I really haven’t done retail since the launch of Classic. However, I did log into it several months ago, to look at a few things. I had lvl’d a Paladin to 120 in BFA, and a Priest to 118. Neither of those characters exist now.
I do understand that the 120 would have been squished to 50, so I should have a lvl50 toon. But, I do not have any lvl50 toon either.
What to do?
The characters still exist, but if you haven’t played after a certain amount of time, the realm select screen will no longer show you how many characters you have on a given realm. This is normal.
You can wait and hope for an SFA to chime in and point you in the right direction, that’s sometimes the quickest. Alternatively, you can try initiating a character service like a realm transfer from the character select screen, but not finish it. Partway through, you’ll be prompted with two drop down menus: one listing the realms you have characters on, and the other listing the characters on the specific realm you choose. Sometimes this also does not work if you’ve been gone long enough.
As a last, most time-consuming resort, you simply need to go through and log into every individual realm until they pop up.
As Ekon mentioned, the character count might not show if you haven’t logged into the realm for awhile. You’ll want to log into the realm those characters are on to update that list.
For you, you have characters mostly on Aerie Peak, Area 52, Malygos, Muradin, Stormrage, and Trollbane.
The 120 Paladin and 117 Priest is on Muradin.
thank you both