Yes I know the story. But the literal head of the story department has told us, no it does not matter. If Alleria, or any elf, still considers themselves high elves, they can.
Again, people can be BOTH at the same time as per Selistra. People are not require to be “just an”.
Okay but people are arguing the story like the ritual didn’t happen. You can argue until you’re blue in the face but void elves are NOT the same as high elves anymore. They are literally half transformed into void monsters.
THat’s…why the call themselves void elves.
If they were high elves they would call themselves high elves. They are Ren’Dorei. Alleria does not consider herself Ren’dorei.
Lore-wise VE Paladin would work just fine IF they added either Void-themed glyphs similar in scope to Warlock green fire, or a full blown Shadow Paladin spec.
The ritual happened. But the void elves can and some probably still do consider themselves high elves. That the physical differences do not make them a new race.
No more then anyone who has dabble in magic suddenly changes their races. Hell, orcs are now green but lorewise they are just “orcs”. And the “Mag’har/orc” differences do not make them truly a different “race”.
Or you know, the focus on the fact that you need to have a disciplined mind to balance both the void and light in order to get the “truth”. Gee, isn’t that the theme of priests?
They added undead & voidelf priest and Vulpera into the game. I believe anything is possible at this point.
Drinking blood is a lot differnet than being half transformed into a void monster.
No. They don’t. They call themselves Ren’Dorei. Which literally means children of the void. If they considered themselves high elves they wouldn’t go by Ren’Dorei nor would they have renamed themselves.
You can RP it all you want but lorewise, all void elves are Ren’Dorei.
It is the equivalent of calling someone Gilnean or Kultiran. You are still not a different race.
Both are literally just being infused with magic(fel/void) the different is less then you imagine. Also, not all orcs drank blood but were still affected by it.
No, it isn’t. I’m not going to sit here an argue the fact that void elves are not a different race of elf because they ARE. That’s literally the lore that blizzard wrote.
It’s completely different rituals and completely different ways they were transformed. Comparing those is like comparing apples and oranges.
Orcs drank the blood and it flows through their veins. Void Elves were literally transformed genetically and are now half void creatues.
And again, we have the literal lore guy telling you that is not how it works.
Not really. Especially now that we know the various major elemental forces are connected by the First Ones.
Alleria is a child of Quel’Thalas and a solider of the Alliance. She returned after 1000 years to find most of her surviving kin switched political affiliation. Didn’t change who she is.-Steve Danuser
He is talking about Alleria. Where in this sentence does he say that void elves are not a different race? He literally says NOTHING about void elves in that quote. Alleria did not go through the same ritual as they did. She absorbed a dark Naaru which is completely different circumstances.
Orcs just have the blood running through their veins where as void elves were transformed into half void creatures.
Demons (the blood they drank) are not the same as void creatures/monsters.
Also, it’s been shown over time that the effects of the fel-blood in the orcs body can dissapate (and the effects of fel as blood elves eyes have begun reverting to other colors) whereas we do not know if the same will happen to the void elves. It’s doubtful because, again, they were half-trasformed into void creatures.
It’s not the same.
I also found a quote from him on twitter:
“This video picks up a point a lot of readers missed. While we only show the Void whispers in a few specific panels, that is what Alleria hears in her head. All. The. Time. The void elves face a similar relentless assault. The discipline needed to resist them is extraordinary.”
He says similar, but not the same.
Canonically they are all meant to be Shadow spec, Holy is only available to players for gameplay reasons. That was the original intent anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if an Undead Holy NPC has appeared more recently.
Isn’t Alonsus Faol an Undead Holy Priest? And then there’s Sir Zeliek the Undead Paladin in Naxxramas.
In any case, assuming Blizzard follows through with proliferating all classes to all races (and there’s no guarantee they will get every class out there), Void Elves are either going to end up with Paladins using holy magic, without any in-game explanation, considered non-canon, and leave it to the player to explain why their character can do so (e.g. using High Elf customization, etc), OR they’ll have a void theme for Paladin abilities and massage the lore by saying that Void Elves (and maybe other races where it would make sense) are mimicking Paladins using the Void instead of the Light (much the chagrin of Light using Paladin orders).
haven’t consumed fel in years.
I think Alonsus is more a Discipline Priest. Using both Light and Dark and if I remember right Blizzard said that Sir Zeliek “Really hates himself”
This is true for the first generation. You however do not know how the second generation of void elves without void customizations managed to “become” void elves.
She pretty much does.
Mastering the whispers requires constant focus and discipline. Your dedication inspires all who bear the name ren’dorei–for we have become children of the Void. You have learned many lessons here, but the time has come to venture beyond Telogrus Rift. Go to Stormwind, the heart of the Alliance. There, the king’s ambassador will greet you and guide you along your journey. Azeroth must be defended. I can think of no one better suited to answer that call than you, $p.
They changed their name to Ren’dorei to reflect their new bond and embrace of the void, it’s a distinction from the other thalassian groups, just like how the blood elves changed their name to blood elves after the scourging. This does not change that they’re a sister group of the other thalassians or were part of one of the others before, they’re still thalassians and children of Quel’thalas, just a newly formed group with their own name. And even Alleria considers herself a Ren’dorei, she even says “we” when talking about the Ren’dorei.
This is also why I feel like the whole crowd going “there are high elves on the Horde” is a bit iffy, we have Thalassians on the Horde that is the majority and that control the kingdom of Quel’thalas. However, they changed their identity from high elf to blood elf and did have some cultural shifts and most notably allied with the faction that was not historically their ally.
The elves still identifying as high elves and not taking on the name blood elves still mainly remained with the Alliance, and are now a small group of exiles that don’t really like the blood elves. There’s a political rift here and their identity and story have diverged from the blood elves since the split. Even if they are both children of Quel’thalas.
Personally, I think this request was sated with the addition of void elves into the Alliance that has regular customization. Since I see no reason for adding another almost identical race to the game. Just like I don’t think forest/ice trolls should be their own race and instead be baked into troll customization.
Adding them as a race would also have the problem of needing to add something else since race parity is needed for the factions compared to customization.
The only downside in my mind of not having high elves is the possibility of the paladin class which I am very against since a strictly light-wielding class should not be playable on a void being. Just as if we had a strictly void-wielding class then it should not be useable for LFD (and maybe belves due to the holy sunwell connection). Priest gets a pass in my opinion since you can’t mechanically lock a whole spec from a race, that’s just not good gameplay, but it’s gameplay only, there are no holy void elves in lore and no shadow priest LFD.
However, if they added class customization that allowed for a void “paladin” then that’s a whole different thing.
But then again I don’t even think High elf paladin is a core aesthetic to high elves, we can literally count on one hand how many high elf paladins there are. The paladin order didn’t even have a lot of time to train non-humans before Quel’thalas fell too. Paladins only became a major thing for Thalassians when the blood elves formed the blood knights.
High elf paladin is a fan favorite but is not actually the core of the high elf aesthetic, rather the core “classes” of the high elves are Mage, Ranger, and Priest. Who are the classes we see the most of in wow lore. Paladin is more core to the blood elf aesthetic.
Now you can ask why High elf Paladin is so popular among the fans, but I think it’s because the people that mainly care about playable High elves are hardcore Alliance players, that’s really into the RTS games and/or lore. And Paladin is the Alliance class, so it makes sense that Alliance players and especially hardcore ones would want to play that class in a race they want.
Blizzard may also add lore and NPCs after adding new class/race combos, there will be these additions in the next patch for new Priest, Mages, and Rogues combos.
It may already be underway for the void elves. There is a new High Elf Paladin NPC in the paladin order hall and they have High Elf customizations, that may be enough.
hopefully there will be a void version of paladins for those who want to be void knights.
What a well written opinion followed with facts. You’re deftly correct about the high elf paladin fan favorites over the years. A regal silver and blue outfit paladin under the flag of the alliance has amazingness written all over it to me not to mention the High Elf Sorcerers and rangers as well. (Of course Mage and Hunter is good enough in that department at least to me it is.) I just hope one day I can log in and create a High Elf Paladin in the future.
Thanks for understanding and giving input! 
Yeah, I honestly think the best way to go about this is to add class skins, so add a void paladin class skin that’s active by default when you create a “void elf” paladin, but can be changed when visiting a class trainer, the void paladin skin would also not just be locked to void elves ofc, but it would be the only race that has it active by default. So in lore there would be no void elf paladins, but rather void knights, for gameplay purposes people could play a high elf paladin by turning off the class skin and using the regular customization.
This system could and should also be expanded to other classes, like warlock necromancer and such, etc. but that’s a whole other discussion.
Specifically Night elves, I’d never play anything else again.