The drow or dark elves are a dark-skinned and white-haired subrace of elves connected to the subterranean Underdark in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The drow have traditionally been portrayed as generally evil and connected to the evil goddess Lolth. However, later editions of Dungeons & Dragons have moved away from this portrayal and preassigned alignment. More recent publications have explored drow societies unconnected to Lolth.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, after Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the third game set in the Warcraft fictional universe, and the first to be rendered in three dimensions. An expansion pack, The Frozen Throne, was released in July 2003. Warcraft III is set several years after the events of Warcraft II, and tells the story of the Burning Legion's attempt to conquer the fictional world of Azeroth with the help of an army of the Undead, led by fallen paladin Arthas Menethil. It chronicles the combined efforts of the Human Alliance, Orcish Horde, and Night Elves to stop them before they can corrupt the World Tree.
Warcraft is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone. The first three of these core games are in the real-time strategy genre, where opposing players command virtual armies in battle against each other or a computer-controlled enemy. The fourth and best-selling title of the franchise is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where players control their character and interact with each other in a virtual world. Warcraft is one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time, having grossed $11.2 billion in lifetime revenue, as of 2018.
Warlords is a video game series created by Steve Fawkner, in which role-playing elements are combined with turn-based strategy in a fantasy setting. The series includes four games and two expansion packs. Several remakes exist.
The Lord of the Rings Online, usually simply referred as LotRO, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows and OS X set in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, taking place during the time period of The Lord of the Rings. Originally developed by Turbine, the game launched in North America, Australia, Japan, and Europe in April 2007 as The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Players could create characters of four races and seven classes and adventure throughout the region of Eriador. In November 2008, Mines of Moria expansion was released, adding the region of Moria and two new playable classes. It was followed by the Siege of Mirkwood in December 2009. In 2010 the game underwent a shift from its original subscription-based payment model to being free-to-play.
Birthright is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting that was first released by TSR in 1995. It is based on the continent of Cerilia on the world of Aebrynis, in which the players take on the role of the divinely-empowered rulers, with emphasis on the political rulership level of gameplay. The setting revolves around the concept of bloodlines: divine power gained by heroes and passed to their descendants. Characters with a bloodline create an aura of command known as Regency, which is measured in the game using regency points or RP. Using regency, characters acquire a domain composed of provinces and holdings. The development of these domains is as much a part of the game as development of the characters. The game uses three-month domain turns to model actions of rulers over nations in much the same way as Dungeons & Dragons uses combat rounds to simulate time to model the characters' actions in battle. In 1996, Birthright won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement of 1995.
Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, previously marketed as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Strategy Battle Game, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Strategy Battle Game, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies Strategy Battle Game and The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is based on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, and the book that inspired it, written by J. R. R. Tolkien.
In many works of modern fantasy, elves are depicted as a race or species of pointy-eared humanoid beings. These depictions arise from the álfar of Norse mythology influencing elves in fantasy as being semi-divine and of human stature, whose key traits are being friendly with nature and animals. However, this differs from Norse and the traditional elves found in Middle Ages folklore and Victorian era literature.
The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a game produced by Palladium Books. It is set in the Palladium world some 10,000 years after a great war between the elves and dwarves. First published in July 1983 as The Palladium Role-Playing Game, the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game saw a second edition in April 1996. The two are largely compatible, though the second edition uses a later iteration of Palladium's ruleset to be more compatible with the rest of their Megaverse.
A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from the dwarves of European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings.
The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring is a 2003 real-time strategy game (RTS) developed by Liquid Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal Games. Set in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth, it expands upon the events of the War of the Ring as told in his fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings.
The elf is a humanoid race in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, one of the primary races available for player characters, and play a central role in the narratives of many setting worlds of the game. Elves are renowned for their grace and mastery of magic and weapons such as the bow and sword. Becoming physically mature by the age of 25 and emotionally mature at around 125, they are also famously long-lived, capable of living more than half a millennium and remaining physically youthful. Possessed of innate beauty and easy gracefulness, they are viewed as both wondrous and haughty by other races; however, their natural detachment is seen by some as introversion or xenophobia. They were usually antagonistic towards dwarves.
Midnight is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, released under the Open Gaming License. It was published by Fantasy Flight Games from 2003 to 2009.
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars is a 2006 real-time strategy and role-playing video game, developed by Phenomic and published by JoWooD Productions. The second instalment in the SpellForce series, the game takes place several years after the events of 2003's SpellForce: The Order of Dawn, with players assuming the role of an immortal warrior who seeks aid to protect his homeland from invaders, only to be drawn on a quest to defeat a powerful alchemist responsible for creating the immortality of the warrior and his people. The game combines elements of role-playing such as taking on quests, equipping characters and improving them when levelling up, alongside real-time strategy elements focused on gathering resources to construct bases and units.
Knights of Legend, released by Origin Systems in 1989, is a fantasy role-playing video game.
Armies of Arcana is a fantasy-based tabletop wargame created by Thane's Games. It is commonly played with 15mm or 28mm scale miniatures representing troops of various fantasy races and creatures. There are 16 core armies that can be played, including elves, dwarves, orcs, and multiple human races, but other armies have been made "official" on the Thane's Games website. Numerous monsters are also available for any army to use in their battles. The background for the game is largely open for individual players to customise themselves and not feel restricted by one "official" account of relations between races. This removes the common problem in miniature wargames of some pairs of players armies having no "excuse" to fight each other. However, a coordinated background development project is under way at the Armies of Arcana forum.
Monster Mythology, published by TSR in 1992, is a sourcebook about non-human deities that can be used in fantasy role-playing games using the second edition rules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D).
Elves, a word from Germanic mythology, are frequently featured in fantasy fiction. In modern fiction, particularly because of the influence from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, elves are modeled mostly after his original description: tall, human-like creatures of otherworldly beauty, with Kings and Queens. Along with this development, Dark elves are often modeled as a more sinister counterpart to the High elves, like the Drow or the Trow, which are the fairy-like dark creatures of Orcadian and Shetland folklore. The dark elves (Dökkálfar) or black elves (Svartálfar) are presented in Germanic mythology as dwarves and gray ones.
King's Bounty: Dark Side is a 2014 strategy video game developed for Microsoft Windows by 1C-Softclub and published by 1C Company. The game was released on August 14, 2014. It is a standalone installment in the King's Bounty series.
SpellForce 3 is a 2017 video game developed by Grimlore Games and published by THQ Nordic. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 7 December 2017. SpellForce 3 is the third full and the ninth overall release in the SpellForce video game series. It is the first entry in the series since 2014's SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past. The plot serves as a prequel to the first game, depicting events that lead to the creation of The Circle, the group of mages whose actions were the basis for The Order of Dawn.
