So, I’m creating an alt that would be a son of a Highborne - an Alliance character. What I’m struggling with is, would it make more sense to create a Night Elf or a Void Elf? The reason I’m torn between these two is because, if I understood the lore correctly (from scrolling around the forum), High Elves are basically the descendants of the Highborne. And I have two scenarios in mind.
So, it could make sense to create a Void Elf that was previously a High Elf that happened to follow Umbric? If High Elves are the descendants of the Highborne, that is.
Another option that I was thinking of is that just before the Highborne were banished from the Night Elven culture, the parents (highborne) of my night elf would’ve left me in the care of other Night Elves as they “fled the scene”.
Which one would make more sense lorewise, or could both of these scenarios be possible?
Not all highborne banished, they were forced to stop using magic and some of them agreed while some of them refused to comply and left for the eastern kingdoms then gone and become highelves.
So you can be a night elf if you wish since there are still night elf highborne in the lore you can choose either without any issue.
Both are equally valid, you’d just have a different background for them.
Highborne night elves still existed, they were just banished from normal night elf society after they broke the law forbidding use of their magic, and some of them chilled out in Feralas for thousands of years. Others journeyed across the ocean and settled what eventually became Quel’Thalas. Their skin became pale and they were shorter because of their forsaking of the Night and the Sunwell.
Highborne is a social status rather than a race, all Highborne were Kaldorei, and Kaldorei only.
So, during the war of the ancients some of the Highborne broke free from the Legion’s influence and realized that they had make a mistake in serving the demons, Dath’Remar Sunstrider was one of this rebelious Highborne, they planned on turning their backs to the Legion and join the Kaldorei resistance, they helped the Priestess Tyrande escaping Zin-Azshari and they joined with the Resistance.
Malfurion, Tyrande, Illidan and the rest of the Kaldorei Resistance were able to close the well of eternity resulting in the Sundering, the Kaldorei resistance and the rebelious Highborne led by Dath’Remar took refuge in Hyjal, after the war they were forgiven for their recklessness and became a part of the new Kaldorei society.
3.700 years after the Sundering the relations between the Highborne and the rest of the night elves were strained.
After the Sundering, the use of arcane magic was now a crime punishable by death.
Regardless, Dath’Remar and the rest of the Highborne continued practicing their sorcery, and they soon grew bold in defying the new laws against arcane magic. They would not bow to the hysterical fears of the lower-caste majority. The Highborne felt they had taken all the necessary precautions by resolving to be more cautious than their predecessors. After all, the Highborne had no desire to bring about another Sundering. Rather than execute the Highborne, the rest of the night elves sentenced them to exile after they had unleashed a terrible magical storm over Ashenvale. The Highborne were thoroughly exasperated by what they saw as a foolish overreaction against sorcery. They were therefore not unhappy at the prospect of exile; on the contrary, they looked forward to it.
So the Night elven Highborne led by Dath’Remar set sail to the Eastern Kingdoms and founded the Kingdom of Quel’thalas and became known as “High elves” or “Quel’dorei”.
Both scenarios are possible, yes, you can create whatever story you want for your character
Don’t forget that your Night elf character can be one of the Shen’dralar as well.
Umbric’s followers were all blood elves. High elves wanting to learn the void came later. We see High elf Wayfarers arriving in Telogrus, saluting at Alleria, and going to Locus Walker. This is all in the starting zone.
thats fine. a easier option would simply be that your Highborne is from Dire maul, as they re-joined Night elf society in cataclysm. Thats why night elves got the mage class, as before cataclysm they didnt have it playable.
Dire Maul had Highborne people there but over time it fell to ruins and some of the survivors fled to the Night elves seeking shelter.
I don’t think the Shen’dralar were part of the Kaldorei society, they just kept to themselves in Eldre’Thalas while the whole exile thing was happening.
Well first of all, you need to understand the true meaning of the Highborne. The Highborne or the Quel’dorei in ancient the Darnassian, means a child of a noble birth.
The high ranked aristocrats, started considering themselves higher than the commoners, therefore the name Highborne/Quel’dorei started to pop up, and later they became the most trusted people of Queen Azshara.
The Highborne were not banished from the Kaldorei Resistance, they were not welcomed as many of them were loyal to Queen Azshara, and Malfurion has banned the usage of the Arcane in the resistance. As for the Quel’dorei the source of the knowledge was the Arcane, they protested by causing an arcane storm, which made them exiles. As known in the elven evolution, the elves evolve depending on their source of magic, for instance, Quel’dorei who moved to South evolved due to Sunwell, and became the High elves, and later renamed themselves to the blood elves to honour their fallen ones in the invasion of the scourge.
A handful of the Quel’dorei survivors in the Eldre’thalas, who still kept the ancient knowledge of the Arcane, which Tyrande has accepted back with a deal that these survivors will teach the young Nightelves the path of the arcane. Learning arcane was common even during the Kaldorei Empire, so it is being continued in the Kal’dorei Resistance now.
This however, does not mean the playable Night elf mage is a Highborne, they are the students of the surviving Highborne, the ones who chose the path of the arcane, and not the druidism or traditional Kaldorei Resistance ways.
If you would like to have a real Highborne/Quel’dorei experience, you need to play as a Nightborne, the Nightborne are the image of the Quel’dorei of the Kal’dorei Empire, that are trapped in time. The rules, and the culture is identical to what it was 10,000 years ago. Even their attitude toward other races, they consider themselves higher than any race of Azeroth, which is seen by the way they call non Nightborne as lowborn scums, and etc. The Nighborne are the image of the Highborne.
If you prefer to stay Alliance, and still RP as a Highborne, then you can be any class, do not think that you are entitled to play mage to be a Highborne. It is a myth that if you are a mage it means you are a Highborne, just back in Kaldorei Empire, the lowborn commoners thought arcane is so hard to master that only Highborne can learn its path, however, no. Illidan was great mage of Moon Guard, and Moon Guard itself was an army of arcanists formed by the lowbornes who could wield the arcane the same way as the Quel’dorei, but none of them were Highborne.
Wrong, it is a common stereotype given by the commoners of the Empire, they thought the Quel’dorei were the only worthy ones to wield the arcane, as they are the sons and the daughters of the noble birth.
Illidan, and whole Moon Guard were mages, none of them were nor are the Highborne.
What remains of their Highborness, is their title, nothing else. They have even lost that title by bowing to the lowborne, as they are the ones who needs to be elite, not the commoner ones.
Thanks for the insight. I do not intend to create a Highborne, but a descendant of one. One whose parents are Highborne - or were, they left the society and left you behind. I think I have a good story in mind for that, but there are some details that I need to check first. Would it be possible for one to secretly learn arcane magic while it was banned from the night elven society?
Understood, I apologize, I thought you wanted to RP as one.
It is highly possible, as if you will look at the Nightborne, thus they been isolated 10,000 years, some of the Nightborne remained faithful to Elune. So I do not see any reason why one whose parents were the Highborne arcanists would not be eager to know more of it, and the Eldre’thalassian Highborne joining the Kaldorei Resistance to improve the knowledge of arcane.
And yet again, the arcane was not banned, as Night elves live with the arcane, aka through wells of eternity, but it was rather limited, which most of the arcanists were against off.
The Highborne in general seek to have more knowledge, and they abuse the Arcane magic with it, it been mentioned in lore many times, there were even the keepers, whose goal were to balance the arcane and the nature.
Call it however you wish to call it, however, the Kaldorei Queldorei would eventually turn themselves to what is now known as the Nightborne if not the sundering of the Azeroth.
It was just matter of time, and the Nightborne being trapped in the arcane shield, gave them time to study arcane 24/7 without needing to care for anything.
Which gradually made them something far greater than what we knew as the Highborne during the Kal’dorei Empire.
My beloved Queen Elisande would disagree with it. Your Shen’dralar have ruined everything what it means to be a Highborne. The Highborne are aristocratic, and noble elves, not the ones who hide in the shadows of the trees.
Moon wells are created from the waters of the Well of Eternity, so what is the issue?
Uhm, the Shen’dralar didn’t live in trees, they defended their city against the demons in the war of the ancients with the help of Goldrinn, then they cast a shield around Eldre’thalas and lived isolated from the rest of Kaldorei society.
Actually, quite similar to your histoty, thoug they didn’t betray us like cowards, like you did.
You now fight alongside Trolls, I think you are the ones who ruined everything that meant to be “Highborne”.
During the Empire, it was called Kal’dorei Empire, later which became Kaldorei Resistance.
When the Great Sundering later decimated the world, Eldre’Thalas narrowly escaped destruction. Only the efforts of Tortheldrin and his followers spared the city. Together, they wove a great spell to shield Eldre’Thalas from the destructive forces of the Sundering. Although they had saved their city, then Shen’dralar soon discovered that the Well of Eternity had been consumed in the Sundering. Without the fount of power to draw on, Tortheldrin and his followers saw their immortality greatly diminished. The Shen’dralar soon fell into a deep lethargy and languished in their isolated sanctuary.
Tortheldrin eventually formulated a plan to revitalize the Shen’dralar. He forged pylons in the halls of the west wing of Eldre’Thalas, constructing a prison to house a new source of power behind a grand force field: a demonnamed Immol’thar. To the shock of the other Shen’dralar, Tortheldrin had covertly summoned and bound the terrifying creature to siphon the demon’s power and give it to his followers. Any objections were quickly settled once the other Shen’dralar experienced the demon’s energy for themselves. Though dark and volatile, Immol’thar’s power was invigorating and addictive, more so than the Well of Eternity had been. The siphoned energies would sustain the Highborne’s magic, allowing those within the walls of Eldre’Thalas to feed their endless and growing magical pangs. Had the demon broken free of its bonds, it would have destroyed what little was left of Eldre’Thalas.
This happened around the time the Highborne led by Dath’Remar Sunstrider were exiled, 7,300 BDP.
Very “Highborne move” is not it?
This is why the Nightborne calls your kin the lowborne scums, because you do not even know the history of your kin, you are brainwashed by the propagandas given by Tyrande and Malfurion.
The Suramar Highborne were ordered to cleanse Temple of Elune, and later to protect the Eye of Ammanthul, which was a key artifact to open the portal to summon Sargeras to the Azeroth. The wild god Ashamane have sacrificed herself to give the Highborne of the Suramar enough time to conjure the arcane shield, if the Nightborne were to hide cowardly, why would she sacrifice herself?
Simple minds like your kin were never meant to know more. So take it as a teaching from your better ones, commoner.
How would the wardens find out? And if it wasn’t banned, was the studying of arcane magic banned? Or why else would the wardens be looking for someone studying arcane magic