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If dark eldar's souls are slowly being leeched away by Slaanesh, and to stop that they feed on the souls of others, does that mean every one of them must go out into realspace to plunder souls to survive?

What about the children? Or the people that are stuck in Commorragh, because I'm assuming that it isn't cheap for people to freely leave the webway and find a populated planet.

Do they have prisoner stores? Soul dispensers? For when they bring back slaves?

Or is everyone in Commorragh an able bodied fighting machine with easy access to a ship or transport?

I'm only asking about the children because I'm guessing anyone with disabilities in a dark eldar society would generally not last very long.

There are very, very few children in Commoragh. Most Dark Eldar are created as a cloned subject, and are just climb out of a tank fully grown. What are called "Trueborn" are exceptionally rare.

They also have huge slave populations, where most of their stolen life-force comes from. Supplying slaves is the reason for a lot of their raids.

The children of the nobles have it easier. But that's not saying much. The ones born in the slums barely manage to survive.

When a raid is conducted into real space, the returning fleet will generally take their pick of the slaves they want then go to a market place to sell most of them off. The better the raid, the more profit for those involved.

Yes, if you have disabilities you will be killed. Not simply because of the disability but rather because you can't defend or even take care of yourself. DE society doesn't believe in any sort of charity work or helping others (including their "friends") in any way. There was a scene in one of the recent DE novels where a group of DE needed to jump over a small chasm. One of them very nearly didn't make it. The others simply watched as this one struggled up even though giving a hand would have made it easier. Hellion and Reaver gangs fly around indiscriminately killing others (DE and non-DE alike) for no real purpose than to drink in the terror from the kill. Gangs rove the cities knocking off whomever they want. You can hire pretty much anyone to take someone else out.

Simply put in DE society it is kill or be killed. The concepts of trust and empathy is completely foreign to them. Domination and the subjugation of others is the rule of the day. Any "gifts" you receive are likely to be dangerous and try to kill you.

Take the worst things about society, put those together and you'll start to have an inkling of what being a DE is about.

As Psienesis said, most are vat grown. However, there are Trueborn, those born naturally. These are raised to be the warrior elite.

There was a story about DE in which Vect sat with a IG slave to explain the beginnings of Commorragh; how they are depraved, completely self involved and purposely choose to live of the misery of others. The IG slave asks Why they chose this path. Vect replied "Why not?" Those two words are the summary of what it means to be a DE. You do something because you can; neither rhyme nor reason, and especially not the consideration of others plays into your actions.

Well I am sure there is some slave breeding happening but pretty much the only reason DE leave the webway is to raid for slave and sport.

True born are the children that grow up. They are very rare. The rest of the poulace seems to be vat grown.

I don't believe you are DE if you leave Commorragh. There is some mobility between the corsairs, harlequins, exodites, and craft world populations whith individual eldar sometimes leaving one population to go to another. I am pretty sure if you want to leave Commorragh you either go as a renegade, rogue trader, or you join one of these populations. I am sure however this is not particularly easy to do.

I know they keep large numbers of slaves, use souls as a form of currency, and sometimes trap souls for use in powerful devices.

Remember that if a finger survives you you can have yourself regrown in a vat. Able bodied is easily achievable in Commorragh due to the technology. And being a fighting machine is fairly easy for eldar due to their origins during the war in the heavens. Having said that though I am sure there are some sort of construction, scientists, and service providers. Someone has to manage the arenas and keep the slaves in line after all.

I am not sure how children survive in Commorragh. I imagine they could be seen as an investment toward the future so they are trained to be murder machines by the families/cults. There are no disabled individuals unless they are so poor they cannot afford a vat. In which case I am sure one of the friendly Haemy would be more than happy to "assist" them with a fun new form. You just have to please them with your screams and hope your new form is not something without sentience...

 ansacs wrote:
Well I am sure there is some slave breeding happening but pretty much the only reason DE leave the webway is to raid for slave and sport.

True born are the children that grow up. They are very rare. The rest of the poulace seems to be vat grown.

I don't believe you are DE if you leave Commorragh. There is some mobility between the corsairs, harlequins, exodites, and craft world populations whith individual eldar sometimes leaving one population to go to another. I am pretty sure if you want to leave Commorragh you either go as a renegade, rogue trader, or you join one of these populations. I am sure however this is not particularly easy to do.

I know they keep large numbers of slaves, use souls as a form of currency, and sometimes trap souls for use in powerful devices.

Remember that if a finger survives you you can have yourself regrown in a vat. Able bodied is easily achievable in Commorragh due to the technology. And being a fighting machine is fairly easy for eldar due to their origins during the war in the heavens. Having said that though I am sure there are some sort of construction, scientists, and service providers. Someone has to manage the arenas and keep the slaves in line after all.

I am not sure how children survive in Commorragh. I imagine they could be seen as an investment toward the future so they are trained to be murder machines by the families/cults. There are no disabled individuals unless they are so poor they cannot afford a vat. In which case I am sure one of the friendly Haemy would be more than happy to "assist" them with a fun new form. You just have to please them with your screams and hope your new form is not something without sentience...

Theres a quote somewhere in an old DE Codex saying that to be placed as a slave superviser in a DE factory is one of the greatest punishments you can give a DE. The monotany of it literaly causes their soulds to shrivel.

Remember DE don't kill people for the lulz every action they take is calculated to benefit themselves and often you can gain the greatest benefit by working together.

It's similar to how they work on a raid, the individual warriors may despise each other but on the raid they will work as a flawless team that would put even a SM squad to shame and a commander will not betray his troops.

This principle of self interest forcing cooperation is what keeps DE society functioning.

Well some of it is for the lolz or they wouldn't have as much stuff about arenas, etc.

In fact the entire DE society is about the lolz as they could survive like exodites or CWE...they just don't want to stop their rock and roll life styles.

Interestingly enough the DE society seems to be the only eldar society who is thriving. That is pretty grimdark there.

Assuming the vat grown aren't children when they come out, with the true born children do they go torture their own slaves that their parents give them?

Like, merry christmas! have a slave!

I'm just wondering for infants specifically

It does seem probably that DE children would be inducted into their torture society from a young age. I don't believe there is any material on how often a DE has to torture to ward off their soul being devoured. For an eldar every week and every decade are both a regular occurrence. If it is every decade though the eldar child may be old enough to at least give a credible effort.

Additionally they just require pain. I don't know of any requirement that they themselves cause the pain. This makes arenas, etc. make more sense as they are like giant buffets. Therefore the care takers (cult preschool?) can do the torturing or just take the kid to the arena. This actually goes a long way to making sense of the DE society.

 ansacs wrote:
Well some of it is for the lolz or they wouldn't have as much stuff about arenas, etc.

In fact the entire DE society is about the lolz as they could survive like exodites or CWE...they just don't want to stop their rock and roll life styles.

Interestingly enough the DE society seems to be the only eldar society who is thriving. That is pretty grimdark there.

The DE have arena's so they can drink the terror and pain of the combatents.

The Dark Eldar Codex explicitly comes out and says the Wych Cult arenas are the means by which Dark Eldar society is kept from collapsing into total anarchy, since all Dark Eldar need to feed on pain to replenish their souls.

Naturally it is impossible for every Dark Eldar to individually go out and find enough slaves to torment personally just to feed themselves, so that is what the Kabals and their raids do. They harvest slaves and these are then either traded directly to other parties in return for goods and services, or they are "consumed" in the arenas of the Wych Cults that the Kabals sponsor. Other Dark Eldar go to the arenas and feed vicariously off the pain from the spectacles in the arenas. I would imagine that access to the arenas is granted in return for goods or services performed for the Kabal.

The other major function of Kabals, Hellion Gangs, or Haemonculi Covens is mutual protection. Though Dark Eldar may be selfish, they aren't stupid and are aware that there is a certain safety in numbers, even though there is also a risk, and also that power can be gained through pooling of resources. Though there may be widespread bloodshed in the streets, the territory firmly under one Kabal's control would not have as much random bloodshed and the conflict shifts more to intrigue, politics, and assassination.

The Haemonculi are described as needing vast amounts of pain daily to prevent their souls from withering entirely. They obviously consume vast numbers of slaves and other resources. Again they can only reliably secure these resources through the patronage of the Kabals, that then go raid realspace. In return for the materials and slaves, the Haemonculi provide their services, most critically the regeneration of bodies. They are like insurance salesmen. Why should any Haemonculi honor their contracts at all? For the simple reason that if they regularly betrayed all those that signed up with them, pretty soon nobody would offer them patronage, or would sign up with those Haemonculi that did honor the contracts. Thus like the rest of Dark Eldar society, any cooperation or honoring of contracts is motivated by self interest rather than any real respect for the rules or any morality.

The DE probably make sure to take some slaves back for their kids to practice on...
Also, most DE are grown artificially. Only the nobility are born normally and go through a 'normal' childhood.