This entire book disagrees with you. You’re distorting my argument if you’re interpreting it as elves being infants for a century. Elves mature slow but that not distortingly so.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20125/Eldest-Sons-the-Essential-Guide-to-Elves
Isn’t that what makes elves more alien? I am also not suggesting that elves DO NOT mature slow. Just that they are not infants for 100+ years.
They are infants at the same rate as humans, as far as Warcraft is concerned, atleast we can suspect that Vereesa was inducted into the Farstriders as a trainee in the ages of 15-20, which means she was physically fit for such training at that point (Sylvanas book).
Same likely goes for Night Elves.
I don’t really care about what a pen and paper RPG book decides to say, having children be infants for 100+, even 50+ years is not believeable, a society would not function at all.
It says that they are not considered fully adult for 100 or so. That century plus includes all of those adolescent and awkward “teenage” years, or at least the elven equivalent of the same.
I highly doubt there is any canonical source on this at this point. I do remember it from the old Warcraft Encyclopedia, but it has become too muddied at this point.
We can suspect that Vereesa is at most 100 years old at this point, and that is being generous, it is probably more likely that she is about 60 years old, with no official statements to back it up, but only hints from the ‘Sylvanas’ book, where text implies she is somewhere 5-9 years old, and that would make her around 15-20 years old when she started her ranger training.
As Solarion also implied, Tarenar Sunstrike, we know is quite young. Him talking about sneaking out into the Ghostlands to fight undead in his youth, aka, he was a child or teenager after the fall of Quel’thalas. He and Gidwin the dwarf also appear to be childhood friends.
We know that Night Elves and other elves now share a similar lifespan of several thousands of years - quite vague, but overall putting them in the same boat in terms of growth.
Overall, I doubt the elves consider their 18-100 year olds as children, considering how they so willingly send their ‘children’ out into the fields of battle.
A society would not function, not with a race with such physical detriment, and not with such a mentality either. Especially not a society that faces constant wars and threats. They would be forced to send their “children” into battle sooner rather than later, and be forced to consider these “children” adults anyhow at that point. The shift would be quick.
This entire “in dog years” is quite silly.
I suspect that the natural lifespan of both is about 3 to 7 centuries. That would fit with the idea of their being 10 generations of Kings of Quel’thelas. and Kael’thelas’ father was OLD when Arthas cut him down.
And the night elf natural lifespan is short enough that there are Night Elves now feeling the effects of their lost immortality. Nordrassil had put their aging on pause for 13,000 years, but that’s over now.
Kael’Thalas father Anasterian had ruled for 2800 years when the scourge attacked. And was the great-grandson of the founder of Quel’thalas.
To call him old is an understatement.
Nathanos has always been a seething manlet at heart.
Sadly, he wasn’t that old. Or rather, he was probably a lot older than 3,000 (since he was ruling during the Troll Wars, which happened 3,000 years before the Dark Portal was opened).
Lorash was pushing 7,000 in BFA, and apparently his mother had been a Highborne in the Empire while Azshara ruled it, meaning she was pushing 10,000 when she died during the Third War.
Meanwhile Alleria, who fought in the Troll Wars, was over 3,000 when she has Arator, and just spent another 1,000 years in the Twisting Nether (by her time and not Azeroth’s, but still, she’s basically 4,000 now).
Humans knew of Kalimdor, it’s just that it was considered to be a ‘legend’ by many. In much the same way that America was considered to be a ‘legend’ before its ‘discovery’ by European kingdoms, even though it was really discovered centuries earlier by the Vikings.
We know for a fact that two humans sailed to Gadgetzan, Tanaris, four years after the Second War. So if they knew about Kalimdor, others would have known about it as well. A spy certainly would if it was his job to discover everything he could about the people he was expected to work with, as Nathanos was.
I figured nelves were simply in history books somewhere in quel’thelas and nathanos did his research
I mean…
Azshara claimed royalty via a magic well, too.
I don’t really disagree, just want to point out that my figure of 2800 years is because the troll wars happened around that time, and not 3000 years BDP. Although he is stated to be 3k years old.
This is pretty much retconned with all later info about the troll wars, the Windrunner family history, farstrider history, etc.
More specifically in the Sylvanas book Alleria does not even start ranger training until after Sylvanas is born, we also learn that she is named after another Windrunner with the first name of Alleria, her Grandmother.
So it looks a lot like they retconned our Alleria from being that old and instead had her named after an older Alleria.
Kalimdor used to be the name for the entirety of land on the planet. The East Kingdoms, Northrend, Pandaria, all of that used to be Kalimdor.
The Night Elf meritocracy was based on magical ability, and Azshara was the most powerful arcanist in the history of Azeroth.
Indeed. But in this specific case we’re referring to the post Shattering version of Azeroth where Kalimdor is a separate continent.
Ultimately we know that Humans knew of Kalimdor before the events of Warcraft 3, it was just that some characters considered Kalimdor to be a legend/myth. Medivh calls them the ‘forgotten lands of Kalimdor’ when he approached King Terenas, although King Terenas never speaks about whether he knew about Kalimdor or not. Neither does Antonidas, simply telling Jaina that he was a ‘madman who was convinced the world was about to end’.
So it’s entirely possible that the human kingdoms knew about Kalimdor, that there were books about the Night Elves etc. So Nathanos could have learned that information about the Night Elves and how the High Elves were descended from them before his conversation with Sylvanas in Silvermoon.
Well, it’s a retcon that isn’t the worst.
Still hard to discount Lorath, though, or his mother. Clearly, 3,000 is not very old for the High Elves.
because of a magic well.
Well that was the very genesis of the race, and in fact of all elvenkind.
And in chronicle, it’s stated plainly that the well’s magic is the only reason the nelves defeat the various troll empires.
Yeah, always fun when it is obvious that the writers blizzard hire to write stories, did not consult any of the lore team about more indepth lore stuff and possibly forgotten lore-nuggets. Not that blizzard’s own lore team cares much about that stuff, despite having a lore master who seem to be fairly knowledgeable about seemingly every minor detail of Warcraft lore.
The fact that the writer couldn’t just use the events of TBC, Night Elves in Eversong Woods and Ghostlands, to have Lorash Sunbeam angry with the Night ELves, is telling enough I guess without considering his supposed age. His supposed age also makes it so he was around when the Night Elves, suddenly and allegedly, came to help the High Elves in the Troll Wars… another absolutely stupid idea.
I wish blizzard went for more quality over quantity in terms of their lore.