The Queue: A gentle digression

My cat Puck, in the wake of Aurora’s passing this year, has become very vocal at night. We suspect it’s out of loneliness, as she and Aurora shared a bed overnight and kept each other company. Since I’m awake anyway, I’ve been letting her come and sleep in my office while I’m trying to work. It’s not always ideal, but here we are.

Anyway, hi, y’all. I’m pitching in for Liz while she does the 10,000 things that need doing at any given time.

This is the Queue. Try and be quiet, please, Puck is asleep right now.

I can’t decide if this is a joke question or a serious question asked in a joking manner, so I’m gonna go in assuming the latter.

Thalyssra is a contemporary of Malfurion, Illidan, and Tyrande. She’s somewhere around 10,000 or so years old, having been an adult in Suramar during the coming of the Burning Legion, and thanks to the Highborne mages that rebelled under the leadership of Elisande against Azshara she survived the sundering of Kalimdor.

Lor’themar was clearly born at some point after this. For most of his life he was a High Elf of Quel’thalas, an Elven city founded after the Sundering and the exile of those Highborne Mages who rebelled against the interdiction against magic made following Illidan’s creation of the new Well of Eternity. As such, he could be anywhere from slightly under 10,000 years old to as young as two or three thousand years. So it’s very hard to say with any certainty what their age difference actually is.

Complicating matters is the fact that the Nightborne — the faction of Elves native to Suramar who used the Nightwell to keep their people safe and alive — have been exposed to time altering magics for thousands upon thousands of years. Remember, the Nightwell was created using the Eye of Aman’thul, and the Eye allowed Elisande to reach a mastery of time magic rivalling that of the Bronze Dragonflight, who were similarly empowered by Aman’thul via his gift to Nozdormu.

So there’s no telling how much time the elves of Suramar actually experienced. From their perspective, it may have been many more or significantly less time than it was outside Suramar’s protective dome. Thalysrra may be twice, three time Lor’themar’s age, or she could be significantly younger than him.

What I’m saying is, it’s probably not worth worrying about. The important thing is that their kids are going to run away to live with the Night Elves in their difficult 100’s.

I have been leveling my Dwarf via Threads of Fate.

I am not going to miss that jazz, let me tell you. UGH. I have not been enjoying myself at all. Sadly, it does not currently appear to be the case, so I am forced to do more of it. I wish Chromie would just let me go back to Burning Crusade now.

On the one hand, I do see your point, although it’s clear from the novel Before the Storm that some time has passed, for players we were doing Legion stuff one moment and then the Horde was burning down trees and the Alliance was invading Undercity seemingly out of nowhere.

Imagine if, instead of immediately going with the whole Horde attacks the Night Elves bit, we’d started off with more of the What is this weird Azerite stuff and then done the events of Before the Storm as in-game quests for a week or two? Try and set up a peace negotiation, maybe stop some big Twilight’s Hammer cult plot to steal Azerite and blow up Anduin and Sylvanas — or, heck, make it the Scarlet Crusade, they were the ones with the weird “Anduin and Sylvanas are secret lovers plotting against humanity” pamphlets.

Then you have the peace talks get derailed, and then you do a few month time skip depicting both sides getting re-armed and ready to fight, and then you drop the attack on Darkshore. Set the scene a bit, give players a view of how things got to that point.

I don’t have any real problem with the idea that a Void Elf — who, if we remember, were once Blood Elves who followed Magister Umbric in his researches into the Void and the power it held. Some of them may have been Paladins — nothing in the lore forbids it, and even if they weren’t, nothing in the lore keeps one or two Void Elves from deciding Umbric is full of crap and that the Void sucks and they decide to reach out to the Light for help, becoming Paladins.

Heck, you could even have special Void Paladins, who basically do everything Paladins do, but through touching the Void instead of the Light if you really wanted to do a storyline about the Void essentially mocking the Light. It would be like training Shadow Priests to fight, ultimately.

That being said, I’m on record as thinking every race should have every class by now. Orc and Night Elf Paladins. Human and Dwarf Druids. Forsaken and Gnome Shaman. There shouldn’t be any class restrictions in World of Warcraft, at least in my view.

Sure looks that way. I’m not a Venthyr, I don’t have any talents that should cause this to my knowledge.

Okay, that’s this Queue done. Hope y’all are okay. Try and be kind if you can be — you never know what anyone else is going through that you can’t see. Try and be kind to others, and also, try and be kind to yourselves. I know it isn’t always easy.