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Well, I just found something on Lexicanum that may make me look like a total idiot

"They [the Craftworlds] are now approximately 10 to 100 times bigger in volume than they were before the Fall. Thus Craftworlds are effectively worlds in space, each a self-contained biosystem, with forested and natural areas as well as urbanised ones. These natural areas provide a breathable atmosphere to the Craftworld and renewable resources"

However, that bit has not been cited - for all we know some fantasist put it there

I would still say that they are much smaller than planets, because as discussed before, travel for them through the Webway would be so difficult at that size that they would never get anywhere.

So you could be right, or you could be wrong; I guess this is proving the point that the Eldar are meant to be an enigmatic and mysterious race to humans

G.A

EDIT: A bit that I found that is cited though - "Vast space docks located outside the Craftworld house fleets of spacecraft. These fleets are capable of travelling through Warp tunnels, allowing Eldar of the relatively slow-moving Craftworld to bring their forces to areas of the galaxy thousands of light years distant". This could indicate that the Craftworlds are indeed too large to travel and thus rely on their fleets to spread their influence

Craftworlds travel through realspace almost if not entirely exclusively.

Given that they started as trader vessels, and at that time were already too big for warp travel, we can safely say that they started out bigger than the biggest thing the IOM has ever slapped a warp engine on.

So, it's at least as big as the Ark Mechanicus. Plus 10,000 years of growth/destruction.

EDIT: Forgot about that fleet part.

What's the biggest eldar battleship?

 Selym wrote:


EDIT: Forgot about that fleet part.

What's the biggest eldar battleship?

The Void Stalker is their biggest and only Battleship Class vessel, armed to the teeth with Pulsar Lances, Shuriken Batteries and bomber and fighter Launch Bays, not to mention their cloaking fields that give them their name.

Yes, they're proper nasty still no actual size (unless it's in the BFG rulebook, which sadly I don't have)

EDIT: Found my online copy of BFG, no Battleship sizes on there. Sorry for all these edits!

 General Annoyance wrote:
Nope, nowhere near 1,000KM

A Craftworld is most certainly bigger than the biggest Battleships in the galaxy, such as the Apocalypse Class Battleship (around 12KM long), and while it has space for "hundreds of Eldar families" and enough room for training grounds for Aspects like the Crimson Hunters, I would say that 1,000KM is way too large. I would hinge on around 60-70KM, with the larger ones being around 100.

This is difficult to estimate as there has never been any indication of the size of a Craftworld, only that they outclass Battleships, Space Hulks and Space Stations.

That being said, however, Craftworld's grow as more Wraithbone is shaped by the Bonesingers on board to accommodate new Eldar or to build new facilities, so length differences between the last Craftworlds could be pretty dramatic.

G.A

Remember also that to maintain the lonely, mopey, dying race aesthetic, the ratio of empty space to Eldar will be HUGE.
Massive gardens, open plazas and arching walkways etc where you can wander and not meet another Eldar, then shed a single tear as you recall all your dead mates.

If this image is right, Craftworlds may be scarily big:

Yup, those lengths check out more or less. Never thought of it that way, since almost everything in 40k is oversized

I could easily see a Craftworld being up to 100km in length. Before the war with Hive Fleet Kraken, Iyanden was described as being the most populous of the Craftworlds with 10 million people living there. Thats more than London and the Eldar do like their open spaces making for a large planetoid ship, especially when you factor in berthing for a sizable war fleet and all the berths needed for the merchant and civilian vessels that would be traveling to and from the Craftworld.

Pretty sure Iyanden had billions not millions.

a thousand million Eldar on one Craftworld?

Extinct race? Nope, no idea what you're talking about

To be fair having a few billion per Craftworld when you used to rule most of the Galaxy, have numerous settlements in the Webway and have the old Craftworlders on top of that would make you a dying race.

I guess proportionally you're correct. Still, that's way more Eldar than I ever thought!

I thought some craftworlds were described to have a small continent in them basically. With wilderness, and even tiny seas. Fighting was described on a large scale of ships IN the craftworld and troops on the ground.


*&^% I wish I did not sell all my fluffy things years ago! Quotes would really help.

 General Annoyance wrote:
I guess proportionally you're correct. Still, that's way more Eldar than I ever thought!

Yeah, humanity has hit the quadrillions within 40,000 years (the latter 10-ish-thousand being in full scale war). 65 million years of Eldar is liable to provide quintillions at their height.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Text related for how I would imagine a craftworld:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/697040.page

It covers a Space Marine wandering through a Craftworld's biodome.

Pancake5765 wrote:

*&^% I wish I did not sell all my fluffy things years ago! Quotes would really help.

I use Lexicanum for all my fluff stuff; if it ain't cited there, then it hasn't been officially written!

Selym wrote:Yeah, humanity has hit the quadrillions within 40,000 years (the latter 10-ish-thousand being in full scale war). 65 million years of Eldar is liable to provide quintillions at their height.

Perhaps so, but we should keep in mind that at least 80 or 90% even of the Eldar died in the fall, and their reproduction cycle is painfully slow; I think Angel is probably right in saying that, though these Craftworlds could be massive, they're comprised of empty corridors, plazas and other living space - a timeless reminder that the Eldar race is a shadow of what it once was

Oh almost certainly, but 1% of one qunitillion is 10 quadrillion.

If we reduce that further, by another 99%, that's still 100 trillion Eldar.

It would, therefore, not be entirely unreasonable to suggest that a modern Craftworld is designed to accommodate a couple hundred million.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Going by a simple estimation of basic living quarters:

http://www.alysion.org/acres/space.html claims:

"Federal guidelines for fallout shelters specify a minimum of 10 sq. ft. (1 m2) per person. However, one designer of fallout shelters for the wealthy argues that nothing less than 1400 sq. ft. (130 m2) should be considered to meet the needs of one couple for a few weeks."

So 200-13000 million square meters are required for mere standing space for such a population. This would therefore be iterated many many times over for various facilities, living quarters, docking bays, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
However, all this does is estimate floor space.
It does not give us too much in the way of actual information, as we'd need to understand the layout of a craftworld.

What this does say, however, is that these things are bloody massive.

Massive they are indeed

We're not even taking into account how many Eldar will live aboard the Craftworld's fleet, as I assume plenty will much like sailors in our world living aboard ships that they work on, even when they are at port

Fact of the matter is, very few humans have ever seen a Craftworld; fewer still have been on board one, and I'm pretty sure none of them have travelled the breadth of one to be able to accurately document their size and composition

Craftworlds can be scanned from long distances, but you'd need a full encirclement to get the full picture.

I doubt you could scan a Craftworld considering how advanced Eldar technology is.

I seem to remember a quote someone gave somewhere from a space marines perspective about the external size of craftworld Ulthwe. I seem to remember the marine commenting something about a red giant and the other realizing that its actually Ulthwe. I honestly don't remember if this is fan fiction or actual statement from a book. I think it was one of the Dawn of War books.

If it was written by Goto, its not canon.

I recall reading somewhere the first Craftworlds were in fact Eldar Merchant Generational ships reconverted (a Generational ship it's a ship meant to maintain a living ecosystem within and allow the 3rd 4th or whatever generation it's living on to the intended destiny instead the original tripulation) used for long travel across non webway areas where the 300-500 years of travel would mean very little to the inmortal Eldar.

Exactly. Though, Eldar aren't immortal in current fluff.

But when you can live ten thousand years you drop a century or few once in a while.

Yeah - better eat your greens or you won't see your 3000th birthday

And speaking of Eldar populations, would they ever have civil unrest?

Do they have non-military leaders?

Do they riot?

So many questions.

 Selym wrote:
And speaking of Eldar populations, would they ever have civil unrest?

Do they have non-military leaders?

Do they riot?

So many questions.

1. Depends how you define unrest. They certainly have people who'll tell a leader they suck to their face.
2. Literally every Farseer.
3. I don't know. I would have thought they don't let things get that far.

Would Eldar ever need police, and do they ever have criminal populations (aside from DE)?

Don't see why they'd have police as there doesn't seem to be any crime. There doesn't seem to be a reason for any.

Yeah, I didn't think it would fit the personality of the Eldar.