#i could export my blog but i don't want the whole blog. just my au posts.

[deathbydarkelves]

Hello! I recently discovered your blog and love your OCs and AU. I read almost all the lore bits you wrote on tumblr that I could find.

I think you've mentioned that several "canon" time spans in your AU have been adjusted and my clutter-filled brain just can't find the post again, but what are those in particular? ALSO! How do you feel about the fact that there are 15,000 year+ individuals that just... commonly exist for races like Night Elves? Even a century is a long time, let alone 150 of them.

Oh gosh thank you so much, that really means a lot ;w; I'm gonna put my answer below a cut because it got longer than I anticipated lol

I had to go check for myself, I admit, but I don't think I ever did post my adjusted timeline? Or I forgot to tag it in a useful way and now it's forever lost to the void lol.

BUT I've been working on a google doc 'master document' for the AU to consolidate all the info for it, and I do have the timeline in there. At least, from the First War (Warcraft I) to Dragonflight. The doc SHOULD be almost ready to post, but I'll just share the timeline for now.

(Note that I named the kaldorei nation "Kal'thalas" in my AU.)

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0-3 ADP: First War (Warcraft I)

4-8: Second War (Warcraft II)

20-late 22/early 23: Third War (Warcraft III)

25-28: “Vanilla WoW” happens.

29-30: The Burning Legion invades again (Burning Crusade).

32-33: The Lich King begins a new conquest (Wrath of the Lich King).

36-37: Deathwing attempts to remake the world (Cataclysm).

38-40: The mists around Pandaria dissipate (Mists of Pandaria).

40-41: Alternate Draenor’s timeline collides with ours (Warlords of Draenor).

43-45: The Burning Legion invades for the final time (Legion).

Tyrande does not denounce the shal’dorei. Instead, Suramar’s decision to join the Horde is motivated by a desire for more political freedom.

45: The Fourth War begins in earnest with the burning of Teldrassil, around midsummer.

After reclaiming Darkshore, Tyrande takes on the powers of the Night Warrior and leaves with Maiev to track down Sylvanas. She leaves Malfurion and Shandris in charge.

47: The Fourth War ends with the mak’gora outside Orgrimmar.

50: With his limited executive power, Malfurion increases taxes on imported goods and shuts down most exports from Kalimdor to the EK.

This is to put economic pressure on the Alliance and force them to pay more attention to his requests for more support for the refugees.

The kaldorei, pressed for resources themselves, don’t have the ships or supplies to bring the refugees back on their own.

52: Tyrande and Maiev finally track down and kill Sylvanas, who had taken refuge in Northrend.

53-55: Tyrande returns to the role of High Priestess and diverts every available resource to bringing the refugees in the EK home.

55: Tyrande and Kal’Thalas as a whole officially cut ties with the Alliance.

Kal’Thalas and the Horde reach a mutual agreement to not intrude on each other’s land and to not threaten the other unless this promise is broken.

The draenei, tauren, and shal’dorei offer aid to Kal’Thalas – each for their own reasons – and an alliance of sorts is formed between the four nations.

62: The Dragon Isles reawaken.

The kaldorei send their own ships and explorers to investigate. Beyond that, I have yet to decide on the exact changes I want to make to the Dragonflight plot.

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The major adjustments to the timeline would be that many of the canon 'expansion events' take place over 1-3 years, instead of each happening within a year, and that the time between the end of "BfA" and the start of "Dragonflight" is fifteen years instead of six years like in canon. And Shadowlands never happens <3

In more concrete terms, this means in my AU -pulls random canon character out of a hat- Thrall is 61 when the Dragon Isles awaken, as opposed to being 39 as in canon. And on the topic of ages...

This is a little pedantic but I choose to say there simply aren't any elves alive "today" any older than 11,000 years. They diverged from trolls 15,000 years ago, but weren't actually granted immortality until after The Sundering 10,000 years ago. I can buy they had unnaturally long lifespans before then (then-present but vestigial regenerative abilities + Well of Eternity fuckery), but only in the matter of centuries. The maximum expected lifespan would've probably been around 400-600, but you were more likely to get sick with something nasty, become something's dinner, or otherwise die in an unfortunate accident than actually make it that long. Early on the average lifespan might've been closer to 150-200, later climbing up to 300.

With that said, I still have thoughts on elves in the 10,000 years age range. In my AU, they are extremely, EXTREMELY rare. The longer you live, even with immunity to disease, the more likely you are to get into a fatal accident or encounter something that's too much for you to handle, or just get plain unlucky. So if you have been around since The Sundering, you are either going to be incredibly well-respected or incredibly feared. Or most likely both, depending on who you ask. For that reason, the only characters in my AU in that age range are the canon characters like Tyrande and Shandris and Maiev. If you're that old, everyone is going to know your name, because you could count the number of living people in that age range in one breath. There's already an air of respect around them because they're Big and Canon, so I just leave that as-is.

((That's just my personal approach to the subject, I have no issue with RPers with hella old characters lol))

And I don't know if this was also part of your question, but when it comes to writing immortal/very old characters, I approach that through the lens of "they may be very experienced, but they're still human (metaphorically)." No matter how long you've been around you still experience the world one day at a time, and thus you still make mistakes.

You've still got a mortal mind so you'll never be omniscient, and you will forget things. I also think ancient elves (especially those in political positions, like they often are) definitely slow down the "cultural progression" of their societies, but not to an extreme extent. People still change over their lifetimes and elves aren't a hivemind. But, like... the cultural taboo around magic usage might've been changed a lot sooner if Tyrande hadn't been the High Priestess for ten thousand years, y'know. With shorter-lived races, you know the ruler is gonna kick the bucket EVENTUALLY and the next rando is gonna have different ideas. Though, again, individuals change over time. Even with the same people at the helm, Kal'thalas during the Long Vigil was far from static.

Back to the memory thing: I saw someone in the comments of this video (good video, though not the end-all-be-all of writing immortals) say: "I always found it weird that no one ever calls out that memory gets distorted with time, that it fades, or shifts based on new beliefs, or has things added. Like, if eye witness testimony is suspect within a few days, what would centuries do?" I also take that approach to immortal memory. They just cannot remember it all, and they will never remember anything exactly as it objectively was. That's why historians are needed. That's why Kalassian, my AU "root" elven language that diverged from Zandali, is a dead language without a full translation. Even though people still live that used to speak and write it, so much time has passed that all its once-speakers may as well be gone. There are inscriptions in ruins that have been known for centuries and are still not translated.

(revision of a diagram I made a while ago)

(Don't let all the arrows coming off Zandali make it seem like Darn/Shalassian are uniform. They have dialects, just not the sheer variability of Zandali because their speaking populations are more localized.)

Anyway I do believe I've started going on a tangent that's not entirely related, so I'll cut myself off here HDJHFC

Thank you again for the ask and don't hesitate to send more :) I love any excuse to talk about my AU.

#ask box #au lore #I realize I've drastically shortened how long Azshara could've been ruling the Empire pre-Sundering #but tbh you don't need that long to make an empire (see: the Romans) or gain enough power to name a city after yourself #and/or brainwash your citizens enough that they'd do it anyway #and there were certainly others before her #so it doesn't concern me a whole lot