The Covenants: What Do We Know Of Them?

The biggest core mechanic to the upcoming Shadowlands expansion (it's always a little bit of a let-down to remember that after an expansion is announced, you usually have to wait a year for it to come out - I need to focus my hype on Ny'alotha!) is going to be the Covenants. Essentially starting from the "zone reputation faction" concept, in Shadowlands we'll be picking one of these factions to really align ourselves with, and our choice will, it seems, be something like a class order hall that we choose.

The details are still a bit sketchy, and it would seem that at the time of announcement, a lot of them were still being worked out.

So I'm not going to get into the mechanics of the system. I heard promising things about having caps on how much you could progress mechanically while offering the ability to continue grinding for cosmetic things, which sounds great.

Each of the zones in Shadowlands is a different afterlife. While in Christian/Islamic cosmology there's basically just heaven and hell, and maybe purgatory, the Shadowlands seem to take a similar approach to D&D's outer planes, by breaking things up into myriad different realms (the Outer Planes are not just there for dead people to go after death, though. They're also the homes of gods and other supernatural creatures and are tied deeply into the concept of alignment.)

So in the Warcraft cosmos, the Shadowlands being plural is very important. When things are working right, every mortal that dies (and doesn't get resurrected or raised as undead) goes on to the Shadowlands, where their first stop is Oribos, the city in which the Arbiter reigns, and she then looks at your soul, judges you, and sends you on to an appropriate fate.

The zones we're getting in this expansion are explicitly said to be only five out of a potentially infinite number, which does free up a lot of future lore and even just new zones to add in future patches.

What we see are Bastion, Ardenweald, Maldraxxus, and Revendreth. What do we know of them?

Bastion:

Bastion is one of the clearly "good" afterlives to be sent to. It's reminiscent of the Halls of Valor, but with a slightly more naturalistic color scheme and seems to be up in the clouds. This is a place where people who have dedicated themselves to service of others go.

The local denizens are called the Kyrians, and it's pretty obvious that Odyn and Helya's val'kyr (and later the Lich King's) are based on these people. While the Naaru, to me, are the most obvious "angel" analogue in Warcraft lore (especially given how bizarre they appear - seriously, if you read mentions of how angels look in the Bible, they do not look like attractive 16th century Italian dudes with wings,) the Kyrians are another clear "angel" equivalent.

It appears the villains we find in this zone are the "Forsworn," who appear to be Kyrians who have abandoned their dedication to service and are thus screwing up the very nature of this place.

Bastion seems like a good choice for your classic Lawful Good types. The blue and white color scheme feels very appropriate for Paladins, and the fact that Uther the Lightbringer is one of the souls that came here makes it feel pretty paladin-friendly.

Maldraxxus:

Maldraxxus is going to be one of the "darker" zones that we come to in the Shadowlands. Described as Eastern Plaguelands turned up to 11, it's here that we will likely encounter some deeper lore about the Scourge. Apparently the Lich King drew power from this realm to swell his army. Indeed, it also could explain how Death Knights are able to summon armies of the dead even where there aren't a bunch of corpses to raise - they just come from Maldraxxus.

The aesthetic of Maldraxxus is very strongly aligned with the Scourge, and its inhabitants, the Necrolords, really seem to follow the same aesthetic (I'll just pipe in as a giant nerd to mention that they originally said stuff like Naxxramas and the various stone towers of the Scourge were repurposed Nerubian architecture, but they might be retconning that to have it drawn from here.)

Despite the very dark look of this zone, the Necrolords are not explicitly bad guys. Indeed, in a realm of death, the morals we've developed in the land of the living might not exactly apply. The Necrolords don't value cruelty or terror, but instead prize relentless endurance, which is why Draka, Thrall's mom, of all people, is found here.

We don't really know what the plot will be here, but given that the place is filled with plague, abominations, and necromancers, I don't think we'll want for dangers.

Still, I'd like to know more about the Covenant itself - while the Kyrians are sort of obvious good guys, I want to see what would convince a heroic Azerothian adventurer to say "yeah, these are the guys I want to hang out with."

Ardenweald:

Blizzard seems to have decided on a "half pretty, half spooky" ratio for this expansion. Ardenweald looks very much to be of the former variety. While Bastion is a classic celestial heaven kind of place, Ardenweald is much more of a land of faeries - to the extent that its inhabitants are literally called the Night Fae.

While the Emerald Dream is the clearer "Faerie Otherworld" realm in the Warcraft Cosmos, we never really got to explore it except where the Nightmare corruption was worst. In Ardenweald, we're finding that the Dream has a sort of mirror in the Shadowlands - where the Dream is a place of renewal and growth, Ardenweald is an autumnal land of decay that then leads into rebirth.

The "associated lore soul" for this zone is actually Cenarius, who most recently was seen rescued from the Nightmare and very much alive. However, we're told that after he was killed by Grom Hellscream, he recuperated here in Ardenweald before his rebirth in Cataclysm. Presumably the same was true for Malorne or other Wild Gods who have died and then come back.

And that is kind of interesting - it suggests that, depending on your personality and what forces you're tied to, the trip to the Shadowlands might not always be a permanent one when you die. It suggests to me that Druids and other nature-aligned entities are merely going there as part of the process while they wait for reincarnation. I feel like there's a really huge potential to go into the lore of Night Elf wisps (and maybe explain why Blood Elves or other elves don't become them at death) here.

We also know that we're going to encounter Bwonsamdi here. While the look of the zone as we've seen it so far feels very strongly Night Elf, I'm really curious to see how it ties into other races. We got one screenshot of an area in the zone that is far less blue/purple and pretty, with a bit more of a Spire of Arak-style dry and brown. It makes me wonder if we might also get more lore on the Drust and the druidic magic of the Thornspeakers (even if I suspect that Thros might be its own Shadowlands realm.)

Revendreth:

Maybe the zone I'm most excited for (ok, almost certainly,) Revendreth, unlike the previous three, is emphatically a bad place to be sent. While even the dark Maldraxxus is still just a place that's supposed to be appropriate to the person's personality, Revendreth is explicitly a sort of purgatorial plane (I'm just going to start calling them planes now.) It's there to punish those with crucial personality flaws, but the intention is not to just torture them for all eternity (though I suspect the zone's villains might decide to do that instead) but instead to rehabilitate the souls of the dead so that they can move on to a better afterlife.

Kael'thas Sunstrider is going to be the guy we meet here.

The inhabitants, the Ven'thyr, are gothic vampires, and apparently the expansion's intro raid (equivalent to the Emerald Nightmare or Uldir) is going to be a big gothic castle with strong Dracula vibes.

I'm, again, really curious to meet these characters and see what their deal is. Obviously, being in the Shadowlands, the Ven'thyr aren't exactly like classic vampires, which in most portrayals are just pure parasitic predators. The Ven'thyr have a higher purpose. I also don't know what happens (or is supposed to happen) when they're done with the process of purging the flaws from the souls in their "care." Does such a soul then become a Ven'thyr? Or do they get sent on to a better afterlife?

Indeed, it remains to be seen exactly what the inhabitants of the Shadowlands are. Were they just always there, beings of pure magical death essence? Or is the eventual fate of those sent to these planes to become like its inhabitants?

There are stereotypes about vampires that seem really appealing to a few of my characters (I'm thinking my Rogue and Demon Hunter in particular) but to what extent are these Ven'thyr the sophisticated hedonists we tend to picture vampires as?

I'm sure that most of the details on these factions are going to remain a bit mysterious until the beta begins - something I doubt will happen until at least next spring. But Blizzard has offered some really tantalizing details.