Guardians of the World-tree... perhaps some progress

Some lore and other ancient history...

In the distant past there were only Elves. Some myths say that Eru created the Elves but they slept until Eru had made the stars; then the Elves awoke beside a lake. Some myths say that Corellon Larethian fought the demon Lolth and the Elves sprang from the drops of Corellon's blood shed in the fight (in one version, the Drow from Lolth's blood, the ancestors of the good Elves from Corellon's).

I don't know other Elven myths, but certainly in Azeroth there is (or was rather) a 'World Tree' that the Elves lived around. They're supposed to be the oldest race, and they have split into different kindreds, primarily the Night Elves and the Blood Elves (the Blood Elves, originally High Elves, were the ruling class of Elven society).

Whatever the version, the Elves are divided. In at least some versions, there are World Trees.

Malekith the King of the Dark Elves (Marvel) is certainly the inspiration for Malekith King of the Dark Elves (Warhammer). The Marvel Dark Elves also imply 'Light Elves', and obviously, these are all derived pretty squarely from nordo-germanic myths with the 'svartalfar' and 'liosalfar'. Why have I never realised Malekith of Marvel's Dark Elves are blue? This might explain those blue Citadel Dark Elves that used to pop up in the late 1980s. They weren't 'Drow' per se, they were Marvel Dark Elves not TSR Dark Elves.

Anyway, I've been painting Elves again. Maybe they'll see action in Warhammer or Kings of War someday soon. Maybe they won't in the end but hell I like painting Elves. And not those camo-clad guerrilla-fighters that GW have been pushing for the last 10 years or so. No, proper guards-of-the-Fairy-Queen type. They wear blue, and red, and white, and bright green, as well as cloaks of dappled green that hide them in the forests. Some of my Elves are Blood Elves, some will be various kinds of Dark Elves, some will be Night Elves and so on.

Some of my Elves

It's only about 10 years since I started on this idea of a united force of Elves. That's probably slow even by my standards!

Sundering Elf Quest of the World Tree or something

Ok, bear with me. This may turn out to be me having a mental breakdown, but...

I like Elves. OK, my Warhammer armies are 1-Orcs & Goblins and 2-Dwarfs (though I insist on spelling them Dwarves, because I'm a Tolkienist)... but I still have a few Elves knocking about, even though I'd be hard pushed to field a legal WHFB Wood Elf army with them.

I would also like the jury to take into consideration the fact that my first D&D character, in 1980, was an Elf. I've got history here.

Fast forward 32 years, and I'm trying to get my kids playing D&D, so I'm perusing the WotC website looking at images to make standees from (see this thread on the Lead Adventure site) and I come across the following picture (which is of Forgotten Realms Elves, (c) WotC, illustration by Steve Prescott):

... which shows a Drow, Wild Elf, Sun Elf, Wood Elf and Moon Elf.

There's also this picture:

...which I found on the Forgotten Realms wiki (though I'm pretty sure it's also from the D&D site originally): apart from the human on the extreme left, it also shows a Sun Elf, Wood Elf, Moon Elf, Drow (though this Drow's skin seems much lighter than the Drow in the previous picture), Wild Elf.

I know different D&D settings also have other Elven races - Shadow Elves in Mystara, for instance.

These got me thinking. How many sorts of Elves are there, in different settings?

I know about Tolkien's Elves - rather more than any sane person needs to probably.

WHFB has Dark Elves, High Elves, Wood Elves and the rather hazy Sea Elves. These Wood Elves would in general resemble the Wood Elves and Wild Elves in Forgotten Realms; the High Elves would be similar to the Sun and Moon Elves likewise. Sea Elves likewise would probably be similar to Sun and Moon Elves. But Dark Elves don't look like Drow - generally Dark Elves in Warhammer World are pale (though the illustration here -

- has some Dark Elves with a sickly zombie-like greenish cast to their skin). (image from Stuff of Legends, showing Marauder Dark Elves, (c) Marauder Miniatures, 1989).

However, the Dark Elf from Talisman (the Talisman Dungeon expansion, from 1987) has blue skin, and in that sense is more like the D&D Drow (image (c) Games Workshop 1987)

In the world of Azeroth (Warcraft) I think there are two sorts of Elves - Night Elves, with purplish skin, and the evil Blood Elves, with pale skin.

I don't really know how many other examples there may be. Possibly lots.

The point is, I'd like to put a force together that includes all of these Elven races, and any more I find out about. A sort of Elvish United Nations. My justification will be that in whichever great forest these Elves are now (Athel Loren, Canolbarth or wherever), they have come there from many different worlds, drawn by the Vision of the World Tree, a magic world-spanning ur-tree that calls suitable Elves to it; they can then travel between the different world where the World Tree exists, probably to combat threats against the World Tree itself.

Now this won't be fast, but hopefully it'll be cool. First job is to find a suitable box of minis...


All images are used without permission under fair use conventions.