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can Dark Eldar die? I mean, when they die, their mates just take all the icky parts with them to a haemonculi who regenerates them.

Archon Tobias wrote:can Dark Eldar die? I mean, when they die, their mates just take all the icky parts with them to a haemonculi who regenerates them.

. Ok man I'm going to assume you lack some common since , I'f it bleeds you can kill it, dark eldae are tough sons of births but they still die , if your entire torso is burnt away by a plasma charge you won't regen from that

Kasrkin229 wrote:

Archon Tobias wrote:can Dark Eldar die? I mean, when they die, their mates just take all the icky parts with them to a haemonculi who regenerates them.

. Ok man I'm going to assume you lack some common since , I'f it bleeds you can kill it, dark eldae are tough sons of births but they still die , if your entire torso is burnt away by a plasma charge you won't regen from that

I think hes referring to the Dark Eldar that are cloned kinda, I'm not to sure on Dark Eldar fluff.

In that case , clones as the are cloned have the same health defects if their previous selfs , once you clone something to much it becomes an automation unable to think for itself , over time you would have frail mindless drones, the dark eldae suffer from the same thing as eldae , very small numbers , everyone ignores them

Kasrkin229 wrote:In that case , clones as the are cloned have the same health defects if their previous selfs , once you clone something to much it becomes an automation unable to think for itself , over time you would have frail mindless drones, the dark eldae suffer from the same thing as eldae , very small numbers , everyone ignores them

Clearly you have no idea what Dark Eldar fluff is.

To answer the OP:

Dark Eldar can die

BUT if they have made a deal with the Haemonculi, and enough of them is brought back to the Haemonculi fast enough, they can be re-grown.

They are not clones. They are the same guy, just regrown.

curran12 wrote:

Kasrkin229 wrote:In that case , clones as the are cloned have the same health defects if their previous selfs , once you clone something to much it becomes an automation unable to think for itself , over time you would have frail mindless drones, the dark eldae suffer from the same thing as eldae , very small numbers , everyone ignores them

. My apologies I was running off of modern cloning problems

Clearly you have no idea what Dark Eldar fluff is.

To answer the OP:

Dark Eldar can die

BUT if they have made a deal with the Haemonculi, and enough of them is brought back to the Haemonculi fast enough, they can be re-grown.

They are not clones. They are the same guy, just regrown.

. And that as well thy are not invincible closest thing to that is Necrona ( Guard Rules!!!!!!!)

They aren't always re-grown, but they generally are.

So no, they're not invincible. Especially if they've ticked off the Haemonculi covens.

But yeah, Archons are generally hard to kill, since they almost always ensure they've got someone to bring their parts back.

Slightly harder question, but in a similar vein.
Slanesh has dominion over all eldar souls. (with the exclusion of the small group who fled eldar space long before the fall)

With that in mind, and given that Slanesh continually drains the souls of the dark eldar, wouldn't the remains of their soul be taken by Slanesh on death? (death being blown to pieces on a raid before being dragged messily to a Homunculi coven.)

The reason the dark eldar do what they do is because of this constant soul drain of Slanesh and it is also why they hide from she who thirsts in the webway. They offer the souls and torment of their victims to Slanesh in exchange for their souls. Hence their near immortality. Further Slanesh blesses them with greater vigor and life because she knows that while things continue like this she will be receiving even more tribute than just the dark eldar souls, and that no matter how long they manage to pull this off, their souls will eventually be hers.

Given that they have this unofficial deal with Slanesh, would a dark eldar be able to be reincarnated? As in, provide sufficient tribute for Slanesh to actually give a completely consumed soul back? Is this technically what the Hommunculi do?

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:Slightly harder question, but in a similar vein.
Slanesh has dominion over all eldar souls. (with the exclusion of the small group who fled eldar space long before the fall)

With that in mind, and given that Slanesh continually drains the souls of the dark eldar, wouldn't the remains of their soul be taken by Slanesh on death? (death being blown to pieces on a raid before being dragged messily to a Homunculi coven.)

Good question. I'm not entirely sure, honestly...

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:The reason the dark eldar do what they do is because of this constant soul drain of Slanesh and it is also why they hide from she who thirsts in the webway. They offer the souls and torment of their victims to Slanesh in exchange for their souls. Hence their near immortality. Further Slanesh blesses them with greater vigor and life because she knows that while things continue like this she will be receiving even more tribute than just the dark eldar souls, and that no matter how long they manage to pull this off, their souls will eventually be hers.

The Dark Eldar use the souls of others to keep themselves alive, not to offer them to Slaanesh. Slaanesh is constantly draining the souls of the Dark Eldar, and to keep themselves alive they use torture and agony. Page 7 of the Dark Eldar codex.

I doubt it, that's just not how the chaos gods do business. Maybe on particularly foul Archon could weasel his way in to a Daemonhood... but you'd have to go from the DE's current "Please don't hurt me" set up which strikes me almost like paying protection money to the mob, to open worship of Slanesh. It's all about mind set imho when it comes to working with the dark powers and the DE/Eldar fear Slanesh so even their tribute isn't the right "road" or path... flavor maybe? To be counted amongst Slanesh's faithful and potentially get nominated for a Daemonhood. To do that you must serve and embrace the god's will. Where the DE are desperately doing everything possible to avoid him.

they get constantly drained away buy slanesh (she who hungers - to them) and to keep themselves alive, they witness acts of depravity. so slaughter, murder, rape, torture and so keeps them going. the oldest and more powerful DE need more and more to keep them "young" since its like heroin. gotta have more and more just to be normal. if they ever to fail i think slanesh does get them, since they find the idea of soulstones repulsive.

Just a couple of points:

- Only the richest or most influential of DE can afford to have a Haemonculi Coven bring them back to life. They can use as little as a finger and often remove these at the point that a bargain is made to ensure they're not killed before they can get something to them

- On the above point, the codex itself says (somewhere) that the budding Archon removes a finger before a raid to be given to the Haemonculi (rough wording, you get the gyst), though that'd mean they'd have to be able to regenerate their own cells and literally grow one back without the aid of a coven, otherwise they'd simply run out of fingers after 8 raids!

- Second point on the first post; DE would not trust other DE to ensure they were brought back to life. Commorragh is a meritocrasy, meaning only the strongest survive, and many DE would be only too happy to have the competition removed, even from within their own Kabal. Even the Haemy Covens are kept in line with threats and bribes. The only loyal part of the DE culture is the Incubi shrines - they don't betray their masters and protect them to the end.

- On the reincarnation by Slaanesh thing, no I don't think that'd work. Slaanesh wants the Eldar, more than most other races, if she gets 'em, she'll keep 'em, there are plenty of other races out there to offer patronage to! That being said, just because it hasn't reportedly happened doesn't mean it can't, though I'd expect nerd rage if I wrote it into an army list or something. With the DE, it's like Slaanesh is drinking out of a glass while the DE furiously fight to keep it full - the glass representing their souls. They can manage it but it gets harder as time goes on, as they need more and more acts of depravity to "keep them interested". One thing I would love to hear is of an Archon being so old that the only final depraved act is to face off against Slaanesh - that'd be bawse!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ps - answer to original question; yes, DE can die.

The standard Kabalite Warrior and Wych is vat grown, and easily replaced. The Trueborn and Bloodbrides however are born through more natural means, and may have sufficient wealth to ensure some form of health insurance. The rest though? Not likely!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Path of the Renegade is an AWESOME book, for fluffy reasons but also just as a book - it's got everything you could want. Highly recommend it to help reinforce some of the points here

http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/path-of-the-renegade.html

KalashnikovMarine wrote:I doubt it, that's just not how the chaos gods do business. Maybe on particularly foul Archon could weasel his way in to a Daemonhood... but you'd have to go from the DE's current "Please don't hurt me" set up which strikes me almost like paying protection money to the mob, to open worship of Slanesh. It's all about mind set imho when it comes to working with the dark powers and the DE/Eldar fear Slanesh so even their tribute isn't the right "road" or path... flavor maybe? To be counted amongst Slanesh's faithful and potentially get nominated for a Daemonhood. To do that you must serve and embrace the god's will. Where the DE are desperately doing everything possible to avoid him.

I was not referring to Slanesh worship. The Dark Eldar scoff at the idea that Slanesh has anything to do with them, but they are basically lying to themselves. (Why else would they have killed off all their psykers and need constant depravity?) To my understanding they do not worship Slanesh actively, but all acts of depravity are basically tributes to Slanesh. For example, when two completely normal humans have a completely normal sexual encounter, that in small part gives tribute to Slanesh, even though they have no intention of actually doing so, it is just the nature of the Chaos Gods.

However the Dark Eldar are linked to Slanesh as they gave birth to her. Hence the soul draining. To my understanding the Dark Eldar commit their acts of depravity as a substitute type tribute instead of their soul, and they effectively hold off the soul draining for another day. They believe they are doing it for themselves and in rewards them with health an vigor, however the reality is that it is to appease Slanesh so she stops draining for a while. The thing is, how the Dark Eldar are reincarnated by the Homunculi and how they regain vitality from the suffering of others.

For a Homunculi to reincarnate a Dark Eldar that particular one would have to be for all intensive purposes dead. Which would imply that the soul would have gone directly to Slanesh. That would also then imply that during the regeneration process Slanesh accepts the "offering" of the pain and torment and depravity that the homunculi use to reincarnate the Dark Eldar and effectively gives the soul back as a substitute. Alternatively is the reincarnation process actively stealing the soul back from Slanesh somehow?
Remember everything the Dark Eldar do their addiction to pain, suffering and depravity is all to keep Slanesh from devouring them. They claim its for themselves, but they are really just too scared of Slanesh not to, and too proud to admit the real reason they do things.

Thanks guys, this has been really helpful. So DE can die, but if your loaded you can theoretically live for eternity.
So my poor little kabalites and wyches just die when they get shot in the head with a lasgun, but my archon and scourges, who are RICH just get regenerated?
Unless you annoy the haemonculi, and then they do nothing.

Generally the rare few who get to go on a raid are the favoured ones within their Kabal, and might well get regenned when they get back.

It's considered a rare privilege to go on a Realspace raid, after all, so it likely falls to the rich or influential to be coming along, and their favoured retainers.

It's hinted that the Haemonculi Ancients predate the fall, but it's theoretically possible that they could be permanantly killed if someone could also take out the workshop where their insurance policy bodyparts are kept, or if the guy who is supposed to ressurect them happens to go 'missing'

**edit for autocorrect errors ...mutter mutter computers..**

kitch102 wrote:Only the richest or most influential of DE can afford to have a Haemonculi Coven bring them back to life. They can use as little as a finger and often remove these at the point that a bargain is made to ensure they're not killed before they can get something to them

This.

I'd also note that, if they don't do such a thing, then it's still plenty possible to kill them. There are many ways to die in the 40k universe where not even a finger is left of you....

Archon Tobias wrote:Thanks guys, this has been really helpful. So DE can die, but if your loaded you can theoretically live for eternity.
So my poor little kabalites and wyches just die when they get shot in the head with a lasgun, but my archon and scourges, who are RICH just get regenerated?
Unless you annoy the haemonculi, and then they do nothing.

Pretty much yeah, and whilst it's true that only the best and brightest are taken on a raid, the standard wyches and warriors are vat grown anyway, so I don't really see the sense why someone would go "make him again, here I have his toe nail" when they can already press out what they need through the vats as they obviously have some kind of template or something to do so in the first place

I also recommend trying out "Path of the Renegade".

To add something more:

There exists an idea of True Death, which occurs when bringing the dead back to life is impossible.

One of the True Death scenarios is an outbreak of the Glass plague or dying while exposed to the Warp.

Good point, I'd forgotten about that.

Path of the renegade is awesome though, if you want answers to these questions it'll give you an even better incite in to Commorite society than the codex does imo

Was this a fluff question, or a more... METAPHYSICAL question?

Take a look at the 'Ship of Theseus' Paradox (if your from the UK, you might know it better as Trigger's Broom ). If you change enough parts, one at a time, so that it's the same structure and design only with different physical pieces, does it remain the same? At what point does it cease to be the old ship, and start being a new ship, despite them only changing things one at a time, piece by piece?

In a similar vein; if you kill a Dark Eldar, and a Haemonculai puts them back together, are they still the same Dark Eldar, or are they now a different Dark Eldar, only with the same pieces? Think about it...

That springs an interesting question - (sorry op) - if I took my conciousness and transferred it in to a robot, I'd still be me, as I identify myself by the choices that I make.

However, someone else would struggle with that as they take a more visual approach to identifying me - if you saw a robot walking around you'd think "Hey, there goes a robot" not, "Oh hey, it's Si".

So perhaps that's the answer - it depends on your perspective, as the individual identifies with their own concious mind, whereas others identify with a physical embodiment.

I think we need a separate thread to discuss this further, my interest is piqued!

Edit - spelling