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Pre-Fall Eldar

Asurmen's original name was Iliathin and he was born and spent his entire life on the Eldar world of Eidafaeron. His favorite hobby was people watching. He was not into extreme danger sports like surfing coronal mass ejections from stars. However he too was getting bored with more sedate pleasures like melding with a dream-tree. He was not averse to the other pleasures offered by the Eldar empire such as the amorous carnal pleasures offered in an increasingly seedy district. Iliathin also apparently did watch spire races, and was keen enough to stay and congratulate a victorious celebrity racer in person, who had shiny black feathered wings (body modification like the future Dark Eldar). He was hostile to the Eldar doom sayers that would become the Exodites, and skeptical of any impending doom. His brother Tethesis wanted to go join the Exodites, but Iliathin refused and Tethesis refused to go anywhere without him so they both stayed.

The Exodite movement appears to have involved more of the young and rebellious Eldar, looking for meaning in their lives.

Eidafaeron seemed to be a major Eldar world and becomes an apparent Crone World post-Fall, but it is not one of the "core worlds" as during the decline of the Eldar empire, Eldar from the core worlds brought ever more exotic and extreme experiences to Eidafaeron.

The pre-Fall Eldar empire is given by Tethesis as an empire of ten thousand stars (though it is unclear whether this is literal or just a convenient turn of phrase). All the exploring and fighting and conquering by this stage was done by machines, not the Eldar themselves, and the empire was utterly secure from outside threats, leaving the Eldar bored and struggling to find meaning to their lives.

As civil order began to break down, vigilante gangs started to roam, either to prey on others, establish powerbases of their own, or to preserve the old pure Eldar ways and to fight to growing decadence. Tethesis joined a group of this latter type called the True Guardians.

The long distance tradeship/cargo-hauler Rebirth of Ancient Days leaves from Eidafaeron bearing refugees away from the world though it is not specified whether this was its homeworld or just one stop along a route. This ship from its name would clearly later be known as Biel-tan Craftworld. Tethesis offers to get Iliathin a place on board but Iliathin refuses.

Another Craftworld called Twilight Voyager leaves Eidafaeron in the final anarchy and rioting preceding Slaanesh's birth.

A few Eldar do not have their souls sucked from their bodies with Slaanesh's birth, perhaps due to random chance. Iliathin discovers psychic energy coalescing into stones, and he calls them "affinity stones" due to how one seems to bond to an Eldar. These are obviously spirit stones.

Post-Fall, Iliathin finds his brother and another survivor at the True Guardians' former headquarters. It is a post-apocalyptic urban scavenging existence for these three. On a failed disastrous expedition, all except Iliathin are killed by daemons taking possession of dead Eldar bodies. Iliathin kills his brother after his mortally wounded brother starts becoming possessed, but before he is fully possessed. Death frees Tethesis from the daemon and his soul is captured by his stone. Tethesis is the first person killed by Iliathin.

Iliathin survives on his own near the temple precinct which the daemons shun due to the lingering presence of the Eldar gods. In despair he almost tries to kill himself by walking off a balustrade but is saved by a feral girl named Faraethil. He rebuffs her and continues living alone in the temple for several more years.

Faraethil was too young to remember pre-Fall Eldar life. Post-Fall she was raised by her brother until he was killed and then survived on her own, though with no apparent knowledge of Eldar mythology. Faraethil gets hunted by surviving decadent Eldar raiding from the Webway (i.e. Dark Eldar or proto-Dark Eldar) and enters the temple via its secret entrance. Iliathin realizes his hideout is compromised but takes pity on the girl and saves her from her attackers, in the process renaming himself as Asurmen. Faraethil also goes berserk and also kills some of her attackers.

Afterwards Asurmen teaches her his discipline and control was what gave him the edge over their attackers. He offers to teach her and she accepts. He renames Faraethil as Jain Zar. Together they find their attackers' spacecraft and they leave the planet. After much searching they find a distant pre-prepared but uninhabited moon colony, and they decide to settle there and name it Asur, meaning the silence, the heart, the wisdom at the centre of the universe.

Phoenix Lords and Aspects

Shining Spears, Warp Spiders, and Ebon Talons are named as Aspects whose founders were not Asurya. (This can be explained using the logic of all Asurya being Phoenix Lords but not all Phoenix Lords being Asurya. However there is still a continuity conflict with the information given in the Iyanden supplement on Drastanta, Phoenix Lord of the Shining Spears, where Asurmen was named as Drastanta's mentor).

Daemons can be permanently killed by certain artifacts or conjurations. The Sword of Asur is capable of doing so and does destroy a newly ascended Daemon Prince(ess) by making white fire erupt from within. It is suggested this is an effect of its special Diresword ability, as the fire erupts after power is channeled from the spirit stone of the sword.

Asurmen appears to travel at speed around the Webway in a compact armed starship called Stormlance which is controlled by a fragment of Asurmen's bloodlust. The ship is just the latest physical form of this aspect of Asurmen, and the ship's personality at times seems rebellious in the sense that it is sometimes takes greater risks or takes slower paths such that it will lead to more fighting rather than less.

An Exarch spirit is not necessary for a Phoenix Lord to revive. Asurmen is killed in one early chapter, and then later awakens in the same spot after having absorbed the spirit of a Black Guardian, and then finding out 700 local years have passed on the planet while his armor lay dormant.

Eldar in general

There is a young Eldar baby/toddler (with no teeth yet )named Manyia in the part of the story set in the current era. This girl has a doll that is meant for her to practice her telekinetic interactions with. There is a moment when she is distressed and demands her mother "share" with her (i.e. share thoughts and emotions directly). Her mother tells her they will do it for the last time and that Manyia must learn to "live within her (own) thoughts". So this kind of mind melding thing appears to be something Eldar children have to give up at an early age. It is not explored further, but perhaps this is the bond that twins do not have to give up. In the Valedor novel, this direct link without need for language (even telepathic language) is something said that all pre-Fall Eldar could do freely but which only twins can do now post-Fall (in a safe fashion).

Much later, an armed Chaos cultist has Manyia and her unarmed mother trapped in a storage space. The mother is terrified for the safety of her daughter, and has never been on the Path of the Warrior before (and views it with revulsion). The mother even prepares to kill Manyia, reasoning it is better that way than suffer. Manyia senses her mother's terror and gets very angry at the human for scaring her mother, and uses her innate Eldar psychic abilities to command the human to die (without the use of language). The cultist is dazed by the first command and raises his pistol to his eye. Manyia's repeat command of "Die!" makes him fire and kill himself. Admittedly we have no idea how weak willed the cultist was or how strong willed Manyia was.

Cool. That's actually enough to make me want to read the book - is it actually any good from a literacy point of view?

The prose is by Gav Thorpe so it is less earthy and visceral than Andy Chambers's Dark Eldar novels. It tells the content but in a way that at times seems very dry and stilted. I have also spotted some editing errors, such as some Chaos artifacts being referred to as Annihilator Shards consistently, then one and only one reference to them being Obliterator Shards.

There are 3 basic story threads. One set in the "current" era about 10 Eldar generations since the Fall, one set in the past with Iliathin/Asurmen, and one almost superfluous side story in the present involving a Wraithknight. To be honest, I found the current era story much less interesting than the one set in the past, and the current era story still has loose ends so it may be that this is set up for other Phoenix Lord or Eldar stories in the future.

I think the Wraithknight story could have been excised entirely to give more time to the Iliathin/Asurmen stuff. At its heart, that past tale is like a classic fall of Atlantis or like Tolkien's fall of Numenor. It is a tale of 2 brothers, one more in tune and aware of the gradually increasing decadence and disintegration of Eldar society and one who is not decadent but clearly more apathetic and disinterested until things are getting really bad. The problem is the brevity of the space devoted to this tale, so as a result we do not see much of their conflict, debate, or more of pre-Fall Eldar life. It would have been interesting to see more articulating of the various main Eldar viewpoints that would ultimately become the Exodites, Craftworlders, and Dark Eldar. Nor do we really get a glimpse of how Iliathin really transitions to Asurmen, as it is all handled pretty quickly. More time could have and should have been spent on his thoughts and introspection while living alone, as Asurmen is really the founder of not just the Path of the Warrior but the whole Path system, so how he came to reach his conclusions and enlightenment would have been useful. Similarly there is no real attempt at addressing the seeming hypocrisy of the very first Exarch (i.e. Trapped on a Path) teaching other Eldar about balance and harnessing their darker sides without it ruling or consuming them. I think the awakening of Iliathin into Asurmen would have been better written as one of those introspective metaphysical experiences like the temptation of the Buddha.

Similarly the tale of Jain Zar probably could be a novel in itself. I imagine her like Newt in the movie Aliens except more fierce and aggressive when cornered.

Damn, so basically it has awesome potential but is let down by being a Games Workshop novel?

I only read the first Path of the Warrior novel and Path of Archon...Did El'Uriaq ever get defeated?

El'Uriaq was the antagonist in Path of the Renegade. He was defeated in the end, although as you know from Path of the Archon, the actions undertaken to resurrect El'Uriaq caused the disjunction. I highly suggest Path of the Incubus, I've read all of the path books (Craftworld and Dark Eldar) and this one was the best. It's main story centers around a Grim and Resolute Incubus and a gaudy and highly talkative Harlequin which makes for a very fun read.

WTF is an Ebon Talon?

Does it cover how Pheonix Lords are able to reincarnate now, when the rest of the Eldar cannot? Or the process of how new Pheonix Lords are created?

Anything on the Rhana Dhandra?

And I guess any diresword can perma-kill a demon. Which is pretty sweet. Direswords are a massively underated weapon, IMO. Remove from play is extremely strong, although the delivery platform leaves a bit to be desired.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Damn, so basically it has awesome potential but is let down by being a Games Workshop novel?

You might say that since the whole book is only 223 pages and it is essentially trying to tell 3 tales within that.

Space is also used up in describing action and fighting scenes that I think are superfluous at least when it comes to finding out more about Asurmen and new Eldar background. The Wraithknight part about the bond between Eldar twins is unnecessary I think given we have already had that theme in the longer Valedor novel, and the short space available in this one detracted from the reader forming any close attachment to the twins. I don't know whether BL has a requirement for a certain amount or frequency of action and fighting but if so, this would certainly constrain the stories that can be written.

I personally would have been happy for the whole book to be an introspective meditation by Asurmen into his past, and the bulk of the book then being a relived memory of his life and the pre and post Fall times (since we know Eldar have near eidetic memories and can replay memories in their minds from the Path of the Warrior novel).

 Silverthorne wrote:
Does it cover how Pheonix Lords are able to reincarnate now, when the rest of the Eldar cannot? Or the process of how new Pheonix Lords are created?

Anything on the Rhana Dhandra?

And I guess any diresword can perma-kill a demon. Which is pretty sweet. Direswords are a massively underated weapon, IMO. Remove from play is extremely strong, although the delivery platform leaves a bit to be desired.

Nothing on the Phoenix Lord reincarnation or creation as the section on the past ends with Asurmen and Jain Zar setting foot on Asur. They have not made their armor or weapons yet.

The Rhana Dandra remains a vague future yet to come. In the current era part of the book, Asurmen says to one Eldar mother that she will not see it in her lifetime (which is a statement open to interpretation of course), and he is noncommittal when asked if the toddler will see it in her lifetime. There are no details that allow an estimate of the equivalent Imperial year. The only hint we have as to time setting is that Asurmen felt satisfaction at seeing another Eldar using his techniques for focusing ten Eldar generations after he first came up with them.

Strictly speaking we cannot conclude anything about direswords in general. The Sword of Asur is an artifact, as the first diresword, and it may have special symbolic significance due to that, as well as from holding the stone and soul of Tethesis. The daemon prince was newly ascended, and Asurmen noted the link to the warp was raw and vulnerable at this stage, and that the daemon was spending warp energy profligately in fighting and healing itself in the initial exuberance of apparently achieving immortality. So we do not know whether the Sword of Asur was able to kill that daemon (i.e. dissipate its warp form) because of its special status, because of the daemon's vulnerability or a combination of these two. Therefore we do not know whether a "run of the mill" diresword could do the same to a daemon prince, be limited to lesser daemons, or be entirely unable to permanently kill daemons at all.

Something to note is that direswords work by chanelling the soul of a dead eldar to destroy the target's soul.

In Malleus, Inquisitor Eisenhorn uses his force staff to do basically the same thing to a daemonhost, obliterating its daemon essense entirely using his own soul in the same way.

@Iracundus thanks for the detailed response