Further Readings In The World Book of Khaas, Legendary Lands of Arduin - The Human Elf Wars

"Over the pile of ancient corpses the two  warriors climbed. They found refuge in the tomb of some long forgotten Elven minor noble. The tomb was surrounded by the skeletons of some unknown race of alien marauders. The orcs passed without disturbing the trespassers even as the mad cleric & the black wizard had teleported away. The pig faced horrors dressed in a mockery of human armaments snapped & squealed to each other before checking the next tomb.
For twenty sweat pounding minutes the adventurers didn't move a muscle. Then Evin carefully looked around the dusty forgotten corner of the ruin. He signed to his blood brother after taking another swig of water. They began to examine the strange skeleton's decrepit bandoliers & they turned to powder in Ajax fingers. Amid the dust there were bits of Mythril Elven chain armor & hilts of long forgotten weapons. Then Evin picked up one of the alien skulls. A single blood soaked named flooded back into his memory, Deodanth! He looked around the tomb quickly scanning the walls for a familiar glyph. He found it & more!
Evin signed to his brother without a sound, 'Time to leave!'. The glowing glyphs of Elven script pounded magically in time to the humans hearts & that's when the howling from beyond started! The stone floor outside the tomb reverberated with the sounds of orc feet & questioning panicked pig squeals. The orcs only had moments to register the human intruders fleeing. Then they came face to face with the ectoplasmic wrath of an ancient dead noble's ghost after his blooded enemies. To their credit they stood their ground only to be drained dry by the ancient dead noble's ghostly wrath howling from the unnatural Outer Darkness!"



The Elf Human Wars in Arduin are some of the most devastating events in the history of the campaign setting by David A. Hargrave. They mark the pivotal decline of the Elven people's domination in the setting with the swiftness of a series of brutal & down right nasty military campaigns to determine the rightful rulers of Arduin. These brush fire & forest fire battles mark the end of Elven domination. The rise of humanity on the back bone of the setting & the appearance of an alien people the Elves of legend  have come to hate above all others the Deodanths! A combination of Elf & vampire with a twisted touch of something feline strained through a glass darkly. The Deodanth comes from millions of years in Earth's future through one of the numerous dimensional gate ways of Arduin to slaughter Elves! The Elves paused from om their military battles with the humans to take down these unnatural foes but the cost was very high indeed.


Deodanth (cross of Elves & Vampires) concept art from the Arduin Grimore,1977
From the hashtag deodanth here

All of this information comes from The World Book of Khaas, Legendary Lands of Arduin page 552. All of the information on this piece of Arduin history sounded very familiar to me in its tone & execution. I think that David Hargrave drew a good deal of his Human Elf War from Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. There's the same air of tragedy & high operatic drama associated with the events surrounding the Human Elf War that suits the pen of Lord Dunsany.


I also think that there was good dash of  the mythology of the Tuath(a) Dé Danann throw into the tragic fall of the Elves of Arduin as influence on Mr. Hargrave. I think that the The World Book of Khaas, Legendary Lands of Arduin has some excellent tools for the DM to use if they want to plunder the history of Arduin for their own adventures & campaigns.
 

The Human Elf War has a lot of adventure potential & could be worked across a multitude of campaign settings. The Elves in Arduin have a strange & tragic history with all sorts of wrinkles for the dungeon master to  fold to their own adventures. Dungeon masters really need to customize this to their own campaigns to make it shine for them.

1. The underworld wreckage for the empire of the Elves is a very tempting target for adventurers & outlaws. The place could be rife with artifacts & fey treasures but this is not going to sit well with the Elves of Arduin. The race is on! 
2. Weapons & relics from the Human Elf wars turn up making things very dangerous for PC's perhaps even on other worlds the dimensional gateways & space time warps of Arduin are well known for just this sort of thing. 
3. Undead Elven armies might surface to cause havoc for the humans after all blood feuds run deep. 
4. Evil human necromancers might want to exploit the events of history for all kinds of evil power. 
5. Human warrior remains from the Human Elf wats  hold the blood secret to a royal ascension to kingship in the present. An adventure party is needed to retrieve this relic of the bloody past. 
6. A weapon of demonic power to terrible to comprehend has been unearthed. A thing of human or Elven make the powers of darkness might be unleashed at any moment!