Hello. I am both, a fan of Night Elves and I love the Shadow Priest class. Granted, that should be enough reason to play it but I feel the combination is so off, weird, even more than a Warlock. Currently I play it as a Shen’dralar, but I wondered if there was any lore or idea to play/roleplay one that is not “the dark side of the moon” thing.
Under my knowledge, the only times I have seen Night Elves involved with the Void has been studying it (but not using it) or that Night Elf that went mad. But it seems that even goes against their faith in Elune.
Any ideas? I currently feel the class/race combo makes less sense than a Nelf Warlock.
Night elf priests (the playable class) is a whole mess Honestly.
Like, elune could be granting void powers to the shadow priests, but that feels weird, but it is equally weird them having light powers, and the priestess of the moon powers tyrande wielded in wc3 went to druids instead.
A shadow priest night elf, IMO, would be an outlier, like demon hunters or warlocks, people that rejected their traditions altogether and decided to contact the void for personal purposes.
Night Elf Shadow Priests are the ultimate Pink Floyd class as they channel the Dark Side of the Moon. I used to refer to my Shadow Priest as a Night Warrior until BFA took that option away. (Now I just use the term Moon Knight.)
The way I see it, in lore a lot of classes can be two different subclasses.
In the case of night elf shadow priest, yes you have the dark side of the moon thing.
But on the other hand, ANYONE can worship the void and succumb to its power, we see this with ALL cults that exist as baddies across the game.
Warlocks are another thing that I believe all races should be, because simply, it’s just barganing with demons for power and studying the fel. You’re already an outcast, warlocks are mostly always outcasts anyways.
Lets look at another example, trolls.
A shadow priest COULD in fact be a hypothetical voodoo witch doctor magic OR the troll IS a cultish void worshipper. Both exist in the game world and it’s up to your head canon to figure that out what you want your character to be.
Same with undead, We know in previous lore the “undead shadow priest” was something of a “dark mage” or a “death mage” that worked with horrifying dark spells and curses OR they could be a worshipper of the void and cultist.
It goes back to the stereotype of “Orcs can’t be mages because Orcs dumb” Anyone can be a mage in this universe if they simple study the magic schools, although an orc COULD actually be a more shamanistic elemental tribal mage OR they can be the “study and knowledge seeking” kind, same with trolls and the other “rustic races”
For a Shen’dralar I would frame it as being a scholar of the void, basically steal the void elf shtick and just say “oh it is good you tiny elves finally took an interest. Let me show you my 3000 years of methodological research. Perhaps we can avoid you growing more tentacles that way.”
Priests are a sort of ironic class in general, they rarely actually get their powers from the thing they worship; the Light responds to conviction, so for a priestess of the Moon it is your faith in Elune that gives power, rather than elune granting it to you.
Shadow priests haven’t really been compatible with any race since the Legion lore rework that turned them into insane old god cultists.
They don’t even really work with void elves since void elves are supposed to be in control of their void magic and not insane cultists worshiping tentacle monsters.
I’m going to emphasize the part where you mentioned warlock. Because there is an awkward thing which people have already changed their mind about since vanilla and now they think it is normal when it was intentionally done in vanilla to be edgy, to be weird, to be unorthodox and risky. And by that, I mean that Humans in the Alliance can be warlocks also. That is not supposed to be normal for them. That is not supposed to be default or morally accepted in a culture who spent so much effort forming a Council of Tirisfal and empowering a guardian to stop anything like that from happening. But the vanilla writers left plenty of options for human warlock players to figure out a reason why using a tool of the enemy against the enemy can work…even if they need them to hide their class trainer in a basement in the mage district.
Now transfer over that to shadow priests also. Shadow priests are not “normal” in warcraft Human history either. They are still considered to be risky and dangerous and awkward. For Humans. So it should be no different for Night Elves. If Night Elves allowed themselves to be trained as Moonkins and to wield arcane magic which they had an entire civilizational division because of… then they can carefully approach someone using shadow also.
And finally, I would probably try to remember that “Shadow Priest” used to have much much much more emphasis on being shadow and mind. Not void. The shift to assuming all shadow priests are only doing void and insanity did not happen until around warlords of draenor and then committed to in Legion. There are still healthy debates and discussion going on about whether Shadow was separate and came before void or not.
No… not every shadow priest is an Old God Cultist… unless you want to play yours that way.
My Shadow Priest of Elune does not worhip “tentacle monsters”
Unlike other races, Night Elves do not have an inherent fear of darkness.
As for others, if people can pull off a Tauren Rogue, they certainly can a Tauren shadow priest. Sounds very Grimtotem who are now members of the band.
Old god cultists is the official shadow priest fantasy yeah… but I am not a fan of those legion writeups. The one for balance druids was super generic; basically “uh… you exist. And… you do moon sun stuff and STOP ASKING QUESTIONS”.
they didn’t really necessitate old god worship as part of void priesthood in the same way worshipping naaru isn’t necessarily* (itself an ironically necessary adverb) part of worshipping the light. do a significant number of disciples engage in it? sure. but is it what defines the priest, faith, cosmic power, or fantasy of a given class? not really. the old god idol capstones are more for flavor than representative of how all shadow priests across the board work. the cult of forgotten shadow isn’t an old god cult. the void elves don’t worship old gods
Thank you all for the replies. What I got here is that I go from an outlier or could use him without necessarily being a mad caster or can roleplay other ways where that energy comes from? Being some sort of dark mage or mostly someone who mixes shadow magic with his spells.
The ideas I got are these, or a desperate Highborne who started using the void to feed the addiction, albeit I assume that might have changed him.
Also, is this Dark Side of the moon still a thing? I always thought everything was just her own life magic, not exactly Void magic, but I know I can always pretend I am not using Void directly either.
If you’re Shen’dralar, you can play into the angle of old sorcery and occultism, with exceptional astronomy. The void can be the malleable force of probability, virtual particles, and Dark Energy. Your power is the space between each star and all that theirein lies, Ed-Boy.
Thanks for the replies again! I found out also some info that was right on my face and I didn’t see. There were Shen’dralar Priests. Some even called Magister despite being Priests.
Like Magister Kalendris
(Unless he got the shadow magic after death).
But Lorekeeper Vaeldrin is also a priest and he likely could have been a Shen’dralar. The one you can find in Pandaria seeking the pools of youth.
As some of the Shen’dralar residents within Eldre’Thalas were indeed priests, such as Magister Kalendris, and as his attire seems to resemble that of its kaldorei magi, it is possible Vaeldrin is one of the Highborne from the city, his counterpart being Sunwalker Dezco, also part of a new class added to the tauren during the Cataclysm.
I can have even more room of ideas combined with everything you guys have told me. But felt to also add this info in case some other in the future with the same question finds this thread.
