Skyborne should've been trolls, not elves.
The recent lore around the Skyborne feels jarring because it forces an Arcane-dominant, anti-shamanistic society into a grand elemental pact without any established groundwork. Blizzard clearly wanted another elven subrace because players love elves, but the narrative gymnastics required to get there require a lot of handwaving.
If you swap Elves for Trolls, however, the story doesn't just work, it actively solves a massive vacuum in Warcraft's elemental worldbuilding.
**The Missing 4th Elemental Vector**
Every major elemental domain in Warcraft has an established mortal or quasi-mortal proxy race that serves or anchors them on Azeroth:
Fire: Dark Iron Dwarves (and Flamewakers)
Earth: Troggs, Earthen, and Stone-Troggs
Water: Gilgoblins, Makrura, and Jinyu
Air: Harpies... kind of. But Harpies use curse-craft and dark magic, not true elemental shamanism or structured pacts.
Air has always been the odd element out. Trolls, whose ancient culture was entirely built on Loa bargains, voodoo, and shamanism, fit the exact mechanical profile needed to forge a sky-sanctuary pact with the Wind Lords.
**The Historical Origin (The Aqir Wars)**
During the splintering of the early Troll Empires and the height of the brutal Aqir Wars, a desperate sect of Troll shamans, maybe from around the Uldum region, could have petitioned the Wind Lords for sanctuary.
Unlike the Highborne (who commanded and siphoned magic through Arcane hubris), Trolls understood the give-and-take of a spiritual bargain. In exchange for elevating their sanctuary into Skywall to escape the insectoid horde, they pledged their lineage to the Air elementals.
**The Dual Triggers for Re-Emergence**
Why return to the mortal realm now? A believable faction re-entry requires motives from both sides of the pact:
**The Elemental Motive (Prince Thunderan & Ragnaros):** Following the events of Classic WoW, the discovery that Prince Thunderan was betrayed by Ragnaros, bound into elemental talismans, and eventually sealed into Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker ripples back to Skywall. The Wind Lords want a presence back on the mortal plane to strike at Fire, but the Trolls are hesitant until...
**The Troll Motive (The War of the Shifting Sands):** The Scarab Wall opens in Silithus, and C'Thun's Qiraji swarm forth. The Aqir, the ancient enemy that forced them to flee 15,000 years ago, have returned. Empowered by millennia in Skywall, the Trolls are eager to finish their ancestral war.
Both parties hit their tipping point simultaneously, leading to a mutual agreement to re-enter the mortal plane.
It respects the timeline, builds on existing lore (Silithus, Thunderfury, the Empire of Zul), and fills a structural gap across the four elements, all without needing to invent an isolated, sky-faring Highborne sect out of thin air.