Light, Void and all the rest? - lore questions

Lore Story
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Hello there! ( cough cough General, Kenobi )

I am an active Roleplayer and recently decided to develop into the voidelf territory. But as I was reading through all the ‘extensive’ information available on the void, I came up with a subtle problem.

It is known, that a Void user touching a Light user will cause all involved parties some physical pain. It was also said, that if someone is using the Void, they are unable to harness the power of the Light. But on the other hand, Kul’Tiran Druids are harnessing the power of Life and Death at the same time.

From what I understand, there are seven major powersources for magic users in Warcraft. Light and Void, Life and Death, and finally Arcane and Fel. There are also the Elements of course. So since Light and Void cannot be used at the same time by one person, why can the Life and Death? Or in the example of Warlocks, the Arcane and Fel?

Is it because Light and Void are like primary powers and the rest is stemming from those two? I am for now utterly puzzled as to how to understand this and am starving for an explanation. Could anyone offer some personal insight, how to understand the situation with light and void, that does not apply to the other powers?

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Yeah, Light and Void are the primary powers. From the collision of both, we got the Twisting Nether which resulted in other forms of magic as well (Arcane and Fel). Nature and Death are the result of Light and Void, respectively, as well.

The problem is, is that Blizzard has been changing or retconning the powers all the time, the most recent ones from Legion/7.3, so it is hard to pinpoint what information is correct, and what is incorrect.

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No. A light infused abomination touching a void infused abomination will cause each other pain. Normal usage of the powers have no such consequences - discipline priests say hello.
Different magics may interfere with each other - some demon hunters find it difficult to use arcane magic, but Illidan have no issues with that - experience triumphs in this case. Other magic users have learned more than one school of magic as well - Cho’Gal and Xavius both had mastery over arcane, fel and (some subset) of void magic.

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I’m still sad we can’t be Shadowforged… :octopus: :eye: :octopus:

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The graph J have been using so far:
https:// drive. google. com/file/d/1-9_oF1H8F2rGEsIoqH1AD6Bqk-qzlspp/view?usp=drivesdk

I have read somewhere, that the Illidari tattoos are made with Arcane magic to help control the del within them. So the two are not exclusive with each other.

I am also somewhat reluctant to use in-game classes as examples of lore applications. But I am a lore noob, so correct me if I am wrong. I don’t know a single character who would wield both light and shadow. There are undead who use light, but it does not conflict with death magic. There are mages that use arcane and fel, conflicting powers though.

It is all extremely confusing to me. Maybe we can work out some solution and answer together.

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Moira Thaurissan, Archbishop Benedictus.

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But that would be not the case with the Void Elves using the Light or Lightforged dwelling into Shadow arts.

These two characters are priests and as Human religion goes Priests accept both Light and Shadow.

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The Apexis civilization used both + Arcane as a bonus…?

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To be honest, when these things come up, it is up to you to figure out a way this may be possible.

What tends to happen sometimes is blizzard introduces new lore, so originally it was thought htat light and void users couldn’t touch, but advancements, new discoveries, new individuals that achieved the previously impossible came about and made it possible.

You don’t alwyas have to know how, but usually you can come up with some sort of explanation that fits the criteria and lore information without validating it.

ofc you don’t know for certain if this is the ofifcial position or not, but hten most of the time you don’t need to know, different groups can have different udnerstandings of how things work, that they work is proof enough.

These aren’t necessarily ret-cons… . ofte n enough previous information is based on one in-game character or races’ knowledge or understanding, which isn’t always fully accurate or knows everything. Take the maps for example, ancient maps have many mistakes in it, in warcraft Bran charted the thigns and places he saw, these form the maps for the humans and orcs of the horde and alliance. These would not be the maps say the high elves have or the night elves or the dragons, but in time, new info will come, they’d meet other types of humans, dwarves, trolls that update that previous info.

It’s like the night elves and arcane magic, the lore never said they hated it, but punishing it by death made players think so. The lore showed the night elves knew arcane magic usage draws demons from the twisting nether to Azeroth and they are able to enter through the tears the usage makes.

For a while many players thought becuase of htis arcane was wrong or evil, and the night elves hated it because it was evil, but chronciles and later lore showed this was not the case, it was never evil, just volatile, night elves didn’t hate it, just had to stop using it because they knew it drew demons - the lore books actually show this, however what later lore shows, is that the night elves didn’t know you coud use arcane magic without a source like the well or ley lines, because they didn’t realise the imploded well had scattered a lot of its energy into the atmosphere of the planet - and it makes sense that a society that stopped using arcane magic, woudln’t discover that it was let loose into the world in the very air.

when the high elves break away, they discover this, but also when we discover other ngiht elf communities survived apart form the ones we meet in WC3, and they denver stopped using hte arcae, we realise they must have known.

The night elvews were also wrong that you couldn’t hide or mask the effects. We don’t know this straightaway when WC3 is released, so some of us conclude arcane magic is bad, and night elves don’t use it becasue bad is also evil and they hate it - but all the lore shows is htat they didn’t use it because they didn’t want demons through - not that they hate it, we projected bad in the sense that it is not good to use somethign that will bring an invasion to = bad as in evil.

The revelation and explanation comes later, when they show us that the high elves built ways to hide their arcane usage fromt he twisting nether, and prevent breaches from the twisting nether into our world due to their arcane magic. Turns out the humans however did not heed their teachers’ warnings, cos is is their meddlign outside supervision that allows the first demons to start coming through again.

Long and short, finally when chronicles hits, it is definitevely stated that arcane is order of magic, now this is hinted at and mentioned obscurely with the titans in other texts, texts most people don’t read or are ware of, but most have seen the conversations in Wc3, and the short wowpedia explanations, and rely on those far too heavily until someone updates the original narrative with the corrected information. Sadly there sources is greatly olutdated articlaes and they fail to factor in new lore.

Take your void question. Did you read the short book released on Alleria? How though talented with the void, she is still a being of light, like the Locus Walker and has access to the light, like every being, but like most classes - rogue/warrior/mage/hunter/DH etc - having access doesn’t mean they use it or master it like a priest or paladin does.

What does this tell you about the void?

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Well as I said, I have limited knowledge of the lore. I am a veteran SW:TOR roleplayer, where the lore was quite clear and it was extremely important to keep the RP within lore. That is why, I am attempting to gather as much information as I can, before jumping in with my character ideas IC.

What I know of the Void and Light is, that when Alleria touched her Lightforged guy (forgot the name) both experienced pain. The Sunwell also didn’t like her that much.

As for characters wielding both Light and Void, Benedictus is said to have retained his ability to wield the Light “through sheer willpower”, so I would assume it was closer to the way bloodelves forced light into servitude. But it does open the way for characters capable of wielding both. Then again the two are so drastically different in their nature.

Light is the “this path is the only true one” while Void is “all those paths are true and possible”. I don’t trully see how a character could use both, without edging on the powerplay.

It is a lot of useful info you guys shared. Made me think a lot about what we actually know about the void and the way the different powers react to each other. If one can use both, it opens up the question, why did Alleria feel pain when touching a lightforged? Is she a voidforged? As she is not a normal void elf really.

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That’s good, I hope you don’t think I was criticising you or anything negative, was trying to help.

Trying a new approach to communicating on here with more targeted responses and asking questions at each stage rather than write an essay response.

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Criticising is good :stuck_out_tongue: If it is constructive, which yours was.

The more I read about the whole magic system of Warcraft, the more I am getting the idea, that at the begining, there was Light as the good magic and dark magics as the bad. Then it started to be split into void, fel, some arcane poped up in the process… And its a one big mess.

Am now confident, that light and void can be used together. Although the means for such might be different from the normal way Paladins and Holy Priests reach out to the Light. I would assume it would be more akin to forcefully chanelling the light, the way bloodelves used to.

That leaves me with the question, why did Alleria and Turalyon react the way they did.

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Unclear…is the light that they use an entity in itself like Star Wars’ metaclorides (however they are spelt) or is it a force like any other who the wielder determines its use?
I suspect the latter, as all sentient beings in the Great Dark Beyond I.e. the universe are light at their core according to chronicles, but capable of utilising both the light and its counterpart. The light seems to require a degree of inner peace , faith and sincerity motivated, I.e. positive and benevolent emotions and characteristics, hence its association with good. Which makes the opposite, shadow being accessible by the converse, hence its capability to drive people insane as staying in that mode long enough twists you - except the locus Walker, and now Alleria and the void elves have mastered how to prevent that fate while often tapping into this side.

Night elves also did this, the night warrior ritual was used by the priests when the kaldorei advanced and defeated their enemies allowing them to dominate their era, but it was a state used only in desperate times for great tasks, and was near impossible to achieve without dying, which is why it hadn’t been attempted till Tyrande goes through it successfully and leads others through.

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Light and Shadow CAN be used my the same person. This is literally what discipline priests do. It’s specifically beings who are infused with one of the powers can’t use the other. Makes sense right? Normal people channel those powers, but for Void Elves and LF Draenei, Void and Light are literally part of their biology.

Life and Decay can ALSO be used together. This is what you know as Blood Magic. :wink:
Confirmed as per a Blizzard employee via Twitter, so I’m not headcanoning. HOWEVER I’m not sure if this is accurate anymore. Drust magic seems to be a combination of Life and Decay as well, and that is quite different. For me it always made more sense that Blood Magic was a combination of Life and Shadow/Void.

As for Arcane or Fel - these represent Order and Disorder. It makes sense that it’s kind of difficult to use them together, right? They are literally polar opposites. You can even look at it from a personal perspective. No mage would start using fel magic, because not only does it contradict the principles of control and focus, once you get used to fel magic, the preciseness of arcane magic will start to feel like a drag and you’ll have a hard time going back. Warlocks wouldn’t use arcane magic because they don’t care for control, they don’t want to bother with all the science, they just want to unleash destruction.

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Warlocks who are not control freaks tend to not survive for long.

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That actually makes a lot of sense… I have no idea why it didn’t occur to me earlier. I blame my limited lore knowledge.

So technically… Both Voidelves and Lightforged can interact with everyone but eachother. That clears up a lot of stuff. Also ruins my idea of booping a friendly paladin to annoy him.

Thank you all for the help! It really allowed me to get a better grasp at how the forces of magic work in WoW.

EDIT:
I gave it some more thought and came to the realization, we don’t really see a void elf touching a lightforged. We only see Alleria touching a lightforged. And she is not really a void elf herself. She is a special snowflake cookie.

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You can still do it if you are masochistic enough.

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