Are nightborne the Highborne replacement?

[Beloren]

All I see of the Highborne are long dead ghosts in Azsuna - gone era, but then you see the nightborne, which seem to me like new and improved Highborne, the replacement, v2.0

Shen'dralar are suspiciously furthering this comspiracy theory the nightborne take their place.

If I were going to do Highborne properly, the nightborne are how I'd do it. What you think guys?Nightborne feel like Highborne done properly?

[Xylense]

Nightborne are highborne descendents, just like blood elves. Highborne haven't been 'replaced', if you roll a night elf mage you're playing a highborne. Farondis and his kin are highborne ghosts.

[ravenmoon]

Nightborne are highborne descendents, just like blood elves. Highborne haven't been 'replaced', if you roll a night elf mage you're playing a highborne. Farondis and his kin are highborne ghosts.

isn't that one of the main difference between them? Nightborne, like night elves are the same people that have survived 10,000 years since they've lived that long/immortal, high elves are the ones that die and have had several generations pass

nightborne did not descend.. they are the actual night elves and highborne who've just changed a bit. Almost every nightborne you get to interact with mentions how they've been around for 10,000 years or this hasn't happened since so, or I have not survived 10,000 years, watch the SUramar video, pay attention to what many of hte npcs you interact with say, the guy who's wife died in the war of the ancients etc. .nearly every nightborne character you get to meaningfully talk with mentions something aobut 10,000 years ago, or how long they've been alive, it's quite obvious these aren't descendants.

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All I see of the Highborne are long dead ghosts in Azsuna - gone era, but then you see the nightborne, which seem to me like new and improved Highborne, the replacement v2.0

it does seem very strange, and quite something to "forget" if that was your not your intention

who knows, the current highborne lore has been very patchy and little as if blizzard realized they weren't satisfied with it in that state, and scrapped it for a newer version. We don't hear anything about the living highborne at all in Legion, and for such a night elf strong expansion, especially with all the arcane magic stuff..that is strange.

and yes, nightborne have far more lore than the shen'dralar, and seem to be the sort of major players i expected a city of highborne emerging to be like.

Compare the two, both city highborne in their own world. The nightborne presentation is miles better and far more interesting, and it holdls the sort of distinction that makes you believe that the night elf empire was truly spectacular. I'm sure the shen'dralar are still there, but they messed up a bit with them, or rather they didn't give them the kind of story to be a major player in the night elven world. But with the nightborne, you have a major group now, and this one is the arcane side of the night elves. THey are not on the brink of dying out, in ruins or anything like that, they're vibrant and numerous.

They truly spice up the night elf genre of wow lore, and they give us another team on the night side to route for. The way i see it, some people love dark elves, the night themes etc, and it's nice theat you have more than one variation of them. AFterall if you can have wildhammer and bronzebeard, you can have night elf and nightborne. If you can have high elf, blood elf and darkfallen, you can night elf and nightborne.

I'm pleased with the development here. I don't think the shen'dralar will ever become a major player, but they'll be around, they'll probably be the bridge that connects the night elves to the nightborne - afterall, Suramar, Eldre'thalas, Darnassus - that's all night elf business. THe nightborne, the highborne, the night elf - that's all night elf world.

I'm very glad it's become a lore more interesting and varied.

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You could literaly do an entire series on certain races combos. SEriously, sure they interact a bit - but Night elf world is one area... then you have Orc/horde world another, then human world of which the high and blood elves are caught up in. but that can be split into two distinct parts. the southern humans and the northern humans who have the scourge and what not o deal with.

[Wildmoon]

Highborne is a social caste. It's not a sub species.

[ravenmoon]

Highborne is a social caste. It's not a sub species.

indeed, however, i think the feeling here is that, they have elevated the social caste into a sub-species of it's own. I often consider why they chose the citizens of Suramar to be a night elf sub species rather than simply night elves.

My main conclusion is that they felt that was just more interesting and exciting - i don't think they were going for a new category of elf like the high elves or anything so tedious, I think they just wanted to make the arcane night elves more interesting as they wanted to bring to life the aspects of the night elves in the war of the ancients rather than make another time travel expansion.

Face it, what interesting thing can you do about the night elves that you haven't done before? Easy , show them in their arcane glory. I think it was easier and more sensible to have sub-group which follows the pattern of blizzard each expansion. They tend to introduce sub-races for every race, EVERY expansion.

New expansion is a new set often, and new creatures, which often means variations of existing ones. They were doing the legion, whic heavily involves the night elves as they are the main adversaries of the legion, we see them do a new rendition of everything night elfy, pulling from the war of the ancients, we get the nature druids in a newer version in Val'sharah, we get the martial side of the priests in the Wardens, we get the ruins that we saw in Kalimddor done anew in Azusna and Suramar, and we get a vibrant version of the highborne made distinctive by their altered appearance - but clearly very very arcane night elf in literally everything about them, which is made quite clear from the opening Suramar video and if you simply open your eyes when doing any quest with them.

[Deleted]

It certainly feels that way. The absence of any Highborne/Shren'dralar NPC's feels like a glaring omission on Blizzard's part, and my gut tells me it was an intentional one.

I feel that the Shren'dralar where only implemented to allow Night Elves to become mages, and the Highborne seem to have been quickly forgotten after that.

[DeicideUH]

Night elf mages are not automatically Shen'dralar. Lorewise they are night elves that are newly taught in the Arcane by the Shen'dralar (as is obvious in the Azshara quests). You can of course choose to roleplay it differently but that doesn't make it cannon.

Also there's that tower in Feralas, in which the Shen'dralar are teaching young non-highborne night elves in the arcane arts.

But night elf players can pretend to be highborne; most night elf classes, druids being the exception, would suit a highborne well.

[Enthralled]

It certainly feels that way. The absence of any Highborne/Shren'dralar NPC's feels like a glaring omission on Blizzard's part, and my gut tells me it was an intentional one.

I feel that the Shren'dralar where only implemented to allow Night Elves to become mages, and the Highborne seem to have been quickly forgotten after that.

Looking at it in the context of Blizzard's long-term storytelling of the night elves and the situation with Azshara, that may or may not be so. But remember that the story of the Highborne and the modern culture of night elves with druids and all of that came to be was fully in place by the time WoW began, and that Dire Maul wasn't even available at the game's start.

That doesn't disprove your notion of course; I'm just attempting to put it in a lore context. IMO, the Shen'dralar represent one of the biggest themes in elf storytelling in Warcraft: the never-ending hunger for the arcane and how can lead to the destruction of groups if not somehow sated or solved. The Shen'dralar were the first such story represented in the MMO (we're not counting the RTSs here) and they laid the groundwork for the story of the blood elves.

But anyway, sure, maybe the plan all along was to use the Shen'dralar to eventually add mages to the night elf race. Unless one of the team from the early days says something about it, we'll never know.

[ravenmoon]

It certainly feels that way. The absence of any Highborne/Shren'dralar NPC's feels like a glaring omission on Blizzard's part, and my gut tells me it was an intentional one.

I feel that the Shren'dralar where only implemented to allow Night Elves to become mages, and the Highborne seem to have been quickly forgotten after that.

agreed. they don't seem to do much else, but i'm okay with that, the night elf mage is an ancient master caster, especially one that never gave it up, but it's not very exciting in the shen'dralar, it's rather dour and low key. Night elves were a little bit more exciting but still having the only real excitement in WC3. Which is why i think they went a step further for the night elf expansion, and made the highborne/night elf caster full on group, loud and magnificent.

they said many times in interviews and panels they wanted to show the night elf arcane civilization un-ruined. and i think they wanted them back as players in modern affairs, as a group that was alive and thriving, rather than an ancient cursed memory full of regret. So they had to fully show players what it was all like, in a way that fit the descriptions they had used about it in WC3 and WotA trilogy. They need a non-time travel way of bringing them to the present, so they kept them in a bubble, and had them change a bit to distinguish them easily from the night elf we all know and love, at least for the duration of their introduction (there is still some uncertainty whether the nightborne will keep their current forms or revert to the night elf form ).

The reason we did not see them use the shen'dralar instead is because they wanted to show a night elf city in its unruined state, plus ofc, the action was happening on the broken isles, not on Feralas, and shen'dralar are from Eldre'thalas, you have to use different night elves, so they used Suramar ones who were in the city that we thought were all slaughtered.. the ones that Maiev and Tyrande, Illidan and Jarod all mourn for -

instead they find out it wasn't decimated, but the guys there have been hiding under the shield all this time, Tyrande's initial reaction is really cold -" you abandoned us" , but i do expect it to soften once she gets to know Thalyssra better and finds out the story from their side of it, Elisande afterall led them that direciton, and Elisande is gone.

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Night elf mages are not automatically Shen'dralar. Lorewise they are night elves that are newly taught in the Arcane by the Shen'dralar (as is obvious in the Azshara quests). You can of course choose to roleplay it differently but that doesn't make it cannon.

yes indeed, that's right. It is one of the reasons that the night elf mage caster is a poor fantasy, now the nightborne mage caster now that would be a much better or stronger night elf caster fantasy, if you can tolerate the model. Ofc they can show us that new night elves are every bit as talented and gifted in the arcane as any highborne/nightborne/high elf - which off course they would be, but i think they'd need to make it clear so that people don't feel a night elf mage is somehow second tier.

According to the lore, night elf owns the arcane, this is their natural heritage, it's part of their make up, that their group had it banned for 10k years doesn't make them have less natural magical potential or talent. Many of them were adept casters before the sundering anyway, and hung up their robes.

With the nightborne you get that feel properly, it's clear.

Anyway, ofc that's not what Dawnstar was saying, she just merely stated correctly I suspect, that they were only put in their to give night elves mages, the real continuation of the night elf highborne caster continues in the nighhtborne, this is it done properly.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Highborne is a social caste. It's not a sub species.

I believe it is a sub species actually. There are clear physiological differences between night elves and high elves, who would later become known as blood elves.

[Aucald]

I wouldn't say the Nightborne are a narrative replacement for the Shen'drelar Highborne, no. I think they just wanted something with a bit more meat lore-wise than the Shen'drelar when it came to the denizens of Suramar, though - both a way to make them stand out from the rank and file ancient Night Elves and a narrative hook for extending their storyline into the present day. I do feel like not having the Highborne appear in any capacity in conjunction with the Nightborne is a missed opportunity, it would be very interesting to see or hear their take on the Nightborne's plight and their decisions in the wake of the Sundering and the current goings-on.

[ravenmoon]

Looking at it in the context of Blizzard's long-term storytelling of the night elves and the situation with Azshara, that may or may not be so. But remember that the story of the Highborne and the modern culture of night elves with druids and all of that came to be was fully in place by the time WoW began, and that Dire Maul wasn't even available at the game's start.

That doesn't disprove your notion of course; I'm just attempting to put it in a lore context. IMO, the Shen'dralar represent one of the biggest themes in elf storytelling in Warcraft: the never-ending hunger for the arcane and how can lead to the destruction of groups if not somehow sated or solved. The Shen'dralar were the first such story represented in the MMO (we're not counting the RTSs here) and they laid the groundwork for the story of the blood elves.

But anyway, sure, maybe the plan all along was to use the Shen'dralar to eventually add mages to the night elf race. Unless one of the team from the early days says something about it, we'll never know.

actually, i think you're right, if i rephrase slightly, they just remind, in classic wow's lifetime the never-ending arcane hunger that can lead to destruction.. because the story of the sundering is not in the night elf opening scenario, nor is it referenced at all in the night elf starting area, you'd have to read the night elf background of WC3 and pay attention to the lore looking at outside game books like WotA to get the full background.

So Dire Maul initially was the visible way of showing the destructive nature of uncontrolled addiction/hunger to magic. I think later when they wanted to add mages the shen'drelar was the most expedient.

Finally i think the nightborne in contrast were showing the otherside of the arcane story, the one that for night elves (not for high elves) didn't end in destruction. it is the night elf arcane legacy that is restored, the nightborne are all "arcane night elf", showing you the brighter more hopeful and vibrant side to the arcane night elf legacy - that didn't end in destruction. Again no one has seen this at all in wow, so it's new, yet very old and established lore that predates wow, now like Dire Maul was fleshed out in patch, this is now fleshed out in an expansion.

IT's actually the side i was drawn too, because in the description in WC3 and in WotA, it wasn't all terrible and evil. The empire didn't fall to Azshara's greed or buckle or anything like that, as real as that danger was (glad to see they had people like the Valewalkers working on it), the Legion destroyed them prematurely, and it was their complacency because they had it so good that caused them to see it a bit too late, or they would have marshalled much sooner and opposed the queen. But they were still in Lala land in wonder of all the wonders their hands and wrought under Azshara's guidance. Just a look at the beauty of the cities and the lands, how could anyone who could spearhead such wonder have anything evil in her heart.

Able to do miracles no one else could and build wonders that would still be legendary in todays world, they failed to uphold their moral obligations Malfurion was a pariah for warning about and thus the demons overtook them easily in most cities, the citizens completely unprepared, completely oblivious till the moment of their doom, partying and drinking, and carrying on their little intrigues, failing to take heed to ALL the warning signs that were there.

That story is told in part in the WotA, although it is not the emphasis, neither is it the emphasis in the smaller retelling in Suramar, but Suramar does show the other side you ddin't quite get in WotA with the highborne and those practices of magic, the books never stayed long in night elf society, focusing instead around Malfurion, Tyrande, but mostly Krasus, Rhonin and Broxigar - so you never saw that there were many honourable highborne like Lord Ravencrest, or even Darth'remar Sunstrider, and that not all the society and people were corrupt and decadent although they had that issue at large.

When pressed to it, many nightborne rise out of their stupour rather than sink, unlike all the citizens of many of the cities in the WotA, the nightborne get a fighting chance, thanks to Thalyssra contacting us for help, and we get to see that just like Tyrande and Malfurion, Ravencrest, Illidan and the Shadowsongs all rose to the challenge, so to did this group of nightborne.

Not all the arcane night elves were terrible. Thalyssra and the nightborne rebels prove and show it, so does the Court of Farondis, but as they are ghosts, their legacy lives on in the nightborne. THe nightborne are ready now to play a role as a major group in the night elf world. Not the same or merged necessarily with Darnassus, but their own gorup, pretty much like how the Dark Irons are their own group of dwarf compared to the Wildhammer - they can be at peace and coperating, but they are two different peoples. Same with if the Darkspear jungle trolls and the Raventusk forest trolls.

THe make the night elf group more interesting, more varied too and i appreciate blizzard elven groups having diversity. As i mentioned earlier, this is not the high elf highborne thing who until the nightborne, you could have said were what happened to the highborne. But blizzard have decided to give the night elves , night elven highborne in the form of the nightborne. so highborne civilization and advancement continiues in the night capacity.. because the high elf capacity is differnet, it's no longer a night culture, it's no longer based on the Night elves - the children of the Stars.. it's a Sun and Light one, it's got it's own stories that are mixed in with humans and the scourge as told in WC2 and WC3, TBC etc - it's not pulled in as part of the night elf story, they didn't do any major night elf /blood elf or high elf involvement - their interactions were minor side additions. So they are there own world. HAving developed the night elves later, blizzard have continued on with their arcane legacy by introducing the nightborne, giving them good arcane users in their own world as opposed to only "the evil caster trope" of which the Naga and the Satyr fill. It is no longer "just magic users are evil, but nature users are good" in the night elf world, we now see different night elves in the nightborne elves - not nature , but arcane. And if we look at them, we see that these are the arcane night elves themselves not descendants, the actual ones, that have been mutated by the nightwell

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I wouldn't say the Nightborne are a narrative replacement for the Shen'drelar Highborne, no. I think they just wanted something with a bit more meat lore-wise than the Shen'drelar when it came to the denizens of Suramar, though - both a way to make them stand out from the rank and file ancient Night Elves and a narrative hook for extending their storyline into the present day. I do feel like not having the Highborne appear in any capacity in conjunction with the Nightborne is a missed opportunity, it would be very interesting to see or hear their take on the Nightborne's plight and their decisions in the wake of the Sundering and the current goings-on.

gosh..teach me how to summarise xD. Well said but in less words

[Wildmoon]

I believe it is a sub species actually. There are clear physiological differences between night elves and high elves, who would later become known as blood elves.

The high elves did not look like that before they became high elves. They were night elves when they were actually highborne. The caste ceased to exist when the civilization collasped.

[DeicideUH]

The high elves did not look like that before they became high elves. They were night elves when they were actually highborne. The caste ceased to exist when the civilization collasped.

Headcanon, but since a lot of statues in night elf ruins have high elf features (specially slimmer bodies and shorter ears pointing up), I do think some highborne could look like a mix between high and night elf (but they were still night elves, not a sub-race, and then they got paler and shorter when they became high elves).

[Verdugo]

Headcanon, but since a lot of statues in night elf ruins have high elf features (specially slimmer bodies and shorter ears pointing up), I do think some highborne could look like a mix between high and night elf (but they were still night elves, not a sub-race, and then they got paler and shorter when they became high elves).

Or, maybe, someone didnt want to be immortalized as a statue with a fat ass. Vanity was their hobby, remember.

[ravenmoon]

Headcanon, but since a lot of statues in night elf ruins have high elf features (specially slimmer bodies and shorter ears pointing up), I do think some highborne could look like a mix between high and night elf (but they were still night elves, not a sub-race, and then they got paler and shorter when they became high elves).

but ears pointing upwards is not the only distinguishing feature between them is it. Besides, the highborne that became high elves were all from on location, the Capital city and the Royal Palace. They are Zin'Azshari highborne. Most of the surviving night elves and off course all the nightborne come from Suramar. The Shen'dralar are from Eldre'thalas.. the empire spanned the globe, it is possible that certain elves had straight ears pointing up. But there are other explanations

Since none of us have seen a real elf live animated for long.. it could be they can actually move their ears up and down, it could be that when they are alert or highly focused, stressed or tensed, the ears rotate up , when serene, calm and relaxed they go down/ they could have alternatively been creative with thier statues, havi.. it's an interesting point tho

[Evangeliste]

I'm not quite a lore buff on elves but I will say my view of Higborne is like a social stance, based on being present in Queen Azshara's court. It's almost like they are part of the royal and nobility crust. I'm not 100% certain but I think Queen Azshara herself would appoint people into the Highborne circle.
Obviously the only problem with that was that those exiled were part of the Highborne who later became to be different people (or High Elves/Blood Elves), which is probably why it gets messy in terms of lore and I don't recall the mentioning of Highborne often or at all in Suramar to quite possibly distance itself from the original lore in place and prevent this overlapping of wording or in fact confusion, maybe it's to help streamline the newer nightborne into the elven circle as a whole.

Suramar does appear to display some sort of Highborne function with Elisandre, the happenings with the legion and the loyalists she has.
In fact from a gameplay point of view, I reckon Suramar was created with in mind to is display 'classic' elven lifestyle that was present at the time of Queen Azshara and can repeat itself, Suramar is in a way very much like previous history with an elevated leader surrounded and manipulated by Legion.

I believe that this second attempt within Suramar is not a perfected way because once again the Nightborne had those meddling Legion to play havoc with the Highborne notion. Also Queen Azshara is still alive so having a new and improved Highborne is not quite right because Queen Azshara still or has made her own new and improved Highborne.

[Combatbutler]

Besides, the highborne that became high elves were all from on location, the Capital city and the Royal Palace. They are Zin'Azshari highborne.

That is not quite correct though, there are quests in feralas that hint some of the shendralar highborne might have sailed alongside dath'remar to the east and Valeera sanguinar has ancestors in the suramar region, so it is possible the highborne who sailed east were not exclusively from Zin'Azshari.

[rated]

I believe it is a sub species actually. There are clear physiological differences between night elves and high elves, who would later become known as blood elves.

Highborne are just night elves that were buddy buddy with queen azshara. Other than access to the Well of Eternity they were the same. Highborne have turned into 2 different subspecies over time though aka high/blood elves and nightborne.