Up next in 10
If in between hauling Brann's sorry carcass through another delve and racing around in your car in Undermine you haven't been paying close attention to the story of The War Within, we've got your back. Starting from the pre-patch and the radiant song, Matt and Joe recap the events of the expansion so far. There will be spoilers up through the end of the Undermine raid, so be wary. And of course, it just wouldn't be a Lore Watch Podcast if there wasn't a bit of heavy speculation as to where the story might be going next.
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0:00
[Music]
0:09
hello and welcome to Lore Watch round table free form discussion about lore in your favorite media i am your host Joe
0:15
Perez one of several lore focused folks from Blizzard Watch and I've got my marvelous co-host with me today Matt
0:20
Rossi how you doing today Matt i was just looking at something about Marvel
0:26
but I don't think it was Marvel comics i think it was literally Captain Marvel any rate brain brain not here let's do a
0:31
show all right friends well as a reminder if you have anything that you'd like us to
0:37
discuss whether it's a question or a topic for the show be sure to send those into
0:43
podcastwatch.com specify the show that it's for in the subject line as well as any special pronunciation of your name
0:50
if you want to hit us up on Discord you can do so we have the Q and Podcast question channel which is open to everybody same rules apply if you are a
0:56
Patreon subscriber you can hit us up on the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel we tend to look there first as a way of saying thank you for helping us
1:02
keep the lights on and you can also just message us on Patreon and make Liz do work cuz she'll get those messages to us
1:09
and it's always fun when we make Liz do things she's listening to this right now and I can hear her cursing me you're
1:14
welcome Liz all right friends well this one is actually something that's been asked for by many of you out there which
1:21
is essentially a story recap of everything that's happened in The War Within so far at least at a high level
1:29
uh there has been a bunch and we're going to do our best to kind of get through it within the hour that we have
1:34
here uh jump in really fast here go ahead guys if we miss something please
1:39
just forgive us and possibly say "Hey you forgot." Please don't get mad we don't do that on purpose we're not
1:45
neglecting your favorite character or whatever there's a lot and and we're just people yeah and and also that said
1:52
for those of you at home as well uh there are going to be spoilers up through uh the end of the Undermine
1:58
campaign uh which is where we're going to cut it off today so if you haven't finished Undermine yet uh maybe come
2:04
back and visit this episode afterwards or you can stop when we start talking about that portion of it uh but I'm
2:11
going to go ahead and kick things off with starting with essentially what happened during the pre- patch or what happened before the expansion officially
2:18
released which was the visions of Azeroth this is a series of videos and in uh little uh tidbits of
2:26
various visions known as the radiant song happening to many folks across
2:32
Azeroth in particular thr Lady Jana Proudmore Andu and Ren are folks that
2:39
were then basically because of this vision because of this song that they
2:44
were hearing thinking that it was Azeroth or feeling that it was Azeroth went out to go seek Magny Bronzebeard
2:51
who was the speaker for Azeroth itself um but that is weird because before this
2:58
at least what was for most folks was weird is that Azroth has been silent for several years before these visions
3:05
started happening um Magny is injured attempting to
3:10
commune with Azeroth so then they relocate to Dalaron the floating city home of the Kiranthur
3:17
uh with Magny's daughter Moira and their uh her son his grandson Dagran Theesian
3:24
II uh after working with Kaggar Alyri Windrunner on how to proceed Magny
3:30
awakens and explains that Azeroth warned him of dark forces on the subterranean
3:35
continent of Kazalgar uh so what do we do well the
3:40
mages decide you know what we're gonna teleport a whole city there that's what we do we did it for Northrun we'll do it
3:45
here too we have the coordinates we got the coordinates all right time to get ready so you as the player go around and
3:52
your engagement of the story is to recalibrate the wards uh for a wonderful
3:58
mage that hadn't been seen for decades uh and well there there's a whole reason
4:04
for that later uh you get teleported and as you're teleporting uh basically you
4:10
find out that that mage that you really dreaded that you weren't really sure where he came from yeah it was Alath in
4:18
disguise uh launch there's a full-scale assault on the city uh the all these
4:24
Nubians start taking over into the city and it's all out warfare uh they begin
4:30
kidnapping civilians uh and then after Yria Anduin evacuate all of the
4:35
remaining citizen Kaggar confronts uh Zalotath and witnesses her absorbing the arcane energies of Doaron into the dark
4:43
heart before blowing up the city and what we think at the time is Khagar
4:50
along with it uh this is where you start to see the scale of the power of the dark art which had previously been seen
4:57
uh in the time ways when going back and dealing with the Riticron that had been seemed to absorb the power out of the
5:04
corpse of Gacron which was an answer to a question of how did all that corruption not just lay waste to the
5:11
land around Gacron's corpse well technically now we know because it's not a paradox um did I miss anything in there
5:19
Matt i mean there's a lot in there uh there's always more that's the messed up
5:24
thing about all of this but you weren't even talking about the actual like
5:29
you're talking about the pre- stuff it's it it gets I don't know where I'd say
5:35
okay now we're in the actual expansion i think it's it's it's after this moment because once the once Dooron is
5:41
teleported to to Kazalgar and is exploded you're officially in the
5:46
expansion you're officially starting the story where you are trying to figure out where you are and what's going on do you
5:53
want to talk about that with the the survivors and meeting the the earth for the first time first off can can I just
5:58
say that it is once again we show up and immediately rain destruction down upon a completely unrelated place uh but now
6:07
we've actually taken we've taken a city out in the process so yeah wow great i
6:12
mean I don't want to take away credit to Zalot and quite frankly uh since we l
6:19
time to talk about how the law is told not just what the lore is i have got to give credit where credit is due the
6:26
cinematic that you see when you you get into your hey we're in our flat floating
6:33
magical city and you go to oh god our floating magical city that cinematic is
6:40
creepy AF and really well done um the bit where you find out oh hey that guy
6:48
who's been on he's who's literally been clued in on all our plans and he's one
6:53
of the arch mages and in the Council of Six nah he's been Zalot the whole time
6:58
cuz as if you had been paying attention as Joe was you knew you knew not to
7:03
trust that dude because that dude was dead yeah the first words out of the first words out of my mouth on Guild
7:10
Discord while doing that was "Wait Brennan's dead why is he here?" Yeah and
7:16
and the thing is is that I think a lot of us just thought they'd forgotten cuz you know that happens sometimes
7:22
storyteller forgets you know there's lots of characters in Warcraft maybe they just forgot that Dren was dead no
7:28
no no they didn't forget so yeah basically what happens is
7:33
Zalat inside the body of Arch Mage Drenin i don't know if she was literally
7:39
in his actual body or if she just made herself look like him i don't know the deal but I know that it turned out that
7:46
Zalat had wanted to get us there unleashed her her full army against us
7:52
and everything goes to Boo Boo um and it is it is I think some of the best
7:58
openings to expansions are ones that throw you in the deep end and don't really explain what's happening um but
8:04
this one explained exactly what was happening and then threw me in the deep end and I was like "Ah I'm still
8:10
drowning it It's actually worse." So yeah um kudos to that everything goes
8:16
goes to heck the city literally gets destroyed and chunks of it fall all over the place we spend at least a few
8:23
minutes getting the survivors together killing as many Nurubians as we can
8:28
because one of the things that happens while the city is being destroyed is that it is completely invaded by
8:33
Nurubians who are doing Zilotas bidding and that's that's great you always want to see that right you nothing nothing
8:41
quite as happiness making as an army of Nurubians just teleporting into your city and messing it up uh so yeah that
8:48
that happens you're fighting Nubians you're trying to get everybody back together and then an earn on a big
8:54
lightning griffin shows up uh blows up the the main giant horrible Narubian
9:00
although he escapes he doesn't die uh and he's like "Why are you here?" Like "Why are you on our shores what are you
9:07
doing here?" And I'm sad to say I can't remember his name because he's actually really cool character um you know him
9:13
right Joe yeah I can't remember I can't remember his name but I I I know what you're talking about basically um he's the leader of the Storm Riders yes he's
9:20
the leader of Storm Riders and he it you're basically brought to um the you
9:27
know main earthn hub in the area dornagal on on Dornagal on I keep want
9:33
to say Kazalgar not Dornagal you go to Dornagal with him he flies you in because the Nubians are attacking the
9:39
city and they're all over the and they're coming up from a giant pathway
9:44
to the sorry Bilgrim no thank you i I appreciate it former Pilgrim Bailgrim is
9:49
essentially one of three on what is like lacking for lack of a better word is a
9:54
council that runs the Earth the Earth have some problems the number one giant
10:00
core hole which is literally this giant pathway that goes into the bowels of
10:05
Azeroth and leads to the underground you know various underground worlds is swarming with Nuribbeans also the
10:12
earthen no longer have complete access to their own racial memory um when
10:17
earthn quote unquote die they tend to they they are supposed to leave their
10:23
memories behind in like crystals that are then brought to this archiving system and put in uh it's not like
10:29
immortality but it is a way for them to preserve something of what they learned and and experienced during their lives
10:36
only that's not happening anymore it's messed up and they don't know why uh so they have that problem some of the earn
10:43
are basically rebelling against what their originally Titan-Given cast system
10:48
told them they should be and are like I'm not doing this i you know what we
10:53
don't even know if the Titans are still out there we're going to go just live lives and so including a very important
11:01
Kwan who who comes back into the story later goes off and is like living with
11:06
you know basically for lack of a better word exiled who are no longer doing
11:11
their jobs as part of the system that was designed when this was all put together by the Titans as a result
11:19
society is in tumult they're like we don't know what we're supposed to be doing it's like we're forgetting what
11:25
we're supposed to be doing we don't even know how to do it and we've lost contact
11:30
with our the other earn deep underground who are supposed to be in charge of the
11:36
mechanism for creating more earthn we don't even have more earn anymore so the
11:42
earn are pretty messed up magny first they're not particularly interested in listening to us till Magny shows up and
11:49
they see Magny and they're like oh it's a diamond one and they all kneel down to Magny and are like "Yes tell us what to
11:56
do servant of the Titans." And he's like "Um I have no idea what you should do
12:02
but we definitely should do it." And they're like "Well that's well spoken." Because of Magny the Earth are willing
12:09
to work with us uh and it's not that they're like they're not ignorant of the fact that this is weird and out of out
12:16
of place and their society was supposed to be like clockwork precision but it
12:22
clearly isn't anymore and they're trying to figure out what do we do magny is the
12:27
closest thing they've seen to like an actual like anointed servant of of the
12:33
Titans in eons they used to have these diamond guys showing up all the time but
12:38
they don't have them anymore so they're willing to go along with Magny and his weird assortment of people and figure
12:44
out what's going on uh which ironically enough and I don't know if you if you
12:50
thought this when you saw it Joe but it doesn't it kind of play into the whole ritual that Magny did in the first place
12:56
yeah I think it it hearkens back to that with the because if I remember correctly
13:01
back then it was the discussion of okay well here here's this ritual and looking at the ritual it basically describes
13:09
these diamond earthn or these uh beings that are capable of communicating with
13:15
the world uh based off of their position or whatever like he didn't know what he
13:21
was reading but I remember like the visual of the book being very much that yeah and it It's interesting like when I
13:27
remember seeing it I thought this is really kind of fascinating because it's like finally why does this ritual exist
13:34
you know what what does does Azeroth need help picking who they anoint as
13:40
their speaker but it's it's clearly a it was a role people could be appointed to
13:46
it was something you could take up so that in of itself was pretty fascinating
13:51
we then start like the outside like the first zone um the Kazogar like surface
13:58
zone is is really big and a lot of stuff is happening um there's an attack on the
14:05
mountain where the the Storm Riders get their mounts that's happening there's
14:11
traders inside the organization attacking them in their training facility which is the first dungeon um
14:17
you have to go deal with a lot of different things uh at the end of the zone Balegar ends up dying fighting the
14:23
Narubians he sacrifices himself to help you defeat the uh the Narubians who are
14:30
attacking and trying to like destroy the Earthland's ability to resist them mhm which is you know I mean the thing is is
14:36
Balegar really serves as an interesting character because he starts off completely rigidly devoted to the rules
14:42
of the Titans and by the end of it you know you find out that he had this sort
14:49
of unwitting relationship with uh one of the earning that you know you're sent to find whose name always cuss I can't
14:56
remember any of these characters names this is what drives me nuts um I've been playing this game for so long everybody
15:02
has a new name it's like "Oh god more people with new names." But as a result
15:08
of him dealing with the fact that his people have been scattering and they don't know what to do and they don't
15:14
know what roles to play his certainty of his own role especially when you go into
15:19
the base of the Storm Riders and see that it's been attacked and corrupted by the old gods he's all he's like "Uh no
15:27
we we do need to change we need to embrace a new role." and he sacrifices
15:32
himself so you get to do it that you say you get to save his people which is kind
15:38
of emblematic of the story the earthn go through in this expansion and we'll be talking more about it um but the earthn
15:46
are in a position where they no longer know what their role is knew what it was
15:51
for eons they had complete certainty about what their role was but they don't anymore um so you get through that
15:59
beginning like and again we're totally missing and a whole bunch of things there's a big story element in Kazalgar
16:05
that we'll come back to but it's it's it's you you have to go underground first and see the other zones before you
16:12
come back to it yeah and and part of the big the big element of the story is like Matt pointed out where you learn that
16:18
the core way has been broken is that you are you're tasked with helping them clear the core way you help them clear
16:23
the core way to make connection with the earthn that are below uh in the
16:29
essentially the the what is the power works of the entire island for or at least the their city um and then you
16:37
wind up you know discovering that Zalot is here and it's not just at above uh
16:45
the the training facility that we see the the void corruption being offered uh
16:50
to some of these earthn and being having them turned into scarred in but it's everywhere below as well and part of the
16:57
reason that that's important is because below ground there are elements here
17:03
uh that like this is how the the facility where Earth and are born uh is
17:08
here and it is potentially uh being corrupted by Zotas void influence um and
17:17
you Oh by the way I I'm sorry to interrupt you but the woman in question that was involved with Bale Garmin was
17:23
um Hatalgon who was the storm war the the sto the stone warden she was the one
17:29
that talked to the earth essentially yeah she was one of the left the council yeah and she left the council and was
17:35
part of the unbound um she ends up rejoining the council uh through her interaction with Bilgrim like he kind of
17:41
gets her It's interesting cuz they both affect the other he kind of gets her to realize that she needs to go back and he
17:47
she gets him to realize that he has not been doing his job to defend his people because he doesn't defending the ones
17:53
that left so yeah there's that's a big part of that whole storyline is the Earth and realizing it the Titans aren't
18:01
important compared to each other yeah there's there's in between spots there
18:07
but uh one of the things that I think is uh important to note is that they are
18:12
resistant to outsiders and uh and and eventually you earn their trust by helping them with these things you clear
18:19
out the underground you bring back the high speaker uh position i for Brinth is
18:24
the one that takes over as high speaker for for the Gundrraz uh Ethan and you
18:31
wind up bringing your allies to the island uh so Yria was here she had been
18:38
from the beginning and she was on the the dollar when it went down but now you have uh Jana Prownmore and Thrral show
18:45
up and now the Horde and Alliance are starting to again work together to help
18:51
the Earthan to figure out what's going on the after you're done dealing with
18:56
all of that you are sent to go reach out to uh what they call warriors of light
19:02
or humans that had been seen that have been living underground uh and you go out with Anduin in tow uh
19:11
to find the people known as the Arathi and when you get there they are under
19:16
siege uh by the various Nurubians uh that are making their you essentially
19:22
assaulting their positions uh because their magic sky stone uh Belelladar has
19:32
stopped producing only light and has started producing shadow or void as well
19:39
ever since Zalat showed up and you see much of the same uh elements above that
19:46
are echoed here below the Arathi are tired they're worn they've been doing
19:52
this for a while and Zath comes along and some of them take what she's selling
19:58
they become cultists to the void uh and much the same way we've seen that promise of power uh so often
20:06
before we see that they the hail the light but not in the same way that those
20:14
above do and this is sort of like we joke that this is the how Anduin got his groove back portion of the expansion but
20:21
it really is it's how Anduin learns to accept what has happened to him not
20:27
forget it but to move past blaming himself for everything that happened and
20:33
learn to call upon the light again uh through his interaction with uh why can
20:40
I not remember her name but uh uh General Steelstrike's daughter um yeah
20:45
Faren faren thank you uh Faren Lothar um we learn that there's a connection
20:51
between Anduin and Lothar uh the one that Anduin is named after and the Arathi uh and the bloodline of Lothar
20:59
apparently continued uh there's all these things that we we know or we learn
21:04
through this interaction and eventually we help them take out the Order of Knight we helped them uh take out the
21:12
priaryy which had gone fanatical to the light to the point of resurrecting with necromancy something we've talked about
21:18
on the show before where you can commit necromancy with the light as much as you could void or magic uh and they
21:25
basically prove it the entire priory is all about this uh bringing their recently dead back to life or those that
21:32
fell in battle to the Narubians cuz again these people are cut off from home they wind up getting pulled here by
21:38
magic uh through a storm when they were just on an expedition uh they don't know how to get back home they can't connect
21:45
back home uh and every time they lose somebody their their numbers dwindle and
21:51
it drives some of them to the brink to see what they can do to replenish their numbers and and bring them back and it's
21:56
it's us that have to break down those walls and not only are we doing that and helping them break free of these cults
22:03
and learn their the way to essentially move forward and they're helping us by again Anduin learning how to wield the
22:09
light again we're also breaching the gap between them and the earn we are getting
22:16
a trade agreement a much needed trade agreement between the two and a pact of
22:21
cooperation where the earthn and the Iraqi will fight together to essentially
22:26
stop what's happening in the Narubian palace it's a really eyeopening I guess
22:33
section because it doesn't just focus on the big overarching story which is always there and in the zone itself
22:40
shifting from day to night and and having such a uh switch in what occurs during that time frame is really really
22:46
impressive but it's a slice of life as well you learn how these people have been surviving how their lives look like
22:53
the fact that they are still having children here and trying to raise families among being in war like a war
22:59
torn area um you learn little bits and pieces of uh the Array Empire not
23:08
everything so to speak uh but a lot there and it's it's a really cool
23:14
encapsulation of what that would potentially look like for anybody stuck in that situation then we go to Spider
23:21
Town yeah so let's let's talk about Spider Town yeah the thing is is that the whole
23:28
time the Narubians are invading we we've been like trying to figure out how did Zalot hook up with all these Nubians and
23:36
it turns out that Zalat originally attempted to uh talk to the queen of the
23:42
Narubians and I'm always get her and her daughter confused anthrex the daughter right answer the daughter yeah what was
23:48
the mother's name i can't remember i'll find out shortly yeah basically Zalot
23:54
reaches out to the Narubian queen and is trying to convince her that she should
23:59
join up with Zalat and her void loving forces and the queen is like "Oh you
24:05
think we've forgotten you?" No uh I remember serving your masters i remember
24:13
how my people were like their lives were spent like water in in the pursuit of your mission i I want nothing to do with
24:21
you yeah queen Nepheris did not want anything anything to do with with that servitude again yeah she was like "Nope
24:28
uh no thank you." And the as Zalot was making her push you see that rejection
24:35
but then you you hear from Zalotath "I wasn't actually talking to you." And Anerk her daughter comes up behind her
24:42
and just basically shanks her and she's like "Why why would you do this?" And she's like "To get power." Um you know
24:48
we're we're stuck down here we don't you know the Narubians don't rule the world
24:54
we're not we're not mighty none of the promises were fulfilled because we turned away from the void and now you've
25:03
got us like waiting down here forever um
25:08
we do not want that uh we want you know I want to rule i want to be a queen of a
25:14
of an expanding people so basically she she her mother Nefer gets turned into a
25:22
monstrosity um they're they're experimenting on infusing people with
25:27
void from the black blood of the earth yeah and this is this is a big this is a big uh thing of the zone is the black
25:32
blood right like we we have theories on what it is it has not been explicitly
25:37
stated what it was but we're pretty fire all that kind of thing i'm sorry but I'm going to make the the
25:45
big trouble little China references uh but yeah it it's the whole deal of
25:50
what's really going on with the Nubians a big part of it is these special Narubian servidors that Zalat has
25:57
created somehow she's infused them with power beyond their normal sta their station and they're effectively usurping
26:05
the rule that like the actual like there's a whole Narubian noble class and
26:11
it should be noted these are living Narubians these are not the undead husks of North no this is not the ones that
26:17
the Lich King was controlling it it's like the ones in Northrand that we saw
26:22
when we went into the old city are the living ones and these are similar to those but this kingdom hasn't fallen
26:30
it's been basically left to its own devices all these many years so only now
26:36
with uh Nefaress basically transformed into a monstrosity
26:41
uh and Ansurak basically working directly for Zealat um you you now have
26:47
this period where they're where Zalat's clearly experimenting with the black blood but it's weird what she's doing in
26:53
that she seems to be for lack of a better word it's it doesn't feel like
26:58
Zealot cares what happens with the Rubians it's not like they really matter to her it's a stepping stone i think
27:05
it's more than that i think like we as you get to the end of it because I I think a lot of it tends to be because
27:12
there are there are depraved individuals among the Narubians are flesh crafters
27:17
and puppeteers and and folks that are not exactly what you would consider a
27:22
conventionally sane that that work through this but one of the things I think is interesting is all of the
27:29
empowering of the void leads to almost Cathrai adjacent old god adjacent
27:37
creations and it almost feels like Zalot is using the Narubians who according to
27:45
other sources and this might not be true um but and I think it is actually a lie
27:50
were born of old god flesh to begin with i I think they were a perversion of things that existed already on Azeroth
27:57
and I think this is where that experimentation comes in how did the old gods create the Cthraxi how did they get
28:03
to be so big and powerful how do you subsume the void and all while doing this she's utilizing the dark heart in
28:11
the chase of us going through and this happens in between us going to to uh
28:17
Bugville and between light town uh where Yria cracks the dark heart and forces
28:26
essentially Zotath back we recapture Khadgar and as we're going through the
28:31
city of threads as we're going through uh in dealing with uh all the the
28:37
monstrosities there we also too we also learned that there's an
28:43
ethereal uh Princess Kyvexa working with Ansurk working for presumably
28:51
uh Zalot but also could possibly be Iridicron who has yet to be uh revealed
28:57
who they were working for um we make our way through the palace eventually
29:02
breaking through all of the forces all of the various monstrosities of the Black Blood we literally fight the black
29:09
blood and make our way through with the help of the uh severed threads which are the weaver the general and the viser who
29:16
are all working against uh queen Ansurk and her loyalists and working with the
29:23
people or the the entities that are loyal to the old queen the old way who don't want to be controlled anymore want
29:30
freedom want to forge their own destiny uh you eventually defeat uh all of these
29:37
monsters you defeat Queen Anzarak who calls upon the void uh to try to empower
29:42
herself and then in those final moments two things happen one you have
29:48
discovered that Queen Anerak's mother is still alive just horribly mutated and
29:54
you've helped claw her back and you leave it in a place of where the visor and the general and the weaver are going
30:00
to look at seeing what they can do to reverse that uh if they can't at all and
30:06
try to reverse the rest of the experimentations and two in the final death rows of Queen Ansurak Z she calls
30:13
to Zaltath and Zaltath says "You were a disappointment you did what I needed you to do i don't need you anymore you
30:20
couldn't help yourself why would I help you?" And then disappears and there's I I try to remember how it's pointed isn't
30:27
it something along the lines of like she said you promised me and something and Z
30:32
like I didn't promise you anything yeah yeah but I gave you I give you I gave you everything and and this is where you
30:38
ended up you know the void the void doesn't care you know what is it something that the void only cares about
30:43
those who win or something i I don't know if it went that far but it was basically the you couldn't win with the
30:49
power I gave you so why am I going to give you more uh and but then that's
30:54
where we leave Spider Town uh and that is the end of the first section or at least the opening act or act one of the
31:02
War Within campaign act two gets into uh the undermined campaign which is where
31:08
we're at right now which opens with Zath having retreated after the disruption of
31:14
her plans and we meet with Orwena uh or Orwina Orwena sorry don't know how to
31:20
pron uh pronounce that uh but a hariner uh these are the we think we don't know
31:27
for sure what their origin are but they look like the evolution step between night troll and night elf they are very
31:34
much druid adjacent we've dealt with them a little bit in the original uh opening campaign yeah you run into them
31:41
when you're first trying to figure out what the heck's going on with the Black Blood and they seem to know a lot more about the Black Blood that they don't
31:47
want to tell us yeah um but we meet up with her because she sees visions from
31:53
the world soul as well she hears the song and so you uh go with them you are
32:00
investigating the remaining black blood in Hallow uh Hanan who is uh another Harir that is with Arena uh becomes
32:08
frustrated with Orwena for ignoring uh their basically their people's isolationism before uh leaving her alone
32:15
to return to their homeland orina then receives a vision from Azeroth that leads her to the ringing deeps where you
32:21
go and help investigate uh where with Glo a because there's a large goblin
32:27
presence here is a weird goblin presence on the islands from the get-go in act
32:32
one you see them in all over the the top of of uh Ka Algar right they're making
32:41
deals with the the metery and taking over the metery they're pretty much everywhere and you don't kind of
32:47
understand why because why are there goblins here when the rest of the alliance just got here because there
32:53
weren't goblins on or the rest of the the horde and the alliance got here there weren't goblins in dollar at least
32:59
not a lot of them so why are they here um you find that there is essentially um
33:06
goblins are operating to at the behest of Jastaster Giwix to get their hands on
33:12
the black blood and you find out that they are taking that black blood back to
33:18
undermine which is not too far away from where we are right now which puts us
33:23
very far east more east than I think we thought we were or sorry west uh than we
33:30
thought we were if you're if you're leaving from uh the horde side of things and they're trying to turn it into
33:37
weapons they're experimenting with they're making potions they're turning it into all various forms of destruction
33:42
as goblins are want to do and you are trying to prevent them from getting their hands on more of it and you're
33:49
working with Gazzle you're working with Resnik the Shiv uh and you're starting to make your way to Undermine to find
33:56
out what Giwix is really trying to do with the Black Blood what what the whole
34:03
purpose of it was um yeah I don't I don't know if there's much more to talk
34:08
about that unless there Well I'll turn it over to you well we should talk about specifically what happens at the end
34:16
which is that after you eventually you you start opposing Giwix and and working through what the heck is actually going
34:23
on well I think there's we don't want to I don't want to jump to the end immediately because a lot of stuff happens in undermine yeah i just I can't
34:28
possibly really all I just want let me do this bit basically in order to do what he's trying to do do do we do we
34:36
not want to talk about Zalat and uh No we have we have we have a spoiler warning okay basically
34:43
when Zalatth got the uh dark heart smashed by Yria she needed it fixed
34:50
that's she wants to have you know it was where she was keeping a lot of the power she's been stealing for whatever reason
34:55
she's doing that so she goes and and she's trying to find somebody who can fix it but there aren't many people who
35:03
can fix that thing and most of them were on the city that she blew up
35:10
so she kind of doesn't have a ton of options but she knows ga that Jastaster Giwix was involved in all the stuff that
35:17
happened in Battle for Azeroth and various things using both Azerite and
35:23
later on when when uh Sylvanas was working on you know the jailer's plan
35:29
giwix was kind of on the edges of that he understands the the various I don't
35:35
want to say secretions but I can't come up with a better word uh if if Azerite is the blood of Azeroth the black blood
35:41
seems to be like the blood of the old gods we don't know what it is we we don't know if that's what it is but it
35:48
seems to be akin to stuff like Azerite and therefore kajamite and so Giwix
35:54
might be the only person who's got a chance to fix it so she goes to him and says "Fix it." And and he's like "All
36:02
right I need this stuff to do that." She gives him a bunch of stuff to do it but
36:08
he doesn't get it fixed fast enough for Zealot so Zalot's like you know he he
36:14
says to Zalot I need more time i need more help and I need more of that Black
36:19
Blood stuff rather than just give it to him which is again very similar to what
36:25
we saw with Ensurk she doesn't just give it to him she tells him "Here's where you can get it." And that's why the uh
36:31
the already interested in the black blood goblins now start getting even more interested uh this allows him
36:38
ultimately to get um Martin Noggin Fogger to help him but he Nogenfoger
36:43
doesn't like the guy he's being extorted mhm however this means that Undermine which
36:50
is now basically there's this whole cartel that's running Undermine and now
36:55
Gwix has kind of subverted it because he's got Zalatas backing him as long as
37:01
she gets what she wants uh and she straight up confronts him several times and she's like "Don't you don't want to
37:09
disappoint me somebody else just disappointed me it didn't go well for her you do not want to do that."
37:15
Eventually though while we're in Undermine so much stuff is going on i don't even want to talk about it i mean like Gas Low's there the dark market's
37:23
there the the the the council the cartels of Undermine don't like Giwix
37:30
and they don't like each other well um yeah they're they're they're essentially they're essentially made to compete with
37:36
each other and stay in Giwix's good graces because the first introduction to it is a essentially a meeting between
37:41
all of the cartels uh in which somebody does try to stand up and say "This is
37:46
bad for business why are we following them?" Only to be completely incinerated by one of these black blood weapons a
37:52
black blood flamethrower that one of his enforcers uses to to destroy it and you wind up seeing that there's essentially
38:00
a almost like a a a military rule or a a
38:06
martial law being imposed by Giwix on all of Undermine and as you pull back
38:11
you see that his essentially I forgot what they're called they're the dark
38:16
something cartel um but they're dark enforcement I think yeah dark fuse uh
38:22
but they're essentially his soldiers of fortune that he's paying to ensure his
38:28
rule and ensure compliance with everybody in the undermine um and so
38:35
your entire task here is to essentially help free and liberate undermine from
38:41
the rule of Giwix the Zaltas stuff is almost secondary the only thing that
38:47
really is integrated is the key points that Matt laid out the creation of the black blood black blood and the deal
38:54
that that Giwix is trying to strike with again for more power with Zalot um so
39:02
while you're making your way through and trying to essentially fight back Gywix's forces
39:09
and help free the cartels working with them uh to get them uh situated to get
39:14
them free to get them right while that's happening Giwix is still working on this thing what winds up happening at one
39:21
point is another force starts showing up dark etherealss now we've talked about
39:27
them before these are void infused etherealss that are not part of Locust Walker's uh you know in his thing with
39:35
the void elves in fact Locust Walker is essentially hunted by them and has been for a while through this and your
39:41
interaction with it you find that uh I forgot the Nexus Prince's name uh but
39:48
there is a a Nexus Princess shows up and gets the now repaired as Giwick says
39:56
worked his butt off to get it repaired dark heart from him zalot shows up zalot
40:01
says "Where's my dark heart?" And he goes "Well I gave it to your guy." What guy your ethereal friend he came and
40:07
asked for it so I gave it to him he's working for you right azir it might have been Azir yes I think it was uh but I
40:14
gave it to him and she you see the look on her face as it's okay fine um and
40:21
essentially expresses her disappointment and then abandons Giwix as everything that he built is slowly falling down
40:28
around him essentially at this point while this is going on we have chased him back we tried to get the dark heart
40:33
back we failed um to get the dark heart before the the trade prince got it uh we
40:41
didn't confront Zotav here but we've beaten Giwix back essentially to just
40:46
his casino the uh the Galagio uh so all
40:52
that's left is we have two choices we can go after uh theals and the dark
40:57
heart and zalot or we can finish helping the undermine and we choose at this point the most pertinent one even with
41:04
ya's blessing as she goes and does the the stalking and hunting that she's known for we work our way through
41:12
freeing the undermine by going breaking into the casino fighting through the various forces and unfortunately for
41:21
what Glo says he tries the entire time to talk Giwix down gallix will not
41:27
accept it will not like look past his ego and ambition maybe it's because of
41:32
the Azerite that he still has on his staff who knows you eventually kill uh
41:39
Glo and then afterwards you help put the pieces together cuz in Gwix we kill
41:44
Giwix yes sorry giwix not Glo wow sorry um but then in like what for a second
41:51
there seriously dude for a second oh my god too many G names i apologize um
41:58
while this is happening while you were liberating it Resnick winds up dying uh he dives in front of uh a shot that was
42:04
meant to kill Glo that's where I was getting my wires crossed um and so after
42:10
you've defeated Giwix you're going through with Glo and
42:15
setting things right you're you're making sure that the people are ready to go you're dividing out uh the last
42:23
effects of uh Giwix to his heir to make sure that it goes to somebody who's not
42:28
going to use the wealth and power and the the casino for nefarious purposes
42:34
and Glo sits down and start showing the rest of the goblins the better way and
42:40
this is a call back to Battle for Azeroth cuz in Battle for Azeroth Glo is
42:46
the one in all the stories and the game itself that is trying to tell people we don't have to cut corners for safety we
42:52
should be being safe it's cheaper long term to be safe we should not just do
42:58
things because we can do them we should be a little more considerate about it we should care about each other a little
43:03
bit more we are smart we're capable we're better and you see that influence
43:10
start to like go through the rest of the undermine as the various cartels start
43:16
falling in line with that they don't want to be just cartels anymore noggin fogger wants to be better at you know
43:23
and make a tone for all the stuff he did under duress uh you see the venture
43:28
company being under new leadership uh and being less about uh unfettered
43:35
capitalistic gains and maybe a little bit more about that venture side of things it it it's a
43:41
heartwarmingish i don't want to say it's perfectly like idyllic uh but when you end the undermine you've left it in a
43:49
far better place than where you found it and I want to point out that because this is one of the extraordinarily few
43:57
times that the adventurers have actually left a place better than they found it
44:02
we didn't blow anything up well we blew up portions of the Kalashio i don't know if that really counts we didn't destroy
44:08
anything we actually defeated the person we wanted to defeat we put people in
44:13
charge that actually know what they're doing and there's actually hope so this
44:18
is one of those few moments where we didn't mess up unless you're Rose Gallowix
44:24
true hey look it's the one good Giwix oh he's dead that didn't last long but yeah also we
44:30
should point out um we have the uh the next patch is coming fairly soon as
44:37
we're recording this and I think it'll be out um this month right yes should be out this month so that's at the time of
44:44
this recording is released probably right around the time this recording is released yeah that's going to be set in
44:49
the Arai Highlands and it's going to be dealing with possibly a connection to the Athor i'm assuming the Athor uh that
44:56
we know the ones who are underground want to go up and see the old homeland uh so it's probably at least somewhat
45:03
involved there but we're at the end when when uh Face Die Azir shows up and and
45:08
gets the dark heart we see him go through a portal if you played in Legion
45:15
there's a world you see yeah but it it looks to be like the world you see uh in
45:21
the in the Astromancer exp you know um encounter because it's this world that
45:26
looks to be completely corrupted and overrun by the void which would fit Kesh because that's what we heard you know
45:32
the whole deal with the Atherealss is that they got turned into etherealss by the you know corruption and destruction
45:38
of Caresh it looks to be at least possibly where we're going at some point
45:43
yeah and I just want to take a moment to sort of recap and take stock of like the bullet points of everything we've done
45:49
so far here inside of uh the first two acts one thing that we we didn't touch on in in act one and I I want to just go
45:56
back and notate uh the Earth and are broken free of the Titan influence and
46:02
we find out that this is where the seed is planted that the Titans are not as nice as they uh maybe come off as or we
46:08
think they are because again the victor tends to write history um because as
46:14
soon as they break their oath tablet uh which has all the recorded like what their oaths are their purpose their
46:20
directive uh a giant titan construct comes out of the water and tries to kill them we stop that from happening we give
46:27
the Earth inn a new lease on life and we allow them to start actually recapturing
46:33
who they are as a people because we find out as the campaign moves along and as
46:40
you do things like there's a a a weekly quest that pops up to grab Titan fragments and take them back to uh
46:47
essentially a Titan console uh these are discs these are memories um Noran's
46:53
memories in particular and you find out that the Earthn were getting too alive
47:01
for what the uh the Titans were comfortable with and
47:06
so this whole process of them losing their memories and starting a whole new life cycle essentially breaking down and
47:12
like submitting their memories to this giant machine is because if they were left too long the diamond ones would
47:19
occur this this uh life force would emerge that would sort of you know make
47:26
them not quite curse of fleshed but pretty like the in between stage between
47:32
being a full Titan construct uh and and and being uh what we are and then we
47:39
bring that back to them as well magny goes with us and we free the void
47:45
corruption from the vault that they're created in and that energy from Azeroth
47:50
leaves Magny makes him mortal again brings him back as a re as far as I'm
47:56
concerned a reward but also jumpst starts a process that seems to have been
48:01
Azeroth's goal since Magny turned originally to have a new speaker to have
48:06
a person a diamond body that was the embodiment of Azeroth's power and to
48:11
bring more of those back because every Earth that's born after it every player character is one of those souls as
48:18
somebody who has memory who dreamed who's capable of dreaming who is a full
48:24
Earthan not this mechanical thing that they had before we go to the the Algari
48:31
uh we we help them with their fight against or the we fight against the the
48:39
corrupted uh Iraqis we beat back the cults we uh take out the folks that are
48:45
trying to whip up this sort of cultish fervor for the light and the void bring them back to some semblance of peace and
48:52
normaly we fight back the Narubians under the control of Queen Ansurak we
48:58
give them trade routes back to the surface which gives them precious supplies that they need and allies they
49:05
now have access to the earn as allies who have been fully restored to their
49:10
power uh that can now help the Arathi out they have access to the Horde and the Alliance now as well and the trade
49:18
therein something that they previously haven't had because the Empire itself is
49:23
its own standing thing we learn more about the Arai Empire not a lot but
49:28
enough to make us curious and hint that we will be going there at some point soon we then make our way into uh
49:38
the Queen Aner's court I guess would be the best way to put it uh this giant
49:43
cavity that looks like it was once where an old god's body stood and this may be the decaying flesh of part of an old god
49:50
this might be part of Yasharaj we don't know but the black blood and the fleshy bits seem to indicate that this is
49:56
something large that used to be here and used to be in charge of of these folks
50:01
we take the loyaltist we fight back against Queen Anzere we instill order
50:07
there we bring them back from the brink essentially and give them back their
50:12
lives again a rare instance where we leave things potentially better than we found them we then continue our chasing
50:20
of the Black Blood and Zotath to make our way into the Undermine we find out what's happening with the goblins in the
50:26
undermine we find out how bad it is and we find out how bad Giwix's plans are and his control over the people are and
50:33
it is absolutely like slum conditions for everybody who is not
50:39
Giwix i'm sorry Glo i'm doing it again doing it again we free them from the
50:45
control of uh Giwix we we basically let
50:50
them have their lives back and we leave the Undermine potentially a better place than it was before cleaning up all the
50:56
experimentations destroying the uh weapons that were constructed from the black blood uh and completing
51:03
essentially uh I don't want to say the task that was set up to us by the harer
51:08
or the um why can I not remember their name essentially the night trolls um and
51:13
leave us in a position where now we can start focusing on other things as we're reuniting essentially all these
51:20
different people and making them not enemies but allies and I think we're
51:26
going to potentially get to a point where we can call on some of the Narubians to come help us when we need
51:33
it we're gonna have the Arathia that we can call on because we're gonna be fighting alongside of them and we're gonna have all of the Earth in we are
51:40
actually doing the thing that we failed to do every other expansion and it makes me very very happy and I'll let Matt cue
51:48
in on anything he wants to add here i mean I think that basically you've covered pretty much what's happened to
51:54
Far i was going to um mention that there's also like in addition to the fact that the Titans are kind of like
52:02
showing off like somewhat of their villainous era it's also interesting that Arcadus was apparently deeply
52:08
involved in this yeah yeah arcadus is the the Titan construct that
52:13
one of the Watchers who along with Tier and um Ironia took the disc of Noran
52:21
from Ulawir and took them to Alderman and also we just woke Tier up mhm in in
52:29
the last expansion so it's quite possible we could be seeing Arcadus again and that you know cuz
52:37
Yeah arcadus was quote unquote killed by a group of adventurers raiding Aldon but
52:42
come on it's not that he if you can bring him back he can bring him back and and is Arcadus the one there's when
52:51
you're first doing all this stuff when you're first running around with uh Dron I want to say Anduin but it was Dron uh
52:57
with Dron Thorus third you're you and Brinth and him find a recording of some
53:04
Titan Watcher figure who's neck deep yeah a shrouded figure who's
53:10
neck deep in the whole memory eraser thing that we find out later was done by the Titans to keep the Earth inn from
53:17
you know becoming too too much too real for the uh Titans comfort and this feels
53:24
very much like it's involved in what we've already discovered in previous expansions about you know specifically
53:30
our buddy Odin uh who is keeping stuff from people and and editing what we know
53:36
and who sent in a group chasing after
53:41
quote unquote criminals that have escaped his rule and gone to a place
53:46
called Avalor it's quite possible that Kaz you know Kaz Elgar was a step on the
53:52
way or the place they fled from like these rebels might have been earthing who were like I'm not letting you take
53:58
my memories and you know make me die and and for all we know and for all we know Avalorin might be another name for the
54:04
Wrathy Empire too it could be it could be that further place west yeah that the
54:10
place where they ended up and built their empire might be one of the there's a lot going on heading towards the
54:16
future we have a possibility that we're going to go to Caresh we have a possibility that we're going to go to Avalor and maybe the Arathy Empire we
54:23
know the Arathi are going to be doing something in the Arai Islands fairly soon there and yeah it doesn't feel like
54:31
I I there are a lot of missing pieces that we haven't seen yet which I which
54:36
is surprising chief among them in my opinion Articron yeah and these are things that again
54:42
we're in the even though we're in act two moving to act three of this expansion we are in act one of a three
54:50
expansion cycle where the story is directly tied for not just here but
54:56
moving into Midnight and so some of what we're seeing here is a lot of the groundwork being laid for that as well
55:02
because again I'm thinking of it like in act one you're you're laying you're laying out Czechov's gun you're you're
55:09
putting it on the table and showing people where you're going and whether or not you're literally watching it get built it's like it's like that scene in
55:16
every movie with the sniper where the sniper is sitting there putting the gun together that's what literally what we're watching happen yeah and and what
55:23
the end result of that is we're not going to really know until we literally are prepared to move away from here into
55:29
Midnight but I do again I find it very fascinating that we're building allies
55:35
we're not just fighting people we are like because it wouldn't be a game
55:41
otherwise but the overlying theme is we're getting help we're uniting people
55:50
we're bringing folks back together from the brink we didn't even touch on the Kieran Tour story arc because that's its
55:56
own thing and honestly we might do a whole episode on the Kieran Tour story arc from from where we were to where we
56:03
are now but even that has that same undercurrent it's bringing folks back together and redefining who you are
56:10
every single step of the expansion every single group it's coming back together as a people and redefining who you are
56:18
and making those choices for yourself it's that independence that main character thing that we talk about all
56:24
the time it's it's a very fascinating building season and while we haven't
56:31
tinfoil had ited nearly as much as we normally do with an expansion part of that is because like Matt said we're
56:38
watching it be built in real time and we don't know what threads are are actual
56:45
loose threads or things yet and when we get to the end of this expansion that's
56:50
when we're off to the races cuz that's when we start moving towards larger events will Ariticron come back probably
56:57
in midnight going to see shades of ariticron if not aridicron as a whole
57:02
yeah like I think that is a really interesting thing to keep in mind is that we don't know what of the the the
57:08
various things we're seeing as Joe pointed out we don't know what will be in this expansion and what will be in
57:13
the next we don't know like are we going to Caresh this expansion are we going
57:18
there next expansion is it going to be like is Caresh the the starting area for
57:24
the next expansion is that the place we go there's a ton we don't know right now
57:30
and the other thing that to that also is is something to to keep in mind too is not just where we're going to go in
57:35
those expansions but how that story is going to be told is still unfolding and
57:41
what pieces are going to essentially be pulled up from the past to make that headway it's it's an interesting time i
57:48
think it's one of the reasons why I really enjoy the story of this expansion is because there's so many places it
57:55
could go it has so much potential as a expansion that deals with the void
58:00
should absolutely have and I'm looking forward to seeing what the direction is
58:06
after this and what pieces and like you could already start seeing the groundwork for the the stuff with the
58:12
Titans even beyond just what is hamfistedly laid out for you with the discs the interaction between the
58:20
various organizations these ethereal forces these cosmic forces that are at play here still uh are absolutely just
58:29
ripe with potential but I think we're going to call it there i know we missed stuff there's only so much time that we
58:36
have to do this we'll probably do another one relatively soon but I do want to thank everybody for hanging out
58:41
with us if you have questions for this or any of our podcasts be sure to send
58:47
those in to podcastardwatch.com specify the show that it is for in the subject line as
58:52
well as any special pronunciation of your name if you want us up on Discord we have two channels set aside we have
58:58
the Q and podcast questions channel which is open for everybody the same rules apply there as sending an email
59:04
just make sure you specify the name and any special pronunciation specify the show and any special pronunciation of
59:09
your name uh and then if you are a Patreon subscriber we have the Patreon human podcast questions channel we do
59:15
tend to look there first uh just as a way of saying thank you and you can also hit us up on Patreon directly send us
59:22
themes send us questions send us anything you want us to talk about folks
59:27
we're getting to that point of the season where usually you guys have really good questions and you want to
59:33
know what's going on or you have very specific thoughts and I appreciate all
59:38
of you that take the time to submit those questions now is the time that we call upon them submit send those in give
59:44
us things to tfoil hat and and riff off of because I want to make sure that we cover everything that you guys want to
59:49
talk about but with that folks we'll see you next week [Music]
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