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Hi all I was just thinking of something is it possible for DE to actually be growing in number and even have more then one dark city? Unlike their craftworld kin they don't have self imposed restrictions and I doubt they would all stay in the same city. Maybe DE are spreading in the webway since no one can even attack them? Is there any background info to back this up?

The Dark Eldar are a bunch of backstabbing sadists. They are so paranoid that i highly doubt that they would breed a lot.(When you are pregnant you are vulnerable and easily killed)

Many of their population are also killed every day in the struggle for power and influence.

TechnoSymphony wrote:The Dark Eldar are a bunch of backstabbing sadists. They are so paranoid that i highly doubt that they would breed a lot.(When you are pregnant you are vulnerable and easily killed)

Many of their population are also killed every day in the struggle for power and influence.

Well the problem with that is if all DE did was killed each other and never breed they couldn't have a society they need to have some kind of order which I believe the kabals serve as. I suspect whenever a DE becomes pregnant whatever kabal she is in would keep her safe to not only increase their own numbers but also say look at me I can defend my members while keeping hold of my territory!

While I doubt many women choose to get pregnant in DE society, I image many are forced to. Not to mention Heamonculi love making things in the lab, I wouldn't doubt if they ended up making most rank and file warriors.

They may not be growing but it seems the number of people playing em is. I'm playing as we speak and here at the local tournie there are 3 new players!

I think you guys are sorta missing the idea. They primarily worship Slannesh, the god of extacy (sp?), so my assumption was they were always getting down w the pain induced kinky stuff and little evil babies are popping up all over the place. On the other hand, there IS a lot of killing between high class Dark Eldar too, so no-one stays in power long. There has never been a point that I have heard of that the Dark Eldar have massed a great army, they just fly around like space pirates in relatively small numbers. I say their population is stable, but they don't have a very large space in the universe to call theirs, and they will likely never unite in the name of chaos. Too self interested.

Where is this crazy misconception that Dark Eldar worship Slaanesh coming from????

Do you know the fluff about The Fall? How the Eldar population as a whole CREATED Slaanesh, and as a result of that the majority of the Eldar were wiped out as Slaanesh ate the souls of Eldar from lightyears around.

Slaanesh still sips on the souls of all Eldar everywhere. Craftworlders use soul stones to mitigate this.
Harlequins do some harlequin stuff to protect them.
Dark Eldar are slowly been drained (living in the webway may mitigate this somewhat), which is why they eat souls to survive.

Now tell me... WHY would someone worship someone that considers you a tasty snack?

When the only law is violence I guarantee babies are being made.

kuro_khan wrote:Where is this crazy misconception that Dark Eldar worship Slaanesh coming from????

Do you know the fluff about The Fall? How the Eldar population as a whole CREATED Slaanesh, and as a result of that the majority of the Eldar were wiped out as Slaanesh ate the souls of Eldar from lightyears around.

Slaanesh still sips on the souls of all Eldar everywhere. Craftworlders use soul stones to mitigate this.
Harlequins do some harlequin stuff to protect them.
Dark Eldar are slowly been drained (living in the webway may mitigate this somewhat), which is why they eat souls to survive.

Now tell me... WHY would someone worship someone that considers you a tasty snack?

It is very clearly evident that the Dark Eldar are overcome by the Chaos God's Seduction. Slannesh is the god that they have the most influence from so it is clearly the god that took them over. The dark eldar are not simply evil eldar, they are possessed like the chaos space marines, but their influence come's from that god they created. Ok maybe they don't directly worship it with statues and such, but Slannesh is evident in their powers and mutations.

Totally OT, but I love your sig TechnoSymphony ^^

While DE are pleasure seekers etc they do not worship Slaanesh or any of the other chaos gods there is no on they hate more then chaos. Anyway does anyone have the planet strike book? Heard it had some interesting fluff for DE and Eldar.

If you look at the new big map in the BRB you can see that the Dark Eldar are actually increasing their holdings, and expanding beyond Corrmoragh(sp?). While they in no way worship slaanesh the very activities that created the Chaos God of Pleasure are most likely still going on (humping like sadistic bunnies).

The fact that Dark Eldar society is so deadly and yet they are expanding tells me that they do not have any of the population issues that the craftworld eldar do.

And also, beings don't typically worship their offspring. And that's what Slaanesh is, the offspring of the Eldar.

I honestly picture Commorgh as a really sci-fi San andreas. So babies imo would be easy to make.

I'd think that it would actually be rather safe to reproduce, because the kabal would protect the parents and the young, and likely raise them if both parents died. Not out of compassion or a sense of duty, however, but because the larger and stronger the kabal, the greater their power and ability to both defend themselves against their rivals and capture slaves for themselves.

A kabal that is torn apart by infighting and weakens its own members is going to be easy picking for more powerful groups. A case of safety in numbers. There may be political backstabbing and subtle manipulations within, but if they want to survive the circling vultures they'd better put on a united front to outsiders.

Guys guys... we need a Dark Eldar fluff expert here. I'm not one but I'll try.

DARK Eldar are not Chaos/Evil Satan worship Eldar. Just because "Dark" is in their name does not mean they worship chaos at all.

View it like this: regular Eldar and Dark Eldar are basically the same race with the same emotions same motives, DE just slightly more twisted (but still not truly evil) but Dark Eldar just choose to survive in different ways than regular Eldar. Yes, "Dark Eldar" are only bad because they need to do bad stuff to SURVIVE.

Regular Eldar use spirtstones to save their souls from Slaanesh Dark Eldar need to capture slaves and torture them so Slaanesh eats their souls instead of theirs because they don't have spirit stones.

Dark Eldar are completely different from Chaos Space Marines whose entire body and mind is given up to the Chaos Daemons and Lords. Dark Eldar hate Chaos and are just surviving. Also regular Eldar can be just as "dark" or darker because they have their own pirate fleets like Yriels that rape, kill, and pillage across the galaxy sacking probably more imperial worlds than the Dark Eldar do.

If Dark Eldar and Eldar randomly ran into each other, they would probably shrug and go their separate ways. They are both part of the same dying race just using different ways to not get their souls eaten.

As for DE having kids, I think nomadic cultures in general can only maintain a stable population. For populations to really shoot up they need to settle down and farm instead of being hunter gatherers.

Btw just as a side reference, Eldar and Humans are very similar and they could mate. Whether there are any half-Eldar humans out there I don't know. Think of Spock from Star Trek. Of course, this kids are probably discriminated against hugely or outright killed on birth by Eldar or the Inquisition as an abomination considering our own earth's history towards half-breeds. (Even You guys were probably racist towards a half-half kid in your life at least once like half-asian half white or half black, etc) Really terrible.

Can a DE get a human, or xenos pregnant?

DE and Eldar are the same people dude.

and no only humans and Eldar can mate because they are so similar genetically but like I said the inquisition would come knocking on your door like the gestapo to purify sub-human Xenos tainted babies like that.

No eldar would mate with a human. Humans are akin to cattle to them.

Actually kuro_khan, there are instances in the fluff of human/Eldar hybrids existing, probably with willing parents. They would most likely be the children of Imperial Guard deserters and sympathetic Eldar.

Really.. wow. What book?

According to the Xenology book, the eldar do not reproduce in the same way humans do. With humans, the male impregnates the female, and then his job is over; the young will develop just fine. In eldar, the fetus grows in stages, with regular additions of the male's genetic material. I think they also stated that the gestation of eldar is significantly longer than in humans. I'll check later, I don't have the book handy.

Both these points would prevent eldar and humans interbreeding. I doubt it would prevent them from copulating, however.

To the average imperial citizen, possibly the average imperial guardsman or even space marine, there is little or no difference between the craftworld eldar and the dark eldar. One group wears bright colored armor and the other dark. Only those worlds who trade illegally with the craftworlds, or military forces who have clashed or cooperated repeatedly with either of the eldar forces, (because the imperials often consider orks, tyranids or chaos the bigger threat, eldar tend to leave,) Have any concept of the division.

except of course for the inquisition, bt they keep what they know to themselves.

Dark Eldar are Eldar that escaped the fall via the webway. The way the fluff is written is that they are living in the webway to AVOID Slaanesh taking their souls.

They are the remains of the pleasure cults, raiding and capturing slaves for fun. Imagine all the people who would riot, rape and murder if they knew the world was going to end. To the Dark Eldar, the world aready has ended, and taking a soul is like a drug to them.

Read this from the old GW site:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070625142224/us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/darkeldar/extras/torturerstale/default.htm

Dark Eldar don't worship Slaanesh, they worship Khaine. Read the planetstrike book. Slaanesh is constantly consuming the souls of ALL eldar, the Craftworlders use spirit stones to avoid this, and the Dark Eldar have to consume the souls of others to replenish their own souls. Dark Eldar hate slaanesh and do what they do to avoid their souls being trapped with Slaanesh. They know that if they die they will go to slaaneshi chaos hell, so most of them just plan to live forever.

Guys guys... we need a Dark Eldar fluff expert here. I'm not one but I'll try.

Did someone ring?

Yes, the Dark Eldar population does appear to be rising according to the fluff. Where we initially only had Commorragh established in the webway, the more recent fluff in the Eldar codex refers to a multitude of cities. If there are a multitude of cities where there was previously only one, this means the population is rising. Simple. And before anyone claims that there could have been multiple cities all along, there wouldn't have been. How do I know? Because in a Dark Eldar article in an old white dwarf, you had vect telling a story detailing how the Dark Eldar had escaped The Fall, and he refers only to Commorragh being built in the beginning, not multiple cities. Ergo, between the Dark Eldar establishing themselves in the Webway, and current day events in 40K, the Dark Eldar population has exploded.

And no, Dark Eldar do not worship Slaanesh. They drink the souls of other beings in order to prolong their own lives and shore up their own souls so that Slaanesh cannot take them. However, liek an addiction, the more souls they drink, the more they crave. A soul that has been tortured tastes different, and that's the role of the Haemonculi. They are effectively cocktail makers for the Archons.

From the fluff, it seems fairly obvious what the DE motivations are. Due to Eldar society's arrogance and sensual excesses, the fall came about. Craftworld Eldar tried to learn from this and change the way they lived, while the Dark Eldar hid from Slaanesh and continued living with the same worldview of Eldar life. The only difference is, with the breakdown of Eldar society, violence increased a great deal as factions vie for power.

That, and something along the lines of capturing souls for slaanesh to slake her thirst so she won't hunt the DE instead.

kuro_khan wrote:No eldar would mate with a human. Humans are akin to cattle to them.

DE are supposedly devient enough to do everything, through for self-preservation reasons they make it a point that no one else knows about it. It does make one wonder what and how they do it with capture slaves who're really not biologically compatible like greenskins and nids.

Now tell me... WHY would someone worship someone that considers you a tasty snack?

Oh there are plenty of cults worshipping gods that demand their sacrefice.

Even the eldar themselves worship that genocidal, kin-killing maniac khaine.

Rubberanvil wrote:

kuro_khan wrote:No eldar would mate with a human. Humans are akin to cattle to them.

DE are supposedly devient enough to do everything, through for self-preservation reasons they make it a point that no one else knows about it. It does make one wonder what and how they do it with capture slaves who're really not biologically compatible like greenskins and nids.

Well, one could point out the difference between 'mating for the purpose of having children' and 'sex for the purpose of [insert x here]'.

No eldar can mate with humans. If their biology is like ours, the second only requires finding or cutting a suitable hole. And the desire to actually do it, of course...