Divergence of the Eldar

Era of Elves / ~150 thousand years ago
Over the period of the generation of war on two fronts, the Eldarian civilization fractured into pieces. While the greenskins suffered from their natural tendencies to battle among themselves and were staved off, the elves had lost the greater war of attrition. And not just the Empire, for the Dark Elves suffered tremendous losses to see their plan of breaking their nemesis come true. Fitting for their dark god surely. In these dark days the broken elves scattered across the world to start anew. As usually happens, groups of like minded folk - in this case elven survivors - banded together and the various subraces of elves today began to take shape.

The Dark Elves, having won their war at great cost mostly retreated to the subterranean depths to which they had become accustomed. However, a large splinter group decided to make their own way and sailed to the arctic polar regions. Due to their physical changes, the bright sunlight harmed the dark elves, and so instead of going underground this group went to the regions of the world that would stay darkest the longest. And the coldest. The descendants of these dark elves would become known as the Ice Elves.

The elves of the Empire, the last true Eldarian, generally fell into two groups. Those that sought to leave the shores of Valdemar to rebuild their civilization across the world, they would mostly colonize the large island chain south of Ulthemar, and these elves would become the High Elves. Secondly, those that wanted to stay behind and protect what was left. This group gravitated greatly towards the elven tendency to be one with nature and became the Wood Elves.

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