Since starting my journey with my first night elf character and unofficial main for the rest of the Worldsoul Saga, I’ve been trying to learn more about them since I previously didn’t care. Reading the War of the Ancients trilogy (on book 1 rn) and I noticed the highborne night elves were very attached to Elune iconography still. Azshara is frequently adressed as Light of the Moon and such. The Moon is still very central to their culture even among the snobby nobility. After the war, when they get booted out to the EK, do they just leave that aspect of their culture behind? Blood Elves use sun iconography, yes, and frequently mention the Sunwell. Their reverence changed from a deity to a magic pool. I’m still trying to figure out what happened here. Is this a commentary on religion X secularism? (The sunwell being a magic thing and the arcane arts being like science and stuff)
That came up for me because Midnight is coming and we are uniting the elven tribes and I wondered if blood elves still had the Elune worship thing.
High elves worshiped the Light. There’s not really any explanation for when or why they swapped from Elune to the Light. High elves also just weren’t a very religious society in general. It’s not until the Sunwell is infused with Naaru bits that the Light takes a much more significant role in blood elf society.
Probably a missed opportunity for a unique spin on An’she. Tauren and Night Elves were conceived of well after the Thalassian elves, so I’m not sure it is the way it is for a well measured reason. While it is reasonable to assume certain aspects of their culture drastically changed over time, elves can live for a damn long time.
I dunno. Maybe the elves that went east hated Elune in particular.
I was only able to find in a wiki that: “On the topic of blood elf faith, there isn’t too much to go on. We know that some blood elves belong to the Church of the Holy Light. Others take a more agnostic approach, viewing the Light as a philosophy rather than a religion. Nearly every blood elf may draw upon the holy energies of the Sunwell, regardless of their relationship with the Light.”
However taken the recent accounts with the void, fel and other less benevolent forces I think the Thalassian culture leans more into the philosophical and have been shown to draw upon any Cosmic Force without any faith involve or ties to any Deity, it looks like its almost instinctive or in their very racial nature to do this. This being especially true in the BC era… where their Light and energy was directly syphon from the Naaru, Demons or any type of magic source, almost like energy vampires. (IMO)
Makes me think on old lore on Dreadlords too
Now that you mention this I wonder if the Dreadlords are still psychic vampire… or was that recton too? I guess it would make sense being an psychic vampire if your main ability is to change form to a familiar face, knowing things only the people drain would know or change the perception of everyone around you. Perfect traits for an infiltration and spying dedicated race.
Pretty much… after being kicked out of Kalimdor, they strove to erase their Night Elf roots as a point of pride, even to the point of becoming day oriented creatures.
It’s important to remember that they were THE nobility of the Azsharan empire, the people we call the Night Elves were the lowborne, the peasantry, essentially the dust of the earth. They did not take well to the restrictions imposed by a social group that they had lorded over.
You don’t see any evidence of Elune worship in living Suramar, as opposed to the surrounding ruins.
playing reforged atm
its like a deconstruction of Warcraft 2 where it was hell orcs vs christian humans
humans fall to zombies and the final map is defending a pagan tree
Elune actually exists, paganism is the truth of Warcraft 3
In practice, there is a fun thing going on with Quel’thalas where there are trappings of moon worship left all over.
Not just that the capital is named Silvermoon.
But the three crystals that controlled access to the city? Moon crystals of the Key of three moons (they were corrupted by the scourge into the verdant spheres).
The sacred places where they were kept before the scourge? Shrines of the moon. And in the TBC blood elf intro the dialogue refers to them explicitly as temples.
The writers also seem to go back and forth oh how much nature magic was involved in the building of the runestones.
One of the arcane sanctums, obviously is named for the moon.
Quite a few belf surnames still keep the natury bent (to a point where a few family names fully overlap with night elves) but also a few are more night-y than sun-y (one of the questgivers near the Dark Portal is iirc named something like Embershade and there’s a few Dusk-s)
Silvermoon itself has a mix of statuary that includes a bit of iconography you also find in temple ruins on Kalimdor.
Basically there is a vestigial thing in play there. Much as you can still observe the moon at dawn.
One thing that I found funny with the heritage quest: the healers in the flashbacks are not called priests, they are referred to as light mages.
(tl;dr I have always been and will always remain a “secret Elune worship is still a thing among some part of High Elven society and is reflected in things like Astromancy being a school of magic seemingly unique to Quel’thalas and Suramar” truther)
There’s a reference to that of sorts, when they’re talking about their old relationship with the light — as they were noted to either BEND it to their will, or STEAL it (Naaru sapping) to infuse themselves with its power.
Its only until the Sunwell was restored with the Naaru, that they began a more harmonious relationship with the light, as opposed to bending such (which I’d assume were the ‘light mages’ you referenced) or taking it by force, like they had from shackling & leeching a Naaru.
Bending aside there are at least hints that whatever light worship seeped in Quel’dorei society after millenia in the EK it was probably nowhere close to the anglo-catholic church thing Lordaeron had going on, and it probably had some elements of implied ancestor worship if lines like Liadrin’s “by the ancestors” are anything to go by
Ironically it probably had more in common with the dwarves seeing how Blood of the Highborne implies the Wildhammer were the only people in the region they considered trusted friends
The elves treating the light as another academic research topic rather than worshiping it would have been a much more sustainable change. It’d give them a unique approach to the light while also causing tension with Alliance light users without being outright evil or wrong.
Instead we got evil elves doing it while twirling their mustaches for an expansion then just doing it the normal way everyone else does it which is lame.
For how prominent the Blood Knights were in WoD and especially Legion, this angle really isn’t as apparent as it should be in the lore. We’ve been told that the Sunwell is their conduit to the Light, but you’d never guess there’s a cultural difference between human and blood elf Light users from how they were written in those expansions.
Funnily enough however, TWW actually acknowledged this; Liadrin and the teenybopper Blood Knight allude to Silvermoon and Stormwind’s paladins invoking the Light in different ways when playing compare and contrast with the Arathi.
The whole thing about erasing all common elven roots has always been a weird thing Drahliana pulls out of, frankly, nowhere whenever arguments about ties between the various elven nations come up* - TFT was clear that the Quel’dorei were fully aware of where they came from, Winterspring questing shows they even knew how to cross back to Kalimdor, and Legion had the loredrop of Sentinels working with the Farstriders in the Troll Wars (which was slightly a retcon but it’s not as if Tyrande did not seem at least somewhat aware of Quel’thalas’s existence when she meets Kael’thas for the first time).
Dath’remar Sunstrider was basically a hero of the war of the ancients and considered THE founding hero in Quel’thalas.
*This even though we have actual canonical cases of family overlaps
Nah exploring azeroth islands says there is a temple that thalyssra visists, though whether its referring to the one outside the city or one not represented ingame is unknown, though we can assume elune worship does survive there in the form of some minority religion since they have priests
Priests are the least defined class in the game. Outside of Scarlets and Twilights, they frequently have little class background that shapes them by belief.
Elune is more present in the structure of Druidic powers and has been absent from priestly magic since Blizzard took away the Night Elf racial priest spell.
“They planned to build their own magical kingdom, Quel’Thalas, and reject the night elves’ precepts of moon worship and nocturnal activity. Forever after, they would embrace the sun and be known only as the high elves.” [S]
Let’s call it an act of defiance.
“Screw the night elves and their culture! Embrace the opposite!”
Man I miss these visual racial class abilities flavor so much! At some point long ago I really thought we see Night Elves priest wilding Elune white star light…
Now that blizz is fleshing out WoW racial cultures they should really consider later as they keep improving the Class VFX and update its visuals animations, to add if not a complete new look to classes define by their own racial belief class skin glyph… at least give those flavor racial spells again.
This was a very nice immersive detail that should have never been taken away… and should have been expanded upon. (IMO)