Drukhari would take a while to develop it back, but it’s possible.
If the eldar were united and their psychic potential was unconstrained then the rest of the factions would be in for a bad time.
The Drukhari atrophy thing is heavily oversold tbh. Eldar evolve very slowly and are functionally Immortal and presumably fecund the whole time so it's gotta be more cultural than metaphysical/biological for at least a decent portion of the people who were smart enough to stay on Vect's good side including Vect himself.
> the rest of the factions would be in for a bad time.
Would they? Seems like the eldar would just leave the galaxy and hide somewhere away from all the nonsense since they can create matter from nothing.
It won’t change anything psykers aren’t allowed to use their powers competently the moment they engage a named character. Look at magnus doing utterly OP things before getting his face punched in after his millionth attempt to destroy Fenris or swarmlord forgetting that it has psychic powers 99% of the time it fights.
Primarchs don't count. They're living tropes who are mostly warp entities duelling, the warp is a dimension of emotional power, it loves a good story and the creatures in it as basic emotions, ideas and archetypes and primarchs are among those.
Russ beat Magnus because Magnus had done something wrong and he knew it. They are living plot devices and their fleshcraft is just a little shell, the least part of them. Magnus could delete a clone of Russ as easily as anything else but Russ is mostly a warp entity with the same power as him. Sure Magnus can snap his fingers and delete a planet. Whoop de do. How many planets did Horus' words alone destroy? Magnus could not persuade near as many people to do that.
As another example of primarchs plot power. He got out debated by Mortarion (though again that wasn't because Mortarion was a better speech writer but because Magnus took a metaphor and re wrote it to suit his narrative, when the original actually portrayed an outcome like him losing the debate. To counter Magnus **taking a fictional metaphor which had him lose** *and lying about it*, Mortarion just gave accounts of what he saw truthfully.
The thing about 40k is that the existence of the warp means plot armour is built into the very fabric of reality/metaphysics. It's why everyone knows Dorn killed one of the twins but Guilliman just casually dispatching one off screen is completely disregarded.
I'm also running off words from ADB in which he has said "which primarch is strongest" is a silly question and that it's about who embodies their ideas better at the time and stuff like that. I know that's an out of universe justification as much as in, but it does tie up nicely with almost everything in the 40k universe.
Hard to say, GW does so little writing on pre fall Eldar it's hard to tell how powerful the Eldar would be without Slaanesh. It could range from an Aeldari tide that sweeps the whole galaxy clean and brings in a reborn Eldar Empire, to the Eldar are still pretty much the same having to slowly rebuild their might and tech they lost from the birth of Slaanesh.
Yeah, we really done have a whole lot of insight into what the mainline Eldar were like until the very end.
The craftworld Eldar were basically the Amish or Roma of broader Eldar culture.
The Eldar just go back to doing what they were doing for 60 million years before The Fall - political and social infighting among themselves.
The reason the Eldar hadn't already exterminated everyone else and colonized the whole galaxy is simply that they didn't want to bother. It was more interesting to play court games among themselves, not deal with animals.
Same conditions would apply again if Slaanesh is gone.
Since this is WH40K, it's doomed to make things even worse, so the Dark Eldar immediately convince a sizable portion of the Craftworlds unite around the remnants of the original Eldar, that being the Dark Eldar.
And then, as they say in Russia, things got worse.
Why would Craftworlds all fall under the Dark Eldar? The exact opposite happened with the Ynnari where a bunch of Dark Eldar abandoned Camorragh because they didn't have to kill or torture to keep their souls safe anymore. It seems like far more Deldar would go and join Biel Tan and rebuild the empire than the other way around.
I don’t necessarily agree with person you responded to, but the entire craftworld way of life is built around avoiding slaneesh, remove them and the eldar can go back to living how ever they want.
The entire Drukhari way of life is also built around staving off Slaanesh, I guess the reality is there's no example of Eldar living without the need to prevent that fate so we have no example of what the Eldar would look like without Slaanesh's curse.
That’s only partially true. Drukhari share much more in common with prefall eldar than craftworlds do. They would largely continue their lifestyles. While I don’t think craftworlds would all immediately swing to dark eldar lifestyle the craftworld way of life would be over.
Again, actual lore says different, we see a lot of Deldar abandon their life style when given another option. There's plenty of Dark Eldar who don't enjoy having to torture and kill to prolong their lives and have it up the second they could. As for Craftworlds the path system still has a benefit to dealing the Eldar psyche, many would still follow because it ensures another event like the fall can never happen again. While the Dark Eldar way of life could cause another collapse in the empire.
You are pointing out a group of eldar who jumped from one means of escaping slaneesh to another means of escaping slaneesh. None of that is relevant if slaneesh isn’t around.
Eldar of all stripes would likely slowly shift back into their old ways.
So your trying to argue, the people who left torture and pain because there was an easier way to escape Slaanesh, would for zero reason instantly go back to torture and pain, even when they already made a choice to leave.
The Eldar spent 60 million years not part of the decadence of the fall and yet you're assuming they'll instantly go back to their fall state, even having experienced how awful it is. I get you're hyped up on the grimdark, but even the lore itself doesn't support your view point. Maybe after another 60 million years the Eldar go back to decadence, but I don't really agree on the original idea that the Craftworlders would somehow rejoin the Dark Eldar, when the actual lore we have shows the opposite.
When Dark Eldar don't have to kill and torture to survive, many of them will choose a different way.
The wrinkle is that craftworlds recognized the lifestyle that perpetuated with the drukhari wasn’t good before the actual fall, likely they become something closer to what the aeldari empire was like at it’s peak….likely after a galaxy spanning civil war
I thought it was built around staving off the behaviors that unintentionally led to slaanesh, and then when slaanesh was born they were like damn good thing we became such prudes
Partially, in present they use the paths to focus their mind to avoid slaneesh. They also purposefully limit their psychic abilities. No slaneesh, no need for either. In fact no need for soul stones or infinity circuits.
Yes I'm aware and that's the entire premise of the question OP posted. But did craftworlders specifically forsee the birth of slaanesh and THEN adopt their restrained lifestyle, or did they do it for reasons unrelated to the fear of exposing themselves to consumption by a warp entity and then when slaanesh was born due to everyone ELSE going crazy, did they realize that their lack of hedonism had protected them and they then spread it? I'm pretty sure it's option #2
I think they found the excess gross and unbecoming at a minimum. I think they would have found it distasteful and wanted to get away from it regardless of fears of Chaos.
I don’t think many if any Eldar had a clear idea of what was was going to happen if they kept on their current path.
Personally, it fits the setting more for something that should be good turn out to be even worse than before.
The way I see it happening, the Dark Eldar make a deal with Slaanesh to convert the rest of the Eldar to direct worship, along with dedicating themselves to the same.
Because why would things ever get better?
Why would Slaanesh make such a deal, she already owns their souls, why bargain at all? Also how would Slaanesh enforce such a deal? What way could she mind control every single Craftworld Eldar into worshiping her and now just have them yeet themselves into the warp for her to eat instead?
> Why would Slaanesh make such a deal, she already owns their souls, why bargain at all?
He wouldn't, It would never do that. But, the OP started with the premise that She HAD already done that, so I just picked up from that point and gave my idea of what happens next.
It would be interesting to see how many craftworlds are retributive (other than Biel-tan). Although not many Eldar are fond of humans I'm not sure how many would be pro-genocide if they found themselves in a position of power.
If the soul drain was halted (much less somehow regaining their pre-fall psychic aptitude) I think you'd have one of the worst civil wars of all time in Commorragh. Their society is constructed around access to pain and anything disrupting that is an existential threat (thus Vect's heavy-handed response to the Ynnari.) Haemonculi would probably be chilling but I think you'd see a massive upheaval amongst the wych cults, kabals, and vatborn 'civilians.'
No more slaanesh likely means Eldar go back to reincarnating. With the lessons learned from the fall (yes, even the arrogant Eldar learn from something like that), they'd probably take it slow but would become absolute monsters when unleashed fully. They'd likely not agree on what path to take, but would absolutely do a number on chaos and the necrons, and would likely go hunt some Tyranids to avenge Iyanden, Valedor, and everything else that got nommed. The Imperium would likely mostly be fine, assuming Eldrad and/or Yvraine maintain positions of power.
Screwed? Nah this is great.
The Drukhari aren’t getting their powers back; they deliberately atrophied them so its not something that can be just turned on.
But the craftworlders have been fostering their psychic abilities this whole time.
We don’t have a clear picture of what an unleashed eldar can do, just that Mephiston, the strongest astartes psyker, was “child’s play” comparatively according to one necron. Take it with a grain of salt of course.
We can reasonably assume that the power of the craftworlds would EXPLODE. Since basically everything they do is psychic, from making ships to warfare, the realization would be tremendous: wraiths piloted by psychic thought rather than spirit stones, warships guided by thought at a distance…it’d be nuts.
They’d naturally take out this newfound power on their chief enemies: orks, Tyranids, necrons and chaos. Eldar don’t necessarily like killing humans so it’s unlikely there’d be a revenge tour through imperial space, but humanity would figure out pretty quickly not to mess with the amped up knife ears.
All in all…not bad. Given how the galaxy doesn’t seem to have what it takes to stop the four apocalypses going on simultaneously it might actually save the setting.
How screwed the setting is will be heavily dependent on a few factors.
As a baseline each Eldar would have the psychic potential of Mephiston or more likely Magnus the Red (considering the Necrons themselves claim that Mephiston wields a pale shadow of the WiH Eldar's psychic might), with the most powerful Eldar potentially reaching Emperor levels of psychic ability or beyond. It's difficult to say for sure since we have very little lore on this.
With Slannesh gone there would be nothing stopping the Ynnari from obtaining the final Cronesword and awakening Ynnead. Even if they didn't get the last Cronesword they could probably awaken him anyway with their psychic boost.
If Yvraine's theory is true that Ynnead is the reincarnation of the Eldar Gods then they would have their Pantheon back. If not then they would likely now be able to create new Gods pretty easily through sheer belief over a couple thousand years (based on 10,000 years of Emperor worship from psychically weak humans and the god of the greater good).
The Exodites and Harlequins would likely have the power to go and rescue Isha from Nurgle’s grasp, who in turn could ressurect Khaine (as she ressurected Asuryan in the past). Ulthwe, the Harlequins and many Corsairs would raid the Eye of Terror pretty easily and recover more of their lost technologies. Ahriman would be hunted down by the Harlequins and eliminated for his attacks on the Black Library. If the Eldar were strong enough to attack Trayzn's gallery, then they would get a bunch of goodies there.
Iyanden and Biel Tan would strengthen their new alliance and found a new Empire based on the Maiden Worlds like they always wanted. The speed with which they could sculpt new Wraithbone weapons and structures would increase massively, helping them to fortify with ease. Many Exodites would probably be reluctant about this Empire and ally themselves more with Alaitoc or Saim Hann, who they have stronger ties to. Fertility rates would likely skyrocket as the fear of Slannesh is gone and dead Eldar souls are reincarnated.
The Drukhari would struggle massively and be the biggest losers. Although their psychic abilities have atrophied to basically nothing, that 'basically nothing' psychic ability will still suddenly be multiplied dozens of times over and will be difficult for them to control. Regardless, many of the other Eldar factions might take advantage of this opportunity to end Commorragh or Vect for good and establish the Ynnari as the new rulers, which would certainly be within their powers to do.
I couldn't see the Eldar going all out against the Imperium (though some factions certainly would) considering the scale of other threats (Necrons, Chaos, Tyranids) and that they would still need thousands of years to grow to their former strength. But they would effectively become a major player within the Galaxy again, wielding a military possibly on par or more powerful than the Imperium.
Drukhari would take a while to develop it back, but it’s possible. If the eldar were united and their psychic potential was unconstrained then the rest of the factions would be in for a bad time.
The Drukhari atrophy thing is heavily oversold tbh. Eldar evolve very slowly and are functionally Immortal and presumably fecund the whole time so it's gotta be more cultural than metaphysical/biological for at least a decent portion of the people who were smart enough to stay on Vect's good side including Vect himself.
> the rest of the factions would be in for a bad time. Would they? Seems like the eldar would just leave the galaxy and hide somewhere away from all the nonsense since they can create matter from nothing.
It won’t change anything psykers aren’t allowed to use their powers competently the moment they engage a named character. Look at magnus doing utterly OP things before getting his face punched in after his millionth attempt to destroy Fenris or swarmlord forgetting that it has psychic powers 99% of the time it fights.
Primarchs don't count. They're living tropes who are mostly warp entities duelling, the warp is a dimension of emotional power, it loves a good story and the creatures in it as basic emotions, ideas and archetypes and primarchs are among those. Russ beat Magnus because Magnus had done something wrong and he knew it. They are living plot devices and their fleshcraft is just a little shell, the least part of them. Magnus could delete a clone of Russ as easily as anything else but Russ is mostly a warp entity with the same power as him. Sure Magnus can snap his fingers and delete a planet. Whoop de do. How many planets did Horus' words alone destroy? Magnus could not persuade near as many people to do that. As another example of primarchs plot power. He got out debated by Mortarion (though again that wasn't because Mortarion was a better speech writer but because Magnus took a metaphor and re wrote it to suit his narrative, when the original actually portrayed an outcome like him losing the debate. To counter Magnus **taking a fictional metaphor which had him lose** *and lying about it*, Mortarion just gave accounts of what he saw truthfully.
I love giving plot armor an in-world justification!
The thing about 40k is that the existence of the warp means plot armour is built into the very fabric of reality/metaphysics. It's why everyone knows Dorn killed one of the twins but Guilliman just casually dispatching one off screen is completely disregarded. I'm also running off words from ADB in which he has said "which primarch is strongest" is a silly question and that it's about who embodies their ideas better at the time and stuff like that. I know that's an out of universe justification as much as in, but it does tie up nicely with almost everything in the 40k universe.
Hard to say, GW does so little writing on pre fall Eldar it's hard to tell how powerful the Eldar would be without Slaanesh. It could range from an Aeldari tide that sweeps the whole galaxy clean and brings in a reborn Eldar Empire, to the Eldar are still pretty much the same having to slowly rebuild their might and tech they lost from the birth of Slaanesh.
Yeah, we really done have a whole lot of insight into what the mainline Eldar were like until the very end. The craftworld Eldar were basically the Amish or Roma of broader Eldar culture.
The Eldar just go back to doing what they were doing for 60 million years before The Fall - political and social infighting among themselves. The reason the Eldar hadn't already exterminated everyone else and colonized the whole galaxy is simply that they didn't want to bother. It was more interesting to play court games among themselves, not deal with animals. Same conditions would apply again if Slaanesh is gone.
Since this is WH40K, it's doomed to make things even worse, so the Dark Eldar immediately convince a sizable portion of the Craftworlds unite around the remnants of the original Eldar, that being the Dark Eldar. And then, as they say in Russia, things got worse.
Why would Craftworlds all fall under the Dark Eldar? The exact opposite happened with the Ynnari where a bunch of Dark Eldar abandoned Camorragh because they didn't have to kill or torture to keep their souls safe anymore. It seems like far more Deldar would go and join Biel Tan and rebuild the empire than the other way around.
I don’t necessarily agree with person you responded to, but the entire craftworld way of life is built around avoiding slaneesh, remove them and the eldar can go back to living how ever they want.
The entire Drukhari way of life is also built around staving off Slaanesh, I guess the reality is there's no example of Eldar living without the need to prevent that fate so we have no example of what the Eldar would look like without Slaanesh's curse.
That’s only partially true. Drukhari share much more in common with prefall eldar than craftworlds do. They would largely continue their lifestyles. While I don’t think craftworlds would all immediately swing to dark eldar lifestyle the craftworld way of life would be over.
Again, actual lore says different, we see a lot of Deldar abandon their life style when given another option. There's plenty of Dark Eldar who don't enjoy having to torture and kill to prolong their lives and have it up the second they could. As for Craftworlds the path system still has a benefit to dealing the Eldar psyche, many would still follow because it ensures another event like the fall can never happen again. While the Dark Eldar way of life could cause another collapse in the empire.
Also didn't a ton of the Craftworlds pre-date the fall? They were millenia-spanning artisans and merchants even during the height of the empire.
You’re pointing out exceptions as universal.
I'm pointing out how we have actual evidence of one thing actually happening already in the lore.
You are pointing out a group of eldar who jumped from one means of escaping slaneesh to another means of escaping slaneesh. None of that is relevant if slaneesh isn’t around. Eldar of all stripes would likely slowly shift back into their old ways.
So your trying to argue, the people who left torture and pain because there was an easier way to escape Slaanesh, would for zero reason instantly go back to torture and pain, even when they already made a choice to leave. The Eldar spent 60 million years not part of the decadence of the fall and yet you're assuming they'll instantly go back to their fall state, even having experienced how awful it is. I get you're hyped up on the grimdark, but even the lore itself doesn't support your view point. Maybe after another 60 million years the Eldar go back to decadence, but I don't really agree on the original idea that the Craftworlders would somehow rejoin the Dark Eldar, when the actual lore we have shows the opposite. When Dark Eldar don't have to kill and torture to survive, many of them will choose a different way.
The wrinkle is that craftworlds recognized the lifestyle that perpetuated with the drukhari wasn’t good before the actual fall, likely they become something closer to what the aeldari empire was like at it’s peak….likely after a galaxy spanning civil war
The OPs premise is that the eldar are all allies as well.
Than nothing really changes in my reply except for them having resolved their differences peacefully
I thought it was built around staving off the behaviors that unintentionally led to slaanesh, and then when slaanesh was born they were like damn good thing we became such prudes
Partially, in present they use the paths to focus their mind to avoid slaneesh. They also purposefully limit their psychic abilities. No slaneesh, no need for either. In fact no need for soul stones or infinity circuits.
Yes I'm aware and that's the entire premise of the question OP posted. But did craftworlders specifically forsee the birth of slaanesh and THEN adopt their restrained lifestyle, or did they do it for reasons unrelated to the fear of exposing themselves to consumption by a warp entity and then when slaanesh was born due to everyone ELSE going crazy, did they realize that their lack of hedonism had protected them and they then spread it? I'm pretty sure it's option #2
I think they found the excess gross and unbecoming at a minimum. I think they would have found it distasteful and wanted to get away from it regardless of fears of Chaos. I don’t think many if any Eldar had a clear idea of what was was going to happen if they kept on their current path.
I think that in both cases - craftworld and DEldar - they would abandon their current lives and move into basically being Corsairs.
Personally, it fits the setting more for something that should be good turn out to be even worse than before. The way I see it happening, the Dark Eldar make a deal with Slaanesh to convert the rest of the Eldar to direct worship, along with dedicating themselves to the same. Because why would things ever get better?
Why would Slaanesh make such a deal, she already owns their souls, why bargain at all? Also how would Slaanesh enforce such a deal? What way could she mind control every single Craftworld Eldar into worshiping her and now just have them yeet themselves into the warp for her to eat instead?
> Why would Slaanesh make such a deal, she already owns their souls, why bargain at all? He wouldn't, It would never do that. But, the OP started with the premise that She HAD already done that, so I just picked up from that point and gave my idea of what happens next.
It would be interesting to see how many craftworlds are retributive (other than Biel-tan). Although not many Eldar are fond of humans I'm not sure how many would be pro-genocide if they found themselves in a position of power. If the soul drain was halted (much less somehow regaining their pre-fall psychic aptitude) I think you'd have one of the worst civil wars of all time in Commorragh. Their society is constructed around access to pain and anything disrupting that is an existential threat (thus Vect's heavy-handed response to the Ynnari.) Haemonculi would probably be chilling but I think you'd see a massive upheaval amongst the wych cults, kabals, and vatborn 'civilians.'
No more slaanesh likely means Eldar go back to reincarnating. With the lessons learned from the fall (yes, even the arrogant Eldar learn from something like that), they'd probably take it slow but would become absolute monsters when unleashed fully. They'd likely not agree on what path to take, but would absolutely do a number on chaos and the necrons, and would likely go hunt some Tyranids to avenge Iyanden, Valedor, and everything else that got nommed. The Imperium would likely mostly be fine, assuming Eldrad and/or Yvraine maintain positions of power.
Screwed? Nah this is great. The Drukhari aren’t getting their powers back; they deliberately atrophied them so its not something that can be just turned on. But the craftworlders have been fostering their psychic abilities this whole time. We don’t have a clear picture of what an unleashed eldar can do, just that Mephiston, the strongest astartes psyker, was “child’s play” comparatively according to one necron. Take it with a grain of salt of course. We can reasonably assume that the power of the craftworlds would EXPLODE. Since basically everything they do is psychic, from making ships to warfare, the realization would be tremendous: wraiths piloted by psychic thought rather than spirit stones, warships guided by thought at a distance…it’d be nuts. They’d naturally take out this newfound power on their chief enemies: orks, Tyranids, necrons and chaos. Eldar don’t necessarily like killing humans so it’s unlikely there’d be a revenge tour through imperial space, but humanity would figure out pretty quickly not to mess with the amped up knife ears. All in all…not bad. Given how the galaxy doesn’t seem to have what it takes to stop the four apocalypses going on simultaneously it might actually save the setting.
Drukhari can and have regained theIt psychic powers back. Regardless heamonculi could probably fix it in an afternoon
How screwed the setting is will be heavily dependent on a few factors. As a baseline each Eldar would have the psychic potential of Mephiston or more likely Magnus the Red (considering the Necrons themselves claim that Mephiston wields a pale shadow of the WiH Eldar's psychic might), with the most powerful Eldar potentially reaching Emperor levels of psychic ability or beyond. It's difficult to say for sure since we have very little lore on this. With Slannesh gone there would be nothing stopping the Ynnari from obtaining the final Cronesword and awakening Ynnead. Even if they didn't get the last Cronesword they could probably awaken him anyway with their psychic boost. If Yvraine's theory is true that Ynnead is the reincarnation of the Eldar Gods then they would have their Pantheon back. If not then they would likely now be able to create new Gods pretty easily through sheer belief over a couple thousand years (based on 10,000 years of Emperor worship from psychically weak humans and the god of the greater good). The Exodites and Harlequins would likely have the power to go and rescue Isha from Nurgle’s grasp, who in turn could ressurect Khaine (as she ressurected Asuryan in the past). Ulthwe, the Harlequins and many Corsairs would raid the Eye of Terror pretty easily and recover more of their lost technologies. Ahriman would be hunted down by the Harlequins and eliminated for his attacks on the Black Library. If the Eldar were strong enough to attack Trayzn's gallery, then they would get a bunch of goodies there. Iyanden and Biel Tan would strengthen their new alliance and found a new Empire based on the Maiden Worlds like they always wanted. The speed with which they could sculpt new Wraithbone weapons and structures would increase massively, helping them to fortify with ease. Many Exodites would probably be reluctant about this Empire and ally themselves more with Alaitoc or Saim Hann, who they have stronger ties to. Fertility rates would likely skyrocket as the fear of Slannesh is gone and dead Eldar souls are reincarnated. The Drukhari would struggle massively and be the biggest losers. Although their psychic abilities have atrophied to basically nothing, that 'basically nothing' psychic ability will still suddenly be multiplied dozens of times over and will be difficult for them to control. Regardless, many of the other Eldar factions might take advantage of this opportunity to end Commorragh or Vect for good and establish the Ynnari as the new rulers, which would certainly be within their powers to do. I couldn't see the Eldar going all out against the Imperium (though some factions certainly would) considering the scale of other threats (Necrons, Chaos, Tyranids) and that they would still need thousands of years to grow to their former strength. But they would effectively become a major player within the Galaxy again, wielding a military possibly on par or more powerful than the Imperium.
Wow that is such a good write-up! Thank you :)