There's a certain personality-sorting to be done with the covenants in Shadowlands. We're give four options, with four very distinctive zones and vibes. But it's also been made explicit that there's plenty of the Shadowlands that we haven't seen - near-infinite (or perhaps infinite) realms of which we are glimpsing only four primary ones, along with the Maw and Oribos.
In fact, De Other Side seems to be its own Shadowlands realm, connected to but separate from Ardenweald (that'd be a cool covenant to join.)
Every expansion has added some new questing zone (even if Wrath's was just the tiny Hrothgar's Landing for a couple of Argent Tournament daily quests - that I would totally forgive people for forgetting it was a thing at all) and so it stands to reason that in the course of the Shadowlands, we'll likely find ourselves in some other part of the land of the dead.
Where might that be?
Well, the possibilities are literally infinite, so I'm going to try to speculate based on what we have so far.
The Land of the Brokers:
The Brokers are sort of un-remarked-upon by the other members of the Shadowlands, which implies that they've been around for a long time. Are the Brokers, like the members of the various covenants, largely former mortals who took on these Broker forms after they died? Perhaps those who lived for deals, commerce, and trade go on to some kind of crowded bazaar of an afterlife?
On the other hand, there are entities we've met in the Shadowlands that are native to it. The Sylvar, Vorkai, and Fairies of Ardenweald all seem to be original to Ardenweald. Likewise, there's a quest in which the Countess in Revendreth seems to be trying to portray herself as an original Venthyr, rather than a former moral, which implies that someone like Renethal (whom we know to be the first Venthyr Sire Denathrius created, at least until we find out that the Dread Lords were the first or some other big lore reveal) was never a mortal. So it's possible that the Brokers are natives to the Shadowlands.
Thros:
While I'm less convinced that Thros is part of the Shadowlands than I once was - at the very least, I don't think it's part of the system of covenants and such, I think it's possible we could venture there. The only reason I'm hesitant to suggest this is that the Drust story has been confined (much as it was last expansion) to a single zone - there's no larger threat they pose in the other zones, which I think cuts down on their likelihood of their playing a bigger role.
Helheim:
Helya's presence as one of the Jailer's allies has been brought up a couple times - she orchestrated the Maldraxxi attack on Bastion and also seems to be the one leading the Mawsworn Kyrian. But given that she seems to be in the Maw itself, is she trapped there? That being said, she has been sending Mawsworn out of the Maw to, for instance, abduct the four leaders as the expansion began. Indeed, can things just escape the Maw into Azeroth thanks to the rift? I doubt it's that easy, or we'd be seeing Zovaal marching around Azeroth (holy crap, I'm just imagining the Titans unleashing Sargeras to fight Zovaal and how awesome that would be and also there's no way any of us would survive.) Helya is a master of planar dynamics, though - could she find some way to return to Helheim?
Ok, so, those are the places I'm tossing out as potential future locations we travel to this expansion.
I think what's really interesting about this expansion is the new lore for the Warcraft cosmos we're getting. The Shadowlands, when they were first being named explicitly in Chronicle and Legion, seemed fairly simple - indeed, my interpretation was that they were simply the ghostly realm that we found ourselves in when we died in-game (which I think might be sort of still partially canonical). Given how much more complex the Shadowlands have been allowed to become, I'm now really curious if we'll see an expansion to the other realms of existence in the Warcraft cosmos.
The Twisting Nether, for example, is a place we've often touched. I think we were in it when we killed Kil'jaeden, given that his death seemed rather final. As the realm of demons, I think it's clearly a dangerous place, but I also sense that it's not 100% evil, either. After all, Shamans' Astral Recall (their 10-min hearthstone spell, which used to be a lot more exciting when hearthstones took an hour to cooldown) talks about how they are yanked through the Twisting Nether to get back to their home location. That's been the language on the spell since vanilla, and they've never changed it. And I find that odd, given that the way the Nether has been so firmly tied to demons and fel magic, rather than the spiritual magic of Shamans. Perhaps, much as there have been shockingly few undead creatures in the Shadowlands, we might discover that demons are just one of the many denizens of the Twisting Nether.
It also really opens up the possibility for a more complex Emerald Dream. As originally conceived, the Dream is just a version of Azeroth where humanoid civilization never came about, and thus nature is left preserved and pristine (and there was never a Sundering.) But this is the sort of thing I'd be happy for them to ret-con, as I think there's a lot more story potential in an Emerald Dream that's more of a realm of life. Are there Day Fae there?
I suspect the expansion that follows Shadowlands will be much more grounded and Azeroth-based, but I also think that Blizzard is in a position where they either have to come up with new lore or just have us face the Old Gods and the Burning Legion over and over. Clearly, this time, they've chosen to come up with new lore.
In D&D, there's a concept called tiers of play - from level 1-4, you're local heroes, the champions of a region or major town. From 5-10, you're heroes to an entire kingdom or nation, dealing with threats that threaten the stability of the realm. From 11-16, you're heroes of the world, facing down evils that threaten the entire planet. And then, from 17-20 (the D&D level cap,) you're heroes of the multiverse, facing down massive cosmic threats that rage between planes of existence.
In WoW, we've sort of been in tier four since Burning Crusade. Granted, to keep things from getting dull, we've cycled back down to some of those lower tiers, and it's not a perfect comparison. But I think WoW has the opportunity to let us do these massive, cosmic-scale stories and work - something we're clearly in the middle of right now. So I hope we'll get to travel the cosmos, even if we'll always call Azeroth our home.
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