dark elf model sheet - old version

what, no valentine day pic?... i don't feel like drawing hearts, but of course, i wish you all happy valentine's day

another addition to bianca's (and lorraine's) world explanation: here we have the Dark Elves, who belong to the Elfin, what means they are first class citizens... well mostly.

like all Elfin, Dark Elves are capable of weaving magic. they are not as interested in it, though. living in closed, crowded places under the surface, with little to no natural ressources, they are more interested in survival. usually, that means stealing goods from other Elfin communities. Dark Elves have developed great skills in hiding, acrobatics, assasination and stealth. so even their magic is usually focused on these abilities, like enhancing speed or summoning shadows around oneself.

Dark Elves' diet consists of meat (very rare, either of rats that they hunt or stolen from other Elfin, sometimes even meat of other Elfin - cannibalistic tendencies do exist in Dark Elves), bread and fruit (reven more rare, all of stolen from the surface), but mostly from mold fungus, which they grow and harvest in many different types; some are sutiable to eat, some are used as medicine. due to the latter, especially the antibiotic fungus type, Dark Elves are superior to the other Elfin in medicine, and this is actually their only trade good.

male and female Dark Elves are usually of the same height and strength. their bodies seem to have a less pronounced difference in hormone production between sexes than in other Elfin types. this might also be the reason why the index- and ringfinger of the hand are of exactly the same length, in both males and females (this is often used as a way to distinguish a Dark Elf from a Mountain Elf, which can look similar to the cave dweller undertype of the Dark Elf; now, why should they try to discriminate? read on and you will know). all in all, Dark Elves are smaller and more slender than the other Elfin, but that usually doesn't essentially mean they are weaker or slower.

the society is matrilinear, but not always matriarchal. the small communtities of Dark Elves, which they call towns (the size is rather that of a village) not often get in contact with each other, so many different forms of society have developed. usually, there is either a queen or a group of eldest elves who rule the town. still, the most powerful presence is not the ruler, but the Thieves' Guild, which is a union of thieves and assasins. even though there are Thives' Guilds on the surface too, they never reach the influence level that such a Guild has in a Dark Elf town.

Dark Elves worship the Goddess in her three dark faces. most often it is Morigu, the Goddess of shadows, illusion and theft. some of the Dark Elves also follow Tschur, the God of Death (usually the assasins).

conflicts between members of a town are usually solved in the town's arena. the queen or one of the eldest is the judge. the arena is the only place where a Dark Elf is allowed to kill a Dark Elf. assasins have to take their work to the surface.

Dark Elves usually do not keep slaves or serfs, there is simply not enough room and food for them under the surface. only the queen or the eldest are allowed to have slaves. these are not necessarily Beasten. because Dark Elves are not well-liked with the other Elfin types, they sometimes even tend to sympatize with the Beasten (there is a certain dislike between them and Satyr Beasten, though).

there are two undertypes of the Dark Elves, the plane dwellers, who live in kurgans (barrows) in the steppe, and the cave dwellers, who live in mountain caves. The difference is almost only in their appearance. plane dwellers have darker skin, which is mostly green or purple, sometimes combined with lighter eye and hair color. there are whispers that this skin color stems from plane dweller females breeding with Orcs (which are an Elfin, not a Beasten race, even though they don't look like that; i will make a model sheet of them later). the cave dwellers are very similar to the Mountain Elves in appearance, and use this to move among Mountain Elves (who live ON, not Under the Mountains) freely in search of things to steal.

Dark Elves are considered evil, dishonorable, greedy and dangerous by the other Elfin (except Orcs, who don't care about them). Expecially Mountain Elves have great prejudices against them, and in some places it is enough to be identified as one to be thrown into prison or worse.

noone knows where the Dark Elves come from, but some legends say it was the Great Dragon War which forced some of the Elfin people to search shelter under the surface...