Known Enemies in Shadowlands

With the Alpha live and all four level-up zones now available for testing, we've started to get a sense of the various plots going on in the new expansion, and what we might expect regarding the sorts of monsters we'll be fighting.

Again, I think it's really exciting to have an expansion in such a heightened realm of magical reality - the most otherworldly expansion yet. But this is from testing material, and this is my interpretation, having not gotten an alpha invite (hoping for a Beta invite when that starts!)

So let's get into it, shall we? Spoilers ahead.


Naturally, at the center of it all, there's the Jailer. He seems to have complete control inside the Maw, and his plot to steal all the anima coming into the Shadowlands (and grab the souls that carry it in with it) is the driving force behind the expansion... at least to start with. There's certainly a strong chance the Jailer will be the main villain from start to finish, in a return to an older tradition of expansion content. But don't be shocked if there's something deeper going on, and some other antagonist who might slip in and take over.

Case in point: as far as I know, we don't have a very strong sense of what role Sylvanas will play in Shadowlands. She's revealed herself to be a total villain by the end of BFA, but what exactly she hopes to gain from breaking the barrier between the real world and the Shadowlands and aiding the Jailer remains to be seen. Still, there's been a buildup to Sylvanas' villain turn, and I think there's a strong chance we'll finally fight her directly.

But let's move on to the various zones and their stories - and bad guys:

Bastion:

Bastion is the first zone your main will go through in the leveling experience (alts can do the zones in any order, though I suspect my first few might go the same route just to space out any given zone's stories evenly.)

The conflict in Bastion seems to be with a group called the Forsworn. These would-be Kyrians have rejected the offer to complete their transformation because they don't want to give up their identities. Among them is actually Uther the Lightbringer himself, who has generally been a mensch even after his death, which suggests something funny's going on.

We eventually discover that the supposed aggression of the Forsworn is actually a false-flag operation by the denizens of Maldraxxus, and I suspect that the latter part of the zone's story will focus on that. I don't know if there are any true bad guys native to Bastion.

Maldraxxus:

I believe the second leveling zone (which makes sense, as it will allow for a pretty-creepy-pretty-creepy change in tone) is the birthplace of necromantic magic (though part of me is like: isn't all magic in the Shadowlands necromancy?) With a sort of variation on classic Scourge-like aesthetics, this is a place filled with abominations, skeletal warriors, and liches. Maldraxxus' inhabitants are tasked with defending the Shadowlands (from whom? That's a question I'd love to explore.)

It appears that Maldraxxus is divided into various powerful houses, like a medieval fiefdom. However, upon arriving, we find that two of the five major houses have been wiped out, and that, of the remaining three, two appear to have betrayed their purpose, attacking Bastion. I'm not exactly clear if these folks are directly allied with the Jailer or just hungry for anima, but it looks like they're the big bad guys. The leaders of these two houses appear to be a Lich and a giant Abomination, while the loyal house seems to be run by some kind of giant skeletal death knight.

Ardenweald:

Probably the prettiest zone, Ardenweald is where the Wild Gods (Ancients, Loa, August Celestials, etc.) go to regenerate after death. There are two villainous entities at work here that I know of:

The Drust make a return, this time sapping the anima from Ardenweald and drying it out, interrupting the cycle of rebirth to empower themselves. I don't know how big of a deal they'll be in all of this, but it certainly answers where Gorak Tul was getting his power.

We'll also encounter Mueh'zalla here, a Loa of Death that the Farraki trolls speak of. Mueh'zalla seems to be a rival of Bwonsamdi's, and the big deal here is that Mueh'zalla is revealed to have been the one to fool Vol'jin into naming Sylvanas his successor, which definitely seems to put him on Team Jailer.

It's not clear to me if Mueh'zalla's actions have anything to do with the Drust, or if they're two unrelated threats, but I do know that Mueh'zalla is the final boss of De Other Side dungeon in that zone.

Revendreth:

The plot here apparently has us start off by serving Sire Denathrius, the profoundly ancient creator of Revendreth, who formed the Venthyr in his image, but at some point we'll discover that he's evil and has been aiding the Jailer. (As a side note: if he made the Ven'thyr in his image, and he looks quite demonic in appearance, more than the gaunt vampire-type ven'thyr, and his name, Denathrius, seems, you know, kind of similar to the name Nathrezim, aka Dreadlords... I'm just saying that if this guy's a demon I will not remotely be shocked.)

What it all means:

We know that Castle Nathria will be the first raid, in a similar position as The Emerald Nightmare or Uldir, and will apparently have a very "Dracula's Castle" sort of vibe. The only other sets we've seen labeled as "raid" actually refer to a Maw raid.

So will our first "tier" raid be in the Maw? If that's the case, where do we actually go from there?

See, while I think they're building the Jailer up to be the big bad of the expansion, there's another part of me that suspects that we might actually be facing him early on, only to discover that there's a much bigger threat that we haven't been seeing (maybe related to the creepy-a-f "Brokers" in Oribos.)

I think it's a bit early to say whether any of the other threats from the leveling zones are going to be a big enough deal to justify a raid, but Blizzard has sort of strayed away from finishing up zone stories in raids in recent expansions, usually opting to add new zones instead. The only recent example I can think of where a story that was independent of the main expansion plot got a raid to tie it up in a patch was Trial of Valor. (Emerald Nightmare was sort of questionably related to the Legion - despite being a demon, I think Xavius was on team purple, ultimately, and again, that was in an X.0 patch, same with Uldir.)

The nature of the Shadowlands means it's very easy for them to add new zones - you'll be able to access each zone via the hub of Oribos through these cool kind of portal/wormhole things, and all they need to do to justify a new zone is just open up access to it (there are supposed to be countless if not infinite realms within the Shadowlands).

I suspect that we might see foreshadowing for new threats to come across over the course of the leveling experience, and some kind of event that will lead us into some as-yet-unseen zone.

Still, the stories of the leveling zones will be fairly extensive, as we're supposed to get Class Hall-like campaigns for each covenant (meaning you'll want at least four alts to see it all!)

Blizzard delayed some announcements about the expansion given the need to leave some oxygen for more important discussions about real-world issues, but I imagine we'll be getting those before too long, and perhaps we'll get a better sense of where the expansion will be going (though I think the main announcement will be a release date, or at least the announcement of the Beta test.)