The Void, the Old Gods, and the Legion

The cosmology of the Warcraft universe has never been explicitly laid out. Generally, we can think of Azeroth and Draenor (before it was destroyed/in the alternate universe where it hasn't been destroyed) as planets the same way we conceive of them in the real world - big old spheres of rock that float through space, presumably each orbiting a star the locals think of as the sun.

I've always interpreted Draenor as being a planet within the same universe as Azeroth - extrapolating from real-world cosmology, the two planets could be as close as the same solar system (though that seems like a real stretch - the only reason we saw Azeroth from the roof of the Black Temple is because by that point, Outland was kind of half in the Nether, which does funky things with space) or as far away as being in entirely different galactic superclusters. But Blizzard has tried to emphasize that transport between these worlds requires a dimensional ship or portal - so for all we know, they could be completely different universes. That said, the uniqueness of our journey to Draenor (as opposed to Outland) seems to suggest that, though we might need fancy magical methods to travel between these two worlds, the reason is more distance than being in some kind of alternate universe (to specify: between Outland and Azeroth, not Draenor B and Azeroth, the latter of which is absolutely a different universe.)

Ok, tangent aside, we did find out a bit more about the higher planes of existence. While the mortal worlds seem to exist in an infinitude of parallel, alternate universes (though it sounds like there'e only one Azeroth in all of them,) comments by Blizzard indicated that the Twisting Nether transcends these different realities. The Nether exists as a kind of border dimension between the Light and the Void. Of course, that comment introduces us to the fact that the Light and the Void are, themselves, separate, presumably transcendent dimensions.

The mystery of the Light is likely to remain, well, mysterious. Naaru seem to come from there.

The Void, however, is something that seems to be getting explored more. We know that Ner'zhul gathered insight into the Void through the Naaru K'ara, who had fallen into a Shadow state until, in universe B, Velen sacrificed himself to restore K'ara to the Light (hey, where the hell has K'ara been all this time?)

Ner'zhul summoned void creatures, and he also gained the ability to raise the dead. That's a pretty big deal, because I think the generally accepted explanation for the Lich King's powers (and recall that Ner'zhul was the original Lich King) came from Kil'jaeden. However, as I speculated in the previous post, the Lich King became something far more powerful than Kil'jaeden had anticipated - or at least far more willful. Perhaps, the Lich King drew on the power of the void - a power that was enough to overcome his enslavement by the Fel magic of the Burning Legion.

What prompted me to start writing this post was that I was taking my Druid through Spires of Arak (just him and the Priest and I'll have all classes to 100) and I got to the quests in Veil Zellek - the one that gets destroyed by Skyreach's laser-crystal when you first enter the zone. You enter the Shadow realm and have to collect some shadowy essence things... quest stuff, you get the idea. Anyway, I was doing my thing when I saw a weird shadow on the ground. I looked up.

And I saw a massive, Ozumat-like kraken floating in the sky. (I refuse to call it a Leviathan. The WoW Kraken model looks more like a leviathan and vice versa - I assume someone mixed up the two terms.)

Now, this isn't the first hint that the Old Gods and the Faceless Ones are linked to the Void. We've seen Shadow Priests (well, ok, all priests, but flavorfully more Shadow priests) summon Void Tendrils that look a lot like C'thun's tentacles. Old Gods seem to be all about Shadow magic, and really, the Shadow Priests' psychic damage theme really feels in tune with the Old Gods and their minions.

But this really convinced me that I'm on the right track. Demons come from the chaos of the Twisting Nether - a kind of cosmic storm front between the Light and the Void, but the Old Gods come from that dark, cold place. They are the opposite of the Light. If the Light is everything kind of feeling right, and good, the Void is the opposite - wrong, impossible, maddening.

So what does this mean in the long run? I can't really say. Obviously both the Burning Legion and the Old Gods are going to remain our enemies, and while the Old Gods will probably sends us squishy tentacle monsters and the Legion will send us armored demons, we'll fight both of them with equal desperation.

I suspect that the Old Gods are going to sit Legion out much as they did Warlords (though I had been under the impression that the Emerald Nightmare had been the work of N'zoth, so perhaps we will see the two interact.) Still, with the big confrontation agains the Legion on its way (at least for a long time,) one does have to wonder - is there something even worse out there? Are we saving Azeroth from the Legion only to have the Old Gods claim our world?