#The Arbiter judges the Maw

[nixalegos]

"I have nothing but respect for the Regent Lord, rumor was his wedding was quite the affair." He said as he simply took the letters into his metal clawed hands. "If you ever do manage to see Revendreth, I suspect Sunstrider will be gone, absolved. Possible he'll want to stay and help save others, but he wouldn't be himself anymore if he did, changed, into a Venthyr, but I personally would put gold on the option he'd very likely move on. His sin's at days end, pale before your own." The warlock said with a shrug. "The Kul Tiran Mana Sow was last spotted celebrating under the boughs of Amirdrassil, with the other movers and shakers of Azerothian politics." He said with such open and obvious contempt it was practically oozing malice. "Whatever nightmares Thros and Torghast lent to the human wasn't enough in my opinion, but they live, doing fuck all save bettering the Alliances position of power." He said coming to tuck the letters into his robes, close to his heart. "Whatever promise you made with our former Warchief might be in need of explaining, because you didn't exactly leave the Horde in any condition that was -thriving-." He said with a scoff. "Hell, you personally ruined Undercity, for your own people. The Horde lost more territory and manpower under your command in the Blood War then when the Legion itself came for our world. You didn't even make means for the refuges who had to flood into Orgrimmar afterwards. You didn't even try to clean the tainted water supply while you sat on its throne." He said exasperated. "I'll do my best with your missives. I gave my word, but YOU. Even if the Arbiter HAD judged your soul properly, as opposed to Elune's puppet, you'd still have likely ended up in the Maw." He said with a shrug. "All you wanna talk about is your past, did you ever once think about the future?"

@blue-eyed-banshee

Declared Documents

Continuation from HERE "I gain nothing from lying to you, if I can, I will." He stated as she withdrew the plain scrolls and explained whom they were meant for. "Are you joking? Was this the real punishment Whisperwind sicced on you? Loneliness? I'm starting to think this deal is decidedly one sided considering I'm still going to have to do the work of pilfering souls." He said as he strode closer, his gauntleted hand coming out, palm up to take ahold of the offered letters. "I can get the Regent Lords message as far as Lady Liadrins desk. I can -attempt- to hand off the worthless kings to SI:7 by unofficial channels. Is there any other alliance members you'd want to leave a letter with?" He said annoyed at the additional requests. "Oribos is back to being little more then a functional port of calling for the Brokers again since the flow of souls has been corrected. Few mortals linger, fewer Attendants are willing to deal or discuss matters with the living, their "Purpose" once more requiring their full attention and secrecy." He explained. "And yes, our shared former Prince is in fact in Revendreth, chained up like a junkyard hound and dragged around on a choke chain by a overstuffed and frankly, even more monstrous hypocrite calling itself the The Accuser." He said with a scoff. "She boasts terrible taste in fashion and party activities." He said waving the other gauntleted hand away. "Frankly, would have been kinder to simply erase him from existence like they said happened to Arthas." He added offhandedly.

@blue-eyed-banshee

[theseventhoffrostfall]

Games Workshop turns to you and says they fucked up doing all the banning and removing of content and now fans are leaving. They want to turn it around. And to do that, you have been given a free pass to make up to five novels on anything you want so long as they are W40k setting. What, if any, ideas do you go with?

Honestly, there's like a bunch of stuff I'd do before just churning out novels if I was tasked with getting things on track. Like, gather up the writers and come to some kind of consensus on what the actual universe is like. We can't even get accurate assessments on if imperial spaceships are typical sci-fi size of 700-800 meters on average or regularly a few miles long, let alone any idea on if life in the imperium trends towards a comfortable simulacrum of modern life, a Judge Dredd crack nightmare, or a strange, morbid near-nihilistic fascination with martyrdom and death that renders them more alien than some of the aliens in the setting. We don't even have to settle on the things I think are coolest and most appropriate, just some kind of fucking consensus so there can be any kind of consistency, because people's patience for giving 40k a pass on a standard every other franchise is held to is wearing thin

That said, if you held a gun to my head and said "give me novel ideas to entice the fan base with something crowd-pleasing but fresh", I'd spitball:

1.) An Arbiter working his beat (an industrial-hive world with the hives arising from a vast and stormy ocean. Intense electrical storms can last months, severely hampering communication and periodically isolating individual hives. Focus on him investigating weird mutants, rogue psykers, rebels, maybe the occasional cult (chaos or not) or genestealers. Bonus points, since Arbiters are not conventional law enforcement and have little interest in common criminals, you get to give him a complex relationship of periodically cooperating with colorful local gangs

2.) A unit of Tempestus Scions on various missions. Travelling the universe, doing operator shit, getting to apply cunning solutions against worthy, high-value foes. Prevents absurd scale creep, since our boys are using hellguns and armored trucks; they aren't ringing up a tank battalion or dropping a titan on someone. Consider it a fun writing challenge to have squad bants and humor despite stormtroopers being brainwashed fanatics

3.) The adventures of an Eldar Corsair crew wedged between a Tau sphere of expansion and a Rogue Trader's nascent empire. Explore both factions through an outsider's perspective, and you get a bit more levity and dark humor, despite examining the Eldar's weird psychology, because Corsairs are among the tiny minority who are just in it for the fun and money rather than fervently serving some holy purpose or another.

4.) The escaped remnants of a genestealer cult find themselves with genuine freedom after the Hive Fleet they were summoning was crushed by the Imperial Navy. Now they've gotta survive, continue to improve their "superhuman" genome, and hopefully save their cousins from the maws of the "False Gods"

5.) A mastermind Inquisitor heads a cabal of his fellows, fighting a shadow-war for control of a whole subsector against the schemes and raids of a cunning Alpha Legion warband. Despite being a dyed-in-the-wool fanatic as any good inquisitor is, he can't help but raise a glass and toast the cleverness of the magnificent bastards out there spinning their webs

[late-to-the-fandom]

Arbiter and Zereth Mortis for Renathal, Venthyr and Dreadlord for your Maw Walker?

Thank you for the asks, AND inventing this whole ask list because it’s extremely cool!

Arbiter: How good of a judge of character is your OC? And do they think they're a good one or not?

Renathal is really a very good judge of character for everyone except Denathrius. It isn’t really his fault, he was created to operate under the assumption that Denathrius is infallible, so it’s really a credit to him he ever figured out the truth at all. Apart from this large blind spot, he has a very shrewd notion of what souls are like, and he knows it (although he suffers a bit of paranoid self doubt about it for a while after the whole Denathrius thing).

Zereth Mortis: What would an ideal world look like for your OC? Either for themselves, or for others?

Renathal is one of those who spent eons wishing things would be different because he was bored, and then as soon as things actually are different, desperately wanting them to go back to normal. Ideally, he would want everything to go back to the way it always was except he’d like to add the Maw Walker to Revendreth permanently. When it becomes clear that isn’t going to happen, it opens the door up to a LOT of what-ifs that change his idea of what he wants his world to look like. He can’t decide if what he wants is a new realm order where he’s Denathrius, or an entirely new existence like the Maw Walker’s where he’s free to explore world after world with no particular overarching aim.

Venthyr: What's the worst thing your OC has ever done? Was it a one off situation, or just another in a long line of bad deeds?

Well, worst is subjective 😅 the Maw Walker killed a lot of people during BfA… pretty indiscriminately and without a whole lot of remorse about it. I suppose some people might take some moral umbrage with that. But the worst thing - as far as she considers it - was more a serious of bad decisions made during the events of the Legion era that will show up in her backstory fic assuming I make it there and my series doesn’t die a death of terrible writers block this week 😭

Dreadlord: Your OC is replaced by an evil doppelganger, do your other characters notice? What's a good way to tell that it's really them or not?

This is actually fun because most people would almost certainly not be able to tell. Renathal would figure it out first, it would just be something he could sense. The little tells he’s used to wouldn’t be there. The sure fire test would of course be how she responded to Theotar and his tea. If the doppelgänger enjoyed it, Renathal would know it wasn’t really her; conversely, if the doppelgänger refused to even pretend to enjoy it for Theotar’s sake, Renathal would also know it wasn’t her. It would have to manage the exact combination of drinking for Theotar’s sake but not actually enjoying it but being very good at hiding it from everyone except Renathal. So, yeah, the perfect test. 😂

[nixalegos]

"Jeopardize?" He said with a laugh. "Surely YOU jest. What are they going to do? Send you to the Maw?" He said with another laugh. "The Kal'dorei priestess didn't imprison you here with the little 'oh she can get out with good behavior' clause attached. There's no court in which you can appeal, no Judge to plead for leniency. Hell, Revendreth boasts souls who ate worlds Banshee. Worlds. Not cities. Not some oversized tree. Worlds. And they'll get to spend eternity being served at parties and enjoying anima sorbet because they said they were sorry enough times it started to sound true." He said, his mirth dropping as he explained. "This penance of yours might make you feel better in the end, but your punishment isn't going to stop just because you bow your head and leak whatever passes for tears from you. So why not profit off the damned and doomed? The souls that predate the Shadowlands fiasco were -correctly- put here after all, we can agree to that yes? And the new arbiter or not, they'll just get shuffled around and end up in some new lesser place of eternal torment. Surely you can see the wisdom in putting them to USE instead of letting torturers and worse float along the river Gorgoa. Humor my bargain." @blue-eyed-banshee

"So, what are you doing with the souls who deserve to be here, you know, from before the Shadowlands broke." The hooded man said from behind her, an impressive enough feat considering he once again shouldn't have been able to enter the Maw, or sneak up on her.

An elf was bent down in a crouch as if stalking her prey with a hand extended to one of the many souls that resided with the maw. Elven ears twitched slightly, and in move swift motion, she stood up, having altrady knocked an arrow and aimed her bow at the voice behind her until her shoulders slacked, and she lowered her bow.

"I wasn't expecting to see another person here, let alone sin'dorei."

She stated before reaching back to put her arrow back in her quiver and her bow across her back. The former banshee had so many questions swimming in her head; how was another person from Azeroth here? Was he sent here by someone? Anduin? Maybe even Lor'thermar.

She rose up from her crouched position and stood in silence.

[khadgarbignaturals]

ASMR pustule bursting in underrot

ASMR hospital sounds

ASMR going to the shadowlands and being judged by the arbiter

ASMR the maw

[phantasmagoreyria]

Day 9 - Disappear

Content Warnings: NPC Death, Vampirism, and Implied Cannibalism

Continued from Day 4

He came to with a gasp, jerking upright as if someone had grabbed his shoulders and pulled. For a moment, Twist sat there, blinking rapidly as the last light of the sun filtered in through a window, his eyes darting around the room. Where-

His gaze landed on the gold-plated censor, and Twist exhaled one last time. That’s right. He’d taken command of the Light for the first time in… who knew how long, and forced it onto an object infused with the magic of the Maw. It should have been impossible, but Twist didn’t think like that. The Light didn’t work like that. It was all about will-power; if you wanted something badly enough, the Light would make it happen.

It’s time. You have all the things you need. No more stalling.

Wincing as the order bit through his consciousness like a spike, Twist climbed to his feet, staggering across the room to pick up the censor. It felt hot to the touch, radiating with the power of the Light, not a trace of the Maw left on it.

GO!

Twist grit his teeth as another bolt of pain wracked his head, a low growl rumbling in his throat as he stormed out of his ruined tower, snagging a knife from a shelf on his way out. He slipped it up his sleeve as he walked down an overgrown lane, pouting to himself. Why was he so hesitant? Twist liked being undead. He liked having a body of his own, and he liked being around people who treated him kindly. Being undead was a freedom unlike any he could remember.

His thoughts drifted to Indraste and the way she recoiled every time she smelt blood on him. She claimed to be intimately familiar with death and killing, but she still clearly disapproved of his eating habits. Her opinion didn’t matter. She didn’t understand. Druids foolishly clung to life, even those who claimed to recognize that death and decay were a natural, inevitable part of life.

Twist twitched, rolling his shoulder as his brow furrowed. Even if death was inevitable, what right did he have to decide when someone’s time was up? Was he to become an Arbiter, judging who was worthy of life and death? By whose authority-

By MY authority.

The voice cut through him so sharply that Twist dropped to his knees, his censor clattering on the pavement as he clutched at his head.

“Who goes there?” A sharp voice barked, and Twist jerked his head up. One of the city’s guards stood at the end of the road, scrutinizing him cautiously. Twist’s jaw trembled, and he wondered what he must look like. His short stature and full cheeks gave off the impression of youth, and his hair fell over the side of his face, his eyes wide and jaw slack. He swallowed thickly as the guard asked, “Are you hurt? What are you doing out here?”

“I-” What did he say? He had no good excuse; this part of the city was uninhabited except for the odd lowlife or the- “Wretched!”

“Wretched?” the guard repeated, green eyes darting out into the ruins, searching for any sign of the wasted, feral beings that once were elves.

“Not here.” Twist shook his head, just in case the guard didn’t find any evidence to support his claim. His gaze swept swiftly over the ground, looking for another lie to win the guard’s trust. “I ran. My ankle-”

He twisted around, resting a hand on his ankle as if it were injured, and the guard's posture finally relaxed. He hitched his shield a little up his arm and sheathed his sword as he made his way over to the fallen construct, shaking his head in disapproval.

“Let me guess, you thought you’d do some urban exploring?” the guard huffed, rolling his eyes as he knelt down at Twist’s side, leaning over to examine his ankle. “I know you teenagers are too young to remember anything, but not only is it dangerous to be out here on your own, it’s extremely disrespectful as well.”

“‘M sorry,” Twist murmured, his eyes locked on the little strip of skin exposed at the top of the guard’s neck. This was the perfect chance to make his first kill; there was no one around, and all he had to do was bring up his hand…

The guard sighed, one gauntleted hand coming up to gently pat Twist’s cheek.  “It’s fine. Your ankle doesn’t look broken, so it’s probably just a sprain. Still, it’ll hurt to put weight on it; do you want me to carry you home?”

Nodding mutely, Twist raised his arms as the guard slipped one hand around his back, the other tucking under his legs. He hesitated just a moment, then with a flick of his wrist, his knife slid from his sleeve and plunged into the guard’s neck.

“Wh-” The guard jerked back as Twist pulled his knife back, his glowing green eyes staring up at Twist in shock.

“This is a kindness,” Twist said as the guard lurched, his hand coming up to his neck. Blood flowed freely from the wound as the guard coughed - choked on it as it drained down into his lungs. Shuffling around, Twist settled comfortably onto the ground, then tugged at the guard, trying to guide him down to rest his head in his lap. The guard resisted, and Twist sighed, reaching up to brush a bit of blond hair behind his ear. “I know, it doesn’t feel like it, but don’t worry.”

The guard coughed again, a bit of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and Twist tensed a little. He’d been able to ignore the scent of it so far, but this close, it made his mouth water. He wondered if the guard could see how badly he wanted to lean down and lick the blood from his chin. What the guard thought of the small, vulnerable looking being suddenly betraying him in such a final way. He watched the guard waver, then collapse into his lap as the last of his strength gave out.

With a sigh, Twist twisted and leaned over, grabbing his censor from where it fell and holding it over the guard’s body as he “gave up the ghost.” The censor automatically caught the soul as it rose up, dispersing it into a translucent cloud before pulling it in. Once fully absorbed, the soul flickered and danced about, but did not disappear. 

“You’ll be safe in my care, I promise,” he whispered as he watched the soul, just a single mote of brilliant light, dart around the confines of the censor. “I know you’re unhappy now, but you’ll feel better once I deliver you to the Master, you’ll see.”

Now that the guard was fully dead and it was confirmed that the modifications he made had worked, Twist set aside the censor and let himself have a moment of indulgence. Bending over the fallen guard, Twist pressed the flat of his tongue against the corner of his mouth, his eyes falling closed at the exquisite taste of the blood. Somehow, it tasted even better fresh from the source.

Resisting the urge to press his mouth to the guard’s neck to feed directly from the stab wound, Twist shuffled the guard up and over his shoulder before getting to his feet with a grunt and a stagger. The guard was so much bigger than him, it was unwieldy, but his body had far more strength it appeared. He’d take the corpse home and decide what to do with it there.

After all, it would be disrespectful to let all this fresh meat go to waste.

@daily-writing-challenge​

[damien-ward]

Wish List for Shadowlands

Here is just a short wish list of what I hope does or doesn’t happen in Shadowlands now that the pre-patch has hit:

Arthas and Sylvanas don’t receive any kind of redemption whatsoever. Please god don’t let this happen... I don’t believe either deserve to be in the Maw, like how Arthas unjustly was thrown in, they both should be judged by the Arbiter and sent to Revendreth to repent. Whether they accept their sins and try to repent is up to them, if not they can go straight to the Maw. I just can’t imagine anything worse than these two receiving some kind of redemption.

Anduin dies. Straight up I hate him as a character because he is a narrative blackhole. The entire Alliance story has to revolve around him, and it is almost to the point that they have to write the characters around him as borderline OOC just to make the story fit Anduin’s beliefs and ideals. It also make no sense to be following an 18 year old! Really? It is incredibly annoying.

Please let Tyrande do something badass and come across as competent unlike with the bullcrap we got in the 8.1 patch... Let us see Tyrande being terrifying. Let her be powerful and awesome, she is the avatar of Elune’s vengeance! Please don’t do her dirty and have her realize the error of her ways and that Anduin was right, seeking retribution is wrong, blah blah blah. Screw that. Don’t turn her into a villain either!

They are pitching the Shadowlands realms for the expansion, like they did with Kul’tiras and Zandalar in BfA, but I hope that isn’t the only places we see. In BfA we had updated zones, Mechagon, and Nazjatar. So my hope is that in Shadowlands at some point in the expansion we get a patch that updates some zones on Azeroth for the story especially since a lot of the leaders are in the Shadowlands. It will be interesting to see what is going on back on Azeroth.

I want to see Taelia become the first official Lich Queen, to follow in her father’s footsteps since he became the Lich King.

[brazenautomaton]

Fixing Afterlives: Bastion, Pt. 1

As it is, Bastion doesn’t work. The Forsworn don’t just have a point, they are obviously, objectively correct. Kyrian discard all their memories and attachments in a way that is horrifying, in order to perform a job that a robot could do, in order to aspire to be something lame and boring. There is nothing cool about what they do and nothing good either; every single time they tell you about what they do it’s supposed to make you sad, not proud. A little of that is fine, it’s Death. But come on. The anima diverter daily for Bastion is a test where you judge if souls should pass on or not, and on WoWHead, the adequate summary of the right answers is “If one of the answers seems more evil or horrible, that’s the one you pick.”

In fact, Bastion can’t work as it is right now, because of Maldraxxus. The Maldraxxi are the defenders of the Shadowlands, right? So all the courage and martial prowess and avenging angel-ness Bastion wants to have cannot be what they are About, the presentation wants them to be glorious and valorous warriors but they don’t have to fight anyone. And the presentation wants them to be wise and impartial but their job requires no discretion, they’re ghost UPS. They can’t be About anything cool, and to be wise and impartial, they can’t be DOING anything at all!

So here’s the fix to their concept: Maldraxxus is the afterlife of warriors, the endless skeleton war, the unending conflict where there are always an infinite supply of fighters willing to leap to the defense of the Shadowlands. Maldraxxus is the Shadowlands’ defensive team. Bastion is the offense.

Bastion does not engage in army-against-army conflict, they have individual heroes. And they are out there in the mortal world, invisibly, serving as guardian angels, inspiring as muses, fighting invisible forces, tipping the scales of Fate to have the right outcomes. Fighting extra-dimensional beasts who prey on the mortal realm to invisibly protect them, fighting down incarnate ideas of malice and ruin, but also influencing things directly or by subconscious example. Every Spirit Healer is from Bastion and they are the ones who decided “your time is not yet up”. When we get really lucky to allow ourselves to triumph over the Legion or the Scourge, it’s because Bastion was ensuring it happened, fighting for us. Bastion is supposed to be affecting things out there, making things turn out Right, instead of being powerless observers. They are the muses of artists and the muses of battle. They inspire. They lead, invisibly.

That’s why they need to be wise and free of bias -- you cannot favor one side of mortals over the other. Mortal beings need to beat the Scourge, but the Horde does not need to triumph over the Alliance and vice versa. Your job is not to punish mortals for being bad, you damn well need to be boosting both sides when there are champions and the valorous in both. You cannot go out there and say “these Orcs up here in Redridge are all evil and shit and the Alliance deserves the win so I’m just gonna go all in on defending them,” that’s not how it works, you reward individual valorous efforts on both sides. How Fate Should Go does not include taking sides in purely mortal conflicts.

So obviously you cannot be biased. You are something Beyond the mortal realm which means you can’t take sides. You actually do have to discard these attachments, and while we’re here, we need to actually make that process empowering. Right now all it does is show you “hey, happy memories, well, fuck you, gotta get rid of them.” Make more than zero effort to make this make sense. Show the aspirant in pain and yearning because of those memories and the fact they can’t come back. Don’t make them forget who they were, make them become at peace and move on.

Now obviously that won’t be convincing to everyone. And that’s fine. It just means there’s some ambiguity instead of the Forsworn being obviously right about everything.

There are four races/types in Bastion: Kyrian, Forsworn Kyrian, Stewards, and Constructs. Only two are represented in Soulbinds: you have two Kyrian and a Steward. 

Kyrian are the expression of what Bastion IS, so we already covered their changes.

Constructs are anima robots. Why are there anima robots here? It’s really bad in the current version because the Kyrian job can be done by a robot so why not just make them do it? Instead, we take that idea and we make it About something: these machines aren’t Constructs, they are Principles. A Principle is a robot made of rules and ideals, the things that are thought by mortals but bigger than any mortal. Codes of honor and ideas that work beyond any of us as individuals. There, that’s it, that change of presentation is all you need to do to justify why robots are there. The changes to Bastion’s fundamentals are what makes them fit in.

Stewards are creepy. Really creepy. They serve the same role as dredgers, but the fact that dredgers bitch and moan and complain all the time lets us see them as individuals with goals and not creepy brainwashed victims. A dredger isn’t a slave, they are a worker; but work sucks and they wanna be at the pub. A steward, with one exception (Forgelite Prime Mikanikos who is busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest and also by far the best Bastion character) appears to have no personality and is a brainwashed slave. 

So, first off, make it clearer that they are helpful because they are The Desire To Aid, that’s the thing they’re About. With the way they speak and act, I think what they are supposed to be in story terms is lightly comic relief, also similar in role to Dredgers but with opposite implementation. The creepiness and one-dimensionality make this fail, all their hoots and hoos and silly talk isn’t funny. They need to be cheesier. They need to be 90’s Saturday morning cartoon sidekicks. They need to be a (much) less obnoxious version of Snarf.

They need to tell awful, awful dad jokes. Just the worst. The kind that are so bad they loop back around to funny again but you’re still groaning and they’re just there like “Eh? Eh? Geddit? Geddit?” By doing something that is helpful, that we recognize as an attempt to help and that some Steward characters can explicate to us really does help (it dampens anger and fear because all of your negative emotions are refocused to that HORRIBLE pun), but that clearly NOBODY would brainwash them into doing, now we can trust their helpful efforts are borne of sincere desire and carried out to the best of their ability by their own personal interpretation.

Forsworn Kyrian, right now, are only antagonists. The ideological change of giving up on the law of Bastion makes you turn a darker indigo color scheme (which is actually really good because these are creatures of Beyond, creatures who are on a fundamental physical level About something, their beliefs changing their physical makeup makes sense!) and then become a bad guy. Forsworn are all only antagonists. We’re going to change that. Kleia is going to become Forsworn. And still be a heroic character and your Soulbind, even though this isn’t a game balance thing and so Pelagos will still probably outclass her in every way seriously that Mastery buff is fucking bananas for anyone who cares about Mastery.

Not when you meet her, though. The existing storyline of Bastion is you go there because “hey what the fuck are these Kyrian doing in the Maw serving the Jailer” but in Bastion itself nothing much is happening other than kicking pebbles down the street. You get the intro from Kleia, you go see some very low-importance things, then the Forsworn attack for the first time, and you spend the rest of the zone quest on hold with the Archon’s hotline to tell her “hey there are Forsworn this is a problem”.

Now, when you get there to ask “hey what the fuck”, Kleia is still not doing much more than kicking pebbles down the street, bored off her ass, extremely enthusiastic about someone new so she can DO something. But the Forsworn conflict already exists: it’s just not relevant to her because she stays out of it, figures that it’s above her pay grade, and she hangs out at the Welcome Center which nobody gives a shit about because there’s nobody to get welcomed so it isn’t relevant. She just knows there’s been some discussions. 

We get the anima drought reinforced the first time we enter Bastion because we have to power down the other cores to get enough juice for the greeting machine, but then it isn’t really a good way to sell it because that’s the kind of thing we do all the time even when there’s no shortages of anything, that’s how WoW PCs interact with machines. So we have the player scrounge up anima from the other Principles to power up the greeting machine, and it’s not enough, it runs out of juice halfway through, and Kleia gets embarrassed and tries to finish the rest of the process by reciting it from memory (and not getting it all quite right, which is another chance to show us things about her).

Kleia is excited to have someone to run through the orientation process, and she explains that FIRST there was an anima drought, and then as if that wasn’t bad enough, THEN the Arbiter got conked out and the flow of souls to Bastion stopped. This is important, because in the story as is, the anima drought appears to be completely explained by the flow of souls all going to the Maw, since they are presented at the same time and the flow of souls is the flow of anima. When you find out the drought is because of ol’ Denny hoarding it, you go “wait how does he have any to hoard when it all goes to the Maw?”

So for right now you need to walk the Aspirant’s path to get an audience with the Archon because right now things don’t seem desperate and urgent. You go to Aspirant’s Rest and get the flight point, and you go to meet Kleia’s soulbind, Pelagos. Two things need to change right here.

One: something more needs to be happening here than “Pelagos was a dipshit and tried ascending alone despite that being not how it works at all, go in there and fight the monsters,” so do something instead of almost-nothing.

Two: Loath as I am to say something actually needs less representation compared to its original, Pelagos can’t be transgender. You find out later on, in the Kyrian covenant quest line maybe? That Pelagos’s mortal body was a woman, but his true spirit is a man. That’s great, that’s something that should come up. The problem is, Pelagos is also the fuck-up, the one we see fail all the time so he can (ostensibly) show resolve and get back up again. But Blizz didn’t show barely any details about Pelagos’s life for fear of backlash -- we don’t even know who played him -- and whether or not it is valid or invalid or that was a cover to avoid admitting this was to not offend China, Blizzard still won’t DO it. So we have this character who is battling this doubt and failure in his past but we’re not allowed to know what they are. Pelagos is cisgender so we can go into detail about what he fucked up. Kleia might be trans instead (why she is so gung-ho about Ascension), or we can have Kleia sell the Ascension process as good by mentioning that the Paragon of Wisdom, Thenios, was born a woman in life but Ascension made him into a true ideal. This can also justify a bit more screen time for Thenios and then something for Tim Russ to do. He was already Tuvok, he doesn’t need more humiliation. But whoever it is, their gender only comes up once and never again because now they’re the right way around and the former body doesn’t matter.

So what’s happening at Aspirant’s Rest? It’s a holding pen for souls. See, as it is now, you find out about the flow of souls into the Maw right away, but then all the way through the main quest and into the Kyrian campaign quest they apparently don’t know, and you don’t tell them, and then it’s a surprise when you finish the quest where you follow the guy in Redridge and have to take him to the Maw, and that’s dumb, they should know, you should have told them.

So now the Kyrian know that everyone is default-judged to the Maw. And they know this is what has to happen, this is the machinery of fate that drives the universe, but they are compassionate and know these souls do not deserve it. So they’re scamming as much as they can. Whenever possible (which they lament is not often enough, not nearly often enough), they find some loophole or corner case to count someone as not ready to be judged, and stick them somewhere in Bastion so they can wait until the Arbiter’s awake again to judge them. They can’t do much, but they can do a little, so they do that.

This guy, okay, you died, BUT, there’s a necromancer just two zones over, and your body is still intact since I dragged it to safety, and, I mean, he’s PROBABLY going to call back your soul and bind it to your body in service, so there’s no point in having you judged, you’re just coming back, right? And you, Night Elf! Okay, you got your head blown off, but, remember that angelic voice shouting “NIGHTELVESEVOLVEDFROMTROLLS!” a moment before your demise? And you know, Trolls who worship Bwonsamdi go straight to De Otha Side without being judged. Maybe you would have wanted to pledge yourself to older gods, but you never got the chance to make that decision, so, hey, you know, it would only be right to let you make that choice before you are given your judgment! And you, guy, did you know that all those patrons from the Slaughtered Lamb across the street who came into your business were warlocks? Yup, all of them, and they didn’t wash their hands either. Fel contamination. Can’t, ooh, you know, hey, might be a demonic stain on your soul, demons don’t have an afterlife like us, gotta be reborn in the Twisting Nether! Going to have to consult some demons to figure out where you go. Better wait here.

Aspirant’s Rest and the temple beneath are a soul refugee camp, and the souls within are scared and angry and don’t know what is going on and the Kyrian can’t explain it or they will all completely flip out. The Kyrian are trying as hard as they can in the limitations they have and this sells it. 

Pelagos is down there. The risk is not that he will be killed -- he is not mortal, he does not die -- the risk is that his well-meaning attempts to keep things calm might ignite the powder keg down there. And those souls can’t die but they WILL go directly to the Maw if fatally injured, which is why they have to be kept penned where Larion won’t eat them and Principles won’t drag them off. Pelagos fucks up here and you have to fix it but it’s not a suicidally stupid error while doing something that has no relevance to the player, it’s an understandable mistake biting off more than he can chew while doing something the player understands. Player, Kleia, and Pelagos go down to Aspirant’s Crucible to get certified as an Aspirant and get in line to talk to the Archon. 

In the existing story, you go and peer into a memory flame thing and have echoes of your heroic battles drawn forth, and you fight them while a character narrates your heroic deeds. They might be based on what expansions you played in, or might be random? Anyway, in this case, you gaze into the flame of memory, she starts to narrate your heroism, and… nothing. “Ah, there are supposed to be visions conjured here, so you can display your valor against them once again. It… it doesn’t… hang on, I might know what the problem is…”

A voice comes. “Then how about you display your valor against me, champion? A little sparring wouldn’t hurt, and I’m eager to see what you can do.”

It’s Uther, hell yes it’s Uther.

[mysdrymmumbles]

Fractured Glass - October Writing Prompt

Sometimes, looking back, it was hard to remember how everything started, like trying to remember the full image in a stained-glass window from only a sliver or two of its glass. With only pieces left, it was easy for the image to get distorted.

But there was one thing Zovaal did remember.

It hadn’t been about power.

Not in the beginning, anyway, no matter what the others might say to themselves and their followers to justify what they’d done.

In the beginning Zovaal had just wanted to understand.

He was made to be the arbiter, the judge of souls. Every mortal to ever exist came before him, their entire stories bared before him in a fraction of a second. The souls earned their afterlives from whatever fleeting achievements or atrocities they committed during their flicker of existence in the lands of the living.

He passed judgment as he was created to do and sent the souls to his siblings or whatever other obscure afterlife he deemed fit. The process was quick, something that came second nature to him, like breathing to a mortal body.

However, the more souls who came through, the more curious he became. Two souls might go through nearly the same events in their lives, and yet they would not react even remotely the same. One would go to Kyrestia to ferry future souls, made strong and devoted to good because of the life’s hurdles, and the other would be sent to Denathrius with hopes that there might be something salvageable in its wretched self.  

For all Zovaal’s dealings with souls, they were such a mystery. They were comprised of the same energies, formed the same ways, and yet there was something inside of them that made them…unpredictable.

What made them so similar and so different? More importantly, what made a soul into something wicked?

That was all he had wanted to know.

The First Ones hadn’t thought to leave him or anyone else any notes. They had been the ones to create souls, hadn’t they? Surely they had the answers, somewhere.

It was easy for Zovaal to do as he was meant to. Look at the soul, send it to where it was destined to go.

But it felt like there should be…more to it. Were some souls designed to fall while others were not? Was it something else?

The Primus was busy forming his souls into an army. Kyrestia took hers and molded them into aloof ferrymen who could ignore the pleas for more time. Denathrius dug into his souls’ minds and untangled whatever had gone wrong inside them.

Every one of them worked with the souls, got to know them, understand them.

It was unfair that Zovaal alone was left with so little time with the creatures.

He had turned to what little had been left behind by the First Ones as a way to get to better know the souls he judged, as well as understand the heft of the responsibilities his siblings carried. He wanted to know what it was that the Primus needed to defend against, what it was that the Winter Queen’s charges went back to.

He wanted to know why.

And he was denied the chance to learn. Denied by those who had no right to do so. After all, if he had been created with this curiosity in him, wasn’t he just doing as he was meant to?

His own siblings turned away from him for his pursuits, making him into some kind of monster to warn their wards about as they cast him into the depths of the darkest, most forlorn parts of the Shadowlands.

It was maddening, a slow rot to the mind that came from the grim realization that there would be no changed minds. No matter how long he waited, there would be no second chance to defend himself against their accusations, there would only be what was, fragmented as it was.

He would never see that bigger picture that he had desired.

Worse, Zovaal could see it echoed in the souls of mortals. He could see the souls that sought knowledge beyond their reach who had become the wretched thing his siblings had feared he would become. He could see the ones who were like him, who had just wanted to know.

Or he had been able to.

In the Maw, the only souls he could see were the ones damned, by himself and then his successor, a lifeless construct made to do his job without asking all those pesky questions that had plagued him.

At a glance, he saw all that a soul had done in their life.

When he had done as he was meant to, the bad had been fleeting. One twisted soul to hundreds of good. One creature so corrupt and violent and lost to so many that might not be perfect, but still strived to live good enough lives, even if they weren’t the kind of perfection that Kyrestia would accept.

There were infinite afterlives, after all, and so many of the souls who went to those minor realms were good or at least tried to be.

The longer he was in the Maw, the harder it became to remember that good.

The loyal pets, the enthusiastic scientists hoping to make their worlds better, the good Samaritans, the leaders who cared.

They were beyond his reach, beyond his sight. Mere echoes of what had been.

All that was left within reach was cruelty, inexplicable and unwavering.

Sometimes he could remember how few the bad souls were in comparison to the good, but as the Maw filled and expanded, as the wicked came to join him in eternal damnation, what he had once been so certain of began to waver.

Some days he wondered if his successor weren’t broken, for she sent so many to the Maw. Could there really be so many mortals? So many unique creatures passing from one reality to the next? And why were so many prone to such vileness? To have so many…it had to have been by design.

That only led to more questions with answers beyond his grasp. Why make a reality where such cruelty and madness was possible, probable?

Why make a reality where souls made such poor choices that they would need a place like Revendreth? A place like the Maw?

Even cast away and forgotten as he was, Zovaal’s questions still burned inside of him, hollowing him, like the empty space in his chest where his purpose had been stripped from him.

Just what was it that made souls do what they did? What made one soul cling to what was good in the world while another threw it all away and embraced unspeakable cruelty?

What made a good soul go bad, other than design?

The answer was so…obvious. And the more he thought of it, the more Zovaal realized that he didn’t need the answers to the questions he had originally asked. He didn’t need to understand the system that was in place because the system itself was something so despicable.

What he needed was to fix things, make them right. He needed to reshape reality to smooth out the flaws left behind by the First Ones, the flaws upheld by his shortsighted siblings.

And that was something that became more and more appealing as the eons passed by, offering him nothing more than time to prepare.

He would escape the Maw one day, and he would set this reality right.

And his siblings would regret spurning his curiosity as they had.

Zovaaal would see to that.

[kyuusei-shadowleaf]

Afterlives: Ardenweald - Timeline Thoughts

TLDR: Afterlives: Ardenweald shows us that souls didn’t start going to the Maw until after the events of the Emerald Nightmare raid in Legion.

Update: @dardillien-ward​ raised a good point in the comments. While Blizzard hasn’t specified, it seems very possible the timing might have been around the Trial of Valor raid, when we faced Helya, since we know Sylvanas and Helya made some sort of yet-to-be-revealed bargain...

* * *

We knew the “machine of death” was broken sometime during Legion; instead of souls going to the Arbiter to be judged and sent to the appropriate Covenant, they started going straight to the Maw and the Covenants were starved of anima.

We had some earlier hints and assumptions this might have changed at the time of Sylvanas' suicide and pact with the Valkyr at the end of Wrath, but Hight and Cash said it changed “sometime during Legion” in a Nov. 2019 interview (see below)

Afterlives: Ardenweald gives us more detail. Ursoc's soul goes to a healthy and verdant Ardenweald, so we know the “machine of death” was not yet broken during the events of the Emerald Nightmare raid. This means the souls of those that died before then- during Cata, MoP, WOD, and even the Broken Shore event and early Legion quest lines - also likely went to the Arbiter of the Shadowlands to be judged, and on to their appropriate Covenant.

Of course, other meddling could have occurred. Bwonsamdi is keeping troll souls from entering the Maw (per Shadows Rising). Some have made a case that Gul'dan destroyed Varian's soul when he killed him at the Broken Shore, but that's only theory (no word from Blizz).

Afterlives: Ardenweald clarifies when things were broken, when souls started going to the Maw and anima was diverted from the Convenants: sometime after the Emerald Nightmare raid (poor Ursoc), but before the War of Thorns. Useful information for RPers and others that write in the WoW space.

For example, Kyuusei's childhood friend and first love, Delyra, died in the Firelands. Her spirit's spoken to Kyuu a couple times. I was worried I'd have to bend lore for Delyra's spirit not to be in the Maw, but I know now I'm "safe" in having her soul be in Ardenweald.

Hope this is helpful for some people. Always remember - it’s your story, you can bend lore however you like. But for those that want a common baseline of lore-adherence (like me) this is helpful.

Thanks for reading my TED talk. References follow:

Sylvanas Windrunner: Edge of Night by Dave Kosak (short story)

BlizzCon Nov. 2019 Interview with Hight and Cash (thanks @foxglovethings​ for the link and timestamp)

Shadows Rising by Madeleine Roux (need to buy it, or you can read my posts about the some of the lore)

And of course, Afterlives: Ardenweald

[nixalegos]

Judgment

@tyIt occurred to him, that quite possibly, he was not as awful a soul as he'd always thought he was. To think he'd discover that about himself in the middle of a battle along the ramparts of the Maw, the very depths of hell, was not lost on him. Certainly, he did not view the Mawsworn or the innocents trapped in this prison plane the way the Venthyr did. Clad in crushed velvets and more obsessed with form and poise then results half the time. Every single one of them held the air of an older sibling trying to scold and mock the utterly lost, even if they themselves were among those so warped by time and torture they could have just as easily been trying to throw a tea party as they were waging a pitched battle. To see them dispatch souls too traumatized to properly -beg- for help was beyond hypocritical, it was wasteful. Further down, to where his wife held the line, holy hammer blazing with a crusaders zeal so fiercely bright their own allies shied away from her. There was no remorse, no doubts, the Light seemingly erased such worries that anyone there could be redeemed save those who gravitated towards her, just targets in dire need of removal, atomized by fire and pummeling blows. Fel by comparison, never seemed to invite such views. Oh sure, contempt for those weaker then oneself, but the lack of nuance, the shades of grey. He wasn't -better- then the Mawsworn, not intrinsically, morally, or ethically. The very existence of Revendreth should have been enough for even the most terrible soul, no torture the maw could ever produce any worse then another really. And yet, by the fault of the Arbiter, or the system or Purpose, all had been judged to be where they needed to be. @tyleinth for mention

[phoenixkael]

Analysis of Kael’thas Voice Lines in Shadowlands

Alpha spoilers below the cut. Read at your own discretion.

Alongside Blizzard’s live stream regarding developer updates in Shadowlands, we’ve gotten our usual Wednesday datamining of Shadowlands alpha. Today also marks the very last alpha build, as Blizzard confirms Beta to hit next week. What better way than to end it on a high note. Largely silent aside from boss information in Castle Nathria, Kael’thas now has some voice lines.

And boy, have I over-analyzed this like a kid eating cake.

When I first heard the Accuser’s lines from a few builds back, I already expected Kael’thas to be arrogant, but I never could tell at what level of arrogance or what his personality would be like exactly. Oh god, anything but hots portrayal.

Here we have Kael’thas in Revendreth, distressed and emotionally charged. At first glance, he doesn’t seem remorseful per se, but the fact that the Arbiter placed him in Revendreth instead of the Maw says that his soul is capable of atonement and remorse. At this point in the story, it doesn’t seem like Kael’thas has done a lot of soul searching. He’s coming off of the pride he had before he died, yet he knows he’s in Revendreth and knows he has work to do on himself. He thinks that what he did was right and for his people, but the way he did it was not ideal. It hurt a lot of people, and I don’t think he realizes that yet. He’s feeling very defensive, as evident in one of his lines: “Do not presume to judge me” means to not take someone at face value. You do not know the inner turmoil of another person. This line signifies Kael’thas being defensive. In fact, it makes sense that he comes into the Shadowlands defensive and insecure.

Analysis of Select Lines

Without context, it’s hard to know of what or to whom he is speaking these lines, so I’m generalizing, really. The very first lines in the video above state, “What torment is this? I serve the Lich King? No! That cannot be! Trouble me no longer!” Kael’thas greatly fears that he now serves the Lich King, who in the past is associated with Arthas and the Scourge. Knowing his past trauma there, serving the Lich King in general would put him under extreme pressure. This could quite well be one of many techniques that the Venthyr use to torture him.

In life, Kael’thas had a recurring theme of being a follower instead of the leader he was literally born to be. In fact, he ran from it for the longest time. He served as a member on the Council of Six in Dalaran and while this is a very noble position, it made his people feel distrustful of and alienated from him--and vice versa. Kael’thas had always wanted to forge connections with other people and gain insight into new ideas and places. He was so unlike most of his people, who were isolationist and content enough to marvel in their fair city of Silvermoon. Even his father, King Anasterian, was concerned for his loyalties. Kael’thas would then go on to serve under Garithos during the Scourge invasion, then to Illidan Stormrage in Outland, and finally to Kil’jaeden until his death. His line about Kil’jaeden in partciular is very interesting and very telling about where Kael is in his progress in Shadowlands: “I thought my deal with Kil’jaeden would save the Sin’dorei. But it just got worse all the time!” He expresses anger at having allowed the demon lord to manipulate him so easily, but he won’t express anything but anger and distress.

Now he COULD have admitted defeat and packed everyone up to go home, but then what did he go to Outland for? What would he have come home to empty-handed? He wanted this darker path, which he hesitated to take at first, to mean “something”. He promised to find the cure or salvation for his people (on top of his personal vendetta with Arthas) and he was afraid that he would break had he come home. He did not admit defeat, did not surrender. As brave as he was, his pride spelled his downfall.

Indeed, Kael’thas has always been one to put on a strong front, to appear strong and powerful in the eyes of not only his people but others as well. He is a very insecure man and, thus, uses his pride to mask these insecurities about himself. He does not like to appear weak. In one of the lines, he wants people to address him by his title, the Sun King, a contradictory request as to the one he used to make when he did not want the title out of respect for his father. Also, he always preferred that Jaina not use his titles, but just Kael. This goes to show that Kael hides his insecurity behind his title in the face of certain people for whom he wants to show he is strong. He already believed he won’t be half the king his father was, but he tried his hardest anyway. Notice in a few of the lines that he doesn’t mention MY people or MY brethren, but instead the Sin’dorei. Perhaps he recognizes that the blood elves are their own people and have continued to live without him. We know their story of restoration, and now we head into Kael’thas’s potential restoration where he owes it to them--and ultimately, himself. Maybe just maybe it also spells how much he is worth compared to them. He would give anything to save them, even sell his soul to the very devil himself.

Kael’thas has two quotes that really stood out to me. They’re very intellectual, just as you would expect from someone as intelligent as him, and when you analyze it, speaks of Kael himself but also just people in general.

“I can learn to be humble, but never meek.” He is willing to atone and wants to deep down, but it’s the confrontation of these sins that he doesn’t like. In the raid fight, he clearly has a lot of pent-up shame as referenced by the ability, “Reflection of Guilt.” Kael also makes an excellent point (or analogy?) to not mistake humbleness for weakness. You can be kind and mellow to people, but often people will mistake it for being weak and obedient.

The next line--and I LOVE how he says it--is, “My power is mine to wield.” It’s about owning your own power, about being your own person, and knowing your own self-worth. Don’t let anyone trample over you or make your their slave. Kael’thas experienced this first-hand with Garithos and Kil’jaeden. His people loved him, hence his betrayal (as evidenced by Lor’thenar’s recent short story) still cuts them several years later. They worried for him, but all he could think about as the fel surged through him was how much of a failure he was.  Hell, even Jaina in the Arthas book mentioned how “good” of a man he was, having recognized the beauty of him, which fell to his darker traits. For all that confidence in his magical abilities and charm, Kael’thas tragically never knew how valuable he was as a leader, how worthy he was.

And now we are in Shadowlands where we get to see him with his own role. Blizzard willing, this sounds to be a long personal journey for him. For himself.

[visenyaism]

I know it won't happen but what if when Varian died the arbiter judged him irredeemable and sent him to the maw

i think hes not anywhere bc his soul got exploded

[korkrunchcereal]

WoW: What’s Next

Shadowlands: Realm of death.

The Arbiter: Judges every soul that passes to the Shadowlands. A mystical ancient entity.

Each realm of the Shadowlands is ruled by a Covenant.

Souls bring energy: Anima, which is all the product of deeds and lives etc.

Bastion: The covenant is Kyrian. Souls here shed past burdens and seek virtues. Service in the afterlife such as spirit healers etc. Uther is here. 

Maldraxxus: The covenant is Necrolord. Military might of the Shadowlands. Survival of the fittest, not necessarily evil souls. Draka, mother of Thrall ended up here.

Ardenweald: The covenant is the Night Fae. Place of Rest and Rebirth. An enchanted mystical forest. The Emerald Dream’s dark mirror. Cenarius ended up here when he died. Connected to the Drust.

Revendreth: The covenant is Venthyr. A land of gothic spires. Flawed and prideful souls atone here. Kael’thas is here. 

What is a Covenant? A covenant is a ruling power of the Shadowlands. Equivalent to Artifact, garrison etc. in Scope. Each seek your aid, offers powers in return. 

Each Covenant has its own full endgame narrative arc. 4 in total. Two active abilities - Class specific and universal. Endgame progression system: Soulbinds. Can bind your soul to a powerful denizen of the Shadowlands. 

No AP to grind

A wide array of cosmetic awards with each Covenant. Also a Covenant Sanctum for each covenant to restore to glory.

Oribos, the Eternal City: Ancient city that predates memory. Arbiter is here. It’s the hub of the expansion. 

The Maw: No known covenant. Horrific prison for the most vile souls. A mystery to even those in the Shadowlands. Domain of the Jailer. Nothing has ever escaped. 

What’s happened? Death itself is broken. Instead of going before the arbiter, all souls are going directly to the Maw. The realms of the Shadowlands are withering without the anima of the souls. 

Sylvanas has no master. Working alongside the big boi from the cinematic who is the Jailer. Her powers are from death swelling in power.

Scourge marauding across Azeroth. Azeroth’s heroes make for Icecrown. Basically the lead up invasions.

Bolvar did not die. He’s leading the charge. Him and his DK’s also help us cross into the Shadowlands, but we end up in the Maw. woops.

leveling order: Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, Revendreth

Work with each zone’s leaders and borrow their power. 

At max level you choose a Covenant.

Alts can choose a Covenant immediately and can level in any order of zone, do WQ’s etc. 

Earn endgame progression while you level.

Endgame: Return to the Maw. Max level zone, outdoor gameplay, free form area. No rest areas, inns, hearths etc. etc.

Torghast, Tower of the Damned: Endless, ever changing dungeon. Can enter solo or bring up to 4 friends.Absorb anima power, enhance your power each visit. Also permanent things you take outside the tower.

8 dungeons. 4 leveling dungeons, 4 max level. One of the max level dungeons is “the other side” with Bwonsamdi.

Castle Nathria: Ten Boss Raid in Revendreth. “Castle Dracula, make it a raid” was the quote.

Focus on player agency: 

Profession updates: Blacksmithing can take crit, haste gems etc. and craft specific items instead of random.

Weekly loot chest: Removal of RNG elements. Will give list of 5-6 items, you can choose one is the vision they’re going for.

Shadowlands Legendaries: Work towards crafting in Torghast

Class identity over spec identity. Returning abilities etc. etc.

A streamlined leveling experience. level from 50-60 in Shadowlands, all levels reduced. Every level should unlock something. 

A modern new player experience. 

New customization. Varied humans, Wildhammer Dwarves, Sandfury trolls, boneless undead as examples.

[chaoskirin]

Shadowlands--The Kyrian

I was mostly right about the Kyrian. I overall like the aesthetic--the white and blue angel theme is nice, and the whole area is beautiful. I enjoyed questing there. But it is very much an area that caters to the hero complex or the white boy power fantasy. The game could have made an excellent point about organized religion here, and I THINK it still might--eventually. Spoilers under the Read More.

The Kyrian have what’s called a “Purpose,” and you must follow the Purpose without question. You cannot deviate from this Purpose, or you will “fall,” and you won’t be allowed to stay in the city anymore. And this Purpose is so strict, so rigorous, that even the act of caring for and empathizing with aspirants (trainees, essentially) that are having a hard time can cause you to fall. (Which is essentially becoming a dark Kyrian) This happens in the narrative.

This sounds a lot like many Lutheran-based religions and cults, where there is an unquestionable power structure whose purpose informs itself. You MUST obey the rules. Why? They’re in the Bible. Well why must we listen to the Bible? It’s the divine inspired word of God. Where does it say that? In the Bible. 

Furthermore, in cultish religions, you are pressured to accept their truth, and if you don’t, you can be excommunicated or otherwise punished--removed from your friends and sometimes even your family, and be forced to navigate the world on your own. 

When it comes to the Kyrian, we’re expected to accept this Purpose, possibly because we can literally see that higher power. The reason behind the Purpose is never explained and our character doesn’t question it, either. There’s this part of the narrative where you are supposed to go to struggling aspirants and comfort them. One of the options you can use (and the one you’re supposed to pick!) is “trust in the Purpose. It has never led you wrong before!” But the option I was more tempted to pick equated to “Yeah, you’re right to have doubts. This is bullshit. Get out of here while you can.” 

So what are the Kyrian?

Kyrian are the winged transporters of the dead. Deceased spirits are brought to the afterlife by Kyrian to be judged impartially by the Arbiter and are then sent off to their eternal state of being. Souls chosen by the arbiter to become Kyrian themselves are the most selfless people to ever live, who gave all of themselves to help others. That is their Purpose.

Along with that duty, though, they are expected to shed everything of their mortal life. Their emotions, all their memories--you know, every building block that made them a selfless individual in the first place--to become impartial shuttlers of the dead. Apparently they cannot do this job (essentially taking them to the Arbiter to be judged) without forgetting everything.

The PROBLEM with this (which I hope the game addresses--I think it will) is that in destroying these memories, you make an entirely different person. They’re no longer the selfless person they were in life. They’re someone new. Someone who’s never existed before. Someone specifically molded to the Purpose who supposedly cannot defy it, because the Purpose is now all that they are. 

I guess it’s supposed that in a perfectly ordered afterlife, these new Kyrian won’t ever have doubts or worries. That most of them will accept that they were selfless people in life, who now spend their entire afterlives in continued selfless service. The Purpose never accounts for what happens if something goes wrong, and the Kyrian (and disciples, and aspirants) are now faced with something going very wrong. 

Which means the doubts creep in. And the bitterness. These poor beings have nothing from their former lives to comfort them. Any sorrow can’t be bolstered by past triumphs because there aren’t any. Any tribulations can’t be informed by life’s lessons, because there aren’t any. How can they trust in the Purpose when it’s taken everything from them? 

I am still playing, so I need to learn more about the “Forsworn,” who are Kyrian that have rejected the nonsense that one must give up all their memories to serve the Purpose. I have a bad feeling that these forsworn will be nothing but an evil to destroy (which in itself is bullshit) but I have hopes that the game will address the problems with giving up your memories. 

It does unfortunately seem that the Forsworn are just in league with the maw, but this doesn’t yet make sense in context. I’ll have to reserve full judgement on the Kyrian until the full story plays out, and that may take a couple years. 

In any case, my first impression is still that they are a dangerous power fantasy, and I’m not 100% happy with them. But I’ll hold my nose and select them for my Covenant, because the transmog set is fucking awesome. XD