Religion
The Druchii primarily worship the Elven god Kaela Mensha Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God and Thousand Faced Lord of Murder. While their kindred, the High Elves of Ulthuan, only invoke this wrathful god in times of war, the Dark Elves are wholly devoted to him. Each city has temples and shrines devoted to Khaine where blood sacrifices are made. Dark Elves are required to donate a percentages of the slaves they capture on raids to the temple but most Dark Elves make several additional sacrifices a year.
The most savage sect of Khaine worshippers are known as the Brides of Khaine, more commonly called Witch Elves (or Maibd in the Dark Elf language). They are an all-female cult of warrior priestesses. Witch Elves consider the battlefield to be a holy place and are suicidally fanatical in proving their worth to Khaine by spilling the blood of their enemies. The cult is led by high priestesess called hags, who bathe in blood to retain eternal youth. Although they are cruel and savage in combat they are still extremely beautiful and many weak-willed men have told them secrets in a foolish attempt to make her love him. Morathi founded the cult of Khaine, but on a day-to-day level her rival Crone Hellebron, eldest of the hags, rules the cult, although in truth, the vast majority of the cult are loyal to Morathi.
The holiest time of the year for Dark Elves is Death Night. During this night the Witch Elves rule the streets of the Dark Elf cities, capturing anyone they find (whether they are slaves or Dark Elves) and either dragging them back to the temples or simply killing them on the spot as sacrifices to Khaine. The Witch Elves will even go so far as to break into houses, which has led to Dark Elf families barricading windows and doors during this night. On Death Night, the Witch Elves will also steal away a number of children and babies from their families. Girls captured like this will be trained to become Witch Elves while boys are tossed in a cauldron of boiling blood: those that survive are trained to be true adepts of Khaine- the feared assassins. As dawn breaks after Death Night, it is customary for those who lived through the night to make a sacrifice from their own household (usually a favoured slave or elderly relative) as a thanks to the Lord of Murder for sparing their family. It is doubtful that anyone would even attempt to defend themselves against the Witches, as the retribution for successfully doing so would be cruel even by the standards of the Dark Elves.
Besides the worship of Khaine, a sizeable portion of the population has also secretly kept alive worship of the Chaos God of Pleasure, Slaanesh. The Cult of Pleasure, led by Morathi, played a major role in the Sundering of the Elves of Ulthuan, but was considered heretical after the founding of Naggaroth and was brutally suppressed as the worship of Khaine became prevalent. Centuries passed, and the Cult grew stronger in the shadows and secret places of the six cities. The Convents of the Sorceresses, also headed by Morathi, are implied to be power bases for the Cult (this is why there is a sect enmity between the Convents and the Cult of Khaine). As the Storm of Chaos engulfed the Old World, the Cult rose to prominence once more when Morathi and her sorceresses raised a substantial army from warbands of Slaaneshi-worshipping Hung tribesmen (human followers of Chaos) to the Cult, and marched them through Naggaroth. In response to this, underground members of the Cult openly joined Morathi's growing war host. Using her supernatural beauty, shrewd political mind and powerful magic, she turned the Cult and its allies into her own private army and invaded the lands of Lustria to the far south, seeking to plunder the vast wealth of riches and magical artifacts kept by the Lizardmen and their Slann masters.
Though they were repulsed by the reptilian denizens of Lustria, the Cult of Pleasure returned to Naggaroth in strength, having acquired much physical and magical wealth from the invasion, and have openly displayed their status as devotees of Slaanesh. This open display of prowess and hubris enraged Hellebron, the current leader of the Cult of Khaine and Morathi's chief rival, who has begun to gather the Cult of Khaine to confront Morathi and her Slanneshi allies. Because of this, and with the armies of Malekith (who both hates Chaos and views the Cult of Slannesh as a threat to his power) attacking far-off Ulthuan and thus unable to intervene, Naggaroth currently stands on the brink of civil war.
Read more about this topic: Dark Elves (Warhammer)
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Those to whom God has imparted religion by feeling of the heart are very fortunate and are rightly convinced. But to those who do not have it, we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for God to give it by feeling of the heart—without which faith is only human and useless for salvation.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.
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—David Hume (1711–1776)