I sincerely doubt they would pull the old god card out on the Forsaken, but that aside... are the undead even susceptible to old god mind-rape?

I suspect no based on certain things mentioned by the faceless ones. It could be that the whispers forsaken players get are really just a gameplay thing or a lack of blizzards vision. That would actually be a good question to bring up at Blizz Con really.

You're right. We know that the Scourge undead are inmune to Old Gods whispers, but that could be a consequence of not having "mind"... The Forsaken, in the other hand, have dead bodies, but a "living" mind.

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Mentally/spiritually/metaphysically, it seems Forsaken (and other self-aware undead like Liches and Val'kyr) are closer to living beings than not.

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One should consider that the Old Gods are able to corrupt the minds of mortals due to the Curse of Flesh (or preexisting fleshy condition) granting said mortals the capacity for greater self-awareness and individualism. When a person isn't bound from their birth to a Titan-instilled objective, the flexibility of their motivations and beliefs lends itself to manipulation and eventually replacement by the mad rantings of the Old Gods. Thus the Scourge specifically - rather than just undead in general - weren't susceptible because even the most self-possessed Scourge are still a finger-snap away from the Lich King exerting his will over them and snuffing out their identity. Due to the centralized nature of the Scourge's communal structure, even Kel'thuzad had his master's hand wrapped around his mind at all times, whispering commands and ready to clench shut and supplant his personality if the situation called for it. That doesn't really leave room for the whispers of the Old Gods to get their message through, since the Lich King could simply render his minions deaf to anything that he didn't want them to hear.

The Forsaken on the other hand, are no less functionally individualistic than any other race, and thus would be just as vulnerable to Old God corruption as the fully living. That's why we see plenty of Forsaken mixed with the other races in various branches of the Twilight's Hammer.

(Which, hypothetically, could mean that any undead - Forsaken or otherwise - is now that much more susceptible to the Old Gods' whispers without a Lich King actively guiding them and keeping their identities subjugated by his own).

That's not to say that the Forgotten Shadow doesn't have a thematic tie to basic things that the Old Gods take advantage of for their own purposes. The Forgotten Shadow cult is big on promoting an individualistic mindset, focusing on personal acquisition of power and keeping control against succumbing to the power's own hold over the individual. They even teach that as opposed to the Light, which according to its followers has its own active "plan" in which each person is but one of many parts, the Shadow instead needs shadow priests to further its presence and offset the other energies, thus rendering the practitioner himself more proactively important than even the magics he wields and represents.

In many ways the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow may represent power at the brink, knowingly balanced at the edge of corruption and oblivion without allowing oneself to be drawn in. It's more "selfishly" oriented than the disciplined restraint and control of the self promoted by the likes of the Kirin Tor and the Church of the Holy Light, but due to its focus upon balance it also remains short of descending into the outright denial of risk and responsibility touted by followers of the Old Gods, Scourge and Burning Legion. Shadow Priests acknowledge that there's a point of no return which must be held at bay and averted, while warlocks, necromancers and Twilight cultists believe deep down that there's no limit to the power they can safely amass and control because they've thrown their lot in with powerful masters who offer the illusion of total control, which is really just a form of giving over control to the power itself.

Being as fully self-aware and individually motivated as most living beings, advocates of the Forgotten Shadow are certainly susceptible to corruption - Old God or otherwise - but they aren't a direct result of it. Though it's worth noting that we probably see a significant number of shadow priest/shadow mage type mobs in the employ of the various villainous factions because for them it's an especially short leap from remaining in control to succumbing to the power and those dark agencies who promise no-strings access to even more of it.

After all, just look at Deathwing. He was as inwardly focused and self-driven as anyone at the height of his madness, and it's likely that very isolation which made him even more susceptible to the voices from below. One of the key facets of his insanity derived from him being cut off and made to no longer trust anyone but himself. to his mind in the throes of his worst madness-driven tantrums, the other Aspects and Azeroth in general had all turned against him, and even his own flight was suspect. It was that self-oriented mentality that led him to drive away anyone who might have possibly helped him, leaving only Deathwing alone with the voices in his head.

Even the Legion and Scourge play the same sort of game, preying upon those who act to isolate themselves. Just as Kil'jaeden sought out Ner'zhul, who lived in his own form of isolation created by his eminence as such an important figure among the shamans, Ner'zhul then sought out Kel'thuzad - whose selfishly motivated pursuit of necromancy would lead him to be cast out by the rest of his peers - then Arthas, whose increasingly drastic actions would drive away those who might have saved him and eventually leave him alone with Frostmourne in the frozen north.

It's one of the inherent dangers presented by the Forgotten Shadow. While its followers eschew the reverence of divine or spiritual agencies, they also acknowledge the reality that without such "supernatural" aid it's just them alone in the shadow hearing the nearby call of the darkness, and that not everyone has what it takes to ignore the urgings to go farther into the darkness than they really should.

Wait. Who's to say that they don't? Perhaps that's what Bolvar is doing. What if that's why "there must always be a Lich King"? What if the purpose of the Scourge was to destroy life on Azeroth, including the Old Gods? What if the thing tying it all together is that the Lich King's primary function is to prevent the Old Gods from seizing power from the Scourge armies?

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Khadgar: Prepare to heroically CTRL-E through the portal with me!

That would make a lot more sense than just the scourge going on a rampage as a reason for "there must always be a lich king"

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Because the purpose of their lack of free will was already cited as being meant specifically to prevent what happened with the orcs. Namely, the inevitable infighting that arises when a bunch of free-willed mortals are instilled with the sort of unrestrained ambition and bloodlust needed to crush Azeroth's defenders.

Hence the Scourge couldn't fracture, turn against itself and self-destruct like the orcs did before the Legion even got to set foot on Azeroth again because unlike the orcs, every single undead minion is kept under the Lich King's thumb and on task instead of plotting to acquire personal power at the expense of his allies.

And, maybe, to also prevent the Old Gods from gaining control of unstoppable legion of zombie slaves.

This is my pet theory, ARM. Do not try to use your logic and facts and brains and psychic powers to destroy it.

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Khadgar: Prepare to heroically CTRL-E through the portal with me!

LOGIC: It's like hitting below the intellect.

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I am really getting fed up with everything being the falut of a bloody Old God, seriously can we not have one evil bad ass who just wants to kill everyone while screaming "Leave no Orphans!" because they want too be, instead of us facepalming everytime when whispers are mentioned.

Its lazy plot development on Blizzards part, Old Gods are becoming there dues ex, hell even Old Ones are the cause of the fucking Starcraft universe going to shit.

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"Oh you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

On the alliance side of stonetalon I thought the old god presence was random and forced.

I mean the quest could have theoretically been named "Suddenly: Tentacles!" and it would have been fine.

There was little to no warning of it, just suddenly you turned around and fought tentacles and easily dispatched a faceless one.

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"Make work your favorite. That's your new favorite."

Good Post was good.

One evil badass? You mean like Illidan, Arthas and the Scourge or Sargeras and the Burning Legion? This expansion is Oldgod themed, I suspect the next one will be as well, after that, you have your legion baby.

Metzen once joked he was going to make the reason for Sargeras' insanity (now that the old reason, the Eredar, were retconned away) be the old gods. Right now, that's looking disturbingly possible, especially since we now know that old gods are interstellar instead of just localized to Azeroth. As such, pretty much everything bad in Warcraft can be traced back to them.

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I have the theory that Sargeras isn't really mad, nor "evil". He just wants to annihilate the Old Gods (all of them, in all the planets). We are just a nuisance for him, thus he has to get rid of us. Not very different from Algalon, in my opinion.

Maybe he is evil in the "I'm gonna make you suffer" way, but that might even be for kicks and giggles.

I kind of like this theory, the bloody hand of the Titan's order turned to Chaos to do his job more efficiently. It could be that in fighting the Nether Demons he encountered countless infected worlds and has decided that the plague tainting the physical realm is more important than dealing with the seemingly countless seemingly immortal beings of the Neather-realms. Oddly, the legion formation and very purpose sounds a LOT more like order than chaos. Course, that makes Sargaras a large scale Illidan...

But on more than one occasion I've expressed my support on the Dark Titan being considerably deeper than "OOooo booga booga I R EVIL LOLZ"

Interesting thought though. I like its similarities and reflections of other things in WoW, yet still being sort of unique.

The ends justifies the means, he brought order to the demons after all, those beings of chaos, unified under the Dark Titan's banner. They have gone to worlds and covered them in the Legions brand of order, using their own engineered technology. They have offered the native races a place in their order. The legion reflects what the Titan's do in pretty much every way, only that their version is "Evil". It could be that the Titans are just too stupid and racist to realize this fact.

*prays feverishly*

Please Metzen, make this happen

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"Oh you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Well they did do the whole "there must always be a Lich King" that was taken from Diablo and Broodwar. They could just be reusing the Wings of Liberty story line. They have foreshadowed such things in the past.

The Dev confirmed that there was no Old God under Tirisfal, but added that it wasn't recommended to dig there...

So what could be under there of terrible, making whisper ( hence whispering shores / whispering forests area ) and be malevolent ( bloodstone ) ?

I'll maybe add... Since there are a lots of reference to Tyr in Lordaeron...

Could it be that... Tyr-is-Fall ? Region where Tyr is located, buried? Tyr experiment underground undercity? What could it be?

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"The Azjol-anak resistance cell perhaps, we can always tell ourselves that the rest of the Nerubian survivors (namely the queens) practically dug their way to Plothole to escape the Scourge."

I am hoping for some kind of evil fey to be under Tirisfal. Arrogant and capricious fuckers who don't much care for us, unless they want to play cruel jokes on us because they are bored.

Possibly in the form of anti-Ancients, i.e. mirror images of the known ancients, or new evil ancients. Also possible are some primal elementals or gods of the first sentient beings, conjured up by faith they are as flawed as their followers but much much more powerful, and we all know what is said of absolute power...

I honestly don't know where I stand on this area at all anymore... they have fucked up it's potential, history and lore based rationalisation so badly.

Tyr is a God from Norse mythology who lacked a hand. "Tyr's Hand", I believe, is because of this a recurring placename in fantasy.

I know that, He losts his hand to Galakrond and refused to have a new one.

But the name " Tirisfal" could be related to it since there is a lot of " Tyr's " name going on around Lordaeron, maybe he disappeared in Tyr-is-fall ?

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"The Azjol-anak resistance cell perhaps, we can always tell ourselves that the rest of the Nerubian survivors (namely the queens) practically dug their way to Plothole to escape the Scourge."

OMG this thread has been returned to life more times than Krilin >_<

And yeah, i remember reading a dev saying there is no old god over there.

Not an Old God, but a faceless one.

Whatatwist!

Though how come the elves went mad but the humans had no problem living there?