Merchant-Lord. - Is it a thing in WoW lore?

Argent Dawn
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Greetings!

I just came to the server and World of Warcraft in general a few days ago and whilst I’ve been reading up on some lore I’m trying to write out my Total Roleplay Addon and I have been contemplating the Title Option!

I like the idea of possibly having the title of Lady but I’m not super keen or knowledgeable on the lore regarding nobility to a degree that I’d want my character to a proper Baroness or other nobility.

HOWEVER

And here is where the Title of the thread comes in. - Can people become wealthy enough merchants to gain influential titles such as Lady and Lord? - I know there are the Goblinoid trade princes but are there other races who have similar Trade-lord type of titles?

I’d like to hear people’s thoughts and opinions (And sources naturally of Lore if there is any!)

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I don´t think there are other races which have this on the level of goblins. Overall, nobility isn´t much defined when it comes to WoW, with titles often seeming random and powers/role they have varying per the source. On one hand, you have Lord Bolten Vanyst from Stormwind, who fields his own armies, but then you have multiple examples of Stormwind nobles being effectively just rich landowners. In which case, a rich merchant buying himself a title wouldn´t IMO feel out of place.

I´m assuming you are talking about the character you posted on, which means she´s likely a high elf (going to throw wiki page here for lore if you´re interested in reading it: https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/High_elf ) given the customizations you´re using (it´s a long story, but basically, the void elf playable race is used to RP two distinct races of elves). They´re somewhat of a special category since technically every single person within their race could say they´re a noble (their name in their language is literally “children of noble birth”, or Highborne, as they were the highest caste of night elven society back when there was only one kind of elf), however they still have lords and ladies among them.

Thing with them is, they don´t have access to their country. About 21 years ago in the story, the undead Scourge destroyed their homeland of Quel´Thalas (https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Quel%27Thalas), killing off 90% of their population. Majority of their people afterwards switched their name to blood elves (https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Blood_elf), but about 10% of the remaining population stayed with the Alliance and kept their old name to differentiate themselves from their kin. Unfortunately for them, this meant that they couldn´t really return home.

Why I´m saying all this is that your character could theoretically be a Lady, coming from upper echelons of high elf society before the Scourge invasion, who lost her home (about half of Quel´Thalas is still in ruins, so even when we revisit the place 2 years from now in one of planned WoW expansions and likely reunite the elves again, she could still be out of luck in terms of getting a cool mansion where she could live) and family.

But, I´d also like to add that the Title part in TRP doesn´t have to be filled. Most people leave it blank. So, if you want your character to be a Lady, go for it. But if it´s only because you feel an obligation to fill that space in TRP, you don´t have to, nobody will take an issue with your character not having a fancy title.

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Thank you for the reply firstly - Yes and you’re correct in your assumption, I meant to Roleplay the High Elf or Quel’dorei I think they are also called? - As they were the most similar to other elves of fiction I’m a little more familiar and I thought with my experience of Roleplaying an elf it’d help me breach the gap into a new universe! :slight_smile:

Thank you so much for the run down, and the source links as well! - I’ve already read a fair bit but the way you are making it a little more digestible certainly helps so that’s really appreciated.

So not to go into a too-long post about my character but to maybe give some context to my character idea I’ll attempt to summarise it briefly!

So the reason I chose the High Elf / Ren’dorei combination was that I wanted to Role play a High Elf who was a part of the Outland Expedition with the Old Alliance (If that’s a possibility, I just saw there was an Allerian Stronghold after Alleria?)

But anyway, this High-elf Magi was a part of the Expedition and through that came in contact with the Ethereals - Which as I understood it on the Ren’dorei Scenario also has a connection with the Voids – And basically I really vibe with the Outland lore and the Lore of the Ethereals, done a lot of their quests whilst levelling up to get their perspective and so I thought a High Elf with the potential chance of Roleplaying out the scenario of going Void elf way down the line (If that’s where I wanted to go with it!)

This brings me back to the whole Trade-Lord question because the Ethereals seem to be quite the merchants themselves as well. - So my idea was that ambitious High Elf Mage could use her Arcane Knowledge to become at least rich enough to have the title of Lady.

This also brings me to a second question, is it possible to be a Noble of Outland?
This also begs the question if there’s trade back and forth? But I feel like that’s a whole other question haha.

But that in rough strokes was the idea! - And I know it’s optional, I just like the look of the Title Lady but I wanted to incorporate it in a way that made sense to the Lore.

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The void elves were warped into their current state by void-ethereals and that process was interrupted. They’re in some half-way state. I am unsure whether this is a process worth chasing with a character as i am sure if a void-ethereal got a chance to do this they most certainly wouldn’t stop half way.

There’s not a great deal on Outland to be a lord of, it’s a crumbling wreck filled with refugees and with some pretty horrific wildlife. There’s no real precedent for nobility having land there considering it was the former homeworld of orcs (and draenei).

Your character can be a lady, formerly being from a functioning house that doesn’t exist in any state any more like. They don’t need land. They can be self proclaimed and just pass themselves off as a higher status like Syelia said.

But i think there’s a disconnect, elven nobles didn’t operate like human ones. I.e land, serfs and so on. There’s not a great deal to go on them either, aside from the secretive Convocation of Silvermoon; a ruling council that operated above the Sunstriders, built up of seven figures regarded as “great” lords. The only large examples we have is Grand Magister Belo’vir and Dar’Khan Drathir (off the top of my head.) The Convocation may or may not be functioning again, it was alluded to in Cataclysm.

Edit; corrected some grammar, autocorrect did me dirty.

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It´s possible to be a high elf mage that went to Draenor (Outland´s original name), however since she´s a mage, I´d go with Kirin Tor being the faction they went with instead of elves that founded Allerian Stronghold, as those seem to be overwhelmingly of the ranger sort. Kirin Tor (name of the mages that own Dalaran) created a village in Farahlon (now known as Netherstorm) which was later destroyed by blood elves.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Kirin%27Var_Village
All your character would have to do to survive is simply be elsewhere during its destruction.

I think we´ll get more lore on void elves 2 years from now when Midnight expansion releases (we´re going back to Quel´Thalas for that one), however as of now, becoming new void elf might be borderline impossible since void elves aren´t just elves corrupted by Void, they´re frozen in a halfway state of transformation into something (I don´t believe it´s ever stated what they´d become if the transformation was allowed to continue).
But, who knows, once Midnight releases, we might find out more elves got transformed.

I´ll second Aerilen´s comment, there´s just no nobility in the sense you´re thinking on Outland, and even among high elves.
There´s also the problem of high elven society being a bit of an oxymoron as they´re not a unified race in the same sense blood elves are. There is no authority to even distribute noble titles even if this distribution was theoretically a thing in lore, so any noble title your character might have gained in the last decades would be coming from humans.

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Thank you for the Reply

That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that at all. Certainly, something worthwhile to think about should I ever dare to attempt such a shift.

And I suppose that’s equally true but I have to imagine there is still something worthwhile to get, granted I don’t know whether there’s been an update of lore that’s come out regarding the Mana Forges in Netherstorm for example and whether they are still operational but even if at a much smaller scale I imagine what drew Kael’Thas there is still a relevant source of something?

I think another thing that struck me as an interesting part of my idea was that it’d be a character who is exiled from their home due to the cataclysmic past event of the Scourge invasion, the schism of ideologies between High Elves and Sin’dorei, kind of unable to leave this expedition from an alien world just yet - and even if she were to return, return to what? Instead, striking out with a new ambition to learn the arcane secrets to the Ethereum, become a merchant-lord-esque level of prestige and then return to the overworld as it were, to aid her people maybe or something akin with a little more resources than she started with! - But a lot to consider for sure.

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They’re probably defunct and inhabited by generic ne’er do-wells if Blizzard ever bother to update Outland.

Part of the premise of the Blood Elves going to Outland was for magic. The destruction of the Sunwell revealed the magical addiction that had been sleeping quietly in the elves, Outland is rife with magic. It can simply be succed from the very air by elves. Kael’thas’s expedition jumped on this and started the entire “Promised Land” propaganda angle (which was a snake oil trick). The mana forges simply siphoned this magic on such mass scale like an Industrial Arcane Sanctum on Steroids that they accelerated the destruction of Netherstorm.

But by the closure of TBC the Sunwell was renewed. And Kael’thas’s expedition were either dead or returned to Silvermoon’s fold (such as the Sunfury or the Scryers).

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Ooh I had completely missed that. - Thank you so much, might very well be the better option to go in which case!

Or given that the Ethereals, at least the Consortium at least as far as I’ve done the quests there, having had former alliances might of swooped in and done their bit with it! but I have to imagine wherever there a resources there’s someone to exploit them and someone to sell them to.

Thank you both though, for the insightful comments and the digestible lore bits! Really has been helpful! Certainly given me a lot to think about :smiley:

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I would say yes, absolutely.

I will use ‘noble’ as an example, but this goes for any ‘‘title’’ concepts!

However, when out in the wild and roleplaying, remember that you only get so much influence and respect as other people are willing to give you.

If you have a solid concept and work on it to make connections, over time that will come. I would very much advice you, to not go out there with a title and except people to instantly know your house name, your character, and bend backwards over because you claim to be some sort of noble.

When in reality, no one knows. and most won’t care

Irl: I can go and claim to be related to the king of England, and so what?

That is peak, cringe noble characters and sadly all too common.

That is, a poor attitude and way to play out any character mind you.

But certainly, you can play to know your trade, and say you are wealthy, and make up something about say… manage X trade route or dealing with X merchandise for years.

Be solid enough for it to make sense but wage enough to gloss over things that would not make sense when looked at in detail

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Another thing worth considering is that according to the Sylvanas novel, at the height of their power the Farstriders were considered “another sort of nobility” in their own right, though they’ve obviously fallen out since then. While not all Farstriders are (were? I imagine Blood Knights fulfill that role now since they largely replaced the Farstriders after the Fall) true artistocracy, their social class is/was considered prestigious enough to be one for all intents and purposes, enjoying a lot of societal privileges prior to the Fall.

The Windrunners rose to de facto nobility by virtue of their prestige as Farstriders. I don’t see why others couldn’t through prestige into something resembling nobility, such as successful merchant families.

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I don’t necessarily agree with this sentiment. The old Warcraft 3 games specify that there exists a peasant class in Quel’Thalas, which the very name itself seems to imply that there is a form of landed nobility. Perhaps not quite serfdom as we imagine in more human styled kingdoms, but certainly landownership is a thing amongst Elves; and peasants and tenant farmers must certainly exist. And I have yet to see any new lore outright debunk this.

I would personally remain cautious about applying any sort of legal status to this statement when it could have been a verbose way of saying the Farstriders were considered a social class of their own, with all the status it brought upon. In some societies - and I imagine this too for Elves - nobility is as much a set of social expectations as they are about wielding actual power.

But onto the question of the OP: we know Sunsail Anchorage exists, we know trade exists in the High Home. I even seem to vaguely recall that trade between Quel’Thalas and Lordaeron did exist at some point, though I admittedly cannot recall the source so take that with a grain of salt. With all of that said, it is not impossible that some amassed great wealth through mercantile efforts and were, by all means, as powerful as actual nobility, perhaps even given noble titles for their efforts to the kingdom.

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Very true, hence I tried to word it as them enjoying social privileges and status. But they’re specifically not true aristocracy, unless otherwise promoted like the Windrunner ancestors example. Farstriders/Blood Knights are a high and respected social class, but they’re not true nobles.

The Warcraft 3: Reforged game overhauled the elf peasant units with new custom models dedicated to different types of labour. An interesting note is that even the peasants carried themselves with dignity and pride in their animations and character design, and clothed themselves regally - though still in a more muted fashion than the Sorcerer unit and other “higher” classes. I’d like to imagine that even the peasantry among elves takes pride in their work, dedicating their heart and soul into their craft.

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If everyone is a noble, no one is. If you have a city where everyone is a noble, noble just becomes another word for citizen. There will still social classes, though. What does it matter if your ancestor was part of the upper echelons ten thousand years ago, if your family is now relegated to scrubbing floors? You may still be proud of your work, like Telaryn says, but you’re hardly among the upper social classes.

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https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/877756.jpg

Yeppers, they seem more styled as actually accomplished and educated architects/engineers, rather than the typical human peasants, and their voice lines reflect as much.

https://i.gyazo.com/f1e2510ea55216be64c7767930b4ee08.png

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They have no time for frivolities, their lives lack whimsy :pensive:

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This is true, and why I generally frown a bit on the whole concept of nobles.
At least if that’s all your character got going for it.

Because ‘‘everyone’’ want to be one, and the majority of of people seem to believe that it makes them entitled to respect and influence and can boss people around.

There is stories '‘all over the place’ from real life of rich families and such, but because one generation or one individual messed up either by spending or making enemies, the later generations are more or less peasants.

Now, that’s not everyone, I have met some good eggs!

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Thank you for the Reply and the solid advice, I’ll certainly keep it in mind!

Though I am curious, I’ve not yet gone into a In Character Session yet as I want to make my Total Roleplay addon first to a point where I’m satisfied but I hope it’s not too far out of place in the World of Warcraft and in the Roleplay Scene as a whole to RP arrogant characters and or creatures with superiority complexes? - Obviously with a mind not to be too heavy-handed where it becomes a detriment

And thank Faelenn and Talaryn both for the insightful snippets of lore and replies of course!

Is the novel a worthwhile read / listen to, to get further lore on Blood elves perhaps my proxy, High Elves would you say? :slight_smile:

I did not know that, I have not been all over the place called Quel’Thalas zones just yet though I plan to! - Do you know if any sources tell about the High Homes fleet / Naval power, whether it’s mercantile or otherwise? Past or present, any insight helps! Thanks :slight_smile:

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Very much so! Most of the book is told through flashbacks into Sylvanas’s life, with a big part of it revolving around pre-Scourge era and the elf society of the time.

Fun fact, high/blood elves still celebrate an Amani Genocide Day on the anniversary of the final battle of the Troll Wars called The Remembrance. It’s one of the bigger calendar events of the year for elves!

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As it should be :relieved:

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Is there an official date within the novel or otherwise that tells you when this celebration day is? Or perhaps more vaguely what month of the year it is?