I know this is a bit out of left field, but thought i would ask since i can’t seem to find anything, in the wake of researching it for another discussion. I know that Vereesa was basically a travelling ambassador across the Aliance and had pregnancy to deal with during WC3/tft events. But where did she get the High Elves to form the Silver Covenant?
Quel’lithen is not it they got decimated by the Forsaken and succumbed to addiction
The other lodges have only ever had small garrisons
Kael’thas took all the High Elves from Dalaran when he fled from Garrithos’s bullpoop
It’s hard to tell where did they get from and what kind of authority did she have that they followed her in the manner they did.
My strongest bet would be Outland. Most notably those Elves under Auric Sunchaser “saw” Alleria in her and decided to follow her in personal quest to be a thorn in Sunreaver’s side.
For sure they didn’t come from Dalaran High Elves. Those were led by Grand Magus Telestra and left Kael’thas when he allied himself with the Naga. But held grudge against Kirin Tor for doing nothing when Garithos called for his head.
And obviously they were wiped out in the Nexus war when Telestra sided with Malygos.
The other option is Theramore. That place also had some chunk of Thalassian population and some of it could join her before whole place became part of cosmic matter.
Final hint might come from Grand Magistrix Elissande who said they were too eager to intermingle with lesser races. This means there might have been more Human loving Elves than we belived and entire Silver Covenant is filled with the like minded “diverse” Elves that over the decades found themselves in interracial relationships.
Quel’lithien obviously is no go since those Elves had a huge butthurt toward Blood Elves but still a soft spot for Quel’thalas. They wouldn’t leave the little piece of land they owned.
Quel’danil is even more unlike place as those Elves are some kind of anomaly in terms of everything.
There have been some random bits and bobs strewn around Aliance settlements, which have been far enough to go untouched by the scourge, but that doesn’t strike me as the kind of characters, who would suddenly decide to go join a paramilitary group, in strict opposition of their homeland.
I suppose the Allerian stronghold could be an explanation???
In Telogrus Rift, the starting zone for Void Elves we have High Elf Wayfarers. Which is other word for wanderers or migrants.
There’s option that Vereesa banded together some loners and gave them the sense of purpose. From their actions and treatment of the Sunreavers it is clear they have some hate bone toward Blood Elves. And a big one.
This could be that not all exiles from Quel’thalas ended up in Quel’lithien and some isolated removals from High Kingdom took place later and before Hawkspear and his refuse ended up in the Lodge.
Those Exiles having nowhere to go, nothing to do, being deprived of their homes and families took a huge grudge against Blood Elves, to the point they would rise an arm at them if opportunity allowed it.
It’s also curious the Thalassian race population dropped by 90% and they still have more than enough people to create a lot of sub-organizations for multiple factions.
The Silver Covenant, the Kirin Tor ones, the Void Elves, the Scryers (who are more than enough to be independent from Silvermoon today) and the Blood Elves who didn’t follow Kael’thas specifically and didn’t become Sunfury, they formed other sub-organizations under Illidan.
Imagine if they had not been wiped out then…they would probably have a population that would rival the ones of Orcs and Humans.
Also at this point the Elves who were children during the Third War should be grown up and start having children as well (not sure why the ones of Vereesa aren’t really growing up though, but they are just Half-Elves)
I mean the kid in Stonetallon from cata is like 50 xD
Well in the novels it clearly says that Vereesa thought if she didn’t have Ronin to feed her knicknacks and offer emotional support she would have also resorted to the Kael’thas/Rommath solution.
There isn’t really any mention of them going anywhere other than Quel’lithen, as far as I’m aware, from the group that was repulsed by Rommath’s teachings and got kicked out by Lor’themar, because he didn’t want to lead a nation divided.
Maybe some Silver Covenant are from the Alliance lodge of the Hinterlands too (Quel’Danil). Mostly of those are only Rangers close to nature and animals and went full cold turkey so they aren’t using arcane magic at all anymore (despite still being connected to the Sunwell) so it would fit the description for the Silver Covenant elves. There’s also another lodge in Loch Modan I think but that one was just taken over by the Dwarves maybe there are only a couple of High Elves left.
Although technically all those lodges should belong to Silvermoon because they were built by the High Elves during the Second War. The Blood Elves just don’t have the power to take them back or they don’t want them anymore since they are in the middle of Alliance territory, so High Elves use them instead.
Those lodges are the unused and unremoved asset from scrapped Classic + content that later evolved into TBC. They were present since launch of course but for that reason.
Back in the day Blood Elves were supposed to be full on evil. Sort of Sunfury like. All of them both in Outland and Quel’thalas.
Quel’danil, Quel’lithien and Farstrider Lodge in Loch Modan were supposed to become Alliance friendly reputation grind organization called “Silvermoon Remnant”. A group of High Elves that escaped Quel’thalas and warned Alliance about shady stuff.
It was back when first lore dominated the game. The same lore that was present in RPG that later became non-canon. In RPG Blood Elves are described as pure evil and only Goblins have no problems trading with them.
And of course in RPG High Elves are playable race. I guess this was one of the major factors why Alliance players were so upsed about Blood Elves joining the Horde.
And then Lore changed and Blood Elves got full on redemption arc. And those lodges were left alone unused.
Keep in mind that Azeroth is larger then the game presents it. Its very likely that a whole lot of towns and cities and lodges exist we never even heard off. Many of those place could have had a high elven minority population unaffected by the attack on Quel Thalas or the dalaranian exodus simply by not being there. So you probably have high elves that left Quel Thalas after its downfall, high elves who lived in the 7 kingdoms in the first place, those who fled to Theramore and returning members of the outland expedition.
I don’t think even RPG blood elves are/were described as pure evil.
Cold, aloof and pragmatic, sure, but even the RPG blood elves did not know about Kael’s dealings with the Legion. But they atleast knew and supported the use of Fel to help their people!
Still I remember Metzen himself had to come down and say clearly in an interview that Blood Elves were not an evil race right at the start of TBC, because most people still considered them even way too evil to join the Horde. Indeed in Vanilla I remember that there were Sin’dorei NPCs in Azshara that the Horde could kill. Orcs, Trolls and Tauren players in particular were not happy about getting a race that was so involved with Fel and Demons.
But the RPG was likely written from a time when it was also established that all the Blood Elves survivors were living in Outland with Kael, and Quel’thalas was basically only full of Scourge without any living elf still around, but then Blizzard had to change this as well in order to make them playable, and the group of survivors of Lor’themar was established then.
The Silver Covenant members are High Elves who were living in Dalaran just like Vereesa. The fact that cities are smaller in game than they are in lore can be deceitful when we try to come up with good approximative numbers, but in lore, the high elven population of Dalaran and various cities of the Alliance was more than enough for Vereesa to create the Silver Covenant.
That’s because this official estimation is meaningless when compared to what we see in the game and you have demonstrated that pretty well. I’m sure that this number was thrown out randomly to insist on the horror of what Arthas and the Scourge did to Quel’thalas and the High Elves.