That’s the downside to your game being aimed at perverts.
Was it? Between the genderlocks and the dull story, I never got invested enough to seek out the community. I made a hot Castanic guy (… Archer, iirc), played through the starting area and into the main city, and that’s when all the new classes started coming out as female-only.
Sir this is a wendy’s.
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I have seen this, i have seen this one…
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I don’t remember that. Maybe I’ll try and look for it because now I’m curious.
Go back and read the whole post.
I suspect that if we want an interesting equivalent society from real history, perhaps Sparta might be instructive - though of course still problematic.
Post-Sundering, the Kal’dorei went into full reverse on a lot of their societal decisions, but as has been pointed out, societies don’t just toss class differences and work well for millennia. Particularly when they were insanely caste-oriented.
If we think of the thing where Sparta was dedicated to military prowess, led by two kings, and elders basically made most decisions, I think you could make a plausible case for similarities.
In post-Sundering kal’dorei society, you have two central, gendered power focal points: the Archdruid and the Priestess of Elune. You have an entire society explicitly dedicated to preserving nature, or defending those who are repairing and preserving nature.
So it’s a military society.
Logically, ranking Sentinels, Wardens, and Priestesses within the female side of the power structure would become a de facto aristocracy, though perhaps more of a gerontocracy or meritocracy, if by merit you mean military prowess. On the male side, higher ranked Druids of the Claw or Talon would similarly be seen among their world in hierarchical terms.
So in both cases you would absolutely have a caste system, albeit one with porous borders and social fluidity.
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Actually I’m going by the traditional definition of European nobility. Noble families were descended from the warlords who seized and held territory either for themselves or in vassalage to the King.
A noble who was actually exposed as practicing any form of trade would have his status of nobility revoked for both himself and all his descendents in perpetuity.
Class immobility worked both ways.
Midieval society worked in three distinct groups.
Those who fought, and led thefighting… the nobility.
Those who labored… the peasantry
Those who thought… traditionally the duty of the priesthood and monastic orders.
It would be the rise of the trade and merchant classes that would lead to the overthrow of the entire setup.
Here’s the major flaw in your comparison.
You’re speaking of societies as they evolve. The mechanism of social evolution is that of change occurring as multiple generations live, age, and die.
The Kal’dorei of the present day are by and large THE EXACT SAME INDIVIDUALS , the same generation that told their nobility what to go do with themselves during the Sundering. That’s the curve ball that immortality throws into your analysis.
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I know the Nightborne in Suramar do, but I think the Night Elves have mostly moved away from a class system since then.
They seem to have switch to a theocracy?
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You’re not wrong, Drahliana.
But I would suggest that even if you have a group of revolutionaries who are STILL in power and STILL alive, actively engaged in blocking the urges to return to a caste system, we have seen from our own history that people tend to rebuild hierarchies on some level. And while the oldest would not die, new generations would be slowly born.*
So in theory, you’d have a gerontocracy ruled by twin rulers, each representing one aspect or another, divided by gender and societal function (Tyrande/Malfurion).
Which isn’t THAT far from the Spartan political system.
Obviously these ain’t humans, so human foibles and our dreadful habit of restoring some parody of the previous status quo post revolution might not apply.
- A note - I have a personal headcanon that Kal’dorei have to have a STUPID low birth rate because otherwise an immortal race would rapidly overpopulate Kalimdor.
I had what answered the portion about nobles. What you quoted was a section on wealth .
That doesn’t sound right. Nobles could practice trade or commerce, like selling crops from their estates. If you mean trade as in a craft, nobles hunted all the time, which is kind of a craft in a way.
That’s what the staff is for. Nobles never handled such demeaning tasks directly.
Hunting is a noble sport, and they maintained hunting grounds for their exclusive use of either themselves or their Masters of the Hounds. A non-noble hunting on their grounds faced punishment for poaching.
Historian here:
what period, era, culture, language group, and background are we generalizing here? Nobles in France =/= nobles in England =/= nobles in Russia =/= nobles in the Ottoman Empire =/= nobles in Songhai =/= nobles in China. Even in the same era.
“European” is an artificial construct which glosses over very distinct cultural traditions and societal rules of behaviour and conduct. Do you mean Frankish? Do you mean Scots? Do you mean English? If so do you mean pre- or post-Conquest? DO you mean pre-or post Reformation? You know that English chivalry developed in very different ways from the types of behaviours seen in, say, medieval France.
I know this is pedantic but it’s something of a perpetual irritation when people generalize so much.
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They used to be a conclave of druids and the huntresses under the priestesses of the moon. now it’s just tyrande with druids in tow.
This is where the analogy falls down. The Night Elves are still in that original first generation that rebelled… the exact same people for the most part that were alive then are alive now. The Night Elves practise a fairly decentralised society of mostly self-sufficient communities that practise very advanced forms of hunter-gathering combined with a small amount of agriculture that’s enhanced by Druidic means (as shown on the pumpkin farm in Stormwind) They don’t really have a human or historical analogue to directly compare.
Okay, so, there’s a bit of confusion here when it comes to Highborne versus Night Elf nobles.
Highborne were those who were favourites of Azshara, and their families, and thus were elevated to their own special sect, but this was apart from the nobility system that the kaldorei empire seemed to have had. The Highborne lived nearly exclusively in Zin’Azshari, though they probably did have holdings elsewhere in the Empire that they would visit from time to time.
Basically, all Highborne were nobles, but not all nobles are Highborne. This is evidenced by Lord Ravencrest, for instance, who, while powerful and afforded a lot of vassals and land, was not Highborne. It can be reasonably assumed that Azshara created the Highborne system as a way to consolidate more power when she ascended to the throne, much in the way Louis XIV of France did when he had his nobles live in the royal palace.
So basically, they do have nobles, but given the general state of night elf society and culture, which is supposed to be fairly dispersed and isolated with various holds, small family dwellings, and such, it basically just means a kaldorei with some extra authority and a bigger house, at most. Much of what kaldorei society was initially supposed to be and generally is in lore is something much less centralized, ergo, no towns or cities in any recognizable way, and with a very self-sufficient populace.
Nobles in typical cultures have vassals, more wealth, more land, and generally better schooling and training, but night elves don’t really have a disparity regarding those sorts of things.
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