The United Elves

    Lady Liadrin says: We founded this kingdom as exiles in search of a new home.
    Lady Liadrin says: But when we lost the Sunwell...
    Lady Liadrin says: When we nearly lost everything...
    Lady Liadrin says: In fear and grief, we cast out our own people.
    Lady Liadrin says: Made exiles of them.
It is at this point that the camera pans to Umbric, as the Void Elves had been exiled from Silvermoon after Legion until this Midnight.
    Lady Liadrin says: We--

    Lady Liadrin sighs.
    Lady Liadrin says: We were foolish.


But the Sunwell was not lost in Legion, and rather than the Void Elves it had been the High Elves who had been exiled from Quel’Thalas by Lor’themar before the events of The Burning Crusade expansion.

The above scene continues on with Vereesa coming over to place a reassuring hand on Liadrin’s shoulder, and Liadrin declares about the exiles:

    Lady Liadrin says: Never again.

While the High Elves that had previously served Dalaran under the name Silver Covenant gave up that organization along with the Sunreavers to join together in Quel’Thalas as the Silversun Compact, the High Elves that had fought as part of the United Elven Army to take back the Isle of Quel’Danas from the Void do not actually even represent the High Elves that had been exiled from Quel’Thalas.

There is a High Elf NPC in Classic Aurora Skycaller who had the following line in a quest after she repaired a crystal for you:

    Like this crystal, the elves, as a race, have been shattered. I do not know if the pieces will ever again be reunited into one, but my sorrow has been eased by being able to help you

Aurora Skycaller came up again in a story set after the Burning Crusade and before Wrath of the Lich King:

    At the top of the trail, nestled among the boulders and dry brush, Quel’Lithien Lodge rose in front of them. Its fine wood siding had faded and pitted, undoubtedly due to the ravages of the plague, and the Farstriders had camouflaged its beams with rotting foliage. Lor’themar’s stomach pitched strangely as the lodge came into view, and he tried not to think of the days when its surroundings had been green and his visits greeted with delighted shouts, not angry blades. Those days were lost.

    He handed his hawkstrider to one of the scouts. She collected it and left him with a suspicious glare. One of the rangers who had stopped him on the trail had run ahead into the lodge. As Lor’themar watched, the ranger returned, trailing two elves he had not seen in several years.

    “Lor’themar Theron.” High Priestess Aurora Skycaller’s voice was measured and not a little unkind. “I must admit I am surprised to find you here.”


    “Five years we rot here, thrown out of our homes at your behest because we refuse to suck magic from living things like vampires.” Renthar began to rise from his seat, leaning across the table, truly shaking with rage. “And now you want to offer aid?”


    “Renthar,” Lor’themar started, “for all our differences, you know I would not have—”

    Renthar laughed, interrupting him.

    “You send us here to be ignored, inconvenient as we are, and then dare to be shocked when we suffer? There are no curses foul enough to describe you, Lor’themar.”


    Halduron and Rommath awaited Lor’themar in Silvermoon upon his return. So did Aethas, much to Lor’themar’s chagrin. When Halduron looked at him and said, “Well?” Lor’themar simply shook his head. Halduron raised his eyebrows as if to ask, What did you expect? Rommath did not meet his eye.

    “How did they react to you?” Aethas asked. Lor’themar turned to stare at him.

    “Five years ago I threw them out of the homes they had fought for every bit as fiercely as anyone in Quel’Thalas today,” he answered. “How do you think they reacted?”


    “They were yours when you exiled them,” Halduron said quietly.

    “Actually, they were yours,” Lor’themar snapped back. He bristled a moment in fury, but then his shoulders sagged. Renthar’s words echoed ghostly in his head. You send us here to be ignored, and then dare to be shocked when we suffer?

    “I never wanted to see them dead,” Lor’themar said at last, cringing to hear the plea in his own voice, “but I could not afford to lead a nation divided…”

    A heavy hand on his shoulder made him lift his head.

    “I know,” Halduron said, placing a refilled glass in front of him.


As for Aurora Skycaller’s fate? Her name isn’t mentioned again, but Quel’Lithien Lodge was ended with the Cataclysm update to the Eastern Plaguelands:

    <race>… please, I ask your help.

    Something’s happened to my people. Our commander, Ranger Lord Hawkspear, came upon an item of magical energy, and my friends, my family… they succumbed to its seductive power.

    They’re corrupted, <race>. All of them.

    My Ellaria wouldn’t want to live like that, nor would any of my brothers. Please, put them out of their misery. Quel’lithien Lodge is not far; it’s just up the hill, to the northwest.


    Do not feel sorry for me. Those were my friends that you saw at Quel’lithien Lodge, but they were already as good as dead.


There are obviously many larger things to find unsatisfying with how the United Elves storyline played out, but I found the regret of the High Elves’ exile being addressed by Liadrin, misdirected towards the Void Elves, and soothed by Vereesa while letting Lor’themar stand there silently just one more thing to have found unfulfilling.

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Let’s not forget Vereesa approaches her from behind and pats her on the back, as if the BLOOD ELVES were in the wrong for their namesake and path forward, that THEY were the detestable ones who were in the wrong and the Silver Covenant are the victims who were to accept their apology.

I never want to hear ANY more :face_with_symbols_on_mouth: BS — About the writers NOT having blatantly obvious Alliance-favoured bias.

The Dawnwell narrative was the equivelant to a brick sledgehammered into the head of such.

:face_exhaling: One would legitimately have to be intellectually-challenged NOT to see that by now. lol

Like seriously, the narrative makes it so the Blood Elves are literally cucked by the faction of those who:

  • scoffed at their people renaming themselves in the honour of the fallen,
  • belittled them for the path they chose to help the majority of their nation move forward from withdrawal symptoms
  • and hindered their progress at every turn, making a faction in the city of mages to do so — Even slaughtering them WITH GLEE at the purge of Dalaran …

The exile was justified 10x fold :upside_down_face: And yet, the current writers are making it as if it was an act of some kind of big act of bigotry from “Fear and grief” !?!?!?


To extend on the above:

Y’know, I use to roll my eyes and mock @ those who would argue the writing is “Woke” or that it was “typically democratised writing” — but I have to humbly apologise to them — THEY WERE RIGHT! :open_hands:

  • or at least with THIS narrative they were (Not all claims).

Seriously, the narrative carried out pisses me off so much … and looking at the reactions across everyone else, it seems many others are pissed off too.

Lor’themar, Rommath and especially Halduron - have ALL been as useless, grotesquely diminished and meaningless to the more grand scheme of things + more majorly significant narratives of Midnight and Quel’Thalas overall — as most of us predicted with utmost accuracy …

“SHOCKER!” :unamused_face:

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The Blood Elves were wrong though, since they used demonic magic which is evil magic.

Good people don’t compromise their morals for power.

Remaining a good person is more important than getting power.

Your Blood Elves are no better than Zovaal, Sargeras or the Old Gods. You don’t get to compromise your morals for power and still think you can claim the moral high ground and ride the high horse.

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As somebody who is a fan of Blood Elves and Night Elves - this whole story has effectively nulled the Void Elves and High Elves to be part of the Horde city state of Silvermoon. Effectively - they have no true independent narrative any longer. They’ve been merged in with the Blood Elves and the Blood Elves, and Horde by extension, rule them.

I didn’t like the creation of the Dawnwell because I think it should have only been about Blood Elves and Nightborne and the newly created well. Personally, I think it’s only Thalyssra’s gift of the Arcan’dor Fruit which is having any sort of impact on helping the Blood Elves overcome their magical addiction.

Vereesa’s, Shandris’ and Umbric’s are all…just kind of there…but those gifts don’t seem to serve any proper purpose. Umbric’s has essentially nulled the Void Elves being independent in the narrative. Effectively, the Alliance only has 1 true set of independent playable Elves and that’s the Night Elves.

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Might as well call all of them just “elves” now since Blizzard is rounding off all the edges and making any cultural difference meaningless.

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Or it’s just a case that, in the case of Void Elves and High Elves, they’re just being merged into Blood Elven society and Blood Elven lands.

Nightborne don’t have this with Night Elves. Now, I’m more certain than ever that my Void Elf toons on EU will just gather dust because their is no point to them. Blood Elves haven’t been too negatively impacted by this direct thing of High Elves and Void Elves being merged into them.

Blood Elves, Night Elves and Nightborne all still have their own independence and all still serve as being culturally separate, in their own rights with their own laws.

Sad Truth Time: There was never a point to them. They were a meme race that didn’t exist until the last five minutes of their own recruitment scenario, lacked a reputation until Midnight (and I’m assuming they have one cause I can’t be bothered to log in and double check the Void Storm rep description), and served no purpose other than to spite players who wanted a different allied race, at the cost of Blood Elf player’s immersion and trust in sin’dorei cultural lore.

The only point to them was to fill out an allied race slot and excuse giving the Horde the far more interesting and well developed Nightborne (which itself was a spectacular failure because playable Nightborne look NOTHING like the NPCs we fell in love with).

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Eh, this is an extreme take, mitigated by equally extreme takes from other posters who have declared that Quel’Thalas has been given to the Alliance by the same inclusion of the Void Elves and High Elves.

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It might be “extreme” but sometimes brutal honesty needs to be stated. This could have been so easily avoided if they just had the High Elves and Void Elves take over Silverglade fully and the Farstrider mountains above Stratholme and behind Silverglade.

If your already a minority culture anyway and your going into a strong majority culture, your not going to showcase anything of true relevance.

That’s not really a factor in Blizzard’s writing. The Void Elves were not welcomed by Quel’Thalas back in BfA, yet when N’Zoth and the Void became front and center in its last patch the Void Elves were not involved in exhibiting their knowledge because that would have stolen the spotlight from Wrathion. Inversely, now Blizzard decided to write the Void Elves as handling the issue and Wrathion is nowhere to be seen.

Should Blizzard want to use the Void Elves or the High Elves in the future again Blizzard will.

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And that’s a big “if”, if they want the story to make any sense.

What Blizzard have done is something so easily avoidable…so if they choose to do another faction war again, toxicity on the forums will continue to exist because I know what people will ask, in a faction war expansion now: Where’s Vereesa and Umbric?

The Blood Elves aren’t impacted by this scenario because they’re the majority of Quel’Thalas’ populace.

“The story doesn’t make sense” is probably the most frequently posted statement around here.

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And it certainly won’t make any sense now, if they ever go back to any sort of faction conflict.

If the Alliance Thalassians had moved to Silverglade and the Farstrider Reaches, then yes - questions would still get asked of: Why don’t the Blood Elves just bomb them and move them out of QT by force?

I get that, but at least the Helfs and Velfs would have been on their own, doing their own things, for the Alliance. Their involvement in said war, would have made sense. Now, it doesn’t and it rubs me up the wrong way.

I remember being a fan of Vereesa in Mists of Pandaria and her involvement, however controversial it might have been, was still a driving force during 5.1 and 5.2.

I hope they do not.

Well they keep making small rumblings of it, such as the factions are still not on friendly terms with each other.

The Void Elves were given an embassy. As an embassy for an Alliance faction, it is Alliance territory, with Umbric as ambassador. Many Void Elves are bitter about Silvermoon exiling them, and won’t move back there as their permanant home. There are still Void Elves in Stormwind, Telogrus and Voidstorm.

Midnight felt like a good time to give the two MIA survivors of Quel’Lithien Lodge closure somewhere, I imagine in a side quest. Maybe that would’ve been the basis for a better “Regent’s Request” than the generic kill quest with Valeera. But then, this would’ve meant exploring the character of Lor’themar Theron instead of Arator Windrunner, so…

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I thought their was only 1? Hawkspear became a Death Hunter and a rare mob for players to kill.

The High Priestess, Aurora Skycaller - she’s still MIA or she became a Wretched, which I really doubt, to be honest. She didn’t seem the sort who would have pushed to uncover dangerous relics and to study them.

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Void Elves were exiled later, but like the High Elves they too were exiled for similar reasons. Lor’themar would not lead a nation divided. I really wish they brought Aurora back last we saw her was in MoP along with a few others from the lodge. Lord Hawkspear should of returned he’s been alone in exile for 15+ years since his exile. Last seen as a rare NPC haunted by the ghosts of his past fighting a war easily picked off by an adventurer no different than the elves he led or the Scourge we would hunt in the Plaguelands.

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We didn’t. We saw Kris Goldenlight in MoP, but Aurora is still MIA

I’d love to see Aurora as well though to represent a strong High Elf Priest presence. Maybe with a new dress…I have brainstormed that putting her in the Tier 5 Archangel set with the Staff of Immaculate Recovery would be good to see.

all the High Elf colours with a bit of “Holy Light” vibes, thrown in

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