Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So after a fight against eldar, I wondered about this. Do the imperials just throw them away, or do they just destroy them, releasing their souls into the warp? or do they just keep them in a warehouse?

If they know what they do, they likely crush them under a ceramite boot.

But it's perfectly possible they have no idea what they are, so they would leave them, where the eldar can sneak back and retrieve them later.

If they knew what soulstones are they probably wouldn't crush them to feed Slaanesh. Chaos is definitely more hostile. AFAIK the chief librarian of Blood Ravens kept Taldeer's soulstone for interrogation, so some humans (especially psykers, I think) can distinguish them.

Well its Alien Technology so technically proscribed so they will not normally get to keep it or reconginse it for what it is - Alien bodies are likely burned but its probable that the Soul Stones will survive..

Some humans will take it them as pretty jewels to be sold on the black market.

The Inquisition will want them - some to destroy, others to investigate, others as barganinng chips with the Eldar.

"Imperials" is an awfully wide brush.

The average guardsman might take one as a shiny trophy of battle.
The average marine might ignore it, as he does anything that does not directly affect the battle.
A Librarian might know what they are, or sense the psychic impression and collect them
An Ordo Xenos inquisitor probably know what they are, and might use them for a variety of reasons.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a LOT of ignorance in the 40k universe. Just because we know things, it's not safe to assume that that's general knowledge. To most people, soul stones are just shiny gems. Even people who might be educated. Remember, contact or information about aliens is heretical and corrupting. Very much a need-to-know kind of thing.

^The Ordo Xenos will likely confiscate any spirit stones after a battle, so I doubt they're "kept" by average Guardsmen.

I imagine Imperial propaganda teaches you that they're evil devices that nobody should touch or risk corruption.

I had a rather amusing mental image of two guardsmen playing marbles with spirit stones...

Wear them as jewelry and eventually be murdered by Eldar trying to get them back.

If "The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer" is a reasonable landmark for the level of knowledge an average guardsman possesses, they probably have no idea what a spirit stone is. He would most likely just see a nice shiny embedded in the armor of that alien he just killed. If he can pry it out before the sergeant/commissar catches him then he keeps it and sells it at the nearest town for drinking money.

I could totally see guardsmen keeping them as trophies and making jewelry out of them if fighting an extended campaign against the Eldar, then someone who actually knows what they are comes in and purges the entire regiment for using alien artifacts.

 Harriticus wrote:
^The Ordo Xenos will likely confiscate any spirit stones after a battle, so I doubt they're "kept" by average Guardsmen.

I imagine Imperial propaganda teaches you that they're evil devices that nobody should touch or risk corruption.

The Ordo Xenos aren't going to be present everywhere. It's not like every single guardsmen squad in a large battle would have someone from the Inquisition keeping an eye on them.

Though an army-wide edict could be in force, banning the looting of "xeno artifacts". That would hardly be very effective though

Add them to their 'shiny stone' collection, right next to their 'skulls' and 'various xeno limbs' collections, and opposite their stamp collection.

If I recall correctly, n the Grey Knights codex, after the Grey Knights cleared a craftworld of a demon infestation where slaanesh daemons were feasting on eldar soulstones, they actually contacted the elder to come pick the craftworld up. I could have sworn there was another fluff piece somewhere where the Inquisition contacted the Eldar to come pick up some soulstones.

Thus it's likely that at least the Inquisition is aware that eldar soulstones feed Slaanesh. As much as the Imperium dislikes the Eldar, feeding Slaanesh is generally considered to be far far worse, I imagine. The Imperium has little use for soulstones except maybe as a bargaining chip (and even then, I imagine most Inquisitors find Eldar so ANNOYING to deal with that they'd apparently rather just hand the spirit stones over rather than bother try to enter into a deal with one of the most wily conniving scheming xenos in the galaxy)

Elemtns of the Mechanicum / Ordo Xenos might also be exermenting with using the Soul Stones for themselves - there was an old article on the GW site and a FFG creation that try...........

Melissia wrote:Wear them as jewelry and eventually be murdered by Eldar trying to get them back.

Mostly.

I mean, really think about it, where would a member of the imperium even get a soulstone from? It's not like you can just ask an eldar politely and he'll just give it to you. The only way is by killing them, and with such monstrously overwhelming force that the eldar can't reclaim them before the battle is over. Sounds like most of the few stones that would be captured would be done so by guardsmen, then. Guardsmen are also exactly the kind of people who would root around their enemy's stuff for treasure and pry off things from their armor in order to hawk for hookers and ante into card games.

On those really rare times that it's space marines against eldar, then they probably won't even have time to loot any bodies, and, combined with a disdain for xenos in general, probably wouldn't consider it worthwhile. Meanwhile, the inquisition fighting eldar would be too rare to even mention.

Well if you're an Imperial noble, you'll craft it into some sweet bling and wear it around until a bunch of Harlequins take the soulstones back and sell you to the Dark Eldar as a slave.

I really depends on who picks up the soulstones, I think most Ordo Malleus Inquistors would collect them and give them to eldar to try and buy favor to get into the black library.

other than that what ever poor sob picks them up will live a normal life until he is found by the eldar and given to the Dark eldar.

Also, in Dawn of War someone tried to smash a spirit stone with a power axe. It destroyed the axe and sent the space marine who tried it flying a good few meters. These little guys have some wallop to them.

I can just see a guardsman who takes his fancy stone to a jeweler to get it drilled for a necklace or cut for a ring.

You torture it for information which pleases slaanesh and then you possessed by a demonete after sacrificing the stone. The end.

Lucoryphus ate one. Yum.

In the Deathwatch RPG there's a shield that the Deathwatch crafted to commemorate a victory over Craftworld Ulthwé using jewels taken from the dead Eldar. They're not quite sure why, but the Eldar seem very desperate to get the shield.

I would imagine that radical Ordo Xenos use them as bargaining chips whenever they can get them. It's one of the few things that actually have enough value to the Eldar to make negotiating with them possible. And if the Eldar know there are more soulstones in the hands of the Inquisitor, they might refrain from the traditional betrayal in order to get their hands on them at a later date.

Most of the Imperium doesn't know what they do other than that the Eldar cherish them. Those that do know their true purpose avoid breaking them because the Eldar are one of the few somewhat reasonable polities in the galaxy and for all the slay the alien talk the Imperium prefers to avoid fights when it can to preserve strength against much more hostile forces, and breaking one both cheeses off the Eldar and feeds Chaos, enemy numero Uno of the Imperium ideologically.