The Winter’s Blossom questline in Kun-Lai Summit shows a bit of lore about the pandaren’s Shado-Pan caste and the Sha.
- Ban Bearheart: As a stranger to these lands, you may not be familiar with the Shado-Pan.
Our charge is an ancient one, dating back to the time of Shaohao, our founder and the last emperor of Pandaria.
Dark energies embrace this land. Anger, Hatred, Fear, Doubt …
These negative emotions can manifest in physical form. We call this dark energy “Sha.”
It is our sacred duty to monitor and imprison the Sha. To defeat it wherever it darkens the hearts of our people.
In all my years, I have never seen teh Sha so active as when your soldiers landed on our shores.
Pandaria does not have a standing army. We, the Shado-Pan, are its first – and only – line of defense.
Taran Zhu leads the Shado-Pan, as his father did before him. But he has elected to close our Monastery gates – why?
We must find out. Without the Shado-Pan, Pandaria will surely be engulfed in darkness …
Shado-pan Warden: Have you been to the Jade Forest? To the Valley of the Four Winds? To the low lands of Kun-Lai?
Tell me, do they enjoy their peace? Are they still ignorant of the price it costs for that peace? How much Shado-Pan blood must be spilled to maintain their peace?
I suppose it is best they do not. Peace is a thing best enjoyed by the ignorant so they may savor their lives without worry.
There’s currently a phase bug in the latest beta patch that prevents players from talking to the Shado-Pan guard outside the Shado-Pan Monastery. Standing on the hill nearby players can see the guard, but as they approach closer he phases out, halting the quest progression.
I speculate there might be solo quests inside the Shado-Pan Monastery in the same fashion as the Temple of the Jade Serpent solo quests we covered a few weeks ago.
I managed to enter the non-instanced Shado-Pan Monastery and talked to a Shado-Pan Warden. He was friendly and had some dialogue text:
