Sooo I was reading some things and I realized that supposedly Anasterian was old by the time he was 3000 years old and the Troll Wars were roughly around 2800 years ago.
I made up my character story establishing she was born around the same time as Alleria and having fought in the Troll Wars. I figured: well, if she fought around that time then she could’ve been one of the elves who interacted with the Alliance of Arathor and may have even taught magic to one of the 100 humans who were taught. Hell, she could even have lived in the early Dalaran for some years!
Now I realized this is all BS and Alleria did not fight in the Troll Wars per see but against random relatively recent Troll attacks as all the members of the Silvermoon Council of magisters were much older than Alleria who was fit and beautiful.
This made me question the timeline. When exactly did Kael’thas go to Dalaran and how old exactly are Alleria and Kael’thas (well he’s dead but yeah)?
I think Anasterian being 3000 was special and he was considered pretty old and venerable.
There is nothing concrete about the subject, but I would keep my blood elf characters between 20-1000 years old to be on the safe side.
I don’t think we have any idea how old Alleria and Kael are, nor do we know anything about high/blood/void elf lifespans except for they live for hundreds and possibly (but rarely) thousands of years.
My character is nearing a thousand for example, and I’ve been making an effort to explore his insecurities about being so old during RP.
But if you want to have your character be an experienced war veteran, you can very much just insert defending against random troll attacks over their careers. Pretty sure that’s what Blizzard did with all the Windrunner sisters.
More like him reigning for 3000 years and probably not being crowned as an infant. The man was older than that by a country mile and a half and still spry, portrayed as being quite youthful in spite of it all in the heritage armour quest.
At which point I just shrug and throw my hands up at the lore department.
Somewhat easier to pin down. Kael was in Dalaran as the pining admirer piece of the Arthas/Jaina/Kael drama, taking place in their coming of age at roughly 18. This means it was roughly twenty years ago and Kael was the awkward old coot with a vast age difference to Jaina who thought of his elven formal conduct as old fashioned.
With that in mind, I’d guess at least a few human generations had to pass between Kael being brough up properly into all the right princely conduct and Jaina being born at all.
Alleria is difficult but not impossible if we consider that she is the eldest sister, though I’m not sure how many years passed between her and her sisters.
Sylvanas was already powerful at 20 going by her story and with her favouritism of mr. Marris in mind had to be established enough with seniority to pull the stunt. Add decades as needed.
Vereesa is the youngest but has had time to live, fight, love and lose in short order. Just how many decades are there between them? I’m just speculating and posing questions.
Maybe this helps in figuring out a vauge outline of decades, though not centuries. Alleria fighting demons in the Nether for 1000(!) years is irrelevant to us as we count our own timeline and she seems no worse for wear.
Turalyon is Lightforged, rendered biologically immortal like the golden draenei as a convenient story device to have him not die immediately of old age as they go fightin’ around the nether where time refuses to behave. Alleria is just a regular old elf, relatively young during their Second war adventures and thus entitled to a few millennia.
The big question there is whether she’s in supernatural stasis like her best guy pal after her Void experiences. If Void infusion is instead actively detrimental we might have a reverse Arwen on our hands.
Anyway, timelines are weird and not even Blizzard pays attention. It’s also difficult to write a narrative where some of the big events happened 10,000 years ago, in living memory!
Elves are like beef jerky; lasting nearly forever but prone to get tougher, a bit flaky and irresistible to certain humans.
I think Blizz are a little shaky with their own timeline, according to some of the Canon novels, Lor’themar was a young Ranger Lieutenant during the Troll Wars, Liadrin was a Priestess, Halduron was just a random Farstrider dude, and Dark’han was kicking around as well…
Oh, along with Zul’jin.
So unless every Troll Tribe gets the kind of Rastakhan deal where their ruler is a God King and effectively immortal, this seems a bit shaky.
We -also- know from canon sources that Anasterian -reigned- for 3,000 years, not that he was 3,000 years old, we have no idea how old he was when crowned, given that we also get told that Lorash Sunbeam was of the first generation of Elves born post exile, and was old enough to remember their plight before Quel’thalas was founded and the Sunwell created, making him around 7,000, Yet he still seems healthy and young enough to try and go toe to toe with Malfurion.
Given that we know the Troll wars ended 2,800 years before the Dark Portal opened, this does make elven ages very nebulous…
Are we sure about this? It’s been long since I read that novel, but weren’t they just ambushed by trolls/taken captive? I don’t think this happened during the Troll Wars.
I think most people will agree that this was some kind of lore oopsie from the author, to give Lorash a reason to hate Malfurion (while I’m sure he could have found several other reasons), especially given that Lorash’ mother only died in the Scourge invasion, at which points things definitely get a bit ridicilous.
I agree that her absorbing a dark Naaru could have affected her “mortality”, this is only a very recent change. I doubt Xe’ra kept Alleria alive, to be honest, as she wasn’t Lightforged like Turalyon was.
If Alleria fought in the Troll Wars, she’d be nearing 4000 years now, and I buy that. I can totally see elves having a natural lifespan of 5000 years, and I consider Anestarian to have been around that age, as well.
yeah, it’s been stated like that but the writer himself said he made a mistake.
If Alleria fought in the Troll Wars, she’d be nearing 4000 years now, and I buy that. I can totally see elves having a natural lifespan of 5000 years, and I consider Anestarian to have been around that age, as well.
we never actually got a number for how long they live other than several thousand years.
Am I completely confusing myself when remembering how it’s a plot point how Alleria was actually young and her youthful ways and grief at the wars had her seek comfort in Turalyon’s tent?
If she’s elfishly young and the eldest Windrunner, their general behaviour as a group leans toward a certain immaturity.
As I say, it wouldn’t -surprise- me, given that apparently Zul’jin was there in person which means that either;
a) It was a lore mistake.
b) Zul’jin may be a -title- for Amani, not a personal name.
or C) Troll tribes get God Kings, similar to Rastakhan, who are effectively ageless until killed.
Whilst Mickey Neilson claimed that the first chapter happened during the Troll Wars, that would make Zul’jin 3000 years old. The other characters in the story, sure, possibly, Zul’jin, not so much.
Its more likely Second War, during the invasion of Quel’thalas, to be fair.
There is the thing in that same novel (Same exact page in fact) where Malfurion said that the Kaldorei had never attacked the Thalassian Elves, which again the author later had to say "Oh, I forgot that they in fact had done so, yeah, that dialogue suddenly sounds weird, as Lorash is right about that part. "
Seems like the author forgot the -reasons- why people might hate Kaldorei, and assumed it was to do with the Exile, whereas alternate lore sources tell us that far from being annoyed about the exile, Dath’remar and the first generation were just happy to be away from interfering Druids.
Could be that the Second generation were more resentful, or could be a lore hiccough. Either way, we see rather too many of these…
Even so, Alleria fighting in the Troll Wars is still blizz canon, and that ended more than 2,800 years ago. So yeah, Elves do seem to live for “Several Thousand Years”. Given Alleria’s health prior to nomming a Naaru, she seemed to be in pretty good health for her age…
Nah, she sought solace in his tent because she had just seen her youngest brother Lirath (Who gets a brief cameo in ‘three Sisters’) slain in battle along with eighteen other of her kin.
To be honest Blizz have no idea what they are doing with elven ages, which change a lot, leading to a lot of retcons,
For example;
Thas’dorah, the ancestral bow of the -Windrunners- to be passed down to the eldest child. Simple so far, yeah? That would be Alleria.
Upon their mothers death, Thas’dorah instead went to Sylvanas first ‘because Alleria had decided to choose the path of the Farstrider’
Um, She hadn’t suddenly decided, she was a Farstrider for a while, and more importantly, so was Sylvanas! Sylvanas therefore gave Alleria the bow. That bit makes no sense at all…
Lirath, who was the youngest of the Windrunner siblings, was killed during the Second War. His depictions whilst alive, were not those of a child.
Vereesa however, his big sister, was supposedly too young to have been in the Second War, hence going off with Rhonin as a guard.
The Windrunners apparently had another brother, but his existence was simply erased during the War Crimes Novel…
In short, Wing it. The Only Canon lore we know is that they live for several thousand years, so -at least- 3, but likely more to some degree.