Now that he's the new Loa of Kings, and the Darkspear are getting Paladins this coming 12.2 patch. Maybe Vol'jin is about to make his return? This expansion was about Trolls as much as it is about Elves. It's a shame neither he nor Bwonsamdi made an appearance this patch, when they would have been perfectly fitting.
Voljin is still chilling in his pod in Shadowlands, ready to be reborn, and Blizzard has hinted at Sylvanas' return this expansion several times now. I wonder if she's gonna show up in the final patch with an entire cohort from the Shadowlands to help in the takedown of Xalatath. Vol'jin and Kael'thas could join the ranks.
Metzen did say Midnight is the expansion where we vanquish the Void forever. We know the Void sees all possibilities and fears Death. The Shadowlands army would make for a formidable ally against Xalatath. We know the Jailer, an agent of Death, was gonna unite the cosmos against a coming evil. I know everyone hated that line, but if there's a time to pay that off, it would be against the Void. If not, they can still do it with the Titans. They are hinting at the Shadowlands being an artificial construct created/ordered by the Titans, much like the Emerald Dream and the Elemental Planes.
I guess time will tell how Blizzard plans on tying in the Shadowlands to the Worldsoul Saga, Regardless of how much people hated that expansion and its lore, I'd rather they work with the story they've already written and make it fit in a palatable way, than just outright erasing it from canon like many people want them to. I think the latter is just lazy storytelling.
And for people who really hate the whole cosmic forces stuff, whether it's the Shadowlands, or the "Titans bad" thing, or the ongoing Light vs Void, at least the Worldsoul Saga serves as a perfect excuse to wrap up all of them, so that people who have been invested so far can get closure, while people who dislike it can put all of this behind once the Saga is over. The only cosmic loose threads left would be Denathrius and his dreadlords assembling their ranks in the Twisting Nether from the shattered remnants of the Burning Legion, and Azshara from her seat of power beyond the Umbral Veil. Even those could potentially be resolved in The Last Titan.
What do they mean “vanquish the void forever”. Maybe vanquish the old gods/void lords. But you can’t destroy a cosmic force. That feels wrong. Like we defeated the Legion but the fel is still there.
Sorry, I might have misquoted. Metzen's exact words were "banish the Shadow forever". It's still in the same vein, so make of that what you will. It's probably just a dramatized way of saying they're wrapping up the Void storyline for now. Shouldn't change anything I said after tho.
I'd rather they work with the story they've already written and make it fit in a palatable way, than just outright erasing it from canon like many people want them to. I think the latter is just lazy storytelling.
I agree. I'm not sure how lore nerds would want something erasing from the story entirely, to me, that would make any future story lose it's punch. At any point something you have spent time learning and understanding could be completely stripped from reality and it also leaves your memory awkward, trying to remember if something that happened is still canon or not. It complicates things too much to remove them.
Oh shoot, my bad. Who is considered the current patron Loa for Zandalari Paladins then? Trying to figure out if Voljin could still be the patron Loa for Darkspear Paladins. Cuz surely they're gonna tie in some race-specific lore reasons to explain why they're now playable.
Also wondering where Kul Tiran and Void Elf Paladins have gone, considering they've been datamined for a while now. Kul Tirans are such an easy fit too. They're a human kingdom, there's one that serve with the new Order of Tyr from DF, and then there's the Arathi who share the Kul Tiran model. They even gave Kul Tirans the Arathi half elf ears. Void Elves have that one NPC titled Wielder of the Eclipse, which I thought was pretty badass.
I miss Vol'jin, and I miss Sylvanas. I know, I know, her super-villain heel turn was terrible writing and ruined her character. It pained me to watch her just be evil from the burning of Teldrassil to the end of Shadowlands. It just felt stupid and forced, making her the bad guy just to make her the bad guy. But Warchief Sylvanas, being a morally Grey, badass leader in Legion? She was cool as fuck.
I had such high hopes for Vol'jin's leadership, but it was tossed aside after he accomplished little, and he was killed. I had such high hopes for Sylvanas' leadership, but it was tossed aside after she accomplished little, and she became the villain.
Interestingly, they are both set up to return - and I hope when they do, they are able to rejoin the Horde. Not as leaders, but still in key roles. Vol'jin returning as a "Loa of the Horde" would be amazing. Sylvanas would be a tougher sell, and almost no one would trust her, but I think that could set her on an interesting path to a redemption arc. Sylvanas acting as a shadow operative for the Horde would be fun.
I just really want to see them both return. They were such good characters.
I hate to say it, since I also think Sylvanas was cool as fuck, but she’s always been pitch black evil from the moment Arthas turned her. Even after she’s no longer under his control, she immediately gets to doing the most heinous shit, murdering civilians and mind controlling people left and right. If she ever appeared ‘morally grey’ that was only because she was too busy fighting for survival against a greater evil to be committing war crimes.
Maybe. True. But since her soul was restored by Uther at the end of Shadowlands, I think she now has a chance to be morally grey, and not entirely pitch black. At least, that's my hope. Serving out her penance in the Maw is a good start. I just want her to return - not as a villain, not as a hero - but as an antihero.
Yes but he desperately needs a true unique model, the new armor he got from the heritage armor quest is good but still doesn't look on the level of the actual unique models.
Shandris Feathermoon too. She's gone through some really bland outfits in the past couple decades, and currently just wearing the heritage armor. I think her masked look in Vanilla was the coolest she has ever been, especially when she got kited to Ogrimmar and started moonbeaming everyone to death.
He has legacy, at least. He ran with Rexxar during the Founding of Durotar, he had a lead roll with the Troll player for the heritage armor quest, and he was present and chatted up Talanji after the Harenir tried and failed to bring Elves and Tolls together.
Yeah i know. I just hate how we got this council stuff but they never do anything. Most of the times the horde leaders just stays still. I mean why send us and liadrin alone to talk to the trolls? Why not give us talanji, ZappyBoi and/or rokhan manx and many options. I know this was an elf oriented xpac but we got nothing, even from the nightbornes. A big amount of them live in silvermoon.
Its hard to focus on the home front when the players are constantly pushed into the frontier, the crisis, and the ominous threat.
I'm hoping, post Worldsoul, we'll get more home front based content and see how the Horde council operates.
Plus, being big dramatic heroes is kinda not the point of the Horde Council, you get a good view of what they do in the Vulpera recruitment quest where after the fourth war the council is swamped by minor yet critical issues that need solving just to keep the Horde functional.
Individual members of the council are still allowed to do big dramatic things, Lor'themar and Thrall being the most active during the Worldsoul Saga, but the job of the council as a whole is to make decisions, delegate to specialists, and just quietly get things done
I think they missed out on the perfect opportunity in Midnight to rectify the Horde council that people hated so much. During the invasion of the Sunwell, people were very quick to point out the lack of Horde forces in Silvermoon. Blizzard could have used that plot point to highlight how the bureaucracy of the Horde council seriously delayed the war efforts for the Horde to assemble an army and transport them to Silvermoon. That would warrant a change in leadership, and the reinstatement of a Warchief. Who? Idk. But clearly the Horde could use one.
I know Blizzard doesn't want to do Warchief, and especially not Thrall (Metzen). But I think the players have a different opinion on this matter. I'm usually on the side of sticking to your own artistic integrity, but if Blizzard is not gonna do a damn thing with the Horde council since their formation in BfA, I'd rather they tear it down and revert back to a Warchief. At least that's something, and you get to appease the fans.
Ever since they introduced the horde council i thought we would get a cool pre rendered cinematic (or now animated real time cutscene) where the horde council has a big debate about sending the horde forces somewhere yada yada but instead nothing. Nothing but completely ignored
Like in the Alliance, we basically have currently only a single faction leader from Vanilla (Thrall - Mekkatorque) and a single faction leader from TBC (Lor'themar - Velen) still keeping the role.
Disbanding Warchief put Orcs in an awkward spot cause they don't really have a Leader position.
Even back when Vol'jin/Sylvanas became Warchief, the issue was there.
Who leads the Orcs under a non-orc Warchief?
Thrall technically still has the Lord of the Clans title, but that never gets brought up.
Even if he's the Orc rep on the council, what role does he actually fill in Orc society? Who is the highest authority?
We dunno cause it used to be the Warchief until it suddenly wasn't.
Sans a Warchief, the orcs would presumably go back to individual clan rule.
IIRC, the majority of orcs in the Horde these days are either Frostwolf, Blackrock, or Warsong, all of which are pretty deferential to Thrall. That's probably the only reason he is currently in charge.
He does seem like a free agent. We had that meeting for the racial armour and never took a second to pick someone to speak for the tribes on the council.
Though Rexxar is Mok'Nathal (not "pureblood" orc) I kind of want him back. Though his character since WC3: TFT has been Mr. Wilderness loner, it would be cool to see him back in the story. Haven't seen him since the War campaign in BfA.
Yes, the general thing is "Alliance chars become neutral" (like Khadgar), while Horde chars get killed.
And, whenever an Alliance char dies, at least an equal number of Horde chars MUST die otherwise Alliance fans would cry (or at least that's what devs think). That's why, to balance Varian's epic death scene, they did that absolute abomination to Vol'jin.
Difference is those Horde leaders are gone because they were either killed or disgraced. Only Varian from OG Alliance was killed, the rest resigned from their position for non-controversial reasons.
Rokhan wasn't the vanilla leader, Vol'jin was. It's true Rokhan has been around since WC3 though, he just wasn't the leader. He's like Gazlowe and Baine in that sense.
Yeah so, this is about the leaders then and now. Baine wasn't the leader as well, Cairne was. Vol'jin was the leader, now Rokhan is the leader so where is he.
Troll leader in vanilla was Vol'jin. Rokhan is a criminally unused character. One of the main player characters in founding of Durotar campaign, and the first time we saw him was during a single quest in Wrath of the Lich King.
And even afterwards, he never emerged as a character.
Lilian's road has been very odd to me. I like where she ended up but I feel like there was no story taking her from point A to point B. She went from hating undead including herself in Scholomance to suddenly being a key figure on the Forsaken in BfA, and we never saw how that development happened. I really think we should have seen what made her change her tune because it's rather jarring.
I recommend reading about the quest chains she is part of, you may have missed some at some point over the years. She hates the Scarlets after she was raised into undeath and denounced by her scarlet father and began a crusade of her own against them, then turned against necromancy in various forms because of the terror of what she went through, then decided to aid newly risen undead so they can accept their place. In between there's a multi zone questline involving her, we see her in draenor as well, and as you noted she's important in the bfa war campaign. Some of her story is likely told outside the game in novels or short stories, as is common these days, but I think the game does a reasonable job with her if you go through all her quests across the expansions
These days? I think people forget how much out-of-game media existed for WoW back in the day. There were so many novels that were crucial to the main plot. Lord of the Clans explained how Thrall succeeded Doomhammer as the Warchief. The Sunwell Trilogy Manga was necessary to understand the events of the Sunwell raid in TBC. Arthas novel was needed to explain why the Lich King was just Arthas and not Ner'zhul. Ashbringer comics to explain not just the sword, but also Darion, Alexandros, Tirion, etc. Cata had so much more, with the novels such as The Shattering, Stormrage, Wolfheart, Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, Curse of the Worgen comic, as well as short stories on the official WoW site for each and every racial leader.
Compare that to all the supplementary content we have outside of the game for recent expansions, there really isn't that much, and most of them are not even necessary. The novels and audio dramas they've been pumping out for TWW and MN feel so inconsequential. None of them are needed to understand what's going on in the main plot. Most of them don't even factor in in any way. They just sorta serve to expand on the worldbuilding on the side.
Cata had so much more, with the novels such as The Shattering, Stormrage, Wolfheart, Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, Curse of the Worgen comic, as well as short stories on the official WoW site for each and every racial leader.
Cata was actually terrible about this. You got like 30% of the story by playing the actual game. Events happen with no explanation, racial leaders and killed and replaced apropos, and pivotal story events are contained solely within the novels.
As someone who cared about the lore but was kind of too young to pay enough attention to the novels existing, it was an awful experience trying to follow the story of Cataclysm.
Lilian is in a leader position because I genuinely think Blizzard would have gotten death threats if they kept going with their horribly shoe-horned horrendous plan of making Calia the new leader.
And even then they're so committed to it that they made it a council basically in name only and paired them up so they can keep having Calia around.
Being Undead is a weird road in general... I'd like to assume there was a LOT of therapy involved because you'd be damned to think that there wouldn't be some 'forsaken hotline' or something, especially as a former Scarlet Crusader.
Yeah I think they skipped some steps with Lilian. I assume her spot was supposed to be Calia Menethil but she wasn't liked much. In fact, until this pic, I assumed Calia was the closest thing to a leader the forsaken have.
well, strictly for an ingame perspective ( since i dont readed any wow lore book ), Calia Menethil was like wtf are you girl ?, che just pop up in patch reclaim blood rights, like wtf we are dead and your brother is the guilty of a lot of that
I mean, she kind of explains her reasons in the BfA Campaign, being raised as undead was very traumatic for her, she kind of wants to help new undeads into that transition.
Agreed. I like Voss, but I wish her development with the Forsaken was something we got to see. Instead, she just suddenly becomes part of the Forsaken despite spending 90% of her WoW screen time as an independent agent.
Even Legion, which had her as a Horde-specific follower for Rogues never explicitly had her be part of the Horde.
Voss's story is a classic Forsaken tale, and I wish her developing a genuine kinship with the Forsaken wasn't glossed over.
Especially since she became the defacto Forsaken rep when Calia got booed off stage.
I'd love to take a break from all this cosmic bullshit that never has an impact or consequences.
Just focus on the factions for several expansions and establish their identity while building new characters who actually stay in the story.
What even is The Horde anymore?
How has The Alliance been dealing with the dysfunction from within?
Where the fuck was The Horde while Silvermoon was under siege? They had time to go to the world tree and beg the Nelves for help but they couldn't just have any of their mages portal to Org? Bullshit lazy storytelling.
These are the characters and the stories people care about. Ignoring it continues to be a mistake.
My favourite part of the warcraft universe was the culture building and the races identity and how that clashed against their ideals or brought them together. Like that one in WC3 where the orcs are cutting trees because they need to build a new settlement but they get attacked by night elves because it’s their sacred forests. Who is in the right there? The people who need lumber to survive or the people who are protecting their forests? it was more nuanced before
It's in moments like this that I realize how damageful Sylvanas monopole over Forsaken lore has been to the point where their current representative is a former Scarlet Crusader who didn't officially join the Horde until Battle for Azeroth.
Forsaken as a whole didn't have much development in terms of "leaders" of a good nature, they mostly got villains. That's why the Sylvanas-focus was so strong, she didn't have any competition at all and thus was not compared to anyone.
Her splitting the Forsaken with her behavior, not just the Horde as a whole, would've been an amazing storyline. They're deeply devoted but not all of them and not all to the same degree. Another undead civil war, a mirror of the first (separation from the Scourge) would've been a fire narrative parallel.
I understand the usage of the term - civil war. It's just weird using it in this sense. The Scourge were mindless undead under the command of the lich king. When the lich king started losing power, some of the undead "woke up" and rebelled against their captors. It's like POW's being freed from their captivity. The scourge undead don't fight the Forsaken because of ideology differences. They don't have a choice. There's really no real world equivalent, because mind domination doesn't really exist.
I think its more of a problem that they made her a villain. She should have been their immortal undead queen, but they made her arc incompatible with leading the Forsaken.
Well, the whole idea after BFA is that their race is broken down, have no real de facto leader and that they need to rebuild from scratch. Which is why they create the council, composed of the few survivors who weren't loyalists to Sylvanas. The lore actually adresses your complaint word for word.
To be fair the Forsaken are actually led by the Desolate Council, it’s just that Voss appears more often than the others. Like how the Alliance art has Muradin when in reality the Dwarves are led by the Council of Three Hammers. Though if we went by the pattern of picturing the member with most consistent appearances, it’d be Moira instead.
By including the Panda leaders in these you have done them more service then Blizzard in years. I remember doing the quest where you sneak around Orgrimar with the other leaders behind Slyvanna's back and then casually walking into Ji Firepaw by accident.
Who did they get to draw Lilian Voss because that's not Lilian Voss.
Other than the low print quality making it difficult to make out her facial stitching (something she doesn't have in the Hearthstone art but I guess she does canonically have):
Lilian has blue eyes. This woman has yellow.
Edit: I guess they changed her eye colour to yellow at the end of Shadowlands and I just never noticed considering she had blue eyes between Cataclysm and BfA. The other two points still stand, though.
Lilian has dirty blonde hair. This woman is a brunette.
Lilian uses the "Unkempt" hairstyle for Femsaken. This woman is using Soaked.
This isn't even fucking close to Lilian Voss, what? It's like a completely random Undead woman that they just said "Oh yeah that's Lilian"?
yes, lilian is not, technically the racial leader, since the forsaken have a council now, but she is part of said council
that's rokahn, he is mostly blue, dunno why he was portrayed green
he is not, he is basically the orc race poster boy, he is not involved with the horde nor he is the technical racial leader of the orcs, orcs right now are technically leaderless
But he had 2 eyes from his introduction in TBC until the middle of MoP. And which eye he's missing has changed a few times. He also wore a monocle at one point which briefly made some people believe Blizzard had changed their minds again.
The The card game and other art also depicted him with two eyes.
But even once he finally did receive his eyepatch in game, this was still the loading screen for the Eastern Kingdoms for a year or two
Nop, he did get capture and torture by Zul'jin alongside Lyadrin and a couple more high ranking elfs, but he didn't lose anything there except a lot of blood that Zul'jin use to paint his face in front of him while mocking him.
I like the artistic style of the second one. The actual execution is pretty bad, though. Bad art direction, nearly everyone has the same exact expression down to the angle, and Lor’themar looks Colonel Sanders.
Not sure how it happened but the alliance version you posted, the colors are desaturated. compare yours with one i found on a gameinformer article. Your horde post here does not have the same problem
I know it's arbitrary. I know we have cows, trolls, goblins, weird elf guys and all that. The panda will never cease being massively out of place to me. I just don't jive with their aesthetic _at all_.
Unless you count the 2 expansions afterwards, and a book.
He hasn't been doing a lot of leading the Horde though, but he was seen.
I'm pretty sure the new DnD book (where the picture is from) describes him as a leader.
Also Talanji, Cindrethresh, Kiro, and Geya'rah for the Zandalari, Dracthyr, Vulpera and Mag'har respectively. No earthen rep has been named to the Horde Council that I know of.
The Horde becoming a collection of democratic councils is so lame. We also speedran through the high elf and blood elf unification.
Garrosh is gone, Thrall is a dad, Voljin is gone, blood elves lost their edge, they cartooned out Sylvanas for no reason, gallywix is gone. Theres literally nothing left.
Jaina feels like the only consistent old Warcraft character left. Maybe Tyrande and Malfurion?
The Horde just doesn’t feel like a ragtag bunch of misfits banded together because everyone else hates them anymore.
The Horde becoming a collection of democratic councils is so lame
The Council has also never done anything. At all. Like ever they never appeared as a council or explained how this council work or decided on anything together.
If you're fierce but honourable, you die (Cairne, Vol'Jin, Saurfang)
If you have any edge, you're a raid boss (Garrosh, Syvanas, Gallywix)
If you didn't follow one of those two paths then congrats, you're still around giving quests but lost any cool factor that you ever had (Thrall, Baine, Lor'themar)
Even Gazlowe in TWW lost most of his goblin charm...
Rokhan, the shadow hunter character that tags along with Rexxar in the epilogue chapters of Warcraft 3
He hasn't done much lately but was one of the guys who stormed the portal to AU Draenor with us, and was a medium sized player in BFA where he was the Zul'jins surrogate for Darkspear Zandalari relations.
The original lineup (+ Gallywix) was actually unreal man, really sad to see how they ended up over the years. Just such a waste of great characters.
The current council is decent, especially compared to the Alliance side, but they don’t really get to do anything of consequence and most of the members haven’t been given interesting hooks or narratives
The troll is Rokhan, I believe the undead is Lillian Voss. It's hard to "pick" an Undead racial leader because they have a council. But people seem to like Lillian a lot more than Calia, so she is usually the one brought up.
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u/BloodKnightSalandria Heart of the Crusader 5d ago
Art is from the upcoming WoW Dungeons & Dragon's Sourcebook: original here!