That is a Pheonix my friend.
Kael’thas and his family are kinda known for them and they’re the animal depicted on the Blood Elf flag.
Also see Ashes of Al’ar I think its called?
3 Likes
Al’ar was the Phoenix God on the Elemental plane and was indeed Kael’thas’s pet. He was the first boss I believe, in Tempest Keep and could likely be canonically dead, as interestingly enough Kael’thas’s Phoenix appears to be Spectral, ie a ghost, so maybe that’s Al’ar?
1 Like
The mount is supposed to be the “phoenix god” Al’ar. But Al’ar isn’t really a god he’s just one of the oldest and more powerful ones. The whole phoenix thing is mainly just symbolism, nation that basically got entirely wiped out rising from the ashes and all that.
2 Likes
So THIS is the only thing that will bring me back to wow at this point lmao.
2 Likes
With today’s new 9.1 campaign quests, it looks like the quest involving all those souls in an area in Torghast (Including Blood-Queen Lana’thel’s) is now available. If I understand correctly, this is the quest involving it and, according to Wowhead, requires Renown 56:
I don’t know if there is much to the area the souls are in (The Ossuary of the Banished), and I assume you can’t interact with the souls there (other than the one you need for the quest), but I figured I would mention it for anyone interested.
I will check it out when I can and also keep an eye out for anything else of San’layn interest. 
5 Likes
So I did the part of the quest I linked above to explore the area all the souls are in and wanted to post my findings…well, what little there is.
The quest involves you going through a 3-floor Torghast, which isn’t particularly hard if you’re careful and have decent gear. On the third floor, you have to beat up the boss in order to open a portal that will let the souls show up in two separate sections. It looks like this:
There wasn’t much else remarkable about the room from what I saw, but both sections look similar to that above. The yellow glowing soul is the one you need, with Lana’thel’s soul to the top right of it:
Uther’s soul fragment is the only one you can interact with. You can mouseover the souls to see what the titles are, but you can wave your mouse and click with the fury of a thousand chipmunks, but you can’t do anything to any of the other souls there. You can’t even target them. And no, I can’t just take another soul instead of Uther’s. The game doesn’t allow it, much as I’d love to just ditch Uther and work with someone else instead.
Speaking of, the whole point of coming here is to get a fragment of Uther’s soul. Apparently, when someone is killed with the killer wielding Frostmourne and rage (as opposed to mild irritation), it shatters the soul into fragments. I haven’t gotten far in the questline, but I assume I get to play Tetris with Uther’s soul to make him feel better or something like that.
I assume the other souls there might be in a similar boat…though I don’t really know why I can’t collect them. The less souls the Jailer has, the better, and not all of them are bad people. Surely the Venthyr can do something with the bad souls, with a talking down to followed by a pep talk or something. But no, they just get to float there and…maybe get read some bedtime stories by the Jailer or paraded in some fancy fashion show with pink bow-ties and tea parties or something, Your guess is as good as mine here.
With regards to Lana’thel, it would’ve been interesting to be able to take her soul (actually I don’t know if this is her whole soul here or just a fragment of it) with you since Kael’thas is in Revendreth. She was, at one point, part of the group he took with him and was a follower of his. Granted, it’s likely she and others didn’t know he would betray the Blood Elves in the future, but it would’ve been an interesting opportunity to see how she was before she was turn into a San’layn, since there would be more to her than when she was being controlled by the Scourge, and also seeing her interactions with Kael’thas (which could’ve tied into his redemption storyline). Maybe it could’ve lead to San’layn from the living world having a more active role in helping out the situation. Who knows? It just feels like another missed opportunity I can toss onto the massive pile of disappointment.
Maybe when it comes to saving souls, I want to give a bit of heart to go with it, but that’s just me:
Anyway, there wasn’t much else of interest I saw involving that questline. I still need to go turn in that quest and see what all the campaign questline involves. I assume I just jam it back into Uther to make him whole again. That’s how it works, right?..maybe it’s a good thing I’m a Hunter and not a Priest.
As always, I’ll keep an eye out for anything else of San’layn interest to post here.
2 Likes
As most people likely have heard by now, Blizzard has changed their mind on the whole “no more customizations during Shadowlands” decision from Blizzconline:
There is a mention that more will be coming in the future.
I figured I’d mention this here since it seems like Blizzard might be getting more open about fan suggestions and requests. Granted, it’s hard to know what will happen in the future, but there is a part of me that has some hope still.
For San’layn, there have been a lot of good ideas and potential, with support spanning several years that I wanted to still continue to support them becoming a playable Horde race. I still would prefer them as a full race as opposed to just a customization race, where they would likely get more love and care as opposed to being slapped onto Blood Elves.
As I said, it’s hard to know what’ll happen in the future, and I will admit it is a bit of wishful thinking, but it is something I wanted to mention here. We’ll see what happens, though.
In the meantime, I’ll still march in support for playable Horde San’layn!
7 Likes
Me, seeing this thread still exists after all this time:
9 Likes
Never let it die.
4 Likes
I’ve been silent for over a month, and haven’t logged in to really play. Haven’t truly played since February 2021. However, I am seeing recent changes that might indicate the devs could be listening to the community.
I’m therefore going to bring this up again, for those that might be listening:
That said, I’m enjoying FFXIV and I love housing. It’d take a lot to get me to play again. I also want to see proof of company wide changes addressing the allegations and issues that are company wide, and as a female gamer who lurks on these forums, it’s clear to me that this community is absolutely atrocious. It’s in fact one of the many reasons why I left in the first place.
But, perhaps, if Blizzard actually listens to the members of the community who do provide good feedback, are actually respectful and decent people (unlike MANY here on the forums currently, though this isn’t referring to anyone in this thread), and have good ideas for the game, I might return. As well as and especially if they, like I said, acknowledge the wrongdoing and real change starts to occur. Though it is an issue throughout the entire industry, not exclusive to Blizzard, I personally would like to see changes in the right direction.
That, along with listening to the community. Being someone who started bringing up San’layn to the forefront and sharing my ideas on the regular, encouraging others to do so, I figured it would be a good time to speak up now, seeing all of this new news for potential hope of them listening to us, and hopefully those in-company speaking out.
Seeing that void elves are getting stuff that the high elf community have been begging for, now I’m hoping Blizzard listens to those of us who want the darker side of Thalassian elves on the Horde, particularly with San’layn. Whether that’s through customization or ARs, who knows, but I will say what blood elves got was a disappointment and I’m not happy with it, they should have gotten something far, far better (scarring, tattoos, more hair STYLES, red eyes, etc)
Edit: Also halloween is coming soon so… you know
9 Likes
Hopefully they get some major changes.
Though the Avtivision side just turned all their studios into COD production machines and Crash and Spyro are effectively dead…
4 Likes
Oh dear >< Well, hopefully they hear their community and employees and make some real changes.
It’s a shame we will likely never get housing because it’s such an old game, and there’s likely no means to add it. Even guild halls would be lovely, to be honest.
I would write out a very detailed post on housing if I thought it would get anywhere, but my energy is spent here (and I already have, long ago, doubt they care about my feedback though.)
But, well. If they’re listening now to people in general, I hope they also look into the lore. Seriously, really hope. I know I sound like a broken record with this, but I want to return to Azeroth and fight the scourge. Legion was a return to demon fighting and it felt good even though it was a similar theme to BC. I’d love to return to Northrend, with all new models, et cetra.
And, of course, San’layn/the vampyr curse. To be completely honest, I’m turned off to everything Shadowlands. The vampyr curse is likely due to Revendreth, unfortunately, though it’s not confirmed. The origins are likely from the realm of death, regardless. They could have built an interesting story with it, but gods I hate the lore for Shadowlands at this point so much, I’ll just sigh… at least we’d get some answers and possibly customization/an allied race, though.
I really want them to explain the link between Vry’kul and the curse as well. Heck, seeing a mixture of Thalassian, Vry’kul, and human vampyr working together perhaps in Northrend, with free will, against the rampaging scourge would be super neat. I don’t know. The vampirates a few years ago got me excited, as did the BfA San’layn appearance. A shame that got nowhere, and now everyone uses that to shove into our face “Nope no san’layn they got declined” when in reality we still don’t know the outcome aside from Dreven dying, nor where the rest of the San’layn could be including missing blood princes, nor where Dreven even came from.
Will we ever know?
We’re a very small community, I feel, with a few of us asking these questions. So… I doubt it. But I’m going to ask them anyway, even if I’ve effectively moved on. Who knows, if conditions improve for people in the company, and if the game improves in many areas, it’s possible to return.
But they have a long road to walk. A very long one. I’m just one person, though. But. shrug Given enough of my ideas and contributions here only to be completely and utterly ignored. It’s disheartening.
7 Likes
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is probably one of the coolest ideas for a new race i’ve seen and I would bloody love them to be added some way to the game.
We could use a lot more races in the “neutral” faction apart from pandearan and I think darkfallen would fit here.
5 Likes
I’d be fine with neutral, as long as San’layn end up on Horde in some fashion. An Allied Race would be much preferred to me over anything, because there would be unique voicelines, dances, and they could work on features that make them stand out. Not to mention, they could mess with models, as well. I’d want them to keep the regal, beautiful elf look while still being haunting and monstrous in some fashion, perhaps through a variety of different offered options.
They could offer a twisted nosferatu face, and they could offer strikingly beautiful ones, I feel. The balance between how vampires are visualized.
4 Likes
Well since they’ve basically given Blood Elves to the sodding alliance, they need a new visual fantasy. It’s ridiculous.
2 Likes
San’layn and Dark Rangers existed far before void elves, so it does get tiresome seeing the alliance trying to claim ‘no we have goth elves’ when they’re now a copy-paste of blood elves. I don’t want to see one alliance player saying “this is our theme now” when San’layn/Dark Rangers not only existed far before void elves were even a thing, but undead = / = void by any means. They can have their tentacle horror stuff, we should have our vampire/undead themes, especially now. They’re called blood elves for crying out loud.
Now there’s no distinction or uniqueness to blood elves, and their entire appeal for me was when they explored the darker side of an otherwise ‘beautiful’ race in BC with their swap to relying on fel energy. Of course, now people are wanting to lightforge them or something, an idea I personally dislike and don’t want to see.
We’re on Horde. I want to see the darker, more violent side of elves, not some alliance stuff pushed onto us when they constantly beg for light themes on the regular. Most of them begging for the normal hair colors weren’t even interested in void elves from my observation. So honestly, leave the darker themes to the Horde, and the people who have been asking for years now. They got what they wanted, now it’s time BLood Elves got something distinct.
Edit: So I’d either see the San’layn as an allied race or customization with lore for blood elves.
10 Likes
More elves could be a good thing and as these have a solid background in lore I would be quite alright with the idea!
However I would suggest that they make them customizations rather than more allied races that have limited options. Better to add on 5 San’layn faces/eyes/hairstyle to blood elves than to make a limited allied race that’s stuck with only those 5. For RP purposes anyways that would do wonders.
2 Likes
Yeah that’s the really huge hinderance of allied races, and why I agree they would also work as customization. I do really want the lore aspect explored, so I was thinking something like a “Night Warrior Questline” to explore that aspect, and how they might end up joining the Horde. Going through that theoretical questline would unlock that customization for Blood Elves, hopefully. With any luck, they’re considering such an idea, if they’re open to more customization ideas. But yeah, I don’t like limitations, and having more options is better, so you make a good point there.
6 Likes
A questline ala Night Warrior to unlock the looks would be good! It prevents new players and those uninterested from stumbling into applying the looks without knowing what they are and what they mean and adds some weight to them.
4 Likes