The Blood Elves are a subculture of the Elves of Earthdawn. To preserve her autonomy, the Elven Queen Alachia rejected the Theran Empire's offers of magical protection from the coming Scourge and The Horrors. Instead, she ordered the Elven Court to develop its own magics to protect the Wyrm Wood from what was to come. Further, she commanded that use of such magics was obligatory for all elves.

Elven elementalists of the Court developed a kaer of True Wood. Many living within the Wyrm Wood and nearly everyone living outside of it had very grave doubts that it would hold the Horrors at bay. Even the threat of Severance -- no longer being connected to the center of Elven culture -- was not sufficient to prevent all other elves from submitting to Theran rule so as to gain access to the Theran magics.

However, Alachia remained adamant that her Court and the Wyrm Wood would use the wooden kaer. But in 1262 TH, it suffered a serious breach, as its detractors had expected. The elves of the Wyrm Wood now needed a new means of defense. They discovered that the most dangerous Horrors had to inflict the pain, suffering, and insanity on which they fed. A person alread suffering with intense pain and insanity could not provide such Horrors with sustenance.

The elves of the Wyrm Wood developed another magic, the Ritual of Thorns. This ritual caused thorns to grow out through the skin of its subjects. As a result, they are in constant pain, suffering from magical, ever-bleeding wounds to their bodies. They took on a form of horrific beauty, their delicate and graceful features marred by the blood and thorns. Many died as a result. It was eventually applied to every living thing in the Wood, which was reNamed the Blood Wood.

The Ritual of Thorns was successful in averting the attentions of the most dangerous Horrors. The others were not much of a match for the patrols instituted to protect the Elven Court from invaders.

Certain Shadowrun source material suggests that some of the Blood Elves lived through the Fifth World and into the Sixth, including many of the founders and rulers of Tir Tairngire and Tir na nOg. In all such cases, the Ritual of Thorns was reversed. Shadowrun is a cyberpunk-urban fantasy cross-genre role-playing game, set in the years 2050, 2053, 2060 or 2070 (depending on the game edition) following a great cataclysm that has brought use of magic back to the world, just as it begins to embrace the marvels (and dangers) of...

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