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.

Oh boy. This thread isn't going to cringey at all. Here we go.

I'm an Iybraesil player. I love the paint scheme, I love the "treasure hunter" angle, and I love the emphasis on banshees. There isn't a lot of fluff about Iybraesil, but one thing that is consistent is that they're described as being a matriarchal society. Generally speaking, craftworlders don't seem overly concerned about one's sex/gender. They're a dying species. It's all hands on deck. They need every advantage. If there's an autarch on your craftworld that can keep an extra 10% of your population from being eaten by tyranids in the next big battle, then you'll be inclined to listen to them regardless of what's under their armor.

So assuming that "matriarchy" here means a bias towards listening to autarchs and farseers that happen to be women over ones that happen to be men, that seems like kind of an odd place for a craftworld to end up. If you have a farseer that can give Eldrada run for his money in the prophecy department, you probably don't want to ignore his prophecies every time they happen to conflict with those of a farseer of the opposite sex.

So, any thoughts on what the matriarchy of Iybraesil might look like? What would that look like in practice, and how does such a society make up for or justify the loss of the benefits of a more egalitarian arrangement? My head canon:

It's not so much that Iybraesil gives more authority to its female population than its male population. It's just that the blessing of the Morai Heg (a canonical thing) means that the female-to-male ratio is unusually high. So if there are 3 women for every 1 man on Iybraesil, and if Iybraesil is an egalitarian society, then that means 3/4ths of the farseers and autarchs are probably women. Over time, outsiders that interact with Iybraesil notice that the person in charge is generally a woman, and the craftworld got a reputation for being matriarchal as a result. The fact that their warhosts strongly favor aspect warriors wearing the visage of a feminine spirit (banshees) probably contributed to that perception as well.

That's my take on it. It's a bit of a stretch as it makes the term "matriarchy" a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps the matriarchy is a formal social construct/group similar to the wild riders of Saim-Hann that possesses influence at council meetings, has say in millitary actions, etc? I don't know. What are your thoughts? I'd kind of like to having a working idea of how Iybraesili society works when writing fluff for battle reports and so forth.

Ooooh dear.

This is a perfectly reasonable question, but there's definitely a big ol' wasps' nest sitting at the centre.

To avoid kicking it, I'm going to do my best to abide by the following rules. If I stray from them, please give me a polite reminder:


Okay!

So...

I think one of the most important things to bear in mind is that "patriarchy" and "matriarchy" describe a quite broad range of different societal approaches to gender, and they don't necessarily refer to extremes.

Yes, a patriarchal or matriarchal society COULD be one in which one gender and/or sex wields absolute authority over all others, but it can also mean something as relatively innocuous as a tradition that children take the name of their father, and sons have greater claim to inheritance than daughters, or vice versa, respectively. The usage of the term as a descriptor is not a condemnation or accusation of gender-based oppression per se.

It is simply a descriptor of societies in which gender has an inequitable impact on power and property, to any noticeable degree.

A society in which property is transferred along matrilineal lines at death, and women are disproportionately represented amongst positions of power (like, say, 55% or higher amongst the farseers, autarchs, etc. that are listened to and get to make the key decisions for the craftworld), that would still be a matriarchal craftworld. Just like the inverse would still be patriarchal even if, in its inverse, it's not necessarily absolute dominance by men.

Also worth remembering that "patriarchy" and "matriarchy" do not mean "rule by males / females". They mean "rule by fathers / mothers". These systems, and how they arise, tend to be very much tied to reproduction, marriage, and children, and how those things are handled. Which is not always universally beneficial for every member of the privileged gender. For instance, old-school European patriarchy privileged the eldest sons of wealthy families,, but younger sons... particularly if unmarried... tended to get eff all, and would typically have to join the military or clergy as they had no money or estate. And children within poor families basically had zero options or agency REGARDLESS of gender (though that also doesn't mean they were equal, a great many cultural and religious traditions still made things... not so equal... for women).

(The latter grim point relates to how I personally like to imagine the Imperium, by the way. Some nobility on some planets might practice patriarchal or matriarchal systems of inheritance and power, depending on the culture of the planet, hive, or even house therein, etc etc, but the vast teeming billions of humanity have so little agency and freedom, and the Administorum and Munitorum give so few , that most humans have "perfect" gender equality, just in the worst possible way: everyone has equal power and privilege, in terms of having absolutely none whatsoever)

All of which is to say, there is ENORMOUS room for interpretation of "matriarchal society". It can be as minor as imagining that names are generally passed from mother to children, to as extreme as men having no rights, and ALL power and property being consolidated amongst mothers and their eldest daughters.

It might also be worth reading a bit of history about actual real world matriarchies, and modelling your army on them. Like Boudica, queen of the Iceni tribe of the ancient Britons! You might find some fun inspiration. She literally burned London to the ground! The Romans said she had to pass the crown to her sons rather than daughters, she refused, so they raped all her daughters. Boudica did NOT like that.

Not a bad thought. One thing that's not shown much in Aeldari society is 'family units' - not surprising given what's shown as long life, regular social changes given the path, and low birth rate.

A society where you do get much more 'nuclear' families centred around a materfamilias and their descendants could produce a society which looks like that. It doesn't have to be a case of absolute societal rule, but at a much more basic level where offspring are closer to their parents, and even after several centuries, the phrase "because I'm your mum, that's why." (or its aeldari equivalent) still holds weight.

Not being a big eldar lore guy... how are craftworlds normally lead?

Generally, there's a council of farseers who make big political decisions in all fields, and autarchs who make specifically military decisions.

The extent to which the one can influence the other varies by craftworld. Biel Tann, for example, is basically completely militarised and what the autarchs say goes even outside directly military matters if it could impact the craftworld's ability to make war, whilst the seers of Ulthwe take a more active role even in warfare.

locarno24 wrote:
Generally, there's a council of farseers who make big political decisions in all fields, and autarchs who make specifically military decisions.

The extent to which the one can influence the other varies by craftworld. Biel Tann, for example, is basically completely militarised and what the autarchs say goes even outside directly military matters if it could impact the craftworld's ability to make war, whilst the seers of Ulthwe take a more active role even in warfare.

seems to be it could be something as simple as some subtle social pressures that steer men away from the role of farseerer. plenty of professions today have gender gaps purely due to social reasons. (it may be differant now but when I was a kid no little boy EVER said "I wanna be a nurse when I grow up")

BrianDavion wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
Generally, there's a council of farseers who make big political decisions in all fields, and autarchs who make specifically military decisions.

The extent to which the one can influence the other varies by craftworld. Biel Tann, for example, is basically completely militarised and what the autarchs say goes even outside directly military matters if it could impact the craftworld's ability to make war, whilst the seers of Ulthwe take a more active role even in warfare.

seems to be it could be something as simple as some subtle social pressures that steer men away from the role of farseerer. plenty of professions today have gender gaps purely due to social reasons. (it may be differant now but when I was a kid no little boy EVER said "I wanna be a nurse when I grow up")

Yeah, pretty much exactly that. A *atriarchy doesn't HAVE to outright ban a given gender from certain professions or positions of power, it just needs to have some kind of social system or set of values (or many!) inherent to the society that keep a certain gender in power to a greater degree than others. That system could be as simple as the implication that boys who want to be autarchs and seers are girly sissies, too cowardly to take to the frontlines or whatever (to put It in a really blunt, unsubtle way).

Elephants. That's what I'd model them on. The differences between male and female social roles are not therefore a simple power dynamic (females outranking males), but a result of the female members of the society living in groups led by the oldest and wisest, while the males remain largely solitary.

A male with genuine knowledge in a given situation will still be listened to, but he has no 'power base' in the society. Other voices will be joined to his only if they explicitly agree with him, not because he's 'one of us'. Females will discuss the issue amongst themselves in their groups and then the leader of each group will speak with the collective voice of the whole group.

Males would tend to follow those Paths that can be pursued alone or as a one-to-one master-apprentice relationship. Rangers, craftsmen, artists, that sort of thing. Females would tend to follow those Paths that require teaching/learning/working in groups, such as the Aspect Warrior shrines.

An individual male and an individual female have the same 'weight' given to their opinions in this system. The female does not 'outrank' the male socially in any way. They would probably laugh at the suggestion that one sex or gender is 'superior' to the other. But the oldest and wisest females are the ones making most of the real decisions, so it is still technically a matriarchy.

You could still easily have a male farseer who is respected enough to have his prognostications be the main driver of the craftworld's policies, but he'd have to spend time travelling around speaking to the female groups and convincing them that he's right. He can't just depend on a clique of loyal followers who will always support him no matter what.

You'd need a pretty strong cultural taboo against males getting together in groups to make this system persist, of course. The historical reasons why such a taboo might initially arise would probably be getting too far into things you don't want to talk about, though.

That would certainly line up with the aspect warrior shrines having a focus on the traditionally female banshee aspect, which would then mean that you'd naturally have a female bias to the autarch council, simply because a majority of aspect warriors are female.

Which in turn makes sense, because, as noted, Iybraesil is (a) a very traditionalist craftworld and (b) has a sizeable bias towards a female population. Assuming gender equality you're going to end up with a female-led society anyway.

If you want a traditionally loner male role, maybe look at either rangers? The craftworld has a traditional interest as treasure hunters looking for relics of the eldar's past, especially in the crone worlds. That means wraithknights and rangers, traditionally - both of which are relatively socially isolated, high-rate-of-casualty roles.

Wow. I was worried this would quickly devolve into a mess, but everyone has offered some great, mature perspectives on the matter. I'm proud of you, dakka!

 Duskweaver wrote:
Elephants. That's what I'd model them on. The differences between male and female social roles are not therefore a simple power dynamic (females outranking males), but a result of the female members of the society living in groups led by the oldest and wisest, while the males remain largely solitary.

A male with genuine knowledge in a given situation will still be listened to, but he has no 'power base' in the society. Other voices will be joined to his only if they explicitly agree with him, not because he's 'one of us'. Females will discuss the issue amongst themselves in their groups and then the leader of each group will speak with the collective voice of the whole group.

Males would tend to follow those Paths that can be pursued alone or as a one-to-one master-apprentice relationship. Rangers, craftsmen, artists, that sort of thing. Females would tend to follow those Paths that require teaching/learning/working in groups, such as the Aspect Warrior shrines.

I really like this take on things! I could see the various political subfactions being sort of akin to the clans on Saim-Hann in that they might be influenced by family lines, slowly-shifting political viewpoints, etc. Large portions of the Saim-Hann populace might functionally belong to these clans/houses/groups, and the heads of these groups would functionally form the council of Iybraesil the same way the clan heads (and farseers and autarchs) form the council of Saim-Hann.

Men aren't discouraged from seeking positions of influence within these groups or on the council at large, but their higher death rates (due to the crone's blessing) and society subtly encouraging them to spend more time indulging more solitary pursuits would make them less common. That provides some juicy material for fluff without turning the ruling body of Iybraesil into a cringey, one-note... thing.

I think on first gloss when I read that, I just imagined that it was largely a matrilneal society. That individuals primarily identify as part of families, clans, and bigger social entities through their matrilineal line.

Gav Thorpe's Path of the Eldar series suggests to me that, for the most part, craftworld eldar have access to fully automated luxury communism, in the sense that any given random aeldari doesn't meaningfully have to (or pretend to have to) deal with material or energy scarcity.

The path system, in turn, reinforces that for any given craftworlder, who they are is expressed primarily in intrinsic terms - one explains their pursuit of the path of an artist, or a warp engineer, or a farmer, or a fighter mechanic - because they want to, and not for something so pedestrian as needing to labour in exchange for housing or foo.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that for a craftworlder, they're particularly concerned with what their identities are - that's how they structure their lives. So for a society like Saim Hann to be noted for being clannish, or Iybraesil to be matriarchal is to say - at least, if my view is compelling - that members of those craftworlds place particular emphasis on their social grouping in comparison to members from, say, Il-Kaithe or Ulthwe. So if you were treading the ranger's path, and you happened to stop in at Alaitoc, the bartender might introduces themselves as "so and so of Alaitoc, on the path of the hospitaller". But on Iybraesil (and Saim Hann, I expect), you would get "so and so of <clan> or <matilineal descent>, path of the hospitaller".

I would personally try to intwine the matriarchy aspect with an aspect of their religion. I.E this craftworld venerates the Morai-Heg and Isha above other deities, and thus the craftworld council has special places for priestesses of these gods.

Add to that a subtle emphasis of females being the core of family kindreds, with perhaps the Grandmothers being paid special reverence.

How I would fluff it would be stealing from Pagan mythology of the 3 women of power, The Crone, The Mother and the Maiden, which Morai-Heg, Isha, and Lileath, and suggest that priestesses of these 3 cults are *always* found upon the Craftworld council, whereas other posistions are filled by necesesity.

Strong familial groups are rare in the aeldari - given their long life and low birth rate- but where they do occur they're nearly always significant.

Revenant titan binaries, for example, are always piloted by twins.

I could imagine rather than priesthood per se, the maiden/mother/crone archetype popping up in the seer council - an army containing a supreme command detachment of three farseers would feel very cool for that reason.

You are all making me want to break out my old eldar Minis... My wallet does not like it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
Strong familial groups are rare in the aeldari - given their long life and low birth rate- but where they do occur they're nearly always significant.

Revenant titan binaries, for example, are always piloted by twins.

I could imagine rather than priesthood per se, the maiden/mother/crone archetype popping up in the seer council - an army containing a supreme command detachment of three farseers would feel very cool for that reason.

Three female farseers would also mimic the image of the Three norns (norse mythological goddesses of fortune and destiny) sitting at the roots of Yggdrasil (get it?) , the world tree, spinning the treads of life and looking at the past, present and future. The norns are closely linked to the image of the swann, if that gets anything going :-)

 Aestas wrote:
You are all making me want to break out my old eldar Minis... My wallet does not like it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
Strong familial groups are rare in the aeldari - given their long life and low birth rate- but where they do occur they're nearly always significant.

Revenant titan binaries, for example, are always piloted by twins.

I could imagine rather than priesthood per se, the maiden/mother/crone archetype popping up in the seer council - an army containing a supreme command detachment of three farseers would feel very cool for that reason.

Three female farseers would also mimic the image of the Three norns (norse mythological goddesses of fortune and destiny) sitting at the roots of Yggdrasil (get it?) , the world tree, spinning the treads of life and looking at the past, present and future.

And also the Greek Moirai, the Wyd Sisters, the three witches from Macbeth, and approximately nine thousand other versions of the mythological archetype.

I actually used something along these lines for the three Armiger Warglaives in my AdMech army. The knights themselves are called Mother, Maiden and Crone, while the pilots are the Ladies Mornai - Amilia, Carlotta, and Anna (after the Brontë sisters)

Though under no circumstances will I stand for any Robert Graves apologia.

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Aestas wrote:
You are all making me want to break out my old eldar Minis... My wallet does not like it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
Strong familial groups are rare in the aeldari - given their long life and low birth rate- but where they do occur they're nearly always significant.

Revenant titan binaries, for example, are always piloted by twins.

I could imagine rather than priesthood per se, the maiden/mother/crone archetype popping up in the seer council - an army containing a supreme command detachment of three farseers would feel very cool for that reason.

Three female farseers would also mimic the image of the Three norns (norse mythological goddesses of fortune and destiny) sitting at the roots of Yggdrasil (get it?) , the world tree, spinning the treads of life and looking at the past, present and future.

And also the Greek Moirai, the Wyd Sisters, the three witches from Macbeth, and approximately nine thousand other versions of the mythological archetype.

Totally but I just... Isn't the name of the craftworld a direct reference to Yggdrasil? Always thought so...

Dang… I never actually made that connection before!

No, it's a reference to the mythical Irish island of Hy-Brasil (Uí Breasail), which supposedly appears from out of the North Atlantic sea-mist every seven years.

I guess that makes a bit more sense, given the strong degree to which the writers like to connect the Aeldari to Celtic myth and folklore.

Also cool

Eldar don't seem to worry about sex when it comes to being able to fulfill roles. Female warriors are common enough that it isn't anything unusual to see a female exarch or autarch whereas in a human army it is much more noteworthy.
So I'd just go for something simple, just make the heads of each internal faction female, so the head(s) of the seer council, the autarchs, the traders, the artists, whoever and have the family name passing down the female side (which probably makes more sense since they're giving birth and are almost guaranteed to have their DNA passed along.)
Howling banshees, kitbashed hq's and exarchs with female heads etc should portray that convincingly on the table top.