The Dark Elves were driven from the Elven homeland of Ulthuan many centuries ago and now live in the northern regions of Naggaroth, the bleak Land of Chill. Dark Elves, or Druchii as they are called in the Elf tongue, are close kin of the High Elves and in appearance they are pale but otherwise almost identical.

The High Elves are the greatest wizards in the whole world, and the Dark Elves are also a race touched by magic power. Whereas the High Elves take great care to protect themselves from dangerous magical energies, especially daemons, the Dark Elves long ago embraced the Dark Gods of Chaos. The natural magic powers of Elves and the unnatural vitality of Chaos are mated together in the Dark Elves, so that they have become the ultimate masters of dark sorcery.

The Dark Elves live in six heavily fortified cities, their innumerable black towers rising like pinnacles of ice from the cold, hard rock of Naggaroth. The surrounding landscape is bleak and unwelcoming: bare rock and poisoned blackwater streams, with dark forbidding pine forests to the south. Of their six cities the largest is Naggarond, the Tower of Cold, where the greatest and most evil of all the Dark Elves, Malekith the Witch King of Naggarond, holds court. Few mortals have ever seen this sinister sorcerer, and his body is said to have changed beyond recognition over the untold centuries of his unnaturally long life. His original Elf form has been corrupted and altered by the magic of Chaos for which it forms a mortal vessel.

The Witch King is master of the cities of Naggaroth: Ghrond the North Tower, Clar Karond the Tower of Doom, Hag Graef the Dark Crag, Har Ganeth the City of Executioners, and Karond Kar, the Tower of Despair. All these cities are dark and evil places, steeped in death and agony. Their black dungeons are crammed with captive daemons and unfortunate mortals whose wailings fill the air and whose moans seep through the thick walls of the high towers, saturating the place with pain and despair. At the tips of these towers, soaked with evil and doom, the sorcerers of Naggaroth cast their malign magic over the world and consort with the darkest daemons of Chaos.

The greatest enemies of the Dark Elves are the High Elves of Ulthuan. Dark Elf armies set off from the harbour of Har Ganeth in their huge daemon-infested ships, sailing west over the Sea of Grudges to the Old World and south through the Straits of Rhinasha towards Ulthuan. When they reach their objectives the Dark Elves rampage and destroy as much as they can, often burning and looting whole cities before retiring with their plunder back to Naggaroth. Many of their raids are undertaken for captives: Men, Elves, or other creatures, that they take back to their sorcerous towers.

Few have ever escaped from slavery at the hands of the Dark Elves, and fewer still speak of their captivity. Such tales as are known tell of the haunted dungeons of the Witch Kings, of living sacrifices to the Chaos Gods, and of souls burned up to fuel the sorcery of Naggaroth.

Dark Elf armies are mobile and well armed. Many carry the deadly repeater crossbow which shoots a hail of small barbed arrows. Others ride captive beasts, including gigantic scaled reptiles called Cold Ones. These creatures are hunted down and captured in the caves and tunnels beneath Hag Graef where many strange ferocious creatures live. Dark Elf women are just as deadly as their menfolk, and are equally adept warriors, fighting alongside their men in battle. The wildest of all are the Witch Elves - a warrior sisterhood devoted to the Chaos God Khorne who they call Khaine Lord of Murder. They are the most cruel of all the Dark Elves and the most bloodthirsty. After a battle they choose victims to sacrifice to Khaine and bathe in cauldrons of blood, renewing their dark pact with the Lord of Murder.

Witch Elves eat only the flesh of sacrifices and drink blood to which they add strong poisonous herbs, which cause nightmarish hallucinations and send them into frenzied dancing and obscene revelries.

Witch Elves live in the temples of Khaine under the glowering eyes of their Hag Queens. The Hag Queens are extremely ancient, and once a year they take part in the riotous celebrations of Death Night when the Witch Elves prowl the streets and steal away any Dark Elves they find, sometimes breaking into houses to take petrified inhabitants away for sacrifice. On Death Night the Hag Queens bathe in blood to restore themselves, at which time they are the most enchanting and voluptuous of all Elves, their strangely cadaverous beauty more powerful and captivating than any magic.

Over the year the Hag Queens revert into the haggard crones they really are, until Death Night comes round once more and Dark Elves hide in their homes, listening to the revelry and evil laughter of the midnight celebrations of the Witch Elves. The Witch Elves also steal away some male children to raise in the temples of Khaine to be assassins, and these are probably the most deadly and evil Dark Elves of all, the masters of subtle and murderous magics.

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