Well, I finally hit revered with the Zandalari Empire on my Shaman (and sort of wished I'd waited for the Darkmoon Faire to do the subsequent quests as they gave a rather large amount of ZE reputation) and thus was able to do a short quest chain that introduces some interesting elements to the story of a dearly departed character.
Spoilers ahead, though I have talked about some of this stuff before:
Vol'jin's tenure as Warchief was shockingly and frustratingly brief. His rebellion against Garrosh was a war for the soul of the Horde - preserving the enlightened and pluralistic Horde that Thrall had forged and fighting against the regressive and warmongering ways of Garrosh. His Horde was one that could make peace with the Alliance and focus on serving its people rather than a constant march toward confrontation.
But our only time we got with Vol'jin's Horde was when we weren't even in the same universe. We briefly got to see Vol'jin running things in the Broken Shore battle, which turned out about as poorly as you could imagine.
Vol'jin's naming of Sylvanas as his successor was baffling, even as he admitted that most would not understand, but the fact of the matter is that he died, and was cremated.
So, upon hitting revered with the Zandalari Empire, Rokhan announces that, shockingly, Zalazane, the longtime thorn in the side of the Darkspear who had seemingly been defeated permanently right before the Cataclysm thanks to the intervention of Bwonsamdi, had apparently slipped his mystical bonds and returned to assault to Echo Isles with zombies.
Using Vol'jin's own glaive (apparently of Pandaren design - I think that dates back to the Durotar campaign in the Frozen Throne) we defeat Zalazane again, who say something along the lines of "he couldn't be that powerful! Not unless he became a..." and then he dies again.
Became a what? A Loa?
Talanji has come with us to the Echo Isles, and she speaks about how she had always admired Vol'jin even when he was opposing her father's imperial impulses (the fact that Vol'jin saw Zul as the silver-tongued snake that he was lends him some retroactive credit in her eyes.) She decides that, as a former Warchief and great leader of his people, he deserves to be interred in Atal'dazar among the Zandalari Kings.
You escort Master Gadrin, who carries his ashes, and Talanji, as you walk up the ritual path to the temple city, fending off the jealous trolls of other tribes. You then have to run the dungeon and bring the ashes to a little pond off the area with Vo'kaal. But when you arrive, Bwonsamdi shows up, saying that Vol'jin made a deal with him, and thus the ashes need to be taken to the Necropolis in Nazmir instead.
But when you show up there with them, he exclaims that the soul is missing - Vol'jin's nowhere to be found.
Bwonsamdi mentions that "da boss" isn't going to be happy about this and seems to be in a panic.
And then it just seems to end.
So....
First off, we need to find out who Bwonsamdi's boss is.
Second, we need to figure out what happened to Vol'jin.
The popular theory seems to be that Vol'jin has achieved some form of apotheosis, becoming a Loa in his own right and thus might be as powerful or more powerful than Bwonsamdi himself.
Which makes his death feel less tragic, and just the notion that he might show up again is pretty good to hear. But question number one that I have for him is why the hell did he make Sylvanas warchief?
Make no mistake - this war would not be happening if it hadn't been for Sylvanas. Anduin had extended tentative peace offerings like the summit in Arathi Highlands, which Sylvanas turned into a bloodbath. Saurfang might have planned the attack on Teldrassil, but it was under Sylvanas' orders, and it was Sylvanas who changed the plan at the last second to turn a relatively fair-game (in so far as aggressive war is ever fair) conquest of the World Tree into a fiery massacre of civilians.
It seems unlikely that that, in a vacuum, was Vol'jin's intention in promoting her. But we have yet to see what longterm positive, if any, Sylvanas is going to have on the Horde or the world in general. So far she has lost them Undercity and incited the Alliance against them.
We will apparently be getting more story for Saurfang, Vol'jin, and Tyrande in 8.1, all of whom I think do need some follow-up. But this quest chain really seems to be setting up the need for a continuation to figure out just what the hell is going on.
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