World of Warcraft’s Blood Elves

World of Warcraft, the video game that has sucked out the souls of countless addicts. Yes, I am one of those addicts, which means I spend a lot of time in the game and on various WoW forums… it also means I have no soul. Something I have been hearing in-game and offline is that the Blood Elf race are vampires (for those unfamiliar with the game players have the option of choosing which race to play - blood elves, orcs, dwarves, humans, trolls…etc.). The whole idea of vampire blood elves has got me thinking, so here we go.

To clear things up here’s a quick summary on the blood elves - For thousands of years the high elves created a beautiful magical kingdom, but then the undead Scourge invaded and drove the elves to the brink of extinction. The evil death knight Arthas then had the mystical Sunwell destroyed. This Sunwell was the source of the elves’ magical powers. After the destruction of their home and powers the remaining elf survivors changed their name to “blood elves” and put their effort into regaining the vast powers they once commanded. With the Sunwell destroyed they went through a magical withdrawal, but learned that they could feed on the mana (magic) of others.

Ok so that is your super short summary on the blood elves. With all of that in mind do they sound like vampires to you? No. Clearly people calling them such haven’t even checked out the blood elf story. First off, they worship the sun! The Sunwell, as in a sunny well of magic! That’s not exactly vampire-like.

Second, just because there is blood in their name doesn’t mean they feed on blood. The whole reason for the “blood” is to honor the high elves for the blood that was shed by the evil Scourge. Now, they are addicts that do feed on the magic of others since theirs is so depleted, so in a sense that makes them some kind of magic feeding vampires. But even that’s a stretch.

So overall I have to say that no, blood elves are not vampires. Sure they have some vampiric traits and yes they are pale and pretty, but that’s about it. It’s not enough to consider them vampires.

It would be sweet if there was a vampire race though.

- Moonlight