The Dark Elves, or Druchii to give their name in Tar-Eltharin, were expelled from the Elven Kingdoms several millennia ago in a series of bloody civil wars. The ancestors of today's Druchii inhabited the northwestern part of the island of Ulthuan called Nagarythe (Shadowlands) and they were also known as the Malteeras (People of the Northern Reaches) and the Naggarothi (Folk of Nagarythe.)

Dragon Ogres are incredibly ancient creatures, some say as old as the dragons themselves. Legends persist of creatures who are half-dragon and half-ogre that battle each other for supremacy. These myths are strongest in the east of Kislev where mule skinners or miners wile away the dark, cold evenings with stories about how the thunder raging across the heavens is actually made by Dragon Ogres locked in a duel to the death and how the flashes of lightning are the sparks from the clash of their mighty weapons. Stories like this are practically unheard of further west where local myths predominate or the educated explain the fact that thunder storms are a product of the elements rather than supernatural monsters.

Dragons are incredibly ancient reptiles and existed in the forests and mountains even before the Elves came to the Old World. Some Teratologists believe that Dragons evolved many millennia ago from small reptiles; some High Elf scholars believe that they were brought to the planet by the Old Ones or that they even pre-date the coming to the world of those mighty beings. Some say that all the Dragon race was spawned by Kalgalanos the Black, Father of all Dragons, and it is said that Graug the Terrible spawned many of the beasts who inhabit the Old World. Whatever the case not even the wisest High Elves know the true origins of the Dragon because they have always lived, in great numbers in elder days, in the Annuli Mountains of Ulthuan and especially in the realm known as Caledor.

The High Elves are the oldest of the civilised races to inhabit the known world and their recorded history dates back over eight thousand years. Only the High Elves know anything about how the world came to be and the nature of the Old Ones (although even the High Elves do not truly understand them.) More than anything the High Elves know the nature of the winds of magic and are the most proficient practitioners of magic in the world. To mankind, High Elves are nothing but legendary beings who only surface from time to time in legend, such as during the Incursions of Chaos (2300 IC), but to Dwarfs they are seen as an arrogant race who caused them much grief during and after the War of the Beard.

A Vampir I am, cursed by the gods and devoid of life. My soul have long departed, now unnatural blood course through my veins. Where my soul lies, I cared once, but the dreams I have in my granite resting place, each day for six centuries, are of sweet memories; my homeland, a village in Austelande that have since felt the fire of cruel Men, and I hear the music of widows who weep for their fallen husbands; my Father, a red-cheeked pageboy I was when Count von Karsteine have come for me, though undeath hath now aged me, and the experience of that moment I relive after every drop of blood warm my cold lips; the Plains of Death, from whither the spirit have come and I thirst for the vitae of mortals because of it; and last, the sweet memories of those I have taken. I grow weary at last in my immortal undeath. The Gospodars have prepare my carriage and the boxes of my beloved Austelande have been taken to Altdorf. When the cock crows on Kaldezeit and the first day of winter, I at last leave Praag for a better un-life.

The first Elves from Ulthuan to arrive in the Old World from the western coasts penetrated as far inland as a great forest which covered the land as far as the eye could see. This forest, which is now known by humans as the Forest of Loren, is a pale imitation of the expanse that the Elves found. The Elves named the forest Athel Loren, which means the 'Wood of the Dawning of the World'.