Arcane practitioners exiled from Kalimdor

Full History

After the Sundering, night-elven leaders sought to prevent another catastrophe like the Legion's invasion. The use of the Well by Azshara's Highborne had shown how arcane ambition could endanger Azeroth. Among the surviving kaldorei, many accepted the severe restrictions placed upon such magic. Dath'Remar Sunstrider and those who followed him would not renounce the art that remained central to their culture.

The disagreement became a permanent division. Rather than permit the Highborne to continue practicing within the guarded lands of Kalimdor, the night elves exiled the dissidents. They crossed the sea in search of a new homeland, carrying not just their magical knowledge but their understanding of what a civilization might build around it. Their migration was therefore more than a change of residence: it split the descendants of the ancient empire into different historical traditions.

The exiles first settled in the eastern lands, including an unsuccessful period in Tirisfal Glades. Reports of madness among the settlers led them to abandon that area and continue north. In the northern forests they founded Quel'Thalas, drawing anew upon a source of magical power in the form of the Sunwell. The Amani forest trolls, whose lands the newcomers had entered, resisted the kingdom's expansion.

The new high elves would later ally with the human empire of Arathor during the Troll Wars, teach human students arcane magic, and develop a culture distinct from the night elves left behind. Their descendants lived through the wars that destroyed Lordaeron and nearly ruined Quel'Thalas in the Third War. The exile of Dath'Remar's followers stands at the beginning of that separate history, a lasting consequence of the Sundering and the argument over how Azeroth's peoples should handle magic.