Total War Warhammer 2 Aversion

Averland is a minor Empire faction introduced in Total War: Warhammer. It is led by Marius Leitdorf and is situated in the southeastern reaches of the Empire. With Greenskins to their west and south and foul undead to their east they can be in a rather tough spot if they don't find help from their imperial or dwarfen brethren. Total War Warhammer 2 is a turn-based game set in the Warhammer universe. Aversion is a game mechanic that is used to help balance out diplomacy and alliances. Languages English Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese English Total War: WARHAMMER II – the Asrai Resurgent Update This automatic update arrives alongside The Twisted & The Twilight Lords Pack, bringing with it many content revisions, balances, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements. The most impactful suite of changes applies to the Wood Elves, who’ve received. Total War: Warhammer 2 - High Elf Supremacy. Buy Forum Stuff. But it does seem like CA kind of has an aversion to mixing crumbling and normal leadership mechanics. Eventually, the four main factions will explicitly refuse to even enter negotiations with one another, remaining in a state of permanent war. The Old World and Mortal Empires campaigns have a Chaos Invasion. This causes some factions to gain stronger aversion towards certain others.

Elves, a word from Germanic mythology, are frequently featured in fantasy fiction. In modern fiction, particularly because of the influence from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, elves are modeled mostly after his original description: tall, human-like creatures of otherworldly beauty, with Kings and Queens. Along with this development, Dark elves are often modeled as a more sinister counterpart to the High elves, like the Drow or the Trow, which are the fairy-like dark creatures of Orcadian and Shetland folklore. The dark elves (Dökkálfar) or black elves (Svartálfar) are presented in Germanic mythology as dwarves and gray ones.

General dark elf lore[edit]

Dark elves are known for their aggression, deceit, and stealth. They are very brutal and cruel by nature, having little mercy when it comes to cheating, battling, or anything dealing with the life of another being. They have little respect for even their own kind, at times waging war against each other. However, clans are known to band together, to combat invasions and attacks by other races. They usually do not mix blood with other races; if they do, it is often with a demon or related creature. They lurk in dark places and love the shadows. Rarely will they come into the light for needless purposes, but it is not usually believed light will harm or weaken them. Their weakness varies upon legend, and may include excessive heat, rain, nettles, or the blossoms of some plants and trees. Dark elves generally travel in pairs or groups, as their tendencies towards cheating and theft make them targets for retaliation and violence at the hands of other races.

References to drow in games & literature[edit]

Dungeons & Dragons[edit]

The drow, as they appear in Dungeons & Dragons, were created by Gary Gygax, who stated that 'Drow are mentioned in Keightley's The Fairy Mythology, as I recall (it might have been The Secret Commonwealth—neither book is before me, and it is not all that important anyway), and as Dark Elves of evil nature, they served as an ideal basis for the creation of a unique new mythos designed especially for the AD&D game.' ('Books Are Books, Games Are Games' in Dragon Magazine, Nov. 1979, #31.) They were first mentioned in the Dungeons & Dragons game in the 1st Edition 1977 Advanced Dungeons & DragonsMonster Manual under 'Elf', where it is stated that 'The 'Black Elves,' or drow, are only legend.'

Video games[edit]

The Baldur's Gate series of video games feature drow as enemies and NPCs, as well as part of the game being set in the drow city of Ust Natha. The drow cleric of Shar, Viconia, features in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn as a party member and, in the second game, a possible romantic interest. In the Throne of Bhaal expansion, her alignment can be changed from neutral evil to true neutral if she is in a romance with a PC. The Eilistraee-worshipping drow male Solaufein plays a minor role in the second game, but his role can be expanded into a romance with a mod.

In Icewind Dale, a drow named Nym steals dwarven weapons and artifacts and sells them to the goblin and orc armies attacking the elven fortress, the Severed Hand. Since the armies are armed with dwarven weapons, the elf leader Larrel assumes the dwarves betrayed them, and ends the alliance between the two. Thus, Nym is single-handedly responsible for the fall of both the dwarves and the elves in the Dale. Nym can be found in the Svirfneblin village in the tunnels of Lower Dorn's Deep, where he will sell a number of magical artifacts and weapons to the player. Nym also appears in Icewind Dale II, where he appears to be in league with the Legion of the Chimera.

The original campaign and first expansion of Neverwinter Nights do not deal much with the drow but the second expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, does so extensively. Neverwinter Nights 2 continues to expand upon them in their story, as well as allowing drow and other Underdark races as playable characters.

The Dark Elves found in the Age of Wonders series are a species of Elf, but qualify as their own race because they are evil aligned. In the game it states that all Dark Elves were once regular elves, but since elves are immortal they suffer not death of life, but death of spirit. It is never stated why their spirit dies and the only Main Character who has that 'death' is Prince Meandor. Drow also appear in Atari's Demon Stone.

Video games[edit]

• Everquest (Dark Elves are one of the playable races)
• Everquest II (Dark Elves are one of the playable races)
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Dark Elves are one of the playable races)
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (also known as 'Dunmer' in the game and its expansions)
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (also known as 'Dunmer')
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (also known as 'Dunmer')
• Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes (As 'Dark Elves', although not entirely synonymous with Drow)
• Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders (As 'Dark Elves', although not entirely synonymous with Drow)
• Champions of Norrath (As 'Dark Elves', although not entirely synonymous with Drow)
• Champions: Return to Arms (As 'Dark Elves', although not entirely synonymous with Drow)
• Materia Magica
• Fight for Midgard (as one of the playable races)
• Lineage II (as 'Dark Elves' - one of the playable races)
• SpellForce (as 'Norcaine' - one of the playable races)
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (as 'Dark Link' - a boss battle)
• Etrian Odyssey V (There are playable and NPC elves, some of which are dark)
• Total War: Warhammer II (two playable Dark Elf factions)

Trow in popular culture[edit]

• Trows are characters in Bungie's Myth series.
• Trowe appear in the flagship title of InXile, The Bard's Tale, as the prevalent enemy and a source of musical interludes.
• Jeremy Grey, owner of the Grey Detective Agency is a Trow in the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton.

Dark elves in popular culture[edit]

The Deed of Paksenarrion[edit]

In Elizabeth Moon's trilogy The Deed of Paksenarrion, the dark elves are a sect of elves that have wandered from the path and now follow the gods of evil, rather than the 'High Lord'.

Middle-earth[edit]

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, the Moriquendi or 'Elves of Darkness' were a group of the Elves that did not complete the Great Journey across the continent of Middle-earth and the Sundering Seas, and thus did not behold the light of the Two Trees in Valinor. The Dark Elves were in no way more 'evil' than the Light Elves; the latter just had a surpassing knowledge and skill, and were more 'noble' and potent.

In one theory as to their origins, Orcs are thought to be corrupted versions of the Avari.

EverQuest[edit]

In EverQuest (EQ) the dark elves were a very key role in the game. Players played as these elves in RP Online format. Each player could customize their way of playing through the world. In the sequel, EverQuest II, dark elves (properly known as the Teir'Dal) once again play a prominent role. They are governed by Queen Cristianos Thex from her throne in the ancient subterranean city of Neriak. The city is located at the east end of the Darklight Wood northwest of Freeport on the continent of D'Lere. A number of factions vie for favor and control within Neriak. While many Teir'Dal are native to Neriak, they can be found in most corners of the world of EverQuest II, a planet called Norrath.

Mega Man Zero[edit]

The Dark Elf is a key character to the plot of Mega Man Zero 2 and Mega Man Zero 3. She was initially created as the Mother Elf, the good being which had the power to exterminate the Mavericks. However, Dr. Weil cursed the Mother Elf, and it transformed into the ominous Dark Elf, creating two evil 'children' dark elves: Créer and Prier. The Dark Elf was so destructive that X sacrificed himself to seal her inside his body. However, years later, in Mega Man Zero 2 she was eventually released by Elpizo, who used her power to fight Zero. With Elpizo's defeat, the Dark Elf flew away. In the third installment, the Resistance and Neo Arcadia started to look for the Dark Elf, causing a clash between Zero and Weil. The Elf and her 'children', however, were caught by Weil and merged to Omega (or the 'Original Zero'). After Créer, Prier and Omega's demise, Weil's curse was finally broken and the Dark Elf became the Mother Elf once again.

Final Fantasy[edit]

The Dark Elf king Astos puts the prince of the Elven Castle to sleep for 5 years. In the game the player must find Matoya and have her make a cure to wake him.

Final Fantasy IV[edit]

A boss called the Dark Elf resides in the Lodestone Cavern. Being weak against metallic weapons, he created a strong, magnetic field within his lair. The bard, Edward, could play music which disrupted his concentration and with it the field. As a last resort he transforms into the Dark Dragon. His sentences contained odd capitalization.

Dungeons & Dragons[edit]

In the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse, especially in the worlds of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms and Eberron, dark elves are commonly called drow. They are dark-skinned and white-haired and are generally, but not exclusively, evil. Many other games and works of mainstream fantasy fiction derive their 'dark elves' or 'night elves' from the drow of Dungeons & Dragons. The drow in most Dungeons & Dragons settings are depicted as worshipers of the spider goddess Lolth and live in matriarchal societies.

In the Mystara/'Known World' setting, shadow elves are a race of subterranean elves who have been mutated via magic. In the Dragonlance setting, dark elves are not a separate subrace of elves (in fact, the drow of other worlds do not exist on this one). In this setting, 'dark elf' is a label given to any elf that is outcast from elven society, typically (although not always) for evil practices.

Fighting Fantasy[edit]

In the Fighting Fantasy gamebook role-playing series, dark elves are much like their Dungeons & Dragons counterparts. However, some details of their culture have been adapted to fit the Fighting Fantasy background.

Record of Lodoss War[edit]

Some dark elves from the fictional world of Record of Lodoss War are brown-skinned and not necessarily evil, but primarily aligned with the forces of Marmo, the enemies of the story's heroes. These dark elves are capable of deep loyalty and love, as personified by the only dark elf main character, Pirotess.

Shadowrun[edit]

As with most metahuman races in the Shadowrun world, many elves are born from the same ethnic groups that normal humans come from, meaning that there are African elves, Indian elves, and Arabic elves, for example. However, the closest thing to the 'dark elf' in Shadowrun is the elf metahuman variant subgroup called the Night Ones, most of which come from Europe. The Night Ones have an aversion to sunlight and are different from other elves by possessing a fine fur coat that covers their bodies, indistinguishable from their skin at a distance and usually colored black, violet, or dark blue. Popular media has dubbed them dark elves, and the group is sometimes stereotyped against as being members of a cult or an 'evil' metahuman race.

Warhammer[edit]

In the fictional universes of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000, the generally evil Dark Elves (running parallel to the Dark Eldar in the Warhammer 40,000 universe) do not dwell underground, living instead in cities similar to those of High Elves, are not dark-skinned. Dark Elves are masters of torture and they worship the god Khaine, Lord of Murder.

The Dark Elves of Warhammer call themselves the Druchii and are ruled with an iron fist by the Witch-King Malekith and his sorcerous mother Morathi. The Druchii live in the land of Naggaroth and are cruel raiders with much disdain for all other races, especially their lighter kindred, the High Elves. The Dark Elves were actually the ones responsible for sparking 'the War of the Beard', the great war that caused the rift in Dwarf and High Elf relations, though only the High Elves know this and the Dwarfs would disbelieve it if they found out.

In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Dark Eldar (Also known as the Drukhari) live in the extra-dimensional city of Commorragh from which they launch raids upon the rest of the galaxy to capture slaves to be brought back to Commorragh as playthings or torture victims. They are afflicted with a condition known among themselves as the Thirst, which forces them to consume the souls of other sentient creatures lest the Chaos God Slaanesh consume theirs.

The Elder Scrolls[edit]

In The Elder Scrolls series of role-playing video games, Dark Elves (often referred to as Dunmer) generally live peacefully with other races and by and large their entire race is not considered evil like many other fantasy series. They are the native and predominant race of Morrowind. They are considered generally conservative by nature and are distrustful of 'outlanders' (non-natives). Dunmer culture is split between the settled people of the cities and the nomadic Ashlander tribes. Dark can easily be applied to them as 'gloomy' or 'morbid', for such is their temperament. Dunmer are said to have been punished with their red eyes and dark-bluish skin colour by Azura, one of the most prominent Daedra, either for disobeying her in one of the most crucial moments of their history or for turning to worship the Tribunal, along with the Tribunal killing Nerevar, the savior of the Dunmer. Many Imperial scholars prefer the theory that the bluish-grey skin is an adaptive response to the frequent volcanic eruptions on Vvardenfell. A long lifespan is common among members of the race, most living up to 200-300 years, with the exception of wizards and necromancers who may live anywhere up to the thousands.

In truth, the term Dunmer more properly means Cursed Elves than Dark Elves. However, the term Dark Elves is far more complimentary. Although conventionally civilized, the Dunmer are known to possess somewhat savage and barbaric traits, especially amongst the royal House Wars of the ruling classes. While the Tribunal (a temple centred around a trio of demigods)were once their religious pantheon, they have since fallen out of favour to be replaced by Daedric worship, which had fallen out of practice long ago due to the rise of the Tribunal centuries earlier. As a result of the Armistice allowing Morrowind to maintain many of its own laws, it was the only province under the Empire which continued to practice chattel slavery of the 'lesser' races, including High Elves and Wood Elves; by the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion however this practice has been abandoned. An event known as the 'Red Year' occurs roughly 196 years previous to the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and 11 years after The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the volcano Red Mountain erupted, causing a wide array of destruction and chaos in its wake, forcing many Dunmer to seek refuge in nearby Skyrim and other provinces. Following the Red Year, the nation of Argonia invaded much of the remaining habitable parts of the province in revenge for centuries of slavery, further decimating the Dunmer race.

Midkemia[edit]

Midkemian dark elves - called moredhel (incidentally, a 'literal' word from Dark and Elf from Tolkien Elvish) - resemble the elves (eledhel) and the glamredhel, the 'mad ones', but have dark hair. They're quite warlike because of the 'path' they follow is towards power, 'might makes right', and 'the end justifies the means'. They mostly inhabit the Northlands, and also the continent of Triagia, and are usually only seen in the more populated parts of the world robbing and raiding. Some of the moredhel return to reside with the eledhel in a process of change inwardly and outwardly, called the Returning, but they are often killed by their kin before they reach the home of the elves, Elvandar.The truth, known only to the elves themselves and few elf-friends, is that the moredhel and eledhel are the one race both of whom were slaves under the Valheru. When the latter disappeared the field slaves turned their back on their former masters' ways and became the eledhel, while the house slaves who had been in closer proximity to their masters sought their power and methods and became the moredhel. The eldar, keepers of lore and of the Valheru's sacred objects, left Midkemia and made their home on the world of Kelewan unbeknownst to anyone, as they kill anyone who tries to enter their forest.

They play a significant role in the novel A Darkness at Sethanon (Riftwar series) and the video game Betrayal at Krondor. The Novel 'Krondor the Betrayal' goes quite in depth to show the 'moredhel' are not evil per se, but have a very xenophobic, stubborn, and harsh culture, going so far as to commit genocide against the glamredhel, whose descendants are later discovered in a different forest on Midkemia, in a slightly barbaric state.

GURPS Banestorm[edit]

On the world of Yrth as presented in GURPS Banestorm,^[1] the dark elves are not a separate race, but are a xenophobic offshoot of the main elven culture. They think all non-elves in general, and orcs in particular, are an aberration against nature and a threat to the future of the world and the elven race, and thus conspire to either enslave or destroy those other races. They began as nothing more than a group of elves united against orcs, but over the centuries their beliefs diverged from the elven mainstream. They believe in using magic to improve on nature, guiding it actively toward union with the Eternal, the elven (and dwarven) conception of the divine. Most elves consider their belief perverted and dangerous. The dark elves are responsible for the Banestorm effect that brought humans, goblins, lizardfolk and other non-Yrth native races to Yrth.

Might and Magic[edit]

Dark elves were part of as one of the dominant species on the continent Jadame of the planet Enroth, available as playable characters. Portrayed as red and brown-skinned counterparts to the wood and snow elves, these dark elves are peaceful and inhabit the country of Alvar, which includes Jadame's major port city Ravenshore in the south. The lands of Alvar north of Ravenshore are troubled by aggressive ogres. There is a dark elven prophecy concerning the end of the world.

In Ashan, the world of Heroes of Might and Magic V, Dark Elves are a faction that lives in tunnels under the surface. Cheetah girls free online. They are descendants of the followers of Tuidhanna, originally a renegade Wood Elf Queen, whose people were blamed for burning down the Giant Tree, Brythigga, sacred to the Wood Elves.

Fading Suns[edit]

In the setting of the Fading Sunsscience fictionrole-playing game, the fictional extraterrestrial races of the Ur-Obun and the Ur-Ukar are essentially science fiction renditions of high elves and dark elves respectively, somewhat akin to the Eldar and the Dark Eldar in the Warhammer 40000miniature wargame. However, in contrast to the usual portrayal of dark elves, the Ur-Ukar are not inherently evil, but simply possess a predisposition for direct, sometimes violent behaviour and display a certain moral ambiguity.

Famous dark elves in fiction[edit]

Shadowblade[edit]

Shadowblade is a warrior and is the most elite assassin in the world of Warhammer Fantasy world. He is an assassin in the society of the Dark Elves, who themselves are the masters of assassination. Even though he's still young by Dark Elf standards (a mere 150 years old) he is a legend amongst the Druchii, his exploits told as fireside tales to eager Dark Elf children. Most celebrated of all is his single-handed massacre of the entire crew of a High Elf Hawkship, whom he murdered one by one over several days, each killed in a different fashion. The mere thought of Shadowblade's murderous attempts is enough to keep all but the stupidest or brave Dark Elf from plotting against the Witch King for he is loyal only to the Hag Queen and the Witch King, although it is the Hag Queen alone that knows the true identity of Shadowblade.

Drizzt Do'Urden[edit]

Drizzt Do'Urden is a Drow in the Forgotten Realms fantasy world. Drow are dark elves that live in caverns deep beneath the surface known as the 'Underdark' of the Forgotten Realms. In R. A. Salvatore's novels Drizzt renounces the Drow's Spider-Queen Lolth, goddess of treachery and deception (and later embraces Mielikki, goddess of the forests and rangers). In doing so, Drizzt angers Lolth who, in turn, demands his family sacrifice him. Drizzt leaves behind the city of his birth, Menzoberranzan escaping the wrath of his family, and consequently his former house (the house of Do'Urden) is left to bear the wrath of the evil Spider-Queen. Finding himself a renegade, Drizzt seeks sanctuary from his past on the surface world. Whereas most Drow are evil and power hungry, Drizzt is benevolent and humble. On the surface he is often wrongly persecuted for the reputation of his race, yet through the years he slowly gains a reputation for himself, allowing him acceptance without prejudice. His preferred weapons are twin scimitars, although he is perfectly capable of using a variety of other weapons should the need arise. His primary companion is Guenhwyvar, a magical panther who is summoned to Drizzt's plane of existence by means of a small onyx figurine. Along the way Drizzt has also made many important friends, such as the dwarf king Bruenor, the dwarf's adopted daughter Catti-brie and the human Barbarian Wulfgar, as well as Montolio 'Mooshie' Debrouchee who revealed to the dark elf which deity his heart followed and the svirfneblin Belwar Dissengulp from Blingdenstone, the first member of a lawful race to accept Drizzt.

Gorath, Chieftain of the Ardanien[edit]

Gorath is a renegade Dark Elf (Moredhel) from Raymond E. Feist's fantasy world Midkemia. He betrayed his people to travel south across the Teeth of the World (a mountain range which separates the Moredhel from the rest of the world) in order to warn Prince Arutha ConDoin of the coming war in an effort to stop the Moredhel leader, Delekhan, and save his people from utter destruction. His story is portrayed in the video game Betrayal at Krondor and again in the novel based on the video game, Krondor: The Betrayal. This book is the first novel in The Riftwar Legacy, followed by Krondor: The Assassins, Krondor: The Tear of the Gods, Krondor: The Crawler (Not yet released), and Krondor: The Dark Mage (Not yet released).

Lord Indorill Nerevar[edit]

Nerevar was the legendary Hortator (war-leader) and King of the Chimer from the fantasy world of The Elder Scrolls, whose reincarnation is the player character in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. His reincarnation, the Nerevarine, is not necessarily a Dark Elf, as the player may choose their race, but Nerevar himself was a Chimer. Long before the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, with the aid of the Daedric Prince Azura, he rose to power over the Chimer by ousting the Nords. He ruled as the king of Morrowind for many years, until he fought in the final battle of Red Mountain, which ended in the complete annihilation of the Dwemer and himself left mortally wounded. His three advisors Vivec, Sotha Sil and Almalexia (whom the later was also his wife) betrayed their oaths to him and used a forbidden divine artifact discovered in the ruins there, which turned out to be the heart of the fallen god Lorkhan, to become gods themselves, now known as the 'Tribunal'. As an act of punishment, Azura cursed the Chimer, giving them blue-grey skin and red eyes, thus transforming them into the Dunmer, the Dark Elves. In the ages since, an old friend of Nerevar's Voryn also came across the heart and used it to become a god himself, but being unprepared and lacking the proper tools was corrupted and driven to madness, transforming him into Dagoth Ur - the dark lord of Red Mountain. Azura prophesied that Nerevar would one day return and cast down Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal, foreshadowing the player character's actions in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

References[edit]

1. ^Masters, Phil; Jonathan Woodward (2006). GURPS Banestorm. Austin, Texas: Steve Jackson Games. ISBN1-55634-744-8.

See also[edit]

• The Night Elves and Blood Elves of Warcraft

A Series of Guides covering the very basics of Total War. Each guide will focus on a single part of the game in as much detail as possible.

Basics of Diplomacy

Now I know for a lot of you this may seem basic, and that’s totally fine, but some of you might never have played Total war at all and are looking to get into it but are scared of the apparent learning curve. This series of guides aims to help you get to grips with the basic mechanics of total war so that you can get off to a much smoother start and also understand my more advance guides more easily (shameless plug).

Diplomacy is one of the core mechanics of total war Warhammer. It dictates many things such as your enemies and allies and can provide you with extremely valuable information as long as you know how to understand it properly.

Lets start by going over what each part of the diplomacy screen means. The middle section of the screen is where you’ll be spending most of your time looking while you’re in this screen and from here you can see every faction you’ve encountered as well as their strength rank, number of settlements, trade status with you, treaties and wars with you and finally their relations towards you. Its also worth noting that you can sort the factions by any of these criterea.

The Strength rank is separated into 2 parts. The actual ranking and the comparison to you. The rank is obviously how strong a faction is when compared to every other faction in the game. The comparison is basically an overall version of the balance of power bar you see in battles. It shows how the balance is if every single one of their armies put together was against every single one of yours put together so is essentially telling you how likely you are to beat them in war. Take this with a huge grain of salt however as just because a faction has a lot of armies, doesn’t mean they’re using them all that well. They can have a bunch of armies off at the opposite end of the map and have barely anything left defending their home settlements making them easy pickings and obviously making the war easier to win.

The number of settlements is pretty straightforward but it is worth noting that it doesn’t take into account how developed these settlements are. This means that they could be a large collection of newly colonised ruins or a small number of heavily fortified, max size settlements with super tough garrisons and steady income.

In the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse, especially in the worlds of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms and Eberron, dark elves are commonly called drow. They are dark-skinned and white-haired and are generally, but not exclusively, evil. Many other games and works of mainstream fantasy fiction derive their 'dark elves' or 'night elves' from the drow of Dungeons & Dragons. The drow in most Dungeons & Dragons settings are depicted as worshipers of the spider goddess Lolth and live in matriarchal societies.

In the Mystara/'Known World' setting, shadow elves are a race of subterranean elves who have been mutated via magic. In the Dragonlance setting, dark elves are not a separate subrace of elves (in fact, the drow of other worlds do not exist on this one). In this setting, 'dark elf' is a label given to any elf that is outcast from elven society, typically (although not always) for evil practices.

Fighting Fantasy[edit]

In the Fighting Fantasy gamebook role-playing series, dark elves are much like their Dungeons & Dragons counterparts. However, some details of their culture have been adapted to fit the Fighting Fantasy background.

Record of Lodoss War[edit]

Some dark elves from the fictional world of Record of Lodoss War are brown-skinned and not necessarily evil, but primarily aligned with the forces of Marmo, the enemies of the story's heroes. These dark elves are capable of deep loyalty and love, as personified by the only dark elf main character, Pirotess.

Shadowrun[edit]

As with most metahuman races in the Shadowrun world, many elves are born from the same ethnic groups that normal humans come from, meaning that there are African elves, Indian elves, and Arabic elves, for example. However, the closest thing to the 'dark elf' in Shadowrun is the elf metahuman variant subgroup called the Night Ones, most of which come from Europe. The Night Ones have an aversion to sunlight and are different from other elves by possessing a fine fur coat that covers their bodies, indistinguishable from their skin at a distance and usually colored black, violet, or dark blue. Popular media has dubbed them dark elves, and the group is sometimes stereotyped against as being members of a cult or an 'evil' metahuman race.

Warhammer[edit]

In the fictional universes of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000, the generally evil Dark Elves (running parallel to the Dark Eldar in the Warhammer 40,000 universe) do not dwell underground, living instead in cities similar to those of High Elves, are not dark-skinned. Dark Elves are masters of torture and they worship the god Khaine, Lord of Murder.

The Dark Elves of Warhammer call themselves the Druchii and are ruled with an iron fist by the Witch-King Malekith and his sorcerous mother Morathi. The Druchii live in the land of Naggaroth and are cruel raiders with much disdain for all other races, especially their lighter kindred, the High Elves. The Dark Elves were actually the ones responsible for sparking 'the War of the Beard', the great war that caused the rift in Dwarf and High Elf relations, though only the High Elves know this and the Dwarfs would disbelieve it if they found out.

In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Dark Eldar (Also known as the Drukhari) live in the extra-dimensional city of Commorragh from which they launch raids upon the rest of the galaxy to capture slaves to be brought back to Commorragh as playthings or torture victims. They are afflicted with a condition known among themselves as the Thirst, which forces them to consume the souls of other sentient creatures lest the Chaos God Slaanesh consume theirs.

The Elder Scrolls[edit]

In The Elder Scrolls series of role-playing video games, Dark Elves (often referred to as Dunmer) generally live peacefully with other races and by and large their entire race is not considered evil like many other fantasy series. They are the native and predominant race of Morrowind. They are considered generally conservative by nature and are distrustful of 'outlanders' (non-natives). Dunmer culture is split between the settled people of the cities and the nomadic Ashlander tribes. Dark can easily be applied to them as 'gloomy' or 'morbid', for such is their temperament. Dunmer are said to have been punished with their red eyes and dark-bluish skin colour by Azura, one of the most prominent Daedra, either for disobeying her in one of the most crucial moments of their history or for turning to worship the Tribunal, along with the Tribunal killing Nerevar, the savior of the Dunmer. Many Imperial scholars prefer the theory that the bluish-grey skin is an adaptive response to the frequent volcanic eruptions on Vvardenfell. A long lifespan is common among members of the race, most living up to 200-300 years, with the exception of wizards and necromancers who may live anywhere up to the thousands.

In truth, the term Dunmer more properly means Cursed Elves than Dark Elves. However, the term Dark Elves is far more complimentary. Although conventionally civilized, the Dunmer are known to possess somewhat savage and barbaric traits, especially amongst the royal House Wars of the ruling classes. While the Tribunal (a temple centred around a trio of demigods)were once their religious pantheon, they have since fallen out of favour to be replaced by Daedric worship, which had fallen out of practice long ago due to the rise of the Tribunal centuries earlier. As a result of the Armistice allowing Morrowind to maintain many of its own laws, it was the only province under the Empire which continued to practice chattel slavery of the 'lesser' races, including High Elves and Wood Elves; by the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion however this practice has been abandoned. An event known as the 'Red Year' occurs roughly 196 years previous to the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and 11 years after The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the volcano Red Mountain erupted, causing a wide array of destruction and chaos in its wake, forcing many Dunmer to seek refuge in nearby Skyrim and other provinces. Following the Red Year, the nation of Argonia invaded much of the remaining habitable parts of the province in revenge for centuries of slavery, further decimating the Dunmer race.

Midkemia[edit]

Midkemian dark elves - called moredhel (incidentally, a 'literal' word from Dark and Elf from Tolkien Elvish) - resemble the elves (eledhel) and the glamredhel, the 'mad ones', but have dark hair. They're quite warlike because of the 'path' they follow is towards power, 'might makes right', and 'the end justifies the means'. They mostly inhabit the Northlands, and also the continent of Triagia, and are usually only seen in the more populated parts of the world robbing and raiding. Some of the moredhel return to reside with the eledhel in a process of change inwardly and outwardly, called the Returning, but they are often killed by their kin before they reach the home of the elves, Elvandar.The truth, known only to the elves themselves and few elf-friends, is that the moredhel and eledhel are the one race both of whom were slaves under the Valheru. When the latter disappeared the field slaves turned their back on their former masters' ways and became the eledhel, while the house slaves who had been in closer proximity to their masters sought their power and methods and became the moredhel. The eldar, keepers of lore and of the Valheru's sacred objects, left Midkemia and made their home on the world of Kelewan unbeknownst to anyone, as they kill anyone who tries to enter their forest.

They play a significant role in the novel A Darkness at Sethanon (Riftwar series) and the video game Betrayal at Krondor. The Novel 'Krondor the Betrayal' goes quite in depth to show the 'moredhel' are not evil per se, but have a very xenophobic, stubborn, and harsh culture, going so far as to commit genocide against the glamredhel, whose descendants are later discovered in a different forest on Midkemia, in a slightly barbaric state.

GURPS Banestorm[edit]

On the world of Yrth as presented in GURPS Banestorm,^[1] the dark elves are not a separate race, but are a xenophobic offshoot of the main elven culture. They think all non-elves in general, and orcs in particular, are an aberration against nature and a threat to the future of the world and the elven race, and thus conspire to either enslave or destroy those other races. They began as nothing more than a group of elves united against orcs, but over the centuries their beliefs diverged from the elven mainstream. They believe in using magic to improve on nature, guiding it actively toward union with the Eternal, the elven (and dwarven) conception of the divine. Most elves consider their belief perverted and dangerous. The dark elves are responsible for the Banestorm effect that brought humans, goblins, lizardfolk and other non-Yrth native races to Yrth.

Might and Magic[edit]

Dark elves were part of as one of the dominant species on the continent Jadame of the planet Enroth, available as playable characters. Portrayed as red and brown-skinned counterparts to the wood and snow elves, these dark elves are peaceful and inhabit the country of Alvar, which includes Jadame's major port city Ravenshore in the south. The lands of Alvar north of Ravenshore are troubled by aggressive ogres. There is a dark elven prophecy concerning the end of the world.

In Ashan, the world of Heroes of Might and Magic V, Dark Elves are a faction that lives in tunnels under the surface. Cheetah girls free online. They are descendants of the followers of Tuidhanna, originally a renegade Wood Elf Queen, whose people were blamed for burning down the Giant Tree, Brythigga, sacred to the Wood Elves.

Fading Suns[edit]

In the setting of the Fading Sunsscience fictionrole-playing game, the fictional extraterrestrial races of the Ur-Obun and the Ur-Ukar are essentially science fiction renditions of high elves and dark elves respectively, somewhat akin to the Eldar and the Dark Eldar in the Warhammer 40000miniature wargame. However, in contrast to the usual portrayal of dark elves, the Ur-Ukar are not inherently evil, but simply possess a predisposition for direct, sometimes violent behaviour and display a certain moral ambiguity.

Famous dark elves in fiction[edit]

Shadowblade[edit]

Shadowblade is a warrior and is the most elite assassin in the world of Warhammer Fantasy world. He is an assassin in the society of the Dark Elves, who themselves are the masters of assassination. Even though he's still young by Dark Elf standards (a mere 150 years old) he is a legend amongst the Druchii, his exploits told as fireside tales to eager Dark Elf children. Most celebrated of all is his single-handed massacre of the entire crew of a High Elf Hawkship, whom he murdered one by one over several days, each killed in a different fashion. The mere thought of Shadowblade's murderous attempts is enough to keep all but the stupidest or brave Dark Elf from plotting against the Witch King for he is loyal only to the Hag Queen and the Witch King, although it is the Hag Queen alone that knows the true identity of Shadowblade.

Drizzt Do'Urden[edit]

Drizzt Do'Urden is a Drow in the Forgotten Realms fantasy world. Drow are dark elves that live in caverns deep beneath the surface known as the 'Underdark' of the Forgotten Realms. In R. A. Salvatore's novels Drizzt renounces the Drow's Spider-Queen Lolth, goddess of treachery and deception (and later embraces Mielikki, goddess of the forests and rangers). In doing so, Drizzt angers Lolth who, in turn, demands his family sacrifice him. Drizzt leaves behind the city of his birth, Menzoberranzan escaping the wrath of his family, and consequently his former house (the house of Do'Urden) is left to bear the wrath of the evil Spider-Queen. Finding himself a renegade, Drizzt seeks sanctuary from his past on the surface world. Whereas most Drow are evil and power hungry, Drizzt is benevolent and humble. On the surface he is often wrongly persecuted for the reputation of his race, yet through the years he slowly gains a reputation for himself, allowing him acceptance without prejudice. His preferred weapons are twin scimitars, although he is perfectly capable of using a variety of other weapons should the need arise. His primary companion is Guenhwyvar, a magical panther who is summoned to Drizzt's plane of existence by means of a small onyx figurine. Along the way Drizzt has also made many important friends, such as the dwarf king Bruenor, the dwarf's adopted daughter Catti-brie and the human Barbarian Wulfgar, as well as Montolio 'Mooshie' Debrouchee who revealed to the dark elf which deity his heart followed and the svirfneblin Belwar Dissengulp from Blingdenstone, the first member of a lawful race to accept Drizzt.

Gorath, Chieftain of the Ardanien[edit]

Gorath is a renegade Dark Elf (Moredhel) from Raymond E. Feist's fantasy world Midkemia. He betrayed his people to travel south across the Teeth of the World (a mountain range which separates the Moredhel from the rest of the world) in order to warn Prince Arutha ConDoin of the coming war in an effort to stop the Moredhel leader, Delekhan, and save his people from utter destruction. His story is portrayed in the video game Betrayal at Krondor and again in the novel based on the video game, Krondor: The Betrayal. This book is the first novel in The Riftwar Legacy, followed by Krondor: The Assassins, Krondor: The Tear of the Gods, Krondor: The Crawler (Not yet released), and Krondor: The Dark Mage (Not yet released).

Lord Indorill Nerevar[edit]

Nerevar was the legendary Hortator (war-leader) and King of the Chimer from the fantasy world of The Elder Scrolls, whose reincarnation is the player character in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. His reincarnation, the Nerevarine, is not necessarily a Dark Elf, as the player may choose their race, but Nerevar himself was a Chimer. Long before the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, with the aid of the Daedric Prince Azura, he rose to power over the Chimer by ousting the Nords. He ruled as the king of Morrowind for many years, until he fought in the final battle of Red Mountain, which ended in the complete annihilation of the Dwemer and himself left mortally wounded. His three advisors Vivec, Sotha Sil and Almalexia (whom the later was also his wife) betrayed their oaths to him and used a forbidden divine artifact discovered in the ruins there, which turned out to be the heart of the fallen god Lorkhan, to become gods themselves, now known as the 'Tribunal'. As an act of punishment, Azura cursed the Chimer, giving them blue-grey skin and red eyes, thus transforming them into the Dunmer, the Dark Elves. In the ages since, an old friend of Nerevar's Voryn also came across the heart and used it to become a god himself, but being unprepared and lacking the proper tools was corrupted and driven to madness, transforming him into Dagoth Ur - the dark lord of Red Mountain. Azura prophesied that Nerevar would one day return and cast down Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal, foreshadowing the player character's actions in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

References[edit]

1. ^Masters, Phil; Jonathan Woodward (2006). GURPS Banestorm. Austin, Texas: Steve Jackson Games. ISBN1-55634-744-8.

See also[edit]

• The Night Elves and Blood Elves of Warcraft

A Series of Guides covering the very basics of Total War. Each guide will focus on a single part of the game in as much detail as possible.

Basics of Diplomacy

Now I know for a lot of you this may seem basic, and that’s totally fine, but some of you might never have played Total war at all and are looking to get into it but are scared of the apparent learning curve. This series of guides aims to help you get to grips with the basic mechanics of total war so that you can get off to a much smoother start and also understand my more advance guides more easily (shameless plug).

Diplomacy is one of the core mechanics of total war Warhammer. It dictates many things such as your enemies and allies and can provide you with extremely valuable information as long as you know how to understand it properly.

Lets start by going over what each part of the diplomacy screen means. The middle section of the screen is where you’ll be spending most of your time looking while you’re in this screen and from here you can see every faction you’ve encountered as well as their strength rank, number of settlements, trade status with you, treaties and wars with you and finally their relations towards you. Its also worth noting that you can sort the factions by any of these criterea.

The Strength rank is separated into 2 parts. The actual ranking and the comparison to you. The rank is obviously how strong a faction is when compared to every other faction in the game. The comparison is basically an overall version of the balance of power bar you see in battles. It shows how the balance is if every single one of their armies put together was against every single one of yours put together so is essentially telling you how likely you are to beat them in war. Take this with a huge grain of salt however as just because a faction has a lot of armies, doesn’t mean they’re using them all that well. They can have a bunch of armies off at the opposite end of the map and have barely anything left defending their home settlements making them easy pickings and obviously making the war easier to win.

The number of settlements is pretty straightforward but it is worth noting that it doesn’t take into account how developed these settlements are. This means that they could be a large collection of newly colonised ruins or a small number of heavily fortified, max size settlements with super tough garrisons and steady income.

Total War Warhammer 2 Version

Trade status will always show 1 of 3 options. Trade agreement in place, no trade agreement in place but there’s a possible route, or no trade agreement and no possible route. If you hover over the icon it will always show you the potential income from a trade agreement unless you’re playing as or interacting with a faction that cannot trade such a hordes or the Orcs.

The treaties tab shows you your diplomatic status with each faction both friendly and hostile. It lets you know what level of relationship you have and by default what actions you can perform such as moving into their territory and setting war targets which we’ll get to in a little bit. T racks plugins free.

The relations you have with another faction is basically how they feel about you based on your actions in the campaign. You can improve these by having treaties with them and their allies, being at war with their enemies or performing certain hero actions. Certain factions can change the relations between other factions and their own such as the high elves and the Empire, more details on how that works are available in the High elf guide and the upcoming empire rework guide, both of which will be linked once they’re available. Once you get to a certain power level then you will start to be penalised with “great power” which will make it much harder for you to perform diplomacy based on how much stronger you are than other factions. This can be removed via modding which I would highly recommend as it makes the end game so much easier and doesn’t punish you for doing well. Finally aversion is basically the penalty you have with factions that you’re historically hostile with. Most of the “evil” factions get this penalty for basically all other factions outside of their own race which can make diplomacy quite difficult but not impossible.

Moving away from the central part of the screen we have the 2 cards. The left one will always be your factions and the one on the left will be the faction you have selected from the menu. Starting on the left we can see our reliability rating which is a lot more important than you might think. We also have our current treaties, trade partners and trade resources.

The reliability rating is dictated by a lot of things and it isn’t always clear but I think I have a good enough idea to explain. You can raise it by performing diplomatic actions and honouring them. This basically means get pacts and alliances and have them last a long time while not declaring too many wars. Betraying your allies, declaring lots of wars and violating treaties will cause your reliability to drop and when it does, other factions will be much more wary when engaging in diplomacy with you and will be less hesitant to declare war. It’s always worth keeping this up as much as you can so that you’re getting the best deals in diplomacy over the course of your whole campaign.

Your current treaties are divided into military and defensive alliances, things like non-aggression pacts and vassals aren’t displayed here so be careful to not forget about them just because they aren’t as obvious.

The trade partners section is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t bother to explain.

The trade resources section shows you what resources you have access to in your empire and can export for profit in trade. You can also see what resources you are importing which is very useful for factions such as the dwarves who need specific resources for crafting.

The card on the right is very similar but obviously displays all this information for the other faction. It also will show you the traits that the faction has. These vary from faction to faction and will give you an idea of how they will act in your campaign. Aggressive factions will be more likley to attack and declare lots of wars whereas a defensive faction will prefer to keep to their lands and avoid conflict all together if they can get away with it.

Finally we come to what you’ll actually be spending most of your time in this screen actually clicking, all of the different diplomatic actions. The non-aggression pact, defensive alliance, military alliance and vassal options will replace each other when you get the next tier up so don’t be afraid to skip to the top if you can.

The non-aggression pact is basically a promise that you both wont attack each other without warning. This doesn’t mean its impossible for a faction to retaliate if you push them enough so you should still be reasonably careful how you act when you’re trying to build relations. If either one of you does decide to declare war you first need to cancel the pact and wait 10 turns before declaring war to ensure your reliability doesn’t drop.

The defensive alliance is the next stage of the relation, 2nd base if you will. We started by holding hands and having pleasant conversation and now we move on to white knighting for each other. This treaty will mean that if anyone declares war on one of you then the other will come to their aid. For example if factions A and B have a defensive alliance and C decides to declare war on A, faction B has the choice of joining A in war to fight C or they can also choose to break off the alliance and not get involved which will obviously hurt their own reliability and relations with A substantially. For this reason I can only recommend you make these kinds of alliances with strong factions that aren’t going to get war declared on them every other turn.

The military alliance has everything else we’ve discussed, but now the 2 allies can pull each other into declared wars. So, if A declares war on C then B can choose to join or break the alliance. Again, I usually reserve these for stronger factions that are going to last till the end game otherwise you just end up getting pulled into too many wars to protect a 2-settlement faction. If the defensive alliance is 2nd base then this full marriage and you have to defend your spouse no matter what or just cut your losses and get out.

Total War Warhammer Diplomacy

The final stage of the relationship takes it in another direction. Making a faction into your vassal is less of a relationship and more of a dominatrix position as the faction pays you a tribute so that you will protect them and not wipe them out and, while it is possible to do this to your very weak allies, I find its more suited to using when you’ve crushed a faction to the point of extinction and want to milk a little more gold from them. Even then though I still normally prefer to just take settlements rather than keeping around a faction that I don’t like anyway and have to defend.

When you have a defensive alliance or better and are at war with the same person then you can designate war coordination targets which will basically tell your ally where you want them to attack so that you can either coordinate and attack the same place or attack on all sides to overwhelm them. It can be very useful if your allies actually act on these targets which they often don’t but its always worth using nevertheless.

Confederation is separate from the other forms of alliance since they’re only possible when you’re interacting with factions of the same race. When you confederate other faction you basically gain everything that they have like settlements, armies and heroes. Since the AI uses cheats to fund many armies at once then this can cause you some serious economy problems so its best to go around once you’ve done it and take stock of what you have and disband what you don’t need. Factions only really accept confederations when you have very strong relations and are much more powerful than them in military strength. Some factions such as Bretonnia and the empire re-work (links in the card) can confederate using different methods that are better explained in their own videos. Its worth noting that it isn’t all good doing this. Your entire faction will get hit with debuffs to public order and relations with the same race for 5 turns following the confederation so its worth making sure your empire is secure before doing this.

Military access stands by itself and its really pretty self-explanatory. It allows you to move armies within each other’s borders without affecting your relations so is great for when you need to avoid taking a huge detour to avoid diplomatic penalties. The AI will generally wander through your borders without asking anyway but its at least useful for when you are building your relations.

Trade agreements don’t protect you from any war declarations but they do provide incentive for enemies not to attack you in a different way. It allows you to gain access to each other’s resources and gain income from what you are exporting and is, in my opinion, always worth doing with as many factions as possible.

Total War Warhammer 2 Aversion

Any of the above treaties with the exception of confederations can be cancelled at any point from this screen too. You simply click the cross next to the treaty’s icon and confirm your choice. Cancelling any kind of treaty can hurt your reliability and will always have a large negative effect on your relations with the other faction so you want to only do this when you’re sure it’s what you want. Its worth noting that since the alliances replaces each other, cancelling them will take you back to square one rather than simply putting you down a tier.

The payments tab is used for offering or demanding payments and is useful when you want to sweeten a deal for either faction. If a faction offers you a deal and you feel like it isn’t quite worth your while then this is great for getting a little more from it. Same goes for the other way around if you need to persuade another faction to take a deal you really need. You can also demand and offer money with nothing else on the table if you are trying to extort a weaker faction or sweeten your relations with a stronger one.

Finally we get to the name sake of the game. The join war option allows you to ask or offer to join each others wars, often in exchange for something else you need. It can be a very powerful bargaining chip when you’re trying to get a tough deal closed and don’t have the fund to bring them around. It also has another use that isn’t to obvious. It allows you to bypass other faction alliances if you only want to declare war on one of them. If a faction is at war with 3 others and they’re all in an alliance, you can offer to join the war on just one of them and the other 2 wont declare war on you (at least immediately) allowing you to pick them off one by one.

Total War Warhammer 2 Aversion Battle

Declare war is so obvious I’m not even gonna go into it.

Total War Warhammer 2 Aversion Mod

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