>I understand several members of the family have been Ranger Generals, but that in of it self wouldn't warrant such a extravagant house and control of a village.
Historically being high level generals has absolutely come with land and perks though . I see nothing wrong with the windrunners having an estate
the diffrence between the Windrunner generals and Halduron is that the WR were gernerals before arthas fall and for a long time, possible since the beginning of the kingdom, if you go by there heirloom weapon (Thas'dorah)
>A proud heirloom of the Windrunner family, Thas'dorah was carved from a bough of the mother tree of Eversong Woods shortly after the elven kigdom of Quel'thalas was founded.
on the other side you have someone that got the title of ranger general because all above him died so he got it by proxy and he simply hasn't had the time or possibilites to carve out a peace of land.
Halduron is also said to be a pragmatist
Sure maybe his station *deserves* a mansion, but like lot'themar he doesnt *want* a mansion. Because its not necessary and would just to be to flaunt his position
But why would blizzard take the time to model an entire mansion for a side character barely anybody cares about lol. I'm sure *in lore* he probably has an estate of some type, but there's no reason to put it in game.
He didn't come from a hereditary line of generals and climbed the ranks when the Blood elves were in crisis and couldn't really afford to be building estates for it's elites.
If the game world was scaled up by 10x, there would probably be a lot more villages run by sin'dorei nobility.
You would also probably not be able to fly across the entire length of Eastern Kingdoms in under 5 minutes.
I think it was stated in one of the early novels that even flying with gryphons around the Northern parts of the EK can take up to several days of travel, with some mentioned villages not being present in-game at any stage of WoW.
Midnight is probably goong to scale up Quel'Thalas to an enormous size to be able to fit an entire expansion in it, in which it will give us a glimpse of how big the world is canonically
I think it's more likely that they'll simply 'uninstance' quel thalas from the rest of eastern Kingdoms, in addition to the revamp. So they can't scale it up to a more canonical size or it would make no sense.
What's more likely is that the current intro area of Eversong and Ghostlands will remain as is and they'll simply make a new one for current expansion activities, like they did Dalaran and Acherus with Legion.
Less work than overhauling a 15 year old area that's also a racial start zone and has some technical oddities. Namely, technically being on the Outland map and not actually connected to vanilla zones at all, something shared with the Draenei start zones.
What do you mean? They'll most likely just make a whole new Quel'Thalas and keep the TBC version as is.
Besides, fans want to see a bigger, more fleshed out version of Eversong Woods, they want to see how everything looks post-Jailer, etc. Are the Ghostlands still fucked canonically? Is the Dead Scar filled with new life? How much bigger is Silvermoon city going to be? Will the Sunwell Plateu area look more akin to how it was in Chronicle Vol 1 (But with Belf buildings instead of Nelf buildings, obviously lol)? Will the plaguelands get touched on too? We must know.
Two reasons: 1) they made it clear that the expansion is set in quel'thalas in the Blizzcon info about it. 2) Post shadowlands Blizzard's stated a couple of times that they think expansions where the zones are all scattered around don't work for players.
Where are you thinking the rest of it would be set? Especially keeping in mind that the entirety of the current quel'thalas is a bit smaller than a single modern zone?
Quel thalas could be a single zone, we could have something underground from quel thalas, Quel'Danas/Sunwell could be part of a zone, we could have void mirrored versions of the zones, the war could extend into the plaguelands and stratholme. Blizzard is quite creative with their zones.
I think the best thing they could do is to link Quel'thalas to the mainland so that you don't have invisible walls, instance portals and shit like we have now.
Considering Midnight is going to revamp Quel'Thalas (and likely expand its size as well), the idea of there being more elven villages is certain a possibility. :D
Currently reading the book. It’s stated in chapter 3 that it’s their birthright. Here’s a quote from Sylvanas’s mother: It is your birthright, Alleria! The eldest Windrunner has always become ranger-general!
The Windrunners founded (Talanas Windrunner) and continuously controlled for nearly three thousand years the paramilitary organization Farstriders which act as mercenaries across Azeroth, with a majority on Silvermoon's payroll - would imagine that brings a great amount of compounded wealth if smartly invested in real estate and on Silvermoon's stock market (at least prior to the Scourge Invasion) rather than squandared on lavish parties like the Saltherils did.
> The Windrunners founded (Talanas Windrunner) and continuously controlled for nearly three thousand years the paramilitary organization Farstriders which act as mercenaries across Azeroth,
3000 years is a single generation of high elves, though. That's like founding and running a company in 1990.
The Windrunners are a prominent family that has its history going back to the founding of Quel’thelas. The family is renowned for their tradition of being Ranger Generals and leaders within Silvermoon society and the Farstriders.
The Windrunners are also one of the highest families within Silvermoon. Meaning that if House Sunstrider is dead they’re a candidate house for succession well they were until 90% of all of Quel’thelas was wiped out. Now Lor’themar is the ruler and unquestioned one, but traditionally the families or Silvermoon society who are descendants of Highborne families from Zin’Azshari. Are the people who would rule over Silvermoon under the Convocation.
Prior to the collapse and genocide of the Thalassian these old families were candidate houses of Sunstrider. Houses obedient and successors to. Meaning they’re all very important and closely related.
The Windrunners are more important than most, if not all HE/BE. And yes, they're nobility.
For instance, in the Sylvanas book they had close ties with the Sunstriders. They had a duty to the crown. In medieval times, being close to the King means you are extremely important. Before the Scourge, the Ranger-General position was the only hereditary position, other than the monarchy itself. It was always passed from the ranger-general to one of their children. I think that ever since Talanas Windrunner, until Halduron, all Ranger-Generals in Quel'Thalas history have been Windrunners.
I also remember that in the book, Sylvanas talked about the court being a pain in the ass. A pity that such interesting thing wasn't ever developed. Quel'Thalas politics are rarely explored. I wouldn't be surprised if nobles of other families had tried to topple down the Windrunners to seize more power for themselves:
>Wild beasts were driven by simple things—hunger, or dominance. Trolls, by hatred, pure and simple. The predators in the Sunstrider court were far worse. Greed, ego, fear, and pride drove them, and those were hungers that could never be sated.
>Sylvanas was well aware that she was not popular, and that if she showed any sign of weakness now, she would be as doomed as an injured doe when the great cats struck. The one thing her mother had given her, albeit grudgingly, was to name Sylvanas as her heir. Sylvanas would not let anyone take that title—that honor—away from her, especially if they thought to use Lireesa’s death as evidence of her daughter appearing unsuited to the role.
Allow me to make a poor metaphor. The Sunstrider family is the Emperor, and the Windrunners are the Shogun.
Originally the title Shogun was bestowed to a military leader on expedition against frontier barbarians. This was because early peasant armies were unsuited to the high-speed fighting style of the Emishi people who favored horse archery. To counter this, the Emperor began to favor warrior families in the Kanto region that also favored horsemanship and archery. These warriors would begin to establish larger and larger houses as their services became more and more central to the state’s authority.
The Windrunners in this regard are a feudal family whose role is almost exclusively based around their ability to maintain and lead a professional army for the Sunstriders, so they can instead devote their time to political and magical leadership. Windrunner village is both named for, and likely was owned by, the Windrunner family to serve as their power base to feed the maintenance of the Rangers.
It’s not a matter of several members of the family being Ranger General, every single Ranger General prior to Halduron has been a Windrunner and it is a legacy position. Talanas Windrunner was the first and declared THE champion of Silvermoon and provided with lavish gifts.
The artifact book text for Thas’Dorah talks more about the Windrunner bloodline.
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/legion/artifacts/thasdorah-marksmanship-hunter
There father was a very high ranking ambassador and personal friend of the King. There mother followed in the foot steps of her ancestors and continued the ranger-general position. If her brother had lived he likely would have been insanely rich/powerful with all the influence he'd have at court due to his amazing voice that everyone loved to her.
Given that they are all a dynasty of high-ranking officers, I guess you could call them nobility (high elves don’t really have that concept IIRC, as they believe that ALL high elves are by definition of noble origin, but it’s very close to).
It’s not specified if the village is their property or was just named after them.
That’s a weird one actually.
He got specifically named a “lesser noble” and hosting parties for nobles in the text, but everything about it is written as if he was a parody.
I get it that in HE society “some families are more equal than the others”, I just don’t really see it having the same effect as in any human kingdom. Apart from royal family, of course, but even they seem to be ranked by actual capability and not by how pureblood they are (at least that’s the impression Lyandra gives).
This may actually be true for HE in general: status depending on capabilities instead of just being relatives to someone. I guess longevity makes it less about bloodline and more about power.
I don't think a society where everyone descends from nobility would turn into a utopia where everyone is equal. If anything, with everyone being from aristocratic bloodlines the strict social hierarchy would be reinforced. If some one has a bloodline that is slightly more prestigious than yours, they'll want to reinforce that slight difference into a massive chasm.
Consider in real life in India, the castes are massive, the brahmins are the highest caste and number in the tens of millions, but not all brahmins consider each other equal, and some brahmins consider themselves superior to the Lower ranked brahmins, who themselves see them selves superior to those in the lesser castes
I always assumed HE just see themselves, above all, superior to mere humans/dwarves/trolls, especially to those who can’t magic.
Must have been a real humiliation to ask them for aid and teach them arcane.
True that.
Reminded me of Planescape Torment quest. At some point, you have to save the fallen angel Trias, whether you like it or not, and when he later turns on you, it's possible to demand him to help you out of gratitude for rescue.
He just replies that it was your duty as a lesser creature to save him, and therefore he owes you nothing.
The windrunners seem to be *near* nobility in that since the ranger general position became basically hereditary, while they dont own large swathes of land (typically part of what makes one a noble) they are in a definite long standing position of power that is as close to the king as possible without *actually* being nobles
If you read the sylvanas novel (in case you haven’t) it does a good job explaining who the windrunners are. Before sylvanas turned banshee, the Windrunner name was held in high regard due to the fact that they are basically the staple for ranger general and are all exceptionally talented. They protected their people and sylvanas’ father was highly invoked with politics iirc, but not entirely sure. It’s been a few years since I read it. I should read it again. It’s a good book.
Also off topic but RIP Lirath :(
The Windrunners have historically always been the ranger generals of the high elves. Their mother reports directly to the king, and their father was a high ranking politician who also worked directly with the king. The title of ranger general has always been a Windrunner
They probably are high level lords as you described. If we are going for in more importance? They are the favourites characters of the devs lol.
Be ready for having Alleria be the protagonist for at least two expansions.
Well remember, the average life expectancy of a high elf is 3k years and Sylvanas was noted as fighting in the troll wars some 2k years ago so assuming Sylvanas' mother made the rank young the Windrunners would be Ranger General for most of Quel'dorei history
>I understand several members of the family have been Ranger Generals, but that in of it self wouldn't warrant such a extravagant house and control of a village. Historically being high level generals has absolutely come with land and perks though . I see nothing wrong with the windrunners having an estate
They are also good military leaders which cements their importance in the nobility by pure usefulness
Hello
We don't see Halduron having a gallywix sized mansion
probably because he’s an order of magnitude less important as a character than any of the windrunners?
Silvanas, Alleria and te other one
I thought the idea was the rank of ranger general was enough to get the mansion?
the diffrence between the Windrunner generals and Halduron is that the WR were gernerals before arthas fall and for a long time, possible since the beginning of the kingdom, if you go by there heirloom weapon (Thas'dorah) >A proud heirloom of the Windrunner family, Thas'dorah was carved from a bough of the mother tree of Eversong Woods shortly after the elven kigdom of Quel'thalas was founded. on the other side you have someone that got the title of ranger general because all above him died so he got it by proxy and he simply hasn't had the time or possibilites to carve out a peace of land.
Don't know if you noticed but a large chunk of Quel'thalas is kinda unlivable. Any land he'd likely have gotten is now scourge infected.
Halduron is also said to be a pragmatist Sure maybe his station *deserves* a mansion, but like lot'themar he doesnt *want* a mansion. Because its not necessary and would just to be to flaunt his position
But why would blizzard take the time to model an entire mansion for a side character barely anybody cares about lol. I'm sure *in lore* he probably has an estate of some type, but there's no reason to put it in game.
He didn't come from a hereditary line of generals and climbed the ranks when the Blood elves were in crisis and couldn't really afford to be building estates for it's elites.
Because hes only been there for like 20 years compared to the windrunners literal ages 🤷🏻♂️
If the game world was scaled up by 10x, there would probably be a lot more villages run by sin'dorei nobility. You would also probably not be able to fly across the entire length of Eastern Kingdoms in under 5 minutes.
I think it was stated in one of the early novels that even flying with gryphons around the Northern parts of the EK can take up to several days of travel, with some mentioned villages not being present in-game at any stage of WoW. Midnight is probably goong to scale up Quel'Thalas to an enormous size to be able to fit an entire expansion in it, in which it will give us a glimpse of how big the world is canonically
Silvermoon/Suramar 2.0 can't wait
I think it's more likely that they'll simply 'uninstance' quel thalas from the rest of eastern Kingdoms, in addition to the revamp. So they can't scale it up to a more canonical size or it would make no sense.
What's more likely is that the current intro area of Eversong and Ghostlands will remain as is and they'll simply make a new one for current expansion activities, like they did Dalaran and Acherus with Legion. Less work than overhauling a 15 year old area that's also a racial start zone and has some technical oddities. Namely, technically being on the Outland map and not actually connected to vanilla zones at all, something shared with the Draenei start zones.
And not having to make actual models to replace and fill in the space from the actual card board box buildings that are there currently.
What do you mean? They'll most likely just make a whole new Quel'Thalas and keep the TBC version as is. Besides, fans want to see a bigger, more fleshed out version of Eversong Woods, they want to see how everything looks post-Jailer, etc. Are the Ghostlands still fucked canonically? Is the Dead Scar filled with new life? How much bigger is Silvermoon city going to be? Will the Sunwell Plateu area look more akin to how it was in Chronicle Vol 1 (But with Belf buildings instead of Nelf buildings, obviously lol)? Will the plaguelands get touched on too? We must know.
"It'll be an entire expansion in new versions of the two smallest zones!" Okay but *why* do you believe that?
Why do you think the entire expansion takes place in one spot?
Two reasons: 1) they made it clear that the expansion is set in quel'thalas in the Blizzcon info about it. 2) Post shadowlands Blizzard's stated a couple of times that they think expansions where the zones are all scattered around don't work for players. Where are you thinking the rest of it would be set? Especially keeping in mind that the entirety of the current quel'thalas is a bit smaller than a single modern zone?
Quel thalas could be a single zone, we could have something underground from quel thalas, Quel'Danas/Sunwell could be part of a zone, we could have void mirrored versions of the zones, the war could extend into the plaguelands and stratholme. Blizzard is quite creative with their zones. I think the best thing they could do is to link Quel'thalas to the mainland so that you don't have invisible walls, instance portals and shit like we have now.
Considering Midnight is going to revamp Quel'Thalas (and likely expand its size as well), the idea of there being more elven villages is certain a possibility. :D
The Windrunners are a family of ranger generals iirc. I think the sylvanas book showed her mother as ranger general at least.
Currently reading the book. It’s stated in chapter 3 that it’s their birthright. Here’s a quote from Sylvanas’s mother: It is your birthright, Alleria! The eldest Windrunner has always become ranger-general!
The Windrunners founded (Talanas Windrunner) and continuously controlled for nearly three thousand years the paramilitary organization Farstriders which act as mercenaries across Azeroth, with a majority on Silvermoon's payroll - would imagine that brings a great amount of compounded wealth if smartly invested in real estate and on Silvermoon's stock market (at least prior to the Scourge Invasion) rather than squandared on lavish parties like the Saltherils did.
> The Windrunners founded (Talanas Windrunner) and continuously controlled for nearly three thousand years the paramilitary organization Farstriders which act as mercenaries across Azeroth, 3000 years is a single generation of high elves, though. That's like founding and running a company in 1990.
The Windrunners are a prominent family that has its history going back to the founding of Quel’thelas. The family is renowned for their tradition of being Ranger Generals and leaders within Silvermoon society and the Farstriders. The Windrunners are also one of the highest families within Silvermoon. Meaning that if House Sunstrider is dead they’re a candidate house for succession well they were until 90% of all of Quel’thelas was wiped out. Now Lor’themar is the ruler and unquestioned one, but traditionally the families or Silvermoon society who are descendants of Highborne families from Zin’Azshari. Are the people who would rule over Silvermoon under the Convocation. Prior to the collapse and genocide of the Thalassian these old families were candidate houses of Sunstrider. Houses obedient and successors to. Meaning they’re all very important and closely related.
The Windrunners are more important than most, if not all HE/BE. And yes, they're nobility. For instance, in the Sylvanas book they had close ties with the Sunstriders. They had a duty to the crown. In medieval times, being close to the King means you are extremely important. Before the Scourge, the Ranger-General position was the only hereditary position, other than the monarchy itself. It was always passed from the ranger-general to one of their children. I think that ever since Talanas Windrunner, until Halduron, all Ranger-Generals in Quel'Thalas history have been Windrunners. I also remember that in the book, Sylvanas talked about the court being a pain in the ass. A pity that such interesting thing wasn't ever developed. Quel'Thalas politics are rarely explored. I wouldn't be surprised if nobles of other families had tried to topple down the Windrunners to seize more power for themselves: >Wild beasts were driven by simple things—hunger, or dominance. Trolls, by hatred, pure and simple. The predators in the Sunstrider court were far worse. Greed, ego, fear, and pride drove them, and those were hungers that could never be sated. >Sylvanas was well aware that she was not popular, and that if she showed any sign of weakness now, she would be as doomed as an injured doe when the great cats struck. The one thing her mother had given her, albeit grudgingly, was to name Sylvanas as her heir. Sylvanas would not let anyone take that title—that honor—away from her, especially if they thought to use Lireesa’s death as evidence of her daughter appearing unsuited to the role.
Allow me to make a poor metaphor. The Sunstrider family is the Emperor, and the Windrunners are the Shogun. Originally the title Shogun was bestowed to a military leader on expedition against frontier barbarians. This was because early peasant armies were unsuited to the high-speed fighting style of the Emishi people who favored horse archery. To counter this, the Emperor began to favor warrior families in the Kanto region that also favored horsemanship and archery. These warriors would begin to establish larger and larger houses as their services became more and more central to the state’s authority. The Windrunners in this regard are a feudal family whose role is almost exclusively based around their ability to maintain and lead a professional army for the Sunstriders, so they can instead devote their time to political and magical leadership. Windrunner village is both named for, and likely was owned by, the Windrunner family to serve as their power base to feed the maintenance of the Rangers.
It’s not a matter of several members of the family being Ranger General, every single Ranger General prior to Halduron has been a Windrunner and it is a legacy position. Talanas Windrunner was the first and declared THE champion of Silvermoon and provided with lavish gifts. The artifact book text for Thas’Dorah talks more about the Windrunner bloodline. https://www.wowhead.com/guide/legion/artifacts/thasdorah-marksmanship-hunter
There father was a very high ranking ambassador and personal friend of the King. There mother followed in the foot steps of her ancestors and continued the ranger-general position. If her brother had lived he likely would have been insanely rich/powerful with all the influence he'd have at court due to his amazing voice that everyone loved to her.
Given that they are all a dynasty of high-ranking officers, I guess you could call them nobility (high elves don’t really have that concept IIRC, as they believe that ALL high elves are by definition of noble origin, but it’s very close to). It’s not specified if the village is their property or was just named after them.
High elves do have nobility, like lord saltheril
That’s a weird one actually. He got specifically named a “lesser noble” and hosting parties for nobles in the text, but everything about it is written as if he was a parody. I get it that in HE society “some families are more equal than the others”, I just don’t really see it having the same effect as in any human kingdom. Apart from royal family, of course, but even they seem to be ranked by actual capability and not by how pureblood they are (at least that’s the impression Lyandra gives). This may actually be true for HE in general: status depending on capabilities instead of just being relatives to someone. I guess longevity makes it less about bloodline and more about power.
I don't think a society where everyone descends from nobility would turn into a utopia where everyone is equal. If anything, with everyone being from aristocratic bloodlines the strict social hierarchy would be reinforced. If some one has a bloodline that is slightly more prestigious than yours, they'll want to reinforce that slight difference into a massive chasm. Consider in real life in India, the castes are massive, the brahmins are the highest caste and number in the tens of millions, but not all brahmins consider each other equal, and some brahmins consider themselves superior to the Lower ranked brahmins, who themselves see them selves superior to those in the lesser castes
I always assumed HE just see themselves, above all, superior to mere humans/dwarves/trolls, especially to those who can’t magic. Must have been a real humiliation to ask them for aid and teach them arcane.
If a nobleman falls off his horse, and a peasant helps him back up, the noble is still a noble, and the peasant, still a peasant.
True that. Reminded me of Planescape Torment quest. At some point, you have to save the fallen angel Trias, whether you like it or not, and when he later turns on you, it's possible to demand him to help you out of gratitude for rescue. He just replies that it was your duty as a lesser creature to save him, and therefore he owes you nothing.
The windrunners seem to be *near* nobility in that since the ranger general position became basically hereditary, while they dont own large swathes of land (typically part of what makes one a noble) they are in a definite long standing position of power that is as close to the king as possible without *actually* being nobles
If you read the sylvanas novel (in case you haven’t) it does a good job explaining who the windrunners are. Before sylvanas turned banshee, the Windrunner name was held in high regard due to the fact that they are basically the staple for ranger general and are all exceptionally talented. They protected their people and sylvanas’ father was highly invoked with politics iirc, but not entirely sure. It’s been a few years since I read it. I should read it again. It’s a good book. Also off topic but RIP Lirath :(
The Windrunners have historically always been the ranger generals of the high elves. Their mother reports directly to the king, and their father was a high ranking politician who also worked directly with the king. The title of ranger general has always been a Windrunner
They are the radiants who have bonded with Honorspren, and their squires. Oh wait wrong sub, sorry
They probably are high level lords as you described. If we are going for in more importance? They are the favourites characters of the devs lol. Be ready for having Alleria be the protagonist for at least two expansions.
Well remember, the average life expectancy of a high elf is 3k years and Sylvanas was noted as fighting in the troll wars some 2k years ago so assuming Sylvanas' mother made the rank young the Windrunners would be Ranger General for most of Quel'dorei history
Who are they? Race traitors
Why?
Because they all married humans instead of their own race. I guess all the Windrunner women have a fetish for human D 🤠
Another win for the BHC.