San’layn/vampyr Elf ALLIED RACE Coagulated Megathread of Ideas{Re-VAMPed} (Part 1)

Forsaken are vastly different looking to humans. San’layn are just Blood Elves in make-up.

Your other points aren’t even worth tackling. No HE, no San’layn. EVER.

That’s fine if you don’t want them. We’re going to continue to talk about them though. I acknowledge and disagree with you at this point, and don’t feel like repeating what I’ve said several times in other posts. I won’t change your opinion, and that’s perfectly fine. You won’t change mine either. In addition, we’re not asking for High Elves, so that’s irrelevant.

Have a nice day otherwise, and thank you for your input.

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You can talk about them until you’re blue in the face, they are still never going to happen.

If HE can’t happen, this irrelevant race that’s already been reduced to fodder tier by Shandris is never going to happen. The Horde does not need more elves.

Have a nice day.

Cool, well again, that’s your opinion on it, and that’s just fine.

It isn’t shared by me.

Indeed, goodbye.

Once again, bringing up HE in my thread doesn’t help that ‘cause’, I don’t want it discussed here, and it’s irrelevant. People need to stop trying to push that in a thread that is it’s own thing and race idea.


Moving on, it looks like one of the missing Blood Princes are in the lead for “King”. Looks like people generally like the idea of a Blood King, too, and I don’t blame them. Will the “Blood King Kael’thas” idea actually surpass that option? Or will the missing blood princes continue to lead?

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We’re optimized human potential.

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I don’t think you understand how vampires work.

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I’m biased towards blood princes

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Looks like we got a day for Rise of Azshara, coming June 25th:

Feels good to finally see this coming out, as it means new allied race news should be closer to being shown. As I stated before, I’ll keep an eye out for any San’layn activity.

Looking forward to possibly seeing people in-game in the new areas. I’ll be working on my Horde and Alliance mains. :smiley:

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Now even if they don’t become playable, I want a sappy scene in which a blood prince earns his wings and you feel hope for the future of the darkfallen race ;-;

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Meh Lana’thel called the San’Layn “Immortal soldiers”. They can die a couple times I take it as long as they got someone to bring them back. Similar to the forsaken.

And they fit well with the horde as both a blood elf and forsaken allied race in 1 (2 for 1 sort of deal). Offering us the dark ranger look I have craved since I started the game : 3

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I’d be cool with the San’layn being playable for the Horde and I cross my fingers that they will be. One thing I worry about is what this would mean for the Dark Rangers. People have hoped for them to become a playable race. Maybe Sylvanas uses the making of the San’layn for her Dark Rangers as well, making them one in the same, for they do look a lot alike.

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Who ever the leader is, they need a bunch of minions who look like this.

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If San’layn were to get their own class, a spell that summons a pack of small bats or vampires would be a must have.

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They can get some great mileage out of the withered skeleton + animations. I believe it originated with the pale orcs in Draenor, but it would also look great for a pack of mindless vampiric thralls.

So, you’ve probably already peaced out of this thread and will likely see this as more people you don’t agree with ganging up on you, but I’m going to try to be as comprehensively rational as possible as I respond to your numerical points.

The only commonality between a blood elf and a san’layn is that they’re both elves. All elves in WoW lore are, in some way, related to each other. That doesn’t mean they have the same aesthetic. Void elves were created to be antithetical to the high elf aesthetic. Similarly, while blood elves and nightborne can both be aristocratic, they aren’t stepping on each others’ toes just by being elven. Nightborne have a completely different color scheme and a history that is rooted in a magocracy (which is why their racials emphasize their spellcaster nature) whereas the blood elves are the remnants of a failed monarchy.

If you want the differences simplified even further, blood elves are all about the light whereas nightborne are all about the arcane. San’layn would be all about death, and they wouldn’t step on the toes of any existing elf because the other two varieties that are currently on the Alliance, the night elves and the void elves, hold dominance over the nature and shadow cosmic spheres, respectively. There is currently no elf in WoW lore that is present in a playable capacity that has an affinity for death as the San’layn do. They absolutely would not step on the toes of the blood elves just like the void elves don’t.

Player populations don’t equal lore populations. Let’s say there’s a group of only a couple hundred that exist in lore. Playable void elves set a precedent that a race being a numerical minority does not exclude it from being made playable.

Also, they’re vampires. Vampirism is almost always a virulent infection. All you need is one vampire and, before you know it, there’s thousands of them.

I mean, you could say that about anyone’s request, right? “I want to play as an ogre!” Well, just roll an orc with beefy looking armor that completely covers their face and skin. It’s easy to pretend, right? RPers do it all the time. But if we all just started pretending our characters matched our fantasies based on our armor sets then we really wouldn’t need any races beyond humans, would we?

But no, that would be silly.

Allied races bring with them unique voice sets, racials, and customization options to better match the fantasies they attempt to represent. If you want to be a vampiric blood elf, you absolutely could just do what Fallynn did and roll a death knight. But maybe you’ve got ideas that would better suit the fantasy of a vampire, which is sort of why this thread exists. Absolutely none of it should be taken as a threat.

And I surmise this is the real reason for your objection. Believe me, there are more than a few salty high elf fans who use the blatant “no” they have received in order to bolster their objections against this concept, but they’re not the same thing.

I would expect that, if high elves were proposed as a horde race, the developers would have no issues implementing them. After all, the cosmetic differences between a high elf and a blood elf are currently even less noticeable than the cosmetic differences that establish the Lightforged Draenei and the Highmountain Tauren as their own unique races. I won’t go into too much detail arguing the point about why High Elves shouldn’t be added because that has nothing to do with this thread and I do not and have not spent my time arguing against them in threads specifically designed to cultivate support for them. People are allowed to have their own opinions about what they want, and that’s fine. But at least you must agree that the perception of High Elves, at least from the part of the developers, is that they are aesthetically identical to blood elves, and that’s a problem when you’re introducing an allied racefor the other faction. Faction identity is important to Blizzard, so if people who liked the style of Blood Elves found out one day that their racial choice has effectively been turned into a neutral option, that would undoubtedly mess a bit with overall faction population numbers in a way that the developers didn’t intend.

Now, you might argue that the Alliance could use a bit of a population boost, and you might be right there, but at the very least the decision to add high elves comes with major ramifications that at least should cause someone to pause. No other allied race in the game threatens to impact faction population numbers and faction aesthetic identities to the same extent that high elves do.

Now, why the hell did I write all this? Because I’m trying to prove that the high elf situation is in no way similar to the San’layn situation. San’layn are only affiliated with the Horde. If they were added, they would be a Horde race. Even if they did steal from the Blood Elf aesthetic, which they don’t, there wouldn’t be an issue because they are on the same faction as the blood elves. So you can make a lightforged draenei that is basically just a souped-up draenei and stick it on the Alliance because the regular draenei are there as well. No harm done. And the same mentality can and should apply to San’layn. There is absolutely no risk involved in their inclusion in the game.

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It’s actually the Undead Vrykul model. (Dregar)

They just changed a lot of the proportions.

Pale Orcs use the Geist model which is a rework of the Forsaken Female model.

That’s the idea!

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Oh you bet, I am too. Looking at the results thus far, it seems they’re just barely beating Kael’thas by 2 votes. That’s interesting. I know many people want to see either. But… it does put things into perspective. We only have 40 voters, so this isn’t exactly a gigantic representation of the entire community, but it’s a start. Still, by this sample, we can see that some do favor a Blood King.

You bet we’ll snatch up any news on San’layn activity or lore. Sadly, we don’t seem to be getting much lately. Our best bet is likely 8.3 or 9.0, if the death expansion rumors are true. I won’t lie and say that if a concept I sincerely despise, LFU, are added as opposed to an undead race that’s been in the game for a while (does not have to be SL but I’d be somewhat sad if not), I’ll be miffed.

…See now I’m curious as to what “earning your wings” would look like. I feel like it could entail some pretty dark things, if you catch my drift.

Yes, I completely agree. We’ve seen in the case of both DK and forsaken, as you said, they can indeed be brought back. San’layn too! and that blood orb used to bring back the princes is currently missing in action. Hmm…

Understandable! Actually we had a fun concept some ways up, let me find it for you:

Where like Mah’gar, the undead elves would be a combined entity. I feel like this could work, where the racial would not be different gameplay wise, but rather flavor and aestetics depending on your “embrace”.

This could work, vampires in lore do have different sorts of thralls. Having zombified elves to follow them would work.

You made this point way better than I could. Thank you for the work you put into your response, Rorr. As usual, I really appreciate it, and am really glad you’re helping us out in explaining too. I’m fine if he disagrees with us entirely. But your wording of it is exactly our point, and helps out quite a bit.

Yeah, not to mention Shandris’s comment about Dreven training neophytes to become princes. Which clearly are powerful. I still wonder how that process goes through. I really hope we eventually find out.

Once again, worded it in a great way, and once again, thank you very much :slight_smile: That’s what the allied race system is all about.

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No problem! I don’t post as much here these days as I’m not really sure what else I can add to the discussion (other than the fact that I am and always will be down for the idea of playable vampires), but I’m still checking in routinely and reading what y’all are saying :slight_smile:

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I also like that idea that when your first turned you start out as a blood craving ghoul and must feed before becoming “whole”.

Also I learned that plaguehound mount I was talking about earlier in the thread is a Barghest. So it fits the vampire theme very well.

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Another idea came to mind for the San’layn to differentiate themselves from all other Thalassian elves. It’s much like the High Elf community suggestions. Adjust and change the body, the posture, and especially for the San’layn, the height. This would make it easier for the playerbase to except, rather than claim they are just a reskin of the Blood Elves.

Yet another edit. Might be the thing I’ll be most known for.
This idea would provide a slot for the Dark Rangers, rather than mesh them with the San’layn.

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Looks like gnomes everywhere are going to be in desperate need of my aid. For the safety of gnomes everywhere Unsheaths glaives I will ensure these never leave their dark cave.

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