N’Kari
Although not an elf, the Greater Daemon N’Kari plays an integral part in the saga of Tyrion and Teclis and indeed in the history of the Elves. During the first great incursion of Chaos he led the Rape of the Ulthuan, slaughtering tens of thousands of Elves, overseeing the destruction of cities and forests, ravaging the land for the greater glory of Slaanesh and himself. His first reign of terror ended in defeat by the god-king Aenarion. He returned later to take part in the final battle with the Elves at the Island of the Dead. This encounter left him Read more…
Morathi
Last week I talked about the Dark Lord. This week I am going to talk about his mother. (If ever there was a way of getting yourself into trouble, that would seem to be it. I may have to put off future visits to Naggaroth.) Morathi does not play a huge role in the Great Elvish War but she does play a part, recruiting the human horde that invades Ulthuan. In the Tyrion and Teclis trilogy, I had given my take on Aenarion, Caledor and Malekith and I wanted to show this fourth Elvish titan. As with Malekith, I wanted to show Read more…
Malekith
So how do you go about portraying a Dark Lord? Tolkien keeps Sauron off-stage for the whole of the Lord of the Rings. (One reason I have heard for this is that he knew Satan was the most compelling character in Paradise Lost and he did not want Sauron to be the same in his great trilogy. I don’t know whether that is true but it certainly sounds plausible.) The easiest way to deal with Malekith in the Tyrion and Teclis books would have been to do the same thing, just make the Witch King a vast, implacable presence and leave it at Read more…
The Archmage Caledor
The Elves live in the shadow of titans. Of the four great figures that shaped their earliest history, two are still among the living and one is still present in the world albeit as a trapped ghost. The shadow of Aenarion falls on the Elves always and everywhere, from the gigantic statue that looms in the harbour at Lothern, to the terrible sword that waits on the Blighted Island to the very structure of kingship they use and the fractured nature of their two nations. Aenarion is the one who Elves talk about and Morathi and Malekith are the ones Read more…
Aenarion
One of the great pleasures of writing the Tyrion and Teclis trilogy was getting to do my take on many of the great characters of the Elvish mythos; Aenarion, Caledor, Morathi and Malekith. I have been living with these people in my head for nearly twenty years and it was good to finally look into their’s. The four characters I have mentioned are probably the most influential characters in Elvish history and upon the history of the Warhammer world. Three of them, in one way or another, are still around to the present day. The last is present only as a myth and Read more…
Elves and Imagery
Your high school English classes probably left you somewhat suspicious of all talk of imagery and I don’t blame you. I have memories of having poems and stories dissected in front of my eyes by my own teachers. Often it was like being present at a surgical operation where the patient died on the table while the surgeon pulled out his internal organs and explained their function. All of which rather misses the point. Imagery is an integral part of story and its purpose is very simple. It reminds readers in a subliminal fashion of the ideas that the writer Read more…
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