tourmaline]

After watching the Xal short, I'm reminded of one of her Legion quotes from the Netherlight Temple.

Do the naaru speak of the eternal conflict? That the entire history of your world is but a fraction of the time that has passed? Of those that came before the draenei? No?

I wonder if her and her people are "those that came before the dranei".

[Joshuaj]

After watching the Xal short, I'm reminded of one of her Legion quotes from the Netherlight Temple.



I wonder if her and her people are "those that came before the dranei".

Probably one of the races, yeah. Makes me wonder how old Xal'atath actually is. Maybe she's 200k years old? Maybe she's a million? A billion? Idk.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Wasnt Lordaeron generally considered so cursed that only Humans ended up settling there? Or was it just the blood Elves who decided against it when they first arrived?

Only mention is that the elf's didn't want to stay because there was something dark there though they did think about kicking the humans off because of the leyline overlap likely under dalaran.

The troll's already had there own curse void thing in Zul'aman so they likely didn't care.

[JDBlou]

New lore tablet added to the PTR, sharing notable excerpts I found on Porterguage's twitter and just thinking on what story beats they might be pointing at. But of note the recording paints a less favourable picture of the Zandalari and their influence on the Amani, going as so far as to point puppet rulers to better align the Amani's interest with the Zandalari. One can't help but think this is thread to get Talanji in to the narrative to perhaps at least discuss the Zandalari's historical shortcomings in their dealing with other troll empires.



Bloody well called it, Kith'ix is almost certainly under Zul'aman, defeated by a mysterious patron and her army.

So, isolated from their Zandalari loa the early Amani beseeched Ula'tek to do it? In exchange for what? And does this explain Zul'jan's motivation, because is his gripe with the Amani loa more about the fact there is obviously a greater power out there who aided them before and now they bargain for scraps from silent loa?





And notably Malacrass's body was not recovered, but the timeline picture the tablet paints is confusing because we know he survived the first Zul'Aman raid so he could align with Zul in Cata. Does make me wonder if they're teeing up a potential resurrection of Malacrass as patch villain in 12.1? We're almost certainly seeing the return of the Vilebranch to the overall Midnight narrative (not just the Maisara Cavern dungeon), who in this accounting of Amani history are painted unequivocally in a bad light. They are delving in necromancy in the dungeon, if I were a betting man, I'd say Blizz are foreshadowing the resurrection of Malacrass.

So it leaves me with the question, are we villainbatting Zul'jan because he's poisoned by his ambition for power or is it matter of he's our best bet to get Ula'tek's power lest the Vilebranch do and turn her armies against the Blood Elves already beset from all sides by the forces of the Void.

[Cheezits]

This puts a HUGE question mark on what the hell Ula'tek actually is. She's not a Loa, and she has an army. She was something the trolls had "access to, but was lost to us".

Demon? Naaru?

[Merryck]

What a shit narrative structure. The ultimate battle between the Light vs Void in the first act, followed by the second act where we fight ... trolls. And a C'Thraxxi general, I guess. And then I guess we're looping back around to the ultimate battle between the Light vs Void in the third act? But it also sounds like it gets resolved in the first act, so what gives.

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This puts a HUGE question mark on what the hell Ula'tek actually is. She's not a Loa, and she has an army. She was something the trolls had "access to, but was lost to us".

Demon? Naaru?

Please let her be that old god in the mural in Azj-Kahet. Let something from the start of TWW be consequential.

[JDBlou]

This puts a HUGE question mark on what the hell Ula'tek actually is. She's not a Loa, and she has an army. She was something the trolls had "access to, but was lost to us".

Demon? Naaru?

Based on the content from we've seen from the early test builds, there's rivers of green goop flowing around the island, ostensibly its rivers of poison and there certainly is a ton of snake imagery in the temple design. Occam's razor does suggest it's a previously unseen Loa of Poison but whether she's a wild god is a whole other discussion.



One does have to wonder what sort of army she could muster, a convergent evolution of Sethrak-like serpent people?

[Joshuaj]

This puts a HUGE question mark on what the hell Ula'tek actually is. She's not a Loa, and she has an army. She was something the trolls had "access to, but was lost to us".

Demon? Naaru?

Some unique serpent goddess, seemingly.

[Cheezits]

Based on the content from we've seen from the early test builds, there's rivers of green goop flowing around the island, ostensibly its rivers of poison and there certainly is a ton of snake imagery in the temple design. Occam's razor does suggest it's a previously unseen Loa of Poison but whether she's a wild god is a whole other discussion.

One does have to wonder what sort of army she could muster, a convergent evolution Sethrak-like serpent people race?

Either there's a Sethrak 2.0 coming out of that temple or it's a snake-looking demon with a demon army.

[Limayria]

Some unique serpent goddess, seemingly.

Maybe she's hakar's mate or something

[Hitei]

Poison is nature aligned right? It could feasibly be a heretofore unestablished Life deity being written into the pretty barebones "Ula-tek" space. I do wonder if the army would be Sethrak, or maybe some sort of new naga-adjacent lamia type organism but without the aquatic features.

[JDBlou]

The whole expanded lore does give me a potential false hope that they won't go with the obvious villain batting of Zul'jan because that genuinely is such a cheap trope that was predicted as a possible plot point from the Gamescom reveal.

Zul'jan could learn from the error of his ways in his pursuit and the limits of ambition if he sees what happens to the Vilebranch. Let their attempts to cow Ula'tek blow up in their faces and have Zul'jan learn from that, Ula'tek's forces drawn into the fight against Xal'atath under the command of Zul'jan would be certainly be more interesting, to me at least than going there and killing another Loa and her followers.

Let Zul'jan negotiate with her for her aid, become her champion or something and have her join our fight.

[Boomer Thor]

Really dont understand this love for zuljan everone has he is obviously fodder.

[Enrif]

Really dont understand this love for zuljan everone has he is obviously fodder.

people hope he isn't just again the male fodder to make the female lead look better. Something about modern writing.

[JDBlou]

I'm not approaching it from the manosphere hatred of girlbosses and the rise in female racial leads avenue, y'know the toxic manlets who bristle at women inheriting leadership because it damages their fragile masculinity.

I just think the evil sibling scheming to overthrow the elder; the princeling rivalry trope is so overplayed, for me it's a matter of narrative ennui.

Collapsing that nuance is dangerous because it gives those vocal alpha-male bro-let shitheads room to hide in.

[Foolicious]

Some unique serpent goddess, seemingly.

Taking a wild leap here but maybe its ysildar? A snake like creature that odyn eventually defeated by tossing it into the sea. The vrykul thought it would be an angry animal of freya, so basically a wild god/loa. But odyn thought it came from the black empire or from even before that.

I do think this story and the doomsayer stuff about the blind serpent was about the old gods, but maybe they repurposed parts of it for ula'tek since they never picked up those storybeats from legion.

[Lorca]

I usually don't like diving too much into the Beta's new zones, but this time I couldn't resist, because I wanted to see the Amani in first person... and I can say now that they definitely look different enough to Zandalari and the Dark Spear, which I think makes the "not another playable Troll race" people look a bit foolish... I'd say they'd be a great addition as a playable race, specially given that they've been wanted by a big part of the community for a long time! They just need a bit more of customization options and they'd be perfect to go.

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I'm not approaching it from the manosphere hatred of girlbosses and the rise in female racial leads avenue, y'know the toxic manlets who bristle at women inheriting leadership because it damages their fragile masculinity.

I just think the evil sibling scheming to overthrow the elder; the princeling rivalry trope is so overplayed, for me it's a matter of narrative ennui.

Collapsing that nuance is dangerous because it gives those vocal alpha-male bro-let shitheads room to hide in.

After reading the short story I think they both are different enough from each other and that they'd be a nice an addition (as a pair) to the regular roster. I like that Zul'jan is described as a not great warrior but cunning guy. My only concern with Zul'jarra is that she feel a bit too much like Geya'rah in a general sense... Another strong girl warrior with an axe; couldn't they use another "class"? Shaman or (survival) hunter for example?

[JDBlou]

I usually don't like diving too much into the Beta's new zones, but this time I couldn't resist, because I wanted to see the Amani in first person... and I can say now that they definitely look different enough to Zandalari and the Dark Spear, which I think makes the "not another playable Troll race" people look a bit foolish... I'd say they'd be a great addition as a playable race, specially given that they've been wanted by a big part of the community for a long time! They just need a bit more of customization options and they'd be perfect to go.

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After reading the short story I think they both are different enough from each other and that they'd be a nice an addition (as a pair) to the regular roster. I like that Zul'jan is described as a not great warrior but cunning guy. My only concern with Zul'jarra is that she feel a bit too much like Geya'rah in a general sense... Another strong girl warrior with an axe; couldn't they use another "class"? Shaman or (survival) hunter for example?

I feel like loa empowered/designated leaders are predominantly Shaman because of the spiritualism associated with the class, so I think it would be an interesting angle to approach it from the other vector, a martial leader learning to become spiritual which is in line with her progression in the zone story and her rekindling the connections with the Loa and her own faith in them. Maybe even growing into a shaman class switch.

Zul'jan growing into a quasi-Warlock/becoming a Witch Doctor/Shadow priest in the service of Ula'tek would be interesting to me at least, the overlap is there: darker powers, poison, diseases, cunning... Just drop the demon summoning and you're 3/4 of the way there. Bring back the "dark but not evil" vibes to trolls and their mysticism goddammit.

That's a far richer narrative playground than evil Amani troll leader we have to get rid of... again

[Nymrohd]

This puts a HUGE question mark on what the hell Ula'tek actually is. She's not a Loa, and she has an army. She was something the trolls had "access to, but was lost to us".

Demon? Naaru?

She could be a Naaru which would make the island more directly relevant to the story. Heck we could end up with Zul'jan becoming a paladin thus if Amani become an allied race they could have paladins/priests from the start. It could also be something completely original. Maybe she is a Death or Order aligned creature or even an Elemental.