Blood Elves are an offshoot of high elves. While the dividing line is nowhere near solid, Blood Elves are generally considered to be some combination of more willing to embrace and feed their magical addiction, more willing to use volatile and dangerous forms of magic, loyal to Kael'thas, and members of the horde.

Blood Elves were originally high elves who fought for Kael'thas against the scourge, the name "blood elf" simply signified their loss and desire for revenge only. However, these elve's desperation for weapons against the scourge lead them to use more dangerous types of magic, separating them culturally from those who travelled to Kalimdor or lived in other regions of the world. Due to Garithos's bigotry, and other political considerations, Blood Elves have left the alliance and joined the horde, while high elves have mostly stayed in the alliance.

Contents 1 Blood Elf body body type and health 1.1 Magical Addiction 2 Blood elf Personality 2.1 High Elves 3 Magic

Blood Elf body body type and healthEdit

Blood Elves tend to be larger and slimmer than humans, with long, pointed ears rather than smaller ones. They are about as strong as humans, but tend to have better senses and be more agile. Blood Elves have similar skin and hair color to humans. They are close enough in appearance to pass for human if very well disguised, and have done so when fighting the scarlet crusade. Blood Elves and High Elves still look almost exactly the same, though blood elves appear healthier, and sometimes have different eye colors due to magic use.

Blood Elf eating habits are about the same as humans. Quel'thalas Elves have bread so called "mana creatures" to supply both normal nutrition and magic. Outland Elves tend to eat large amounts of nether creatures. High Elves tend to eat whatever the other races living with them are eating.

Magical AddictionEdit

While some elves, including Kael'thas, believed that the blood elves would one day die from their magical addiction, the actual results are less serious. High Elves have learned to control their addiction well enough to function in day to day life, and Azeroth blood elves have learned to control their addiction somewhat while feeding themselves with mana creatures and energy collected in Quel'thalas.

The magic addiction does, however, influence the personality and health of the blood Elves and High Elves. High Elves, who attempt to fully control the addiction without extra magic, tend to be paler and skinnier than they had been before the Sunwell's corruption. High Elves also tend to be more tired and irritable than before the Sunwell's loss, both from the lack of magic itself, and from the willpower needed to avoid it. Outland elves, who gorge themselves on magic, tend to have varying degrees of insanity, and also tend to become more violent and haughty. Azeroth Blood elves tend to show a mixture of these qualities.

The most serious result of this magical addiction is the so called "wretchedness", where the desire for magic overcomes an elf and turns the elf into a mindless, violent being. Wretched resemble wild zombies, though instead of chasing meat, they chase anything that contain magic, including other high and elves and blood elves. Wretched's desire for magic is so strong that they will ignore regular food and water, though they will eat and drive things that contain magic, leaving them quite thin and discolored. Wretched will often die after several months due to this lack of food and water, but before than are quite dangerous. Wretchedness mainly effects Quel'thalas elves, mainly enchanters and mages, and many are found in the western section of Silvermoon, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Some suspect that the wretched are attempting ot reach the old Sunwell, others suspect that magic artifacts draw the wretched.

While Azerothians once thought that wretchedness was a side effect of the volatile magics used by the blood elves, the outland elves who gorge themselves on demonic and nether magic are not effected nearly as much. Blood Elves today think that wretchedness comes more from being exposed to quickly varying amounts of magic. Wretchedness is more likely to effect elf elf with little sleep, high stress, low energy, low physical activity, and with little willpower. It takes a long time for blood elves to transition to a full wretched. While wretchedness was a common danger early on in Blood elf Quel'thalas, it has become much less common as blood elves learned the risks and found methods to avoid wretchedness and stop the process before the transition could be completed.

Blood elf PersonalityEdit

In addition to their magical addiction, recent blood elf history, and older blood elf culture, influence the current day personality of most blood elves.

The Elves have always been known to be somewhat haughty and egotistical, and these qualities have carried over to the current day blood elves. While the scourge invasion humbled blood elves somewhat, their reconquering of Quel'thalas by themselves has given the elves a boost to their belief in their superiority. High Elf society was formed from a group considered superior in night elf society, starting this tradiation of haughtiness, and their skill with magic helped continue this tradition to the present day. This haughtyness towards the supposedly barbaric and simpleminded orcs kept the blood elves out of the horde for several years.

The elves have always been tempermental members of the alliance, but Garithos's bigotry and attempted execution of all blood elves, went beyond anything else the High Elves had experienced or done in the past. The Elves have had to rebuild much of their society by themselves, and as a result they tend to be more suspicious than usual towards other races, though this attitude is tempered by recent years of successful cooperation with the horde.

Blood Elf society is quite intense. Blood Elf military train for long periods of time, enchanters and other mages must work for long periods of time, and the Quel'thalas elves constantly face the threat of the scourge, trolls, Night Elf spies, and numerous other threats to their small numbers.

High ElvesEdit

High Elves are a highly discriminated and disliked race in the alliance, faced with suspicion and hatred routinely. This, plus the strains of fighting their magical addiction, make High Elves far less energetic, and more depressed, than otherwise.

MagicEdit

Both Azerothian and Outland society is heavily magic based. Elves rely heavily on magic in all areas, from fighting tor transportation to growing food. High Elves have throughout history been strong magic users, from their original position as highborne using the well of eternity's power, to the original troll wars, to current day Quel'thalas.

Contrary to alliance rumors, Quel'thalas Elves use very little demonic magic. Quel'thalas has almost no demons of its own, the elves have found other, powerful sources of magic to supply their needs, and as news travelled throughout azeroth, the Blood Elves learned o the demonic origins of the scourge. The Elves do allow some demonic magic to be practiced, as they are unwilling to abandon any potentially useful tool or source of power, but warlocks must practice their abilities in magically insulated areas to avoid attracting the burning legion.

Elves do, however, use types of magic that would be forbidden or frowned upon by most other mages on azeroth. The mana creatures brought from outland were mutated by the magic of the nether, a chaotic type of magic that is quite difficult to control by novice mages. Blood Elves extract far more energy from the Quel'thalas ley lines than some consider safe. The Elves do have ways to contain an accident should one occur, and accident from a ley line would still be very destructive. Blood Elf mages also experiment with the very foundations of magical power, controlling dangerous beings like phoenixes, experimenting with the raw energies of mana burning and mana transfer, skills that have seriously injured many novice mages as well as those in the area. Perhaps the most extreme example of blood elf magic use was their enslavement of Mu'ru, a Naar through which the blood elves extracted powers of the holy Light, to power their Blood Knights.

Outland Blood Elves have mainly focused their attention on demonic magic,but also use the magic of the nether as it suits them.