Eh? Why is that?
Until recently (very, very recently) Belves and Hevles were just Helves, obviously pretty much ALL rangers had these markings and stuff, then there's ideological split, and they became Belves and Helves, however, it doesn't mean that now none of Belven rangers have no markings for some reason.
Just because they don't have them in the game, doesn't mean that it's canon. I mean, in-game Helves don't have them either.
Still you insist? Ion stated twice that High Elves are Void Elves and Blood Elves and that he has no interest in adding them as a playable race. You should know when to quit, High Elf fanboys. You will not have your way.
Whatever...
Wow, these are absolutely fantastic, ercarp! Great stuff.
It might be nice to try some that deviate even further from the look of Blood Elves. Maybe try some wild stuff that might be pushing it too far. We'd really need an aesthetic that separates them from the majestic look of the Blood Elves.
Suddenly?
This aspect of elf culture has been completely forgotten (if not retconned) by Blizzard for years. Try to search official art featuring it!
High elf fans have been using it as an idea to make a clear visual distinction between elf races. If not for them, the facial marking could have been completely forgotten.
I'm not opposed to give blood elf their own kind of markings. Maybe arcane runes or scars, for example. But, assuming an hypothetical high elf race, it would be in the best interest of everyone that the styles of such markings be very distinct from each other.
Whatever...
After a lot of thinking, i just realized Elves and their Troll ancestors are affected and "tainted" or "forged" by all the six main powers listed in the first book of Chronicles. Check out:
So, according to this we have:
--> LIFE - NATURE: Trolls / Night Elves
--> ORDER - ARCANE: Uncorrupted Highborne / Nightborne / Alliance High Elves / Trolls
--> LIGHT - HOLY: Blood Elves / Trolls
--> SHADOW - VOID: Void Elves / Naga V.2
--> DEATH - NECROMANTIC: Undead Elves / San'layn
--> DISORDER - FEL: Felblood Elf / Felborne / Naga V.1
As playable characters, only fel-tained elves and trolls get corrupted and completely evil, aka not redeemable.
Also the majority of the Naga became hostile, and now some naga like Azshara shifted from fel to shadow (left Sargeras and joined the old gods).
All the rest can be friendly allies of the Alliance or of the Horde.
Nature Elves / Trolls are mainly elves and trolls related to druid and shaman classes (being shaman troll only), aka night elves and trolls. The Quel'thalas elves are elves that evolved from the night elf highborne, so elves connected more to the arcane than to nature, as all nature elves remained with the night elves.
So High Elves are Arcane Elves, just like the Nightborne are and how Naga once were as well, before becoming corrupted.
Just like High Elves got the arcane sunwell the Highborne got the nightwell.
But Warcraft 3 events happened and the sunwell was destroyed (temporarily at least). More than 90% were killed by Arthas, and many raised in undead (like Sylvanas).
These undead Elves became tained by necromantic magic.
The surviving high elves, who were addicted to the arcane had to find other alternative sources.
Some remained with Kael'thas, were remained Blood Elves while others left to other places and stayed with the Alliance (the current Alliance High Elves).
After the events of the Burning Crusade, the Sunwell got purified with holy power and the holy power started infusing Blood Elves with holy magic, as we can see now in their holy colored eyes. These high elves, aka blood elves, are now tained by holy energy.
On the other side there were other elves that heard the call of the void. the void elf introduction scenario explains what happened to them. They are now elves tained by shadow magic.
So right now the only arcane tainted elves are night elf mages, nightborne and alliance high elves (the main reason of the high elf blue eyes). For that reason, i consider Alliance high Elves different from Blood Elves.
Focusing only on Night Elves, Nightborne and Quel'thalas Elves, here are the main magics that tainted them:
NATURE: Kaldorei (Night Elves)
ARCANE: Quel'dorei (Alliance High Elves) + Shal'dorei (Nightborne) + Highborne Kaldorei (Night Elf Mages)
HOLY: Sin'dorei (Blood Elves)
VOID: Ren'dorei (Void Elves)
NECROMANTIC: Undead Elves (Sylvanas, Undead High Elves, Dark Rangers, San'layn,...)
FEL (HOSTILE): Felborne + Felblood Elves
Last edited by RangerDaz; 2018-04-30 at 06:17 PM.
The look of a race in game is just the representative look of typical members of that race. Do we really believe that no human or dwarf in WoW has a tattoo? Yet we can't pick them. We get the look that represents the race. Warpaint could be the look that represents the High Elves.
If the look was meant to be all literal possibilities, we'd get tons of sliders for facial features, weight, height, etc...
That doesn't make them distinct though, it is something that is already tied to both, it never was high elf exclusive and never will be, even if the blood elves would not receive the same customization options, it is nothing short but delusional to argue with distinctions prior to their split. Everything they did before leaving the Thalassian fold can be just as well be attributed to the blood elves, because the blood elves did not abandon their culture.
So if someone intends to argue for something only high elves have they can use something that only they did after departing from the blood elves.
- - - Updated - - -
Which still wouldn't make it a high elf thing.