Void



The Void (also referred to as Shadow) , along with the Light, is one of the most fundamental forces in existence. Although contradictory by their very nature, they are bound together on a cosmic scale. One cannot exist without the other. Pure Light and Shadow dwell in realms outside the borders of reality. The Void is not necessarily "evil", it is a primal force with its morality characterized by how it is wielded. Dimensius the All-Devouring opened gateways to the Void and the Twisting Nether when he invaded K'aresh. However, shades of their presence are found in the physical universe: Light manifests as holy magic, while the Void appears as shadow magic.

The Void can be a source of terrible power, the kind of power that comes at a price. While the Light is often said to bring about feelings of positive emotion—hope, courage, comfort—and the like, Shadow abilities are the opposite, able to impart feelings like despair, doubt, and panic. In a poetic sense, it can be said that the emotions which the Light brings about come from the "heart", whereas the emotions manipulated by Shadow are often based on survival logic, and therefore affect the "mind".

The Void shows only half truths. It cannot fully see destiny, though neither can the Light because neither is singularly responsible for creation. The Void seeks every possible path and sees them all as truth.

History
In the very beginning of time, before even the cosmos existed, there was only the Light and the Void. Originally, only the Light existed as an unfettered, shifting ocean of living energy. However, as some of its energies faded and dimmed, pockets of cold nothingness were created. From the absence of Light in these spaces, a new power coalesced and came to be. This was the Void, a dark and vampiric force driven to devour all energy, to twist creation inward to feed upon itself. The Void quickly grew and began to move against the Light, and before long, the mounting tension between the two forces ignited a series of explosions that ruptured the very fabric of creation, giving birth to the physical universe. The most unstable energies coalesced into an astral dimension known as the Twisting Nether. Light and Void collided and bled together at the edges of this realm, throwing it into turmoil.

The void lords and their servants have seemingly been locked in a perpetual power struggle with the other five cosmic powers of reality for at least thousands of years. The Void and the Light, being opposite counterparts, have been locked in perpetual conflict since before time itself began, waging their massive battle across countless worlds and planets and affecting millions of lives, with the Void regarding the Light as voracious and stagnant, "a force that granted them fleeting moments of peace in exchange for absolute obedience". The naaru T'uure sacrificed herself in a massive Holy Nova to save an entire world Karkora from Dimensius the All-Devouring, and some of the Void's servants apparently regard the naaru as "beloved brethren that lost the true path" which will return to their embrace eventually, despite their war being of a scope which would apparently destroy most mortal minds, well predating both the draenei and the entire history of Azeroth.

The very creation of the Old Gods and their nearly successful corruption of multiple titan worlds, including Azeroth, at least at one point in its history, was ultimately to corrupt all existence and allow the void lords to manifest in the physical cosmos; the Pantheon and Sargeras have both attempted to oppose the Void in different ways, with the former being responsible for the destruction of the Black Empire and the latter unleashing his Burning Crusade against them. The Void-corrupted titan would have allegedly been unstoppable by any force in the universe, including the Pantheon themselves. In one instance, the Void was able to attack and permanently destroy every demon on a small Legion prison world, dragging them through the Twisting Nether before butchering them; Lothraxion described even the Legion's enslavement as far preferable to the horrors of what the Void-spawn endured. The naaru which Illidan encountered before his defeat on Outland, likely Xe'ra, stated that the Void was "a more potent foe by far than the Burning Legion", Harbinger Skyriss insisted that no force in existence, including the Legion, being able to make the Void's servants, as "countless as the stars", bend their knee, and according to Xal'atath, the Legion's invasion is ultimately futile, as dreams and demons alike can be corrupted, and not even the extinction of all things would really save the Legion from the Void.

The Void has successfully corrupted much of the Emerald Dream, the plane of Life, in the past, turning the realm into the Emerald Nightmare, whose corruption apparently still lingers despite repeated attempts from Malfurion Stormrage, the Cenarion Circle, and the green dragonflight to cleanse it of its corruption. It has also attacked the Shadowlands in eons past with forces described as practically "infinite", inflicting massive damage against Bastion in particular, and would have purportedly destroyed all of the Shadowlands had the kyrians not barely managed to stop them. Although the nathrezim have attempted to manipulate the void lords, wielding Shadow powers to this day, the Void appears somewhat aware of their machinations, and regards Death as "the true enemy" which seeks the death of all possibilities and all futures.

Void realm


Wherever there is light, there is shadow, and it is this shadow that the Orc Necrolyte uses to see into places he cannot travel with a spell called Dark Vision. Wherever the slightest shadow is cast, the sight of the Necrolyte can enter and view. The effects of this spell are limited in size, for too much knowledge of the confines of shadow has been known to forever trap the caster within the realm of darkness.

On using a Void Lantern allows seeing into the void realm.

The Shadow Realm is a plane of existence visited by the arakkoa that is related to the Void.

Zuraal the Ascended in the Seat of the Triumvirate on Argus puts adventurers into the void realm.

Races of the Void
Creatures of the Void are naturally chaotic. They are a necessary part of the universe, but they must be kept in check by the Light.

The Old Gods


The Old Gods were created by the malignant entities known as the void lords, and they live only to transform the worlds they infest into places of despair and death. Physical manifestations of the Void, they are nightmares incarnate: mountains of blighted flesh and writhing tentacles that grow like cancers within the worlds of the Great Dark Beyond. Their goal is to find and corrupt a world-soul in order to create a dark titan that would annihilate the universe.

Many of the Old Gods' minions make extensive use of Shadow magic, and the terrifying dagger known as Xal'atath, which was used by dark priests during the height of the Black Empire, uses powerful Void energies and mind magics to warp everything around it for nefarious purpose. In Ulduar, Faceless Horrors surround themselves with shadowy barriers and summon voidwalkers to aid them in combat. Twilight magic is presumably Old God magic of the void branch.

Voidwalkers
Voidwalkers are seemingly the most common type of Void being. They do not fear pain, so they are popular with warlocks who do.

Void lords
The void lords are evil entities composed of pure shadow energy. These beings are cruel and merciless beyond mortal comprehension. Driven by an insatiable hunger, the void lords seek to devour all matter and energy in the physical universe. In their natural state, the void lords exist outside reality. Only the most powerful of these entities can manifest in the physical universe, and only for limited amounts of time. To maintain their presence in reality, the void lords must consume untold amounts of matter and energy. They instead created the eldritch Old Gods to find and corrupt a titan world-soul and turn it into an unspeakably dark being that not even the Pantheon would be able to stand against.

Void revenants
Void revenants are a race of parasitic void-beings that tear holes through the planes of reality, consuming and absorbing the energies and beings within. There is one known occurrence of a void revenant being fed overwhelming fel energy, Xhul'horac.

Others
There are many different types of beings that originate from the Void. Although they aren't demons, they are often classified as such for gameplay reasons. In Warlords of Draenor, most void creatures are classified as either elementals or aberrations (although the void revenant is classified as undead).


 * — Void creatures draped in cloth and carrying lanterns that bridge the realms of the living and the dead.
 * — A very powerful type of Void being, created when a naaru is drained of its light.
 * — Large, powerful Void beings, armored in plate.
 * — Slender, wraith-like beings similar to voidwalkers.
 * Void hound - Hounds with two head with one eye for each head and many more above its head.

Effects on beings
Rumor has it that some beasts that were touched by the Void exist in a space between this world and the next.

The void can consume life or meld with it, but the latter often has unperceived consequences.

Arakkoa
Talonpriests, arakkoa followers of Terokk, wield the Void. They use special elixirs, made from shadow dust, to cross over into a realm of shadows, which is also where they sealed Terokk after he descended into madness and hatred.

The ancient Apexis arakkoa wielded Light and Void in balance (as well as arcane).

Dark naaru


It is exceedingly rare for a naaru to fall into a void state, and even rarer for a fallen naaru to be brought back into the Light. A naaru's fall into the void represents a catastrophic loss for the naaru and for the forces of the Light, and it is the saddest, most heart-wrenching event for the naaru to witness. Conversely, a naaru being reborn into the Light brings renewed hope and sense of purpose to every naaru.

The few cases of dark naaru that Locus-Walker knows of all involved mortals in some way, which he thinks carries fascinating implications.

Void elves
High elves and blood elves imbued with void have transformed themselves into void elves, under the tutelage of Alleria Windrunner and her teacher, Locus-Walker, the two known mortals who were able to successfully defy the Void's whispers and truly resist its corruption while wielding its powers. These ren'dorei, the "Children of the Void" have established a base at Telogrus Rift, and much like Alleria herself, have re-pledged themselves to their original faction, the Alliance.

Void elves gain new powers such as Entropic Embrace to enhance their abilities with the power of the Void, while apparently retaining most of their previous abilities. They also have the ability to create Spatial Rifts, allowing them to teleport through space and distance instantly. Additionally, void elves may use their Ethereal Connection to reduce the cost of Void Storage and Transmogrification or withstand shadow magic. Void elves have a Preternatural Calm, which gives them an unwavering focus when casting spells even when in pain. Although having the power of the Void at their command has its benefits, it also has its drawbacks. Void elves must constantly resist the whispers of the shadow that attempt to lure them into madness. The Void seeks to strip away the void elves of their flesh and their mortality so that they may become slaves to the shadow's all-consuming hunger. Furthermore, so long as the void elves pulse with void energy, they also become a beacon for other creatures of the void. If they cannot corrupt the void elves, they will use them to corrupt other powerful sources of Light, such as the Sunwell.

Void ethereals
Void ethereals are ethereals infused with the power of the Void. Their energies are dark purple or red. They also hear maddening whispers that sway them to do the will of the Void. Nexus-stalkers are a partially Void-based form of ethereals created by the rogue Ethereum faction, and are considered by the Protectorate to be aberrations. Though the Ethereum was initially dedicated to hunting down and taking revenge on Dimensius, their goal later changed to "becoming void." To that end, they constructed a proto-accelerator which was used to manipulate the abundance of Void energy at Manaforge Ultris, bonding it with their own energy to transform into nexus-stalkers.

The physiology of a nexus-stalker is similar to that of a typical ethereal, albeit with hybrid bodies composed in part of Void energy. As such, they appear translucent and perpetually emanate a shadowy, purple miasma. Those that have been encountered have had the ability to drain their enemies' power.

Demons
Demons were originally formed as a result of the Light and Void energies that had bled together at the borders of the Twisting Nether. They wield the Void as part of their arsenal. The nathrezim, otherwise known as dreadlords, are cunning, manipulative, and masters of the arts of shadow magic. The Burning Legion is known to summon and bind Void creatures to serve them.

Orcs
On the alternate Draenor, the of orcs discovered the Void after the arrival of the Dark Star, but when necromancy was discovered, the clan leaders outlawed the Void's power. After the formation of the Iron Horde, broke those laws for the sake of his clan's safety. Shadowmoon spellcasters began experimenting with unstable void magic near the Teluuna Observatory. The void's effect on Draenor also became more pronounced. Vile bloods of the land emerged. The Shadowmoon also began summoning void beasts through hastily opened portals that could have torn Draenor apart.

Undead
The undead are beings who have died and become trapped between life and death. One of the consequences of the involvement of Void in the undead's metaphysics is that they only feel faint sensations of pain or discomfort from most physical stimuli. This is also why the Light is so painful to their existence. The dark energy serves as a buffer that prevents the souls of the undead from properly joining their bodies. As a result, their souls are imperfectly attached to them.

When a spirit is consumed by the Void, an echo of the soul is all that is left behind. These echoes are not truly "alive" in either the physical or spiritual sense, and are merely twisted reverberations of the anguish of the soul left behind when it was consumed.

Priests
Priests are devoted to the spiritual, that which relates to Spirit. Priestly Shadow magic can deliver great amounts of immediate damage, or wracking pains that punish foes over longer periods of time. The Light in which many priests bathe is brilliant and effervescent, granting them immense divine power. But the brightest light casts the darkest shadow—and from within this blackness, a rival power dwells. Shadow priests fully embrace this opposing polarity, their faith equally resolute as their holy counterparts—but focused on shadowy magics and mental manipulation. Like all priests, they dedicate much of their lives to worship—but they derive their power from the Void, straying dangerously close to the domain of the Old Gods. To truly understand such ancient, corruptive influence is to be driven mad. This is the state in which these dark priests thrive, embracing insanity and feeding off of the minds of their opponents to reach terrifying new limits.

Shadow priests preach balance between Light and Darkness, for it is often too hard to find one's way back to the Shadow from the deepest reaches of the Void. When entering Voidform, shadow priests are forced to speak Shath'Yar, the language of the Old Gods.

Necrolytes
Practitioners of religions, necrolytes are binders of souls and command the black powers that hold control over the earth.

Rogues
Subtlety rogues are the masters of the shadows, and they strike unseen. They don't have the lethal poison-tipped daggers of the assassin or the brawling prowess of the outlaw, but their acumen on the battlefield and ability to hide in plain sight are unrivaled. Some claim the art of subtlety looks like malevolent shadow magic—but no matter from where their power is derived, these rogues are capable of performing devastating assaults on their enemies, slipping away unharmed to strike again without detection. Most rogues train their entire lives to learn how to walk in the shadows—subtlety rogues were born there.

Shaman
Shaman are spiritual guides and practitioners, not of the divine, but of the very elements. The Void is capable of dominating and enslaving elementals. One way for a shaman to become a dark shaman is to use the Void to control the elements.

A group of dark shaman of the also began channeling Void energies near  in, using the elements to channel the darkness of the void. The dark shaman used Nether Beacons, powered from within the Twisting Nether itself, to connect to the void, and hidden behind the veil of the Twisting Nether, the abominations of the void began marching upon.

Warlocks
Warlocks are magical practitioners who seek to understand darker, fel-based magics, including destructive spells. Warlocks peer into the Void without hesitation, leveraging the chaos they glimpse within to devastating ends in battle. Their greatest abilities are fueled by the souls they've harvested from their victims and they exploit powerful shadow magic to manipulate and degrade the minds and bodies of their enemies. Affliction warlocks are masters of shadow-touched powers, but unlike shadow priests—deadliest when pushed to the brink of insanity—these warlocks delight in using fel forces to cause intense pain and suffering in others. They revel in corrupting minds and agonizing souls, leaving enemies in a state of torment that would see them undone in due time. Even the most battle-hardened warriors can be deceived, landing blow after blow against the warlock, only to succumb to their suffering as their very vitality is siphoned away by the dark spellcaster.

By their very nature, demons are leeches on the living universe—but the demonologist has mastered harnessing the power of these malefic beings on the field of battle. Warlocks harvest the souls of their defeated enemies; those specialized in the ways of demonology use this life essence to tap into the Void, pulling all manner of abomination from the chaos of the Twisting Nether. While such a practice is often considered by outsiders to be wicked and reckless, the demonologist maintains absolute control over the summoned creatures. These malignant entities are fully beholden to—and empowered by—the will of the warlock, until banished to the realm from whence they came. Warlocks who command the power of destruction favor incantations of pure chaos and aggression in battle. In this regard, they'd find a stronger kinship with fire mages than warlocks of other disciplines—if not for their propensity to make use of magic deemed detestable by all mage orders. The destruction warlock is well-versed in discharging a dizzying array of shadow, fel, fire, and chaos magics upon opponents that rattle souls and conflagrate bodies. They require little motivation for the havoc they wreak, happy to revel in the destruction they cause—thrilled at any opportunity to watch the world erupt in discord around them.

Organizations
The Church of the Light preaches against the Shadow, which the orcs were once strongly perceived to be creatures of. Priests and paladins of this religion are known to condemn their foes with such epitaphs as 'shadowspawn' and 'spawn of darkness'.

Cult of Forgotten Shadows
After the First War, Bishop Seline investigated the dark magic used by the orc necrolytes to raise their dead. Her studies became obsessed as she tried to discover why such energy existed at all and why she began to see the ebb and flow of it in the world around her. She began preaching about the necessity of a balance between dark and light, but after her death, her books were locked away in the Kirin Tor's vaults in Dalaran.

Her teachings, rediscovered by Forsaken priests during the capture of the Undercity, served as the theological base for the Cult of Forgotten Shadow. This cult uses the term "Shadow" to refer to reality and believes that there must be a balance between the wielders of holy and dark energies; because of that, they mostly manipulate the dark energies "discovered" by Natalie Seline.

Twilight's Hammer
A nihilist quasi-religious sect active across Azeroth that fanatically serves and worships the Old Gods and seeks to bring about the end of the world. The Twilight Apocrypha a book of the sect states that in the beginning there was shadow eternal and implies the elements were born from it and that the shadow is the "world we know".

When the Iron Horde strong-armed the Shadowmoon clan into joining them, broke one of their ancient laws forbidding the use of the power drawn from the 'Dark Star'. In doing so, he and the Shadowmoon clan became powerful wielders of the Void. They tried to summon the Dark Star, in actuality the darkened form of the naaru K'ara, to the surface of and wield it as a weapon to empower the Iron Horde. Their effort failed when used his life-force to purify K'ara. This didn't, however, stop the Shadowmoon from practicing Void magic. They retreated into their ancient burial grounds and continued to experiment on the souls and bones of the dead. Ner'zhul was eventually slain by adventurers, and the rest of the Void practitioners seemed to join with when the Iron Horde became the Fel Horde. It's unknown what happened to them in the years since Archimonde's death.

Black Empire
The prehistoric empire formed and ruled by the Old Gods while they worked to corrupt Azeroth was, ultimately, formed in the name of the Void. It enslaved the elements and engaged in endless civil wars, seemingly for the amusement of its masters. Though toppled by the coming of the Titans, it continued to fester in the shadows of Azeroth as the Old Gods enacted their millennia-long plans to escape confinement. In the end, it re-emerged when N'Zoth successfully escaped its prison and all of its servants, now consisting of corrupted mortals, as well as the n'raqi and aqir that originally formed its rank, wield Void magic. In areas that the Black Empire assaults, the sky darkens and resembles the Void as well.

In the RPG
The Shadows are the dark, malevolent forces seeking the world's (or even the universe's) dissolution; the "light" includes the virtuous, heroic forces preserving order and goodness. Their deeds and the powers they wield make up the stuff of legends... if not myths.

Shadow ascendants, followers of the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow, become one with this power as their physical form fades away. Some trolls revere these creatures as dark Loa.

The Shadow Plane is an integral part of the universe, woven into every other plane of existence. It is from here that spells conjure shadow magic. The arcane and shadow magic appear to be tied together.

Notes and trivia

 * Magister Umbric gave Alliance champions a Void Shard to cast Bilgewater Frackers into the Void.
 * Aku'mai, herald of the Old Gods, was trying to emerge from the Void.
 * The quest Flames of the Void involves putting out "Void Flames" created by the sha running rampant throughout the Temple of the Jade Serpent.
 * The Twisting Nether used to be sometimes called the Void. There is now a clear distinction between the two. This originally led to some believing that the Void was also a faction of voidwalkers led by Dimensius the All-Devouring, rather than the universal force.
 * Using a Void Totem weakens the barrier between the mortal world and the Twisting Nether.
 * The term used to describe the combination of fel and Void energies seems to be Shadowfel. The void revenant known as was infused with fel energy and became known as a "Shadowfel Amalgamation", and deals Shadowfel damage during the encounter with it.
 * In Warcraft III and early World of Warcraft, the Shadow was held as the opposite of the Light and a force in its own right. This concept has been replaced with or renamed as the Void. This was vaguely alluded to in The Burning Crusade, and then fleshed out in World of Warcraft: The Magazine, Warlords of Draenor and Chronicle Volume 1.
 * A Void similarly exists in the Diablo and StarCraft universes.

Speculation

 * There are a number of Old God related realms: Twilight Realm, Dread Expanse, Realm of Y'Shaarj, Za'qul's Fear realm and Delirium realm, and Ny'alotha, and the locations inside of the minds of Yogg-Saron and N'Zoth all of which could have some relation to the Void realm in some way.
 * Consumers of souls in Brawler's Guilds are seen in an alternate dimension by wearing special goggles that dimension could be the Void realm.