Dark Elf Tutorial

I get more questions about the Dark Elves than any other thing in How to Host a Dungeon. Their weird little civilization seems to spiral into cascading slave revolts very quickly. This isn't actually a bad thing, but it can be annoying. If you're one of the annoyed, just skip to the variant rule at the bottom of this post. I highly recommend it.

The Dark Elves are the most unstable of all the civilizations, and making a slightly different interpretation of the rules can make a radical change in how they behave.

Here's a pretty generic Dark Elf development schedule. If you interpret the rules a bit differently, that's OK, you might just get a faster revolution.

1. First year starts, the Dark Elf city has 3 nobles (N) and 3 slaves (S)
   Spring: a new colony is founded
   
   • City: 2N, 2S
   
   
   • Colony 1: 1n, 1s
   
   However, if there are no colony sites, the city adds 1S instead.


2. Summer: the colon mines and grows
   
   • City: 2N, 2S
   
   
   • Colony 1: 2n, 2s
   
   If there's nothing to mine, every Dark Elf site adds slaves instead, and you're on the fast track to a massive slave revolt


3. Fall: Build stuff
   Winter: city adds 1 slave
   
   • City: 2N, 3S
   
   
   • Colony: 2n, 2s
   
   
   Finally, the city gathers new slaves if there are any around, which can also help trigger an early revolt.

For a longer-lasting, more stable Dark Elf civilization, simply don't add the extra slave to the city in the winter. Your Dark Elves are then much more likely to last to the end of their complete civilization cycle.

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