The Sundering of Ulthuan

No wound in elven history runs deeper than The Sundering of Ulthuan, the civil war that severed one people into two eternal enemies. Its root was the pride of Malekith, son of Aenarion, who believed the crown of the Phoenix King his by blood. When the flames of Asuryan rejected him and the loyalist realms denied him, he chose war over patience, and drenched the Blessed Isle in kindred blood.

Malekith's followers embraced the murder-cult of Khaine and the sorceries of his mother Morathi, and the high-elf-realms were plunged into a fratricidal nightmare that lasted centuries. Neither side could win outright, and in his desperation Malekith gambled everything upon a working of catastrophic magic. His sorcerers strove to unmake the great vortex that drained Chaos from the world, intending to seize its power for themselves.

The loyalist mages fought to hold the spell in check, and between the two the raw energies tore Ulthuan apart. Whole kingdoms of the north sank beneath the waves, drowning untold thousands, and the continent was left scarred and diminished forever. Defeated but unbroken, Malekith led his people into exile across the ocean, where they became the dark-elves of frozen Naggaroth. The Sundering birthed a hatred that would poison the world until its final days, kin set against kin without hope of reconciliation.