In Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, the Wood Elves are a variety of Elves (Tall slender human-like beings) who live in an enchanted forest in eastern Bretonnia, referred to (by the elves, in their own language) as "Athel Loren".The Wood Elves (known as "Asrai" to themselves) were once members of the High Elves, the original group of elves in the Warhammer world. Setting sail from their homeland of Ulthuan, an island-continent in the ocean to the west, the High Elves colonised the lands later inhabited by men, including the forest of Athel Loren. After many years of peaceful existence, these colonists came into conflict with the Dwarves, a conflict which escalated into open war.

Known as the War of the Beard, this centuries long conflict saw Dwarven forces through Athel Loren, felling trees to fuel their furnaces, and to spite the nature loving Elves. Eventually the High Elves were defeated, and the order came to retreat back to Ulthuan. They became known as the Wood Elves. Over time the forest's other inhabitants, spirits such as dryads, treemen and sprites, have come to accept the elves, although some such as the branchwraith Drycha still resent their presence, and parts of the wood, such as the Wildwood, still remain closed to them.