Alright maybe I’m confused here.
But I thought Farstriders were the main group of Quel’Dorei who actually ventured out from Quel’Thalas to study and report on the outside world. Hence the name. They stride to far places.
But in the Sylvanas book they are pretty much just the National Guard and glorified troll killers. Who’s sole purpose seems to be to safeguard the good people of Eversong from ever getting a calice. And given their reaction to Nathanos and Alleria’s leaving as being perceived as unprecedented it seems like the Magisters had the most contact with the outside world even if it was just Dalaran.
Was this a retcon or did I just take the name too literally or mix them up with the usual elven ranger tropes?
Feels like you would call them like the Sunguard or something. Walking to the border and back isn’t exactly a far stride if you ask me.
The controversy with Alleria in the Sylvanas book isn’t that she was leaving their lands, it was that she was assisting other nations. She was defending their lands instead of Quel’Thalas which was dangerous.
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farstrider are the elite group of the ranger corp of the thalassian elves. They defend qt from far away and inside, they face any threats of qt, at least, this was their role.
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It’s not a retcon, the Farstriders shifting their focus from “world affairs” to “high elf affairs” has been the group’s backstory since its debut lore blurb. The old encyclopedia had a “Farstriders” article that mentioned their propensity to rarely range beyond Quel’Thalas except to perform “surgical strikes”.
I recall a passage in the Sylvanas novel in which Lireesa cites “reclaiming the meaning of our name” to gloss over Alleria’s real motivation for her abdication.
I’d argue the group has strode pretty far in WoW. They deployed rangers to Stranglethorn, established an outpost on Outland, contributed to Pandaria, backed up the Blood Knights on Draenor, scouted out the Broken Shore and some demon portal world, fought all over Azeroth with the Unseen Path, comprised some of the blood elf troops in Nazmir, and all the blood elf troops in Nazjatar. Last we heard they’d been put to the task of hunting Sylvanas all across the EK (someone ought to tell them not to bother with that one).
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To be fair, and I could be mistaken, but Quel’thalas as a whole does cover a lot of area and the Farstriders aren’t that big of a group if I remember correctly.
so the name is kind of a nisnomer but the farstriders are based on the High Elven ranger group under Talanas Windrunner, when the High Elves were living in Tirisfall and they were starving to death, they sent this group to find a new home and they found what would become Quel’thalas. It could be interpreted that they “strode far, to find a new home.”
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They are also fragmented despite being so small.
When Quel’thelas went to the Horde banner some Farstriders deserted to the Alliance, and maintain a Lodge by Loch Modan.
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Idle hands breed mischief.
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Not just there, but the Hinterlands, and Eastern Plaguelands etc. I have a strong suspicion that these elves were sympathetic to Alleria’s arguments that High Elves can’t remain closed off from the rest of the world and many actually felt the desire to live up to their names.
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Farstriders were called such because they technically did “stride farther” than other elves, who were more focused on Arcane and magic and were in the cities by and large. Farstriders, in contrast, were often in the forests and away from civilization, and it’s important to note that what we see in game is different in lore. Quel’thalas’ forests were/are pretty vast and fairly dense in places, making traversing them a genuine skill. There are also, of course, the various lodges throughout the Eastern Kingdoms, with some as far afield as Loch Modan.
Farstriders earned the name because they would skip through ancient forests that spanned many miles in a few days, while a magister would be reduced to panicked screaming in an hour.
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