In Warhammer lore, the Dark Elves are the renegade faction of the Elvish race. Thousands of years ago Malekith, the son of the Elvish king Aenarion, was deemed unsuitable for the Phoenix Throne because of his unstable and warlike nature. Outraged at such a nonsensical charge, the peace-loving prince responded by engineering a bloody civil war that nearly exterminated the elves as a race and resulted in the permanent division of the Elves into two mutually hostile camps. In Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Malekith learns of an impending invasion of the human Empire by Chaos and uses that to kick off a cunning plan that will finally result in the Dark Elf conquest of their homeland of Ulthuan and his ascension to the throne.
We began our descent into the world of Warhammer Online's Dark Elves by creating a character and selecting a class. We had wanted to try out the Sorceress and when we selected her we were surprised to note that the Sorceress class actually allowed players to play as a male. In traditional Warhammer lore, Dark Elf males with magical talent are usually killed by the Sorceress' Convent. According to Mythic, the extraordinary circumstances of the Age of Reckoning are such that the Witch King has issued a general amnesty for Sorcerers to come forth and serve their King. Sure, they're probably dead as soon as Malekith's plan comes to fruition but in the mean time a whole host of talented males seeking a new path to power have invaded the women's world and the society of Dark Elves may never be the same.
Unlike the game's other racial pairings (Empire/Chaos, Dwarfs/Greenskins) whose players begin the game geographically separated from one another, Dark Elf and High Elf players start practically on top of one another. While they won't be thrust into RvR or PvP combat any faster than the other four races, the mutual storylines the two races' players follow will often place them within viewing/striking distance of one another. The idea of the design seems to be that while RvR and PvP combat will still be completely voluntarily, the close physical proximity of High Elf and Dark Elf players will attract those players most interested in the PvP combat aspect of the game. They'll never have far to go to find an opposing player to kill.
In our case, our Dark Elf Sorceress found herself fresh off the Black Ark on the shores of Ulthuann, part of the invasion vanguard designed to put Malekith back on the throne. The game's first quest sets the mood and storyline by being a simple kill quest -- head out onto the beach and slaughter a number of the High Elf shore guard. It was during this process that we gained an appreciation for the game's art design. High Elves are tall, graceful and straight-backed, their chests puffed out with a sort of haughty pride. They're every football captain or head cheerleader you hated in High School. Dark Elves, on the other hand, are every bit as graceful but their movements are hunched over, tight and very controlled. They give off an aura of fear and paranoia (not an unreasonable emotion in Dark Elf society) and a psychotic determination to hurt the world before it hurts them.
