Saturday, October 28, 2017

What I Want Out of an Old God Expansion

The consensus on the next expansion is pretty tight this year (meaning we might all look like fools on Friday) but I think the oft-rumored "South Seas" expansion does have some room open for two potential main antagonists. Azshara could carry an expansion on her own, even though I think most might assume that N'zoth would be the true Big Bad - of course, you could also have Azshara take advantage of our killing N'zoth in a middle raid tier (Old Gods have never been final bosses, though with Naxxramas moving to Northrend in Wrath, C'thun retroactively became the final boss of vanilla.)

But let's make the assumption that this is going to be an Old God-themed expansion. What do I want to see in it?

The Old Gods are heavily inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft, even borrowing several names C'thun is clearly a reference to Cthulhu, even though the latter is more equivalent to whoever would be the high priest of the N'raqi Faceless Ones. Yogg-Saron is clearly a reference to Yog-Sothoth, and if you squint your eyes, N'zoth might be a reference to Azathoth (I suspect the similarity between this and the name Azeroth is probably coincidental.)

But here's a big difference between the way that the Old Gods have been portrayed versus how similar entities show up in works of classic horror: in WoW, every monster can be confronted eventually. We've fought two of these things, not to mention the Lich King, Deathwing, soon multiple actual Titans.

One of the hallmarks of Lovecraft's works is that these beings are so alien and so far more powerful than we mortals that even catching a glimpse of them is, essentially, a defeat, as no one's mind could survive such a thing.

But another aspect is the idea of cults dedicated to them operating in secret.

And that's an area where I think WoW and Lovecraft could have a better thematic overlap.

One figure I hope plays a prominent role in the theorized South Seas expansion is the Prophet Zul. It was Zul who appeared to the Zandalari - previously a kingdom willing to cooperate and even ally with the Alliance and Horde to preserve Troll history and fight against the depravity of the Gurubashi and their worship of Hakkar as well as the Drakkari's literal blasphemy in slaying their own gods. The Zandalari were literally working with us up to months before their turn - there are Zandalari NPCs in Stranglethorn Vale post-Catacylsm who help us attempt to stop Jin'do.

But very suddenly, the Zandalari turned against us. Why is that? (Meta-narratively, I think they wanted a reason to do their Zul'again remakes, but let's look in-universe.) The story goes that the Prophet Zul showed up, preaching the need to unify the Troll empires after the Cataclysm started Zandalar sinking beneath the waves. Here was a mysterious prophet with a name that is often used as a prefix for proper names. No one knows where he's from.

This would be the perfect chance to have a WoW version of Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep Lovecraft's only human-shaped eldritch abomination (not counting hybrid creatures like those in the Dunwich Horror.) Described as the "Soul of the Outer Gods," Nyarlathotep is the only being of his that engages with humanity on their scale, and thus has actual malevolence rather than a vast indifference.

What if Zul is actually a malicious manifestation of the Old Gods' (or perhaps specifically N'zoth's) desire to spread madness between the humanoid races, using Zandalari culture to force insane ritual and eventually bodily transformation on the people of Azeroth?

I want to see that, but that's the low-hanging fruit.

I also want to see, essentially, the Shadow Over Kul Tiras.

In Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a young man (I think he's either a recent High Scholl or recent College graduate) is taking a tour of northeastern Massachusetts before he settles down, exploring the homes of his ancestors. On the way between two well-known towns, he is forced to take a detour to the town of Innsmouth, where he quickly discovers that something very, very strange is happening. He finds out that a few generations back, a wealthy sea-captain who lived in Innsmouth made contact with horrific fish/frog-like humanoids living beneath the ocean, and he started breeding with them and spreading their bizarre religion, worshiping a massive undersea entity called Dagon through the town. Thus, Innsmouth has become the home of a murderous cult of people who gradually turn into fish monsters.

I would love to accompany Jaina to Kul Tiras and slowly uncover to her and our horror that the people of Kul Tiras (or at least a powerful faction within) have started worshipping N'zoth and transforming into monsters. Seeing Kul Tiras as a misty seaside civilization, half-ruined by the Cataclysm, and with dark cultists lurking among the citizenry: that would be really cool.

For one thing, I really like urban environments in fantasy RPGs, and fighting cultists on the streets of Kul Tiras' capital seems like a great time to me. It would also give Jaina an opportunity to prove herself to her people by leading the resistance to this madness.

Essentially, I think what you need to do to get that Lovecraftian tone is to have a creeping horror, rather than just straightforward monster fights all the time. Warcraft, given the name, often operates on large-scale warfare than human-scale mystery, and I'm sure that by the end of a zone's quest chain, you'd have to have revealed the monsters for who they are so that a true fight can begin, but with proper art direction and tone, you could help establish the stakes of fighting N'zoth really well.

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