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

[Woggmer]

Will be interesting to see if Freya will be part of the story at all. I don't think we have seen her since we were in Ulduar the first time.

Yeah, Mimiron, Hodir, and even Thorim have more appearances than Freya, even though she is directly responsible for Fu Zan the Walking Staff, the Claws of Ursoc, and is responsible for Ashamane.

She is responsible for nursing and turning animals into Wild Gods. So it seems odd that she hasn't had any involvement in trying to stop corruption in the Emerald Nightmare.

[Syegfryed]

The only races that I struggle with in that regard is the Orcs and Draenei as they aren't from Azeroth, so it is unknown if the Wild Gods can accept them, and if they can even be taught because they don't have any connection to Azeroth or the Emerald Dream.

There is an orc druid already, you can find her in Ashran

And since both races have shamans, that are connected to the spirits and to azeroth itself, then its fine, hell, thrall was the aspect fo the earth for some time.

[ChronoSul]

The only races that I struggle with in that regard is the Orcs and Draenei as they aren't from Azeroth, so it is unknown if the Wild Gods can accept them, and if they can even be taught because they don't have any connection to Azeroth or the Emerald Dream.

Draeneis might be a bit harder to find a source but Orcs u could use the sporemounds as a twist similar to what we saw with the Kul'tiran Druids who arnt traditional wow druids

[Woggmer]

There is an orc druid already, you can find her in Ashran

And since both races have shamans, that are connected to the spirits and to azeroth itself, then its fine, hell, thrall was the aspect fo the earth for some time.

I've never heard of this orc druid. If she did exist, then why hasn't anyone ever mentioned her?

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Draeneis might be a bit harder to find a source but Orcs u could use the sporemounds as a twist similar to what we saw with the Kul'tiran Druids who arnt traditional wow druids

One possible idea was the Botani, especially since they came through the portal where all the other races of Draenor fleeing from the AU Draenei to our world. They along with the Saberon fled to the Barrens.. So that is one possibility.

But the big downside is that the Botani (along withe the rest of the Primals from Draenor) weren't given enough time to be fleshed out.... and not to mention that they're extremely hostile, save for one who we aren't sure what happened to him. As for the rest of the Botani... given what they did to Orcs in Gorgrond...



I'd say they'd be more trouble than a benefit.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I've never heard of this orc druid. If she did exist, then why hasn't anyone ever mentioned her?

Her being an actual Druid is more so speculation then any thing solid as she just talks about nature and using “tooth and claw”. Pretty much just an easy character they could make into a Druid and say she always was one.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Rala_Wildheart

[Woggmer]

Her being an actual Druid is more so speculation then any thing solid as she just talks about nature and using “tooth and claw”. Pretty much just an easy character they could make into a Druid and say she always was one.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Rala_Wildheart

Yeaaah... this one is a hard sell, it isn't as obvious as Gravewalker Gie (the first documented pandaren Death Knight before Shadowlands).

[Nymrohd]

There isn't really anything keeping the tauren and the night elves from training others to be druids. There were reasonably concerns against Forsaken channeling Light (but they have been holy priests since vanilla so who cares) and against Lightforged and Void Elves channeling their opposing elements because by lore there would be severe consequences to those actions. But given that would mean you would have to not give those races the priest class even though one of its specs is very clearly the thematic caster for those races the lore argument was dead on arrival; the gameplay precludes it.
Every other class restriction is thematic and can be explained away easily by simple training. Heck with the Drust we have a precedent of druidic magic without the assistance of Wild Gods to teach the forms (and with Gonk teaching multiple forms to the trolls instead of teaching his own form).

[Raetary]

There is also Freya since she has some of Eonar's power and she "created the Emerald Dream", but I have a strong feeling that whatever they've got planned for the Emerald Dream is gonna retcon Freya's involvement or they'll say something that the Emerald Dream existed even before the Titans showed up...

The Chronicles already implied that.
So i don't see how Freyas involvement in the Dream would suffer from that being clarified.

She'd still be the one to bind her fav Wild Gods to the Dream on Hyjal.

Will be interesting to see if Freya will be part of the story at all. I don't think we have seen her since we were in Ulduar the first time.

I've been begging for more Freya content for years.

But she's been sidelined so hard they have yet to mention her outside of wrath content.
Even Hodir popped up in Legion when the keepers got involvement, yet she might as well not exist.

I'd be very surprised if Blizzard remembers her enough to get her involved.

[Woggmer]

The Chronicles already implied that.
So i don't see how Freyas involvement would suffer from that being clarified.

She'd still be the one to bind her fav Wild Gods to the Dream on Hyjal.

Normally I'd agree, but in the last few expansions between BFA to DF... Blizzard has been trying to paint the Titans as a force to not be trusted. Specifically with Uldir in Nazmir being a titan facility where they experimented on Wild Gods.. or the Halls of Infusion... or those reports people found in Uldaman in how Odyn wants to control everything and changed all the Black Empire's accomplishments to be the Titan accomplishments. And there's also the fact that Ardenweald and the Emerald Dream are connected in the same tree, which isn't right because the Emerald Dream is meant to be a primordial realm of Azeroth without mortal influence.

It also doesn't help that the "author" in the Chronicles has a bias favoring the Titans and isn't trustworthy in presenting all the facts.

It's not so much that I don't agree, I want to believe Freya and the other titans and keepers having good intention (except for Odyn, I don't trust him.) I just have this ugly feeling in my stomach that Blizz is setting all this up just to make the Titans look like jerks and make us agree with the Incarnates.

[Raetary]

Normally I'd agree, but in the last few expansions between BFA to DF... Blizzard has been trying to paint the Titans as a force to not be trusted. Specifically with Uldir in Nazmir being a titan facility where they experimented on Wild Gods.. or the Halls of Infusion... or those reports people found in Uldaman in how Odyn wants to control everything and changed all the Black Empire's accomplishments to be the Titan accomplishments. And there's also the fact that Ardenweald and the Emerald Dream are connected in the same tree, which isn't right because the Emerald Dream is meant to be a primordial realm of Azeroth without mortal influence.

It also doesn't help that the "author" in the Chronicles has a bias favoring the Titans and isn't trustworthy in presenting all the facts.

It's not so much that I don't agree, I want to believe Freya and the other titans and keepers having good intention (except for Odyn, I don't trust him.) I just have this ugly feeling in my stomach that Blizz is setting all this up just to make the Titans look like jerks and make us agree with the Incarnates.

I don't get how the Titans trustworthyness has to do with any of that.

Freya being a goody-two-shoe or a secretive prick with a hidden agenda has nothing to do with any of that.
What she did was go to Hyjal, took a bunch of Wild Gods with her, waved her hand and made or ordered the Dream for Azerothian purposes.

Her involvement in it isn't undermined by the nature of the Dream, as i said, the Dreams nature was already kept vague in the chronicles to beginn with.

[Nymrohd]

My theory is that something like the Dream must exist across the Physical Realm. The way I see it, the Dream should serve a function similar to the Veil. In the Veil, souls depart towards the Shadowlands, to be sorted and send to their prospective afterlives. But where do souls come from? The idea is that they are generated in Life itself (a concept not uncommon in many mythologies where souls are bestowed upon mortals by higher entities and even exists in this specific form in D&D where Souls are created in the Positive Energy Plane and flow to the Material Plane from there). So the idea would be that some form of a Dream exists as a plane coterminous to the Physical universe allowing it to interact with the Plane of Life and allowing Life to bestow souls upon mortals.

So two questions. Do Titanforged have souls? If yes, are those granted by Life naturally or are the Titans intervening with their Emerald Dream? Perhaps the Titans have come to an agreement with Zereth Vitae or Elune; after all civilization allows life to flourish and Life might be allied with Order in this regard. Alternatively perhaps Life does NOT agree with such an intervention and the reason the Titans had a Pillar named a Tear of Elune is cause they made her cry. Perhaps Eonar is not friendly with Elune but rather had subjugated her. On why she is not opposed to them, maybe she is mostly a pacifist.

[Hitei]

My theory is that something like the Dream must exist across the Physical Realm. The way I see it, the Dream should serve a function similar to the Veil. In the Veil, souls depart towards the Shadowlands, to be sorted and send to their prospective afterlives. But where do souls come from? The idea is that they are generated in Life itself (a concept not uncommon in many mythologies where souls are bestowed upon mortals by higher entities and even exists in this specific form in D&D where Souls are created in the Positive Energy Plane and flow to the Material Plane from there). So the idea would be that some form of a Dream exists as a plane coterminous to the Physical universe allowing it to interact with the Plane of Life and allowing Life to bestow souls upon mortals.

So two questions. Do Titanforged have souls? If yes, are those granted by Life naturally or are the Titans intervening with their Emerald Dream? Perhaps the Titans have come to an agreement with Zereth Vitae or Elune; after all civilization allows life to flourish and Life might be allied with Order in this regard. Alternatively perhaps Life does NOT agree with such an intervention and the reason the Titans had a Pillar named a Tear of Elune is cause they made her cry. Perhaps Eonar is not friendly with Elune but rather had subjugated her. On why she is not opposed to them, maybe she is mostly a pacifist.

I'll admit I don't really pay attention to Dream lore, has it actually been retconned yet that the dream is solely an Azeroth related phenomenon? It seems to me that it's unlikely the Dream is comprehensively involved in the Life cycle unless that gets changed. There are (were?) countless other worlds across the cosmos, I can't imagine they're all funneling souls through Azeroth's Emerald Dream every time a living thing comes into being.

If the Dream is involved in "the Lifelands" (which personally I think is dubious, I feel like people just focus way too much "Life = nature and green stuff = Emerald Dream is super connected to Life", especially when Elune, the person we know is actually firmly connected to Life as a cosmic force, is only tangentially related to the dream, another link I feel like people over emphasize because they have this "Elune = Night Elves/Cenarius/druids = ED" line of thought)--I feel like the involvement is just that the Dream represents basically a localized /Veil. Not a universal phenomena, but one specific gateway between Azeroth and the realms of Life.

Basically I think the Dream is, at it's most important, just like Thros. Thros is a small, Azeroth-localized inbetween realm that physically manifests as a dark reflection of Azeroth, and exists partway merged into the Shadowlands proper such that entities can pass from Azeroth into Thros and from Thros into the Shadowlands. The Emerald Dream is a small, Azeroth-localized (potentially) inbetween realm that physically manifests as a verdant and life-filled reflection of Azeroth, and potentially it exists partway merged into the Realms of Life, such that entities can pass from Azeroth into the Dream, and from the Dream into the Realms of Life. This would be coherent with Thros itself being some sort of manifestation of the Nightmare. It's like a reverse-Dream.

I think it's incidental in nature, not crucial. Especially since at various historical points the Dream has been nearly fully corrupted by the Nightmare and this didn't just completely disrupt all Life. If it had some vitally important role in the distribution of new souls, those Nightmare periods surely should have just been periods where all Life went barren or came out corrupted or what not.

[Nymrohd]

I'll admit I don't really pay attention to Dream lore, has it actually been retconned yet that the dream is solely an Azeroth related phenomenon? It seems to me that it's unlikely the Dream is comprehensively involved in the Life cycle unless that gets changed. There are (were?) countless other worlds across the cosmos, I can't imagine they're all funneling souls through Azeroth's Emerald Dream every time a living thing comes into being..

Nah my idea there was that there is a base Dream everywhere which helps the Lifelands funnel souls into reality and that the Titans intervened when they created the Emerald Dream for any number of reasons (to power their Titanforged? To choose the form of Life on the planet?)

[Hitei]

Nah my idea there was that there is a base Dream everywhere which helps the Lifelands funnel souls into reality and that the Titans intervened when they created the Emerald Dream for any number of reasons (to power their Titanforged? To choose the form of Life on the planet?)

I guess, but given how ignorant the Titans seemed to be about Death, Void and Chaos, it'd be sort of strange if they were actively engaged messing around with Life stuff. Especially since their M.O. for ordering worlds seemed to just be dropping out of the sky, killing, imprisoning or enlisting the existing lifeforms and manufacturing stone/metal pseudo-robots, rather than forcing life to grow to their design.

[Nymrohd]

I guess, but given how ignorant the Titans seemed to be about Death, Void and Chaos, it'd be sort of strange if they were actively engaged messing around with Life stuff. Especially since their M.O. for ordering worlds seemed to just be dropping out of the sky, killing, imprisoning or enlisting the existing lifeforms and manufacturing stone/metal pseudo-robots, rather than forcing life to grow to their design.

What evidence is there that Titans are ignorant about the other forces? They were ignorant at a specific point in time but they had time after to research them and they have the most extensive of resources to do so.

[Raetary]

The chronicles idea of the Dream was to help facilitate communication with the World Soul and help cultivate the planets eco systems.

Given how chaotic life is on the planet, especially in Dream or Azerite affected areas, regardless of Titan intervention or not, i doubt they have any control over the planets lifeforms.

I can totally see the Dream being a compromise ( or team effort if Eonar and her are buddies) with Elune, where she gains more influence over Azeroth while the Titans gain research capabilities and a better means of communication in turn.

[Hitei]

What evidence is there that Titans are ignorant about the other forces? They were ignorant at a specific point in time but they had time after to research them and they have the most extensive of resources to do so.

They were completely unaware of the nature of the Void and the fact that it was hurling hordes of old gods across the universe onto countless world souls until Sargeras ran into one, and then he only got information about what was happening and what the Void was after from the Nathrezim, i.e. Death. Sargeras, the Titan with the most experience with the Fel, and who became Chaos' prime deity, seemed to still be totally unaware of the true nature of Chaos' command structure, and that the Nathrezim who had been leading the faction weren't demons championing Chaos at all, but instead minions of the Death pantheon.

And the Titans and Watchers both seemed entirely ignorant about what goes on beyond Death, to the extent that Odyn made an entire big deal about trying to see into the Shadowlands and the keepers as a whole seemed ignorant of the existence of higher forces in relation to Death---Keep in mind that Odyn is the one who designated that, among other things, knowledge of the First Ones be limited. In other words he was directly privy to the deeper knowledge of the Titans, and he himself still had no idea that there were things in the Shadowlands that had the potential to pose a danger to him, let alone rival the Titans.

Add to that Sargeras' failure to recognize the Nathrezim for what they were, and we can safely conclude that the Pantheon had no detailed knowledge even about the basic realms of the Shadowlands or their leaders (because how could he possibly know about Denathrius and that there is a realm purely dedicated to vampirism, heavily steeped in bat themes, with a bunch of pale people who have knowledge of Death and necromancy lead by a hooved guy... and not immediately known exactly who the dread lords were, where they came from and who they were actually serving?

I'm sure they've researched plenty of stuff on the other five forces, but it's very obvious their knowledge of the others is mostly superficial.

[Hitei]

Outside of the Void's invasions of the Shadowlands, the other forces don't seem to be fully aware of what goes on beyond the Shadowlands either.

I agree, but that doesn't change that the Titans are also ignorant. The Void and Light seem to be the most in the know, being capable of outright direct invasion of other realms, with the Void especially seemingly knowing the most. Death seems largely ignorant besides the specific groups with agents actually doing espionage (House of Eyes, Denathrius). The others all seem the only know their own realms and what parts of the others they come across in the 'mortal' plane.

[Ersula]

You forgot the Elves, which unironically were the first druids.

How are Elves aliens? They're just trolls changed by magic. Magic isn't alien, its just emanated from the lifeblood of Azeroth.

There isn't really anything keeping the tauren and the night elves from training others to be druids.

There was the thing where Cenarius let Tauren be druids after meeting them once but Malfurion had to train for thousands of years before Cenarius let him be a druid but we can credit that to all the ways Night Elves in general were endangering the planet.

[Kiivar86]

The only races that I struggle with in that regard is the Orcs and Draenei as they aren't from Azeroth, so it is unknown if the Wild Gods can accept them, and if they can even be taught because they don't have any connection to Azeroth or the Emerald Dream.

Draenei, well Lost One anyway, druids exist in Outland. Draenei who've never even been to Azeroth, no less.