They were delicious ?
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Maybe they gave them all to Dalaran/maybe unicorns were native to Dalaran?
Hailing from the magical kingdom of Dalaran, the Archmagi represent the
pinnacle of magical power. Weaving their intricate enchantments, these
crotchety old wizards defend humanity with all the magical powers at their
disposal. Mounted atop their trusty unicorn steeds, the Archmagi brandish
magical blades and ancient staves that serve to channel their fierce energies
in battle. Though gruff and slightly aloof, these experienced wizards are a
heartening sight upon any battlefield where the fate of humanity lies in peril.
Stormwind and its surrounding environs doesn’t have lions, on that note. Lions as an animal did not exist in the Warcraft universe 'til we got to the Barrens in WoW.
(Maybe that’s why the Stormwind icon is so ugly-- they had no reference.)
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You show hawkstriders some respect. They have hands down the coolest viscous saddle version.
Well next to my own beloved black bonesteed. The regular one is fine but it bothers me so much it’s hooves are engulfed in fel fire. Like I get undead warlocks are popular but that’s much more of a Belf and Orc thing.
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Unicorns are also a Dalaran thing. It was the mount Archmages used in Warcraft 3.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/e/ec/Antonidas1.jpg
I think it was just regular horses.
That said, there’s
https://www.wowhead.com/item=46815/queldorei-steed
"Comes from a lineage of fine horses that once grazed near the shores of the Well of Eternity."
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I think its one of those things where the lands once did have lions, but they were wiped out probably by hunters. You can still find a rare lion in the Twilight Highlands, so there were some native to the Eastern Kingdoms at some point.
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It must have been retconned. The original warcraft 3 manual says: “Mounted atop their trusty unicorn steeds,”
“For the Alliance!”
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You’ve never wanted your own chocobo? In Pathfinder Society, my Tien Samurai rides one. (there it’s called an axebeak.) I am very dissapointed that there aren’t any tameable ones. I’d happily sneak into Quel’thelas to get a pair. ( I farmed Magister’s Terrace daily to get my white Hawkstrider) Arlessa’s background is that her family bred them.
I love the hawkstriders, there’s something about the way they move that I find very satisfying, and I love their idle animations. I also love the idea of them snapping and slashing at enemies with their beak and talons. I just wish we had a higher-resolution one with less armor than the Vicious Warstrider available for blood elves.
I love the chocobos…I mean hawkstriders!
That’s kinda what I mean. I don’t know the word “chocobo”. I never heard it before, other than in relation to Hawkstriders in WoW, and I never cared to look it up. Though I probably will after I post this. Still, to me, it seemed random and unrelated to High Elves or Blood Elves until it was made related to them. And I am not a fan.
Ah yes. Acquiring my White Hawkstrider is one of my proudest moments as a WoW Player. But I don’t like using it.
(Cue the flashback sound)
The year was 2 double naught 8. MgT was recently released - it was one of my first few runs while it was current. My Blood Elf Holy Pally was healing a pug run. At Kaelthas, the tank and DPS died at some point, and I was alone. I blame them for failing mechanics, but they blamed me for not healing them through stupid.
I was alone. A healer. But I was undeterred. The dead spoke their wisdom from the floor, as they often do.
“Just die!” “Let’s go again!” “Stop wasting time!”
But I continued. And I defeated him solo. And the White Hawkstrider dropped.
As cynical as I may be, I am superstitious enough to think Blizzard somehow rewarded my effort.
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…
I forgot about them. The high elves’ hatred of the trolls clearly came about because they hogged all the bears!
Chocobos are iconic Final Fantasy mounts and appear in just about every FF game.
Elves are usually associated with unicorns or pretty deer or something but I thought the bird mounts were kinda unique. To each their own though.
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Mine’s the opposite. Please keep in mind this was in 2010; I am a changed person now. I ran the dungeon with a friend of mine and told her that I just wanted the Orb of the Sin’dorei, and that she could have the mount and I didn’t care about it (true). Mount drops, and I say “I’ll tell all your friends at school you play WoW if you don’t give it to me” (she hid the fact that she played). What a scumbag I was, Jesus Christ.
I’d imagine when they were traversing through the still-Sundering world when exiled from Ashenvale & and the rest of their people by Malfurion; they came across the Unicorn species and used them as mounts to hunt for food, travel etc like they had during the peak of their civilisation under the rule of Azshara; but overtime with worsening weather conditions and the lands being subdued under the seas & rapidly changing intense seasons - many of that species grew scarce along with other resources, and thus only a very endangered few remained by the time they finally founded Quel’Thalas.
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I think a decision was made to go with hawkstriders and elephants because they were both much more unique mounts. Maybe there were fears a unicorn mount would look too similar to horses, and with a belf rider their silhouette would be too similar to that of a human. (Back when Blizz was more careful about the factions being more visually distinct from each other, I guess).
It could also be they were avoiding the outcry of “all we got is horses again with a horn slapped on!” Blizzard clearly got over that fear come BfA, lol.
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I think it’s a holdover from how Blood Elves were often compared to Final Fantasy and its more delicate approach to character design, often in an unfavorable way as back then Warcraft was considered THE badass metal MMO with hardcore monster races and whatnot, and for whatever reason some people had this weird idea that pretty elves were not allowed to fit in it. Nowadays I don’t quite see such comparison with that and Blood Elves anymore, probably because they’ve outlived the negativity and such things aren’t really that much of an insult anymore because Final Fantasy is a successful game franchise in its own right with a really cool MMO under its belt.
There are also some NPC’s referencing Final Fantasy characters that use a Blood Elf model too like Coraud, obviously a riff on the character Cloud Strife. Blood Elf men are the only model in the game that can really pull his look off.
I suspect that they were exclusive to the Silver Covenant who took them with them when they exiled themselves from Quel’thelas.