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

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

When has Aman'thul ever been omniscient? Even in his limited storyline there's tons of crap he didn't know about.

I don't know, I'm too tired to try argue how the fuck Aman'thul decreed what constitutes the True Timeline without omniscient powers and honestly the Narrative Team according to The Scaleborn War have essentially just done the Void answer on said question.

All forces are flawed, anyways. The outlier always being the Free Will issue in Universe that does lead to the wibbly wobbly nature of what should be a straight line or shall we say a cut off point, more specifically due to Argus's existence.

[Alanar]

TLT Final cutscene, Azeroth is born and approaches the Pantheon.
"What am I, some kind of World of Warcraft?"

That was a 10+ lmao

I am hearing the badum ts in the backround.

[Hitei]

I don't know, I'm too tired to try argue how the fuck Aman'thul decreed what constitutes the True Timeline without omniscient powers and honestly the Narrative Team according to The Scaleborn War have essentially just done the Void answer on said question.

All forces are flawed, anyways. The outlier always being the Free Will issue in Universe that does lead to the wibbly wobbly nature of what should be a straight line or shall we say a cut off point, more specifically due to Argus.

He just chose the vision of the future that was most beneficial to the Pantheon. That was Iridikron's whole point.

Nothing about Aman'thul has ever been depicted as omniscient. He didn't know where other World Souls were (the Pantheon had to search for and struggle to find them), he didn't know about the shit the Void was getting up to with Old gods (Sargeras had to floor the rest of the Pantheon with what he learned from the dread lords), he didn't know about Sargeras' incoming betrayal, he was only saved from destruction by Norgannon, he didn't know about Azeroth until Aggramar stumbled onto it, he explicitly didn't realize how far Y'shaarj had burrowed into the planet, he didn't know that Algalon would side with us rather than stick to protocol.

He knows very little beyond the scope of what he wants to happen.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

He just chose the vision of the future that was most beneficial to the Pantheon. That was Iridikron's whole point.

Nothing about Aman'thul has ever been depicted as omniscient. He didn't know where other World Souls were (the Pantheon had to search for and struggle to find them), he didn't know about the shit the Void was getting up to with Old gods (Sargeras had to floor the rest of the Pantheon with what he learned from the dread lords), he didn't know about Sargeras' incoming betrayal, he was only saved from destruction by Norgannon, he didn't know about Azeroth until Aggramar stumbled onto it, he explicitly didn't realize how far Y'shaarj had burrowed into the planet, he didn't know that Algalon would side with us rather than stick to protocol.

He knows very little beyond the scope of what he wants to happen.

I mean, sure. Apparently I misread the Legend of Elun'ahir as I mistook the pulling of the tree to be Pre-Old Gods but it was during it so thats' why I thought the omnscience problem with Aman'thul was on the table again. Obviously I recognize the issues with such a scenario if that was not the case. (Also there's like the whole Argus issue that he was also unaware of in regards to Sargeras.)

But, apparently it was not the case due to the fact that it happened Post-Old Gods and I did not realize that prior to this.

Either way, its bad for everyone involved and well its' just another Gameboy playing individual that will get beaten down and lose due to Fatebreaking.

Aman'thul being turned into a big bad is strictly just Zovaal 2.0 except this time with consequences and finality regarding the World Soul which the narrative has tried so many times since Legion to get to unsuccessfully but this time may finally end with something happening and moving on.

[Worldshaper]

Here's my theory about the history of Khaz Algar, Avaloren, and the worldsoul.

• Before the dawn of time, a Shard of Light crashed into Azeroth. It infused the planet with the spark of Life (and Death followed suit). It awoken the Elementals. It gave rise to Spirit and Decay. But more importantly, it created the worldsoul. But where Light goes, Shadow follows...
• The Earthen of Khaz Algar became infused with the essence of the worldsoul because of their proximity to the fissure at Sector AR-938. They were ordered to build and maintain the Coreway, a passageway leading all the way from the Isle of Dorn into the heart of Azeroth. At the end of the road, we'll find Uldaz, a facility they were meant to maintain. Uldaz' purpose is to safeguard the worldsoul prison. But ever since the Sundering, they've become separated from the rest of their kin, which over time has resulted in the fragmentation of their society. My guess is that Uldaz is long since abandoned and now inhabited by either shadowy figures, or a reclusive sect of titanforged that shut themselves in, and it'll probably be a raid dungeon. It would not surprise be if the final boss encounter involves Odyn turning a certain key.
• The Arathi of Hallowfall are descendants of the Arathi Empire. Their ancestors sailed west about 2 000 years ago, before the empire fractured. They sailed past Kalimdor and all the way to Avaloren. Around 800 years ago, some of them had a vision of the shard that had crashed into Hallowfall, so they left their kin behind and made their way to Khaz Algar, where they've remained ever since. Unable to leave, they've built their own society within the cave. Now, who are the filthy heathens they left behind on Avaloren? Well, the heretics mentioned by Odyn of course. Now, the reason for the vision is this: the shard in Hallowfall called out to those it deemed worthy of aiding it in its time of need. It felt the forces of the shadow creeping closer. It perhaps felt its own unavoidable transition into its Void state. So it needed champions of the Light who would answer its call.
• The Nerubians of Azj-Kahet are the Children of the First Blood, gathering the blood of Old Gods for Xal'atath. It remains to be seen whose blood this is, but it could be her own if she died there long ago, or perhaps Y'Shaarj's given the proximity to where his heart was kept. Maybe it's the blood of all the Old Goods coalescing near the core of the world. We'll find out! She's definitely going to use this in her "awakening", though. Who's about to awaken is also a mystery for now. Perhaps her old body. Perhaps the worldsoul. Perhaps one or more other Old Gods.
• When Sargeras struck Azeroth with his sword, he sought to pierce something very specific down below. This was his final chance to do so before being imprisoned. You see, he knew what fate had befallen the worldsoul. He learned of it in a vision. In this vision, he found himself in the core of the world, where the worldsoul opened its eye and looked at him. In this moment, he knew what it was all about. Now, he's still a villain committing horrible acts of violence. But he is trying to free the worldsoul rather than destroy it. But what did the sword hit?
• Xal'atath, if she is indeed the 5th Old God, had powers over Life and Death. Maybe she got those by being nearby the worldsoul. Perhaps she gnawed on the roots of Elun'Ahir. Either way, a resurrection seems right up her alley. One essence of Galakrond, two cups of Old God blood, and a dark heart that awaits the taking. Voila, you've got yourself something dark brewing.

Edit: Regarding Avaloren

Just to add to this, I think it's fully possible that Avaloren is on this side of Azeroth, either north of Kalimdor or southwest of it, because of the way they changed the map early in Dragonflight.

It could be part of the setup for War Within, or it could be introduced as new land in The Last Titan.

Edit: Regarding Ogmot's Dream Journal

I was just passing by the Wound where Sargeras' sword sits, a moment ago. I took a few minutes to re-read Ogmot's Dream Journal, a book that drops from a Twilight Cultist ogre near the sword, added in patch 7.3.5.

This was at the end of Legion, when we were about to destroy our artifact weapons. So we knew Xal'atath as a whispering blade, but she hadn't yet escaped the blade. Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands were still ahead of us.

First the book describes how he and others had been given visions by the Masters, and made their way to Silithus. Presumably this happened as a result of the sword hitting something down below.

In his dream visions, he sees future events. So he goes on to to speak of the naval battle at Nazjatar and N'Zoth lurking below, and how Sylvanas led people like blind sheep into their deaths. So he's basically predicted BfA and Shadowlands ahead of time.

But then it goes on to talk about Argus, the worldsoul that got "wakened", and a "great victory" that we didn't even notice had taken place. This makes one think of Xal'atath's quote: "Long have we sought entry into this realm! To think we have a mortal to thank for giving us our foothold," which is probably about Argus or herself making their way into the Seat of the Pantheon.

He makes a few interesting comments:

"Dat blade has shiny eye. Always watchin us. Why you no see it?"
"Ogmot share his dreams wit da others, but da skinny one just laugh. Ogmot no like her."
"Da dagger spoke true. It been too long since Ogmot got drowned.

He's talking about committing a lot of sacrifices to regain his visions that are abandoning him. Xal'atath has talked about being used for sacrifices in the past. So it seems confirmed Xal'atath ended up in his hands after we disposed of it. Since he speaks of drowning, which is a common theme with N'Zoth, and the blade was next to be found in Stormsong Valley, perhaps it was Ogmot who took it there.

Finally he says:

"Roused by her screams, stirred by da whispers," which sounds a bit like the Radiant Song in its darker forms, and the whispers Alleria hears instead of the song.

"A blessin comes from da Masters. Now Ogmot understand! A door. A path. Ours... Ours... Fool! Da circle awakened us all!"

Is this the door Odyn will unlock, and is the path literally the Coreway in War Within?

[Nebron]

@Murlocos

I agree with most of this!

I don't trust the modern team to tell faction stories competently, particularly a faction war. However, I do think after a softish reboot with some time passage that there's an easier way to reintroduce some of that without the baggage of the last 10 years or so.

The actual presentation of Vanilla was bad, but I think the general idea was right - have outlying skirmishes by specific groups lore-canon with how BGs integrate into the broader scope of the world but without the full fledged war that ends up consuming the plot and also makes other characters grab the idiot ball for dear life to make it happen.

In real life, when wars happen, alliances are extremely complicated and tested, and usually we don't see the 100% cohesion we do with factions in WoW unless groups are fully annexed or something.

It should be complex, even if a Warchief position returned. Mists worked marginally better because the individual Horde outgroups had their own personal reasons to rebel unlike SL where Sylvanas had majority support (lol) until she said something stupid (lmao) and then suddenly everyone was unilaterally on board with one dude and also let a human give a eulogy in their capital (rofl, even).

Tenuous cold/"warm" wars are just way more interesting without directly opposing a main plot.

For smaller stories, even with kobolds and quillboar, there are actually ways to make that cool. Giant candle elemental coming in TWW? Fuck yeah!

Hell, I'm one of the people that would've loved the Mongrel Horde concept they had instead of Warlords. I imagine...like, a cobbled piece of shit war machine made by a bunch of quillboars AND IT SOMEHOW WORKS and is actually dangerous (a la 40K Ork magical thinking/psychic powers) and it tickles me.

A new Cult of the Damned? Yes, please! Damn shame Kel'Thuzad was ruined because he had far and away the most charisma and could've been a returning big bad without the Lich King baggage if they hadn't made him a Zovaal lackey. But the undead for another 20 years? Why not do something different from the usual? I swear they haven't had very unique designs since Naxxramas to me. ICC and a lot of Maldraxxus was kind of a bust outside Festergut/Rotface.

Let's get silly again. Not necessarily humorous or lighthearted but broad and creative. Go fucking nuts with the old stuff.

Absolutely. I think it was @Zebir95 yesterday talking about how side-stories are the thing that drives the worldbuilding, and it's hard to disagree with that philosophy.

I have that weird feeling, that no matter how great the next expansion of WoW is going to be, I'm more eager to play whatever Riot pulls off with their MMO simply because it might be a vast, open, exciting world with little, nuanced stories that build the world just like classic did.
Every single zone telling its own story, rather than being part of the grand narrative is what I consider "cool effect".

I would love WoW to have a reaaally hard reset, but to create such world they would need to introduce insane amount of fresf stuff, new protagonists and new enemies. You example of the new "Cult of the Damned"-like stuff is exactly what WoW needs. I really do hope that they wrap up the current Warcraft story with Worldsoul Saga and go hard with new stuff.
Animated TV series, Warcraft 4 with expansions, anything that could create foundations for the new, not even chapter, but entirely new book of Warcraft

[huth]

Edit: Regarding Avaloren

Just to add to this, I think it's fully possible that Avaloren is on this side of Azeroth, either north of Kalimdor or southwest of it, because of the way they changed the map early in Dragonflight.

You might want to read up on what map projections are. Other side does not necessarily mean seperate worldmap. Anything west of Kalimdor or east of the EK is on the other side.

[Worldshaper]

You might want to read up on what map projections are. Other side does not necessarily mean seperate worldmap. Anything west of Kalimdor or east of the EK is on the other side.

You know what I mean.

[Lady Atia]

I don't know, I'm too tired to try argue how the fuck Aman'thul decreed what constitutes the True Timeline without omniscient powers and honestly the Narrative Team according to The Scaleborn War have essentially just done the Void answer on said question.

All forces are flawed, anyways. The outlier always being the Free Will issue in Universe that does lead to the wibbly wobbly nature of what should be a straight line or shall we say a cut off point, more specifically due to Argus's existence.

Na, it was already pretty clear that the titans would be able to see all timelines (just like the void), but only believe that one of these is the true timeline, so they are trying to enforce that. It's not that Aman'thul has omnipotence, he just tells his underlings that this is the only way. He basically holds the whole multiverse hostage, similiar to Kang in Loki. Otherwise the whole "void sees any future as right" wouldn't make any sense either. And we already knew there were other alternate universes thanks to Warcrimes and Twilight of the Aspects, aswell as WoD which worked just fine without us interfering.

Also, everyone who believed the titans are good guys instead of multiverse fascists didn't play Ulduar lol. Algalon wiped out countless planets without caring, of course they would do the same to the wider multiverse if these other alternate timelines would treaten their idea of a perfect titan utopia.

Honestly, I think some people prolly just have a problem with the idea that a "god" isn't a good thing because it clashes with their real life views haha.

[Jaggler]

Na, it was already pretty clear that the titans would be able to see all timelines (just like the void), but only believe that one of these is the true timeline, so they are trying to enforce that. It's not that Aman'thul has omnipotence, he just tells his underlings that this is the only way. He basically holds the whole multiverse hostage, similiar to Kang in Loki. Otherwise the whole "void sees any future as right" wouldn't make any sense either. And we already knew there were other alternate universes thanks to Warcrimes and Twilight of the Aspects, aswell as WoD which worked just fine without us interfering.

Also, everyone who believed the titans are good guys instead of multiverse fascists didn't play Ulduar lol. Algalon wiped out countless planets without caring, of course they would do the same to the wider multiverse if these other alternate timelines would treaten their idea of a perfect titan utopia.

Honestly, I think some people prolly just have a problem with the idea that a "god" isn't a good thing because it clashes with their real life views haha.

This.

The Titans and their forces not being necessarily friendly to us has been a plot point since WotLK. The notion that they are some kind of universally benevolent force is just headcanon.

[Nymrohd]

You might want to read up on what map projections are. Other side does not necessarily mean seperate worldmap. Anything west of Kalimdor or east of the EK is on the other side.

I assume he means in the same hemisphere.

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This.

The Titans and their forces not being necessarily friendly to us has been a plot point since WotLK. The notion that they are some kind of universally benevolent force is just headcanon.

The first titan force we meet is Archaedas and we pretty much murder him in cold blood after invading his house.

[Daniri]

Honestly, I think some people prolly just have a problem with the idea that a "god" isn't a good thing because it clashes with their real life views haha.

I have a problem with a "god" with completely human motivations, banal ones at that. I'd rather have mysterious entities whose existences we can barely fathom because they exist in dimensions we can't conceive of.

[Lady Atia]

This.

The Titans and their forces not being necessarily friendly to us has been a plot point since WotLK. The notion that they are some kind of universally benevolent force is just headcanon.

Yeah, I think some people are confused because in Ulduar, most keepers were "evil" because they were under the influence of Yogg-Saron, but Algalon never was and was prolly the biggest thread to our planet at that time. Also Odyn always was a dick, even in Legion and Chronicles.

Tbf, New Death after Shadowlands may be the only cosmic force that's actually "good". Light is just as fascistic as Order, and Life can lead to the weird plant zombies we saw on Draenor. Atleast Void gives you your free will, until you become insane lol.

[Nymrohd]

I have a problem with a "god" with completely human motivations, banal ones at that. I'd rather have mysterious entities whose existences we can barely fathom because they exist in dimensions we can't conceive of.

What is a god? There is no entity in the Warcraft universe that seems to be omniscient or omnipotent.

[Lady Atia]

I have a problem with a "god" with completely human motivations, banal ones at that. I'd rather have mysterious entities whose existences we can barely fathom because they exist in dimensions we can't conceive of.

But that's why they introduced the First Ones. Titans always had bodies aswell as human motivations, going back to Sargeras in earliest lore, so it makes sense to tread them the same way Marvel deals with the Nordic Gods.

- - - Updated - - -

What is a god? There is no entity in the Warcraft universe that seems to be omniscient or omnipotent.

That answer is simple! It's ... we. We are omniscient gods in the Warcraft universe because we even know an Expansion months before it's releasing!

[Raetary]

What is a god? There is no entity in the Warcraft universe that seems to be omniscient or omnipotent.

Most RL gods aren't either.

[Santandame]

I’m going to make a bold prediction that Locus Walker is an avatar or apparition of Dimensius and that he’s manipulating Alleria for his own gain.

Dimensius/Locus Walker as the the boss of Midnight with the final patch being K’aresh. Locus Walker needs to be reintroduced in TWW though for maximum effect and there’s no reason for him not to considering Alleria seems to be our main character & Khadgar/Magni/Bolvar of the expansion.

The War Within - Alleria
Midnight - Turalyon & Sylvanas
The Last Titan - Illidan

Those are the main characters I envision of the upcoming expansions and it’s strong marketing as it utilises iconic WC RTS characters for what seems to be the conclusion of WoW Phase 1.

Anduin, Thrall and Magni I see as playing large roles in all three expansions, but the above characters I see as being their respective expansions poster character.

[Daniri]

What is a god? There is no entity in the Warcraft universe that seems to be omniscient or omnipotent.

God isn't the word I'd have used, I just didn't want to quibble about it. When I'm talking about entities that should have some unknowable quality to them, I'm referring to everything from elemental spirits and dragons to Titans and the Light.

But that's why they introduced the First Ones. Titans always had bodies aswell as human motivations, going back to Sargeras in earliest lore, so it makes sense to tread them the same way Marvel deals with the Nordic Gods.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the First Ones are ever going to have the same level of mystery the Titans used to have in this setting, or be appreciated in the same way the Titans were. As of right now it seems to me like many fans don't even like to bring the First Ones up because they dread the topic.

And it's not having human motivations that bothers me. It's having completely human motivations.

[Nymrohd]

As of right now it seems to me like many fans don't even like to bring the First Ones up because they dread the topic.

Are you discussing it here or in other places? If it is here, I think the issue is that there is a small community here and we have a number of very challenging posters attached to specific topics so many of us just avoid those topics.

[Dracullus]

Here's my theory about the history of Khaz Algar, Avaloren, and the worldsoul.

Personally I think Avaloren was planned as expac after Khaz Algar, but currently it's thing for very distant future.

When Metzen returned to company, they probably already worked on 11.0 zones, so it was incorporated into worldsoul thing, but he had freedom to chose setting for 12.0/13.0. It's just my theory of course.