Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[Aresk]

Anyhow, the Shen'dralar timeline is as follows:

• -10,000: The Sundering. The Shen'dralar remain isolated and secluded in Eldre'Thalas. Since they are becoming lethargic, they summon the demon Immol'thar and start siphoning its power. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1, pg. 133]
• -1,200: The Slaughter. Prince Tortheldrin and his followers kill most of their Shen'dralar elven kin in order to hoard the fading demon's power for themselves. Most of the city is abandoned, and other creatures start moving in. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1, pg. 139]
• 25: Dire Maul. The ruins of Eldre'Thalas are raided and the Shen'dralar discovered feeding on Immol'thar. The majority of elves, including the prince, is killed by the Horde, while the demon is banished into the Twisting Nether. The surviving Shen'dralar flee the ruined city and wander in the woods trying to wean themselves off demonic power addiction. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 3, pg. 120]
• 28: The Cataclysm. The Highborne Shen'dralar sorcerers from Dire Maul eventually settled in Darnassus.

This is supposedly why, contrary to the Nightborne, the Shen'dralar did not change appearance much if at all, and Brann Bronzebeard reports just that thay have a 'pastier complexion'. [World of Warcraft: The Magazine Volume II Issue I] (pic from Wowpedia)

Thank you for clarifying the timeline! I mixed up when they killed off a bunch of their kin with when they started siphoning the demon.

[Isilrien]

...P.S. For the fun of it... here comes a PHOTOSHOPPED MOCKUP of a hypotethical Highborne female based on current customization options.

I have added:

• Matching jeweled headdress
• Matching jeweled earrings
• Make-up like facial markings in the style of those displayed by Azshara in the Warbringers animation
• Headcanon purple "arcane" eyes

This looks great! Thanks for sharing

[Astranea]

Would like the facial markings to be customizeable, as in change the color on them. When I go with blue hair I dont want the markings to be red! Hope they add that in.

Aye, this kind of feature should be feasible to obtain, considering how tattoos work for all other races, and how they are disconnecting druid and even worgen forms from the base customizations. It makes little sense for the markings color to be coupled up with the hair at this point!

Probably something to come with one of the next updates. Or at least I hope so!

Fingers crossed. :-)

P.s. I am trying to collect feedback to push it on the Official EU forums... so if you have any further items to add to the bullet list above, please by all means reply to this thread with it.

[Ardenaso]

• -10,000: The Sundering. The Shen'dralar remain isolated and secluded in Eldre'Thalas. Since they are becoming lethargic, they summon the demon Immol'thar and start siphoning its power. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1, pg. 133]
• -1,200: The Slaughter. Prince Tortheldrin and his followers kill most of their Shen'dralar elven kin in order to hoard the fading demon's power for themselves. Most of the city is abandoned, and other creatures start moving in. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1, pg. 139]
• 25: Dire Maul. The ruins of Eldre'Thalas are raided and the Shen'dralar discovered feeding on Immol'thar. The majority of elves, including the prince, is killed by the Horde, while the demon is banished into the Twisting Nether. The surviving Shen'dralar flee the ruined city and wander in the woods trying to wean themselves off demonic power addiction. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 3, pg. 120]
• 28: The Cataclysm. The Highborne Shen'dralar sorcerers from Dire Maul eventually settled in Darnassus.

27: Deliberation Mordent leads his Shen'dralar refugees to attempt to negotiate and make amends with the Night Elves

[Pheraz]

Cool video from keyboard turner:

[Astranea]

27: Deliberation Mordent leads his Shen'dralar refugees to attempt to negotiate and make amends with the Night Elves

Good point there. ^^

So, how do you like the customization so far? :-)

[ravenmoon]

Cool video from keyboard turner:

Nice video I take it they are not available fully in beta yet.

Lots of cool new options I have to say I really like them, especially for my druid.

However not enough Highborne distinctions, we need a Highborne slider or 3.

Highborne headdress- like the males I the original post, with floating g objects etc
Arcane effects: arcane tattoo, glowy ha ds, star effect on skin
Posture: straight neck, skinny body


Vines scream nature love which is good
We need something that screams arcane affinity too I.e. highborne

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I feel we arent getting more, but we really should.

So far new male faces and posture all round

I think the Highborne additions so far are

the arcane eye colours, (remember silver eyes are an arcane feature)
The new hair colours are all highborne/arcane (black, blonde, pink)
Many new skin tones are highborne based
Female necklace is highborne based
Most of the new hairstyles fit Highborne noble types

[sammy18]

Nice video I take it they are not available fully in beta yet.

Lots of cool new options I have to say I really like them, especially for my druid.

However not enough Highborne distinctions, we need a Highborne slider or 3.

Highborne headdress- like the males I the original post, with floating g objects etc
Arcane effects: arcane tattoo, glowy ha ds, star effect on skin
Posture: straight neck, skinny body


Vines scream nature love which is good
We need something that screams arcane affinity too I.e. highborne

- - - Updated - - -

I feel we arent getting more, but we really should.

So far new male faces and posture all round

I think the Highborne additions so far are

the arcane eye colours, (remember silver eyes are an arcane feature)
The new hair colours are all highborne/arcane (black, blonde, pink)
Many new skin tones are highborne based
Female necklace is highborne based
Most of the new hairstyles fit Highborne noble types

I hope that the female night elf facial marking colors are finally independent of the hair color selected. The technology is here, let’s do it Blizz!

[Isilrien]

I hope that the female night elf facial marking colors are finally independent of the hair color selected. The technology is here, let’s do it Blizz!

I completely agree!

[ravenmoon]

Not every race needs to recieve exactly the same

Worgen have 30 eye colours for example

True, but when you really like a race, you want options, especially if you have like 10 toons, you want more than just 1 good face and 1 hairstyle or beard you like out of 6 options, but when you jump to a race like human you have like 20 options for most things, especially the important character defining options.

But it's nice to have 20 eye options

[Astranea]

I made these mockups to show the WarcraftDevs on Twitter why we need purple glowing eyes, blue and orange facial markings and more jewelry added to the nightelf customization.





Also, the druids deserve Emerald green eyes and their own facial markings, too.

Seriously. We need this:



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Oh and this Twitter post by RukiexRamen also shows some extra jewelry.

Those long ears have enough space for much more… so why not?

[Yarathir]

Looong post

I hope we get at least the green eyes. Might fit druids more, but I would just let them be a general Night Elf option.

The extra jewelry also looks good, but considering the different ear sizes and shapes, I would say Blizzard is probably limited in how long they can be. Otherwise you'll end up with hoverjewelry. (Although this is also the case with some new Blood Elf jewelry, so who knows, maybe Blizzard has that figured out)

At the very least, though, they could make a bunch more ear jewelry that extends at least up until the farthest point of the shortest ears.

Is there also any edit with a chain necklace with a moon pendant? That's kind of what I want.

[Hellspawn]

The extra jewelry also looks good, but considering the different ear sizes and shapes, I would say Blizzard is probably limited in how long they can be. Otherwise you'll end up with hoverjewelry. (Although this is also the case with some new Blood Elf jewelry, so who knows, maybe Blizzard has that figured out)

It works for the blood elfs aswell, so should not be a problem.


I really hope they make some more faces, night elf just got too many perma-smile faces. I faceshape slider like humans got might not be necessary since the face shapes already differ with each face quite a bit.

[AsgardBY99]

When will night elf males straighten their necks instead of looking like trolls~! Secondly when will the Night Elf female's calf tumor go away.

[Yarathir]

It works for the blood elfs aswell, so should not be a problem.


I really hope they make some more faces, night elf just got too many perma-smile faces. I faceshape slider like humans got might not be necessary since the face shapes already differ with each face quite a bit.

It does? Last time I checked, some of the jewelry further up on the ear kind of started floating on the shorter ears.

Can I see how it works ingame?

And I don't think that any race will get new faces. Only humans got new face options so far, right?

[AsgardBY99]

Highborne isn't fundamentally different from the other Night Elves, except that their more demon-sucking has some more obvious arcane traits, but there's no difference in substance, and the original also states that Highborne is merely a self-proclaimed name for the gang, rather than a branch unique to itself.

- - - Updated - - -

By Earth logic, the complexion of creatures in the dark should be very close to white or even transparent, and when the Night Elves mixed with the violet color of the arcane, their skin should be white skin through a light purple, though it's unknown if Azeroth fits that logic or not.

[ravenmoon]

Highborne isn't fundamentally different from the other Night Elves, except that their more demon-sucking has some more obvious arcane traits, but there's no difference in substance, and the original also states that Highborne is merely a self-proclaimed name for the gang, rather than a branch unique to itself.

They arent genetically different from other night elves, but stylistically and aesthetically distinctive.

Now blizz dont have to specifically reflect this, but they should because of how distinctive this notorious group is.

And the Highborne amongst the alliance aligned night elF faction arent fel sucking. You have 3 types.

1. Returned Darnassian Highborne who did the Long vigil respecting the ban and now returned to the caste on its re-integration into that group
2. New Darnassian Highborne, thipese are new night elves hand picked for training by the She 'dralar and are the castes new generation.
3. Shen'dralar highborne themselves


None of these sucked fel. The shen'dralar leader and some of them did get demonic corruption, but nothing is mentioned of fel. The energy they siphoned off Immol'thar was arcane energy not fel, however the demon was able to subtly corrupt the Prince over time.

No fel sucking mentioned like the Blood elves or Felborne.

By Earth logic, the complexion of creatures in the dark should be very close to white or even transparent, and when the Night Elves mixed with the violet color of the arcane, their skin should be white skin through a light purple, though it's unknown if Azeroth fits that logic or not

True, although sarth logic isnt always used here.

But it is possible it is, because when night elves were exiled, thecutting off from the well lost their skin its characteristic purple hue the lore says...and what colour are Thalassian elves?

Exactly going darker in more sunlight as they tan.

One can say the night elves degree of purple is based on how much well mojo (not official), this accounts for the purpling of the skin, it is quit possible that the darker skin tones are from tans of those who stayed up late at day rather than sleeping.

Also, we dont know if the second moon has light radiation effects that also affect the skin colour if you stay out at night. Highborne types would be lighter purple hues as they would be indoors in studies or academies, in contrast to soldiers, workers, adventurers, missionary priests and druids most of all

[Astranea]

By Earth logic, the complexion of creatures in the dark should be very close to white or even transparent, and when the Night Elves mixed with the violet color of the arcane, their skin should be white skin through a light purple, though it's unknown if Azeroth fits that logic or not.

It was actually mentioned in the first post of this thread. You may want to check out the Q&A there. :-)

...when it comes to the physical aspect, in the notes from Brann Bronzebeard from World of Warcraft: The Magazine Volume II Issue I (pic from Wowpedia) it is stated:

"Not much 'o difference between the Kaldorei 'n Highborne, physically pastier, maybe.
But they consider themselves different enough."

So we would expect lighter skin colors, as also supported by the evidence of the Surviving Highborne (mostly Shen'dralar used as mage trainers and reforgers) NPCs in game, which often have white hair (17 of the 21!) and shades of pink and light purple skin (9+7) versus occasional green (2) and water blue (1) hair and skins in pink with blue hue (2), full blue (1) or darker (2).

As for the matter of demon-sucking:

It's undoubtedly curious that despite siphoning energy from a demon for about the same amount of time that radically changed both the High/Blood Elves and the Nightborne, the Shen'dralar did not transform into some sort of Fel elf.

How this was achieved has never been explicitly stated by Blizzard, although some theories that attempt to make sense of it from the limited information available from the Chronicles have been discussed in this post. In short: arcane pylons siphoning and filtering the magical energy.

Although there still was some sort of addiction, as the surviving Shen'dralar are said to have fled the ruined city and wander in the woods trying to wean themselves off demonic power addiction for a few years before seeking audience in Darnassus. [World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 3, pg. 120]

[ravenmoon]

Was fel ever mentioned for the Shen'dralar? I only recall addiction and demonic corruption, which is t necessarily fel or corruptible fel

[Hellspawn]

Was fel ever mentioned for the Shen'dralar? I only recall addiction and demonic corruption, which is t necessarily fel or corruptible fel

It was never to my knowledge. They just got "clean" magic power from the demon somehow.