PTR Spoiler/Discussion Thread (Part 3)

Ok, maybe a dumb question.

But are the Arathi all half elves? or are there full blooded high elves and humans amongst their ranks too?

Given that Thalassian elves still lived for thousands of years, unless they all died off from unnatural causes (stab wounds) then there should be some who’ve been around since the founding of the Empire.

It is, however, unlikely that others remained purely ‘elf’ or ‘human’ unless the Empire did a lot of eugenics and planned breeding.

1 Like

Makes sense, esp since Humans don’t live that long, them dissappearing to become part-Elf is fair.

Gotta meet some cool full High elves tho! Wanna look down on them as my blood elf :smirk:

Hard to say with only the underground expedition as reference. Also worth nothing that in a recent interview, the assumption that they’re literally 50/50 human and elf was sort of contested.

My overall impression was that all Arathi do have elven ancestry however, and seeing as some use a short-eared elf model and others a pointy-eared human one, Thalassian blood might run thicker in some families than in others. That’s just speculation on my part however.

3 Likes

Around elves, watch yourselves.

Great Kyron uses the smaller Thalassian Elf ear option, so I’d argue he is a High Elf?

We have no clue. Half-Elves, and particularly Arathi, vary greatly in characteristics with most just looking indistinguishable from High Elves whilst others look like pointy-eared Humans (Alodi).

1 Like

There’s been a handful of Arathi characters with regular rounded ears, but as others have said, it’s hard to gauge with just the Hallowfall Expedition to look at. I would imagine the majority of the Empire’s population is predominately full-blooded humans with at most trace amounts of elven blood given that I don’t really think that many elves would have gone with them to this eastern continent.

From a certain point of view I personally don’t think any of them are half-elves, if only because half-elf usually implies one parent is an elf while the other is something else whereas the Arathi give birth to Arathi. They’re a hybrid race in their own right.

2 Likes

https://x.com/HjalmarRambles/status/1830557203620593799

what does it mean???

(probably nothing)

2 Likes

They’re all over Stormwind’s embassy too.

You can find them in dalaran as well, in the room with Kalecgos.

time travelling spider people, what will they think of next

I want more of those dark trolls bats fellows, pretty please. (And an Allied race. So I can use that bat model. I don’t believe it’ll happens, I just like it)

1 Like

I’d put money on us getting haranir as an allied race myself

1 Like

They already have dressing room customization options just like a lot of the previous allied races did.

It’s a form of leader in the absence of keepers. Still I wonder why, how, the reasoning or mechanics behind it all work.

In the files there’s an unfinished round eared elven option that was briefly toggled on for the Arathi “elven” npcs before being replaced by the short ear option.
I’m certain that it’s meant to signify that they’re all mixed and no one is pure. After all they say that they’re arathi and neither elf or human.

At one point in the beta the devs wanted players to report all round eared “human” arathi. I guess some slipped through the cracks.

Thats what I mean, we have half-elven ear options in the files(like Kalec, Dracthyr visage, Arathi half-Elven ear options)
 So why choose the small Thalassian ear option, thats useable by the Blood and Void Elf player characters and used by NPCs as proper Elven ears and have them be Half Elven?

Might be that Great Kyron is an actual High Elf, and just calls himself Arathi after many thousand of years?

I wonder if the change of the Arathi from humans to elf-blooded occurred during development, because early TWW previews made no mention of that, and their backstory was different (they were supposed to have been fighting the nerubians for centuries).

2 Likes

I preferred the original premise for them honestly; sticking a warhammer style empire into WoW rubs me up the wrong way

1 Like