Hello ! I’ll first preface my first post by saying that I’ve been a long time lurker on this forum and also that my native language is not English. I’ve decided to talk about void elves because weirdly they aren’t really talked about here, despite being probably the most successful Allied race that Blizzard have implemented. Void elves have a lot of potential, and I really like them despite their lore being well…void.
I’ll try to make this post as organised as possible, if some things aren’t clear don’t hesitate to ask some questions/discuss.
Prepare for a long read, enjoy ! (or at least try to !)
Let’s start first by analysing some issues with void elves + gving some solutions :
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Starting with the elephant in the room, high elves. I realise this topic has been talked to death, but I think that to build a better narrative for void elves we shouldn’t ignore them. A lot of Alliance players wanted those, and I won’t lie by saying that it included me. However Blizzard has decided to go with void elves instead, and while I’ll admit being at the time pissed about their inclusion over the original high elves, I believe it’s possible to finally put this request to rest while benefiting the void elf narrative.
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With void elves getting these new character customisation, one could think what exactly are they supposed to represent, are they simply RP tools for those who want to roleplay their high elves on the Alliance ? Maybe, but I think it could be more than that.
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The appeal for high elves has always been (talking for myself and for others, but not everyone obviously) their long devotion to the Alliance. Now I’ll only talk for myself but another appeal has been the fact that they live as immigrant communities in human lands and are shown to be assimilating to a new culture. However I recognise that this narrative, can get pretty stale and as a “people” (if we can even call them as such) have absolutely no future, and since I like them, I kinda want them to stay in the narrative.
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Alright, enough talking about high elves. One of the many off putting aspects of void elves is that they have a very lackluster lore and could be synthesised as “Alleria Windrunner : the playable race edition”. They start off as blood elf rejects basically, with only one “traditional” void elf character existing in the name of Magister Umbric. Other void elf “characters” (If we can even call them like this…) are just named npcs and some random mobs Horde players kill in BfA.
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One other major unappealing aspect is their population, while I think this has been talked to death how population numbers don’t matter in times of conflict, I believe in the case of void elves it matters, why ? Because (maybe that’s just me) but as we’re are presented to them, void elves feel more like an organisation than an actual playable race.
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Because playing a race that is basically a Thalassian shadow priest who dabbles too much in the void isn’t satisfying. People like blood elves because they have an identity, and while void elves have one, it is incredibly shallow and too restricted to one aspect. Void elves are only based around the void and this is a mistake.
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Don’t misunderstand me, void elves should be in majority be influenced by the void, but right now, (for me at least) playing a Void elf which isn’t a shadow priest feels completely weird. (Lightforged draenei have the same issue) Void elves are thus too specialised in one field while most races can have more diverse iconic roles. (Thinking about night elves here, Warrior, Hunter, Priest, Druid are all iconic choices here, and while Mage is still controversial, I’ll argue that it’s also iconic in a different way.)
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With void elves, you have, shadow Priest (one spec), subtlety Rogue (one spec, again) which are really iconic and fit well to the race. Since they are elves, Mage and Hunter might also seem obvious choices but then, void elves are specialised in Void, why use this when the void has been shown to be more powerful ?
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I’ll reinforce my point by adding that Umbric uses void portals despite being a mage, and as a Void elf mage you can’t use these (for Gameplay reasons obviously).
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The fact of the matter is that Void elves have been “overshown” in being overspecialised in only one field, they only serve as a glorified edgy taxi service race when there’s a whole lot more that could be done, and also are pretty useless in that role, portals being already used way before void elves were even thought as an allied race.
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And this is where I return to the controversial high elves. When Blizzard added the new SL customisation for void elves, I think it was as a way for them to finally shut the high elf discussion down, this created another problem however, as void elves now seemingly contain two races within one.
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My proposal is to finally and once and for all unite them under one banner, the void elf one. Alleria, (despite not including her as a “traditional” void elf earlier) represents the most what I think should be the void elf story in the future. To put it in more crude words, basically gather all of the remaining high elves and find a satisfying way for them to join the void elves.
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Now if I posted this in more pro-high elf circles many would say they’re against this because they have no reason to accept the void when they already rejected blood elves for much less. And I’ll semi-agree, this isn’t an easy thing to write and this post is only an attempt at writing a satisfying story.
The Scenario :
I’ll preface it by saying that this takes place during the 4th war.
While the war rages on, and with the Alliance’s growing grasp on Lordaeron, Alleria and Vereesa meet and decide that it’s time to strike. They gather and unite their forces. This united force led by Alleria would comprise of every void elf led Umbric, the Silver Covenant led by Vereesa, the militant high elves from the Kirin Tor (who have become disillusioned due to the City’s human-centric leadership) led by a high elf Archmage, Quel’Danil elves led by their leader and the Allerian Expedition led by Auric Sunchaser.
These forces have united for one reason, taking Silvermoon back in the Alliance. As they march to Quel’Thalas’ border they finally meet with Silvermoon’s army and demand to meet Lor’themar, the small Silvermoon contingent present dismisses their demands, calling them traitors to Silvermoon. Typical elven banter ensues over who is right until one blood elf magister teleports away to inform Lor’themar of what is perceived to be an invasion. Rommath’s contigent of magister arrives, accompanied by Lady Liadrin’s Blood Knights. Without any hesitation, Rommath attacks, citing the Purge of Dalaran and Alleria’s recent visit to the Sunwell as reasons to not trust the traitors of Silvermoon.
The Quel/Ren’dorei force is soon overwhelmed by the larger Sin’dorei army. Vereesa is grievously wounded by Rommath, and Alleria is alarmed and tries to retreat, however they are completely surrounded, while not many died on both sides, the Alliance elves are exhausted by the blood elves’ military superiority and aren’t fit for battle, the void elves manage to hold on for a bit but soon are overwhelmed by the Blood Knights.
With nowhere else to retreat, Umbric commands the void elves to retreat to Telogrus, the blood elf magisters having counterspelled every attempt of a “normal” portal. The high elves are transported to Telogrus alongside the void elves, but as expected this soon has consequences. The high elves’ presence in this distant void infested world completely shatters their connection with the Sunwell and they begin to experience symptoms of the mana addiction once again. This makes Vereesa’s situation even worse, as she’s on the brink of death Alleria uses a part of her void essence to keep her alive.
Now we all know that elves in reaction to magic work like sponges, as soon as they arrive they passively feed on the powerful void magic around them. Vereesa is alive, she opens her now voidy purple eyes and expresses remorse over this small void “transformation” being the only way to save her.
Every high elf present would share Vereesa’s fate, while they don’t sprout tentacles (yet?) they know deep down they changed somehow.
As the elves recover, Alleria, Vereesa and Umbric meet and discuss over what happened. Vereesa sees the writing is on the wall, she looks around and sees her now void-infused Silver Covenant rangers and proposes herself to unite the high and void elves much to Alleria and Umbric’s surprise.
They agree, saying that now the Remnants of Silvermoon have finally united, the “Voidier” elves promise the now-void elves to help them contain the whispers as many of them don’t want to deal with their newfound power. Some other “void high elves” would end up being seduced by it, using even more void.
These “void high elves” would end up transforming into the more traditional void elves, sprouting tentacles for some, their skin turning blue. However a large part of them would stay the same physically, barring a voidy eye colour.
What does this scenario could solve :
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First of all, this explains the datamined Silvermoon warfront, while this isn’t a real warfront, it gives us a bit of tease of what the void elves are doing in the 4th war and how the blood elves can successfully defend their territory under an invasion.
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This scenario uses Rommath a criminally underused character and also gives the opportunity for blood elves to address their grievances over the Purge which I think haven’t been correctly addressed.
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In general this makes us appreciate a bit more small battles over territories we care about, if this would be implemented ingame one could expect some flashy spells to show how cool the races we play are.
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This essentially kills the high elf request, while I expect many people to still demand them, the fact that they wouldn’t even make lorewise sense as another Allied race would destroy every credibility that some fringe high elf fans have.
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This also gives void elf a ton (relatively) of new characters to work with, we discover what happens with this new generation of void elves, we will recognise old characters, some have gotten voidier while some decide to wield the void with extreme caution.
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The fact that the void elves who decide to pursuit even more into the void path become blue explains how new “traditional” looking void elves are created by the player, and thus aren’t from the extremely specific recruitment scenario, and most importantly aren’t literally on the brink of extinction.
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This moves the high elf story into a new direction, an unexpected one I’ll admit, but as someone who likes high elves, “fusing” them with void elves is exciting and ties them with the probable future expansion about the void and the light.
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This involves the Silver Covenant, Alleria and Vereesa in the war, from which they’ve been weirdly absent.
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This gives a meaningful victory to the Horde which doesn’t result in a massacre/genocide which is very needed I think.
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Void elves end up on the list of the more warmongering Alliance races, with worgen and night elves among others. Their warmongering and hostile attitude against blood elves, makes it easy to further consolidate the link between Silvermoon and the Horde.
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And finally this gives void elves an identity, their society is linked with the void and void elf individuals range from completely voided to that one Void elf who seldoms use it. (Similar in fantasy to worgen who stay mostly in human form).
Counter argumenting :
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Yes, this is somewhat of a retcon (we see Vereesa at the end of BfA, and some high elves throughout the expansion healthy and still blue-eyed) however I’ll just say that it’s needed, not much of a very convincing argument I know if you don’t particularly like what I wrote…
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I’m pretty sure nobody on these forums will say this but I know some die-hard high elf fans will never agree to their elves being void corrupted in any way, I’ll address this at the end.
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Many critics of the high elf request have been saying that giving them to the Alliance pretty much puts the blood elf theme on the Alliance and that they will never be satisfied with the current high elf lore since it doesn’t have a future, I honestly tend to agree with this notion, and that’s why I think that giving high elves the void elf theme is a solution.
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As I said, void elves could resemble worgen in that aspect of a somewhat “void spectrum” identity, the obvious argument against this is that we all know that Alliance curses end up not affecting them at all, but I feel like this as already been talked about in other topics.
Bonus scenario :
Now let’s talk about what I said I would address, the “I still want to play my High elf without the void”.
Alright, I kinda understand people who say this, I was on this side also, it’s a valid opinion I think, just not mine anymore.
The solution to this, retcon some Dalaran High elves as being Half-elves and add those to the game as a counterpart to the Mok’Nathal Clan of Half-ogres. Half-elves are the natural conclusion of where the current high elf narrative is going, high elves live in human lands, they assimilate and they make half-elf children, it’s as simple as that.
The most important part here is that half-elves fill the same fantasy that high elves currently fill.
Now this was a long post, a bit too long maybe. I’m sorry I’m passionate about elves (not the most original thing I know, we all have our vices). Please tell me if you think it’s a good idea, if you disagree I want to know, I’m aware people are tired of High elves but I promise, if you only read this part of this post, my goal is not to screech about how I need my blonde-haired white elf but more about how we can integrate High elves into Void elves to give the latter a better shot at being a more interesting playable race.
