Lore Watch Podcast

This week's Lore Watch kicks off with a question based on a datamined spoiler which will be revealed as we come to toward the end of patch 12.1, as we finally uncover the goal Xal'atath has been working toward since before she was besties with a nameless Shadow Priest (Mitch). As usual, her now-revealed motivations may have a knock-on effect on certain aspects of both far-ranging lore and small details of our characters' ...

Anduin Wrynn's kingship — and distinct lack thereof — is the first topic this week on the Lore Watch Podcast. He's been off either having adventures or healing from those adventures for nearly his entire reign, so what could happen for Anduin to truly embrace his throne as a ruler? Joe, Matt, and Eric run down the series of events that led him here, and conjecture about his future.

Then, we talk Gnomes and their inve...

The very forces that underpin the World of Warcraft universe itself are the topic of this week's Lore Watch Podcast. We're all familiar with mana, from the earliest days of playing the first Mage that got absolutely destroyed by troggs outside Anvilmar. Anima is its newer, redder... cousin? How do these two things interact with each other? Are they related? Joe, Eric, and Matt take a deep dive across the leyline...

Doom's gore-fueled Hell was one of those games Tipper Gore woke up in cold sweats dreaming about in the 90s when they were all about censoring things for the good of the children. The story of Doom was initially a bit light on the ground (of Mars), being mostly just a vehicle for good ol fashioned wanton violence. But there have been so many entries in the series that now that Doom has several different alternat...

Lore Watch Podcast starts off with a dive into the lore of the Midsummer Fire Festival, particularly since so much was added over the past few years. How has this little event about a melting ice stone grown to reflect the culture of fire and summer in the different races?

Then, we go back to the Shadowlands for the rest of the podcast. We start with actually getting there. If we were the only Maw Walker, why is there a whole po...

Looking back and knowing what we do about Harandar and the deep roots of the World Trees, do we owe Fandral an apology in hindsight? Matt and Joe have a lot of lore to back up their answer, which is like 20 minutes worth of "lol, no." A stopped clock may be right twice a day, but it's still broken, and Fandral Staghelm didn't just ask us humbly for Morrowgrain. All bets are off when you try to re-summon Ragnaros.

But starting of...

In World of Warcraft, we've come across several shattered worlds, in varying degrees of obliteration. From Outland to K'aresh, these worlds have been corrupted with various forces, were shredded into near-oblivion, and some looked as though they may have some kind of shot at redemption against all odds.

But what about their world souls? How does each world soul relate to the creation of these worlds by the Titans? And how w...

Lore Watch kicks off with a discussion from Diablo 4 this week, which breaks the seal on the Lord of Hatred spoilers. This question concerns the Chekov's Gun that was Neyrelle's lopped off arm. Matt and Joe discuss the possibility that Neyrelle isn't truly, fully dead, as through the lens of that arm, which apparently washed up on shore in Skovos, despite being cut off in a very different place. Is it really a h...

The lore of the games from Remedy and how the two series Alan Wake and Control are linked is the topic of this week's Lore Watch Podcast. Both games are about events that shift from what the main characters know to be true, into something which couldn't possibly be true, if what they already knew to be true was real. Both games have a sense of wrongness and eerieness — Alan Wake's is more weird, like&...

The Loa of death Bwonsamdi is the first topic in this week's Lore Watch Podcast. Bwonsamdi was everywhere in Battle for Azeroth, even being a major driver of events in that expansion. But now that we have a whole Troll area packed with Loa in Midnight, he hasn't joined the party yet. Why? He seems like a party kind of guy. And where is he, if he isn't here, and what is he up to?

Then, we move on to the second of two li...

This week we take a deep dive — pun obviously intended — into the lore and psychology of Azshara, the ruler of the Naga on Azeroth. But first, we have a lighthearted question from a listener, asking for the lore justification against being able to Skyride on the sad little ghost gryphon when you're dead. I agree. This feels extra bad. Clearly there must be a lore reason why we can't.

Then we turn to the bulk of the p...

We start off Lore Watch this week wishing Mephisto a Happy Father's Day -- but are there any other fathers among the evils of Diablo? Then, we pivot to World of Warcraft and another set of world-shaking entities. We saw what happened when we killed a Titan and kicked off Shadowlands, but what happens when a world soul dies? Do they just get to hang out in Ardenweald forever? Because that kinda sounds better than...

This week, our hosts Matthew Rossi and Joe Perez are tackling the absolutely massive universe of Warhammer 40,000. It's so massive that they can only scratch the surface of it in the time they have, so this is a great primer of one big facet of the setting -- The God-Emperor of Man.

They cover a bit of the Horus Heresy, all the way up to the current events happening in the universe. Who is the God-Emperor of Mankind? How did he...

In this Diablo 4 spoiler-laden lorefest, Joe and Matt discuss the end of the campaign from Lord of Hatred and where it may lead next. The link between Lilith and Mephisto and us was a core element in Lord of Hatred, and we're discussing the nature of that link, and what that knife had to do with it, anyway. And speaking of that knife, where is Lilith now? Come to think of it, where was she at the start of&n...

Diablo 4 lore junkies are in for a treat this week as Matt and Joe run down a spoiler-filled recap and analysis of the story of the latest expansion, Lord of Hatred.

Did I mention that it's spoiler filled? Because it's truly spoiler filled.

From the shocking death in the opening cinematic Blizzard posted to the official YouTube channel, to the shocking death toward the end of the expansion, we discuss the impli...

Astalor Bloodsworn is the character at the center of the Midnight expansion's Prey feature, but this isn't the first time we've seen him. Matt, Joe, and Eric discuss his history, which dates back to the release of The Burning Crusade 20 years ago. They're answering listener questions this week, and the next topics diverge from that pretty wildly, examining how the WoW timeline gets a little wobbly when...

We lead off the week with the history of the most important lore figure of all time to World of Warcraft: Millhouse Manastorm. From his incredibly auspicious beginnings to his even more auspicious middle, and the implausibly auspiciouser current machinations, Matt and Joe showcase this crucial figure in lore.

What's after that is clearly less important, but eh, our listeners had some questions, so we might as well discuss t...

A lot of our travels as Lorewalkers seem to revolve around what events are happening in World of Warcraft, and Childrens' Week is no exception. As we cart these vulnerable children around to various areas of incredible peril, it re-showed us several spots around Azeroth that made us say, "oh yeah, what was up with that?" Our frequent listener and question-asked scribbleigh asked us several questions in this vein, ranging from ...

If you could choose a high king for the Alliance, who would you choose? Because who... is the high king of the Alliance right now, anyway? That's the first question on the docket this week. Joe, Matt, and Eric also discussed the races they'd like to see again, or more in-depth. 'Member Yrel, you guys? Then, to close it out: as a massive, glowing font of power, was The Sunwell just always destined to be a portal, eventuall...