Night elf and Nightborne differences

**Mace** · 2018-01-15, 04:40 AM

How do you think blizzard will or should properly distinguish nightborne from night elves on a deeper level. I was thinking about them, and wondering more profound ways the two groups though similarly aged are different.

I must pause here to point out, that obvious things like advanced arcane city and arcane magic are really not what I'm thinking, those are superficial and not even accurate. For e.g. while night elves haven't lived in their civilization for millennia, they haven't forgotten how nor what they've learnt - we are told they didn't rebuild because doing so required the use of magic of the well they banned to prevent the legion returning. This actually give you an insight to the character of the post-sundering night elf.

THe nightborne are a representation of the pre-sundering night elf brought forward to the present age. The trapped in a bubble story is literally kaldorei pre-sundering culture preserved in a bubble. Blizzard wanted to bring a pristine night elf city and civilization to the present (they actually said that at Gamescom), and I for one prefer how they told the story as opposed to sending us back in time, or something worse like they were frozen/locked in a magic hibernation spell. It allowed a more in-depth and better story along with perks like a new appearance for night elves. (nightwell change, similar to void energy change void elves gets but with far less story background).

Anyway, the main differences between night elf and nightborne I think is pre-sundering elf versus post sundering night elf. For those of you who think it is arcane magic, it isn't, the lore has shown you night elves have already accepted arcane magic back in 4.0 (and never hated the source itself - something players confuse and is evidenced by their abundant use of moonwell waters from the well of eternity they hated magic abusers that caused this sundering and this state they are in (and you must realize if they hate this, then they must have loved thee wholeness and beauty their realm once had and it must annoy them they couldn't return to it - hence why abstaining from arcane magic use was a sacrifice - and another indicator of their nature). To better understand where they are now, you cannot ignore that he ban on usage though was lifted a few years ago you have to bear in mind, some really took eagerly to it. You have to factor this in seriously. The highborne are a group that are magically adept and progressed arcane wise over the last 10k years - the difference is not that nightborne are more advanced at magic necessarily - you only see the advancements of the nightborne because more art time development was given to showing you as they were part of the main expansion set, over the highborne in 4.0 who were a rush/small job in an expansion where the dragon aspects and the devastation of a cataclsym were the focus. Lore wise the night elves are greatly in need of the arcane and as of Legion, with the cure of addiction and final defeat of the legion, even though most reluctant have no reason to reject it. And while this doesn't mean everyone will flock to the arcane (those who are druids and priests won't give up their profession), the arcane is definitely back along with the highborne and a part of their society once more.

Night elves have arcane in their society, one of the differences from the nightborne is the measure of it. But it should not be the main difference. For those of you who haven't gathered this, amongst the night elves, magic is exclusively the domain of the highborne - meaning they handle it, develop it, and train - all who train with them become highborne in a similar manner to how Queen Azshara would pick the most gifted amongst the night elven populace at the arcane and elevate them to this social caste (you must bear in mind the highborne still operate in the pre-sundering culture similar to though porbably not as purely as the shal'dorei - again you cannot ignore this in your considerations). Pre-sundering, the arcane was a part of every facet of kaldorei society. This is so amongst the nightborne, but not the night elves as a whole. For kaldorei It is only like this amongst the highborne group. Thalyssra and co have not met the highborne yet. {From an in-universe perspective} the thought of all kaldorei being like Tyrande and the druids they met, with zero arcane presence and the prospect of potentially ( and i say potentially) have to explain and justify or encourage and promote use of this to people who don't see it (in your opinion) must have been or can be quite off putting and seem like a huge chore in comparison to a group like the blood elves and could be the reasoning behind blizzard giving her the line about stagnating and not feeling welcome. Thalyssra hasn't met the highborne yet, and well, the high elves are completely forgotten too.

The main difference I feel between night elf and nightborne is wisdom and maturity - Notice how Valewalker Farodin speaks or the druids of Val'sharah - they mention things like the folly of the elves, the lesson of humility that the nightborne did not learn as they didn't experience the aftermath of the sundering (but now have to due to the withering). This is where the profound distinction comes.

The nightborne don't have the depth of their kin. They've not had to lose as much or live so long without their comforts, this is what nearly undid them before the legion and why Elisande gave in rather than fight - this hardness is not in them yet, but they are getting there, Thalyssra experiencing the withering as Farodin predicted is the humility the nightborne needed to learn, the strength and wisdom to give up the nightwell is a clear result of proof that they are learning this (a very night elven trait and one that in the original story before the 7.1 modifications that started inserting the directional hints, was putting them firmly in the night elf camp) - something their younger blood elf cousins did not get as they kept their well despite the danger they were aware of (the narrative outright says many could not give up the arcane font amongst the blood elves). Look at one of the dreamer druids of Val'sharah in the BRH world quest say "In our more foolhardy days, we freely experimented with the arcane, <name> was brilliant, but has now been maddened by the foul magic that pervades this place" - this embodies the key difference, the profound one between night elf and nightborne - a nightborne would never say that although he may now think it, to consider those days the more foolhardy ones? Certainly not Elisande's calibre of nightborne, Thalyssra's on the other hand, I think are just beginning to understand.

I brainstormed a scenario with some fellow housemate wow fans of what the interaction between night elf and nightborne would be like if they were allies, based on 7.0 info (not 7.1), one of the things I came up with was the nightborne would really try to win their kin over to fully embrace the arcane as a good and necessary thing, and consider themselves to champion the cause of arcane restoration. But most night elves would look at them as though children as if to say, it's not the be all and end all - it's not necessary for a full and fulfilling live. It doesn't need to be a part of everything in our society like it once was, it's not an absolute need as we all once thought. For those who profess in it, let it continue to be all things to them, but it is not necessary for this to be the case for me (a druid) or me (a priest). However they did not become allies in the end. Still it leaves night elves with a very unique feel that's different from nightborne.

New night elf society characterized by harmony and balance - segregated orders pursuing their order's mandate to the fullest, but no longer feeling the need that everyone must experience the benefits of their progress. In time they will share together and learn together, pooling their knowledge together, this is what they have to relearn how to do again, from living so apart for so long, they find themselves together.

Nightborne don't have this problem ofc, already together, but they however do not have the serenitiy and tranquility nor stability of their kin, they are only just learning the full price of their hubris, and it will change them. They are not as hardened as the others, but war will toughen them up and just like their kin have everything it takes to be full and whole again, they have what it takes to weather the new storms they will face.

**Wildmoon** · 2018-01-15, 05:01 AM

Well, the nightborne don't know what it means to actually fight and sacrifice for the world. The Night Elves wouldn't either without the cultural shift toward Malfurion and his followers's ideals. What Malfurion said to Tyrande when she was reluctant to sacrifice their immortality summarizes what's wrong with the attitude of all elves. They are delusional to think that they are entitled to this and that. X is their birthright blah blah blah.

**Rhlor** · 2018-01-15, 05:16 AM

I think the main difference besides the biological characteristics is that the night elves are willing to sacrifice their own identity to please their allies

**omfgreally** · 2018-01-15, 07:23 AM

Nightborne are basically Drow. So I bet we will see tons of "Drizzt Do'Urden" wannabes...

**Mace** · 2018-01-15, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Elune-life-nature

There really are so much differences because Nightborne stayed the way they were pre-sundering but Night Elves changed their life style after WotA. They are exactly the opposite of each other. Night Elves are religious while Nightborne are not. Nature, dream, life and Elune are the Night Elves first priority while Nightborne priority are magic, nobility and themselves. Night Elves tend to live in the heart of the nature while Nightborne like to live in luxurious cities.

I think the latter points are quite superficial. Night elves may tend to live in the heart of nature, but they would love to live in luxurious cities, remember their story shows you they could not - because they wouldn't use magic of the well, the only way to rebuild what was broken - it's like if you cannot use electrical power because it will bring back the aliens, there is no way you are going to be able to power the tech you need to rebuild a ruined New York or London or Seoul/Tokyo, Dubai etc especially with the trauma of the aliens fresh and vivid in your mind and you consider yourself bound by sacred duty to protect your world by every effort you can muster

Why would you hate the abusers that brought this menace? Because they destroyed the things you love most - your cities, your beautiful world your people had spent 5,000 years from their awakening enhancing ... it's not that this is how you love to live. Living in nature is how a druid may love to live, but I'm not even sure all druids did if Fandral staghelm is any indication. Certainly Malfurion, but Malfurion isn't every night elf, and every night elf isn't druid.

WHen people think of night elf society today, they are often forgetting the highborne and the arcane are a part of it now, and that not all night elves are druids. This leads them I think to erroneously think the night elves are marked by being nature only. I don't believe wow distinguishes its elves like that. For night elves nature is a part of the lifestyle, but the arcane works with nature too, and prior to ban it cannot be used because they feel it can draw back the legion, post ban it now can be used, but to them, it returns to its original function in their society, enhancing life, nature, it does not preclude living in cities. Priests live in cities and buildings, your average citizen will do, your druid doesn't really care for that. Night elves because of their mandate (druids in the dream) and priests patrolling had no need and time for rebuilding cities, so they did not - it cannot be confused with having no desire to do so. THen there are the highborne, even if you could convince yourself all night elves were druids and even the priests preferred to live in barrow dens, the highborne do not, therefore not all night elves are averted to cities. Not even druids are, they just prefer the wild, - nothing to say a druid can't enter the dream in the comfort of a beautiful house - whether the house is marble or wood. However a druid wouldn't feel the need to be in a city, though he may stay there for a time, however not all night elves are druids. You cannot forget that. And you have to leave room for the possibilty of a nightborne druid too, the type of druid that is pro-city, since he has been living in one for all his life. He will love the wild, but he won't hate or be shy of the city either.

What I agree with in your post is that the night elves are more religious minded - sacred duty, lawful good these are all far more important to them as a whole. Maybe not as much the highborne group, however the shend'ralar are portrayed as fanatical to the arcane, so their sacred duty is the arcane, the zealots and scholars in dire maul seem more fanatical about the arcane than any nightborne in Suramar, which fits with the kaldorei religious theme, for the priests it's Elune, for the druid, nature is the religion, for the highborne its the arcane.

**Dagoth Ur** · 2018-01-15, 01:44 PM

One will have a home and one won't.. whoops

I mean they aren't that similar to begin with so I don't see the problem here. They were maybe one and the same in the past but now their cultures couldn't be more different. Even though they accepted Shen'dalar back nightelves' culture still revolves mainly around druidism and nature while nightborne are all about arcane.

They're different in the same way blood elves and night elves are.

**Beloren** · 2018-01-15, 04:50 PM

Originally Posted by Elune-life-nature

They detest luxurious life style. It must not be confused with living in beautiful places (which is usually in the nature). What I meant about luxury is something like being in a city which wealth and social classes matters, similar to that of Nightborne in Suramar that the high classes enjoy their free time in luxurious boats that IIRC we even had a WQ to burn them.

Night Elves (except the Highborne) pretty much prefer to live in the forest than a city, just like they did for 10 thousand years. Even Darnassus is a city on a world tree which is built based on the natural environment and ofc the temple of Elune which the temple itself is filled with gardens.

It cannot be denied that arcane is also part of their society but nature is like about 90% of their culture while Nightborne are 100% arcane.

The Druid detests decadent opulence which was how Malfurion perceived kaldorei culture had become just before the invasion. It was more the attitude of recklessness than living in wealth that was the main issue. His point was you didn’t need all that excess stuff nature provided for a reason. He really felt his people needed to be weaned off the dependence on the arcane which wasn’t necessary to the extent they were employing it which was corrupting their original good nature (this was the result of arcane addiction ofc). You don’t need the arcane to do everything in your culture which was not the whole point of magic (this pa corrupting influence on this unnecessary degree of usage) and was a perversion of the night elves’ original calling to the arcane. We learnt later on this attitude amongst the elves was a result of arcane addiction and is comparable to our unhealthy dependence on technology and decadent opulence that leads to a wastefulness. It’s more like the unnecessary over use of phones and apps for everything when it is healthier for people to just talk as opposed to genuinely useful and beneficial applications of technology.

This can be one of he differences between night elf and nightborne as nightborne are pretty much in the pre-sundering vein whereas he kaldorei are far more frugal and sparing with the use of their power and magic whether it be arcane ( As we see in Estulan) or nature.

It is not to be confused with the wholesale rejection of magic which is not the case with the night elves Even druids don’t reject the arcane. Valewalker Farodin and Malfurion both accept its use, their issue as druids is abuse and addiction, over reliance so they live a very simple almost all natural life. This is the Druid way not the way of all night elves. Priest have a different focus. The goddess. She doesn’t demand they live in trees or holes as you can see her magnificent temples are anything but.

Night elves have arcane and they use it via their highborne. Their focus and philosophy is different it’s more frugal, more sparing, not wasteful or reckless, or at least a more acute awareness of corruption of the soul they will be more keen to avoid the mistake of the past and this varies from hardly ever with the druids to often with the highborne. The arcane group is a separate group amongst the night elves unlike in Thalassian elves and nightborne where it is in all groups. Remember night elves are a much bigger group and have lived segregated between their orders. Priests never interacted with druids and highborne his in their City for 10k years only coming together recently to fight the Legion in WC3 and the cataclysm.

I would consider the highborne as the greatest magical theory specialists, the nightborne apply theory far more often to everyday conveniences and items as they’re use to it. Highborne may live in a city like Suramar but they won’t be in a rush to go build new arcane cities, nightborne would. Magical theory like theoretical physics would be threir forte and you would see them occasionally apply their knowledge to build something extraordinary that no one else could manage but you can guarantee it has a very specific purpose and was necessary, they won’t sit down and build tons of unnecessary items, make market out of it etc. The nightborne on the other hand would. Kaldorei are more reclusive, shal’dorei Want to make their mark in the world in the mindset of pre-sundering kaldorei which even highborne have changed a bit from as they had to live without a fancy well.

What you can see in the alliance is that where in the horde the nightborne do this, in the alliance it’s the humans that use the highborne theory and commercialise it as they do with the gnome tech. Goblins on the other hand commercialise their inventions but gnomes rather make out of intrigue and curiosity this is how the highborne would be more like.

So the nightborne would have more fancy looking stuff just like Kezan looks more fancy than gnomersgan but doesn’t necessarily mean goblins are more advanced than gnomes.

Malfurion is a Druid. For them nature is everything but this will not be all night elves. For some the arcane is everything, others Elune, but all know the dangers of arcane abuse and one difference between NElves and nbelves is a far more acute awareness of the Weighton was of this.

**Darktbs** · 2018-01-15, 04:58 PM

Nightborne are Falmer.

**fathom81** · 2018-01-15, 05:00 PM

I wanna be like runas.

**Beloren** · 2018-01-15, 07:40 PM

Originally Posted by Darktbs

Nightborne are Falmer.

Falmer? What does that mean?

**Dagoth Ur** · 2018-01-15, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by EnigmAddict

Falmer? What does that mean?

TES version of withered with kinda different withering story.

**Aucald** · 2018-01-15, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by EnigmAddict

Falmer? What does that mean?

Falmer are a species of Elves in the "Elder Scrolls" series of games. They're essentially Deep Elves, a subterranean and enslaved species of Elven descent, blind and adapted to the lightless depths. You can read more about them here.

**Ryuuji** · 2018-01-15, 07:57 PM

You can't just ignore 10000 years of Exposure to the Nightwell in an Isolated bubble and say it didn't change them as a people. This is the exact same type of Event that Created the Tauren, changed Trolls into Dark Elves. Fonts of Power have incredible Life altering and shaping abilities from their Latent energies. Beyond that, 10000 years behind a Bubble all by themselves and you think their Culture just Stagnated and stayed the same? Night Elves have been living and fighting for their Druidic Lifestyle for thousands of years at this point. They did not "remember" their Arcane ways, an Offshoot of the Night Elves were permitted into the Dire Maul to retrieve some of their Teachings and to start to bring Magic users back into the fold of Night Elf society. The Nightborne and Night Elves are as different as the Vryukl and Humans at this point. It should also be mentioned that Suramar was built on top of a Conduit of Ley energies as we find out while doing the Shal'aran quest lines, so to build another City like it, with another power conduit similar to the Nightwell, they would need a similar convergence of Ley energy.

You've seemingly created your own Highborne lore out of nowhere, The Current highborne in the Night Elf society aren't societal elites, they dont live in enormous castles and Cities like Farondis did, they are simply the night elves that current practice arcane magic, likely descending from a small sect of night elves that split from the group that would become the Blood Elves. In terms of time in game, the night elves have only actively been practicing Arcane magics for under 10 years in comparison to over 10000 years without it.

An Edit just to Clarify: The Sunwell has been completely purified and is now a Font for both Arcane and Holy power and is the source of power for Blood Elf Paladins(Blood Knights)

**Dagoth Ur** · 2018-01-15, 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by Aucald

Falmer are a species of Elves in the "Elder Scrolls" series of games. They're essentially Deep Elves, a subterranean and enslaved species of Elven descent, blind and adapted to the lightless depths. You can read more about them here.

This reminds me how cool it would be to see TES vs WoW ultimate elf showdown. TES probably has as many elf variants as WoW, and people are crazy about them same as they're crazy about elves in WoW. Maybe one quick cross franchise war would cull elven numbers on both sides.

**Aucald** · 2018-01-15, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by Dagoth Ur

This reminds me how cool it would be to see TES vs WoW ultimate elf showdown. TES probably has as many elf variants as WoW, and people are crazy about them same as they're crazy about elves in WoW. Maybe one quick cross franchise war would cull elven numbers on both sides.

I always thought it odd that the TES' series' Dwarves were also essentially Elves - kind of an odd take, but it works within the franchise.

**Dagoth Ur** · 2018-01-15, 08:25 PM

Originally Posted by Aucald

I always thought it odd that the TES' series' Dwarves were also essentially Elves - kind of an odd take, but it works within the franchise.

TES main theme revolves around mer vs men conflict so it makes sense yeah. Orsimer or Orcs are also variation of elves. If I remember correctly I think the only race that doesn't have elven or human origins are Argonians.

**Beloren** · 2018-01-15, 08:36 PM