What's it like playing as a Night Elf Mage?

Lore Story Forum
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I have a question about Night Elves well in terms of Mages that is. What’s it like playing as a Night Elf Mage like atleast in terms of the Lore that is.

Do you get the True Experience of playing as a Highborne Night Elf Mage Survivor and help your fellow Night Elf Kin as well as correcting ancient Highborne Artifacts for Safe Keepings as well as putting the Ghosts to rest?

Or do you get the Experience of playing as a Highborne Quel’dorei High Elf Mage?

If so is playing a Night Elf Mage worth it than regular Druids, Demon Hunters, and etc in terms of Night Elf Society Classes?

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pretty much this, if i wanted to experience a highborne queldorei mage i would use a void elf and say that he/she just followed umbric’s path and as gone full void in his/her search for power.

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I think it is interesting lore, though it seems to be a relatively rare combination for some reason. And any night elf at least has a better racial than humans right now

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There was a passage in Elegy that I think is most fitting to how it probably feels for Night Elf Mages in current events:

    When a portal whirled open, the normally reserved night elves cheered. The magi who stepped through, who until this moment had only cautiously been made welcome in Darnassus, smiled in surprise. The cheers swelled when they each opened another portal—and reached a crescendo as, over the course of several minutes (and with not a few interruptions), a dozen bears, birds, and nightsabers came through.

I think with the events of Ashenvale and Darkshore that Night Elf Mages are integrated a lot more wholistically into Night Elf society now.

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It’s what you make of it. My choice was to play as a new generation of Night Elf heroes the game has been around that long. My character was someone inspired by the tales of Alliance mages and so against the wishes and advice of her own family apprenticed herself to a Highborne mage trainer. She’s an honest to goodness Kal’dorei Mage, not a Highborne.

Again it’s what you make of it. game wise it’s still nothing more than night elf plus character class choice. as it is for any other race/class choice in the game. Blizzard doesn’t give any extra effort in this case.

You do get a call from the Sentinels early in your training which suggests that the Night Elves have rethought their position on arcane magic since so many of their allies (and enemies) make use of it.

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No, you don’t get any of that. But Night Elf mages have pretty much displaced High Elves in the area of popping up as Alliance Mage NPC’s. We’re actually starting to see more diversity such as Worgen, Lightforged, and Dwarf mages hanging in Boralus.

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I actually was enticed to play a Night Elf Mage thanks to the Lore behind the Shen’dralar in Dire Maul (Feralas) in which a lot of Night Elf mages who rejoined the rest of the Kaldorei came from and have since been training up new mages.

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The Highborne Mages took a big hit during the War of Thorns when they were bushwhacked by Forsaken Rogues.

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But were still around, which we see in A Good War when Night Elf Mages had tortured Horde forces in revenge later on in the war than they had been targeted in during Elegy.

The leader of the Alliance Highborne, Mordent Evenshade, also shows up for the Darkshore Warfront.

And ultimately, numbers don’t mean anything to Blizzard.

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I make a distinction between Night Elf (Kal’dorei) Mages and Highborne Shren’drelar.

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This made me really happy. I hope going forward they can truly accept them into tune society. Imagine what the Night Elves could be if they fully combined Elunism, druidism, and arcane to restore and rebuild their society.

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Might as well ask “what’s it like playing a filthy heretic?”

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As others have said, the Night Elves feel a lot more warm fuzzies for mages now than they used to; Alliance stories aren’t allowed to have edge, you see. Fortunately, there are always rpers like Anya out there to make the world a better place for the rest of us.

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They don’t really have much choice. Being on the brink of extinction has a funny way of helping you get over quibbles about your neighbor’s lifestyle.

(In a fantasy story where fellowship and brotherhood help the plucky survivors win the day, obviously. Irl, I expect humans will be at each other’s throats until the day we’re all gone.)

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No no no no. The whole catastrophe only happened in the first place because the bleeding hearts convinced you to allow this filthy heresy into your hearths and homes. It’s because of the mages that Elune is punishing you, and she will only be sated when their blood is poured on her altar.

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I dunno. She doesn’t seem that picky. Orc heads. Chunks of satyr flesh. She really seems to just like the killin’.

Besides. Azeroth is packed to the brim with heretics. From those that actively shun Elune, like the Zandalari, to those who make up blatant falsehoods about her, like the Tauren, to those simply ignorant of her, like the Humans. I say we weed the garden before we clean the house.

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For real, though, I’m not 100% thrilled at the direction they’re taking Kaldorei mages as of late.

There’s a niche in stories for “the outcast” that warlocks and DKs and DHs hit hard. Way, way too hard.

Kaldorei mages were a bit different for me when I rolled the first iteration of this character. They were still outsiders, but not as ABOMINATIONS. More like…I dunno. The pagans at the tolerant but not THAT tolerant Christian wedding. They were unsavory and uncomfortable. And, importantly, it’s sort of ambiguous whether anyone is actually wrong to distrust them. I mean, magic was horribly addicting, destructive, dangerous—especially for elves. Almost all the famous Night Elf mages came to very bad ends. So maybe Dad is right and you really are just a stupid rebellious teenager who needs to grow up?

It just hit a very nice, sufficiently complicated place for me that wasn’t SUPER edgy, but it still had its sharp contours.

And that was kind of a unique flavor for Kaldorei mages, and the more normalized they become, the more they start to feel like just every other morally neutral class/race combo.

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"Well, Homer, I won your respect. And all I had to do was save your life.

Now if every Night Elf mage could just do the same, you’d be set."

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I actually played my Night Elf Mage very similarly to how you just described (except for that her dad was supportive, but because her dad - my main here - had a more open world view because he is an aloof, travel the world type Druid, since, well, that’s what Classic was when I made him).

My Night Elf Mage RP History

She had been a Highborne, but born out of wedlock from a lowborn father, and so was just a civilian without any knowledge or connection with Azshara’s court and those chosen involved with summoning the Legion. After the Sundering she met her father for the first time at Mount Hyjal, only for magic to be banned, and she convinced her father that she had to flee and hide and eventually settled in Starfall Village in Winterspring where she remained for ten-thousand years inconspicuously, focused on Frost magic, and lived a safe, though obviously very dull life.

When Malygos went on a rampage to kill all the mages in the world, her father rushed off to her to make sure she was safe, then went to Northrend to fight in the Nexus War to keep her safe. But then the ban on magic was lifted, and for the first time she was able to come be part of Night Elf society again, only for the Cataclysm to hit and all the efforts that would have to be taken to undo its damages, including serving at the Molten Front, which she did, and has worn the Flamebreaker title ever since. After which, though, her story continued on to Pandaria.

But Blizzard never did anything with the Night Elf Mage story. Asides from some brief appearances in Azshara and Feralas, Night Elf Mages never really got a story in the game. And then by Warlords of Draenor Night Elf Mages were just any other race class combo.

Ultimately my Night Elf Mage ended up being my most progressive character, though, and she was the one who settled on Sunsong Ranch in Pandaria, having found an new home she came to love, because she was never really part of Darnassus, and while Night Elf society had moved on, she herself represented how Night Elves could move on from the norms of what Night Elf society was and emigrate to other parts of the world.

Of course then the Legion came and messed up Pandaria and she ended up at the Broken Isles to help to push the Legion back, only for the Horde to march out the War of the Thorns. And now she’s experienced what the other Night Elf Mages in Elegy did. Bonding with the remaining Night Elves in a way that she didn’t even experience after the Sundering - where she was told she couldn’t be who she was - or even after the Cataclysm, because while then she had helped fight to reclaim and safeguard the Night Elves’ lands, for the War of the Thorns and after, she has been fighting for the Night Elves’ people.

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I like that. Maybe because I RP mine as one of the original Highborne, he came out completely different. He’s arguably my most conservative character; Azeroth’s never going to be quite as great as it was back when it was a Highborne’s world. He gives as good as he gets, and repays suspicion from the other Night Elves with the stereotypical arrogance they expect, being a downright unpleasant person at times.

But where else is he going to go? The Humans? He hates the way Humans do magic. Sure it’s powerful. But it’s all flash, with no finesse or artistry, and as subtle as a sledgehammer. The Dwarves? Laughs in Elven arrogance. The Gnomes? They might have the intellect to comprehend what he says, but he also finds their endless chatter and overly cheery personalities a bit grating. The Draenei? They might be able to understand him, if there were any left of note who still practiced the Arcane. At the end of the day, the Night Elves might be simpletons. But they’re his simpletons.

Besides, no one deserves to die the way the civilians of Teldrassil did. Except those responsible.

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