The Blood Elves

Elves are an integral race to Azeroth, in some way or another, elves have been shaping events for over 10,000 years. The current elven factions are no different. The Blood Elves have withstood death and destruction on massive scales to stand where they are now, but it was a long, winding path that led them here, and it began 10,000 years ago.

After the end of the War of the Ancients, when the Great Sundering and torn the continents into the state they are today, the surviving Highborne of kaldorei society were banished from Kalimdor. When they left, they took a vial of water from the Well of Eternity with them, to establish a new well when they finally found a new home to settle. As generations went by, the Highborne wandered, until their ships came ashore on the western shores of Lordaeron, in Tirisfal. As they moved inland, they felt an unnatural magical presence. Something made them uneasy, so they kept moving. They fought vicious Amani trolls as they went. The Amani had never forgotten or forgiven the fact that it was the elves who had crippled trollish civilization. The Highborne, following ley lines to look for potent magical areas to settle in, finally found one, and built their capital on the ruins of the Amani capital. 

Here, Quel’thalas would rise up, and using the vial from the Well of Eternity, the Highborne would create the Sunwell, and use it as a source of magical power, and to power a defensive shield for the city. That city would endure for 7,000 years, until the current day on Azeroth. Under constant threat from the forest trolls, the Highborne (now the high elves, as the magics of the Sunwell continued to change and mutate them) would enlist the help of a new race to the south of the forest trolls, the humans of Arathor. Teaching the humans arcane magic, the combined human-elvish forces would lay waste to the Amani, driving the surviving trolls into the fringes of Lordaeron.

For most of the ensuing centuries, the humans and High Elves remained allied, all the way to the coming of the Horde through the Dark Portal. The elves of Quel’thalas would march alongside humans, dwarves, and gnomes in a desperate attempt to stop the orcs. Many trollish tribes in the north, seeing a chance to hit back at their ancient enemies, chose to join up with the advancing orcish forces. Many High Elves would move to human cities in Lordaeron and Stormwind as well. Though the Alliance was victorious in the Second War, relations between the elves and humans soured, as many elves believed the humans didn’t defend their lands well enough, leading to the slaughter of many elven towns and the burning of much of the forests around Quel’thalas. This rift was to be the beginning of the end of the relationship between Quel’thalas and the humans.

When the death knight Arthas slaughtered his way to the lands of the high elves, they fought relentlessly to stem the tides of the Scourge, to no avail. The land itself was scarred along the path Arthas marched, leaving a blighted, desiccated stretch of defiled earth all the way to the walls of Quel’thalas. Arthas would slaughter more than 90% of the high elves, raising their military leader, Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, as a banshee out of spite. When Arthas returned to Northrend, the surviving high elves reclaimed and rebuilt only a portion of their ruined capital, the rest was still overrun with the undead. A breakdown in communication with surviving human forces in the north led to tensions, as a militant human officer, Lord Garithos, proceeded to brutalize the elves under his command, believing their inadequacies and aloofness had led to the fall of both kingdoms. This would lead the surviving member of the Sunstrider royal family, Kael’thas Sunstrider, to rename his people the blood elves, or sin’dorei, in honor of the dead.

Kael’thas would abandon his people in search of greater power, leaving the rulership of the blood elves to Lor’themar Theron as the regent of Quel’thalas. During this period of chaos, the kaldorei arrived along with the Alliance ambassador. The kaldorei, long resentful and suspicious of the Highborne, used the mission as an excuse to covertly infiltrate and engage in clandestine operations against the sin’dorei. At this time, the leader of the Forsaken, former high elf ranger Sylvanas Windrunner, reached out to her people and offered to mediate their entry into the horde. Lor’themar would accept the offer, and with that the elves of Quel’thalas would sever all ties with the Alliance and join Thrall’s New Horde.

Blood elves at this point in the story would relentlessly pursue power and a future for their people, leading to quite a few revelations and developments through the following expansions.

Blood elves can choose to play as warriors, paladins, death knights, hunters, rogues, monks, demon hunters, mages, priests, and warlocks.

Blood Elf racial bonuses all tie in to their natural affinity for the arcane, and their ability to manipulate and feed off magical energies.

1. Arcane Torrent. Every 1.5 minutes, a blood elf can purge a positive buff from all enemies within 8 yards, and restore some of their resources (based on class).

2. Arcane Affinity. Blood elf affinity for working with magic and magical items gives them experience with enchanting. They start at 10 skill points rather than 1.

3. Arcane Resistance. Their constant exposure to the arcane means blood elves take 1% less damage from arcane attacks and spell.

4. Arcane Acuity. Blood elves know how best to apply their attacks and spells for maximum benefit. This gives them an extra 1% chance to critically hit with attacks and spells.

To play a blood elf is to play a survivor, someone who’s endured millennia of hardship and, in many cases, deaths and defeats. Blood elves have a strong will to survive, endure, and build a future for their people. So if you choose to play a blood elf, always remember, Selama ashal’anore!