Up next in 10
Death Knights, one of the most iconic, lore-heavy classes added to World of Warcraft, are the core topic of this week's Lore Watch, this time with a focus on what dead means, really. Join Joe and Matt as they discuss the other types of undead we know, and how their existence shapes current Death Knights. The concept of Death Knights, and death in general started a long time ago in WoW's history, so there's a lot of ground to cover.
How were they made? Are they fully dead, or partly alive? How will they make new Death Knights since Sylvanas destroyed the Helm of Domination? And do they literally have to "suffer well?" All addressed in this week's Lore Watch.
Thanks to our supporter Tetsemi for the question.
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[Music]
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hello and welcome to lore watch Round Table freeform discussion about lore and our favorite media I'm your host Joe
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Perez one of several lore focused folks from blizzard watch and I've got my marvelous co-host with me today Matt Rossy how you doing today Matt I exist
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truly in today's day and age that's all we can ever hope for uh but we are going to do a little more than exist for about
0:30
the next hour in uh which we are going to be answering your questions our wonderful listeners if you have
0:37
questions for this or any of our podcasts be sure to send those into to podcast blizzardwatch dcom specify the
0:43
show that it is for in the subject line and any special pronunciation for your name if you are want to send us
0:50
information on Discord you can questions show suggestions uh we have the Q and
0:56
podcast questions Channel where we uh tend to look there uh as well as emails for those wonderful suggestions and
1:02
questions from you same rules apply and if you are a patreon subscriber we have the patron Q in podcast questions
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Channel where we tend to look there first as a way of saying thank you for helping us keep the lights on without
1:13
further Ado our first question comes from T semi uh based on the last podcast
1:19
Joe and met were talking about death kns and how they have to cause pain and suffering to continue to live uh for those of you at home this is called the
1:24
Eternal hunger uh the Eternal hunger or endless hunger is an addiction that afflicts all death kns of the the eban
1:30
blade and gives them the need to inflict pain if death Knights do not regularly inflict Agony upon another creature they
1:37
begin to suffer racking pains that could drive them into a Mindless blood-seeking hysteria far worse than the fate of
1:44
those who suffer from Arcane withdrawal the question really is are there any new death Knights since the Helm of
1:49
domination was broken and reforged into the crown of Wills if there are new death Knights do they still suffer from
1:56
this hunger I don't know and we don't know if any ever will sorry those that's
2:03
the short answer I I realize it sounds very dismissive it's not meant to it's just a fact uh we the last time we got
2:09
new death knights was when bolvar using the Helm of domination made them uh as a
2:16
result those death Knights suffered the same problem that the ones arthus made did uh in that in order to fuel the
2:22
power of the magic That animated their almost dead bodies remember that death Knights aren't quite Dead uh they're
2:29
like really it's very much like they're mostly dead it's kind of like The Princess Bride yeah they're mostly dead
2:34
you know uh but in order to keep them from pushing over into being dead uh
2:41
they have that that malady that you just that Joe just read to us and man I'm
2:47
glad that was in is that in the question that's that's cool if you actually put that in the question thanks man yeah to
2:53
S me covered us on that one so you know that's nice sometimes we have to stop and go look things up because you know we're not machines uh we'll Joe isn't a
3:00
machine and and I'm not a good machine I'm very very broke but regardless it's one of those things where the last time
3:06
anybody did anything like this before the Helm of domination got splintered it was bolvar using the Helm of domination
3:12
same basic setup as arthus did same kind of death Knights since then we have had
3:17
canonically no new ones uh it's been like three years I think it's three years or even more now I don't know how
3:24
long it's been since shadowlands I know that it was a three-year gap between
3:29
shadowlands and dragonflight I don't know how long the Gap is between dragonflight and war war within we know it's at least a couple years I think I
3:35
think there is a defining thing at some point and I think it might be three years um but we'd have to go back in
3:42
Shack and well we're here yeah so it's at least at least three years maybe five or six in that time there have been no
3:49
new death Knights uh at one point we did get some death Knights back uh like
3:54
death kns that have been captured in by Sylvanas were freed from sylvanas's control uh but that was that was
4:01
basically it there's there's been no new gates added since that time so that's that's a no straight up no that has not
4:08
happened what would happen I could not even tell you I don't even know where the crown of Wills is right now like I
4:15
don't know who has it like from my memory uh when was the last time you saw it Joe like when was was it in the raid
4:21
like did it get used to help save andway no it's actually kind of it's what was
4:27
actually given to Pelos to become the new Arbiter the crown of Wills is
4:32
actually worn by Pelos so like when you go and see uh Pelos as the Arbiter uh
4:37
that golden like it's not filigree but the golden banded crown that he wears is
4:44
the crown of will yeah I forgotten that which is really kind of bad I shouldn't have forgotten that but anyway um so
4:50
therefore that would give that mean if the crown of WS even still works the same way that theoretically pelagos
4:56
could use it to do that but why would he that that death kns are I don't know how
5:02
to put this death kns are a gigantic middle finger to how the shadowlands and death is supposed to work um they're
5:08
basically like no I'm not gonna go let you take Mya and put me into the cycle
5:14
of reincarnation thank you very much um I am not going to let you sort me into my my special afterlife house I am going
5:22
to stay in the world of the living even though I'm not supposed to be here and I'm going to use the very power of the
5:28
shadowlands to do other things that that you have in no way shape or form want me
5:34
to be doing because keep in mind the original concept for this was created by goldon and he wasn't even trying to be
5:41
like you he didn't care he W he cared about power and when the the Helm of
5:47
domination and the armor and the sword the runeblade were all placed in the ice
5:52
with the soul of nerzul nerzul was doing not his own will and not the will of the
6:00
Legion but really he was doing the will of the Jailer and the Jailer wanted him
6:05
to create death Knights so that more and more of the power of the shadowlands would be in the Mortal realm thus
6:12
weakening the barrier between as we saw at the opening of shadowlands that was what his goal was that's not pel's goal
6:20
Pelos is not out to invade you know good old living reality so I don't see why he
6:27
would do that but I mean I don't know joke you you know I haven't talk I let you talk for a bit so if you got
6:32
something to throw in here yeah and let's I wanted to actually go back to this because this is something that I did want to talk about a little bit
6:38
which was the original death Knights U because I do think that it is a little bit relevant here in the discussion of
6:44
death Knights In general because death Knights existed before the helmet domination uh was used to create them
6:51
before arthus created death Knights and force them to do his bidding uh these were and and I'm going to paraphrase the
6:58
quote here uh soldiers of Darkness that were created by Gan replace the slaughtered
7:04
warlock Clans remember when there was that warlock Purge uh well Gan was like
7:10
well what if I take these Souls shove them into a g and a gem and a trunin and
7:15
then shove it in a Corpse's hand that seems like it'll work right yeah it's it's [ __ ] I gotta say this I'm not
7:21
trying to interrupt you but I love gon's like almost DIY necromancy you know what I mean like he didn't really know much
7:28
about necromancy so he was winging it he's like um souls in sticks with gems
7:35
on them I'll bedazzle this stick and then I'll put it in his hand look he's back up really that worked yeah okay
7:42
yeah just I'm I'm in awe of you goldon you are the you are the craftiest of you'd be the guy going to Michaels to to
7:49
make your run dead monsters well the interesting thing though is when you start looking at it too is the warlocks
7:55
were not originally necromancers Gan was not a necromancer but the death Knights that were resurrected by gulan were sort
8:02
of a combination of Shaman and Necromancer because they they wielded
8:08
necromantic power which was sort of uh the undead or death death adjacent
8:13
version of what they were wielding in life which was uh Arcane and Fel because
8:19
that's what they were right they were and they had a a history of uh shamanic Traditions uh through their people that
8:25
they knew of uh and the warlocks were corrupted versions of of Shaman originally at least on this version of
8:32
dror in this in this history is timeline they they followed gulan into the dark rituals of places but they were all
8:38
originally I believe all of them were originally Shaman so when they're resurrected into these death knight forms yeah they're raising the dead
8:46
they're you know throwing necromantic bolts and causing people's skin to melt but they're also you know using
8:53
Elemental energies and calling upon the elements uh in the same same manner as
8:58
they would have in life which I think is absolutely fascinating actually you know what that ties into though go for it uh
9:05
when you first go to I think it's howling Fjord uh I think this you can happen whether your hord or Alliance but
9:11
if your alliance it's right next to your starting base uh there's a globe that if
9:16
you are traveling at one point you will be traveling through a spirit realm and you are told if you know don't Don't Go
9:22
Near anything too powerful there's there's stuff in there that could be really bad don't don't do it if you
9:28
ignore that warning and go up to the globe you will realize that the Lich King himself is standing there in it uh
9:36
to a fight you don't win wherein the Lich King kind of smashes you around with contemptuous ease but then he goes
9:43
he stops and he sniffs the air around you and goes hm Shamanism I was a shaman
9:50
once and now arthus menil was never a shaman right nope he was never a shaman
9:56
so when the Lich King tells you he was a shaman once what does he mean well we see that later on after arthus is killed
10:04
we find out that the Helm of domination had a guest and that guest was gulon
10:10
like not gulon sorry it was Kel it was kelad kelzad was still in there um no
10:15
it's kusan I'm I'm sure about it I remember doing the quest and what's really fascinating about that to me to
10:21
keep thinking about it I'm saying kelad and I don't mean kelad I was saying yeah you don't mean Kel isad you mean
10:30
sorry kelad n same guy no they're not um but the thing about that is to me is
10:37
that's kind of an interesting thing because it's the Helm of domination that's really the important thing right that Frost has its power but Frost isn't
10:45
what's important to being the Lich King because we know bolvar when he put on the Helm of domination became the Lich
10:51
King he didn't have Frost more he never had frostmore so if nul was always in
10:56
the helmet and is it the fact is is arthus form of necromancy just Shamanism
11:04
is all the necromancy we've seen from well gulan up just Shamanism because
11:11
here's the thing I keep thinking about we've seen dark Shaman can use the their
11:16
shamanic powers to force Elemental beings into a bance right what's the
11:22
other thing Shaman do besides Elemental beings oh no ancestor Spirits yeah
11:28
ancestor Spirits shaman have a very and I was going to that's actually where I was kind of going with this uh because
11:33
this leads into the the next thing that I was going to talk about afterwards but yeah they they have a way to talk to
11:38
their ancestors talk to the spirits that are in the shadowlands right now that we
11:44
know we know that those Spirits are in the shadowlands shaman are almost uniquely qualified for that and in this
11:52
version of necromancy that we see in the creation of the original death Knights it's literally
11:58
takinga we now know it'sa shoving it into a container and shoving that
12:03
container into a once living body because the bodies that they use were Stormwind Knights um they weren't you
12:11
know orc bodies which is why Taran gorfine looks the way he does when we run into him in burning Crusade um the
12:18
interesting thing here is is while we can't have new death knights from the Helm of domination because quite simply
12:24
put the Helman domination does not exist anymore and it wasn't by the power of
12:30
frostborn which kind of exists in a different form now um You can however
12:37
still have death knights in this manner and part of the reason for that is because some of these be are still alive
12:44
and at least canonically and I don't remember how many there were um because I know we know some of the named ones
12:51
but there were more uh cuz he raised an entire Army of them we just I think there was like 13 named ones or something like that I can't remember off
12:57
the top of my head um with Taran gorfine being the first you could literally just
13:03
have when ones that weren't killed became liches by the power of of kill
13:09
Jaden right and we know that there are a ton of liches out there there's a handful of them still in existence we
13:15
haven't killed all of them we we would like to we just haven't uh and those ones arguably still know how they were
13:22
made or how others were made because it wasn't just gulan or Taran gorfine that
13:28
were making additional death Knights so we could still have new death knights we could still have the ability to take a
13:36
spirit from the shadowlands pluck it and put it into a power Gem and shove that power gem into the chest of a corpse and
13:43
reanimate that corpse it's not very pretty not that the other one is but we also know that they weren't plagued by
13:49
the same hunger right they didn't need go ahead that's what I was going to talk
13:54
to you about here because here's my thing I don't think it's actually a different system I don't think there's
14:01
anything different that's dependent on the Helm of domination to do this I think Arthur's used the Helm of
14:07
domination because he had it you know if you have an incredibly powerful Relic that gives you the ability to trample on
14:14
the the the lines between life and death you're going to use it but you don't
14:20
need it and that's what I've been thinking about as we've been talking about this I've been thinking about that
14:25
because here's the thing the L the the original generation of death didn't suffer that hunger because they
14:31
were dead they were Undead they were all the way dead and here's the thing let me
14:38
finish and you can you can tell me why I'm wrong but let me let me get through it when you you have what goldon did he
14:44
made a power Focus right and he used he used the spirits of his warlocks to
14:49
essentially Empower it and thus binding the spirit of the Warlock to the trunin
14:56
which was then placed in the hand of the of the death knight which meant that they couldn't let go of it like when
15:01
Teran gorfine and his ilk were running around they kept that trunch in their hands because if they dropped it that
15:07
they were just it's very much like a even more limited liches philacter and
15:12
which is why I think when they became liches they were then freed from that problem because liches don't need to be
15:18
holding on to their philacter all the time just they go back to it if you kill them which we saw when we killed the
15:24
actual kelus zad that I'm using the right name this time uh and then his f after he got taken to lights Hope Chapel
15:32
and given to a guy who turned out to actually want to be a lich uh so yeah that whole thing and kelad came back but
15:39
that means for one thing kelad could come back again like that's all it's always a possibility which is they can
15:44
come back again and kelad knows dang well how to make Undead servants he
15:49
always has so I think there's but let me one more thing and then I'll shut up all of this to me indicates that there is in
15:56
Shamanism an inherent ability to bring the dead back to life and they've had it
16:02
as a Game feature since the first days they had combat Resurrection even no
16:07
they didn't they have self Resurrection which is completely different but they that's still them and it's still resing
16:14
a dead person and now that the the death Knights have combat res right a death
16:20
knight can res an ally during fighting raise Ally yeah which to me it suggests
16:25
the thing you're talking about it's literally you using Shamanism on different kinds of spirits yeah I can
16:33
see where you'd be going with that but I think there's another layer to it and I think there is a little bit I think
16:38
there's a difference between the way that arthus did it and the way that gulan did it in maybe and again both I
16:45
do think there's a difference I agree with you there I think there's a difference in how they did it both I don't think that that means that they
16:52
they're not the same process both Roots may come from the same place but I think
16:57
it's a bind thing that's different because one thing that I don't think has ever been explored is with the trunin in general
17:05
being given to another corpse and if by doing so that corpse is now reanimated
17:13
because again the trunch and the gem inside of it that trunin is what is
17:18
holding or anchoring the spirit versus you know what though we do actually have an example of that good tyon gend the
17:26
body you see him in in the burning Cade is not the body he had before and they make a point of it oh that's fair but
17:33
also his body that he's in right now also has wings where the original one doesn't but regardless so the point I'm
17:39
trying to make though is death Knights can die right the oh yeah the death
17:45
Knights that were created by arthus are capable of dying and one of the things that I think was interesting is a bunch
17:52
of the constructs that the Lich King made in general were tied to their
17:58
original bodies probably because it was easier to do so and shove that Spirit back in but in each particular case I
18:06
think this is really evident in the Sylvanas book uh which highly recommend if you did not read it uh I would really
18:12
recommend reading it it's a very interesting perspective on the character as well as uh a further development of
18:19
our time of a banshee but the reason I bring this up is the Helm of domination I think wo control mechanisms in because
18:28
the Gem and the trunin is almost like a prison you don't have to worry that spirit is never going to the the
18:36
shadowlands it's never being recycled as long as that gem exists or as long as that Flory exists that spirit is always
18:44
contained you we talked about that you said that earlier and and that's true yeah it's essentially trapped in the the
18:50
spirits that are created by the Lich King are not they can be removed from
18:56
their bodies in fact banshees in particular which are the spirits ripped out of the still living body of a victim
19:04
and then shoved back into the corpse to reanimate it which can then leave its
19:09
body as part of its uh abilities but again it exerts a control there's an
19:15
effort there's a will to put them in line death Knights are an effort to
19:20
correct that if you think about it right when arthus is the Lich King cuz he
19:26
wasn't making the Banshees when he was the Lich King he was making with frostmore he was doing it before he was
19:31
fully the Lich King he was just the death knight when he became the Lich King and made death Knights he needed a
19:37
control mechanism that control mechanism is essentially writing a line of code that says you have to inflict damage to
19:44
maintain your Humanity you want to maintain your Humanity don't you that's the only thing that keeps you from the
19:50
animals I I can make sure that you maintain it but you have to do what I say otherwise this hunger will consume
19:57
you it's programmed in here's why I don't entirely agree
20:03
with that who made arthus a death knight himself by picking up frostborn no
20:08
that's where his soul went but who made him a death knight and who made the other death Knights that were made while
20:15
arthus was just a death knight and wasn't going around making more of them there were others who made them was was
20:20
it it was kelus zad in the Helm of domination correct canonically the Lich King nerzul transformed AR arthus keep
20:27
saying nul yeah guy keeps saying Kel's sorry but yeah it was nul nul transformed arthus
20:33
menil into a death knight by corrupting him with the cursed Run Blade Frost yeah but it still was nul who did it and nul
20:40
who did it to the others by itself Frost doesn't necessarily turn you into a lich
20:45
into a death knight here's my question and I think it's an interesting one what's the difference between nurul and
20:54
gulon what thing does one of them have that the other doesn't besides the Helm of domination yes because we're assuming
21:01
for the moment that the the code you're talking about comes from the from the uh the the Helm of domination but we're
21:07
also assuming that you know they both of them have the ability to somehow create an undead Force why is one doing it one
21:15
way and the other doing it a different way I don't know why gulan knows the
21:21
legions binding Magics nul doesn't Shaman don't bind Spirits they can force
21:29
them into doing things they can punish them if they don't obey them we've seen
21:34
that with DAR shamans they can negotiate but they can't force them to do things
21:39
but gulon figured out how he bound an elemental Spirit called you know called
21:45
sirak the fire lord with the cipher of damnation why is it the cipher of damnation yeah but the cipher of
21:51
damnation was an extension that he understood because binding Troublesome Spirits was something that Shaman did do
21:58
there already predent for it not to that exent I don't and not in the way we're
22:03
talking about I think think about it this way there's there's several pieces that gulon and nul each would have
22:10
experienced differently one of them is that nul was a lot more interested in
22:15
for lack of a bit a word the what Naru become when they fall the void entities
22:21
what happens with the void entities as you as a as a Naru that has been injured grievously starts to fall in into the
22:28
void form what do the ancestor Spirits do they come they're they're drawn to it
22:35
they're essentially going to be consumed by it why what's the we know that the
22:40
void is invaded the shadowlands several times we've seen the results of that why
22:46
does that happen we know that yag Saran called himself the old god of death and
22:51
we know that arthus was making use of saronite why what's the and we know that
22:57
the the old gods are the source of the cipher of damnation in terms of who got
23:03
it from them Gan got it from them it's it's the stuff the legion originally used because we saw in the Warlock Quest
23:09
that the legion originally used this binding magic but it is in fact Titanic and the Helm of domination because it
23:16
was created by the you know warped version of the Primus was using that
23:21
same kind of magic domination magic that's that's what we're all talking about all this stuff in the end goes back to domination magic if you don't
23:28
have access to it directly binding it into a gem or a truncheon or a philacter
23:34
seems to be a workaround and it's one that gulan seemed to have gotten from whatever Source he did that nul either
23:42
never got it or never used it and nul remember nul studied teron Gori he
23:48
looked at what had been done to him yeah but he also was a tool in a different
23:53
capacity than gulan was right and I don't want to I don't want to straight too far from the question cuz I would like to get back to to my point at some
23:59
point but I want to respond to this the I'm not even done but go ahead so gulan
24:04
was a servant that was still exercising a level of Free Will by the time nul was
24:09
shoved into the crown he had he was basically limited so he had all the knowledge with none of the context he
24:16
didn't understand necessarily everything yes he could have studied Taran gorfine and understood some of the Magics there
24:22
but again he was ostensibly a prisoner of the helm himself being use as a tool
24:29
as part of his punishment right is that is that not correct it's correct but it's also the fact that he was a Tor of
24:35
the Jailer really everybody else he thought he was a PA of everybody else but he was really a PA of the Jailer
24:41
even after he got away from everybody else and that to me has a lot of significance what I'm looking at when I
24:47
see all this the thing that I I keep coming back to is the idea that essentially there are different ways
24:54
different approaches tap into power but we're told in the shadow lands that necromancy doesn't care what its power
25:02
source is it doesn't care necromancy itself is not a power source it's a
25:08
framework of magic it's it's how to do things you can do those same things with
25:13
like the light you can do them with the Arcane what do Shaman ultimately tap into when they use their power what is
25:21
the the the mechanic of shamanism it's the quote unquote Fifth Element right
25:27
Dre thar called at that what is that Fifth Element well it'sa and we know
25:32
it'sa because we've seen what happens on worlds where Thea isn't getting fed to an a hungry baby Titan versus worlds
25:40
where it is and the elements on worlds where the en is all getting fed to a hungry baby Titan the elements fight for
25:47
the scraps they fight for the leavings all that anima goes into originally it's
25:54
it's designed to head into the shadowlands and then be used as part of the cycle of re ation but Shaman can
25:59
clearly tap into it like that's that's a whole big part of the entire shamanic tradition and I think that's why both
26:07
nurul and I managed to not say kill Jaden this time and gulon managed to
26:13
come up with their their cludge workarounds to create death Knights and it's why I think that you're right that
26:20
we could get others but I don't think they would have to we we'd have to wait for one of the original death Knights I
26:26
think some enterprising necrom right now could come up with something that was the point I was getting towards which is
26:33
it doesn't necessarily have to be the originals but they have that knowledge there is the point that I was making is
26:39
that sources of that knowledge exist whether it's their Toms whether it's
26:45
their journals whether it's finding them themselves and torturing it out of them
26:51
or whether it's just an enterprising magic wielder that has read one too many
26:56
books or whether it's somebody who's making a deal with something that escaped from the now blown up prison
27:04
that was Dollar on right like we or you know going back even further we we have
27:09
no idea how many generations of of magical experiments were lost when the
27:15
night elf Empire went to the bottom of the ocean yep and the and they were messing around with all sorts of stuff
27:21
well I was gonna say and look at look at the the whole concept of night elves and their Spirits hanging behind look at
27:26
when we were in uh Dall uh when we start going into the basement there um H you can find banshees going back to yep
27:34
generations and generations even though there's no other members of I don't know what you call them the The Scourge
27:40
anywhere near them because the scourge is more recent and even beyond that the other thing that keeps coming to mind
27:46
though about all of this is you talked about the Helm of domination inserting it as a code but what if it isn't a code
27:51
what if it's simply that there has to be a condition met well I mean maybe
27:56
there's a possibility for that but I have I have a I have another followup to that when you're done okay well I'm I'm
28:02
spitballing here so might want to hear what you're going to say because then I will spitball off of it because the more we're talking about this the more that
28:07
this also reminds me of the light forging process as well yeah you see you you you're right where I am on this okay
28:14
good this is why I want to let you talk because you're coming up go go but I mean like looking at the light forging
28:19
process as well looking at the light forged they're essentially rebuilding and I'm air quoting rebuilding a body um
28:25
they're bigger stronger they live forever um they can live for 10,000 years but how does that happen it's not
28:33
just because they wield the light because plenty of light wielders die they don't live forever they go to the
28:40
light they go to their promise end they go to Bastion they go wherever right but one of the things that I think is
28:46
interesting is that a light Forge simply doesn't if they are killed their Spirit releases and goes wherever it's going to
28:52
go that makes perfect sense same thing happens with death Knights but when you're reforging something
28:58
what are you doing are you in my mind all light forging is and I've I've said
29:04
this before is light forging is essentially light necromancy it's binding that Spirit to that vessel and
29:12
keeping it in perpetuity the same way that the scours were reanimated in by
29:18
shoving animal back into their vessels the same way that the original death are the initial CNM involved in your thought
29:25
process here go for it they're they're close well that's my thing is Kellam menl is this yeah right down to a Naru
29:32
helping do it yeah yeah there's like no difference between Kalam menathy and a light forged except that calam menthyl
29:39
is obviously dead which which is interesting because and we talked about this before in particular when we got
29:46
the short stories when nathanos got his new body right what is the one thing we talked about that the scourge process is
29:54
an incomplete process to a perfect Undead body it allows Decay but still
30:00
traps the soul inside the body it is not finished and what did hela's Valk here
30:08
teach Sylvanas how to do bind anima yep and what did she do with it B she bounda
30:14
by finding anima that was compatible with neos's soul and body his lineage
30:19
and using it to rebuild his body and anchor his soul to it and then his body looked alive yep not quite but much
30:27
closer is closer to what Sylvanas is but the the the the where you go with that is
30:33
now this goes back to an old question we had which is the future of the Forsaken
30:39
this is the future of the Forsaken potentially all it's going to take is some enterprising uh scholar or warlock or
30:46
Mage or any of the millions of entities that we've come across or some secret
30:51
Titan toome uh in any of these hidden archives that we're finding across the new expansion and the war Within uh or
30:58
possibly back in the Empire of uh arrai all these different loose threads that could lead to all of a sudden The
31:05
Forsaken are longer decrepit bodies uh or prisons of these Souls being tortured
31:10
by the Decay that they feel every single day they're just Undead they're not dead
31:16
they're not alive they're not dead they're not decaying they become exactly like the death Knights they become
31:22
exactly like not quite liches cuz liches are a weird extreme on that Spectrum but
31:28
their body is reforged their pain is gone they become a perfected model of
31:33
that reanimation and it's all the same forged like a Titan forged like that same thing that we saw with uh with
31:40
these various reol that get turned into what they are reversing us and the process of reversing in the process of
31:47
reversing the curse of flesh on the ones that we saw with the tolv like all of this is a Titan process well here's the
31:53
other thing too though all this is order Magic all this is order Magic which goes from domination dang it or the crown of
32:00
Wills um but then that leads you to the next question which is this if there is
32:06
a cost and we see in every version of this we've seen so far there's something
32:11
there's a cost of some kind but hold on let me finish and we can keep going if there is a cost what's the cost the
32:17
light Forge are paying I was just gonna ask that question yeah what is it are they paying it if they're not is
32:23
somebody else um we saw the other let me
32:29
get this and we saw in the other version of dror the the the one from Warlords at the end when the light bound showed up
32:36
they're very similar to the light forged but they're they're apparently unable to see what's causing the destruction of
32:43
dror yes but that could just be pure zealotry that doesn't necessarily have to be the it could be but here's my
32:48
question we don't see Zara with them and I'm starting to wonder was Zara paying
32:55
that price and if she was what happened when she died because we we know there's
33:00
there's light forged that we meet like the the ones that join the the alliance essentially there's still new ones right
33:07
they're still making new ones how yeah but who's doing it I guess I'm not saying there's I'm not saying that they
33:13
have to be a price but I'm saying we need to know about that kind of thing to speculate properly and I want to see
33:19
what they tell us what we find out as things move forward yeah but I don't know if we'll ever really get an answer to that question because that I think
33:25
that's the thing is like I don't know that they're always has to be a price because no we don't know that that's
33:31
absolutely if that's the case what price is Cia paying um the price that the
33:36
that's interesting actually I can give you one for CIA what's that she died the price she paid was her life she actually
33:42
died but the same could be said of anybody that's in this facility right like with I don't know that's the thing
33:48
we don't know if that's the case we don't know if the light forged actually die terion the case canly never
33:54
mentioned it Terran has not mentioned it if he might the thing is is that if they
33:59
all have to die first tralan might not know I don't think he does and that's the thing like yeah and and the reason I
34:04
bring that up is because what is death in according to Warcraft death is when your anima leaves your body so if your
34:12
anima leaves your body and then is shoved back into it you've died technically according to the rules of
34:17
the shadowlands you've broken out of the cycle you still died because that is literally all that mechanically means in
34:24
terms of the cosmos um it's it's a fascinating thing because again and I
34:29
don't know that there necessarily has to be a price I think that the price comes
34:35
up when the process is either imperfect because the people processing it or doing it don't actually fully understand
34:42
the mechanics of it because they are not a Celestial being right because think about it gulan very smart very conniving
34:50
very powerful not a cosmic entity as much as he would want to be right nul
34:56
very smart not NE necessarily conniving but driven to Madness and a fervent uh
35:02
sort of like zealotry that Rivals even that of the the lightbound uh to a
35:07
certain degree still not a cosmic entity right like all of the all these beings
35:12
that create these imperfect Creations are not Cosmic entities even wearing the
35:19
Helm of domination and being tied to the Jailer the Jailer at the time is an
35:25
imperfect Cosmic entity not at the full height of their powers not a full Cosmic
35:31
entity there's still a gaping hole in their chest at this point when these things are being made and it might be a
35:37
limitation there in as well or it could literally be a mechanic that arthus wo
35:43
into it and the reason I bring this up is because of that control factor and going back to the Sylvanas book one of
35:49
the things that they stress in there is that when she was a Banshee she could push against her Reigns but every so
35:56
every time she did so there there was a pain she would be shoved back she would be Shackled back into to Conformity
36:02
based off of whatever arthus his will was and a lot of the same way that hunger that the the endless hunger the
36:09
Eternal hunger is that without him having to focus on because again by the
36:14
time the death Knights are being made by arthus he's already lost a whole bunch of his lieutenants he's lost a bunch of
36:20
the Banshees he's like lost a whole subsection of his people because he tried exerting his his will directly and
36:27
so you see a bunch being created where his will doesn't necessarily have to be exerted constantly all of the time and
36:35
even think darus talks about that too right like it wasn't a constant pressure like it was for Sylvanas uh it was you
36:42
know this hunger this thing that you know while there was the sort of the the reupping of the seeds of the program or
36:48
the the the directive given from arthus it wasn't the only thing keeping them in
36:54
line because if they didn't do the thing which essentially was what Arthur wanted them to do anyway which is so chaos
37:01
cause destruction more bodies for the Pires take over the world blah blah blah they would just lose themselves and
37:07
they're still trying to figure out a way out of their incarceration essentially so again we don't know if there's a
37:13
price like you said I don't know if we're ever going to figure out if there must be a price I think here's the thing I think you might be on to something
37:19
with the concept that you know then it's these beings are imperfect that and thus can't do a perfect job but I don't know
37:26
if it has anything to do with being a cosmic identity well I mean if it is I mean think about for being created by
37:31
Naru right yeah but here's the thing not not to get away from that I just think that we need to look at for lack of bit
37:37
a word there's I I keep coming back to the concept that in every version of it
37:42
we've ever seen there is something happening because essentially the light
37:48
Forge might have the one secret that the only people we've ever seen who also seem to have it were the mou and that is
37:56
the ability to essentially transfuse Ana technically technically I don't know
38:02
that that's necessarily true anymore because of the earth and in the the Earth and we would now have seen it from them too but I'm talking up until this
38:09
point although we still need to see more about the Earth but I'll I'll accept that the Earth and might also be part of that process and that would be
38:16
interesting because it points us back to Titan and other beings involvement but but let me get back to the thing that
38:23
we're talking about what I think there might be new death nightes maybe even perfected detonates but I don't think
38:28
it's necessarily the case that a cosmic Force comes along and can do it better I think it goes back to what we were
38:34
talking about with the first ones and I think it's that people like callia is it possible the reason CIA doesn't have to
38:40
pay a price isn't that she died for it but because more than one Cosmic force
38:46
is involved in her creation that's entirely possible and it also leads back to ardin weld as well right which we
38:52
talk where you get fullon reincarnation there which is what send back yeah
38:58
you're sending Thea back to a physical form in or you're sending Ana back to it
39:03
it's it's like the Mind SLP soul and anima seem to be separate but related
39:09
Concepts because you can keep a soul and drain its anima but not kill the soul
39:14
right they call them Faith what was it they were called reliable ones all reliables yeah like gash apparently
39:21
could have just been like his his anger was so great he could have just been drained forever and he only got out of
39:27
that by basically being so angry he could use himself as an explosive um so if you think about it that way when
39:34
you've got the ability to to transfuse ano to Puta back into the thing however
39:40
you get that ability whether it's from by pullinga out of the shadowlands or by
39:45
getting it from something else because we know other Cosmic forces must have access to anima right I mean because
39:50
it's part of the makeup of the universe yeah so I mean we already know the devourers eat it and the Brokers are
39:55
aware of it the ethereals are likely aware of it as well and it's likely infused in some of the stuff that they
40:01
do uh there's there's evidence that that Ana is a known quantity in the universe among multiple things we've got we've
40:08
got evidence that at least some Naros seem to have some kind of linkage to entities like loon who is not a Titan as
40:16
far as we can tell is both powerful and and threatening enough to make both old
40:22
gods and Titans consider what they're doing could aloon do that we know aloon
40:27
can turn a sder back into an elf we know aloon can do a lot of things we know
40:33
that aloon can create the night Warrior would the night Warrior the night Warrior is not a perfect being in the
40:38
same way just because the night Warrior is actually channeling the total of a loon's aggressive power yeah but the
40:45
night the the night Warrior also doesn't seem to die and or is not being reconfigured it's just a channeling
40:51
vessel which I think is a little bit different yeah but that that goes back into what we saw with with uh andwin in
40:58
shadowlands I think that the channeling thing we see there could be something one would use to make things like the
41:06
light forged to the point where we know that um canonically some night elves
41:12
joined up and became more partially infused with alon's power and now they
41:17
have the the black eyes and the kind of the siderial aspect to them and we know
41:24
that the undead night elves are being brought back into the fold right which means that Alon is accepting them and we
41:31
know that aloon is a psychopomp the night Warrior specifically is intended as a psychopomp and Alon can send dead
41:36
people anywhere she wants to in the shadowlands she doesn't have to like send them where they're supposed to go
41:44
so a lot of aoon kind of comes in here like what is aoon up to what is she doing how is she doing it and man we've
41:50
really gone far off from the death knight thing but it still actually is tied in because could aoon just make
41:56
death Knights well and I guess the question is how I don't know that she could and the reason I and the reason I
42:02
say that is because why haven't we seen it before or is it different and that's
42:07
why wisps exist because that's that because that's another thing like wisps are often referred to as Loa we know
42:13
that they're Spirits we know that they they are entities of of of elves or being that have existed for uh eternity
42:21
or from a long time God I forgot low it dude keep going but man we're gonna we got another thing to talk about now well
42:27
know that the Lowa necessarily do the same thing but we can talk about that too but the whole idea of these be being
42:34
able to sort of bind something to something else is not new I mean Mages do this with water
42:40
Elementals uh warlocks do this with demons uh Shaman did and I will and I
42:46
will this is a hill I will die on before the cipher of damnation uh the world the the shaman absolutely could bind
42:54
Elementals in fact it was part of our tool kit for a very long time in game as a mechanic that wasn't before the cipher
43:00
of dation dude that was way after it to be fair canonically it was we can talk
43:05
about that but EC canonically it's something that existed before the cipher um but the whole point is like these are
43:10
not new Concepts it essentially the limitation winds up being how much free
43:16
will The Entity has if any once it's reincarnated cuz like the original death
43:22
Knights going back to the original thing they were essentially like free wills they swore their allegiance to
43:28
doomhammer but they made their choices as is evident by Taran gorfine later on he wasn't Bound by a directive he didn't
43:34
necessarily have to do anything the only thing that the problem that they had was he was tied to that trunin that gem
43:40
inside of that trunin um gorian leg straight up left goldon to die yeah absolutely F this I I'm not going in
43:46
there that's thing's full of demons you're out of your mind right and and as far as the light Forge go the only thing
43:52
that really keeps them in line and I'm air quoting in line is their zealotry to
43:58
the cause and that's why they go through the whole trials to become light forged
44:03
to begin with right like and I'm sure somebody's going to yell at me for this at some point but the whole light Forge
44:09
TR and I said this at the beginning all of that was set up to essentially radicalize you to the light right to
44:16
yeah keep this in mind now keep that in mind what you just said keep it in mind vulin okay Vin dies yep goes on a
44:24
spiritual journey and takes on the role of the Lowa of Kings mhm in zandalari
44:31
cosmology their version of the Lowa what force does the Lowa of Kings most often
44:37
represent what does he manifest the light the zandalari paladins all Drew
44:43
from him from the Lowa of Kings who was originally the big dinosaur um I can't
44:49
remember his name but now it's vulgan former Shadow Hunter is he going to be a
44:55
shadow Lowa of Kings or is he going to use the light it looked to me like he was using the light already yeah but we
45:01
also know that that necessarily doesn't mean that it has to be light based because bam SDI for a very brief period
45:08
of time was the low of Kings yeah and bamsi sure as heck did not wield light
45:13
but that's my point is he was technically the Lowa of Kings but he wasn't manifesting the spirit that volin
45:21
is air to which is the same spirit that his predecessor did and my point is that
45:27
however you want to look at it he went through a process that ended up with him coming back yes but I as a being that is
45:33
not what he was I if you look at what happens to volan essentially he kind of
45:40
did the Arden wield thing without going to Ard wield he did go to Arden wield yeah but he doesn't actually get
45:45
reincarnated by the Winter Queen through the normal process he's there as part of the whole um hey Bon samd what are you
45:52
doing what's up I I just I feel like with Bon samd too and with muala you now have even
45:58
more complicating tying the Lowa into this whole thing no I don't think I don't think we do and the reason why and
46:04
and this is something I I will argue the Lowa are not death Knights right and I'm not saying that you're say and I'm not
46:10
saying that you're saying that they are but also this is a whole separate sort of thing because I think if anything the
46:16
Loa are closer to the pantheon of death than they are to the other stuff we're talking about whereas they attribute
46:22
they they wear mantel right and they can be replaced they can have other people
46:27
wear The Mantel cuz that's essentially what bamdi did and that's essentially what vulgan is doing uh consuming the
46:34
last of the Ana of uh razan uh and then assuming that mantle and yes he may be
46:41
manifesting light but also we don't know that that's actually light right it could be the light of ardwell it could
46:47
be the light of whatever troll Valla exists there there could be any number
46:52
of things we haven't really encountered him in his new form with any sense of amount of time that I don't even think
46:58
he knows regardless though there is a cycle and series of of rebirth but I also would argue that the Loa and the
47:05
wild gods are imperfect beings in the same vein as like arthus as far as him
47:13
being the Lich King um they may have their own Specialties they may have their things but they're not quite on
47:18
the same level as like a Titan or possibly even a Naru in the terms of what power and and influence that they
47:25
can bring to the types of cycle and yes they can have paladins but what does that actually mean does a paladin have
47:31
to be light does a paladin have to be you know what we know is the human
47:36
concept or the dwarf concept of a paladin or can there be other variations of it like you know can there be night
47:43
paladins can there be paladins that worship you know we can talk about the whole Alon thing and you could argue
47:48
that aloon is another part of the light and and all that other stuff I certainly shows the ability to manipulate the
47:55
light I and the thing about a loon is we come back to my idea that you have to have more than one Cosmic Force embodied
48:01
in a being uh loon definitely embodies more than one sure because like you you've seen her use Arcane uh you've
48:08
seen her use the light but um the Naru are definitely at least some of them are related to her um you've seen her use
48:14
Shadow Magic like some of her her followers can straight up do all sorts of stuff that that shadow Hunters can do
48:21
and and arguably the night Warrior is a shadow Paladin and I don't know that you
48:27
can have a pal without the light but I also don't know how interconnected these forces actually are because we always
48:33
look at them as oppositional that might just be us doing that it's quite
48:39
possible go ahead I'm sorry I also think that it's outside of sort of like the bounds of the discussion inside of here
48:44
because the oppositional part of it in any sort of thing doesn't necessarily matter because that's just nature right
48:50
except that I think again you you're seeing this as a part of like apart from
48:57
nature I see it as a part of nature that the opposition is key to things like
49:04
death kns yeah and how you get them but and and I don't I know we can't just sit
49:10
I can't sit here and go haha boom boom boom this point it's true but I can say that these things exist already we've
49:17
seen them and we know that there are things that there's a there's a way to bind things that is very synonymous with
49:25
order magicd domination magic that is in itself very similar to the cipher of
49:30
damnation which could very well just be those original Titan words that were used by warlocks to summon demons and if
49:39
demons and the dead can both be called by words are those words related and and
49:46
is it all the same thing I don't know the answer to that question I can't answer it and we've basically spent most
49:51
of an episode going back and forth on this but I think it at some point we
49:57
could see death Knights created by the crown of Wills we could they wouldn't be death Knights the way we've had death
50:03
Knights because they' literally be knights from the Shadowland we also don't know that we could also have death
50:09
knights from any other number of sources which is sort of the point would be different in their own way I think that
50:15
what what you get with you see with Kalia the the lesson that they tell you about when you go through that whole
50:20
Quest at the end of shadowlands is that necromancy is not the power source and
50:26
you can do the same thing in many different ways so you could do death knights in any number of ways you could
50:33
have a death knight that is again embodied in an item but who is raised by
50:38
that item like a philacter it doesn't have to be like the trunin the reason gon used the truncheon was because he
50:44
was under time pressure like literally come up with something right now or I'm going to kill you like when you are
50:50
working and your boss is saying okay if you don't have a solution to this problem in about 15 minutes I'm going to
50:56
cave in your head that probably you you probably skip things that would take longer to execute does that make sense
51:03
yep sure does but I think that's going to do it for today folks uh we could probably go on for a little bit more
51:09
about this and I'm sorry that we didn't get some more questions I assure you keep them coming we will get to them uh
51:14
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