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Edgy

2021-02-19T00:39:59Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Video Games */

{{Topquote|As far as I can make out "edgy" occurs when middlebrow, middle-aged profiteers are looking to suck the energy--not to mention the spending money--out of the "youth culture." So they come up with this fake concept of "seeming to be dangerous when every move they make is the result of market research and a corporate master plan".|[[Daria 40k|Daria]], Episode [3.05] The Lost Girls.}}

{{Topquote|My name is Not Important; what is important is what I'm going to do. I just fucking hate this world, and the human worms feasting on its carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred, and I always wanted to die violently. This is the time of vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill and it's time for me to die; my genocide crusade begins... here!|The Crusader, aka Not Important}}

{{Topquote|Make it [[World of Darkness|dark]], make it [[Grimdark|grim]], make it [[ANGRY MARINES|tough]] but then, for the love of God, [[Comedy Marines|tell a joke]].|Joss Whedon giving a nice example on how to avoid being edgy even while creating a dark world}}

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

Another far less negative use of the term is to describe something on the 'edge' of what's acceptable, pushing established boundaries of convention. For example, by this definition ''Batman: The Animated Series'' was edgy for making an animated series which defied expectations of how true to its base concept and generally well-written a show designed to sell toys could be. Some more examples of this would be Ren and Stimpy (which was crude and vulgar) or Invader Zim (which could get dark in subject matter, and used a fair bit of black humor); in both cases, a decent bit of the comedy was of the "I can't believe that they did ''THAT'' on a kid's cartoon show!" variety. A milder version of this was Sonic the Hedgehog in contrast to Mario. In 1989 the Simpsons was the Edgy take on the classic family sitcom archetype and in 1999 Family Guy had slotted itself in as the Edgy version of The Simpsons. For the 1990s and early 2000s Edgy was a favored term of cynical marketing types which drew the attention of the world's sarcastic snarkers, many of which came to congregate on sites such as 4chan.

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding loners skilled at violence who hate anyone else having authority over them, are anti-conformist and have a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" such as big business, law enforcement or organized religion). The end result is they makes themselves look silly. "Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, institutions are the villains unless the edgelord made them and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. In writing, edgelords will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, rape and bodily harm are bad for literature, but rather that their sloppy execution with no regard to their depth is. As shown above, even the most "edgelord" of concepts can be salvaged and even made bearable with proper handling, especially going by the latter definition - but if you do it enough, the boundaries shift and what was edgy becomes the new norm, and there is always the risk of falling ''over'' the edge. This is why the old definition has fallen increasingly out of favor as time has gone on — people began seeing the dross sold under the title of "edgy", and the idea of what it meant thus moved away from the positive connotations marketing execs desired and closer to the qualities described above. Plus, this is the internet, and people would rather a word just be an insult or a compliment to reduce confusion.

==The Anatomy of Edginess==
Edginess is in some ways like a cargo cult. During WWII in the Pacific, the US military set up bases on remote, but inhabited islands, bringing with them a lot of stuff like planes and cars and so forth that was quite amazing to the stone age natives, to whom the world had been a few dozen square kilometers of land surrounded by ocean, with hazy stories of other such islands. When the military left, some of the natives took to making coconut and wooden radios and flight towers based off of some vague recollection of the military variants, unaware that making the shape alone does not get you the functional item.

In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies or problems with authority, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Individuals who pander to said demographic (or are otherwise just downright hacks) will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

===Edgy and [[Grimdark]]===
While edginess is frequently associated with invoking grimdark [[Derp|for the sake of it and nothing else]], it's important to remember that this alone does not edgy make. As an example, [[WH40K]]'s [[Imperium of Man]] has reasons to be fair and kind when capable: though it has plenty of genocide, xenocide (completely annihilating species even when they are gentle and kind), torture, forced labor (they draw the line at commercialized chattel slavery, but un-unionized indentured servitude is fair game), witch hunts and militarism that would give Hitler a chubby beyond the grave, said horrors have reasonable justifications. Aliens were buying and selling humans like pets and culling them by the billion, operating slaver outposts even in our solar system before the Emperor came into leading humanity into a roaring rampage of revenge. And regarding souls and the universe after the Heresy, any deviation from faith in the Emperor will ''literally'' send a human to hell upon death, with their soul becoming dæmon food (and/or sex toys).

Any mistreated machinery will attract foul entities and corruption that will fuck you up seven ways till Monday and chew you out; any ill-coaxed [[Machine Spirit]] will jam and blow up in your face; and any laxity will make [[Chaos]] cults pop up by the billion in a week. Then there's [[Necrons|the genocidal robots from another age]], [[Eldar|space elves that would murder a planet on the off chance that their]] [[Farseer]] would break a nail otherwise (and they're still the nice space elves despite that, as their [[Dark Eldar|webway dwelling cousins are even worse - murdering entire planets just because they like the sound of millions of people screaming]]), [[Orks|the ambulatory (AND belligerent) fungi that plague the entire galaxy in a series of wars]], and [[Tyranids|extragalactic horrors that intend to eat everyone's face.]] [[TL;DR]] The Imperium acts like an asshole Hitler/Hirohito bastard child because the alternative is much, MUCH worse.

At the level of narrative, the fact that things are very very bad is a core thematic element of this world. As pointed out there are reasons why things are so miserable in this world which flow logically and despite this there can be points of contrast. Imperials still have the same potential to love and be kind like modern real world humans do. The Tau are hopeful despite the evils of this world. Occasionally pragmatism can overcome the deep seeded prejudices to overcome greater evils, if only for a while. And even if it is preformed by Conscript Guardsmen, Commissars or Space Marines, each the product of horrendous military institutions, can fight to achieve acts of genuine (if still typically brutal) heroism.

Now if you want a senselessly edgy story in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, an example would be the now non-canon [[Khornate Knights]].

===Who's An Edgelord?===
Who's a cute little Edgelord? Yes, you, you adorable little mass-murderer, you!

"Edgelord" gets applied to two groups: '''Authors''' fixated on making edgy material, and the '''Edgy characters''' they write. While most of this article assumes the latter definition (as we at least try to avoid authorial mind-reading), it's quite possible for an Edgelord author to create an edgy work without an Edgelord character<ref>How? Well, just to start with, picture a modern retelling of The Little Match Girl (the one where the title character freezes to death on the street--looking back on it, Hans Christian Anderson was Edgelord as fuck).</ref>, and a non-Edgelord author to create an Edgelord character (either unintentionally, satirically, or de-constructively).

===Edgy Villains===

There's an important argument to be made about villains and edginess. Frequently, it's necessary to engage in authorial behavior that would be considered edgy in order to properly develop a bad guy. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a [[Mary Sue|Villain Sue]] situation?" and "is the author's sympathies clearly with the villain's agenda?"<ref>Not with the villain himself; plenty of villains clearly have the author's sympathy (what [[TVTropes]] might call a "Villain Woobie" or "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds"); what matters here is does the author believe what the villain believes. That may sound odd, but many cases of "The Bad Guy Was Right" involve characters created by another author, or are (usually bad) parody of such.</ref>

===Edgelords and [[Mary Sue]]s===

A lot of edgy characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Another reason is the "Power Fantasy" route, where the author uses their work and the character in question to attack something or someone from real-life that they oppose. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a Jerk Sue situation?", "do the villains represent a work the author hates?" and "do the villains represent a real-life person or group the author is against?"

Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values, but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

===Sidenote: Chunni===

In some Weeb circles, an "Edgelord" is called "Chuuni", short for "Chuunibyou". This delightful Japanese word combines the concepts of "Sophomoric" ("Chuunibyou" literally translated means "Middle [School] 2[nd Year] Syndrome") and "Edgelord", with an optional side note of "I have supernatural powers". Importantly, the "Stupid and Lame" part is baked right into the word, while "Edgelord" is usually only ''implies'' stupidity.

===In closing===
There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark is not a magic bullet for achieving profoundness without trying, and using it as an outlet for personal grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

==How Can I Tell If My Character Is An Edgelord?==

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, aggressive, has easy access to weapons and are some kind of non-conformist. These alone or even together do not make a character an edgelord. If the character has these four traits, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom;

* Are they a power fantasy against "The Man™"? Note, while it's possible to have an edgelord who's not targeting "The Man™" (since their targets can be enemies of what is usually called "The Man™", such as criminals, terrorists or foreign enemies), a "yes" answer here - with the one exception below - automatically grants the character edgelord status.
** Bonus points if the writer's idea of "The Man™" is big business, organized religion, education or the legal system. Double bonus points if it ''is'' a real-life group or industry, and triple bonus points if the real life group is already frequently targeted this way (like oil companies for industries or the Catholic Church for religious groups).
** The one exception are antagonistic characters who '''start out''' as merely mildly edgy, but can later graduate to full edgelord status if other writers are allowed access to them or the current writer gets carried away.
* Do they openly mock altruistic traits like hope and love, compromise or faith or the Powers-That-Be (the latter ranging from openly mocking religious characters to an outright war on the gods)? Bonus points if they do so without suffering negative consequences for it.
* Do they have a backstory full of suffering?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards if not actively despises?
** Partial credit is granted if they themselves are seeking redemption... by using the exact same methods they used to use, just against a different set of targets.
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? As in a negative attitude towards anyone besides themselves having authority over them.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview? Bonus points if they alter the original quote.
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by Ayn Rand or Jack Chick). Bonus points if they're a nihilist. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or, for partial credit, are the challengers clearly strawmen?
** The Star Trek Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire?
** Do they wear a cloak, a coat or an overcoat that looks like a cloak.
** Does their attire have blades or spikes built in to it?
** Is it emblazoned with insults, profanities, curses or threats of violence?
** Does it come in dark colors?
* Do they wear warpaint?
* Do they have body modification, ranging from minor such as tattoos to extreme examples such as horns or wings? Bonus points if the modifications can be weaponized.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have a vice, such as smoking? Bonus points if they have an addiction (fantastical addictions count).
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by Gav Thorpe, Garth Ennis, George RR Martin, Pat Mills or Alan Moore? (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords despite lots of their characters being unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis; the ultimate example being Garth's professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", an original comic series anti-superpowers power fantasy by confirmed edgelord Garth Ennis. Billy is violent, racist, often dresses in black and is a [[Original character, do not steal|blatant Punisher knock-off]].
* The title character from the Marshall Law comics.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Adversary from DC comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also his edge is undermined by fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.

===Live Action TV===
* Stargate's Sohkar- It's hard to get more edgelord than literally masquerading/cosplaying as Satan.

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Several characters from World of Warcraft. Prime examples from villains are Deathwing, Sylvanas and Sargeras. An example who may or may not be villainous is Illidan Stormrage (pictured below).
** Special mention goes to pre-retcon Sargeras. Originally, Sargeras was so traumatized by the evil of the demons he fought... [[Stupid Evil|he became convinced that good was futile and conscripted those same demons into an army to destroy the cosmos]]).
* Reaper from Overwatch.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example that predates Elric. After his father dies dies, he starts wearing black, becomes foreboding and dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months. Has monologues with skulls and murders his friends and the harmless father of his girlfriend.

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. On top of being a callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich who hates systems of authority unless they benefit her; Vlaakith hates religion but wants to become the goddess of her people, she values strength but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her... a textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there. For more information, look at the [[Drow]] and remember they're like that because her laws require it.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender in that regard, so let's just say the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]] for this one.
*** On that note [[Konrad Curze]]...
*** ...[[Fabius Bile]]...
*** ...and the [[Dark Eldar]], to such a degree they each deserve a separate bullet point all to themselves..
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the Chaos Gods.

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape, killing, eugenics and an violent solipsistic protagonist with enough plot armor to make Ciaphas Cain look like a [[Star Trek|redshirt]] one day away from retirement. When the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
* Bakugo from My Hero Academia probably counts as a deconstruction/parody of one. What else do you say about somebody who chooses the codename "King of Explodo-Kills" and later "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight" while training to be a super''hero''?

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversay" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
</gallery>

Edgy

2021-02-19T00:35:19Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Comics */

{{Topquote|As far as I can make out "edgy" occurs when middlebrow, middle-aged profiteers are looking to suck the energy--not to mention the spending money--out of the "youth culture." So they come up with this fake concept of "seeming to be dangerous when every move they make is the result of market research and a corporate master plan".|[[Daria 40k|Daria]], Episode [3.05] The Lost Girls.}}

{{Topquote|My name is Not Important; what is important is what I'm going to do. I just fucking hate this world, and the human worms feasting on its carcass. My whole life is just cold, bitter hatred, and I always wanted to die violently. This is the time of vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can. It's time for me to kill and it's time for me to die; my genocide crusade begins... here!|The Crusader, aka Not Important}}

{{Topquote|Make it [[World of Darkness|dark]], make it [[Grimdark|grim]], make it [[ANGRY MARINES|tough]] but then, for the love of God, [[Comedy Marines|tell a joke]].|Joss Whedon giving a nice example on how to avoid being edgy even while creating a dark world}}

[[File:Marvel Edge.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Unabashed Edginess from the 1990s]]
'''Edginess''' refers to people pushing violent and controversial subject matter in their stories, especially when they're doing it to to try and be popular with tragic, violent or controversial stories. This often takes the form of senselessly driving a vague argument, a plotline or a scenario to its darkest possible outcome, all the while openly expressing their disdain for whoever "the establishment" is, rationalizing villains or finding a middle ground in discourses. Like most internet terminology, it has been beaten to death, resurrected hastily, and then beaten some more. Has no relation to ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''.

Another far less negative use of the term is to describe something on the 'edge' of what's acceptable, pushing established boundaries of convention. For example, by this definition ''Batman: The Animated Series'' was edgy for making an animated series which defied expectations of how true to its base concept and generally well-written a show designed to sell toys could be. Some more examples of this would be Ren and Stimpy (which was crude and vulgar) or Invader Zim (which could get dark in subject matter, and used a fair bit of black humor); in both cases, a decent bit of the comedy was of the "I can't believe that they did ''THAT'' on a kid's cartoon show!" variety. A milder version of this was Sonic the Hedgehog in contrast to Mario. In 1989 the Simpsons was the Edgy take on the classic family sitcom archetype and in 1999 Family Guy had slotted itself in as the Edgy version of The Simpsons. For the 1990s and early 2000s Edgy was a favored term of cynical marketing types which drew the attention of the world's sarcastic snarkers, many of which came to congregate on sites such as 4chan.

An "edgelord" is someone who essentially is guilty of serial attempts to be edgy, like [[that guy]] at your tabletop role playing group who always, without fail, makes a specific type of self insert or wish fulfillment character; brooding loners skilled at violence who hate anyone else having authority over them, are anti-conformist and have a troubled past - all without the nuance or skill to actually pull it off (with their opponents often being stand-ins for whoever the edgelord considers "The Man™" such as big business, law enforcement or organized religion). The end result is they makes themselves look silly. "Art" done by edgelords contain characters who are as dark, brooding and as painfully unhappy as possible, conflicts have zero compromise, institutions are the villains unless the edgelord made them and any conflict of interest will have the worst possible outcome. In writing, edgelords will go out of their way to make the story extra depressing, and subject multiple aspects of it to an increased shock factor when it's clearly '''illogical''' to do so. Needless to say, it can drive a perfect idea to make an entertaining story into the shitter, grating the nerves of even the most jaded audience. When commenting, the "edgelord" will simply push any predicament in the artwork to the darkest, deepest, worst outcome, while describing his fantasies. For example: In an adult and/or bondage predicament picture, edgelords can be found describing a paragraph of horrible fate the captive would suffer, *should* suffer because slaves are shit, and *deserve* abuse, even when the picture was of a predicament with nothing in context. Or he will simply fill the comment of any NSFW picture with his own sick fantasies, surely adding "women DESERVE it".

This is not to say that said dark elements like murder, slavery, rape and bodily harm are bad for literature, but rather that their sloppy execution with no regard to their depth is. As shown above, even the most "edgelord" of concepts can be salvaged and even made bearable with proper handling, especially going by the latter definition - but if you do it enough, the boundaries shift and what was edgy becomes the new norm, and there is always the risk of falling ''over'' the edge. This is why the old definition has fallen increasingly out of favor as time has gone on — people began seeing the dross sold under the title of "edgy", and the idea of what it meant thus moved away from the positive connotations marketing execs desired and closer to the qualities described above. Plus, this is the internet, and people would rather a word just be an insult or a compliment to reduce confusion.

==The Anatomy of Edginess==
Edginess is in some ways like a cargo cult. During WWII in the Pacific, the US military set up bases on remote, but inhabited islands, bringing with them a lot of stuff like planes and cars and so forth that was quite amazing to the stone age natives, to whom the world had been a few dozen square kilometers of land surrounded by ocean, with hazy stories of other such islands. When the military left, some of the natives took to making coconut and wooden radios and flight towers based off of some vague recollection of the military variants, unaware that making the shape alone does not get you the functional item.

In that vein, most of what comes to mind when people envision "edgy" artworks tends to be the result of people who wanted to make ''morally grey'' characters and subject matter, but lack the maturity/experience/focus necessary to NOT end up with anything other than a multiple-personality-disordered mess or a power fantasy wrapped in propaganda. Someone with (at best) mediocre creative abilities sees some fiction that makes good use of melodrama, gritty settings, dark humor and such, made by people who know what the hell they're doing and figures "I can do that!", leading to said person haphazardly applying those elements incorrectly. The results of such efforts are either tiresome, unintentionally funny or just painful. The stereotypical teenager, especially one with gothic/emo tendencies or problems with authority, commonly embody this - all too eager for "adult" things (eg: violence, sex, etc.) in their limited perception of such, often born of denial. Individuals who pander to said demographic (or are otherwise just downright hacks) will favor this approach over any sense of complexity, subtlety, nuance and some actual understanding of the human condition.

===Edgy and [[Grimdark]]===
While edginess is frequently associated with invoking grimdark [[Derp|for the sake of it and nothing else]], it's important to remember that this alone does not edgy make. As an example, [[WH40K]]'s [[Imperium of Man]] has reasons to be fair and kind when capable: though it has plenty of genocide, xenocide (completely annihilating species even when they are gentle and kind), torture, forced labor (they draw the line at commercialized chattel slavery, but un-unionized indentured servitude is fair game), witch hunts and militarism that would give Hitler a chubby beyond the grave, said horrors have reasonable justifications. Aliens were buying and selling humans like pets and culling them by the billion, operating slaver outposts even in our solar system before the Emperor came into leading humanity into a roaring rampage of revenge. And regarding souls and the universe after the Heresy, any deviation from faith in the Emperor will ''literally'' send a human to hell upon death, with their soul becoming dæmon food (and/or sex toys).

Any mistreated machinery will attract foul entities and corruption that will fuck you up seven ways till Monday and chew you out; any ill-coaxed [[Machine Spirit]] will jam and blow up in your face; and any laxity will make [[Chaos]] cults pop up by the billion in a week. Then there's [[Necrons|the genocidal robots from another age]], [[Eldar|space elves that would murder a planet on the off chance that their]] [[Farseer]] would break a nail otherwise (and they're still the nice space elves despite that, as their [[Dark Eldar|webway dwelling cousins are even worse - murdering entire planets just because they like the sound of millions of people screaming]]), [[Orks|the ambulatory (AND belligerent) fungi that plague the entire galaxy in a series of wars]], and [[Tyranids|extragalactic horrors that intend to eat everyone's face.]] [[TL;DR]] The Imperium acts like an asshole Hitler/Hirohito bastard child because the alternative is much, MUCH worse.

At the level of narrative, the fact that things are very very bad is a core thematic element of this world. As pointed out there are reasons why things are so miserable in this world which flow logically and despite this there can be points of contrast. Imperials still have the same potential to love and be kind like modern real world humans do. The Tau are hopeful despite the evils of this world. Occasionally pragmatism can overcome the deep seeded prejudices to overcome greater evils, if only for a while. And even if it is preformed by Conscript Guardsmen, Commissars or Space Marines, each the product of horrendous military institutions, can fight to achieve acts of genuine (if still typically brutal) heroism.

Now if you want a senselessly edgy story in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, an example would be the now non-canon [[Khornate Knights]].

===Who's An Edgelord?===
Who's a cute little Edgelord? Yes, you, you adorable little mass-murderer, you!

"Edgelord" gets applied to two groups: '''Authors''' fixated on making edgy material, and the '''Edgy characters''' they write. While most of this article assumes the latter definition (as we at least try to avoid authorial mind-reading), it's quite possible for an Edgelord author to create an edgy work without an Edgelord character<ref>How? Well, just to start with, picture a modern retelling of The Little Match Girl (the one where the title character freezes to death on the street--looking back on it, Hans Christian Anderson was Edgelord as fuck).</ref>, and a non-Edgelord author to create an Edgelord character (either unintentionally, satirically, or de-constructively).

===Edgy Villains===

There's an important argument to be made about villains and edginess. Frequently, it's necessary to engage in authorial behavior that would be considered edgy in order to properly develop a bad guy. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a [[Mary Sue|Villain Sue]] situation?" and "is the author's sympathies clearly with the villain's agenda?"<ref>Not with the villain himself; plenty of villains clearly have the author's sympathy (what [[TVTropes]] might call a "Villain Woobie" or "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds"); what matters here is does the author believe what the villain believes. That may sound odd, but many cases of "The Bad Guy Was Right" involve characters created by another author, or are (usually bad) parody of such.</ref>

===Edgelords and [[Mary Sue]]s===

A lot of edgy characters also qualify as [[Mary Sue]]s. This is because many writers who aim for "edgy" in their works are terrible at writing, and writing a [[Mary Sue]] is a common result of terrible writing. Another reason is the "Power Fantasy" route, where the author uses their work and the character in question to attack something or someone from real-life that they oppose. There are a few important questions to ask in this case, the largest ones being "is this a Jerk Sue situation?", "do the villains represent a work the author hates?" and "do the villains represent a real-life person or group the author is against?"

Be on the look out for plot armor, protagonists who not only share their author's values, but are not challenged on these views in any way, and the other major Sue factors covered in our [[Mary Sue]] article.

===Sidenote: Chunni===

In some Weeb circles, an "Edgelord" is called "Chuuni", short for "Chuunibyou". This delightful Japanese word combines the concepts of "Sophomoric" ("Chuunibyou" literally translated means "Middle [School] 2[nd Year] Syndrome") and "Edgelord", with an optional side note of "I have supernatural powers". Importantly, the "Stupid and Lame" part is baked right into the word, while "Edgelord" is usually only ''implies'' stupidity.

===In closing===
There are many paths to success for a storyteller, some of which include going over dark territory in various ways or by innovating and pushing boundaries. However, all of them require care and attention to detail to pull off well. Being dark is not a magic bullet for achieving profoundness without trying, and using it as an outlet for personal grievances is the writing equivalent of walking through a minefield.

==How Can I Tell If My Character Is An Edgelord?==

Every edgelord has at least four qualities; skilled at violence, aggressive, has easy access to weapons and are some kind of non-conformist. These alone or even together do not make a character an edgelord. If the character has these four traits, each "Yes" answer from the list below gives your character a piece of edgelorddom;

* Are they a power fantasy against "The Man™"? Note, while it's possible to have an edgelord who's not targeting "The Man™" (since their targets can be enemies of what is usually called "The Man™", such as criminals, terrorists or foreign enemies), a "yes" answer here - with the one exception below - automatically grants the character edgelord status.
** Bonus points if the writer's idea of "The Man™" is big business, organized religion, education or the legal system. Double bonus points if it ''is'' a real-life group or industry, and triple bonus points if the real life group is already frequently targeted this way (like oil companies for industries or the Catholic Church for religious groups).
** The one exception are antagonistic characters who '''start out''' as merely mildly edgy, but can later graduate to full edgelord status if other writers are allowed access to them or the current writer gets carried away.
* Do they openly mock altruistic traits like hope and love, compromise or faith or the Powers-That-Be (the latter ranging from openly mocking religious characters to an outright war on the gods)? Bonus points if they do so without suffering negative consequences for it.
* Do they have a backstory full of suffering?
* Are forgiveness and redemption things the character disregards if not actively despises?
** Partial credit is granted if they themselves are seeking redemption... by using the exact same methods they used to use, just against a different set of targets.
* Do they not care if they live or die? Or do they want to die?
* Do they have problems with authority? As in a negative attitude towards anyone besides themselves having authority over them.
* Are they heavily scarred individuals? (physical, emotional, whatever...)
* Do they regularly quote-mine philosophers or works of fiction and spout these quotes to validate their worldview? Bonus points if they alter the original quote.
* Do they share any of the same beliefs as the work's creator and openly express them? (for example, the protagonists of stories by Ayn Rand or Jack Chick). Bonus points if they're a nihilist. <ref>This item is more a [[Mary Sue]] trope, but there is significant overlap between edgelords and Mary Sues.</ref>
** Are these views never challenged or refuted in the story? Or, for partial credit, are the challengers clearly strawmen?
** The Star Trek Captain Exception: If said belief is cleanly confined to one speech towards the end of the story/episode, and the author seems to be legitimately trying to just sum up and state the message of the story, it usually doesn't count. (Normally not an issue for edgelords, but it has happened occasionally.)
* Do they always wear sinister-looking attire?
** Do they wear a cloak, a coat or an overcoat that looks like a cloak.
** Does their attire have blades or spikes built in to it?
** Is it emblazoned with insults, profanities, curses or threats of violence?
** Does it come in dark colors?
* Do they wear warpaint?
* Do they have body modification, ranging from minor such as tattoos to extreme examples such as horns or wings? Bonus points if the modifications can be weaponized.
* Do they swear like a drunk pirate?
* Do they have a vice, such as smoking? Bonus points if they have an addiction (fantastical addictions count).
* Do they have plot armor? (such as the Punisher being able to go toe-to-toe against superpowered beings who’d mop the floor with him otherwise)
* Are they a protagonist or antagonist written by Gav Thorpe, Garth Ennis, George RR Martin, Pat Mills or Alan Moore? (Note, an edgelord can be written by someone who's none of these people. And Moore and Martin, at least, are capable of writing protagonists and antagonists who aren't Edgelords despite lots of their characters being unnecessarily edgy.)

==Notable Edgelords==

===Comics===
* The Punisher (pictured above), depending on the writer but especially when it's Garth Ennis; the ultimate example being Garth's professionally published Hate Fic [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher_Kills_the_Marvel_Universe "Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe"].
* Billy Butcher from "The Boys", an original comic series anti-superpowers power fantasy by confirmed edgelord Garth Ennis. Billy is violent, racist, often dresses in black and is a [[Original character, do not steal|blatant Punisher knock-off]].
* The title character from the Marshall Law comics.
* The Joker, depending on the writer.
* Lord Edgelord, later Lord Edgegod from Slackwyrm Keep. He's aware, and <s>he's loving it</s>***CLANG!*** There's no love in edge, only chaos!
* Adversary from DC comics (pictured below), as a jab at edgelord characters and perhaps also their fans. In addition to meeting most of the criteria above, he works for a demon named Lord Satanus who gave him his powers and is actually a kid in a wheelchair.

===Film===
* Jared Leto's Joker in "Suicide Squad (2016)".
** Compare this to Heath Ledger's Joker in ''The Dark Knight'' and Joqauin Phoenix's Joker in ''Joker''. Ledger's and Phoenix's portrayals were "edge with a point"; the former was about exploring human evils regarding terrorism and the latter was about exploring the origins of evil (both avoiding ideological baggage).
* Tyler Durden from "Fight Club". While he started out as "edge with a point" trying to give men catharsis from, and criticizing, the growing cultural and familial vacuum of the 90's, later in the film he descended into being a full-blown edgelord.
* [[Star Wars|Kylo Ren]] AKA Krylo Ben AKA Ben Swolo. The writers were doing it on purpose, to play up the First Order's dogmatic North Korea in space schtick, and to that end made Kylo an incredibly unsubtle Darth Vader pastiche. While "Kylo" may be the worst Skywalker ever, there is no denying that the edge is strong in his family. His mom's side are a bunch of crybaby desert backworlders with an incestuous sex drive and his dad was a scruffy, nerf herding spice smuggler - and all were war criminals, some with body counts in the hundred thousands and some with children's blood on their hands... He probably fits the mold better than we'd like to admit. Also his edge is undermined by fact that he never won a fight against [[Mary_Sue|Mar-Rey Sue Palpatine]] which doesn’t help things either.

===Live Action TV===
* Stargate's Sohkar- It's hard to get more edgelord than literally masquerading/cosplaying as Satan.

===Video Games===
* [[/v/|Shadow the Hedgehog]] for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube. For the unfamiliar: An edgy game about a cartoon hedgehog shooting enemies, yet ESRB rated for Everyone 10 and up.
** The villain Infinite from ''Sonic Forces'', as a parody of edgy Villain Sue characters.
* Several characters from World of Warcraft. Prime examples from villains are Deathwing, Sylvanas and Sargeras. A non-villain example (villain status is debatable) is Illidan Stormrage (pictured below).
** Special mention goes to pre-retcon Sargeras. Originally, Sargeras was so traumatized by the evil of the demons he fought... [[Stupid Evil|he became convinced that good was futile and conscripted those same demons into an army to destroy the cosmos]]).
* Reaper from Overwatch.
* Caesar's Legion and Caesar himself in [[Fallout|Fallout: New Vegas]] (along with some of their fans and the writer who created them).
* Not Important aka The Antagonist aka The Crusader from Hatred. Imagine every trope related to nihilistic spree shooters, push them to their uncomfortable extremes and then plop the result in a monochromatic mess of a game. What you get is the story about a very unlikable man with dialogue written by less likeable people (including an edgy as fuck death metal band) going around and killing everyone because...fuck you, it's edgy.

===Literature===
* [[Elric]] of Melnibone, arguably the first one.
* Euron Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton from [[A Song of Ice and Fire]].
* Hamlet (yes, THAT Hamlet), possibly an example that predates Elric. After his father dies dies, he starts wearing black, becomes foreboding and dramatic and revenge obsessed for at least 6 months. Has monologues with skulls and murders his friends and the harmless father of his girlfriend.

===Tabletop Games===
* [[Blackguard]]s
* Vlaakith, the Queen of the [[Githyanki]]. On top of being a callous, violent, paranoid tyrannical lich who hates systems of authority unless they benefit her; Vlaakith hates religion but wants to become the goddess of her people, she values strength but kills people who ''might'' become powerful enough to challenge her... a textbook edgelord.
* [[Lolth]] from Dungeons and Dragons. Started with trying to overthrow her divine husband because she didn't like her job and it all went downhill from there. For more information, look at the [[Drow]] and remember they're like that because her laws require it.
* Warhammer settings have too many to list them all;
** 40k is the worst offender in that regard, so let's just say the [[Black Templars]], the [[Marines Malevolent]] and most [[Chaos Space Marine|traitor marines]] for this one.
*** On that note [[Konrad Curze]]...
*** ...[[Fabius Bile]]...
*** ...and the [[Dark Eldar]], to such a degree they each deserve a separate bullet point all to themselves..
** For Warhammer Fantasy there's [[Valnir the Reaper]], [[Nagash]] and most Dark Elves.
** On that note, [[Malal]] among the Chaos Gods.

===Fan Works===
* [[Drizzt]] clones with extreme Alignment leanings, either towards good or evil.
* Various [[Original character, do not steal|fan-made]] and canon Sonic characters, particularly Shadow.
* The protagonist of "Ambience: A Fleet Symphony" and the story itself. A Fallout KanColle crossover fanfic that thinks it's a regular KanColle fanfic. It revolves around rape, killing, eugenics and an violent solipsistic protagonist with enough plot armor to make Ciaphas Cain look like a [[Star Trek|redshirt]] one day away from retirement. When the story was posted to a forum and scorned, the writer went ballistic against their critics.
* The whole "*teleports behind you* Nothing personal kid. *stabs you*" meme originated as a parody of edgelord characters.

===Anime===
* Half of the [[Animu]] protagonists in existence. Bonus points if the genre is [[Isekai]], triple points if there's a harem involved.
* Bakugo from My Hero Academia probably counts as a deconstruction/parody of one. What else do you say about somebody who chooses the codename "King of Explodo-Kills" and later "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight" while training to be a super''hero''?

[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Lord_of_the_edge_by_takfloyd-d99sq48.png|The edgelord mindset in a nutshell.
File:1699592-elric_of_melnibone_by_isra2007.jpg|If any fictional edgelord could be called well-written, it'd be Elric.
File:Adversary_01.jpg|"Adversay" from DC Comics. Sinister clothes, aggressive name, smoking, swearing, trying to kill Superman for "rep"...
File:Tyler-durden-7.jpg|The face that launched a thousand edgelords (ironically doesn't wear dark clothes).
File:Darion Mograine.jpg|There's a small but distinct line between edgy...
File:531939-vertical-blizzard-wallpapers-2560x1440.jpg|... and edgelord.
</gallery>

Drow

2021-02-19T00:12:44Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Monstergirls */

{{Promotions}}
[[File:45308.jpg|400px|thumb|right|"Okay who let their manslave out of the kitchen?"]]

'''Drow''', more commonly known as "Dark Elves", are a common reoccurring type of [[elf]], first introduced in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] as a matriarchal society of black-skinned and white-haired subterranean elves who are literally allergic to sunlight. Unlike real-life underground species that develop pale skin, drow have black skin due to the curse laid upon them by [[Corellon]] when [[Lolth]] turned them away from the other elven gods. They produce adamantine equipment (which falls apart in sunlight, yet is bad-ass underground), take slaves, are ruled by an abusive matriarchy that likes S&M, have magic resistance, really like spiders and hate most other elves.

In short, they'd be fucking cool, were it not for the fact that 90% of all player character Drow will be Chaotic Good and be Rebelling Against The Evils Of Their Race, thanks to the raging hard-on underages and other tryhards have for [[Drizzt]]. As a result, even though dark elf pr0n is A) common, B) totally acceptable given their canon behavior, and C) totally relevant when somebody asks for dark elf pictures (see B), people still get whiny on /tg/ at anything moderately crude. Sure, we're trying to hold back the tide of cancer, but where dark elves are concerned, it's totally good.

[[Eberron]]'s Drow are somewhat different, in that they have gender equality (more or less), hang out in jungles with the Yuan-Ti, and the largest known tribe worships Vulkoor, a dickish scorpion god who still looks like a cool guy to hang out with compared to [[Lolth]]. Their mamas also actually love them, rather than whip them everyday before sacrificing them later. They're still a bunch of racist dicks, though. Still, Eberron Drows are the more tolerable Drows, have a nice childhood, and at least they can be reasoned with easier. This means you'll have a slightly easier time playing a Drow here than in any another setting.

[[Drider]]s are what happens when drow take their obsession with spiders a bit too far. The specifics vary from edition to edition and setting to setting.

[[Shadow Elf|Shadow Elves]] are the [[Mystara]]n equivalent to Drow, and are frankly way less fucked up.

==History==
Drow were first mentioned in the second, 1978 hardback of the [[Monster Manual]] for [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition, under "Elf". Here: "The 'Black Elves,' or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. The drow are said to be as dark as faeries are bright and as evil as the latter are good. Tales picture them as weak fighters but strong magic-users." Contemporaneously they are fleshed out in ''[[Against the Giants|G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King]]''.

They truly sprang onto the world in the followup [[Drow Trilogy]] [[Adventure Path]] which, with its sequel [[Queen of the Demonweb Pits]], fleshed out the [[Underdark]], drow culture, and [[Lolth]]. They subsequently entered the [[Fiend Folio]], and Gygax himself gave them PC stats in ''Unearthed Arcana''. (More on that in a minute.)

The already-popular villains exploded in popularity as a PC race following the release of the Drizzt novels to the point of parody, oversaturation, and backlash, though all three have died down with time and distance.

The race has been an occasional target of attack because, like many things can if described in a deliberately-misleading-and-reductive way, the broad strokes of "darker-skinned elves are ruled by evil feminazis and have a savage, half-civilized culture of betrayal" sounds ''really'' bad. To tell you what you already know, there's some grains of truth to the unfortunate implications, but it was the occasional source of bad-faith trolling before people who didn't know anything about them but the memes took it seriously - if nothing else, drow are almost never described as having ''any'' human skin tones in any sources outside of Japan (where they tend towards the coffee with cappuccino end of the skin spectrum), and their facial features are usually drawn to resemble a white or Asiatic appearance rather than an African. It also didn't help that the porny ''Queen of the Spiders'' cover had their skin as an ashen dark tan ''a la'' South India, rather than pure black, or that their hair was originally described as "curly."

As of the [[5e|present]], the drow have seemingly moved past the backlash to hit the most popular spot they've ever been in. They were introduced as a ''core'' PC race for the first time in 5e (albeit the only one at launch to have a built-in penalty), the second major adventure line for the edition took place in the Underdark and gave them a ton of focus (and was retconned to be a massive plot by their patron goddess to boot), and they tend to cameo in most other adventure lines or collections and get new monster versions added with each new Monster Manual equivalent.

In-universe, the drow backstory mostly boils down to them being victims of the bitter breakup between [[Corellon]] and [[Lolth]].

Much like how [[Duergar]] have the long-forgotten "good but still [[Underdark]]-dwelling" counterpart of Grey Dwarves, so too do Drow have such a counterpart race: the [[Rockseer Elf]].

==(A)D&D==
===First Edition===
There never were Drow in the BXCMI line. This line did spin up some underworld elves incompatible with surface elves - the Shadow Elves, the Schattenalfen - but those were Aztec or post-Aztec. Shadow Elves farm spiders in, like, one city only. LEAVE THEM ALONE!!

Where Drow did exist, starting at Greyhawk, Gygax (at first) restricted them to the role of monsters, due to their in-game lore. Both [[Drizzt Do'Urden]] (in Icewind Vale, not Greyhawk ... and arguably not Forgotten Realms at first, either) and [[Viconia de'Vir]] were exceptions, with backstories to explain why they're on the surface instead of down in the Underdark.

That said, Gygax wasn't entirely ignorant to his audience. PC stats for drow elves appeared, alongside the other [[Underdark]] [[Demihuman]]s ([[duergar]] and [[svirfneblin]]) in the original [[Unearthed Arcana]] for AD&D 1e. They were still quite strong, but nerfed from their appearance in the Drow Trilogy for instance knocking out that spell-resistance. They were also less powerful than their 2e incarnations:
::No ability score penalties or modifiers.
::Sunlight Sensitivity: -2 penalty to Dexterity and "to hit" rolls and enemies gain a +2 bonus to saves vs. drow attacks when both the drow and their opponent are in bright light. If the dark elf is in shadow and the opponent is brightly lit, this changes to a -1 to hit penalty/+1 save bonus instead.
::Unlike drow NPCs, drow PCs do ''not'' have 50% magic resistance. They cannot regain this trait without a Wish spell.
::Drow do not gain the weapon bonuses of normal elves, but instead are ambidextrous.
::Drow have Infravision 12'.
::Drow females have movement rate 15', whilst males have movement rate 12'.
::Drow have the Stealth and Detect Secret Doors abilities of [[elves]], and the Stonecunning ability of [[dwarves]].
::Drow have access to the spell-like abilities of Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire and Darkness 5' Radius. They gain access to Detect Magic, Know Alignment and Levitate at 4th level, with female drow also gaining Clairvoyance, Detect Lie, Dispel Magic and Suggestion at that level. All spell-like abilities are usable 1/day.
::Available classes: [[Cleric]], Warrior ([[Fighter]], [[Ranger]], [[Cavalier]]), [[Rogue]] (Thief, [[Acrobat]], [[Assassin]]), [[Wizard|Magic-User]].
::Class levels for Drow Males: [[Cleric]] 7, [[Fighter]] 10, Magic-User 18, [[Thief]]/[[Acrobat]] Unlimited, [[Assassin]] 12, [[Ranger]] 14
::Class levels for Drow Females: [[Cleric]] Unlimited, [[Fighter]] 12, Magic-User 11, [[Thief]]/[[Acrobat]] Unlimited, [[Assassin]] 12, [[Ranger]] 14

Naturally, when 2e rolled along, [[The Complete Book of]] [[Elves]] [[splatbook]] also provided new rules for playable Drow and holy ''fuck'' were they powerful... IF you were playing in the Underdark.

+2 Dex, +1 Int, -1 Constitution, -2 Charisma for initial ability score modifiers, and with racial maximums of 18, 20, 17, 19, 18 and 16 for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma respectively. They have a bunch of spell-like abilities, all usable once per day; Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire, and Darkness by default, with Levitate, Know Alignment and Detect Magic gained at level 4. Drow [[Cleric]]s get even more, in the form of Clairvoyance, Detect Lie, Suggestion and Dispel Magic. Also, they ''start'' with Magic Resistance 50% and increase it by +2% per level, to a max of 80%, and get a +2 bonus on all saves involving magic.

So, what's the drawback? Aside from the sensitivity to light (-2 penalty to Dexterity and Attack Rolls, enemies are +2 bonus to saves vs. drow spells), they also lose their powers if they spend more than two weeks outside of the Underdark, losing 10% Magic Resistance and one spell-like ability each day. If they go back to the Underdark, they get their powers back if they spend 1 day for each week they spent on the surface. Also, they get a -4 penalty to Reaction rolls against other elves, and increase their experience costs by +20%.

===3rd edition===
3E managed to make it almost a whole year before caving in and making the Drow a full and proper player character race in the 2001 ''Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting''. They had the usual elf boni and flaws, plus: +2 Int, +2 Cha; Darkvision 120' instead of elf-normal lowlight vision; Spell resistance of 11 + character level; +2 to will saves against spells; the ability to cast dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell-like abilities 1/day; proficiencies with hand crossbow, rapier, and shortsword instead of elf-normal; sudden bright sunlight will blind a drow for 1 round; and the drow will be dazzled until they leave the bright light. Male drow have [[wizard]] as their favored class, female drow have [[cleric]] (of [[Lolth]]) as favored class.

The larger array of spell-like abilities they had in AD&D, such as Levitation, are retconned in this edition as being exclusive to drow nobility only. That's not to say mechanics to let a PC have access to these powers were completely unavailable.

They had an article on their culture in [[Dragon Magazine]] #298 that really emphasized the darker side of drow culture. Want a sample? According to this lore, drow don't die out because, despite their tendency to murder and torture each other, they're as fertile as [[orc]]s, with females normally conceiving twins and triplets. They normally only birth a single baby, though, because the strongest usually kills and absorbs the others in the womb; these prenatal struggles actually produce orgasms more intense than anything a drow female might feel elsewhere. This sensation, ''chad-zak'', is explicitly called out as the main reason why drow women are willing to get pregnant at all, considering the selfish power-hungry bitches they generally are.

[[Eberron]] has a drow sub-race called the Umbragen, who possess strange, mystical powers connecting to the darkness. Mechanically, this is represented by replacing their spell saving throw bonus with a + 2 racial bonus to Hide & Move Silently checks, swapping their weapon proficiencies for longbow, shortbow, longsword & rapier, and making their [[Favored Class]] into [[warlock]], plus a racial-restricted set of variant abilities for [[soulknife]] and a bevy of racial feats. All of this appears in [[Dragon Magazine]] #330.

===4th edition===
The 4E Monster Manual had some explicit monsters-as-races in the back, and the Drow were one of them, although they got an identical repost in the 4e [[Forgotten Realms]] Player's Guide alongside the [[Genasi]] -- fittingly, since FR basically created the idea of Drow PCs.

For Drow, +2 Dex and +2 Cha or +2 Wis, Darkvision, +2 Intimidate, +2 Stealth, Fey Origin, Trance, and one racial encounter power (Llothtouched) that could be used as a minor action for one of two effects that last until the drow's next turn: a close-burst-1 darkness spell the drow can see through, or a faerie-fire spell that gives combat advantage against the target.

Drow had a couple of [[Dragon Magazine]] articles available to them. Issue #367 featured the article "Children of Darkness", a setting-neutral (in that it was equally applicable to both the [[Nentir Vale]] and the [[Forgotten Realms]]) guide to drow with new racial feats, a racial [[Paragon Path]] (the Curseborn) and a racial [[Epic Destiny]] (the Redeemed Drow). Ironically, it brought back the idea of drow having greater racial magic without touching upon the old mechanics; a paragon level racial feat called Highborn Drow gave the drow a third effect to their Lolthtouched racial power; Webs of Darkness creates blinding webbing of solidified shadow that ensnare all enemies in a close blast 3. This was then followed by issue #413, which abounded in new racial themes for drow; the Bregan D'Aerthe Mercenary, the Elderboy, the Melee-Magthere Champion, the Sorcere Adept, the House Priestess, the Widow of Arach-Tinilith, the Ooze Master, the Secret Apostate, and the Skulker of Vhaeraun.

===5th edition===
Drow are '''finally''' an outright core PC racial option in the Player's Handbook, as an elven subrace. The usual elf advantages, along with +1 Cha, 120' darkvision, automatic knowing some spells: the 'dancing lights' cantrip at 1st, the 'faerie fire' 1/day at 3rd level, and 'darkness' 1/day at 5th level. Automatic weapon proficiencies are hand-crossbows, rapiers and shortswords. They are also the ''only'' core race to receive an explicit ''penalty'' in the core book: if the drow or the drow's target are in direct sunlight, the drow has disadvantage on attack rolls and perception rolls. It's not as crippling as it sounds in practice, but it ''is'' annoying as hell. Better hope you fight indoors a lot, and/or play them in an adventure designed around spelunking or limited sun exposure, like ''Out of the Abyss'' or ''Curse of Strahd''.

Xanathar's Guide gave them a boost with a new racial feat; Drow High Magic. Reflecting the "noble drow" spell-like abilities of AD&D, this feat grants a drow the ability to cast Detect Magic at will and both Levitate and Dispel Magic once per long rest without a spell slot.

==Pathfinder==
Pathfinder ditches the [[Lolth]] aspect and instead makes Drow aligned to assorted [[Demon Prince]]s instead. They got playable templates for the first time in their Bestiary entry, and updated versions thereof in the Advanced Races Guide. Pathfinder goes back to really, really freaking old Drow lore by stating that there's two kinds of Drow; normal Drow, and Noble Drow, who're even tougher and nastier, with a lot more magical powers. These were handled as separate races in the Bestiary, but ARG instead changed it to a Drow race with a bunch of racial feats to simulate Noble Drow abilities, which is arguably more balanced.

Fluff-wise, they're tied into the weird sf-bent of the [[Golarion]] setting, being the descendants of elves who refused to flee the planet in the face of a catastrophe, and turned to demon worship to survive. First-generation drow are actually the result of elves who've broken really bad physically and psychologically transforming into dark elves. Natural-born drow aren't actually innately evil, but their culture, which engages in the traditional practices of slavery, human sacrifice, etc., with the lovely addition of [[fleshcrafting]], is so hideously corrupt that almost all of them end up bad anyway. They aren't matriarchal like classic drow either. Just assholes. Their [[drider]]s are... well, see that page.

===Drow===
* Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con
* Size: Medium
* Speed: 30 feet
* Darkvision 120 feet
* Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantments.
* Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
* Spell Resistance: 6 + class level
* Spell-Like Abilities: Dancing Lights, Darkness and Faerie Fire, each 1/day.
* Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds a drow for 1 minute and leaves them dazzled on all subsequent rounds until they get out of the light.
* Poison Use: Drow don't risk poisoning themselves when they apply poison to weapons, etc.
* Weapon Familiarity: Free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, Rapier and Shortsword.

===Noble Drow===
* Ability Score Modifiers: +4 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Wis, +2 Cha, -2 Con
* Size: Medium
* Speed: 30 feet
* Darkvision 120 feet
* Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantments.
* Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
* Spell Resistance: 11 + character level
* Spell-Like Abilities:
** Constant: Detect Magic
** At-Will: Dancing Lights, Deeper Darkness, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Levitate
** 1/Day: Divine Favor, Dispel Magic, Suggestion
* Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds a drow for 1 minute and leaves them dazzled on all subsequent rounds until they get out of the light.
* Poison Use: Drow don't risk poisoning themselves when they apply poison to weapons, etc.
* Weapon Familiarity: Free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, Rapier and Shortsword.

{{Pathfinder-Races}}
{{D&D4e-Races}}
{{D&D5e-Races}}

==Starfinder==

With Alien Archive 1, the Drow are back. While they're still socially divided into normals and nobles, the stat difference is gone. They're still assholes, they're still into slavery and puppy-kicking cruelty, but now they've diversified into the wholesome and socially conscious industry of interstellar arms trafficking. Drow society is matriarchal again, although gunrunning males form something of a ''nouveau riche''.

===Drow===
* Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con
* Size and Type: Medium humanoid with elf subtype
* Darkvision 60 feet
* Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantment spells and effects.
* Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
* Light Blindness: A drow exposed to bright light is blinded for 1 round and dazzled as long as they remain in areas of bright light.
* Drow Magic: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic; In addition drow count as having the Minor Psychic Power feat for the purpose of meeting prerequisites, and if a drow takes the Psychic Power feat, they can add the drow's limning light supernatural ability to the list of spell-like abilities they have available.

== Eberron ==
Drow in [[Eberron]] have unique fluff. Like all elves, drow were formerly slaves to Xen'drik's [[Giant]] Empire, but they remained when the now light skinned elves having split and left their native land of Xen'drik for Aerenal 38,000 years ago. By culture ''they'' are the original and "normal" elves are the offshoot. Most of them live in the jungle or ruins of giant civilization on Xen'drik instead of underground, they speak Giant instead of Undercommon, and they aren't associated with spiders, with the largest group of drow preferring Scorpions instead.

There are a handful of known types of drow, with each tribe being of one of these types, but the published material explicitly states more exist beyond the known areas. The Qualtiar are nomadic tribes that love scorpions. The Sulatar are giant loyalist who have really ancient magic and are obsessed with fire. The Hantar'kul or "Blood Hunters" believe they are destined to rule Xen'drik and seek to remove the foreigners, who they see as the biggest obstacle to their rule. The Umbragen avoided the dragon by settling underground and selling their soul to a dark power known as "Umbra". The Umbragen are fighting, and losing, a battle with a daelkyr lord's army and seek weapons to aid in that fight, as they are too prideful to ask for help.

While the campaign setting says "sahuagin and drow are not ideal races for player characters", they actually make more sense than most campaign settings. In Eberron, most drow aren't crazy religious cultists and come into conflict with heroes because they are simply territorial people that believe that, as they were servants of the giant empire when it fell, the remains of giant civilization belong to them and all the "archaeologists" from the north are robbers. Typical NPC Drow are still typically evil though. ''City of Stormreach'' states that "a few drow exiles have found their way to the city, and others have chosen to abandon their old ways and settle among humanity", "drow who don’t subscribe to their race’s ruthless ways come to the city to escape the cruel life of the wilds" and that Drow often come to the city to trade. This seems to have been a fairly decent number, as the demographics of Stormreach state Drow, Goblinoids, Giants and other monsters combine to make 5% of the 11,650 population, so there are ''hundreds'' of Drow that aren't actively hostile to humanity. Further ''Secrets of Xen'drik'' explicitly states that Drow tribes beyond the known ones are likely out there past the "charted" parts of the continent, so there may be non-hostile tribes of drow out there.

== Exandria ==
Like in many other settings, the drow of Exandria delved into the Underdark at the command of the goddess Lolth. Unfortunately for these dark elves, though, the Underdark of Exandria is apparently quite a bit more dangerous. The types of civilizations the drow might live in beneath the surface of other settings seem to be constantly beset by abberations and other monsters to a overwhelming degree. As a result, Lolth is actually becoming increasingly unpopular with the drow race, who turn to alternative gods. Most prominently is an entity called the Luxon worshiped by the people of the Kryn Dynasty of the continent of Wildemount. Because the Luxon reincarnates those who die into newborns within a certain range regardless of the baby's race, it's led to a situation where a goblin could have been a drow noble in a past life, or vice versa. Though some drow still remain loyal to the Spider Queen, things have gotten so dire for Lolth that most of her faithful in Wildemount are goblinoids, with the drow head matron mother in the continent of Wildemount reduced to hiding out in a goblinoid fortress.

==Half-Drow==
You may be curious; given that the [[drow]] are still [[elves]], even if they are evil slave-taking bastards, can they [[Half-Elf|interbreed with humans]] too? Well, ironically, D&D never really gave that angle much attention - even though Gygax probably would have agreed if you'd pointed it out that half-drow would make far more believable PC options than pure-blooded drow, being neither as overpowered as old-school drow were nor able to advance in the drow's twisted society and thus less likely to drink the kool-aid & be evil themselves. So, for the most part, half-drow have been ignored throughout D&D's history.

The very first mention of the idea was as "half-casts" (''sic'') in D3 for AD&D 1e; leaving unspoken if these be drow/human or - more likely just from the dating-pool - drow/elf, or even drow/bugbear. The half-drow are subsequently expanded in that edition's [[Unearthed Arcana]]. They're (human) [[half-elves]], but with the drow's sunlight vulnerability trait slapped on top (in short, whilst exposed to sunlight, you suffer -2 dexterity and a -2 penalty on your to-hit rolls, and your foes get a +2 bonus to their saving throws against your attacks - this decreases to a -1 to hit penalty and a +1 save bonus if you're in shadow but your victim is in direct sunlight). Not exactly the kind of thing to make people interested.

The half-drow seemed destined to be forgotten... and then came [[Ed Greenwood]], who, amongst his many ''other'' [[Magical Realm|"inspirations" from his belief in the Free Love movements of the 60s]] that he slipped into the [[Forgotten Realms]], found the drow to particularly tickle his fancy. So, after coming up with things like [[Eilistraee]], naturally, he needed a place to put in half-drow. Enter Dambrath, a region in the "Shining South" that he decided to make ruled over by the Cintri; a race of half-drow descended from the ancient drow conquest of Dambrath under the reign of a particularly foolish human king... well, alright, technically, the Cintri are a melting pot of half-drow and [[half-elf]] bloodlines, since they descend as much from the half-elf [[cleric]]s of [[Loviatar]] who helped the drow conquer the place - after all, Loviatar is basically the Realm's goddess of evil BDSM and femdom, so she's got that in common with [[Lolth]], to the point that Lolth even lets Loviatar's faith be the state religion of Dambrath - but they're still mixed human and drow bloodlines, so it counts.

Ironically, despite the Cintri, no 2e version of the half-drow statblock ever debuted, not even in the Shining South [[splatbook]] that introduced Dambrath to the Realms' fanbase. But it did mean that half-drow made it into 3rd edition in a [[Forgotten Realms]] [[splatbook]] - [[Races of X |Races of Faerun]], to be precise. Of course, like their 1e counterparts, they were not particularly well-differentiated mechanically from their half-elf roots; a 3e half-drow is, officially, a [[half-elf]] with Darkvision 60 feet and replacing Elf Blood with Drow Blood, so they're treated as Drow for race-targeting stuff instead of [[Elf]].

Eberron, likewise, states half-drow exist, typically results of trysts in Stormreach, but doesn't actually do anything with them or give them stats. The implication is that Half-Drow exist but are exceptionally rare and with the drow population that interacts peacefully with humans being the mere hundreds their rarity likely ''is'' exceptional. Still, Eberron works on the idea that player characters are ''supposed'' to be exceptional in general, and playing one isn't off limits.

A more mechanically invested version of the 3e half-drow didn't come to be until towards the end of the edition's lifespan, when the 3e version of the [[splatbook]] "Drow of the Underdark". It states "Half-drow have the standard racial traits of half-elves given in the Player’s Handbook, except that their favored class is the class in which they have the most levels. In addition, rather than elf blood, they have drow blood. Since drow is a subrace of elf, the net effect is that they have elf blood as well. The specification of drow blood means that for all special abilities and effects particular to a drow, a half-drow is considered a drow."

Additionally, both properly half-Drow characters AND half-elf characters with only a little bit of Drow heritage, like the Drow equivalent of a Tiefling or Aasimar, could take the following feat during character-creation:

::'''''DROW LEGACY'''''
::The drow blood in your veins runs true and grants you some abilities from that heritage.
::'''Prerequisite:''' Half-elf with drow ancestry.
::'''Benefit:''' You have a +2 racial bonus on Will saves against spells and spell-like abilities. You have darkvision out to 60 feet. You receive Exotic Weapon Proficiency (hand crossbow), as well as, Undercommon and the drow dialect of Elven as automatic languages.
::If you have an Intelligence score of 13 or higher, you also gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable once per day: dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire. Your caster level equals your class level.
::'''Special:''' Taking this feat also causes you to have light sensitivity: You are dazzled (–1 circumstance penalty on attack rolls, saves, and checks) in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.

In Pathfinder, half-drow are represented by alternate racial traits for stock half-elves. Half-Elves can trade their superior multiclassing ability for darkvision, which is strictly better if that character isn't multiclassing anyways, or low-light vision for darkvision and light blindness. They can trade their bonus feat and multiclassing bonuses for dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell like abilities, which absolutely isn't worth it. Finally they can trade their bonus feat for proficiency in hand crossbow, rapier, and shortsword, which ''also'' isn't worth it since anyone who would bother with those weapons is already proficient with those weapons or is playing half-elf in the first place to get the bonus feat.

Perhaps the best the poor half-drow have ever had it has been in 5th edition, where a half-elf can trade their two free skill proficiencies for the drow's racial spell-like abilities; it's not much, but at least it's something to represent drow ancestry, and it's decently beefy compared to the AD&D and Races of Faerun depictions. Once again, it was a [[Forgotten Realms]] sourcebook that brought them out of the darkness - the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Drow-elf crossbreeds are given the briefest of mentions in the original Vault of the Drow as part of an encounter with "rakes" (think outcast punks) in the (under)city [[Erelhei-Cinlu]]. They have never been statted in any form, but are probably close enough to half-drow to use that template. Still, there's possibilities here for a creative DM.

==See also==
Dark Elves exist in [[Ptolus]] as NPC characters. They worship a [[Galchutt]] named [[Gorgoth-Lol]], which means "totez not Lolth LOL" in the elvish tongue.

* [[Seldarine]] - The gods of the [[Elf]] and [[Drow]] pantheons.

* [[Drizzt|Drizzt Do'Urden]] - A... [[skub|polarizing character]], but still the most famous and iconic drow hero in ''D&D''.

* [[Viconia de'Vir]] - A [[cleric]] of Shar in the ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' games, and a good example of a "PC-friendly" drow who ''isn't'' a chaotic good Drizzt clone. Also [[Bioware]]'s first "sexy, mildly-evil-but-mostly-misunderstood lady love interest" character, setting the template for all those that followed. (Looking at you, Bastila, Morrigan, Isabela, Jack...) Had an incredibly complex, tragic and deep story in the sequel involving brotherly love and sacrifice. Her template may have set off a series of dominoes resulting in the next entry...

* [[Drowtales]]: When an admittedly-skilled bunch of [[drawfag|artists]] with the mental maturity of a blighted potato make a webcomic series financed by sponsor-avatar insertion, porn requests, and (the worst) ''plot dictation'', and slather copious amounts of [[Skub]] onto it. Said artists also have an axe against humanity/BDSM lesbian fetish to grind. ''Mostly'' the latter.

* [[Unified Setting/Drow]] - Arctic merchant vikings who ride giant lobsters, but still have black skin and white hair.

* [[Sandwich Stoutaxe]]: 1d4chan's take on the heroic Drow, she was abandoned by her family and raised by a Dwarf. So named because said dwarf found her in a basket that he thought was full of sandwiches.

* [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition races]]

==Official Art Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Queen of the Spiders.jpg|Looks like a trashy 80's Manowar album but OK.
Drow MM 2e.png
File:Spiderbound Drow Warrior.jpg
File:Drow mistress and her man slave.jpeg|Drow gender relations in a nutshell
File:Drow Adventurer vs Carrion Crawlers.jpg
File:3e Drow Demon-Binder (Marilith).jpg
File:4e Drow Demon-Binder (Marilith).jpg
File:4e Drow Priestess.jpg
File:Drow of the Underdark 3e Cover.jpg
File:3e Drow Warleader.jpg
File:Drow Priestesses (DotU).jpg
File:Starfinder Drow.jpg
File:Bathing Drow Noble.png
File:Drow Prosthetic (DotU).jpg
File:Drizzt by Todd Lockwood.jpg|did I mention the [[Drizzt|Mary Sues]] yet?
File:Drow scouts by jonhodgson.jpg|[[Meme|Welcome to the jungle]], where you can play a Drow however you want
File:Xendrik Drow.jpg|Xen'drik's drows like to tattoo themselves with scorpion venom.
</gallery>

==Fanart==
<gallery>
File:drow_blackface.jpg|not racist; or at least not THAT kind of racist
File:Drows_in_SPEEES.jpg|in the skin darkness of the future, there is only Mary Sues. A.k.A [[Drowtales]]: How to be a mangaka-faggot with cognitive dissonance.
File:Yafgc drow matriarchy advantages.png|drow men have [[Rule 34|a place]] in their matriarchy
File:Throne of the Drow.jpg
File:The Scarlet Tarantula (Drow Monk).jpg
File:TgplaysDrow.png|In surface world, adventurers are always looking for a party. In matriarchal Underdark, matron makes a party out of you!
</gallery>

==Monstergirls==
{{Monstergirls}}
[[Image:MGE Dark Elf.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Dark Elf maiden is an alluring creature, if in a different way to her light-skinned cousin.]]

Given that female elves are practically canon [[monstergirls]] in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] to begin with (where do you think [[Half-Elves]] come from? Human women pouncing on cute elven men? Pah!), and that the drow are both female led ''and'' have a long tradition of cheesecake/pin-up tier femdom-heavy artwork for their females - there's a reason drow are often mocked on nu-/tg/ as a culture made up of cheesy BDSM pin-up art - it should be no surprise that drow feature in works of erotica just as frequently as their surface cousins. Indeed, the talk of D&D sessions everywhere must have had since the late 90's, inevitably, sexualized Drow raids owing to Greenwood's [[Magical Realm]]. Often called "Dark Elves", their skin tone ranges from the actual drow onyx/blue/purple to more dusky brown colors, which leads to the nickname "chocolate elves" being used for erotic female drow characters.

Given the heavy BDSM themes in actual drow society, it should be no surprise that drow monstergirls are usually portrayed as dominatrixes in the same way. Asian hentai artists, however, like to subvert the idea by portraying them as submissives instead of dominatrixes; chocolate elf slaves and maids are as old as [[Elf slave, wat do?]] threads. Might have something to do with [[/pol/|dark skin being considered inferior in Asian cultures]].

In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], the Dark Elves have willingly embraced [[succubus]]ization, unlike their Light Elf kindred. This has turned them into a perverse culture of dominatrixes, who take human men as their sexual slaves. They were some of the setting's earliest [[skub]] when it was confirmed that they actually do practice incest, with young dark elves being taught the arts of sexual dominance, bondage and sado-masochism by using their fathers as their subs, yeesh.

==MonsterGirl Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CestreeandDrow.jpg
File:Dark elf.jpg
File:Fertile Drow Sorceress.jpg
File:Chocolate elf.jpg|Because chocobutt best butt.
File:Dark elf vs High elf.jpg
File:Pink Haired Drow.png
File:Dark Elf Butt.jpg
File:Dark Elf Matriarch.jpg
File:Drow and Broken Mirror.jpg
File:Drow Cleric.jpg
File:Drow Duelist.jpg
File:Dark Elf Sorceress.jpg
File:Drow Fantasy Armor.jpg
File:Drow Harpist.jpg
File:Drow Queen Valsharess Fanart.jpg
File:Drow Matron Mother.jpeg
File:Drow Sorceress.jpg
File:Drow Sorceress 2.jpg
File:Drow Vampiress.jpg
File:Drow Violinist.jpg
File:Drow Swordsinger.jpg
File:Skimpily Clad Drow Sorceress.png
File:Shortstack Dark Elf.png|This height is canon in [[Dungeons & Dragons|D&D]]

</gallery>

Drow

2021-02-19T00:12:29Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Monstergirls */

{{Promotions}}
[[File:45308.jpg|400px|thumb|right|"Okay who let their manslave out of the kitchen?"]]

'''Drow''', more commonly known as "Dark Elves", are a common reoccurring type of [[elf]], first introduced in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] as a matriarchal society of black-skinned and white-haired subterranean elves who are literally allergic to sunlight. Unlike real-life underground species that develop pale skin, drow have black skin due to the curse laid upon them by [[Corellon]] when [[Lolth]] turned them away from the other elven gods. They produce adamantine equipment (which falls apart in sunlight, yet is bad-ass underground), take slaves, are ruled by an abusive matriarchy that likes S&M, have magic resistance, really like spiders and hate most other elves.

In short, they'd be fucking cool, were it not for the fact that 90% of all player character Drow will be Chaotic Good and be Rebelling Against The Evils Of Their Race, thanks to the raging hard-on underages and other tryhards have for [[Drizzt]]. As a result, even though dark elf pr0n is A) common, B) totally acceptable given their canon behavior, and C) totally relevant when somebody asks for dark elf pictures (see B), people still get whiny on /tg/ at anything moderately crude. Sure, we're trying to hold back the tide of cancer, but where dark elves are concerned, it's totally good.

[[Eberron]]'s Drow are somewhat different, in that they have gender equality (more or less), hang out in jungles with the Yuan-Ti, and the largest known tribe worships Vulkoor, a dickish scorpion god who still looks like a cool guy to hang out with compared to [[Lolth]]. Their mamas also actually love them, rather than whip them everyday before sacrificing them later. They're still a bunch of racist dicks, though. Still, Eberron Drows are the more tolerable Drows, have a nice childhood, and at least they can be reasoned with easier. This means you'll have a slightly easier time playing a Drow here than in any another setting.

[[Drider]]s are what happens when drow take their obsession with spiders a bit too far. The specifics vary from edition to edition and setting to setting.

[[Shadow Elf|Shadow Elves]] are the [[Mystara]]n equivalent to Drow, and are frankly way less fucked up.

==History==
Drow were first mentioned in the second, 1978 hardback of the [[Monster Manual]] for [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition, under "Elf". Here: "The 'Black Elves,' or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. The drow are said to be as dark as faeries are bright and as evil as the latter are good. Tales picture them as weak fighters but strong magic-users." Contemporaneously they are fleshed out in ''[[Against the Giants|G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King]]''.

They truly sprang onto the world in the followup [[Drow Trilogy]] [[Adventure Path]] which, with its sequel [[Queen of the Demonweb Pits]], fleshed out the [[Underdark]], drow culture, and [[Lolth]]. They subsequently entered the [[Fiend Folio]], and Gygax himself gave them PC stats in ''Unearthed Arcana''. (More on that in a minute.)

The already-popular villains exploded in popularity as a PC race following the release of the Drizzt novels to the point of parody, oversaturation, and backlash, though all three have died down with time and distance.

The race has been an occasional target of attack because, like many things can if described in a deliberately-misleading-and-reductive way, the broad strokes of "darker-skinned elves are ruled by evil feminazis and have a savage, half-civilized culture of betrayal" sounds ''really'' bad. To tell you what you already know, there's some grains of truth to the unfortunate implications, but it was the occasional source of bad-faith trolling before people who didn't know anything about them but the memes took it seriously - if nothing else, drow are almost never described as having ''any'' human skin tones in any sources outside of Japan (where they tend towards the coffee with cappuccino end of the skin spectrum), and their facial features are usually drawn to resemble a white or Asiatic appearance rather than an African. It also didn't help that the porny ''Queen of the Spiders'' cover had their skin as an ashen dark tan ''a la'' South India, rather than pure black, or that their hair was originally described as "curly."

As of the [[5e|present]], the drow have seemingly moved past the backlash to hit the most popular spot they've ever been in. They were introduced as a ''core'' PC race for the first time in 5e (albeit the only one at launch to have a built-in penalty), the second major adventure line for the edition took place in the Underdark and gave them a ton of focus (and was retconned to be a massive plot by their patron goddess to boot), and they tend to cameo in most other adventure lines or collections and get new monster versions added with each new Monster Manual equivalent.

In-universe, the drow backstory mostly boils down to them being victims of the bitter breakup between [[Corellon]] and [[Lolth]].

Much like how [[Duergar]] have the long-forgotten "good but still [[Underdark]]-dwelling" counterpart of Grey Dwarves, so too do Drow have such a counterpart race: the [[Rockseer Elf]].

==(A)D&D==
===First Edition===
There never were Drow in the BXCMI line. This line did spin up some underworld elves incompatible with surface elves - the Shadow Elves, the Schattenalfen - but those were Aztec or post-Aztec. Shadow Elves farm spiders in, like, one city only. LEAVE THEM ALONE!!

Where Drow did exist, starting at Greyhawk, Gygax (at first) restricted them to the role of monsters, due to their in-game lore. Both [[Drizzt Do'Urden]] (in Icewind Vale, not Greyhawk ... and arguably not Forgotten Realms at first, either) and [[Viconia de'Vir]] were exceptions, with backstories to explain why they're on the surface instead of down in the Underdark.

That said, Gygax wasn't entirely ignorant to his audience. PC stats for drow elves appeared, alongside the other [[Underdark]] [[Demihuman]]s ([[duergar]] and [[svirfneblin]]) in the original [[Unearthed Arcana]] for AD&D 1e. They were still quite strong, but nerfed from their appearance in the Drow Trilogy for instance knocking out that spell-resistance. They were also less powerful than their 2e incarnations:
::No ability score penalties or modifiers.
::Sunlight Sensitivity: -2 penalty to Dexterity and "to hit" rolls and enemies gain a +2 bonus to saves vs. drow attacks when both the drow and their opponent are in bright light. If the dark elf is in shadow and the opponent is brightly lit, this changes to a -1 to hit penalty/+1 save bonus instead.
::Unlike drow NPCs, drow PCs do ''not'' have 50% magic resistance. They cannot regain this trait without a Wish spell.
::Drow do not gain the weapon bonuses of normal elves, but instead are ambidextrous.
::Drow have Infravision 12'.
::Drow females have movement rate 15', whilst males have movement rate 12'.
::Drow have the Stealth and Detect Secret Doors abilities of [[elves]], and the Stonecunning ability of [[dwarves]].
::Drow have access to the spell-like abilities of Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire and Darkness 5' Radius. They gain access to Detect Magic, Know Alignment and Levitate at 4th level, with female drow also gaining Clairvoyance, Detect Lie, Dispel Magic and Suggestion at that level. All spell-like abilities are usable 1/day.
::Available classes: [[Cleric]], Warrior ([[Fighter]], [[Ranger]], [[Cavalier]]), [[Rogue]] (Thief, [[Acrobat]], [[Assassin]]), [[Wizard|Magic-User]].
::Class levels for Drow Males: [[Cleric]] 7, [[Fighter]] 10, Magic-User 18, [[Thief]]/[[Acrobat]] Unlimited, [[Assassin]] 12, [[Ranger]] 14
::Class levels for Drow Females: [[Cleric]] Unlimited, [[Fighter]] 12, Magic-User 11, [[Thief]]/[[Acrobat]] Unlimited, [[Assassin]] 12, [[Ranger]] 14

Naturally, when 2e rolled along, [[The Complete Book of]] [[Elves]] [[splatbook]] also provided new rules for playable Drow and holy ''fuck'' were they powerful... IF you were playing in the Underdark.

+2 Dex, +1 Int, -1 Constitution, -2 Charisma for initial ability score modifiers, and with racial maximums of 18, 20, 17, 19, 18 and 16 for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma respectively. They have a bunch of spell-like abilities, all usable once per day; Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire, and Darkness by default, with Levitate, Know Alignment and Detect Magic gained at level 4. Drow [[Cleric]]s get even more, in the form of Clairvoyance, Detect Lie, Suggestion and Dispel Magic. Also, they ''start'' with Magic Resistance 50% and increase it by +2% per level, to a max of 80%, and get a +2 bonus on all saves involving magic.

So, what's the drawback? Aside from the sensitivity to light (-2 penalty to Dexterity and Attack Rolls, enemies are +2 bonus to saves vs. drow spells), they also lose their powers if they spend more than two weeks outside of the Underdark, losing 10% Magic Resistance and one spell-like ability each day. If they go back to the Underdark, they get their powers back if they spend 1 day for each week they spent on the surface. Also, they get a -4 penalty to Reaction rolls against other elves, and increase their experience costs by +20%.

===3rd edition===
3E managed to make it almost a whole year before caving in and making the Drow a full and proper player character race in the 2001 ''Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting''. They had the usual elf boni and flaws, plus: +2 Int, +2 Cha; Darkvision 120' instead of elf-normal lowlight vision; Spell resistance of 11 + character level; +2 to will saves against spells; the ability to cast dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell-like abilities 1/day; proficiencies with hand crossbow, rapier, and shortsword instead of elf-normal; sudden bright sunlight will blind a drow for 1 round; and the drow will be dazzled until they leave the bright light. Male drow have [[wizard]] as their favored class, female drow have [[cleric]] (of [[Lolth]]) as favored class.

The larger array of spell-like abilities they had in AD&D, such as Levitation, are retconned in this edition as being exclusive to drow nobility only. That's not to say mechanics to let a PC have access to these powers were completely unavailable.

They had an article on their culture in [[Dragon Magazine]] #298 that really emphasized the darker side of drow culture. Want a sample? According to this lore, drow don't die out because, despite their tendency to murder and torture each other, they're as fertile as [[orc]]s, with females normally conceiving twins and triplets. They normally only birth a single baby, though, because the strongest usually kills and absorbs the others in the womb; these prenatal struggles actually produce orgasms more intense than anything a drow female might feel elsewhere. This sensation, ''chad-zak'', is explicitly called out as the main reason why drow women are willing to get pregnant at all, considering the selfish power-hungry bitches they generally are.

[[Eberron]] has a drow sub-race called the Umbragen, who possess strange, mystical powers connecting to the darkness. Mechanically, this is represented by replacing their spell saving throw bonus with a + 2 racial bonus to Hide & Move Silently checks, swapping their weapon proficiencies for longbow, shortbow, longsword & rapier, and making their [[Favored Class]] into [[warlock]], plus a racial-restricted set of variant abilities for [[soulknife]] and a bevy of racial feats. All of this appears in [[Dragon Magazine]] #330.

===4th edition===
The 4E Monster Manual had some explicit monsters-as-races in the back, and the Drow were one of them, although they got an identical repost in the 4e [[Forgotten Realms]] Player's Guide alongside the [[Genasi]] -- fittingly, since FR basically created the idea of Drow PCs.

For Drow, +2 Dex and +2 Cha or +2 Wis, Darkvision, +2 Intimidate, +2 Stealth, Fey Origin, Trance, and one racial encounter power (Llothtouched) that could be used as a minor action for one of two effects that last until the drow's next turn: a close-burst-1 darkness spell the drow can see through, or a faerie-fire spell that gives combat advantage against the target.

Drow had a couple of [[Dragon Magazine]] articles available to them. Issue #367 featured the article "Children of Darkness", a setting-neutral (in that it was equally applicable to both the [[Nentir Vale]] and the [[Forgotten Realms]]) guide to drow with new racial feats, a racial [[Paragon Path]] (the Curseborn) and a racial [[Epic Destiny]] (the Redeemed Drow). Ironically, it brought back the idea of drow having greater racial magic without touching upon the old mechanics; a paragon level racial feat called Highborn Drow gave the drow a third effect to their Lolthtouched racial power; Webs of Darkness creates blinding webbing of solidified shadow that ensnare all enemies in a close blast 3. This was then followed by issue #413, which abounded in new racial themes for drow; the Bregan D'Aerthe Mercenary, the Elderboy, the Melee-Magthere Champion, the Sorcere Adept, the House Priestess, the Widow of Arach-Tinilith, the Ooze Master, the Secret Apostate, and the Skulker of Vhaeraun.

===5th edition===
Drow are '''finally''' an outright core PC racial option in the Player's Handbook, as an elven subrace. The usual elf advantages, along with +1 Cha, 120' darkvision, automatic knowing some spells: the 'dancing lights' cantrip at 1st, the 'faerie fire' 1/day at 3rd level, and 'darkness' 1/day at 5th level. Automatic weapon proficiencies are hand-crossbows, rapiers and shortswords. They are also the ''only'' core race to receive an explicit ''penalty'' in the core book: if the drow or the drow's target are in direct sunlight, the drow has disadvantage on attack rolls and perception rolls. It's not as crippling as it sounds in practice, but it ''is'' annoying as hell. Better hope you fight indoors a lot, and/or play them in an adventure designed around spelunking or limited sun exposure, like ''Out of the Abyss'' or ''Curse of Strahd''.

Xanathar's Guide gave them a boost with a new racial feat; Drow High Magic. Reflecting the "noble drow" spell-like abilities of AD&D, this feat grants a drow the ability to cast Detect Magic at will and both Levitate and Dispel Magic once per long rest without a spell slot.

==Pathfinder==
Pathfinder ditches the [[Lolth]] aspect and instead makes Drow aligned to assorted [[Demon Prince]]s instead. They got playable templates for the first time in their Bestiary entry, and updated versions thereof in the Advanced Races Guide. Pathfinder goes back to really, really freaking old Drow lore by stating that there's two kinds of Drow; normal Drow, and Noble Drow, who're even tougher and nastier, with a lot more magical powers. These were handled as separate races in the Bestiary, but ARG instead changed it to a Drow race with a bunch of racial feats to simulate Noble Drow abilities, which is arguably more balanced.

Fluff-wise, they're tied into the weird sf-bent of the [[Golarion]] setting, being the descendants of elves who refused to flee the planet in the face of a catastrophe, and turned to demon worship to survive. First-generation drow are actually the result of elves who've broken really bad physically and psychologically transforming into dark elves. Natural-born drow aren't actually innately evil, but their culture, which engages in the traditional practices of slavery, human sacrifice, etc., with the lovely addition of [[fleshcrafting]], is so hideously corrupt that almost all of them end up bad anyway. They aren't matriarchal like classic drow either. Just assholes. Their [[drider]]s are... well, see that page.

===Drow===
* Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con
* Size: Medium
* Speed: 30 feet
* Darkvision 120 feet
* Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantments.
* Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
* Spell Resistance: 6 + class level
* Spell-Like Abilities: Dancing Lights, Darkness and Faerie Fire, each 1/day.
* Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds a drow for 1 minute and leaves them dazzled on all subsequent rounds until they get out of the light.
* Poison Use: Drow don't risk poisoning themselves when they apply poison to weapons, etc.
* Weapon Familiarity: Free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, Rapier and Shortsword.

===Noble Drow===
* Ability Score Modifiers: +4 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Wis, +2 Cha, -2 Con
* Size: Medium
* Speed: 30 feet
* Darkvision 120 feet
* Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantments.
* Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
* Spell Resistance: 11 + character level
* Spell-Like Abilities:
** Constant: Detect Magic
** At-Will: Dancing Lights, Deeper Darkness, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Levitate
** 1/Day: Divine Favor, Dispel Magic, Suggestion
* Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds a drow for 1 minute and leaves them dazzled on all subsequent rounds until they get out of the light.
* Poison Use: Drow don't risk poisoning themselves when they apply poison to weapons, etc.
* Weapon Familiarity: Free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, Rapier and Shortsword.

{{Pathfinder-Races}}
{{D&D4e-Races}}
{{D&D5e-Races}}

==Starfinder==

With Alien Archive 1, the Drow are back. While they're still socially divided into normals and nobles, the stat difference is gone. They're still assholes, they're still into slavery and puppy-kicking cruelty, but now they've diversified into the wholesome and socially conscious industry of interstellar arms trafficking. Drow society is matriarchal again, although gunrunning males form something of a ''nouveau riche''.

===Drow===
* Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con
* Size and Type: Medium humanoid with elf subtype
* Darkvision 60 feet
* Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantment spells and effects.
* Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
* Light Blindness: A drow exposed to bright light is blinded for 1 round and dazzled as long as they remain in areas of bright light.
* Drow Magic: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic; In addition drow count as having the Minor Psychic Power feat for the purpose of meeting prerequisites, and if a drow takes the Psychic Power feat, they can add the drow's limning light supernatural ability to the list of spell-like abilities they have available.

== Eberron ==
Drow in [[Eberron]] have unique fluff. Like all elves, drow were formerly slaves to Xen'drik's [[Giant]] Empire, but they remained when the now light skinned elves having split and left their native land of Xen'drik for Aerenal 38,000 years ago. By culture ''they'' are the original and "normal" elves are the offshoot. Most of them live in the jungle or ruins of giant civilization on Xen'drik instead of underground, they speak Giant instead of Undercommon, and they aren't associated with spiders, with the largest group of drow preferring Scorpions instead.

There are a handful of known types of drow, with each tribe being of one of these types, but the published material explicitly states more exist beyond the known areas. The Qualtiar are nomadic tribes that love scorpions. The Sulatar are giant loyalist who have really ancient magic and are obsessed with fire. The Hantar'kul or "Blood Hunters" believe they are destined to rule Xen'drik and seek to remove the foreigners, who they see as the biggest obstacle to their rule. The Umbragen avoided the dragon by settling underground and selling their soul to a dark power known as "Umbra". The Umbragen are fighting, and losing, a battle with a daelkyr lord's army and seek weapons to aid in that fight, as they are too prideful to ask for help.

While the campaign setting says "sahuagin and drow are not ideal races for player characters", they actually make more sense than most campaign settings. In Eberron, most drow aren't crazy religious cultists and come into conflict with heroes because they are simply territorial people that believe that, as they were servants of the giant empire when it fell, the remains of giant civilization belong to them and all the "archaeologists" from the north are robbers. Typical NPC Drow are still typically evil though. ''City of Stormreach'' states that "a few drow exiles have found their way to the city, and others have chosen to abandon their old ways and settle among humanity", "drow who don’t subscribe to their race’s ruthless ways come to the city to escape the cruel life of the wilds" and that Drow often come to the city to trade. This seems to have been a fairly decent number, as the demographics of Stormreach state Drow, Goblinoids, Giants and other monsters combine to make 5% of the 11,650 population, so there are ''hundreds'' of Drow that aren't actively hostile to humanity. Further ''Secrets of Xen'drik'' explicitly states that Drow tribes beyond the known ones are likely out there past the "charted" parts of the continent, so there may be non-hostile tribes of drow out there.

== Exandria ==
Like in many other settings, the drow of Exandria delved into the Underdark at the command of the goddess Lolth. Unfortunately for these dark elves, though, the Underdark of Exandria is apparently quite a bit more dangerous. The types of civilizations the drow might live in beneath the surface of other settings seem to be constantly beset by abberations and other monsters to a overwhelming degree. As a result, Lolth is actually becoming increasingly unpopular with the drow race, who turn to alternative gods. Most prominently is an entity called the Luxon worshiped by the people of the Kryn Dynasty of the continent of Wildemount. Because the Luxon reincarnates those who die into newborns within a certain range regardless of the baby's race, it's led to a situation where a goblin could have been a drow noble in a past life, or vice versa. Though some drow still remain loyal to the Spider Queen, things have gotten so dire for Lolth that most of her faithful in Wildemount are goblinoids, with the drow head matron mother in the continent of Wildemount reduced to hiding out in a goblinoid fortress.

==Half-Drow==
You may be curious; given that the [[drow]] are still [[elves]], even if they are evil slave-taking bastards, can they [[Half-Elf|interbreed with humans]] too? Well, ironically, D&D never really gave that angle much attention - even though Gygax probably would have agreed if you'd pointed it out that half-drow would make far more believable PC options than pure-blooded drow, being neither as overpowered as old-school drow were nor able to advance in the drow's twisted society and thus less likely to drink the kool-aid & be evil themselves. So, for the most part, half-drow have been ignored throughout D&D's history.

The very first mention of the idea was as "half-casts" (''sic'') in D3 for AD&D 1e; leaving unspoken if these be drow/human or - more likely just from the dating-pool - drow/elf, or even drow/bugbear. The half-drow are subsequently expanded in that edition's [[Unearthed Arcana]]. They're (human) [[half-elves]], but with the drow's sunlight vulnerability trait slapped on top (in short, whilst exposed to sunlight, you suffer -2 dexterity and a -2 penalty on your to-hit rolls, and your foes get a +2 bonus to their saving throws against your attacks - this decreases to a -1 to hit penalty and a +1 save bonus if you're in shadow but your victim is in direct sunlight). Not exactly the kind of thing to make people interested.

The half-drow seemed destined to be forgotten... and then came [[Ed Greenwood]], who, amongst his many ''other'' [[Magical Realm|"inspirations" from his belief in the Free Love movements of the 60s]] that he slipped into the [[Forgotten Realms]], found the drow to particularly tickle his fancy. So, after coming up with things like [[Eilistraee]], naturally, he needed a place to put in half-drow. Enter Dambrath, a region in the "Shining South" that he decided to make ruled over by the Cintri; a race of half-drow descended from the ancient drow conquest of Dambrath under the reign of a particularly foolish human king... well, alright, technically, the Cintri are a melting pot of half-drow and [[half-elf]] bloodlines, since they descend as much from the half-elf [[cleric]]s of [[Loviatar]] who helped the drow conquer the place - after all, Loviatar is basically the Realm's goddess of evil BDSM and femdom, so she's got that in common with [[Lolth]], to the point that Lolth even lets Loviatar's faith be the state religion of Dambrath - but they're still mixed human and drow bloodlines, so it counts.

Ironically, despite the Cintri, no 2e version of the half-drow statblock ever debuted, not even in the Shining South [[splatbook]] that introduced Dambrath to the Realms' fanbase. But it did mean that half-drow made it into 3rd edition in a [[Forgotten Realms]] [[splatbook]] - [[Races of X |Races of Faerun]], to be precise. Of course, like their 1e counterparts, they were not particularly well-differentiated mechanically from their half-elf roots; a 3e half-drow is, officially, a [[half-elf]] with Darkvision 60 feet and replacing Elf Blood with Drow Blood, so they're treated as Drow for race-targeting stuff instead of [[Elf]].

Eberron, likewise, states half-drow exist, typically results of trysts in Stormreach, but doesn't actually do anything with them or give them stats. The implication is that Half-Drow exist but are exceptionally rare and with the drow population that interacts peacefully with humans being the mere hundreds their rarity likely ''is'' exceptional. Still, Eberron works on the idea that player characters are ''supposed'' to be exceptional in general, and playing one isn't off limits.

A more mechanically invested version of the 3e half-drow didn't come to be until towards the end of the edition's lifespan, when the 3e version of the [[splatbook]] "Drow of the Underdark". It states "Half-drow have the standard racial traits of half-elves given in the Player’s Handbook, except that their favored class is the class in which they have the most levels. In addition, rather than elf blood, they have drow blood. Since drow is a subrace of elf, the net effect is that they have elf blood as well. The specification of drow blood means that for all special abilities and effects particular to a drow, a half-drow is considered a drow."

Additionally, both properly half-Drow characters AND half-elf characters with only a little bit of Drow heritage, like the Drow equivalent of a Tiefling or Aasimar, could take the following feat during character-creation:

::'''''DROW LEGACY'''''
::The drow blood in your veins runs true and grants you some abilities from that heritage.
::'''Prerequisite:''' Half-elf with drow ancestry.
::'''Benefit:''' You have a +2 racial bonus on Will saves against spells and spell-like abilities. You have darkvision out to 60 feet. You receive Exotic Weapon Proficiency (hand crossbow), as well as, Undercommon and the drow dialect of Elven as automatic languages.
::If you have an Intelligence score of 13 or higher, you also gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable once per day: dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire. Your caster level equals your class level.
::'''Special:''' Taking this feat also causes you to have light sensitivity: You are dazzled (–1 circumstance penalty on attack rolls, saves, and checks) in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.

In Pathfinder, half-drow are represented by alternate racial traits for stock half-elves. Half-Elves can trade their superior multiclassing ability for darkvision, which is strictly better if that character isn't multiclassing anyways, or low-light vision for darkvision and light blindness. They can trade their bonus feat and multiclassing bonuses for dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell like abilities, which absolutely isn't worth it. Finally they can trade their bonus feat for proficiency in hand crossbow, rapier, and shortsword, which ''also'' isn't worth it since anyone who would bother with those weapons is already proficient with those weapons or is playing half-elf in the first place to get the bonus feat.

Perhaps the best the poor half-drow have ever had it has been in 5th edition, where a half-elf can trade their two free skill proficiencies for the drow's racial spell-like abilities; it's not much, but at least it's something to represent drow ancestry, and it's decently beefy compared to the AD&D and Races of Faerun depictions. Once again, it was a [[Forgotten Realms]] sourcebook that brought them out of the darkness - the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

Drow-elf crossbreeds are given the briefest of mentions in the original Vault of the Drow as part of an encounter with "rakes" (think outcast punks) in the (under)city [[Erelhei-Cinlu]]. They have never been statted in any form, but are probably close enough to half-drow to use that template. Still, there's possibilities here for a creative DM.

==See also==
Dark Elves exist in [[Ptolus]] as NPC characters. They worship a [[Galchutt]] named [[Gorgoth-Lol]], which means "totez not Lolth LOL" in the elvish tongue.

* [[Seldarine]] - The gods of the [[Elf]] and [[Drow]] pantheons.

* [[Drizzt|Drizzt Do'Urden]] - A... [[skub|polarizing character]], but still the most famous and iconic drow hero in ''D&D''.

* [[Viconia de'Vir]] - A [[cleric]] of Shar in the ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' games, and a good example of a "PC-friendly" drow who ''isn't'' a chaotic good Drizzt clone. Also [[Bioware]]'s first "sexy, mildly-evil-but-mostly-misunderstood lady love interest" character, setting the template for all those that followed. (Looking at you, Bastila, Morrigan, Isabela, Jack...) Had an incredibly complex, tragic and deep story in the sequel involving brotherly love and sacrifice. Her template may have set off a series of dominoes resulting in the next entry...

* [[Drowtales]]: When an admittedly-skilled bunch of [[drawfag|artists]] with the mental maturity of a blighted potato make a webcomic series financed by sponsor-avatar insertion, porn requests, and (the worst) ''plot dictation'', and slather copious amounts of [[Skub]] onto it. Said artists also have an axe against humanity/BDSM lesbian fetish to grind. ''Mostly'' the latter.

* [[Unified Setting/Drow]] - Arctic merchant vikings who ride giant lobsters, but still have black skin and white hair.

* [[Sandwich Stoutaxe]]: 1d4chan's take on the heroic Drow, she was abandoned by her family and raised by a Dwarf. So named because said dwarf found her in a basket that he thought was full of sandwiches.

* [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition races]]

==Official Art Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Queen of the Spiders.jpg|Looks like a trashy 80's Manowar album but OK.
Drow MM 2e.png
File:Spiderbound Drow Warrior.jpg
File:Drow mistress and her man slave.jpeg|Drow gender relations in a nutshell
File:Drow Adventurer vs Carrion Crawlers.jpg
File:3e Drow Demon-Binder (Marilith).jpg
File:4e Drow Demon-Binder (Marilith).jpg
File:4e Drow Priestess.jpg
File:Drow of the Underdark 3e Cover.jpg
File:3e Drow Warleader.jpg
File:Drow Priestesses (DotU).jpg
File:Starfinder Drow.jpg
File:Bathing Drow Noble.png
File:Drow Prosthetic (DotU).jpg
File:Drizzt by Todd Lockwood.jpg|did I mention the [[Drizzt|Mary Sues]] yet?
File:Drow scouts by jonhodgson.jpg|[[Meme|Welcome to the jungle]], where you can play a Drow however you want
File:Xendrik Drow.jpg|Xen'drik's drows like to tattoo themselves with scorpion venom.
</gallery>

==Fanart==
<gallery>
File:drow_blackface.jpg|not racist; or at least not THAT kind of racist
File:Drows_in_SPEEES.jpg|in the skin darkness of the future, there is only Mary Sues. A.k.A [[Drowtales]]: How to be a mangaka-faggot with cognitive dissonance.
File:Yafgc drow matriarchy advantages.png|drow men have [[Rule 34|a place]] in their matriarchy
File:Throne of the Drow.jpg
File:The Scarlet Tarantula (Drow Monk).jpg
File:TgplaysDrow.png|In surface world, adventurers are always looking for a party. In matriarchal Underdark, matron makes a party out of you!
</gallery>

==Monstergirls==
{{Monstergirls}}
[[Image:MGE Dark Elf.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Dark Elf maiden is an alluring creature, if in a different way to her light-skinned cousin.]]

Given that female elves are practically canon [[monstergirls]] in [[Dungeons & Dragons]] to begin with (where do you think [[Half-Elves]] come from? Human women pouncing on cute elven men? Pah!), and that the drow are both female led ''and'' have a long tradition of cheesecake/pin-up tier femdom-heavy artwork for their females - there's a reason drow are often mocked on nu-/tg/ as a culture made up of cheesy BDSM pin-up art - it should be no surprise that drow feature in works of erotica just as frequently as their surface cousins. Indeed, the talk of D&D sessions everywhere must have had since the late 90's, inevitably, sexualized Drow raids owing to Greenwood's [[Magical Realm]]. Often called "Dark Elves", their skin tone ranges from the actual drow onyx/blue/purple to more dusky brown colors, which leads to the nickname "chocolate elves" being used for erotic female drow characters.

Given the heavy BDSM themes in actual drow society, it should be no surprise that drow monstergirls are usually portrayed as dominatrixes in the same way. Asian hentai artists, however, like to subvert the idea by portraying them as submissives instead of dominatrixes; chocolate elf slaves and maids are as old as [[Elf slave, wat do?]] threads. Might have something to do with [[/pol/|dark skin being inferior in Asian cultures]].

In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], the Dark Elves have willingly embraced [[succubus]]ization, unlike their Light Elf kindred. This has turned them into a perverse culture of dominatrixes, who take human men as their sexual slaves. They were some of the setting's earliest [[skub]] when it was confirmed that they actually do practice incest, with young dark elves being taught the arts of sexual dominance, bondage and sado-masochism by using their fathers as their subs, yeesh.

==MonsterGirl Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CestreeandDrow.jpg
File:Dark elf.jpg
File:Fertile Drow Sorceress.jpg
File:Chocolate elf.jpg|Because chocobutt best butt.
File:Dark elf vs High elf.jpg
File:Pink Haired Drow.png
File:Dark Elf Butt.jpg
File:Dark Elf Matriarch.jpg
File:Drow and Broken Mirror.jpg
File:Drow Cleric.jpg
File:Drow Duelist.jpg
File:Dark Elf Sorceress.jpg
File:Drow Fantasy Armor.jpg
File:Drow Harpist.jpg
File:Drow Queen Valsharess Fanart.jpg
File:Drow Matron Mother.jpeg
File:Drow Sorceress.jpg
File:Drow Sorceress 2.jpg
File:Drow Vampiress.jpg
File:Drow Violinist.jpg
File:Drow Swordsinger.jpg
File:Skimpily Clad Drow Sorceress.png
File:Shortstack Dark Elf.png|This height is canon in [[Dungeons & Dragons|D&D]]

</gallery>

Daughters of Khaine

2021-02-18T23:38:29Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Broken Realms */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Daughters of Khaine|Logo=Daughters_of_Khaine_battletome_art.jpg|Alliance=Order|Motto=Much bloodier and less NSFW than it appears.}}
{{topquote|She could never take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The weak and flaccid parity would make her nearly puke. She wants an eye for a tooth, and a life for an eye.|Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend}}
{{topquote|Let's show the gutless pigs how the warriors of Pah-Dishah can fight! By Tarim, we'll give the devils scarlet wine to drink this dawn...|Red Sonja}}

The '''Daughters of Khaine''' are a nation of aelves (though closer to a collection of scattered religious communes than a nation) led by Morathi who combine the Khainite religion with shadow magic.

They are an army, with a few exceptions, of [[PROMOTIONS|armed aelven women and monstergirls in bikinis]]. As they worship Khaine, to them the clash of arms is the height of their religion, holy rites practiced and perfected with all the high-level skill and grace of aelf-kind. As blades flash, they shed their visage of cold and distant beauty, how they tend to be when not in battle, their ecstatic faces lighting up with each fresh kill. In contrast to even other aelves, especially the Idoneth Deepkin, many Daughters of Khaine have lived far beyond the average aelf lifespan, which is already longer than that of other races (except the males - see below).

==History==
===Age of Myth===
Being a theocracy founded by Morathi and given her character, Morathi is behind or involved in every pivotal moment of the Daughters of Khaine in history. After leaving the Great Alliance because [[Nagash]] outed her true monstrous form, Morathi sought to establish her own dwellings in Ulgu. Her son Malerion cruelly rejected her suggestion of splitting the rule of the thirteen Dominions, for he claimed of all Ulgu as his own. Morathi persisted until, as either a joke or a plot to get rid of her, Malerion granted his mother a small parcel of land in the middle of the Umbral Veil. This was the darkest and most impenetrable region in all Ulgu, so dangerous that only Malerion himself had ever returned from those cloying mists with their sanity intact. Morathi went there and exceeded her son's expectations. She bent the shadows into a protective shroud around her new land and led settlers there.

Her only followers were the aelven witch-cults that had maintained their worship of [[Khaine]]. While Morathi knew Khaine was dead, since the blood rituals no longer rejuvenated her, she supported the religion to get people to help her. To ensure their loyalty, Morathi built a temple to Khaine, naming it Hagg Nar, and over time a city grew up around it. Morathi taught them the secrets of navigating the murky currents. Hagg Nar began as a pitiful kingdom, and Morathi brooded over her mean existence.

As she sought power, she soon found a hint of Khaine's power in her dreams while scrying. Though Khaine was dead, she knew the elven gods were cyclial and could be reborn given enough power. Morathi began a secret quest that was long and difficult, but eventually brought her to the literal heart of Khaine himself. The heart was intact and throbbing with resurgent power, but it was guarded by Kharbytr, the godbeast father of Kharibdysses. Morathi suspected Kharbytr would be resistant to sorcery, and was despearte to claim the heart before anyone else could, so she used seduction instead (yes, really), but angered Kharbytr when she tried to grab the heart. The fight between them was an epic clash that lasted thirteen days and ended when Morathi constricted Kharbytr in her coils. The godbeast dealt her a lethal blow before losing consciousness, but Morathi survived by drawing energies from Khaine's heart to sustain herself.

Heading back to Hagg Nar with her prize, Morathi declared herself Khaine's High Oracle, claiming that she spoke for the god of murder and that she was his voice in this world. With that she solidified her hold over the Khainites and reshaped the society into the Daughters of Khaine. The Daughters of Khaine would often be sent out to hunt for fragments of their missing deity on Morathi's orders (unbeknownst to them, these were snipe hunts for the most part).

She continued this way for a time until Malerion arrived. He said that he and the other aelf gods had had, at last, found the lost aelf-souls from the world-that-was, and they needed her shadow magic and knowledge of Slaanesh in their grand plan. For the first and only time, Morathi spoke of the unspeakable horrors inside Slaanesh and how she'd escaped. Using this knowledge and themselves as bait, the four lured Slaanesh into a trap and started extracting elven souls from the deity.

For her role, Morathi was allowed to take souls for herself to shape into elves, who went into swelling the numbers of the Daughters of Khaine. However, some of them had been [[monstergirls|altered by their time with Slaanesh]]. There were those with [[Lamia|serpentine mutations akin to Morathi]], these became the [[Medusa|Melusae]]. Others had bat-like wings and long tails, these became the [[Harpy|Khinerai]]. Around this time Morathi reintroduced the Cauldrons of Blood and created the Mathcoir, the master cauldron, in Hagg Nar. Secretly, she made it as a repository of power only she could access, starting with [[Drow|parts of the souls of the male elves among the Khainites]].

Unbeknownst to her erstwhile allies, Morathi had added her own deceptive magics to the undertaking, so that the soul division was skewed slightly out of the agreed proportions, with extra spirits siphoned to Hagg Nar. This subterfuge was subtle, but slowly, inevitably, [[Not as Planned|altered the eldritch balance that kept the Dark Prince perfectly imprisoned between Hysh and Ulgu]].

===Age of Chaos===
As Chaos invaded the Mortal Realms, the Daughters of Khaine marched out from Hagg Nar to ambush them, using shadowshifting magics to reach Realmgates to travel anywhere the forces of Order needed them. Although Morathi and her followers weren't liked, beggars could not be choosers and they were one of the few allies the Sigmarites had during this time. To keep the more mutated members of her coven secret, the spellcasters and priestesses of the Khainites used shadow glamors to make them look like ordinary elves (how this worked when the Khinerai were flying is anybody's guess).

The Daughters of Khaine were bold and fearless in battle - willing to cross blades with any enemy, no matter how numerous or monstrous. Despite heroics by Khainite forces at many battles, the forces of Order were on the backfoot, the final retreat happening after Nagash betrayed Sigmar at the Battle of Burning Skies.

As the Chaos invasions set about their task of destroying and enslaving entire civilisations, the Shadowlands of Ulgu suffered the least after Azyr. Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch all devoted the greater portion of their forces to different realms, the minions that were sent into Ulgu boasted none of the most fearful greater daemon commanders and Malerion himself sent Archaon packing with his tail between his legs. This gave the Daughters of Khaine plenty of time to prey on the Chaos forces that made it to their realm; reavers of Khorne, magic-seeking conclaves of Tzeentch or followers of Slaanesh tracking calls from their god that only they could sense. They reaped a large harvest of Chaos minions, leaving mass graves from all the sacrifices (this would come back to haunt them - pun intended - in the Soul Wars, see below).

But Morathi's trickery with the soul extraction came back to bite her. Taking too many souls caused Slaanesh's prison to drift towards Ulgu and weaken it. This enabled Slaanesh's most faithful servants catch the scent of their missing god/dess. More and more Slaaneshi armies penetrated the Shadowlands searching for their lost god. So began what the aelves of Ulgu named the Cathtrar Dhule - the War of Shadows.

For the major battles of the War of Shadows, Morathi led the Daughters of Khaine from the front. She cast down the Keeper of Secrets Glittus and his Legion of Excess, and the whip-handed Krulla Sha'vhr and her Flayerhost. Battle was not her only recourse, however, for against the unbeatable six warhosts of the betentacled Bovaxx the Despoiler, Morathi's coven of Medusae summoned a gaiste-maze - a shadow labyrinth that still covers part of the Umbral Veil, a dark cloud in which those hordes presumably still wander.

Yet the Daughters of Khaine did not win every battle. As larger and more-powerful armies invaded, Morathi called the first of the Caillich Covens - the gathering of forces from all the sects. This was required to defeat Luxcious, a Keeper of Secrets so powerful that many Slaaneshi considered her a replacement for the missing Dark Prince. The daemon was defeated, but not until after the exalted fiend destroyed the Temple of Druchxar.

===Age of Sigmar===
Luxcious may well have continued her scouring search of Ulgu had Sigmar not begun his war to reclaim the Mortal Realms, drawing off many Chaos forces. The Cathtrar Dhule paused, before once more erupting anew in the bitterly fought War of the Shadowpaths.

The Daughters of Khaine win more allies during this time, for despite their brutality in battle (and occasional team-killing among their allies) they're just ''that'' good at kicking Chaos. The Stormcast, Idoneth and Sylvaneth to name a few ally with the Daughters of Khaine.

During this time, some elves start to [[Heresy|worship Morathi alongside Khaine, which causes dissent]] (an uncommon case of a heresy charge in a warhammer setting that fits the actual definition). Ironically, those who disapprove get [[Blam|quickly silenced]] by Morathi or the Medusae as [[Heresy|heretics]] (usually by a knife in the vitals or getting turned into living crystal by a Melusai).

===Soul Wars===
Prior to the Soul Wars there are increasing build-ups of death magic. Whenever there is a large gathering of Scathborn, the spirits of the dead rise up and attack them. Also, remember those mass graves full of sacrificed Chaos worshippers? Now they're fodder for armies of vengeful skeleton warriors and/or ghosts who attack the Khainites. When Nagash sent vamires and necromancers into Ulgu as a diversion tactic, they were all too happy to exploit these mass graves for armies.

The Daughters of Khaine were also called on by the forces of Order in other realms to help fight off the increasing undead attacks. Morathi herself extolled the Daughters of Khaine to greater zeal, for she remembers the taste of Nagash's pimp hand and is eager to avenge the slight.

===Broken Realms===
The Daughters of Khaine worked with Scourge privateers to get information about the Idoneth Deepkin the same way as their kin in the World-That-Was; lots of torture and mind-invading magic. From this they learn the location of a valued Deepkin artifact, the Ocarian Lantern; made by - and stolen from - Teclis, it acted as a lure for souls. Morathi sent sixty of her best soldiers to get it from its heavily guarded underwater temple; two survived, one now an Idoneth prisoner and the other returned to Morathi with the lantern.

She fused with Khaine's heart and became the goddess Morathi-Khaine. Thus Khaine as he was is gone forever, and Morathi - now Morathi-Khaine - is their goddess instead of just their High Oracle (albeit now split into two bodies, Morathi-Khaine and the Shadow Queen after [[Aenarion|her hubby's soul]] [[Rip and Tear|took exception]] to Morathi's plan while in Slaanesh).

Morathi's first action was to broker an alliance with the [[Idoneth Deepkin]], offering Volturnos the souls of his fellow Cythai elves to sweeten the deal. She then ended her alliance with Sigmar by launching a coup that brough Anvilgard under her rule and renaming it Har Kuron. The Daughters of Khaine/Morathi-Khaine now fight with a newfound zeal as they launched a <s>crusade</s> <s>jihad</s> holy war to expand Morathi's empire.

==Religion==
[[File:Morathi,_the_Shadow_Queen_from_DaughtersofKhaine_.jpg|300px|thumb|right|"Charge, Daughters of Khaine! For my...uh, I mean, for Khaine's glory!"]]
Unlike some other factions within Age of Sigmar, but very much like others, the Daughters of Khaine are in essence a theocracy. There are many sects of Daughters of Khaine, each worshiping a different aspect of the aelf god of battle and bloodshed. Although the rites and rituals might differ, all the Khainites follow a strict hierarchy in their organisation. They worship Khaine and Morathi is his High Oracle, the one who discerns his will and their overall leader. Though they know about the other gods of Order, they pay no homage to them. Beneath Morathi are the High Priestesses, which include the Slaughter Queens, Hag Queens and Bloodwrack Medusae. They are the keepers of each shrine’s most sacred artefacts, and commanders of the Sisterhood of Blood. The degree of authority held by each of these figures, along with their specific title, varies between the sects, but a single word from Morathi can alter the influence of any other ranking.

Of all the warriors of the temples, the Scáthborn – the Melusai and Khinerai – are closest to Morathi herself, yet they often remain hidden from those outside the cult. The Medusae are made from Aelves converted by Morathi herself; though this is seen as an immense honor Morathi binds them with the most binding of magical oaths, but none among the Khainites would dare question her in this. This is partially due to their forms resulting from daemonic taint which would cause negative sentiment among their allies and the fact that Morathi uses them as something of a secret police. The most public-facing Khainites are the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter. Their most important shrines are the Cauldrons of Blood, gifts from Khaine himself (at least, what Morathi’s claims each time she gifts one of the great iron cauldrons to the temple of a newly founded Khainite sect). The covenites see it as a sign of their god’s favour that the cauldrons never seem to overflow, no matter how much blood is poured within them following a battle – all assume Khaine himself takes the surplus as an offering.

War covens are the most important organisations to the Daughters of Khaine, their structure laid out by Morathi herself. It is through violence that the Khainites expand their territories, defend their temples and worship their god. Weapons practice and mock duels take up the majority of their daily lives, yet these are not mere military drills, but religious ceremonies, treated with all the gravitas that others might use when reading their most holy of tomes or offering prayers to their god. From their temples in various realms, the Daughters of Khaine scour the Mortal Realms for blood sacrifices. At Morathi's edict, they also search for the shards of their god, scattered across the Realms. They do this for the glory of Khaine and to see him reborn.

[[Just As Planned|But they are nearly all of them deceived]].

Morathi claims to speak for Khaine, and she does wield his unbreakable iron heart, but none know that Morathi’s power is a lie and that Khaine is dead. While their devotions to Khaine could one day lead to his rebirth, Morathi is deliberately preventing that. The reason for this is that she is siphoning the power - either by co-opting it before it reaches the heart or pulling it from Khaine's heart - to reach godhood herself. The prayers that her daughters scream and the ritual offerings they make only serve to enhance her own power, not Khaine’s. Outside Morathi herself, only a handful of the "altered" members of the Daughters of Khaine are aware of this deception, and they, willingly or otherwise, are bound by the most binding of oaths and magic to serve Morathi and keep this secret. Also, the blood surplus poured into the Cauldron's doesn't go to Khaine. It flows back to Hagg Nar through Morathi’s magics, to the Mother of all Cauldrons, the Máthcoir, from which The High Oracle absorbs and repurposes the blood’s energies for her own nefarious gain.

==Society==
Their society is brutal, especially given that it's leader is [[Morathi]] and they worship [[Khaine]]. They serve Khaine with fanatical devotion, which is problematic considering that Khaine is the god of murder. While the Daughters of Khaine crave bloodshed and murder, they serve alongside the forces of Order – albeit tenuously. Given their tendency towards collateral damage (and rumors of kidnapping innocents and gruesome rituals), they are less respected allies and more tolerated because they're useful. Their views on the other major groups are varied. As builders of cities and civilizations, the Daughters of Khaine are at odds with the forces of Destruction. While it is said that they have an aversion to the Death faction because of a dislike for anything death-related since they nearly went extinct, it's more likely that this due to Morathi's personal grudge against Nagash for striking her and outing her true from to the rest of the pantheon. Despite their distaste for the other two, the one faction they truly hate is Chaos; they could give the Stormcast Eternals a run for their money in hating Chaos, and prosecute their crusades with particular violence against the servants of Slaanesh.

If you're wondering why Morathi is mentioned so often that's deliberate; Morathi keeps as much of a stranglehold on Khainite society as she can. It would be out-of-character for her to do anything less (she kind of a control freak). All Khainites are either warriors that serve in their religious order, or they are leathanam (see below). Temples are found only in some realms; confirmed realms are Ulgu, Azyr and Ghyran. When they are not fighting, the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter usually participate in ritualized gladiator matches or shady pit fights. They also partake of a form of bladed dancing for the entertainment of others. Despite being a theocratic society, the Daughters of Khaine don't proselytize or win converts. The adherents are themselves the result of a breeding program, choosing their partners in line with the aims and desires of their leaders.

To elaborate: the female aelves tend to dye their hair with blood and, in a throwback to Warhammer Fantasy, have rituals of rebirth keep the covenite sisters youthful in appearance and supple in body. Even among their ranks, there are some who are considered extremists; the Sisters of Slaughters' are members who graft masks of living metal to their faces with boiling blood. While the aelven members are accepted by others, the Melusae and Khinerai are not. When fighting alongside, they are concealed by a glamour so they too appear to be aelves; this could also explain some of their teamkilling tendencies among alliances with other Order factions, as they're keeping the existence of these mutated elves secret.

If you're wondering "where are the men? They have to reproduce somehow", well... remember that leathanam class mentioned earlier? Apart from the Doomfire Warlocks, this class is made up exclusively of '''all''' the males in this faction. The man are disregard menials, little more than worker drones in literal gender-based [[Slavery|slavery]] (we know what you're thinking; something, something, feminist fantasy... and we know how the media watchdogs would react if the genders were swapped). While the women outnumber the men, this is not the paradise [[/d/|some]] think it would be. Morathi deliberately made only a few male aelves, and then only from the weakest and most broken of souls retrieved from Slaanesh ensuring they would be weak. Even male aelves a Daughter of Khaine gives birth to are cursed with this same weakness as Morathi siphons part of their souls to power the Cauldrons of Blood - the true energy powering them rather than the power of Khaine... and yes, Morathi instituted the rule that the males are slaves. While some male aelves manage to harness shadow magic and become Doomfire Warlocks, Morathi has them branded with mind-control runes ([[Grimdark|while deceiving them into thinking they're protection against Slaanesh]]). Even then, Doomfire Warlocks are low status because of their gender, which is why they are rarely seen by non-Khainites. While in theory they worship Khaine, who is male, again this is superficial since Khaine is limited to his heart and has no say over the Daughters of Khaine's actions, and with Morathi merging to become the goddess Morathi-Khaine they now worship a goddess so that point is moot.

tl;dr: They're a matriarchal elven society with penchants for violence, manipulation, ruthlessness, aggressive misandry and skimpy outfits who originate from a dark realm and follow the commands of an insane female figure who sometimes mutates her followers to resemble her. [[Drow|Sound familiar]]? (moreso now that Morathi has successfully become a goddess).

==Sects==
The Daughters of Khaine are divided into Sects (previously known as Temples in past lore), in a manner similar to Stormcast Chambers or Sylvaneth Wargroves.

* '''Hagg Nar:''' Hagg Nar lies deep in the Umbral Veil, the darkest region of the Shadowlands. The first and largest of the Daughters of Khaine temples, it was built atop the Hellelux, a geyser of shadow magic that spews shrouding mists. It is home to hundreds of warcovens that are [[Drow|always at each other’s throats for the attention of Morathi, who encourages this “rivalry” as a means of weeding out the weak]].
* '''Draichi Ganeth:''' Draichi Ganeth, which translates as ‘the bladedkillers’, are the Khainite Aelves most commonly seen by other Order factions. Their main temple is found in the northern barrens of Fuarthorn in Ulgu, but their war pilgrimages and lesser shrines can be found across the realms. Every [[Cities of Sigmar|free city]] has seen or is host to a small troupe of the Draichi Ganeth, who look down upon the subterfuge and deception of their sister sects. They are known to the Freeguilds as the Executioners Cult due to their blunt and forward style of combat, as well as their penchant for decapitation.
* '''The Kraith:''' The sect known as the Kraith, also called the Crimson Cult, are true disciples of slaughter, and have earned a reputation as the least compromising of all the Daughters of Khaine. Arrogant and nomadic, they have no true temple home, instead traveling from one war to the next as they believe Khaine’s one and only temple is the blood stained battlefield.
* '''Khailebron:''' This sect has learned well the arts of concealment, stealth and obfuscation. Those who worship at the temples of Khailebron revere the assassin and the unseen killer, and strive to be masters of ambushes and sudden strikes. Where these temples are is known only to Morathi and the Khailebron themselves. Otherwise, they masquerade as wandering performers who showcase an elegant “bladed-dance” for the local populace, while their top killers secretly slit the throats of their targets (including anyone who shows too much disrespect to the dancers).
*'''Khelt Nar:''' Khelt Nar has become the fastest growing of the sects established by Morathi. It began as Ironshard, a single Khainite shrine founded by the High Oracle atop a flat-topped mountain of iron known as the Rothtor. Since then it has expanded to other Realms, including a stronghold in Ghyran, and have been tasked by the High Priestess with clearing out the rampant [[Orruk Warclans|Bonesplitterz]] that plague their territories. Khelt Nar is best known for being composed of deliciously brown dark aelves.
*'''Zainthar Kai''': This reserved sect was born in the Age of Chaos when Morathi (desperate to get a leg up on the Ruinous Powers) decided to infuse a new brood of Scáthborn with three drops of Khaine’s blood. The result is a temple of veritable demi-gods who can call upon the god of murder’s strength in haze of battle, becoming the Shadow Queen’s go-to temple for making her more despised enemies disappear. The temple is mostly led by/comprised of Scáthborn, but there are contingents of Witch Aelves who function as (disposable) work horses.

==Soulbound==
In [[Age of Sigmar Roleplay]], it's established that Daughters of Khaine are selected to become Soulbound when Morathi decides that a potentially stray from the ranks of her faithful is too dangerous or too useful to just dispose of outright. Soulbound Daughters are selected from the overly ambitious, those who secretly yearned for freedom, and even those who had begun to doubt Khaine's divinity, basically serving as a way to remove potential threats to Morathi's control over the faction. Despite their origins, though, Morathi often goes out of her way to maintain a good relationship with "her" Soulbound (in fact, the Binding actually servers the magical restrains that Morathi uses to control the Daughters as a whole), because, whatever else they may be to her, they are both useful as powerful yet neutral arbiters and as ambassadors of her "good intentions" to the other powers of Order.

Normal Daughters of Khaine are unsure of how to regard their Soulbound "sisters", since they are simultaneously very dangerous, but not rivals due to being forever outside the hierarchy of the temples, apparently favored by the High Oracle but yet also deeply connected to and regularly traveling alongside "outsiders" who shouldn't be privy to the secrets of Khaine's temples. They tend to default to "respectful suspicion" when interacting with Soulbound Daughters.

The Daughters of Khaine have the fewest dedicated Archetypes in the Age of Sigmar Roleplay corebook, with only the '''Hag Priestess''' and the '''Witch Aelf''' open to them.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Medusae Shrine.jpg|<s>Boobflash</s> Bloodwrack Shrine in all its glory.
File:Temples of Khaine.jpg
File:Daughters of Khaine Slaughter.jpg
File:Daughters-of-khaine-4.jpg|Dark Elves, now with 50% more [[Snek|Sneks]].
File:I might you never know.jpg
File:Drkelf.png|A typical Khelt Nar aelf.
</gallery>

{{Template:Playable Factions in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Daughters of Khaine

2021-02-18T23:34:08Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Soul Wars */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Daughters of Khaine|Logo=Daughters_of_Khaine_battletome_art.jpg|Alliance=Order|Motto=Much bloodier and less NSFW than it appears.}}
{{topquote|She could never take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The weak and flaccid parity would make her nearly puke. She wants an eye for a tooth, and a life for an eye.|Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend}}
{{topquote|Let's show the gutless pigs how the warriors of Pah-Dishah can fight! By Tarim, we'll give the devils scarlet wine to drink this dawn...|Red Sonja}}

The '''Daughters of Khaine''' are a nation of aelves (though closer to a collection of scattered religious communes than a nation) led by Morathi who combine the Khainite religion with shadow magic.

They are an army, with a few exceptions, of [[PROMOTIONS|armed aelven women and monstergirls in bikinis]]. As they worship Khaine, to them the clash of arms is the height of their religion, holy rites practiced and perfected with all the high-level skill and grace of aelf-kind. As blades flash, they shed their visage of cold and distant beauty, how they tend to be when not in battle, their ecstatic faces lighting up with each fresh kill. In contrast to even other aelves, especially the Idoneth Deepkin, many Daughters of Khaine have lived far beyond the average aelf lifespan, which is already longer than that of other races (except the males - see below).

==History==
===Age of Myth===
Being a theocracy founded by Morathi and given her character, Morathi is behind or involved in every pivotal moment of the Daughters of Khaine in history. After leaving the Great Alliance because [[Nagash]] outed her true monstrous form, Morathi sought to establish her own dwellings in Ulgu. Her son Malerion cruelly rejected her suggestion of splitting the rule of the thirteen Dominions, for he claimed of all Ulgu as his own. Morathi persisted until, as either a joke or a plot to get rid of her, Malerion granted his mother a small parcel of land in the middle of the Umbral Veil. This was the darkest and most impenetrable region in all Ulgu, so dangerous that only Malerion himself had ever returned from those cloying mists with their sanity intact. Morathi went there and exceeded her son's expectations. She bent the shadows into a protective shroud around her new land and led settlers there.

Her only followers were the aelven witch-cults that had maintained their worship of [[Khaine]]. While Morathi knew Khaine was dead, since the blood rituals no longer rejuvenated her, she supported the religion to get people to help her. To ensure their loyalty, Morathi built a temple to Khaine, naming it Hagg Nar, and over time a city grew up around it. Morathi taught them the secrets of navigating the murky currents. Hagg Nar began as a pitiful kingdom, and Morathi brooded over her mean existence.

As she sought power, she soon found a hint of Khaine's power in her dreams while scrying. Though Khaine was dead, she knew the elven gods were cyclial and could be reborn given enough power. Morathi began a secret quest that was long and difficult, but eventually brought her to the literal heart of Khaine himself. The heart was intact and throbbing with resurgent power, but it was guarded by Kharbytr, the godbeast father of Kharibdysses. Morathi suspected Kharbytr would be resistant to sorcery, and was despearte to claim the heart before anyone else could, so she used seduction instead (yes, really), but angered Kharbytr when she tried to grab the heart. The fight between them was an epic clash that lasted thirteen days and ended when Morathi constricted Kharbytr in her coils. The godbeast dealt her a lethal blow before losing consciousness, but Morathi survived by drawing energies from Khaine's heart to sustain herself.

Heading back to Hagg Nar with her prize, Morathi declared herself Khaine's High Oracle, claiming that she spoke for the god of murder and that she was his voice in this world. With that she solidified her hold over the Khainites and reshaped the society into the Daughters of Khaine. The Daughters of Khaine would often be sent out to hunt for fragments of their missing deity on Morathi's orders (unbeknownst to them, these were snipe hunts for the most part).

She continued this way for a time until Malerion arrived. He said that he and the other aelf gods had had, at last, found the lost aelf-souls from the world-that-was, and they needed her shadow magic and knowledge of Slaanesh in their grand plan. For the first and only time, Morathi spoke of the unspeakable horrors inside Slaanesh and how she'd escaped. Using this knowledge and themselves as bait, the four lured Slaanesh into a trap and started extracting elven souls from the deity.

For her role, Morathi was allowed to take souls for herself to shape into elves, who went into swelling the numbers of the Daughters of Khaine. However, some of them had been [[monstergirls|altered by their time with Slaanesh]]. There were those with [[Lamia|serpentine mutations akin to Morathi]], these became the [[Medusa|Melusae]]. Others had bat-like wings and long tails, these became the [[Harpy|Khinerai]]. Around this time Morathi reintroduced the Cauldrons of Blood and created the Mathcoir, the master cauldron, in Hagg Nar. Secretly, she made it as a repository of power only she could access, starting with [[Drow|parts of the souls of the male elves among the Khainites]].

Unbeknownst to her erstwhile allies, Morathi had added her own deceptive magics to the undertaking, so that the soul division was skewed slightly out of the agreed proportions, with extra spirits siphoned to Hagg Nar. This subterfuge was subtle, but slowly, inevitably, [[Not as Planned|altered the eldritch balance that kept the Dark Prince perfectly imprisoned between Hysh and Ulgu]].

===Age of Chaos===
As Chaos invaded the Mortal Realms, the Daughters of Khaine marched out from Hagg Nar to ambush them, using shadowshifting magics to reach Realmgates to travel anywhere the forces of Order needed them. Although Morathi and her followers weren't liked, beggars could not be choosers and they were one of the few allies the Sigmarites had during this time. To keep the more mutated members of her coven secret, the spellcasters and priestesses of the Khainites used shadow glamors to make them look like ordinary elves (how this worked when the Khinerai were flying is anybody's guess).

The Daughters of Khaine were bold and fearless in battle - willing to cross blades with any enemy, no matter how numerous or monstrous. Despite heroics by Khainite forces at many battles, the forces of Order were on the backfoot, the final retreat happening after Nagash betrayed Sigmar at the Battle of Burning Skies.

As the Chaos invasions set about their task of destroying and enslaving entire civilisations, the Shadowlands of Ulgu suffered the least after Azyr. Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch all devoted the greater portion of their forces to different realms, the minions that were sent into Ulgu boasted none of the most fearful greater daemon commanders and Malerion himself sent Archaon packing with his tail between his legs. This gave the Daughters of Khaine plenty of time to prey on the Chaos forces that made it to their realm; reavers of Khorne, magic-seeking conclaves of Tzeentch or followers of Slaanesh tracking calls from their god that only they could sense. They reaped a large harvest of Chaos minions, leaving mass graves from all the sacrifices (this would come back to haunt them - pun intended - in the Soul Wars, see below).

But Morathi's trickery with the soul extraction came back to bite her. Taking too many souls caused Slaanesh's prison to drift towards Ulgu and weaken it. This enabled Slaanesh's most faithful servants catch the scent of their missing god/dess. More and more Slaaneshi armies penetrated the Shadowlands searching for their lost god. So began what the aelves of Ulgu named the Cathtrar Dhule - the War of Shadows.

For the major battles of the War of Shadows, Morathi led the Daughters of Khaine from the front. She cast down the Keeper of Secrets Glittus and his Legion of Excess, and the whip-handed Krulla Sha'vhr and her Flayerhost. Battle was not her only recourse, however, for against the unbeatable six warhosts of the betentacled Bovaxx the Despoiler, Morathi's coven of Medusae summoned a gaiste-maze - a shadow labyrinth that still covers part of the Umbral Veil, a dark cloud in which those hordes presumably still wander.

Yet the Daughters of Khaine did not win every battle. As larger and more-powerful armies invaded, Morathi called the first of the Caillich Covens - the gathering of forces from all the sects. This was required to defeat Luxcious, a Keeper of Secrets so powerful that many Slaaneshi considered her a replacement for the missing Dark Prince. The daemon was defeated, but not until after the exalted fiend destroyed the Temple of Druchxar.

===Age of Sigmar===
Luxcious may well have continued her scouring search of Ulgu had Sigmar not begun his war to reclaim the Mortal Realms, drawing off many Chaos forces. The Cathtrar Dhule paused, before once more erupting anew in the bitterly fought War of the Shadowpaths.

The Daughters of Khaine win more allies during this time, for despite their brutality in battle (and occasional team-killing among their allies) they're just ''that'' good at kicking Chaos. The Stormcast, Idoneth and Sylvaneth to name a few ally with the Daughters of Khaine.

During this time, some elves start to [[Heresy|worship Morathi alongside Khaine, which causes dissent]] (an uncommon case of a heresy charge in a warhammer setting that fits the actual definition). Ironically, those who disapprove get [[Blam|quickly silenced]] by Morathi or the Medusae as [[Heresy|heretics]] (usually by a knife in the vitals or getting turned into living crystal by a Melusai).

===Soul Wars===
Prior to the Soul Wars there are increasing build-ups of death magic. Whenever there is a large gathering of Scathborn, the spirits of the dead rise up and attack them. Also, remember those mass graves full of sacrificed Chaos worshippers? Now they're fodder for armies of vengeful skeleton warriors and/or ghosts who attack the Khainites. When Nagash sent vamires and necromancers into Ulgu as a diversion tactic, they were all too happy to exploit these mass graves for armies.

The Daughters of Khaine were also called on by the forces of Order in other realms to help fight off the increasing undead attacks. Morathi herself extolled the Daughters of Khaine to greater zeal, for she remembers the taste of Nagash's pimp hand and is eager to avenge the slight.

===Broken Realms===
Recently Morathi's plans have been realized. She fused with Khaine's heart and became the goddess Morathi-Khaine. Thus Khaine as he was is gone forever, and Morathi - now Morathi-Khaine - is their goddess instead of just their High Oracle (albeit now split into two bodies, Morathi-Khaine and the Shadow Queen after [[Aenarion|her hubby's soul]] [[Rip and Tear|took exception]] to Morathi's plan while in Slaanesh).

Morathi's first action was to broker an alliance with the [[Idoneth Deepkin]], offering Volturnos the souls of his fellow Cythai elves to sweeten the deal. She then ended her alliance with Sigmar by launching a coup that brough Anvilgard under her rule and renaming it Har Kuron. The Daughters of Khaine/Morathi-Khaine now fight with a newfound zeal as they launched a <s>crusade</s> <s>jihad</s> holy war to expand Morathi's empire.

==Religion==
[[File:Morathi,_the_Shadow_Queen_from_DaughtersofKhaine_.jpg|300px|thumb|right|"Charge, Daughters of Khaine! For my...uh, I mean, for Khaine's glory!"]]
Unlike some other factions within Age of Sigmar, but very much like others, the Daughters of Khaine are in essence a theocracy. There are many sects of Daughters of Khaine, each worshiping a different aspect of the aelf god of battle and bloodshed. Although the rites and rituals might differ, all the Khainites follow a strict hierarchy in their organisation. They worship Khaine and Morathi is his High Oracle, the one who discerns his will and their overall leader. Though they know about the other gods of Order, they pay no homage to them. Beneath Morathi are the High Priestesses, which include the Slaughter Queens, Hag Queens and Bloodwrack Medusae. They are the keepers of each shrine’s most sacred artefacts, and commanders of the Sisterhood of Blood. The degree of authority held by each of these figures, along with their specific title, varies between the sects, but a single word from Morathi can alter the influence of any other ranking.

Of all the warriors of the temples, the Scáthborn – the Melusai and Khinerai – are closest to Morathi herself, yet they often remain hidden from those outside the cult. The Medusae are made from Aelves converted by Morathi herself; though this is seen as an immense honor Morathi binds them with the most binding of magical oaths, but none among the Khainites would dare question her in this. This is partially due to their forms resulting from daemonic taint which would cause negative sentiment among their allies and the fact that Morathi uses them as something of a secret police. The most public-facing Khainites are the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter. Their most important shrines are the Cauldrons of Blood, gifts from Khaine himself (at least, what Morathi’s claims each time she gifts one of the great iron cauldrons to the temple of a newly founded Khainite sect). The covenites see it as a sign of their god’s favour that the cauldrons never seem to overflow, no matter how much blood is poured within them following a battle – all assume Khaine himself takes the surplus as an offering.

War covens are the most important organisations to the Daughters of Khaine, their structure laid out by Morathi herself. It is through violence that the Khainites expand their territories, defend their temples and worship their god. Weapons practice and mock duels take up the majority of their daily lives, yet these are not mere military drills, but religious ceremonies, treated with all the gravitas that others might use when reading their most holy of tomes or offering prayers to their god. From their temples in various realms, the Daughters of Khaine scour the Mortal Realms for blood sacrifices. At Morathi's edict, they also search for the shards of their god, scattered across the Realms. They do this for the glory of Khaine and to see him reborn.

[[Just As Planned|But they are nearly all of them deceived]].

Morathi claims to speak for Khaine, and she does wield his unbreakable iron heart, but none know that Morathi’s power is a lie and that Khaine is dead. While their devotions to Khaine could one day lead to his rebirth, Morathi is deliberately preventing that. The reason for this is that she is siphoning the power - either by co-opting it before it reaches the heart or pulling it from Khaine's heart - to reach godhood herself. The prayers that her daughters scream and the ritual offerings they make only serve to enhance her own power, not Khaine’s. Outside Morathi herself, only a handful of the "altered" members of the Daughters of Khaine are aware of this deception, and they, willingly or otherwise, are bound by the most binding of oaths and magic to serve Morathi and keep this secret. Also, the blood surplus poured into the Cauldron's doesn't go to Khaine. It flows back to Hagg Nar through Morathi’s magics, to the Mother of all Cauldrons, the Máthcoir, from which The High Oracle absorbs and repurposes the blood’s energies for her own nefarious gain.

==Society==
Their society is brutal, especially given that it's leader is [[Morathi]] and they worship [[Khaine]]. They serve Khaine with fanatical devotion, which is problematic considering that Khaine is the god of murder. While the Daughters of Khaine crave bloodshed and murder, they serve alongside the forces of Order – albeit tenuously. Given their tendency towards collateral damage (and rumors of kidnapping innocents and gruesome rituals), they are less respected allies and more tolerated because they're useful. Their views on the other major groups are varied. As builders of cities and civilizations, the Daughters of Khaine are at odds with the forces of Destruction. While it is said that they have an aversion to the Death faction because of a dislike for anything death-related since they nearly went extinct, it's more likely that this due to Morathi's personal grudge against Nagash for striking her and outing her true from to the rest of the pantheon. Despite their distaste for the other two, the one faction they truly hate is Chaos; they could give the Stormcast Eternals a run for their money in hating Chaos, and prosecute their crusades with particular violence against the servants of Slaanesh.

If you're wondering why Morathi is mentioned so often that's deliberate; Morathi keeps as much of a stranglehold on Khainite society as she can. It would be out-of-character for her to do anything less (she kind of a control freak). All Khainites are either warriors that serve in their religious order, or they are leathanam (see below). Temples are found only in some realms; confirmed realms are Ulgu, Azyr and Ghyran. When they are not fighting, the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter usually participate in ritualized gladiator matches or shady pit fights. They also partake of a form of bladed dancing for the entertainment of others. Despite being a theocratic society, the Daughters of Khaine don't proselytize or win converts. The adherents are themselves the result of a breeding program, choosing their partners in line with the aims and desires of their leaders.

To elaborate: the female aelves tend to dye their hair with blood and, in a throwback to Warhammer Fantasy, have rituals of rebirth keep the covenite sisters youthful in appearance and supple in body. Even among their ranks, there are some who are considered extremists; the Sisters of Slaughters' are members who graft masks of living metal to their faces with boiling blood. While the aelven members are accepted by others, the Melusae and Khinerai are not. When fighting alongside, they are concealed by a glamour so they too appear to be aelves; this could also explain some of their teamkilling tendencies among alliances with other Order factions, as they're keeping the existence of these mutated elves secret.

If you're wondering "where are the men? They have to reproduce somehow", well... remember that leathanam class mentioned earlier? Apart from the Doomfire Warlocks, this class is made up exclusively of '''all''' the males in this faction. The man are disregard menials, little more than worker drones in literal gender-based [[Slavery|slavery]] (we know what you're thinking; something, something, feminist fantasy... and we know how the media watchdogs would react if the genders were swapped). While the women outnumber the men, this is not the paradise [[/d/|some]] think it would be. Morathi deliberately made only a few male aelves, and then only from the weakest and most broken of souls retrieved from Slaanesh ensuring they would be weak. Even male aelves a Daughter of Khaine gives birth to are cursed with this same weakness as Morathi siphons part of their souls to power the Cauldrons of Blood - the true energy powering them rather than the power of Khaine... and yes, Morathi instituted the rule that the males are slaves. While some male aelves manage to harness shadow magic and become Doomfire Warlocks, Morathi has them branded with mind-control runes ([[Grimdark|while deceiving them into thinking they're protection against Slaanesh]]). Even then, Doomfire Warlocks are low status because of their gender, which is why they are rarely seen by non-Khainites. While in theory they worship Khaine, who is male, again this is superficial since Khaine is limited to his heart and has no say over the Daughters of Khaine's actions, and with Morathi merging to become the goddess Morathi-Khaine they now worship a goddess so that point is moot.

tl;dr: They're a matriarchal elven society with penchants for violence, manipulation, ruthlessness, aggressive misandry and skimpy outfits who originate from a dark realm and follow the commands of an insane female figure who sometimes mutates her followers to resemble her. [[Drow|Sound familiar]]? (moreso now that Morathi has successfully become a goddess).

==Sects==
The Daughters of Khaine are divided into Sects (previously known as Temples in past lore), in a manner similar to Stormcast Chambers or Sylvaneth Wargroves.

* '''Hagg Nar:''' Hagg Nar lies deep in the Umbral Veil, the darkest region of the Shadowlands. The first and largest of the Daughters of Khaine temples, it was built atop the Hellelux, a geyser of shadow magic that spews shrouding mists. It is home to hundreds of warcovens that are [[Drow|always at each other’s throats for the attention of Morathi, who encourages this “rivalry” as a means of weeding out the weak]].
* '''Draichi Ganeth:''' Draichi Ganeth, which translates as ‘the bladedkillers’, are the Khainite Aelves most commonly seen by other Order factions. Their main temple is found in the northern barrens of Fuarthorn in Ulgu, but their war pilgrimages and lesser shrines can be found across the realms. Every [[Cities of Sigmar|free city]] has seen or is host to a small troupe of the Draichi Ganeth, who look down upon the subterfuge and deception of their sister sects. They are known to the Freeguilds as the Executioners Cult due to their blunt and forward style of combat, as well as their penchant for decapitation.
* '''The Kraith:''' The sect known as the Kraith, also called the Crimson Cult, are true disciples of slaughter, and have earned a reputation as the least compromising of all the Daughters of Khaine. Arrogant and nomadic, they have no true temple home, instead traveling from one war to the next as they believe Khaine’s one and only temple is the blood stained battlefield.
* '''Khailebron:''' This sect has learned well the arts of concealment, stealth and obfuscation. Those who worship at the temples of Khailebron revere the assassin and the unseen killer, and strive to be masters of ambushes and sudden strikes. Where these temples are is known only to Morathi and the Khailebron themselves. Otherwise, they masquerade as wandering performers who showcase an elegant “bladed-dance” for the local populace, while their top killers secretly slit the throats of their targets (including anyone who shows too much disrespect to the dancers).
*'''Khelt Nar:''' Khelt Nar has become the fastest growing of the sects established by Morathi. It began as Ironshard, a single Khainite shrine founded by the High Oracle atop a flat-topped mountain of iron known as the Rothtor. Since then it has expanded to other Realms, including a stronghold in Ghyran, and have been tasked by the High Priestess with clearing out the rampant [[Orruk Warclans|Bonesplitterz]] that plague their territories. Khelt Nar is best known for being composed of deliciously brown dark aelves.
*'''Zainthar Kai''': This reserved sect was born in the Age of Chaos when Morathi (desperate to get a leg up on the Ruinous Powers) decided to infuse a new brood of Scáthborn with three drops of Khaine’s blood. The result is a temple of veritable demi-gods who can call upon the god of murder’s strength in haze of battle, becoming the Shadow Queen’s go-to temple for making her more despised enemies disappear. The temple is mostly led by/comprised of Scáthborn, but there are contingents of Witch Aelves who function as (disposable) work horses.

==Soulbound==
In [[Age of Sigmar Roleplay]], it's established that Daughters of Khaine are selected to become Soulbound when Morathi decides that a potentially stray from the ranks of her faithful is too dangerous or too useful to just dispose of outright. Soulbound Daughters are selected from the overly ambitious, those who secretly yearned for freedom, and even those who had begun to doubt Khaine's divinity, basically serving as a way to remove potential threats to Morathi's control over the faction. Despite their origins, though, Morathi often goes out of her way to maintain a good relationship with "her" Soulbound (in fact, the Binding actually servers the magical restrains that Morathi uses to control the Daughters as a whole), because, whatever else they may be to her, they are both useful as powerful yet neutral arbiters and as ambassadors of her "good intentions" to the other powers of Order.

Normal Daughters of Khaine are unsure of how to regard their Soulbound "sisters", since they are simultaneously very dangerous, but not rivals due to being forever outside the hierarchy of the temples, apparently favored by the High Oracle but yet also deeply connected to and regularly traveling alongside "outsiders" who shouldn't be privy to the secrets of Khaine's temples. They tend to default to "respectful suspicion" when interacting with Soulbound Daughters.

The Daughters of Khaine have the fewest dedicated Archetypes in the Age of Sigmar Roleplay corebook, with only the '''Hag Priestess''' and the '''Witch Aelf''' open to them.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Medusae Shrine.jpg|<s>Boobflash</s> Bloodwrack Shrine in all its glory.
File:Temples of Khaine.jpg
File:Daughters of Khaine Slaughter.jpg
File:Daughters-of-khaine-4.jpg|Dark Elves, now with 50% more [[Snek|Sneks]].
File:I might you never know.jpg
File:Drkelf.png|A typical Khelt Nar aelf.
</gallery>

{{Template:Playable Factions in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Daughters of Khaine

2021-02-18T23:27:32Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* Age of Myth */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Daughters of Khaine|Logo=Daughters_of_Khaine_battletome_art.jpg|Alliance=Order|Motto=Much bloodier and less NSFW than it appears.}}
{{topquote|She could never take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The weak and flaccid parity would make her nearly puke. She wants an eye for a tooth, and a life for an eye.|Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend}}
{{topquote|Let's show the gutless pigs how the warriors of Pah-Dishah can fight! By Tarim, we'll give the devils scarlet wine to drink this dawn...|Red Sonja}}

The '''Daughters of Khaine''' are a nation of aelves (though closer to a collection of scattered religious communes than a nation) led by Morathi who combine the Khainite religion with shadow magic.

They are an army, with a few exceptions, of [[PROMOTIONS|armed aelven women and monstergirls in bikinis]]. As they worship Khaine, to them the clash of arms is the height of their religion, holy rites practiced and perfected with all the high-level skill and grace of aelf-kind. As blades flash, they shed their visage of cold and distant beauty, how they tend to be when not in battle, their ecstatic faces lighting up with each fresh kill. In contrast to even other aelves, especially the Idoneth Deepkin, many Daughters of Khaine have lived far beyond the average aelf lifespan, which is already longer than that of other races (except the males - see below).

==History==
===Age of Myth===
Being a theocracy founded by Morathi and given her character, Morathi is behind or involved in every pivotal moment of the Daughters of Khaine in history. After leaving the Great Alliance because [[Nagash]] outed her true monstrous form, Morathi sought to establish her own dwellings in Ulgu. Her son Malerion cruelly rejected her suggestion of splitting the rule of the thirteen Dominions, for he claimed of all Ulgu as his own. Morathi persisted until, as either a joke or a plot to get rid of her, Malerion granted his mother a small parcel of land in the middle of the Umbral Veil. This was the darkest and most impenetrable region in all Ulgu, so dangerous that only Malerion himself had ever returned from those cloying mists with their sanity intact. Morathi went there and exceeded her son's expectations. She bent the shadows into a protective shroud around her new land and led settlers there.

Her only followers were the aelven witch-cults that had maintained their worship of [[Khaine]]. While Morathi knew Khaine was dead, since the blood rituals no longer rejuvenated her, she supported the religion to get people to help her. To ensure their loyalty, Morathi built a temple to Khaine, naming it Hagg Nar, and over time a city grew up around it. Morathi taught them the secrets of navigating the murky currents. Hagg Nar began as a pitiful kingdom, and Morathi brooded over her mean existence.

As she sought power, she soon found a hint of Khaine's power in her dreams while scrying. Though Khaine was dead, she knew the elven gods were cyclial and could be reborn given enough power. Morathi began a secret quest that was long and difficult, but eventually brought her to the literal heart of Khaine himself. The heart was intact and throbbing with resurgent power, but it was guarded by Kharbytr, the godbeast father of Kharibdysses. Morathi suspected Kharbytr would be resistant to sorcery, and was despearte to claim the heart before anyone else could, so she used seduction instead (yes, really), but angered Kharbytr when she tried to grab the heart. The fight between them was an epic clash that lasted thirteen days and ended when Morathi constricted Kharbytr in her coils. The godbeast dealt her a lethal blow before losing consciousness, but Morathi survived by drawing energies from Khaine's heart to sustain herself.

Heading back to Hagg Nar with her prize, Morathi declared herself Khaine's High Oracle, claiming that she spoke for the god of murder and that she was his voice in this world. With that she solidified her hold over the Khainites and reshaped the society into the Daughters of Khaine. The Daughters of Khaine would often be sent out to hunt for fragments of their missing deity on Morathi's orders (unbeknownst to them, these were snipe hunts for the most part).

She continued this way for a time until Malerion arrived. He said that he and the other aelf gods had had, at last, found the lost aelf-souls from the world-that-was, and they needed her shadow magic and knowledge of Slaanesh in their grand plan. For the first and only time, Morathi spoke of the unspeakable horrors inside Slaanesh and how she'd escaped. Using this knowledge and themselves as bait, the four lured Slaanesh into a trap and started extracting elven souls from the deity.

For her role, Morathi was allowed to take souls for herself to shape into elves, who went into swelling the numbers of the Daughters of Khaine. However, some of them had been [[monstergirls|altered by their time with Slaanesh]]. There were those with [[Lamia|serpentine mutations akin to Morathi]], these became the [[Medusa|Melusae]]. Others had bat-like wings and long tails, these became the [[Harpy|Khinerai]]. Around this time Morathi reintroduced the Cauldrons of Blood and created the Mathcoir, the master cauldron, in Hagg Nar. Secretly, she made it as a repository of power only she could access, starting with [[Drow|parts of the souls of the male elves among the Khainites]].

Unbeknownst to her erstwhile allies, Morathi had added her own deceptive magics to the undertaking, so that the soul division was skewed slightly out of the agreed proportions, with extra spirits siphoned to Hagg Nar. This subterfuge was subtle, but slowly, inevitably, [[Not as Planned|altered the eldritch balance that kept the Dark Prince perfectly imprisoned between Hysh and Ulgu]].

===Age of Chaos===
As Chaos invaded the Mortal Realms, the Daughters of Khaine marched out from Hagg Nar to ambush them, using shadowshifting magics to reach Realmgates to travel anywhere the forces of Order needed them. Although Morathi and her followers weren't liked, beggars could not be choosers and they were one of the few allies the Sigmarites had during this time. To keep the more mutated members of her coven secret, the spellcasters and priestesses of the Khainites used shadow glamors to make them look like ordinary elves (how this worked when the Khinerai were flying is anybody's guess).

The Daughters of Khaine were bold and fearless in battle - willing to cross blades with any enemy, no matter how numerous or monstrous. Despite heroics by Khainite forces at many battles, the forces of Order were on the backfoot, the final retreat happening after Nagash betrayed Sigmar at the Battle of Burning Skies.

As the Chaos invasions set about their task of destroying and enslaving entire civilisations, the Shadowlands of Ulgu suffered the least after Azyr. Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch all devoted the greater portion of their forces to different realms, the minions that were sent into Ulgu boasted none of the most fearful greater daemon commanders and Malerion himself sent Archaon packing with his tail between his legs. This gave the Daughters of Khaine plenty of time to prey on the Chaos forces that made it to their realm; reavers of Khorne, magic-seeking conclaves of Tzeentch or followers of Slaanesh tracking calls from their god that only they could sense. They reaped a large harvest of Chaos minions, leaving mass graves from all the sacrifices (this would come back to haunt them - pun intended - in the Soul Wars, see below).

But Morathi's trickery with the soul extraction came back to bite her. Taking too many souls caused Slaanesh's prison to drift towards Ulgu and weaken it. This enabled Slaanesh's most faithful servants catch the scent of their missing god/dess. More and more Slaaneshi armies penetrated the Shadowlands searching for their lost god. So began what the aelves of Ulgu named the Cathtrar Dhule - the War of Shadows.

For the major battles of the War of Shadows, Morathi led the Daughters of Khaine from the front. She cast down the Keeper of Secrets Glittus and his Legion of Excess, and the whip-handed Krulla Sha'vhr and her Flayerhost. Battle was not her only recourse, however, for against the unbeatable six warhosts of the betentacled Bovaxx the Despoiler, Morathi's coven of Medusae summoned a gaiste-maze - a shadow labyrinth that still covers part of the Umbral Veil, a dark cloud in which those hordes presumably still wander.

Yet the Daughters of Khaine did not win every battle. As larger and more-powerful armies invaded, Morathi called the first of the Caillich Covens - the gathering of forces from all the sects. This was required to defeat Luxcious, a Keeper of Secrets so powerful that many Slaaneshi considered her a replacement for the missing Dark Prince. The daemon was defeated, but not until after the exalted fiend destroyed the Temple of Druchxar.

===Age of Sigmar===
Luxcious may well have continued her scouring search of Ulgu had Sigmar not begun his war to reclaim the Mortal Realms, drawing off many Chaos forces. The Cathtrar Dhule paused, before once more erupting anew in the bitterly fought War of the Shadowpaths.

The Daughters of Khaine win more allies during this time, for despite their brutality in battle (and occasional team-killing among their allies) they're just ''that'' good at kicking Chaos. The Stormcast, Idoneth and Sylvaneth to name a few ally with the Daughters of Khaine.

During this time, some elves start to [[Heresy|worship Morathi alongside Khaine, which causes dissent]] (an uncommon case of a heresy charge in a warhammer setting that fits the actual definition). Ironically, those who disapprove get [[Blam|quickly silenced]] by Morathi or the Medusae as [[Heresy|heretics]] (usually by a knife in the vitals or getting turned into living crystal by a Melusai).

===Soul Wars===
Prior to the Soul Wars there are increasing build-ups of death magic. Whenever there is a large gathering of Scathborn, the spirits of the dead rise up and attack. Also, remember those mass graves full of sacrificed Chaos worshippers? Now they're fodder for armies of vengeful skeleton warriors and/or ghosts who attack the Khainites. This is something the necromancers and vampires Nagash sent into Ulgu to distract people from his master plan were all too happy to exploit.

The Daughters of Khaine are also called on by the forces of Order to help fight off the growing undead attacks. Morathi herself extolls the Daughters of Khaine to greater zeal, for she remembers the taste of Nagash's pimp hand and is eager to avenge the slight.

===Broken Realms===
Recently Morathi's plans have been realized. She fused with Khaine's heart and became the goddess Morathi-Khaine. Thus Khaine as he was is gone forever, and Morathi - now Morathi-Khaine - is their goddess instead of just their High Oracle (albeit now split into two bodies, Morathi-Khaine and the Shadow Queen after [[Aenarion|her hubby's soul]] [[Rip and Tear|took exception]] to Morathi's plan while in Slaanesh).

Morathi's first action was to broker an alliance with the [[Idoneth Deepkin]], offering Volturnos the souls of his fellow Cythai elves to sweeten the deal. She then ended her alliance with Sigmar by launching a coup that brough Anvilgard under her rule and renaming it Har Kuron. The Daughters of Khaine/Morathi-Khaine now fight with a newfound zeal as they launched a <s>crusade</s> <s>jihad</s> holy war to expand Morathi's empire.

==Religion==
[[File:Morathi,_the_Shadow_Queen_from_DaughtersofKhaine_.jpg|300px|thumb|right|"Charge, Daughters of Khaine! For my...uh, I mean, for Khaine's glory!"]]
Unlike some other factions within Age of Sigmar, but very much like others, the Daughters of Khaine are in essence a theocracy. There are many sects of Daughters of Khaine, each worshiping a different aspect of the aelf god of battle and bloodshed. Although the rites and rituals might differ, all the Khainites follow a strict hierarchy in their organisation. They worship Khaine and Morathi is his High Oracle, the one who discerns his will and their overall leader. Though they know about the other gods of Order, they pay no homage to them. Beneath Morathi are the High Priestesses, which include the Slaughter Queens, Hag Queens and Bloodwrack Medusae. They are the keepers of each shrine’s most sacred artefacts, and commanders of the Sisterhood of Blood. The degree of authority held by each of these figures, along with their specific title, varies between the sects, but a single word from Morathi can alter the influence of any other ranking.

Of all the warriors of the temples, the Scáthborn – the Melusai and Khinerai – are closest to Morathi herself, yet they often remain hidden from those outside the cult. The Medusae are made from Aelves converted by Morathi herself; though this is seen as an immense honor Morathi binds them with the most binding of magical oaths, but none among the Khainites would dare question her in this. This is partially due to their forms resulting from daemonic taint which would cause negative sentiment among their allies and the fact that Morathi uses them as something of a secret police. The most public-facing Khainites are the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter. Their most important shrines are the Cauldrons of Blood, gifts from Khaine himself (at least, what Morathi’s claims each time she gifts one of the great iron cauldrons to the temple of a newly founded Khainite sect). The covenites see it as a sign of their god’s favour that the cauldrons never seem to overflow, no matter how much blood is poured within them following a battle – all assume Khaine himself takes the surplus as an offering.

War covens are the most important organisations to the Daughters of Khaine, their structure laid out by Morathi herself. It is through violence that the Khainites expand their territories, defend their temples and worship their god. Weapons practice and mock duels take up the majority of their daily lives, yet these are not mere military drills, but religious ceremonies, treated with all the gravitas that others might use when reading their most holy of tomes or offering prayers to their god. From their temples in various realms, the Daughters of Khaine scour the Mortal Realms for blood sacrifices. At Morathi's edict, they also search for the shards of their god, scattered across the Realms. They do this for the glory of Khaine and to see him reborn.

[[Just As Planned|But they are nearly all of them deceived]].

Morathi claims to speak for Khaine, and she does wield his unbreakable iron heart, but none know that Morathi’s power is a lie and that Khaine is dead. While their devotions to Khaine could one day lead to his rebirth, Morathi is deliberately preventing that. The reason for this is that she is siphoning the power - either by co-opting it before it reaches the heart or pulling it from Khaine's heart - to reach godhood herself. The prayers that her daughters scream and the ritual offerings they make only serve to enhance her own power, not Khaine’s. Outside Morathi herself, only a handful of the "altered" members of the Daughters of Khaine are aware of this deception, and they, willingly or otherwise, are bound by the most binding of oaths and magic to serve Morathi and keep this secret. Also, the blood surplus poured into the Cauldron's doesn't go to Khaine. It flows back to Hagg Nar through Morathi’s magics, to the Mother of all Cauldrons, the Máthcoir, from which The High Oracle absorbs and repurposes the blood’s energies for her own nefarious gain.

==Society==
Their society is brutal, especially given that it's leader is [[Morathi]] and they worship [[Khaine]]. They serve Khaine with fanatical devotion, which is problematic considering that Khaine is the god of murder. While the Daughters of Khaine crave bloodshed and murder, they serve alongside the forces of Order – albeit tenuously. Given their tendency towards collateral damage (and rumors of kidnapping innocents and gruesome rituals), they are less respected allies and more tolerated because they're useful. Their views on the other major groups are varied. As builders of cities and civilizations, the Daughters of Khaine are at odds with the forces of Destruction. While it is said that they have an aversion to the Death faction because of a dislike for anything death-related since they nearly went extinct, it's more likely that this due to Morathi's personal grudge against Nagash for striking her and outing her true from to the rest of the pantheon. Despite their distaste for the other two, the one faction they truly hate is Chaos; they could give the Stormcast Eternals a run for their money in hating Chaos, and prosecute their crusades with particular violence against the servants of Slaanesh.

If you're wondering why Morathi is mentioned so often that's deliberate; Morathi keeps as much of a stranglehold on Khainite society as she can. It would be out-of-character for her to do anything less (she kind of a control freak). All Khainites are either warriors that serve in their religious order, or they are leathanam (see below). Temples are found only in some realms; confirmed realms are Ulgu, Azyr and Ghyran. When they are not fighting, the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter usually participate in ritualized gladiator matches or shady pit fights. They also partake of a form of bladed dancing for the entertainment of others. Despite being a theocratic society, the Daughters of Khaine don't proselytize or win converts. The adherents are themselves the result of a breeding program, choosing their partners in line with the aims and desires of their leaders.

To elaborate: the female aelves tend to dye their hair with blood and, in a throwback to Warhammer Fantasy, have rituals of rebirth keep the covenite sisters youthful in appearance and supple in body. Even among their ranks, there are some who are considered extremists; the Sisters of Slaughters' are members who graft masks of living metal to their faces with boiling blood. While the aelven members are accepted by others, the Melusae and Khinerai are not. When fighting alongside, they are concealed by a glamour so they too appear to be aelves; this could also explain some of their teamkilling tendencies among alliances with other Order factions, as they're keeping the existence of these mutated elves secret.

If you're wondering "where are the men? They have to reproduce somehow", well... remember that leathanam class mentioned earlier? Apart from the Doomfire Warlocks, this class is made up exclusively of '''all''' the males in this faction. The man are disregard menials, little more than worker drones in literal gender-based [[Slavery|slavery]] (we know what you're thinking; something, something, feminist fantasy... and we know how the media watchdogs would react if the genders were swapped). While the women outnumber the men, this is not the paradise [[/d/|some]] think it would be. Morathi deliberately made only a few male aelves, and then only from the weakest and most broken of souls retrieved from Slaanesh ensuring they would be weak. Even male aelves a Daughter of Khaine gives birth to are cursed with this same weakness as Morathi siphons part of their souls to power the Cauldrons of Blood - the true energy powering them rather than the power of Khaine... and yes, Morathi instituted the rule that the males are slaves. While some male aelves manage to harness shadow magic and become Doomfire Warlocks, Morathi has them branded with mind-control runes ([[Grimdark|while deceiving them into thinking they're protection against Slaanesh]]). Even then, Doomfire Warlocks are low status because of their gender, which is why they are rarely seen by non-Khainites. While in theory they worship Khaine, who is male, again this is superficial since Khaine is limited to his heart and has no say over the Daughters of Khaine's actions, and with Morathi merging to become the goddess Morathi-Khaine they now worship a goddess so that point is moot.

tl;dr: They're a matriarchal elven society with penchants for violence, manipulation, ruthlessness, aggressive misandry and skimpy outfits who originate from a dark realm and follow the commands of an insane female figure who sometimes mutates her followers to resemble her. [[Drow|Sound familiar]]? (moreso now that Morathi has successfully become a goddess).

==Sects==
The Daughters of Khaine are divided into Sects (previously known as Temples in past lore), in a manner similar to Stormcast Chambers or Sylvaneth Wargroves.

* '''Hagg Nar:''' Hagg Nar lies deep in the Umbral Veil, the darkest region of the Shadowlands. The first and largest of the Daughters of Khaine temples, it was built atop the Hellelux, a geyser of shadow magic that spews shrouding mists. It is home to hundreds of warcovens that are [[Drow|always at each other’s throats for the attention of Morathi, who encourages this “rivalry” as a means of weeding out the weak]].
* '''Draichi Ganeth:''' Draichi Ganeth, which translates as ‘the bladedkillers’, are the Khainite Aelves most commonly seen by other Order factions. Their main temple is found in the northern barrens of Fuarthorn in Ulgu, but their war pilgrimages and lesser shrines can be found across the realms. Every [[Cities of Sigmar|free city]] has seen or is host to a small troupe of the Draichi Ganeth, who look down upon the subterfuge and deception of their sister sects. They are known to the Freeguilds as the Executioners Cult due to their blunt and forward style of combat, as well as their penchant for decapitation.
* '''The Kraith:''' The sect known as the Kraith, also called the Crimson Cult, are true disciples of slaughter, and have earned a reputation as the least compromising of all the Daughters of Khaine. Arrogant and nomadic, they have no true temple home, instead traveling from one war to the next as they believe Khaine’s one and only temple is the blood stained battlefield.
* '''Khailebron:''' This sect has learned well the arts of concealment, stealth and obfuscation. Those who worship at the temples of Khailebron revere the assassin and the unseen killer, and strive to be masters of ambushes and sudden strikes. Where these temples are is known only to Morathi and the Khailebron themselves. Otherwise, they masquerade as wandering performers who showcase an elegant “bladed-dance” for the local populace, while their top killers secretly slit the throats of their targets (including anyone who shows too much disrespect to the dancers).
*'''Khelt Nar:''' Khelt Nar has become the fastest growing of the sects established by Morathi. It began as Ironshard, a single Khainite shrine founded by the High Oracle atop a flat-topped mountain of iron known as the Rothtor. Since then it has expanded to other Realms, including a stronghold in Ghyran, and have been tasked by the High Priestess with clearing out the rampant [[Orruk Warclans|Bonesplitterz]] that plague their territories. Khelt Nar is best known for being composed of deliciously brown dark aelves.
*'''Zainthar Kai''': This reserved sect was born in the Age of Chaos when Morathi (desperate to get a leg up on the Ruinous Powers) decided to infuse a new brood of Scáthborn with three drops of Khaine’s blood. The result is a temple of veritable demi-gods who can call upon the god of murder’s strength in haze of battle, becoming the Shadow Queen’s go-to temple for making her more despised enemies disappear. The temple is mostly led by/comprised of Scáthborn, but there are contingents of Witch Aelves who function as (disposable) work horses.

==Soulbound==
In [[Age of Sigmar Roleplay]], it's established that Daughters of Khaine are selected to become Soulbound when Morathi decides that a potentially stray from the ranks of her faithful is too dangerous or too useful to just dispose of outright. Soulbound Daughters are selected from the overly ambitious, those who secretly yearned for freedom, and even those who had begun to doubt Khaine's divinity, basically serving as a way to remove potential threats to Morathi's control over the faction. Despite their origins, though, Morathi often goes out of her way to maintain a good relationship with "her" Soulbound (in fact, the Binding actually servers the magical restrains that Morathi uses to control the Daughters as a whole), because, whatever else they may be to her, they are both useful as powerful yet neutral arbiters and as ambassadors of her "good intentions" to the other powers of Order.

Normal Daughters of Khaine are unsure of how to regard their Soulbound "sisters", since they are simultaneously very dangerous, but not rivals due to being forever outside the hierarchy of the temples, apparently favored by the High Oracle but yet also deeply connected to and regularly traveling alongside "outsiders" who shouldn't be privy to the secrets of Khaine's temples. They tend to default to "respectful suspicion" when interacting with Soulbound Daughters.

The Daughters of Khaine have the fewest dedicated Archetypes in the Age of Sigmar Roleplay corebook, with only the '''Hag Priestess''' and the '''Witch Aelf''' open to them.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Medusae Shrine.jpg|<s>Boobflash</s> Bloodwrack Shrine in all its glory.
File:Temples of Khaine.jpg
File:Daughters of Khaine Slaughter.jpg
File:Daughters-of-khaine-4.jpg|Dark Elves, now with 50% more [[Snek|Sneks]].
File:I might you never know.jpg
File:Drkelf.png|A typical Khelt Nar aelf.
</gallery>

{{Template:Playable Factions in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Star Wars

2021-02-18T16:54:21Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:9B9:53CF:AF6A:9DCB: /* The Books */

[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is one of the best-known film scores of all time, right up there with greats like Jaws, Jurassic Park (also composed by John Williams), Indiana Jones (John Williams again!), Shrek, Harry Potter (there's a reason Hollywood often relies on John Williams for their soundtracks) and the Avengers. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor ([[Emperor|no, the other one]]) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of films VII, VIII, and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot and was widely criticized for ripping off Episode IV (the whole trilogy apes the original trilogy a lot but none as much as VII) and a [[Mary Sue]] protagonist. Meanwhile Episode VIII was written and directed by Rian Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups. Abrams returned for Episode IX which got a mixed reception from both those who liked VIII and those who didn't.
General issue with the sequels is that there was no plan on what to do in each part of the trilogy and they came up with everything as they went along and it really shows. Thus it really feels like the whole trilogy lacks direction, as it was directed by two guys with conflicting visions, yet almost complete freedom to do what they wanted, including [[derp|undoing stuff done in the other guys movie]].

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. <s>A third rumored one follows Boba Fett</s> Became a series.

There are also four separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's quite bad(hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes, which played a large role in the prequel trilogy and found their way to The Clone Wars as well. Finally there is Resistance, which only lasted two seasons (for comparison, Clone Wars lasted 7 and Rebels lasted 4) and wasn't particularly well received by the fans, largely due to general lack of interest in the [[fluff]] of the sequel trilogy.

And so, after voicing a Mandalorian character one time in an episode of Clone Wars, Jon Favreau’s ego boner couldn’t contain itself any longer and gave birth to the first live action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian - building on the Disney version of Mandalorians as a sort of [[Eldar Corsairs|weedy, neo space Viking]], which seems feeble when compared to the old EU version of Mandalorians, who were more like space [[Orks|Maoris]]. Still, it ended up being pretty good; good enough for Disney to go ahead with another <s>two</s> four live action series (because if there is anyone who loves to rub skub into their pores, they are Star Wars fans). The first is a prequel to the Rogue One film, y’know, to build on the backstories of people you never needed to know about in the first place. The second series will focus on Obi Wan Kenobi’s time in exile after the saddling Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru with a kid they never asked for, nor wanted. This is what passes for entertainment in this day and age. A one season serieson Ahsoka (from 3d Clone Wars) and one on Boba Fett.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]]...and of course Ewoks.

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word, especially considering how a lot of the so-called creative freedom in the sequels consists of aping the Original Trilogy.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard (or at least they WERE handled well until Episode VII). It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==Movies==
Also due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Movies]] are also their own page.

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The waifu was so strong with Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker himself decided to wife her up]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (pictured right, a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games.

Another problem was that Disney is mostly family-friendly, and some of the Star Wars EU could get really dark. As in Warhammer 40k levels of grimdark. Examples of this are the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity more like something from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU despite not being the first Star Wars books published, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was (also introduced the character Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more). Oh, and also gave us the Republic capital planet Coruscant.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Hit store shelves before Empire Strikes Back was even in theaters. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and get volun-told to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. The Z-95 Headhunter fighter comes from this one. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of a bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar who is just another Han Solo. It was a Major Multimedia Event at the time, including a soundtrack and an uneven video game which we'll get to. The game was why Rendar, that fill-in for Han, even exists: he's your avatar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. As for Steve Perry's book, it's notable for Xizor the ultra sexy crime boss; he comes close to porking Leia, but she evades his wiles. We guess that's why they didn't pick Crispin to write it.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Cloak of Deception''': Luceno's prequel to the prequels, a political thriller, much more focused than ''The Phantom Menace''. Foreshadows ''Clones'' characters.
* '''Shatterpoint''': The Mace Windu spinoff, ''Heart of Darkness'' style with Samuel Jackson playing the Charles Marlow role. Windu cracks off lines like "we're going to beat him like a rented gong".
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.
* '''Darth Plagueis''': Shows how Palpatine becomes a Sith Lord under his mentor. Less Star Wars than Star Politics, which is a good thing for this particular story.
* '''Jedi Apprentice''': That Qui-Gon / Obi-Wan series for kids, started by Dave Wolverton and continued by Jude Watson over a near-flawless run of eight books, until Xanatos bites it and there's no focused villain anymore. What a waste we barely got to see this relationship in the movie.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars brand and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing off Mara Jade, the villains having plot armor through bouts of incompetence from the heroes, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 US culture and politics.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
[[Image: Yuuzhan-vong-eu2_bg.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The Yuuzhan Vong, [[Skub|either badass and interesting or grimderp canon-defiling villains]]]]
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running Star Wars book series (19 books long) being about an extragalactic invasion and the Jedi's role in fighting it. Luke and his wife Mara are training new Jedi including Han and Leia's kids while Han and Leia build bridges between the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Until the extragalactic invaders arrive; the Yuuzhan Vong - [[Culexus|Force-null]] [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]] and a fixation on [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]]. The resulting war sees a body count that rivals anything in Warhammer 40k, including Chewie's death Majora's Mask style plus the deaths of Han and Leia's youngest son and Admiral Ackbar. Mara gives birth to Ben Skywalker and overcomes a terminal illness. The Vong take over and [[Tyranids|terraform]] part of the galaxy, including Coruscant, and lots is learned about the Force. A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts are good, some are bad and some are weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. He even uses clone bodies to do so (but unlike Disney, Dark Horse didn't flip-flop on the lore), wrecks a fleet of enemy ships using the Force and at some point has his power reflected back at him. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue. Original version of Episode 9.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant, where a Queen who could be potential ally against the Imperials offers a deal which hinges on Leia marrying her prince son. In response, Han sorta-kinda (totally) kidnaps Leia. Luke teams up with the prince in question (who's a bit of a Jedi fanboy but basically a competent officer) to find them. This one introduced the planet Dathomir and the force witches the Nightsisters, which were ultimately adapted to be Maul's homeworld.
* '''X-Wing''': A long running series that passed between several authors that followed Wedge and his squad post RotJ. Initially focused on the liberation of Coruscant and was solid if formulaic, but eventually spiraled off into skub territory. cv
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': Want some Cthulhu with your Star Wars? Luke, his son Ben, Leia and the remaining Jedi work to counter anti-Jedi backlash following the events of LotF while Han takes a bigger role in politics. Things go from bad to worse when several Jedi suffer mysterious shared bouts of psychosis and an ancient Sith tribe emerges from hiding. Things then go from worse to cosmic horror when both sides encounter Abeloth, a yandere, Lovecraftian Force entity so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith have to ''team up'' to fight her (yes really!). But Abeloth escapes her prison, and both sides have to stop her before she plunges the Force and the galaxy into chaos. During these events, Ben Skywalker finds himself in a Batman/Catwoman situation with the Sith apprentice Vestara Khai. While being an OoM better than the preceding book series, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.
* '''The Paradise Snare''': AC Crispin's first book (1997) in a Han trilogy, where the female self-insert gets to bounce on young Harrison Ford's lap. If you ignore the Archive Of Our Own bullshit the story is actually good: Han escapes his Oliver Twist youth ("F8GAN", LOL) and ends up in a "spice" (=drug) operation which he then helps shut down. A bit episodic for a film but, again, that didn't stop the Rat House from scrapping it and filming what they filmed instead.

'''The Not EU'''
* '''Splinter of the Mind's Eye''': Alan Dean Foster's sequel to ''Star Wars'' before anyone, perhaps even Georgie himself, knew what was coming in ''Empire Strikes Back''. Much [[Incest Smith|chemistry]] between Luke and Leia.
* '''Dark Forces''': The novelisation of the games, starring Kyle Katarn. Pretty good writing except for the action scenes, which are rote accounts of the missions in-game. At the time Katarn wasn't considered a canon character and the first game, proposing yet another heist of the Death Star Plans, was explicitly ''disavowed'' as canon. As time went on LucasArts warmed up at least to Katarn who, unlike Dash Rendar, acquired a personality.

== Disney Canon ==
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies though there have been growing rumors of a shakeup that may render the Disney triology non-canon due to severe backlash and financial losses. There's also shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU are slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy. Other complaints raised are how Disney screwed over Luke and how many cool characters are either cannibalized for story elements (like Kyle Katarn) or completely removed from canon (like Mara Jade). These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, CEO Big Iger briefly resigned in 2019... before being brought back in 2020 following severe financial and PR losses for Disney due to comparatively poor reception of the Disney canon, controversial statements from Disney staff against fans and shutdowns related to the global coronavirus pandemic. There have been large rumblings of change in Disney Star Wars, for better or worse.

It should be noted that the TV shows below are either now part of the Disney canon (such as the 2008 Clone Wars series), or made by Disney. There is also a major Star Wars project in the works called Star Wars: The High Republic. It's an upcoming multimedia project spanning books and comics worked on by various writers including Claudia Gray and Cavan Scott ([[Warhammer Adventures|yes, ''that'' Cavan Scott]]). The stated goal is to tell one cohesive story set in the High Republic Era, two centuries prior to Phantom Menace. It was slated for a 2020 release but was pushed back to 2021, purportedly due to the COVID-19 pandemic (purportedly because they could still work on the story from home in this day and age but have chosen to extend the deadline).

December 2020 gave us a major announcement of several new films and TV series, as well as further information about already announced things. These include:

* '''[[Star Wars:The Mandalorian|The Mandalorian]]''': Live-action series that started in 2019. Unsurprisingly, Season 3 is on it's way and will release in 2022.
* '''Ahsoka''': Live-action series by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni (the chads responsible for The Mandalorian, the latter also responsible for [[Star Wars:The Clone Wars|The Clone Wars]], [[Star Wars:Rebels|Rebels]] and the character of Ahsoka (and [[Star Wars:Resistance|Resistance]] but [[heresy|let's not talk about that]])) featuring the titular fan favorite character who made her live-action debut in The Mandalorian Season 2, starring Rosario Dawson and is a spin-off of The Mandalorian and will have cross-overs with it. Though not officially confirmed, is highly likely to feature the live-action debut of [[tactical genius|Thrawn]], who was name-dropped by Ahsoka in The Mandalorian as her quarry. Release date unknown but is confirmed to run only for one season.
* '''Rangers of the New Republic''': Live-action series and another spin-off of The Mandalorian, again by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni and is said to have cross-overs with The Mandalorian and Ahsoka. Not much is known at the moment but the name tells us at that it would focus on the titular galactic government, something we still don't know much about due to the world-building fuck-up of the sequel trilogy. Release date unknown.
* '''The Bad Batch''': Animated series and a spin-off of The Clone Wars. Focuses on the titular clone commando unit that was introduced in the last season of The Clone Wars, seemingly set during Republics transition into the Empire. [[Awesome|Dee Bradley Baker is back playing all the main characters]]. Release in 2021.
* '''Andor''': Live-action series and a spy-thriller focusing on the titular character who was introduced in Rogue One. Release in 2022.
* '''The Acolyte''': Live-action series set during the High Republic-era, a thus-far unexplored era 100-300 years before the original movie during which the Republic was at it's peak. Release date unknown.
* '''Obi-Wan Kenobi''': Live-action series featuring the return of Ewan McGregor as the titular character set 10 years after Revenge of the Sith. Hayden Christensen is also confirmed to be returning, though how it will work is unknown as Anakin was Vader at this time and thus he would be in his armor and have his voiced dubbed over by someone, likely/hopefully James Earl Jones. Release in 2022 and is confirmed to only run for one season.
* '''A Droid Story''': Animated series featuring R2-D2 and C-3PO and a new character, possibly a droid as well. That is all we know for now but will likely be targeted towards kids, just like the animated series Droids from the 80s. Release date unknown.
* '''Lando''': Live-action series focusing on the titular character. Not much known aside from that at the moment, not even will it feature Billy-Dee Williams or Donald Glover. Release date unknown.
* '''Visions''': [[Anime]] anthology-series made by different anime studios across Japan. Will run for 10 episodes, with each episode likely produced by a different studio. It's unknown which studios are involved but considering their track record, Production IG, Sunrise and Trigger are likely involved. Release date unknown.
* '''Rogue Squadron''': Live-action film, the first one after the sequels. Will feature the titular elite starfighter squadron and is directed by Patty Jenkins, the director of Wonder Woman (but also [[RAGE|writer and director of Wonder Woman 1984]]). Will it focus on the Rogue Squadron from EU led by Wedge Antilles or will it be completely different remains to seen. Release in 2023.
* '''Film by Taika Waititi''': Nothing about it is known at the moment except that it is happening, it is live-action and will be directed by Taika Waititi of Thor: Ragnarök-fame who also played IG-11 in The Mandalorian and directed the last episode of the first season. Release likely in either 2024 or 2025.
* '''The Book of Boba Fett''': Live-action series, revealed post-credits in the last episode of The Mandalorian Season 2, which had Boba Fett returning to Jabba's palace, kill everyone inside and then sit on his old bosses throne. Release in 2021.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 80 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16 (two suits positive, two suits negative), plus 16 wildcards that could be positive/negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (the Idiot, a Two and a Three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot. Like most card games there are variations, such as a single suit hand beating a mixed hand of equal value, light beating dark, dark beating light, instant tiebreaker with new hands in the case of a tie; one variation even uses dice (presumably to set a handicap the hand has to overcome).

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End Games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Destiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck. The gameplay was also radically different from most CCGs; in Magic terms the closest analog would be that every SWCCG deck was fundamentally a mill deck, with some hard to assemble insta-win combos themed to the plots of the movies.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]]. It is now dead.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] made [[Star Wars: Destiny CCG]]. It is also now dead.

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===

The first Star Wars miniatures game was ''Star Wars Miniature Battles'' released by West End Games in 1989. It and the minis were readily available through the early half of the 1990's, although the line was never particularly diverse. Even accounting for vehicles the whole line was only a couple dozen products and you could get all the rebel heroes in a single box if you just wanted them for the RPG, plus a another box for Vader and a mix of imperials.

Concurrent to this, Galoob managed to get their hands on Star Wars for their Micro Machines toy line, and released an '''enormous''' line of minis which conformed to no consistent scale but were at least cheap, durable, and prepainted. Homebrew adaptations of other systems to use them were a thing in the 90's but vanished as they became scarce.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. An official expansion for ''The Sims 4''. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original subversive take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably; this sequel, also, failed, less because it was Different, more because those assholes didn't let its devs finish it before dumping it in game-stores. Much much later came a skubtastic MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow. Though the gameplay is pretty meh due to being an MMO, the storylines are mostly good, with the best of them being some of the best Star Wars stories out there. Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content. Fans often treat these games as canon even if they are technically not, due to being set so long before the films that there aren't many contradictions between canon and legends.

* '''Jedi Knight''': A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, who despite starting out in a non-EU game ended up so beloved that he entered canon. There was a Mara Jade expansion, "Mysteries of the Sith", amounting to a new game. The replayability is off the charts thanks to LucasArts' decision to open all three of these games to mods, resulting in fan-made missions several of which were as good as the original (for them, see The Massassi Temple site, still active in all its late-1990s glory). Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney. At least they were recently re-released on modern consoles so at least their existence is acknowledged and gives more people a chance to play them. Also the full name for Jedi Academy would be Dark Forces 4 : Jedi Knight 3 : Jedi Academy.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, it is one of the best Star Wars games ever made and holds it's own in the FPS-genre as a whole. It is also notably more violent and [[grimdark]] than Star Wars usually is. The soundtrack is also quite noteworthy, while it does make great use of John Williams music as most Star Wars games do, it also has it's own original and rather unique soundtrack consisting of Mandalorian warchants which you should seriously go and listen to.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Bounty Hunter''': Featuring Jango Fett as the protagonist and tells the story of he ended up being the clone template. A third person action adventure game that makes the player [[meme|FEEL like a Mandalorian]]. Particular highlight is the first level of the second chapter set on Coruscant as no other game before or since has allowed the player to explore Coruscant to this extent. 1313 was meant to do that even better but fuck Disney.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Why? The mission scripting and AI are top notch for the genre and absolutely brutal to fight against; on all but the simplest missions you're almost guaranteed to fail the first time and eventually develop a sixth sense about the fighters threatening your objective vs the fighters just there to kill you (ignore those, learn to be hard to hit). Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* ''' The Force Unleashed''': A hack n slash game featuring Starkiller, Darth Vaders secret apprentice. While the protagonist is very [[skub]], overpowered (he literally pulls down a Star Destroyer from orbit with the Force) and has been called a [[Mary Sue|Gary Stu]], all that just makes it a complete power fantasy that is hard not to enjoy. Physics are pretty good for its time and enemies can have particularly realistic moments, such as briefly grabbing onto whatever's at hand, including each other, when lifted with the Force. Disregard the wii version which is hilariously inferior in level design and gameplay

* '''Revenge of the Sith''': One of the best movie license games of all time, though does that say more about the game or movie license games, I'll let you decide. The storymode is basically a hack n slash but the real star is the versus mode (and boss fights in the story mode) as this is basically the best Star Wars fighting game there is (not that there's much competition).

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan. Also notable for making Darth Vader '''''really FUCKING SCARY'''''. As he should be.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating. Sequels were made for Empire and Jedi, which slightly dialed back the difficulty.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a desktop game at times, since it uses the Win32 API (like Minesweeper and Solitare) and was almost certainly written in visual basic. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, this was the game part of the massive Everything But The Movie multimedia of that name. Here you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Starts during Episode V as a side story; moves on to bridge V and VI. Despite a fanbase that stayed loyal for several years, this game has sadly not aged well at all thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). The game has an absolute great opening (at least for its time) where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls. Notable for having a soundtrack (we DID say, "Everything But The Movie") not by Williams but equally as good.

*'''Star Wars : Racers''' : The defining podracing game and the only thing done on Episode I that no one can complain about.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* X-Wing starfighters = spaceborne sex
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome! Contrary to popular belief, shot counts have proven they have ridiculously good aim.
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, TCW and Rebels.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}, all while serving under a <s>Commissar</s> different Jedi, one who sees the Clone Troopers as cannon fodder.
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Double-bladed Lightsabers.
* Lando Calrissian.
* [https://youtu.be/YJEUAe-dcGo Obi-Wan Kenobi.]
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Battle of Yavin.
* Battle of Hoth.
* Battle of Endor.
* Battle of Scariff.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. Yes, we are talking about the the same TIE Fighters we mentioned before. By garbage, we mean despite how cool looking and sounding TIE Fighters are, they are actually a ridiculously impractical design and the standard TIE Fighters are mass produced extremely cheaply even if they don't look like it (except Darth Vader's, which is custom made and modified by Vader himself). Even 40k's Imperium has better fighter designs. At least the Imperium's fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot. Also, clearly super skilled since they have roughly an equal kill-death ratio with the Rebels in the movie battles.
* [https://youtu.be/T9j7kLG7VK8 Obi-Wan Kenobi. Again.]
* The Millennium Falcon has a 3D chess board, secret compartments for smuggling space cocaine and a walk in closet specifically for capes.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
*The trench run.
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* The moon sized space stations that zap other planets to bits? They’re pretty neat.
* Werner Herzog, asking if he can look at your baby and assuring you that he will be quiet.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers?
* Tyber Zann

== See Also: ==

* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer. Whereas ''DM of the Rings'' features a railroading DM and players who are therefore somewhat antagonistic to him, ''Darths & Droids'' has a GM who adjusts his game to his players' actions and players who generally get along with both him and each other. The plot of ''DMotR'' is very similar to that of the movies (but avoids a few plot elements), but the plot (and, indeed, the universe) of ''Darths & Droids'' is only very loosely based on the ''Star Wars'' films. (For a somewhat spoilery example: "Darth" is a courtesy title for retired Jedi, such as Chancellor Palpatine.)

* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: " [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"

* [[Timothy Zahn]]

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[[Category: Television]]

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