Glad to see high elven skin Ren'dorei

Lore Story Forum
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Suffice to say it was one of those long interminable debates about how “canon” the high elven skin was. Even as of Dragonflight I recall having people arguing it was purely “player customization” as oppose to lore even when Voidlight Everdawn was added(she kinda felt like a special case) and rumors of high elven skinned elves in the spa area(never could find one) surfaced people still said, no it’s not canon.

Imagine my absolute delight to actually see non-void skinned elves in Twilight Highlands and the Voidstorm(added bonus there is a variety of skin tones). So yeah, this is just further proof that gameplay bends lore to it need, not the opposite.

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So that means that if we see a high elf-skinned NPC, we have no way of knowing whether it’s a “true” high elf or a void elf.

And that’s a good thing?

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In this instance, I’d say so. I’ve considered high elves ridiculous and redundant playable race material since 07, so their actualization through blood elf/void elf customizations was agreeable to me.

Half the Silver Covenant NPCs in TWW were built from the void elf model as well, so this isn’t new FWIW.

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No. if you want to know if they are one or the other Just click on them to hear their voice line.

As a draenei player who knows lore was bent over backwards to create draenei lore, yes I think it is quite a good thing.

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I can’t recall ever seeing any debates about the canonicity regarding the range of skin tones Void Elves have access to. Maybe I’m not that invested in the topic.

What I can recall seeing quite a lot, is players asserting that a Void Elf made to resemble a non-void infused Thalassian elf makes them not a Void Elf.

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It means now that the original Allerian High Elves of the RTS and Burning Crusade, have passed into irrelevance. The story is now all about Blood and Void. That customisation is available to Blood Elves as well.

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Fancy way of saying the lore has been expanded since then and this is actually a positive development. Which is better than I thouth it would be

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That is what the Devs said when they justified the addition of the, ‘High Elf customizations,’ to both Void Elves and Blood Elves back in Shadowlands.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/shadowlands-zones-covenant-armor-and-character-customization-interview-with-art-316803

And that seems to continue to hold true as well.

Case in point, there’s an Arathi NPC that uses the Void Elf hairstyle, but is most definitely not a Void Elf.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Wenren_Althal

That said, it’s also been true since Telogrus was updated that Void Elves can have skin tones and hair colors matching High/Blood Elves.

We’re more or less at the point where the differences between Blood Elves, Void Elves, and High Elves is non-existent in terms of customization.

Not sure to be honest. Auric Sunchaser is back in the game, and he’s been a topic of discussion for a while as to whether or not he was still in Quel’Thalas. Right now he’s hanging out with the Silver Covenant at their retreat (although I don’t believe he wears their tabard). I’ve never seen anything during beta suggesting that he was doing anything, though, but we’re only in the first patch of the expansion, and even then, so long as the character lives, they can always be used down the line.

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The High Elven thing is a bit complicated and may confuse players who don’t have a connection to the RTS history.,

This is what I gather so it may not be perfect.

The High/Blood schism never really existed in the way that players seem to think it does.

In the beginning you have the Highborne, that group of Empire Elves who got elevated to nobility because the reigning Queen decided that mastery of the arcane was the be all and end all to being a proper elf.

They lord it over the newly designated “lowborne” who for some strange reason, eventually got really upset over this.

Their queen Azshara deciding that none of her species was enough of a Magic Man for her sets her sights on Sargeras as a suitable mate offers Azeorth as a wedding present. Touched by this offer, he offers to eradicate those pesky lowborne. The Highborne as a group say “Yay! cool beans!” A small group among them aren’t quite as sanguine about eliminating the peasant classes though (Who will put out the trash?) and break ranks. They eventually become important. The rest join Azshara for complete makeovers and a long skinny dip.

Anyway, shenannigans ensue, the world undergows Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, and the lowborn form a reclusive nation of their own where the social order is reversed and the peasants are now the top dogs. Following severe disagreements about the use of magic and good fashion, the former Highborne get invited to take a very long field trip to “anywhere but here” in the process, they rename themselves to High Elves, and redo their fashions and motifs to a blue and gold theme, ditching the whole night scene entirely.

Fast forward a few thousand years. Khadgar invites Alleria and her crew of High Elves on a field trip. Having picked up a taste for Human Men, she joins up with a young cheerful Turalyon. None of the above are seen again and her sister Sylvannas dedicates a statue in her memory in Stormwind. Before her disappearance, Alleria’s cohorts decide to settle at garden spot near Shattrah on Draenor, conveniently located next to a Horde outpost, and the graveyard of a shattered Draeneic temple. With no postal service to the East Kingdoms, thoughts of writing home fade away.

Meanwhile, High Elves back home get a surprise visit from Prince Arthas. They are a bit put out by the fact that Arthas not only showed up unannounced but that he brought thousands of friends with him, all of them dressed in appalling taste. Arthas points out that he got an open door invite from his buddy Dar’khan. Remember that name, it becomes important later. The High Elves insist that “plus one’ does not mean “plus tens of thousands”. Things get heated when they point out his questionable choice of armor embellishment and things go rapidly downhill from there.

After Arthas and his crew see themselves out, the few surviving Quel’thelans, inspired by their prince rename themselves Blood Elves in memory who had their party tickets canceled early and what the spilled blood inspired in new fashion statements. But this does not help with the fact that they are in a terminal after party disaster, not to mentiion the fact that they are getting really bad vibes from the surviving Humans of Lordaeron who are pretty annoyed that their blood elf comrades are less than enthuiastic when the blood elves insist on surviving the suicide missions they send them on. Things completely fall out when they find Blood Elves consorting with their water sodden cousins, the rechristened Naga.

However a group of Arthas’ former crew, led by Alleria’s little sister, now all grown up as the Banshee Queen come to their aid and invite them to join THEIR new crew, promising and delivering support and protection from their former best friends. But some among the Blood Elves, who really have issues with Orc fashion sense, and missing the good drinking days with the Ironforge Dwarves, and have really gotten tired of the color red, rechristen themsleves High Elves and are pointedly invited to leave.

They do so, but not without taking a Windrunner for their very own, whose main occupation would be to annoy her Blood Elf counterparts in Dalaran, the Comeback Capital. The rest settle in the various spots in the Highlands, embracing new careers as targets of the resident trolls and the upcoming Horde.

After a few decades of settling this out, a group of blood elves start pouring over Dar’khan’s notes, in particular, his push for a new deep violet aesthetic. Lor’themar points out the essential color clash between red and violet and shouts “To the Void with you! , Or the Alliance!” Taking suggestion to inspire their new name, the Void Elves gate crash the Alliance and are welcomed for their promise to put new life into Stormwind’s incresingly staid party scene.

Hearing of this new rave going down in Silvermoon City, Umbric not really fond of brick architecture wangles an invittion for himself and his best buds, including a surprisingly returned Alleria and a lot less cheeful Turalyon, and that is pretty much more or less where we are today.

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I’m aware of that interview and other comments they’ve made on the topic.

As a role player, it’s always your freedom to create the story of your character and have that be informed through the customization you choose.

If you want to roleplay that your Void Elf is not infused with the void because it has blue eyes, pale skin and blonde hair - more power to you!

Just…close your eyes when the game refers to you as a Void Elf or entropic embrace procs.

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I kinda like entropic embrace for my alliance elf warlock. I just refer to it as her bending to shadow magic a litle too far at times when fighting

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Aren’t those just generic void elf npc’s generated by the game though? As far as I know, all named Void Elf NPCs are still purple in skintone. (outside of the unique case that is Alleria)

I don’t think people should take what the game randomly generates as “canon”

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These are not “random” in the sense that the game generates it randomly from all the customization options available in the game. Someone made a deliberate choice in what gets generated(hence why the NPC are effectively copies). And these no Named NPCs still represent the fighting force that participated in certain events/wars(hence why we know for example that that draenei joined the Fourth War for example)

Also, this isnt the only proof we have considering we have know for years that high/blood elves not part of the initial research group have joined the void elves. In fact some Sunfury elves has joined them as well.

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That’s exactly what’s going on

They toggled an option in the game’s code that’s all that happened. You’re thinking way too deeply about this more than the guy who clicked on the button that said “Use all customization options”

You mean the “visiting” researchers/magisters in Telogrus? Those aren’t Ren’dorei. They’re High/Blood Elf curious about the research being done on the Void.

Being a Ren’dorei requires you to be physically altered by the energies of the Void. NPCs like Ennas and Lyria appear to be self exiled “Sin’dorei” who are now politically affiliated with the Ren’dorei. (who have had their eye colors changed to reflect that their bodies are inadvertently surrounded by void energies.)

My point isn’t that Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei can’t join/be affiliated with the Void Elves, but instead that they physically cannot become “Ren’dorei” as that requires a unique, bespoke event.

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That is not what is going on.

Blizzard has used customization before to show the world. It isnt just “random” it is clear they use NPCs, even nameless NPC to show how the world works/give you a feel for it.

That is clearly not the case especially considering we know Sunfury blood elves later joined the Rendorei. Ren’dorei like Quel’dorei or Sin’dorei are as much a political term as anything else.

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It most likely morphed into a political title to mean any blood/high elf who studies void magic.

The original ren’dorei called themselves that due to their unique transformation

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You’re conflating the void elf random npc generation algorithm with something entirely unrelated.

In the political sense, yes. However, the argument that I’m making is that in order to be “Ren’dorei”, and not a Quel/Sin’dorei that is simply associating themselves with Umbric and his crew, you needed to have been physically (and mentally) altered by the powers of the Void ritual that went haywire.

Let’s look at this from a meta perspective using Ennas and Lyria as our examples. Canonically, both of these elves heavily disagreed with Silvermoon’s decision to align itself with the Horde and went so far as to push for the people to rise up and remove Lorthemar, Rommath, etc. from power. These two then went into exile sometime after the events of TBC.

However! Why didn’t these two elves go to the non-void infused Thalassian group of elves (The Silver Covenant)? Because internally, Blizzard most likely views the Silver Covenant as dead weight within the narrative sense and wishes to use the Void Elves for everything related to “Alliance High Elves”.

So for Blizzard, the Void Elves are most likely designated as the “non-Horde Thalassian elf” dumping ground. (Outside of the San’layn. Wish we got updates on these guys.)

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Yeha, of course you would be glad, the 4reich of elves lurks around always

you mean a bunch of delusional people talking about their fanfic.

This isnt even a debate, Alleria literally have this "skin’, what you want is some precedent to change their names ingame to “high elf” lmao

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You can literally see someone arguing that the high elf skin is still somehow not canon because apperently it is used by no named NPC as oppose to named in in this very thread.

And yes I want playable high elf but that a different conversation to void elves having high elf skin and it being canon

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“Horde have pretty elf, we want pretty elf. “

Literally the entire reason these customizations exist.

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