Yep they can lead you away from the worship of a false god and having any cultural distiction and into the light. This is a joke btw.
Would we at least finally get Night Elf Paladins?
Honestly in my mind they should have always been as thing the sisterhood of elune were trained in the ways of war so paladins. Anyways yes you get paladins.
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The idea of Kaldorei in silver hand plate armor with golden Uther spell effects makes me sad in my soul.
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I don’t think we’d be able to avoid the golden light spell effects, but I gathered up the full Darkshore Warfront plate set just on the off chance we ever get Night Elf Paladins. Just need the two-handed sword to go with it, but luckily that can drop from Darkshore world quest area rares, so that should go much faster than the one fancier cache piece per alt per cycle.
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It isn’t a very similar relationship, actually. Night elves don’t really worship the wild gods the way trolls do. They revere them and look to them as teachers and sources of wisdom, but outside Hyjal you’d be hard pressed to find any actual temples to the Ancients. Outside the druids who are dedicated to them night elven society is significantly more preoccupied with Elune and worshiping her.
Trolls have a polytheism in which the loa are all viewed as the same sort of being worthy of deep worship and constant prayer and tribute. For the night elves this isn’t the case. Only Elune is worthy of actual worship, prayer, and tributes. Their religion is a monotheism in which the wild gods are viewed as a different, and inferior, class of being.
That isn’t accurate at all. Kaldorei religion is more akin to that of Japanese Shinto, with Elune taking the role of Amaterasu.
Aessina in particular has several dedicated shrines to her, as does Malorne.
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How is this much different from the Trolls? While the Trolls are seemingly polytheistic, in practice they only worship one loa at a time. The Night Elves can at least worship both Elune and the Wild Gods at the same time:
We do have an example of Night Elves giving offerings to Ursoc at least:
- When the claws were sealed away, magical wards were placed to prevent anyone from reaching their location. Only the power of a demigod can give us passage through the wards, one such as Ursol, the brother of Ursoc.
Ursol is a reclusive guardian and requires an offering before he will appear to us.
Like Ursoc, he was worshipped by the furbolg, but years of war have decimated their tribes and their shaman lay dead.
Search the bodies of the fallen for their offerings while I prepare the shrine.
Lea Stonepaw says: Great Ursol, wise bear of the woods, this daughter of the wilds calls to you! Please accept these humble offerings and grant us an audience!
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“Elune is the most useless goddess ever. Scourge invasion? Nothing. Assault on Mount Hyjal? Nothing. Legion invasion? Nothing.
Teldrassil burned down?”
I so wanna answer this with what every believer tells me irl, it’s all about faith, xx will not intervene in what is considered mortal affairs and free will. Only at the end will you… bla, bla.
So excuse me but it seems Elune fits every description of an omniscient God. She has only intervened to give Ysera peace in her last moment.
She actully intervines fairly often but never on a large scake ysera was the largest event so that was a break in her norm. The burning hinestly is in character as she did small scale stuff like normal.
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Not quite. Amaterasu is closer to Rezan’s relationship with the other loa. Elune isn’t regarded as yet another wild god. She is something else. A “true goddess” that receives the vast bulk of worship across the entire civilization while the Ancients are mostly only revered by the druids directly working for them.
The night elves worship Elune over any of the wild gods. They aren’t really worshiped alongside each other. Not by the general populace anyway. After all the night elves were praying to Elune to save them at Teldrassil. The night elves are currently having a crisis of faith over Elune. There weren’t any night elves making offerings and praying to the wild gods to the best of my knowledge.
Also your example is explicitly about looting the offerings the furbolgs were going to give Ursoc off their bodies. Furbolgs are the ones who truly worship Ursol and Ursoc as their primary deities as he is their progenitor.
The night elf in question is using the furbolgs’ offerings to get an audience with the bear god. This isn’t an example of your average night elf doing the same the way trolls do every day in their society.
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And, as I noted to before, Trolls selectively worship one loa over any of the others.
Oddly enough, Dark Trolls - and the Night Elves after them - might have been the exception:
- "The markings on this robe resemble both the sign of Elune and several venerated Loa spirits."
Elun’alor in Zin-Azshari is also a suspiciously Troll style name.
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Trolls individually favor one loa above the others as a patron, but they all recognize the divinity of the loa as a group and regard them as equally divine and worthy of reverence. This is standard for a polytheistic religion. They always have the general worship of the pantheon and then lots of small cults dedicated to specific ones that are more relevant to those individuals and their way of life.
Elune worship isn’t like that of the head of a pantheon though. She’s almost exclusively worshiped by the vast majority of the civilization, and even those who do revere the wild gods never think to put them on the same level as Elune in terms of divinity.
The closest real world counterpart would be how Catholic saints are revered but are not viewed of as competing gods. The best fictional example is Tolkien’s pantheon with Elune functioning as Eru and the wild gods as the Valar who, despite some simplifications by fans, aren’t actually viewed of as gods but rather powerful spirits the true deity created.
That is much closer to how the night elves see the wild gods. They aren’t true deities the way Elune is, but rather powerful and sacred creatures deserving of reverence and respect.
Oddly enough, Dark Trolls - and the Night Elves after them - might have been the exception:
There’s also the Lun’alai in Zandalar who are a sect of trolls who worship Elune. I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that there was a time where Elune was worshiped alongside the loa. But there was something that caused a transition from viewing her as a loa and then viewing her as the one true goddess of the Kaldorei.
Likely when the trolls were transformed and their society started to emphasize the Well.
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I’m not sure I’ve really seen this to be the case. Most notably the opposite with Bwonsamdi, especially in the Zandalari recruitment quests where there are protests against him.
I’m not sure that would have been the time frame, since Cenarius was still guiding the Night Elves then. World of Warcraft Chronicle: Volume I, Pages 94-95:
- The trees, flowers, and woodland creatures silently watched the night elves flourished, whispering news of them to the Wild Gods of Hyjal. Among them, the demigod Cenarius took a keen interest in these newcomers at the Well of Eternity's shores. Cenarius adored the night elves and believed they had the potential to become great caretakers of nature. He befriended the fledling race and taught them about the natural world. It was Cenarius's hope that the night elves would strive to live in harmony with the wilds.
For many centuries, the night elves did. They built a graceful society around the Well of Eternity. The capital of their small nation was Elun’dris, or “the Eye of Elune,” and it was founded on the shores of the fount of power. The night elves also honed their ties with the surrounding woodlands and their myriad inhabitants. Cenarius guided the night elves when necessary, pleased by the wisdom and benevolence that thrummed in their hearts.
But in time, many of the night elves yearned for a different life. These individuals became obsessed with unlocking the Well of Eternity’s secrets. They rigorously studied the fount’s arcane energies, becoming learned sorcerers. They harnessed the powers of the arcane lake and constructed wondrous temples and roadways around it. Magic became an inseparable part of life as the night elves reveled in the power at their fingertips. Pushing the boundaries of their intellect became the driving force of their culture.
It was during this era of unprecedented growth that the night elves’ most prolific leader came to power. Her name was Queen Azshara. Through her unbridled ambition, she would elevate her people to extraordinary new heights… and sow the seeds of their destruction.
Especially considering, as noted earlier in this thread, that it was at the time of Azshara ruling that the Highborne moved away from worshiping Elune.
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All you need to do is listen to how Zandalari greet you and say goodbye. “May the Loa watch over you.” Not “May my Loa watch over you”.
Contrast that to “May Elune guide you”. The only time the wild gods’ names are mentioned in the same way is when it is a druid of that specific wild god saying it.
Though the best evidence is in the theocracy. Night elves and trolls are both ruled by religious icons (yet more deep similarities). Tyrande as the High Priestess of Elune has absolute power in the same way God-King Rastakhan does.
The distinction? Tyrande is only the high priestess of Elune. The Zandalari king/queen has to be approved of by all the loa to sit on the throne. The Loa of Kings, formerly Rezan and now Bwonsamdi, is given the right to make the last judgement, but he can’t veto the judgement of the other loa. If Krag’wa says you aren’t worthy of being queen then you can’t be queen.
There is a clear and universal reverence for the entire pantheon. Individuals have favorites and least favorites but all are gods to be worshiped.
As for Bwonsamdi, the riots weren’t so much against him as it was him being placed in Rezan’s position. Death gods are never very popular, even if they are still worshiped and respected, and the Zandalari aren’t fond of the idea of a death god being the new chief of the Zandalari pantheon.
It would likely be the same if the priesthood of ancient Greece decided Hades was now going to take over Zeus’ role. Not a popular choice but still one that can be made.
I imagine it was a very slow process. Likely beginning around being transformed (Cenarius is still half-Elune, after all) and then finalizing some time before Queen Azshara takes over and becomes mad jelly everyone loved that Elune chick more than her.
The more curious thing is that Elune worship must have fallen out of favor with the greater troll society. Possibly due to Elune withdrawing much of her attention from the other tribes and focusing almost exclusively on the newly formed Kaldorei.
This is all just my theory, though. I’d love more information on this time period and the early days of both night elven and troll civilizations.
The reason the Zandalari do not consider Elune a Loa is because she does not make bargains, she freely provides power to her devotees seemingly asking nothing in return other than their devotion. It seems to sort of freak them out a little.
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True. I guess the trolls are just so used to everyone either trying to destroy them or demanding something in return that the idea of a genuinely altruistic goddess is entirely alien to them.
Even after Azshara came to reign, though, the majority of Night Elves still followed Cenarius’ ways, as Chronicle went on to continue:
- There was, however, one location Azshara and her forces avoided: Mount Hyjal. The spirits and demigods who roamed the sylvan forests unsettled the queen. She knew in her bones that Hyjal was somehow beyond even her influence. It was a place steeped in ancient magic, a wild, untamable, and unchangeable land that stood in stark contrast to her vision of a new Kalimdor. Publically, Azshara prohibited expansion into Hyjal out of respect of the night elves' ancient kinship with the forests. In truth, she despised the mountain and the harmony it represented.
Azshara’s views on Hyjal were well known to Cenarius. With growing unease, he had watched the night elf empire expand. Year by year, he became increasingly frustrated with the hubris and thoughtless actions of the sorcerous Highborne. The majority of night elf society continued honoring the old ways of revering the wilds. The fact that these folk still lived in harmony wit the land warmed Cenarius’s heart, but he knew that they had no influence over Azshara and her arrogant followers.
Hmm. True. So maybe the obsession with Elune occurred during the second massive cultural shift the Kaldorei underwent. The loss of the Highborne followed by re-branding themselves as guardians of Ashenvale.
This is when Elune’s High Priestess became the sovereign ruler of the Night Elves and when Moonwells, extensions of Elune’s blessing, began to dot the landscape. It would make sense that she exploded in prominence once her priesthood became the ruling power in the land.
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True that. It might have also factored that the only Mount Hyjal Wild Gods that had physically survived the War of the Ancients had been Cenarius and Tortolla.
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