Aggrend says the Scarlet Enclave and the Ashbringer will return, but it might be a while

Blizzard's official WoW: Forever podcast released its seventh episode on 12 November, a lore special with senior game designer Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield, lore historian Sean Copeland and two guest creators, PlatinumWoW and Nobbel87. About 22 minutes in, the host asked Greenfield which characters he is looking forward to getting into. In his answer, Greenfield said that the Scarlet Enclave and the Ashbringer will return at some point, and warned that it might be a while.

That is all he said about a return. It came in passing, between characters, in an episode more than an hour long, and he didn't say when, where or in what form either one comes back.

How it came up

The question started with Copeland. Asked which characters he would love to work with in Forever, he chose the Ashbringer, which he said has a special place in his heart because he was there when its graphic novel was made. He talked about Tirion Fordring living alone after being expelled from the Silver Hand while staying close to his son, a Scarlet Crusader, and about the split between the Argent Dawn and the Scarlet Crusade.

When the host turned to Greenfield, he first named Vol'jin, a character he had brought up earlier in the episode, and said he had been fortunate enough to work on the Ashbringer a little already. Then came the line about the Scarlet Enclave and the Ashbringer coming back, perhaps not soon. He called it another of his personal favourites before naming one more character he would like to do something with.

What he said about Season of Discovery

Earlier in the episode, a guest asked whether working on Season of Discovery had taught the team lessons it carried into Forever. Greenfield said the team had already started thinking about Forever while it worked on Season of Discovery, and that the Scarlet Enclave was something it squeezed in because it wanted to make it. Even then, he said, it was difficult to make some of that material fit in a satisfying way.

He admitted that the Ashbringer questline doesn't fit the established story all that well. It has some contradictions, he said, and works well enough if you think of it as a bit of a what-if, but it isn't a one-to-one fit with what came decades later. In his telling, much of the questline was built around the Mograine event in the Scarlet Monastery and around Mograine's character: whether he chooses compassion over vengeance. That characterisation is what matters, he said, and sticking to every detail that came after would have been very restrictive. He described that as the moment the team concluded it made sense for Forever to exist on its own.

Copeland had said earlier in the episode that making Forever its own, branching continuity was a very deliberate decision. Greenfield didn't connect any of this to the return, and he didn't say whether a returning Scarlet Enclave or Ashbringer would look like the Season of Discovery versions.

What this doesn't tell you

There is no date, patch or phase. Greenfield didn't say whether the Scarlet Enclave comes back as a raid, for how many players, with which bosses or with what loot. He didn't say whether the Ashbringer becomes something players can earn, or how. The only timing he gave was a warning that it might be a while.