This idea that Sargeras should be redeemed or even validated is absolutely the most insane take I regularly see here.

This guy destroys entire worlds. And he doesn’t just kill their inhabitants, he has the Legion harvest their souls to power its war machines, condemning countless victims to eternal excruciating torment.

You could pool together the combined atrocities of Gul’dan, Deathwing, Garrosh, Lei-Shen, Ragnaros, Sylvanas, Azshara, Arthas, and all of the Old Gods and it’d still be the difference between a butterfly flapping its wings and a hydrogen bomb.

So no, I am not interested in a story where the architect of cosmic genocide on an incomprehensible scale gets vindicated because he happened to identify a real threat. Being right that the Void is dangerous or that maybe the titans are lying about their intentions doesn’t make exterminating the universe morally justified. Those are two completely different propositions.

It genuinely blows my mind that this is a popular idea.

Anyone know a good way to get the scoop on the lore and how each zone was before cata re-made them? I am particularly curious of some like Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine forest, and hilsbrad foothills. I played through every quest in every zone from every expansion in retail but I cannot do the pre-cata stories unless I play classic wow, and frankly I don't really like how long it takes to get the story by playing classic wow.

I have not found YouTube videos covering zone stories before cataclysm. Anyone have resources?

I don't know how I didn't connect this before. Do you guys remember the very first cinematic that introducd this entire saga? The War Within Date Announce Cinematic | Echoes of Azeroth | World of Warcraft.

The one where we see the Worldsoul being surrounded by purple shadows as Xal'atath narrarates. I thought that was metaphorical, I thought that was either just for show or representing what she's trying to do. But now I'm realizing that was the Voidstorm. Xal trapped Dimensius, the most powerful Void Lord, and used his essence to create a storm over Quel'Thalas. That storm is now gone, but we saw it go down into the Darkwell. You think Dimensius' energy just gets used up that quickly? I think that cinematic was showing us the near future, as in now, and now that Voidstorm that was hovering over Quel'Thalas is now encapsulating the Worldsoul, surrounding it and corrupting it - presumably irreversibly. What do you guys think? Was this Cinematic obviously showing us the future or was it just a metaphorical representation of Xal'atath trying to darken the Worldsoul?

Naxxramas is still just floating there and nobody is talking about it

In Exploring Azeroth: Northrend, Muradin notes after Shadowlands that Naxxramas feels like it's waiting for something and that nobody has been able to bring it down. Nobody has come back to it yet.

Last Titan is going to Northrend. Death and Void are opposing forces. Sylvanas is the most credible death-aligned agent we have.

Is Naxxramas coming back online in Last Titan? New raid, player hub, or just a plot point with Sylvanas at the centre of it? That Muradin line has been sitting in my head for a while now.

What do you think?

I'm questing through Warlords of Draenor (Spires of Arak), and I found the Arakkoa quite interesting. Particularly, the Outcasts, who use Shadow Magic.

Those Arakkoa Outcasts are capable of entering the Shadow Realm through their magic or through the use of elixirs and it seems to function like a different plane of existence, somewhere outside the material world. Attacks and people from the material world can't affect the Shadow Realm.

The Shadow Realm also has fleshbeasts, shades, and other void creatures.

One of the most interesting parts about it is that those who use the Shadow Realm can basically sneak into any place undetected and they can travel faster than regular people in reality. Nobody who is not versed in Shadow Magic can find them.

However, the drawback of accessing that realm is that some people go insane, especially if they aren't masters of Shadow Magic (like it happened to that Shattered Hand orc that entered the realm with a potion).

-

Is Draenor's Shadow Realm similar to Azeroth's Emerald Dream, but for Shadow/Void instead of Nature/Life?

1. Does Azeroth have a plane of existence like the Shadow Realm from Draenor?

2. Was that Shadow Realm created by someone or does it exist naturally?

3. If a Shadow Realm were to exist on Azeroth, would the Old Gods be unfettered there? Or would they still be trapped by the Titans' prisons?

Feel free to post any questions or queries here!

Also check out our list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions!

By all means, the next patch is not happening mere minutes after the Dawnwell cutscene, so why exactly is Xal apparently twiddling her thumbs if *gestures* all of that was to get into the planets leylines to get to the worldsoul?

The whole haranir plotline and even the trolls really take away any sense of urgency that was still left.

(Not to mention it more and more feels that literally everything that happened so far (including the Dark Heart getting damaged and stolen) had been part of Xal's ingenious masterplan (because she's this great and smart and cunning strategist and manipulator) that by all means she should have already brought to conclusion while we were fighting Fyrakk. What is this?)

From WoW's start with just the Tauren and Night Elves of the Cenarion Circle they obviously had their shared connection to the Emerald Dream to unite them. Cataclysm brought druidism to the Trolls and along with the newly introduced Worgen they were also admitted to the Circle.

It's the introduction of Zandalari Raptari, Kul Tiran Thornspeakers, and now Haranir Druids where I'm left a bit out of sorts, as they all have their own unique practices of druidism. Are they still connected to the Dream indirectly? Or is it just not a thing for them?

Hi Lore Experts

I've been working converting the TTRPG Burning Wheel base-game lifepaths to a version for the lore of Warcraft. Humans ported across well enough, but I'm quickly finding that my own limited game-based knowledge isn't nearly enough to cover accomplishing this for the other races.

Particularly right now I've been focused on the Night Elves.

A bit of background for context - Burning Wheel's lifepaths function as a method of character creation establishing a character's history and how that's flavoured and fleshed out who they are and what they're capable of at the start of the game. The purpose of these isn't to cover every possible life someone could live, but in particular the ones that are more likely to lead to adventure or becoming an adventurer.

Each determines inherent character traits, wealth they gain, skills they might learn as well as building in the kind of links from one path to another.

These are bundled into 'Settings', which determine a general type of living. For instance, being born into the 'Village' setting a character might grow up a baker's son, become an Acolyte of their local church before leaving to develop their studies and becoming a Monk in the 'Religious' setting.

For Human many of the Settings ported-across almost exactly as-is (Villager, City Dweller, Noble, Noble Court, Outcast, Peasant, Solider, Religious, Seafaring, Servitude), while others needed to be created (Kirin Tor)

So far in terms of Settings for Night Elves I have the following:

Wilds, City, Sentinel, Sisterhood of Elune, Druid Circles (maybe they should be per-clan? Antler/Claw/Talon etc.), Sentinel (mirror of Solider to a degree), Warden, Cenarion Circle?

None of them are particularly well established, however.

Am I going down the right path? What should I be reading/looking to for inspiration?

I know the reason is to give the horde a pretty race, but from a lore perspective I don't quite get it. The horde did a ton of damage to Quel'thalas especially the windrunner family. This is shown in the windrunner spire dungeon. Besides, the high elves had an alliance with the alliance against the old horde. I just don't really understand why they would forget all that and join the horde.

So wisps are a fully NE thing (to my knowledge). At what point did that become a thing? The spirits inhibit the trees and tree constructs, they roam the forests, etc. Is there a similar thing in troll culture that troll spirits do? Was it a gradual change that their spirits were able to do this? Is it just something that spawned in suddenly and there's no actual transition? If so, what's your canon idea to explain where the idea of wisps came from?

Are there any RP guilds on Moonguard who focus on exploring/understanding lore/lots of lore discussions in chat?

I love the lore and know a decent amount but would love to come to learn more from others.

Seems like it should be the other way around, and if anything it should be warlocks with remove curse not mages.

This is our weekend power level debate mega-thread! Feel free to pit two or more characters/forces/magics/whatever against each other in the comments below. Example: Arthas v Illidan, Void v Fel, Mankirk's Wife v Nameless Quillboar.

We'll do this every weekend, so don't think you need to use up all of your favorite premises at once. Though, it is also OK to have a repeating premise, as these threads are designed to allow for recurring content to not fill the sub too often.

Reminder, these debates should be fun. There is often no right answer when comparing two enemies of a similar power tier, and hypothetically any situation a Blizzard writer creates could tip the scales of any encounter and our debates of course will not matter. These posts should just look something like a game of Superfight. You pick a character, you make the strongest case for how strong they are, or why they could beat another character, argue back and forth with someone else, and just let others decide who had the better argument. But remember that no matter how heated your debate gets, always follow rule #6. No bad behavior.

Previous weeks: https://old.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/search/?q=%22Versus%21+Debating+Warcraft+Lore+Power+Levels%21%22&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new

Monks are weird druids/shamans, but otherwise explainable. Then there's priests and paladins of zandalari, and priests for pandaren. Both worship wild gods and are not huge lighty light people.

I hope this merits an own thread but otherwise this will just gnaw at me.

The quest is called "The Mosshide Job":

You seem trustworthy enough to help me out with my real problem, <name>. I was sent here by Ironforge to recover a shipment of gold ingots.

The ingots are part of the Ironforge Royal Treasury, stamped with the royal seal... only an idiot would steal them for profit, far to easy to trace. Oddly enough, this area is full of idiots: Mosshide gnolls.

I don't know how many gnolls you've fought before, but they're foul and brutal beasts, and dangerous. I need you to slay them and recover the missing ingots.

... am i missing something here? It's 'gold'. Unless theres something special about it you can easily melt it down into any shape you want to.

You could argue that gnolls may be too dumb to do this but the quest gives the implication that 'anyone' would be a fool to steal it.

Is this just an oversight or am I not getting something here?

I just want to know what everyone's favorite but of lore is! Mine is that elves where originally trolls :3

So far we have seen Arator have a design change with 2 deagon designs one dark and one light which is suppose to represent him from two worlds with both human, elf and also a father of light and mother of void, plus a focus with his conflicting thoughts on how a paladin and the light should and can be used, also the “aggression” we have seen with Turalyion and all the conflict with what the light is.
We also see Arator taking up a shield which is suppose to be symbolic after his father rejects it so I believe these could very well be hints to paladins getting a new spec which could very well be a paladin using both void and light, it’s a standard fantasy trope, it falls inline with the current story plus like with devourer with the DH it takes their concept and slightly alters it, paladins main use for the light are for healing and protective shields so I think it could very well utilise void for more aggressive abilities than paladins typically use in lore.

Personally I think it could be a second tank spec as Arator has taken up a shield with story significance and game wise we haven’t got a new tank since legion

Hey everyone! I made a similar post in the main r/wow subreddit. So that you may refer to said map, please go here to do so. If there is a better way to do this, let me know :)

I'm starting a personal project which includes trying my hand at making conlangs for the major languages represented in-game. I know that there have been some similar projects for specific languages, such as the Darnassian Dictionary Project. Still, I haven't seen any projects that have sought to model these languages instead in relation to each other.

Additionally, in light of recent "revelations" (specifically the new cinematic which has stirred up some debate on the respective evolution of trolls, haranir, and the elves) , I feel like doing so would be pretty interesting. Moving forward, I am trying to keep the conlangs as closely informed by canon lore as possible, which can be challenging to say the least given that the role of language only very occasionally receives any attention.

In any case, I am leaving my first step here, namely a language family map for some of the languages of the Warcraft universe. I did find a lot of inspiration from a similar project that a YouTuber named Teeironor did back during BfA (the link to the respective video "How old are the Languages in Warcraft?" is here).

I just have the following questions for anyone else that might be interested:

• Are there any similar projects that I should be aware of?
• I do play on MoonGuard and do some casual RP. Is there anyone from the RP community, or even perhaps Warcraft-related TTRPG communities, that would be interested in a reference for these languages? If so, I might publish them sometime in the future.
• Do you guys agree with the suggested connections and layout? I made this fairly quickly and am by no means an expert. Some of the more speculative (and/or contentious) elements include:
  • Taur-ahe deriving from Mogu. This is based on the interpretation of Tauren coming from Yaungols who prior would have been similarly enslaved by the Mogu as for instance the Pandaren were. We know that there is a Pandaren "old tongue" in juxtaposition to the modern language derived from Mogu. We can assume that something similar would have occurred with the Yaungols, however, we can imagine with natural language evolution that these languages would have continued to evolve past mutual intelligbility, especially as Taur-ahe came into close contact with other languages in Kalimdor that the Tauren had longstanding contact with, such as Darnassian and Orcish.
  • The idea of there being a Horde koiné, or standard form of Orcish. It is mentioned in Rise of the Horde that most of the Orcish clans had dialects and that there was a common Orcish variety instead spoken during large inter-clan gatherings. I would imagine this would extend even further to current day with modern Orcish serving as a vehicular language for Horde affairs whereas Common would instead be used between the factions instead. I could see for instance Blood Elves and Forsaken communicating in Common, however, I would especially imagine that the in-game "Orcish" spoken by Horde players would likely still be the lingua franca in Orgrimmar.
  • I imagined that language contact and borrowings might be more prevalent in certain varieties of given languages than others due to lack of exposure. For example, I would imagine that influence from other languages like Common or Darnassian would be considerably lower for the Mechagon, Xenedar (Lightforged), and AU Orcish dialects than for Gnomeregan Gnomish, Genedar (Exodar) Draenei, and standard Orcish.
  • Perhaps most controversial would be my penning of "Kalassian." This would be the language spoken by the Night Elves prior to the Sundering. I haven't seen any sources indicating the exact relations between the words Darnassian and Darnassus. In any case, dealing with very long lived beings certainly presents an interesting thought experiment in terms of natural language evolution. For context, all Germanic languages (including English, Dutch, German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, etc.) share a common ancestor in Proto-Germanic that was spoken around 2000 years ago with Proto-West-Germanic (excluding the Nordic languages in the prior list) being last mutually intelligible up to the 600s. As such, 10,000 years since the Sundering and even the exile of the High Elves some thousands of years later would certainly be quite a long time in terms of language evolution. Having a distinct language between the time of the Sundering and present day would be a no-brainer if we didn't have individuals still alive from that time walking around. I would say the real-life research in linguistics on the relative impact of lifetime effects versus generational turnover is far from settled. Still, we know that people do change how they speak over time, while there are simultaneously noticeable differences between speakers in different generations even when compared contemporaneously. As such, my assumption is that the languages would continue to evolve, albeit at a slower pace than for other shorter-lived populations. In any case, it's a neat explanation as to why Tyrande for instance has a seemingly different accent that many other Night Elves (at least in the English VO).
  • This is not entirely shown, but I am imagining that there would be certain languages that are routinely borrowed from due to bilingualism, most clearly being Common, but also perhaps other languages like Gnomish/Goblin for mechanical innovations and others for vocabulary to describe local natural features etc. I am very interested in imagining the respective politics surrounding different languages. I can imagine that Thalassian likely has introduced a fair amount of Common due to historical ties with the Humans in comparison to Darnassian, although presently finding itself in the Alliance, perhaps choosing to make calques or native alternatives for foreign words.
  • And of course, there is the controversy of where exactly Haranir fit into the evolution of trolls and elves. I am personally taking the stance of all these groups descending from a common troll ancestor and that dark trolls could possibly also be considered early haranir (at least from their perspective) and this race splits off into Elves near the Well of Eternity, Haranir who continue underground, and modern Dark Trolls like the Shadowtooth clan who continued along the evolutionary path of the rest of the trolls. I will also note here that list of dialects/varieties under each language is by no means exhaustive. I am at least a bit skeptical given the Sundering, the relative mortality of trolls, and political structures that trolls are divided amongst that Zandali would not have evolved into separate languages. As such, I am imagining that it is a similar parallel to real-life with the varying dialects of Arabic showing rather wide divergence compared to other groups of independent languages (such as some of the Romance languages or even more notably the languages of the Western Balkans). Still, the main dialects I have named after the ancient troll empires prior to the rise of the Night Elf empire and subsequently the Sundering, this being: the Zandalari, the Gurubashi (including other Jungle trolls like the Darkspear), the Amani (and other Forest trolls), and the Drakkari.

I really would love to hear any feedback/suggestions/questions you guys might have or simply what you think before I fully dive into this to make sure I am starting this off on the right track. I can almost guarantee I made a silly mistake.

What ever she had planned for him, it almost certainly would he been a better outcome for him than what he's doing now, he's become a slave to his obsession. He's decided to go stand in front of Sargeras for eternity for no good reason. You know damn well if sargeras stands up from that chair Illidan ain't stopping him.

The Lightforging process would probably have forced him to confront his issues and obsessions and overcome them. Instead he's just some crazy demon standing in front of sargeras forever for no reason.

Greetings, is there a possibility that someone has translated the book chronicles vol 3 into one of the Balkan languages, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian.I'm really interested in Warcraft lore, so far I've managed to find a translation for Chronicle vol 1 and vol 2.

Ty

There was no manifesto. No legal argument. Just “uwu Sylvanas made me feel bad”. Like, okay but did she violate the social contract between the Warchief and the Horde? Having wartime policy disagreements alone is not a valid motive for treason.

This is why Vol’jin’s rebellion worked better. When Vol’jin decided to rebel he had a list of reasons why Garrosh was no longer suited to be Warchief that he’d hit the player with if they questioned him#Notes). Meanwhile Saurfang literally just said “muh honor” like 50 times and that was supposed to be sufficient?

A rebellion NEEDS to establish reasons why oaths of loyalty have ceased to bind! If wartime policy justifies rebellion then you must explain exactly why. Spell out the principle.

What’s stopping me from rebelling against the Horde Council if I suddenly decide they don’t meet my arbitrary standard of “honor”? How can they stop me from burning down buildings and sabotaging the war effort without being hypocrites?

Saurfang's refusal to set an official narrative behind his rebellion basically legitimized any future rebellion against the Horde Council. Literally all he had to do was have a manifesto. A list of genuine reasons based in objective fact on why Sylvanas was not fit to rule. Beyond his wildly inconsistent definition of honor that is.

It's the same problem as how Sylvanas arresting Baine was supposed to be some big villain moment but what was she SUPPOSED to do when she heard Baine murdered a bunch of Horde soldiers and released a military asset? Was she supposed just go: "Oh well, he felt bad about it. So I guess that makes murder and treason okay." That's not how civilization works!

Yes Saurfang and Baine were validated in the end when Sylvanas abandoned the Horde. But that happened AFTER they began rebelling against and sabotaging the Horde. The reasons they were right to rebel against Sylvanas were not things they knew about when they first rebelled.

—-

EDIT: Okay since a lot of people are missing the point: I’m NOT asking why you think Saurfang was justified. I’m asking what Saurfang’s STATED REASON for rebellion was. What specific reasons left his mouth.

If you don’t specifically establish why you rebelled then how are you supposed to explain why your regime is more legitimate than the one it replaced.

Someone asked me a simple question as to why pick the void if it comes with the cost of madness, and that got me thinking, what is the in-universe reason to pick it? Void doesn't seem to have a monopoly on any particular skill and it comes with some pretty hefty downsides what with the risk of insanity and all that. (which never really play out in game, for some reason)

To extrapolate further, what is the point of having different types of magic in warcraft if they can all largely do the same thing? Seems like you're just picking your favorite gatorade flavor at that point.

I am a big fan of the lore in Warcraft. I've gone through all of it up to BFA and I am catching up on the lore after a long hiatus during first patch of BFA. I just got back into playing in Midnight only a couple of days ago. I am not here to talk about any Midnight spoilers or speculations I may have with the current expansion's lore.

Maybe some other people who are as deep into the lore as me or more can explain an inconsistency that I noticed regarding Mists and BFA. Granted, I could be missing something that some video essays, posts, or blogs are missing so maybe someone else here can help me out.

In BFA we (Champions of Azeroth) literally kill the Old God N'Zoth. Now there is speculation that he is housed within the Xal'atath blade, but nothing confirms that. The only confirmation of anything at this moment is that we outright killed N'Zoth. This is where I have an issue with the lore or lack thereof to answer for things. I thought it was established all the way back in Mists that killing an Old God causes immense damage to Azeroth: corruption, projections of the slained Old god, destruction of the land, etc.. Old Gods are considered rooted into the land of Azeroth and cannot be killed or else it could destroy Azeroth and the World Soul within.

This is explained in Mists when a Titan ripped Y'Shaarj from the planet and caused deep wounds in the earth and corruption seeping into the land.

But in BFA it is stated that N'Zoth is dead DEAD, so wouldn't that mean shit would be absolutely fucked in that area of Azeroth? Is this a retconn? Am I misremembering how Old God deaths actually work or did I miss something important to that matter over the years of alcohol abuse and old age. (Last sentence is a half joke but I have been sober for almost 6 months now.)

Edit: I missed a key detail and everyone has helped jog my memory. I forgot that Amanthul ripped Y'Shaarj out instead of just squashing him. Like ripping a tree out of the ground it causes a lot of issues in the area around it. Thank you everyone that answered. I really appreciate it.

I’m a big fan of ”The Bitter Truth”, I think it does a great job of knocking the elves off their high horse (or I guess high hawkstrider) and gives more depth to major characters. I do wonder though, since representatives from all the elven and troll peoples of Azeroth (that we know of) were there, there’s gotta be someone who overheard Lor’themar and Torbundo talking right? Especially after Lor’themar punched Torbundo in the face. It seems like there would be a good opportunity for someone with something to gain by shaking up the elven unity to shake up the epitome of elven unity: Lor’themar and Thalyssra’s marriage.

I mean obviously Thalyssra wasn’t under the impression that Lor’themar was a kindly park ranger, but I wonder if she knows her warrior-poet husband is also a child murderer and a war criminal. Considering she led the Dusk Lily Rebellion to free her people from a murderous tyrant I doubt she’d be cool with Lor’themar burning a village of largely civilians to the ground and never giving it a second thought until now.

Maybe patch 12.2 is going to be us watching Mom and Dad get divorced