Allied race: San'layn

Lore Story Forum
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I know what you’re thinking. “Why would the forsaken allied race be another flavor of elf?”

The answer is the reasonable option for a race using the forsaken model is Lightforged undead, which is something many forsaken players despise. So I went with something that follows the theme of the Forsaken more than the appearance of them.

Appearance: Basically goth Blood elves. If you want more detail there’s all ready a massive thread with ideas.

Classes: Death Knight, Hunter, Mage, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior.

Racial features: Can drain HP from Aberrations, Beasts, Humanoids, and critters. (they’re vampires) Mini-map tracking of Aberations, Beasts, Humanoids, and Critters. (They can smell the blood) Take 10% more during the day or outside damage and 10% less damage at night or indoors. (Vampires)

Story

In an effort to earn the goodwill of the Horde leaders, Calia decides to re-examine the agreement between the Forsaken and Silvermoon in the Ghostlands. She feels the forsaken’s presence is a ploy by Sylvanas to ensure the Blood elves need her, and decides to make a final push to drive the Scourge out and allow the Blood Elves to hold the land without Forsaken assistance.

To this end, she asks the player and Lillian Voss to help the Blood elves reclaim Windrunner Village, the last major scourge presence in the Ghostlands. When they arrive, they find it held by a regiment of San’layn who broke free of the Lich King.

Lilian feels conflicted about fighting undead who have their freedom and simply want to live in their own homeland, so instead she asks the player to help her recruit them into Tranquillen’s Forces. That way the Ghostlands are held by Blood elves again, the San’layn can have their homes again, and the Horde grows stronger. It’s a win for everyone.

After some sneaking and talking, the leaders of the two groups agree to meet. Upon meeting, the San’layn leader and Dame Auriferous recognize each other, and old grudges nearly ruin the deal, but an Amani attack brings the two sides together in defense of Silvermoon.

Seeing that the San’layn remain loyal to their home, Auriferous decides that perhaps they deserve to live in the land they fought to protect.

The San’layn move in to Tranquillen, holding the Ghostlands for Quel’thalas and allowing the Forsaken to pull out of the Ghostlands entirely.

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Not something I’d ever think I would say… do we really need more elves?

Super cool, of course - but the ‘racial pool’, as it were, really should expand.

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I think Forsaken fans would be more receptive to more elves with Forsaken themes than Forsaken without any of the Forsaken themes.

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If we’re going by what fans may want, I’d say that another race is the last thing they would want. A more centralised (read: one to begin with) racial goal, a new leader, a new home, to name a few.

You said it yourself: forsaken themes. The forsaken, as it stand, have no theme. That, I daresay, is what forsaken players (and everyone else) long for.

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As much as I love the San’layn and the work put in the megathread in general discussions, I don’t think they will be an allied race. With the racial customization we are going to get in Shadowlands I don’t see it being very likely that we will be getting a Blood Elf reskin.

Future allied races will probably be unique like Vulpera.

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San’layn are a cool concept that could be explored down the road (because Blizz didn’t let Horde see them AT ALL in BFA), but as for allied race slots I do believe there are better options available for Horde, such as Mok’nathal, Yaungol/Taunka, or Swol Forest Trolls which are mostly already technically in the Horde in some way.

Storywise you lost me at Calia.

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Darnassian Dark Rangers led by Calia will be the Undead Allied Race.

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No. They should go back to the Alliance where they belong.

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They will be an Alliance race, of course. Calia is an Alliance character, after all.

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Darnassian Dark Rangers are an extremely niche group that ultimately are just hunters. The fact that you say this with certainty is laughable.

No, Darnassian Dark Rangers are not going to be an Allied Race. And they’re not going to return to the Alliance either, we have Word of God on that.

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I think at most, we’ll be getting Blood Elf customization options to look like San’layn. More than that, I doubt it.

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Is there a source on that? I’m very surprised tbh

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I think this was them giving themselves a backstory for an option to make Dark Ranger a class for both factions, if they ever wanted to. Not to say that I think they necessarily will. They already gave the Nightborne to the Horde, so if we ended up with NE Dark Rangers even as NPC’s, we would have more kinds of night elves than the Alliance, which… would bother me.

I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think the dev comment that you’re talking about excludes them from ever going back to the Alliance. I thought he was just saying that at that moment- them leaving with Calia, did not mean they were going back to the Alliance. They were just going off somewhere to cry and talk about their feelings together.

In the same way, I think Blood Prince Dreven’s storyline was a way to give them a similar option for a San’layn. With Vampire Kael’thas looking like a remote possibility in Shadowlands who knows where they are going to go with it.

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I think this might’ve been planned but dropped for Vulpera, they were never mentioned again on Horde. Anyway I had enough of elves lately, I hope Void Elf has them all rolling Alliance after customization.

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I see it, and I much prefer, to be more likely the Blood Elves would just get red eyes and gray skin tones as additional options and people can just RP they’re a San’layn or a Dark Ranger.

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So are Void Elves. They are a niche group of a few Blood Elves that wanted to study the Void. The fact that they became a playable race disputes the impossibility that Kaldorei Dark Rangers could become a thing.

Source?

Also, no matter who it is from, their word is not the “Word of God”. Remember when Ion stated that normal skinned Quel’dorei would never be playable on the Alliance, or how Blood Elves would not get blue eyes, as they have “evolved” past them? Well, both of those statements were ultimately annulled.

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The Void Elves are niche, yes, but ultimately branch out into more than just hunters.

Your turn. Show me where your source is for claiming Dark Ranger Kaldorei WILL be the next Allied Race. Cause I’m not seeing that.

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Poor Night Elf players. D: Truly they have gotten screwed this expansion.

Also I don’t have a link, just honest speculation. :smiley:

I hope that overall my speculation is wrong though however, because like honestly the last thing Night Elf players need is to have a Human leading a faction of them, lol. Turalyon leading the LF Draenei was one thing, and a one of a kind scenario, because Turalyon truly is the GOAT (get it? lol), but for it to happen again would be really bad.

I mean, I guess that’s already kind of what’s happening… But at least they’re not an Allied Race, atm, so it’s not in our faces.

If they became playable for the Horde though… Oof, that would be a nightmare and the worst possible scenario.

Honestly I just want them to take the abomination that is Calia Menethil and Undead Kaldorei and just give them the Med’an treatment.

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That’s because the San’layn’s in BFA weren’t designed to be anything more than cannon fodder. It was a way to give the Alliance a “victory” over the Horde without it actually affecting the Horde players or their side of the faction conflict story. I highly doubt there was ever any consideration in making them playable.

Now Vulpera’s had “playable soon” written all over them from the moment we first saw them. This was evident by the amount of details put into their male, female, and child models among other things.

Blizzard would not put that much effort into a race if they didn’t have other plans for them as well.

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Fully support Darkfallen as the Forsaken AR! It’s my most wanted AR. The only race I’d pay real money to racechange for.
Give me Vampire Kael’thas for race leader and I’m 1000% all-in!

There’s a huge thread for this already though:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/sanlayndarkfallen-coagulated-ar-idea-megathread/18803

Yes. There are 6 types of cosmic magical energy, there should be six kinds of elves to be addicted to all of it:
Nature - Night Elves
Fel - Blood Elves
Void - Void Elves
Arcane - Nightborne
Light - High Elves
Necromantic - Darkfallen

That’s because they’re saving them until after we’ve revived Kael’thas.