Blood elves and their knowledge about fel magic

Lore Story
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My point isn’t about them needing the Sunwell to cast spells that need sacred magic, but about the fact that worshipping the Light has never been part of High Elven society. I’m talking about faith, not magical abilities. So far I have reread bits of the Chronicles about the High Elves since their departure from Kalimdor and there is no mention of them or their priests having any sort of revelation about the Light. What characterizes priests among all the races who can play that class is their faith in something, whether it actually channels sacred Light magic or not. If the Sunwell, the only thing Quel’thalas Elves have faith in, did not contain sacred Light magic before the end of TBC then their presumed faith in the Light can’t be affirmed. The fact that this idea is mentioned nowhere outside of « Blood of the Highborne », short story that was supposed to be about Kael’thas and has changed authors multiple times, is disturbing in my opinion.

What could be true, but has yet to be confirmed, is that the Light can be worshipped and channeled through the Sun, the same way the Tauren do it with An’she - but it doesn’t really work, because the Arakkoa worship the Sun and Sun magic seems to be a separate thing. Although the Quel’dorei named their capital city Silvermoon, they made a point of replacing the moon with the sun in their tradition, not with the Light which is, at the end of the day, truly worshipped by three races so far: the Draenei, humans and dwarves. All the other races that have priests do not believe in the Naaru and I count Blood Elves (before the end of TBC) among them.

I just made a new Blood Elf priest on Classic to see if there is any direct mention of the Light in the quest lines of that class, I’ll post them if there are any.

I don’t see why they couldn’t, absorbing the mana of many wyrms makes it possible.

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104

Are you sure about this? Liadrin was a High Priestess. She was adopted by the previous High Priest too. You have lore stating that they adopted the religion from humans and dwarves.

They definitely had organized light-worship, looking at those titles, so I do not see how this can be true. Sure, one can claim, quite truthfully, that worship of the light never played a strong role in Thalassian society, but denying it altogether seems a bit incorrect to me.

Not to mention that these things do not appear only in the aforementioned novel. You can see them during the heritage quest, they are woven into the now non-canonical rpg material. You have priests in WCIII, etc.

I think you had a high elf priestess in Vanilla too, if memory serves.

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105

Do you have a source confirming this? If you do, does that source say when this happened? It makes sense to me for the High Elves who live outside of Quel’thalas, not for those who never left the city

Tyrande has the High Priestess title, that doesn’t mean that she worships the Light. Same goes for the High Priests found in Zul’gurub, the Ice Troll High Priests of W3 and so on. This title alone doesn’t change from one religion to the other, therefore can’t be considered a proof that High Priests from Quel’thalas ever prayed to the Light before the end of TBC (and that has yet to be proven as well)

Priests being there doesn’t mean that they worship the Light the same way humans, dwarves and Draeneï do. A lot of races in the game have priests who do not pray to the Light directly, as I have stated before. I haven’t seen any mention of the Light during the heritage quests, only the presence of characters present in « Blood of the Highborne » so my point still stands

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I confess I do not, alas. A lot of this is older material who’s canon status is somewhat questionable, and I genuinely don’t wanna browse so much material, so forgive me, hah.

See, I consider this a poor argument. Why? Tyrande is a High Priestess, but you know of what. Of Elune. High priests found in Zul’Gurub? The loa, naturally. Ice Troll High Priests? Same case.

The title does not change with religion, sure, but to what did the high elves pray if not the Light? The Sun? You have no organized sun worship in Thalassian society.

It seems odd to me to claim that it was something else than the Light. Then again, if you have a source, I am willing to hear you out.

Then to what did they pray?

Actually, this significantly weakens your points. if Blood of the Highborne characters made it into the game, and in the form in which we see them in the novel, this pretty much means it is considered canonical.

This is also not strictly true.

In the Shadow of the Sun, Lor’themar’s leader story, Aurora Skycaller states that she is a priestess of the Light and that she knows of the energy newly permeating the Sunwell. She was also not part of the high elven diaspora, being exiled from Quel’Thalas proper, as were most of the people in that lodge.

Edit: Chronicles volume 3 decisively state that Liadrin and the blood elves returned to their old ways, asking the Light for blessings.

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107

Can we shift conversation back to Blood Elves and Fel Magic?

How do people feel about the possibility of Blood Elves shunning the Demon Hunters as “freaks.” I mean, myself included, I was almost certain Night Elves would be the ones to ultimately shun the Illidari and for the Blood Elves to (semi)-welcome them back into the Silvermoon fold, but this isn’t the case.

This hasn’t directly happened - indeed, Tyrande even states that the situation of the Burning Legion invasion must be so severe that Maiev was given no choice but to free the Demon Hunters. Lor’themar doesn’t say anything about them…it was only Tyrande and Sylvanas (ironically), that voiced their views on the released Illidari.

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108

They are not officially exiled like the Void Elves, but they are not exactly welcomed either…imagine the reactions of the common people as a group of Sin’dorei Demon Hunters walk around the streets of Silvermoon in the lore nowadays. The majority of the citizens would be outright disgusted or scared, probably even a worse reaction than Warlocks walking around in the open (in the present day, but in TBC it wasn’t much weird for the Warlocks as even lesser Demons like Succubi were spotted publicly in the streets, or in the basement of that shop).

And not just because Demon Hunters for the common people are “freaks”, but also they would likely be considered as “fel batteries”, and people are just starting to get their original eye colours back, or anyway golden eyes that are affected by the Light, blue and purple by arcane magic etc etc and these “fel freaks” walk around with the risk of the eyes of everyone turning fel green once again :stuck_out_tongue:

And even among the military, the reactions of Farstriders and Blood Knights would be very cold, probably only the Magisters would be the ones a bit more “tolerant” toward the Sin’dorei Demon Hunters. But in any case I don’t think Lor’themar would allow to live them there. Maybe just a brief tour of Quel’thalas and Silvermoon, Isle of Quel’Danas and the Sunwell, and then they have to go and depart once again…unless they want to stay in the Ghostlands to fight the Scourge and Amani like the Sunfury and like the Void Elves…but I’m pretty sure the Demon Hunters would become very bored pretty quickly in this case… :sleeping:

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But I think we can all agree, that back in 2016 - we all thought that the Blood Elves would be far more welcoming towards the Illidari, than the Night Elves, but it was the kaldorei leader and forsaken leader, who surmised that the threat of the Legion was way bigger than what they’d seen before.

Lor’themar never said a word on the subject. Neither did Liadrin or Rommath and all 3 attended Vol’jin’s funeral. Only Tyrande and Sylvanas commented on it.

It would depend on whether Kayn, Allari and the others would pledge themselves fully to the alliance with the Horde. Kayn was a loyalist to the Illidari cause, so I couldn’t see him leaving in a hurry.

Maybe, in a revamped Silvermoon (if the Sunwell was lost - perhaps Azshara sees it as a gateway for the Void so in her mind, the Sunwell needs to go) we might see Lor’themar become more tolerant towards fel users and perhaps, the current Ruins of Silvermoon, could be where the Warlocks and Demon Hunters operate, but the latter serve only as Ambassadors.
The Blood Elves, in that situation, wouldn’t be on their own, of sorts as they would have the Shal’dorei to help them.

I wouldn’t mind a Valtrois/Rommath interaction, if we’re being brutally honest. :woman_shrugging: :smirk:

EDIT: Plus - ever since 8.2, I’ve always wanted to see a Queen Azshara vs Quel’Thalas.

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Since we are going into Light debacle here I shall throw my five cent here aswell.

My problem with the whole Holy Light faith in Thalassian edition lies with it’s very origin.

We all universally know and accept that Highborne that later become Thalassians rejected faith of Elune completely, declaring her a false goddess. Just like Elissande when she addressed Kaldorei in her monologue rant toward each Elven faction.

So Thalassians and Nightborne are unified in that mindset. Especially the Shal’dorei who live in Suramar that is the birthplace of Elune’s faith. With Thalyssra even mocking Tyrande for following “Elune’s Wisdom.”

Now here’s the reason where my problem is.

In the novel called “Stormrage” written by Ritchard A. Knaak. We have a conversation between Velen and Tyrande about faith. During their exchange of words, Velen compares Elune’s faith to the Light. And points out how similar it is.

He even goes as far as to throw a hypothesis that Elune might a Naaru. Of course to Tyrande’s dismay and kind advise to shaft his opinions.

Thalassian Elves. Blood Elves, High Elves, Void Elves and so on and so forth. Are by the grace of their nature quite intelligent people. Very intelligent I would say so.

So naturally when in the face of Holy Light’s faith, the first Thalassians must have had quite the PTSD from Elune’s time. And their progeny the current Citizens of Quel’thalas must be aware of this obvious similarity.

This is my problem. Thalassians with all their intelligence should be immidiately aware that going in Light’s direction is simply repeating the mistake of the past. They rejected Elune in favor to Arcane for a reason.

Going into the same narrow minded path is completely anti-Thalassian.

By this point Liadrin is nothing more than Tyrande 2.0 trying to build a religion in Silvermoon like it was done in Suramar.
(Yes. I know that faith of Elune predates Tyrande which is why I am not saying the started it there.)

My only hope is that regular intelligent Thalassian Elf does understand that Sunwell is their creation. And not some divine gift from benelovent force which will result in natural repulse effect on what Liadrin is trying to shove down their throats telling her to shaft it.

I hope they do understand it that in terms of pure technical standing. Sunwell is nothing more than Liquid Azerite, mixed with Rotting Caracass of a symetrical Alien floating in it.

To summarise it all. I have absolutely no clue where the Light’s faith come from in Quel’thalas and what is it’s current standing. But at least to my knowledge there is not even a single Temple dedicated to it erected in there…yet.

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111

If the Sunwell was destroyed for second time (such as by Queen Azshara who believes it’s a glowing gateway for the void), what would happen to the Blood Knight order?

Would they carry on in their faith-driven ways? It’s unlikely they’d go down the “M’uru” route again as even they see it as barbaric.

I imagine we would see a rise in Warlock activity and this might promote the idea of Illidari Blood Elf Ambassadors appearing, with the Quel’Thalas Warlocks.

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112

I think the chronicles phrase it in the sense of Blood Knights drawing power ‘through’ the Sunwell, not from it.

We see they were capable of calling on the Light before it even had a Light element to it, so they will probably continue doing such, if their faith does not falter.

Liadrin’s road was mostly willing apostasy, not the Light giving up on her.

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It would make sense, that they draw their power through the Sunwell and not directly from it, otherwise it doesn’t explain why Liadrin was able to call on the Light, during her time in Talador and outside Auchindoun, if she was supposed to channel it directly from the Sunwell.

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114

Nah.

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115

That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.

I knew she’d be able to draw upon the powers in a place like Suramar, but I wasn’t too sure on the AU thing.

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Well, it’s not like this solves any problems… I mean, if distance and dimension don’t matter, why was Alleria visiting the Sunwell a big deal? Does the Void shatter the connection to it? That’d make Void Elves out to be quite a different league of blasphemer…

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I think it was just due to not seeing the fount of power for over a thousand years

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So it’s not about the void, it’s about Alleria personally, because chosen one? Eh.

119

Probably.

Sunwell serves as a “gateway” of sorts, for the void, I guess.

120

Blizzard actually recently invented this rule about the Sunwell in order to avoid the explanation for how the Blood Elves can travel and visit alternate realities like AU Draenor or even in different planes of existence like the Shadowlands while being still connected to it. But the funny thing is probably they didn’t realise, that according to this rule, the Sunwell is now so inherently bound to them and so powerful that they technically should have never lost connection to it even when it was destroyed in the Third War.

This is because, according to this rule, there is certainly an AU reality (not necessarily the same one of WoD, but also another different one) where Arthas died, or where the Scourge didn’t happen at all on Azeroth, and therefore THAT AU Sunwell wasn’t corrupted and destroyed; which means, that single Sunwell is still powerful enough to be bound to all Elves of Quel’thalas in every realities and timelines, including our own MU one, therefore technically according to this rule, the Blood Elves should still be High Elves because they never lost connection to that AU Sunwell that survived and they never suffered because their own magical hunger and withdrawal symptoms for this reason.

Also in another piece of lore it is said the Sunwell grants to the Blood Elves “nigh-immortality”. It’s not “perfect-immortality” like the one that the Night Elves had before the Third War, but it’s very close, and therefore now Blood Elves can live almost indefinitely and not with the “3000 years old limit” of Anasterian that was very old at that age when he was killed by Arthas, indeed Lorash Sunbeam was born over 7000 years ago in Tirisfal Glades when the High Elves just reached the Eastern Kingdoms for the first time, and in the War of Thorns he was still young enough to be able to fight…

therefore Blizzard recently empowered the Sunwell quite a lot, mainly in order to avoid explanations on how the Blood Elves can go in different places around the universe and even alternate dimensions and still be connected to it, and live long enough too :stuck_out_tongue:

121

Wasn’t that the same author who had Malfurion state that the night elves had never invaded Quel’Thalas, when they had and he said, “oh yeah, I forgot about those quests.”

That - to me, is basically every night elf fan who tries to write Blood Elves.

Even Madeline Roux - I’m a big fan of the Nightborne, but even I could see that she was fangirling over Thalyssra a little too much, with the whole “Thalyssra ported the whole Horde Army to Zandalar.”
Personally, I wish Blizzard could hire decent Blood Elf fan writers, who’d remain true to the story.

I don’t want blood elves to have an “I win” button, like how some night elf fans want night elves to have the “I win” button at every point. Being “perfect” is so boring and dull. Maybe, Blood Elves need to lose the Sunwell again and a large Blood Crystal is replaced which connects to Quel’Thalas’ leylines. Maybe have some Rommath/Valtrois banter.

EDIT: Maybe, if we could have some racial focus, Blood Elf Mage and Blood Elf Warlock players secure the magic crystals to replace the Sunwell.

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