You might notice I've been a bit light on lore speculation posts. I think the reason for this is that Shadowlands has simultaneously given us a ton of story while also leaving us with far more questions than answers - even to the extent where it's not totally clear where to start.
The covenants mostly have a fairly obvious direction to go in, and I think that with the end of Castle Nathria, we've got hints at what might come next for the full expansion.
First off, let's talk timing.
Castle Nathria is the first raid of the expansion, which would seem to put in in the same category as Mogu'shan Vaults, Highmaul, The Emerald Nightmare, and Uldir. It's a full-sized raid, with ten boss encounters, but by earlier expansions' standards, it would still not be a "tier raid," officially (and indeed, there were no tier sets, though we also didn't get any of those in BFA, and we don't know quite what or when tier sets are going to make it into Shadowlands.)
Still, if we assume that the expansion follows the patterns established in the last couple, we can expect there will be another major raid to come in 9.1, and others in 9.2 and 9.3. We might also get a smaller raid to go along with the next big one, in the style of Trial of Valor or Crucible of Storms.
And frankly, that's more raids than I could easily predict. Essentially, I'm sure we'll get a raid in the Maw at some point - possibly in something like "Torghast Pinnacle" or the like. But while I think there has to be a Maw raid, the other possibilities are, I think, less guaranteed.
Still, let's talk Covenant stories. The campaigns reached their conclusions (if you were caught up on Renown, though it's pretty easy to catch up on Renown, thankfully) a couple weeks ago, resolving some stories while leaving others open.
Let's quickly touch on each of those:
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR LIVE CONTENT (WHICH I THINK IS ALL WE HAVE RIGHT NOW)
The Kyrian campaign ends with the final fight against Lysonia. You assault the Temple of Loyalty, where the Forsworn are running the place, and find you've been drawn off so Lysonia can use her Maw-granted powers to try to strike down the Archon. Ultimately, Uther arrives, following your rescue of him in the Maw, and stands against Lysonia with you. He surrenders himself following the battle to essentially imprisonment for his crimes against Bastion, but it's clear that he's well on the road to redemption already, and it seems that many of those among the Forsworn who discovered that their leaders had aligned them with the Maw are looking for a third way - the problems they had with Bastion's memory-wiping policies remain, but they don't want to do evil, which, you know, sounds like it makes sense.
The big thing, though, is that we know that under Devos' direction, Uther stole Arthas' soul and dumped it in the Maw before he could be judged by the Arbiter. To me, that suggests that what will have to happen eventually is that we'll need to find Arthas' soul and bring it back, sending it where it's actually supposed to go (so probably Revendreth.) Also, Uther doesn't seem to understand that his soul is broken in half, and I think we're going to have to find some way to recombine the pieces.
For the Necrolords, we've seen the fall of Gharmal and the House of Constructs, and we've revealed Kel'thuzad's duplicity in his usurpation of the House of Rituals, turning Margrave Sin'dane from an enemy into an ally. However, one house remains in opposition to us, and we have yet to face down Margrave Vyraz - the traitor who killed Krexus and sold out his house to the conspiracy. Kel'thuzad himself no longer seems to have any real authority in the House of Rituals, but he's decidedly not dead (well, not dead-dead.)
The Night Fae campaign has far more plot threads than the other campaigns, though I think two of the three major ones have more or less been resolved. With Mueh'zalla imprisoned in the Necropolis in Nazmir, it seems that he's neutralized as a threat. The one element here, though, that is introduced, is that Vol'jin has now absorbed the essence of Rezan - effectively making him into a Loa himself, and thus eligible for rebirth in Ardenweald. Additionally, while their exact nature isn't totally clear, or what the deal with Thros is, I wouldn't be shocked in the final chapter of the 9.0 campaign is the last we hear of the Drust in Shadowlands, as they seem to have been pretty effectively ejected from Ardenweald. However, I think the really big story here is going to be the Night Warrior. Last we saw Tyrande, she was in Torghast - not a prisoner, but a force of destruction. She is bent on revenge, but also seems in serious danger of dying given the power of the Night Warrior within her. The hunt is on now to find the spirits of other beings who had been the Night Warrior, in the hopes that they can share the power (a bit like the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy) and save Tyrande.
Finally, the Venthyr campaign has mostly seen its plot resolve - with Denathrius imprisoned in his sword and held by Z'rali, Revendreth is no longer under his control. Renethal is trying to collect the various Harvester Medallions to channel their power to bring the realm under control, and the only one he lacks at this point is that of the Stonewright, whose concern for her Stoneborn children makes her fairly sympathetic (she clearly wants peace, and perhaps recognizing Renethal's revolution as a success would be the quickest path there.) Still, there are plenty of corrupt nobles hanging around, though I do wonder how they're doing given the fall of the Sire.
But what about the general plot?
Well, once you turn in the quest to place Remoria (with Denathrius' soul) on that tower with Z'rali, if you're caught up with the Torghast quests, you get another little quest chain that has some very interesting implications.
Basically:
Sylvanas, as we've seen, has been trying to talk Anduin into joining the Jailer, though she doesn't seem to have made any progress, as Anduin is resolute. Sylvanas and the Jailer speak while one of his Maw-construct-people forges a new weapon using a crystal that the Jailer plucks from out of... a portal to somewhere.
Sylvanas asks what the plan is to recover Denathrius, and the Jailer says, basically "screw him, we don't need him anymore." Sylvanas has certainly done similar things in the past (see Garithos) but for that reason, I think she realizes that she's in trouble: the Jailer will surely discard her once she's served her purpose.
However, when she goes to Anduin with one last futile attempt to talk him into joining their side, Anduin realizes that she's not so much trying to convince him as she is trying to convince herself - that she never really had a choice in all of this.
And, indeed, given what we know, it seems like she might not have.
Let's think about what happened in Edge of Night: after her horror of seeing that there was a new Lich King on the throne, and the disappointment of seeing her revenge fulfilled (reminds me of Illidan's line "Remember, the Hunter is nothing without the Hunt") she tossed herself off of Icecrown Citadel, shattering her body on the rocks far below.
In death, she drifted in an expanse of darkness, and I believe spotted Arthas' soul also adrift, until a group of Valkyrs saved her from the darkness.
Now, a lot of lore has developed since that short story came out at the start of Cataclysm. First off, we know that Arthas copied the idea of the Val'kyr from Odyn, using its place within Vrykul culture to essentially fit into their existing mythology as a new Death God (the Bene Gesserit would be impressed.) Of course, now we know that Odyn himself copied the idea of Val'kyr from the Kyrians, trading his eye to Mueh'zalla to learn how to turn his adopted daughter Helya into the first of them. Helya, notably, having died in Helheim, is now in the Maw, serving the Jailer and seems to be in charge of the Mawsworn Kyrian.
We also know that some time during her drifting in the darkness, Sylvanas was approached by and made her deal to work for the Jailer. She drove the "Fourth War" to greater heights of violence and bloodshed in order to send more souls into the Maw, rich with anima.
There are some... questions to be asked.
We know that undead folks go to the Shadowlands when they die just like the living (Alexandros Mograine, for instance.) Sylvanas was certainly not "good," at least in the undead portion of her life (I could imagine her being a Lawful Good-but-leaning-much-more-toward-the-lawful-side in life) but she hadn't done anything utterly atrocious until after her suicide (things seemed to step up with her invasion of Gilneas).
We know that Arthas was sent to the Maw extra-judiciously. Is there a reason why Sylvanas would have been sent there in a similar manner?
First off, we're assuming that the "darkness" was the Maw, which would more or less make sense. But there was a specific reason for Arthas to go there - Uther's broken and traumatized soul took his vengeance in this manner. But was there anyone doing that to Sylvanas? If so, who?
I think the explanation could be that the Jailer himself arranged for it, sensing that he could use Sylvanas. Regardless, she was on the hook from this point on.
And we can imagine that she was in the following position: serve me or experience eternal torment.
So, has Sylvanas been under coercion all this time?
We're not even done with the cinematic, though.
When she comes back to Anduin, recognizing that she can't persuade him, she presents him with the thing the smith was working on - a new Mourneblade. Shalamane, Anduin's father's sword, or at least a sword made in its image, has been turned into a Mourneblade, which the Jailer wishes to use to force Anduin into his service.
From a previous cutscene, we know that the Runecarver created Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination, which the Jailer wished to use to create a king of death in the land of the living. Obviously, it worked - that's what the Lich King was. Now, it seems very likely that the intention is to turn Anduin into some sort of new Lich King.
And that's more or less the last canonical beat in the expansion so far.
It seems clear that there's going to be some sort of Torghast raid. We might even have to fight Anduin. What I think surprises me is that there's a good chance that that could be the next raid.
And that throws the expansion's story into a bit of a disarray. I've been assuming that we'll probably face the Jailer in the Maw as the final raid of the expansion (Sylvanas is starting to show some signs of a conscience interfering with what she's doing, which... makes me feel like it's less likely she'll wind up usurping the Jailer's Big Bad role, as I had speculated she might earlier.)
However, there's another possibility which makes an early raid into the Maw work, plot-wise.
The Primus warned us that our top priority had to be keeping the Jailer from getting to the Arbiter. Now, granted, the Primus has probably been missing for a long time (especially if, as many fans have speculated, he is in fact the Runecarver, and thus had to have been captured prior to Warcraft III at least). Therefore, I could imagine that the final raid is not, in fact, in the Maw. Instead, there might be an assault upon Oribos. After all, the "city" (read: airport) that we have visited is only the top half of the structure. I could totally see our final fight against the Jailer taking place at that spot on the top where the Arbiter is currently dormant.
So, perhaps we'll have 9.1 see us fighting in the Maw, likely raiding Torghast. 9.2 could then see us in some other place (please Broker World. Please Broker World) and 9.3 would have the final fight take place within the Eternal City itself.
That, I think, would give us a decent structure for the expansion. The Torghast final boss could be Sylvanas. Hey, maybe we get a hint that once she's beaten, she might try to repent and work with us, only for Tyrande to swoop in and kill her (remember, Tyrande is currently running around Torghast, after all) which would be a hell of a dark way to end that story.
Now, one final note, and this one, well, I really don't know if we're likely to actually deal with it.
Until the announcement of Shadowlands, the official story on the Lich King was that he was simply created by Kil'jaeden, shoving Ner'zhul's soul into a suit of armor. There was no real "power of death" - it was just a different expression of demonic, fel magic. Indeed, the three artifact weapons Death Knights could get in Legion were all affiliated more with the Burning Legion than anything else - until we found out that Frostmourne was forged in Torghast.
So what I want to know, then, is how Kil'jaeden found out about all this, and whether there was any intentional deal made between the Deceiver and the Jailer, or if the Jailer just left these artifacts somewhere the Legion could find them - a sort of trap laid for them.
And that, of course, brings us back to that Infiltration Report that can be found (sometimes) around Sinfall, which implies that someone (very likely the Dreadlords) have been serving Sire Denathrius all this time, and thus the Jailer, infiltrating... or rather, inspiring the creation of the Burning Legion, and also showing up as false allies to the Void, and even the Light (oh, Lothraxion, say it ain't so!)
This sort of thing might be the kind of deep lore that won't get officially confirmed for several expansions (hey, remember when they confirmed that Calia Menethil was alive, or when Tandred Proudmoore showed up?)
Anyway, I'm super excited to find out what's happening next in Shadowlands (just a little over two weeks until Blizzconline!)
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