I think a group of transformed Elves that suffer for their hubris and desire for power is not an inherently bad idea. If they had built up a community of High Elves and Blood Elves who formed a conclave for forbidden research over the course of an expansion that ended in the creation of Void Elves, that would have been fine. It is the rushed story that has a group of Blood Elves somehow acknowledge their kin were right to want to stop their research yet are willing to kill them and oppose them in a war, even if their goal was to help the Blood Elves originally.
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Also…kind of a communist. Which is interesting - could play up the class struggle angle more. That could cause some unrest in Stormwind, I would think, given the history of tension between the nobles and workers.
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I would be fearful of that being played up. They wouldn’t make it a problem for the Alliance somehow, but would condemn Blood Elf culture. Goblins know what they are anyway, though.
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Why not use rommath and umbric to build one another’s story?
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I had that same thought.
Umbric has a shadowy connotation as it seems to be derived from Umbra. The High Elves and Blood Elves always favored the Sun and the Light. So why name your kid something like Umbric?
I would understand if Void Elves gave themselves new names after their transformation, like some Forsaken, but Umbric was Umbric before his transformation.
![:man_shrugging:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/man_shrugging.png?v=6" ":man_shrugging:")
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Dath’remar sunstrider had the last name sunstrider, maybe elf parents just know their kids better than other races, maybe if the king of lordaeron just talked to his infant son every once in a while he would have known he’d be a genocidal pyscho and would have tried again
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It shouldn’t.
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You should be more careful with your words. People who say bad things about Comrade Umbric have had unfortunate accidents in the void.
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True, vaguely. It would actually be interesting if he had such complaints towards both sides.
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Yes, I agree. Except they didn’t. They went the most bone-headed route which frankly lends me to not take the “race” seriously for myself, or when I see them around.
The irony of them supposedly being the answer for the demand for High Elves is that the Silver Covenant has done a lot more to establish an allied race than any Argus content did for the Void Elves. Regardless of your stance on High Elves, it is rather sad that they wasted the potential of what I think is actually a cool looking and cool conceptually allied race. Hopefully they get proper development in the future that does not spit on the Blood Elf story.
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Umbric is a purple blood elf coming from Silvermoon!
What other image should we make of a parasite, desperate for shelter and never in years, cared for Alliance, even after leaving Silvermoon?
He either went to Dalaran or some place inhabited by high elves, or thought of settling in some region under the Alliance domain!
Neither he nor his void parasites, who studied profane power, to use it for the sake of his brothers!
The same “brothers” who are firing at void, to please the alliance!
I get really disgusted whenever I need to interact with that fake or some other purple blood elf, who are just fighting for the alliance for convenience.
If they had not been expelled from Silvermoon, they would be working for Horde, with a hypocritical smile on their face!
I think they expanded it a bit. At least with Umbric.
Umbric has some gossip:
I am grateful for this opportunity to prove the value of the ren’dorei to our cause.
We will do whatever it takes to ensure the Alliance’s success.
What is your role in this campaign, magister?
As a magister, my duty has always been to Silvermoon and its people. When the mad Arthas devastated our lands, I knew we must harness every power available to ensure our survival.
Prince Kael’thas proposed one way. I sought out another.
So you sought the power of shadow?
My followers and I felt no loyalty to the Horde. When Grand Magister Rommath forbade our Void research, we did not hesitate to break away and follow our own path.
But hubris got the best of me. I was certain I could master any force we encountered.
I was so wrong…
the Void nearly claimed you?
I led us right into the ethereals’ trap. If not for Alleria Windrunner’s intervention, we would have been lost.
As it was, the shadow energies transformed us… and opened our minds to the whispers of the Void. Without Alleria’s guidance, we would have fallen into madness.
She has helped us quiet our minds. Dampen the whispers. It is a constant struggle.
Now you fight for the Alliance.
We do not stand with the Alliance out of convenience. Nor is it a mere gesture of thanks to Alleria.
Our ordeal has taught us the importance of great powers being in the right hands. We could not allow the Horde to know the things we know, or to use us as a weapon in their schemes.
We fight for the Alliance because we believe in its values. And one day, I pray we will bring all of Silvermoon back into the fold.
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I think an issue with the velves and expanding on their background is that it will not be an easy balancing act, trying to avoid making the belves look bad, while also trying to make Umbric and the velves sympathetic.
The belves are one of the Horde’s more, ‘Heroic,’ races, and damaging that identity to give the velves a more sympathetic backstory is a bad idea given how the Horde had been villainized into the dirt. At the same time, it doesn’t make sense for the Alliance to accept a group that is entirely guilty and has no remorse for it. Just not how the Alliance really works. Accepting the velves was hard enough to make sense just with them attempting to master the void and how hard that backfired.
It’d have to be done really well, in my opinion. We’d really have to see a blend of, ‘people being persecuted,’ and, ‘but they deserved it,’ with a dash of, ‘not this much,’ to round it off.
We don’t know much of what was going on in Quel’Thalas after BC, really. All we know for sure is that society transitioned from loyalty to Kael’thas and a strong cornerstone of jingoism, to a society that has new scruples and morals that prevent the same pitfalls the prince landed himself in.
I’d say its obvious that Umbric and the velves should be the remnants of Kael’thas’ old era, of these elves who believe that the ends justify the means, but that’s really stealing from the identity of the belves as well.
It was a mistake to make the velves former belves to be honest. There isn’t a way to really build on their past that doesn’t somehow damage the belves.
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I think the key is to actually add positive aspects to the Horde. The whole thing is partially the whole “you scum joined the Horde instead of the Alliance” that defines High Elf hatred of Blood Elves. The villain batting of the Horde makes it too difficult for Blood Elves to defend their loyalties.
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I agree with this. Turning the High Elves into the Void Elves would have made much more sense - Vereesa follows her sister’s lead, and the two of them set up a rival faction to the Blood Elves. In fact, it seems like such an obvious story that it makes me think Blizzard’s writers had another reason to set up the contrived Umbric storyline. Perhaps they were worried about putting the final nail in the High Elf coffin?
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I don’t like being pessimistic, but given the quality of writing we’ve seen this expansion, part of me thinks velves came from belves because the people in charge at Blizzard literally thought Alliance players wanted to play belves on the Alliance…
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High Elves would be the same model but with some unique customizations, more or less Blood Elves but on the other end of the political divide. I think the thought was “we don’t want go give them High Elves, so let’s give them something more visually unique with a story we think is cool”.
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I want to think this as well, but the issue is, unless they think, “No story is a cool story,” then they didn’t really deliver on that at all.
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There is a story to them. It is just an odd, poorly done one that from what I understand, fails to really address why, beyond just not giving the current Horde void powers, they will be willing to fight their own kin and potentially help an attempt to conquer Silvermoon.
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