The Horde destroyed the Shen’dralar in the dungeon. Only Ogres live in Diremaul these days anymore. The Shen’dralar are not enough people to field an army on their own.
You guys realize that ‘Night Elf’ is just the Common translation of ‘Kaldorei’? The two terms are interchangeable. If you don’t believe me;
https:// wowpedia. fandom. com/wiki/Kaldorei_Empire
(Remove the spaces when you paste it)
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Elven naming conventions in game are stupid as hell
- Kal’dorei = Children of the Stars, where Kal = Stars and Dorei = Children, but “translates” to Night Elves
- Quel’dorei is translated as Highborne (so Dorei = Borne too) and High Elves (So Dorei = Elves = Children = Borne)
- “Ren’dorei” is a damn Kylo Ren reference which is just exceedingly tedious
- The Vampire Elves are “San’layn” which means “Dark Fallen”, wherein presumably San = Dark and Layn = Fallen
- The Thalassian Quel’dorei became “Blood Elves”
- Shalla’tor means Shadow Render, Shaladrassil presumably means Crown of Shadow thusly, but Shal’dorei means “Nightborne”
- “Fal’dorei” means??? God knows.
- etc etc etc *insert my usual rant about the linguistic world building of WoW *
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Presumably the “Fal” part is a reference to the fact that they live in (well, below) Falanaar.
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I will concede Blizzards clumsy construction of terms. That does not change the fact that culturrally, even in language, these are different groups of people that were antagonists even before the Legion touched down in War of the Ancients.
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Hmm maybe
Falanaar would mean Belowcity then given all the “-anaar” night elf towns
Or well
Undercity
The Underelves 
Probably just short for fallen. Not everything in the game has meaning, or is written to have meaning.
Or they might have already named themselves the Fal’dorei after Falanaar even before their transformation, adopting a new name for their new society because they figured they’d never be getting back into Suramar City to live with the other Nightborne again, so they’d be the “children of Falanaar” from then on instead.
“Falanaar” itself probably just means something in Darnassian that we the players don’t know, as is the case with plenty of places. As is often the case in fantasy worlds, elf names for locales alternate rather arbitrarily between using a translated “Common” name and the untranslated native name. For every Starsong Refuge there’s a Lor’danel, for every Ashenvale or Wintersong there’s a Val’sharah; it provides a certain thematic “flavor” to randomly use recognizable words in certain cases, even though one would logically assume that the night elves use Darnassian words for all of those places when speaking to one another, rather than half of their towns, zones and forests inexplicably being named in Common.
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It is when it’s the official name for a “subrace” in a dialect of in-game “elvish”
which is part of the world building done via linguistic elaboration
which kinda sucks in this game if we’re honest
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I do, and I meant that they remember being part of the old empire. They remain mostly Night Elven in their form, and culturally act identical to the Kaldorei Empire. I was also using the term interchangeably.
Those numbers sound about right considering the events of Vanilla through Cata not to mention BFA. I know rarely other Highborne appeared in weird places. Like the one in Vanilla Naxxramus. I remember him just chilling there. I suspect that Shen’dralar like all populations are dynamic meaning they live, having children and die. I took Cataclysm questing to imply that new Night Elf mages continuing the cultural values of the Highborne as new additions to their ranks. Especially in Feralas and Azshara. Of course it’s conjecture, but I remember reading that when Night Elves start using arcane there bodies change ever so slightly as seen by a priestess who in Cataclysm became a mage and her whole body’s physique changed. In the recent model updates Night Elves finally got Highborne exclusive skin tones and hair colors as well as tattoos. Implying that there numbers have either grown or are now more fairly represented in game.
Except that it couldn’t happen because they were already designated a Horde player race. Blizzard chose Tyrande to be the mechanism for that to happen.
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The only tattoos I’ve seen are the standard female tattoos that have always been in game.
The Nightbourne body markings are Horde only.
Alliance fans asking for a Horde race again. Why are you so greedy? Be happy with what you have.
I’m not sure what these cultural values would be though, the OG shendralar is only a small part of the larger night elf society which fully rejected the highborne culture millennia ago for its decadence, this decadence lived on in Quel’thalas with their fancy jewelry and buildings, literally hosting parties where they get high on blood thistle while their defenders fight the undead left behind in the dead scar close by, or in the nightborne with the caste system etc.
Sure you can argue the shendralar kept it alive by in their arrogance drawing power from a demon and culling their own to ensure they could keep at it, but that’s over, the highborne of eldre’thalas was mostly killed and had to survive in the wilderness for years, what is the culture they can bring that is not at odds with the current night elf culture?
Is it just teaching arcane magic to other night elves?
citation on that, or just head theory?
…not that it isn’t disturbingly appropriate-
Current Blizz Devs: Let the past lore die. Kill it if you have to.
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Head theory but between the Emo names of the haircuts, the Star Wars posting of the writers at the time, and the fact it’s the only instance of the word “ren” with “dark side magic” motifs
well
Alright, here’s yet another of my sources affirming ‘Night Elf’ is just the Common (or ‘Human’) translation of the word ‘Kaldorei’ and they are literally translations of each other and reference the same ethnic group.
https:// wowpedia .fandom .com/wiki/Night_elf
(Take the spaces out when you paste it to get to the wiki page)
Now show me your sources describing them as warring cultures.
Your entire point rides on a dictionary. I find words, deeds, actions in general to be a bit more substantive. so lets list some substance.
The general antipathy between Night Elves and High Elves as shown in both the RTS and the Classic version of Auberdine. In the latter, there’s a high elf who keeps to the far end of the pier because she’s not welcome any closer to town, and she asks you to go on a couple of quests in her name so that she can get in out of the cold.
The contempt expressed by both groups to each other in War of the Ancients, especially as the Highborne watch the Legion massacre the peasant caste and pretty much cheer them on.
The Exile of the Quel’dorei and the events that led up to it. The hardships endured inspired at least one drive to vengeance that lasted all the way up to it’s bloody end in the Wall of Thorns. I’m pretty sure that Logrash wasn’t the only Blood Elf to feel that way.
The sabotage operations launched by the Night Elves in the Blood Elf starting zone.
Tyrande’s stated motivations for aiding Suramar during the Legion expansion.
Maiev’s attempt to start a genocidal war against the Highborne rescued from Dire Maul.
Tyrande’s entire dismissive tirade against Thaylassra which shows that she’s been holding a 13,000 year chip on her shoulder regarding her entire race.
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For the record I think it would have made the most sense for playable Nightborne to be neutral and choose either faction in much the same way Pandaren do. Horde would have laid claim to Highmountain Tauren as they already did, while the Alliance would be joined by the Krokrul Broken Draenei.
But since that decision has already been made, I thoroughly reject all attempts at take-backs- for game reasons if no other ones- races that join either faction remain solidly a part of that faction forever, or until WoW 2. I also solidly reject Faction Merging. I do not oppose Faction Conflict, I merely prefer a Cold War over a '‘hot’ one; especially since Blizzard has demonstrated no ability to write a ‘hot’ Faction War that isn’t blitheringly stupid, as evidenced by Garrosh and Sylvanas.
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