Thuperdude2: Man, your videos are the only thing that keep me linked to this world, my favorite fantasy world, stories, races and themes. Thanks for putting these out consistently over the years, genuinly.. -A long retired forsaken, and wc3 vet.

FoolishFeller: Blood Elves might not have notable grave markers because of their experience with the Lich King.

zimattack9994: The tauren being elevated isn't to keep predator away it to make it easier for carrion birds to get to them and symbolically letting there soul sor to the sky

Louicanthrope: for the blood elfes, maybe they used to burry their dead, but the scourge taught them to burn the bodies to prevent them from being raised ?

maybe these burial sites are basically gardens where they spread the ashes

and then everything else you said about their culture also applies at the same time

nemanjamarinkovic6261: I think the blood elves dont have a lot of graves because after the scourge invaded they were forced to burn their dead. the elves didnt want the necromancers to turn more of their loved ones against them. Also remember 90% of their race died during the scourge invasion and its hard to deal with such a large loss of life.

BlueFireDrakka: my two cents with the Night Elven Owl figures, this is just a Guess, but if you're a hunter and Manage to get Ban'thalos, theres actually some interesting Lore surrounding Owls like it. Emerald Owl Spirits don't just bond to the one Elf that's ballsy enough to tame it, they Bond to that elf's Entire bloodline. so maybe the Owl statues in Night elf Graves could be paying homage to that Bond with emerald owl Spirits that watched over their family line and they made an effigy in its image to watch over them in death too. Night elves in particular were a kind of mishmash of Pagan and Asian cultures so it could be possible that Nigh elf graves are family gravesites too.

verihimthered: Watching nixxiom videos feel like going to A.A. meetings

ScottKent: Couple of things...every society that I've studied which keep the skulls of ancestors or of the fallen, cleaned them...typically by boiling...before placing them around their homes. The Troll custom with the sitting upright reminds me of some South American cultures that used the dry heat and sand to desiccate and rapidly mummify bodies, but I'm not sure about using a large pot...I seem to remember pits being common. Also, the ones with the missing bodies might be females, but might also be the ones where the body was never recovered (or too mangled for normal services). About removing the stones in Felwood; I think you're on to the truth. It was not uncommon (still happens in some parts of the world) that a graveyard would be plowed over, markers removed, and all references to another society removed as a way to deny any historical or cultural claims to a land. The Kodo and Dragon burial grounds are a reference to the fictional Elephant burial ground that so many explorers went hunting for after claims by other explorers in stories...creating a mini goldrush like quest for ivory. And, it really wouldn't surprise me if Blood Elves cremated any dead so as to leave as little as possible.

Dork_Fysh: I like the idea of Night Elves communing with their ancestors spirits. That's all the wisps are, so it is arguably easier for them than most others.

I remain with Night Elves (and worgen) should be shaman.

ridener13: Leaving the bodies on the rafters is something the Cheyenne did. Charleston Heaton's mountain man ends in that way

AJarOfYams: I think the blood elf graveyards are memorials to those fallen in the Scourge invasion

mermaidriot: Came back to the game recently, and one of the things I love to do is stumble upon stuff like this, cultural items that maybe arent functional for the player but build the world

UJ1313: What a refresh pull

matus19971: I'd guess the Mask marked graves would be in honour of some warrior whose body could not be recovered

I think BElf graves are that way because so many of them died. The whole zone would be covered in graves and to be honest, they also wouldn't have all bodies to bury, because many were raised in undeath. These "graves" would be places of mourning, and would act, as you said, as mass graves. I think it was the Sylvanas book that showcased they know death and aren't distancing themselves from it. Hell, they've lost many others to the wars with the Amani.

jamminkeys: my guess/hope is the "crate method" is only temporary until the remains can be shipped back home (in the crate) for proper burial

Zarotian: 11:38 What the

Dork_Fysh: I did some looking into blood elf graveyards in Midnight's SMC for my Thalassian DK's house, and they're just generic Thalassian markers, but what I find fascinating is that the graveyard is the closest point inside Silvermoon, to the Sunwell.

CplStoo: i use to go to sleep at night listening to Nixx Storytimes .... was great, should be longer like 3 hrs :)

marikvash9904: I think the Blood Elves could present a very interesting case where any customs that we see from them are more a product of their history since the destruction of the Sunwell. Nearly ninety percent of their population was wiped out in a single offensive that rendered them nearly extinct. The Sin'dorei are quite changed in comparison to the Quel'dorei, and very much fixated on the nearly mortal wound that was dealt to them during Arthas's invasion. Up until Midnight, the Dead Scar also presented a constant threat of undeath and their unchecked incursion. So much so that the Blood Elves had to burn the border of their beloved forest down to the ground and anger the nature spirits there that they had, until that point, a beloved relationship with. All in order to stop the corruption of the Scourge from finishing what Arthas started. Not even their souls are arguably safe when they can be forced into undeath as wraiths, ghosts, and banshees.

Given all this I would say it's safe to assume that the Blood Elves would have a very dubious view of any kind of physical burial, if they ever had those practices to begin with. Prior to the shift in their culture, we know that the Quel'dorei had adopted and changed the worship of the Light into their own culture, and we do know that priests of the Light continued to have an important role in their society, enjoying a kind of standing on par with their magisters, as many viewed divine magic as just a different avenue of magic to be mastered.

It would not surprise me at all to learn that the Blood Elves cremate their dead, or otherwise destroy the bodies of their dead entirely in order to help prevent them from being raised into undeath. The monuments they erect could then be seen as simple memorials, where perhaps magic stones could be used to remember their fallen. I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that the raw magical essence of their dead were incorporated into their remaining defenses, or otherwise absorbed into their magical artifice, in a way not unlike the Eldar from Warhammer 40K with their Spirit Stones. Or perhaps even more darkly, if at the height of their rise and their wrath during the Burning Crusade era, if some Blood Elf magisters even consumed the essence of souls to stave off their addiction to magic. An ever-burning pyre of wrath and spite, a literal cultural phoenix burning in death to fuel a new, vengeful rise from the ashes.

"Remember the Sunwell. The Eternal Sun guides us. The dark times will pass. The Reckoning is at hand. Death to all who oppose us. We will have justice. We will persevere. Our enemies will fall. Victory lies ahead."

Khaivet: Blood Elf burial rituals are definitely reserved because of interactions with the scourge, thousands of blood elves/high elves being raised into undeath would certainly cause a cultural shock that would encourage them to minimalise the death of their family, most likely cremate them and have them in a centralized mausoleum are kept in urns in the family home, rather than bury them. Leaving a simple stone to represent anyone buried there rather than highlight any given person, especially considering before recent times, they didn't die from natural causes and likely had to be killed (due to natural immunity to most illnesses and incapable of dying of old age) to be buried.

justanotherhuumon: Asking the real, hard questions Nixxiom. Keep it up.

TerrorBlades: You have to watch the "ANTHROPOLOGIST Explores" by The Worldscribe, he goes into the burial rites of the Trolls with its historical inspiration.

saintphilipp5362: Without even watching I left a like, because the concept is great and should be explored.

Strange you didn't talk about Auchenai crypts or various catacombs of man, there are a lot of things you left out I think

XYZ-eo8um: That's my headcanon, but I believe Thalassian elves cremate their dead, and that's why their graveyards are so small and look the way they are. Apart of putting urns in columbaria, some cultures scatter the ashes of their dead in a designated places of remembrance.

18Krieger: Well. There might be no graves because the Scourge raised all the dead elves. Recently deceased or not. After the Blood Elves renamed themselves they adopted the practise of burning their dead and scatter the ashes. Fits with their fire and blood theme.

Hayley-y3o: This Videos are reminding why I miss WoW so much, even today and I haven't played offical WoW anymore since a very long time. Old Blizzard knew how to build a world. Modern WoW isn't this bad from a gameplay perspective but it lost it's charme and style over the years.

EMC-X-Rocky: Great video. More about graveyards and death culture would be cool.

Also I think that the respawn-graveyard is a mass grave for the few poor and John Does( we as adventurers are such). Meeting a poor Sin'dorei is rare and as we see f.e. at the Windwalker tower they own generational property most of the time. I think they simply bury their dead on their own real estate. But as we have a limited game world it wouldnt be implemented.

Jul 19 2026

Buy WOW Classic Gold (lvl60)