Yes, its an Allied Race thread. I’ll save some of you some time by starting off with that.
But it is the types of Allied Races that have got me thinking. We’re told that in Midnight, the Elves of Azeroth will unite under a single banner for some great cause, but we don’t know what.
Well, let’s look at the Elven species we do know of.
Sin’dorei/Highborn on the Horde.
Shal’dorei on the Horde.
Ren’dorei/Highborn on the Alliance.
Kaldorei on the Alliance.
That leaves potentially the Haronir, the strange, primordial mixture of Elf and Troll we’ve just met in Dornogal’s lowest levels, the Naga who are technically mutated Elves, the Felbloods from the Burning Crusade expansion who may or may not have lingered on in the aftermath of their Prince’s mad plan to save his race, the Undead San’layn are a stretch but technically do fall into this category, much as the Undead Elves raised by Sylvanas during the Azerite Wars re-integrated into their respective peoples in the aftermath of the cease-fire.
So that leaves us with the Haronir, who have a lot of customization in some builds of the game, both the beta for the War Within and new builds in the leaked content for the next Patch.
Then there’s the Naga, and we’ve had rebels amongst the Naga since the Burning Crusade, so having a camp sign on with the Alliance or the Horde to help try and rally aid for Neptulon once Azshara comes running back flush with Void energies is inevitable, but if they end up playable is very debatable. Odds are they’ll share a system with the Dracthyr, having a Visage-like mechanic so they can ride mounts and move inland without issue, but in combat will snap back to their serpentine forms.
The Felbloods would be a fascinating addition to the roster, Elves with wings and corrupted deeply by the Fel, and we have no idea how the restoration of the Sunwell and is infusion of Light energies from Mu’ru would interact with entities on the very of transmuting into true Demonhood. That said, they’re likely a hell of a stretch at the best of times, and blur the line between a Sin’dorei people that no longer exists, and the Demon Hunters.
Undead Elves might be a hard sell, but with Ameredrizzle being tired innately to both Life and Death and feeding off of the natural energies of both Azeroth and the Emerald Dream, who knows. Much like the Arcandor tree’s fruits can re-establish a Shal’dorei’s connection with the Leylines and ‘replace’ their addiction to the now-dissipated energies of the Nightwell, the fruits of Amirdrassil might have shocking effects on the Kaldorei that nobody predicted, especially if the tree really is tapping into the World Soul, and all that Azerite 
Goodness with its funky Power-To-Do-Whatever-The-Plot-Demands abilities.
Could even start seeing the Kaldorei who died during the Azerite Wars and were sent to the Maw before being funnelled into the seed that would become Amirdrassil being born from those fruits, a form of Immortality again for the Kaldorei, die, be channelled through the roots and branches of Amirdrassil to generate Anima for the Shadowlands, be reborn again from the Tree’s fruits in a form of reincarnation, and to the chagrin of the Kaldorei … the tree isn’t picky. Any soul that registers as Elven gets shunted into the tree and reborn, leading to Kaldorei with the souls of Ren’dorei, Sin’dorei, Shal’dorei, even Undead elves such as San’layn or Felblood.
Good news for the dwindling Kaldorei population, really bad news for the dwindling population of ever other Elven race.
Other allied Races that make sense with what we saw from Shadowlands, Dragonflight and The War Within.
Mok’nathal.
We’re never gonna get our Chonkeh Bois, the Ogres, but I’ll take a gaggle of Rexxars any day. Please just don’t make the women of the species look like barby dolls, give us some big muscular brutes, blending Ogre and Orc bloodlines. That’s some big ladies with some big muscles and I am going weak-kneed just thinking about it.
And with Outland collapsing up its own raid-entrance … they’re gonna need to leave the shattered remains of the Orcs’ homeworld right quick, and the door is open thanks to what happened at the Orm’riggor Festival.
Broken.
Velen got badgered into actually stepping up and honoring his promises to the Broken and the Krokul during the Draenei Heritage Questline. Give us the Krokul model with some graphical tweaks and just give us our uggos already, Blizzard! Same reason as the Mok’nathal, Outland is dying, the elemental energies are giving out and there’s a growing lack of water, food and resources.
Taunka and Frost Trolls.
If we’re heading back to Northrend to chase after Xal’atath in the end of the War Within and the Midnight Expansion, these are two races who are just begging for attention. The Horde needs to do some serious lifting for the Taunka after we just bailed out of Northrend due to plot reasons and the Scourge just kinda being left shuffling about ‘without’ a Lich King to control them.
And the Drakkari were reduced to scavenging survivors in their own land, possibly with their only real forces signing on with Zul’s invasion of Pandaria and getting murked by everybody. This also gives the Horde access to the Forest Troll model for Revantusk and other mercenary Tribes. Hell, we have the Zandalari as part of the Horde right now, that’s got to be drawing more than a few mercenaries and forward-thinking Tribes to sign on as well, even as the embittered and isolationist Tribes sit back and sulk that Zandalar opened its great hall to Non-Trolls, but not them.
Kobolds.
They’re adorkable and the ones we’ve met in Dornogal are a far cry removed from the feral, half-coherent pests that harass the miners and quarries of the Horde and Alliance alike. They’d certainly be an interesting allied race, maybe not the most popular, but their keen senses and long-running war with ‘The Darkness’, might make them overlooked allies against Xal’atath and whatever Void-spawned madness she had planned for us in the future.
I think they might end up ala the Mechagnomes, only used for Metas and for people who really like the aesthetic, but I still think they’d be a neat, neutral addition to the roster.
Ethereals.
Ethereals are a must considering how the plight of the Ren’dorei and how a certain Elf’s struggle with the Void Naru she ate ties in very tightly to the machinations of the mysterious Locus Walker. They wouldn’t even be that hard to code in, just use Human Male and Sin’dorei male models and we’re set, since most Ethereals lack any real form of sexual dimorphism. And given Locus Walker’s ties to the Ren’dorei and Alleria, odds are they’d go Alliance as well.
Those are the races that I think would make sense for addition under the Allied Race banner, at this point in time at least.
What are your thoughts?
