Ephial's Master and Shadowlands

In Warlords of Draenor, when we came to Spires of Arak, we found that Admiral Taylor, the veteran Alliance officer with whom we had survived Vashj'ir and who led troops into Pandaria, had fallen after someone within his garrison betrayed him.

Investigating the ghost-filled garrison, we eventually discovered that there was a necromancer hidden among his ranks named Ephial who had turned Taylor's troops against him, ultimately resulting in everyone dying and Taylor, along with three of his officers, being transformed into a Marrowgar-style bone construct. Defeating the construct and Ephial, we freed Taylor's ghost, and he actually wound up helping us as a follower, at least for the Alliance. But it did leave this tantalizing mystery: Ephial referred to his "master" and we have yet to know who that master is.

The big caveat here is that this might not actually be relevant. It could be a dangling plot thread that they've decided to just snip off. The plot comes out of the blue and then doesn't really go anywhere. We hear about how Taylor had captured Wrathion, been warned about betrayal by the dragon prince, and then died shortly after Wrathion escaped. And then Wrathion failed to show up until the upcoming 8.3 patch.

With a renewed theme of death and necromancy, I do wonder if we could connect that thread to what we're learning with the new expansion. It's still very little to go on, though.

For one thing, it looks more and more like Bolvar was ultimately just doing his job as best he could. The raising of the Four Horsemen and the attack on the Ruby Sanctum appear to have been the sort of "greater good" calculations rather than some sinister plot. So it seems unlikely that he was behind the destruction of Taylor's garrison.

I had thought that perhaps Kel'thuzad was the one behind all this. And his fate remains a big question mark. While we've fought him twice now (though in the same raid just at different levels,) we most definitely did not find his phylactery when we defeated him in Northrend. Liches are pretty much defined by their ability to revive if their phylactery is intact, and they even made that explicit when it came to Kel'thuzad in Wrath, which means that he is definitely still around.

But so far at least, we really haven't heard any news of his involvement in what has been happening with Sylvanas or the Jailor. That could be that we're just lacking details - one theme of this year's Blizzcon was really exciting announcements with scant details - but it also really raises some interesting questions about KT's loyalties and goals. Kel'thuzad was the founder of the Cult of the Damned and deeply loyal to the Lich King - but perhaps specifically Arthas. Given that Shadowlands is going far beyond the prime material plane and the Scourge and instead dealing with the otherworldly kind of essence of death, it's not clear where Kel'thuzad fits in.

I'm not super confident we'll ever get illumination on this matter. But the fact that Ephial was not just some rogue necromancer wannabe lich but instead referred explicitly to a "Master" has been bugging me since 2014.