The Unofficial High Elf Discussion Megathread

Community General Discussion
11058

Further complicating the issue (for fun):

The Sunwell was formed by a Vial of water from the Well of Eternity, forged at the convergence of the natural arcane leylines in what is now Quel’thelas.

By that logic, the Night Elves should have suffered a 10,000 fold level Arcane withdrawal event when the Well of Eternity collapsed as a portal and sundered the world and they no longer had it radiating around them, unless there’s something specific that was done to the Sunwell, but if there was I’m not familiar with it.

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11059

Wowhead must have it incorrectly tagged as being added in Patch 3.3. I knew that didn’t make sense for a TBC quest to be added in Wrath.

I still missed this lore bit entirely. Such a small footnote of a quest for an issue like this is still strange, but interesting.

11060

I have a headcanon that the Sunwell is already corrupted: by the Light, and this energy is overwhelming the Arcane part of it. If Blizzard want to make the Void/Light story less Black and White, involving Yrel and the Lighbound, the exile of Void researchers from Quel’thalas, and the Naaru forcibly turning people into the Light, the Sunwell is right there, previously used 3 times already by antagonists, but it still there for some reason. I would prefer that than another “void corrupting and making evil things but the light is there to save us”.

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11061

Well the World Tree was built on top of a new magic well.

Not to mention Moon Wells.

Plus, the original well of eternity is like… still down there… in the Maelstrom. Which is apparently full of arcane energy.

Just turning Sea Trolls into Elves.

Mermaid Elves.

Who will rise to defeat the Naga. Ok. Everything is true but those last two lines.

11062

I’d laugh at Sea Trolls, but then I remember Gilgoblins are a thing.

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11063

Yeah there are definitely seaweed covered trolls down there. Seaweed smoking trolls? I don’t know.

and so in the eye of the maelstrom I’m sure there are some Sea Elves.

and Sea Dwarves.

It’s the expansion we never wanted, but probably deserve.

11064

While it is my own “head-cannon” I would think that the Quel’dorei who went through the Dark portal would have not felt the destruction of the Sunwell due to the latent font of Arcane Energies found in that one room in The Black Temple that Illidan used for his minions that was touched on in the Warlock green fire quest chain, prior to even drawing energy from the Draenei Vessels.

11065

The Void Elves are at a delicate stage. What defines them as a race is established, and backtracking on that in any form is going to be damaging. By adding the High Elves to their numbers, the identity of the Void Elves is utterly destroyed in the process. They’ll become High Elves rather than Void Elves. For most of them, the Void is something they won’t use because they don’t want to deal with the Whispers. It becomes a minor plot inconvenience, rarely addressed. The power that most defines the Void Elves would be used only by a handful of them; the original Void Elves and what few High Elves decide to try.

This is why I’m against the forced/accidental conversion of large numbers of Thalassians on either side of the faction line into Void Elves, but especially the High Elves. Blood Elves might be able to comfortably fall into the old mindset of any power being useful, but not High Elves.

And conversely, if these High Elves just suddenly start being Okay with the Void and using it all the time, then that just ruins the High Elves’ lore and story.

There is no way to make this work where one group’s identity is not destroyed.

8 Likes
11066

I agree, but it’s a corner Blizzard put itself in. Personally, between sacrificing the void elves’ uniqueness and the high elves’ past, I’d choose to sacrifice the void elves. I don’t think the void elves have any future beyond being “the guys that use the void”. The “race” lacks any base to grow on.

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11067

I disagree, mostly because using the Void could be a future that might very well save the Alliance.

The Void Elves already understand the importance of balancing various powers. We’ve seen this when Umbric and Jaina cooperated to open a portal into the Zandalari Treasury without detection.

With the Light more and more being revealed to be a force with entities as malevolent as the Void or Fel, but more insidious in nature, I’d say the balance between powers like Light and Void will become prominent in the continuing narrative. As an example, let’s assume Yrel and the Lightbound come to MU Azeroth, led by X’era, who promptly begins attempting to conquer Azeroth. She attempts to draw the Lightforged Draenei and Turalyon into her forces, and but fails because of the presence of the Void Elves. Under the pretense of the Lightforged and Void Elves having cooperated and lived together peacefully for so long, it could be the two groups have wound up protecting one another against the extremes of their respective powers’ forces.

It could even be the Void Elves have the power to undo the Lightbound’s condition, liberating them from the enslavement of the Light Mother.

Using the Void may be a gimmicky part of the Void Elves’ identity, but it is currently the core of their identity, that they can use it safely and responsibly for the benefit of all.

I don’t think any race’s identity should be sacrificed for another. We’ve seen how terrible that is with the Night Elves, who have behaved more like High Elves throughout WoW’s lifetime until the War of Thorns ended and they got their WC3 fangs back.

11068

And there’s a problem there. The void elves are a tool, not a race. They have their magic juice that does things no one can do, but outside of that gimmick, they lack anything that makes a race interesting. A place to call home? Nope. A people? Nope. Interesting dynamics? Nope. Void elves are as one-dimensional as it can get. That’s never a virtue.

Why the mag’har are more interesting than the regular orcs? Because they have different clans, with different skill sets, different leaders, different philosophies.

Why are (were) the AU draenei more interesting than the regular draenei? Because they had the five Exarchs, each leading a different subgroup with its own skill sets and ways to deal with problems.

Why are the blood elves interesting? Again, their society is made of different groups. You have magisters, farstriders, blood knights, sunreavers, each with their own outlook on things.

Variety makes things interesting. Inner conflict, different outlooks having to cohexist. Humans are the blandest race, too generic. But add gilneans, kul tirans and other nations and they start to feel way more interesting. Dwarves are kinda like that: they are bland until you mix wildhammer and dark iron clans with them.

Storytelling in the Alliance has been flawed because all the uniqueness of the races is lost under the human leadership. It becomes way better when the other races gets the spotlight, making the Alliance more diverse. Patch 8.1 wasn’t among the better, but it was a moment where the Alliance felt way more interesting just because the night elves took center stage for a change.

The void elves lack even the slightest hint of complexity. And I don’t see them growing beyond that on their own. They’ll pull numbers and characters from blood elves and/or high elves, and they’ll absorb these races’ themes because they lack their own themes. Since everything they got is “the Void”, they’ll end up as blood elves that use the Void, or high elves that use the Void. I think it was the plan all along.

Addendum: I think the void elves would work way better as a group within high elf society than as their own society. They don’t even qualify as a society, after all.

5 Likes
11069

I like to have a more optimistic view of things to be honest. In the line of thought of Umbric and his followers having been one of several small political groups trying to change the way Quel’Thalas operated, I think it’s possible when these movements were brought to an end we could have seen remnants from the others coming to Umbric.

Lets say that a few chapters in this hypothetical book involve the arrest and imprisonment of the dissenters, perhaps around the time of the Purge of Dalaran when Lor’themar needed Quel’Thalas united and strong. Umbric, in his cell, listens to the whispers and learns how to open the Void Rifts, and as a result can escape. He offers individuals present the same opportunity.

Among them could be a Priestess who worked for the Magistry as a, ‘Correctional Officer,’ basically one of the thought police who re-wired minds like what happened to Lyria Skystrider and Priest Ennas. Another could be a Blood Knight who believed groveling to the Naaru and now being reliant upon the Sunwell is disgraceful.

They flee to Telogrus Rift with Umbric where the Ex-Blood Knight feels like his experience forcing the Light to heed his will, can be useful in studying the Void. The Priestess realizes her own experiences wielding Shadow Magic give her an edge in these studies, and what’s more, by studying the Void rather than just Shadow, her knowledge and understanding of minds expands drastically.

These two individuals form two orders. One is a group of what would essentially be Void Knights, using the Void in traditional combat, and another is a group of Mentalists who use their power to help people cope with the Whispers or undo mind-control effects on them.

While you could argue that this is taking something from the Blood Elves, I think you can also agree, the Void Elves would be making it uniquely theirs at the same time. So while using the Void Responsibly and for a good cause remains the focal point of the identity of the race, how it is used can grow more diverse. Someone like Umbric would have a strong Magister kind of focus to using the Void, while someone like the Ex-Blood Knight would be more militant.

Why haven’t we seen them yet? Because they’re not ready. The Void Elves were transformed and then immediately the world went to War.

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11071

While I like your ideas to flesh out the void elves, all of them skip the core problem: that the ren’dorei is a tiny group of researchers fixated in a single subject. They can’t grow without absorbing the population of other elves; they don’t have a place to call their own; they have no way to have a civilian population; they are not even a natural race, but victims of a transformation.

These factors severily limit what they can be or grown into. A squad geting members just becomes a larger squad. It’s not a people, with all the complexity and variety that a people has.

The only way for them to grow is to absorb a large chunk of the blood and/or high elves. But, since the ren’dorei lack any depth, what will this new society inherit, but the customs of the absorbed people?

It’s already happening. All Umbric’s gossip text from 8.0 did was to make the void elves more like the high elves.

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11072

I think you’re too fixated on numbers. Think of, say, tribes in the Amazon or Africa or, really, almost anywhere. How large were these tribes? Normal sizes would’ve been a few hundred. Larger tribes would be in the thousands. If they got too big to be sustainable in a single location, they would separate into smaller tribes.

The Void Elves have a home. It’s the Telogrus Rift. The issue is Blizzard did absolutely nothing to make it a home, but it is one all the same. We’re not likely to see the Telogrus Rift changed at any point either, unless it becomes available to all races in some kind of Void-Themed expansion, which is doubtful.

Let’s assume the unspoken benefits of being a Void Elf are something that makes it unnecessary to have a civilian population. Maybe they don’t eat or sleep. Maybe Void Elves don’t truly die, but reform in the Telogrus Rift unless they’re lost to the Void/Whispers at the time of death.

The only thing that grows by the Void Elves absorbing large numbers of other Elves, is their numbers. They won’t suddenly have a culture. If anything what little culture they’re developing would be subsumed by the group they absorbed.

11073

Void Elves are not a tribe, they’re a cabal.

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11074

I didn’t mean to insinuate that they were a tribe, simply that you don’t need thousands upon thousands of people to make a culture.

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11075

No, but you need time, and growing is essential for any “race” to develop. Void Elves are brand new, and there’s very little reason anyone would ever want to become a Void Elf themselves from what we see.

Basically, Void Elves are stuck with whatever individuals were there. They (hopefully) can’t breed more Void Elves, and unlike the Forsaken, they don’t offer much over being a Blood/High Elf to compensate for the voices in your head and all that. So there’ll be no new input to the race, not without some accident or a few individuals willing to risk their sanity for not much in return.

It’s like the Lightforged, but with all the good aspects gone.

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11076

It’s why I feel a book detailing the events which lead to the Void Elves becoming a thing will help. If we start this race off as a political movement, and then allow them to evolve into more of a race by virtue of their transformation, then on the cultural side of things, it can work. It’s not perfect, but its better than nothing. I’ll agree there is no reason to become a Void Elf rather than remain a Blood/High Elf, but the benefits of their new state could also be covered through such a novel, though I’ve little idea what benefits could offset the cost of their condition.

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11077

Well, that’s my point.

Sorry, Vexander, but numbers are important. Numbers are what bring variety, it’s what makes a society. Telogrus is not a home, it’s a research place, maybe a school at best. It lacks anything that could make it a home.

Whatever Blizzard does to develop the void elves will require them to expand into things that, currently, they are not. They are a cabal, like Lavinya said, what they have right now is too limiting for a race.

11078

I’m not opposed to the idea of the Void Elves building an actual settlement somewhere, but I strongly am opposed to this idea of a massive recruitment into their race, because their small numbers not only helps to define their race as is, but also to keep it’s potential in check. The more Void Elves there are, the easier it is for some to slip through the cracks and end up starting the next Twilight Cult and ushering in the Void Lords.

In the case of the Void Elves, fewer is better. That’s my opinion, at least.