Our Dark Elves Are Different

Come on, let's see if you have the guts to tell "Screw you!" to these Elves!
^{Clockwise from top-left} God of War, Overlord (2012), Thor: The Dark World, Dungeons & Dragons

"There is one place that is called Alfheim. There live the folk called light-elves, but dark-elves live down in the ground, and they are unlike them in appearance, and even more unlike them in nature. Light-elves are fairer than the sun to look at, but dark elves are blacker than pitch."

— Prose Edda

A Sub-Trope of Our Elves Are Different, the dark elves (sometimes referred to as Drow or other different names in various settings) are a staple of the fantasy genre. Dark elves are second in popularity only to the more traditional forest-dwelling elves and are usually portrayed as a dark mirror to them. Dark elves are somewhat amorphous and can vary a lot from setting to setting while still being recognizably dark elves. They might be an evil counterpart to elves, an exotic, more morally gray elven subspecies, or simply elves who happen to be dark-skinned. This is partially because the term dark elf could be interpreted either as a description of their morality, a signifier of them being an inversion of the dominant elven race or a description of their appearance.

The Trope Maker is the Norse Prose Edda, which without much detail presents the Dökkálfar or Svartálfar ("Dark/Black Elves") as underground-dwelling counterparts to the Ljósálfar or Hvítálfar ("Light/White Elves") of Alfheim. However, as the text was written after the Nordic Christianization it's still unclear if this was a post-Christian depiction of angels and devils, an accurate description of Norse pagan beliefs, simply another word for the Norse dwarfs, or a combination of all of these, and the topic is of much debate amongst historians and anthropologists. In modern fiction, direct adaptations of Norse dark elves are relatively rare but appear most commonly in works directly based on Norse myth. Due to the sparse description given to them in the Edda they can vary greatly in personality or culture but usually live in a metaphysical underworld separate from the regular world of mortals.

The Trope Codifier for the most widespread portrayal in modern fantasy is Dungeons & Dragons with the Drow, an evil race that rejected elven society and now are cursed, matriarchal, live underground, worship an evil spider woman and value deceit, domination, and slavery. The Drow were more loosely based on the Norse dark elves, with whom they share subterranean living habits, a dark coloration, and an opposition to surface-dwelling "light" elves, but most of their other distinctive traits were original inventions. The dark elf Drizzt Do'urden from the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms setting became a Breakout Character and the trope codifier for the token good dark elf. Drow-inspired dark elves tend to have the following characteristics:

• While traditional elves are good, dark elves are evil in some way, with the possible exception of a token good dark elf.
• While traditional elves are pale, dark elves are an unnatural shade of black, blue, or purple that might be a curse or mark. Due to the unfortunate implications of Dark Is Evil when applied to skin color, more modern adaptations tend to avoid making them black.
• While traditional elves live in wooded forests, dark elves live in underground caves or complexes.
• While traditional elves wear flowy robes of light colors, dark elves wear Spikes of Villainy or black leather.
• The dark elves' Fantasy Counterpart Religion involves worship of a God of Evil (usually a Satanic Archetype or a seductive evil goddess) whose "virtues" include murder, torture, deceit, etc.
• They participate in slavery.

In Japanese fantasy, dark elves are commonly portrayed differently. Rather than having an unnatural skin color, they are depicted with a more human shade of tan or dark skin. They are solitary and might still live in caves but are usually not evil. The Trope codifier for dark elves in Japanese media is Pirotess from Record of Lodoss War, the retelling of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that popularized many classic fantasy tropes in Japan. She starts out as a villain and is depicted with brown skin instead of Dungeons and Dragons' pitch black.

A setting’s version of dark elves might not fit in neatly into any of these three groups and might subvert or omit some characteristics. They might not be a distinct race of elves but still be an evil group of elves who reject the larger elven society. Or they might have some of the trappings of a Drow like the dark skin while not being particularly evil compared to other societies in the setting. Or maybe the only reason they’re dark elves is they’re called dark elves. Generally, however, they will have one or more of these characteristics:

• An unusual living area — underground, in an exotic biome, in a pocket dimension, etc.
• An "exotic" or "dark" culture — not necessarily evil, but strange and unfamiliar. Usually they're aristocratic, own slaves, dabble with dark magic, or are very closed-off. They're depicted as weird and unfamiliar in some way or another.
• A rift from or rejection of "regular" elves. There are the "familiar" elves and the "exotic" elves and they don't like each other.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Delicious in Dungeon: Dark elves are mentioned, but never appear. A comic on the mangaka's blog states that they don't actually exist: the elven kingdom spreads a lot of propaganda about how kind and benevolent they are, so when people met elves who were neither, this led to rumors about evil "dark elves" springing up to explain the discrepancy. It should be noted that "dark" in this case means "evil", as several elves with literal dark skin do appear, and are no different morally from a light-skinned elf. Notably, the queen of the elves has a drow-like combination of dark gray skin, red eyes, and white hair. Additional supplementary material states that these features are extremely rare and said to be the sign of royal blood.

Comic Books

• Lands of Arran: Dark Elves are all naturally violent and murderous assassins with Consummate Professional at best. They're also skilled necromancers. They all start as members of different kinds of elves born with murderous tendencies and as they grow older their skin turns dark and their hair white, slowly getting even madder over time and degenerate into a ravening monster whose sole goal is to eat people, and only a daily intake of potion made from a priceless flower will slow the process. The Assassins from the fortress of Slurce scout the world in search of children that potentially can turn into Dark Elves. It's a known fate among other Elves that accept and let them take them away. It's eventually discovered that the Dark Elves have a dark spirit chained to their soul called a Murth'n Thun, which is tied to the Dark Elves. They react badly to holy powers, as Sizra discovers, and there is a ritual that allows a Dark Elf to purge the Murth'n Thun out of themselves by Fighting from the Inside and through The Power of Love.
• The Mighty Thor: The Dark Elves of Svartalfheim are a race of blue-skinned, dark armored, scheming, backstabbing, Always Chaotic Evil (except not always) elves. They have a long history of treachery, war, and violence. And they're not above enslaving others, or their own children when they need some additional manual labor. They're also known as The Dark Faerie.

Films — Live-Action

• Thor: The Dark World: The Dark Elves are Space Elves that existed before light came to the universe and have ships and weapons that run on Magitek while maintaining their proud stature and honor.

Literature

• Arc of Fire: Here they're simply elves with dark skin, and no morally worse than the others. They suffer racism from light-skinned elves, however.
• Dark Warrior Rising: A Novel of Niflheim: The Dark Elves follow the D&D version, sans the belief in Lolth — that is to say, evil society, slavery, matriarchy, etc. — to a T. This is isn't surprising — the book was written by Ed Greenwood, better known as the creator of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
• Dragonlance: The setting does not use the Drow of other D&D worlds. Instead, "Dark Elves" are Elves that were banished from elven society, whether for turning away from the Gods of Good or for falling in love with people above their station. One of the famous Dark Elves in the setting, Dalamar the Dark, was branded one for pledging himself to Nuitari, the God of Evil Arcane Magic.
• The Elric Saga: An early example that codified the depiction of Dark Elves in many universes is the Melnibonéan culture. They are a Vestigial Empire who once ruled the whole of the world but are now reduced to a single island. They wield powerful magic, and value torture as an art form. Elric, the main character, is one of them and teeters on the line between Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain, and Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Gate: The Dark Elves, such as Yao Ha Ducy, of the Special Region are not evil or malicious and have skin tones that range from caramel to bronze, with long white hair. Though Dark Elves don't typically get along with High Elves like Tuka, she and Yao eventually become good friends, despite Yao pushing on Tuka's PTSD regarding her deceased father to motivate Itami to help kill the Ancient Flame Dragon (that it was done in desperation and Yao feels guilty for it probably aids Tuka's Forgiveness of her). Itami is made an honorary member of the Dark Elves after defeating the Flame Dragon.
• How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: The "dark elves" of the God-Protected Forest are an autonomous state within the Kingdom of Elfrieden, famed for their martial prowess and their insular culture. Their princess Aisha Utgard joins Souma Kazuya as his bodyguard in return for him teaching them modern forestry techniques. Later, in return for sending them humanitarian aid after a landslide, the dark elves take the field as auxiliaries to Souma's army during the Civil War, where their archers perform effective counter-battery duties against enemy artillery. As his reward for their service, Chief Wodan Utgard asks Souma to take Aisha as one of his wives.
• The Laundry Files: The alfär are sylph-like but vicious hominids from another dimension who are implied to be descended from creatures analogous to gracile australopithecines. They have extremely powerful inherent magic abilities, which means that they never developed technology beyond a medieval level. Compared to humans, the primates they evolved from were solitary predators, as a result of which they have a brutal, low-trust, Might Makes Right society based on magically enforced feudal bonds. Many of them are also vampires (vampirism in the Laundryverse is a form of magic that allows you to avoid the dementia-inducing side effects of doing too much magic by drinking a victim's blood and transferring the side effects to them). They invade Earth after their own parallel Earth is wrecked by a magical disaster.
• Looming Gaia: Drau are portrayed as a species separate from elves, being monsters created by the elven divine Titania. They have dark grey skin and white hair, and naturally specialize in necromancy. Being monsters, they have no souls and thus can't feel love or experience an afterlife, and are capable of telling lies, unlike elves.
• Record of Lodoss War: Pirotess is the trope codifier for this trope in Japanese media. She's a member of the Kingdom of Marmo and the Evil Counterpart to Deedlit, the elf of Parn's heroic party. Pirotess conjures spirits of darkness much like Deedlit can summon nature spirits, and while Deedlit's primary love interest is Parn, Pirotess is fully devoted to Ashram, one of the main villains of the series. She's also probably the skimpiest dresser among the bad guys.
• The Silmarillion:
  • The Moriquendi, the Elves of Darkness, are the Elves that never reached Valinor (the domain of the Valar in the West), whether because they refused to go there altogether (the Avari, "Unwilling") or did not complete the journey (the Nandor, "Those Who Go Back", and the Sindar, "Grey People"). Their name refers to the fact that they did not see the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, and so lived in darkness until the creation of the Sun and Moon.
  • Eol the Dark Elf was a Sindarin Elf, and his epithet comes from his aversion to the light of the Sun, rather than his morality (although he was no paragon, what with having kidnapped his wife, among other things) or the shade of his skin.
• Survival in Another World with My Mistress!: "Dark elves" like female lead Sylphyel Danal Merinard are standard elves who gave themselves over to bloodlust in battle. Elves are normally lighter-skinned, but due to being closer to the spirit world than other races, their bodies transform into killing machines, and their skin is permanently darkened. There's a stigma in elven culture about having this happen, though Sylphy is no less one of the good guys for it.
• Tales of MU: The "dark elves" simply call themselves "elves" and the elves who live on the surface "faint elves." "Drow" is apparently a slur. According to MU student Delia Daella d'Wyr their society is not "evil" per se, but highly meritocratic and has to do some things to survive underground that the surface world might find distasteful. Side stories set in her home city suggest her account might be a bit one-sided though.
• Villains by Necessity: The Nathauan are basically dark elves in all but name, being Always Chaotic Evil cannibals, evil sorcerers and pale-skinned, black-haired subterranean-dwelling people who frequently raided surface dwellers. Only one is left however when the story starts, as the rest were all slaughtered by heroes. However, they still had families and were capable of love.

Live-Action TV

• Star Trek: The Romulans and Vulcans are two branches of the same species of Space Elves; the Romulans are the descendants of a group of rebel Vulcans who disagreed with the Vulcan creed of stoicism and left their home planet to settle in a distant system and built up a massive space empire from there. Interestingly, they turned another species of Dark Elves, the Remans, into their slaves as the Romulans colonized the twin planets of Romulus and Remus. While the Vulcans and Romulans look mostly human with the exception of their Pointy Ears, the Remans Look Like Orlok and are allergic to light. All these Space Elves and Dark Space Elves also have low-key psychic abilities, in addition to being more Long-Lived than humans.

Tabletop Games

• Banestorm: In this setting, "dark elves" are an aggressively paranoid cult within elf society that wants to magically expel all non-elven life from Yrth; the titular Banestorm was the fault of a group of dark elf mages trying to banish all the orcs. Instead, they summoned humanity and a bunch of other races.
• The Dark Eye: Night Elves were created from elves and demons through chimaeric experiments. They live in underwater domes in the northern ice ocean, and, unless used by their creator and living goddess for her purposes, just prefer to be left alone and violently ensure, that their existence remains unknown.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Drow are a subrace of elves that worship Lolth, a goddess who rebelled against the ruler of the elven pantheon and was exiled; her followers were banished alongside her, retreated underground, and became the drow. In most default settings, the drow have dark grey skin bordering on black and bone-white hair, and live in a matriarchal society divided into several city-states that inhabit the Underdark, a mazelike underworld of caverns that runs beneath the world. They have a strong thematic relationship with spiders; Lolth herself has arachind physical traits, and drow are sometimes transformed into spider-bodied driders are either a punishment or reward, depending on the edition. They're hostile, xenophobic slavers whose culture is locked in a constant state of feuds between rival houses and loathe surface elves, who loathe them right back.
  • Eberron: Drow instead live in tribal groups in the jungle continent of Xen'drik and descend from the elves who remained behind instead of fleeing to the mains setting when the giant empires that ruled it fell. They are associated with scorpions instead of spiders.
  • Mystara: These elves are called Shadow Elves. In contrast to AD&D, these elves are generally non-evil and are in conflict with the evil-aligned humanoids. The immortal they worship requires them to abandon elves that are born with a deformity or those that live to 800 years — the long-term goal is to infiltrate the monstrous society. They still have diplomatic issues with surface elves.
  • The 3rd party setting Wagadu Chronicles is based on a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Africa, so the Elves (or Emere, as they're called in this setting) are dark-skinned by default.
• Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok depicts the Lios Alfar and Svart Alfar as opposing clans of The Fair Folk who sided with order and chaos respectively. The Svart Alfar have mutable forms and often take the forms of animals.
• La Notte Eterna: The Klorss are dark elves who were banished into caves centuries ago, but are now returning to the surface due to the fall of Laon and Neir's eternal night. After centuries underground, their skin is much darker than that of a normal elf.
• Pathfinder: Drow were once standard elves who took shelter underground during "Earthfall" (rather than abscond to Sovyrian like the rest of the Elves in Avistan did) and transformed over the ages into their current state, and they normally worship various demon lords. The Second Darkness Adventure Path reveals that this was not a one-time occurrence: any elf can still become a drow, though the conditions are more complex than merely being evil. When the game adopted the new Open RPG Creative License after the January 2023 Open Game License controversy, the drow were retconned out of existence, with the implication that everything known about drow was essentially (in-universe) fiction written by an author racist against elves. In the drow's place, the ayindilar (cavern elves) were introduced, an elf lineage that also lives underground, but otherwise doesn't have much in common with drow and primarily fulfills a non-villainous role.
• Warhammer 40,000: The Drukhari are a branch of the Aeldari, a species of literal Space Elves^note older editions refer to them as Dark Eldar and to the species as the Eldar that inhabit the dark city of Commorragh, hidden within the extradimensional realm of the Webway, which all Aeldari use for faster-than-light travel. They descend from a collection of extralegal domains, hidden retreats, and pirate harbors created during the old Aeldari Empire, and survived the cataclysmic birth of Slaanesh that destroyed the empire thanks to being shielded by their hidden home. However, Slaanesh is continuously feeding on their souls, and in order to "top off" their dying souls they need to feed on the suffering of other beings. As such, they stage constant raids for slaves and torture victims, and are greatly feared for the horrors they put their victims through. Drukhari society is a mess of endlessly feuding pirate gangs, gladiatorial guilds, and enclaves of mad scientists, uniting only briefly for raids into realspace. Their relations with other Aeldari are tense, although none of them consider each other to be their main enemies. Drukhari are contemptuous of all other Aeldari factions and consider themselves to be the true scions of ancient Aeldari empire (and are likely right — the old empire was not a nice place). The Asuryani and Exodites keep them at arms' length and only associate with them as much as they need to; the Harlequins come and go in Commorragh as they please and the Drukhari can't do much about it. These divides are also strictly cultural, and while it's fairly rare individual Aeldari can and do join or leave Drukhari culture on occasion.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The Daughters of Khaine are a group of elvish cults that have more in common with Khorne than they do with the other factions of Order. They worship Morathi-Khaine, a goddess of violence and slaughter, and appease her with violent duels and liberal use of Blood Magic. They have no problem slaughtering innocents (even their allies), and treat men with nothing but contempt. Keeping in line with Evil Is Sexy, they also tend towards Stripperiffic outfits and employ Cute Monster Girls in addition to elves.
• Warhammer Fantasy Battle: The Druchii, or Dark Elves, are the descendants of the losers of an ancient elven civil war, and after their defeat fled to the cold wastes of Naggaroth where they built a number of dark fortress-cities where most of their population now lives. They bitterly despise the High Elves (who won the aforementioned civil war) and have tried and failed to reconquer their homeland multiple times. Druchii society is a mess of backstabbing and scheming between different covens and pirate bands, united only by fear of their immortal ruler, Malekith the Witch-King. Unusually, they have a strong maritime culture, and place a great deal of prestige on piracy; to most other races, the main face of the Dark Elves are the pirates that sail forth from the immense Black Arks to scour coastlines and drag entire villages away to slavery. As the divide between Druchii and Asur is purely cultural, they aren't physically distinct and the Dark Elves have used this on multiple occasions to frame the High Elves for their actions.

Video Games

• Age of Wonders: Dark elves follow the Dungeons & Dragons mold, with subterranean lairs, spider motifs, and dark greenish skin. When humanity entered the setting as Invading Refugees and murdered the elvish King Inioch, the elves split ideologically between the good guy traditionalist wood-elf Keepers (led by Princess Julia) and the revenge-driven Cult of Storms (led by Prince Meandor). The dark elves under Meandor fled underground and formed their own society, gathering their fellow Evil Counterpart Races (goblins, orcs, etc.) to wage war on the surface elves and attempt genocide upon humanity. By the third game, the two races of elves have reconciled under Queen Julia, forming the "high elves" through intermarriage and a magical ritual. Though dark elves from before the Mending retain their dark skin, such as Werlac, most elves born post-Mending are fair-skinned.
• Arcanum: Dark elves are physically identical to typical elves, but differ from them philosophically — mainstream elven philosophy states that every living thing deserves to find its own place in the world, while dark elves believe in their own inherent superiority over all other lifeforms and their right to rule over the "lesser races" and kill those who do not recognise elven supremacy. Dark elves also revere Arronax, the Satanic Archetype of the Panarii religion, and seek to free him from his "banishment" to the Void. Unbeknownst to them, Arronax himself no longer shares their views and wants to become The Atoner.
• Dark Elf Historia: Fornelia is referred to as a dark elf, but in practice, this just means that she has slightly darker skin than a "normal" elf.
• Dungeon Keeper 2: Dark elves are one of the creatures that can be recruited to join your dungeon. They are Support type creatures that prefer to stay at the back of combat, sniping distant foes with their crossbows, and assign themselves to guard duty in a guard room unless the keeper manually directs them to do something else. They have a long-standing rivalry with both dwarves and heroic elven archers.
• The Elder Scrolls: The Dunmer^note literally "dark elves", a portmanteau of dun ("dark") + mer (the in-universe word for elves) are a race of elves defined by their dark grey skin and blood-red eyes. They were originally part of the golden-skinned Chimer, but their appearance was changed by the goddess Azura as Divine Punishment for their leaders' attempt at usurping godhood. Their economy is fueled by slave labor, they have a legal assassins guild to carry out blood feuds, and the gods they worship consider cruelty and betrayal to be virtues.
• EverQuest: The world of Norrath was originally conceived from a D&D campaign, and as such the Dark Elves are not too conceptually different from the Drow. They have blueberry-colored skin, white hair, and call the underground city of Neriak home. The Dark Elves were actually created from Innoruuk, the God of Hate, who was jealous of the prosperity of the Elves and stole away their first king and queen. He tortured, tormented, and corrupted them for hundreds of years until they were physically reformed into the first Dark Elves. Deception, treachery, and malice run in their blood, but they are not Always Chaotic Evil, as they can be reasoned with. King Thex doesn't share strong views of outsiders but has alliances with the ogres, trolls, and certain tribes of orcs. Other races of Norrath know to think twice before traveling through Nektulos Forest where Neriak resides.
• Final Fantasy XIV has an elven-like Player Race called the Elezen, which is split into two subraces — the forest-city, human skin-toned, Wood Elf-like Wildwood Elezen and the cave-dwelling grey- and bluish-skinned Dark Elf like Duskwight Elezen. Duskwight Elezen are looked down upon by most other races and the Wildwood Elezen and have a reputation as being bandits and thieves but one of the reasons they are forced into such roles is the prejudices of the other races.
• God of War (PS4): The classic Norse dark elves are portrayed as pallid, insect-like humanoids, complete with buzzing wings and building organic-looking hives. Locked in an endless cycle of war with the light elves since time immemorial over the Light of Alfheim, a mysterious well of magical power, they're introduced massacring unarmed light elves and attacking Kratos unprovoked, but Kratos refuses to make any judgement on their morals, as he acknowledges he has no context for or stake in the conflict and wants to keep it that way. Since he himself needs to reach the Light of Alfheim, he ends up wrecking house and killing the dark elves' general, allowing the light elves to take back control, who in the next game prove to be just as brutal.
• Heroes of Might and Magic: Dark elves of Ashan are a branch of elves who were forced to abandon the worship of the earth goddess Sylanna and turn to the worship of the Goddess of Darkness Malassa. After being framed for an atrocity by demons, they were driven out of elven society and fled to the caverns beneath Ashan, where they founded the subterranean kingdom of Ygg-Chall. In combat, their armies consist of a mixture of stealthy assassins, magic-wielding warlocks, and domesticated or enslaved monsters.
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: The Dokkalfar firmly fall under the Dark Is Not Evil variation, given that they're fully allied with their Ljosalfar kin against the Tuatha. Their primary difference is that the Dokkalfar have dark hair and tend towards diplomacy and seduction as their specialty compared to the Ljosalfar's affinity for the arcane.
• Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure: Tathaln is the only known Dark Elf, and comes from a "faraway land", but if Mistlings, who look like apparently regular Elves are any comparison, then Dark Elves have grey skin in contrast to the commonly known peach-skinned ones, although, the Elf at the at the foot of Tathaln looks swarthy.
• Sacred: Dark elves have a culture of training warrior-monks and assassins, in contrast to regular elves being archers and Forest Rangers. The Dark Elf player character is an outcast from his society because he was tasked with assassinating a regular elf and fell in love with her instead.
• Skylanders: Drow are a subspecies of elves who turned away from the light and embraced the Darkness. Unlike most portrayals, they are bluish-green rather than black or grey, and still retain a love for nature rather than rejecting it. They also have a strong association with airships, even claiming to have invented them (Though in reality that was the work of a Chompy). Most Drow have a similar body to the rest of the elves, but there also exist Goliath Drows, hulking Giant Mooks who look more like orcs than the traditional depiction of elves.
• Warlords Battle Cry: Dark elves are one of the 3 elven factions alongside high elves and wood elves. They are shunned by their kin because their original leader, Prince Mordaine, was the first wizard to discover Summon Magic and subsequently ended up bringing demons and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse into Etheria.
• Starcraft:
  • With the Protoss being elves IN SPACE!, they also have a dark elf counterpart; The Nerazim. Notably, while Khalai ("light" protoss) propaganda paint them as heretical and evil, the difference is really just a religious schism. While the Khalai embraced the Khala, a sort of Hive Mind, the Nerazim believed that it would rob them of individuality, and rejected it. Compared to the Khalai, the Nerazim draw power from the Void, and have a cultural emphasis on stealth and secrecy, but are kind people who welcome their Khalai brethren as refugees when their homeworld is destroyed.
  • Then there are the Tal'darim, who are not a kind people. They are a ruthlessly Social Darwinist Proud Warrior Race who practice a Religion of Evil. That said, their culture is not entirely without merit, and their leader, Alarak, lends his support to the Khalai-Nerazim alliance when their interests align.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Night elves are a zig-zagged example, combining stereotypical dark elves and wood elves together. On one hand, they have a largely matriarchal society, dark purple skin, and an association with darkness. On the other hand, they have a deep connection to nature; living in the woods, communicating with animals and nature spirits, and shunning "unnatural" arcane magic in favour of druidic magic. However, millennia ago they were much closer to being dark elves culturally, but restructured their society when their rampant use of magic attracted the Burning Legion nearly brought an end to Azeroth.
  • The Nightborne are an offshoot of the night elves that remained isolated from the rest of the world after the Sundering, and therefore never developed the night elves' wood elf traits. They're practically a full expy of Dungeons & Dragons drow, with even darker skin than the night elves and a much haughtier and deceitful society. They also have a connection to spiders, and some of their kind have been mutated into Fal'dorei. The Nightborne also chose to side with the Horde rather than the Alliance, finding their night elf kin to be too pretentious.
  • Another take on dark elves appeared with Battle for Azeroth with the void elves. These are a small group of blood elves and high elves who studied the Void in order to harness its power but were exiled from their capital city of Silvermoon for this. They were then captured by ethereals and partially imbued with Void energy, giving them blue skin and purple "wings" made of energy.

Webcomics

• The Dementia of Magic has beach elves, who left the forest long ago to explore the world... right after they were excommunicated for even wanting to leave the comfort of their forest, and right before being unpersoned for leaving. They have a lot of bad blood against those who rejected them, but nothing near "civil war" levels.
• Drowtales:
  • Drow are the descendants of ancient elves who fled into the underworld to avoid a cataclysmic civil war that destroyed the old elven empires. Modern drow live in a number of city-states divided from one another by lightless wilderness, each one divided between numerous feuding clans. They're a highly matriarchal and aristocratic society, where commoners have little to no civil power and slavery is widespread. The most common drow "ethnicity" are the Drowolath, whose skin ranges from coal black to dark chocolate brown; their hair is stark white, and often dyed in clan colors. Less common are the Drowussu, with ash-grey skin and light but colored hair. The Xuile'solen are a further type descended from drow that degenerated into eyeless savages that live in small tribes around the cavern systems.
  • The dark elves, or Dokkalfar, are the ancestors of the modern drow. They used to rule many surface nations alongside their northern cousins, the pale-skinned Vanir or light elves, but are now functionally extinct outside of the odd surviving individual due to being entirely replaced by their descendants. They had dark skin in human shades, usually in mid-brown ranges, and colorful hair. In truth, they are only ancestral to the Drowolath — the Drowussu are instead descended from the smaller numbers of Vanir that also hid underground.
• The Order of the Stick: Elf mage Vaarsuvius' counterpart in the Linear Guild is a drow wizard named Zz'dtri. He's initially presented as a straight parody of Drizzt, with the Guild's leader Nale claiming that all dark elves are now Chaotic Good rebels "yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin", but it later turns out that this was a lie: the Guild are actually villains, and Zz'dtri himself has a nasty penchant for turning people to stone.

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