Yeah, that’s fairly legit, to be honest. We have a lot of Blood Knight stuff, and if you haven’t caught it yet, and are a Blood Knight fan, totally check out ‘Blood of the Highborne’ which is all about the founding of the Blood Knights, what they stand for and their formative years. It was in the ‘Paragon’s’ anthology. I could only find a copy in German, but that was years and years back, it surely has been translated into English by now. It has a lot of past and current Blood Knight stuff in it. Who knew that Champion Vranesh actually did something apart from riding around being a bumhole in Silvermoon. I mean he’s still a bumhole, but he is a heroic bumhole, It has a load of cool lore in there, as well as masses of Blood Knight stuff, as it is primarily about the founding of the order during the Mu’ru times.
These two for sure, now that the Alliance babies had their “high elf” wishes come true.
EDIT: was supposed to include the red eyes in quote.
Never really understood the Red Eyes hype, but if people want 'em, fair enough.
For me I’d be happy as I say with Magisters and Rangers getting stuff, I mean Mages, Blood Knights and Farstriders have always been the big three iconic groups in Blood Elven society. Now obviously you can’t (and shouldn’t) limit things by class, so there would need to be some generic stuff in there as well.
Arcane Tattoos would obviously work well for Magisters, but the Magisters is actually a fairly big swathe of society, it could cover Mages (duh) but also Priests and Warlocks. (Though they likely have their own groupings, they are also casters so could very feasibly go in for Arcane Tattoos, possibly in gold for Priests/esses)
Ranger hair braids, feathers and Warpaint would work brilliantly well for Farstriders, but Rangers are just the largest element of the Farstriders, so it isn’t for Hunters only, They have Pathstalkers, which is fitting for Rogues, and I dare say Monks also.
Then options that could work for anyone, small Icon of Blood Tattoo type things (The Icon of Blood itself would be way too intricate and fiddly to implement) and hey, who says that -just- Rangers wore warpaint, I know all the ones who do have been Rangers, but there could surely be generic Elven options on the table as well.
Perhaps, who knows, there was some tattoo that was almost like a ‘badge of pride’ as in “I was there when Arthas came…” I want to say a single red blood drop, but that’s a bit cliche and prison gang culture.
Taking all the last points, yes, fair enough.
But I’ve always been of the mind that the BEs should have been restored properly after the in-game TBC denouement - the BEs should have gone back to their original state after the Sunwell was cleansed.
I feel old and outdated - but that’s nothing new.
Imagines Puny but Mighty Elf in a silver tiara and her venthyr transmog
Cute for a darker look indeed, and we could do the same to the headband as well, color it separately as the night elf vines in hair.
Yeah, I’d not be averse to them looking still a bit kind of cruel and angular.
There’s a brilliant series of novels by an author called Charles Stross, who writes occult horror with a scientific edge (The primary characters work for a British Government agency to combat supernatural threats, very hush hush, called ‘The Laundry, because they clean up the dirty secrets that happen in the dark’ No Cultists with dribbly candles and ram’s head skulls, it’s all ‘Computational Necromancy’ and the ‘Turing incantations’. modern day setting. The author is clearly a massive WoW Nerd. There’s one book where a female agent is infiltrating a horrible Waco style Christian group, the phrase ‘Arrows in my Quiver’ is used, and she has an amulet which gives her brief beserker and speedy combat abilities engraved ‘WWLJD’ which the Christian cultists think stands for ‘What would Lord Jesus do?’. It Doesn’t of course. It stands for “What would Leeroy Jenkins Do?”
Anyway, the books are all about Old Gods summoned through advanced mathematics and Computers. But they planned for the wrong apocalypse.
What they get is Elves. More precisely, they get Blood elves. Who suddenly arrive through a portal somewhere near Leeds in England, Cruel, self-serving able to drain the life energy out of lesser creatures, they even refer to humans as ‘Uruks’, an Elven Heavy brigade who advance on Leeds as the nearest city. They are magically powerful as heck, and it becomes a fight between magic and technology (There’s a brilliant chapter describing a dogfight over the North Sea between two RAF Typhoon fighter jets, and two Elven riders of creatures that have something of the dragon, and something of the hawk about them (yeaaah).
The Elves in that story (It’s called ‘The Nightmare Stacks’) are pretty much Blood Elves in all but name, devious, very cunning, ruthless, willing to exploit whatever to get their aims, xenophobic with an absolute conviction in their own superiority, and only willing to ‘play well with others’ when there is something in it for them.
I remember reading it and just going “This is Blood elves attacking modern day Britain” then going “Of course it is, this author is a massive WoW geek!”
The depiction of the mindset (Because you see it from both sides) is pretty much perfection on how you’d imagine Blood Elves to think, even with a renewed Sunwell. They’re not necessarily great people, in the slightest.
Seriously interesting take on how Elves might think. (Plus just a damned good series of books)
Tell me about it, two months until I can’t call myself Mid-forties anymore, but by the rules of rounding up have to call myself ‘Nearly 50’ 
I am starting to wonder if there is a point. Yes, apparently a Blue is feeding back information. They did not deign to tell us here. But this is stuff that has been requested since TBC (Not the red eyes bit, that started with WotLK), we were promised customisation by 9.0. Everyone else gets these wonderful things. We get two skin colours, blue eyes, about 3 haircuts and 1 hair colour. Oh and 3 beards…
Four of those things was a fan request. That leaves 36 that were promised. No, differing shades of blue that won’t be seen unless really close (As in, close enough that if someone did it in real life you’d be like “Err, can you back off, you’re inches away from me, unless we’re partners, I’m not good with that, it’s creepy”) or even worse “Have armbands…which you can’t see” “Have some BDSM body chains, which you can’t see unless your character is naked, get naked Belf” (Not really a healthy message for Blizz to be sending, especially right now) You can be black, or tanned looking (OK, that’s cool, it wasn’t asked for, but that’s fine) Shorter ears (Umm, right, why?) shorter eyebrows(Umm, no one asked for that either, why?) Couple of haircuts and one hair colour (OK) and the stuff we wanted?
“No, that’s your lot, oh, you can be blind in one eye”
“You know everyone can do that since TBC, right?”
“Yeah, but you can choose -which- eye!”
“That isn’t really a customisation, is it?”
“No, but get this, you can be blind in both eyes!”
“Yeah, that’s…not really selling it to me, this isn’t Hollywood, We’re not Daredevil, Blind people are actually really not good at doing any of the stuff our characters do so, that’s kind of useless, y’know…You do know Blind people don’t get better senses to compensate for being blind, that it is just a comfortable lie people with sight tell themselves?”
“Yeah, but it’s a customisation…”
“Yes, that no one wanted or indeed uses in the game!”
“Well, what do you want?”
“I Dunno, the stuff we actually asked for? You did it for Void Elves, come on! You still owe us for 9.0, we got pretty much jack all!”
“We can give you vampires?”
“We’re already frickin’ Vampires! The Blood Elves can literally suck life out of living creatures! That’s the whole point of the Blood/High Elf Schism!”
“Errmm, did we mention the BDSM chains you can see?”
“When Naked! Yes, It’s rubbish, no one uses it because you can’t see it and nobody walks around naked apart from Goldshire rejects! Can we talk actual customisation?”
“Maybe in 10.0”
“WTF? We were supposed to get this in 9.0!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll release it with a S.E.L.F.I.E Cam”
“seriously? I mean that was a joke, right?”
“Yeah, totes, we’ll release it with the ‘TikTok’ version of the umm…something”
“Seriously?”
“yeah, it will be awesome, we’ll even make jokes about it…”
“Can you not?”
“What do you actually want?”
“Well, Glad you asked that, it would be cool if…”
“Sorry, got to talk to Americans, Byeee!”
A fairly Sardonic view of Blood Elf customisation so far…
Yeah, no. Let’s not go there.
It’d probably be like “You can have a Prince Albert”
“We won’t see it, not that we -want- to!”
“Yes but it will be there!”
I wouldn’t mind some jewellery for male Blood Elves, but more understated perhaps, like, I have two silver studs in my left earlobe IRL, That’s fine, for my LARP character, I swap one of the studs out for a dangly silver cross type thing with three feathers hanging from it (It’s thematic for the character). Some bits and bobs wouldn’t go amiss. Braids in the hair, feathers and warpaint, Arcane tattoos for Magisters, and maybe an extra earring customisation for both sexes, a silver or gold teardrop/blood drop kind of thing wouldn’t go amiss, they have suffered a lot, and they are -Blood- Elves who remember the fallen with sorrow, so either makes sense.
Just small little things to add a bit of a quirk to the character, on my TRP Brigante has seventeen small silver arrowhead trinkets braided into his hair, and four Dragonhawk feathers. That has started a fair few RP conversations when people have asked why, and why the specific numbers.
Little things, that could add so much.
Is this anywhere in game or just head canon?
I suspect it is a spillover from many of the Dungeons and Dragons game settings, where Sun Elves and Moon Elves are a thing, and people making the connection of, well Night Elves are blatantly Moon Elves, because they worship Elune, and Blood Elves are their daytime counterpoint, they even revere Be’lore, so should look like Sun Elves.
Problem is, they don’t. It is a really common misapprehension, especially amongst those new to Belf RP (And to be honest, a completely understandable mistake! ) that Blood Elves worship the Sun, or Be’lore.
They don’t. They never have. ‘Be’lore’ is not the name of some mythical figure related to ‘The Sun’, in the way that ‘Elune’ and Mu’sha =Moon. It is just the Thalassian word for ‘Sun’.
Yes, Blood Elves do reference it a lot, and say ‘Sun Guide you’ and things like that, but this is more to do with their culture, and to be honest, who knows, if Azeroth is -anything- like Earth, then it’s Sun will indeed rise in the East, which was the direction of the Thalassian diaspora. Maybe it -is- that literal. (That last is just supposition though).
That’s the only reason I can see for golden or luminescent skins, a connection with Sun Elves from D&D, but I can’t really see it myself. They’re not the same.
As a D&D player I feel ashamed I wouldn’t have known.
Then again, my team usually plays custom campaigns.
Anyhow, blood elves: I must agree that they could use braids and feather options as we were given with the Wildhammer customizations.
Totally get you, it was more the settings like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms (Which was the one I played for ages) that had Sun Elves in, so they weren’t universal or anything I guess.
Yeah, Very much Farstrider chic, and the Magisters could do with some loving too, arcane tattoo’s like Rommath or the TBC Box art. I mentioned earlier Blood Knights, but a BK player, think it was Sylvare, made the (correct) observation that of the triumvirate of political power blocs in Quel’thalas, the Blood Knights actually have the most lore exposition and iconic sets for them, so can possibly take a back seat to the Farstriders and Magisters. Don’t know what anyone else thinks about that?
IMO the faces of blood elves need a complete rework. There is little to no character to their faces, less detail compared to the night elves and nightborne. Elves in WoW have quite a characteristic look: more ‘feline’ shapes to their faces, pointed and often crueller, with fangs and claws. On BE these are so watered down that their models are a bit disappointing compared to other elves. I’d love the option for my warlock to look rather more fierce than he currently does. 
At the very least, more ear options and scars would be cool.
I’ve actually broken down all the faces, from all the Elves, using only emojis.
Night Elf and Nightborne Male:
Night Elf and Nightborne Female:
Blood Elf and Void Elf Male:
Blood Elf and Void Elf Female:
Haha, this is sadly very true.
Don’t worry about Teldrassil, our Night Elf Female characters - they were relatively happy about it. 
Oh come on (lol).
As for blood elves customization… red eyes would be nice of course, but the tattoos/scarring would probably be a most loved feature.
Red eyes for both Blood Elves and Night Elves.
But tattoos and runes should be a Blood Elf thing, since the TBC box art with the male blood elf had runes around his eye and his face.
Hey, can we have a panda res update and properly meshed armour?
Oh wait. Pandas and WoW.
OT - hopefully we see more customisation popping up after 9.2.
It would be nice to have some sort of height sliders or stance. E.g normal trolls or undead having a more straight posture!