Elves of Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online Lore

Along with this latest Warhammer Online lore comes a bunch of new ingame footage for you to see:

Elf Screenshots in our Warhammer Online Gallery
Elf Concept art, and a great rendering that could also serve as Wallpaper in our Warhammer Online Sketches Gallery

But now, enjoy this newest piece of lore:

Of the Elves

Elves are an ancient, fey and rare folk. Some scholars believe that the Elves are immortal, but I believe that it is the cruel fate of all living things to perish, and even these fey creatures die as time passes. But the Elves do live for a very long time indeed. Some of their lords have lived for two millennia, though I hazard a guess that the lifespan of the Elf warrior be until he is slain in battle, which will oft be sooner than his natural death. Can it therefore be any wonder that the Elf wears upon his face such a sorrowful countenance and speaks much of fate and doom?

Physically Elves are tall, slender and elegant creatures with aesthetically beautiful features. Their flowing hair is as fine as flax. Their movements are graceful, and their speed is inhuman. To the eyes of a Man, the Elves appear radiantly beautiful, but the wise should not let appearances fool them, for the Elves are quick to anger and slow to appease. A mortal Man who might by chance cast his eyes upon an Elf maid would think her to be a goddess and would be incapable of any thought but her for the rest of the day. The wise do not judge Elves by their divine appearance alone, but shun these fey and strange creatures, for beneath the beautiful exterior lies an enigmatic and mystic psyche.

The minds of the Elves are every bit as quick and agile as their bodies, but at the same time they are inhuman and strange, their mentality completely alien to a Man. They can concentrate on a single task with terrifying intensity. An Elf can quickly master any skill and far surpasses humans in song, writing, magic, alchemy, architecture or any other fine art. Elves call themselves the First Speakers, and it is true that their gifts of song and speech surpass by far any of the mannish races.

S1

But such mental discipline comes at a price. Elves can lose track of time and the affairs of the world around them, foregoing rest and nourishment. Indeed an Elf may lose himself for weeks, staring intently at a beautiful sculpture or painting, uncaring of the flow of time or events evolving around him. Elves are also aloof, proud, arrogant, and uncaring of 'lesser' races. In their eyes, Men are little better
than Orcs, and more often than
once Men and Elves have come
to blows.
The Elves are divided into several peoples and kindreds. The Great Ones, known as the High Elves, inhabit the great island-continent of Ulthuan which rests in the Great Western Ocean. Their great capital of Lothern in the land of Eataine is the hub of Elven trade, and the port of the mighty Elven armada. From here their fleet plies the waves to dominate trade and explore the world.

Finubar the Seafarer is their ruler, and he is the most cosmopolitan of all the Phoenix Kings. He lifted the ancient bans which decreed that no ship save those of the Elven fleet may ply the seas for three hundred miles around Ulthuan. The city is as far as any non-Elf can go. Human traders can taste the pleasures of the most wondrous city of the world (after our beloved Altdorf, that is) and ply their trade in the bazaars and merchant houses of Lothern. But to try to pass the Emerald Gate is to invite swift and certain death. A ten thousand strong guard keeps vigilance over the city and the citadel of Glittering Tower, the beacon which guides the Elven craft through the straits of Lothern.

Outside their blessed island, Elves are rare nowadays, and getting rarer. Only in the land of Bretonnia, amongst the hidden glades of the Loren Forest, survives the last kingdom of the Wood Elves in the Old World.

S2

The Wood Elves of Loren are the masters of the bow, and it is said that an Elven marksman can hit an eye of a Goblin in the dark. Many strange tales are told in the land of Bretonnia about the fey Elf Lords of Loren. Troubadours of Couronne sing of a cult of Wardancers, young Elves with lethal acrobatic abilities as well as strange and terrible Beastmasters, Elves who live amongst the wild animals of the forests. Tales also tell of Elves who sing to the trees and plants, shaping them to form houses and make the paths of the forest misdirect intruders. The most fanciful tales speak of Forest Spirits, of giant trees that walk like men, but these are probably mere fables. Few men ever venture to the glades of Loren, and fewer still return. When they do, they are found on the boundaries of the Loren Forest, their bodies broken and strung on the branches of the trees as warnings to trespassers. Bretonnians have learned to fear the 'Fayrie Folk', and leave their woodland kingdom alone.

So Loren rests, shrouded by mists and magic, brooding and forbidding. Be wary traveller, and do not venture to the shadow of Loren. For even if you do not lose your life to an Elven arrow or sword, you might travel for three hundred years amongst the glades, never realising the time that has passed until you return to your home and the years take their toll on you in an eyeblink.
Wood Elves live in very few places besides Loren. The Forest of Shadows and Drakwald Forest are said to hold small Elven communities still. A man should be wary in these places, for many have died by unseen arrows when they have trespassed into the domains of Elves, even without knowing that they had passed their invisible borders.

There is said to be a third kindred of the Elves as well, even more sinister than the other two. From across the separating seas come piratical Elf raiders dressed in black, bringing death to the coastal areas with fire and steel. No scholar that I have talked to knows their true origin. Perhaps they live at sea, or come from some other land of the West, past the blessed island of Ulthuan. The Lords of Ulthuan say little of these raiders, but warn us to slay them without mercy. They call these black-garbed Elves the Dark Elves, and hint at some ancient schism amongst the Elves which led to their downfall. It is said that over a millennia ago these Dark Elves sacked the city of Remas in the land of Tilea, razed it to ground and took thousands of prisoners to be carried off to slavery. It is a proof of how the race of Elves is capable of great cruelty and evil despite their fair countenance and apparent civility.

To me the Elven race remains a fascinating, complex and dangerous mystery. But I shall rejoice when they are no more, for then all that remains shall be left for Man. These are the last days of the Elves, and their sun is setting û glorious, blood-red, and ultimately dying.

More on Warhammer Online at the official site: http://www.warhammeronline.com/