r/warcraftlore • u/Dekuswagg • 1d ago
Question Shen’dorei (Skyborne) population size?
I understand that the actual answer is more than likely ‘we don’t know,’ but to people who have been through the starting zone: is there anything to indicate a rough ballpark as to how many of them there are?
38
u/AwkwardSquirtles We killed the Old Gods. 1d ago
WoW doesn't do populations. There are as many as there need to be at any given time.
1
u/Dekuswagg 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t think you’re wrong, but we do generally get a loose idea one way or another. We know that humans and orcs, for example, are very populous—comparatively, anyway. Blood Elves have a small population, and High Elves are an even smaller percentage of that, being vanishingly rare.
7
u/GrumpySatan Why use 1 sentence when 20 will do? 1d ago
The tidbits about the humans & orcs are from 15+ years ago, the belf /helf one from 20 years ago. Blizz stopped doing the populations hints after Cataclysm as they realized through the RPG (which they also decanonized partially for this reason) and the encyclopedia that they were writing themselves into corners.
Like realistically WoW would be a dead world if they kept to most of them. The populations would not sustain themselves.
2
u/Odasto_ 1d ago
I don’t think you’re wrong, but we do generally get a loose idea one way or another.
The point is that it doesn't matter when that "loose answer" can be violated anyway. Let's say Blizzard says the answer is something like 10 thousand. That's not going to stop the Shen'dorei from enduring tragedies like the Scourging of Quel'thalas, fracturing their population 2-3 ways based on politics, and still managing to lead the war against the forces of the void.
See also: Void elves, which are supposedly a fraction of a fraction of a people that lost 90% of their population to the Scourge.
It doesn't matter. Really.
1
u/Dekuswagg 1d ago
Whether or not the loose answer is ‘violated,’ I’m still interested in speculating about what it might be based on what we know about the Skyborne.
0
u/Timemyth 1d ago
If humans were wiped out by 90% today there would still be 700 Million people. It just depends how many of them fit in Silvermoon before the Scourging. If your original population was in hundreds then having so few makes sense as 90% eradicate leaves only 10 people per hundred. But once you up it to Millions it's just one less zero so 1,000,000 leaves 100,000. 100 Million leaves behind the WoW playing population during peak periods of WoW History.
7
u/HahaRuinedItForYou 1d ago
"Not enough to have any hope of standing up to Al'akir by themselves" is about as close as you'll get.
The other sky islands they inhabited are falling apart so they've lost a decent chunk of their population similar to what Thalassian elves went through, but it's impossible to say if it's to the same extent or if there were even as many skyborne as high elves to begin with.
6
u/karatous1234 1d ago
TBF "Not enough to stand up to an elemental lord" can still potentially range as high as All of the Dark Iron Dwarves, and oh boy do we never seem to run out of those guys in classic.
4
u/Dekuswagg 1d ago
I had a similar train of thought. This post was inspired by an interaction I had in my guild. One guildie decided they wanted to roleplay as a quel’dorei in Forever, and a few other people jumped in to say they probably shouldn’t because they’re so small in number.
I disagreed because I think you should just play whatever you want as long as it exists/is precedented somehow in the setting, but it also got me thinking about how the Skyborne—who everyone seems to agree are fine to roleplay as—have also suffered a recent catastrophe that seems to have significantly eroded their numbers.
3
u/CatOnTheWeb_ 1d ago
From what we've seen in the zone, they might not have lost too many people. Islands seem to fall apart somewhat gradually, as we have multiple refugees talking about how the other islands were falling up and out from beneath their feet, so there was at least enough time to evacuate parts of the populations. And the Ruins of Ban'aethal, the north-eastern corner of Zephras, are explicitly called out as slowly falling apart.
There's also a subtle-implication in the questline that the 'everything is falling apart' problem has last a while, as the tension between the High Order and Windshaper are presented as old problems coming to a head rather than anything new.
The big issue is that Skyborne are not organized enough/have enough administration to help all of the people who have fled to Zephras. Al'Aketh are doing so well because they promise to help and protect the disaffected and unsupported refugees, who are otherwise forced to camp around the edges of Zephras Isle's population centers.
3
u/Dekuswagg 1d ago
This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to know in making this post, thank you.
2
u/HahaRuinedItForYou 1d ago
The captured bandit in Shen'dar village says, "My family and I managed to get on one of the last skycutters out of there before the entire island broke apart. We thought Zephras would save us. Well, it didn't. They are all long dead and now I'm here, awaiting execution."
There also doesn't seem to be much of a warning when a collapse happens because the contemplative bandit at the southern edge of the isle says the ground could drop out from under him "At any minute."
So it really doesn't sound like the falling apart is always slow and even the ones that do get off the other islands don't last long because Zephras doesn't (or can't) help.
All of this really gives the impression they're in a similar situation to High/Blood Elves after the Scourge swept through Quel'thalas, which I'm assuming is very much intentional. Of course, Blizzard could always reveal another island survived and is doing fine to give them a population boost.
6
u/Rhordrick 1d ago
The starting zone is mostly bleak... So less than 10,000. Their capital isn't even a real capital. Just like... Town...
1
5
u/Eroll_ 1d ago
Imo they could be quite numerous. Obviously not as high as blood elves or others alike but they were able to rebuild some kind of kingdom/society, even if its thanks to the elements
2
u/Dekuswagg 1d ago
This is what I was thinking, though this would of course have been before the two other islands drifted away. We know that some refugees made it to the main island before it was too late, but it seems like there weren’t that many—which to me indicates that they’re probably only working with a fraction of their peak population.
6
u/achterlangs 1d ago
5 november about half the player base.
2
u/Dekuswagg 1d ago
The beta player pop charts were so funny, it was literally just skyborne and forsaken paladins
2
u/Maelrhin 1d ago
We don't know but we can speculate since they where for themself with nothing to kill them the island probably was overpopulated with elves and that could also explain the civil war between the three factions and how happy are they to kill each other.
2
2
1
u/Anilahation 1d ago
Who knows you spend the starting experience for 5 hours just killing bald Skyborne
1
1
u/JoeHatesFanFiction 1d ago
Anytime we get a race like this that is obviously got a small population, my default answer is to say about as many as the Gnomes. They’ve had an obvious tragedy that has significantly weakened them, but simultaneously are numerous enough to have influence on events and launch expeditions.
1
u/SzrEdeRre 1d ago
Unless you are doing project that requires numbers, whatever the plot demands. All provided information on wiki doesn't make sense for the current WoW lore and the scale ingame.
You can count al skyborn NPCs and you will get small town probably.
1
u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 1d ago
Like others have said - they don't do population sizes.
Size of the Shen'dorei are real small, they're rebels of a small secret group of Highborne who survived the Sundering, their people killed by Tor'theldrin, and the survivors fled.
Can't really compare it to anything at all, sorry. It's just not going to be possible to give a ballpark outside of "a small amount"
1
u/Professional-Tank848 1d ago
Whatever the plot demands - which is fine - it's just suspension of disbelief. When you're in an MMO, it's a compromise you need to make.
22
u/TheKrayTabbies 1d ago
Considering in game zones and cities are nowhere near as big as they actually would be in canon.
At least 10