Wait a second there. This little bit just sparked an idea in my head that might just put things into context about the plagues they've been experimenting with. While there's no hint that the current version of the plague they unleashed at Wrathgate can do this, it would make sense that more bodies could be harvested to bolster their ranks. It would be most plausible that this works best on the Scourge, by removing them from the grasp of the Lich king without physically harming the corpse. And voila, instant able bodied soldiers, with a good motivation to join the Forsaken.

The plague the Forsaken has been experimenting with was designed to destroy the living and the dead, not bring them back for reanimation. In the Arthas novel Rise of the Lich King the bodies of those given the Forsaken's plague turn to mush, and again we know the bodies @ Wrathgate were practically melting into mush as well.

HOWEVER, Alexstrasza did torch the entire area, whether this was to burn the plague or the bodies so they couldn't be reanimated isn't clear.

Bornakk made a quick post on unfinished content in Azeroth:

I can just imagine them finishing up all the expansions they have in mind, then releasing a bunch of "stuff we put off forever" content. Except that'd be kinda lame. "You may have defeated Sargeras, but can you face the perils of Timbermaw Hold?!"

Anyways, the lore news blog I mentioned is up at Coming Soon to Azeroth . Check it out! *cough* This'll be the only direct plug for it, although I'll probably reference it in these discussions whenever possible. Because that's what it's for. Thanks to Emeraude and Mr. Crow for offering to help maintain it.

But we do know that Sylvanas has been actively breaking undead from the Lich Kings grasp over the years to continue bolstering her numbers (hence why she has been recruiting Necromancers also). Even if they came under attack I'd imagine the majority of their fighting force would consist of disposable forces such as Abominations and not so much the Forsaken themselves.

Who's to say what happens to the Scourge after the defeat of Arthas, also.

It seems likely to me that the Forsaken will get a flood of new membership applications.

That's a good point actually, in fact there's a potential story element there if a sizeable portion decide not to join the Forsaken at all but form a secondary faction. I'm guessing a good chunk of the Forsaken would only be under Sylvanas' banner because they've got no other place to go, and recent events at the Wrathgate have demonstrated not all undead are... shall we say, pro-life?

Assuming all the undead under the command of the Lich Kind don't just keel over, they all have to go somewhere. After his defeat I would assume a large-scale culling of the undead would go on, but who knows.

It's possible that a large number would go to the legion, and some may go to the Forsaken, but it's also possible that we get someone who tries to keep the Scourge together under their own command. It's unlikely that it will be anyone with nearly as much power as Arthas, but still.

In all cases I can remember, when the "mind (overmind? heh)" responsible for animating the corpses of the dead is shut down, the bodies simply crumple lifelessly. From what I can see, the majority of the scourge are simply animated, mindless puppets. They don't appear to share the traits of the Forsaken - and I assume that when Arthas' link to them is severed, they won't wander around aimlessly as suddenly sentient beings, but they'll just become a pile of bones once more.

This is particularly present in Rise of the Lich King, as Arthas is constantly using effortless physical gestures to manipulate the motion of his army.

I wonder if there's a difference in necromantic methods used between the resurrection of the Forsaken and the Scourge? When Arthas was betrayed by the Dread Lords and weakened as he fled The Undercity, we saw the Forsaken turn on him like puppets, prior to regaining their sentience... history has shown us that when the puppetmaster is shoved out of the picture, they do seem to regain their sentience, which I guess is pretty contradictory to my first paragraph.

I guess a simple explanation would be the subject needs to have their brain intact? This fits consistently with the residents and Abominations of The Undercity.

Whilst we wouldn't experience it within the game itself, it's safe to assume that in reality, we'd be killing every last Scourge soldier on our way to Arthas, clearing out Icecrown and purging all of Northrend before making the march to his doorstep. Unfortunately due to the limitations of respawns, most of the Undead we've killed in Icecrown are still visible to the player. But pretending for a moment that they didn't respawn, we could safely assume that there would be no Scourge left to "wake up" after Arthas hits the floor?

I'd like to think through phasing we can experience it in at least some small way in-game. A good candidate would be the massive Scourge force guarding the final gate before Icecrown - having some quest chain or world event leading to a large-scale showdown, then phasing the Scourge out would work well from a gameplay point of view, and would be pretty much necessary from a story point of view.

But either way yes you're right, it seems unlikely that we could even get to Arthas without having to decimate most of his army on the way.

Whilst this is probably just a mistake that they forgot about him, it does offer a nice hook into a "Titans returning" plotline/expansion. Whilst Algalon sent back the "All's Fine" distress code, or you did for him, the Titan's think Azeroth is fine. Tyr saw Loken was corrupted and got out of there as soon as he saw Loken attacking/enslaving the other watchers. He decided to report directly to the Pantheon about the events and request aid or reforming the planet with 1 dead (and unresolved) and one or more corrupted aspects, two dead Old God spirits wandering about (if you believe the comic book voice was C’thun), numerous invasions by the Legion and Sargeras, the dream being corrupted by something (Hakkar) and now the watchers going nuts and the Prime Designate dying.

I mean let’s be honest, the planet is pretty messed up right now.

I noticed something tonight before we started pulling Vezax trash, and I couldn't find if it had been brought up before.

If you ever go down Hodir's hallway, at the end you'll find that there's a dead end with a lone Frost Giant sitting in front of it. Likewise, between Mimiron's and Vezax's Hallways, there's a locked door. Each entryway has a unique decoration, signifying who resides within. It made me wonder if they hadn't actually forgotten about Tyr but then realized they didn't have time / space, or just plain thought of something new to do with him?

We have at least three counter-examples in Icecrown: the banshee, abomination, and geist that we free from the Lich King's control. The way it looked to me wasn't just the substitution of one master for another -- remember the dialog each of them has when we work through the quest? What it looks like to me is, the control link is severed, and the newly-free undead are then persuaded to work with the Knights of the Ebon Blade (though I understand some folks might argue with that, and in any event nothing is ever so clear that Blizzard cannot retcon it). And there are other non-death-knight undead also working for that faction (gargoyle flight masters, ghoul vendors, et cetera).

We have two distinct factions that contain sentient non-player non-deathknight undead that broke from the scourge (Forsaken & Knights of the Ebon Blade). If the Lich King is destroyed, yeah, I expect many to just collapse lifelessly, but I think there's going to be enough left that dozens of distinct sub-factions will crop up.

(Edit: in fact, I'm recalling that we see a lich who's a member of the Ebon Blade, back in training HQ. I guess it's not impossible that Lich will be a future hero class, and they'll be members of the Ebon Blade just as Death Knights are.)

If what Metzen told us at Blizzcon stays true then I doubt all the undead will suddenly be free anyway. He mentioned how Arthas will die but the Lich King himself not so much so maybe when we destroy Arthas it allows Ner'zhul to pop back up in control. Course he also said we would only get in Illidans way and not kill him so guess that can change.

Seems like it would be a great situation to make use of the hydrogen bomb sitting in the Skybreaker's cargo bay, assuming of course, that it is some type of nuclear device.

I doubt a Lich hero class would ever happen considering the Death Knight takes so much from the Lich and Necromancer.

I think there's still some room left to fit him into Wrath too. For example, if Tyr spotted the dreadlords creating the original Lich King next door a few years ago and tried to stop them, players could well run into whatever's left of him in Icecrown Citadel (or, for that matter, in a hypothetical CoT instance covering the Lich King's creation). Maybe he even got stuck in the glacier and will be uncovered during the Argent Coliseum construction, though I have trouble imagining that coming across very seriously.

There really is a TON of lore that has to play out with the conclusion of this expansion, and I'm hoping for nothing short of epic.

You've got the three acts, the Wrathgate bringing MANY questions to the table in addition to older characters who have a role to play here.

Varian, Thrall, Garrosh, Bolvar, Saurfang, Sylvanas, Vereesa, Rhonin, Muradin, Jaina, Tirion, Darion, Alexastrasza, etc, etc, etc.


So many people who have a bone to pick with one another and Arthas. I hope they don't miss out on all these loose ends.

I like Tirion, I really do, however, I really didn't want him to be the one to lead the charge. I'm still holding out hope that Jaina and Sylvanas join the fight. I'm still bitter about Illidan dying with no tie-in to Tyrande and I'm crossing my fingers they don't do the same with LK/Arthas and Jaina/Sylvanas, especially after the book concentrating so much on the two of them.

There definitely are a lot of factions and major lore characters that have a bone to pick with Arthas. I think it would be very interesting to see other factions also fighting the Lich King at the same time as us (as NPCs in or outside of the instance). I especially liked the rather ominous quote by Mal'Ganis in Icecrown:
We don't know a whole lot of Icecrown 'bosses' (Sindragosa will likely be one, and hopefully those underused San'layn blood princes), but wouldn't it be cool to have some kind of Burning Legion vs. Scourge multi-boss fight, where we help Mal'Ganis first and then he turns on us?

Other than the Legon, we have other factions in WotLK that may become involved in the actual fights. Obviously, Darion and Tirion and Ashbringer will probably play a large role in or around the instance. For the Alliance, we also have the Frostborn dwarves (Muradin), who may possibly be mirrored by the Taunka for the Horde?

Then there is still the largely unknown relation between the Lich King and the Old Gods. We know the Icecrown Citadel is built on top of the Forgotton Depths, and that the Scourge has been so bold as to capture a Faceless One to enslave saronite miners, although it seems entirely possible that the Darkspeaker was willingly there, and was waiting for us to free him.

Concerning that last point... throughout questing and levelling, we have occasionally been tempted to do evil things in the name of the Lich King or the Old God... is that story kind of over, or do we suppose there is still a possibility of a big "You were unknowingly working for me all along!" plot twister in Icecrown?

I would think they ran out of time. I noticed that same door, I assume that is where Tyr would have been.

It would be nice if they pulled him because they found something better, and it would actually go along with the quest text at his temple in storm peaks - there was no struggle, not because he didn't resist but because he was already gone.

I think the saronite mine slaves were enslaved by simpler means. The taskmistresses in the mines are there to keep them in line. It's just the proximity to saronite and the forgotten depths that drives them insane as opposed to controling them. The Darspeaker just poped his head in one day and got caught.

Old Gods don't seem to like anything they can't control or drive insane. Same with the Lich King, though he uses contol exclusively over the insanity the Old Gods seem to like. The Old Gods don't seem to be able to affect the Lich Kings minions and I don't think we've seen any undead faceless either. The only possible connection is that Arthas' Heart is surrounded by faceless. But again they don't seem to be protecting the heart. It might be that Arthas stuck his heart in an abandon pit thinking no one would find it then the faceless were drawn to it's power/evilness and set up camp later.

I've rather given up on that at this point. I haven't done anything in Northrend that I outright would regret on my toon, except MAYBE the Drakuru questline/helping Loken, but even those were corrected fairly quickly. It really would have been cool if we did some borderline Arthas type stuff in Northrend, abandoning some NPCs for items, or a vengeance quest, losing a very important area and becoming desperate, honestly the entire Northrend experience has been for the most part, positive, with the exception for the Wrathgate incident, and that one can't even be attributed to Arthas. I mean, I'm sure he can lie about it, "Yeah, that Wrathgate thing? That was me." "Err, but Varimathas was working for the legion." ">.> No IT WAS ME, I was there right?!" "Errr you got bombed" "SHUT UP AND BOW TO THE LICH KING *Casts Wrath of the Lich King*" :p