Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and
welcome back to Fantasy Fireside, where we haven't
been here for a while. We've already covered
a selection of different factions in the past,
but it's time to complete the trifecta today.
We covered high elves, we covered wood elves,
and now it's time to talk about another type
of elf, not to be confused with mer. Colin, what
are we talking about today? Indeed, we are not
talking about the filth of Tamriel, but instead,
as you said, the final of the trifecta, the dark
elves, the druki. the as eli likes to put it
the true you know the true elves where the true
phoenix king lies even though he's wrong and
stupid and that's incorrect and that's dumb and
glory to the phoenix king finna bar okay i'll
take your word for it um so that there's got
to be some magisteria that crosses over between
the high elves and the dark elves but are the
wood elves more like the exodites where they
kind of keep to themselves and they don't really
interact as much with the other two Yeah, they
prefer to keep to themselves. Basically, 99 %
of what they do is done in the interest of making
people encroaching into their forest go away
from their forest. But the Dark and High Elves...
The High Elves are usually on the defense or
acting proactively, but the Dark Elves, they
sure do love going on the offense, especially
against the High Elves. Their story is two sides
of the same coin. I guess the wood elves can
be like, you know, the rim of the coin. They're
just kind of also there. Fair enough. Well, where
are we starting things today without any further
preamble? We are going back to the technically
not quite, not sure for the proper terminology
of it, the prehistory of Warhammer fantasy. Not
quite the full beginning, you know, but at first
for the elves, there was just elves. No wood
elves, no dark elves. You could call them all
the high elves if you want. That's the closest
comparison. But they were just elves at this
point, right? No different groups of them. All
elves were elves. Some of them lived in magical
forests like the wood elves did. Some of them
lived in a slightly, maybe a little bit rougher
spot. But by this point in elf history, like
even the roughest parts of Ulthuan were still,
you know, super paradise. It wasn't exactly hard
living. And we start with who else but the elf
sorceress Marathi. Marathi had visions, I think,
since she was like 8 or 11 or something. Like,
young even by human standards, let alone elf
standards, right? Visions of fire and destruction
and demons invading the world. And that had no
effect on her development as a person, I'm sure.
Or am I... Absolutely mistaken. Yeah, no. This
definitely had no effect on how she would turn
out in the end. By this point, again, everything
was magical, wonderful. It was lovely. The old
ones were still around. It was a good time, right?
But, you know, she sees these visions that she
knows are going to come true. And she started
doing everything she could to get people to listen
to her and try and prepare for the oncoming storm.
And naturally, no one did. Because if they did,
we might not have a Warhammer fantasy, you know?
And was Morathi, just lingering on her for a
minute, was she part of, like, a particularly
noble house, or was she gutter trash, or was
she, like, was there anything that, like, did
she have to claw her way up, or was she just,
like, already established as, like, an important
person, should we say? If I remember correctly,
she wasn't particularly important in this time.
She was kind of another elf, which is part of
why no one listened to her. But also they lived
in paradise and willingly or not, they didn't
and maybe couldn't believe that this will come
to an end. And then it came to an end when the
great catastrophe occurred and chaos invaded
en masse into the world. Now, at this point.
Chaos is now here. People are interacting with
chaos. And in fantasy, at least, other races
tend to get a little bit chaotic every now and
again. So, you know, the chaos stores, for instance.
It's not just humanity. It's still mostly humanity
doing that kind of stuff. But it's not just humanity
who can get a little bit too lost in the chaos
sauce. So on the Dark Elves, pardon me, jumping
ahead. In the Elves, some started going a little
bit whack. But... For the time being, they're
still mostly all fighting back against these
forces of chaos. Now, they've had exactly zero
wars to their name at this point. It's not going
very well. Until an elf named Anarion picks up
the mantle, as well as some others, Kalidor too.
We've talked about this before with the High
Elves. And starts going to town on the demons
and eventually drives them off with the combined
efforts of themselves and the Slaan and the different
Lizardmen. And chaos is banished. Marathi, during
this time, however, maybe learned a little bit
too much about her foe, and as chaos does, it
tends to corrupt. Even when Anarion was still
around, and him and Marathi were lovers, had
children after Anarion's first wife, and as far
as he knew, his first children were slain, they
took comfort in each other's presence, had a
kid. But even then, he never truly loved her,
and even as much as, you know, he was cursed
by drawing the Sword of Cain, even he was kind
of like, she's off with that woman. She's bad
news, he said, and this is coming from me. And
this is coming from me. I've just cursed my entire
bloodline, and you're still kind of whack. Whoopsie
-daisy. Mm -hmm. But Anarion dies defending Ulthuan,
never seen again, though his armor is recovered.
And Marathi's hanging around with their kid,
Malekith. Now, we go to the various High Elven
princes, the nobles who will decide who shall
be Phoenix King, this position, the leader of
the High Elves, right? Many of them, well, maybe
not many, some of them, including, of course,
obviously, Marathi and Malekith himself. Felt
that I see Russell, pardon me, but this is very
important for those listening because this is
just, you know, there's no visual of our faces
or anything. Andy's beloved dog, Russell, has
walked into the room and I needed to draw attention.
Yeah, he's now sitting in the vocal booth, which
is cooler than the rest of the room. And there
he is again. Hello, Russell. Little angel. Athena's
next to me right now in her doggy bed. But back
on topic, pardon me. Many felt, obviously including
Malekith himself and Marathi, that Malekith only
made sense as the next Phoenix King. After all,
he's the son of Anarion, who was a pretty kick
-ass guy. Yes, you know, again, he got a little
bit lost in the butchery sauce a little bit and
drew the Sword of Cain and a couple different
things. But at the end of the day, he, you know,
drove back chaos. Not quite single -handedly,
but he certainly did a good chunk of the hefty
lifting for amongst all of the elves, right?
Son's probably a cool guy, and at this point,
Malekith was a pretty cool guy. But a lot of
them didn't really want another warrior, right?
They had just come out of a massive demon invasion
and everything. Many people felt that at this
point in time, maybe... Maybe we just, you know,
get someone who's a little bit less insane, right?
You know, someone a little bit more chill, as
it were. More diplomatic. Someone who doesn't
lash out and claw someone's eyes. Were there
warning signs with that regard? There were a
few warning signs as well that, you know, Malekith,
he wasn't a bad guy at this point. He was like,
you know, a noble elven hero. But, you know,
again... Some warning signs, some people were
understandably worried that, you know, Malekith
was a little wacky, you know, a little wacky
like his dad could be and was it a few times.
So instead, they voted into, pardon me, voted
into the Phoenix King, an elf named Belshinar.
He was still, you know. A bit of a war hero,
but he was more of like, you know, the reluctant
kind of war hero. Like, no, he like legitimately
and very obviously was like, I took up arms against
the demons, you know, the demons. Obviously,
I'm going to do that. But we don't need to go
searching for any more glory. We earned plenty
and died doing it. Let's just all take a chill
pill, right? Marathi was furious. Malekith, at
least publicly and to some extent, did take it
with. Relatively good grace. And he became, you
know, still a very cool guy for quite a long
time. He went around exploring the world, helped
strengthen and form the friendship with the dwarfs.
Again, at this point, the elves and dwarfs were
still along on the same page. Malekith went off
to do some cool things. Eventually, he... A few
things happened. Part of what happened was he
went north in the Warhammer world in his explorations.
I found a very obviously evil, cursed, awful
crown and decided, yeah, I'll put it on my head.
And again, that did about as much for his personality
as you can expect. Don't put the ring on your
finger, man. Fulgrim effect with that damn sword.
Fulgrim effect, doing a little bit of Frodo for
good measure. It's like, don't do it. It's not
worth it. Don't do it. But you did it anyways.
Not great. And so, from there on, again, this
wasn't full -on corruption at this point, but
he's definitely getting a little more whack.
Eventually, when he returns to Ulthuan, he is
still a respected figure amongst the High Elves.
He'd spent a long time exploring, forging friendships,
charting new courses. Malekith's still popular.
He's still a cool guy, as far as everyone's concerned,
and still somewhat actually is. When he gets
home... He's informed that high -elf pleasure
cults, those who, again, got a little bit lost
in the chaos sauce, a little bit Slaaneshi in
particular, were running rampant on Ulthuan.
And they basically said, hey, we know your dad
was good at this, you know, dealing with chaos.
We know you're a pretty cool guy. Please go deal
with this. And for a while he did. He, you know,
would find, like, root out pleasure cults and
eliminate them, right? He found the head of the
pleasure cult eventually, who was none other
than his mother, Marathi. Uh -oh. Quite. Mother,
what are you wearing, he said. Initially, he
did plan on bringing her in. Then she convinced
him, hey, you're the true Phoenix King. Are you
really going to listen to these pretenders? Who's
my good boy? Who's my special boy? Well, on that
note, depending on the edition of Warhammer Fantasy
you're reading, she convinced him with some very
unsavory methods that a mother should never convince
her child with. Oh, no. Kill all my... A little
bit of a J .B. and Cersei Lannister going on
there. Although I guess that would have been...
I don't remember who... I don't remember Tywin's
wife. It'd be like if Jaime and Tywin's wife
were going at it. Well, she's not even around
in the series. She was long dead. But depending
on the edition, that was part of how she convinced
him. So, Malekith calls a council of all the
various elven princes. And... Initially, it was
a bit of a comedy of errors as far as I'm concerned,
at least my understanding of it. He declared
he initially tried to poison Belshazzar, put
some poison in his glass and obviously didn't
tell him. It was like he tried to assassinate
him quietly. When Belshazzar refused to take
a drink, Malekith loudly proclaimed that he was
the leader of the pleasure cults. His evidence
for this being, dude, trust me, I'm Malekith.
This did not work. So at that point, he forced
Belshazzar to drink the poison, had a bunch of
his newfound minions start butchering a lot of
the elves present, and Malekith walked into the
Flame of Assyrian, which, what this was... before
the end times, which of course I'll get to, was,
you know, it's a Syrian sacred fire. It's the
sacred holy site of a god. It's so potent that
demons that go near it, even relatively near
it, just incinerate like true death. And it's
also how new Phoenix Kings are chosen. They walk
into the fire, and if they're worthy, they come
out a Phoenix King. If you're not worthy, you
turn into Kentucky Fried Elf. And how do you
think Malekith came out of that fire? Crispy.
He came out deep fried. Well done, Malekith.
Yeah. Well, I'd say undeterred. The rest of them
were undeterred. Malekith was currently busy
writhing and screaming in pain. Understandably
so. He just got Anakin. And his mother and his
bodyguards, they fought their way out and declared
their intent. And now we're just taking Ulthuan
by force. the early rounds of the Elven Civil
War, as it would come to be, as the conflict
between High and Dark Elf is known, was brutal
and nearly saw the world unmade. Because I believe,
as I've mentioned before, there was the vortex
in the middle of Ulthuan, in the middle of the
Isle, in the sea, that drains magic from the
world. At a certain point, as the Malekith and
his supporters were being pushed back, they decided,
well, if we can't have it, no one can, and then
unmade the vortex. Yeah, Betulin. Yeah. This
did have the side effect of freeing all of the
elves who willingly trapped themselves in the
vortex, who were all the strongest elven mages
ever. Oh. Yeah, they were in there keeping it
going. Like, they're trapped outside of time,
basically, keeping the thing going. They were
Lord of Cindering it. Yeah. Well, now they were
freed, saw what was going on, and were like...
We're just going to ass blast you with every
spell in our arsenal. And very promptly did that,
drove the soon -to -be Dark Elves off, and remade
the Vortex, thankfully. Especially because, again,
the guy who was the head designer of the Vortex,
Kalidor II, he's also in there. So he kind of
just woke up, saw that his friend's son was acting
a fool, and was like, get the hell out of here.
And the Dark Elves retreated. Now, between the
vortex briefly being unmade and the Dark Elves'
own magics, Ulthuan became very unstable, an
event known as the Sundering happened. Ulthuan
used to be a lot bigger, and then a good, like,
30 -40 % of it sank into the sea. Not helping
this is that the Dark Elves, in fleeing, did
their foul sorceries and just ripped chunks of
the mountain ranges out and sailed away on them.
And they would turn these ships into their dreadful
black arcs, these massive former chunks of the
continent that would in future times become slave
vessels and sailed away from Ulthuan. Do these
guys have any bearing on who's the other naval
faction in the fantasy setting later on? The
vampires? Oh, the vampire coast, kind of? Yeah,
yeah. Not really. No, the vampire coast is kind
of something that just happened. Oh, okay. No
one really had any intent of doing that. The
TLDR on that, maybe we'll cover that one day,
was that a vampire washed up on a spot that,
due to ocean currents, a whole lot of drowned
ships and sailors end up at. It was just like,
well, free source of bodies of zombies forever.
I'm just going to make my home here. That just
kind of happened. Elves just sail by and kind
of sneer and go, we're going to keep going this
way. It's a very known well -cursed spot, the
Vampire Coast. Everyone's like, yeah, don't be
there. It's not going to end well. Even the elves
who are like the greatest sailors of the setting,
they're like, it's not worth it. There's nothing
to be gained here. But no, the dark elves on
their newfound mountain ships sailed to the continent
of Naggaroth, also known as Warhammer Fantasy
North America. Let me see if I can't find a map
of that for you real quick. You will see that,
sure enough. This is just North America. Oh,
yeah. The old world is Europe and Asia and Africa
and all that stuff. The land of Daddy Chill.
Wow. Lots of iron, frost, iron, iron, malice,
dark abyss, heaven, desert, spiders, mail...
Oh, the maelstrom's here. You're on. Nice. Yeah,
there's a lot of... A lot of nasty sounding places.
The Boiling Sea, lovely. And the Circle of Destruction.
Who could forget the Circle of Destruction? Don't
forget on there is also the Altar of Ultimate
Darkness. Oh yeah, why not? Throw it in there.
And it should also be said, I will say, as a
bit of an explanation, that a lot of the reason
Malekith got his followers that he did was because...
I feel it's a safe thing to assume that any society
that has recently suffered a massive demon invasion,
a whole lot of people are going to be traumatized
by that, right? To make a long story, understandably
so. I can't say if I had to fight off the chaos
demons, I'd be in a good spot mentally. I would
be a blubbering wreck. So a lot of the elves
were in quite bad places. Malekith's reputation
being what it is and various other factors like
that all stemming from the Great Catastrophe,
was why a whole lot of elves threw themselves
behind Malekith and decided to overthrow this
weakling pretender. But it failed. They go to
Naggaroth, and particularly the most northern
regions is where most of them are. They're in
Warhammer Canada. It's a cold, desolate hellscape.
Even as you go farther south, where, like, a
lot of the farming is, still a fairly rough place
to be. But they've been resoundingly kicked off
Ulthuan, so it's time to set up shop. And now
we have the Dark Elves. We don't quite have the
Wood Elves yet, but we have the Dark Elves and
High Elves. It's... Their history is actually
quite easy to simplify, to be honest with you.
Once they landed on Naggaroth, they did and still
do have every intention eventually going back
home. Home after enough generations. It's not
quite your home anymore, chief. Back to the donut.
Yeah, they still to this day have full intentions
of going home and reconquering Altuan. Taking
back the donut. Naggaroth in many ways is viewed
as ultimately a temporary residence until that
happens. But... You still got to make do with
what you have. So they set up several massive
cities on the continent, one of which, you know,
the capital, I would say, is basically a dark
elf hype city mixed with Kamara. Lovely place
to be. Truly, we'll get into that shortly. Lots
of leather, lots of leather made from not cows.
No, it's not made from it's not made from animals
any more than the sense of human beings are animals,
technically. But they would go, you know, set
up shop, and now they're on Naggaroth. They have
ever since been led by Malekith and led by Marathi,
his mother. These two, even by elf standards,
ancient beings, who for the next 10 ,000 years
would dedicate themselves to taking back Ulduar.
And do we have an estimate of how old they are
now? Is it just 10 ,000 years or a bit? More
than that. At least I believe the great, like
the big demon invasion was about 10 ,000 years
ago. Like from modern Warhammer fantasy could
be a little bit wrong on that. Uh, but old, very
old, old. Let's, let's go with like eight to
like, if we want to be like maybe in the middle
of the estimations I can think of, let's make,
let's cut it an even 8 ,000 years old. Right.
And everyone's like my Rafi, how do you keep
your skin looking so youthful? Hmm. The blood
of the innocent. I'll just rip the band -aid
off. It's that. Well, if it works, it works.
It clearly works. It doesn't work for the people
in the boiling blood cauldron, but it works for
her. The dark elves formed a society of might
makes right. If you can get away with it, you
can get away with it. That's the Spartan training
where... If you get caught stealing food from
one of your fellow trainees, right? You're not
beat because you stole the food. You're beat
because you got caught stealing the food. That's
a lot of Dark Elf society in a nutshell. They
survive, you know, they value strength above
all else, which is why their positions are usually
granted by way of Starscream. Kill the guy ahead
of you, you get his job. But it should be said
they do have surprisingly thick family values.
They're not skaven, yeah. No, no. They do have,
to some extent, the capacity for love and appreciation
of, you know, things. Sometimes, again, in the
case of Malekith and some other people, perhaps
a bit too much appreciation for family members.
But they set up shop and one prevailing attitude
of elves, as I'm sure you know, is they're quite
full of themselves, right? They believe themselves
the best. At the end of the day, and I hope you
kind of agree on this, the way that usually happens
is the elves go out and they brag about what
they do. And then they go out and, you know,
kick some ass or at least try to kick some ass
and let their words speak for, let their actions
speak for themselves, right? Prove that they're
the best by, you know, being better than you.
Whether or not they actually are, you know, depends
on the setting and if you like elves or not.
But they tend to, like, you know, if you ask
an elf, how come you think you're so much better
than me? They'll point at their cities and go,
well, because of that, look at this shit, dude.
The dark elves are the logical end point of elven
supremacy, which is they believe because they
are the glorious druki, as they're now known,
they're, you know, the elf term for dark elf,
then they should be allowed to hunt you for sport
because you are inferior. So the Dark Elf Society
quickly became a slave -based society. You know
the triangle slave trade from history? Yeah,
they did that. They made that. Their plantations
and basic industry runs entirely on slave labor.
Those Black Arks, those were mountains before
they ripped them out of the continent. Those
can hold a lot of slaves, which sure enough,
when the Dark Elves go slave raiding, It's not
people from a village they're capturing. It's
a village they're capturing. They're going out
with the East Ulthuan trade company. Like, oh,
I see what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. Get out
of here. They, yeah, they're that. And at one
point, because they found a under, they call
it the underworld ocean. It's not, well, underworld
sea or something, like underworld gate. It's
not a passage to hell. It's a massive underground
ocean they can use to sail under the continent.
Do you ever hear about the Northwest Passage?
It doesn't actually exist, but it's the supposed
sea crossing a lot of people used to think existed
through North America. They found one, and it
was underground. So after they found that, even
now, Cathay, Nippon, those faraway regions of
Warhammer that until recently got basically no
lore, and only Cathay is really getting lore
nowadays. nowhere is safe from the dark elf slave
arts and they began setting up shop on all or
on nagaroth no one will admit that they're there
permanently but they began setting up shop any
uh any questions thus far you might have um so
are they a real threat to any standing pack because
i assume they're ostensibly like exiles from
all one who are a big player in the setting are
they more I know they have obviously things like
their own slave trade, etc., but are they like
a threat comparable to the dwarves, to the high
elves, or are they more like a nuisance faction?
So, they very easily could be. For example, oh,
adorable. More Russell chat, pardon me. But they
very easily could be. In fact, they have enough
strength that with, you know, a relatively sizable
fraction of their forces, but still just a fraction,
they've built massive walls to their north since
to the north lies Chaos Portal. They've built
these massive walls that are, until the end times,
basically never failed at keeping out, like,
Norse marauders and Chaos demons, right? They're
properly powerful, and that's just a portion
of their forces. They very easily could be. If
they wanted to invade the Empire properly, even
if they couldn't win, just with the distances
involved, that'd be a hell of a supply line to
keep up. They could definitely raise hell. They
don't because they want to go home. Malekith
wants his Phoenix Crown. And so, every few hundred
or thousand of years, They just invade Ulthuan
en masse, like black arcs descend, massive legions,
often backed up by demons, descend upon Ulthuan
to try and retake it back. For these thousands
of years, they have all been repulsed and the
dark elves brutalized, but that in part is why
the high elves can never catch a break and are
a constant state of decline, because every time
they breathe for too long, so are the dark elves
breathing for a while, and then the dark elves
decide... Run that fade, sir. Let's fucking go.
They could be very much a threat to many of the
factions in the game. Including the Lizardmen
too. North and South America are connected. Naggaroth
and Lustria are connected. But they just don't
really see a point in invading Lustria and the
Lizardmen. They're lizards. It's cold up there,
right? And where are the hordes of Nagash at
this point? Because don't they have laying some
claim to the Americas? Kind of. The story of
that, which we should cover a bit, is that under
Malekith's influence, in an attempt to weaken
the High Elves, he had a trio of assassins burn
dwarf caravans and disguise elven bodies present
as High Elves and make it look like the High
Elves did it. Which caused the Dwarves and the
High Elves to go to war with each other in, you
know, Warhammer Fantasy World War I. And completely
obliterate each other's empires, essentially.
And those three High Elves then were captured
by Nehekarans and taught Nagash the secrets of
black magic, which he then used to become Nagash.
So, there's no real claim like the Tomb Kings
or even the living Nehekarans had on Nagaroth.
But the Dark Elves are, for that reason, at fault
for Nagash existing. And of course, as living
beings, they must become dead beings, as all
are subject under Nagash's rule, of course. You
know, such is the power of Nagash and all that.
Yeah, slogan. But, you know, in terms of historical
grievances, there's not really anything they
have to do with each other. Other than, you know...
If Cetra found out that that's why Nagash rose
to power, I'm sure he would stop at nothing until
the Dark Elves were burned to the ground. Yeah.
Upon realizing, you assholes did this. But no,
for much of Dark Elf history, essentially it
was that holding cycle. Constantly, basically,
raid, capture slaves, and when you've built up
enough forces, go burn down Ulthuan, or try to.
And to their credit, again, like I said, it's
massive casualties every time they do on both
ends. But they never quite succeeded. Malekith
has never gotten himself that phoenix crown.
And, yeah, it's... You'd think someone would
have deposed him, but he is also individually
a very powerful warrior and mage alike. He's
called the Witch King, you know, like, you know,
the Witch King of Angmar. He can, he's like the
level of wizard, like at least entire formations
of units, he can just wave his hand and, and
then if you try and engage him in melee, you're
probably going to lose. Yeah. Plus, Marathi's
also in charge. She was one of the, you know,
the Sorceress Supreme, one of the best magic
users in power. The reason neither of them have
been overthrown, because it's quite hard to kill
them. And I'm assuming they're stronger than
someone like Balthazar Gelt or like a human magician.
Yes, absolutely. Malekith, maybe not. Marathi,
definitely. She probably doesn't know as much
about specifically the lore of metal as he does,
but definitely overall a more powerful wizard.
No Nam flashbacks with Gelt fighting Marathi
in survival. That is purely saved for a very
well -run Total War campaign as a Gelt player.
And yeah, that would be their history for the
longest time. It's a very simple thing overall.
Go to Nagaroth, because we have no choice, and
keep trying to retake Ulthuan, which kept failing.
But goddamn, do they keep trying. So... for a
bit. It's before the, you know, end times and,
you know, we have to discuss and I don't want
to, but you have to talk a little bit about society
and, you know, the Negara, their cities. Like
I said, Mike makes right. Starscream's philosophy
is, you know, take the guy's job ahead of you
by killing him is how they go. It is, again,
a slave -based economy on everything and they've
got some family values. You know, they will defend
their bloodlines and their names and that to
the death. But also, again, sometimes it gets
Game of Thrones -y. If you really need to kill
your sister, they might damn well do it. Or pork
her, unfortunately. You gotta do what you gotta
do to advance as a druki, what can I say? The
Dark Elves, as for their, you know, things like
worship and whatnot, a lot of them, a good amount
of them worship Slaanesh. especially older editions
before that was retconned. They see no problem
worshipping Slaanesh, because it's not like Warhammer
40k, where Slaanesh is just like, even amongst
the Dark Eldar, big no -no, big no -no. That
gets your soul devoured immediately. They act
as, in many ways, any other cult of Slaanesh
would. But by and large, they worship the Synthari,
Kithari. I always forget how it's said. There's
no N in it. I always forget if it's C -Y -T -H
-A -R -A -I. Kithari. I always say Synthari at
first. I always cock that up for some reason.
But that is the evil... Oh, muted. I was just
going to say, is it almost like Synthetic? And
you're like, ah, there must be an N there. That's
probably what's jamming my brain up. But they
worship the Kithari. The more... The more unsavory
side of the Elven Pantheon. You know, the Kadai
is Assyrian, the king of the gods. Isha, you
know, the lovely life and fertility goddess.
Hoeth, the god of knowledge. On the Kithari,
you got Cain. He's Cain. He's an asshole. I feel
like I can almost just stop at saying he's part
of them. He's Cain. You really, it's once he's
in the equation. Once you're the people that
hang out with Cain, it's not great. You know,
there's other goddesses like, you know, Anathrema,
the goddess of the savage hunt, and also jilted
lovers. So if you go through a bad breakup, you
know who to pray to. Nethu, the guy who, you
know, oversees the underworld. Hecardi, well,
not oversees. You know, he's the gatekeeper,
as well as his, you know, his mother, Ereth Kiel.
who's another elf goddess who loves torturing
and stealing elf souls. There's two of those
in Warhammer Fantasy. It's not just Lanesh. You've
got, what is it, the one like Hecate, goddess
of dark magic. They worship the bad guy side
of the pantheon, right? The ones who will, you
know, you do a dark ritual, you sacrifice a hundred
slaves, and you get a boon. It's made them, you
know, you're worshiping gods like that, you're
gonna end up a bad egg. But are the gods benevolent
and give them a boon or are they a bit more fickle
like chaos gods? They usually do give them a
boon because at least as far as my interpretation
at least is how they see it is dark elves kill
the high elves. That'll take away all the followers
of the Kadai part of the pantheon and we'll be
the only one to get an elf worship and be the
king shits of everything. Wow. It always comes
back to family feuding. It really does. And again,
you know, like, These boons are usually granted
through, you know, mass sacrifice. And a lot
of them, you know, especially with like Hecate,
that price gets steeper every time you make a
new deal with her. And eventually you're going
to make a deal that you can't quite fulfill.
And then, you know. Classic stuff like that happens.
It's going to be worse than having relations
within the family. Cause that's the baseline.
Yeah. And then your soul is lit on fire for all
eternity. Sucks to be you, but they do, you know,
they usually do it. What they say it's, you know,
the contract has a whole lot of fine print, but
you will get your end of the bargain fulfilled.
At least it's not, you know, there's much less
tentacles and gripply bits involved, you know?
You know, if they don't fuse your soul with your
body and then melt it like candle wax, they just
kill you. Yeah. So, rough times. Aside from that,
very strong seafaring society, because it's kind
of the only way they can get anywhere. They're
on North America. You want to go get your slaves?
You better get in that boat. And, of course,
the constant, let's go take Ulthuan again. Why
not? Why the hell not? It's fun to do that. Uh,
as for a bit of Naggaroth though, right? It's,
uh, it's, it's, it's, oh boy. Like I said, it
just sucks to live on Naggaroth. I'm not going
to lie. The whole place, like almost all times
of year is a cold, miserable hell hole. Uh, and
I mean cold where it's like permafrost, like
Arctic. It sucks. And even the more fertile regions,
it's still pretty bleak and only so fertile.
There's enough they can live, obviously with
the slave labor, of course, mining for them.
A Druki would never be seen, you know, farming
themselves. That's far too uncultured. You want
me to hold the hoe and not the hoe? How dare
you? Yeah, of course, please. And there's a few
different cities on Naggaroth that are, at least
for the Dark Elves, vaguely important to know
about, right? So let's start with the main one
that you're going to forget the name of, and
I know you're going to forget the name of it
because it's almost the same as the continent,
Naggarond. Not Naggaroth, that's the continent,
Naggarond, the city. Wow, okay. Also known as
the City of Chill, I believe. It's a bad place.
It's a very bad... Very bad place. It ain't so
chill after all. No, I think someone left that
in a comment on a video. Naggaroth, the land
of chill. The inhabitants, they are not very
chill. This is the capital of the Dark Elves.
It's the oldest and the largest of the Dark Elves
cities on the continent. Mega cities, really.
It's practically two cities in one. And for reference,
right? This is Warhammer. It's a Warhammer setting,
so it's a little rough all around. This is a
setting that has two portals to hell on it, and
this place is outright called the most malevolent
place on the world. It's bad. And, you know,
it's a fortress as much as it is a city. There's
100 feet high walls, like 50 feet deep. Obviously
black and spiky, of course, and decorated with
skulls, bodies, human skin, elf skin. A little
bit of everything. Horrible place to be all around.
It's bad. It's bad. This place sucks. And also
attacking it sucks. Very few people get to, but
those that try usually end up as more skeletons
on the walls after enough time. It sucks. You
go inside Naggarond and... You ever been down
a street? and it just seems to be under construction
forever because whoever's planning the project
just doesn't know what the hell they're doing.
Yeah. Dark Elves don't really have city planners.
So you walk down Naggaroth, and one building
is a barracks, and the next one's a slave pit,
and then there's a second barracks that's barely
used, but it just ended up there. Then there's
a gladiator pit. There's a noble mansion there
out of nowhere. There's an inn. There's a second
mansion. There's just random shit everywhere.
And sometimes they're like, well, where does
the indentured labor go to the toilet? Next to
the mansion. Oh, okay. Or if they get caught
going to the bathroom, they get skinned. Why
not? Yeah. And then the skin pit is just right
there. So that's actually quite convenient. Yeah,
sometimes it works out. It's a mess. Also, of
course, plenty of temples of Cain. Those are
very active. Those are in production night and
day. Who do you think's making all the skin cloaks?
I guess, yeah, I suppose really when you think
about Warhammer 40k versus fantasy, Cain isn't
so much of a, I guess, fallen entity. I guess
the entire pantheon is doing pretty well because
it's not an endangered species. The elves are
doing fine. No, I mean, you know, they're definitely
dropping a number, but their gods are all uneaten.
They're still around well enough. Oh, murder
also, by the way, is taking a double shift as
a religious obligation. Cain is the god of murder
as well as war, remember. This is religious rights
you're observing. And also just a fun pastime,
just something to do, right? So if you see someone
walking down the streets of Naggaroth without
just whistling Dixie, not a care in the world.
They're either about to die or someone you really
don't want to mess with because they feel comfortable
walking down this shithole. Okay. And Malekith
doesn't just allow this, he encourages it because
as far as he's concerned, that means the strong
will rise to the top and the weak are cold. So
this city basically en masse acting like the
lower parts of a hive is entirely intentional.
Including the building projects, because he just
doesn't care about small things like that. That's
far beneath his notice. At the center of the
city is the Tower of Cold, Malekith's own personal
digs. It's why I said it's two cities in one,
because it and the surrounding buildings are
surrounded by their own massive wall. And, you
know, there's a lot more mansions and noble houses
in here, but it's by and large the same messy
architecture as the rest. Tower of Cold is also
known as the Black Tower. That's, again, where
he lives. It's actually kind of a shithole because
every now and again Malekith falls into depression
for 50 years and doesn't clean the place up.
And this is where the Druki do their dealings
and plan their next invasion of Ulthuan, which,
again, they could do plenty of other things,
but goddammit, they want the donut back. It's,
you know, capital city of the Dark Elves. It's
about where everything, you know, it sets the
tone for everything. Murder everywhere. Slaves
everywhere. The remains of slaves everywhere,
of course. Don't forget about that. It's a little
rough. So that's the baseline here. So now we'll
go to Grand, which has the Tower of Prophecy.
This is Marathi's home. There are three parts
of Grand, I would say, right? You have the outer
bits of Grand, right? uh this is where as grand
as i believe one of if not the most northern
city of the dark elves dark elf cadia non -stop
chaos warrior invasions and norskins and everything
and they're just like steve get to the walls
it's time to fight it's the fifth time today
i know but it's either that or you're you're
definitely gonna die i've got to get my blood
up they said let's go it's it's not fun Fun fact,
it's actually shaped almost identically to Naggarond,
but about half the size because Malekith didn't
want his mom's tower and house being bigger than
his own. Oh, yeah. Makes sense. Because, of course,
they are dark elves. They are also petty assholes.
The winds of magic blow strong, and because it's
so close to the chaos portals, it's quite chaotic
magic. It's very unpleasant. Beastmen, demons
show up plenty often. Then you get to the second
part of Grand, which is the slave mines. There
is enough gold under Grand that if everyone wasn't
afraid of, you know, terrified death of Malekith,
Marathi could have easily bought everyone's loyalty
ten times over, which is part of why people keep
coming to Grand to make it rich. And then there's
the third part of Grand, which is Marathi's various
dens of pleasure. The party never ends until
you die, and I have to be honest, I think most
of the party's Marathi throws have a fatality
rate of everyone but her. And that includes the
demon she's summoning. But hey, it's a fun time.
Especially if you don't mind throwing your morals
to the wind. And that's Grand. There's also a
very large amount of sorcerers and whatnot there.
Part of Marathi. Sorceresses. The Dark Elves,
incidentally. Actually, good time to mention
that. No male sorcerers are allowed amongst the
dark elves. There is a prophecy that the firstborn
son, who is going to be a mage, someone, will
kill Malekith. And so all men who can do magic,
all dark elf males anyways, are put to death.
Oh, fun. Even if they're not the firstborn. He's
just, you know, really making sure that you're
not going to be the one to do it. Yeah. But this
is where like sorcerers are mostly trained for
the dark elves. And again, it's so close to the
chaos portals and the dark elves are already
perfectly happy using dark magic. So who really
cares about that? That not only is there. I have
a question that, you know, you mentioned earlier
that they still have some like ties to family.
They're not total monsters in that regard. Not
like Skaven. Has there been any incidents where.
A mother has gone, actually, I want my son to
be born. Even if he's going to be a mage, I'll
escape. I believe a lot of those actually end
up becoming wood elves of all things. Because
the dark elves, again, it is law to kill that
child. And the high elves are going to get as
far as there's a dark elf coming here. Stab.
Ready the arrows. A hundred arrows for one person.
Five million fireballs. So a lot of them end
up actually sending them off to the wood elves.
Which, yeah, even happens to some high elves
who decide to become wood elves. That's actually
just kind of a thing that happens every now and
then. That's a sitcom right there. One's a high
elf, one's a dark elf. Now they're living in
the woods with the wood elves. Yeah, that actually
is something that happens. Sometimes they might
also just help them escape somewhere, hide them,
but that's also... Malekith has a magical orb
he can spy on anyone on the planet with. And
they can't ally with other factions like humans
who could be like, hey, can we give you my son
to train? He won't be trained as well as an elf,
but your colleges maybe could use an elf. I mean,
in theory they could, but they also view all
non -elves as dirt. Ah, fair enough. So they're
just not going to do that. Okay. That one is
a much simpler answer, and the answer is racism.
Not exactly uncommon in Warhammer, granted, but
they certainly take it far. Anyway, next major
city is Karin Kar, and it's called the Tower
of Despair. Uh, it's the Eastern most dark elf
city borders. The region known as the sea of
chill on a fairly large, like little mini, I
will fairly large Island just off the coast instead
of being on the mainland proper. And it's the,
the city mostly seen by outsiders, not because
outsiders are coming to trade with the dark elves,
but because it's also known as slavers gate.
This is where the black arcs and other slave
ships come back home. They drop them off and
go to the market. Not great. What's for sale
today? Oh, Keith. Keith's for sale. Keith and
Bess. They're on sale. Two for one. It's always
raining here. It's always miserable. It just
sucks. It's always windy and hurricane and there's
tidal waves. Just happens. Maybe it's the god
of the sea doing that. Maybe it just sucks to
live here. Pick your poison. Could be either.
And again, the slaver central of the dark elves.
In fact, there's not much in the way of security
in the slaves here. Because it's on an island,
and to leave the island, you're, one, most likely
escaping into more dark elf territory, and two,
the waters are freezing. You're just going to
freeze to death and drown. That and, of course,
all the slaves are starved, beaten, and stripped
naked on the way to the city. Because, you know,
the willpower has already firmly been beaten
out of you by the time you get here. Yeah. Oh,
also, right. You want a fun little tidbit about
dark elf culture, especially those in that city?
Let's go. Whenever a fleet docks and unloads
all the slaves, right? A lot of people just like
to throw rocks at the slaves. Oh. Just for fun.
They bring bags of rocks with them for fun. Oh
yeah, if they're doing something. It's like a
work break. It's just socially accepted. You
were ten minutes late to your overseer job. What
happened? I was throwing rocks at the newest
shipment. It's throwing day. I had to get the
dedicated bag from home. The satchel full of
rocks to be part of the festivities. What do
you mean? If anything, your boss will probably
also be late because they too were throwing rocks
at the slaves. Sometimes they also actually,
yeah, they also try and incite like a panic amongst
the slaves just so they can cause like a crowd
crush. Oh. Dark elves are awful. I really need
you to understand the dark elves, they're awful
people. They're bad. Yeah, they're terrible.
Yeah, no, they are like the dark Eldar. Just
the technology isn't there, but boy, hell is
the cruelty there. Obviously, the focus here
is the slave markets. The richest dark elves
here have their manors right by the markets and
ports so they know when a good haul is coming
on in. There's widespread necromancy in this
city as well. It's not quite, you know, like
the vampire council would not do, but the sorcerers
here have this magical trick where when someone
dies, they attach their soul back to their unliving
body. which is not the same as bringing them
back to life, apparently, because the soul is
just kind of hanging around in torment while
their body mindlessly mines ore and shit. Isn't
that fun? Plus, you know, all those screams of
torment, they really liven up the atmosphere
for the Dark Elves. That's like, you know, constant
music. In a way, that's actually worse than Kamra,
because at least if you somehow manage to die
in Kamra, you are just dead. Yeah. satisfaction
if you kill a Drukhari. Although, no, their soul
wouldn't go to Slaanesh, would it? Because of
the shenanigans they had. It'd go to Slaanesh
for a few hours and then get pulled back. But
you could at least be like, you're going to have
a tough time. At least again, if you do manage
to die and not be turned into a chair in Kamara,
that's the end of the story. And Karin Kar, please.
That's just the beginning. Yeah, slave port.
And naturally, the negotiations are quite cutthroat.
Not literally for once, actually. Everyone actually
holds up to their end of the bargain, because
obviously if you don't, well, then no one's going
to sell you or buy slaves from you anymore, of
course. Yeah. Isn't that nice? That and also...
A lot of the traders here employ a whole lot
of assassins just for some more practical means
of ensuring a trade goes well. To the point that
the army book actually, you know, the army book
for the dark elves puts it best. It's better
to leave Karen Carr with a light purse than to
never leave it at all. It's a very stable city
because the dark elves always use slaves. You
know, gold mines can run dry. sometimes, you
know, magic's running too wild and up and grand,
the prophecies, because there's a lot of, like,
seers up there, the prophecies aren't very accurate,
but everyone in the Dark Elves needs a slave,
so. But everyone's being like, ah, what am I
going to call him? Gerald, fetch me my decanter
full of wine before I beat you, said, like, the,
like, poorest. dark elf in the city who's like,
I'm a lonely tradesman, but I still have seven
servants who I'm not paying. Yeah. Yeah, it's
evil here. I mean, it's evil everywhere here,
but it's much more mundane evil here, you know.
And it is still in general, once you leave the
slave parts where the dark elves are mostly behaved,
we get back to normal with the backstabbing and
murdering random people in the street and all
that shit, right? But, We're going to take a
turn for the more orderly now. We're going to
Harganeth. In this city, it's very lawful and
orderly. Everything is clean. Everything's taken
care of. It's very nice. Most of the year. This
city is ruled by a witch elf named Crone Helebron,
one of basically the highest ranking of the dark
elves, only second to Marathi in Cain's eyes.
which would basically make her third under Malekith.
In charge of the Witch Elves, which is the cult
of Cain, basically. She rules this city, and
up here in Grond, you break the law, you break
any of the rules, they all have the same punishment,
which is, you know, you get flayed and sacrificed
to Cain. Even if they're a slave, you will not
randomly murder them in the street. You will
not steal. You will not order assassinations.
You will not carry them out. You will not so
much as litter. Because there's only getting
sacrifice to Cain if you do. This is the most
lawful place in all of Naggaroth. Now, you know,
if you're a human ending up here, you are probably
a slave. But if you somehow get so lost, you
just wind up here. It's about the best place
to be most of the year. This is because the Dark
Elves have a holiday known as Death Night. You
ever watch The Purge? I've not, but I know what
it's about. I've seen the trailers. I understand
the gimmick. Crime is A -OK for a day. Go for
it. Basically that. On death night, which in
Harganath lasts, I believe, 10 days instead of
just one, what happens is everyone who's not
a witch elf boards up their homes and prays the
witch elves don't show up outside their house.
If they do, they try and bribe them with offerings
such as their slaves or... elderly and infirm
family members, so that the witch elves will
be content with the offering and go somewhere
else. The witch elves break into people's houses
and kill them for Cain. They will steal young,
you know, dark elf daughters to turn into more
witch elves. And for the dark elf, you know,
sons, they toss them in a cauldron of boiling
blood. If they live, they get to become a Cainite
assassin. I... Don't believe GW has ever written
an official survivability rate. I assume low.
And that's why it is very nice and orderly most
of the year. Because in Harganeth, Crow and Helebron
wants everyone nice and pent up for Death Knight.
Yeah. And oh, and then also in Harganath, especially
come sunrise, everyone involved hurriedly runs
back to their house because even if you're not
a witch elf, you want to get some fun murder
and go nuts. This is the day where it's still
like amongst other dark elf cities, which a death
night is mostly for the witch elves and Harganath.
It is also just now's the time to get the murder
out of your system. Everyone get out there by
anyone up by sunrise who's caught by witch elves
is then immediately sacrificed to Cain, even
though the holiday is technically over. So that's
fun. And Hellebron, for her part, uses this time
to bathe in blood of those slain and is briefly
rejuvenated. She's called the Crone because most
of the time she is and looks old as hell. But
after death night for a couple weeks, she looks
again like a dark elf in her prime. Ain't it
lovely here? Another little fun fact is that
once upon a time, the High Elves managed to invade
the army. Or invade Harganath, right? They've
stopped even naming the place in the aftermath
of that battle. So I'll let you think on how
that battle went for the High Elves. They don't
even say the place's name anymore. It hurts our
pride too much. Don't talk about it. It's like
when you're in a break, there's a guy who's had
a breakup. He's like, just don't say our name.
I know we were together for 10 years. Don't say
our name, please. So, you know, If you have to
go to a Dark Elf City, Argoneth's the one to
go to. Just make sure you really know what day
of the year it is. Because it's going to be very
ugly if you don't. Let's see. The second to last
city is called Haggrave. G -R -A -E -F. The Dark
Crag. If you know how to say that better, feel
free to tell me. I'm going with Haggrave. If
Naggarond, like I said, is a hive city, Haggrave
is built like Kamara. They outright describe
the architecture as impossible. This place makes
no sense. It's a mess, and noble houses have
massive fortifications around each other that
are five feet from other noble houses. So murder,
even more so than it already is in Dark Elf society,
is just always happening. It's built at the bottom
of a valley, surrounded by mountains, to the
point that sunlight... Never reaches this place.
I don't know how that works. I feel like that's
not how the sun works. But I don't live in Naggarond.
I don't know how it works. I don't live in Naggaroth.
It's run by eight families who are basically
just mob bosses. They're like Dark Eldar cabals.
You know, like I said, the architecture is impossible.
So getting stabbed by some random crack addict
on the side of the street who's had a bit too
much of the warp snuff. Gonna happen. It's just
gonna happen. You just gotta live with it. What
keeps this city going, because... God, does it
suck to be here. Like, it should have fallen
apart, is that... This is, like, where the Dark
Elves get most of the metal they need for weaponry.
Grand has all the gold. Grave has the practical
stuff. Obviously, they're still funding plenty
of skin cloaks and whatnot. But it's got nonstop
slave labor coming in, nonstop exports of mines
and money coming in because of that. This is
a they also have the the dead keep mining. But
in this time, it's not because they're doing
it on purpose like in Grand Air. Pardon me, Karen
Carr. It's happening because there's so much
warp stone under the city that your body just
gets back up. Which is probably also why everyone
here is at least a little bit insane. Once there's
a massive warp stone deposit under your house.
bit wacky yeah it's gonna do things crazy things
yeah uh it also has the largest military of all
the like dark elf cities uh they're very well
equipped because this is like where a lot of
the weapons and the metal for it come out of
and because this city sucks so hard that unlike
everywhere else there's no need for a draft joining
the military means you will be leaving this city
at some point It is also, those eight families
together would be powerful enough that they could
probably overthrow Malekith, which is why he
keeps starting feuds between them so they never
realize that. And what else is there here? Everyone...
The overall rule of the city is known as the
First Dreadlord. Every... Everyone who takes
that position usually takes it by way of hiring
an assassin to kill the previous guy. And every
single one of them thinks they're going to be
the one who has a long and successful career
and doesn't get assassinated. And then that goes
on about as well as you'd hope for them. Assassins
here have the most jobs out of anywhere in the
Warhammer fantasy world. It is nonstop political
turmoil and whatnot like that. And honestly,
have you played Cyberpunk? It's one of those
games that's on my list that I have to play,
I'm afraid. I haven't played it yet. Well, when
you start playing it, if you want to... Imagine
Night City, if you ever do play it, but everyone
there is elven, and it's a bit more fantasy in
nature. Hell, and also there's Warpstone in this
city, and the Skaven make their little magitek
monstrosities. I'm sure someone has at least
gotten a little bit chromed up over in Haggrave.
Yeah. Some rat has tried to make, you know, Radom
Smasher. And then our last city is Klar Karand,
which I always tripped up saying that. It's the
premier shipyard for the Dark Elves. There's
not too much about it, in all honesty. You need
wood to make the boats to put the slaves in,
so they do that. It's also where the Dark Elves
get most of their beasties, like, you know, Hydras,
Manticores, the occasional dragon. That's where
all that kind of stuff happens. That's Clarka
Rond. And they worship the goddess of the evil
hunt there because of that. Since, A, that's
probably the best person to pray to when you're
trying to capture a hydra to burn high elves
to death with, right? And it seems to make sense
to me. There was once a seventh city called Har
Kaldra. And then it pissed off Malekith. And
then he snapped his fingers and there was no
more Har Kaldra anymore. Oh, that was it. I'm
just like, yeah. I'm going to take your fingers.
I think it's theorized that that used to be where
the dark elves got most of their food from. Now
it's a crater. So, yeah. Unfortunate, but it
is what it is. There's a couple of little locations,
that altar of ultimate darkness. I believe that's
where Archeon quested to grab one of the artifacts
of chaos to become the ever chosen. To some extent,
I kind of get the Dark Elves being evil if I
don't approve, because if I live next to the
altar of ultimate darkness, I probably wouldn't
be a very good egg myself either. Maybe. There's
those walls that I mentioned up north where a
good chunk of the Dark Elf army is always stationed.
Same reason Cadia was always quite well supplied,
because it's demons beyond, and they would like
to come away from beyond and into our own home.
Yeah, it kind of sucks. They have a... Let's
see. They have a place known as the Anvil of
Val. All three of the elf factions have one,
because even though he's one of the good guy
gods, hey, everyone needs armor, right? Everyone
needs a smith on their side. This is just some
funny lore. At least I find it funny. Malekith's
armor, like his new armor, his Darth Vader armor
after he got burned, was made by a renegade smith
of Valder. And he was handsomely rewarded by
Malekith. And, you know, Malekith, there were
no strings attached here. He was just like, you
gave me this kick -ass armor, almost any weapon
that hits me just plings on off. Thank you, my
guy. Have a fuckload of money. And... The guy,
that Smith built himself a big old manor with
a, you know, citadel around it, right? And then
Marathi had him killed for fun. Right. I'm getting
Conrad Kerr's vibes here, where he had that poor
guy on the ship with him, and he's like, I built
you this arm because I tore your arm off. Sorry
about that. Or your limb off. And then it's like,
the mood swing comes, and it's like, I'm gonna
break it to pieces again. Like, dude, what the
hell? Yeah. I don't know why they did that. Yeah,
kind of rude. But we've been going for a bit,
and as always, there's no escaping it. End times.
Ended times. I love Teclis. I love that little
twink. He was a bastard in the end times, I have
to say. He saw the writing on the wall. He knew
very bad things were coming, Archeon and whatnot.
and decided to tell Malekith that he should be
the Phoenix King. His reason in being, only Malekith
is strong enough to unite everyone under his
banner. A little bit rude. Tyrion's right there,
but so be it. And a variety of things happened
to get that that aren't too important to cover.
Teclis summoned a bloodthirster, I believe, in...
No, pardon me, Malekith summoned a bloodthirster
into the room of the previous Phoenix King after
a bit of a chat with him. So that's fun. Finobar
died 1v1 against a bloodthirster. That tends
to happen to most people. And remember how I
said Naggaroth, I always viewed it as a temporary
home? Well, Malekith took all of the Dark Elves
and sailed with all of them. All of them. One
push. That's all we need. One push. The only
people left behind were at least most of the
slaves. I'm sure they still brought some with
Tarot and all that, but most of the slaves were
left behind and Marathi. Because by this point
in Warhammer fantasy, she had developed dementia
and Malekith just didn't feel like dealing with
her any longer. So that's lovely. He goes to
Ulthuan, informs everyone that he is the true
Phoenix King. And steps into the fire of Assyrian
one more time and walks out whole this time.
Oh, interesting. I thought it would have been
so funny if he went back in and he's just on
fire again. He comes out even crispier. It would
have been really funny, but no. The last of Assyrian
strength then enters him and he is now Malekith,
the Phoenix King. Tyrion's not very happy with
this, so he pulls the sword of Cain and those
elves under him. And at this point, mind you,
ignoring the wood elves, The factional lines
have completely split. There used to be a pretty
clean divide between High and Dark Elves, right?
A lot of Dark Elves are following Malekith because
he's Malekith, but so are some High Elves, because
especially with some dealings with some of the
factions Malekith did. For example, he returned
a bunch of stolen dragon eggs to the High Elf
kingdom that loves their dragons. A lot of High
Elves are under his banner. On Tyrion's side...
Of course, a lot of high elves went under his
banner because they would rather die than serve
a druki, let alone the king of them all. But
so were a lot of dark elves because he just pulled
the sword of Cain, who's their chief god on the
dark elf side of things. And like, well, hell,
that seems like a good enough reason to follow
him now, doesn't it? And the whole thing was
an utter bloody mess. And it ended with Ulthuan
sinking, Tyrion being killed, the strength of
most of the dark... elf gods leaving, and Malekith
now ruling over all the elves, because since
Ulthuan sank, he took all the survivors to Athol
Loren with the wood elves. So now he's in charge,
even though the wood elves would quite rather
everyone just leave their house, as they always
wish. For Naggaroth's part also, it just got
bulldozed by corny berserkers. I imagine they
were a little bit upset when they broke through
the walls and found everything empty. Yeah. All
my stuff is gone. We were promised bloodshed,
and where did the elves go? Various elves became
incarnates of magic. Malekith got shadow, stuff
like that. I don't believe any other dark elves
got a wind of magic. Sucks to be them. What are
the winds? So we got metal. Is it metal one?
Metal, shadow, life, fire, heavens, light, beasts,
and death. When the beast sounds a bit smelly.
What's the smell of? Hide. Wet dog fur. And from
there, the end times kind of, you know, just
go on. The various factions eventually, everyone
who's not chaos eventually begrudgingly unites.
Even the Orcs, who Malekith himself, we can thank
him for letting Grimgor and the Orcs fight against
Chaos. After he told Grimgor that, almost verbatim,
you da best, but Archaon thinks he da best. So
then Grimgor and the Orcs promptly turned right
and, you know, went to go beat up Archaon. And
with that, though, it wasn't enough. And, of
course, the world falls into Chaos. And for the
Dark Elf side of things, let's see, what is the
last headcount? There was a dark elf character
known as Malice Darkblade, who had a demon bound
into his soul because he was a treasure -hunting
nonsense. Some shit went wrong. As chaos grew
stronger in power, the demon overtook him, and
then Malekith put him down like a dog. Tyrion
killed the chief executioner of Cain. I don't
remember what happened to Crone Halobron. Probably
murdered when the Ulthuan civil war was reaching
its peak, to be quite frank with you. I'm loving
the names as well. That's very, you know, like
teenager. A lot of them got names like that.
Mom, my name is Malice. My name is Malice. Your
name is Mark. No, it's not. Malice Darkblade.
Yeah. Let's see. Let's see. Marathi got dragged
into Slaanesh by Slaanesh herself. She unmade
the Vortex in a fit of insanity. And then that
Caelor Dragon Tamer guy put her in a full Nelson
and let Slaanesh drag them both back down into
hell. So she went down sad and pathetic. She
also thought Tyrion was an Arian reborn and kept
referring to him as her husband, which I don't
have anything funny for that one. That one just
kind of makes me depressed to read about. And
let's see. Malekith at the end of everything
was... God, I hate all of this lore. I hate all
of it. He married a L 'Oreal to give himself
legitimacy as the Phoenix King, so he married
the Everqueen and she went along with it for
stability. Not a happy marriage. And then at
the end of it all, he was crushed underneath
his dragon and crippled. And as he watched a
chaos vortex overtake the entire world, there
were two thoughts in his head, one of which is,
you know, generically badass, whatever. The other
is just kind of depressing and introspective.
Thought one was he swore that he would make the
Chaos Gods pay for what he did in denying him
his birthright of Ulthuan and, you know, the
world. The other thought was him thinking that,
man, my life has just been shit. Which is introspective,
but also just kind of sad, you know? No one likes
coming to that realization. No. And that was
the Dark Elves. As with the rest of the factions,
that was their end. I will say on the Phoenix
King thing, though, since I said I'd get to it.
Age of Sigmar. Marathi, when she was ascending
to godhood, because she lived and she wasn't
a proper god like the three other elves who survived,
well, main elves that survived, including her
son, she wanted to be a proper god, right? So
she did a ritual and entered Slaanesh's gut to
steal the energy. of the previous Phoenix Kings
and the bits of Assyrian that were in them to,
you know, steal for herself and ascend to godhood
with former divine power, right? That retcons
the End Times lore, which is that all the Phoenix
Kings after Malekith were frauds and he was always
supposed to be the true one. Because if he was
supposed to be the true one all along, then why
did they all have bits of Assyrian's power in
them? Fuck you, Eli. He's not the true Phoenix
King. He never was. He got rejected for being
a shitter. and uh yeah that is uh that would
be the dark elves wow so any any last questions
very few redeeming qualities um no yeah yeah
no no And I know they look down on all of the
other species, but do they have many alliances
of convenience, especially in the end times?
I'm assuming they have to pick a side that's
going to be who you're going to work with, even
if you stab them in the back. They do have a
few of those, especially amongst each other.
And believe it or not, they have a very tentative
alliance with the Skaven. Oh, okay. The two worst
possible people joining forces. Of course. Now,
of course, both sides break that, you know, all
the time, right? Yeah. Just regularly. That alliance
is an alliance on paper only. But they, you know,
they kind of, you know, it's like, you know,
like some of the cities have warpstone under
them. They give the Skaven some warpstone. The
Skaven give them some slaves or food. and then
you know they make plans to backstab each other
immediately and then we go from there yeah um
there is also the dark elves do uh especially
in older lore would frequently ally with demons
of slanesh oh yeah that makes sense because it's
like allied to their patron yeah yeah you're
not seeing any wild cards like the ogres like
why are you signing with the ogres i don't know
i mean as mercenaries everyone will hire like
ogre mercenaries but that's not like an alliance
with like the ogres because there's not really
one ogre that can do that they're not talking
to cafe they're not talking to no no they are
they are they are stealing slaves from both of
those people actually yeah not a great start
No one likes the Dark Elves. No one. Not even
the Dark Elves. Not even most of the Dark Elves
like other Dark Elves. Wow. Yeah. The only other
question I'd have, though, is are there many
good books or book series for them? The Malice,
as much as his name is Edgemaster Edge, Lord
of the Edge, the Malice Darkblade books are not
bad. I haven't read all of them quite yet. But
they're decent reads, at least the ones that
I've read. Let me double check how many books
of those there are. I believe there's three.
I believe he's got himself a nice little trilogy.
There might be more, but I've only read a couple
of them so far. So those are decent reads. It's
what happens when a dark elf has the closest
thing to a... moral compass. Of course, he's
also the guy with the demon jammed in him, so
again, I said the closest thing to a moral compass.
He doesn't have one. But he's perfect, and this
is from the least perfect of all the factions,
other than maybe the Skaven. Yeah, he's got the
closest thing they have to a moral compass. There's
also the Sundering Trilogy, which is omnibus,
which is about how the Dark Elves and High Elves
split and became what they were. Okay, yeah,
that sounds like a fun read. And then sometimes
they don't have as many books as the High Elves
or the Empire, of course. But they show up every
now and again in other threats. I know we haven't
gotten to it yet, but one of my favorite Godric
and Felix books features them as the main antagonists.
Of course, it's them. That's a good book. They
show up in a couple other stuff. Nice. I believe
Malice has seven books. Wow. That's a lot. He's
got a few. Oh, nice. But didn't you say in the
discussion that he's dead now? Yeah, but that's
also something that just unfortunately comes
with Warhammer fantasy. Yeah. Most of them are
dead. And they haven't had a rebrand for Age
of Sigmar in terms of like, are they more or
less? Because I know some of the factions get
like a whole like. Like the Eid Nefti Deepkin
have like, oh, it's kind of a new faction. There
aren't any splintering them into new things that
just slightly have a makeover, is it? So they
used to have, along with a lot of others, had
a lot of range in the cities of Sigmar. Like
you could feel like dark elf minis or also dwarf
minis and some high elf minis for a bit. You
could use as part of the cities of Sigmar. Okay.
I have a theory that. the dark elves which are
presently a legacy faction in warhammer the old
world they have rules but like they're not updated
and you can't purchase models for them yeah i
have a feeling they're going to be made into
a properly supported army soon because i can't
help but notice as i'm looking at the web store
right now i don't see any dark elves in the cities
of sigmar range so again i have zero insider
knowledge might be happening i hope it's happening
it'd be cool if it did As for an equivalent,
Malekith is a god. They call him Malarian now.
I'm going to keep calling him Malekith just because,
you know, you want to make it more copyright
friendly. I don't care. Malekith is a proper
god of Age of Sigmar, like one of the eight gods
of the realms. He's, of course, once again, the
god of the realm of shadow. So one of the most
powerful beings, actually the only one to beat
Archeon in a fight, either meaning he's like
arguably the most powerful of the eight like
winds of magic incarnate gods. Or because he's
the God of Shadow. He's got some nasty tricks
up his sleeve. Right? But he's just only showed
up a few times. Like when Wrathia ascended to
Godhood, he had a little tit -for -tat verbal
argument with her. She cut off one of his fingers.
He seemed to not care in the slightest. Tyrion
is supposedly probing into his borders for whatever
reason. We've also heard nothing about Tyrion
beyond him doing that. So Malekith and Tyrion
are doing their own thing off in the corner we
don't know about. And there is supposedly a leaked
name for, I think I've talked about before, the
Lumineth Realm Lords, like the High Elves of
Age of Sigmar. There was supposedly the name
leaked for the Dark Elf, like under Malekith
equivalent, the Umbreneth. Ain't heard shit about
that. Well, we do kind of know that. The design
teams and stuff usually do stuff a few years
in advance before it's revealed. So maybe it's
going to be soon. Maybe it's on the back bench.
Who knows? I'd love it for more stuff to come
out. But it has been all quiet on that front.
Well, there's been a few whispers on that front.
That's about it. Fairly fitting for the God of
Shadows, to be fair. What's that? Oh, nothing.
You sneaky god of shadows. But yeah, with that
said, there are plenty of books to delve into.
Possibly a refresh on the horizon. Maybe soon,
maybe not. We can hope. Good lords in Total Warhammer?
Yeah, they got Malekith Marathi, of course. Malice
Darkblade is there. They got Krohn Halabron.
They got a fella named Rakarth, who's the Beastmaster.
He's voiced by someone in Game of Thrones. Actually,
now I want to pull this up. Who was he? Oh, Ramsay
Bolton. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Iowan Rian. Not quite
sure how to say that last name. I'm going to
cut your face off, Jon Snow. I like skinning
people. Of course, he's going to be a Dark Eldar
character. And then there's a fellow named Lokir
Felhart, who is a pirate and has a Cthulhu mask
for a helmet. Oh, fun. Good old Davy Jones. Really
not too much about him, but he's a cool dark
elf pirate lord. And you know what? He's there.
Thanks for coming to the party, sir. Brilliant.
Well, with that said, then, are there any closing
remarks or thoughts you would have about if people
are interested in the Dark Eldar? Dark Elves,
sir, please. Dark Elves. You know what I mean.
Malekith deserved it. That's kind of it. But
also, I would Marathi. Wow. Well, you heard it
here, folks. Not a surprise, but that's in your
earlobes now. That's something you have to deal
with. They seem pretty cool. I'm intrigued to
see, like... Seven books is a lot for a character
who's not even like the main guy, so I'm curious
to see what his lore is with the Mr. Most Hot
Topic edgy namesake I've ever heard in my life.
But thank you very much, Colin, for gathering
all the research for this episode and telling
us about the Dark Elves. I almost said it again.
The Dark Elves. Of course. So we've kind of done
the trifecta now. That's all the elves in Warhammer
Fantasy, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, I believe that'd
be all of them. At least as the major, pardon
me, major factions go. Yeah. Well, let us know
in the comments, folks, which faction you'd like
us to talk about next. We might even do another
sneaky sci -fi sit -down before the next Fancy
Fireside. Who knows? But again, thank you very
much, Colin, for helming this episode. Thank
you all very much for watching today's episode.
And comment below what you want us to do next.
but until then we'll see all of you guys another
time thank you very much take care everyone you