Lorewalking: what to expect from this upcoming feature

Hello, and welcome to Lorewatch, our on-table free-form discussion about lore in your favorite media. I'm your host, Joe Perez, one of several lore-focused folks from Blizzardwatch, and I've got my lore-walking companion with me today, Matt Rossi. How are you doing today, Matt? Well, apparently I'm walking some lore. Does it want to stop on the branches? Are we going to...

Is it going to get me in trouble? I'm curious. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that what we do every week is akin to what the lore walkers do, which is. Well, keeping the story alive and making sure that we uncover every little secret, even the stuff that wasn't there before, because, well...

That's a thing. We're going to be talking about lore walking today, and it is something that is coming in the next patch. It's on the PTR right now. Some of the stuff may be subject to change, but your warning here is that it's going to be... Some spoilers, while two sections of it are stuff we've already seen. One section does bring some new stuff to it, and I'll give you another warning before we get into that. But just to remind everybody.

If you have questions for this or either of our podcasts or if you have a theme or something you want us to cover, which is what happened with this and the next episode was something that somebody had sent in. Be sure to send those suggestions into podcasts at blizzardwatch.com. Specify the show that it is for in the subject line, as well as any special pronunciation of your name.

If you want to hit us up on discord, you can hit us up on the patron or the Q and podcast questions channel for everybody. Same rules apply. And if you are a patron subscriber, the patron Q and podcast questions channel, where we tend to look there first as a way of saying, thank you for helping us keep the lights on. And you can also send us messages. just directly on patreon and liz will get them to uh so we're going to talk about lore walking for a couple of reasons one

We finally are getting something that I think we've been talking about. It's been years at this point. I think we've brought this up a long time ago. We've had questions about how we would like lore presented in the game. Catch-up mechanics, and I think Matt and I both have been saying this since Pandaria, that the Lore Walkers are a perfect vehicle in which to do this. And we're finally getting that. And what's happening on the PTR is we're getting Laura Walker Cho's return.

And these quests, these scenarios are based around helping you relive pieces of the story that maybe you didn't get to experience the first time. Maybe you were coming to the game later on. or that are relevant to what's happening now in game, as far as like the current content or upcoming very soon to be content to help you have a greater understanding of maybe some of the importance or significance of some of the.

little tidbits of NPCs you hear or some of the storylines behind them. And again, it's especially good for players that haven't played this game, which has been around for 20 years. You know, it's been a while. And then all the lore that came before it with Warcraft as well. There's so much here. And it's very, it's not good to make the expectation of somebody that they'll go back and play everything.

to learn everything and yes they can use podcasts like this and we'll we do our best to try to summarize that stuff But playing through it is a whole different experience and getting to experience it in your own time is really, really rad. And I'm just really happy to see that they're doing this. And I'm happy to see that they're leveraging the lore walkers to do this. Did you have any initial thoughts on it, Matt?

No, I think of nothing. I am an empty void, devoid of intelligence. Within me swirls shadow. Dark shadow. I mean, okay, now that I've said that. And now that the music is kicking up and I'm beginning to get ready to sing, you know, how soon is now. The reality is that I think I've thought for a long time that they, they brought up lore walking and then they just left it.

in pandaria and that's what happens with lots of expansions a new thing comes up and then it gets left and we never see it again i like that they're finally realizing hey um using the lore of the setting in the game doesn't have to stop when the expansion stops. It is one of those things that when you build an MMO, you can, you go through all the previous games and whatever else.

Uh, and you, you mine them for stuff, but then the expansions happen and they just eventually a lot of stuff just gets dropped because now we're off to the new shiny place. I like that they're starting to do this thing where they put connections between various shiny places where you get to go back and see other things that happened and even see more. than you saw otherwise. I don't know how else to put it. People get really nervous about lore.

And if anything changes the story or reveals something they didn't already know, it's almost reflexively called a retcon. And the thing is, is that it could even be a retcon because all retcon means is retroactive continuity. So yeah, if we learn stuff we haven't seen before, that is a retcon, but that doesn't have to be bad. We all want the best for our dogs. They're more than pets.

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I was going to say, I think that it's really nice that we have this chance to see the origins of things and things we didn't see the last time because there's no way we would have seen them. The Zalatath one comes to mind. Which I want to save that one for later so that people have a little bit of warning. Because the first two I think are safe for most people. But I'm with you. I really like the fact that they're doing something like this.

that sort of, I like that interactivity of it. I like the idea of playing through it. And the first one I want to talk about is the Ethereals. So you learn basically, and I don't want to say nothing new, but. it takes you on a refresher course and it starts with burning crusade and it starts with nether storm and it starts with learning what the protectorate is and who they're going against and what they are. And it culminates in.

a sort of an interesting way so you learn about The void disciples, you learn about how they were fighting against the void, how the people that started fighting against the void became consumed with all nothing but vengeance. And then the protector was born to protect the rest of the ethereals against that particular class of ethereal.

that were so hell-bent on vengeance. And the way I'm explaining it is kind of how bonkers it is to try to explain it to somebody without going through it. And if you've never done that questline in Burning Crusade, which is a rather long one. You probably, it's very easy to miss because they don't really go back to it. And it's relevant now because one of the things you're dealing with is you're dealing with that rogue section of ethereals. You're dealing with the ethereals that.

were both swayed by the void and have succumbed to the whispers, but also the ethereals that have sworn vengeance on the void. And then we're starting to learn where maybe some of those loyalties might lie for some of the questing that we've seen as recently as undermine.

where we're talking with the dark heart has now been whisked away into the hands of a rogue band of ethereals. And this might not be a set of void ethereals. This might be that... dark vengeance seeking group of ethereals trying to do something that maybe we hadn't considered before looking for a weapon to take back Koresh from its void corruption and

Yeah, because those guys were fanatics. If you go back to Burning Crusade, they were fanatics, and they would absolutely murder you if they thought it would help. They didn't care about stopping Dementius in this world.

As much as they cared about finding a way to go back to Koresh and stomp all the... They were very upfront about that. Yeah, and I feel like the Dark Heart is a perfect weapon for that. It kind of puts that piece together because one of the things that I know I've seen asked a whole bunch of...

time is why would the ethereals want the dark heart if they weren't working for the void well yeah i mean it would make sense now when you go back and look at that quest line that they would want something like that and why these ones in particular, since they're not working with Zalatath, why they would steal it. Because everybody always thinks that they... Sorry, go ahead. Why would you play a warlock if you're not going to be working for the Burning Legion? It's like, well...

So far, none of the Warlocks that anyone's ever played have been working for the Legion. They use Warlock power against the Legion. You know, it's the same thing that, you know, Demon Hunters are all like, you know, they use the Fel against the Fel.

um using the shadow and void against shadow and void yeah absolutely there's no reason not to do that in you know if you're not afraid of going insane yeah and i think it's interesting though too is that it also The choice of this quest in particular and this quest line I think is really important because one of the things I see talked about a lot and have been for a while is people that are just starting to learn about some of the ethereal stuff.

Didn't understand that there are multiple factions of ethereals and that there's a ton within, you know, each of these groups that are working at either odds or. even if they have similar goals, their method to get there is not necessarily sanctioned between them or agreed upon between these individuals. And seeing that divide, seeing what sort of makes that the case, I think is really important.

And one of the other things that I think is really important is it brings back the threat of dementia. And this is where people are a little upset about this potentially. And I've seen some grumbling. This is where I think our previous conversation about retcons are not necessarily a bad thing. In Burning Crusade, you defeat Dementius.

That's the culmination of this quest line. And one of the things that I remember from it back then is that, oh, you hear the exaltation of like millions of ethereals through echoing of eternity or whatever the case is, making it seem like in that.

moment that you 100 finally defeated dementius but dementius is still out there and we've learned later on and pat in expansions that came after it in dealing with more of the void and as recently as legion um talking about dimension still is there he's still on koresh he still has ethereals under his sway he still has an influence

or it uh it's still there it's still present uh and people are like oh that was a retcon we killed him it's like no you killed an aspect that was being summoned to the burning crusade i mean Go ahead. Go ahead. I just feel like I can't believe anyone actually thought that that was dementia was gone. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's just like, it's a big void thing. You know, if you kill a void thing and it doesn't leave anything behind, but like it's shoulder pads, I'm sorry.

things that are like made of like it's like when you kill we killed ragnaros how many times he can not only do he keep coming back to to that burden you know he he was still around in the firelands it's just no man I I've never understood this. It's like, it's world of Warcraft demons come back all the time. Uh, you know, things from other dimensions come back all the time. You can't, you can't count him dead until you go to where they're from to kill them. And even then.

Sometimes they can come back even from that. Yeah. So, yeah, I. I don't know why people are so surprised that Dementius is still alive. I mean, yes, the voices of millions of ethereals sounded out in joy for his anguish. That doesn't mean that he's gone. It just means... They're glad he got some. Yeah. He got hurt. Yeah. And that was enough for them. Yeah. But, but I mean, that's just the thing about all of it is ultimately.

A character is only gone so long as it serves the story better for them to be gone than for them not to be. We talk a lot about, you know, in, when talking about fiction and literature and all that, one of the things we talk about is the Joker problem where you basically, if you have a character who is too popular and too useful to ever die, even though it would make perfect sense.

for them to die like it's hard to even imagine that this is a discussion that that character should be dead but if they were to be dead you couldn't use them in any more stories and they're so useful for stories um Wow has been pretty good about keeping the ones that died in a significant enough way dead. I mean, we went to the shadow lands to kind of get around that, but even then we didn't like there, they died. They're dead.

That's where they're going to stay. They're not coming back. Kael'thas comes to mind. Dether and Disco isn't coming back. Arthas. At this point, I think we have really seen that if Arthas does come back, it's only going to be for some incredible, huge reason. And they went out of their way to make sure he didn't come back in Legion. not legion uh shadowlands you know i just i feel like that's the kind of thing dementius was not fleshed out to the point where you can't get more story out of it

Like you can, you can squeeze that stone and get a lot of shadowy blood out of it because all we know about dementia is his name and what he did that made everybody hate him. We'd have no, we have no knowledge of what kind of being dementia really is. Yeah, and also pair that in mind with the fact that he is a void entity, and void entities are nothing if not infinite potential. We've heard that a thousand times at this point. So...

Yeah, I mean, our representation of what we've seen of him so far is limited, and that's just the way it is. But I like the choice here specifically, and I want to come back to that because.

Again, Burning Crusade was a very, very, very long time ago. And a lot of the quest lines, we're starting to do this thing where... They understood that the story had a larger reach than they had originally intended and started putting more thought into it. And the ethereals were one of those things where they had a whole culture. They had a subdivide. They had their own.

A lot of the ideas of what we know about ethereals started in Burning Crusade. The fact that they were collectors of information, the fact that they were meticulously... archive that data, the fact that they had ways to transfer that data across the vast expanse of the nothingness of our reality space.

Like all of the stuff was established during Burning Crusade and the questing there. And I think a lot of people didn't get an opportunity to sort of explore that. And I also think that a lot of the orc stuff. really took focus in the Burning Crusade more so than the Ethereals. And to me, the questing in Netherstorm was actually some of the best parts of Burning Crusade. And so being able to go back and sort of experience that quest.

and kind of get a condensed version of what happened while you have Laura Walker Cho sort of... chirping in your ear and giving you like the highlights and little tidbits and interjections is insanely useful. And the other thing that it does is because it's not just the Ethereals, it also goes into Locust Walker and it goes into the void and it goes into Elyria and being a void elf.

the whole story in there and it recaps that as well, which I think is really, really nifty because again, while we did experience that, uh, in recent years. Showing how everything links together, I think is really important as well. We as lore heads and our own version of lore walkers here understand that there's a connection between the burning crusade ethereals, the locust walk.

the void hunters and the void elves. We know that. Okay. Go ahead, dude. I'm just going to say it. You're being coy to say it. Just, can we talk about the brokers now?

Yeah, we can talk about the brokers. Go ahead. Okay. Lower Worker Cho doesn't stop when he finally gets done talking about Ethereals. And he talks a lot about Ethereals. There's a lot to talk about. Um, and he has like, there's the thing I like about this is that you, you play through and you see a lot of stuff. Like you see Locust Walker and Elyria and all that, but then you also get Laura work at show basically just giving you a breakdown and it's great.

because you don't have to worry about, oh, did they miss something? Because you can just sit there and look at it. But then he starts talking about the brokers. And if you didn't remember from Shadowlands, the brokers were these people who just kind of showed up. They all looked kind of weirdly semi-mechanical. They had heads that almost looked like sigils, and they were just weird.

And really into trade and bargaining and so forth. To the point where they even had like a magical... I don't know what you'd call it. Like a city? Yeah. Like their market city. Tevesh. The market city. Tevesh. Sorry, I couldn't remember the name. And so Cho is basically saying, you know, this is really weird. There's a lot of similarities between them. I wonder if there's a connection. And then...

Boom. As he's just got done talking to you about Vinari, which if you don't remember, Vinari was a character in Shadowlands that we worked with. She basically sold us things called ciphers, which we used as part of the... ways we were changing our gear and trying to get around the the realm of the the jailer um the maw and you know she was basically being hunted by things and she was hiding from those things by hanging out

uh in the mall essentially and they had like i don't know what you call them they're like houses like almost cartel houses what were they called they're like cartels yeah they're yeah they're essentially they're essentially the equivalent of and they basically all of them were hunting her like Vinari who is presented as a her. I believe the actress is also the one who is from the, was in the expanse for a while. Yes. Very, very good voice.

So she basically gives you a lot of missions and it's obvious that she's playing us, but at the same time we need her help. A lot of stuff happens as you get out. of talking to cho about the ethereals and the possible connect broker connection she basically sends somebody to fetch you saying hey remember how you owe me uh i need you to to come here now and as a result

You bring Locus Walker to her and the two of them speak to each other. And the big part of this conversation is when Locus Walker sees her, he's like, oh. I haven't seen you since our home world was destroyed. And I liked it that way. Then I don't remember. I was going to say, it solidifies something that Matt called years ago. Yeah, I mean, he just, he's like, you know, I liked it better when you were nowhere to be found.

And she's like, look, I don't like you either, but since the same people are hunting me as that are hunting you, it looks like we have to work together one last time. And he's like, fine. And she's like, thank you. for bringing him to me. But right now I need to talk to him. So toodaloo. And you go back and you tell Laura Walker Cho and he's like, jaw hits the floor going, are you serious? They are connected? I was just speculating.

And I'm like, yeah, Joe, me too. Me too. I was also speculating. But at any rate, yeah, so that happened. And that basically, it makes a lot of sense.

It makes sense because it implies that the brokers, the word isn't just, it's a, first off, it's a play on the word broken because they are broken. They're just like the ethereals. they're broken. And one wonders how the difference is like what, what happened to them? They clearly didn't get turned into like masses of bandage wrapped ethereal energy, but are they the bodies?

Like that's like the original form is the question. Yeah. Or is this like, what's left is like literally the energy things are the souls pulled out. And these things are the bodies, much like the jailer had his essence pulled out. Much like you had these souls and the Forsaken being two separate things. Yeah. And remember how when we did Shadowlands, Venari hid in the Maw. Yeah.

Well, if she's the body of somebody whose soul was pulled out, it's not like the Maud's going to sense her or know she's there. And even if that's not exactly what happened, clearly... imagine if there's a you have to use magic to keep what dimensions is doing from destroying you and it turns you into

a mass of pure energy? What if there's a different thing that you basically have to like cram your soul on down inside yourself or ward it in some way? The broker body could be literally like a giant series of totems. holding their soul in place and keeping it shielded from everything. Yeah. And we also, and I remember we made the connection a while ago when we first were introduced to the brokers and what they do that.

their their predilection for for collecting things they're yeah collecting and trading and trading and dealing it seemed very much like something that would be right at home with the ethereals because again the ethereals have a very heavy trading culture

And there's a possibility, and I remember you mentioning this, that they may have been the original merchant class of the Ethereals way back when, who may have just beat feet as soon as Dementia Scott showed up. Like, well, we can travel to... any reality we want so deuces and just pieces out right like we could yeah like some of them like some of them like the uh i can't remember their name already but the ones that wanted to fight

the void, they might've been like, yes, call for fighting. And others might've been, nah, it's time to go. Like that week, this guy is going to blast our souls out of our bodies. We ain't saying we're on our way out the door. Yeah. Or for that matter, they could be dead ethereals. Yeah, this could be what dead ethereals look like. Yeah, like they might, you know, they went to the Shadowlands. Maybe that's why.

Yeah. There's like so many different ways this could play out. And the interesting thing is that it's going to play out, right? Like we're, we're going to get more information about this is something we've been asking for. And in lore walking, we get the tidbit of, Oh, we're going to get a payoff.

And there is something like all of us that have been sitting here screaming what the connection is. There has to be a connection. We're going to get a payoff. And I'm a-okay with that. Like this is a perfect use of it.

I do want to move on to the next section because there are three that I want to try to cover today, which is all three of them. The second one, and I don't know how much time we want to spend on this one, but it's the retelling of Arthas's past. For some folks who never got to experience Wrath of the Lich King, there was quests that took you through and actually showed you what happened to Arthas, not just the Culling of Stratholme.

but his fall from grace, his obsession with keeping his people safe, the type of person he was, the confrontation with him and Uther. And yes, even in Shadowlands, you replay some of the confrontation between him and Uther because you see it through Uther's perspective. But I think it's fascinating that they choose to revisit it here. And I'm curious what your thoughts are why this is chosen. Well, I mean, part of it is my suspicion that the next expansion is going to be...

Kind of a return to the Shadowlands because we got the whole thing with the brokers coming up and the brokers were heavily involved in the Shadowlands. And it makes me wonder. If the Lich King's story that the whole idea of the helm of domination, the, the Lich King's power flowing through it, the helm got destroyed and remade. We are still not sure about the loyalty.

of of you know oh bloody heck i can't remember his name and i really should be able to ah the one who's the military one i want he wanted to say the prodigy i know it's the primus the prime thank god yeah see it was a different band um but the Primus is like involved in having made the original helm of domination and he's involved in making the new one that was used to create the new jailer. I don't know where this all goes.

but it feels like the story of Arthas is very valuable in understanding the way that the Shadowlands can't, you know, it tried to get into Azeroth and the whole deal with like, you know, the Xerath Mortis and its location on Azeroth if we're going to end up going to another place like that at some point. And it feels like we probably will because we know Xerath Ordos has already been mentioned.

Yeah, and I think you're onto something there, and that's kind of where I was thinking too, is I think –

This being tied back to the Shadowlands is actually really important in understanding the birth of the Lich King, why that was there, what happened with Arthas and his fall, that sort of corruption, and the Runeblade in particular. So fascinatingly enough, and I think this is where the, for me, the importance stood out. Two key things that they do during this replay of the scenario is one, going to Frostmourne Cavern.

where you see him taking up the blade for the first time. It's Muradin reading the inscription. It's the darkness that's creeping in, but picking up the rune blade is the start of the rapid descent of Arthas. It's not.

the culling of Strathome. Culling of Strathome is sort of just like the spark that ignites the tinder. Yeah, that's how you get him angry enough to chase after you like a hornet. That's not... yeah he had not nowhere near the end of his journey there that's not even the start of it that's just the that's the note that gets you to start doing it it's it was all a vehicle to make him

hate Mal'Ganis enough to seek him. And that's all it was, right? Because if it was just the calling of Stratholme, if Mal'Ganis had not shown up, Arthas would have felt bad, but he would have felt justified i guess is the best way that i can phrase it yeah because he also would have felt done he would have felt done he would have felt concluded but because malgana showed up and ribbed him that forced him to follow to northrend and now

A face was put to the plague. So in Arthas' mind, the task that he has to do is keep the people of Lauderon safe. Everything he's making the decision on is based off of that root idea. And to him, because now he knows that Melganis is, and I'm air quoting, knows that Melganis is the orchestrator of the plague. He has to defeat him because if Melganis. is loose the plague can strike at any time again it's not done the plague is still present

And if he doesn't finish it, more of his people will die. So you get him. Yeah. And that's useful because that's how you get him to give up a piece of himself at a time. Yeah. By through his sense of duty. Right. Yeah. He won't, you know, he's. At the time that Arthas was going through all this, he wasn't bribable. He wasn't corruptible. You had to actually use his sense of honor and duty against him. And also...

There's a lot of sunk cost fallacy in what Arthas does. One of the things you see is how he plays off the mercenaries to destroy his own ships so he can't go home. Like he's being ordered to. And therefore, since he can't go home anyway, he's going to continue on the mission that he's on. And then he lets his own, he lets the soldiers kill the mercenaries because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll lose their loyalty and he needs them to fulfill his mission to save everyone from Melganas.

And then condemning the people by burning of the ships and making sure that the only way that they could come back is after it was done and defeated, essentially turning it into a suicide mission. Basically, we're going to have to wait here until another group of ships shows up to get us because these ships are gone.

Yeah. And I think that's really important to start showing that. And the other thing that I think is important and I think is actually really eyeopening is when you look at the dungeon that they choose to have you go through again. After everything is said and done, you go through basically the inner sanctum, the resting place of where Frostmourne is. And if anybody did this at level, it will look very, very similar, except you're playing it solo.

But I think it's important here because it's all about the Runeblade. This is where Frostmourne is when not in the possession of the Lich King. And it shows you all of the souls that Frostmourne has claimed. It starts with, in this case, Gina having a conversation with Uther. the soul of Uther as it was consumed by Frostmourne, or at least the fragment of it that was. And we know this because we know through Shadowlands that Uther's soul was fragmented, essentially. And then...

You go through and you complete the task and you get the Gina Proudmoore realization. You get all of that. But again, it's all about Frostmourne. They could have chosen any other moment at that point. They could have chosen.

any other arthur's interaction but they chose that one and i think it's really telling and really important well the fact that it's a rune blade too kind of makes us wonder if it's the fact that it's a rune blade or the runic aspect of it yeah exactly And that would relate to the new helm of domination, the crown of will or whatever it's called. Yeah. It would also relate to any other use of runes over this entire thing.

Runic magic is one of the, one of the things about it that they may, they've made point. They may even clear many times. Can't talk today. They've made clear very many times that a broken runic item when repaired is stronger. Yes, which I want to point this out real quick. The last part, the last part that you go through is you play as the Lich King fighting against the raid that...

that inevitably kills you. And the end of it is the shattering of Frostmore. It's the shattering of the blade. That's where that scenario ends, which leads into what Matt's talking about. And you can continue. I just wanted to point that out. No, I mean, that's a very good point to make. Frostmourne gets destroyed. Technically speaking, it was remade into Shadowmourne. Well, some of it was because it wasn't all the fragments of Frostmourne. No, but you could, if someone were to get...

it wouldn't be that hard if we can get you know if we had artifact we had like our artifacts like you know burned out by so-and-so's power uh my god if i can't remember sargeras's name what is wrong with me today but when sargeras's power the power of that sword he stuck into the planet Which I think is going to be tied in fairly soon to the Black Blood stuff in this expansion if we don't see it until next expansion. But I think that...

it's quite possible that by the end of that expansion, we might have to remake Frostmourne. If only because we need something to stop whatever's coming. And only a remade Frostmourne. Especially if you have to break Shadowmourne to make it. Because now you're breaking another rune weapon to make the original rune weapon. And remember that some of the pieces were used in one of the artifacts.

The one that was dual-bladed, Icing Death, and the other one, I can't remember the other one's name, but the two of them were also created out of Shards of Frostmourne. So if you needed to get all the shards together, you'd need to break an artifact and a legendary. and get all the pieces together to remake Frostmourne, it would probably be one of the strongest runic weapons ever made, especially depending on who remade it. Like if the Primus remade it, that's a big deal.

The primus is all practically the inventor of runic magic, or at least he is on the shadow land side of things. So yeah, I just, it feels like the runic stuff is important. I don't know. what role it's going to play but we keep hearing the idea of you have to remake the final titan or and we know that the last titan is the name of the third expansion in this series well

I think it all ties together. And I think, I think the runic aspect of it is what's the, I agree with you. I think it's the important part and I think it's chosen here because look at the Titan language. Look at what we've been experiencing in The War Within when we started going through the discs, the Titan disc fragments, and these are more discs in Organon that essentially we're putting together. The Titan language is a runic language. It just is.

Everything we do or see with them, they're involved in it. When you start dealing with the power of the light, the language of those that wield the light, the language of the light, the language of... Why can I remember them now? Our big glowing friends. The Naru? The Naru. All of that is runic. It's all very similar in its cadence and the way that it is presented.

whenever they cast a spell, what are they doing? Or whenever they use their power, they're showing a basically a rune. I think it all ties together. And I think it flows into specifically, I think the third, the third story, which we'll get here to in a minute. But I think it also goes into just what's happening.

As we move forward, like you said, I think it has to do with like the Titan and Azeroth and rebuilding last night and go into the chamber where you return the disc fragments. Just look around. It's a heart chamber. There's ruins everywhere. Like it's.

Science magic is really the best way that I can put it for what they do there. And I think it is important. You want to hear my wildest speculation about all this? Yeah, please. I have always felt that there's two characters in Warcraft who have a very strong connection without having anything to do with each other. We have been thinking about The Last Titan in reference to Azeroth for a long time now.

I think it's Sargeras. Yeah, that's where I was just about to go, man. We are in the same wavelength sometimes. I'm sorry. Sargeras and Arthas have a very similar narrative storyline. You know, they both wanted to do the right thing. They both went further and further afield from where they should have gone. They both ended up like convinced, you know, Arsas is like, I got to kill everybody because that's the only way to stop the Legion.

um sargeras was like i gotta destroy everything because that's the only way to stop the void but i think since neither of them was aimed at the right place because we know now that the void is not going to destroy everything No, the void, the void's like, I want everything to exist because I want it to be mine. I want it to all exist at once. Yeah. You know, even stuff that shouldn't. But imagine if you, if you could remake.

sargeras sargeras is the final titan yeah because he killed the rest of them Yeah. I mean, also to go along that line, same lines, like we know, and this is like, because we know where we're going with this. One of the themes of the war within is that the Titans were not trustworthy and Sargeras already knew that. And.

At the end, like, yes, we've imprisoned Sargeras with the Pantheon, but we know that we're going to be dealing with the Pantheon again. And wouldn't it be just some wonderfully poetic thing if we're the ones that broke Sargeras out and pointed the cannon where it needed to go? Well, also think about this. Each of the Titans, one of the problems might be that the Titans aren't united. Yeah. Well, because we know they're not. Yeah. And the problem here is if you think of them not as beings.

But as concepts, they each have a rune. Yeah. And if you want to rebuild the final Titan, you would use other runes. You would make a rune god out of them. Force them to work in harmony to create a final entity, right? Yeah. And since that the Pantheon is effectively broken, it has been this whole time, remaking it would create the last Titan.

And this thing is, I think from the beginning, you and I have both said that whatever Azeroth is, it isn't a Titan. Yeah, I would agree with that. It's something else. It might be, you know, to the Titans as the Titans are. to like us but whatever it is it's not just a titan it's something greater it can empower it's you know it's empowering aspects now well here's here's the thing about that though sargeras knows what it is

Like I am fully in belief of that. He believes that I don't think he, I don't think he ever believed that it was just another Titan soul, which is why he was so gung ho on swaying it and not destroying it. right? Because it was just another Titan soul. He's cleaved planets in twain. He's killed world soul. Like, and he's killed other Titans. Not a big deal for him, right? He would just extract the essence and, and torture it back on, on, you know, Argus. He didn't.

There was a very distinct reason why he didn't. We don't know what that is, but I have a feeling it has to do with what Azeroth actually is. And yeah, you said this years ago, and I agree with you when he plunged the sword into the planet. I don't think he was trying to kill the planet. I think he was aiming for a Titan facility. And I think he was trying to take the locks off because. Yeah, that could make sense. Because look where he struck.

how close was he to one of the prime Titan facilities, right? Like you have, you have the hall of origination, you have a major system for the Titan facilities right there.

But to go back to the why this is important with Arthas, I think you're correct in that the parallels there are also really relevant. Looking at Arthas's journey and then looking at Sargeras and understanding where Sargeras... fanaticism came from because he thought he was doing the right thing to achieve his goal and I think because everybody's like well what does Arthas have to do with what's coming in the next two expansions I think this is it I think between the runic the runic connection

Probably going back to the Shadowlands because of the broker connection again, which I have a theory on that later. which probably not in this episode, whatever. But then looking at Sargeras and the fallout there, and I really like your idea of having all of the Titans have to be essentially forged together.

whether it's through their bond or whether it's an actual, like we rip their essence and forge it into a super being. Yeah, do they Voltron it? I don't know. But regardless, their powers combined, they captain universe this thing. In reforging them into an actual functional unit. I think that all plays together. I think everything feeds into each other. Yeah. And the thing is, is we keep talking about the Titans not being trustworthy.

But it might not be that they're not trustworthy. It might be that they are broken. Yeah, they might not be untrustworthy. They might just be idiots. Well, they're not trustworthy, but not because they're evil malevolent forces so much as they do not understand that they are doing the wrong thing. Yeah.

And how many times have we seen that? Arthas didn't understand that he was doing the wrong thing. Sargeras didn't understand that he was doing the wrong thing. And now the Titans don't understand that they've been doing the wrong thing. Which leads directly into our...

next part, which deals with how many times as we as champions have not understood that we're not doing the right thing. Uh, the next section is all about Zalatath. And this is where there is going to be some spoilers here that. I think are a little bit more major. So join us in about 20 minutes for our wrap up. If you really care about this and want to, and, and, and go through it yourself. Otherwise, here we go.

You get to see the origin of Zalatath, but before you get to that point, Laura Walker, Laura Walker Cho sort of... gives you a recap of everything we know about Zalatath. The acquisition of the Black Blade of the Empire, or the Blade of the Black Empire, being sought out by priests.

interaction between it and its wielders us essentially going and grabbing it if you were a priest doing the legion uh whole thing of going and getting it learning of its past and, and, and releasing it and breaking up the cultists, the twilight cultists that were trying to resurrect the blade, uh, not, not resurrect the blade, excuse me.

use the blade to resurrect the Cathraxia that fought and killed Tyr. It takes you through all of those events, which I think are actually important because, again... A lot of really interesting Zalatath lore was hidden behind Order Hall stuff for the priests, as well as specifically the priest. artifact quest line and if you didn't play a priest you didn't get to experience it and it was very important as far as who Zalatath was what it was and why it was important to us

One of the things that I think we should probably move on to talking about too is this is great for everybody who didn't play a priest in Legion, obviously, because you get to see a big chunk of Zalotas backstory that you didn't otherwise see. You also get to see a few moments that I think are really funny. I don't know how else to put it. Like when Zalatath is buttering up the priest. Oh yeah. The whispers, the sucking up to the, the sucking up to the priest.

I wouldn't even say sucking up. Sucking up would be like, you know, I want something specific and I'm going to like just toady to you for favor. Zalatath isn't doing that. Zalatath is trying to, it's trying to lead by example. It's trying to say, you know. I like how you do things, man. I think we work well together. I see great things for us. Yeah.

You're like a friend. I haven't had that many friends. I like this thing we're doing, which is very much like Zalatath has been throughout the War Within. Every time she sees Elyria. She just immediately starts on that. You know, you and I, we're not so different. So that's, that's nice too. But also you get to see.

the things in battle for Azeroth that Zalatath was up to, you get to see the whole deal with N'Zoth, which comes, which we then have a whole different thing about, because I think at this point, we kind of have to talk about the new. The new story revelations.

Well, I do want to talk about one other thing before you get to that third part. There is something I think is really important that Lorewalker Cho does during the intermission. They actually went through, and one of the cool features of having Zalatath, or as the community has often done. Loved her knife wife is that as a priest wielding it, you occasionally get whispers from her in game, depending on where you are. And these are very important things as far as like.

Understanding her disposition and what she wants from you in a lot of the capacity of her, I don't want to say malice, but her indifference to the existence in general. But Lorewalker actually has collected every single one of the whispers. So as you're sitting on the bench next to Lorewalker Cho, you can actually individually go through them. And again, I think this is an incredibly smart choice.

because if you never played a priest, you never heard those whispers. And this gives you the opportunity to do that. And I can hear Mitch just reciting each of these as we're talking about them now instinctively. But it's a really smart choice, and it leads directly in to the third and final section, the origin of Zalatac. And I'll let Matt talk, because I've talked a lot here.

I'll let him go for it. So whenever you're ready, it's really interesting because when we finally start seeing the last bit, it goes back to something we saw in dragon flight of all things. In Dragonflight, there's a questline involving Nosdormu that at one point, trying to save Chromie from eternal time loop jumping with basically one of the...

I want to say Twilight Dragonflight, but that's not the right word at all. It's the infinite Dragonflight. Yes. The two of them are getting sent back to various times and spaces. On the way to deal with it, we accidentally create an Azeroth ruled by murlocs. But also, we eventually go back to the Black Empire, and there's this big fight with... elementals versus the old gods and the old gods are confining and controlling them. This time we go back in time again.

through the lore walkers. We don't actually go back. He just shows us what happened. Which I think is interesting, by the way, because the framing of it is... oh yeah no don't worry we low walkers do more than just tell the story you already know we keep digging because no mystery is uh we don't like mysteries we like no yeah you want yeah we want to have the whole deal um you get back there and

lore walker's like look we got this this uh tablet and it's got like a it's got a play-by-play of this weird battle that happened when the old gods sent all their forces to nialotha because Zalatath was attacking it. Well, yeah, I saw this moment and I cheered by the way, because I don't remember if it was you or me that said it on the show. But a while ago we said that Zalatath was not an ally of the old gods at all and was likely on the side of the void because the old gods are.

parasites. They were a weird mutation of void flung into reality. It definitely feels like Zalatath has a more direct connection to the void than the old gods do. And that kind of is played out. As you go into the Lord Walker Cho bit with the tablet, there's one of the cathraxies whose name is Zithix, and I don't even get me. X-I-T-H-I-X-X-I-N. It's another jazz hands. Yeah. Zithin says, come forth chosen. Zalatath seeks to usurp the masters. Lord N'Zoth will not tolerate this betrayal.

go forth with N'Zoth's gifts of power. Your mission is too important for you to fail. And then from there, you basically have to go to every other old God's hangout. Well, kind of. So there's an important thing here that I think that we missed is... One of the opening segments is that Zalathas is attacking because she has discovered... what N'Zoth is building beneath Ny'alotha. It doesn't tell you what it is, but it tells you that there is a very specific reason that Ny'alotha existed, which...

We kind of suspected. The reason we find that out, though, was coming next because the other old gods talk about it. Yeah, each of them. When you get there, N'Zoth sends himself, lowly though you are, your contributions are seen and acknowledged. Bring the others to me. Yogg-Saron says, Zalatath's betrayal was inevitable, but she has played her hand too soon. We will crush her.

Yashraj says, Zoth should have known Zalatath would target Ny'alotha when she learned what he was building. Fortunately, our aid will leave him in our debt. And C'Thun whispers, Zalatath underestimates us. Her attempts to distract us have failed. Even we will work together when faced with such blatant betrayal. So that's...

I want to go back real quick too because we see physical representations of all the old gods here. Their essence essentially is brought to Nylotha or their consciousness. It's not necessarily their physical form. The only one that has a physical form present is – N'Zoth since Nylotha is theirs. And I'm going to take this with a grain of salt because this is still the PTR and they may change the art assets, but...

I was very shocked to see that the current representation of Yashiraj is just a Shah with armor. And I'm curious if that's going to change to more accurately represent the description. of yasharaj in game even by its followers because right now it doesn't have multiple heads it has a head it is what's really weird about the nizoth thing though is it doesn't even really look necessarily like a shot It looks like a Naru.

no i mean if you look at the physicality of it if you look at the shot of uh shot of anger or whatever it is it's that same physical frame but with bits at the same time but at the same time it actually does kind of get a naru like I don't know how to explain it. There's a bit where you see the bunch of them in the, in the chamber fighting. I don't know if they're fighting directly or if they're providing power, but they're there in the chamber and there's Zalatath and Zalatath.

Looks a lot like Dementius. Yeah, it's the original Dementius. I don't want to say withered form, but close enough. Yeah, but it is. It's a scrawnier-looking elemental. It looks like the kind of elementals that were more like... like thin and it's got like kind of a cloak head. I don't know. It's the original hers is the original.

uh blueberry form like the the void i forgot what they're called uh the that warlocks get the void pet um originally looked like this way back in like closed beta like generations ago and then eventually moved into But they also used its model in Burning Crusade. A lot. A lot. Yeah, it was all over the place. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Love music? We do too.

Well, if you ever feel like it's hard to keep up, though, don't worry. We're here to help. Monday through Friday, Daily Music Headlines gets you the top happenings in music, from chart toppers, news releases, concert announcements, and more. All in less than five minutes. Don't miss out. Get the show at dailymusicheadlines.com. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. So yeah, I don't know. It's really interesting. What exactly...

was going on under there, we have no idea. Nothing tells us. Yeah, no, I know that we might, but we don't currently. But I also think that one of the other important things that you get in that moment is that... And this is where Laura Walker comes in with, again, even more information we didn't have before. And a lot of people are questioning how Laura Walker Cho got this. You...

In the moments, you are essentially contributing to all the Olgoth's power and their minions, sealing Zalatath into the blade. That is her punishment, not to be destroyed. Because I don't know that they can destroy her, not to send her back to the void because that would just be folly, but to trap her in the blade. And apparently there was a conversation.

between her and N'Zoth after this happened, where she essentially says, wouldn't your plans be better if your brothers were not in your way? When you are ready. Just reach out. And that's what you see going back to what Matt was saying, the battle for Azeroth stuff. And then when we essentially released Zalatath from the blade and received N'Zoth's blessing and the, like.

It still had the blade as part of the plans for what N'Zoth was going to do. Because again, remember we pierced the carapace of N'Zoth. by Wrathion wielding Zalatath and shoving it into the Carapace to let us get in and do our damage to N'Zoth. All of this is part of a plan set in motion by Zalatath. And now it begs the question, she knew what he was doing. What part of the long con is this for her? And we see these things. I want to go back to the hollow fall real quick in the war within.

There's a whole quest line in hollow fall. We've talked about this a little bit where you're dealing with a void fish, essentially. It's a fish that talks directly into your brain and has multiple eyes. and looks a whole hell of a lot like you would expect to see something that N'Zoth would do, right? I believe we called this out on both the regular podcast and this, where it looks just like the fish that presented itself to Queen Azshara.

when she made the deal, right? N'Zoth's not gone. Are you asking me if it's, you know, yeah, it does look very much like that. Yeah. N'Zoth's not gone. It's interesting to think about. Yeah, N'Zoth's not gone, but also think of it this way. When she says you think about how much better your plan would be. If your brothers were all gone, they're all gone now. And then, yeah. But also.

the thing joe just said about how the it wasn't technically it wasn't it wasn't zolatath anymore because zolatath have been taken out of it so it was just it was just a you know prison it was the prison knife We've been talking for a long time about where N'Zoth is. But if you think about it, one of the places he could be is in that knife. That's where he could have gone when he quote unquote died.

Because that's what the knife was there for. And the fact that she straight up calls them pestilent. I think the exact phrase is something like pestilence pretending to be Kings or something. Pestilence pretending to be Lords. Well, okay. When she says that, it immediately makes me think of the one quote-unquote old god that wasn't there at the time because it didn't exist. G'huun. Big old disease god.

Why were the Titans studying that? They said that they were studying all of them, but why were they studying that? And what did it have to do with things like the blood plague that we see? in battle for Azeroth right around the same time that Zalatath is making her move to get out. And N'Zoth is essentially working with her to free her.

Like, did she do something for him already? And he was paying her back. And it just, a lot of this stuff comes around and you, and you're like thinking, okay, this probably ties in, but how does it tie in? Did, did Gahun, was that something? that they needed? And what if N'Zoth's whole goal is to make himself into a lord instead of a pestilence?

And we've said it before, we've tied back to the whole idea that when we get back there, N'Zoth sees us and knows we're there. When we time travel back trying to save Chromie, N'Zoth is aware of us. He even comments on us. Especially if you had the hat thing that he put on everybody. N'Zoth was like, aha, that's interesting. And we know that the old gods mess around with time travel all the time because the whole War of the Ancients has a big deal.

where the old gods put the whammy on North Dormu so they can do time travel shenanigans. So yeah, this puts Zalatath into a completely different category. We've been speculating for eons as to what Zalatath is, and we still don't know. We still don't know exactly what Zalatath is, but it does seem that Zalatath is a lot more like Dementius and other void lords than she is an old god. The old gods almost seem like she disdains them.

She straight up doesn't, she doesn't view them as equals, much less superiors. They might have the power, but they're definitely not truly loyal to the void as if becoming something physical. is inherently corruptive to the void it'll it'll either drive the the fleshy thing insane or it'll make the thing that comes out of it the old gods into into things that don't

believe in the thousand truths anymore. Maybe, but there's also an interesting thing that I think going through the Zalataz storyline that it brought something back up that I forgot she had said. When doing the battle for Azeroth stuff, because again, if you weren't dealing the blade stuff or you didn't really pay attention to the questing, you wouldn't get it. One of the things you do is you're, you're going to get three void objects.

to essentially bring to N'Zoth to free her, to gain her power. And you're being used essentially a little bit by her to get her goal. But one of the things she says when you get the first void stone and kill the priest that is attempting to open the void stone. own is that, ah, it has been so long since I've taken a mortal form and this one is pleasing. Don't you agree? And that means that at some point in time, she had a physical form.

And it wasn't just this elf that she is, this dead elf mage or priest that she is inhabiting. She had a physical form at some point. So I don't know that necessarily it's an ultimate corruption. At least maybe not the void doesn't view it as an ultimate corruption, but whatever the old gods are is not what they expected or wanted, which I think is a really important distinction because she's not exactly opposed to a physical form.

Does that make sense? I understand where you're going with it, but I think it's similar to the fact that we see what the void elves are like. The void can and will work in and with physical form, but the Elgots are not about working with physical form. They're completely about degeneration, destruction, corruption. These are things that the old gods are inherently doing. One of the things that I always remember this.

In the stuff where Loken changed the Halls of Stone and the Halls of Lightning memories, he corrupted what they said. One of the things he called the old gods was necrophotic entity, light eating, light killing, called them necrophotic parasite, parasitical necrophotic entity. I think about that a lot because.

Why would the old gods be doing that? Why would he tell the discs to say they're doing that? Because remember, everything in those discs, in the Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning, comes from Loken. He changed them. That's why they stole the original death of Norgan. And so they could see what they actually said. And I feel like there's a, there's a clue there. Logan didn't start out wanting to serve the old gods. That was not his goal. He got.

his mind messed with, but it's quite possible since we know a Constellar was, it was hanging out in Oldowar. It's quite possible. Loken was trying to call the Constellar there. We know that he was, in fact, because the whole thing about the Constellar arriving was keyed to the first designate's death, the prime designate. And when he died.

although i thought the prime designate was dead because the other the real prime designate had been sealed away in another dimension so loken was free to take the role and then he is he arranged for his own death so he was trying To stop the old gods. If he's void mad, why is he trying to stop the old gods? But it goes back to the fact that what form is, what is Vizax? A cathraxy. What, what is.

Loken seen sending after Tyr and those that were loyal to him. Cathrax. Cathrax. What does Zalatath wake up? Cathrax. Yeah. And not only that, but the power that she. first consumes when she is picked up by a priest the first thing she does is consume the power of a cathraxia yeah

I am starting to think that the Cathraxia are not loyal to the old gods. I think I would tend to agree with you with the way that it's presented. And we even see, when we see the whole deal with G'huun happening, that's a Cathraxia trying to do that. Even one step further, going back to the Ny'alotha invasion, which, by the way, I'm convinced that Ny'alotha was either a Titan facility or a prototype Titan facility. We'll talk about that in a later episode. There's no Cothraxy there.

They're all faceless ones. Yeah. There are no Cathraxy at all. Here's another thing to think about. Where does Nihilotha appear when it is invading our reality? Uldum. Yep. And. uh the the bloody heck no no uh all them and uh yeah i know you're god it's the the the lamenting woods or whatever it's in it's in pandaria specifically It's where the base that you go into and find another Titan guardian, Norishen.

and find where the heart chamber had been the heart chamber but not a heart chamber like the other ones we see a heart chamber where they kept the heart of of you know dog suraj and If they kept the heart of Yasharaj, well, it certainly probably would have been, if you had a heart chamber, that's where you'd put it. Like, think about the other heart chambers.

that they have throughout azeroth they have at least one more why do they have that heart chamber and this heart chamber do they have other chambers that they have other chambers that are similar to them because we've been to them We literally go into one to read the discs that we – the Titan Fragment discs that we reassemble in The War Within. It is essentially another heart chamber. Yeah. So think about what that means. With a portal that's very similar to when we did the –

The Nightmare Visions, I'm just thinking of as well, which that's a whole other thing. Yeah, but there was a rumor at one point that they were planning on making it obvious that General Vizax was Tyr. They obviously didn't end up going with that. But think about that. General Visax was the first Chathraxy we ever saw. We didn't even know what he was. Nobody knew what he was. He was just this nightmarish thing. What if...

We've seen other Titan constructs be corrupted by the old gods. We've seen the big Osirian, the Undaunted. Osirian was a giant Titan construct. He got turned into an old god servant. The Anubisath turned into all godservants. The Tolvir turned into obsidian destroyers. It's clear that it isn't just mortals getting curse-a-fleshed.

The Titan constructs can be taken over and controlled and even mutated by the power of the All Gods. The Chythraxi might be Titan constructs. I mean, it would make sense why they could fight Tyr. If you say, and think about it. If Loken is sending the Chathraxi out after people, you know, it might be tied to the only other old God we see with Chathraxi servants is N'Zoth. And you're arguing.

And it's a good argument that Ny'alotha might be some kind of Titan construct. We've heard for eons about how there's a backup for Azeroth, but we've never heard... Maybe the backup was for the Titan facilities on Azeroth and Nihilotha is the corrupted one. And that's why what he's building under Nihilotha. When Nihilotha doesn't have a physical presence, what does that mean under it? Unless it's like using the phrase underlying it. He's digging into the essence of what makes Nihilotha.

to get to the part below it, which is the source code for the planet, essentially. He wants to take over all the Titan facilities. Remember, when we tried fighting him, they wouldn't let us use Ulduar. And who wouldn't let us use it? And who wouldn't let us use it? Odin and presumably Mimiron. Well, Mimiron's going to hung up on us, right? Yeah, but presumably...

All the current Titan watchers that live up there have one thing in common. They have all been directly subjugated by the power of an old God. Thorim, Hodir, Freya, Mimiron. All of them were at one point, and I'm quoting Memorand here, corrupted by the fiend in the prison. But he's gone. If N'Zoth had created something and that, you know, and.

Loken was using Chathraxy to attempt to stop it. It's part, it then comes out to us. It's possible to consider that he had made a deal with the knife. I mean, it says things about the whole deal when you have it. And you go to, you go to Alduar. If you are a shadow priest with that knife, you go into Alduar and it's not.

There's the knife is not like, Ooh, wow. Yay. Fancy. It's like, yeah, this place again. Yeah. Like I said, there's a reason that they chose what they chose. And I think it, I think you're on the right track for it. I, it's one of those things where. I want to round this out real quick. Going back to the idea of timewalking in general, I am really happy to see it, and I'm really happy to see this implementation of it. I'm happy to see it.

not just reliving and retelling important bits of story. I'm happy to see that it is injecting new bits as well to sort of fill in the gaps that we have been speculating on for years. And I think that is really smart of them because not only does it give, uh, you know, a recap for folks that maybe didn't get to experience the stuff the first time around.

It's something for those of us who did experience it to learn more or to have some of our suspicions validated. So I am looking forward to this going live and seeing what the final form is. Because again, yeah. Like what model are they going to actually use for, you know, for, um, you know, Zalatath might have a different form. Yeah. Right. Like, or like, I'm really curious to see that.

Um, and I'm also curious to see what things will be potentially hidden inside of it because one of the other things that you found during. all of these is there's tons of interactable books. There's tons of things that you can actually read and, and, and find. And I don't think everything has been discovered yet. But I'm also not entirely sure that everything has been placed in those scenarios on the PTR because Blizzard has been incredibly smart about...

playing some things close to the chest, even when they go to the PTR and not necessarily putting something in to be data mined or experienced until it goes live. And I'm curious to see what additional things. get added because I know for damn sure that I will be scouring.

every possible inch of what's available to me in each of these scenarios to see what I can click on and what I can't because there's always hidden stuff there too. And the other thing that I think is really interesting is not only doing just. the show of these events and doing the scenarios for them. They're also giving you an opportunity between each of the sections of it. Cause each one's broken down into like three or four sections of story.

You get to interact with Lorewalker and ask them questions, and they give you their perspective. The other thing that I find fascinating that they're doing and is a whole topic in and of itself, many, many, many years ago. A ton of us have speculated whether Lore Walker Cho is actually a Pandaren. And several folks in the community have believed that he may in fact be a bronze dragon.

that is just kind of chilling in the periphery because of the magic that the lore walkers use and because of his way of knowing things that none of the other lore walkers seem to be able to know. And this does not help with that sort of speculation. I've seen so many people back on that train and it very well may be the case, but if they use as a vehicle to show more about lore Walker show in particular.

I would not be upset. But I think that's going to do it for today. We could go on for another hour about this. And in fact, we probably will. If you have questions for this or any of our podcasts, be sure to send those in to podcasts at blizzardwatch.com. Specify the show that it is for in the subject line, as well as any special pronunciation of your name. If you want to hit us up on discord, we have the Q and podcast question channel, which is open for everybody.

Same rules apply. If you are a Patreon supporter, please be sure to hit us up on the patron queue and podcast questions channel. We tend to look there first as a way of saying, thank you for helping us keep the lights on. And you can also send us messages directly on Patreon and we will get them. For sure. With that, folks, we'll see you next week.