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I like to imagine it's like a greater demon: while the craftworld is at war the avatar is active. It is awoken by the eldar's lust for destruction and remains awake untill the craftworld is sated or destroyed. I always imagin the differenc between Khaine and Khorne as Khaine= destruction whereas Khorne= rage and bloodshed.


Also some suggestions sound a littlle more grimderp then dark. not everything has to be as edgy and emo as possible.

Tough I remeber a stry where a craftowrld host was defeated by orks the avatar left behind defeated the warboss and became the warboss now leading the orcs in WAAAgh.

Frazzled, you want to dig out WD 127 or the Warhammer 40,000 Compilation, if you can. The Young King is an Exarch who is chosen to be the sacrifice to awaken the Avatar. In the story in that WD, the Young King is indeed a "rookie" Exarch - obviously a veteran warrior, but only newly made an Exarch (earlier in the story, his friend/lover argues with him, trying to prevent him from becoming an Exarch), but it's not clear if that's always the case, or just in this instance.

The Lexicanum article cites an OOP Apocalypse datasheet and says it's a position specific to Biel-Tan, but I'm not sure about that. The "Court of the Young King" formation (i.e the Avatar and a retinue of Exarchs) is a Biel-Tan specialty.

Early Eldar background has fairly heavy celtic* inflluences (such as the names of the craftworlds Biel-tan and Saim-Hann), and the sacrifice of the Young King hints back to the idea of the sacrificial king (as does Terry Pratchett's Hogfather).

* Some form of European pre-Roman, pre-Christian society, anyway.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Frazzled, you want to dig out WD 127 or the Warhammer 40,000 Compilation, if you can. The Young King is an Exarch who is chosen to be the sacrifice to awaken the Avatar. In the story in that WD, the Young King is indeed a "rookie" Exarch - obviously a veteran warrior, but only newly made an Exarch (earlier in the story, his friend/lover argues with him, trying to prevent him from becoming an Exarch), but it's not clear if that's always the case, or just in this instance.

The Lexicanum article cites an OOP Apocalypse datasheet and says it's a position specific to Biel-Tan, but I'm not sure about that. The "Court of the Young King" formation (i.e the Avatar and a retinue of Exarchs) is a Biel-Tan specialty.

Early Eldar background has fairly heavy celtic* inflluences (such as the names of the craftworlds Biel-tan and Saim-Hann), and the sacrifice of the Young King hints back to the idea of the sacrificial king (as does Terry Pratchett's Hogfather).

* Some form of European pre-Roman, pre-Christian society, anyway.

Thanks Andrew!

Earth127 wrote:
I like to imagine it's like a greater demon: while the craftworld is at war the avatar is active. It is awoken by the eldar's lust for destruction and remains awake untill the craftworld is sated or destroyed.

Last I heard if you manage to summon a greater daemon just by being angry and then it goes away without any repercussions when you stop being angry you've got off comically lightly based on the depiction of 40k's daemonic entities.

Nah, it's going to be far more 'edgy' than that, as you put it. The 40k galaxy is a truly horrible place by its very nature. No-one gets off that lightly.

Also, I'd like to make a clarification about the term 'grimderp' as I find it gets misused a fair amount. It doesn't mean 'edgier than I'm happy with'. It's specifically for writing that depicts something that is so over-the-top dark that there is no explanation for what's going on other than the fact that the people who are perpetuating it are mind-numbingly stupid. It's a product of someone thinking 'what can I make x character do that would make the world they live in appear worse' ignoring whether what that character does fits with anything even borderline rational for their in-universe thinking, rather than 'what would x character do in this awful situation, given their sh*tty cultural and personal experience'.

So when I was thinking up the ideas of how Avatars could function, I wasn't thinking 'what would be the edgiest thing I could think of'. I was thinking 'this universe is severely messed up already, what would make sense in that context for a greater daemon of murder and destruction that we know requires a blood sacrifice'.

In that context, realistically I don't imagine it's going to be particularly pleasant...