Who are the priests of Vaul? Who was Hotek?

[Cynath ch'ill]

I've been researching fluff concerning the Priests of Vaul, and the Renegade priests of vaul that defected during the age of Strife for my project blog (found here:http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=66250) . Other than a few sentences about Hotek and a few magic items, I can find no information concerning these enigmatic beings.

Does anyone have any information, text, images about the Priests of Vaul? Do we know what they look like, or what their role within dark elf society is?

Id love to hear anything official or theorized. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[Camaris]

Vaul is often represented in fantasy and 40k fluff as the god of the smithies. Generally, we read stories about how he forged the ultimate sword or ultimate bow or something like that. As a result of this, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that priests of vaul were smiths who forged magic items, so they know metalwork and magic. I generally imagine them as the elven equivalent of a runesmith. I think the fluff said they had a monastery in caledor somewhere near Saphery?

If I interpreted the fluff correctly there was only one renegade priest of vaul, Hotek. With the assistance of dark mages, he was able to steal the hammer of vaul (presumably the ultimate magic item forger) and run to Malekith and forge the magic items that make him our fearsome witch king.

This is pure theorizing: I don't think the priests of vaul have any role in dark elf society, because I don't think there are any of them. The reason for this is because the druchii abandoned all the good gods such as Asuryan, Kurnous and Isha for bad gods such as Nethu, Khaine, and Ereth Khial. In all the elven mythology, Vaul seems to be a pretty good god. In fact, a lot of the time he gets put in difficult situations where Khaine tries to bully him into doing the wrong thing, and yet he sucessfully resists temptation. As a result of this, I doubt the druchii would put much stock into worshipping such a "weak" god. It is my opinion that most magic items either come from the convents of sorceresses or the temples of khaine. The reason for this is because a lot of our magic items contain sacrificial components such as cold one claws, witch elf hair, etc..., which would be a khainite way to make stuff. Other items seem to be created by sorceresses such as gems that were imbued or pieces of magical mountains broken away by dark magic.

[Dalamar]

Camaris' answer is pretty much accurate.

Also bear in mind one other thing. Vaul is blind, all his priests undergo ritual blinding when they officially become priests.

[Svarthofthi]

Didn't the high elves also reclaim their sacred smithing hammer? Could mean that anything we craft these days is minus a fancy god smithing hammer.

[Cynath ch'ill]

That's dissapointing, I thought that there would be more information out there about them.

The feedback was great though. Thank you.

@Camaris. I would say that any God is an ambiguous figure in terms of absolute terms of good and evil, although I take your point. I would have thought that there would be Priests of Vaul in Dark elf society to craft enchanted weaponry and the such. I also see this as the only form of gainful employment for males with magical talents. I'd love to think that each dark elf house employs a master smith and several apprentices that churn out magical items unique to that household. The construction and manufacture of such items is a house secret which follows the master smith to the grave.

This is pure speculation however. Nothing what-so-ever to back this up.

@ Dalmar. Thank you. Is the reference from the High elf rulebook?

@ Svarthofthi: Smithy hammer? That sounds intriguing. Can you expand on this?

[Drainial]

There was a hammer, known as Vauls hammer, which was in his temple on Ulthuan and when Hotek went over to the dark side he nicked it. He also was the one who made the armour of midnight, probably using said hammer.

[Lord_caerolion]

This is pure theorizing: I don't think the priests of vaul have any role in dark elf society, because I don't think there are any of them. The reason for this is because the druchii abandoned all the good gods such as Asuryan, Kurnous and Isha for bad gods such as Nethu, Khaine, and Ereth Khial. In all the elven mythology, Vaul seems to be a pretty good god. In fact, a lot of the time he gets put in difficult situations where Khaine tries to bully him into doing the wrong thing, and yet he sucessfully resists temptation. As a result of this, I doubt the druchii would put much stock into worshipping such a "weak" god. It is my opinion that most magic items either come from the convents of sorceresses or the temples of khaine. The reason for this is because a lot of our magic items contain sacrificial components such as cold one claws, witch elf hair, etc..., which would be a khainite way to make stuff. Other items seem to be created by sorceresses such as gems that were imbued or pieces of magical mountains broken away by dark magic.

Personally, I don't see it as "Dark Elves worship the Evil Gods, High Elves worship the Good", as that makes the Dark Elves too cartoony (I mean, of course the Cults of Excess came first, but the civilian worship is a different story). Rather, in my mind, where there is an area where a Cytharai and a Cadai, the Dark Elves favour the Cytharai, as it is a "stronger" god. To put it another way, why worship Kurnous, Cadai of the Hunt (but only really the 'tame' hunting, like a simple deer in a forest with a bow) when what you're hunting is a massive mammoth, which requires you to ride on Cold Ones to bring down. That's more Anath Raema's domain, even though both situations are still 'hunting'. Both have the same domain, but only one gives the strength to allow the Druchii to live in the virtual wasteland of Naggaroth.

As such, I can quite easily see the Dark Elves worshipping Vaul, much in the same way that Khaine, a Cytharai, is revered where/when necessary by the Cadai-loving Asur. Of course, for all we know, there's a Cytharai who represents the 'darker' aspects of forging, a Cytharai of Weaponsmithing and the creation of other nastier items, rather than Vaul the Blacksmith, or perhaps Vaul himself has that particular Aspect, so just like the Asur have their 'tamed' Khaine, we have a 'nastier' Vaul

[Sweeping death]

I quite liked Lord Caerolion´s take on the matter.

Although the current army book fluff paints a more extreme and one sided picture of the Druchii, I find a more balanced and broader version of DEs more interesting. Nobody sees himself as evil like that.
To justify their actions and also to actually be able to run a society, DEs can´t be only crazy khainite killers. Trade, military and political organization, production etc. require a minimum of mutual confidence, loyalty and culture/tradition/legitimacy.
Even in a militaristic, imperialistic, genocidal slaver society, there are other elements to life. Druchii are NOT chaos whorshippers, but see themselves as the true elves and heirs of Aenarion and naggarythe traditions.

I´ve just read the TOL novel Malekith and his rejection of taking the Sword of Khaine is telling.

[Malus99]

Without going too deeply into religious matters as applied to the real world which can be a touchy subject, the different gods of the Asur and the Druchii can be generally thought of as an apparallel to when Christianity and other modern religions were gradually taking over from paganism and similar religions worldwide in the past. For now I will generalise Paganism as Mother earth worshipping religions which focused on nature, and had various rituals and similar whose purpose was to gain the favour/calm the anger of the gods. Bear in mind that whilst what i am saying is based off RL religion as were the original GW concepts for the religion of the elves I am drawing no apparallells between anything below which is about Warhammer elves and RL religion, firstly because the mods will hang me for doing so because such things inevitably get out of hand, and secondly because my philosophy is one of harmony, everything is interconnected and influencing everything else, therefore everything must be even and so in balance, which makes apparallells between seperate aspects pointless because ultimately everything is but one facet of the same thing. So, heres my take on the religion of the elves and how it developed:

The Naggarothi (Nagarythe, before the time of the sundering) did not so much worship as appease some of the darker gods of the elven pantheon, they did not 'like' these gods, but were fearful of their wrath, they also gave worship to the gods which were more benevolent. So the Naggarothi believed in and gave sacrifice (sacrifice in this case being time, personal comfort, personal belongings including offerings of the animals they had killed etc. They didn't sacrifice other elves but if a hunter killed a dozen hares for food, they might leave one on a shrine to Kurnous the hunter god for instance to say thank you for the bountiful harvest, the greater the offering, the happier the god so part of the catches of a hunt - which would take enormous effort - would be a great offering) to all aspects of the pantheon in order to keep it in balance.

Gradually the other elves stopped paying benediction to the darker gods, for reasons which may range from a noble refusal to bow to fear to a more greedy aspect of 'if I give that god stuff he gives stuff to me back, where as if I give stuff to you all I get is the promise you won't do anything horrible,'. So their ceasing of worship to these gods can neither be regarded as noble nor greedy or for any other specific reason as it is varied and was a decision both 'good' and 'bad' for good and bad reasons, for want of a more descriptive word. The Naggarothi however continued to pursue balance, probably mostly because of the fear that if they stopped there would be earthquakes and volcanoes, doom and gloom, thunder and lightning etc. This can be regarded as foolish superstition or cowardice, but it can also be seen as having been done for much nobler reasons, the protection of themselves, fellow Naggarothi, and even the other elves who had turned away. This is actually a very noble reason, because the Naggarothi believe that if they subside in their benedictions to the darker gods, these god's vengeance will be reaped upon all elves, and so it was doubly important they continued in order to make up for the benedictions the other elves were no longer paying, this is a very noble thing to do because rather than say 'sod them, if they are not going to bother then they will pay for it' the Naggarothii instead took up the slack left by the other elves in order to maintain balance for the good of all, at further cost to themselves. At this point, the Naggarothi were still 'balanced', but the rest of the elves only worshipped the light side, many interpretations can be put on whether what these other elves did was 'good' or 'bad' in abandoning the dark pantheon, there are arguments for both but let's not get into that.

Then came the sundering, two things lead the Naggarothii to abandon balance, all of the woes that were inflicted upon them, and politics. Starting with the first, upon all of the woes that befell the Naggarothi during the sundering, starting with the usurpation of Malekith's claim to the throne, continuing through the terror caused by the cults of pleasure, and then the terrible civil wars culminating in their banishment, the Naggarothii turned more and more attention to the darker gods, because as so many bad things were happening, they attempted to appease the gods which perpetrate these evil deads by increasing their worship to them, at this point this was still an attempt to restore order and balance, and to make things better, by appeasing the dark gods. Then came politics.

Firstly there was Morathi, she turned the indulgence of all elves in the time leading up to the sundering into worship of excess, intensifying the pursuit of happiness to the point where it crossed a line and stopped being a 'good' pursuit and started being a 'bad' one. The key here is in quantity, at which point the pursuit of pleasure became 'excess' is impossible to see, but at that point the relatively harmless aspects became much darker and more evil. This was instigated by Morathi for her own plans, otherwise it at the least would have taken much longer, and may have been prevented altogether. Here the first areas of worship became 'dark' or 'evil'. It is important to note that this was not only Naggarothii, it encompassed all of Ulthuan and beyond, but it was at worst in, and centred around Naggaroth because of Morathi for two reasons, she needed to threaten Malekith's lands in order to bring him home from the colonies, and she needed it to be primarily Malekith's responsibility and jurisdiction by it being mainly in Malekith's kingdom so that he would be the hero who put a stop to it all to give him greater standing amongst the other nobles. Thus the first 'dark' aspects of the Naggarothii were not deliberate, but unwittingly stepping across the line, being heavily encouraged by Morathi. The Naggarothii were still 'innocent' at heart, they and not chosen this, they simply had not noticed how far they'd gone.

Then there was the war between Naggaroth and the rest of Ulthuan, Malekith and Morathi, aswell as many of the higher echelons of Druchii society, now sought to harm people, to do damage, and who could they turn to for aid? The gods of destruction of course, what were previously pleas to spare themselves became pleas to destroy others, the greater most of the Naggarothii were still innocent, but a greater percentage of the top levels of Naggarothii society were now guilty of soliciting the aid of the dark gods with evil intent, knowing precisely what damage their actions would do, they knew exactly what they were doing and so were the first 'evil' Naggarothii.

Finally, we come to the sundering, the Naggarothii are exiled, confined to a harsh land of unrelenting punishment, the barren, icy slopes of Hel. The pain that they have endured has pushed them to the breaking point, and so they hurl themselves into the abyss, and fully embrace the darkness. Now the Cytharai are worshipped, not to pacify them, but to ask them to commit further destruction. Each Druchii now asks the boons of dark gods to inflict pain and suffering, destruction and death, it is at this point that the Naggarothii truly became the Druchii, they only seek destruction in full knowledge of its consequences and seek out evil for their own gains, even though they were goaded towards Khaine by Malekith in order to forge their hatred into a blade to be wielded against Ulthuan, unlike with Morathi's corruptions which formed the cults of pleasure, the Druchii did not step over the line unknowingly, having been pushed to the edge with extinction baying at ther heels, they jumped straight into the abyss at the metaphorical deep end, knowing precisely what they were doing and how far they were going.

Thus the Druchii became the dark half to the Asur's light, but in the end, the aspects are still balanced, but rather than a harmonious balance within each elf, it is instead split so that one race almost entirely embodies the darkness, where as the other almost entirely embodies the light. With the halves so irrevocably split, they now clash together in what is ultimately an attempt to reunite, to become whole, but both sides now only believe their way is the right way, and so do not seek balance, but dominion, which is wrong for both sides as it will ultimately lead to the destruction of not only their enemies, but themselves, light is not right any more than dark is wrong, apart they are wrong, in balance they are right. There can be much finger-pointing and so on, the truth is the Druchii became what they are today because of circumstance, arrogance (on all sides) and misfortune, it could be said that they have been driven to the darkness by a Kharmic balance, which could be referred to as fate, in order to restore some measure of order, but every Druchii likes to think he is master of his own fate.

In the end, the Druchii people are undeniably evil, but it is not their fault, they were driven to the edge, and they could either be destroyed, or embrace their 'dark side'. For is that not the essence of the druchii? Taking strength from the darkness and making it our own? In the end our trials have only made us more powerful.

So, sorry for all of that, I like this subject, its fun to mull over and talk about and is the most interesting aspect of the elven people and their fluff IMO, I can say the TOL shadow king book aswell as the Malekith book show a side to the Druchii which has not previously been seen, and is important fluffwise, it does give some insight as to their religion and how it became what it is today, the Malus darkblade books, particularly 'Warpsword' give alot of insight into the cult of Khaine.

Sorry this post is abit off topic but since we were talking about whether the Druchii were 'good' or 'evil' I thought i'd chip in, in answer to the original question, we have no idea what the priests of Vaul look like, we know very little about them except they smithed magical weapons, the only one known to have joined the druchii was Hotek and we don't know if he is still alive, It is possible there are some working for the witch king, either as slaves or possible defectors like Hotek, I agree that most magical weapons are either stolen, or forged by the convent of sorceresses or temple of khaine, there may be a few specialists who forge weapons outside of the temple and the convents, but not very many atall.

I'm going to shut up now before I get even more carried away

[Drainial]

I would dispute that the Asur embody the 'light', and Druchii the Dark, at least in such absolute terms. The high elves still look to Khaine in times of war, and possibly to other 'dark' deities when it is necessary (which is admittedly less often). It is less of an absolute crevasse and more a gentle slope in my view.

It seems to me that Khaine has developed a good deal in Naggaroth, probably because he became the dominant god. The reason I say that is his most common sobriquet, the thousand faced god. Now admittedly some of those faces are a long way from savoury (stalker of the void, destroyer, lord of pain ECT) but it seems pretty likely that amongst those thousand faces there are aspects of protection.

I suppose what I am really saying is that it is the gods themselves who are not intrinsically good or bad. They are what they need to be.

On the subject of Hotec I cannot remember where it was that I read it but I am fairly certain that when Hotec defected he did it with a sizable number of accomplices.

[Dalamar]

Now admittedly some of those faces are a long way from savoury (stalker of the void, destroyer, lord of pain ECT) but it seems pretty likely that amongst those thousand faces there are aspects of protection.

It would be likely, if we didn't know that all of Khaine's aspects represent some form of a predator.

[Drainial]

So? The aspect of the she bear, guarding her young. Totally made up but far from implausible.

[Dalamar]

No, the aspect of a grizzly bear, charging down in anger.

[Drainial]

There are a thousand aspects, any reason they cannot both have a place?