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Seriously, the more I read about them, the more confused I get. Is there a concise answer as to what they actually are?

They're the last remains of the Old Ones who managed to run away and hide from the proto-catastrophes of the War in Heaven and the Enslaver plague before most of them were destroyed by the emergence of Slaanesh. They aren't Warp entities, but they have an affinity for and mastery of the Warp that is unmatched among material beings so it can be hard to tell. (This answer is based largely on reading between the lines and may have been retconned more recently due to GW's newfound hatred for ambiguity.)

The Eldar gods are the racial warp gods of the Eldar, just as Gork and Mork are the gods of the Orks.

That is why as the Eldar grew decadent and drifted away from the traditional Eldar values and ideals as represented by their gods, the gods weakened and it became a feedback loop of sorts with the gods unable to stop the further slide into decadence and madness. That is why when Khaine was shattered by Slaanesh, Khaine fell out of the warp and the fragments coalesced or embedded into the heart of each Craftworld, attracted by the psychoactive wraithbone cores as the Craftworlds would be the densest concentrations of living Eldar left in realspace (the Exodites being low population and spread out).

The warp nature of their gods is shown also by how Ynnead is forming out of all the Infinity Circuits of the Craftworlds, in essence pooling the souls of all the deceased Eldar (i.e. psychic energy).

It has a very Cthulhu mythos feel to it...so there are probably Great Old Ones out there as well.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They're the last remains of the Old Ones who managed to run away and hide from the proto-catastrophes of the War in Heaven and the Enslaver plague before most of them were destroyed by the emergence of Slaanesh. They aren't Warp entities, but they have an affinity for and mastery of the Warp that is unmatched among material beings so it can be hard to tell. (This answer is based largely on reading between the lines and may have been retconned more recently due to GW's newfound hatred for ambiguity.)

Caveat: There is a chance that the eldar gods, while initially based on the Old Ones, might now actually be warp entities similar to Gork and Mork created through millenia of powerfully psychic eldar believing in them. So Isha might have originally been a lizard alien (Old One) who was instrumental in the creation or uplifting of the eldar species thus causing her to be seen as a mother goddess. That Old One may have physically died, but the Isha shaped portion of the eldar psyche may have given rise to a warp entity that is essentially the manifestation of the eldar understanding of the concepts they associated with the original Isha (such as healing).

But ultimately, the true nature of the eldar gods is pretty ambiguous. We know the Old Ones are responsible for the eldar existing (or at least existing in their current form), but it's possible that the eldar were allowed to develop a system of religious belief on their own prior to being weaponized against the necrontyr. So rather than basing Isha on the Old One who uplifted them, Isha might simply be the anthropomorphization of concepts of motherhood, healing, etc. that existed within the eldar mind pre-War In Heaven. In which case our hypothetical lizard lady might not have been tied directly to Isha or else may have been symbolically tied to Isha after the concept of Isha came to exist.

Whatever the case, we do know a few things about the eldar gods:
* They're at least real-ish. The avatar of Khaine can walk, talk, and stab things. The yncarne can physically manifest. *Something* supernatural seems to being going on with Asuryan and the phoenix lords. Now whether these entities could naturally exist on their own or are merely a complex psychic phenomenon manifested by eldar belief is unclear.

* They're not all that powerful compared to the chaos gods or the ork gods. The avatar of Khaine and the Yncarne, while roughly as powerful as greater daemons, aren't accompanied by hordes of eldar pantheon daemons. They seem to manifest their power in subtler ways, usually through the medium (badum tish) of mortal servants. Asuryan has Asurman. Ynnead has Yvraine. Cegorach has the harlequins/great harlequins.

* Apparently they don't have to remain eldar-only entities. Slaanesh was, by all accounts, originally an eldar god, but she clearly now has followers from other species. Though whether or not all eldar gods could potentially manage this is unclear. Khaine is, presumably, the manifestation of a very eldar-shaped perspective on violence. So while humans are apparently compatible with the concepts of excess and sensation tied to Slaanesh, the nuances of Khaine-ish concepts (as opposed to the Khorne-shaped version of similar concepts) might not be something that "clicks" with humans. Similarly, Ynnead's concepts of rebirth and hope resonate well with the eldar who used to literally reincarnate and whose collective psyche is scarred by the trauma of the Fall, but those concepts may or may not rseonate strongly enough with humans for Ynnead to eventually gain human cultists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iracundus wrote:
The Eldar gods are the racial warp gods of the Eldar, just as Gork and Mork are the gods of the Orks.

That is why as the Eldar grew decadent and drifted away from the traditional Eldar values and ideals as represented by their gods, the gods weakened and it became a feedback loop of sorts with the gods unable to stop the further slide into decadence and madness. That is why when Khaine was shattered by Slaanesh, Khaine fell out of the warp and the fragments coalesced or embedded into the heart of each Craftworld, attracted by the psychoactive wraithbone cores as the Craftworlds would be the densest concentrations of living Eldar left in realspace (the Exodites being low population and spread out).

The warp nature of their gods is shown also by how Ynnead is forming out of all the Infinity Circuits of the Craftworlds, in essence pooling the souls of all the deceased Eldar (i.e. psychic energy).

Well put. I like to think of it like this: Eldar used to be a pretty successful guy living a balanced (Asuryan) lifestyle. But then he developed a bad drug habit (Slaanesh). Over time, his work suffered (Vaul), his health deteriorated (Isha), and his whole personality changed (various other gods getting eaten). Eventually, all that was left of Eldar was basically just his addiction (Slaanesh), his violent side (Khaine), and his more manipulative side (Cegorach). However, he retained a tiny bit of control/discipline (Asuryan/the phoenix lords) and the ability to reflect on himself (Cegorach in the role of tricksters-as-mirrors-to-society). Eventually, he'd stewed in the consequences of his actions long enough to want to overcome his addiction and start over as a new version of himself (Ynnead).

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They're the last remains of the Old Ones who managed to run away and hide from the proto-catastrophes of the War in Heaven and the Enslaver plague before most of them were destroyed by the emergence of Slaanesh. They aren't Warp entities, but they have an affinity for and mastery of the Warp that is unmatched among material beings so it can be hard to tell. (This answer is based largely on reading between the lines and may have been retconned more recently due to GW's newfound hatred for ambiguity.)

So my understanding is that the Old Ones were pretty much the apex enemies of Chaos (and the Necrontyr + C'Tan). They also created the Eldar and the Korks (ancient orks) but not humanity. If a few of them became the Eldar Gods, then that makes sense to me. I don't mind having some mystery, but it really does just seem so contradictory and strange, especially when compared to how Ordered the Chaos and Necron mythos are.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They're the last remains of the Old Ones who managed to run away and hide from the proto-catastrophes of the War in Heaven and the Enslaver plague before most of them were destroyed by the emergence of Slaanesh. They aren't Warp entities, but they have an affinity for and mastery of the Warp that is unmatched among material beings so it can be hard to tell. (This answer is based largely on reading between the lines and may have been retconned more recently due to GW's newfound hatred for ambiguity.)

Where do you get this idea? I don't think this is true at all. It would be kinda cool, but not what the lore says.

What the lore implies that the Eldar gods started as psychic weapons created under the guidance of Old Ones during the conflict with the Necrons.

 Crimson wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They're the last remains of the Old Ones who managed to run away and hide from the proto-catastrophes of the War in Heaven and the Enslaver plague before most of them were destroyed by the emergence of Slaanesh. They aren't Warp entities, but they have an affinity for and mastery of the Warp that is unmatched among material beings so it can be hard to tell. (This answer is based largely on reading between the lines and may have been retconned more recently due to GW's newfound hatred for ambiguity.)

Where do you get this idea? I don't think this is true at all. It would be kinda cool, but not what the lore says.

What the lore implies that the Eldar gods started as psychic weapons created under the guidance of Old Ones during the conflict with the Necrons.

I think the operative word 'weapon' has been taken too literally by people. What is a bloodthirstrr if not a warp weapon? From what I can see, the old ones simply guided the Eldar into forming particular religious faith in keeping with their innate emotions in order to produce warp gods in their image and thus opposed to the enemies of the Eldar.

The outcome is vastly powerful beings capable of controlling the energies in warp Space manifesting in defence of their followers. They are weapons in a metaphorical sense.


Back in my portent/warseer days I had quite a few conversations with Marijan von Stauffer, the author of the liber chaotica. My understanding of 40k meta physics was shaped there. The underlying concept being that sentient/sapient life generates fundamental emotions, regardless of what species they are. In keeping with grimdark, they are rage, despair, desire, and ambition. The warp then is a giant Venn diagram of 4 overlapping warp storms, each coalesced around these fundamental emotions.

Each race has a different flavour of each emotion though so they manifest slightly differently. And some have gods that cross the borders of several, representing unique emotional expressions.

The Eldar gods then are just the Eldar flavour of these primordial emotional forces. For a time their numbers and psychic strength meant that these gods appeared in their image. The creation of slannesh obliterated the last vestiges of their other gods. But while slannesh was a purely Eldar god, the flavour is being turned human with the sheer number of them.

Basically, khaine is what the Eldar god of rage looks like, asuryan ambition and all the other gods mixed across the spectrum. You might say that humans have such basic emotions that they have create the most skewed and extreme forms, with none of the subtlety of the Eldar.

 Hellebore wrote:

Basically, khaine is what the Eldar god of rage looks like, asuryan ambition and all the other gods mixed across the spectrum. You might say that humans have such basic emotions that they have create the most skewed and extreme forms, with none of the subtlety of the Eldar.

Yeah I think this is the best way to consider it for sure.

My take-

Old Ones probably gene-engineered and psychically empowered the crap out of some old Eldar planetary leaders.

In a not-entirely-allegorical sense, the Old Ones successfully did what the Emperor was trying to copy (through guesswork and legend) with the Primarchs.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Well put. I like to think of it like this: Eldar used to be a pretty successful guy living a balanced (Asuryan) lifestyle. But then he developed a bad drug habit (Slaanesh). Over time, his work suffered (Vaul), his health deteriorated (Isha), and his whole personality changed (various other gods getting eaten). Eventually, all that was left of Eldar was basically just his addiction (Slaanesh), his violent side (Khaine), and his more manipulative side (Cegorach). However, he retained a tiny bit of control/discipline (Asuryan/the phoenix lords) and the ability to reflect on himself (Cegorach in the role of tricksters-as-mirrors-to-society). Eventually, he'd stewed in the consequences of his actions long enough to want to overcome his addiction and start over as a new version of himself (Ynnead).

This is pretty much as I understand it too. It's definitely a dark setting when being in tune with your murderous impulses (Khaine) is a decent outlook on life, and that those guys can be seen as the *good guys* in a lot of ways (I know 40k has no real good guys but you know what I mean).

I think the fact that there is no one answer is kind of the point when it comes to the proper mythological stuff of 40k. One thing to keep in mind is that the War in Heaven (the Necron/C'tan vs the Old One's version) took place sixty million years ago, a unit of time that is impossible to comprehend. That's 200x the amount of time Homo Sapiens have existed for and 923x the amount of time that human civilization has been around for. We can't even agree on one religion/mythology over that tiny fraction of time, how much worse would the Aeldari stories be?

 Gert wrote:
I think the fact that there is no one answer is kind of the point when it comes to the proper mythological stuff of 40k. One thing to keep in mind is that the War in Heaven (the Necron/C'tan vs the Old One's version) took place sixty million years ago, a unit of time that is impossible to comprehend. That's 200x the amount of time Homo Sapiens have existed for and 923x the amount of time that human civilization has been around for. We can't even agree on one religion/mythology over that tiny fraction of time, how much worse would the Aeldari stories be?

The difference is their gods are real.

Hecaton wrote:
The difference is their gods are real.

The very fact that this thread exists would throw doubt on that claim. They're only real in the sense that the Aeldari believe they were real. The Avatar of Khaine could be explained as blood magic, using a sacrifice to animate a golem and imbue it with power. The Yncarne only came into being after the destruction of Biel-Tan's Infinity Circuit and could just be the merged form of thousands of Aeldari souls shackled to the collective need for a saviour of the Aeldari race. Perspective is important to consider as is the word "myth".

I think it's fair to say *something* existed beyond just a nebulous warp entity.

*Something* built the blackstone fortresses, for example, and that something was probably an Old One and probably called Vaul. To what extent that entity is the same as the one killed by Slaanesh during the Prince's birth and the eldar's fall?

Answer unclear: ask again later.

 Hellebore wrote:

I think the operative word 'weapon' has been taken too literally by people. What is a bloodthirstrr if not a warp weapon? From what I can see, the old ones simply guided the Eldar into forming particular religious faith in keeping with their innate emotions in order to produce warp gods in their image and thus opposed to the enemies of the Eldar.

The outcome is vastly powerful beings capable of controlling the energies in warp Space manifesting in defence of their followers. They are weapons in a metaphorical sense.

Sure, I agree. I didn't mean anything else.

Back in my portent/warseer days I had quite a few conversations with Marijan von Stauffer, the author of the liber chaotica. My understanding of 40k meta physics was shaped there. The underlying concept being that sentient/sapient life generates fundamental emotions, regardless of what species they are. In keeping with grimdark, they are rage, despair, desire, and ambition. The warp then is a giant Venn diagram of 4 overlapping warp storms, each coalesced around these fundamental emotions.

Each race has a different flavour of each emotion though so they manifest slightly differently. And some have gods that cross the borders of several, representing unique emotional expressions.

The Eldar gods then are just the Eldar flavour of these primordial emotional forces. For a time their numbers and psychic strength meant that these gods appeared in their image. The creation of slannesh obliterated the last vestiges of their other gods. But while slannesh was a purely Eldar god, the flavour is being turned human with the sheer number of them.

Basically, khaine is what the Eldar god of rage looks like, asuryan ambition and all the other gods mixed across the spectrum. You might say that humans have such basic emotions that they have create the most skewed and extreme forms, with none of the subtlety of the Eldar.

I have to say I really dislike the idea that the big four are some essential fundamental forces and any set of gods must reflect that, rather than the four that happen currently be dominant. Also, there were more than four eldar gods.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
I think the fact that there is no one answer is kind of the point when it comes to the proper mythological stuff of 40k. One thing to keep in mind is that the War in Heaven (the Necron/C'tan vs the Old One's version) took place sixty million years ago, a unit of time that is impossible to comprehend. That's 200x the amount of time Homo Sapiens have existed for and 923x the amount of time that human civilization has been around for. We can't even agree on one religion/mythology over that tiny fraction of time, how much worse would the Aeldari stories be?

I still hate this. Even in the silliness of 40K the timescale is beyond laughable. It is totally inconceivable that there would be any cultural continuity for that long, and even the whole eldar species would have evolved into completely different forms.

 Crimson wrote:


I have to say I really dislike the idea that the big four are some essential fundamental forces and any set of gods must reflect that, rather than the four that happen currently be dominant. Also, there were more than four eldar gods.

The point here is that chaos is an inevitable mirror of reality, regardless of what species arises. That the warp as the mirror of souls will always mirror the emotions of life and those are built around fundamental forces evolved from struggle for existence.

It's the grim nihilistic struggle of the 40k universe, that in a larger metaphysical context we are the seeds of our own destruction. The only way to defeat chaos is to extinguish all life permanently.

The eldar gods were spread across the spectrum, far more delicately sliced than the expression of human emotions. It was only when they fell into pure indulgence and desire that they created a truly singular chaos god, one that even a human could understand and adopt. Some manifestation of those emotions will appear because they're universal. It's just they're currently human flavoured due to their dominance. A tau rage god would be very different to a human one for example.

 Gert wrote:
I think the fact that there is no one answer is kind of the point when it comes to the proper mythological stuff of 40k. One thing to keep in mind is that the War in Heaven (the Necron/C'tan vs the Old One's version) took place sixty million years ago, a unit of time that is impossible to comprehend. That's 200x the amount of time Homo Sapiens have existed for and 923x the amount of time that human civilization has been around for. We can't even agree on one religion/mythology over that tiny fraction of time, how much worse would the Aeldari stories be?

And that's okay with me. I like mystery.

What I can't get behind is how every time I see this come up on a board at at the LGS, I see tons of just bat crazy theories. Even in this thread there is a debate as to are they

Psychic Creations of the Eldar
Old Ones morphed into a new form.
Warp Deamons Bound to the Eldar.

And to be fair too, these are the same three I always see so at least it's consistent.

I think personally the first one makes the most sense. Even if maybe the Old Ones helped to guide the creation of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Crimson wrote:


I have to say I really dislike the idea that the big four are some essential fundamental forces and any set of gods must reflect that, rather than the four that happen currently be dominant. Also, there were more than four eldar gods.

The point here is that chaos is an inevitable mirror of reality, regardless of what species arises. That the warp as the mirror of souls will always mirror the emotions of life and those are built around fundamental forces evolved from struggle for existence.

It's the grim nihilistic struggle of the 40k universe, that in a larger metaphysical context we are the seeds of our own destruction. The only way to defeat chaos is to extinguish all life permanently.

The eldar gods were spread across the spectrum, far more delicately sliced than the expression of human emotions. It was only when they fell into pure indulgence and desire that they created a truly singular chaos god, one that even a human could understand and adopt. Some manifestation of those emotions will appear because they're universal. It's just they're currently human flavoured due to their dominance. A tau rage god would be very different to a human one for example.

How do Nids and Necrons figure into that? So far they seem to be able to interact with the warp, but are definitely not controlled by it. They're so alien that they break that line of logic you suggest about extinguishing all life. Tau also appear to have no reflection within the Warp, I suppose maybe they'll evolve it over time, but for now they don't seem to impact it at all.

 Crimson wrote:
I still hate this. Even in the silliness of 40K the timescale is beyond laughable. It is totally inconceivable that there would be any cultural continuity for that long, and even the whole eldar species would have evolved into completely different forms.

The culture did change and so did the species. They slowly became more hedonistic in their lifestyles, looking for pleasure and excess over all else. This led to the first Exodites who left the Empire for frontier worlds where they would have to once again learn to work the land and do manual labour, living lives of hardship compared to that of those they left behind. As the cults grew in prominence, yet more would leave to become Exodites and we see the first of those who would become the Asuryani, the Craftworlders, start to emerge as well. When you live for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, cultural change isn't going to be rapid, nor will it necessarily be needed in what could easily be described as a paradise.

 Togusa wrote:
And that's okay with me. I like mystery.

What I can't get behind is how every time I see this come up on a board at at the LGS, I see tons of just bat crazy theories. Even in this thread there is a debate as to are they

Psychic Creations of the Eldar
Old Ones morphed into a new form.
Warp Deamons Bound to the Eldar.

And to be fair too, these are the same three I always see so at least it's consistent.

I think personally the first one makes the most sense. Even if maybe the Old Ones helped to guide the creation of them.

That's just how background discussions go though. GW provides the material and collectively we discuss our theories, opinions, and ideas.

 Gert wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I still hate this. Even in the silliness of 40K the timescale is beyond laughable. It is totally inconceivable that there would be any cultural continuity for that long, and even the whole eldar species would have evolved into completely different forms.

The culture did change and so did the species. They slowly became more hedonistic in their lifestyles, looking for pleasure and excess over all else. This led to the first Exodites who left the Empire for frontier worlds where they would have to once again learn to work the land and do manual labour, living lives of hardship compared to that of those they left behind. As the cults grew in prominence, yet more would leave to become Exodites and we see the first of those who would become the Asuryani, the Craftworlders, start to emerge as well. When you live for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, cultural change isn't going to be rapid, nor will it necessarily be needed in what could easily be described as a paradise.

 Togusa wrote:
And that's okay with me. I like mystery.

What I can't get behind is how every time I see this come up on a board at at the LGS, I see tons of just bat crazy theories. Even in this thread there is a debate as to are they

Psychic Creations of the Eldar
Old Ones morphed into a new form.
Warp Deamons Bound to the Eldar.

And to be fair too, these are the same three I always see so at least it's consistent.

I think personally the first one makes the most sense. Even if maybe the Old Ones helped to guide the creation of them.

That's just how background discussions go though. GW provides the material and collectively we discuss our theories, opinions, and ideas.

Yeah. I mean heck, if anything I have heard some pretty entertaining stuff in relation to this, and the discussion in this thread has been really interesting so far.

 Gert wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I still hate this. Even in the silliness of 40K the timescale is beyond laughable. It is totally inconceivable that there would be any cultural continuity for that long, and even the whole eldar species would have evolved into completely different forms.

The culture did change and so did the species. They slowly became more hedonistic in their lifestyles, looking for pleasure and excess over all else. This led to the first Exodites who left the Empire for frontier worlds where they would have to once again learn to work the land and do manual labour, living lives of hardship compared to that of those they left behind. As the cults grew in prominence, yet more would leave to become Exodites and we see the first of those who would become the Asuryani, the Craftworlders, start to emerge as well. When you live for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, cultural change isn't going to be rapid, nor will it necessarily be needed in what could easily be described as a paradise.

That's not the scale of changes that happen in 60 million years. Whales evolved into their current from from land dwelling animals in 8 million years. It is just utterly bonkers timescale by several orders of magnitude.

Whales don't live for thousands of years with no natural predators or enemies to speak of.

 Togusa wrote:

How do Nids and Necrons figure into that? So far they seem to be able to interact with the warp, but are definitely not controlled by it. They're so alien that they break that line of logic you suggest about extinguishing all life. Tau also appear to have no reflection within the Warp, I suppose maybe they'll evolve it over time, but for now they don't seem to impact it at all.

Chaos reflects reality. It's just that emotions generate energy within the warp. But rocks, trees, ships etc, are all reflected in there. Gravitational forces distort it (or are generated by it), buildings, weapons and tanks get possessed, trees become corrupted. Whole planets can be possessed. But they they don't have sapient minds with soul mirrors in the warp.

A dog has a minor reflection in the warp, weaker than a person due to its simple emotional centre, but stronger than a rock without one at all.

Necrons have no soul and their emotions are arguably not 'real', but rather simulations. Tyranids reflect in the warp, but they're at a dog or tree level, not at a human or eldar level. And because their consciousness is all linked they reflect as one big super reflection, weaker individually but huge as a group.

The hive mind is not a chaos god for the same reason dogs don't create them.

Remember that before the emergence of the younger races, the warp was a big primordial dimension with nothing but the reflections of reality and the dull non sapient life forms scurrying around.

With the emergence of the volatile emotive forces of the eldar, krork etc, the warp was flooded with uncontrolled chaotic energies. This was harnessed and used by them as a weapon and slowly coalesced into warp avatars of their emotions.

If you removed all sapient life then there would be no chaos gods, but there'd still be the warp and the primordial energies reflected from base lifeforms.

 Crimson wrote:
That's not the scale of changes that happen in 60 million years. Whales evolved into their current from from land dwelling animals in 8 million years. It is just utterly bonkers timescale by several orders of magnitude.

Speaking as a biologist, change doesn't have to happen like that. I have organisms in my lab that don't recombine their DNA when they reproduce; the Old Ones could have engineered the Eldar so that they weren't subject to gene drift in the same way, and the Eldar could have technology advanced enough to reverse random mutations each generation. Change is not inevitable; some organisms have remained more or less unchanged in that same time period on earth (Crocodilians, etc).

 Crimson wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They're the last remains of the Old Ones who managed to run away and hide from the proto-catastrophes of the War in Heaven and the Enslaver plague before most of them were destroyed by the emergence of Slaanesh. They aren't Warp entities, but they have an affinity for and mastery of the Warp that is unmatched among material beings so it can be hard to tell. (This answer is based largely on reading between the lines and may have been retconned more recently due to GW's newfound hatred for ambiguity.)

Where do you get this idea? I don't think this is true at all. It would be kinda cool, but not what the lore says.

What the lore implies that the Eldar gods started as psychic weapons created under the guidance of Old Ones during the conflict with the Necrons.

We know the Eldar were originally created by the Old Ones, along with the Orks. Orks are confirmed to be bioweapons, but it is more ambiguous with the Eldar. They could have been a normal race the Old Ones created, along with humans and stuff. Or were possibly created with a purpose.

It is also confusing because what the Eldar call the War in Heaven and the Old Ones War in Heaven are described very differently, but also possibly might be the same event told from different perspectives. The Eldar War in Heaven might be simply a retelling of what their creators told them about the old conflict with the Necrons.

Crimson wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I still hate this. Even in the silliness of 40K the timescale is beyond laughable. It is totally inconceivable that there would be any cultural continuity for that long, and even the whole eldar species would have evolved into completely different forms.

The culture did change and so did the species. They slowly became more hedonistic in their lifestyles, looking for pleasure and excess over all else. This led to the first Exodites who left the Empire for frontier worlds where they would have to once again learn to work the land and do manual labour, living lives of hardship compared to that of those they left behind. As the cults grew in prominence, yet more would leave to become Exodites and we see the first of those who would become the Asuryani, the Craftworlders, start to emerge as well. When you live for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, cultural change isn't going to be rapid, nor will it necessarily be needed in what could easily be described as a paradise.

That's not the scale of changes that happen in 60 million years. Whales evolved into their current from from land dwelling animals in 8 million years. It is just utterly bonkers timescale by several orders of magnitude.

Gert wrote:Whales don't live for thousands of years with no natural predators or enemies to speak of.

Hecaton wrote:

Speaking as a biologist, change doesn't have to happen like that. I have organisms in my lab that don't recombine their DNA when they reproduce; the Old Ones could have engineered the Eldar so that they weren't subject to gene drift in the same way, and the Eldar could have technology advanced enough to reverse random mutations each generation. Change is not inevitable; some organisms have remained more or less unchanged in that same time period on earth (Crocodilians, etc).

To be honest,60 million years is probably long enough for even a hyper stagnant race to have changed more than it seems to have. Even if the truth has been heavily mythologized/obscured by time, the fact that the eldar still know they fought against necrons and know of the old ones (in some form) is pretty impressive.

But yeah, eldar are a long-lived species that does seem to have means of preventing visible mutations in their offspring (think that gets hinted at in Path of the Warrior, and if not there are genecrafters in the webway). Plus they seem to be hardwired to all feel very attached to the same mythical symbols (look at how often drukhari still reference the gods despite not much caring for them). Plus they have harlequins and the proto-harlequin servants of Cegorach before that to preserve their culture's stories. Plus, prior to Slaanesh, the norm was for eldar souls to reincarnate upon death. So a soul that was present for the Fall could theoretically have been the same soul that was present during the war in heaven. It's not inconceivable that such souls might retain some predisposition towards things their past lives held significant (such as mythological motifs and symbols).

tldr; "Realistically," the eldar probably should have had more cultural drift than they seem to have, but there are a lot of reasons to think they'd be far less prone to such drift than humans. So having the truth heavily obscured by time but still broadly/vaguely remembered seems like a decent middleground between those factors.

There's nothing really that suggest they've had 60 million years of uninterrupted dominance of the galaxy though.

I mean, the age of the imperium at 10,000 years is 1/6000th the timespan of that.

so 6000 ages of the imperium worth of events could have happened in that time. The eldar could have been bombed to the stone age a hundred times or more and still end up as they were during the fall.

Basically there's nothing that says their final form was anything like the intermediary ones.

IIRC from 2nd/3rd edition fluff, Eldar genetic material is some weird three-stranded molecule that is much more stable than DNA and basically doesn't mutate at all. So it's completely reasonable they might be genetically identical to how the Old Ones created them 60+ million years ago.

Also, I think it's important to remember that Eldar don't seem to view history as a set of objective facts one can study, but rather as a collection of allegorical stories that are used primarily as a guide to decision-making in the present. There's no reason to believe anything the Eldar say happened in the past has much connection to what actually happened. It's like trying to use Wagner's Ring Cycle to understand the realities of 5th century Europe, or the Pentateuch as your only source on the Ancient Near-East.

 Duskweaver wrote:
IIRC from 2nd/3rd edition fluff, Eldar genetic material is some weird three-stranded molecule that is much more stable than DNA and basically doesn't mutate at all. So it's completely reasonable they might be genetically identical to how the Old Ones created them 60+ million years ago.

Also, I think it's important to remember that Eldar don't seem to view history as a set of objective facts one can study, but rather as a collection of allegorical stories that are used primarily as a guide to decision-making in the present. There's no reason to believe anything the Eldar say happened in the past has much connection to what actually happened. It's like trying to use Wagner's Ring Cycle to understand the realities of 5th century Europe, or the Pentateuch as your only source on the Ancient Near-East.

That whole Eastern-Cyclic idea really permeates their culture, so that makes a lot of sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:
There's nothing really that suggest they've had 60 million years of uninterrupted dominance of the galaxy though.

I mean, the age of the imperium at 10,000 years is 1/6000th the timespan of that.

so 6000 ages of the imperium worth of events could have happened in that time. The eldar could have been bombed to the stone age a hundred times or more and still end up as they were during the fall.

Basically there's nothing that says their final form was anything like the intermediary ones.

Isn't it also that the Eldar were much more benevolent in those years as well? I've heard lore discussions before were folks were saying they usually ignored other races in the galaxy, and did barter or trade, especially for new knowledge when it suited them.

A lot is jot known. GW has some ideas, but I doubt they are more then half baked. You could trace the yneed (God of the dead) back to some 2nd edition fluff. But it was not actually a thing before GW wrote it a thing in 7th edition. And even know it is half baked. Although cool.

God remaining is yneed, harlequeen God, the one nurgle hash stashed away and the avatars. And I suppose Slanesh, but they do not really count.