Wood Elves adrift

The xenophobic race of elves that inhabit the great forest of Athel Loren, and are 
rumored to dwell in more remote forests, are not known for their seamanship.  In 
fact, most people don't know anything at all about them.  Most "Wood Elves" spend 
the entirety of their lives within their strange and dangerous forest, amongst 
stranger still fey allies.  The only reliable way to encourage them to venture 
forth is to threaten their homes.  Such an act stirs the Wood Elves to fanatical, 
even genocidal, hatred and a need to slay.

A wood elf army is not known for using machines of war.  No bolt throwers like 
their High or Dark cousins.  No cannons like the crude humans and dwarves.  Instead 
the elves of Loren rely upon massed bow fire and the strength of their allies, most 
especially the Treemen.  They wage war primarily through mobility and ambush.

This form of combat is very effective at destroying any land bound invader.  The 
elves also ally to the great eagle and warhawks found in the wooded ravines of the 
norther Athel Loren.  Rarely a Forrest Dragon will awake.  These too add assistance 
to the elves, and so Loren is well defended from enemies in the air.

The single greatest vulnerability of the Wood Elves' domain are the two major 
rivers that provide access to the very heart of the wood.  Enemies can, and at time 
have, sailed foul monstrosities up these rivers.  Bow fire from the banks can reach 
the boats but arrowheads are generally turned aside by an armored ship's hull.  
Dragons and eagles can strike at ships but this is often dangerous.  An entire 
flock of ancient eagles was lost to an incursion by Skaven.  The ratmen used 
warpfire throwers and jezzails to slaughter the birds.  Meanwhile, enormous 
versions of the same warpfire throwers that killed their eagle friends were turned 
to lay down curtains of deadly chaos-contaminated flame along the banks, 
incinerating archers as well as leaving a trail of corruption and destruction.

Further upstream the Wood Elves laid a trap.  They chose a small island in the 
middle of the river and encouraged the forest spirits to grow on that island a 
concealing bower of tree limbs and vines.  Within this blind dozens of Wood Elves 
waited silently.  Slowly but surely the Skaven vessels came, belching fire at one 
bank and then the other.  Creeping closer, the ship ignored the small island until 
the elves revealed themselves.  From the shores their arrows had not the precision 
or strength to damage the ships themselves, but from so close a vantage they were 
able to send shafts through small windows and to punch them into steel boilers.  
The Skaven vessel was badly damaged and green tinged flames jetted from the 
punctured fire thrower.  Before the elves could finish taking revenge the ship 
reversed its paddle wheel and moved swiftly down stream again.

As the elves discovered to their lament the Skaven had established a naval outpost, 
or "water warren," and the first ship was merely a scout looking for paths up 
river.  The Skaven returned time and again, ever more wary of traps and ever more 
destructive to the forest on the banks of the river.  They came with more fire.  
They came with poison gas.  They came with cursed bells whose ring split ancient 
oaks and caused animals to gnaw at themselves in madness.

Through this all the Elves were helpless to do more than harry their tormentors.  
Even when they forced a battle where the elves had the upper hand, the mobility of 
their opponents denied total victory.  The Skaven threat might never have ended but 
for the intervention of the Brettonian navy.  The Skaven had been raiding 
Brettonian lands as well, but the humans had naval forces with which to strike 
back, and so they did destroying the Skaven water warren in a titanic fight. 

The elves, pleased at the death of the Skaven nevertheless detested being in the 
debt of others.  Orion ordered that the elves would have naval forces.  The details 
were left to underlings to arrange.

Unfortunately these details were far from trivial.  The elves would certainly not 
chop  down their trees for lumber.  Nor would they build reeking steel works.  
Finally they appealed to the spirit of the forest itself.  The same island used to 
ambush Skaven ship became the first Wood Elf ship.  The island was undermined by 
fast growing sea plants.  These plants normally floated near the surface of the 
water thanks to air bladders, and these same bladders held the wood elf ship 
afloat.  The Treekin spirits within the bower strengthened the plants so that they 
grew back from damage at amazing speeds.

Similarly the Wood Elves had little use for the machines of war that other races 
used on their vessels.  Instead they relied upon their archers and the strength of 
the Treemen.  This relied on getting close to the enemy, but in this the Wood Elf 
ships had one great advantage- they did not appear to be ships at all.  Ambush, if 
not mobility, would continue to be the hallmark of a Wood Elf attack.

There are no great navies of the Wood Elves.  They take to sea only as needs must, 
and when found at sea they are always in pursuit of a vendetta.  This is not to say 
that they are never distracted from their hunt by circumstances.  Brettonians and 
High Elves are both known to ally with Wood Elves in the face of a common enemy.  
The Wood Elves can even tolerate Empire forces, although they will never work with 
Skaven, Chaos, Undead, Orcs, or the Dark Elves of Naggaroth.  No recorded instance 
of Wood Elves and Norse working together exists.  It is not impossible, although 
the odds are slim that they would ever meet.