The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Nymrohd]

What will happen to S1 creation catalyst when 10.1 will launch? If it will be disabled, release so early is not good news for me, as I planned to level all classes and get normal/heroic tier on them via Forbidden Reach (catalyst has 6 cap, transmog set has 9 pieces).

It gets fully uncapped and you can still use it, only now at will.

[Dracullus]

It gets fully uncapped and you can still use it, only now at will.

Any source of that? Or you saw it on PTR?

[Stickiler]

And if we are to assume the original book in IF was written by an mortal then 5 fits perfectly if you put in G’hunn and who ever is correcting it could just not know G’hunn isn’t a real old god like who ever originally wrote it.

The book was written before G'huun existed, so it would be unlikely for him to be included in that 5.

[huth]

Ehhh tbf here...

The Chronicle itself was a pretty shit "word of god" ordeal regardless. Limited the scope of WoWs universe by a ton.

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Kinda glad it's now an intentionally limited PoV of Order.

The misperception you're both falling to is probably why they did it. It was never marketed as an all-encompassing tome of lore, yet people still got it in their heads that only what is in it is canon. It was a definite guide to lore, not a comprehensive one.

The limitation in scope was only on the Chronicle itself. Not on the universe.

[Le Conceptuel]

The misperception you're both falling to is probably why they did it. It was never marketed as an all-encompassing tome of lore, yet people still got it in their heads that only what is in it is canon. It was a definite guide to lore, not a comprehensive one.

The limitation in scope was only on the Chronicle itself. Not on the universe.

I suppose "all-encompassing" was the wrong word—your word choice, "definite", may be more appropriate. Although my word choice implied it would cover everything that would ever be canon, I rather meant to say that it should be the final, and wholly out-of-character, word on all the lore it covered. None of the details should've been able to be subject to retroactive continuity or direct contradictions under any circumstances—much of the lore in Shadowlands fell under that category. The First Ones, for instance, totally contradicted the cosmology and creation myth we were given in Chronicles. Similarly, reframing it as in-universe propaganda made me highly skeptical that Blizzard will ever be able to maintain any consistency in the future.

In fact, due to this very decision to not use it as an absolute authority in regards to the specific slices of lore it covered facilitated several permanent and irrevocable additions to the lore—again, the Shadowlands and First Ones come to mind as some examples of serious issues added precisely on the part of more room being made for new lore that have introduced serious negative externalities to any future story or myth arcs Blizzard introduces. I'm not of the mind that these additions are wholly unsalvageable on a conceptual level, but I do believe fixing them will require a great deal of effort and probably reframing of those concepts in themselves.

Now, this is not to say Chronicles' lore was perfect, or even good–it did actually set the precedent for the worst parts of recent lore. The cosmology chart was defined therein, and that's been casting its shadow over the lore for some time. It really opened the door for all of Danuser's fanfic-tier dreck, so I can't say it was even a good thing it came out to begin with. But once it had been published, retconning it into propaganda only exacerbated the problems it introduced and got rid of the good it did. Even the lore that was changed for the better (i.e. the whole Nathrezim story arc from Shadowlands, which I thought was a nice addition) failed in any way to compensate for the disastrous changes that came from the new lore.

Ultimately, the biggest price was the loss of sensible continuity. The setting already had a frustrating tendency towards sweeping retcons and nonsensical, wholly-unwanted additions, and Chronicles was meant to be an antidote for that—Blizzard essentially threw out one of the best additions to the setting – that is, a definitive source on everything contained therein – and fell back into the exact habits that Chronicles sought to remedy.

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Kinda glad it's now an intentionally limited PoV of Order.

You see, the thing is that I would normally agree with you—one of my favorite framing devices, especially for fantasy, is the approach of framing things through deliberately-subjective, potentially-biased in-universe texts. The issue is that such an approach is only being used in pursuit of the most mind-numbingly predictable, faux-subversive dross we've seen permeating modern fantasy since the early 2000s. We know full well the exact trajectory of the story, just as we knew the exact trajectory of Sylvanas' story since MoP.

Furthermore, this would have been a very good trend back when the setting was young—if the entire cosmology were exclusively framed in this fashion, with us rarely exploring the higher planes and leaving much of them shrouded in mystery even as their inhabitants exposed themselves more, then we'd have a good start to something. See Elder Scrolls for how this can be done right, as much as it has issues in common (i.e. frequent retcons, general decay) with Warcraft. Nowadays, however, it doesn't lend itself to much good. The sad part is that the point of no return was only really crossed recently, with Shadowlands. Had we started a trend of exploring the higher-concept stuff more thoroughly but from a clearly subjective lens and a good distance, permeating these concepts with both in- and out-of-universe speculation, then I'd be all over it.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The book was written before G'huun existed, so it would be unlikely for him to be included in that 5.

It was but if they want to say the book still says 5 in universe G'hunn would fit for being one of the 5 because no one but a titan watcher would be able to know hes fake.

[Shadowferal]

Hmf...those books weren't cheap. Knowing that they're little better than fanfiction...well, if nothing else, I feel better about my own rewrite of the lore.

[Le Conceptuel]

Le Conceptual, I understand your frustration...

But we're at 10.0.7...

We're kinda far into the story, that Cosmic stuff like this is most definitely going to be explored now, especially the Progenitor stuff.

See again: Elder Scrolls. The series is a few months older than Warcraft (not World of Warcraft, Warcraft), and the cosmology remains a subject of intense speculation and debate. The nature of the lore lends itself well to inquiry. In fact, it demonstrates how elucidation and even exploration does not preclude equivocation and mystery. It also doesn't preclude nuance, which is something really lacking in Warcraft lore as it is now. It helps that in Elder Scrolls, we haven't irrevocably perma-killed all the major divine figures or fallen into a Dragonball Z-esque orgy of endlessly-ascending stakes and endlessly-diminishing audience investment. The cosmology has also been fairly consistent (ironically, inconsistency is more common on the more grounded side of things) and well-established since ~2002, without the need to retroactively expand it to artificially increase stakes. We've been speculating and talking about the same Anu and Padomay since the series began and will do so until it ends, and that's not gotten dull.

In fact, C0DA exists, so we've seen the eschaton and the logical conclusion of the entirety of the cosmology of Elder Scrolls (on a thematic level, mind you, not a chronological—C0DA isn't really canon, but is more of a purely theoretical tie-up for Morrowind's themes meant to be contained within itself in spite of containing the entire cosmology), and that subject of fictitious eschatology still lends itself to debate and speculation, as well as fostering actual interest among the playerbase, due to its aforementioned nature as a theoretical and thematic work instead of an actual, guaranteed chronological event.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Well, the limitation of Chronicle is why the Universe sucked in scope. And I know, that's why I called it a "shit word of god" cause even with that belief people apparently have, it's still shit, even if it was true.

...What Chronicle did you read that sucked, cause thats not the same Chronicle we got.

[Stickiler]

It was but if they want to say the book still says 5 in universe G'hunn would fit for being one of the 5 because no one but a titan watcher would be able to know hes fake.

I don't see how he would count as 5, given the book was written before he existed. Unless you're suggesting the titans just lied about how many old gods there were, and that Neltharions annotations took place after G'Huun was created?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't see how he would count as 5, given the book was written before he existed. Unless you're suggesting the titans just lied about how many old gods there were, and that Neltharions annotations took place after G'Huun was created?

The titans didn’t write the ingame book, there last stated number of old god was 4, we also don’t know when the book was written or when G’hunn was made as it has no author being as it is taken from the WC3 manual.

So all we actually know is that the book was written by some one in universe and that person thinks there are 5 old gods, given that the titans build there facility’s while shaping Azeroth G’hunn could predate most organic life on Azeroth including the proto drakes and dragons.

If some one was making this book post shaping they may just think that G’hunn was a legit old god and the only “people” who would know other wise would be the Titan watchers, the old gods them selfs, and the elements, none of which are likely to go about correcting the record on a book.

[Le Conceptuel]

Y’shaarj got killed leading to them likely being part of the five.

Isn't Y'Shaarj's demise common knowledge in-universe? It's at least understood to the Mantid. If we are to assume that the book's updated information stands, even writing off G'Huun as ignorance on the part of the author, Y'Shaarj still would be deceased as opposed to imprisoned.

Mind you, you are probably correct on the matter of the book just being reused without reaffirmation and vindication being suggested, and that we're reading too far into it, but I do think this isn't a poor line of inquiry, either.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Isn't Y'Shaarj's demise common knowledge in-universe? It's at least understood to the Mantid. If we are to assume that the book's updated information stands, even writing off G'Huun as ignorance on the part of the author, Y'Shaarj still would be deceased as opposed to imprisoned.

In the MoP storyline, the Pandaren knew that an evil ancient being died and cursed the land with the seven Sha, but Lorewalker Cho didn't know about the old gods as a species or the titans until the heroes arrived.

[Le Conceptuel]

In the MoP storyline, the Pandaren knew that an evil ancient being died and cursed the land with the seven Sha, but Lorewalker Cho didn't know about the old gods as a species or the titans until the heroes arrived.

Hrm, fair enough. Does lead one to wonder if anyone who did know about the Old Gods would put the threads together or not, especially if they still have an at least semi-accurate number floating around somewhere. Honestly, I'm somewhat curious who exactly authored Deathwing's copy of the book—probably wouldn't be the Titans. Night Elves? Another Dragon?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Isn't Y'Shaarj's demise common knowledge in-universe? It's at least understood to the Mantid. If we are to assume that the book's updated information stands, even writing off G'Huun as ignorance on the part of the author, Y'Shaarj still would be deceased as opposed to imprisoned.

Mind you, you are probably correct on the matter of the book just being reused without reaffirmation and vindication being suggested, and that we're reading too far into it, but I do think this isn't a poor line of inquiry, either.

Got no clue how common that would be the Mantid know but aren't big on chatting and I can't remember if the Pandarian or mogu ever actually mention him proper and not just the left over Sha, any one knowing beyond Pandaria is also dubious.

But Y'Shaarj's heart was still locked up in a Titan facility so we really don't have a way to know if that is counted as an "old god" or not.

[Le Conceptuel]

But Y'Shaarj's heart was still locked up in a Titan facility so we really don't have a way to know if that is counted as an "old god" or not.

Or "imprisoned", for that matter.

Still, I figure this line of inquiry isn't worth totally dismissing in spite of its lack of likelihood compared to Blizzard just not bothering rewriting a book without strictly vindicating its contents or an in-universe error.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Hrm, fair enough. Does lead one to wonder if anyone who did know about the Old Gods would put the threads together or not, especially if they still have an at least semi-accurate number floating around somewhere. Honestly, I'm somewhat curious who exactly authored Deathwing's copy of the book—probably wouldn't be the Titans. Night Elves? Another Dragon?

Can't be the Titans the first page mentions there lack of knowledge about Sargaras turning and when they found out they all died.

Given the timing of the isle being sealed it had to be a pre WOTA race but that could still be pretty much any one and given that the clean version isn't found in any titan facility's its unlikely to be a watcher and is most likely to be a dwarf given that its found in both if and black rock.

[Le Conceptuel]

Can't be the Titans the first page mentions there lack of knowledge about Sargaras turning and when they found out they all died.

Given the timing of the isle being sealed it had to be a pre WOTA race but that could still be pretty much any one and given that the clean version isn't found in any titan facility's its unlikely to be a watcher.

Thus why I brought it down to the Night Elves or a Dragon. A member of the Blue or Bronze Dragonflight could be the author—although the Night Elves would be a sensible contender, I do have to wonder if Neltharion would be interested in collecting books not written by Dragons.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Hrm, fair enough. Does lead one to wonder if anyone who did know about the Old Gods would put the threads together or not, especially if they still have an at least semi-accurate number floating around somewhere. Honestly, I'm somewhat curious who exactly authored Deathwing's copy of the book—probably wouldn't be the Titans. Night Elves? Another Dragon?

Presumably the Horde and the Alliance realized the nature of the Sha after Garrosh was arrested and the cleanup crews tried to figure out what this dead heart in the Underhold was. The Horde and Alliance found out that saronite was dried up old god blood in Northrend quests, so any cursory analysis of Y'shaarj's heart should return similar results and lead to them making the connection. Brann Bronzebeard also regularly interacted with Titan facilities and accessed their knowledge banks so he could have found out from there.

[Le Conceptuel]

Presumably the Horde and the Alliance realized the nature of the Sha after Garrosh was arrested and the cleanup crews tried to figure out what this dead heart in the Underhold was. The Horde and Alliance found out that saronite was dried up old god blood in Northrend quests, so any cursory analysis of Y'shaarj's heart should return similar results and lead to them making the connection. Brann Bronzebeard also regularly interacted with Titan facilities and accessed their knowledge banks so he could have found out from there.

I meant at the time the text was written—I was wondering if knowledge of Y'Shaarj's status as an Old God and as a notably deceased Old God could have reached anybody, or if they could've synthesized awareness of the Sha and of the Old Gods and put the nature of the two together.