Pandaria Speculation Part Two

In part one, I talked a bit about various things that bore some speculation: mainly the nature of the Mists and the possible origins of the Mogu.

Now I'd like to talk about about the great cosmology. While each expansion has historically centered around a particular villain or new area, the overall story of the World of Warcraft has been evolving and developing over time. The existence of Wrathion in the Tavern in the Mists is, I think, one of the most tantalizing bits of lore-tease. Sure, we know that he's going to be the guy we're working with to craft our expansion-long Legendary weapons (which I have to say is a cool new take on the Legendary,) but his presence suggests some serious moving and shaking is going on. (Question: do Rogues who did the Fangs of the Father quest chain start with better rep with him? Shouldn't they?)

The Legion and the Water:

Something big is coming. Wrathion, despite claiming to stand by your faction when he gives you his spiel, agrees with most of the sane people in Azeroth in that the Alliance and the Horde need to stop fighting each other. However, it's not just because war is bad. There's something big coming, and it looks like it's coming with a whole load of green fire.

It's been four real-world years since we faced a serious threat from the Burning Legion, with Kil'Jaeden's attempt to enter Azeroth through the Sunwell. However, it's clear that while they were pushed out the door, they're still banging on it from the other side. One of the pivotal events in Wrath of the Lich King was the Wrathgate Incident, and the subsequent Battle of Undercity. If you only play Alliance, you may not have known exactly what was going on - it looked pretty much like Forsaken acting as Forsaken (though the Forsaken refugees in Orgrimmar during the quest where you talk to Thrall suggest otherwise - it's really too bad that these quests cannot be played anymore.) However, from the Horde side of things, you discover that Putress was working on behalf of Varimathras, and that this was all part of a coup to remove Sylvanas and Undercity's Horde presence.

Varimathras was a Dreadlord who had been beaten into submission during the three-way civil war in the Plaguelands between the Scourge, the Burning Legion, and the Forsaken. In exchange for his life, Varmathras offered to join Sylvanas. The Wrathgate was his sudden but inevitable betrayal. Not only did he kickstart the war between the Alliance and Horde (remember that through Vanilla and BC, the two factions were really in more of a Cold War, even joining up to fight off, say, the Qiraji or... the Burning Legion,) but he appeared to be attempting to summon something in Sylvanas' throne room. There is a "dark voice" who Varimathras refers to as his master. If it had been Kil'Jaeden, we'd probably just hear it as Kil'jaeden. So, I'm pretty sure we encountered at least the voice of Sargeras.

In the previous article, I suggested that Pandaria is special because it's a bad place - a contaminated environment filled with dead Old God essence, which is the Sha. However, there's another thing that appears to make it special: the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Once the seat of the somehow Titan-affiliated Mogu, the Vale has powerful waters that require close protection. Even the overflow that drains down into Valley of the Four Winds is potent, allowing the Pandaren to grow ridiculously huge, nutritious crops.

The Well of Eternity is suggested to have been what drew the Legion and Sargeras to want to conquer Azeroth in the first place, but it was destroyed in the War of the Ancients. In the Third War, they turned their attention to the World Tree, which was planted on top of a new Well of Eternity created by Illidan. But the World Tree's essence was detonated, and while the power of it is still great, it's clearly lost some (otherwise the Night Elves would still be immortal.) Next, the Legion invades Quel'danas, attempting to use the Sunwell to get in - the Sunwell was originally created in a very similar manner to the second well underneath the World Tree, using vials of water from the original well saved by Illidan before the Sundering.

Notice a pattern?

The Burning Legion is obsessed with the magical waters in Azeroth. And now, thanks to the Cataclysm and the parting of the Mists, we've just uncovered the most potent source of magical water on the whole planet. And it's remained nearly untouched for ages.

Four Gods wait on the Windowsill:

With Y'shaarj, we now have four Old Gods named: C'thun, Yogg-Saron, N'zoth, and Y'shaarj. We have only heard N'zoth referred to (though some speculate that the Madness of Deathwing was really N'zoth taking over Neltharion's body once and for all to serve as his avatar.) Y'shaarj appears to be the one the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron referred to as the Black Goat with Seven Eyes (or whatever it's called.) Around Pandaria, we encouter the Shas of Doubt, Despair, Hatred, Anger, Violence (though this one might be a lesser Sha and aspect of Anger or Hatred,) and of course, Fear. If we count all of those, we get six.

What might be the seventh?

Ok, this is less speculation than musing.

Garrosh's Eventual Fall:

Because 5.1 (or whenever the main armies arrive) is not for a bit, we actually haven't been seeing a whole lot of Horde or Alliance forces in Pandaria. Apart from Jade Forest (which, after the initial battles, is just you and a tiny crack squad) and a bit in Kun Lai (involving the same squad members,) and the times you meet up with Anduin, everything else you interact with is native to the continent (ok, also Chen and Li Li.) So we haven't really seen much of what will eventually lead to Garrosh's fall.

Actually, there is also the interesting issue of what exactly we're going to be dealing with in subsequent patches. The major raids of 5.0 have us killing the Mantid Empress (seems to handle the Mantid as an issue,) the Sha of Fear (the last one we know of that is not killable through quests or in 5-mans) and going into Mogu'shan Vaults, giving us our Mogu-themed raid.

Now, I don't know that the resurrected Thunder King is down for the count after Vaults - after all, I don't think you even fight him there - but it does leave you to wonder what the raids will be between now and the Battle of Orgrimmar.

The Zandalari sure seem to have made their presence known, at least in Kun-Lai. One of the bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults even is a Zandalari troll. And what is with that island to the northwest of Townlong? Might we take the fight to the Zandalari and find out what drummed them up into this frenzy and turned them from being the peaceful scholars they once were? (And who we actually helped to take down the Gurubashi and Drakkari the first time?)

I don't know how many raid tiers or major patches we can expect with Mists. After all, 5.1 is not going to be a new raid tier (or even new dungeons,) but then again, one of the revolutionary concepts in Mists is that they're putting in a whole lot of effort to get us out into the world, rather than just queueing for instances in the cities.