How to RP a High Elf

Lore Role-playing
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Hello all!

There are plenty of topics regarding the High Elves for those of us who are elven aficionados. I apologize if what I am presenting has been covered before, but who has the time to read EVERY post!

Given the introduction of allied races the high elves have been turned into a topic of discussion I’ve seen pop up more than usual. What follows is my own personal experience at RPing a high elf for the past several expansions and I am actually quite content with this. I hope it helps anyone else interested in doing the same.

Firstly, I will assume we all know the origin story of the high elves and what makes them different from blood elves. According to Blizzard the ONLY physical difference between them is eye color. This is probably the reason they chose to go with void elves instead; so they weren’t giving the Alliance just a very slightly different version of a Horde race. Blizzard has gone as far as to say that blood elves are high elves and high elves are blood elves. While many of us disagree, that is what they said which leads me to believe they have no intention of adding them as a separate allied race.

However, that didn’t stop me! With a little imagination and a bit of backstory I’ve made what I consider the absolute closest thing to an official high elf that is currently possible.

Having established that eye color is the main detail that distinguishes them my solution was to take advantage of the Death Knight’s default glowing-blue eyes. What came next was doing everything possible to make the DK look as Paladin-like as possible. Pair that with a pale skin tone, platinum-blonde hair, blue/teal details, and turning off the DK voice and physically he’s a perfect representation of a high elf!

Now comes the trickier part: backstory. First of all high elves rejected the new customs of their homeland, and were thus banished for it. They are therefore refugees in the Alliance. However, that seems to have changed a little bit. When you do the Quel’Delar quest line you visit the Sunwell which is also being visited by blood elf and high elf pilgrims alike. High elven exile seems to have lessened since Burning Crusade. Therefore it is possible to create a backstory that allows you to RP a high elf that has returned to Quel’Thalas but is still a high elf. However, in my personal opinion this has now been turned on its head. With BFA we now have blood elves with yellow eyes who represent those elves who now feed off the new Light powers of the Sunwell. Therefore it is safe to assume that any high elves interacting with the Sunwell will loose their blue eyes in favor of the yellow eyes we now have available to us. If you want to RP this way that’s fine, but as I am a little bit a perfectionist at heart, I still want my high elf to have the blue eyes they were known for.

So what other alternative sources can you use to RP your high elf blue eyes? Well, there is another source of power the elves can depend on. It is stable and arcane related which works for our purposes just great: the Arcan’dor tree now sustaining the Nightborne. Considering we liberated Suramar, grinded reputation with them, and essentially saved their entire race, I assume they would be ok in sharing some of the tree’s fruit with us. Therefore there you have it, a stable arcane source of magic that justifies your blue eyes. :slight_smile:

Now moving on to the DK part. Not everyone is a fan of the dark and death theme that DKs are all about. I’m definitely not. Honestly the dark and death theme doesn’t really fit with a high elf either. So you do have to come up with some backstory as to how your high elf ended up with the powers of a DK. I’ll share with you my own little backstory and maybe you can use it to come up with your own. Essentially my backstory is that my character was a warrior of the Silver Covenant fighting against Arthas on Icecrown. During the final assault on the frozen throne my character was killed and risen on the spot by Arthas as a DK. Luckily only moments later Arthas was defeated by the champions, and when Frostmourne was shattered (and all the souls it had inside it were released) my soul was able to make it back into my body as it was still fresh and present on site. Therefore in my backstory I am a living and breathing high elf warrior who due to bizarre circumstance was able to acquire the powers of a frost death knight.

Lastly let me explain why the frost specialization works really well. First of all from an aesthetic point of view all frost powers have blue/teal effects. This works great with the overall color scheme of the character. Secondly Frost specialization has very few death-like abilities which allows you to stay clear (for the most part) of the typical DK themes. Third and finally it allows you to use two weapons which in my case gave me the opportunity to equip both Quel’Delar and Quel’Serrar for added elvish goodness!

So that’s my experience at RPing a high elf. Like I said once I came up with a backstory that works for me it has honestly not been an issue at all playing this character and really feeling like I’m playing a High Elf! Especially when you quest in places like Azuna it’s almost perfect. Hope this helps anyone else who wants to play as a high elf and is disappointed Blizzard gave us void elves instead.

Cheers!

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I must admit, when I read the title of this post, I felt a slight unease. “RPing as a high elf? A high elf death knight??”

But as I read the entire post, I liked it :slightly_smiling_face:

I am no lore expert on neither high elves nor the process of becoming (“kind of” :wink: ) a death knight, but your story is unique (first I’ve heard of it, anyway), and makes as much sense to me as any other WoW story :hugs:

(To be honest, it actually makes more sense than some official (or virtually non-existent) WoW lore… :smirk: No offense, Blizzard, don’t hurt me!)

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Pretty much that, yes, and yet also not always. You can be a Blood Elf who never visited Quel’thalas during the period the Fel Crystals were holding the buildings up. In fact there -is- a Blood Elf NPC with blue eyes, likewise, Blizz confirmed that lorewise, all the High Elves who went to Outlands with the Allerian expedition have fel-green eyes., So there are Alliance loyal High Elves with fel-green eyes. It’s even confirmed in game by one of the Quest Givers dialogue. So really, there is less physical difference than even eye colour, but I can understand why they went with the blue/green split in most cases.

That’s half right. They are all the same species, and all Blood Elves are High Elves, that is true, but not all High Elves are Blood Elves. The actual Species is High Elves, just that 90% of them -call- themselves Blood Elves. Its a name and a mindset, nothing more.
Actually, I tell a lie, there is a difference, thinking about it. All High Elves can drain mana from items, but only Blood Elves learned how to Mana tap living creatures. But then, a High Elf could learn to do that, and still call themselves a High Elf, so its a tricky one.

There is one major problem I can see with using a Death Knight as the model, and that is that sadly you can’t even equip a bow, so gone are any ideas of playing High Elven Rangers for example.

Interestingly you mention the Exile lessening since TBC, it certainly has, if you read the Lor’themar Theron leader short story “The Shadow of the Sun” he actually -repeals- the Exile entirely! It is set -just- prior to WotLK, so after the Sunwell is up and running again and the Fel crystals are gone. He actually goes to Quel’lithien Lodge in person and tells the High Elves their Exile is over and they can come home. So the High Elves are not technically in a state of Exile anymore. I won’t give spoilers as to what happens in the rest of the story,but LTT definitely repeals the Exile.

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You can use polearm … the one from the Lich King … would fit the ranger theme :slight_smile:

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My one fairly big problem, is that as far as I understand, most high elves are either Alliance or Kirin Tor (Dalaran) aligned. So using a blood elven death knight model feels kinda off for me.

I’d more prefer someone RPing a high elf with a void elf model, to be honest, and I know about the whole “not a void elf IC” meme and it being called bad RP, but honestly, is a Horde related high elf really that much better?

That’s just calling your normal blood elf a high elf because you want to sound cool and unique.

Oh, actually, make that two big problems. The live death knight part is just a big, big, big no-no in my opinion. It just screams special snowflake from the top of its lungs.
I just can’t see that being done well, in fact I can’t see it done in an even remotely acceptable level. It’s about the same level of a human demon hunter, or RPing Arthas’ long lost son.

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