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Malus Darkblade

2021-10-15T12:02:21Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E113:B449:EEA4:2361: /* Total War */

[[File:Malus.jpg|350px|thumbnail|right|He may have been an asshat, but what an awesome asshat. ''Also pictured: the only living creature he genuinely and unconditionally loves (and loves him back, d'aww.)'']]
{{topquote|Through hate, all things are possible.|Malus Darkblade}}
{{Topquote|If nothing else, Malus Darkblade, you can be counted upon to react to adversity with as much violence as possible.|Tz'arkan, Drinker of Souls, Greater Daemon of <s>Tzeentch</s>Slaanesh}}
{{topquote|An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.|Criss Jami}}

'''Malus Darkblade''' "GW's NOT [[Elric]]"
is a right hard tough bastard who simply won't die. Putting them other fantasy characters to shame, while he may be selfish, arrogant, wicked, and basically everything you would expect from a [[Dark Elf]], he is actually portrayed somewhat believably as well in the five novels written of him by Dan 'All hail the great one' Abnett and Mike Lee. He showed moments of comradeship and faith towards his companions, and constantly shows, and is even described as having, genuine "affection" for his [[Awesome|giant fuckoff murderlizard]], which he names "Spite," in reflection of one of his most important moral values. Despite generally being what we'd consider a nasty little sociopath, Malus isn't [[Always Chaotic Evil|one-dimensional]] [[Stupid Evil|morally]], he has a surprising level of complexity in his character. He definitely values getting ahead and looking out for number one in all situations, but still has something that, while not exactly honour, might pass for it in the context of druchii society.

''Darkblade'', incidentally, in the books at least, isn't his given or familial name (the Druchii don't have surnames), but rather it's an epithet, and a derogatory one at that, for bastard children implying that he is a faulty creation.

[[File:Spite is beast beast.png|500px|thumbnail|left|Spite is best beast...]]

His [[Nauglir|Cold One]] (''nauglir''), Spite, is unusually intelligent for his breed, a necessary trait to survive as Spite was the runt of his clutch and when full grown is small by Cold One standards in the books (though "small" for them equals 16 feet from snout to tail tip), and seems to be the one living thing that has unconditional affection for Malus. Generally, the druchii have to coat themselves in nauglir venom (which has unfortunate long-term effects of killing the sense of smell, taste and touch - there is treatment to reverse this but its expensive even for the nobles) in order for their mounts not to NOM them, but Spite eventually stopped wanting to NOM Malus even though Malus smelt of [[daemon]]. Malus only had to [[Meme|boop him on the snoot]] once, and maybe actually felt bad about it, despite being the a nasty little sociopath he is. The relationship between the two is positively [[My Little Pony|noblebright]] in comparison to just about everything else that goes down in the series.

He is one of the most popular Warhammer Fantasy characters then because he has that rarest of qualities; actual character. His refusal to give up and his hard as nails approach at slaying the fuck out of anything that gets in his way has made many fanboys hold a torch for him.

If he wasn't a pansy elf and a dark one at that, he and [[Gotrek & Felix|Gotrek]] would be firm drinking buddies.

==The Comics==

[[File:Darkblade comic cover.png|350px|thumbnail|left]]
{{Topquote|Shut UP, daemon.|Malus Darkblade, all the friggin' time (a running joke in the comics, referenced often in the books, too.)}}

Malus comes from a series of comic stories (also written by Abnett) from the days when GW actually cared about making a good story without making it serve a purpose like releasing new models. Malus is the son of a Dark Elf noble, and his soul is stolen by the daemon Tz'arkan when Malus was questing for treasure (Tz'arkan describes himself as a servant of Tzeentch in the comic but of Slaanesh in the books, sort of; he doesn't typically act particularly Slaaneshi, except when in the presence of a Slaaneshi cult (though he does pay homage when seeing an idol of Slaanesh), but he seems pretty driven by nyehehe JUST AS PLANNED rather than lust and excess, so draw your conclusions—really, why this changed is anyone's guess and doesn't seem to make much sense other than to fit Tza'arkan into a plot which involves a secret and forbidden cult of Slaanesh trying to subvert druchii society), Malus had to find five artifacts in order to free the daemon and himself, only for the daemon to steal his soul when it was freed.

==The Books==

{{Topquote|If you see the [[Khaine|Lord of Murder]] before I do, tell him I'm coming. [[Awesome|Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat]].|Malus Darkblade}}

A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf noble's son, but rather than being the favorite he's the hated bastard in a family with more incest than ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He has five older half-siblings and they have the same father - a Dark Elf noble second in command of Hag Graef named Lurhan - while the half-siblings share the same mother. The half-siblings are;

* Bruglir (male, the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir, won't let anyone else have her if he's nearby and considers Urial not worth killing despite Yasmir's repeated requests.)
* Isilvar (male, the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, hierophant of a secret and very much forbidden Slaaneshi cult, who is in a incestuous triad with his younger sister Nagaira along with Malus. This is apparently nothing to write home about in their world.)
* Yasmir (female, the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away on raids or at war...which is apparently, by Druchii standards, completely acceptable.)
* Nagaira (female, the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar)
* Urial (male, the fifth child, born deformed and his mother died giving birth to him so Urial was sacrificed to Khaine but a miracle ensured he survived, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him.)

Malus' mother is a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy with him and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with slow-acting poison while she was pregnant with Urial, which is also why he was born deformed). However, Lurhan hates Malus and has secretly conspired to have Malus killed ever since the latter reached adulthood (only fear of Eldire's retribution prevented Lurhan from having Malus outright killed.)

===Prologue===

A short story which involves Malus going on a rite of passage for Dark Elf nobles called a Haskeer cruise; the young noble is given command of a force and has to conduct a successful raid and return. The send-off they get, how many retainers they have and the amount of ships under their command is a reflection of their status in the family; Malus got one ship - the ''Manticore'', one retainer and no send-off. The story starts with Malus being dragged there after a failed assassination attempt from one of his siblings involving a poisonous snake, [[Grimdark|that he only survived because the snake bit Malus' two "bodyservants"]] - that is to say, [[rape]] slaves - first, so didn't have enough venom to kill when it bit him. Let us not forget that, whilst a popular and well-developed character with a pretty solid fanbase, he's still who he is. Whether he's a product of his environment or [[Always Chaotic Evil|just an evil person]] is not ''quite'' fleshed out, although most stories about the elves/Aeldari, and the amount of time the reader gets to spend inside Malus's head, so to speak, it lean towards the former with a really big handicap from the latter. Other members of the crew include the captain Hathan Gul, and the [[Anime|tsundere]] female first mate, a corsair named Lhunara, with whom he alternatively shares flirtations and blows. Originally, this motley crew were slated to go raid Bretonnia but Malus arranged for them to raid Ulthuan instead because he wanted the cruise over and done with, Ulthuan was closer and [[Elf|elven]] slaves were worth about 100x their [[Aerwin the mon-keigh expert|human]] equivalents (despite the fact that Ulthuan was about equivalently much more dangerous).

Malus suspected his retainer — a down-on-his-luck noble called Silar — was hired by Lurhan to kill him. When Silar confronted Malus, Malus learned that was wrong; Silar had a sense of honor and duty to Malus for the time that his contract covered, and generally wasn't a dude who was about subtlety being much more [[RIP AND TEAR|brutally honest]]. Silar actually confronted Malus to express his disapproval of Malus' plan to raid Ulthuan, which Silar considered suicidally stupid. Lhunara overheard them and, surprised by Malus' move and seeking a better position that what Gul offered her, approached them and spilled the beans to Malus; Lurhan had actually arranged with Gul to get Malus killed by a Bretonnian Duke they had an arrangement with (the corsairs took prisoners from the Duke's dungeons as slaves, in exchange they'd leave the area under his care unmolested). Malus decided to go ahead with attacking Ulthuan and, through a combination of luck, cunning and a surprise attack at night was successful. He captured a village of High Elf civilians but was forced to kill them in a ruse to kill a High Elf Sea Guard patrol the next morning (much to Malus' chagrin, due to the aforementioned value of pointy ears at the flesh markets) and escape. They took a lot of treasure from the High Elves, but Malus gave it to crew to make them loyal to him instead of Hathan Gul; Gul himself was tortured by Malus in a suitably [[grimdark]] manner for the whole Uriah Gambit and killed by his former crew (with Malus keeping Gul's gold false teeth as mementos).

=== The Daemon's Curse ===
Malus is now a successful nobleman, Silar and Lhunara are his retainers and [[Anime|Lhunara has gone dere dere for Malus]]. He also gained the service of Arleth Vann, a renegade assassin from the Temple of Khaine. After coming back from a very successful slave raid (where Malus and his crew tortured a couple as entertainment for the trip), they were ambushed and their captives were all killed, making the raid a bust. Malus figured out who was responsible for the ambush and confronted them. It turned out to be a Dark Elf noble called Fuerlan, a smug schemer and Malus' cousin on his mother's side. Because of the ambush, Malus had Fuerlan tortured, despite Fuerlan's father being the ruler of Naggor, a Black Ark which was in a cold-war-type conflict with Hag Graef, where Fuerlan was staying as a special "hostage" ("hostage" in the medieval European sense, where a noble from one nation would be confined to another's court, and treated with all respect due to their station as long as their nation didn't cause trouble between the two; conversely, there would be trouble if anything bad happened to the hostage).

Malus knew of the political ramifications of harming a noble hostage, but the only concession he made was not to kill Fuerlan. Naturally, this brought some heavy political blowback crashing down on Malus. After enduring the worst of it, Malus learned of a treasure that could increase his power in a temple to the north, and took a personal regiment of Cold One Knights along with his retainers on the trip. Along the way, he encountered and had to negotiate a truce with a tribe of Shades (a feral and aberrant branch of the druchii who even the "dark cousins" to the regular elves thought of as "dark cousins"; their cruelty to their slaves horrified even Malus; the Shades [[Grimdark|removed the eyes and tongues of their slaves while regularly cutting on them in addition to the standard Dark Elf abuses]]). Then the tribe double-crossed him and he and his warband had to fight their way free. After braving a fierce blizzard they encountered Beastmen near the temple and tried to negotiate a truce with them.

When they got to the temple, the Beastmen betrayed them. Malus got his followers to hold the line against the brayherd while he went in alone. Ignoring symbols and statues of Chaos he entered the chamber. He took a ring for himself from the hoard, which awakened the daemon Tz'arkan who possessed him. The daemon announced to Malus what happened, pointing out the Dark Elf's greed and taking the ring brought it on himself. Horrified, Malus tried to commit suicide only for Tz'arkan to stop him by pointing out that if he did Malus would be his plaything for eternity (In the Warhammer Fantasy world, exorcisms involve killing the possessed, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)#The Cult of Sigmar|with Luthor Huss as the sole exception]].)

[[File:STFUDaemon.png|thumbnail|Like a bickering old couple...]]
Malus and Tz'arkhan have a conversation about the latter's plan; he wanted to be free of the temple, so he tasked Malus to gather five artifacts for the ritual to free Tz'arkan or his soul would be claimed by the daemon. Malus also had a time limit of one year to accomplish this. Enraged and in despair, Malus fled the temple with Tz'arkan's laughter ringing in his ears. In unthinking rage and shame he killed his lieutenants (starting, in a surprisingly emotional scene, with a horrified Lhunara) and then going full [[RIP AND TEAR]] the remaining [[Beastmen]].

Afterwards, he started on a quest with Tz'arkan for the first artifact The Octagon of Praan, a gem that protected its wearer from hostile magic. He acquired this after the killing the Bray-Shaman, a leader of a group of [[beastmen]] who, at least initially, he contacted under peaceful terms but then just went full [[Khaine#mudertenderizer|murdertenderizer]]. When busy not almost getting killed, Malus learned that Tz'arkan could give him power, enhancing his physical abilities beyond mortal means whilst making him uncontrollably violent and more susceptible to the daemon's influence. The powerlevel boost thus gained seemed to have addictive qualities, not unlike the combat stimms (or daemonic aid) over in the other Warhammer. It is described as having pretty drastic (skin pallour, dark bulging veins, etc.) effects on his appearance, and being pretty unmistakable as what it was, so Malus wasn't overtly keen on using it, but wound up having to do so all too many times: as daemons are generally big on temptation, Tza'arkan would be constantly reminding Malus that this was a possibility, sort of like twiddling a syringe with a junkie's drug of choice in their face every five minutes.

=== Bloodstorm ===

Malus returned to Hag Graef to plan getting the second artifact - the Idol of Kolkuth, but got captured by Lurhan's soldiers. He was gruesomely tortured by his father, who was trying to manipulate him into requesting death so Eldire couldn't blame Lurhan for Malus' death. A combination of spite and Tz'arkan's power kept Malus alive, long enough for Eldire to visit him in secret. Eldire and Nagaira worked together to free him, magically heal his wounds and inducted him into the Slaaneshi cult. Then Malus learned they didn't want him, but Tz'arkan, so he sought a way out. During this time, Malus took on another retainer, a witty, down-to-earth (for a Dark Elf) city guard named Hauclir. Eventually his schemes came to the attention of the Drachau of Hag Graef, and Malus made him an offer. There was a fleet of Nurgle-worshiping pirates called the Skinriders - named for the fact that they lost their skins due to disease or injury and wore the skin of those they fought or captured - who often attacked the Dark Elves. Malus asked for a Writ of Iron from the Drachau - a legal document that gives the carrier the authority of the issuer, and since this was issued by the ruler of Hag Graef Malus was now the second-most powerful person in the city (with the caveat that if the carrier failed their duty, the Writ would be melted down and the molten remains were poured down their throat) - and in exchange Malus would hunt down and destroy the Skinriders.

Malus used this to bring Urial and some warriors from the Temple of Khaine with him. He also brought along Yasmir to placate Bruglir, which outraged Yasmir since she was a spoiled snob who couldn't handle not being in control of a situation. Urial used some magic to teleport them to Burglir's ship. There they find out that Bruglir was cheating on Yasmir with his female lieutenant, a scarred woman named Tanithra. Especially problematic since apparently only the male in druchii relationships must maintain his continence, as a show of strength, while the female may slut it up at will and then there's the question of whether rape slaves count. For [[GW|reasons]], this dynamic isn't totally fleshed out, but it is seen in evidence in some other places including deldar 40K novels as well. Yasmir, being thereby justifiably outraged and, bound by her culture's code of conduct to take offense and then take measures about it, flips her shit when she finds out Bruglir is fucking around with the lady-pirate lieutenant. He, according again to druchii standards, doesn't really concern himself with her extensive court of admirers back home as long as she makes him head of the queue when he's around (interestingly, Yasmir had gotten Bruglir to kill suitors she didn't want except for Urial who Bruglir considered not worth it).

None of them are happy about the state of affairs until Malus reminded them that with the Writ he's in charge, though he played to Bruglir's pride and vanity when the latter threatened to kill him anyway. During the voyage the loss of control and Bruglir's sleeping around also sent Yasmir round the bend, so she rarely left her cabin, and started getting into Khainite worship, much to the delight of Urial who saw it as a chance to get close to her. During this time Malus learned that Bruglir had promised Tanithra a captaincy, and was using that to string her along and extort sex from her. Around this time she started to resent that situation, which Malus considered in case it could be useful later. They encountered a few Skinrider ships and had a vicious battle, with Hauclir retrieving the maps to their main base and nearly getting trapped on the ship as it sank. The Dark Elves won after taking some losses, and commandeered one of the Skinrider ships, with Urial's Khainite blessings keeping the crew from getting infected by all the diseases on board. They decided to pull a Trojan Horse stunt to kill them, with Bruglir putting Tanithra in charge of the ship and calling that keeping his promise; this naturally made Tanithra even madder.

They infiltrated the Skinriders base and encountered their chieftain, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle wearing a cloak of flayed skin. Then the Dark Elves were betrayed by Tanithra, who had taken Yasmir captive. She confessed to everyone her part in the plan to defeat the Skinriders and offered to pledge herself to the Skinriders on the condition that she can keep one of the Dark Elf ships and be its captain, while also flaying Yasmir and wearing her skin. Urial attacked to save Yasmir and a battle broke out between Malus, Bruglir's loyal crew and Tanithra and the Skinriders, resulting in the deaths of all in the room but Urial, Yasmir and Malus. Malus broke away during the battle to find the Idol of Kolkuth, which was in an interdimensional maze. Malus was unable to navigate, and asked Tz'arkan for a rope - being Tz'arkan, the daemon unravelled Malus' blood vessels from his body and used them as rope. After fighting past a minotaur, Malus got the Idol - his body restored at the cost of Tz'arkan spreading his influence, and Malus found his way back as the Dark Elves wiped out the Skinriders, but there was no sign of Urial or Yasmir.

=== Reaper of Souls ===

Malus sought to get the next artifact, the Dagger of Torxus. It was a powerful weapon that would take the soul of anyone it cut and bind them to that spot. Malus was stabbed with it, but due to Tz'arkan already having his soul, it just rendered Malus unconscious.

Malus also tracked down the raiding party that took the Dagger, which turned to be led by Lurhan. After a fierce fight with Lurhan and his retainers, Malus slew some while others fled, but was forced to kill Lurhan in self-defense to get the Dagger, making Malus a kinslayer. This was a bittersweet moment for Malus, for even though Malus had long wanted to kill his father due to the latter hating and trying to kill him since childhood, Lurhan was one of the Witch King's vassals, and killing him under those circumstances made Malus an outlaw among the Dark Elves, and Tz'arkan was happy to troll him about it all.

Malus went on the run, pursued by Cold One Knights from Hag Graef who'd been informed of Lurhan's death by the surviving retainers. Malus fled to Naggor, and was nearly caught. But a regiment of knights from Naggor killed the knights of Hag Graef and brought Malus before his uncle Balneth to explain the situation. Unfortunately for Malus, Balneth knew what he'd done Fuerlan, who was also present at the meeting. Malus' tortures had left Fuerlan a heavily scarred, mentally unstable alcoholic swinging between hatred and fear of Malus. Nagaira was also there, much to Malus' chagrin. To his surprise, they offered him help and indicated that they were planning a coup against Hag Graef and that by killing his father he would be a valuable ally to their cause. Malus reluctantly agreed to join them, though Fuerlan's constant threats and Nagaira's scheming got on his nerves. Nagaira also claimed to have a ritual that would give him control of Tz'arkan, which Malus agreed to.

Malus was ambushed in his tent by four of his former retainers Silar, Arleth Vann, Dolthaic and Hauclir. They had been sent on a mission by the Drachau of Hag Graef to kill Malus and be free of the political consequences of their association with him. All but Hauclir ridiculed Malus for ruining their lives, with Hauclir pleading that Malus had a plan to fix the situation. Malus managed escape them and fled. As he got close to Hag Graef, he learned that Nagaira had lied. The ritual was actually drawing on the daemon's power to put a geas on both of them so Malus could be used to slay the Drachau of Hag Graef. Malus fought his way into the throne room, and dealt a severe would to the Drachau before a group of Sorceresses arrived, led by Malus' mother Eldire. Together, the Sorceresses freed Malus from the geas and returned his things, but not before Eldire gave Malus a ring that could contact her if he needed help (and was dismayed to learn of Malus being possessed).

=== Warpsword ===

=== Lord of Ruin ===

Malus fought the Chaos Champion. Their helm got knocked off during the fight, revealing it to be an undead Lhunara, Malus' former retainer; in her dying moments she had pledged herself to the Chaos Gods in exchange for revenge against Malus.

Malus found a severely wounded Hauclir and faced a moral dilemma; get rid of the Warpsword and let the daemonic power in his blood heal Hauclir or keep the Warpsword and let him die. Malus did something compassionate for someone besides himself or Spite and dropped the weapon and successfully healed Hauclir. Unfortunately he didn't get the weapon in time, and Tz'arkan took over. Now in control of Malus, Tz'arkan used his powers to compel Spite and rode the Cold One into the ground to get back to the Temple in time, leaving Spite nearly dead from exhaustion. It's revealed the reason for Tz'arkan's deadline was there was a ground level volcano beneath the temple that was about to erupt and Tz'arkan wanted to get free before then. The ritual was carried out and Tz'arkan left Malus' body, but took his soul as well. Malus fought back, destroying Tz'arkhan's body but the daemon fled with Malus' soul. Malus took up the Warpsword, the only artifact not destroyed or lost in the aftermath, killed a group of Beastmen gathered outside, nursed Spite back to health by feeding him the dead Beastmen and rode out to track down the daemon and get his soul back.

== Aftermath ==

Wandering the chaos wastes as a soulless unstoppable killer, he then found out where the daemon was hiding and went on another quest to reclaim his soul. A Chaos follower knew where Tz'arkan was hiding and tried to stop Malus betraying him by tattooing the map onto his back. Undaunted, Malus flayed the map from the Chaos follower's back and fed him to Spite. Malus found Tz'arkan and reclaimed his soul, but in doing so was cursed to have the daemon trapped back inside of himself again.

==End Times==

{{fail}}

Now he has returned to Naggaroth and what will this strange, legendary dark elf do? Well GW is coyly stopping us answering that question, because they won't move the damn plot along and let Malus kick [[Malekith]]'s tin ass! '''Except where he returns to fuck his sister''' and try to assassinate the Witch King in the End Times. Typical Druchii fashion, that goes as well as expected.

Be careful what you wish for because, unfortunately, he'll never get the chance now. During the final invasion of Ulthuan, Malus played a part and was Morathi's pawn at one point. But Tz'arkan was strengthened by the rising power of Chaos, and Malus drew on the daemon's power one too many times. With that Tz'arkan took over and consumed Malus so he died, causing him to be ripped apart from the inside out while Tz'arkan took physical form, his new body proved too much weight for Spite and broke the Cold One's back, leading the daemon to crush and trample Spite to death. No Malus! Don't go, we liked you.....cue fan boys grieving.

==Total War==

Sometimes you just have to wish hard enough, and give just the proper amount of spite to those you hate, because as stated by the big man himself; "With Hate, all things are possible!"

Our dark and edgy anti-hero/villain protagonist is finally coming to Total War Warhammer 2. Playable in both the Eye of the Vortex Campaign and the Mortal Empires Campaign. Tagging along with him, is of course his lazy roommate Tz'arkan, who never pays rent, and rants at you every minute or so for not picking up enough groceries, or not nabbing that pizza he likes.

Bright side, (or dark depending on how you look at it) Tz'arkan pays rent in a weird manner by turning Malus from a badass, into a one man army shredding badass. Not so great though, is that Tz'arkan has this nasty little habit of eating through Malus' health like a fat man goes through Doritos.

Malus is unique not only in choice of roommate, but also start position. He is the first Legendary Lord in the game to be given 2 start positions rather then one. He starts in Hag Graef, (go figure) and also in the bottom ass end of either the Southlands in the Vortex Campaign, or on the Dragon Isles in Mortal Empires which also was just recently added.

Best part of it all, Spite came along for the ride of course. Lovable little scamp. Though for some reason CA has specifically stated in his description that he’s “larger than most of his breed," which is how he was in the originals comics despite the fact that the armybooks and novels clearly retconned this.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Darkblade mini.jpg|The glorious bastard had a less-than-glorious mini at one point...
File:Darkblade rip and tear.jpg|[[RIP AND TEAR]]
File:Darkblade vs Furries1.png|Malus gets a boost in his [[Meme|powerlevel]] when fighting some [[Beastmen|furries]]...
File:Darkblade vs Furries.png|...but it hurts.
File:Malusdarkblade ntr bretonnian.png| [[NSFW|Tag: Mindbreak, NTR, Non-Con, Gangbang, BDSM, Corruption, Manipulation, Torture, Snuff]]
File:TWWH2_-_8nmz7d61pe241.png|CRAWWWWWLING IIIN MY SKIIIIIIN
</gallery>
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Malus Darkblade

2021-10-15T12:01:51Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E113:B449:EEA4:2361: /* End Times */

[[File:Malus.jpg|350px|thumbnail|right|He may have been an asshat, but what an awesome asshat. ''Also pictured: the only living creature he genuinely and unconditionally loves (and loves him back, d'aww.)'']]
{{topquote|Through hate, all things are possible.|Malus Darkblade}}
{{Topquote|If nothing else, Malus Darkblade, you can be counted upon to react to adversity with as much violence as possible.|Tz'arkan, Drinker of Souls, Greater Daemon of <s>Tzeentch</s>Slaanesh}}
{{topquote|An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.|Criss Jami}}

'''Malus Darkblade''' "GW's NOT [[Elric]]"
is a right hard tough bastard who simply won't die. Putting them other fantasy characters to shame, while he may be selfish, arrogant, wicked, and basically everything you would expect from a [[Dark Elf]], he is actually portrayed somewhat believably as well in the five novels written of him by Dan 'All hail the great one' Abnett and Mike Lee. He showed moments of comradeship and faith towards his companions, and constantly shows, and is even described as having, genuine "affection" for his [[Awesome|giant fuckoff murderlizard]], which he names "Spite," in reflection of one of his most important moral values. Despite generally being what we'd consider a nasty little sociopath, Malus isn't [[Always Chaotic Evil|one-dimensional]] [[Stupid Evil|morally]], he has a surprising level of complexity in his character. He definitely values getting ahead and looking out for number one in all situations, but still has something that, while not exactly honour, might pass for it in the context of druchii society.

''Darkblade'', incidentally, in the books at least, isn't his given or familial name (the Druchii don't have surnames), but rather it's an epithet, and a derogatory one at that, for bastard children implying that he is a faulty creation.

[[File:Spite is beast beast.png|500px|thumbnail|left|Spite is best beast...]]

His [[Nauglir|Cold One]] (''nauglir''), Spite, is unusually intelligent for his breed, a necessary trait to survive as Spite was the runt of his clutch and when full grown is small by Cold One standards in the books (though "small" for them equals 16 feet from snout to tail tip), and seems to be the one living thing that has unconditional affection for Malus. Generally, the druchii have to coat themselves in nauglir venom (which has unfortunate long-term effects of killing the sense of smell, taste and touch - there is treatment to reverse this but its expensive even for the nobles) in order for their mounts not to NOM them, but Spite eventually stopped wanting to NOM Malus even though Malus smelt of [[daemon]]. Malus only had to [[Meme|boop him on the snoot]] once, and maybe actually felt bad about it, despite being the a nasty little sociopath he is. The relationship between the two is positively [[My Little Pony|noblebright]] in comparison to just about everything else that goes down in the series.

He is one of the most popular Warhammer Fantasy characters then because he has that rarest of qualities; actual character. His refusal to give up and his hard as nails approach at slaying the fuck out of anything that gets in his way has made many fanboys hold a torch for him.

If he wasn't a pansy elf and a dark one at that, he and [[Gotrek & Felix|Gotrek]] would be firm drinking buddies.

==The Comics==

[[File:Darkblade comic cover.png|350px|thumbnail|left]]
{{Topquote|Shut UP, daemon.|Malus Darkblade, all the friggin' time (a running joke in the comics, referenced often in the books, too.)}}

Malus comes from a series of comic stories (also written by Abnett) from the days when GW actually cared about making a good story without making it serve a purpose like releasing new models. Malus is the son of a Dark Elf noble, and his soul is stolen by the daemon Tz'arkan when Malus was questing for treasure (Tz'arkan describes himself as a servant of Tzeentch in the comic but of Slaanesh in the books, sort of; he doesn't typically act particularly Slaaneshi, except when in the presence of a Slaaneshi cult (though he does pay homage when seeing an idol of Slaanesh), but he seems pretty driven by nyehehe JUST AS PLANNED rather than lust and excess, so draw your conclusions—really, why this changed is anyone's guess and doesn't seem to make much sense other than to fit Tza'arkan into a plot which involves a secret and forbidden cult of Slaanesh trying to subvert druchii society), Malus had to find five artifacts in order to free the daemon and himself, only for the daemon to steal his soul when it was freed.

==The Books==

{{Topquote|If you see the [[Khaine|Lord of Murder]] before I do, tell him I'm coming. [[Awesome|Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat]].|Malus Darkblade}}

A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf noble's son, but rather than being the favorite he's the hated bastard in a family with more incest than ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He has five older half-siblings and they have the same father - a Dark Elf noble second in command of Hag Graef named Lurhan - while the half-siblings share the same mother. The half-siblings are;

* Bruglir (male, the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir, won't let anyone else have her if he's nearby and considers Urial not worth killing despite Yasmir's repeated requests.)
* Isilvar (male, the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, hierophant of a secret and very much forbidden Slaaneshi cult, who is in a incestuous triad with his younger sister Nagaira along with Malus. This is apparently nothing to write home about in their world.)
* Yasmir (female, the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away on raids or at war...which is apparently, by Druchii standards, completely acceptable.)
* Nagaira (female, the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar)
* Urial (male, the fifth child, born deformed and his mother died giving birth to him so Urial was sacrificed to Khaine but a miracle ensured he survived, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him.)

Malus' mother is a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy with him and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with slow-acting poison while she was pregnant with Urial, which is also why he was born deformed). However, Lurhan hates Malus and has secretly conspired to have Malus killed ever since the latter reached adulthood (only fear of Eldire's retribution prevented Lurhan from having Malus outright killed.)

===Prologue===

A short story which involves Malus going on a rite of passage for Dark Elf nobles called a Haskeer cruise; the young noble is given command of a force and has to conduct a successful raid and return. The send-off they get, how many retainers they have and the amount of ships under their command is a reflection of their status in the family; Malus got one ship - the ''Manticore'', one retainer and no send-off. The story starts with Malus being dragged there after a failed assassination attempt from one of his siblings involving a poisonous snake, [[Grimdark|that he only survived because the snake bit Malus' two "bodyservants"]] - that is to say, [[rape]] slaves - first, so didn't have enough venom to kill when it bit him. Let us not forget that, whilst a popular and well-developed character with a pretty solid fanbase, he's still who he is. Whether he's a product of his environment or [[Always Chaotic Evil|just an evil person]] is not ''quite'' fleshed out, although most stories about the elves/Aeldari, and the amount of time the reader gets to spend inside Malus's head, so to speak, it lean towards the former with a really big handicap from the latter. Other members of the crew include the captain Hathan Gul, and the [[Anime|tsundere]] female first mate, a corsair named Lhunara, with whom he alternatively shares flirtations and blows. Originally, this motley crew were slated to go raid Bretonnia but Malus arranged for them to raid Ulthuan instead because he wanted the cruise over and done with, Ulthuan was closer and [[Elf|elven]] slaves were worth about 100x their [[Aerwin the mon-keigh expert|human]] equivalents (despite the fact that Ulthuan was about equivalently much more dangerous).

Malus suspected his retainer — a down-on-his-luck noble called Silar — was hired by Lurhan to kill him. When Silar confronted Malus, Malus learned that was wrong; Silar had a sense of honor and duty to Malus for the time that his contract covered, and generally wasn't a dude who was about subtlety being much more [[RIP AND TEAR|brutally honest]]. Silar actually confronted Malus to express his disapproval of Malus' plan to raid Ulthuan, which Silar considered suicidally stupid. Lhunara overheard them and, surprised by Malus' move and seeking a better position that what Gul offered her, approached them and spilled the beans to Malus; Lurhan had actually arranged with Gul to get Malus killed by a Bretonnian Duke they had an arrangement with (the corsairs took prisoners from the Duke's dungeons as slaves, in exchange they'd leave the area under his care unmolested). Malus decided to go ahead with attacking Ulthuan and, through a combination of luck, cunning and a surprise attack at night was successful. He captured a village of High Elf civilians but was forced to kill them in a ruse to kill a High Elf Sea Guard patrol the next morning (much to Malus' chagrin, due to the aforementioned value of pointy ears at the flesh markets) and escape. They took a lot of treasure from the High Elves, but Malus gave it to crew to make them loyal to him instead of Hathan Gul; Gul himself was tortured by Malus in a suitably [[grimdark]] manner for the whole Uriah Gambit and killed by his former crew (with Malus keeping Gul's gold false teeth as mementos).

=== The Daemon's Curse ===
Malus is now a successful nobleman, Silar and Lhunara are his retainers and [[Anime|Lhunara has gone dere dere for Malus]]. He also gained the service of Arleth Vann, a renegade assassin from the Temple of Khaine. After coming back from a very successful slave raid (where Malus and his crew tortured a couple as entertainment for the trip), they were ambushed and their captives were all killed, making the raid a bust. Malus figured out who was responsible for the ambush and confronted them. It turned out to be a Dark Elf noble called Fuerlan, a smug schemer and Malus' cousin on his mother's side. Because of the ambush, Malus had Fuerlan tortured, despite Fuerlan's father being the ruler of Naggor, a Black Ark which was in a cold-war-type conflict with Hag Graef, where Fuerlan was staying as a special "hostage" ("hostage" in the medieval European sense, where a noble from one nation would be confined to another's court, and treated with all respect due to their station as long as their nation didn't cause trouble between the two; conversely, there would be trouble if anything bad happened to the hostage).

Malus knew of the political ramifications of harming a noble hostage, but the only concession he made was not to kill Fuerlan. Naturally, this brought some heavy political blowback crashing down on Malus. After enduring the worst of it, Malus learned of a treasure that could increase his power in a temple to the north, and took a personal regiment of Cold One Knights along with his retainers on the trip. Along the way, he encountered and had to negotiate a truce with a tribe of Shades (a feral and aberrant branch of the druchii who even the "dark cousins" to the regular elves thought of as "dark cousins"; their cruelty to their slaves horrified even Malus; the Shades [[Grimdark|removed the eyes and tongues of their slaves while regularly cutting on them in addition to the standard Dark Elf abuses]]). Then the tribe double-crossed him and he and his warband had to fight their way free. After braving a fierce blizzard they encountered Beastmen near the temple and tried to negotiate a truce with them.

When they got to the temple, the Beastmen betrayed them. Malus got his followers to hold the line against the brayherd while he went in alone. Ignoring symbols and statues of Chaos he entered the chamber. He took a ring for himself from the hoard, which awakened the daemon Tz'arkan who possessed him. The daemon announced to Malus what happened, pointing out the Dark Elf's greed and taking the ring brought it on himself. Horrified, Malus tried to commit suicide only for Tz'arkan to stop him by pointing out that if he did Malus would be his plaything for eternity (In the Warhammer Fantasy world, exorcisms involve killing the possessed, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)#The Cult of Sigmar|with Luthor Huss as the sole exception]].)

[[File:STFUDaemon.png|thumbnail|Like a bickering old couple...]]
Malus and Tz'arkhan have a conversation about the latter's plan; he wanted to be free of the temple, so he tasked Malus to gather five artifacts for the ritual to free Tz'arkan or his soul would be claimed by the daemon. Malus also had a time limit of one year to accomplish this. Enraged and in despair, Malus fled the temple with Tz'arkan's laughter ringing in his ears. In unthinking rage and shame he killed his lieutenants (starting, in a surprisingly emotional scene, with a horrified Lhunara) and then going full [[RIP AND TEAR]] the remaining [[Beastmen]].

Afterwards, he started on a quest with Tz'arkan for the first artifact The Octagon of Praan, a gem that protected its wearer from hostile magic. He acquired this after the killing the Bray-Shaman, a leader of a group of [[beastmen]] who, at least initially, he contacted under peaceful terms but then just went full [[Khaine#mudertenderizer|murdertenderizer]]. When busy not almost getting killed, Malus learned that Tz'arkan could give him power, enhancing his physical abilities beyond mortal means whilst making him uncontrollably violent and more susceptible to the daemon's influence. The powerlevel boost thus gained seemed to have addictive qualities, not unlike the combat stimms (or daemonic aid) over in the other Warhammer. It is described as having pretty drastic (skin pallour, dark bulging veins, etc.) effects on his appearance, and being pretty unmistakable as what it was, so Malus wasn't overtly keen on using it, but wound up having to do so all too many times: as daemons are generally big on temptation, Tza'arkan would be constantly reminding Malus that this was a possibility, sort of like twiddling a syringe with a junkie's drug of choice in their face every five minutes.

=== Bloodstorm ===

Malus returned to Hag Graef to plan getting the second artifact - the Idol of Kolkuth, but got captured by Lurhan's soldiers. He was gruesomely tortured by his father, who was trying to manipulate him into requesting death so Eldire couldn't blame Lurhan for Malus' death. A combination of spite and Tz'arkan's power kept Malus alive, long enough for Eldire to visit him in secret. Eldire and Nagaira worked together to free him, magically heal his wounds and inducted him into the Slaaneshi cult. Then Malus learned they didn't want him, but Tz'arkan, so he sought a way out. During this time, Malus took on another retainer, a witty, down-to-earth (for a Dark Elf) city guard named Hauclir. Eventually his schemes came to the attention of the Drachau of Hag Graef, and Malus made him an offer. There was a fleet of Nurgle-worshiping pirates called the Skinriders - named for the fact that they lost their skins due to disease or injury and wore the skin of those they fought or captured - who often attacked the Dark Elves. Malus asked for a Writ of Iron from the Drachau - a legal document that gives the carrier the authority of the issuer, and since this was issued by the ruler of Hag Graef Malus was now the second-most powerful person in the city (with the caveat that if the carrier failed their duty, the Writ would be melted down and the molten remains were poured down their throat) - and in exchange Malus would hunt down and destroy the Skinriders.

Malus used this to bring Urial and some warriors from the Temple of Khaine with him. He also brought along Yasmir to placate Bruglir, which outraged Yasmir since she was a spoiled snob who couldn't handle not being in control of a situation. Urial used some magic to teleport them to Burglir's ship. There they find out that Bruglir was cheating on Yasmir with his female lieutenant, a scarred woman named Tanithra. Especially problematic since apparently only the male in druchii relationships must maintain his continence, as a show of strength, while the female may slut it up at will and then there's the question of whether rape slaves count. For [[GW|reasons]], this dynamic isn't totally fleshed out, but it is seen in evidence in some other places including deldar 40K novels as well. Yasmir, being thereby justifiably outraged and, bound by her culture's code of conduct to take offense and then take measures about it, flips her shit when she finds out Bruglir is fucking around with the lady-pirate lieutenant. He, according again to druchii standards, doesn't really concern himself with her extensive court of admirers back home as long as she makes him head of the queue when he's around (interestingly, Yasmir had gotten Bruglir to kill suitors she didn't want except for Urial who Bruglir considered not worth it).

None of them are happy about the state of affairs until Malus reminded them that with the Writ he's in charge, though he played to Bruglir's pride and vanity when the latter threatened to kill him anyway. During the voyage the loss of control and Bruglir's sleeping around also sent Yasmir round the bend, so she rarely left her cabin, and started getting into Khainite worship, much to the delight of Urial who saw it as a chance to get close to her. During this time Malus learned that Bruglir had promised Tanithra a captaincy, and was using that to string her along and extort sex from her. Around this time she started to resent that situation, which Malus considered in case it could be useful later. They encountered a few Skinrider ships and had a vicious battle, with Hauclir retrieving the maps to their main base and nearly getting trapped on the ship as it sank. The Dark Elves won after taking some losses, and commandeered one of the Skinrider ships, with Urial's Khainite blessings keeping the crew from getting infected by all the diseases on board. They decided to pull a Trojan Horse stunt to kill them, with Bruglir putting Tanithra in charge of the ship and calling that keeping his promise; this naturally made Tanithra even madder.

They infiltrated the Skinriders base and encountered their chieftain, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle wearing a cloak of flayed skin. Then the Dark Elves were betrayed by Tanithra, who had taken Yasmir captive. She confessed to everyone her part in the plan to defeat the Skinriders and offered to pledge herself to the Skinriders on the condition that she can keep one of the Dark Elf ships and be its captain, while also flaying Yasmir and wearing her skin. Urial attacked to save Yasmir and a battle broke out between Malus, Bruglir's loyal crew and Tanithra and the Skinriders, resulting in the deaths of all in the room but Urial, Yasmir and Malus. Malus broke away during the battle to find the Idol of Kolkuth, which was in an interdimensional maze. Malus was unable to navigate, and asked Tz'arkan for a rope - being Tz'arkan, the daemon unravelled Malus' blood vessels from his body and used them as rope. After fighting past a minotaur, Malus got the Idol - his body restored at the cost of Tz'arkan spreading his influence, and Malus found his way back as the Dark Elves wiped out the Skinriders, but there was no sign of Urial or Yasmir.

=== Reaper of Souls ===

Malus sought to get the next artifact, the Dagger of Torxus. It was a powerful weapon that would take the soul of anyone it cut and bind them to that spot. Malus was stabbed with it, but due to Tz'arkan already having his soul, it just rendered Malus unconscious.

Malus also tracked down the raiding party that took the Dagger, which turned to be led by Lurhan. After a fierce fight with Lurhan and his retainers, Malus slew some while others fled, but was forced to kill Lurhan in self-defense to get the Dagger, making Malus a kinslayer. This was a bittersweet moment for Malus, for even though Malus had long wanted to kill his father due to the latter hating and trying to kill him since childhood, Lurhan was one of the Witch King's vassals, and killing him under those circumstances made Malus an outlaw among the Dark Elves, and Tz'arkan was happy to troll him about it all.

Malus went on the run, pursued by Cold One Knights from Hag Graef who'd been informed of Lurhan's death by the surviving retainers. Malus fled to Naggor, and was nearly caught. But a regiment of knights from Naggor killed the knights of Hag Graef and brought Malus before his uncle Balneth to explain the situation. Unfortunately for Malus, Balneth knew what he'd done Fuerlan, who was also present at the meeting. Malus' tortures had left Fuerlan a heavily scarred, mentally unstable alcoholic swinging between hatred and fear of Malus. Nagaira was also there, much to Malus' chagrin. To his surprise, they offered him help and indicated that they were planning a coup against Hag Graef and that by killing his father he would be a valuable ally to their cause. Malus reluctantly agreed to join them, though Fuerlan's constant threats and Nagaira's scheming got on his nerves. Nagaira also claimed to have a ritual that would give him control of Tz'arkan, which Malus agreed to.

Malus was ambushed in his tent by four of his former retainers Silar, Arleth Vann, Dolthaic and Hauclir. They had been sent on a mission by the Drachau of Hag Graef to kill Malus and be free of the political consequences of their association with him. All but Hauclir ridiculed Malus for ruining their lives, with Hauclir pleading that Malus had a plan to fix the situation. Malus managed escape them and fled. As he got close to Hag Graef, he learned that Nagaira had lied. The ritual was actually drawing on the daemon's power to put a geas on both of them so Malus could be used to slay the Drachau of Hag Graef. Malus fought his way into the throne room, and dealt a severe would to the Drachau before a group of Sorceresses arrived, led by Malus' mother Eldire. Together, the Sorceresses freed Malus from the geas and returned his things, but not before Eldire gave Malus a ring that could contact her if he needed help (and was dismayed to learn of Malus being possessed).

=== Warpsword ===

=== Lord of Ruin ===

Malus fought the Chaos Champion. Their helm got knocked off during the fight, revealing it to be an undead Lhunara, Malus' former retainer; in her dying moments she had pledged herself to the Chaos Gods in exchange for revenge against Malus.

Malus found a severely wounded Hauclir and faced a moral dilemma; get rid of the Warpsword and let the daemonic power in his blood heal Hauclir or keep the Warpsword and let him die. Malus did something compassionate for someone besides himself or Spite and dropped the weapon and successfully healed Hauclir. Unfortunately he didn't get the weapon in time, and Tz'arkan took over. Now in control of Malus, Tz'arkan used his powers to compel Spite and rode the Cold One into the ground to get back to the Temple in time, leaving Spite nearly dead from exhaustion. It's revealed the reason for Tz'arkan's deadline was there was a ground level volcano beneath the temple that was about to erupt and Tz'arkan wanted to get free before then. The ritual was carried out and Tz'arkan left Malus' body, but took his soul as well. Malus fought back, destroying Tz'arkhan's body but the daemon fled with Malus' soul. Malus took up the Warpsword, the only artifact not destroyed or lost in the aftermath, killed a group of Beastmen gathered outside, nursed Spite back to health by feeding him the dead Beastmen and rode out to track down the daemon and get his soul back.

== Aftermath ==

Wandering the chaos wastes as a soulless unstoppable killer, he then found out where the daemon was hiding and went on another quest to reclaim his soul. A Chaos follower knew where Tz'arkan was hiding and tried to stop Malus betraying him by tattooing the map onto his back. Undaunted, Malus flayed the map from the Chaos follower's back and fed him to Spite. Malus found Tz'arkan and reclaimed his soul, but in doing so was cursed to have the daemon trapped back inside of himself again.

==End Times==

{{fail}}

Now he has returned to Naggaroth and what will this strange, legendary dark elf do? Well GW is coyly stopping us answering that question, because they won't move the damn plot along and let Malus kick [[Malekith]]'s tin ass! '''Except where he returns to fuck his sister''' and try to assassinate the Witch King in the End Times. Typical Druchii fashion, that goes as well as expected.

Be careful what you wish for because, unfortunately, he'll never get the chance now. During the final invasion of Ulthuan, Malus played a part and was Morathi's pawn at one point. But Tz'arkan was strengthened by the rising power of Chaos, and Malus drew on the daemon's power one too many times. With that Tz'arkan took over and consumed Malus so he died, causing him to be ripped apart from the inside out while Tz'arkan took physical form, his new body proved too much weight for Spite and broke the Cold One's back, leading the daemon to crush and trample Spite to death. No Malus! Don't go, we liked you.....cue fan boys grieving.

==Total War==

Sometimes you just have to wish hard enough, and give just the proper amount of spite to those you hate, because as stated by the big man himself; "With Hate, all things are possible!"

Our dark and edgy anti-hero is finally coming to Total War Warhammer 2. Playable in both the Eye of the Vortex Campaign and the Mortal Empires Campaign. Tagging along with him, is of course his lazy roommate Tz'arkan, who never pays rent, and rants at you every minute or so for not picking up enough groceries, or not nabbing that pizza he likes.

Bright side, (or dark depending on how you look at it) Tz'arkan pays rent in a weird manner by turning Malus from a badass, into a one man army shredding badass. Not so great though, is that Tz'arkan has this nasty little habit of eating through Malus' health like a fat man goes through Doritos.

Malus is unique not only in choice of roommate, but also start position. He is the first Legendary Lord in the game to be given 2 start positions rather then one. He starts in Hag Graef, (go figure) and also in the bottom ass end of either the Southlands in the Vortex Campaign, or on the Dragon Isles in Mortal Empires which also was just recently added.

Best part of it all, Spite came along for the ride of course. Lovable little scamp. Though for some reason CA has specifically stated in his description that he’s “larger than most of his breed," which is how he was in the originals comics despite the fact that the armybooks and novels clearly retconned this.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Darkblade mini.jpg|The glorious bastard had a less-than-glorious mini at one point...
File:Darkblade rip and tear.jpg|[[RIP AND TEAR]]
File:Darkblade vs Furries1.png|Malus gets a boost in his [[Meme|powerlevel]] when fighting some [[Beastmen|furries]]...
File:Darkblade vs Furries.png|...but it hurts.
File:Malusdarkblade ntr bretonnian.png| [[NSFW|Tag: Mindbreak, NTR, Non-Con, Gangbang, BDSM, Corruption, Manipulation, Torture, Snuff]]
File:TWWH2_-_8nmz7d61pe241.png|CRAWWWWWLING IIIN MY SKIIIIIIN
</gallery>
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Malus Darkblade

2021-10-15T11:59:09Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E113:B449:EEA4:2361: /* Gallery */

[[File:Malus.jpg|350px|thumbnail|right|He may have been an asshat, but what an awesome asshat. ''Also pictured: the only living creature he genuinely and unconditionally loves (and loves him back, d'aww.)'']]
{{topquote|Through hate, all things are possible.|Malus Darkblade}}
{{Topquote|If nothing else, Malus Darkblade, you can be counted upon to react to adversity with as much violence as possible.|Tz'arkan, Drinker of Souls, Greater Daemon of <s>Tzeentch</s>Slaanesh}}
{{topquote|An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.|Criss Jami}}

'''Malus Darkblade''' "GW's NOT [[Elric]]"
is a right hard tough bastard who simply won't die. Putting them other fantasy characters to shame, while he may be selfish, arrogant, wicked, and basically everything you would expect from a [[Dark Elf]], he is actually portrayed somewhat believably as well in the five novels written of him by Dan 'All hail the great one' Abnett and Mike Lee. He showed moments of comradeship and faith towards his companions, and constantly shows, and is even described as having, genuine "affection" for his [[Awesome|giant fuckoff murderlizard]], which he names "Spite," in reflection of one of his most important moral values. Despite generally being what we'd consider a nasty little sociopath, Malus isn't [[Always Chaotic Evil|one-dimensional]] [[Stupid Evil|morally]], he has a surprising level of complexity in his character. He definitely values getting ahead and looking out for number one in all situations, but still has something that, while not exactly honour, might pass for it in the context of druchii society.

''Darkblade'', incidentally, in the books at least, isn't his given or familial name (the Druchii don't have surnames), but rather it's an epithet, and a derogatory one at that, for bastard children implying that he is a faulty creation.

[[File:Spite is beast beast.png|500px|thumbnail|left|Spite is best beast...]]

His [[Nauglir|Cold One]] (''nauglir''), Spite, is unusually intelligent for his breed, a necessary trait to survive as Spite was the runt of his clutch and when full grown is small by Cold One standards in the books (though "small" for them equals 16 feet from snout to tail tip), and seems to be the one living thing that has unconditional affection for Malus. Generally, the druchii have to coat themselves in nauglir venom (which has unfortunate long-term effects of killing the sense of smell, taste and touch - there is treatment to reverse this but its expensive even for the nobles) in order for their mounts not to NOM them, but Spite eventually stopped wanting to NOM Malus even though Malus smelt of [[daemon]]. Malus only had to [[Meme|boop him on the snoot]] once, and maybe actually felt bad about it, despite being the a nasty little sociopath he is. The relationship between the two is positively [[My Little Pony|noblebright]] in comparison to just about everything else that goes down in the series.

He is one of the most popular Warhammer Fantasy characters then because he has that rarest of qualities; actual character. His refusal to give up and his hard as nails approach at slaying the fuck out of anything that gets in his way has made many fanboys hold a torch for him.

If he wasn't a pansy elf and a dark one at that, he and [[Gotrek & Felix|Gotrek]] would be firm drinking buddies.

==The Comics==

[[File:Darkblade comic cover.png|350px|thumbnail|left]]
{{Topquote|Shut UP, daemon.|Malus Darkblade, all the friggin' time (a running joke in the comics, referenced often in the books, too.)}}

Malus comes from a series of comic stories (also written by Abnett) from the days when GW actually cared about making a good story without making it serve a purpose like releasing new models. Malus is the son of a Dark Elf noble, and his soul is stolen by the daemon Tz'arkan when Malus was questing for treasure (Tz'arkan describes himself as a servant of Tzeentch in the comic but of Slaanesh in the books, sort of; he doesn't typically act particularly Slaaneshi, except when in the presence of a Slaaneshi cult (though he does pay homage when seeing an idol of Slaanesh), but he seems pretty driven by nyehehe JUST AS PLANNED rather than lust and excess, so draw your conclusions—really, why this changed is anyone's guess and doesn't seem to make much sense other than to fit Tza'arkan into a plot which involves a secret and forbidden cult of Slaanesh trying to subvert druchii society), Malus had to find five artifacts in order to free the daemon and himself, only for the daemon to steal his soul when it was freed.

==The Books==

{{Topquote|If you see the [[Khaine|Lord of Murder]] before I do, tell him I'm coming. [[Awesome|Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat]].|Malus Darkblade}}

A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf noble's son, but rather than being the favorite he's the hated bastard in a family with more incest than ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He has five older half-siblings and they have the same father - a Dark Elf noble second in command of Hag Graef named Lurhan - while the half-siblings share the same mother. The half-siblings are;

* Bruglir (male, the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir, won't let anyone else have her if he's nearby and considers Urial not worth killing despite Yasmir's repeated requests.)
* Isilvar (male, the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, hierophant of a secret and very much forbidden Slaaneshi cult, who is in a incestuous triad with his younger sister Nagaira along with Malus. This is apparently nothing to write home about in their world.)
* Yasmir (female, the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away on raids or at war...which is apparently, by Druchii standards, completely acceptable.)
* Nagaira (female, the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar)
* Urial (male, the fifth child, born deformed and his mother died giving birth to him so Urial was sacrificed to Khaine but a miracle ensured he survived, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him.)

Malus' mother is a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy with him and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with slow-acting poison while she was pregnant with Urial, which is also why he was born deformed). However, Lurhan hates Malus and has secretly conspired to have Malus killed ever since the latter reached adulthood (only fear of Eldire's retribution prevented Lurhan from having Malus outright killed.)

===Prologue===

A short story which involves Malus going on a rite of passage for Dark Elf nobles called a Haskeer cruise; the young noble is given command of a force and has to conduct a successful raid and return. The send-off they get, how many retainers they have and the amount of ships under their command is a reflection of their status in the family; Malus got one ship - the ''Manticore'', one retainer and no send-off. The story starts with Malus being dragged there after a failed assassination attempt from one of his siblings involving a poisonous snake, [[Grimdark|that he only survived because the snake bit Malus' two "bodyservants"]] - that is to say, [[rape]] slaves - first, so didn't have enough venom to kill when it bit him. Let us not forget that, whilst a popular and well-developed character with a pretty solid fanbase, he's still who he is. Whether he's a product of his environment or [[Always Chaotic Evil|just an evil person]] is not ''quite'' fleshed out, although most stories about the elves/Aeldari, and the amount of time the reader gets to spend inside Malus's head, so to speak, it lean towards the former with a really big handicap from the latter. Other members of the crew include the captain Hathan Gul, and the [[Anime|tsundere]] female first mate, a corsair named Lhunara, with whom he alternatively shares flirtations and blows. Originally, this motley crew were slated to go raid Bretonnia but Malus arranged for them to raid Ulthuan instead because he wanted the cruise over and done with, Ulthuan was closer and [[Elf|elven]] slaves were worth about 100x their [[Aerwin the mon-keigh expert|human]] equivalents (despite the fact that Ulthuan was about equivalently much more dangerous).

Malus suspected his retainer — a down-on-his-luck noble called Silar — was hired by Lurhan to kill him. When Silar confronted Malus, Malus learned that was wrong; Silar had a sense of honor and duty to Malus for the time that his contract covered, and generally wasn't a dude who was about subtlety being much more [[RIP AND TEAR|brutally honest]]. Silar actually confronted Malus to express his disapproval of Malus' plan to raid Ulthuan, which Silar considered suicidally stupid. Lhunara overheard them and, surprised by Malus' move and seeking a better position that what Gul offered her, approached them and spilled the beans to Malus; Lurhan had actually arranged with Gul to get Malus killed by a Bretonnian Duke they had an arrangement with (the corsairs took prisoners from the Duke's dungeons as slaves, in exchange they'd leave the area under his care unmolested). Malus decided to go ahead with attacking Ulthuan and, through a combination of luck, cunning and a surprise attack at night was successful. He captured a village of High Elf civilians but was forced to kill them in a ruse to kill a High Elf Sea Guard patrol the next morning (much to Malus' chagrin, due to the aforementioned value of pointy ears at the flesh markets) and escape. They took a lot of treasure from the High Elves, but Malus gave it to crew to make them loyal to him instead of Hathan Gul; Gul himself was tortured by Malus in a suitably [[grimdark]] manner for the whole Uriah Gambit and killed by his former crew (with Malus keeping Gul's gold false teeth as mementos).

=== The Daemon's Curse ===
Malus is now a successful nobleman, Silar and Lhunara are his retainers and [[Anime|Lhunara has gone dere dere for Malus]]. He also gained the service of Arleth Vann, a renegade assassin from the Temple of Khaine. After coming back from a very successful slave raid (where Malus and his crew tortured a couple as entertainment for the trip), they were ambushed and their captives were all killed, making the raid a bust. Malus figured out who was responsible for the ambush and confronted them. It turned out to be a Dark Elf noble called Fuerlan, a smug schemer and Malus' cousin on his mother's side. Because of the ambush, Malus had Fuerlan tortured, despite Fuerlan's father being the ruler of Naggor, a Black Ark which was in a cold-war-type conflict with Hag Graef, where Fuerlan was staying as a special "hostage" ("hostage" in the medieval European sense, where a noble from one nation would be confined to another's court, and treated with all respect due to their station as long as their nation didn't cause trouble between the two; conversely, there would be trouble if anything bad happened to the hostage).

Malus knew of the political ramifications of harming a noble hostage, but the only concession he made was not to kill Fuerlan. Naturally, this brought some heavy political blowback crashing down on Malus. After enduring the worst of it, Malus learned of a treasure that could increase his power in a temple to the north, and took a personal regiment of Cold One Knights along with his retainers on the trip. Along the way, he encountered and had to negotiate a truce with a tribe of Shades (a feral and aberrant branch of the druchii who even the "dark cousins" to the regular elves thought of as "dark cousins"; their cruelty to their slaves horrified even Malus; the Shades [[Grimdark|removed the eyes and tongues of their slaves while regularly cutting on them in addition to the standard Dark Elf abuses]]). Then the tribe double-crossed him and he and his warband had to fight their way free. After braving a fierce blizzard they encountered Beastmen near the temple and tried to negotiate a truce with them.

When they got to the temple, the Beastmen betrayed them. Malus got his followers to hold the line against the brayherd while he went in alone. Ignoring symbols and statues of Chaos he entered the chamber. He took a ring for himself from the hoard, which awakened the daemon Tz'arkan who possessed him. The daemon announced to Malus what happened, pointing out the Dark Elf's greed and taking the ring brought it on himself. Horrified, Malus tried to commit suicide only for Tz'arkan to stop him by pointing out that if he did Malus would be his plaything for eternity (In the Warhammer Fantasy world, exorcisms involve killing the possessed, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)#The Cult of Sigmar|with Luthor Huss as the sole exception]].)

[[File:STFUDaemon.png|thumbnail|Like a bickering old couple...]]
Malus and Tz'arkhan have a conversation about the latter's plan; he wanted to be free of the temple, so he tasked Malus to gather five artifacts for the ritual to free Tz'arkan or his soul would be claimed by the daemon. Malus also had a time limit of one year to accomplish this. Enraged and in despair, Malus fled the temple with Tz'arkan's laughter ringing in his ears. In unthinking rage and shame he killed his lieutenants (starting, in a surprisingly emotional scene, with a horrified Lhunara) and then going full [[RIP AND TEAR]] the remaining [[Beastmen]].

Afterwards, he started on a quest with Tz'arkan for the first artifact The Octagon of Praan, a gem that protected its wearer from hostile magic. He acquired this after the killing the Bray-Shaman, a leader of a group of [[beastmen]] who, at least initially, he contacted under peaceful terms but then just went full [[Khaine#mudertenderizer|murdertenderizer]]. When busy not almost getting killed, Malus learned that Tz'arkan could give him power, enhancing his physical abilities beyond mortal means whilst making him uncontrollably violent and more susceptible to the daemon's influence. The powerlevel boost thus gained seemed to have addictive qualities, not unlike the combat stimms (or daemonic aid) over in the other Warhammer. It is described as having pretty drastic (skin pallour, dark bulging veins, etc.) effects on his appearance, and being pretty unmistakable as what it was, so Malus wasn't overtly keen on using it, but wound up having to do so all too many times: as daemons are generally big on temptation, Tza'arkan would be constantly reminding Malus that this was a possibility, sort of like twiddling a syringe with a junkie's drug of choice in their face every five minutes.

=== Bloodstorm ===

Malus returned to Hag Graef to plan getting the second artifact - the Idol of Kolkuth, but got captured by Lurhan's soldiers. He was gruesomely tortured by his father, who was trying to manipulate him into requesting death so Eldire couldn't blame Lurhan for Malus' death. A combination of spite and Tz'arkan's power kept Malus alive, long enough for Eldire to visit him in secret. Eldire and Nagaira worked together to free him, magically heal his wounds and inducted him into the Slaaneshi cult. Then Malus learned they didn't want him, but Tz'arkan, so he sought a way out. During this time, Malus took on another retainer, a witty, down-to-earth (for a Dark Elf) city guard named Hauclir. Eventually his schemes came to the attention of the Drachau of Hag Graef, and Malus made him an offer. There was a fleet of Nurgle-worshiping pirates called the Skinriders - named for the fact that they lost their skins due to disease or injury and wore the skin of those they fought or captured - who often attacked the Dark Elves. Malus asked for a Writ of Iron from the Drachau - a legal document that gives the carrier the authority of the issuer, and since this was issued by the ruler of Hag Graef Malus was now the second-most powerful person in the city (with the caveat that if the carrier failed their duty, the Writ would be melted down and the molten remains were poured down their throat) - and in exchange Malus would hunt down and destroy the Skinriders.

Malus used this to bring Urial and some warriors from the Temple of Khaine with him. He also brought along Yasmir to placate Bruglir, which outraged Yasmir since she was a spoiled snob who couldn't handle not being in control of a situation. Urial used some magic to teleport them to Burglir's ship. There they find out that Bruglir was cheating on Yasmir with his female lieutenant, a scarred woman named Tanithra. Especially problematic since apparently only the male in druchii relationships must maintain his continence, as a show of strength, while the female may slut it up at will and then there's the question of whether rape slaves count. For [[GW|reasons]], this dynamic isn't totally fleshed out, but it is seen in evidence in some other places including deldar 40K novels as well. Yasmir, being thereby justifiably outraged and, bound by her culture's code of conduct to take offense and then take measures about it, flips her shit when she finds out Bruglir is fucking around with the lady-pirate lieutenant. He, according again to druchii standards, doesn't really concern himself with her extensive court of admirers back home as long as she makes him head of the queue when he's around (interestingly, Yasmir had gotten Bruglir to kill suitors she didn't want except for Urial who Bruglir considered not worth it).

None of them are happy about the state of affairs until Malus reminded them that with the Writ he's in charge, though he played to Bruglir's pride and vanity when the latter threatened to kill him anyway. During the voyage the loss of control and Bruglir's sleeping around also sent Yasmir round the bend, so she rarely left her cabin, and started getting into Khainite worship, much to the delight of Urial who saw it as a chance to get close to her. During this time Malus learned that Bruglir had promised Tanithra a captaincy, and was using that to string her along and extort sex from her. Around this time she started to resent that situation, which Malus considered in case it could be useful later. They encountered a few Skinrider ships and had a vicious battle, with Hauclir retrieving the maps to their main base and nearly getting trapped on the ship as it sank. The Dark Elves won after taking some losses, and commandeered one of the Skinrider ships, with Urial's Khainite blessings keeping the crew from getting infected by all the diseases on board. They decided to pull a Trojan Horse stunt to kill them, with Bruglir putting Tanithra in charge of the ship and calling that keeping his promise; this naturally made Tanithra even madder.

They infiltrated the Skinriders base and encountered their chieftain, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle wearing a cloak of flayed skin. Then the Dark Elves were betrayed by Tanithra, who had taken Yasmir captive. She confessed to everyone her part in the plan to defeat the Skinriders and offered to pledge herself to the Skinriders on the condition that she can keep one of the Dark Elf ships and be its captain, while also flaying Yasmir and wearing her skin. Urial attacked to save Yasmir and a battle broke out between Malus, Bruglir's loyal crew and Tanithra and the Skinriders, resulting in the deaths of all in the room but Urial, Yasmir and Malus. Malus broke away during the battle to find the Idol of Kolkuth, which was in an interdimensional maze. Malus was unable to navigate, and asked Tz'arkan for a rope - being Tz'arkan, the daemon unravelled Malus' blood vessels from his body and used them as rope. After fighting past a minotaur, Malus got the Idol - his body restored at the cost of Tz'arkan spreading his influence, and Malus found his way back as the Dark Elves wiped out the Skinriders, but there was no sign of Urial or Yasmir.

=== Reaper of Souls ===

Malus sought to get the next artifact, the Dagger of Torxus. It was a powerful weapon that would take the soul of anyone it cut and bind them to that spot. Malus was stabbed with it, but due to Tz'arkan already having his soul, it just rendered Malus unconscious.

Malus also tracked down the raiding party that took the Dagger, which turned to be led by Lurhan. After a fierce fight with Lurhan and his retainers, Malus slew some while others fled, but was forced to kill Lurhan in self-defense to get the Dagger, making Malus a kinslayer. This was a bittersweet moment for Malus, for even though Malus had long wanted to kill his father due to the latter hating and trying to kill him since childhood, Lurhan was one of the Witch King's vassals, and killing him under those circumstances made Malus an outlaw among the Dark Elves, and Tz'arkan was happy to troll him about it all.

Malus went on the run, pursued by Cold One Knights from Hag Graef who'd been informed of Lurhan's death by the surviving retainers. Malus fled to Naggor, and was nearly caught. But a regiment of knights from Naggor killed the knights of Hag Graef and brought Malus before his uncle Balneth to explain the situation. Unfortunately for Malus, Balneth knew what he'd done Fuerlan, who was also present at the meeting. Malus' tortures had left Fuerlan a heavily scarred, mentally unstable alcoholic swinging between hatred and fear of Malus. Nagaira was also there, much to Malus' chagrin. To his surprise, they offered him help and indicated that they were planning a coup against Hag Graef and that by killing his father he would be a valuable ally to their cause. Malus reluctantly agreed to join them, though Fuerlan's constant threats and Nagaira's scheming got on his nerves. Nagaira also claimed to have a ritual that would give him control of Tz'arkan, which Malus agreed to.

Malus was ambushed in his tent by four of his former retainers Silar, Arleth Vann, Dolthaic and Hauclir. They had been sent on a mission by the Drachau of Hag Graef to kill Malus and be free of the political consequences of their association with him. All but Hauclir ridiculed Malus for ruining their lives, with Hauclir pleading that Malus had a plan to fix the situation. Malus managed escape them and fled. As he got close to Hag Graef, he learned that Nagaira had lied. The ritual was actually drawing on the daemon's power to put a geas on both of them so Malus could be used to slay the Drachau of Hag Graef. Malus fought his way into the throne room, and dealt a severe would to the Drachau before a group of Sorceresses arrived, led by Malus' mother Eldire. Together, the Sorceresses freed Malus from the geas and returned his things, but not before Eldire gave Malus a ring that could contact her if he needed help (and was dismayed to learn of Malus being possessed).

=== Warpsword ===

=== Lord of Ruin ===

Malus fought the Chaos Champion. Their helm got knocked off during the fight, revealing it to be an undead Lhunara, Malus' former retainer; in her dying moments she had pledged herself to the Chaos Gods in exchange for revenge against Malus.

Malus found a severely wounded Hauclir and faced a moral dilemma; get rid of the Warpsword and let the daemonic power in his blood heal Hauclir or keep the Warpsword and let him die. Malus did something compassionate for someone besides himself or Spite and dropped the weapon and successfully healed Hauclir. Unfortunately he didn't get the weapon in time, and Tz'arkan took over. Now in control of Malus, Tz'arkan used his powers to compel Spite and rode the Cold One into the ground to get back to the Temple in time, leaving Spite nearly dead from exhaustion. It's revealed the reason for Tz'arkan's deadline was there was a ground level volcano beneath the temple that was about to erupt and Tz'arkan wanted to get free before then. The ritual was carried out and Tz'arkan left Malus' body, but took his soul as well. Malus fought back, destroying Tz'arkhan's body but the daemon fled with Malus' soul. Malus took up the Warpsword, the only artifact not destroyed or lost in the aftermath, killed a group of Beastmen gathered outside, nursed Spite back to health by feeding him the dead Beastmen and rode out to track down the daemon and get his soul back.

== Aftermath ==

Wandering the chaos wastes as a soulless unstoppable killer, he then found out where the daemon was hiding and went on another quest to reclaim his soul. A Chaos follower knew where Tz'arkan was hiding and tried to stop Malus betraying him by tattooing the map onto his back. Undaunted, Malus flayed the map from the Chaos follower's back and fed him to Spite. Malus found Tz'arkan and reclaimed his soul, but in doing so was cursed to have the daemon trapped back inside of himself again.

==End Times==

{{fail}}

Now he has returned to Naggaroth and what will this strange, legendary dark elf do? Well GW is coyly stopping us answering that question, because they won't move the damn plot along and let Malus kick [[Malekith]]'s tin ass! '''Except where he returns to fuck his sister''' and try to assassinate the Witch King in the End Times. Typical Druchii fashion, that goes as well as expected.

Be careful what you wish for because, unfortunately, he'll never get the chance now. During the final invasion of Ulthuan, Malus drew on Tz'arkan's power one too many times. With that Tz'arkan took over and consumed Malus so he died, causing him to be ripped apart from the inside out while Tz'arkan took physical form, his new body proved too much weight for Spite and broke the Cold One's back, leading the daemon to crush and trample Spite to death. No Malus! Don't go, we liked you.....cue fan boys grieving.

==Total War==

Sometimes you just have to wish hard enough, and give just the proper amount of spite to those you hate, because as stated by the big man himself; "With Hate, all things are possible!"

Our dark and edgy anti-hero is finally coming to Total War Warhammer 2. Playable in both the Eye of the Vortex Campaign and the Mortal Empires Campaign. Tagging along with him, is of course his lazy roommate Tz'arkan, who never pays rent, and rants at you every minute or so for not picking up enough groceries, or not nabbing that pizza he likes.

Bright side, (or dark depending on how you look at it) Tz'arkan pays rent in a weird manner by turning Malus from a badass, into a one man army shredding badass. Not so great though, is that Tz'arkan has this nasty little habit of eating through Malus' health like a fat man goes through Doritos.

Malus is unique not only in choice of roommate, but also start position. He is the first Legendary Lord in the game to be given 2 start positions rather then one. He starts in Hag Graef, (go figure) and also in the bottom ass end of either the Southlands in the Vortex Campaign, or on the Dragon Isles in Mortal Empires which also was just recently added.

Best part of it all, Spite came along for the ride of course. Lovable little scamp. Though for some reason CA has specifically stated in his description that he’s “larger than most of his breed," which is how he was in the originals comics despite the fact that the armybooks and novels clearly retconned this.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Darkblade mini.jpg|The glorious bastard had a less-than-glorious mini at one point...
File:Darkblade rip and tear.jpg|[[RIP AND TEAR]]
File:Darkblade vs Furries1.png|Malus gets a boost in his [[Meme|powerlevel]] when fighting some [[Beastmen|furries]]...
File:Darkblade vs Furries.png|...but it hurts.
File:Malusdarkblade ntr bretonnian.png| [[NSFW|Tag: Mindbreak, NTR, Non-Con, Gangbang, BDSM, Corruption, Manipulation, Torture, Snuff]]
File:TWWH2_-_8nmz7d61pe241.png|CRAWWWWWLING IIIN MY SKIIIIIIN
</gallery>
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Malus Darkblade

2021-10-15T11:51:30Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E113:B449:EEA4:2361: /* Reaper of Souls */

[[File:Malus.jpg|350px|thumbnail|right|He may have been an asshat, but what an awesome asshat. ''Also pictured: the only living creature he genuinely and unconditionally loves (and loves him back, d'aww.)'']]
{{topquote|Through hate, all things are possible.|Malus Darkblade}}
{{Topquote|If nothing else, Malus Darkblade, you can be counted upon to react to adversity with as much violence as possible.|Tz'arkan, Drinker of Souls, Greater Daemon of <s>Tzeentch</s>Slaanesh}}
{{topquote|An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.|Criss Jami}}

'''Malus Darkblade''' "GW's NOT [[Elric]]"
is a right hard tough bastard who simply won't die. Putting them other fantasy characters to shame, while he may be selfish, arrogant, wicked, and basically everything you would expect from a [[Dark Elf]], he is actually portrayed somewhat believably as well in the five novels written of him by Dan 'All hail the great one' Abnett and Mike Lee. He showed moments of comradeship and faith towards his companions, and constantly shows, and is even described as having, genuine "affection" for his [[Awesome|giant fuckoff murderlizard]], which he names "Spite," in reflection of one of his most important moral values. Despite generally being what we'd consider a nasty little sociopath, Malus isn't [[Always Chaotic Evil|one-dimensional]] [[Stupid Evil|morally]], he has a surprising level of complexity in his character. He definitely values getting ahead and looking out for number one in all situations, but still has something that, while not exactly honour, might pass for it in the context of druchii society.

''Darkblade'', incidentally, in the books at least, isn't his given or familial name (the Druchii don't have surnames), but rather it's an epithet, and a derogatory one at that, for bastard children implying that he is a faulty creation.

[[File:Spite is beast beast.png|500px|thumbnail|left|Spite is best beast...]]

His [[Nauglir|Cold One]] (''nauglir''), Spite, is unusually intelligent for his breed, a necessary trait to survive as Spite was the runt of his clutch and when full grown is small by Cold One standards in the books (though "small" for them equals 16 feet from snout to tail tip), and seems to be the one living thing that has unconditional affection for Malus. Generally, the druchii have to coat themselves in nauglir venom (which has unfortunate long-term effects of killing the sense of smell, taste and touch - there is treatment to reverse this but its expensive even for the nobles) in order for their mounts not to NOM them, but Spite eventually stopped wanting to NOM Malus even though Malus smelt of [[daemon]]. Malus only had to [[Meme|boop him on the snoot]] once, and maybe actually felt bad about it, despite being the a nasty little sociopath he is. The relationship between the two is positively [[My Little Pony|noblebright]] in comparison to just about everything else that goes down in the series.

He is one of the most popular Warhammer Fantasy characters then because he has that rarest of qualities; actual character. His refusal to give up and his hard as nails approach at slaying the fuck out of anything that gets in his way has made many fanboys hold a torch for him.

If he wasn't a pansy elf and a dark one at that, he and [[Gotrek & Felix|Gotrek]] would be firm drinking buddies.

==The Comics==

[[File:Darkblade comic cover.png|350px|thumbnail|left]]
{{Topquote|Shut UP, daemon.|Malus Darkblade, all the friggin' time (a running joke in the comics, referenced often in the books, too.)}}

Malus comes from a series of comic stories (also written by Abnett) from the days when GW actually cared about making a good story without making it serve a purpose like releasing new models. Malus is the son of a Dark Elf noble, and his soul is stolen by the daemon Tz'arkan when Malus was questing for treasure (Tz'arkan describes himself as a servant of Tzeentch in the comic but of Slaanesh in the books, sort of; he doesn't typically act particularly Slaaneshi, except when in the presence of a Slaaneshi cult (though he does pay homage when seeing an idol of Slaanesh), but he seems pretty driven by nyehehe JUST AS PLANNED rather than lust and excess, so draw your conclusions—really, why this changed is anyone's guess and doesn't seem to make much sense other than to fit Tza'arkan into a plot which involves a secret and forbidden cult of Slaanesh trying to subvert druchii society), Malus had to find five artifacts in order to free the daemon and himself, only for the daemon to steal his soul when it was freed.

==The Books==

{{Topquote|If you see the [[Khaine|Lord of Murder]] before I do, tell him I'm coming. [[Awesome|Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat]].|Malus Darkblade}}

A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf noble's son, but rather than being the favorite he's the hated bastard in a family with more incest than ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He has five older half-siblings and they have the same father - a Dark Elf noble second in command of Hag Graef named Lurhan - while the half-siblings share the same mother. The half-siblings are;

* Bruglir (male, the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir, won't let anyone else have her if he's nearby and considers Urial not worth killing despite Yasmir's repeated requests.)
* Isilvar (male, the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, hierophant of a secret and very much forbidden Slaaneshi cult, who is in a incestuous triad with his younger sister Nagaira along with Malus. This is apparently nothing to write home about in their world.)
* Yasmir (female, the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away on raids or at war...which is apparently, by Druchii standards, completely acceptable.)
* Nagaira (female, the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar)
* Urial (male, the fifth child, born deformed and his mother died giving birth to him so Urial was sacrificed to Khaine but a miracle ensured he survived, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him.)

Malus' mother is a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy with him and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with slow-acting poison while she was pregnant with Urial, which is also why he was born deformed). However, Lurhan hates Malus and has secretly conspired to have Malus killed ever since the latter reached adulthood (only fear of Eldire's retribution prevented Lurhan from having Malus outright killed.)

===Prologue===

A short story which involves Malus going on a rite of passage for Dark Elf nobles called a Haskeer cruise; the young noble is given command of a force and has to conduct a successful raid and return. The send-off they get, how many retainers they have and the amount of ships under their command is a reflection of their status in the family; Malus got one ship - the ''Manticore'', one retainer and no send-off. The story starts with Malus being dragged there after a failed assassination attempt from one of his siblings involving a poisonous snake, [[Grimdark|that he only survived because the snake bit Malus' two "bodyservants"]] - that is to say, [[rape]] slaves - first, so didn't have enough venom to kill when it bit him. Let us not forget that, whilst a popular and well-developed character with a pretty solid fanbase, he's still who he is. Whether he's a product of his environment or [[Always Chaotic Evil|just an evil person]] is not ''quite'' fleshed out, although most stories about the elves/Aeldari, and the amount of time the reader gets to spend inside Malus's head, so to speak, it lean towards the former with a really big handicap from the latter. Other members of the crew include the captain Hathan Gul, and the [[Anime|tsundere]] female first mate, a corsair named Lhunara, with whom he alternatively shares flirtations and blows. Originally, this motley crew were slated to go raid Bretonnia but Malus arranged for them to raid Ulthuan instead because he wanted the cruise over and done with, Ulthuan was closer and [[Elf|elven]] slaves were worth about 100x their [[Aerwin the mon-keigh expert|human]] equivalents (despite the fact that Ulthuan was about equivalently much more dangerous).

Malus suspected his retainer — a down-on-his-luck noble called Silar — was hired by Lurhan to kill him. When Silar confronted Malus, Malus learned that was wrong; Silar had a sense of honor and duty to Malus for the time that his contract covered, and generally wasn't a dude who was about subtlety being much more [[RIP AND TEAR|brutally honest]]. Silar actually confronted Malus to express his disapproval of Malus' plan to raid Ulthuan, which Silar considered suicidally stupid. Lhunara overheard them and, surprised by Malus' move and seeking a better position that what Gul offered her, approached them and spilled the beans to Malus; Lurhan had actually arranged with Gul to get Malus killed by a Bretonnian Duke they had an arrangement with (the corsairs took prisoners from the Duke's dungeons as slaves, in exchange they'd leave the area under his care unmolested). Malus decided to go ahead with attacking Ulthuan and, through a combination of luck, cunning and a surprise attack at night was successful. He captured a village of High Elf civilians but was forced to kill them in a ruse to kill a High Elf Sea Guard patrol the next morning (much to Malus' chagrin, due to the aforementioned value of pointy ears at the flesh markets) and escape. They took a lot of treasure from the High Elves, but Malus gave it to crew to make them loyal to him instead of Hathan Gul; Gul himself was tortured by Malus in a suitably [[grimdark]] manner for the whole Uriah Gambit and killed by his former crew (with Malus keeping Gul's gold false teeth as mementos).

=== The Daemon's Curse ===
Malus is now a successful nobleman, Silar and Lhunara are his retainers and [[Anime|Lhunara has gone dere dere for Malus]]. He also gained the service of Arleth Vann, a renegade assassin from the Temple of Khaine. After coming back from a very successful slave raid (where Malus and his crew tortured a couple as entertainment for the trip), they were ambushed and their captives were all killed, making the raid a bust. Malus figured out who was responsible for the ambush and confronted them. It turned out to be a Dark Elf noble called Fuerlan, a smug schemer and Malus' cousin on his mother's side. Because of the ambush, Malus had Fuerlan tortured, despite Fuerlan's father being the ruler of Naggor, a Black Ark which was in a cold-war-type conflict with Hag Graef, where Fuerlan was staying as a special "hostage" ("hostage" in the medieval European sense, where a noble from one nation would be confined to another's court, and treated with all respect due to their station as long as their nation didn't cause trouble between the two; conversely, there would be trouble if anything bad happened to the hostage).

Malus knew of the political ramifications of harming a noble hostage, but the only concession he made was not to kill Fuerlan. Naturally, this brought some heavy political blowback crashing down on Malus. After enduring the worst of it, Malus learned of a treasure that could increase his power in a temple to the north, and took a personal regiment of Cold One Knights along with his retainers on the trip. Along the way, he encountered and had to negotiate a truce with a tribe of Shades (a feral and aberrant branch of the druchii who even the "dark cousins" to the regular elves thought of as "dark cousins"; their cruelty to their slaves horrified even Malus; the Shades [[Grimdark|removed the eyes and tongues of their slaves while regularly cutting on them in addition to the standard Dark Elf abuses]]). Then the tribe double-crossed him and he and his warband had to fight their way free. After braving a fierce blizzard they encountered Beastmen near the temple and tried to negotiate a truce with them.

When they got to the temple, the Beastmen betrayed them. Malus got his followers to hold the line against the brayherd while he went in alone. Ignoring symbols and statues of Chaos he entered the chamber. He took a ring for himself from the hoard, which awakened the daemon Tz'arkan who possessed him. The daemon announced to Malus what happened, pointing out the Dark Elf's greed and taking the ring brought it on himself. Horrified, Malus tried to commit suicide only for Tz'arkan to stop him by pointing out that if he did Malus would be his plaything for eternity (In the Warhammer Fantasy world, exorcisms involve killing the possessed, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)#The Cult of Sigmar|with Luthor Huss as the sole exception]].)

[[File:STFUDaemon.png|thumbnail|Like a bickering old couple...]]
Malus and Tz'arkhan have a conversation about the latter's plan; he wanted to be free of the temple, so he tasked Malus to gather five artifacts for the ritual to free Tz'arkan or his soul would be claimed by the daemon. Malus also had a time limit of one year to accomplish this. Enraged and in despair, Malus fled the temple with Tz'arkan's laughter ringing in his ears. In unthinking rage and shame he killed his lieutenants (starting, in a surprisingly emotional scene, with a horrified Lhunara) and then going full [[RIP AND TEAR]] the remaining [[Beastmen]].

Afterwards, he started on a quest with Tz'arkan for the first artifact The Octagon of Praan, a gem that protected its wearer from hostile magic. He acquired this after the killing the Bray-Shaman, a leader of a group of [[beastmen]] who, at least initially, he contacted under peaceful terms but then just went full [[Khaine#mudertenderizer|murdertenderizer]]. When busy not almost getting killed, Malus learned that Tz'arkan could give him power, enhancing his physical abilities beyond mortal means whilst making him uncontrollably violent and more susceptible to the daemon's influence. The powerlevel boost thus gained seemed to have addictive qualities, not unlike the combat stimms (or daemonic aid) over in the other Warhammer. It is described as having pretty drastic (skin pallour, dark bulging veins, etc.) effects on his appearance, and being pretty unmistakable as what it was, so Malus wasn't overtly keen on using it, but wound up having to do so all too many times: as daemons are generally big on temptation, Tza'arkan would be constantly reminding Malus that this was a possibility, sort of like twiddling a syringe with a junkie's drug of choice in their face every five minutes.

=== Bloodstorm ===

Malus returned to Hag Graef to plan getting the second artifact - the Idol of Kolkuth, but got captured by Lurhan's soldiers. He was gruesomely tortured by his father, who was trying to manipulate him into requesting death so Eldire couldn't blame Lurhan for Malus' death. A combination of spite and Tz'arkan's power kept Malus alive, long enough for Eldire to visit him in secret. Eldire and Nagaira worked together to free him, magically heal his wounds and inducted him into the Slaaneshi cult. Then Malus learned they didn't want him, but Tz'arkan, so he sought a way out. During this time, Malus took on another retainer, a witty, down-to-earth (for a Dark Elf) city guard named Hauclir. Eventually his schemes came to the attention of the Drachau of Hag Graef, and Malus made him an offer. There was a fleet of Nurgle-worshiping pirates called the Skinriders - named for the fact that they lost their skins due to disease or injury and wore the skin of those they fought or captured - who often attacked the Dark Elves. Malus asked for a Writ of Iron from the Drachau - a legal document that gives the carrier the authority of the issuer, and since this was issued by the ruler of Hag Graef Malus was now the second-most powerful person in the city (with the caveat that if the carrier failed their duty, the Writ would be melted down and the molten remains were poured down their throat) - and in exchange Malus would hunt down and destroy the Skinriders.

Malus used this to bring Urial and some warriors from the Temple of Khaine with him. He also brought along Yasmir to placate Bruglir, which outraged Yasmir since she was a spoiled snob who couldn't handle not being in control of a situation. Urial used some magic to teleport them to Burglir's ship. There they find out that Bruglir was cheating on Yasmir with his female lieutenant, a scarred woman named Tanithra. Especially problematic since apparently only the male in druchii relationships must maintain his continence, as a show of strength, while the female may slut it up at will and then there's the question of whether rape slaves count. For [[GW|reasons]], this dynamic isn't totally fleshed out, but it is seen in evidence in some other places including deldar 40K novels as well. Yasmir, being thereby justifiably outraged and, bound by her culture's code of conduct to take offense and then take measures about it, flips her shit when she finds out Bruglir is fucking around with the lady-pirate lieutenant. He, according again to druchii standards, doesn't really concern himself with her extensive court of admirers back home as long as she makes him head of the queue when he's around (interestingly, Yasmir had gotten Bruglir to kill suitors she didn't want except for Urial who Bruglir considered not worth it).

None of them are happy about the state of affairs until Malus reminded them that with the Writ he's in charge, though he played to Bruglir's pride and vanity when the latter threatened to kill him anyway. During the voyage the loss of control and Bruglir's sleeping around also sent Yasmir round the bend, so she rarely left her cabin, and started getting into Khainite worship, much to the delight of Urial who saw it as a chance to get close to her. During this time Malus learned that Bruglir had promised Tanithra a captaincy, and was using that to string her along and extort sex from her. Around this time she started to resent that situation, which Malus considered in case it could be useful later. They encountered a few Skinrider ships and had a vicious battle, with Hauclir retrieving the maps to their main base and nearly getting trapped on the ship as it sank. The Dark Elves won after taking some losses, and commandeered one of the Skinrider ships, with Urial's Khainite blessings keeping the crew from getting infected by all the diseases on board. They decided to pull a Trojan Horse stunt to kill them, with Bruglir putting Tanithra in charge of the ship and calling that keeping his promise; this naturally made Tanithra even madder.

They infiltrated the Skinriders base and encountered their chieftain, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle wearing a cloak of flayed skin. Then the Dark Elves were betrayed by Tanithra, who had taken Yasmir captive. She confessed to everyone her part in the plan to defeat the Skinriders and offered to pledge herself to the Skinriders on the condition that she can keep one of the Dark Elf ships and be its captain, while also flaying Yasmir and wearing her skin. Urial attacked to save Yasmir and a battle broke out between Malus, Bruglir's loyal crew and Tanithra and the Skinriders, resulting in the deaths of all in the room but Urial, Yasmir and Malus. Malus broke away during the battle to find the Idol of Kolkuth, which was in an interdimensional maze. Malus was unable to navigate, and asked Tz'arkan for a rope - being Tz'arkan, the daemon unravelled Malus' blood vessels from his body and used them as rope. After fighting past a minotaur, Malus got the Idol - his body restored at the cost of Tz'arkan spreading his influence, and Malus found his way back as the Dark Elves wiped out the Skinriders, but there was no sign of Urial or Yasmir.

=== Reaper of Souls ===

Malus sought to get the next artifact, the Dagger of Torxus. It was a powerful weapon that would take the soul of anyone it cut and bind them to that spot. Malus was stabbed with it, but due to Tz'arkan already having his soul, it just rendered Malus unconscious.

Malus also tracked down the raiding party that took the Dagger, which turned to be led by Lurhan. After a fierce fight with Lurhan and his retainers, Malus slew some while others fled, but was forced to kill Lurhan in self-defense to get the Dagger, making Malus a kinslayer. This was a bittersweet moment for Malus, for even though Malus had long wanted to kill his father due to the latter hating and trying to kill him since childhood, Lurhan was one of the Witch King's vassals, and killing him under those circumstances made Malus an outlaw among the Dark Elves, and Tz'arkan was happy to troll him about it all.

Malus went on the run, pursued by Cold One Knights from Hag Graef who'd been informed of Lurhan's death by the surviving retainers. Malus fled to Naggor, and was nearly caught. But a regiment of knights from Naggor killed the knights of Hag Graef and brought Malus before his uncle Balneth to explain the situation. Unfortunately for Malus, Balneth knew what he'd done Fuerlan, who was also present at the meeting. Malus' tortures had left Fuerlan a heavily scarred, mentally unstable alcoholic swinging between hatred and fear of Malus. Nagaira was also there, much to Malus' chagrin. To his surprise, they offered him help and indicated that they were planning a coup against Hag Graef and that by killing his father he would be a valuable ally to their cause. Malus reluctantly agreed to join them, though Fuerlan's constant threats and Nagaira's scheming got on his nerves. Nagaira also claimed to have a ritual that would give him control of Tz'arkan, which Malus agreed to.

Malus was ambushed in his tent by four of his former retainers Silar, Arleth Vann, Dolthaic and Hauclir. They had been sent on a mission by the Drachau of Hag Graef to kill Malus and be free of the political consequences of their association with him. All but Hauclir ridiculed Malus for ruining their lives, with Hauclir pleading that Malus had a plan to fix the situation. Malus managed escape them and fled. As he got close to Hag Graef, he learned that Nagaira had lied. The ritual was actually drawing on the daemon's power to put a geas on both of them so Malus could be used to slay the Drachau of Hag Graef. Malus fought his way into the throne room, and dealt a severe would to the Drachau before a group of Sorceresses arrived, led by Malus' mother Eldire. Together, the Sorceresses freed Malus from the geas and returned his things, but not before Eldire gave Malus a ring that could contact her if he needed help (and was dismayed to learn of Malus being possessed).

=== Warpsword ===

=== Lord of Ruin ===

Malus fought the Chaos Champion. Their helm got knocked off during the fight, revealing it to be an undead Lhunara, Malus' former retainer; in her dying moments she had pledged herself to the Chaos Gods in exchange for revenge against Malus.

Malus found a severely wounded Hauclir and faced a moral dilemma; get rid of the Warpsword and let the daemonic power in his blood heal Hauclir or keep the Warpsword and let him die. Malus did something compassionate for someone besides himself or Spite and dropped the weapon and successfully healed Hauclir. Unfortunately he didn't get the weapon in time, and Tz'arkan took over. Now in control of Malus, Tz'arkan used his powers to compel Spite and rode the Cold One into the ground to get back to the Temple in time, leaving Spite nearly dead from exhaustion. It's revealed the reason for Tz'arkan's deadline was there was a ground level volcano beneath the temple that was about to erupt and Tz'arkan wanted to get free before then. The ritual was carried out and Tz'arkan left Malus' body, but took his soul as well. Malus fought back, destroying Tz'arkhan's body but the daemon fled with Malus' soul. Malus took up the Warpsword, the only artifact not destroyed or lost in the aftermath, killed a group of Beastmen gathered outside, nursed Spite back to health by feeding him the dead Beastmen and rode out to track down the daemon and get his soul back.

== Aftermath ==

Wandering the chaos wastes as a soulless unstoppable killer, he then found out where the daemon was hiding and went on another quest to reclaim his soul. A Chaos follower knew where Tz'arkan was hiding and tried to stop Malus betraying him by tattooing the map onto his back. Undaunted, Malus flayed the map from the Chaos follower's back and fed him to Spite. Malus found Tz'arkan and reclaimed his soul, but in doing so was cursed to have the daemon trapped back inside of himself again.

==End Times==

{{fail}}

Now he has returned to Naggaroth and what will this strange, legendary dark elf do? Well GW is coyly stopping us answering that question, because they won't move the damn plot along and let Malus kick [[Malekith]]'s tin ass! '''Except where he returns to fuck his sister''' and try to assassinate the Witch King in the End Times. Typical Druchii fashion, that goes as well as expected.

Be careful what you wish for because, unfortunately, he'll never get the chance now. During the final invasion of Ulthuan, Malus drew on Tz'arkan's power one too many times. With that Tz'arkan took over and consumed Malus so he died, causing him to be ripped apart from the inside out while Tz'arkan took physical form, his new body proved too much weight for Spite and broke the Cold One's back, leading the daemon to crush and trample Spite to death. No Malus! Don't go, we liked you.....cue fan boys grieving.

==Total War==

Sometimes you just have to wish hard enough, and give just the proper amount of spite to those you hate, because as stated by the big man himself; "With Hate, all things are possible!"

Our dark and edgy anti-hero is finally coming to Total War Warhammer 2. Playable in both the Eye of the Vortex Campaign and the Mortal Empires Campaign. Tagging along with him, is of course his lazy roommate Tz'arkan, who never pays rent, and rants at you every minute or so for not picking up enough groceries, or not nabbing that pizza he likes.

Bright side, (or dark depending on how you look at it) Tz'arkan pays rent in a weird manner by turning Malus from a badass, into a one man army shredding badass. Not so great though, is that Tz'arkan has this nasty little habit of eating through Malus' health like a fat man goes through Doritos.

Malus is unique not only in choice of roommate, but also start position. He is the first Legendary Lord in the game to be given 2 start positions rather then one. He starts in Hag Graef, (go figure) and also in the bottom ass end of either the Southlands in the Vortex Campaign, or on the Dragon Isles in Mortal Empires which also was just recently added.

Best part of it all, Spite came along for the ride of course. Lovable little scamp. Though for some reason CA has specifically stated in his description that he’s “larger than most of his breed," which is how he was in the originals comics despite the fact that the armybooks and novels clearly retconned this.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Darkblade mini.jpg|The glorious bastard had a less-than-glorious mini at one point...
File:Darkblade rip and tear.jpg|[[RIP AND TEAR]]
File:Darkblade vs Furries1.png|Malus gets a boost in his [[Meme|powerlevel]] when fighting some [[Beastmen|furries]]...
File:Darkblade vs Furries.png|...but it hurts.
File:Malusdarkblade ntr bretonnian.png| [[NSFW|Tag: Mindbreak, NTR, Non-Con, Tentacles, Gangbang, BDSM, Corruption, Slaanesh, Manipulation, Torture]]
File:TWWH2_-_8nmz7d61pe241.png|CRAWWWWWLING IIIN MY SKIIIIIIN
</gallery>
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Malus Darkblade

2021-10-15T11:41:01Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E113:B449:EEA4:2361: /* The Daemon's Curse */

[[File:Malus.jpg|350px|thumbnail|right|He may have been an asshat, but what an awesome asshat. ''Also pictured: the only living creature he genuinely and unconditionally loves (and loves him back, d'aww.)'']]
{{topquote|Through hate, all things are possible.|Malus Darkblade}}
{{Topquote|If nothing else, Malus Darkblade, you can be counted upon to react to adversity with as much violence as possible.|Tz'arkan, Drinker of Souls, Greater Daemon of <s>Tzeentch</s>Slaanesh}}
{{topquote|An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.|Criss Jami}}

'''Malus Darkblade''' "GW's NOT [[Elric]]"
is a right hard tough bastard who simply won't die. Putting them other fantasy characters to shame, while he may be selfish, arrogant, wicked, and basically everything you would expect from a [[Dark Elf]], he is actually portrayed somewhat believably as well in the five novels written of him by Dan 'All hail the great one' Abnett and Mike Lee. He showed moments of comradeship and faith towards his companions, and constantly shows, and is even described as having, genuine "affection" for his [[Awesome|giant fuckoff murderlizard]], which he names "Spite," in reflection of one of his most important moral values. Despite generally being what we'd consider a nasty little sociopath, Malus isn't [[Always Chaotic Evil|one-dimensional]] [[Stupid Evil|morally]], he has a surprising level of complexity in his character. He definitely values getting ahead and looking out for number one in all situations, but still has something that, while not exactly honour, might pass for it in the context of druchii society.

''Darkblade'', incidentally, in the books at least, isn't his given or familial name (the Druchii don't have surnames), but rather it's an epithet, and a derogatory one at that, for bastard children implying that he is a faulty creation.

[[File:Spite is beast beast.png|500px|thumbnail|left|Spite is best beast...]]

His [[Nauglir|Cold One]] (''nauglir''), Spite, is unusually intelligent for his breed, a necessary trait to survive as Spite was the runt of his clutch and when full grown is small by Cold One standards in the books (though "small" for them equals 16 feet from snout to tail tip), and seems to be the one living thing that has unconditional affection for Malus. Generally, the druchii have to coat themselves in nauglir venom (which has unfortunate long-term effects of killing the sense of smell, taste and touch - there is treatment to reverse this but its expensive even for the nobles) in order for their mounts not to NOM them, but Spite eventually stopped wanting to NOM Malus even though Malus smelt of [[daemon]]. Malus only had to [[Meme|boop him on the snoot]] once, and maybe actually felt bad about it, despite being the a nasty little sociopath he is. The relationship between the two is positively [[My Little Pony|noblebright]] in comparison to just about everything else that goes down in the series.

He is one of the most popular Warhammer Fantasy characters then because he has that rarest of qualities; actual character. His refusal to give up and his hard as nails approach at slaying the fuck out of anything that gets in his way has made many fanboys hold a torch for him.

If he wasn't a pansy elf and a dark one at that, he and [[Gotrek & Felix|Gotrek]] would be firm drinking buddies.

==The Comics==

[[File:Darkblade comic cover.png|350px|thumbnail|left]]
{{Topquote|Shut UP, daemon.|Malus Darkblade, all the friggin' time (a running joke in the comics, referenced often in the books, too.)}}

Malus comes from a series of comic stories (also written by Abnett) from the days when GW actually cared about making a good story without making it serve a purpose like releasing new models. Malus is the son of a Dark Elf noble, and his soul is stolen by the daemon Tz'arkan when Malus was questing for treasure (Tz'arkan describes himself as a servant of Tzeentch in the comic but of Slaanesh in the books, sort of; he doesn't typically act particularly Slaaneshi, except when in the presence of a Slaaneshi cult (though he does pay homage when seeing an idol of Slaanesh), but he seems pretty driven by nyehehe JUST AS PLANNED rather than lust and excess, so draw your conclusions—really, why this changed is anyone's guess and doesn't seem to make much sense other than to fit Tza'arkan into a plot which involves a secret and forbidden cult of Slaanesh trying to subvert druchii society), Malus had to find five artifacts in order to free the daemon and himself, only for the daemon to steal his soul when it was freed.

==The Books==

{{Topquote|If you see the [[Khaine|Lord of Murder]] before I do, tell him I'm coming. [[Awesome|Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat]].|Malus Darkblade}}

A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf noble's son, but rather than being the favorite he's the hated bastard in a family with more incest than ''[[Game of Thrones]]''. He has five older half-siblings and they have the same father - a Dark Elf noble second in command of Hag Graef named Lurhan - while the half-siblings share the same mother. The half-siblings are;

* Bruglir (male, the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir, won't let anyone else have her if he's nearby and considers Urial not worth killing despite Yasmir's repeated requests.)
* Isilvar (male, the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, hierophant of a secret and very much forbidden Slaaneshi cult, who is in a incestuous triad with his younger sister Nagaira along with Malus. This is apparently nothing to write home about in their world.)
* Yasmir (female, the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away on raids or at war...which is apparently, by Druchii standards, completely acceptable.)
* Nagaira (female, the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar)
* Urial (male, the fifth child, born deformed and his mother died giving birth to him so Urial was sacrificed to Khaine but a miracle ensured he survived, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him.)

Malus' mother is a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy with him and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with slow-acting poison while she was pregnant with Urial, which is also why he was born deformed). However, Lurhan hates Malus and has secretly conspired to have Malus killed ever since the latter reached adulthood (only fear of Eldire's retribution prevented Lurhan from having Malus outright killed.)

===Prologue===

A short story which involves Malus going on a rite of passage for Dark Elf nobles called a Haskeer cruise; the young noble is given command of a force and has to conduct a successful raid and return. The send-off they get, how many retainers they have and the amount of ships under their command is a reflection of their status in the family; Malus got one ship - the ''Manticore'', one retainer and no send-off. The story starts with Malus being dragged there after a failed assassination attempt from one of his siblings involving a poisonous snake, [[Grimdark|that he only survived because the snake bit Malus' two "bodyservants"]] - that is to say, [[rape]] slaves - first, so didn't have enough venom to kill when it bit him. Let us not forget that, whilst a popular and well-developed character with a pretty solid fanbase, he's still who he is. Whether he's a product of his environment or [[Always Chaotic Evil|just an evil person]] is not ''quite'' fleshed out, although most stories about the elves/Aeldari, and the amount of time the reader gets to spend inside Malus's head, so to speak, it lean towards the former with a really big handicap from the latter. Other members of the crew include the captain Hathan Gul, and the [[Anime|tsundere]] female first mate, a corsair named Lhunara, with whom he alternatively shares flirtations and blows. Originally, this motley crew were slated to go raid Bretonnia but Malus arranged for them to raid Ulthuan instead because he wanted the cruise over and done with, Ulthuan was closer and [[Elf|elven]] slaves were worth about 100x their [[Aerwin the mon-keigh expert|human]] equivalents (despite the fact that Ulthuan was about equivalently much more dangerous).

Malus suspected his retainer — a down-on-his-luck noble called Silar — was hired by Lurhan to kill him. When Silar confronted Malus, Malus learned that was wrong; Silar had a sense of honor and duty to Malus for the time that his contract covered, and generally wasn't a dude who was about subtlety being much more [[RIP AND TEAR|brutally honest]]. Silar actually confronted Malus to express his disapproval of Malus' plan to raid Ulthuan, which Silar considered suicidally stupid. Lhunara overheard them and, surprised by Malus' move and seeking a better position that what Gul offered her, approached them and spilled the beans to Malus; Lurhan had actually arranged with Gul to get Malus killed by a Bretonnian Duke they had an arrangement with (the corsairs took prisoners from the Duke's dungeons as slaves, in exchange they'd leave the area under his care unmolested). Malus decided to go ahead with attacking Ulthuan and, through a combination of luck, cunning and a surprise attack at night was successful. He captured a village of High Elf civilians but was forced to kill them in a ruse to kill a High Elf Sea Guard patrol the next morning (much to Malus' chagrin, due to the aforementioned value of pointy ears at the flesh markets) and escape. They took a lot of treasure from the High Elves, but Malus gave it to crew to make them loyal to him instead of Hathan Gul; Gul himself was tortured by Malus in a suitably [[grimdark]] manner for the whole Uriah Gambit and killed by his former crew (with Malus keeping Gul's gold false teeth as mementos).

=== The Daemon's Curse ===
Malus is now a successful nobleman, Silar and Lhunara are his retainers and [[Anime|Lhunara has gone dere dere for Malus]]. He also gained the service of Arleth Vann, a renegade assassin from the Temple of Khaine. After coming back from a very successful slave raid (where Malus and his crew tortured a couple as entertainment for the trip), they were ambushed and their captives were all killed, making the raid a bust. Malus figured out who was responsible for the ambush and confronted them. It turned out to be a Dark Elf noble called Fuerlan, a smug schemer and Malus' cousin on his mother's side. Because of the ambush, Malus had Fuerlan tortured, despite Fuerlan's father being the ruler of Naggor, a Black Ark which was in a cold-war-type conflict with Hag Graef, where Fuerlan was staying as a special "hostage" ("hostage" in the medieval European sense, where a noble from one nation would be confined to another's court, and treated with all respect due to their station as long as their nation didn't cause trouble between the two; conversely, there would be trouble if anything bad happened to the hostage).

Malus knew of the political ramifications of harming a noble hostage, but the only concession he made was not to kill Fuerlan. Naturally, this brought some heavy political blowback crashing down on Malus. After enduring the worst of it, Malus learned of a treasure that could increase his power in a temple to the north, and took a personal regiment of Cold One Knights along with his retainers on the trip. Along the way, he encountered and had to negotiate a truce with a tribe of Shades (a feral and aberrant branch of the druchii who even the "dark cousins" to the regular elves thought of as "dark cousins"; their cruelty to their slaves horrified even Malus; the Shades [[Grimdark|removed the eyes and tongues of their slaves while regularly cutting on them in addition to the standard Dark Elf abuses]]). Then the tribe double-crossed him and he and his warband had to fight their way free. After braving a fierce blizzard they encountered Beastmen near the temple and tried to negotiate a truce with them.

When they got to the temple, the Beastmen betrayed them. Malus got his followers to hold the line against the brayherd while he went in alone. Ignoring symbols and statues of Chaos he entered the chamber. He took a ring for himself from the hoard, which awakened the daemon Tz'arkan who possessed him. The daemon announced to Malus what happened, pointing out the Dark Elf's greed and taking the ring brought it on himself. Horrified, Malus tried to commit suicide only for Tz'arkan to stop him by pointing out that if he did Malus would be his plaything for eternity (In the Warhammer Fantasy world, exorcisms involve killing the possessed, [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)#The Cult of Sigmar|with Luthor Huss as the sole exception]].)

[[File:STFUDaemon.png|thumbnail|Like a bickering old couple...]]
Malus and Tz'arkhan have a conversation about the latter's plan; he wanted to be free of the temple, so he tasked Malus to gather five artifacts for the ritual to free Tz'arkan or his soul would be claimed by the daemon. Malus also had a time limit of one year to accomplish this. Enraged and in despair, Malus fled the temple with Tz'arkan's laughter ringing in his ears. In unthinking rage and shame he killed his lieutenants (starting, in a surprisingly emotional scene, with a horrified Lhunara) and then going full [[RIP AND TEAR]] the remaining [[Beastmen]].

Afterwards, he started on a quest with Tz'arkan for the first artifact The Octagon of Praan, a gem that protected its wearer from hostile magic. He acquired this after the killing the Bray-Shaman, a leader of a group of [[beastmen]] who, at least initially, he contacted under peaceful terms but then just went full [[Khaine#mudertenderizer|murdertenderizer]]. When busy not almost getting killed, Malus learned that Tz'arkan could give him power, enhancing his physical abilities beyond mortal means whilst making him uncontrollably violent and more susceptible to the daemon's influence. The powerlevel boost thus gained seemed to have addictive qualities, not unlike the combat stimms (or daemonic aid) over in the other Warhammer. It is described as having pretty drastic (skin pallour, dark bulging veins, etc.) effects on his appearance, and being pretty unmistakable as what it was, so Malus wasn't overtly keen on using it, but wound up having to do so all too many times: as daemons are generally big on temptation, Tza'arkan would be constantly reminding Malus that this was a possibility, sort of like twiddling a syringe with a junkie's drug of choice in their face every five minutes.

=== Bloodstorm ===

Malus returned to Hag Graef to plan getting the second artifact - the Idol of Kolkuth, but got captured by Lurhan's soldiers. He was gruesomely tortured by his father, who was trying to manipulate him into requesting death so Eldire couldn't blame Lurhan for Malus' death. A combination of spite and Tz'arkan's power kept Malus alive, long enough for Eldire to visit him in secret. Eldire and Nagaira worked together to free him, magically heal his wounds and inducted him into the Slaaneshi cult. Then Malus learned they didn't want him, but Tz'arkan, so he sought a way out. During this time, Malus took on another retainer, a witty, down-to-earth (for a Dark Elf) city guard named Hauclir. Eventually his schemes came to the attention of the Drachau of Hag Graef, and Malus made him an offer. There was a fleet of Nurgle-worshiping pirates called the Skinriders - named for the fact that they lost their skins due to disease or injury and wore the skin of those they fought or captured - who often attacked the Dark Elves. Malus asked for a Writ of Iron from the Drachau - a legal document that gives the carrier the authority of the issuer, and since this was issued by the ruler of Hag Graef Malus was now the second-most powerful person in the city (with the caveat that if the carrier failed their duty, the Writ would be melted down and the molten remains were poured down their throat) - and in exchange Malus would hunt down and destroy the Skinriders.

Malus used this to bring Urial and some warriors from the Temple of Khaine with him. He also brought along Yasmir to placate Bruglir, which outraged Yasmir since she was a spoiled snob who couldn't handle not being in control of a situation. Urial used some magic to teleport them to Burglir's ship. There they find out that Bruglir was cheating on Yasmir with his female lieutenant, a scarred woman named Tanithra. Especially problematic since apparently only the male in druchii relationships must maintain his continence, as a show of strength, while the female may slut it up at will and then there's the question of whether rape slaves count. For [[GW|reasons]], this dynamic isn't totally fleshed out, but it is seen in evidence in some other places including deldar 40K novels as well. Yasmir, being thereby justifiably outraged and, bound by her culture's code of conduct to take offense and then take measures about it, flips her shit when she finds out Bruglir is fucking around with the lady-pirate lieutenant. He, according again to druchii standards, doesn't really concern himself with her extensive court of admirers back home as long as she makes him head of the queue when he's around (interestingly, Yasmir had gotten Bruglir to kill suitors she didn't want except for Urial who Bruglir considered not worth it).

None of them are happy about the state of affairs until Malus reminded them that with the Writ he's in charge, though he played to Bruglir's pride and vanity when the latter threatened to kill him anyway. During the voyage the loss of control and Bruglir's sleeping around also sent Yasmir round the bend, so she rarely left her cabin, and started getting into Khainite worship, much to the delight of Urial who saw it as a chance to get close to her. During this time Malus learned that Bruglir had promised Tanithra a captaincy, and was using that to string her along and extort sex from her. Around this time she started to resent that situation, which Malus considered in case it could be useful later. They encountered a few Skinrider ships and had a vicious battle, with Hauclir retrieving the maps to their main base and nearly getting trapped on the ship as it sank. The Dark Elves won after taking some losses, and commandeered one of the Skinrider ships, with Urial's Khainite blessings keeping the crew from getting infected by all the diseases on board. They decided to pull a Trojan Horse stunt to kill them, with Bruglir putting Tanithra in charge of the ship and calling that keeping his promise; this naturally made Tanithra even madder.

They infiltrated the Skinriders base and encountered their chieftain, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle wearing a cloak of flayed skin. Then the Dark Elves were betrayed by Tanithra, who had taken Yasmir captive. She confessed to everyone her part in the plan to defeat the Skinriders and offered to pledge herself to the Skinriders on the condition that she can keep one of the Dark Elf ships and be its captain, while also flaying Yasmir and wearing her skin. Urial attacked to save Yasmir and a battle broke out between Malus, Bruglir's loyal crew and Tanithra and the Skinriders, resulting in the deaths of all in the room but Urial, Yasmir and Malus. Malus broke away during the battle to find the Idol of Kolkuth, which was in an interdimensional maze. Malus was unable to navigate, and asked Tz'arkan for a rope - being Tz'arkan, the daemon unravelled Malus' blood vessels from his body and used them as rope. After fighting past a minotaur, Malus got the Idol - his body restored at the cost of Tz'arkan spreading his influence, and Malus found his way back as the Dark Elves wiped out the Skinriders, but there was no sign of Urial or Yasmir.

=== Reaper of Souls ===

Malus sought to get the next artifact, the Dagger of Torxus. It was a powerful weapon that would take the soul of anyone it cut and bind them to that spot. Malus was stabbed with it, but due to Tz'arkan already having his soul, it just rendered Malus unconscious.

Malus also tracked down the raiding party that took the Dagger, which turned to be led by Lurhan. After a fierce fight with Lurhan and his retainers, Malus was forced to kill Lurhan in self-defense to get the Dagger, making Malus a kinslayer for slaying his own father. This proved a bittersweet moment for Malus, for even though Malus had wanted to kill his father for ages due to the latter trying hating and trying to kill him since childhood, Lurhan was one of the Witch King's vassals so Malus was an outlaw among the Dark Elves, and Tz'arkan was happy to troll him about it all.

Malus was forced to go on the run, pursued by Cold One Knights from Hag Graef who'd been informed of Lurhan's death by the surviving retainers. Malus fled to the Black Ark of Naggor, ruled by his uncle Balneth Bale. After Balneth's knights killed the knights of Hag Graef, Malus was brought before Balneth to explain the situation. Unfortunately for Malus, Balneth was also the father of Fuerlan, Malus former torture victim and now heavily scarred, mentally unstable and swinging between hatred and fear of Malus. Nagaira was also there, much to Malus' chagrin. To his surprise, they offered him help and indicated that they were planning a coup against Hag Graef and that by killing his father he would be a valuable ally to their cause. Malus reluctantly agreed to join them, though Fuerlan's constant threats and Nagaira's scheming got on his nerves. Nagaira also claimed to have a ritual that would give him control of Tz'arkan, which Malus agreed to.

Malus was ambushed in his tent by four of his former retainers Silar, Arleth Vann, Dolthaic and Hauclir. They had been sent on a mission by the Drachau of Hag Graef to kill Malus and be free of the political consequences of their association with him. All but Hauclir criticized Malus that his actions had ruined their lives, with Hauclir pleading that Malus had a plan to fix the situation. Malus managed escape them and fled. As he got close to Hag Graef, he learned that Nagaira had lied. The ritual was actually drawing on the daemon's power to put a geas on both of them so Malus could be used to slay the Drachau of Hag Graef. Malus fought his way into the throne room, and dealt a severe would to the Drachau before a group of Sorceresses arrived, led by Malus' mother Eldire. Together, the Sorceresses freed Malus from the geas and returned his things, but not before Eldire gave Malus a ring that could contact her if he needed help (and was dismayed to learn of Malus being possessed).

=== Warpsword ===

=== Lord of Ruin ===

Malus fought the Chaos Champion. Their helm got knocked off during the fight, revealing it to be an undead Lhunara, Malus' former retainer; in her dying moments she had pledged herself to the Chaos Gods in exchange for revenge against Malus.

Malus found a severely wounded Hauclir and faced a moral dilemma; get rid of the Warpsword and let the daemonic power in his blood heal Hauclir or keep the Warpsword and let him die. Malus did something compassionate for someone besides himself or Spite and dropped the weapon and successfully healed Hauclir. Unfortunately he didn't get the weapon in time, and Tz'arkan took over. Now in control of Malus, Tz'arkan used his powers to compel Spite and rode the Cold One into the ground to get back to the Temple in time, leaving Spite nearly dead from exhaustion. It's revealed the reason for Tz'arkan's deadline was there was a ground level volcano beneath the temple that was about to erupt and Tz'arkan wanted to get free before then. The ritual was carried out and Tz'arkan left Malus' body, but took his soul as well. Malus fought back, destroying Tz'arkhan's body but the daemon fled with Malus' soul. Malus took up the Warpsword, the only artifact not destroyed or lost in the aftermath, killed a group of Beastmen gathered outside, nursed Spite back to health by feeding him the dead Beastmen and rode out to track down the daemon and get his soul back.

== Aftermath ==

Wandering the chaos wastes as a soulless unstoppable killer, he then found out where the daemon was hiding and went on another quest to reclaim his soul. A Chaos follower knew where Tz'arkan was hiding and tried to stop Malus betraying him by tattooing the map onto his back. Undaunted, Malus flayed the map from the Chaos follower's back and fed him to Spite. Malus found Tz'arkan and reclaimed his soul, but in doing so was cursed to have the daemon trapped back inside of himself again.

==End Times==

{{fail}}

Now he has returned to Naggaroth and what will this strange, legendary dark elf do? Well GW is coyly stopping us answering that question, because they won't move the damn plot along and let Malus kick [[Malekith]]'s tin ass! '''Except where he returns to fuck his sister''' and try to assassinate the Witch King in the End Times. Typical Druchii fashion, that goes as well as expected.

Be careful what you wish for because, unfortunately, he'll never get the chance now. During the final invasion of Ulthuan, Malus drew on Tz'arkan's power one too many times. With that Tz'arkan took over and consumed Malus so he died, causing him to be ripped apart from the inside out while Tz'arkan took physical form, his new body proved too much weight for Spite and broke the Cold One's back, leading the daemon to crush and trample Spite to death. No Malus! Don't go, we liked you.....cue fan boys grieving.

==Total War==

Sometimes you just have to wish hard enough, and give just the proper amount of spite to those you hate, because as stated by the big man himself; "With Hate, all things are possible!"

Our dark and edgy anti-hero is finally coming to Total War Warhammer 2. Playable in both the Eye of the Vortex Campaign and the Mortal Empires Campaign. Tagging along with him, is of course his lazy roommate Tz'arkan, who never pays rent, and rants at you every minute or so for not picking up enough groceries, or not nabbing that pizza he likes.

Bright side, (or dark depending on how you look at it) Tz'arkan pays rent in a weird manner by turning Malus from a badass, into a one man army shredding badass. Not so great though, is that Tz'arkan has this nasty little habit of eating through Malus' health like a fat man goes through Doritos.

Malus is unique not only in choice of roommate, but also start position. He is the first Legendary Lord in the game to be given 2 start positions rather then one. He starts in Hag Graef, (go figure) and also in the bottom ass end of either the Southlands in the Vortex Campaign, or on the Dragon Isles in Mortal Empires which also was just recently added.

Best part of it all, Spite came along for the ride of course. Lovable little scamp. Though for some reason CA has specifically stated in his description that he’s “larger than most of his breed," which is how he was in the originals comics despite the fact that the armybooks and novels clearly retconned this.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Darkblade mini.jpg|The glorious bastard had a less-than-glorious mini at one point...
File:Darkblade rip and tear.jpg|[[RIP AND TEAR]]
File:Darkblade vs Furries1.png|Malus gets a boost in his [[Meme|powerlevel]] when fighting some [[Beastmen|furries]]...
File:Darkblade vs Furries.png|...but it hurts.
File:Malusdarkblade ntr bretonnian.png| [[NSFW|Tag: Mindbreak, NTR, Non-Con, Tentacles, Gangbang, BDSM, Corruption, Slaanesh, Manipulation, Torture]]
File:TWWH2_-_8nmz7d61pe241.png|CRAWWWWWLING IIIN MY SKIIIIIIN
</gallery>
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Dark Elves]]

Idoneth Deepkin

2021-10-15T10:51:11Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:E113:B449:EEA4:2361: /* Soul Wars */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Idoneth Deepkin|Logo=Fucking_Idoneth.jpeg|Alliance=Order|Motto=Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters.}}

{{topquote|Marge. Kids. Everything's gonna be just fine. Now go upstairs and pack your bags. We're gonna start a new life... under the sea.|Homer Simpson - "Homer Badman".}}
{{topquote|I got no soul, but I am a soldier|The Killers - "All These Things That I've Done". Well, that's how we remember it going.}}
{{topquote|We have been hiding long enough. The time has come for Atlantis to rise again.|Prince Orm of [[/co/|Aquaman]] fame}}
{{topquote|[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfD5u9Ary6M/ Let Mathlann strike ye dead, Winslow!! HAAAARRRRRRRKK!!!]]| Willem Dafoe- "The Lighthouse".}}

The '''Idoneth Deepkin''' are a faction introduced in [[Warhammer: Age of Sigmar]], composed of soulless marine aelves and assorted sea fauna.

==History==
===Age of Myth===
After [[Teclis]], [[Tyrion]], [[Malekith|Malerion]], and [[Morathi]] made [[Slaanesh]] start shitting out elf souls, Teclis took the devout of [[Mathlann]] (the deceased elf god of the ocean) and made a new home for them in Hysh called Leiriu, a luminescent city also known as the Bright Haven or City of Reflection. There, Teclis taught these newborn aelves, the "Cythai", about the old world and their gods hoping to re-create the High Elves.

However, they weren't exactly model elves: they were withdrawn, resentful and traumatized by their time within Slaanesh. Upon learning this, Teclis wasn't thrilled with them. He tried to find what went wrong, but the Cythai weren't cooperative ; Teclis' methods made some fall into madness, so they weren't exactly without reason. Afraid for their lives and unable or unwilling to cope with Teclis' methods, they fled into the oceans of the Mortal Realms. Along the way they stole the Ocarian Lantern, an artifact of Teclis that he'd used to draw souls from Slannesh and that the Idoneth believed could be used to track them down. Teclis, being a [[Eldrad|dick]] and probably sore about the theft of the lantern, tried to exterminate them for good measure, but his brother Tyrion convinced him to be merciful so he let them go.

The wayward elves used their magic to live in the most secluded place they could think of; under the sea. The magic they learned from Teclis was adapted so they could live underwater, even at the most crushing of depths. They grew attuned to their new surroundings, learning to trust vibrations and changes in pressure more than sight or sound. Some of them even became adept in the art of seeing the flaring soul-stuff that animates the living. Over time, each of the Cythai's enclaves developed differently, but all were affected by their new environs and self-imposed isolation. Since the elves super-PTSD still haunts them, they welcome the way in which the depths numb their senses. If everything is cold and you can't see without the aid of magic and glimmerfish, that's less sensations and emotions, which means less power to their most ancient nemesis.

The elves, now calling themselves ‘Idoneth’, didn't learn that Tyrion had made Teclis cool down and stayed in hiding. Having rejected Teclis they called out to Mathlann, but he was dead so they reached out to other gods, who either didn't hear them, were also dead or didn't care. Eventually they gave up and tried to re-create Mathlann and society as best they could.

After making their new societies, they calmed down and took stock of their situation. Accepting the possibility that their time in Slaanesh had contaminated them, the Idoneth did some research to see if there were any side-effects and found two. The first they called ''mallachi'', when an Idoneth went into a state of raging madness that ended in savage debauchery, but this only happened to a few. The second was far worse, as when they started having babies [[Grimdark|only one in a hundred Idoneth babies survived past infancy]]. The Idoneth soon figured out this was caused by most of their progeny being born with souls that swiftly withered.

Desperate and without divine aid, they turned to magic to fix the problem... [[Grimdark|without success]]. Between the extremely high infant mortality rate, wars and the dangers of the ocean, Idoneth numbers rapidly dwindled. Things only changed when they found out after experimentation [[Dark Eldar|if you kill something with a soul and put that soul into an Idoneth elf, they won't die prematurely]]. They first tried this on animals, but animal souls only brought them days, so they decided to go to the surface and start taking the souls of other people. Though other souls, such as those of human, duardin, orruks and even sylvaneth worked equally well for the Idoneth's purpose, it often took more than a few souls to empower an elf to live even a third of their normal lifespan.

At first it was only for survival, since the withering of souls continued unabated and has so far proven incurable, but later they did it for the expansion of their newly found enclaves. Of the original Idoneth made by Teclis, their numbers dwindled until only one was left - Volturnos. At first it was only one in Hysh, but after the discovery of the '''Whirlways''', whirlpools that work as underwater Realmgates, they started to get into the rest of the realms. Due to [[Skub|differences among the Cytharai]] and a growing population, they expanded to all Mortal Realms save [[Azyr]] and founded several enclaves in all of them. They developed a pattern of swift raids and a strict "leave no witnesses" policy, surrounding themselves with memory-altering magic so anyone who encountered them would forget it soon after if the Idoneth didn't kill or capture them first (and the rare few who managed to escape with this knowledge were written off as lunatics or deluded).

But there were other powers out there so the secret could only last for so long. [[Sigmar]] long suspected that something dangerous was in the oceans, but had other concerns so he didn't go looking. It was Alarielle and the Sylvaneth who first pierced the veil of secrecy. In Ghyran, an Idoneth attack on some coastal Sylvaneth drew the attention of [[Alarielle]], who entered the fray and personally defeated them in battle. Since Alarielle is a goddess, she's immune to their memory-altering magic and her word is all the Sylvaneth need to be on guard against the Idoneth.

The Idoneth became quite the hikkikomori: betrayed by their creator, forced into bad habits for survival and hated by many.

===Age of Chaos===
While the Sylvaneth kept the secret, the Idoneth dialed back their attacks and kept a low profile in Ghyran. On the Chaos side, the [[Keeper of Secrets]] Sslish the Depraved followed the spoor of strange magic and eventually found an Idoneth army, attacking them with a daemonic army until an Eidolon destroyed them. [[Archaon]] had long suspected there were more aelves than would seem, but wasn't able to confirm this until his Gaunt Summoners found the same magic and scried, finding and binding Sslish before Archaon tortured the daemon into spilling the beans.

But the Idoneth thought that they didn't need the surface world and limited themselves to the oceans, leaving only for raiding souls. During the Age of Chaos this started to change. They fought the forces of Chaos wherever they found them, either leaving Chaos' other opponents alone or killing them and taking their souls too. High King Volturnos realized that they'd have to ally with others to fight off Chaos though most other Idoneth didn't approve of this. First, he reached out to Alarielle for peace talks but, wary of trickery and aware of the Idoneth's past actions, Alarielle turned them down. They also encountered some Stormcast Eternals, and after a battle where the Idoneth learned they're unable to capture Stormcast souls due to Sigmar's blessing, they found new allies in the Sigmarines.

===Malign Portents===
They also have kind of a big issue with [[Nagash]]. You see, Nagash knew about the disappeared souls from the get-go and is kind of territorial in regards to the dead. So, because they're stealing souls to save themselves, he's not happy with them (read: really hates these guys). At first he had no idea who was taking the souls or where, despite extensive searching on his part. After the accidental drainage of a sea in Shyish (''How the hell do you drain a sea "accidentally"?!'') by the [[Skaven]] (''...oh, THAT's how. Even better, [[Thanquol|everyone's favorite Grey Seer]] was responsible.''), [[Nagash]] caught on to their existence and location. Now he’s emptying more seas in Shyish and sending waves of undead after them in all the realms to stamp them out because he’s the only guy who believes himself to be allowed to have dead souls. In their desperation, the Idoneth of Shyish changed their foreign policy and allied with the Forces of Order. Some Idoneth got so desperate they somewhat reconciled with their estranged creator-god Teclis.

===Soul Wars===
In Broken Realms: Morathi, the titular character sent a force into the Idoneth's temple to steal the Ocarian Lantern they'd stolen from Teclis. Despite her success, only two of the sixty warriors Morathi sent survived, one of them because they were captured by the Idoneth. The Idoneth interrogated the captured Khainite, and learned of Morathi's plans. The Idoneth flipped out and had a council of monarchs, fearing that if an enemy got their hands on it, they could use it to find all their Enclaves and thus wipe out their race. Volturnos declared war on the Daughters of Khaine. He gathered forces from every Enclave and attacked Hagg Nar with a massive army.

Despite fierce resistance from the Daughters of Khaine and their Scourge and Freeguild pirate allies, Volturnos and his elite guard reached the ritual chamber but were too late to prevent Morathi reaching godhood, though Volturnos helped damage the Mathcoir. The newly ascended Morathi-Khaine defeated Volturnos' forces, pinned him to the floor and offered an alliance, giving back the Lantern as well as a lot of lost Cythai souls as a peace offering. Volturnos, wary despite his joy at being reunited with his fellow Cythai, allied with Morathi and withdrew his forces. Together, the Idoneth Deepkin assisted in Morathi's conquest of Anvilguard, but neither trusts the other, so it's not a question of "if" their alliance will break, but "when".

==Society==
The Idoneth society is divided in three clear castes. First we have the '''Namarti''', composed of those 90% of Idoneth who were born with incomplete souls, extremely pale skin, short lifespan (for an aelf anyway, they may still live more than us puny humans) and without eyes that are the majority of the population and are the workforce. Then we have the lucky 10% dudes that were born with complete souls (aka, average aelves): the '''Akhelians''', the warrior caste and those who ride the sweet-looking eels, sharks, Deepmares and Leviadons; and the '''Isharann''', that are the magic users and priests. However, the first ones among all of them were the '''Cytharai''' which due to accidents, wars or other shenanigans all of them have died out save the exception of the [[Volturnos|High King of the Deep Volturnos]], who is still alive after millennia and a fighter who leads from the front.

One of the more weird phenomena that happens around these guys on land is the so-called '''Ethersea'''. This is a manifestation of their marine magic, taking the form of a mist that enables them to use their superior sea-faring abilities and allow their sea beasts to survive where there's no water in miles and move as if they were in water. The Ethersea also have the secondary effect that it manipulates the land and makes it gain deep-sea characteristics spontaneously, like shipwhrecks, coral, fish shoals to start running freely, bubble breath...

A possible bit of continuity errors already creeping in; whilst the armybook describes the Namarti caste as inherently eyeless, an Idoneth-focused short story in the anthology "Myths and Revenants" declares that the Namarti are actually born with eyes, but their ensouled counterparts ceremonially cut their eyes out when they reach puberty for undisclosed reasons.

==Idoneth, the AoS Drukhari?==
For many people a comparison between Drukhari and the Idoneth comes naturally. But beyond having something to do with souls there is nothing to this.

The Drukhari murderraped a god into existence, before they were technically called Drukhari. They seek every pleasure, every emotion and sensation, pleasure and pain alike. They need the pain of others topping off their souls to even stay alive, and as the Harlequins and Craftworlders show they don't have to do this... but the Drukhari would rather be sadistic parasites than change their ways.
Idoneth are complete opposites of this. They went down in the ocean not just to hide from Teclis, but to numb their senses, to limit their perception of touch, warmth and sight. They didn't want to feed on others souls, but now they have no choice, and they fear feeding Slaanesh and refuse to make the pact with the devil.

Instead the Idoneth seek to solve the fault in their souls on their own. They developed the Soulbonding, using other races souls as fuel for their Namarti as a stopgap measure, while their Isharann still look for a way to find a permanent solution. For all the Idoneth, save for the Fuethan, the raids are a means to an end to buy as much time as the Isharann need - and for the Fuethan, it's also impulsive aggression not sadism. All the while the Drukhari indulge in the same debauchery that they have since their inception, never seeking to solve the underlying issue of their demise.

In their quest to save and fix the vast majority of their race, the Idoneth soldiers were forced to resort to large scale violence. As it stands, Idoneth are not grimdark Dark Eldar, they are cold, nobledark Elves of the sea.

==Enclaves==
The "factions" of the Deepkin are the Enclaves, city-states founded under the seas of the realms connected by underwater realm gates called Whirlways. Whilst there are, as expected with such a large setting, countless Enclaves, there are six main ones that have been fleshed out.

*'''Ionrach''': [[Ultramarines|The posterboys, who have their armour painted a shiny blue and also have a venerable leader from a forgotten age]]. The Ionrach are one of the first enclaves that ran from the rays of Teclis into the seas of Hysh, though they have since emigrated to Ghyran. Notably the most "friendly" of the enclaves, to the point where they will actually co-operate with the other forces of Order. They, under High King Volturnos, call most often for the assembrals, large scale meetings of the Idoneth.
*'''Dhom-Hain''': The polar opposites of the Ionrach, being the first to part ways with their fellow Deepkin to settle in the ''literal hellscape'' that are the seas of Ghur. Seriously, imagine every lethal predator in our seas but 10x larger and there's ridiculous amounts of them. They settled in a deep chasm, where lots of the Fangmora Eels lurked. This meant that they use more Akhelians than other enclaves. Once went to Ghyran and fought some Sylvaneth until Alarielle kicked their asses over it. Said battle cost them a valuable ancestral heirloom, which several Dhom-Hain nobles have tried and failed to retrieve. For centuries they have not attended the assembrals, only having come back very recently to discuss a matter which they believed to threaten their entire kind.
*'''Fuethan''': Living in the seas of Aqshy means that these Deepkin are especially aggressive, and they're very mean spirited when collecting souls. Whilst enclaves like the Ionrach would spare the soul of say, a child, the Fuethan would do no such thing. In fact, they take such glee in raiding that they are found [[RIP AND TEAR|still hacking away at bodies even when they're long dead]]. The Fuethan have also been responsible for more Idoneth infighting than any other enclave. They contributed the most soldiers alongside the Ionarch to retrieve the Ocarian Lantern.
*'''Mor'Phann''': Dour and pale, the Mor'Phann inhabit the dark seas in Shyish. They use lots of mist and pale tentacled creatures,many were hit especially hard by the Necroquake to the point where they had to ally with the Stormcast to not die.
*'''Briomdar''': These guys used to be a part of the Ionrach, before declaring independence and settling in the middle of an undersea kelp forest in Ghyran. Experts at navigating terrain and ambushes - even by Idoneth standards - they camouflage themselves in kelp to leap out at unsuspecting passerbys. As an Ionrach off-shoot, they're the second most willing to ally with non-Idoneth.
*'''Nautilar''': An enclave that literally [[Awesome|lives on the shell of a giant crusteacean]] called the Giant Scaphodon. Recently they took quite a beating from some [[Skaven]] that tunnelled underwater. Also used to be a part of the Ionrach.

==Named Characters==
*'''High King Volturnos''': High King of the Ionrach Enclave and the only guy with the clout to unify the Enclaves to a common purpose. He's the last of the Cythai, the first generation of Idoneth created by Teclis himself. Recently entered into an alliance with Morathi in exchange for being given the souls of the other Cythai. His name comes from Volturnus the real-life Roman god associated with the river Tiber.
*'''Lotann, Warden of the Soul Ledgers''': The Soul Ledgers are a sect of Isharann who are in charge of keeping a tally of the souls collected in raids. Lotann is the only one of these guys who is dedicated enough to actually join the battlefield to better observe the souls taken on raids. Lacking combat abilities as you'd expect from a bureaucrat, he mostly relies on his octopus familiar to defend himself.
*'''Sythus Nemmetar''': An Akhelian King who is Volturnos' right hand man. Got his steed killed by Morathi and his face mutilated Two-Face style by a Hag Queen during the siege of Hagg Nar. This has reasonably made him very sour on being ordered to ally with the Daughters of Khaine, especially since he was assigned to work with that same Hag Queen, who now trolls him about his damaged face.
*'''Lurien''': Protagonist of the Court of the Blind King novel, and a colossal dick. The heir to the throne of the Briomdar Enclave, he spends the wake of his mother's funeral planning how he'll enjoy becoming king. He instead gets his ass kicked in a duel for the kingship and locked up. A Namarti maidservant frees Lurien on the condition that he make her his consort if he succeeds, and he goes on an adventure to gather support from other Idoneth cities in order to launch his own counter-coup. Over the course of the story he develops from a spoiled, entitled douchebag into someone who is still a pretty big douchebag but at least one who understands that if he wants to gain power he needs to be able to compromise with other people.

==Soulbound==
According to [[Age of Sigmar Roleplay]], becoming a Soulbound is a terrifying yet tempting idea for Idoneth Deepkin. On the one hand, they're incredibly isolationist, and they have a racial grudge against their creator-god [[Teclis]] for trying to kill all of them. On the other hand, undergoing the rite of Binding strengthens a Deepkin's soul to a degree that they can't achieve on their own, freeing them forever from both the fear of losing their souls and from the phantom pain that haunts their entire race, whilst simultaneously giving them permission to reap souls aplenty from foes and fallen allies alike. Those Idoneth who do agree to make the pledge (usually specifying that they will never directly serve Teclis first) are essentially forever exiled from their people, although the most foresighted Idoneth Kings and Queens, such as those descended from Ionrach, have realized that, in this changing age, Idoneth Soulbound can make useful ambassadors for their race, [[Grimdark|perhaps by making the lord of a land be conveniently too busy to help a nowhere fishing village when the next raid comes]].

The ''Champions of Order'' splatbook opens the following enclaves for your Idoneth hero to hail from:
*'''Ionrach:''' As the first of the Idoneth, they are the forefront of their ideals and often the representatives of their race. Also helping is that they are comparatively diplomatic compared to others of their kind. Indeed, this means that many Idoneth Soulbound hail from this enclave, with a majority of them being Isharann who boast better casting. Heroes from the Ionrach can always tell if others are amenable to their plans and have advantage on opposed tests in such cases. They also have the Tactician and A Good Plan archetypes available to all archetypes regardless of any prerequisites.
*'''Dhom-hain:''' Equally as large as the Ionrach, but very insular as opposed to being friendly. Stationed in the realm of Ghur, they believe that they are stronger in their constant battles with the beasts of the depths and scorn any attempts to befriend. Indeed, this means that few of this enclave become Soulbound. Those that do are either very open-minded or incredibly daring, pitting themselves against the terrors of the surface world. Heroes from Dhom-hain add an extra number of dice equal to their training in Athletics when they charge.
*'''Fuethán:''' The most outright cruel of the enclaves. As they hail from the realm of fire, their tempers are equally vicious and uncontrolled and their beasts are equally as temperamental. They view the other forces of Order less as allies ad they are a giant plate of souls to feast upon. Because of this, there are few Soulbound hailing from this enclave, and those who do are either disenfranchised (like the majority of the Isharann caste) or working out some intense aggression. Heroes from Fuethán are particularly aggressive; if they or their mount attacks an enemy that suffered damage on this turn, they improve their Melee by one step.
*'''Mor'phann:''' Hailing from the depths of Shyish, they are a particularly bleak and morose lot. Though they say little, they know that their stakes are as dire as their kinds, especially since they have been subject to not only the Necroquake but also countless incursions by the Skaven. Heroes from Mor'phann emanate a chilling aura that forces foes nearby to make a Soul (Determination) check or else be frightened for the turn.
*'''Nautilar:''' Once a colony of the Ionrach, they seceded after a great war between them and Dhon-hain at the dawn of the Age of Chaos. In some ways, they act as a bridge between the two bitter rivals, aiding Dhom-hain's wars against the Orruks while also attending the assembrals of the Ionrach. Their capital is upon a massive beast, and from they they have learned the virtues of symbiotic codependence as well as defensive warfare. This has only deepened after their capital was besieged by the Skaven and rescued by the Stormcast, and they are now more open to flush out any mutual threats. Heroes from Nautilar increase their Defense by one step against enemies who attack them from outside their zone. On top of this, their armor is improved by +1 thanks to being reinforced.
*'''Briomdar:''' Another offshoot of the Ionrach, though they have settled for Ghyran, hiding within the labyrinthine expanses of the Green Gulch. Adapting to their particular surroundings, they have mastered the art of camouflage and are capable of seeking out their enemies with an unmatched keenness. Heroes from Briomdar and thus suffer no issues moving through difficult terrain and can swim, climb, squeeze, and crawl at their normal speeds. If an enemy seeks to impede their path, they have advantage on any tests to avoid them.

Idoneth Soulbound have access to the '''Akhelian Emissary''', '''Isharann Soulscryer''' and '''Isharann Tidecaster''' archetypes in the corebook. The ''Champions of Order'' splatbook opens the '''Isharann Soulrender''' archetype.

==Musical Accompaniment to playing these Sea Elves==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV8i-pSVMaQ&ab_channel=RobertDarwin Jaws theme], mandatory if you have any Allopexes in your army.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPgmyN90B4&ab_channel=ILikeMoviesandMusic King Orm's theme], Aquaman (2018). Pretty good "vengeance from the sea"- type music, and for the madman who will undoubtedly paint an Akhelian King as Orm.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Ko2FbzIcc&ab_channel=WaterTowerMusic Aquaman soundtrack; He Commands The Sea], also from Aquaman (2018). Good if you want a more heroic feel, and for the madman who will undoubtedly paint an Akhelian King as Aquaman.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kp0LxKTZhk ''Leviathan'' by Mastodon]. Nautical-themed sludge/prog metal, all about fighting Moby Dick and spilling blood on the high seas. For maximum effect, play "Aqua Dementia" on the charge, "Blood and Thunder" during High Tide, and "Iron Tusk" when your Leviadon wades in and starts ruining shit.

==An Interesting Note==
Mantic Games had been producing their own Trident Realm range several years before the Idoneth were conceived. They're categorically not elves (Kings of War has elf factions, the Trident Realm isn't one of them), and mostly naiads and thuul with a number of other underwater-themed species. Whether someone at GW saw this and thought “damn, we could make a killing out of this” or not is unknown.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
file:Fucking_Idoneth.jpeg
file:Idometh_army.jpeg
file:Battleshark.jpg|WE'RE RIDING A SHARK! WE'RE RIDING A SHARK! SUCK OUR DICKS, WE'RE RIDING A SHARK!
</gallery>

==See Also==
*[[Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Idoneth Deepkin|Tactics/Deepkin]]
*[[Idoneth Deepkin Enclave Creation Tables]]

{{Playable Factions in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar}}
{{Idoneth Deepkin-Units}}

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]