Shadowmeld and Roleplaying

Alexstrasza and Ysera blessed Teldrassil so that Night Elves and that made them immune to disease and poison. Thingy-mig-jig the bronze dragon was lost and didn't bless it so there's no immortality.

It begs interesting questions, like Thingy-mig-jig could bless stuff with immortality, can he still now that he is mortal? Or is he weakened so much he can't, can he still protect the timewaves? Will the blessings of the Ysera and Alexstrasza fade?

ahh i see fair enough

Since WC3 was mentioned in here, how do people feel about male night elves in particular using shadowmeld, considering it was restricted to females only in WC3?

Sorayah wrote:Since WC3 was mentioned in here, how do people feel about male night elves in particular using shadowmeld, considering it was restricted to females only in WC3?

Druidism was restricted to males and sentinels/priests to females. I figure if anything it should be druids don't have it an priests/sentinels do since they seem to be split up between revering Malorne/Cenarius and revering Elune (obviously they all revere all those deities but Druids are more focused on the druid deities from my understanding)

However, this is also too hard to enforce in practice so I reckon the only reasonable solution is to just agree all elves can do it :p

I'm still of the school of thought that when Nordrassil fully heals, the immortality will be restored.

Nordrassil is still 'wounded' for lack of a better term, and until it blooms properly, they're still mortal.

I remember reading somewhere that night elves were offered their immortality back, but that Malfurion went "Nope, fuck that". Not that it matters to him, seeing druids are practically immortal anyway.

seeing druids are practically immortal anyway.

Does this apply to non-Elf druids? ;o

You've already got some Goldrinn love going on, greedy Humies.

Raenmar wrote:

seeing druids are practically immortal anyway.

Does this apply to non-Elf druids? ;o

Depends on whether they Dream! And... stuff. It's complicated.

I do have to ask where you got this "Druids live for ages" thing from anyway, I've never heard that one before.

I was pretty sure it was outright stated somewhere, but now I can't find it. So I'm not completely sure about it anymore.

What I did find: "Time is meaningless inside the Dream. As a result, the green dragonflight, which spends the majority of its time in the Dream, is extremely long-lived. Ysera's consorts in particular almost never emerge from the Dream and are effectively immortal, as are all other permanent denizens in the Dream."
-Wowpedia, sourced by the WoW encyclopedia. Though this does not explicitly mention hibernating druids, and they may not count as 'permanent'.

"Timeless Body (Ex): After attaining 16th level, a druid
no longer takes ability score penalties for aging and
cannot be magically aged. Any penalties he may have
already incurred, however, remain in place."
- Core Rules 2nd Edition, WoW RPG. Declared non-canon.

So yeah, feel free to disregard that part

Hibernating Druids may be frozen in time imho for the duration of their hibernation, but immortality for a normal awake Druid?

Naa, not in my opinion.

Aelrath wrote:Hibernating Druids may be frozen in time imho for the duration of their hibernation,

That's exactly what I thought! Not complete immortality, but with a still-very-long-lived race like night elves I'd imagine someone who regularly hibernated to live for-almost-ever.

(I should add: the second quote didn't lead to my initial assumption, it was something kind-of-relevant I found while looking for an explicit source!)

Vaell wrote:Shadowmeld is not common knowledge, probably a trait Night Elves keep secret.

Sorry but, where did you get that idea? :/

Archimonde didn't know about it when Tyrande went invis.

If one of the 3 top evil baddies don't know about a Nelf trait, not many outside of the race should.

I see the logic, and mostly agree.

Indeed it is a logical train of thought

Fair enough, then.

But I doubt the concept of a whole faction of purple alliance warriors being able to go poof in the shade could remain a secret after... How long have the nelfies been with the alliance now?

Aelrath wrote:Archimonde didn't know about it when Tyrande went invis.

If one of the 3 top evil baddies don't know about a Nelf trait, not many outside of the race should.

I see the logic, and mostly agree.

Archimonde isn't exactly the type to bother with researching his opponents before heading into battle. He just goes around stomping insects. It's this kind of hubris that lead to his defeat in the first place. Twice.

This really isn't much of a source to base such an incredibly widespread assumption on. Archimonde not knowing about something somehow means it must be rare knowledge? Archimonde was the knucklehead, the fighter, your typical arrogant warlord. He doesn't care about what his enemies can and cannot do. Nothing can stand against his magical overkill.

And even if it was proper to say that, if Archimonde did not know about something it therefore had to be uncommon knowledge -- like ertwenpelller said, Night Elves have since (that is to say, since they fought Archimonde at the Battle of Mount Hiyjal) stopped being reclusive and are all over the world fighting people. You'd think that would be enough to have the "secret" come out by now. In fact it would be a horrible underestimation of the Horde warmachine to think they could have missed something this integral to their enemies' strategy after having been fighting them for years. Even if Archimonde not knowing about something would mean something is uncommon knowledge, it certainly doesn't mean it has to be uncommon knowledge now.

In short, I dont see the logic and I dont agree.

erwtenpeller wrote:Fair enough, then.

But I doubt the concept of a whole faction of purple alliance warriors being able to go poof in the shade could remain a secret after... How long have the nelfies been with the alliance now?

As someone that has a char of Highborne descen, would High Elves and Blood Elves know about it? Around when did they get that ability again?

I'd say by now it is common knowledge that nelves can 'disappear'. That incident was ages ago.

There'd be enough gutter tales and battles fought by now for some knowledge to have spread. Maybe even a few exaggerations and wild speculation about what else they can do

Thelos wrote:

Aelrath wrote:Archimonde didn't know about it when Tyrande went invis.

If one of the 3 top evil baddies don't know about a Nelf trait, not many outside of the race should.

I see the logic, and mostly agree.

Archimonde isn't exactly the type to bother with researching his opponents before heading into battle. He just goes around stomping insects. It's this kind of hubris that lead to his defeat in the first place. Twice.

This really isn't much of a source to base such an incredibly widespread assumption on. Archimonde not knowing about something somehow means it must be rare knowledge? Archimonde was the knucklehead, the fighter, your typical arrogant warlord. He doesn't care about what his enemies can and cannot do. Nothing can stand against his magical overkill.

And even if it was proper to say that, if Archimonde did not know about something it therefore had to be uncommon knowledge -- like ertwenpelller said, Night Elves have since (that is to say, since they fought Archimonde at the Battle of Mount Hiyjal) stopped being reclusive and are all over the world fighting people. You'd think that would be enough to have the "secret" come out by now. In fact it would be a horrible underestimation of the Horde warmachine to think they could have missed something this integral to their enemies' strategy after having been fighting them for years. Even if Archimonde not knowing about something would mean something is uncommon knowledge, it certainly doesn't mean it has to be uncommon knowledge now.

In short, I dont see the logic and I dont agree.

But from what we know of the Night Elf faction, would they really go and tell their allies every trick they have? I don't think it is safe to assume either way, Archimonde underestimated the NElves capability to stop him, that is true, but he wasn't an idiotic leader. I would imagine he knew that Night Elves could slip away and become seemingly invisible - the point I believe the NElves to be quite secretive about is the fact they cannot move during that invisibility. Why? Because if the enemy knew, their quick getaway would be somewhat pointless. There may be some that definitely know because they may have caught a NElf doing it - but I wouldn't think it is safe to assume that everyone knows it.

That is incredibly out of character for arguably the most guarded culture in WoW. NElves don't seem like the race to just go "Hey guys watch what I can do!"

What I think IS safe to assume is that people have speculations of it, but I'd imagine a lot believe NElves can move around invisible and appear out of thin air!

@Allonia, it was like 12 years ago

You know, I never quite understood the argument that Night Elves are supposed to be so reclusive. They where depicted like that in Warcraft three, perhaps, but I don't really see it in wow. Not only do Night Elf NPC's pop up in story-lines all over da place, they've played a major role in welcoming not one, but TWO new races to the Alliance.

That doesn't look very reclusive to me :/

I think it's a matter of taste and whatever it is the narrative demands the night elves to be.

We want them to be reclusive? Have it be mysterious. Woo! What do those elves do? Do they vanish? Teleport? Who knows! We can't see shit in the dark, but they can...Those scary elves give me the creeps, man, who knows what they do holed up in those trees?!

We need some night elves to be more part of the boys? Have them be merry, drunk, and play shadowmeld pranks in which they make ghostly cups of ale float and speak in a spooky voice.

Really there is no need to have community consensus on something as trivial as this. It can be both things at once, simaltenously, without any hicks or burps. Night Elves are portrayed both as reclusive and like part of the Alliance boys in blue and it is up to the players to play them as they see fit and as the situation demands. Neither flavor makes the other any less valid. It's all good!

It is cooler though for it to be a secretive trait that an outsider would have to be pretty observant to pick up on!

The rule of thumb for RP/storytelling that I go by when stuck in this situation is which option is cooler!