Obviously with a mind not to be too heavy-handed where it becomes a detriment
I’m glad to hear you will keep this is mind, this is what, at least in my opinion what differ good RP and poor RP.
I say it’s also very much about experience.
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The Warcraft setting isn’t especially deep when it comes to its world-building, so most races and nations don’t have any depth concerning their class structure.
I don’t think there’s any depth regarding what makes a lord or a lady or any sort of noble house in high elven (or blood elven) society, but elves strike me as one of the less materialistic races, less likely to reward the wealthy commoner with nobility, even if those born into nobility have greater access to wealth by dint of their birth. That’s just personal opinion though.
The various human kingdoms seem like that they might be more open to the prospect, but they all still have hereditary land-owning noble houses, with no stories about merchant lords who bought their way into that position despite common birth. I imagine that it’s possible though, especially in Kul Tiras which prides itself on being a maritime and mercantile power, with its noble houses waxing and waning in power depending on their wealth.
But when I think about buying titles, I think that accumulating so much wealth that you can buy your way into nobility is a massive achievement, the sort of thing that you might want your character to accomplish as you roleplay them, rather than putting it in their background.
This is a personal preference thing, but I find that characters become less enjoyable to play when their history contains deeds that outshine the things that they will actually accomplish as you play them. Their greatest accomplishment will always be the thing that you wrote into their backstory, rather than something that organically happened throughout interaction with other players and their characters.
Sometimes this is the goal, when you’re intentionally playing an older character who has already seen and done it all and just seeks to support less experienced characters, but a lot of the time, it’s more fulfilling to play less accomplished characters.
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I think that very much depends on when you ask. They love decorating everything in fancy embroidery and gold, I certainly wouldn’t call them less materialistic, but we know that since the funny scourge incident they’ve started to frown on decadence and frivolous luxury, more favouring active efforts to help their people rebuild.
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This is such a good description 
Regarding the post, I just wanted to thank all the people who contributed to the OP’s question as I’m taking bits and bobs from all over to my character’s backstory. So huge thanks! 
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Their society is also built on an abundance of magic, which might make materialism unnecessary if they don’t have to worry about scarcity and can just use magic to accomplish most of their goals.
But then again, there’s not enough world-building to divine the true answer to this. There aren’t thousands of square miles of ravaged land in Quel’thalas, full of quarries and mines used to extract all of the gold necessary to build Silvermoon City from the earth, nor is there any source that describes how transmutation plays a vital part in the acquisition of elven building materials. There’s a lot left up to personal interpretation.
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Another thing to point out about this is that the Alliance isn’t exactly feudal. There’s signs of it in certain nations of it, especially Stormwind, but it’s not a 1:1 ratio.
There being settlements and soldiers of the Alliance in Outland doesn’t mean that these lands are lordships of someone, as the Sons of Lothar were just a military expedition from the combined forces of the Alliance during the Second War. It’s not as if Danath Trollbane declared himself Lord of Honor Hold, he’s just a commander, in spite of being of royal lineage, much like he is in Stromgarde at the moment until further lore updates.
The majority of the Alliance’s forces aren’t bound to a noble or something of the sort as a feudal army would be, and the existence of a military presence from the Alliance somewhere doesn’t mean that there’s a noble declaring it rightful land under their lordship.
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But at the same time, Lordaeron specifically doesn’t practice serfdom according to Rise of the Lich King which contributed to the spread of the plague in the countryside. When farmers were the owners of their own land, they didn’t rely on each other as much and there was less united community among the peasantry. When your neighbour’s farm went quiet, nobody was beholden to go check on them - not the landowning noble (as the farmer owned his own land) nor the neighbours. Your neighbours turned into zombies and you’d never know of it until they came to overrun your farm in the dead of the night.
So claims Falric’s status report of how the plague spread under their noses.
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Thank you for the insight! - And I suppose that is true, I have yet to run across any lords and ladies at least regarding the Sons of Lothar in that sense at least in the form of quests and titled NPCS!
But do you think it’d be too far-fetched that if someone were to stay behind once the original goal of the Expedition had been achieved, to establish and foster connections with as exampled the Ethereals and other denizens and managed to establish something akin to another world’s hierarchy for themselves?
Nothing crazy as claiming to be the King/queen of Outland but at least trying to cut out an existence to a reliable degree?
That would be very believable. Not necessarily something akin to landed nobility, but someone influential enough to have riches and others looking up to them would fit very well in something like Shattrath’s Lower City.
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I´d exercise caution when it comes to using pre-TFT (or even pre-TBC in some cases) sources when it comes to elven society, as that society was progressively made more magical as the lore developed (so, the old lore might be in a state of soft-retcon). In Warcraft 2, the characteristic elven (no high elves yet) units were the rangers. This moved to Warcraft 3 where the main enemies you fight during Scourge invasion are still the rangers, and the architecture of Quel´Thalas is much more rustic, not actually that far from night elven buildings we see later. Only in TFT expansion to Warcraft 3 do we see the focus truly shift to magic, with Spellbreaker unit and Blood Mage hero added.
And even then I´d say the TBC portrayal of Quel´Thalas increases the magical aspect of blood elf society, with warrior not being available class for them, way more floaty bits in their architecture and even the fact that Silvermoon was rebuilt in a day using magic. Just look at the difference in how high elf farm looks in Warcraft 3 and Reforged:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Farm?file=HE_farm.jpg
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Farm?file=Warcraft_III_Reforged_-_High_Elven_Farm_2.jpg
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I can wholeheartedly understand that sentiment or preference which is also why I would aim for someone important but not so wholly important that there isn’t room to expand or grow or fail as it were!
But that’s where the Outland Angle also kind of comes into play a little bit, at least in my head, so the idea is to have someone at least in terms of Dungeon and Dragons terms a PC that is established to a degree on their home turf but less so elsewhere, in this case, the Overworld!
As a new player, I think that’d allow me to come at Roleplay with the perspective of someone who’s been gone, who might find the World of Azeroth more foreign and have to re-learn the history of the people(s) and such which no doubt will help, and yet retain some… character establishment and uniqueness on par with for example a Dungeon and Dragons OC you know?
This is also where the Original post question came in because I could see being a self-made sorceress Merchant returning to the world, to re-establish connections as a good excuse to be back in the Overworld and staying there for maybe prolonged periods of time.
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They definately owned land, but i don’t think there’s anything that ever indicates they’re divided up into baronies/counties/duchys and so on; Drathir had Dawnstar Spire and the Windrunners had a village named after them (or was it a village tethered to their spire? Who knows). But like i said there’s so little information on them that all you can really do is speculate once you hit a certain point. Like Telaryn’s observations on Reforged. There’s just nothing to really explain how it all works. 
Another angle is while Silvermoon doesn’t (technically) have a standing military, it’s armies are drawn from numerous organisations (Magisters, Farstriders and post Scourge Blood Knights*, Spellbreakers and the Sunreavers). Unless i’ mistaken, there’s no real example of levies drawn from the land.
*probably the closest thing the blood elves have to a pure military group.
There’s another two stories that are high/blood elf focused. There’s Blood of the Highborne which is in the book Paragons. There’s also a free web story focused on Lor’themar and the aftermath of TBC/start of Wrath which i reccomend because it’s a belter;
https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-gb/story/short-story/leader-story/lorthemar-theron
There’s also another story revolving around his and Thalyssra’s romance called ‘A Moment in Verse’.
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Thank you, Thank you. I shall note it all down on the Read list! Really appreciated! 
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So i think i’m one of the people whos been rping a high elf for a long long time Faelenn can vouch for that one xD, 15+ years now even before the void elfs was added.
My original concept for Thala was pretty much the same as yours, once of noble birth to a wealthy family(duh) over time it changed and i went back and redesigned her a bit.
I had her family specialize in jewelcrafting, which meant that they could have travelled to sell their goods for example and being more open to trade with non-elvish factions such as the human kingdom of Lordaeron.
Thalaine styles herself as a lady because she fully believes herself to be a noble, she’s more a rich merchant at this point, because she has no land that she own, so I wish you all the best of luck with your character
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Although this one focusses more on Lor’themar and Thalyssra on a personal level, and aside from that, mostly on Suramarian culture to a degree, instead of Thalassian?
Yeah, there’s not a great deal of Silvermoon specific relevence outside of Lor’themar’s involvement and the (probably perpetual) cementing of the nightborne and blood elf alliance.
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I mean, its pretty awesome that Suramar and Quel’thalas are basicly ruled by a King and Queen, in all but name, basicly making them the first 2 Kingdoms to align themselves in such a way since forever in Warcraft’s existence(iirc)
But other then that, I feel like it added little to overall Nightborne and Thalassian Elven culture/story!
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This is one approach to it though it should be said any nobility of Stormwind will either have
- Escaped to Lordaeron or been slaughtered in the First War
- Be a recent ennoblement largely through the fact most were killed off in said war
- Either be in an administrative, financial (which seems most relevant to the OP) or military position.
The later point is almost certainly influenced by the ancien regime in Pre-Revolutionary France.
noblesse de chancellerie - Nobility of the Chancery, chamberlains, prefects, civil administrators and the like.
noblesse de lettres - Nobility of Letters, those ennobled by letters patent, basically by the writ of the king and not through a bloodline
noblesse de robes - Nobility of the Robe, these were basically those who gained their position through being judicial members, by their own merits, through the Royal Household and -non- military service, frequently were bought titles as well and they basically paid a tax to hold the position in their family.
noblesse de cloche - Nobility of the Bell, regional governors, mayoral families in major cities, merchant families, banking clans. Distinction from the above being those who were awarded titles by the crown rather than outrightly buying them.
noblesse d’épée - Nobility of the Sword, generally those who claimed descent from ancient feudal knights, warriors and those who were ennobled for military service. These ones were the major landowners, dating back from aforementioned feudal era.
While not a one to one translation for Stormwind’s system many of these roles easily slot into what someone wanting to roleplay a nobleman/woman could do.
This is something to keep in mind.
It’s a good model to look at for literally any faction with nobility, since it has more thought and depth put into it than the noble houses of most of the factions in the game, but it’s not a perfect match.
After all, the kingdom of Stormwind is a generic-by-design made-in-America fantasy kingdom that is completely anachronistic and is just an amalgamation of stereotypes and potentially ahistoric beliefs about kingdoms in Europe during the medieval period.
The ancien regime is a very specific system in a very specific country during a very specific period in history that can’t really be compared to the kingdom of Stormwind, or any other faction in the game.
These roles work if you want to play a noble character and it’s a logical system to use in the absence of any system that actually exists in the setting, but you should always keep in mind that it’s founded in logic, not in the game’s canon.
As long as any player using such a system just uses it on a personal level and there’s no attempt to enforce it as the one true system at any point, it’s fine.
It should be noted that strictly speaking, in our world the term ‘Lady’ isn’t a title like Baroness or Countess but rather a treatment of courtesy, a way to address someone by showing respect.
It does not have to hold any legal significance and even in World of Warcraft we often see certain characters being addressed as lords and ladies even when they have no actual noble rank to boast, such as the old “Lord Illidan knows the way”.
Following this train of thought, it would be possible, in theory, to have someone called merchant-lord or merchant-lady: perhaps a great merchant that demands a fancy treatment from her subordinates and ended up receiving a bit of a title/nickname.
Alternatively, she may be a high elf noble in exile, which became a merchant in the Outland. Due to her title of old, people still call her Lady or Lord out of courtesy, even if she’s technically not a member of the Kingdom of Quel’thalas anymore.
I say these are the most plausible ways to retain your title. Also thumbs up for asking people about the lore, confronting with others, and adjusting the concept.
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