Legends of Belariath

Dark Elves History

After the end of the Kin War, the Moriel were in complete disarray, deeply injured by their terrible defeat. Suffering deeply from the loss of her high priestess, which she had infused with much of her essence. Kirva led the Dark Elves away from the site of their shame, making for a vast array of caverns many leagues away where she thought to rebuild her kingdom.

Her people were filled with despair on that march, believing to be doomed to perish beneath the earth, as their goddess had lost her power. What they did not know was that Kirva carried with her many small pieces of crystal—the shards of the Wellglass. They were blackened and transformed, and the goddess could sense tremendous power locked within them, even though the Starwell was no more. But the shards would not work together; she could only wield one at a time, which was not enough.

On the day that the Moriel's trek finally reached their destination, however, Kirva let her very spirit flow through the pieces of black glass. They resisted at first, and then suddenly burst with a dark light... and from the Wellglass' corrupted power and Kirva's mind were born new gods and goddesses of varying power, whom she named the Thilari. And an aura of divine essence was also released, which Kirva eagerly absorbed, becoming just as strong as she had been before she was chained by Baldon, and now with a host of deities to serve her... though having created them from her own dark being, she knew well they would be treacherous.

The Moriel, seeing their goddess restored, were renewed in their faith. The most fervent swore themselves again as Kirva's own, while others decided to worship the goddess through the Thilari. Filled with fervor, and led and driven by their deities, the Moriel toiled hard beneath the earth, and soon had built a large empire in the Nethergloom's huge caverns. Those who worked the hardest in this time were granted nobility by Kirva, and formed the Moriel Houses. The Dark Elves prospered, growing strong as a race, and ever more confident in their destiny to rule the world.

They knew it would be many years till the time would be right for their conquest, and that life would often be harsh, as suspicion and betrayal were by now common for the Moriel, influenced by the dark essence of their deities. But they would not have it otherwise, for they knew themselves to be the Chosen and Supreme, that every hardship was only to make them stronger. So they lived on and still do, often in strife, sometimes with each other, sometimes with the fell monsters of the Nethergloom, and yet at other times with the surfacers whose realm they chose to invade.