Corruption

I agree that it's a open debate among people. Honestly people will speculate and guess a lot. There is just too much unasnwered questions and too many blanks to give a definite answer on everything and some other things in detail. (plus discussions tend to repeat themselves and it tends to not come to a conclusion a lot of the time)

Among the sea of facts and lore bits and links you have a ocean of all the rest.

Go ask Blizz on twitter or something *shrug*

Either way the base question has been answered more or less.

The explanation I've always heard for it is that nelf shadow priests worship the dark side of the moon. Ie. Elune's wrath. Since the moon is typically depicted as a light in the dark, and a lunar eclipse would (this is entirely headcanon) presumably be an event that the Night Elves feared, as they gain their powers from Elune. Furthermore, shadowmeld is a racial ability that all night elves possess (in Warcraft 3, it was only females) that lets them blend into the shadows. Their wardens use abilities such as Shadow strike and Avatar of Vengeance (Shadow magic thematically focuses around negative emotions while the light works with positive ones. Avatar of Vengeance fits this theme)

The RPG books (personally I consider them valid untill contradicted, even if they're not officially canon anymore: One source is better than no sources) also state that Elune DOES have a shadow side, and as such would be able to act as the source for the night elves' shadow magic practitioners.

Well, I would personally speculate that the Elune which gives them the light would not exactly be the same one which gives them shadowy powers. If this makes sense.

By all means, do offer an alternate theory on where night elf shadow priests come from.

I've always seen shadow priests as ones who practise the magic of the old gods. Mind control, mind flay, insanity, etc.

As far as I know, the only lorewise nelf shadowpriest is the Old god servant in... Silithus I think it is. In the books at least Tyrande seems very against shadow in general, and uses Elune's light to burn it away.

Afaik, the 'Dark side of Elune' is a playermade thing. Another thing, Wowiki don't have citations of sources where they get their info, so I would not use that as a 'source'.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Much better, shows where they get the info, weather it is RPG, books, quests or otherwise game mechanics.

The wowwiki and gamepedia articles on the subjects I linked are 100% identical in terms of content...

Where does it mention a dark side of elune?

As I said before: It's from the RPG books. They're technically no longer canon though, but can be considered optional so long as no other piece of lore directly contradicts it.

I did a google search on 'Dark side of Elune' and I found guilds called it, but no referance to RPG books or any mention other then a few forum by players.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Furthermore, shadowmeld is a racial ability that all night elves possess (in Warcraft 3, it was only females) that lets them blend into the shadows. Their wardens use abilities such as Shadow strike and Avatar of Vengeance (Shadow magic thematically focuses around negative emotions while the light works with positive ones. Avatar of Vengeance fits this theme)

Tbh to me that just sounds far fetched and looking for hidden meanings where there are none.

I always interpreted 'shadowmeld' as a fancy name for literally 'slipping into the shadows'(as it states on the actual spell) and not 'cloak oneself in dark magics to be undetected'. You know, just as how every normal creature would try to hide, under a bush where it's dark and shadowy?

Lorewise the Wardens do stand for something you could interpret as sinister, which is imo why they have abilities like Shadowstrike and Avatar of Vengeance, but again, just a name to symbolise that. (Shadow Strike is nothing more than a poisoned blade, but what sounds cooler: Shadow Strike or Poison Strike?)

Night Elves are people of the night and I believe Blizz just likes hightlighting that with cool words...

What Shan Dian said.

Shan Dian wrote:

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Furthermore, shadowmeld is a racial ability that all night elves possess (in Warcraft 3, it was only females) that lets them blend into the shadows. Their wardens use abilities such as Shadow strike and Avatar of Vengeance (Shadow magic thematically focuses around negative emotions while the light works with positive ones. Avatar of Vengeance fits this theme)

I always interpreted 'shadowmeld' as a fancy name for literally 'slipping into the shadows'(as it states on the actual spell) and not 'cloak oneself in dark magics to be undetected'. You know, just as how every normal creature would try to hide, under a bush where it's dark and shadowy?

For your point about the wardens, as I said it was headlore and yours is as valid an explanation as mine. For Shadowmeld though, in Warcraft 3 Tyrande mentions that it was a gift from Elune, and in the final night elf mission (hyjal) Tyrande uses it exactly in the "Use magic to become undetected" as she literally disappears from right in front of Archimonde.

Yeah but just becouse it's called shadowmeld it doesn't mean it uses the dark void.

Didn't say it did. But it's without question a magical ability granted by Elune that distorts light (ie. makes you invisible)

Well, as I have heard, Elune likes to avoid combat a lot. Shadowmeld would help prevent combat from happening, so it makes sense she'd give her people that power.

I think it's entirely "reasonable" (in so much as we're discussing magic and fantasy... and it doesn't really "matter" anyway) that there are two aspects of Elune and therefore the magic which comes from her.

The light (white) moon and the darkside of that moon. Just like Ixi says. And these become the power of light and shadow (divine) magics.

Moon gods/goddesses are often shown as dual faceted, both the light and dark sides. It isn't about corruption in these cases. That's not what the shadow (dark) is doing here.

Anyway... there is an interesting point about why corruption happens (Lex's post) and how you deal with it.

I would almost always place more importance on motivation over lore anyway.  Get your chars mind right then let the corruption take whatever form it does physicly (within lore)