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What would happen if DE could defie slanesh?

Because of the solitaire?

Wat?

Which Harlequin "secret"?
(I don't think they keep just ONE secret close to their chest. They'd also use misdirection and guile. What makes you sure that the "secret" you have discovered is actually THE "secret" for example?)

They (the DE) defy Slaanesh simply by hiding out in the Webway. They don't really go in for the following of gods - more personal power is their kind of thing.
The Harlies defy Slaanesh by following another god - and having ITS protection.

reported to be in background.

I think that the Harlequin's fluff is amazing. On a personal level, I find the idea of laughter defeating the darkness to be identifyable and wonderful.

But yeah. It'd never spread. I've been following 40k for about 15 years and nothing has changed in that time...I doubt it'll change in 15 years either

I don't really know but I suspect if the Dark Eldar ever learned the Harliquin's secret they would listen to NIN and cut themselves while crying in the bathroom.

I could be wrong though.

Dark eldar don't cry. They have their tear-glands removed at birth. An they would cut OTHER people in the bathroom while listening to NIN

The Dark Eldar don't plan on dying, ever. The "secret" is worthless to them.

If the Dark Eldar could find a way to stave off She who Thirsts... Nothing would change. At all. Because the Dark Eldar would still have the same culture devoted to enjoying and causing pain, which was essentially the sadistic and hedonistic culture they had back before the fall when Slaanesh didn't exist.

Watch it turn out that the Harlequin dress and act like that as a way to cope with some horrifying and world-shattering truth. The ones who don't cope so well are the Solitaire and Death Jesters. Pending this, I think the Dark Eldar would either keep doing what they are doing or get much worse and end up with a mass case of deaths by auto-erotic asphyxiation.

I'm thinking something like the machine in Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy that very explicitly shows an individual his/her place in the universe ("You and everything you do matters exactly this much.")

I'm not sure whether the Dark Eldar would power their version with one small piece of fairy cake, though.

Slight tangent, but:

The DE codex doesn't make the exact relationship between death and getting devoured by she who thirsts all that clear. It mentions that DE souls leech away into the warp over time if they don't do enough violence, but if they stopped killing things for some reason, would the leeched-out soulstuff be consumed by slaanesh?

What happens to the souls of DE who die without having portions of their souls anchored in a homonculus's phylactery thing? It mentions that those who can afford this procedure can be regenerated from even small body parts, but what about the ones who can't? Are they devoured up death? I'd assume so, but it doesn't say it anywhere that I read.

Is there a time limit on the regeneration process for archons et al? What happens if the body is completely destroyed, vapourized, burned to ashes, or simply never recovered?

Generally, the Archons actually have the body part already in posession of the Homunculus. Its not recovered after the fact.

Harlequins go through a ritual which protects their soul from Slaanesh - they do not need to wear spirit stones. Any eldar can go through the ritual and become a harlequin and many former dark eldar became harlequins same as craftworld and exodite eldar. From what I inferred from the fluff, going through the ritual converts an eldar into a harlequin. So to answer what I believe is the OPs question all dark eldar become harlequins and the galaxy becomes a much, much better place. Of course this is considering that the dark eldar would all decide to, and were able to become harlequins; which isn’t likely - only a select few make the cut IIRC.

I just had a sudden and disturbing mental image of Vect as a Harlequin.

Harlequin Lelith Hesperax? One would wonder how good someone can get at fighting.
AFAIK, to join the harlequins eldar accept possession by a demon (of slaanesh, I suppose), and then break free in virtue of sheer force of will. Those that fail die, those that succeed become harlequins, and those who succeed, but not quite end up damaged and become solitaires.
So pretty much to become a harlequin you've got to let a demon inside you, laugh in its face and kick it out.
Assuming dark eldar found out, they'd probably do it and then keep going as usual. The whole Dark Eldar culture has been shaped by their need to inflict pain, and it is reaffirmed each day because of the hostile society they live in. I don't see them changing overnight.
Funny thing is, there is a human equivalent to this process, at least in Dark Heresy. Some radical inquisitors apparently let demons possess some of their agents and then exorcise them. IIRC the result is a human who feels emotionally numb and is resistant to the Warp.
Which makes me think that Eldar have this problem with Slaanesh because they are so psychically strong, that their soul literally bleeds into the warp. The harlequin ritual would just turn down the power a notch, so that their warp presence doesn't tend to disperd anymore.

If the Dark Eldar figured it out, they'd laugh a bit and ignore it. They've built an entire culture/power structure around slave-taking, they're not going to demolish it for the sake of the 'lesser races' just because the Harlequins don't have to massacre humans to survive.

 Testify wrote:
laughter defeating the darkness

In other words, *ahem* giggle at the ghostie?

If the Dark Eldar ever found a way out of the Slaanesh thing they'd probably start just lusting after power. It must be a blow to the Dark Eldar's ego to know how much their race has fallen and they went to the webway to get away from Slaanesh. They'd become obsessed with remaking the empire, the way the necrons are remaking theirs, and archons would be quarreling over the right to become the new eldar emperor.

Vetril wrote:
Harlequin Lelith Hesperax? One would wonder how good someone can get at fighting.
AFAIK, to join the harlequins eldar accept possession by a demon (of slaanesh, I suppose), and then break free in virtue of sheer force of will. Those that fail die, those that succeed become harlequins, and those who succeed, but not quite end up damaged and become solitaires.
So pretty much to become a harlequin you've got to let a demon inside you, laugh in its face and kick it out.
Assuming dark eldar found out, they'd probably do it and then keep going as usual. The whole Dark Eldar culture has been shaped by their need to inflict pain, and it is reaffirmed each day because of the hostile society they live in. I don't see them changing overnight.
Funny thing is, there is a human equivalent to this process, at least in Dark Heresy. Some radical inquisitors apparently let demons possess some of their agents and then exorcise them. IIRC the result is a human who feels emotionally numb and is resistant to the Warp.
Which makes me think that Eldar have this problem with Slaanesh because they are so psychically strong, that their soul literally bleeds into the warp. The harlequin ritual would just turn down the power a notch, so that their warp presence doesn't tend to disperd anymore.

What is your source for this claim about the Harlequins' secret?

I have heard many people claim this over the years yet not one has been able to produce a quote and citation of their source, which raises the real likelihood this may be someone's fan fiction that people have mistakenly assumed was official.

KInda agree - I had never heard of the Possession thing till recently on here and I have alot of the background material.

be nice to know where it has come from

According to the most BL book on Eldar - Path of the Outcast - the Dark Eldar seem to be able to "mainstream" as the eldar can turn Dark......

Now I'm curious myself.
Looking around, I can tell that linking possession to the ritual goes back to 2009 at least, and it's clearly mentioned in an unofficial Harlequin codex, but there are references to it that appear prior to that fandex being released on the internet.
It might well be custom lore that over time was accepted as official, and thus ended up being repeated all over the place.