Dark Elves

Despots are the rulers of the Dark Elves's fortress-cities — not by birth alone, but through the combination of lineage, intrigue and proven murder that constitutes the Dark Elf qualification to rule. All come from nobility; none have survived without washing a blade in the blood of a cousin or a husband. In battle, the Despot does not harangue: he commands. His voice carries because all know the cost of ignoring it, and his polished scaled armour reflects the inner flame of the Pinnacle of Lygodron — the one that consumes warmth. Where he walks, the Veiled vanguard follows; where he chooses to strike, men learn to say they saw it coming. Under Erythiel, most Despots have been tasked with leading their fortress-cities to the erythrean coasts. The others wait their turn.

The Sister-Mages are the witches of the Black Veil Convent, the Dark Elves' unique school that teaches only the Way of Frost — the Breaths the Astrean Pinnacles refuse. Their training lasts several centuries in the Widow-Sanctuaries; the rare ones who emerge bearing the full veil are recognised as Sister-Mages, and those who live long enough to attain the Supreme title are both cultically and politically untouchable. Their magic does not heal, does not wake, does not fertilise — it seals, it freezes, it empties. On the battlefield, their voice is that of judgement: they channel from the rear of their lines, veil over the mouth, and at distance designate the targets the Way of Frost will freeze or consume. The Convent declared the Sentence of the Veil unanimously — a rare thing.

The High-Binder is the officer who oversees a fortress-city's stable — meaning the rune-chained prison where Black Beasts subjected to Forced Pacts are kept. Calignar maintains the largest, legacy of the clan Rakarth lineage that ruled before the matriarchal formalisation. Where the Astreans bind a Pact through offering, the High-Binder imposes his by rune and pain — every Hydra, every Manticore, every Dark Drakon he leads to battle bears the rune-chain melted into its skin. In the open field, he rarely walks: his ritual whip of Corrupted Steel serves less to attack than to remind his mount who bears the rune. Those he commands obey; those he does not, avoid him.

The Widowed Matriarchs are the warrior-priestesses of the Black Widow's cult, chosen not by lineage but by trial: one enters through widowing — every Matriarch has lost (or killed) her husband in a secret rite from which one only emerges devoted — and one leaves through blood. Under the command of the Convent's Eldress-Sorceress, they maintain the Widow-Sanctuaries and prepare the Veiled Furies for the cult's bloody demands. In battle, the Matriarch fights with two weapons, in a ritual trance state that replaces fear with rage. Frenzied, she hates all species — including her own allies if isolated. She cannot be the army's General: one does not send a fanatic to command, one sends her to the melee.

The Assassins of the Widow are the cult's silent faithful — trained from childhood in schools whose locations only the directresses know, their nervous systems hardened to poisons by gradual exposure. Masters of subtle murder, they serve as the Black Widow's cutting arm: elimination of internal political targets, sabotage of rival courts, ritual execution of captured Astreans. On the battlefield, they do not deploy — they appear. Hidden within a friendly regiment, they emerge at the opportune moment to strike an enemy Champion, a standard-bearer, an exposed wizard. No Assassin can be General; none aspire to be. Discretion is their Pact; the Widow, their only audience.

Every male citizen of a Dark Elf fortress-city serves in the Warrior regiments — short but brutal training, where one learns to hold the rank and strike with short spear. Many come from the ice-farms of the hinterland, raised at sixteen and returned to their family a century later, or returned to nothing at all. In battle, Warriors hold the fronts in the engagements the Black Widow deems minor: coastal raid escorts, defence of the cities during dwarven incursions, garrison of the Far North frontier posts. Spear, shield, light armour — equipment is uniform and without ornament. Their only pride is discipline: a Warrior regiment does not break before receiving the order, and the order rarely comes.

The Crossbowmen are every Dark Elf citizen-soldier's second formation — extension of the Warriors toward shooting. Their crossbow is the signature weapon of the fortress-cities: rune-ratcheted mechanism, six bolts per pull in a fan at short range or a single bolt fired at long range depending on the situation. Each Crossbowman carries three on him at all times; the emergency bolt is dipped in Drakon venom, a manufacturing secret of the Dark Elves and the Dark Elves alone. On the field, they stand at the rear of the lines, at short range, and rake enemy flanks at a cadence no other faction matches. Their captain is called Tower-Master — a reference to the coastal garrison from which they originate.

The Corsairs are the warrior-mariners of the Dark Elf fleets — heirs of the ruling families of the Clar clan who were betrayed and exiled by the other lineages millennia ago. Their exile made them the best pirates of Aldémoros: they sail the cold seas in black-ice drakkars, board the Astrean coasts, the northern Imperial coasts, sometimes even the distant Cathayan ones, and return laden with slaves and loot. Their Sea-Drake cloak — skin of a great Black Beast taken in the abyssal sea — serves both as insignia and as armour against arrows. On the shore, they fight with two weapons, swift, mobile, at ease in the gangways of ships as in the alleys of taken cities. The Sentence of the Veil has given them the erythrean coasts as their primary hunting ground — they rejoice.

The Frost Riders are the light cavalry of the fortress-cities — mounted on Frost-Steeds, horses hardened to the tundras that can cross the ice-chains human destriers refuse. In the time when daemons besieged the Archipelago of Erys (long before the Sentence of the Veil), the Frost Riders patrolled the borders and bore the news. Since the fratricidal war that separated Dark Elves and Astreans, they have become the heralds of doom — preceding the Black Widow's armies, sowing terror, skirting the edges of melees to strike flanks and cut supply lines. Cavalry lance, light armour, sometimes repeater crossbow. They do not hold a position; they observe it and report it.

The Furies are the consecrated faithful of the Widow's cult, raised under the direct authority of the Widowed Matriarchs. The investiture ceremony is a Convent secret: candidates spend a night in the central Widow-Sanctuary, where they are served a ritual drink from which they only emerge at dawn — frenzied, veiled, ready. Their frenzy is not a simple rage: it is a trance channeled by the songs of the Matriarchs who command them. On the field, they run in the front line, two-weaponed, unarmoured, priests and soldiers at once. Their ritual poison — extracted from Dark Drakon venom — makes every cut mortal. They can only be raised as a Core unit if the army contains a Widowed Matriarch to command them.

Tartheryn is the fortress-city of the Black Veil and the sanctuary of the Cleavers — elite executioners trained in the city's arenas where raid prisoners, Dark Elf traitors and Astrean captives are ritually executed before the faithful. Their training is public and brutal: one becomes a Cleaver only after having cut oneself. Their great draich-blade — heritage of the First Widow, it is said — bears as many engravings as severed heads. On the battlefield, their role is simple: they break the enemy line at the best-defended point, and cut down what resists. Astreans captured during these engagements do not return to Lygodron for ritual; the Cleavers execute on the spot, by duty and by preference.

The Shadows are the specialised scouts of the fortress-cities — heirs of a school of stealth older even than the Désolade. Selected from among the Corsairs, the Frost Riders and sometimes the Assassins in training, they master the short-range crossbow, the leap from rock to rock in the ice-chains, and silence beyond what other elves believe possible. In battle, they deploy before the rest of the army — Scouts in the technical sense — and shoot from cover, strike with the blade when terrain closes the angle, disappear before the counter-charge. Their captain bears the title Bloodshade.

The Veil-Harpies are not strictly Dark Elves — flying beasts captured in the north-eastern ice-chains, subjected by the High-Binders and dispatched as scouts. Small, vicious, barely intelligent, they obey the rune without understanding it. As scouts they fly over disputed terrain and report enemy positions to their master through signs only the High-Binders know how to read. In battle, they swoop on the flanks and harass exposed war machines, but never hold a position. No Harpy has ever seen Lygodron; one does not fly a Black Beast above the Pinnacle.

The Veiled Guard is the elite of Lygodron — a female corps selected from among the Dark Elf nobility for absolute discipline and resistance to fear. They guard the Pinnacle of the Black Widow continuously, and accompany senior Despots and the Black Widow herself when she leaves the Pinnacle (a rare thing). Their weapon is the dread halberd: large curved blade of Corrupted Steel, whose aura provokes fear in enemy ranks. Veiled entirely in black, one never sees their faces in battle; some are reportedly the daughters set aside of Despots, others foreigners of dubious noble blood who have proven their devotion through trial. The oath is everywhere the same: protect the Crown at the cost of all, and first of all of one's self.

The Frost-Drakkon Knights are the heavy cavalry of senior Despots — corps mounted on Frost-Drakkons, giant reptiles of the north-eastern chains subdued by Forced Pact from their first summer. The Knight who rides a Frost-Drakkon takes two risks: the creature attacks warm-bloods on sight (including its own allies if they approach too closely), and its scent betrays it regularly. The reward is worth the risk: a Frost-Drakkon at the charge breaks an infantry line as one breaks thin ice. Its riders bear the joust lance, heavy armour and shield; the Drakkon, its own claws and fangs. On the field, the Knights charge in launched wedge, like all elves — but their wedge is denser, more brutal, and stupider when the Forced Pact slips.

The Hunt Chariot is the light chariot of the fortress-cities — a black-wood platform drawn by two Frost-Steeds, with a crew of two Binders each holding a whip and a short spear. Its function is neither shock nor breakthrough: it slides at the edge of combat, harasses a flank at short range, dives back before the enemy has had time to turn. The High-Binders gladly field them as escorts for coastal raids, where mobility matters more than mass. Some chariots carry a wreckage harpoon — a giant crossbow mounted at the rear — used to pierce heavy armour or light monsters at short distance.

The Frost-Drakkon Chariot is the shock engine of the fortress-cities — a reinforced platform drawn by two Frost-Drakkons, with a crew of two Phaethons (experienced cavalrymen demoted to chariot duty after accident or disgrace). Where the Hunt Chariot harasses, this one rams. The combined mass of the two reptiles, launched at full charge, drives through an infantry line like a wedge into wood. The Phaethons do not hold the reins to steer — they hold them to hang on. The Drakkons themselves know where to go: their Forced Pact dictates the direction, but their natural aggression decides the precise moment.

The Bound Hydra is Calignar's signature great Beast — captured young in the north-eastern ice-chains by a team of High-Binders and subdued by Forced Pact through decades of breaking. When she enters the field, accompanied by her Binder-handlers, her trampling alone crushes infantry; her bite cleaves armour; her toxic breath melts close-packed ranks. Regenerating, she returns from wounds other beasts would take as mortal. Beyond twelve paces from a Dark Elf Binder, the Forced Pact slips — the Hydra becomes erratic, sometimes turns on her own allies. The High-Binders in battle are as much combat agents as keepers of a slow bomb.

The Sisters of Mourning are the elite of the Furies — veteran Furies who have survived several campaigns, which is never guaranteed. Promoted by the Convent's Eldress-Sorceress, they master the Death-Dance: a ritual cycle of repeated strikes that the Matriarchs teach in the most secret sanctuaries of Tartheryn. In combat, the Sister of Mourning enters battle singing; her Dance, declared at the start of each round, grants her an additional attack while the song lasts. Their barbed straps still bear the dried blood of previous fights — not by negligence, but by doctrine: a fresh blade is a blade that has not proven. They are rare; each fortress-city counts only a few dozen.

The Widow-Sanctuary is the military counterpart of the Tartheryn sanctuaries — a mobile altar on heavy chariot, guarded by two Veiled-of-Stone (the petrified Medusas of the Convent) and borne in battle by two specialised Binders. Where the Widowed-Cauldron grants vitality to the faithful, the Sanctuary petrifies the enemy through the gaze of the Veiled who occupies it. At the start of each Combat phase, models in base-to-base contact with the Veiled suffer a Strength 5 hit with no armour save. The Veiled herself is never removed from the Sanctuary; she stays there until death, which is slow, and after which she remains useful for a long time still.

The Bound Leviathan is the abyssal cousin of the Hydra — a creature of the north-eastern cold seas, longer, more scaled, more ancient. No High-Binder tames her before his fifth century of service; the first who tried died in the gears of their own rune-chains. When she moves to combat, the waves that accompany her (she carries them with her, it is said) topple the most solid horses. Her scaled hide counts as light armour; her cruel claws tear shields. Like the Hydra, she is subjected to the Forced Pact — and like the Hydra, she sometimes remembers what she is in the absence of her Binder.

The Veiled-of-Stone are Sister-Mages who have accepted ritual petrification — a secret Convent trial, transmuting the living Sister-Mage into a statue-oracle whose gaze bears the curse of stone. The rite is practised only by the Eldress-Sorceress herself, and lasts three days during which the Sister-Mage must choose whether she accepts. Those who accept emerge veiled, half-immobile, conscious but detached from time. In battle, they serve as a ritual mount for a Veiled Sister Supreme; the pair — living veil borne by petrified veil — is a heavy sign of the Dark Elf courts, and a nightmare for whoever crosses one on the field.

The Conjurers are the damned of the fortress-cities — clans who long ago sold their souls to the Powers of Ruin in exchange for a reprieve. Cursed by the Black Widow herself centuries ago, they waver between the world of mortals and the Realm of Chaos, knowing that in time their soul will be claimed. To gain time, they ride across the battlefield on Frost-Steeds, looking for souls worthy enough to offer in sacrifice in their place — the more powerful and pure the soul, the more time it grants them. They are never numerous; each fortress-city tolerates only one cabal, and even the Black Widow prefers not to look at them too closely. Their unique spell — chosen before deployment from Dark Magic or Daemonology — is cast as a bound spell, with variable power depending on unit composition.

The Dark-Fang Bolt Thrower is the signature shooting engine of the Dark Elf arsenals — a glacial variant of the Astrean ballista. Rotating frame, six bolts tensed in a fan, ratchet mechanism inspired by the talons of a Dark Drakon. Each bolt bears cutting barbs the shooter cannot remove without tearing what they have seized. Crewed by three Dark Elves trained at Calignar, the weapon fires by choice before each volley: a single heavy bolt sent far to pierce armour, or six lighter bolts in a fan at short range. On the erythrean coasts, these are what bring down the Astrean defences while the Cleavers come up to board.