Afterlives: Ardenweald

 The latest Ardenweald short is out, and... well, watch it and we'll talk:

I realize I was a little dismissive of the Maldraxxus short, downplaying the reveal that Draka had been fighting the Burning Legion (in fact, almost certainly infiltrating the same Legion base Illidan later would attack after whatever world it was on was turned into a fel-blasted hellscape,) though I still think that short was more or less just telling us the basic gist of what is going on in that zone.

Ardenweald, though not quite as explosively revelatory as Bastion, still gives you a massive gut-punch.

We've known about this anima drought and the fact that every soul is being sent to the Maw, a realm of torment and not much else, which feels like pretty big stakes. But even though playing through places like Torghast you see trapped souls ultimately expire - a kind of existential extinction that, frankly, is the most terrifying thing I could possibly think of - it's abstract enough that it might not hit hard just how horrible things are.

And so, Ardenweald arrives to take a familiar character and tell us that no, he's not coming back. There's no afterlife left for him.

Ursoc is gone.

As the short begins, we see Ursoc fighting in the Emerald Nightmare - fighting us, as this was after his mind was tainted by the Nightmare. But with his death, with Malfurion standing there as a friend, Ursoc's mind is restored to sanity, and he takes comfort in the fact that he's going to be spending the "long winter" in a sort of hibernation within the "Great Forest Beyond," which is, of course, Ardenweald.

Ursoc's soul comes to rest in one of the giant seeds that house the souls of fallen nature spirit in this realm, and an unnamed (though I think he winds up being a major NPC in the zone) faun (useful that there's another term for satyr given how satyrs in WoW are demons, rather than fey) passionately swears to the Winter Queen that he will nurture and protect Ursoc until the bear-spirit can return to the land of the living.

And this seems pretty standard - the forest is lush and healthy, and the anima-fruits that he feeds to the spirits are plentiful.

This is actually a pretty important revelation. There's been some speculation on when, exactly, the anima drought started, with some assuming that it began with Sylvanas' deal with the Jailer, or perhaps with Uther's unjust condemnation of Arthas. While I think both are very likely part of the cause of it, we can see that at least as of the earliest raid of Legion, the afterlife was still mostly functional.

Time passes, and the forest grows brown and dried out - drained of anima. The anima-fruits are few and far between, and our faun character has to roam farther to keep his charge fed.

When he returns to his grove, he finds a group of other Night Fae attacking it, destroying the spirits within. In a rage that uses the same color scheme as Ursoc's last moments consumed by the Nightmare, he fights back - this is his nightmare scenario, after all.

Having sworn himself to the Queen herself to defend this grove, he strikes with a primal fury.

But the attackers are not evil agents of the Jailer or anything. They are there on the orders of the Winter Queen herself, and when she arrives, our hero is shocked and confused. Finally, she reveals why they are doing this: the anima drought threatens the entire forest, and if they don't cull some of the groves, the entire ecosystem will collapse.

Seeing that his heart is pure, she tells the faun that she will respect his decision - whether to continue trying to save this one soul, or to sacrifice him for the sake of the forest.

Devastatingly, the faun realizes what the right thing to do is. And so, he abandons the grove, and leaves Ursoc's soul to wither and die, swearing to his queen now that he will do whatever he can to defend Ardenweald and the souls that may yet be saved.

This really hits us right in the gut. Ursoc might not have been the biggest Warcraft character, but he's such a part of the mythos - Druids' bear form (well, any of the Night Elf-derived Druids, so Night Elves, Worgen, and Tauren) base that form on Ursoc. This guy fought in the War of the Ancients.

This is a major stakes-raising story, but I also find it kind of interesting that the perspective from which it's told also frames it in larger terms. Ursoc might have been a hugely important figure in Azeroth's history, but for this one Night Fae faun, he was just an individual responsibility and charge. And Ardenweald - and the Shadowlands in general - are full of every important figure who has died in Warcraft history. And it's all in danger of being lost.