World Of Warcraft

Based on the information we learn in Zereth Mortis, it seems that the First Ones created all of the Pantheons, so they would have set the Titans on their course eons ago. It doesn't explain why the cosmos is seeded with Titan eggs in the form of planets, though. That's a mystery that may get explained later.

What we do know is that Sargeras, fearing that the Void would corrupt all of these world-souls, set out to destroy them preemptively (and, as his ultimate stroke, to create a Chaos Titan that would unmake reality). We also know that the Void has infected countless worlds, Azeroth being only one of those, but only here have we managed to resist successfully (so far).

Whatever Azeroth is in truth, everyone struggling to bend her to their domain seems to believe that doing so will allow that domain to "win" and take over the cosmic balance.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2024 at 5:44:18 AM

Granted a few disconexion here and there is because Blizzard didnt really have a establish and proper cosmology until Legion and Chronicles.

It was more or less like this:

-First it was more or less a pastiche of D&D,warhammer and that it, it have hell or hells, it have demons, you have holy as paladin show and you have arcane by mage but as forces? not much, even I think Sargeras more a demon king of sorts.

-In Warcraft 3 and the rolegame kinda solidify some stuff, from titans, the emerald dream, remaking the dragon aspect into this draconic semi gods, also introducing what would be the old gods.

Granted something typical is undead and necromantic was tie to fel and demonic, which is why you have necromatic spells as warlock back them and natzharim serving in Legion, something blizzard would have retcon if they could.

-Buring crusade and wrath expand a lot the titan lore, it also start move away the light for being so christian centric by making the Naaru look like crystal sigils, which it was a good idea.

-It is more or less into legion that start show that light dosent exactly mean good, I can see why this is a controversial decision really. and Chronicles more or less establtish the big six cosmic forces more or less.

So it not surprising that it will weird to have light and life as bad really.

Do the elemental lords fall under the nature pantheon?

Cause Ragnaros could fall under the potential unchecked power of nature. Corrupted or not, fire always wants to consume so of course the guy would be a problem outside of his plain

In theory, they fall until void since elemental lords are kinda tie to them because they lost. Otherwise they are their own thing, a sort of small power really.

Yes, there are a lot of those minor powers in the cosmos that don't really fit into any of the pantheons, such as the elemental lords, the wild gods, the loa, etc. You could waste a decently sized afternoon trying to figure out all the relationships and who is stronger than whom.

As far as I can tell, elementals are part of physical reality, which itself sits at the intersection of the six cosmic forces. So they aren't inherently aligned with any specific cosmic force.

The creation myth of Warcraft's universe is kind of the opposite of Abrahamic Creation. Instead of there being only darkness before He said there should be light, Warcraft's Light was originally the only thing in the universe.

But then the Light started to dim, and the Void appeared as a result. From light there came darkness. And from that point forward the Light and the Void have been linked — you can't have one without the other.

As for planets being seeded with Titan eggs, it's really the other way around. As a world-soul slumbers in the cosmos, a planet just naturally forms around it as the world-soul attracts matter to it. Planets are more like cocoons the world-souls unconsciously form around them until the time is right for them to emerge as Titans.

And Titans do seem to be inclined towards Order naturally. Their very lifeblood is Arcane energy.

Azeroth does seem to be special even by Titan standards. Aggramar believed Azeroth was the most powerful world-soul he had ever met, which is why it was such a big deal to save her from the Old Gods' corruption. Azeroth would supposedly become a Titan more powerful than even Sargeras. So yeah, whoever manages to bring her to their side would have a very powerful chess piece in the cosmic game.

As for balancing issues, Order and Disorder have an odd relationship. Order and Disorder (or arcane and fel) naturally counter each other. However, Order usually had an advantage in a way. Fel magic didn't really have anything on the same scale as Titans on their side. But then the pendulum swung in its favor when Sargeras was corrupted by it and became a Fel Titan.

Edited by M84 on Jan 21st 2024 at 10:59:46 PM

Chaos is inherently antithetical to the idea of leadership — it's more like an inchoate force that seethes at the edges, able to burst forth if given direction. It seems to become a cosmic threat mainly when it is directed by some outside agency.

In a recent video, Accolonn theorizes that Denathrius was originally aligned to Chaos, but became part of the Pantheon of Death for some reason. It's possible that all of the original beings of equivalent rank: Eternal Ones, Titans, Old Gods, whatever Elune is, were created in the same manner and for similar purposes by the First Ones.

At least, I don't know of any lore that contradicts this idea. We have Zereth Mortis as proof that all of this was created for a purpose. Is that a retcon to the idea that all this stuff just congealed from Light and Void?

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2024 at 10:08:44 AM

So far it seems like Titans at their full power are still the strongest beings of choice. They are after all entire planets transformed into giants. Supposedly if you look closely enough at a Titan you can still see some of the geographical features of their original planet forms.

Which I guess means that Azeroth's inhabitants will become the equivalent of eyelash mites or something.

Edited by M84 on Jan 21st 2024 at 11:20:38 PM

Well, I'm not looking forward to the "birth" of Azeroth utterly destroying the planet, if that's how the process works. Really hoping we get to keep it afterward.

Relative power is very hard to judge... even if there is a Universe Bible spelling it all out, the writers are free to change it at any time. Zovaal, for example, seems like he could stand toe-to-toe with any Titan. And Elune is out there, ever a mystery — she seems to embody the entire domain of Life, or at least we haven't seen any other members of the Life Pantheon (if it exists).

I'm sort of on the fence about which tiers the Old Gods and the Void Lords occupy. Cosmologically speaking, it would make sense for the Titans to be coequal to the Void Lords, but we haven't met any of those directly yet.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2024 at 10:26:18 AM

It wouldn't so much destroy the planet as change it into a humanoid form. So the people of Azeroth would have to adjust to living on a giant woman.

Edited by M84 on Jan 21st 2024 at 11:33:04 PM

Dont threaten us with a good time

Remodelling the map to suit thats sounds like a nightmare. Maybe thats why they are planning ahead with the world soul saga.

Btw, Hearthstone created an original titan for a expansion. Her name is amitus and canonically she's missing. I wonder if they'll have her pop up in the main wow canon

It's hard to judge how powerful the Void Lords are because they do so poorly outside of their home turf. Their very nature means that just existing outside of the Void and in the physical universe is nearly impossible. That's the whole reason they sent the Old Gods in their stead.

The goal of course was to create a Void Titan. Like I said, Titans seem to be the strongest beings of choice. The "default" is an Order Titan, but it seems like it's entirely possible for the other domains to infuse a Titan with their energies. We've already seen the trouble a single Fel Titan can cause with Sargeras. A Void Titan could potentially end the universe too.

A nascent world-soul is basically the ultimate blank canvas for cosmic powers.

Edited by M84 on Jan 21st 2024 at 11:34:02 PM

I would hate that for the memes alone. And I don't see little people walking around on Eonar or Aman'thul, so that interpretation seems too weird to be real.

Zovaal's plan is to use the power of Azeroth's world-soul to remake the world with Death ascendant. So yeah, we've had a Chaos Titan and nearly a Death Titan. The Worldsoul Saga seems like it's going to threaten us with that Void Titan after all.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2024 at 10:41:29 AM

in term of power it was a sort of retcon I think, like it was said that if the old gods wake up even sargeras would cry in pain, then Chronicles make clear that nope, Sargeras can pretty much kill them and Titan didnt to no destroy Azeroth so it introduce the Void lords which are pretty damn vague about it so far.

Void Lords have existed back in BC with the lore about Dimensius having destroyed the Etheral's home world when it partially manifested, so them being on a planet destroying power-scale was already established. Chronicles however clarified that the Void Lords are above the Old Gods and that the former created the later to corrupt them a vessel to fully manifest into the physical world.

One thing I have pondered is that maybe the world souls being titan souls is once again titan propaganda and they are actually just neutral god souls. In Zereth Mortis during the questline where we recreated the Arbiter the stewards conveniently had a backup vessel and soul just locked up in a shed. But why lock such a soul away if the Zereths can create these, unless they can't just create these on a whim and they need to nurture them in the material plane first.

The recent reveals about the Titans shows them having a very self-serving "It's okay when we do it" attitude. Maybe the Titans roaming the material plane in search for more world souls is not something the First-Ones have designed that way, but rather they were the first of the forces to succeed with snatching a world soul and manifesting themselves into the material plane. Them telling everyone that it would be the end of everything if the Void achieved this is really just them fearing to loose their edge.

How were the titans able to manifest avatars into the material plane? Answer: Their MO is to create golems infused with souls, the titans themselves are just golems made from whole planets and this is exactly how they cheated the system. Normally a world soul would germinate inside a planet, get infused with the dominant force on that planet and then pass over into the plane of that force after it's death just like mortal souls would.

TL;DR:The Order pantheon managed to seize a planet with a world-soul and reformed the planet into a titan which then was possessed by Amanthul the one true member of the Order pantheon among the titans who then proceeded to snatch more nascent gods for the Order.

Actually now that I think about it this actually somewhat fits with the "Denathrius used to be a Chaos god"-theory someone mentioned above. In the old lore that was seemingly retconned Sargeras was corrupted by the Nathrezim but then it was changed to him realizing that void titans might happen caused him to ally with the Nathrezim. But what if it was both, Shadowlands established that Denny created the Nathrezim to be his Agent Provocatuers among the forces. So what if he had them deliberately set up Sargeras' Face–Heel Turn to sabotage the Order who was on an unchecked victory marsh in the material plane. After Sargeras was dealt with the next thing he did was have his Nathrezim destroy the Arbiter and set up the events of Shadowlands which eventually would lead to Zovaal getting offed. And yes, getting killed was part of his plan, as a member of the Death pantheon he is bound to the plane of Death just like any other of the gods, but having is essence bound to Remornia and smuggled out of the plane by his Nathrezim he now has the opportunity to find a new vessel and get out of the Death pantheon.

Edited by Kiefen on Jan 22nd 2024 at 2:59:05 PM

Yes, the idea that the World Souls aren't destined for any particular domain but are basically there for the picking by the existing ones explains a lot, if true. It does make me wonder about the ultimate goal of all this, though. Why would the First Ones set up an unstable equilibrium that can be "won" by one side or another? (I'm speaking from a Watsonian perspective, not a Doylist one.)

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 22nd 2024 at 10:03:27 AM

All this talk about cosmic forces reminds me how lucky the normal classes like Rogue have it.

Like, at least their souls won't be consumed by whatever cosmic force wants it, and they get to have a certain degree of independence.

Until they shadow step one times to often

Some Void Creature: "Allow us to introduce ourselves."

Edited by Kiefen on Jan 22nd 2024 at 3:04:41 PM

"Laughs in Outlaw Rogue."

4x One theory could be that the First-One's are just recreating the universe and sending in some Reaper-esque invasion to test it until they eventually achieve "perfect balance". This balance would be a world soul attuned to all forces creating the 7'th force Firim speculated about. Azeroth of course is set to become this as she already has most of the forces influencing her:

Order and Void are the main onces, Death recently dung into her, the connection to Life through the Emerald Dream, Chaos already invaded a couple of times and recently rammed a planet sized corrupted sword into her. Light right now is the least prominent one, the only thing I could think of is the Sunwell which has a Naaru core in it on it's surface but maybe that is something that could happen in Midnight.

Okay, but if Azeroth ends up looking like Captain Planet, I'm going to shiv someone.

Gonna name my next Goblin Warlock Looten Plunder.

Hey, not before me!

World-souls by default are Order aligned. They are essentially massive clumps of arcane magic that were somehow granted self-awareness.

The world-souls don't really germinate in planets. They're just randomly floating around in the cosmos on their own. Planets form around them because their energy attracts matter around them.

The planet doesn't feed the world-soul. It's the other way around. The world-soul's vast energies make the planet around it even more full of life. It also provides a vast wellspring of arcane power since a world-soul's very essence is arcane energy. That said, the planets around world-souls do offer some protection from outside influences for said world-souls. The reason Azeroth for example hasn't been corrupted yet was because the Old Gods' corruption hadn't reached deep enough through the planet's mantle to affect the world-soul.

As for why other Domains don't have beings on the same level as Titans naturally, maybe it has something to do with the nature of Order itself. Perhaps only Order magic can defy entropy on a large enough scale to manifest world-souls.