Raider, Pirates, Mercenaries – right now we delve into the shrouded origins of the Drukhari!
The Darkish Eldar, also referred to as Drukhari are kindred to the Eldar, an historical and superior race of elf-like humanoids. Their armies often have some great benefits of velocity and know-how, although they’re usually missing in resilience and numbers. The Darkish Eldar enjoy piracy, enslavement, and torture, and are sadistic within the excessive. Darkish Eldar raiding events make use of superior anti-gravity skimmers to launch high-speed raids on their enemy whereas nonetheless transporting a lot of their warriors. On account of their use of the galaxy-spanning inter-dimensional labyrinth often called the Webway, they’re extraordinarily cell, hanging from seemingly nowhere, with little or no warning, and vanishing with their captives earlier than a big army response may be mobilized.
The origins of the Darkish Eldar may be discovered within the Fall of the Eldar, the nice cataclysm that almost destroyed your entire Eldar race. It was an occasion so horrible that not solely did it kill trillions of Eldar, nevertheless it breached the hole between actual house and the Warp, and gave beginning to Slaanesh, a Chaos God.
To grasp the explanations for the Fall, it’s essential to know one thing of the Eldar thoughts and soul.
The Nature of the Aeldari
An Eldar’s thoughts is extremely complicated. Their senses are extraordinarily sharp, in a position to understand unbelievable ranges of element. Their feelings may be so sturdy {that a} human‘s are merely pale shadows by comparability. They’re extraordinarily clever; their thought processes are a lot sooner than a human’s. All of because of this an Eldar experiences the universe and all its sensations to a drastically heightened diploma. Equally, an Eldar’s soul is far brighter within the Warp than these of “lesser” sentients. Eldar are in a position to have an effect on the nether-realm way more than most different races. They’re all latent psykers and have the flexibility to change into very highly effective with coaching. It’s the energy of their souls that was one of many causes of their downfall. Earlier than the Fall, the Eldar had an immense galaxy-spanning empire comprising hundreds of thousands of worlds, bigger and extra highly effective than even the Imperium of Man on the peak of its energy. The Eldar lived in relative peace – barbarian races such because the Orks had been stored at simply manageable numbers and by no means had the energy to threaten the may of the Eldar empire. The people weren’t but virulently xenophobic and didn’t have a big area, and the Tyranid Hive Fleets had been unknown. The C’tan and Necrons, historical foes of the Eldar, had been way back defeated and nonetheless remained dormant.
Rising Hazard
Life on the Eldar Worlds was idyllic, with fantastically refined machines to maintain all labour and manufacturing required, leaving the Eldar free to take pleasure in different, extra aesthetic pursuits. With all menial work taken care of for them, the Eldar turned indolent and decadent. They started to discover an increasing number of the humanities of delight, delving ever deeper into hedonism. This descent into decadence spanned millennia. Custom and order disintegrated, as they restricted the pursuit of delight. Sects referred to as Pleasure Cults had been shaped, devoted to reaching the best ranges of hedonistic sensation, and their ceremonies and practices turned ever extra wild, finally devolving into violence and sacrifice of their very own sort. Some Eldar hated what their race had change into and left the homeworlds for the virgin Maiden Worlds, or left on the newly-constructed Craftworlds, leaving the Pleasure Cults to their insanity. Throughout this time the Eldar had additionally found the Webway and shortly mastered it to additional their galaxy-spanning civilization. Constructing realms and outposts throughout the Webway to behave as ports for inter-galactic journey, town of Commorragh was based. Remoted throughout the Webway, Commorragh itself quickly turned a bastion for pleasure cults and more and more wicked acts.
The Start of Terror
In the meantime, one thing horrible was stirring within the Warp. The millennia of Eldar hedonism had made a large impression within the psychic realm of Chaos. Inside the warp the decadent Eldar civilization was giving form to a Energy of Chaos, which grew and grew over hundreds of years, getting stronger and extra outlined till out of the blue it sparked into an intelligence – a shatteringly big and malign intelligence, with an immense and bottomless thirst for Eldar souls. This was the beginning of Slaanesh. The method lasted for hundreds of years, equivalent to mankind’s Age of Strife, though when Slaanesh lastly got here into being, the outcomes with the universe had been apocalyptic and sudden. An almighty psychic shockwave scythed throughout the galaxy. The souls of just about each Eldar had been stripped from them straight away and devoured by the new-born Chaos god. There have been few survivors. Most had been pushed mad, their minds trapped half in the actual world and half within the swirling madness of the Warp. An important Warp rift was created, encompassing your entire Eldar empire and creating the Eye of Terror.
Rise of the Darkish Metropolis
The Darkish Eldar are distinctive amongst the races within the sense that they don’t occupy many planets, however slightly one darkish metropolis referred to as Commorragh. They’re primarily pirates, although are typically used as mercenaries.
The denizens of Commorragh, nevertheless, had been tucked away safely within the Webway, protected against Slaanesh and its thirst. Although a lot of the Webway was in break, that they had endured and, in contrast to their Craftworld counterparts, remained unrepentant. Although they found Slaanesh was nonetheless slowly claiming their souls, the denizens of Commorragh quickly found that by absorbing the ache and torments of one other’s soul they might rejuvenate themselves and cheat loss of life. Assuming they might feed often, the Eldar of the webway had change into bodily resistant to the passage of time. Quickly the Eldar of the Webway started raiding Realspace looking for captives and slaves to rejuvenate themselves with. So it was that the Darkish Eldar had been born, a race of sadistic murderers who feed upon the anguish of others to stop the loss of life of their immortal souls.
Lexicanum
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Dad, Gamer, Writer, Pilot, Texan. All video games on a regular basis since junior-high.
I began BoLS Interactive in 2006. I’m a lifelong tabletop & RPG gaming fanatic, and web writer working to entertain and inform my readers each day.
I have been enjoying RPGs and Tabletop Video games for the reason that Seventies. I am been enjoying and masking Warhammer and Warhammer 40K for over 35 years.
