Since Blood Elves were introduced to the game nearly eleven years ago, many players have wondered when the Alliance would get High Elves as a playable race. After all, the High Elves had been one of the member races of the Alliance in Warcrafts I and II, so it seemed that Quel'thalas would make a natural addition to the Alliance.
But the High Elves had a complicated history. They had mostly mutually beneficial interactions with humanity since the Troll Wars, and there are a reasonably large number of half-elves - specifically half-human, half-High elf - including the first Guardian of Tirisfal, Alodi (how elvish, which derives from Troll ancestry, genetics and physiology are compatible with that of humans, who are descendents of Titanforged Vrykul, enough to produce healthy offspring is beyond me.) But there was always a little tension there - the elves were put off by how rapidly the humans expanded and how relatively barbaric their culture was, while the humans resented how secretive the elves were with all their ancient knowledge. It wasn't huge, mind you, but it allowed for bigots on both sides to project their ugly feelings onto another group.
The High Elves were devastated by the Third War. While the humans of Lordaeron arguably were hit harder than anyone - the kingdom was destroyed, betrayed by its own crown prince - unlike humans, the high elves didn't have anywhere else to go. And while Lordaeron probably suffered over 90% mortality, the refugees were able to flee south to Stormwind or Southshore and be integrated rather seamlessly into other societies. The High Elves were not so easily accepted.
It was at this time that Prince Kael'thas renamed his people Blood Elves. Though his father, Anasterian, had died, he refused to take on the title of King, feeling he was not worthy to take on the mantle, and that perhaps their society could not tell the lie that it was back to normal enough to have a true King. While Kael'thas in known now as a villain, newer players should know that before his heel turn in Burning Crusade, Kael'thas was generally considered a very sympathetic character. Was that darkness lurking within him all that time? Or was his acceptance of Illidan's gift of fel magic - to substitute for the loss of arcane magic from the Sunwell - enough to corrupt him? If so, why did Illidan not succumb as Kael'thas did, after he definitely had been filled with far more of the energy for a much longer time? (That might tell you more about Illidan than it does about Kael'thas, though.)
Kael'thas' adoption of Fel magic as a cure for his people's magic addiction created a physiological change within his people. While the High Elves had historically had blue eyes (associated generally with Arcane magic - though also Necromantic, but that's a whole other can of worms,) the Blood Elves now had Fel-green eyes, something they carry to this day even after the Sunwell was reignited to be a font of both Arcane and Holy magic.
Even then, though, there was a divide. Some of the High Elves did not follow Kael'thas in his acceptance of Fel Magic. While the loyal Blood Elves would eventually have their own schism between those loyal to the Horde under Lor'themar Theron and those who embraced the Burning Legion with Kael'thas, some retained the name High Elves and did not partake in the Fel. While some succumbed to withdrawal and turned into the deformed Wretched (the equivalent of the Nightborne's Withered,) some retained their sanity and generally rallied behind Vereesa Windrunner, settling mainly in Dalaran with their human allies.
These High Elves, the Silver Covenant (perhaps referring to their ancient alliance with the humans) are a small faction. But then, for a population with so many subdivisions, one must recall that the entire population of Quel'thalas was utterly devastated by the Scourge - only 10% of those who were alive before the Third War are still around.
One might have expected that the Alliance would get Vereesa's High Elves as an Allied Race, but that's not who is going to be playable.
Instead, the faction we'll be getting in the Alliance is the Void Elves. While the other Allied Races have shown up in-game before - in fact, half of them were introduced in Legion - we know very little about the Void Elves.
However, we know who is going to bring them into the Alliance. Alleria Windrunner, eldest sister of Sylvanas and Vereesa, has been on a time-warped journey of a thousand years fighting alongside the Army of the Light. And while her husband Turalyon will be the one to bring the Lightforged Draenei into the Alliance, Alleria has had a much less conventional tenure within the Army. While Turalyon, already a historically powerful Paladin, happily accepted X'era's gift and became Warforged (which allowed him to survive those warped thousand years,) Alleria began to learn more about the power of the Void, using its mercurial power to fight the Legion. Alleria, more than possibly any other mortal (depending on how we count Locus Walker on the mortal/immortal spectrum,) has control over her connection to the Void, and at least for now, seems safe from going insane the way that such people tend to.
What very little we know about the Void Elves is that they seem to be a group of Blood Elves - not High Elves, meaning that they are likely former members of the Horde - who were cast out for their experimentation with the Void, an act that could be considered hypocritical given the fact that the Blood Elves are sort of defined by their dalliances with Fel magic - who are rescued from the corruption of the Void by Alleria.
While I'm sure a lot of people are disappointed not to get straight-up High Elves, personally I find the Void Elves have a lot of interesting elements. First off, they're the only playable race who have a serious and direct connection to the Void, and could present an opportunity to explore the Void in a nuanced way. The other notable thing is that they're the first Alliance race to have broken off from the Horde, rather than vice versa. Consider that the Undead and Blood Elves are former Alliance members. This is the first time we're seeing people go over to the Alliance rather than abandoning them.
While I do think that four elf races is quite enough (though I'm glad to see variants on other races, which softens the blow of having such an excess of elves,) one of the interesting things about these Allied races is that both factions effectively have Dark Elves now. Dark Elves as a concept actually date back to Norse Mythology (though in that, Dark Elves are literally just Dwarves,) but if you want to go up to the grand-daddy RPG, Dungeons and Dragons, the Dark Elves, aka Drow, have been a pretty big element for a long time.
While neither Nightborne nor Void Elves look like they'll be evil the way that the Drow (with some exceptions) generally are, they each take on some elements of them. The Nightborne look like Drow, with charcoal-dark skin and white hair (not to mention that some of them turn into half-elf, half-spiders, like D&D's Driders) while Void Elves clearly have a culture and society built around the Void, which I think literally qualifies them as "dark."
The question is to what degree we'll get a real story with these guys. We got plenty of story for the Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne, and Lightforged Draenei in Legion, and we've had Dark Iron Dwarves since Vanilla. The Zandalari, also there since Vanilla, have periodically come in to places of significance, are clearly going to get a ton of stuff in Battle for Azeroth.
Where will the Void Elves fit in? I do suspect that the Old Gods (specifically N'zoth) are going to play a huge role in Battle, which might make the Void Elves the perfect people to help us understand our foe. The key, I think, is creating some interesting NPCs to represent the race. Having a small cast of characters is a really important part of establishing a population, and we're going to need more than just Alleria (who is not a Void Elf herself, or at least is not yet.)
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