Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[Kithelle]

The Shen’dralar were Highborne Night Elves who did not live in Zin-Azshari, and remained isolated and secluded to the point that they were never exiled from Kalimdor and never became High/Blood Elves.

Yet, canon lore states that they rejoined the Night Elves and have been in charge for training the Night Elf mages since Cataclysm.

From https://wow.gamepedia.com/Highborne:
"According to Brann Bronzebeard, there is little physical difference between the Highborne and the rest of the kaldorei (save perhaps the Highborne being slightly pastier), but they consider themselves different enough."

We have also been told that the Night Elves undergo some irreversible physical changes from mastering the Arcane that would mark them forever and once the process had begun there would be no way to reverse or stop it.

Yet, Blizzard has never bothered/had a chance to show us what happens.

Further, even thought the Shen'dralar Highborne were established by the Classic lore, we don't know exactly what their isolation did to them, and it's kind of weird that they wouldn't have changed _at all_ considering that they fed leeching a demon and the same amount of time changed the High Elves and the Nightborne, so the customization revamp could be a good chance for Blizzard to add some variety to Night Elves and furthering interest in a storyline they have already developed in Classic and Cataclysm at the same time.

A hypothetical ‘Highborne’ customization for the Night Elves could therefore possibly include:

• choice of fancy jewelry (thinking earrings and tiaras, although the Night Elves should also have leaves and druidic stuff of course)
• choice of gold glowing eyes (not a specifically distinctive Highborne trait, but a logical option for Night Elves and Azshara had them)
• choice of lighter hair colors, possibly pink and platinum blonde (like the Nightborne, as a part of the pastier looks reported by Brann)
• choice of lighter skin tones (also part of said appearance, in fact most Highborne NPC's use the fairer and peachiest NE skin tones)
• choice of 'electric' colored skin tones (like Azshara, possibly connected to the use of arcane magic)

Edited: Aside from this, which should be pretty much canon/feasible, I would admittedly also like a choice of slightly different ears, tilted a bit upwards like one can see from the statues in the Highborne city of Eldre’Thalas. Yet I have been warned that even though the statues in many Vanilla locations display elves with said ears, this is due to Blizzard not having yet established the lore about the transition between the Night and the High Elves at the time, rather than than the Shan’dralar Highborne representing the missing link between them. Which I find pretty sad. :-(

Hence I will just carry on the hopeless dream that Blizzard might add a choice of different ears for the Night Elves simply because such customization is a default feature for all the other races who have big ones (goblin, worgem, vulpera), based on the assumption that if they can make new faces for the Humans and non-rotten skins for the Undead despite of them not having ever been in game, they could also add completely new features to the fantasy races. ;-)

Either way, I would certainly switch my Night Elf character to a very pale skin tone, golden eyes, or any other of these 'Highborne' customizations if we got them implemented.

Am I the only silly one who likes such an idea?

The only problem I can think of is the golden eyes, because those are supposed to be for people who have great destinies...like Azshara and Illidan...kinda makes it not so special (And I can imagine Belf players complaining about it even if they're not High Elves...even though Blood Elves took some shine away from Lightforged)

[matrix123mko]

I found this edit by Mystmantle on Deviant art
I loooooove this, this is totally how a female Highborne, or even Priestess of the moon would style her hair.

Awesome. I need to look for more stuff like that.

[Hellspawn]

Would be weird to have them as part of the NE options, as we have not seen any of this troops join the Alliance, in general, i doubt we will be getting DR NE skins for either factions

There are quite some night elf mages and also the leader of then Shen'dralar is in the darkshore warfront.

[Maxilian]

The only problem I can think of is the golden eyes, because those are supposed to be for people who have great destinies...like Azshara and Illidan...kinda makes it not so special (And I can imagine Belf players complaining about it even if they're not High Elves...even though Blood Elves took some shine away from Lightforged)

I doubt BEs players would mind, in the end, the nature of the eyes are quite different, and in the end, they were part of the NEs first, also when it comes to having great destinies, then doesn't it work well for the players? in the end, we do have the great destinity of saving Azeroth (a couple of times), also right now don't we have a whole gender that's "destinied for greatness" (when it comes to golden eyes)

[CrawlFromThePit]

If Blizzard does this it will be proof that they are deliberately giving players everything except for what they actually want

What I want is for elves to be made slaves for orcs and I generalize my wishes by believing everybody wants the same thing as me. So I agree with you, Blizzard really doesn't listen to the players, we(I) never get what we(I) want.

[Maxilian]

There are quite some night elf mages and also the leader of then Shen'dralar is in the darkshore warfront.

What? I'm not talking about the Shen'dralar nor the NE mages, i was talking about the idea of Dark Ranger skins for Night elves that was stated by Bwonsandi

[Kithelle]

I doubt BEs players would mind, in the end, the nature of the eyes are quite different, and in the end, they were part of the NEs first, also when it comes to having great destinies, then doesn't it work well for the players? in the end, we do have the great destinity of saving Azeroth (a couple of times), also right now don't we have a whole gender that's "destinied for greatness" (when it comes to golden eyes)

There are plenty of Belf players who bitch about giving blue eyes to Blood Elves for some reason or another...I'm sure some will complain if another Elf gets golden eyes.

[Maxilian]

There are plenty of Belf players who bitch about giving blue eyes to Blood Elves for some reason or another...I'm sure some will complain if another Elf gets golden eyes.

But they already have the golden eyes, just limited to a gender, but they already have them.

Though i don't doubt someone will bitch about it, but regardless what it is, someone will bitch about it, but i don't expect a significant group of people to have a negative view of that (I mean... i could see it happening if people give blue eyes to BE, but that's only because of the whole HE debate)

[Hellspawn]

What? I'm not talking about the Shen'dralar nor the NE mages, i was talking about the idea of Dark Ranger skins for Night elves that was stated by Bwonsandi

Ah got that wrong. Personally I don't want DR customization for night elfs, I just don't want them to be a Horde AR.
We have yet to see if they will join Alliance, but if they do, they should be a AR.

The only problem I can think of is the golden eyes, because those are supposed to be for people who have great destinies...like Azshara and Illidan...kinda makes it not so special (And I can imagine Belf players complaining about it even if they're not High Elves...even though Blood Elves took some shine away from Lightforged)

Druids already got them... all male night elfs already got them... so its almost guaranteed that females will have them aswell.

[Eazy]

Blizzard is going to add every possible elf that was in the lore except High Elf just to troll people.

[Maxilian]

Ah got that wrong. Personally I don't want DR customization for night elfs, I just don't want them to be a Horde AR.
We have yet to see if they will join Alliance, but if they do, they should be a AR.

The idea to have them in the Alliance bothers me, but i'm also ok with the idea of not having them as an option for the Horde either, just be part of the Horde lorewise, and nothing more.

[matrix123mko]

Blizzard is going to add every possible elf that was in the lore except High Elf just to troll people.

I am all in.

[Kithelle]

But they already have the golden eyes, just limited to a gender, but they already have them.

Though i don't doubt someone will bitch about it, but regardless what it is, someone will bitch about it, but i don't expect a significant group of people to have a negative view of that (I mean... i could see it happening if people give blue eyes to BE, but that's only because of the whole HE debate)

It's not because of High Elves...its because some people just don't seem to want other people to be happy.

I'm someone who would like High Elves...but I've said I would settle for Blood Elves with blue eyes and still I have people arguing with me that it should never happen. Some being rather combative...I think some people just don't want to see High Elf fans happy in any way, even when it would just be a customization for Blood Elves.

[Maxilian]

It's not because of High Elves...its because some people just don't seem to want other people to be happy.

I'm someone who would like High Elves...but I've said I would settle for Blood Elves with blue eyes and still I have people arguing with me that it should never happen. Some being rather combative...I think some people just don't want to see High Elf fans happy in any way, even when it would just be a customization for Blood Elves.

Oh, i always assumed those were HEs fans that saw the idea of Blue eyes BEs as a kind of "YOU NOT GETTING HIGH ELVES IN THE ALLIANCE EVER!", regardless after a while, there's just some people that should be ignored and you should just answer in your mind like "Ok", well... it works for me at least :P

Either way, talking about NE customization options, anyone fancy a Druid of the Flame look as much as me?

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BTW, i was checking the in wowhead, the NE NPC only skin options, and found this:


Where is it used?

Also there's an undead version of the NEs, i checked and is not part of the DK options, is this the one used for Dark Rangers NEs?


I though it was the one with the red eyes

[Combatbutler]

Also there's an undead version of the NEs, i checked and is not part of the DK options, is this the one used for Dark Rangers NEs?

I though it was the one with the red eyes

That was used in Black rook hold I believe.

[Maxilian]

That was used in Black rook hold I believe.

Just checked, you're right

[Starla]

There are plenty of Belf players who bitch about giving blue eyes to Blood Elves for some reason or another...I'm sure some will complain if another Elf gets golden eyes.

We all can only speak for ourselves and we shouldn't generalize. As a Blood Elf player who want blue eye options for Blood Elves I could care less what Night Elves get.

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It's not because of High Elves...its because some people just don't seem to want other people to be happy.

I'm someone who would like High Elves...but I've said I would settle for Blood Elves with blue eyes and still I have people arguing with me that it should never happen. Some being rather combative...I think some people just don't want to see High Elf fans happy in any way, even when it would just be a customization for Blood Elves.

The only people I've seen are Helfers that would be arguing with you about Blood Elves not getting blue eyes. Why would anyone else care? Doubting anyone is being this spiteful towards 'high elf fan's' just because..lol

[ravenmoon]

Edited: Aside from this, which should be pretty much canon/feasible, I would admittedly also like a choice of slightly different ears, tilted a bit upwards like one can see from the statues in the Highborne city of Eldre’Thalas. Yet I have been warned that even though the statues in many Vanilla locations display elves with said ears, this is due to Blizzard not having yet established the lore about the transition between the Night and the High Elves at the time, rather than than the Shan’dralar Highborne representing the missing link between them. Which I find pretty sad. :-(

Good post, just not sure why you would find this sad. They aren't supposed to be a missing link. There was some confusion in earlier wow days when some people thought highborne were a different race altogether. I chalk it down them not knowing the lore very well, and finding it had to reconcile the hardcore druidic nature image shown in wow with the sophistacted dark elf night elf which was presented in lore, but never shown.

As the masses don't read, just go off game info, there was confusion. It also didn't help that the only loud reference to highborne until classic were either the high elves who are emphasied to have once been highborne, and the night elves of Azshara's court who either became satyr or naga.

The highborne was largely villanised in the first trilogy novels, with insights into the nobler versions of arcane using night elves coming much later (cataclysm with the revelation of the Menaar highborne and the shen'dralar rejoining, then in legion with the Farondis and Nightborne like Thalyssra and Ly'leth who are highborne).

Some call it a shift, but I don't really, arcane wielding night elves seemed to have the bad dark elf vibe to them from regular fantasy, except they had been wiped out in a struggle that took place 10k years ago and weren't part of the storyline - oh so we thought based on WC3 info. First we find out the good highborne joined the resistance but later got exiled to become high elves. (with wotA trilogy) then we find out in classic that some survived as shen'dralar, then in Legion we meet the nightborne and the Farondis.

Hence I will just carry on the hopeless dream that Blizzard might add a choice of different ears for the Night Elves simply because such customization is a default feature for all the other races who have big ones (goblin, worgem, vulpera), based on the assumption that if they can make new faces for the Humans and non-rotten skins for the Undead despite of them not having ever been in game, they could also add completely new features to the fantasy races. ;-)

Either way, I would certainly switch my Night Elf character to a very pale skin tone, golden eyes, or any other of these 'Highborne' customizations if we got them implemented.

Am I the only silly one who likes such an idea?

Personally, I like the night elf ears, they are quite elegant, especially when you compare to Troll, Goblin and their much closer night elf kin in the nightborne. If I were to make any changes, i'd just make the ears a bit thinner, and less large on the highborne. But I guess that's all I'd do. I had hoped elven ears were more dynamic, based on actions like spell casting or melee, and also based on emotions and sensitivity that caused the ears to move or set in different ways. But I don't think wow's model animation team would make allowances for such fine detail.

A hypothetical ‘Highborne’ customization for the Night Elves could therefore possibly include:

• choice of fancy jewelry (thinking earrings and tiaras, although the Night Elves should also have leaves and druidic stuff of course)
• choice of gold glowing eyes (not a specifically distinctive Highborne trait, but a logical option for Night Elves and Azshara had them)
• choice of lighter hair colors, possibly pink and platinum blonde (like the Nightborne, as a part of the pastier looks reported by Brann)
• choice of lighter skin tones (also part of said appearance, in fact most Highborne NPC's use the fairer and peachiest NE skin tones)
• choice of 'electric' colored skin tones (like Azshara, possibly connected to the use of arcane magic)

That's all good, I think some high priorities for them are below too.

1. Younger and better looking faces for males. For a race that is quite focused on beauty and perfection, the male night elf is surprisingly ugly in all its options, and has only 1 young face - especially given the males were based on druids, who slept for millennia compared to females, nourished by the life giving energies of nature and the enhanced life sustainability from the natural connection to the arcane well - the faces for the males were wrong - they tried to make the look ancient and weathered, but the story they give them demands the opposite and I think is more in line with the elven ethos. For highborne, the faces would be more regal, more noble, more distinguished, bred for both beauty and perfection in a way I believe was more strict and vain than the high elves.

As a consequence new face options that should look very angular, distinguished and very good looking

2. New hairstyles and beards. The night elf male hairstyles are really bad, nothing remarkable befitting the vanity and emphasis on beauty and appearances heavily emphasised by the highborne. So that will have to be fixed. They also gave the current night elf male amish type beards, reflecting the American idea of a more rural down to nature man, which is fine for druids, but not for highborne males - who's beards should be sharp, very well groomed in a variety of styles from extravagant to just neat. Goatees, side beards, thin line full beards, to extravagantly bizarre styles









Now this sort of embroidery and ornamentation actually looks very cool.


3. Eyebrows. Female eyebrows cannot be crooked here, the 6.0 remake gave the Nelf female a more tomboy, forest fighter feel, which begged the question of where were the straight eyebrowed options for the priestesses and the more refined amongst them? Add a night elf highborne female and that crooked eyebrow won't work. Also the male no beard option with no eyebrows has to change. If they give us separate eyebrow selection then good.

"According to Brann Bronzebeard, there is little physical difference between the Highborne and the rest of the kaldorei (save perhaps the Highborne being slightly pastier), but they consider themselves different enough."

Further, even thought the Shen'dralar Highborne were established by the Classic lore, we don't know exactly what their isolation did to them, and it's kind of weird that they wouldn't have changed _at all_ considering that they fed leeching a demon and the same amount of time changed the High Elves and the Nightborne, so the customization revamp could be a good chance for Blizzard to add some variety to Night Elves and furthering interest in a storyline they have already developed in Classic and Cataclysm at the same time.

Yes, Highborne have in general thought themselves quite different, and the presentation has atched which I believe leads many to struggle to accept how very night elven the nightborne are, and tend to associate the high elves as qualifying as highborne over the night elves themselves who are the only race highborne is a thing. (that is kaldorei and shal'dorei), seeing that the Thalassian elves are now high elves from as far back as 7,000 with highborne portion referring to their sires and night elf past only.

Secondly, I don't belief the demon Immol'thar necessarily had any fel effect on them, they were very smart magicians, and fel was not reflected in them in classic nor in cataclysm, I think this is intentional. Immol'thar was used as an arcane battery. Energy was not siphoned directly, but fed into a pylon system that harnessed the energy and supplied the city. It is fro the pylons they draw their power, and when the pylons break it is arcane energy that comes out of it.

furthermore, demons have been known to be and use different sources of magical energy not limited to fel, void, death, arcane and elemental even nature too. It is not "fel" magic that defines a being as demon, and not all demons seem to use fel magic either (look at the void walker for example). However that doesn't mean they can't exert an evil influence of demonic energy in addition to what they were harnessing, it is this fel influence that is described as maddening the Prince Totheldrinn over time as the only visible effect.

I just chalk it down to these guys being the very best arcanist in the night elf realm, and so were very quick on the uptake for many things. Think for example:

1, After demons are banished from Azeroth, they not only manage to locate one , but summon it without alerting the demi gods, dragons and druidic casters atop Hyjal.
2. They figure out a way to harness arcane energy purely from a demon, something that Illidan clearly hasn't done cos when he teaches Kael to siphon magic, there is fel, and none of the blood elves process a clean way of absorption

3. They also successfully hide their city and arcane usage from scrying, something the high elves don't manage to do till 3,000 years a lot (although I all fairness those high elves weren't using magic because of a ban for nearly 3000 years, it is likely that if they had been allowed to, they'd have devised a way shortly after like they did when they built the Ban'dinoriel.

This is just from observing the story and possible implications about the shen'dralar they back up. The lore does call them Queen Azshara's most revered arcanist, processing her top projects often in secrets. We know vain glorious loved to wow her people with incredible wonders every day, and built her credibility and adoration on that.. she was churning othem out nearly daily, and Naz'jatar quests confirm that a lot ooooooooooooof things were the works of others, even though she herself might have been quite capable, it is likely she instead devoted herself to plumbing the depths and secrets of the arcane Well itself rather than applications and devices that she gathers her top arcanists to do instead.

It is likely the shen'dralar are the source of many of the great wonders of the kaldorei empire that Evenshade remarks the present age's works pale in comparison. I also suspect most of the night elf building project magical spells would have been developed by them as well as a lot of top secret stuff. In the shen'dralar blizzard have a living group of night elves who can uncover or undo some of Azshara's devious little schemes - I wonder if they would know how to reverse the Farondis' condition and if they had played a role in the development of the spell and device she used - we know they were not evil highborne, so it's quite possible, clever Azshara utlised some of the work she gave them and modified it flip it from construction to destruction of devastating proportions. Just speculating here.

We have also been told that the Night Elves undergo some irreversible physical changes from mastering the Arcane that would mark them forever and once the process had begun there would be no way to reverse or stop it.

Yet, Blizzard has never bothered/had a chance to show us what happens.

Finally I don't think blizzard ever stated out right that it was purely arcane usage taht cahnged them forever.. this did not happen pre-sundering, so it shouldn't by logic happen post sundering, unless maybe something happens when they use they try to use the well through Nordarssil? But i have a better explanation. The lore states the druids severred their connection to Nordrassil and the well. - Cenarius was involved in this process, it is possible he did something to them, that caused them to lose the enhancments their night elven natural sevles would have had. This my have even possibly diminished a connection to Elune. We know taht during the exile was when they changed, the journey severely weakening them. The reason the journey would be so tough is if they are cut off from the nourishing nature energies of the Emerald dream through Nordrassil, and the life enhancing arcane energies of the well of eternity inherrent in any night elf.

So naturally when they lose that, they lost stature, purple hue, near immortal life spans, intelligence and things changed - for them, they are night elves without the "night" bit and the enhcanements of the original well. When they create their sunwell, they are able to boost their intelligence again (and as night elves only passively connect to the arcane rather than boost use like they did pre-sundering, the intelligence of even a devolved night elf like the high elves were, enhanced with suffusion arcane connection would be higher than a normal night elf populace who aren't utilising the arcane to boost themselves through spell work), the sunwell arcane source would also have increased their life spans again, however it is not as powerful as the original, perhpas becasue of what was done to them almost as if to say, it would never work as well on you because a part of you is broken. It would also explain why the hate is potentially still as strong as it is today.

Anyway..tha'ts my theoryl.

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OP just talked about different skin tones, hair colors, hairstyles and jewelry options. Ingame Highborne are pale and often have whiter hair. Dath'Remar Sunstrider even had auburn hair with golden streaks during Azshara's reign, so it's not much of a stretch to believe that Highborne had hair colors most night elf commoners didn't have.

Never seen "pale" in game highborne. Unless you mean high elves, but then they aren't highborne, their night elven ancestors were, but they renamed themselves quite correctly when they became a none-night based type of elf with some sognificant changes to the previous purple ranged toned elf.

Saying that perhaps the lines are far blurrier, but we know how racial and gender dichotomy is heavily emphasised in blizzard ingame art - both for silhouette purposes and distinctive appearances that they feel add to the uniqueness of their races..even though it ends up meaning that options within races have very little meaningful appearance variations for faces.

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I found this edit by Mystmantle on Deviant art
I loooooove this, this is totally how a female Highborne, or even Priestess of the moon would style her hair.

I agree, that's a good option for females, they would need to straighten the eyebrows though, that crooked eyebrow is okay for a sentinel/huntress type female, but not a Highborne lady, or a temple priest.

[Kithelle]

We all can only speak for ourselves and we shouldn't generalize. As a Blood Elf player who want blue eye options for Blood Elves I could care less what Night Elves get.

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The only people I've seen are Helfers that would be arguing with you about Blood Elves not getting blue eyes. Why would anyone else care? Doubting anyone is being this spiteful towards 'high elf fan's' just because..lol

Doesn't really matter...I've had people argue with me why Blood Elves shouldn't get blue eyes both on and off these forums, basically all they can say is "The Sunwell is full holy now...so it can't happen." which is only half true as it's a mix of arcane and holy energy. They can't say anything else pretty much...this is their big argument which isn't even true.

[Moonrage]

Never seen "pale" in game highborne. Unless you mean high elves, but then they aren't highborne, their night elven ancestors were, but they renamed themselves quite correctly when they became a none-night based type of elf with some sognificant changes to the previous purple ranged toned elf.

I should've clarified, "pale" night elves usually have blue or grayish skin. We only have two blue skin tones to pick for night elves. Azshara's skincolor for example would be great.