Hello everyone, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's Lore crimes. We're back with
another episode of Fantasy Fireside. We haven't done one of these in a little while and before
it's probably around time we got back to it. So before anything else, Colin, what are we
talking about today? Well, I understand that you might not be as enthused towards this
as well as some other factions, but we're going to be talking about the high elves.
Now Andy, I have two goals today. Right. One is, you know, it's like the, it's the main
goal. It's what I'm hoping to shoot for. It's to make you go, I get it. Not even I like
them. I just hopefully make you go, you know what? I get why people do. I appreciate them
as part of the setting. You want me to be Danny DeVito in that season end or of Always
Sunny where he's just staring at the camera and just goes, I get it. You want that? That
would be the goal. But there's also, you know, there's the second, you know, post I'd like
to hit, which is just even lower. It's just to make you go, I like them more than the
Eldar, which Eldar fan that I am, even I need to admit it's not a high bar with the comparison
between these two groups of elves. Oh, the ones in fantasy are a bit more competent.
Right. Okay. And, and as I assume there's also an element of, I reckon they've got more
stories than the Eldar. Well, they also, they, they certainly do have more stories. Um, but
I think one of the, one of the main warmups I'll give you and everyone listening is that
they do have, they do, they do scheme, you know, the Eldar love to scheme the high elves,
you know, they do have some schemes with the, you know, planning things out and making sure
things line up according to plan and all of that, that at least in 40 K never ever works
because I don't know, everyone loves M Night Shyamalan movies that works at GW. So it's
funny when the farseer who reads the future gets the future wrong, you know, but you know,
the high elves do that, but they also just will kick you to death. Uh, they're not afraid
to, you know, get their hands dirty. Uh, they don't look at, you know, someone just riding
into the thick of battle and go, oh, how primitive and, you know, and sneer at you. They're probably
the first ones in battle. Okay. Well, I'm liking them a bit more already. See, it's,
they're a bit more palatable, I feel. Okay. I mean, to be honest, the only real experience
I have is that, uh, total warhammer free trailer where it's just like with the Azores guide,
well, this is no time to be short. So short. And that like, they didn't have the best like
rep in that trailer. They just seemed a bit, not hoity toity, but naive and a little bit
silly. They didn't, they didn't choose their words very well. I, you know, I will say that's
not necessarily a high elf thing. That's just techless. Okay. That's just he is a, uh, he
makes an appearance in a book and, uh, the first thing he wishes is, uh, damn, I wish
my brother was in charge of this. He actually knows how to talk to people. So, you know,
that was, that was, that was just tackless. Okay. Right. So, uh, I guess without further
ado, uh, do we have like an itinerary of what we're going to discuss today? Well, do the,
we'll cover through, you know, their history a bit going, uh, I figured go over, you know,
the land they live in a little and, uh, talk about some characters. Okay. That was, uh,
that was the rough plan, but as always, you know, if there's a, there's a question or
something, you're like, Hey, expound on that a bit. I'm always happy to do so. Okay. So
we'll start with, uh, as just about all the Warhammer factions do and go back to the old
ones, uh, cause much like in 40 K the vast majority, well, even more so than 40 K actually,
because it includes humans. Uh, the vast majority of the races you can play on the tabletop
in the setting were created by the old ones as a weapon against chaos and the elves were
first. So as you can guess from them first, the old ones weren't completely satisfied
with the project. They, uh, they never quite found the ultimate weapon. Uh, but the, the
design philosophy of the elves was magic is quite nice. Uh, let's, let's make a race that's
quite good at using magic. So they, uh, they made the elves especially good in magic. Uh,
they made them very long lived and, uh, so they can properly attune to it. And you might
laugh a bit. This might find a bit goofy, uh, but they did make them, you know, at least
somewhat like inherently kindhearted. Uh, so now it's like, Hey, you know, they have,
uh, they have like an inbuilt motivation to save the world. Uh, okay. They're, they're
tryhards. I, you know, that's, they are kind of the world police. So I can't, I can't say
too much to that. I mean, to be, to be fair, the opposite is Nagash. It's like, yeah, you
don't want another one of those guys running around. He's just like, nah, I'll do what
I want. Okay. Who does? Yeah. We have one of him and he nearly ended the world like
twice. It's probably best to stick to not doing one of those. One was enough. Yeah.
One was too much. One might even argue, not me of course, but you know, some, uh, and,
uh, there's also a matter of the end times mucking things up a little bit because they're
lower kind of implied that the gods they have were survivors from the previous world chaos
blew up. But you know, you can chalk that up to, if you don't like that, Lori can chalk
that up to the, you know, the usual GW who knows what's canon, who knows what's true.
So just, uh, worth mentioning, but kind of messy, especially with the old world's release
kind of going back to the original. They were all created by the old ones and whatnot. So
they, uh, as I said, though, they weren't quite perfect. Uh, they were rather frail.
You'll find that, you know, high elves have wonderful weapons. They can make wonderful
armor and you know, they're, they're magic so they can blow you up. But if you get past
that, they're, their main defense against you, cutting their head off is really hoping
you don't. So again, they're, they're quite good warriors, quite good wizards. It's just,
if you get through what they have to stop you, they're in trouble. Okay. With a, with
a few exceptions. First question then. So what different, other than the fantasy aspect,
what differentiates them from the Tao who also like don't come near us, like stay over
there or shoot you from afar. Well, they, they, they are quite good in melee. Uh, like
I think at one point they, uh, in old fantasy, they used to have a rule where every single
one of their units had the always strike first. So in melee, it didn't matter whose turn it
was. Didn't matter what they were going first in melee. They got the first round off. So
it's, it's more like, you know, definitely chunkier than the Tao cause you know, they'll
practice swordsmanship as well as, you know, archery and magic and all that stuff. It's
just, you could probably beat an elf in an arm wrestling contest. Okay. Uh, they also,
they, uh, they must've screwed up that, uh, that formula for making them nice because
for one, uh, they were mostly loyal to themselves first loyal to their people second and the
world as a whole third. Uh, so, you know, they will, they will save the world. You might
need to convince them how it will, how it will affect them first. Yeah. We need to like,
oh, we'll save the world, but only if we deem it a world ending threat. Otherwise you have
to prove it to us. Yeah. Okay. That reminds me of something. I can't think of what it
is to be fair. It is warhammer. So the amount of world ending threats, they come along pretty
frequently. So they are out there quite often. It's just that, you know, you need to convince
them to leave their Island first. Uh, and they, they're a little bit, uh, battle hungry.
They, uh, they like adventure. They like going to find glory, all that stuff. So not necessarily
evil, but you will, uh, there's a bit of a schism that we'll talk about because at this
point there's only elves. There's no high elves, wood elves, dark elves. They're just
all elves. Uh, but the old ones, uh, didn't, you know, they were like, well, this wasn't
great, but we can, uh, being pragmatic, we can still get some use out of them being,
you know, kind, depending on how you want to look at it. They weren't just going to
exterminate a whole race because they weren't perfect. So they gifted them, uh, the little,
the donut Ulthuan in the middle of the warhammer, not Atlantic ocean. And it was basically the
garden of Eden. Uh, it was just the most lovely place to live where winter would come around
and it was a one degree drop in temperature. Uh, it was lush verdant plain forests and
plains with all these, you know, the friendly wildlife. It was just snow white. Uh, every
Disney cartoon that's, you know, with just nature and love and it's all great. So the
old ones go about, you know, making other races, the words, men, ogres, all that stuff.
The elves for their part, just, you know, can't really blame them for this because chaos
has not appeared yet. Just kind of chill on Ulthuan. Just, you know, they just hang out
on their nice Island. Just, just drinking wine, having a cheese board. Like, yeah, we're
just enjoying the time. Yeah. Yeah. I joined to come to a barbecue. Yeah, I would actually.
Oh, it sounds really nice. Pretty much. I mean, they really, this was this again, this
was at the point there was not really any problems in the warhammer world because the
old ones were still around. So like the three races that weren't chaos that could potentially
bother them just got slapped down. Like the orcs do exist at that point. This point that
they're not, they're not doing much to anyone because there's still trillions of lizard
men to kill them if need be. Uh, so they do have armies. Uh, they do have, you know, some
stuff they have nowadays, but they, because the old ones did want them as weapons, but
they don't really use them. Like they, they're completely untested because there's nothing
to test the army against chaos isn't here yet. Nothing else is a problem. Uh, so they
really just hang out. Uh, there's not many records of this time, but the position of
ever queen, which is a very important one, it's the living incarnation of one of their
gods does exist. But aside from this, like they don't know, we don't know the names of
any of the ever queens of this time. We don't really know too much about the kingdoms. Uh,
we just know it was nice. It was like, uh, the elder empire before things got too bad
or dark age of technology, humanity before the age of strife. It's just a, you know,
it's just, they're just chilling. Then things take a turn for the very bad because the great
catastrophe occurs and chaos is here now. Now the elves to give them their credit were
one of basically two of the old ones races to make a concerted effort against chaos.
It was them and the lizard men, the dwarfs for the most part, just kind of shut the doors
to their mountain holds and said, good luck everyone. Not all of them for a beer. Have
fun. Yeah. Uh, and again, I, I can only blame them so much because if I saw a bloodthirster
outside, I'm not volunteering to go fight it. Yeah. But it's like when you, when you're
indoors and it's raining outside and you see people in like their raincoats suffering a
bit and their brollies are getting blown out in the wind and you're there cozy indoors
going, Oh, well I'll just enjoy. Oh, it's nice when you're inside and you can see the
rain and you're like, Oh, I'm nice and warm and cozy. Oh, yeah. Oh, well it's like, I
appreciate, you know, someone needs to go out there and do stuff. I'm not that someone.
Yeah. Uh, not today. Mankind was all over the place. The, the humans and the tribes
that would, you know, become the empire, Bertonia, Keeslev were hiding in caves and hoping the
scary monsters would go away. Uh, the, uh, the Nehekarins were fighting alongside their
gods to clear chaos. So, you know, other people were making an effort, but the elves and the
lizard men were the only like races going like, all right, let's fight them. Did then
not give the elves their credit. Those armies, like I said, were very untested. It was a
very one sided affair. Uh, it'd be like one demon for every five elves or, you know, no,
no execs figures were given. But what we do know is that it was not a great time to be
an elf. Uh, but there was a couple, two things actually they had going for them. Or should
I say two people? There was the elf, an Aryan, uh, who I, what is the best way to take Sigismund
and give them pointy years. Okay. Or maybe Angraan is a better, it's a better, oh, okay.
He, uh, he just was really good at killing demons to the point that he rallied their
entire like army. Like he'd show up and then the demons would be gone. He's, he's their
mythical hero figure. Like he is, he's the guy even like 6,000 years later, they all
go into battle chanting his name because he was that just that good at killing demons.
Yeah. He's not like a low key gottrek. He's like a high key, like, no, I'm going to flaunt
it and everyone's going to think I'm great. And then I just want to die. I just want to
die. And you're like gottrek, no, we love you. Please. An Aryan didn't quite want death
that bad. Well, yeah, we'll get to that. Uh, and then there was the other person, his buddy
Kaelador Dragon Tamer, who, you know, one, you probably guessed from the name, friends
with dragons too. He was, uh, he's one of those wizards that just kind of blinks and
you, you just disappear from reality. So he was, uh, he was also good at, you know, getting
things organized, getting the wizards, you know, doing what they got to do. Uh, and together
they kind of started pushing the demons back. Uh, not, you know, not zero casualties, but
when these guys started getting out, it was very much a, Oh, Hey, the rest of the elves
realized we could win. And you know, we've got some practice fighting now after the demons
were kicking the hell out of us after all this time. So we're, we're good to go. So
Kaelador, uh, pardon me, mixing things up a bit. An Arian after a little bit, uh, kind
of lost track of things. Uh, can't blame him too much because as far as he knew, demons
killed his wife and children. Oh, that's not good. I, yeah. It's, it's not one of those
things where, you know, he started faltering. It's like, Oh, you're just tired. It's like,
no, he, he was going through some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially going from the whiplash
of like, Oh, everything is lovely and lush and beautiful. And it's like, Oh no, why am
I family? Oh no. Yeah. It was, it was, uh, it was not great. Uh, and to top it off, uh,
he got his shoulder to cry on in the form of Marathi who, uh, you know, we've, we've,
I've brought her up before, you, you know, my opinions on that. I'm assuming you, you
would mind having her for a shoulder to cry on. I would murder people for it. Uh, indeed.
But she, you know, even, even from the beginning, she wasn't quite right. Uh, I think at age
11, she started getting visions of the great catastrophe and demons showing up and no one
believed her. And somewhere in the getting lost in the sauce of that, she might've got
a little bit too interested in the intricacies of chaos. I like the idea that she started
off because I know the attire of the high elves is quite regal with like golds and nice
linen like whites and blues and the like slowly she starts getting a bit more hot topic and
you're like the summing up with Marathi. I don't know what it is. She's wearing a lot
of like low cut, like black shirts and getting piercings and like red lips, uh, not red,
I have black lips. So you're like, Hmm, something going on there. Oh, it's just a phase. Don't
worry. It's just a phase. Yeah. She did. That is to be, you know, to be fair to her before
she goes on to be somewhat responsible for like 80% of the wrongs in this planet. Uh,
she would, you know, like the story of Cassandra and Greek myths, like she can see the future
perfectly. No one believes her. I, that was kind of her. She's like, there's going to
be demons. There's going to be problems. Everyone was like, Oh, you, you silly Marathi. Don't
worry about it. So, you know, don't blame her for being a bit bitter, but a little bit
too interested in chaos, very unhealthy interest in an Aryan. Uh, so between that and the fact
that, uh, he thinks his first wife and kids who he really loved are gone. He stopped pushing
things forward as much as he should have. Uh, Kailor though, uh, who does not get enough
credit, uh, kept things going him with some secret help from the lizard men that most
of the elves don't know about. So they'd get angry if you bring it up and imply they didn't
do it all on their own, uh, created the magical vortex in the center of Ulthuan, which just
drains magic away because it's, it's like 40 K, uh, just replace warp, psycher powers
with just straight up magic. There's enough ambient magic in the world. Demons can just
kind of show up. So the vortex was really good at getting them away. Like it's just
like there's, they physically can't form because there's not magic seeping into the world itself.
It just drains it back into the realm of chaos. So Kailor pulled a, pulled a good one there.
Uh, he and some other wizards bound themselves like outside of time within the vortex. It's
like they're trapped in Amber, like a mosquito from like Jurassic park to just basically
keep that thing going forever. Uh, the other thing helping was an Aryan. Kailor snapped
him out of his funk eventually, which maybe he shouldn't have cause he immediately went
to grab what's known as the sword of Kane, which cursed his bloodline forever with just
incredible battle lust and every now and then health problems. And overall probably should
not have picked up that sword, uh, to the point that I, there's lore that even the chaos
gods themselves, along with every other God in the setting, we're telling him it's not
worth it. And it's not written. I'm not touching that thing. Yeah. It's like, it's not written
in a way where it's like the chaos gods were afraid. Like they didn't want him to grab
the sword cause it turns them into an incredible warrior, but they are also like, dude, we're
awful and take us for our word. It's not worth it. Right. You swing that for 10 minutes.
The hangover is insane. Just leave it alone. It's like, no, I need it pretty much. And
like Kane was the only one going, Hey man, you know, it'd be really funny if you grab
that sword over there. And even if it was just going, Hey bud, don't be a pussy. Do
it. Dare you. Dare you. Do it pussy. What? And even in some lore, even Kane was like,
dude, don't do that. That's my sword and it's going to give you one hell of it. One hell
of a hangover. Uh, don't do that. So but an Aryan did that. Uh, another sad moment with
Marathi that will probably go in more, uh, before he left to do that, she told him he
loved him and he just looked at her and left. Oh wow. I, you know, as much as, you know,
I both say horrid things about Marathi and also admit she's just the worst. Kind of sad.
Yeah. Was that the, the, the straw that broke the camel's back was like, I can fix her.
And then that happens. Like, Oh no, I can't. Oh no. It definitely didn't help her mentality
going forward. I don't know if it was the straw that broke her, but it ensured there
was no fixing her after that. Yeah. Uh, so, but he goes to grab the sword of Kane, uh,
murders like fights for greater demons at once with the help of his dragon. He had a
dragon mount. It's really not that important. It's just cool to have, uh, was critically
wounded but not so wounded that he couldn't fly halfway across a continent because I've
mentioned before the war hammer world is like twice as big as earth, really a full continent.
Uh, put his sword, like put the sword of Kane back into its altar, leave his armor behind
and he just kind of vanished. Uh, with that, the great catastrophe was over more, more
or less, you know, there was probably a little bit of cleaning up you had to do, but eh,
uh, but yeah, that's finished. Uh, the elves are reeling, the lizard men are worse off
honestly, but everyone's alive. So sometimes you just got to take what you can get. To
be honest, the lizard men don't seem like they'd be that fazed by it. It's like, yeah,
acceptable losses. We just do this. This is our thing. Oh, you don't mind. They didn't
really care about their own casualties. It was more of the fact that like, well, the
old ones are gone now and we're not entirely sure on what they wanted us to do now. So
we got to figure that one out. Consult the sacred texts. And then that was what they
did. Literally. They did exactly that. Uh, but for the elves, uh, they went out and they
had a, they had a bit of a golden age after this, you know, things were actually going
good. Uh, at some unspecified point, I believe I could not find an exact date for it and
uh, you know, the war hammer calendar, uh, an Aryans or his, his wife never ended up
coming back. Uh, but her kids, her kids did forming one of the bloodlines of an Aryan.
Unfortunately for everyone in the worlds, he had a kid with Marathi named Malekith,
who you will remember from me and Eli constantly arguing over who's the real Phoenix King.
Not him. Yeah, it's not him. I, I'm sure I've, I've seen images of him and he has like a
very elaborate head, headdress helmet thing. And I'm like, that's a lot of curvy spikes.
If I'm remembering it right. You will come to find out soon. He is very much just Darth
Vader. He's edgier Anakin. But he's got more limbs. To be fair. Yeah. There's no robot
part of them. Aside from that though, honestly, not much better than Anakin. Yeah. Uh, but
for, for Malekith's part, we'll give him his due credit. Early on, he was a, he was a pretty
cool dude. Uh, you know, he was an adventurer, uh, wanted to do proud by his dad because
those are some big shoes to fill. Uh, the guy who saved the world. Oh, that'd be terrible.
Could you imagine growing up and it's like, oh, like, oh, people talk about, oh, my dad
was a great like rock musician. Oh, my dad was a CEO of a company. My dad literally saved
everyone in the world once. Oh, good luck match. Even matching like a tent for that.
Yeah. Great. No pressure. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, again, to his credit, he did some
good stuff. Um, the high elves at this point were spreading colonies throughout most of
the known world pretty much. Uh, like Bretonnia was pretty much just high Elven colonies.
A lot of the empire was, uh, some of the new world or like the new world, like, uh, the
North, uh, the new world equivalent, like, uh, the North American equivalent, uh, lustria,
even, you know, some places in the Hikara and Cathay, they were all over the place.
And uh, Malekith was a lot of the time heading these efforts. Uh, you know, he was a, he
was an adventurer at heart and he even helped make the friendship between the elves and
the dwarves, uh, because, uh, they were buddies at this time. They were pretty much the only
other civilized races that they had found because aside from Nehekara and Cathay, uh,
mankind was mostly just still cavemen. Yeah. Uh, and the dwarves and elves didn't have
too much contact with Cathay and Nehekara, uh, I believe this was, uh, well, I was going
to say aside from Setra, there wasn't too much contact. And if they did have any contacts,
you know, with Setra, the elves and the dwarves that usually ended in a decisive defeat for
the people who weren't Setra. So they probably weren't the biggest fans they had.
Was it the case? Cause I know you said before that the dwarves basically just went shut
the door. Good luck. They just like opened it a creek and they were just like, no hard
feelings and they're like, ah, I can't stay mad at you. Come here. Come here. Give us
a pint. Uh, probably not far off. I don't know the
exact, uh, I don't think there was an exact time given for like, this is when the elves
and dwarves found each other. But I imagine, you know, if anyone knew about that, how the
dwarves just kind of went, eh, probably something along those lines. Uh, and really this is
kind of elven history for awhile. You know, trade with the dwarves, make friends. Uh,
they helped decorate each other's homes. Like the, the dwarves made gifts for the elves.
Uh, the elves, I think specifically the passage I always remember is it goes to, uh, like
the dwarf capital, Karazakh, Iraq, the ceiling of it is made to look like the nighttime sky
and it's just filled with thousands and thousands of sapphires and gems that just twinkle with
magic, which is just a beautiful mental image. But the elves did that for the dwarves. Just,
you know, it's things are going well for once. Uh, Malekith was even best friends with the
dwarf high king, uh, to the point that he was allowed to be present, uh, on his deathbed.
Yeah. I remember there, there was like a bit of crossover when we did our dwarf episode
awhile ago. Yup. And, uh, he swore with King Snorri Whitebeard was his name that the elves
and dwarves be friends forever. He made an oath, Andy. He made an oath on his deathbed,
the strongest oath you could make. Uh, that, that goes poorly because-
Don't worry about that. It's fine. It's fine. Just don't worry about it.
On one of his adventures, Malekith ends up going a little bit too far north and finds
his ruined city and a crown within it or like a circlet, I believe crown. Same, same difference.
He finds a, he finds a magical headdress that is just incredibly evil. Uh, it's like it's
in this place, I believe it's like described. It's like, it's not a human, it's not elven,
it's not a dwarf city. We don't know what this is, but it's influenced and it's evil.
It's like the, the, the Tiara version of the, the Leia blade. Like, oh, it's a weird, it's
in a weird temple and it's strange. Ooh, put this on. What could go wrong?
You know, I was thinking like the one ring, but that's a way better comparison. The Leia
blade. Cause I don't think it's like not specifically slanash. It's just kind of, you know, generically
chaos evil. Yeah. Cause cause the Leia blade was from the Leia species who were like serpent,
aquatic serpents. And they got this weird like water city and they go, well, that's
weird. Look at this like big bundle of corals. Oh, that's a weird looking sword. Yoink. Oh
no. Or it's heresy time. I, yeah. Where it's like that where the end result
either way is why did you pick that up? Why did you do that? Yeah. Uh, but he grabs
that and you know, he's not, he's not evil yet, but now we're definitely on the path
and further not helping things as he goes back home and the elves are electing the Phoenix
king. Uh, this is basically a, at the time, new position, uh, just to help lead the elves,
uh, you know, and the, uh, Malekith obviously was like, Hey, I'm the, I'm the son of the
guy who saved the world. Uh, I helped make us good friends with the dwarfs. I've been
out and about there. I'm adventuring. I think I'd be a good candidate. Uh, they do not vote
for him. Uh, not, not strictly speaking, uh, because you know, they disliked the guy. He
was, he was like loved throughout Ulthuan at this point still. It was more so the fact
that his skillset kind of started and ending started and ended at sword point. So not,
not the best peacetime ruler is my point. Yeah. Every peace talk he goes to, he's like,
like holding the hilt of his sword. It's like, chill, dude, just chill. He's like, no, that's
fine. I'm, I'm here for peace talks. It's like to see him slowly. Like just move his
hand, moving further down the shaft. I'm like, no, no, no, don't draw your sword. Yeah. Peace
talks, peace talks. Remember peace talks. Oh God. He's killed the high king of the, oh
no. It's like Malekith. We appreciate your good at stabbing things. We need things done
that don't involve stabbing right now. We're, we're, we're falling the stab. Yeah. Uh,
so they elect a guy named Belshan are instead who, uh, it was a cool dude. You know, he
was, uh, not a snow, no superb warrior, anything like that. Uh, but you know, it, it was good
for the time for what they needed. They just needed kind of a chill guy who would, you
know, oversee government kind of shit. Yeah. Family man pays his taxes, does a bit of charity
work volunteers at a soup kitchen sort of deal. Like, oh, he's a good guy. He's a good
guy. Uh, Malekith for his part, you know, he at least, uh, it depends on again, which
lore you're reading. Uh, he might've been lying about taking an honorable Lee. Uh, he
might've been telling the truth. And it's like, you know what? That's fair. You voted
for someone else to be the king. I can accept that. Uh, I prefer to think, you know, he
was still a pretty chill guy at this point. He was like, you know what? That's fine. Uh,
really just doing it, you know, in honor of my father, who was the first Phoenix king.
And, you know, this is when we're doing an official, this is, you know, mostly for dad,
but you know, he was like, no worries. Mommy, you know, mama Marathi though was not happy.
Malekith didn't get to be Phoenix king and coupled with that and herself just being,
you know, a little bit off her rocker, she began the pleasure cults, uh, kind of like
again, the, uh, the Eldar, uh, some things were going a bit wrong of the slanish variety.
And while Malekith was out and about at one point, they sent him a message like, dude,
you need to come home. They are ruining everything. I just like the idea that Marathi turned into
a Karen and she's there with like her friends drinking a bottle of Rose and going, it's
bullshit. My son should have been elected king as rigged and I'm going to talk to the
manager. I say chill. He's fine with it. And then not again, not a horrible comparison.
Uh, so while Malekith's out and about, they bring him back home and, uh, he's like, all
right, I'm going to deal with the pleasure cults. And this is going to be the last times
I'm going to say it to his credit. He does just start doing that. You know, initially
no strings attached. He finds, you know, the pleasure cults, worshiping slanish and you
know, access and all that stuff. And he gets rid of them until he finds the leader of those
pleasure cults, which is mommy dearest. And again, initially he does like, I'm taking
you in. You're the leader of this. You are going to trial and probably getting your head
taken off and they, they do fight, which Malekith wins, but she convinces him to hear her out
and that, Hey, Malekith, you're the one doing all the work. Maybe you should be feeding
skin, you know, between that just general promises of power, you know, maybe tugging
on the family loyalty a bit, pulls him to his side as well as a whole lot of elves.
Because again, the very popular guy that Malekith, uh, he just came back to help out. He's been
getting them getting the high elf name and colonies going around the world. A lot of
people think he should be in charge. I, and then their plan kind of completely falls flat
because their plan to get Malekith, you know, to be Phoenix King is to assemble all of the
high elven, you know, lords, like the, the smaller Kings, the princes, uh, accuse Belshanar,
the current Phoenix King of actually being the leader of the pleasure cults and their
evidence as far as I could tell was to go, dude, trust me. I'm Malekith. Yeah. Believe
it or not question by the way. Oh, yep. So like Slaanesh, uh, cause, cause obviously in
40 K universe, Slaanesh is birthed by the hubris of the elves or the Eldar. So I guess
in this universe, Slaanesh just always existed as like a primordial force. And yeah, it's
all, yeah. Okay. They've, they've all, they've always been around. Slaanesh does prefer elf
souls a bit more, uh, cause they are kind of like the Eldar and that, you know, they
can, uh, like emotions are a little bit stronger for them, but it's not like it is for a 40
K where, you know, they die and it's just like, well, you either had a spirit stone
or it's insta Slaanesh time. Yeah. Uh, there's a couple different options they have when
they die. Slaanesh will, if they don't like take some kind of precaution or get to a waystone
quickly enough as a ghost will get them, but it's, it's not like auto just like, and yep,
it is, you go to Slaanesh. I just had an image in my brain of a, in 40 K Slaanesh is basically
Scorpio from, or scorpion from Mortal Kombat. When you go over here, just feel the chain
dig into you like, oh no, please no, please no. It's Mortal Kombat 10. I was, I was a
scorpion man. Oh, yes. I played him a lot in eight. I didn't play much of eight. I think
like nine and 10 are the first ones I really played. Like I played the first couple on
like an older, uh, like Nintendo or something that could run it, uh, that my dad had. Uh,
but like nine and 10 are the first ones I really played. And Scorpio was so much fun
in that game. I think the first one I properly played was Deadly Alliance with like the dragon
king and was it dead? It's the, no, it's this one after it's like Mortal Kombat extinction.
What was the one that had an RPG in it and you played as a character called Shujinko
and he was like a character that could do every combat style in his campaign. You had
to like play as every character through him. And it was like a weird, it was really weird
because it was like an actual like linear RPG. I was like, this is strange, but I'm
like 15 and it's pretty good for me. Um, but yeah, it's been a while since I played Mortal
Kombat. Anyway, I've derailed the conversation. No worries. Uh, but yeah, Malvicus proof of
the, the Phoenix King being at the true trader was to go, trust me, bro. I'm him. No one
believed him. So instead he forced the Phoenix King to drink poison, uh, and went, okay,
I'll prove that I'm him and walked into the fire of Assyrian. Cause this all took place
at his shrine. Now the flame of Assyrian is where the Phoenix Kings walk through to test
whether or not they are truly worthy of the position. If they are, they come out unharmed.
If they aren't, they burn to a crisp. Yeah. Malekith was Kentucky fried Phoenix King when
he came out at end times. Lore went, Oh, I actually, Malekith just, he just needed to
hang out in the fire for a couple more seconds to really prove he was determined enough for
it. Uh, which is stupid. Uh, but thankfully age of sigma of all places retconned this
because Marathi was, I, it's, it was weird. We could at some point maybe talk about this
later. Marathi was inside of Slaanesh looking for the souls of Phoenix Kings because they
all had a bit of Assyrians power in them. Uh, so that kind of retcon like actually all the
Phoenix Kings after them were just pretenders. Nope. That's not true because if they were,
Marathi wouldn't be digging for their souls because they had godly power in them. I'm
just thinking Marathi went inside of Slaanesh. How did Marathi get in? Don't ask questions.
You don't want to know. She had a magical lantern. I, oh, that explains it.
Uh, but you know, that, that's irrelevant. What is, what is relevant is Malekith, bad
juju. Yeah. So he burns to a crisp. A bunch of assassins jump the remaining Lords assembled.
Uh, Marathi and some others pull Malekith's burnt ass out of the frying pan and he gets,
he gets that armor you see him wearing, uh, which is, he can't take it off because I believe
it's also sustaining him. So when I was saying he's Darth Vader, I wasn't kidding about
that. Uh, he's a magical evil wizard wearing armor with a face mask that he can't take
off who has also been burnt to a crisp, which is the reason he's in the armor. Yeah. Uh,
so it's, it's just full blown civil war time, which goes a little bit well at first for
the dark elves, uh, who are now forming. They're now becoming the dark elves proper, stops
going well for them. Malekith in a hissy fit on does the vortex, which there's not even
like he tries to do it. He just does it. But, uh, if you'll remember, I said there was
a whole bunch of high elf mages trapped inside of it to keep it going, including that Kalador
guy. It was a very strong wizard. So it was kinda like a, it worked too well because it
worked and then all the people inside of it just briefly came out to kick his ass and
then they just remade it. The opposite of that meme where it's like task failed successfully.
It's like, no task, task succeeded unsuccessfully. Like, oh no, we did it too well. It's like,
oh, I've under the vortex. Ah, yes. There were people in that that aren't happy with
me for doing that. Yeah. So the dark elves, uh, their homes, by the way, were magical
castles that could just the entire landscape. They just lifted them up with magic and turned
them into black arcs, uh, floating battleships that they now use to raid and enslave people.
But that's a little more about that for the dark elf time for the high elves. This event
was known as the sundering, uh, because one, I, it's, you know, sundered their people into
two and for two, it literally sundered old one, like half of the islands sank because
old one for reference, isn't an island, you know, islands come up from the sea floor.
It's like a boat. It floats like it's, it's a floating island that probably only goes
down like a mile or so. And then there's just ocean beneath it. To be fair. I do wonder
if the designers, when they first came up with the fancy map, they're just like, that's
a lot of like space. That's not doing anything. Should we just put something there? Yeah.
Just put a big donut. Yeah. That looks better. Especially if it's like double the scale of
like the, the template of earth itself. That's a lot of like nothing. And especially with
like games and stuff like what are you going to do? Oh, sail over that big expanse of
not much. Oh, that's much better. Yeah. So this would be a great place for a Walmart.
Yeah. Really not great for the high elves, but they're, they're kinda, they're still
hanging on. Golden age is definitely coming to an end, but you know, it's, it's going
to get a little bit better. And with this, they did still win though, the high elves,
well, now the high elves, I should say, because now there's a split. It ultimately rained
victorious and they kind of, you know, focus on rebuilding, get a new Phoenix King in charge
because Malek had kind of poisoned the last one. And you go back, train with the dwarves,
all that good stuff. There are some cultural differences we'll say bubbling between the
dwarves and the elves. You know, the elves are very regal, you know, very prim and proper.
The dwarves will chug a keg of beer, then burp in your face and laugh. There's some
differences bubbling, but they're still more friendly than not. But Malek hits latest plan
to do away with the elves, the high elf pretenders as he sees them is to break his oath and get
the dwarves and elves to kill each other. Oh no. So what he does is because there's
no like physical difference between dark elves and high elves, dark elves are a bit paler,
that's more so just because they live in the Arctic. It's, he just has some dark elves
dress up as high elves, murder some dwarf caravans and make it look like the high elves
did it. Now the dwarf high king at the time, Gottrick Starbreaker and by God, that's not
one of the coolest names. Yeah. One I've ever heard and two of course his name is Gottrick.
It's not the same one, but no, it is still a Gottrick. I feel like Starbreaker should
be a Star Wars character or something just like, or a ship name, you know, that's the
Starbreaker there. It is a pretty sick name. But you know, things not great. Oh, I should
also add that the Phoenix King immediately after Belshnar who got poisoned, reclaimed
the last bit of Ulthuan from the, what is it? The dark elves was nearly killed by a bunch
of dark elves and just jumped into the sea in full armor so they couldn't capture him,
which isn't a super important detail. I just thought it was like, well, that's, that's
a brave death. Yeah. I hope to be honest, they did like after the battle, try and get
the armor back there. Like, oh, that's, that's, that's quite important armor there. Should
we just take him out and give him a proper burial? Yeah, might as well. I couldn't find
info on that. I think they might've, but it wasn't an Aryan's armor. Like the Phoenix
King doesn't get that, his bloodline does. So, eh, maybe they got it. Maybe they didn't.
Who knows? But I only brought him up because the Phoenix King after him is Kailor II, the
warrior who has a very long list of names. You know what? Let me, let me see if I can
actually find it. None of them are pleasant nicknames because the elves and dwarves alike
both think he's the biggest idiot on the planet because-
What kind of name is Kailor II? Ugh. Well, he's already just a sequel to the better Kailor
and he was a bit arrogant. For the elves, even elves, he was arrogant. And with the
Dwarf High King just sending everything like, hey man, why did a bunch of elves just kind
of, you know, murder our trade caravans? Like he was just asking at this point. All he wanted
was an answer. Like, very polite, no, like not overstepping, just like, hey man, what
happened? Kailor told his diplomat to fuck off. Because, you know, the dwarves weren't
really aware of what was going on with the elves and they didn't really get it because
the idea of a dwarf civil war was just completely out of their mind. They could not, it's just
not a dwarf thing to do. Don't mention the chaos dwarves. If you do that, you're going
to get killed by a dwarf. But, you know, aside from that, dwarves going to war with other
dwarves just is unheard of. So they're like, hey, what happened? Kailor too tells them
to go away. The dwarves get angry. So they're like, all right, now you're going to tell
us what happened and just pay us gold for, you know, what you stole and who you killed.
Which I think is, again, still a pretty reasonable request. As far as he knows, elves kill dwarves
and the king of the elves is being a pain about it. He's not demanding blood. He's not
demanding retribution. He's just like, Hey, pay us because at this point I'm kind of assuming
you did it. And Kailor too wasn't helping that assumption.
It's like if you were in the playground when you're 10 and some, like some gang went into
your locker during break and stole your shiny Charizard Pokemon card and you're like, all
right, I just want enough money to buy another one because it's a rare card. I'm not going
to punch you in the face after that during break time. Just pay up and say, Oh, I don't
know what you're talking about. Ha ha ha ha. Yeah. Now, before I tell you what he does,
I think I'll read through some of these nicknames. Kailor too also known as the friendless, the
irredeemable, the goat lover, the goat warrior. There's two different nicknames for him that
implies he has sex with goats. That's just funny. The dark feerer, the frightened of
loud noises and my personal favorite, the pointlessly tall. That's very dwarven, isn't
it? Yeah. His next action was to shave the beard of the dwarfs diplomats and send them
home. Which for the dwarfs is this isn't just crossing the line. This is leaping over it,
doing a funny dance and then kicking a dwarf in the nuts. This isn't a crime against Ad
dwarf. This is a crime against all dwarfs. Yeah. This is a directly into the book with
you now and now starts depending on who you're asking. The dwarfs call it the war of vengeance.
The elves call it the war of the beard. And this is, it just tears their empires apart
because even with, you know, the high elf civil war, the elves were still had colonies
all over the place. They were rebuilding fairly well. There was a, there was like still a
couple hundred years between all these different travesties. They were still pretty powerful.
The dwarfs also still pretty powerful. This was before both the slan and the skaven ruined
the mountain ranges they lived in and, you know, burned their homes to the ground. So
the dwarfs were still powerful. The elves still powerful. They just go to war with each
other and it's world war one because they're both kind of worldwide empires at this point
and it decimates each of them. The dwarfs do eventually kill Kaelor too and even steal
the phoenix crown, which they never gave back to the elves. And I got to be honest, I can't
blame them that much for it. I wonder where they keep it. Do we know where they keep it?
I think it's in like their capital city. Like it's in a horde in Kara Zekarach. They just
have it like, ah, screw you elves. You know what would be the ultimate insult if they
put it on the royal latrine? We'll put it just above the flusher. Just put it there.
Just rub the salt in the wound. That would be great. I think they just kind of keep it
like a vault, but yeah, they don't give that one back. The problem is this was a very long
war with a whole lot of casualties on each side and because the elves are now weakened,
Malak is like, now is a great time to invade Ulthuan. So the high elves, this is when they
kind of start becoming more insular than before. Like how I was mentioning like, you got to
convince them to go save the world. Part of that is because it was like three consecutive
kicks to the balls between the great catastrophe, the sundering, the war of the beard, and now
Malakith and the dark elves are invading Ulthuan. So they recall all of their colonies they
had around the world. They're like, you need to come defend the homeland. A lot of them
do come home. Some of them don't and become wood elves, which we'll get to another time.
But now we have all three elf races and the high elves for their part are just hiding.
They're not hiding, but they're like, we are sticking to ourselves now. We keep trying
to leave the donut. We keep getting that crap kicked out of us. Fine. We will just stay
home.
Yeah. Just weathering the storm isolationists. Like we're fine here. Yeah.
And they do repulse Malakith. But like I said, after this, they're far more insular than
they were. They go to war with the dark elves pretty frequently. Like they're never at peace.
In fact, I should say like in 40k, the dark elves are in the craft worlds. They don't
like each other, but at least, you know, correct me if you feel I'm wrong with this. There's
a general attitude of like, at least among the craft worlders, we're not going to go
bother you. If you decide to raid us, we're going to fight back, but we're not going to
pick a fight.
Yeah. Fight the humans. Fight the ta- do anything other than bother us. Yeah. Don't worry about
it.
Yeah. And you know, worse comes to worse, they will work together.
And not being funny, the elves are also like, oh, we've been through like an extinction
level event. We're clinging on by our teeth at this point.
Yeah.
They're like, you know, we have better things to do. A high elf would rather backflip into
Slenesh's open arms than so much as say hello to a dark elf. Like the levels of hatred
present are infinitely higher. Like it is, this isn't just like a we're going our separate
ways and those ways just happen to be opposed. This is, I am actively going to do everything
I can to murder you.
And this starts what I like to call the high elf cycle, which is how it goes. Something
catastrophic happens. The high elves deal with it. There is a period of rebuilding.
Something catastrophic happens. The high elves go to deal with it. There is a period of rebuilding
and then on and on for a couple thousand years. For example, you know, Malekith quite frequently
likes to invade. So they'll deal with that. Every now and then chaos and orcs cause problems.
You know, they'll go deal with that. At one point they were even like, like I've said,
they need to feel it's worth it. They felt it was worth it. So they sailed out to Nahikara
after they were all tomb kings to keep, build some way stones that would help magic drain
in the vortex more efficiently. You know, they do go out and help the world out quite
frequently. It's just that in between those big events, they're sticking at home. The
world seems very commonly to tell them go away.
The bloodline of an Arian continues. They are cursed. As I said, they all really like
that sword of Cain. None of them grab it, but it's always like they're tempting them.
And that's, that's high elf history for a while. There are like, you know, obviously
like little lore blurbs that are interesting to focus on, but overall you can sum up high
elf history like that. It's a constant cycle of very briefly get to rebuild and then shit
hits the fan. So we need to go out and save it. So if you've not any questions, I figured
I'd talk a little bit about what Ulthuan is because they, they went all in on describing
it, all the different kingdoms and whatnot.
Yeah, I suppose the only thing I was going to ask is, I know you mentioned that like
originally the lizard men fought with the, like have they just been keeping low as well?
Just like, ah, we're not bothered about the elves. They're doing their own internal struggle
and I'm assuming also humanity is quite like irrelevant at this point and they're just
getting their, getting their feet.
Around now, humanity is actually kind of coming into its own. The Tomb Kings did the opposite.
They got Nagashed. But humanity, like by this point, Sigmar has been born and the empire
was formed. But like I was saying, the elves at this point are still very insular. They
will go deal with a problem face the world is facing and then immediately go back home.
They don't view anything else as worth their time at this point, which is equal parts arrogance,
I will admit. And also they keep going through horrible times of like just everything going
wrong. They need a minute to chill and the world doesn't like to give them those very
often. So when they have the chance, they take it.
But yeah, unbeknownst to them largely, you know, the nations of men are building Kislev,
the Empire of Etonia. But we'll kind of get to, we'll get to that in a moment. Actually,
I can do a, actually, yeah, we'll do that and then we'll talk about Ulthuan a bit.
Okay.
We come to modern Warhammer fantasy as it was, or at least approaching modern Warhammer
fantasy and the current heirs of an Arian are born, Tyrion and Teclis. Tyrion is cool
warrior guy. He's very charismatic. He's very personable. He's an incredible warrior to
the point that some people think he's just outright an Arian reborn. You know, not even
just his bloodline. It's like you, he's back. Big A has returned. Funny enough, Matt Ward,
of all people, actually gave him a bit more character depth by making him like, like every
now and then, Tyrion is a bit of a mood swing problem. It'll be very friendly talking with
you, lovely guy. And then he punches through your wall and starts demanding to go murder
dark elves. He's a bit of a mood swing problem. Teclis for how he got the curse of an Arian
is he has cholera. No, he has magical tuberculosis. He needs to take potions constantly, which
wasn't discovered until a decent ways into his life. He was just bedridden for most of
his life. Actually, there's an age of Sigmar of all places. Nagash is tormenting Teclis
with memories of the old world. And one of the memories he gets is just Tyrion. Teclis
is watching Tyrion, you know, out there training and making friends and he's just sitting in
his bed sick. Like, man, this is depressing. Teclis's role is to get the shit kicked out
of him at every given chance. But Malekith invades again, as he does. Nearly destroys
Ulthuan, but Tyrion saves the Everqueen, saves Elariel, the current Everqueen. Teclis registers,
because they're psychically linked, because elf twin, who knows, I guess they're just
kind of linked like that, magic, recognizes both of them are in danger, sees N'Kari about
to kill Tyrion and Elariel, just kind of magics N'Kari to death. And then they go on to either
cut the dark elf invading army in half or blast them to hell with spells. Malekith and
Marathi for their part. Teclis beats Marathi in a magical duel. And I think Teclis also
nearly kills Malekith to the point that he flings himself into the warp to get away from
him.
Oh wow, that's drastic.
When Teclis is on his A-game, he's very scary. It's just magical tuberculosis.
I just like the way he's just like, oh hell is preferable to this. Off I go.
Teclis, again a bit more about him, aside from those potions, he has a staff given to
him by the elven goddess of magic, which certainly helps him be magic, but he also needs it to
just walk. He is a very crippled elf. It's not great being Teclis.
Is that why in the trailer does he have a staff or something he's leaning on?
Yeah. It's equal parts like incredible powerful magical artifact that takes his spellcasting
up to a whole new level and he's already a damn good wizard. And also just a cane. He
just needs it to walk. But after this, Teclis has a pretty chill dude. He is a cool guy.
He realizes we can't keep just sitting on oath one like this in between periods of tragedy.
We need to actually start getting out there more and more. He actually, this is around
the same time as the great war against chaos the empire was going through. And Teclis goes
to the empire of man is like, listen, how would you guys like to actually have real
wizards? And he founds the colleges of magic, basically sets up the way mankind uses magic
in this setting. He's like, you just don't live long enough to be able to properly master
magic like the elves do. He's not even being like, you all just suck. He's like, you don't
live long enough. Humans don't live long enough to be able to properly master high magic.
I would give money to see that first day of training with the first pupils and then it's
just like all the elves like, okay, let's see what you can do. And all the humans are
just slightly moving a rock with their magic powers. We've got a lot of work to do. It's
like, yeah, they're bloody useless. It was prior to this, like magic was treated
how like psychers were on those planets that had like those psychic witch hunts in the
age of strife. Teclis was like, no, no, listen, if you train them, they're not just going
to explode into demons. We could work with this. So he teaches them how to harness the
eight different winds of magic helps mankind against the chaos. And he just kind of travels
all over the world to sites of magical power, doing stuff like that. The current Phoenix
King by this point, his name is Finnebar the seafarer. He's a pretty chill dude. He actually
also was like, I agree with Teclis. We got to get back out there. He's actually the first
Phoenix King in thousands of years to be allowed into a dwarf hold. Like one of his things
is like, we got to, because he liked traveling. Like he would, he visited the empire. He visited
all over the world and was like, they, uh, remember when humanity was just barbarians
intense. Yeah. They, they, they're quite a bit past that actually to the point that they're
arguably surpassing us. I like the idea. He went on a gap year and a gap year for an elf.
And he was just like, it's great. You didn't check it out. It's awesome. Pretty much. You
like, it was equal parts like, dude, this is, this is fun to be in a terrace. And also
by the way, we kind of need them to save ourselves because the world is getting scarier and they've
got wheels now. It's great. They can actually like move things properly. Oh, fantastic.
They're not hitting each other with rocks anymore. Brilliant. You show back up and was
like, listen, I'm also an elf, not the biggest fan of guns. I like my magical bow and arrow,
but they have tanks. Maybe we should ally with that. So they got armored divisions.
Nice. Yeah. Uh, so between them and, uh, Teclis, uh, the elves start getting out there a bit
more. Uh, and you know, they, they're making friends again, uh, very slowly, especially
like with the dwarves who very long memories and that book ensures they're not going to
forget what you did. But, uh, the dwarves also have a bit of a relatively radical king
at the Thorgrim grudge bearer. I was like, all right, you know what? Fine. We can work
with you. I will not kill every elf I can on site. I, you can come visit. We can fight
beastmen together. You gotta leave after that, but we won't just behead you for being an
elf. So it's, it's kinda, it's like how, you know, in 40 K prior to the great rift, it's
like everyone's getting real active, you know, the time of endings coming, everything's coming
together. It's like that, but with a bit more hope. It's like the elves are getting back
out there. You know, sure. The dark elves, the orcs are rampaging, but you know, everyone's,
the dwarves are marching, the high elves are going back at it. Things are, there's some
hope. Then the end times. So we'll talk about elven characters first. I think I'll save
Ulthuan for the last, because I just kinda feel like that'd be a better way to end off.
Mostly talk about the, as a running theme, you'll notice when I'm talking about their
characters, it's mostly the legendary lords from Warhammer.
Warhammer, yep.
Yeah. But that's, you know, to be fair, they pick the most important high elves worth knowing
about for that. So start with Olariel. She is, as I said, the, the ever queen of the
elves who grab, just take a my little pony character, make them an elf and give them
just blood rage.
Oh.
So Olariel is very peaceful. She's a, like, she's an incarnation of a nature, you know,
life fertility goddess. So she's like, she's a very chill person. She, like, just, she
does what's best for the world as a whole. Ulthuan, like, heal the world, nature, all
that good stuff. Incarnation of a nature goddess. Sometimes nature's not very nice. Sometimes
nature sends a tsunami to drown you. So when she takes, and usually the ever queens of
past times were, it was a more passive role, like they would take, like, tend the, you
know, the spiritual health of the elves, make sure Ulthuan itself, the land was healthy.
Olariel likes to get on the battlefield and just kill you, just kick your ass. At one
point she got into a tug of war with Slaanesh, not, you know, a champion. Slaanesh itself,
over the soul of a Slaaneshi chaos lord who was invading Ulthuan. And she was winning,
it's worth noting. Yeah. It was basically like, once she grabbed hold of the guy, like
he ate, like, reverted from, you know, super juiced up chaos lord and just an old man regretting
all of his choices in life. Which was really just kind of sad. But she couldn't quite fully
win. I believe what happened is she did save his soul. But when she let go, Slaanesh, all
the attention she was pouring into the guy turned him into a super chaos spawn. Oh. And
you had to kill that. But again, I think the fact that she played tug of war with Slaanesh
and didn't immediately lose is a pretty good indicator of her power. Yeah, sounds dangerous.
She had a tug of war with Slaanesh, like, oh no. Magical, psychic, whatever, tug of
war. Like, I'm, that's pretty impressive. Don't have a tug with Slaanesh. Don't do it.
No. She's much more radical with doing things and just wants to, you know, she's like, I'm
getting out there. This is, I'm part of the rebranding of the elves. We're not just sitting
on Ulthuan anymore. We're getting out. We're going to fight. Next up is Imrik. He is kind
of generic as far as the legendary lords go. But you know, to be fair, like all the elf
characters, but you know, someone's got to be like, you know, the representative of the
race guy, you know? Like, yeah, he's the, he's the, what is it? He's like the standout ordinary
guy. If that, if that makes sense. He's the most vanilla elf there is. Yeah. He's a, someone
has to be like representative of like the average elven lords and stuff. He's from the
nation of Kalidor, who we don't know their original name, but they renamed themselves
after, you know, Kalidor I, the vortex dude. And he, it is a very arrogant nation to the
point that the other elves say, calm down, you assholes. You're not that special. They
don't care. But he, you know, as part of the everything elves are getting back out there,
he was like, well, we are very special, but if we just sit around Kalidor going, man,
we're so special, we're not going to actually have any great deeds to prove we're special.
So his reason for getting out there and killing people, you know, glory to the high elves
is I need proof that I'm better than everyone. I need validation. To be fair, he is also
the elves. The dragons for the most part are great friends with the elves, but they, they
spend longer and longer slumbering. Usually an elf can like choose to wake them up with
like a song, but it's a song that kind of drains their soul away. Kalidor is one of the
only people left who can, or Imrik, pardon me, is one of the only people left who can
do that and not, you know, just kind of drop dead once the dragon wakes up. He rides on
a dragon mount named something that starts with an M. Saying that name, I don't remember
it and by God trying to pronounce it is not fun. So M is dragon M. And yeah, there's him.
You know, nothing too special, but you know, he's, he's active and nothing else. He's doing
different things. We have Altharion the Grim, who is high elf Batman. He's the leader of
the elf nation of Tor Ivres. And if he catches you jaywalking in his land, he's going to
throw you in his bat cave. He has a bat cave and torture you until you tell him why you're
there. He will then kill you because this Batman doesn't have that whole thing about
not killing. And when he was out and about, he killed so many orcs that he gave the elves
a reputation for being a good fight. Nice. That they will, they're all just sailing to
Ulthuan now. And what few don't sink, because sailing to Ulthuan, if the elves don't want
you there, is not an easy thing to do. Very dangerous. He's just waiting on the shore
to just kick their ass. This is also because he was raiding the dark elves. And while he
was away doing that, the ghost of his dad informed him that a fat goblin was tearing
the kingdom apart. Grom the Paunch, the biggest goblin ever. And when he got back, Grom had
advanced so far in that he was destroying enough waystones that the world was kind of
unraveling. I just like the idea is like, dad's good. There's a mass, there's a really
fat thing. Oh, okay, dad, no worries. I've got like, like a text almost.
It's actually like, I think I was reading like before that he was described as like
a, like he was a very charismatic, personable guy. But when he was dealing with Grom and
the wizard, the orc wizard that was on making the world, they got a little bit of a ways
into unmaking it. So he kind of stared into the abyss of chaos. And when he came back
out, he turned, he became Batman. Like there's a one point he, he flew, he has a griffin
mount. He flew on his griffin to help some other like high elves, like Tyrion, some others,
because they were childhood friends, like helping him out. He just left without saying
a word. And like it said, like the other elves were like, I just wanted to catch up, man.
Why'd you just leave? Altharion does not care. He was out. So very grim. He's also a, actually
a retcon character. He used to be known as Altharion the blind because the dark elves
took his eyes. But then he was kind of changed out to be like the, the I hate orcs guy among
the high elves. The I hate dark elves guy became Alith Anar. Now this, he's one of the
contenders, one of the oldest people in the setting because like Malekith and Marathi,
he's still the same Alith Anar from when they first split from the high elves. His shtick
is that, okay. So Conrad Curse, give him pointy ears and make him technically on the side
of good, very technically.
Does he have a closet full of like skin capes? I don't think he has a closet full of skin
capes, but I think that's only because the idea of wearing a drukey skin, a dark elf
skin is enough to make him vomit. It's not because he thinks that's disgusting. It's
because he's like, I, drukey skin is disgusting. I would never sell myself. Orc, human, dwarf.
Yeah, don't worry about that. Not that one. Yeah. And the kingdom he's from, which again
we'll talk about in a bit, was the hardest hit by the dark elves, like succeeding. He's
got, he's got about 6,000 years of vengeance built up in him to the point that the Malekith
actually has a prophecy about him where it is, it will be like the firstborn son sorcerer
of a house that will kill him, which is why incidentally any male dark elf wizards just
kind of get murdered. Because Malekith's like, I'm not taking no chances with that prophecy.
Oh, effective I suppose.
To be fair, he's been alive for a couple thousand years. Clearly it's not not working. But for
a Lethanar, he's not a wizard at all. He doesn't use magic. Malekith's afraid of that guy.
This is the dark elf night haunter, where you say his name and it's like, oh this is
a problem. You don't, if you're a dark elf, you don't want to get caught in an alleyway
with him because he's going to turn you into a flag. Yeah. There's not too much to him,
but it's just kind of like that level of, wow, you are psychotic to the point that it's
impressive. A little bit of End Times lore, which we won't cover too much of today. But
a little bit of it for a Lethanar. He, at one point, Malekith becomes the phoenix king.
All that crap that Eli's always on about is wrong. A Lethanar for his part shoots an arrow
part way into his heart. And at a Lethanar's command, it will expand into like these brambles
and like briar bushes that will instantly kill Malekith because, you know, there's not
supposed to be plants in your bloodstream. And Lethanar just says, you're going to behave
or I'm going to snap my fingers and it's going to go, I'm going to go through with it. And
there's no punishment for this because again, he's Conrad Kurz, just an elf. Yeah. So, you
know, he's a little bit off the deep end, but you know. I mean, it can be fun to have
characters that are just like, oh, they are technically kind of a good guy. But if they
weren't on the side of the good guys, they wouldn't be a good guy. The only thing you
can say about him is that he points his anger at one of the most objectively evil races
in the setting. If he was pointing at like the Empire or the Dwarves, they'd be like,
you're just horrible. But he points it at the Dark Elves. So it's like, well, eh. Yeah.
I should also say, did you ever watch the Suite Life of Zack and Cody? Do you know of
that show? I've seen memes of it. Well, one of the actors in it, I believe it was Zack,
Dylan Sprouse, voices of Lethanar. Which for anyone who doesn't know that but was a fan
of that show, like I was as a kid. Fun fact. No running in my Ulthuan. Yeah. And then,
you know, the last two, Tyrion and Teclis. Teclis talked about a decent bit. Incredibly
powerful wizard to the point that just if he, on a good day, he can just unmake a city.
On a bad day, he's bedridden, has to drink potions. And if he doesn't have his staff
with him, he's getting out of bed. But he does get out there. He was in Where Else,
Andy. But Gottrick and Felix, he makes an appearance. Nice. And he has the common sense
to be afraid of Gottrick. So this is already like turning up his intelligence level significantly.
He did not. Good. Gottrick still nearly killed him because Elf, therefore bad, is about as
far as Gottrick's thought process went. Nice. But Teclis was able to save Felix because
they were in basically the fantasy webway and Felix got a little bit lost. So Teclis
helped save Felix and then they spend the rest of the book just sniping at each other,
just quips. And Felix has to play like middle man, like, please don't kill each other. You're
a powerful wizard. Gottrick is Gottrick. I don't know who's going to win the fight, but
I know it's not going to be me. Again, he is pretty chill. Like in the game Total Warhammer,
he gets relations bonuses with like the racism men, the lizard men, all the elves, because
he's like a peacemaker. He tells Felix, like, they're talking about the old ones and how
the world came to form. And Felix gives him a good point, like a suggestion in Texas.
Like, you know what? I never thought about that. That was a good one, Felix. As far as
elves go, he's very down to earth. Like he's very chill. And then his brother Tyrion. Tyrion
likes three things in the world. He likes his brother. He likes four things, pardon
me. He likes his brother. He likes Olareal. He likes his daughter with Olareal, which
is breaking tradition a bit because Tyrion's not the Phoenix King and the Phoenix King and
the Everqueen are the ones who are supposed to have kids. But you know, Tyrion and Olareal
just went at it and now they got a daughter. And he likes killing. No, he just likes killing.
He's a... shooting him just makes him angry. He has an Arian's armor. He has the Sword
of one of an Arian's friends. The way he got that sword, by the way, was he went to a museum,
the sword was held in and just took it. Never gave it back. Just took it. The Hyos are very
political. Their courtly intrigues are like Game of Thrones, just with a little bit less
bloodshed. Tyrion is like a bowl in a china shop when it comes to handling these politics.
For example, one of his friends died in a battle against one of the enemies of Ulthuan
and his daughter named Eldaira, Eldraya, I believe, wanted to become like dad and she
went to the Phoenix court and was like, I'm going to be a general. I'm going to be a princess,
like a high elf princess. It's like the leader of the armies and I'm going to get out there.
And then they kind of laughed her out of the court. And so she went to Tyrion. It was like,
Uncle Tyrion, they laughed at me. And then Uncle Tyrion went into there, presumably holding
the sword in hand and was like, so she's going to be my squire. She's going to be a general.
There's no issues with this, right? And then they all very politely clapped and said, yes,
Tyrion, that's right, Tyrion. Do what you want, Tyrion. Please don't stab me, Tyrion,
because I know you will.
Any questions? No? No, it's fine.
Yeah. Every other elf character, well, Ultharion just doesn't care. Ultharion never leaves
Tory of Ress because he's very grim and he's seen what the Warhammer world is like beneath
the surface. So he's very grim. But every other elf character is like, yes, we'll play
the political game. We'll do this. We'll do that. Tyrion just kind of bullnoses through
and whenever someone takes issue with it, he either just goes, I'm the Aeravanarian or
just stabs them. So he just kind of does what he wants, which to be fair, when he is on
the battlefield, everything in front of him is not walking away. Tyrion and Teclis, when
they're working together, it is opposing armies are probably not going to last very long because
Tyrion is a warrior bar none and Teclis is a wizard bar none, you know, excepting if,
you know, the Slahn, like when the few first generation, well, the only first generation
and second generation ones remaining, unless they're around, you're not beating Teclis
in a wizard duel. And unless Gottrick is around, you're not beating Tyrion in a straight up
fight. So they are a very scary pair when they're working together. And yeah, that's
a, there's no, obviously there's more high elf characters. Like, you know, there's Finnebar,
cool dude, like I was saying, sails the world, getting the elves out there again, cool stuff.
But that's kind of like the basics of like, here's all the high elf legendary characters
of different flavors, you know, they're worth noting. But so, we'll, we'll cap us off, just
tell you a little bit about Ulthuan. After the Sundering, it was going through it. It
is divided into the five inner and outer kingdoms for a total of 10. And the inner kingdoms,
for the most part, are like the nice, you know, paradise ones. The outer kingdoms are
a little, little bit more rough and tumble, not, not quite as pleasant to be on.
But they're not like, I'm assuming they're not anywhere near as bad as like the Empire,
where there's going to be ones like covered in smog and poverty. Like I assume even like
the Eldar's like worse, like districts are still pretty good, I would have thought.
There is one of the kingdoms is one of the worst places to be on the planet. I'll just
be, I'll just level with you, but the rest of them are, are pretty nice. Okay. There's
also the mountain ranges that divide the inner and outer kingdoms have a slight issue with
monster infestations. So, you know, every now and then the high elves sent an army to
deal with them and come back down. It's not that big of a deal. It's just something you
got to deal with every now and then. But the kingdoms will do the, will do the inner kingdoms
first because they're the nice peaceful ones. There's Eotain, which is a, you know, where
the city of Lothurn is, which is the only place non-elves are allowed on Ulthuan. And
it's just, just one of the biggest wonders of the world. There's statues of every single
one of the elf gods lining the harbor. Even Cain, who's got a statue that's black with
ruby eyes instead of, you know, the other ones are all nice marble and all the other
gems. Cain's is a little bit edgier, but they do still have them there.
I like the idea that they're like, this is the only place that the, the out, like the
outsiders can go and we're just going to show off by having these massive statues of like,
look how cool we are. That is absolutely part of what it is. It's
like, oh, you're going to see what we want you to see. We are giving you the, the full
showboating treatment. Yeah. Yeah. It is, it's like the trade capital of the world. It's
the basis of one of the, like one of the main bases of the high elf Navy, which is also
like, it's the greatest one in the world because they live on an island. They kind of need
to have a good Navy. It's, I think there's, there's like a giant serpent that protects
it. So, you know, if you're trying to invade, that's a problem for you, you got to deal
with and it's a, it's all just a generally very like, Hey, this is a, this is a cool
place to be. There's trade museums, all the, all the fancy elf stuff you can think of.
You can find it somewhere in Iotain and it's a, it's a, it's a nice place to be very temperate,
very nice, lovely place. There's a, and there's Kalidor, which is a, like I said earlier,
the original name of it is no one remembers. They renamed themselves after Kayla or dragon
tamer. And like I was saying with Emmerich, these elves are arrogant to the point that
they make like their arrogance compared to the other elves is how elves seem compared
to the other, like non-elves. They are insufferable to be around. They have a, they have a volcano
known as Vol's Anvil. There's also like three places in the Warhammer world known as Vol's
Anvil by the way, one for each of the elf sub factions. This is the high elf one that
can make some of the best armor and equipment known to the world. It's called Ithelmar.
It's like Mithril from Lord of the Rings where it's super powerful, but just light as a feather
they're, they're, they're definitely very full of themselves, which to be fair, if I
was best friends with dragons, cause this is like the, the sub faction of them that uses
dragons I'd probably have a bit of an ego, you know, but not too much about them. Emmerich,
they like fire. They like their dragons very, very arrogant, all that, you know, all that
crap. Next up is Averlorn, which is where the Everqueen lives. It's, it's the Garden
of Eden to the rest of Ulthuan, which is already the Garden of Eden where everyone frolics
in the forest and it's nice and lovely and it's, it's permanent springtime weather, but
like the end of spring or it's warm and pleasant and it's just great and the elves sit around
reading poetry to each other and God, it's just the most sickening crap. How did this
end up in Warhammer? I don't know, but it did. Like there's no, there's only one city
here. The rest of the quote unquote cities in Averlorn are like just nomad tents. They
just pack up and move or whenever they feel like it. If you had to live in any Warhammer
setting, you would want to live here. Yeah. Of course there's also, because this is a
seat of the Everqueen's court, there's the handmaidens of the Everqueen, which, you know,
you hear handmaidens and you think, oh, they do her hair and all that stuff. No, this is,
this is the secret, but this is the Inquisition of the Elves or at least for the Everqueen.
If there is anything so much as a bit wrong in Averlorn, it's going to disappear. Yeah.
So yeah, and it's, you know, very, very hippie dippy crap, but it's still Warhammer. So they
still know how to fight. There's Illyrian, which is the, one of the cavalry is like the
cavalry sub faction. The land is magic. And unless the land itself shows you the way,
the longer you walk, the longer it's going to take you to get to your destination. You
will get there when the land itself decides you're going to get there. Oh, wow. They're
known for their, you know, they're called Illyrian Reavers because when Malekith was
betraying, you know, the high elves, the people of Illyria or Illyrian would ride out, like
raid the dark elves. They would convince people who were still on the fence a bit to stay
with the high elves. They were, you know, they were out and about. They were very helpful
in that. They're a light cavalry kind of deal. There's the last inner kingdom is Safiree,
which is the, you know, the mandatory, everyone here is a wizard, even the lowliest of peasant
nation to the point that like the idea that magic flows through the elves in Safiree,
that's not like just a saying cause elves are good at magic. That's probably just true
where every like trippy thing you can imagine is happening. Like every now and then there's
just Aurora Borealis and the sky changes colors and it's kind of like Illyrian. You just kind
of start walking and know where you want to go. Like I want to go to, you know, that guy's
house and you'll get there when the land decides you're worthy of it.
Meetings must be a nightmare. Oh, yeah. Two o'clock. Okay. Five days later. Sorry. It
wouldn't let me get here. It's either a nightmare or everyone there is like Gandalf and they're
just like, a wizard is never, never late nor early. He arrives when he means to be. And
they all just kind of have that attitude. This is actually, I misspoke a bit earlier.
This is where the elf Inquisition lives. They're known as the Swordmasters of Hoeth as well
as Loremasters, where Swordmasters but like hero options upgraded. They train equal parts
in sword and magic and they root out any pleasure cults or such that might be rooting itself
in the high elves. That goes into detail. It's like elves, especially in Warhammer,
are functionally immortal. They will train for so long that they start taking the weight
of their eyelashes into account with their sword swings.
That's pretty cool. To be fair, you live for 500 years. You got to start working on minute
details like that because there's only so many ways you can swing through the air.
Although that must be a massive pain when it's like keeping your hair tidy. It's like
you live for ages. You can grow your hair for like years on end, but it's like if you're
worrying about the weight of your eyelashes, it's like, okay, I need to have like an optimal
haircut. So one, it doesn't get into my eyes, but also it's not too heavy. Oh God.
Yeah, at a certain point, it has to be insane at a certain point with that. And yeah, they're
like, you know, the generic, the super bestest of the bestest wizards live here. There's
a, it's what called the white tower of how it's, which actually has magical computers
in it, which is basically you open a book, uh, you tell the book what you want to read
about and it just flips to it, which is, you know, not the super, you know, most important
thing, but it's pretty neat. Uh, what else? Uh, around the white tower of how it is a
maze that constantly shifts. And of course the maze is at least somewhat sentient. So
if you go there with ill intentions, you're not coming out of that maze ever. It's a,
it's yeah, you just kind of vanish. Uh, it's also fun fact, uh, in blood bowl, uh, this
is the center of the crystal ball network that broadcasts blood bowl across the warhammer
world. Oh wow. So even when things are going terribly, there's at least some blood bowl
going on the light. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a very, it's a very nice, very funny
blood balls. So goofy. One of these, I'm glad it exists. So Tom, uh, and those are the inner
kingdoms where things are generally a lot nicer, uh, to be fair, well, we'll go through
the nicer outer kingdoms. Uh, but first, uh, in the, between the inner and outer kingdoms
are the gates of Ulthuan. So there, there's mountain ranges with only like, I believe
it's five passes between the inner and outer kingdoms. And there's also, you can go to
Eotane to just sail in, but the harbor is guarded with all sorts of artillery and magical
spells. So trying to get in through Eotane, first off, you need a big Navy. Second off,
you're probably not going to do it. Instead. Usually you go through the gates, which are
also very hard to get through. Uh, there's, there also, uh, each of the gates is named
after one of the mount options the high elves have. So there's Eagle Gate, uh, which is
the Southern most one, not super important, not too much goes on there. Uh, all of the
gates, like they are constantly invaded and they're dangerous to the point that like once
an elf, like is finished with their tour at the gate, they're one of the most respected
members of society because they are the ones keeping the inner, uh, regions of Ulthuan
safe. Uh, so Eagle Gate, not super important as far as the gates go. Uh, uh, Griffin Gate,
which is crowned by what else? You know, two giant golden statues of Griffins, which is
attacked more than any of the other gates, but it's never been breached. So they're doing
a good job. Uh, Unicorn Gate, which is the least attacked gate because it's, uh, found
at the end of a very dangerous mountain pass that they purposely keep infested with monsters.
So anyone who tries to invade it needs to go through, you know, the darkest dungeon
before they can even get to the gate. Hmm. A trick of the light. Indeed. It's a, it's,
it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's not the least attack because the best gate it's least attacked
because it's, it's just miserable to get to. Yeah. And to be honest with like, I like the
idea of also like when they're trying to assault the everyone's like, Oh, are you going to
assault the Unicorn Gate? Nah, it doesn't sound very tough. Griffin Gate. Oh, assault
that. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds manly. Yeah. There's a, there's then Dragon Gate, which is, uh,
you know, the, the fanciest, the, you know, the most, uh, grandiose gate because, uh,
it, it's kind of, it's got a dual function. So it's like, it's partially gate to keep
the bad guys out. It's also, uh, has living quarters for all of Ulthuan's nobility to
retreat to in case, uh, there's a second great catastrophe is, uh, it's got the largest
gate, uh, army of any of the gates. Uh, it's frequently attacked, but it has also never
fallen to the point that Malekith keeps sending Dark Elves at it whenever he invades to try
and be like, yes, I finally made it fall. And then it never works. And he, he never
learns. Uh, and the last gate, Phoenix Gate, which is the worst one to be stationed at
because it basically goes, they rebuild it, it gets breached. They rebuild it taller
and better, and then it gets breached. And then they just, it just repeat this. And it's
to the point that the like tallest spires and towers within it are probably as high
as the mountains by this point, because out of spite, they just keep building it bigger
and better than it was before. So at a certain point, if the, if the setting kept going on,
I would be excited to see when they finally breach the stratosphere. They just keep building
it up. And, uh, I know you're going to appreciate this. Stop me when this sounds familiar. Uh,
the forces, the Phoenix Gate, you know, despite it being a miserable place that you will probably
die before you finish your tour, uh, they're confident that everything is going according
to their divine God's plan. Uh, they have the best armor and arms of all of the, of
all of the high elves, all of their ammunition is blessed straight from temples from their
homeland and anointed with sacred oils and incense. Any of this sound familiar? Is it
gold? Do they wear gold? Uh, I don't, uh, they probably wear gold. Uh, yeah, this is,
this is where either the high elf custodians or space Marines live depending on if they
wear gold. Yeah, it's a miserable place. You're probably going to die before you're done,
but it's also, you know, it's like representative like that. This is, you know, the fighting
spirit of the high elves. They're going down and they're taking a whole lot of people with
them. Uh, yeah. And there's the outer kingdoms. Uh, I'll try and go from like nicest to worst
because we pretty quickly get to the worst places. The outer Kings were not nice. Uh,
first up is crase, which is like, it's a C H R A C E for how to spell crase trace. I don't
really know how to say it. I say crase. I just feel like that sounds better. Uh, it's,
uh, it's like the, it's like the backwoods, you know, it's a, like the Appalachians. Uh,
I'm not, I don't know quite what the equivalent is over in England. Uh, it's like, you know,
the backwood forests. Uh, this is, this is where you go to get away from the, you know,
all them city slickers. Uh, and then, you know, things kept going wrong. It's one of
the outer kingdoms and it's also one of the easier ones for the dark elves and you know,
the forces of cast to reach. So the local elves there become, uh, became very good at
fighting. Uh, they have what's known as the white lions of crase. And how you do that
is there are white lions that live in crase. If you want to become a white lion, you need
to get out there and kill one with your bare hands. Nice. So, uh, there are some of the
bodyguards of the Phoenix King. Uh, like there's a, they're just real good fighters, but aside
from that, that's kind of their whole thing. They're a woodsman, you know, cut down the
forest, live, live off the land. Not like Averlawn or it's all hippie. This is where
the lumberjacks, you know, the manly ones live. That's, uh, that's, that's, uh, that's
this kingdom that we have Kothik, which is a mountainous, rocky, misty. You ever been
like the, I guess someone compared to you ever been like the white cliffs of Dover?
Uh, no, but I know of them. That's Kothik. Okay. Uh, misty, you know, yeah. Miserable.
It, uh, this is, has the best sailors in the world period. Even the ones in Lothar and
Eotain. These are the ones who actually go out across the world to the point, like if
you want to leave Ulthuan, you go to Kothik. Uh, the other elves kind of look down on them.
They're like, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you fishermen, you're not sophisticated.
And then, you know, they conveniently forget this fact whenever it's time to leave Ulthuan
for one reason or another. Uh, they're, they, uh, they get all the, the outside gossip first
from the outside world. Uh, they have these, uh, just, just massive like fleets. They,
they train their cavalry how to walk on the boats. So if there's a high elf boarding
action, they're using horses to come and stab you, which is pretty impressive. Uh,
and yeah, uh, their patron god is, you know, the, uh, god of the ocean, Mithlan. Uh, most
of the other elves, like even the other, like dark elves are like, that guy's kind of an
asshole and Kothik, they love the guy because, you know, sailings, they're shtick. They're
a big fan of the guy and he does favor them, uh, to the point that one of the characters
from, uh, uh, like from Kothik is, uh, his avatar in the end times. And prior to the
end times, he kept getting into these massive sea battles where he would sink and then he
would just be fine. So like he would, he would just wash up on shore and be like, well, I
gotta get home now. Uh, so there's Kothik. After that is, uh, Tirinok. Uh, it used to
be a very lovely place and then Malekith did the funny and undid the vortex and then half
of it sank. Uh, and, uh, now there's all of these, uh, just drowned palaces and whatnot,
uh, which I think actually Kothik also has, uh, where like the spirits of high elves,
whenever one of these provinces get invaded, like they take up spiritual arms and help
defend the living. Uh, Tirinok's, uh, a little bit more up and up about it. They're like,
like their symbols, like a chariot wheel. They love chariots and they view it as like,
you know, what comes, what goes around comes around. We're going to have our moment. We
had our moment in the, you know, our time in the sun, then things weren't great. We
know what now we're on the up and up. So they're, they're, they're a pretty upbeat kingdom.
Uh, unfortunately they are the closest to the dark elf lands. So kind of get invaded
pretty frequently. Uh, but yeah, like I said, they're, you know, they're pretty upbeat about
it. They're very, you know, they're like, yeah, you know what? It's not great. Uh, apart
from the raiding parties, life is good. It's fine. Oh yeah. You know what? It's not great,
but by God, our times coming around, uh, it's not going to be miserable forever. They're
very, they're very upbeat, which you know, is an attitude I quite like and, uh, not quite
new, not the most super important thing, but I'll send you a little image. Uh, the heraldry
for Kothik, uh, that little, see that little symbol at the bottom, uh, that symbol is what
I paint on my Eldar. Oh, nice. It means, uh, so the high elf language is, uh, is all about
duality. Like a word, the word for wonderful is also the word for like catastrophic. So,
uh, that symbol, I believe I remember means it means both a storm that just scours the
land as well as a gentle rain. That's just nice and relaxing and like a nice little spring
rain, which I thought was, it's both suitably, uh, I don't know, to Tyr Nox attitude and
very Elfy. So naturally I painted it all over my wraith guard. Uh, to left, uh, you've Russ
and I think your press is the worst. The shadow lands. You'll notice that's not a very elf
sounding name. That's just called the shadow. It is officially named Nagareth unofficially
shadow lands. And it's the front line basically, uh, between the high elf and dark elf civil
war because it is where the sword of cane lies that the dark elves want to just go and
grab and don't want them to do that. And this is where Alitha Nara is from and all of the
other elves, he's Conrad curves. The elves who live here are the rest of the nightlords.
They hate dark elves to the point that every other elf, like nation will look at them and
go, you are psychotic and I don't want to talk to you. Yeah. You need help. And then,
uh, and then they missed the point and go, I don't need any help. Look at how many elves
I just killed today. I don't need help with what this it's a, it's barren, it's miserable.
You don't want to live there because if they're not being invaded by hell high elves or pardon
me, dark elves, it's just a, it's just miserable. Yeah. Uh, I can imagine they're, they're nuts.
They're psychotic. They are, you know, on the bright side, wonderful at rooting out
dark elf spies and like any like scouting parties. You don't want to be alone with them
at a bar because they're just kind of going to sit there muttering about how they need
to go kill more dark elves. Not very cheerful folk. Uh, don't go to the shadow lands. There's
better places to go. Uh, it's even in total warhammer. It's, uh, the rest of Ulthuan is
listed like, uh, every province in the game has a, like a terrain type. It's like, you
know, grasslands, ocean, uh, island, jungle. Uh, Ulthuan is all listed as like, as the
island, uh, terrain type. The shadow lands are the wasteland terrain type. His place
sucks. Uh, but it's not the worst because that would be Tori of Ress or just of Ress.
Tori of Ress is the capital of it. Uh, so take Kothik where, you know, it's misty, there's
cliffs. It's, uh, you know, a little bit chillier and then ramp it up to a hundred. Uh, the
mists aren't just, you know, hanging around the shore. They cover the entire landscape.
Demons will just randomly manifest on the, on the, into your address. The islands move
and may or may not have minds of their own. Uh, there are no cities and towns in Tori
of Ress. There are citadels and forts. This place is miserable. Uh, it's like what cities
they have are almost entirely empty. Or it's like, uh, if you look at like Averlorn or
Ytane, you're like, this is, you know, the elves truly are a glorious people. You look
at your for us and you're like, you have had your time in the sun and you are not doing
very well right now. Is, is it like when you, when you're exploring like an old fortress
in dark souls and there's not really anything around, but they're quite grand, but empty
and you're like, this is ominous and there's a lot of dead people here or that kind of
architecture is very impressive, but also where is everyone? I, you know, like, uh,
you know, when you beat like the iron Golem and you first like have that overview of,
uh, an Orlando and like that makes the, like the choir and strings are going, the rest
of the kingdoms are that shot when it's like, Oh my God, this is like this beautiful place.
This is glorious and majestic. And then if rest is when you start actually walking through
it, you're like, this is empty and sad and half of the people in here want to kill me.
And the shadow land is when you kill the fake Gwendolyn and say, Oh, yeah, it's nighttime.
Oh no. Yeah. Uh, the elves here are very stoic and they live in a place where they live in
like Katie, a kind of, there's just kind of demons keep appearing partially on purpose
because Altharion made it so the orcs will invade this place first whenever they show
up because he really doesn't like orcs. So they run into demons and see monsters and
moving islands and stuff first. And he just sits there waiting for him in his dungeon
in his bat cave. Uh, and because they're constantly fighting them, they're very brave, uh, like
grim, fearless, like not great at parties, not very personable, but they are like, they're
the ultimate like line holders of the elves. They're going to hold the line like the guard
and they're just going to do their duty. Uh, it is a very grim as of course their main
characters named Altharion the grim, uh, not, not, not a fun place to go to, but the elves
within it are the, probably the best, just like standard soldiers there. They're going
to do their job. They're going to do what needs to be done to win and, uh, not going
to be pleasant, but they're going to do it. And, uh, I believe that was all, oh, uh, one,
one last place is, uh, the inner sea that has the Isle of the Dead in it, uh, which
is where the vortex lies. Uh, you go there and it's, uh, kind of trippy. Um, obviously,
you know, you can see the ghosts of the dead. If you go far in enough, uh, you can find
the vortex, which the high elves probably aren't going to let you go far enough to see
the damn thing because it's kind of important to the entire world. Uh, and it's, uh, it's
just not pleasant as you can guess from a place known as the Isle of the Dead, uh, dead
lifeless plants and grass literate, even aside from the vortex. Uh, maybe you'll get swept
in if you get too close. Maybe it won't depends on how the vortex is feeling. It's magic.
So who knows? And not pleasant, but it is where reality itself is being kept, you know,
is keeping the magic that lets demons show up at will at bay. So no one lives here aside
from those elves trapped in it to keep going, but it is worth a mention because it keeps
the world ticking. Yeah. Some sounds somewhat important to just, just a footnote. Like,
yeah, just don't, don't worry about that. Just, you can't see it, but it is important.
I reassure you it's important, but if you ever go close to it, we're going to kill you.
Yeah. Just to be safe, just to make sure you're not going to like throw anything in there.
Yeah. And, uh, unless I'm missing anything, that's kind of the basics of the high elves,
as I said, towards the end of the setting, or I should say the modern times of the setting,
which unfortunately leads to the end of the setting. They were getting out there far more
often determined to save the world. And like I said, I think they're generally more competent
than the, than the Eldar, which is both an inherent feature of them because the elders
whole thing is like, we are the remnants of an empire that had a catastrophic fall. Whereas
the high elves, it's like, this is more of like a decline, but they're not, they're going
down swinging and if they can help it, they're going to have the resurgence. Uh, the Eldar,
unless you're from Beeltaan and Gaslighting yourself, no, they don't have a chance in
hell at getting their empire back. The, the high elves are like, we, we're going to fight
for it. We generally think we can get things back to how they were. We're going to, our
golden age is coming back. Yeah. Uh, you know, they go out, they kick some ass, they go back
home duty calls again, they got to go back out and go fight to the death again. And you
know, they, they, uh, they do their part to keep the world going. Are they arrogant? Quite.
But unlike the Eldar, I, you know, I do believe they have a history of showing that they've
actually kicked some ass. Like they've, they've actually earned their position, their arrogance.
And uh, unless you have any questions, I believe that that would be the high elves, the Asur.
Hmm. Okay. So I've got more, no, not exactly a question, but if someone was getting into,
cause I know there's like a kind of a resurgence with like age of Sigmar, there's a new edition
and there's more renewed interest in fantasy these, these days. What would be the standout
qualities which you think make the high elves really cool as an army? Um, so from a lore
perspective, uh, I will, I have to admit, I, uh, I do not have the, uh, high elf tabletop
book yet because they combined all of the old world armies into the ravening hordes
and like forces of fantasy, I believe is the good guy book. Um, from a lore perspective,
it's kind of like, you know, obviously they're elves to get the, you know, the graceful,
elegant stuff like that. Uh, they're, like I said, they're, especially because I feel
like people are more familiar with 40k than as a whole fantasy. Like you said, it's getting
a bit of a revived interest. So people might be more learning about it from the lore. The
high elves are a lot more proactive for one, like they'll go out of their way to go help
the world. Whereas the elder are like, is this worth it? Like the elder are at the end
of the day, they want to be left alone. The high elves are going to sail across the world
to, to, to fight you. Like they're far more proactive. They are going out to get things
done. Um, a few books, like they, one of those ones where like they have more codexes than
books or do they have like a nice library of books? They have a, they have a pretty
decent library of books. Uh, for example, there's the, uh, there's a, there's a whole
trilogy I believe about the sundering, uh, like when the dark elves were splitting, there's
a, uh, an omnibus that's just, it's just called elves. And on the picture of it is it just
a high elf Spearman. So yeah, you can probably guess what that one's about. Uh, there are
books about the war of vengeance, which I haven't read. I heard they're kind of a middling
quality, but they do have books. It's not like the elder, it's like you have a book,
you have, they have like series of books. Yeah. Like the elders, like you have these
books and then there's these books you shouldn't bother with. Yeah. Like, uh, there's the, the
Tyrion and Teclis, like they have their own omnibus of books, like just about, you know,
the T twins. Uh, you know, there, there is like, there is an abundance of high elf books
and lore. If you want to look for it, it's not just, you have your codex and then you
have the canceled Yunari trilogy and then maybe, you know, the path series, which isn't
good. Uh, the high elves, like they do have like, you know, good books, bad books, which
is fair. Not everything's going to be a banger. Uh, so they've got a, they do, there's also,
you know, that from the lore standpoint going for them. Um, uh, they're, uh, it's, uh, I
don't know. It's nice to see they're also, this is kind of a more general thing that
Warhammer fantasies like order factions share compared to 40 K.
You know, over 40 K no one likes each other. Like, uh, the whole, the Alliance with, you
know, Eldar or your brain and Gilliman was even then it's more like, we won't kill you
when chaos is around. Yeah. Uh, but you know, the elves do generally do their best to work
with the other races. Even the dwarves, like I was saying with Finnebar, they're going
out of their way to try and like rally everyone to be like, look, I know we have our differences,
not the biggest fans of each other, but we're gonna, we're gonna work together. We're gonna
do what we can to push back the darkness. So they are, they are generally good folk
who go out of their way to do the best they can. Are they going to be arrogant doing it?
Yes. But I think they've earned it. Uh, from a tabletop perspective, uh, like I said, I
don't own the book, so I'm just going to have to be going off of some stuff I've known is
true from old fantasy. Uh, they have very high initiative, uh, very good wizards. Uh,
I believe they're the only ones that can take both high magic as well as all of the other,
like more traditional eight winds of magic. Uh, so you get a lot of magical game you can
play around with and they're because their whole shtick is being wizards. They're good
at it too. Uh, like they're the, aside from the salon, the best wizards in the game. And
the way I think of it as sure you take a salon, they're pound for pound, a better wizard,
uh, and empire wizards are probably cheaper, but high elves are that perfect sweet spot
between not having options available to you and being good at it. Uh, they're, they are
kind of like the elder. They hit pretty hard. They're not too tough in return, but a little
bit less so pronounced. Uh, like the elder are all about that alpha strike. They hit like a truck,
but if you live through that first round, the elder are in trouble. The high elves don't
hit quite as hard relatively speaking, but they can take a bit more of a punch in return.
Uh, and I have to say, at least in my personal opinion, and this isn't even like, I just
like their models. Uh, I think some of the high elf models, uh, have held up pretty well.
Uh, like all, all the fantasy models you can tell like, yeah, there's some of the older
ones, but as far as the old fantasy ranges go, I think most of the high elf models have
held up pretty well and they have confirmed that the high elves are going to be one of
the returning armies for the old world. So, you know, pick them up. Uh, they're one of
the ones like, first of all, you can collect them and beyond that, I think there are some
of the ones that have definitely held up a lot better than some of the other ones. Like
some of the dwarf models, they look a bit derpy. And, uh, yeah, uh, I guess some last
things for the elves is, uh, I think their artwork in particular, I like it. Like, uh,
there's one I'm looking at now. I'll kind of, I'll send these to you so you know what
I'm talking about. Uh, there's a, there's a lot of different vibes you can go for. Like
here's one, uh, you see Teclis at the front standing or it's like the Aurora in the background
and like, you can see like they're very magical. Uh, there's one, like, uh, the one that I
always think of chiefly is, uh, with Tyrion is, uh, like the high elf loading screen where
you can see like there's, you know, the glory of the high elves, the line of spearmen leading
out back some of their sword masters, uh, up close, you know, you can kind of see Teclis
and some other wizards. I'm a little bit behind Tyrion. That line of the guys with swords
is very Lord of the Rings to me. Like the, uh, the opening scene in fellowship where
they're all just, all the elves are fighting with the humans and then it's just like rows
and rows of swords. That's really cool. Yeah. They've got like, you can get that vibe going.
You can get a more like a wizardly magical vibe, but you can also make them like, uh,
like a ghostly vibe almost. Yeah. Like very Wraith, which is also kind of Tolkien-esque
because I believe if elves don't go to the far lands, they turn into Wraiths. So there's
a lot of different vibes you can go for. Again, with the high elves, like they've got, they've
got something for everyone. Uh, like that ghostly grim vibe with, uh, Yvress, uh, the
glorious vibe, you know, with Tyrion there, uh, the magical of Saffry. Uh, there's, there's
a, there's a kingdom and a vibe for everyone, uh, amongst the high elves. Uh, there is always,
you know, I will say, I will admit you need some interest in elves, but with that being
said, I think they, as long as you don't despise them, I think I do generally believe they
are worth a look, even if you don't like elves, uh, for anyone interested when they came,
uh, Games Workshop does re-release them in the old world. There is something worth checking
out. Like, uh, if all you know about GW's elves is the Eldar, I promise you the high
elves are not the Eldar. They are very different beasts. Yeah. And, uh, that would be the high
elves. Have you any, any other further inquiries, questions, uh, clarifications? No, I mean,
I think that was quite a good rundown of pretty much every element of, of being a, a posh
elf, shall we say. The elves of all the regalia and all the, the, the finery and, uh, gold
ornamentation and funny hats. Um, they, they do have, they do have their funny hats, uh,
but I like the funny pointy hats. I, I don't, I know a lot of people don't. Oh, thank you,
pump. Uh, I, I like the funny pointy hats. What can I say? Isn't there also that model
that has like, is it an age of sigma one where it's, is it like a cow? Oh, that's, uh, that's,
yeah, that's the luminous realm Lords, which are like the reinterpretation of the, the,
the high elves, but they do have something more or less goofy. Uh, they have the Lothar
and sky cutter, which is a sky boat pulled by an Eagle. Oh, that's cool. It is like the
peak warhammer. This is so stupid, but it's so awesome at the same time. It's got that,
like that, uh, that drew Kari almost like Finn on the bottom. Just make it like there's
elder crafts. It's gotta have a Finn. Like fellows. It is a, it is a sky boat that they
will shoot at you from above with. I love it. Just the dwarves coming in with their
big airship going, look at that piece of shit. I get why people might not like it. I love
it. It's so goofy. Yeah. Oh, did I, did I achieve my mission statement, Andy? Can you
at least look at them and go like, you know what? I get it. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I
think the thing is they just inherently are a bit more likable in that one. They haven't
doomed their entire species and two, they don't look down their nose as much to other
species as for example, the elder who just like, Oh, monkey. Oh, here we go again. I
like it. They are, they are still full of themselves, but to some certainly I think
more than the elder they've earned it. They were still active. They're still active and
one of two factions that instead of, you know, damning the world, the galaxy with the eye
of terror and slinash, they, they helped save it. So, you know, they're a little bit cooler.
Just don't do what Teclis does and call a dwarf short. I don't do that. Especially
Gottrick. Don't be Teclis because if you are Teclis, your life is pain. Yeah, exactly.
That's the moral of the story today. Don't be Teclis. In the lore, his life is pain.
In Total Warhammer, he's surrounded by the worst. Such standout hits include a Scarbrand,
Manfred von Karstein, all of the Tomb Kings. If you're playing with mods, Nagash. It is
not fun to be Teclis. Literally the axis of Warhammer evil just all around you. Oh, Kairos
Fateweaver is about five feet from his starting position. Oh, great. Don't be Teclis. The
moral of the story, if I haven't sold you on the elves, I hope I've sold you on, don't
be Teclis. He's a cool guy, handed a very bad hand of cards. He's playing them pretty
good, but he's playing them good in the first place. But everyone else around him has a
full house and he needs to bluff his way into being better than that. Carl Franz starting
next to the, I guess, is it Norsca he starts next to? Not far. He's like, I've made an
alliance. Look at the elves struggling. He's not too far from Norsca, but he's also Festus,
Kazzrak. He's definitely got his own problems to deal with. I would rather take his problems
than I would Teclis's. Yeah, Scarbrand's kind of scary. Carl Franz's problems are,
the problems of the world are at his doorstep, but he's got the nation of men at the heart
of the world to push them back. And Teclis has himself and a couple other wizards and
a can-do attitude. Yeah. That's what he has to deal with. Well, I guess that's the end
of the episode then. That was good fun. I will say we haven't done one of these in
a little while, so please let us know in the comments if there's a faction you would like
to see in particular. I think with this one, I just mused with Colin and said, oh, what
do you want to talk about and see what we did? I think we had a few comments about elves,
but. We did. One last piece that I can't believe I almost let slip by. Oh, okay. It is canon
that the Knights of Bretonnia are entirely based on high health silver helm cavalry.
So they are all LARPing as their betters. I could not let that one slide. I'm glad I
remember that. And this episode is exactly following the Bretonnia video I did with Eli.
So yeah, couldn't let that slide. There's my mandated slander. Yeah, wouldn't be the
same without it. But yeah, thanks everyone for watching. We hope you've enjoyed this
episode on the elves. We'll be going back at some point with the other two main factions,
I suppose. But yeah, let us know in the comments about what you want to hear us talk about
next time. And we'll catch you on the other one. Have fun, everyone. Have a good one,
everyone. Take care.