The Eldar.
It's often pretty easy to see the influence of fantasy on Warhammer 40k, especially since
it was created as a spinoff of Warhammer fantasy.
Humans vs orcs is a pretty standard fantasy trope that is also present in 40k, but another
race that was brought over to some degree are the elves, in the form of the eldar.
In fact, with the works of Tolkien being such an influence, the term Eldar was one of the
names applied to elves in middle-earth meaning people of the stars.
Eldar in 40k are similarly tall and slim with pointed ears, long lived and superhumanly
agile, but are also an inscrutable dying race.
Let's take a look at the history of the Eldar in the milky way, their current situation,
and their potential future.
The early history of the eldar is perhaps as mysterious as the eldar themselves are,
and is largely lost to time.
In modern times, troupes of performing eldar called Harlequins put on theatrical shows
to tell tales of the eldar beginning, but it's tricky to determine what is truth.
It does seem that the first eldar were created by the ancient race known as the old ones
in order to assist them in their war against the c'tan and the necrons, much like the first
orks.
While the original orks were created for their physical might and savagry in combat, the
eldar were created with their pyschic potential at the forefront.
The old ones of course were mostly eradicated or scattered, and the necrons went into hibernation,
leaving the eldar room to expand and take over the galaxy.
During this time, the eldar were connected to a number of gods, or god-like beings.
This is where things get a little murky, as the exact nature of these entities and their
connection to the eldar is pretty much lost to time, and we're left with current eldar
mythology.
It's possible that the eldar were capable of creating entities inside of the warp due
to the power of their psychic abilities, and so they made god-like entities as servants,
bent to their will.
It's also possible that these gods were the first eldar, elevated to godly status, or
perhaps even specific old ones that received the same treatment.
Either way, these gods were a part of the warp, but according to their mythology, they
also were capable of walking among the early eldar as well.
I won't go into too much detail on the eldar gods here, as the topic could certainly be
a part of its own video, but i'll quickly summarize.
One goddess had a vision of the eldar destroying the god of war, and so the god of war decided
to slaughter the eldar before that could happen.
The slaughter of eldar was so brutal that eventually the leader of the gods stepped
in and created a barrier between the warp and realspace, preventing further interaction.
Two gods, believed by modern eldar to be the parents of the eldar race, asked the god of
smiths for help in bypassing this barrier.
The smith god created spirit stones that allowed the gods to communicate with the eldar.
The god of war eventually discovered this, and because they had broken the rules, the
leader of the gods decided that they would be given over to the god of war for punishment.
He continually tortured them, and at a certain point the god of smiths stepped in to make
an agreement: he would give the god of war one hundred swords in a years time in exchange
for their release.
The god of war agreed to this, and so the smithing began.
In one years time however, the god of smiths had only created 99 swords, and so he took
a normal mortal sword and hid it in the pile, hoping it would go unnoticed.
The god of war accepted the delivery, and released his two prisoners, only to realize
the ruse afterwards.
A war began between the god of war and the god of smiths, with many other gods taking
sides.
The god of smiths finally finished crafting his hundredth sword, the greatest of all of
them, and took it to fight the god of war, one on one.
Even with the tremendous sword, he was no match for the god of war however, and so he
was defeated.
The sword was stolen away however, and ended up in the hands of Eldanesh, the greatest
of the eldar heroes.
Eldanesh took up the sword and went to face the god of war in a heroic duel, and although
he fought well, he too was defeated.
The god of war slaughtered eldanesh, becoming known as Khaine the bloody-handed, and the
leader of the gods finally stepped in to stop the war.
Mythology aside, the eldar began to spread across the galaxy, in part to their own psychic
prowess and in part by being able to make use of some of the old one technology.
The principal piece of technology available to them was the webway, a series of networked
portals and tunnels that allowed for faster than light travel.
This gave them a tremendous advantage over every other species in the milky way, and
they easily pushed back other species to the fringes of space.
Nothing threatened the eldar empire, and in time, concepts of physical labor became completely
foreign to them, utilizing robots to perform all of their basic tasks.
Nothing was beyond their reach, and the galaxy was filled with countless utopian planets
where eldar could experience any pleasure they could conceive of.
When an eldar did die, their souls went into the warp, which was much more peaceful than
it is now, and they were eventually reborn.
Unfortunately, pride goeth before a fall, and the eldar certainly did fall.
With many eldar left with no purpose other than fulfilling their own indulgences, their
tastes for pleasure began to become wilder and darker.
Countless small cults began to pop up across the galaxy devoted to different aspects of
dark pleasures.
Order began to fall apart as trends of sadism spilled out into the open, murderers prowling
the streets looking for victims to satiate their desires.
Many eldar did however oppose this new trend, seeing the corruption for what it was, and
so they fled the eldar civilization into the fringes of the empire.
Life was difficult for these groups however, as they were unused to physical labor and
looking after themselves.
For years, the eldar had been plagued with visions from the warp of a sleeping entity
and the seers knew that the eldar were heading down a path of darkness and suffering.
The depravity of the eldar and their natural connection to the warp continued to cause
this entity to stir.
Finally, after thousands of years of descent into darkness and depravity, the dark god
came into being.
Slaanesh, god of chaos and dark prince of pleasure was born, a mirror of the eldar's
fall into perverse delights.
Slaanesh's birth was not a quite one either, as it roared into existence, causing countless
terrible warp storms to break out across the galaxy.
Every eldar heard the psychic cries of slaanesh, and each suffered because of it.
Although there were some that managed to survive, trillions of eldar had their souls ripped
from them and sucked into the warp.
Every eldar within a thousand light years of the epicenter of slaanesh's birth was left
a lifeless husk, but there were those eldar that managed to survive the fall of the empire.
Most of the eldar gods are also said to have been devoured by Slaanesh during this event,
with only three survivors.
Most of the surviving eldar found refuge on the massive craftworld spaceships flying through
deep space.
Craftworlds are vast self-sufficient ships generally thousands of miles long, capable
of sustaining billions of individuals for indefinite periods.
Each craftworld possesses its own culture, some more traditional, others more aggressive
towards other alien races, others aggressive towards even other eldar craftworlds.
The craftworlds are built using a material called Wraithbone, a substance rather unique
to the eldar.
Wraithbone is essentially solidified warp energy, taken from the immaterium and given
shape by specialized eldar called Bonesingers.
Aside from its innate psychic capabilities, wraithbone is extremely durable and strong,
and is also capable of repairing itself of damage.
The Eldar use wraithbone for many purposes, including their ships, buildings, weapons,
constructs, and more.
Wraithbone's psychic capabilities allow it to carry psychic energy like a current, allowing
eldar to use it as a communications network or to control objects remotely.
Additionally, it was this psychic connection that protected the inhabitants of the craftworlds
from the deadly psychic scream of slaanesh.
And so, fragments of the Eldar empire lived on, with many of them turning away from the
debauchery that spawned Slaanesh in the first place, but not all.
The eldar living in a dark city located within the webway continued their depraved way of
life, eventually becoming the drukhari, or dark eldar.
Slaanesh still hungers for the souls of every living eldar, savoring the taste of each one,
leading the eldar to refer to slaanesh as She Who Thirsts.
By this point, other races such as humans and orks have continued to conquer parts of
the galaxy, leaving the surviving eldar as just a small part of the larger puzzle.
The eldar are simply too scattered and too few to compete with species that spread like
wildfire.
That being said, the eldar are cunning, sophisticated, and proud, and so they're not defenseless.
Eldar technology is not what it once was, as before their fall they were among the most
technologically advanced species to ever exist, but after the fall of their empire this changed.
Part of this was simply the mass scattering of the surviving eldar, but part was done
on purpose, as the eldar that lived after the fall realized that their utopia is what
led them down a dark path.
For some, this casting off of technology was more extreme than others, as the eldar that
fled before the fall abandoned almost all of their heightened tech.
Most craftworld eldar abandonded a lot of tech that wasn't necessary for their survival,
including their advanced terraforming tools and their most frightening weapons.
Much of the webway was damaged or destroyed during the fall, and only portions of it remain
intact that allow the craftworlds to link with one another.
Much of current Eldar technology is based on their inherent psychic abilities, although
most eldar are careful about their psychic use to prevent chaos intrusion.
Each eldar living on a craftworld is meant to follow a specific path, basically a role
within their society that they must study and experience.
Once an eldar masters a path, they choose another one to follow, and so on.
Since Eldar tend to live a thousand years, with some of them living much longer, an eldar
could potentially master numerous paths.
Many paths are what you would expect, such as the path of the warrior, path of the artisan,
or path of command.
The path of awakening focuses on analyzing one's surroundings, the path of service focuses
on serving others, and the path of the seer focuses on an eldar's pyschic abilities, such
as handling spirit stones that carry eldar souls, or on shaping wraithbone.
Occasionally an eldar will become obsessed with a single path, refusing to choose a new
one upon mastering it, and they are said to be lost upon the path.
Other eldar that don't follow the path system include the exodites, those who fled before
the fall to far-flung planets, the corsairs, basically eldar space-pirates, the drukhari,
or dark eldar, and the harlequins.
The harlequins recognize no authority other than their god, Cegorach, known as the laughing
god, one of the few deific survivors of slaanesh.
The harlequins are unique even among the unique eldar, as they enigmatic, artistic, and highly
deadly.
They combine both war and art into a performance, showcasing extreme agility, balance, and dexterity
into a ballet of death.
In addition to their proficiency in combat, they are also talented storytellers and theatric
performers, and they take on the role of remembrancers for the eldar race.
They travel across the galaxy, visiting any other groups of eldar as well as other species,
and tell tales of eldar history, including their fall.
It's said that the harlequins are one of the few that know of the location of the black
library, a vast repository of eldar knowledge.
When a craftworld eldar dies, their soul becomes trapped in a spirit stone that they keep on
their chest.
This spirit stone is taken back to the craftworld, where the soul is then deposited into a part
of the ship called the infinity circuit.
This component, part of the wraithbone skeleton of the vessel, acts as a well of psychic energy
and as a group consciousness of deceased eldar.
Without the infinity circuit, eldar souls would go into the warp to be devoured by slaanesh.
These stored souls will occasionally be taken out of the infinity circuit and placed into
eldar constructs, allowing a dead eldar to psychically control them.
Many eldar believe that when all of the eldar's souls are held within infinity circuits, their
souls will combine and form a new god, Ynnead.
Ynnead, god of death, will subdue slaanesh and allow the eldar to be reborn into a higher
form.
They believe this is the eldar's only hope for the future.
Obviously, many other eldar are against the idea of their only salvation coming when they
are all dead.
A new development however has led to the creation of a faction of eldar that believe they can
awaken ynnead without sacrificing all of the eldar race.
This faction, the Ynnari, are planning to utilize 5 legendary swords created from the
fingerbones of a goddess to do so.
So far, they have managed to find 4 of the 5 swords, and have successfully awoken an
avatar of the god of death called Yncarne.
Whether the ynnari will be eventually successful in awakening Ynnead and whether Ynnead will
manage to subdue Slaanesh remains to be seen.
The eldar are certainly unique among the various warhammer 40k species, being limited in number,
technologically advantaged, and sophisticated in war.
Despite their existence as a dying race, they've been clinging to life for some time now, and
it doesn't seem like they're going anywhere.
While perhaps not the galactic-level warmongers that other species like the orks, tyranids,
humans, or chaos forces are, the eldar manage to hold their own alongside the others.