With a new month having come, I went ahead and did my monthly in-game suggestions for races I want to see playable and referring to their respective megathreads. As always, I did one for San’layn and this megathread. 
Still hoping we’ll see San’layn on the Horde side of that character creation screen someday. I’ll continue to help support the cause as best as I can, and hope to create a San’layn character or two in the future! 
Thanks for that, it’s very kind of you! Hoping we see it someday. I’m seeing a ton speak up now in favor of these options, moreso than before, it’s actually more common than I’ve ever seen. I’m really happy it seems like there’s a larger community seeking these options either for blood elves, a forsaken toggle, or allied race.
As I always say, I really, really hope they explore the lore of the vampyr curse more too, like they did in Legion. One can only hope!
Figured I’d share some more art I got because I enjoy sharing of my characters. This is a demonic entity, but still pretty cool ^^ He’s my OC Hades.
This is by https://twitter.com/gynesisx
Hopefully I’ll have more vampire art to share soon, and that what I share may give ideas!
I’m sure this was talked about before, and since it was kinda mentioned a few posts ago, I figured it would be good to talk about it again: San’layn and free will.
We’ve seen several members of the Scourge able to gain some semblance of who they were in the living when breaking free of the Lich King’s control. Aside from the main examples of the Forsaken and Death Knights, there are liches, banshees, geists, ghouls, and more. They were able to gain a form of free will back and in some cases, were able to be themselves again. Some more than others.
Keeping that in mind, why would San’layn be an exception to that?
Their becoming undead and vampiric was from the Lich King. As I said before, when we beat up Arthas, that should’ve freed them from control, even with Bolvar taking the role of Lich King again. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that they wouldn’t for the most part.
The only logical thing I can think of might be related to the Vampyr curse, where there could be a being (not the Lich King) that controls those under the effects of the curse to a certain extent. I think I’ve seen similar lines of thinking in vampires of different media. If this were such a case, then it would be a cool thing to do in-game, where you help free the San’layn from being under control of wherever power could have control over them. It could even tie into Kael’thas’ redemption in helping to free his people and working to get them accepted back into Silvermoon and become members of the Horde.
Sure, maybe not all of them would become good. We’ve seen some of the Forsaken become those of low moral fiber and do questionable things, but that isn’t all of them. Some San’layn could still become corrupted with the temptation of power and domination, but it wouldn’t be the norm for them completely. If this is the case for Forsaken, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be the case for San’layn.
Of course, this is just one possibility. There are several ways to work with San’layn and leading them into becoming a playable Horde race. Mostly, I was thinking in terms of the Vampyr curse and how it could function. Granted, if Arthas had the power to put the Vampyr curse on others…then where did it come from if not him? And who gave him the ability to do that if he didn’t have it to begin with?
If it were up to me, I’d have the San’layn just gain free will soon as Arthas died, with them going into hiding because people would hunt them as monsters while they’re trying to get their bearings straight having become self-aware again and seeing they’re undead vampires. I feel like this has a lot more to work with and gives San’layn a lot of character and also interesting storylines to work with.
Just some ramblings I wanted to type out and see what others think. It’s not perfect what I typed out, but still something worth pondering, in my opinion.
My idea on half living, half dead Forsaken is totally from left field, however one of the questions I had a while back was, “If DK’s can be brought back to half-life, why not offer this choice to the Forsaken?” It’s not forced civilization, however it does at least invest them in being more neighborly.
This idea, kernel wise is that someone helps a DK friend to restore oneself to half-life, basically a dhamphyr, just a different form of half living undeadedness. So, extrapolating from here, the San’layn would easily be another option for this story direction.
And I just want to say the directly above post practically BEGS for playable San’layn.
I’m all for this race, the chance to get the Ere’dar Alliance side and San’layn Horde side I think would be amazing lorewise.
The Ere’dar are now with the Draenei and Lightforged, a harsh lesson for Velen on what it means to cut and run without fully considering the ramifications of one’s actions.
And for the San’layn, even if an Alliance character helped an Alliance DK out, a friend, this person would also offer the same new half-life state to the Forsaken, San’layn, Horde DK’s and anyone else that could benefit from it.
In good faith, too. I mean, think about it, WoW somewhat lacks in true player customizations, so this race and the sheer options of player selected curse representation should greatly aid in the way the game and players as a whole interact with the game.
I’m all for more customization, especially when it comes to WoW, as that’s a rather currently lackluster angle in game.
Still, that’s the kernel thus far lore wise, however it would seem to be a wasted chance to not seek to exploit the concept going forward if possible of seeing how the various undead forms of races, currently the Forsaken and DK’s, as well as the San’layn, might gain far more aid as a story angle.
Should Sanlayn be a thing, I think it’d be nice to see something like abilities such as vampiric aura (WC3) for few seconds that every hit actually drains HP to heal members and self at certain %.
Also another thing is to glide like Demon Hunters and land safer, but has cool down and lesser duration. (cheapest way to get that fall achievement)
I would 10000000% play this if this was in the game, I’m in love with this idea!
I’ll read through some stuff later but wanted to say thanks so much for the support folks ^^ I’m out and about so can’t give long replies right now.
i hope we get this race. Could pair with Vrykul or something.
chrisp
Wasn’t that a DK Aura?
I miss those…
On Topic, now that we’ve seen the new stuff Highmountain announced, I hope it means they are really focusing on adding request this time. That was sooner then expected.
Dreadlords had them DK had unholy.
On my blood elf death knight, I’ve got swarming mist and door of shadows, the venthyr abilities. Couple that with a cloud of bats racial flying mount and some fangs and red eyes, and I’d be all set.
Has a pretty good vampire vibe going.
I was thinking about the potential for bat forms and cloud of bats forms, and I feel like having the option for both would be great.
Between the two, I personally prefer the idea of a bat form. Not only is it very fitting, but it can fit in a San’layn’s character very well while also potentially acting as spies. I see a lot of storyline potential as well where San’layn can transform into a bat for various purposes, be it travel or stealth. Not to mention the idea of a racial of turning into a bat, maybe with a cast time so it isn’t instantaneous like with Druid forms and being a bit OP.
Maybe when you can fly, San’layn can complete a short questline that grants them the ability to turn into a bat. It could also act as a bit of a training session once the bat form is unlocked to get the San’layn use to having a bat form. It’s something that would be neat to see as a world building activity in the game to see San’layn earn their wings, so to speak.
At the same time, a cloud of bats form would also be great as an option. Maybe as an unlockable form via a simple questline, similar to unlocking your bat form with the option to switch between bat form and cloud form after the fact, would be refreshing to see in the game. I can imagine some important San’layn NPC’s, such as the leader of the playable San’layn faction, could use a bat cloud form at times depending on their mood. Something about it seems fitting for such NPC’s.
As I said, the option of both would be pretty neat to see so that players can choose whichever they would prefer. Both work great in different situations and just add more to San’layn in general. While I feel like bat forms are very important, having options is always a good thing.
Just wanted to throw my opinion out there. Having both forms as options is the best of both worlds, in my opinion.
That would be super neat, to have a variation on ‘forms’ and mount ideas! I know some people think that vampyr druids would be viable, which I suppose is correct if we look at the ‘death’ end of the magic chart, but I rarely touch upon it because I know it would really, really miff some folks off, and that is a hornet nest I don’t feel like poking.
Bat forms or a cloud of bats, though, could be polymophic magic in this case, for (as you said) stealth or travel. I know there’s the raven transformation, but that might have been through a special staff. Still, there’s nothing saying you can’t polymorph yourself, and we have ‘transform’ mounts anyway–one of which is definitely canon, Vial of the Sands. I always was fascinated by that one.
I think either direction could be super neat. I would love more customization with ways to travel as well, different flavors, and all of that. Allied Races don’t have variation in their mounts, but core races do. It’s not something many talk about. If they did, there would be different color selections, though. Certainly something to consider for suggestions, which might be of interest to AR fans too. Variety is always great.
Reminder to new posters that San’layn were shown during Alliance quests failing to join the horde, and they are not horde, nor are their customization or concept exclusive to Horde. They can be Alliance too, and people regularly RP them on Alliance through void elves, which are gothic and would gain more from the customization traits.
You can’t claim something you don’t have, and something that doesn’t have NPC presence for your faction outside betraying your faction and dying.
I need to remember not to bother with hidden replies in this thread either because it’ll always be a troll.
A ‘misty’ blink racial would feel cool too!
I really would like a leech racial. 1% leech would be nice. But if they do add them as a custoimzation or bodytype toggle in the barbershop, it would be nice to transform the blood elf blue magic racial into a red version, maybe with blood effects. Maybe change the spell a bit with the tooltip too. Right now the vulperan can choose to change the type of magic there racial does. So similar things can be done if blood elves got the san’layn as customization.
Isn’t it always, it’s the whole reason they come into this one, the Human to Undead one and the Blood Elf customization one.
Yes! So much in the customization department can be added and improved and tweaked upon. I’m flabbergasted they don’t regularly implement such additions as a small add-on to each of the patch/content updates.
Having them become a regular thing would I think ease a lot of players minds as well: "Oh didn’t get what I wanted this time but that’s ok, maybe in the next ones 
"