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In the rules book of 40k 7E there is a section talking about which allies like which, and I saw the Dark Eldar and the Eldar have friendly relations. I thought this was weird, because the Dark Eldar is exactly what the Eldar were like before the fall and the birth of Slaanesh. The Eldar seek to rebuild the Eldar without falling to the hedonistic tendencies of the Dark Eldar. The Eldar, if anything, would be disgusted by the Dark Eldar, and probably attempt to retake Commorragh. What do you think?

You're making a number of critical mis-interpretations.

First, 'battle brothers' does not mean 'friendly relations', it means that they operate well together and can generally rely on one another during a battle. This matches well with their fluff because both Craftworld and Commoroite Eldar are still Eldar, and they would much rather work with one of their own race than trust something like a human, to whom they see as undeveloped primates.

Second, as said before, they are still Eldar and that bond is what keeps them together. The best analogy is that the Craftworld Eldar see the Commoroite as a weird cousin who has piercings in strange places, and is definitely up to no good, while the Commorite see Craftworld Eldar as the stuffed up and puritan bore of a cousin. While they are still vastly different, they are still family, and when someone threatens family, they put aside the differences. Especially when said family member is under attack by a band of armed and slightly developed monkeys.

Third, as a dying race, no Eldar is interested in war with itself. Any civil war is going to cost lives, and lives are something that Eldar do not have to spare. Especially for something like this. Despite how different they are, it isn't as if the Craftworlders hate the Commorites. Instead, they see them as on a different path, with a different cost.

@curran12

While I think you are correct in terms of "canon". I do think it's stupid. As long as Dark Eldars will live, Slaanseh will endure. They are just as decadent, if not even more, than at the height of their insanity during the last days of the Eldar Empire. If the people of the Craftworld want a world free of Slaanesh, they will have at some point to kill the degenerates of Commoragh. Ironically, a farseer of Biel-Tan attempted to destroy Commoragh in the mistitled Path of the Dark Eldar serie. It turns out he was manipulated by Tzeentch and had to be stopped, but he was correct. If you are to save your race from destuction and damnation you will have to remove those who damned and destroyed it in the first place. In my opinion, Dark Eldars and Craftworld Eldars should have a similar relationship with each other than the Imperium and the Forces of Chaos.

As if killing the Dark Eldar would make Slaanesh go away. That's like putting emphasis on punishing the person who started a fire without actually putting out the fire. Yes, the old Eldar birthed Slaanesh, but it is foolish to think that they're the key to stopping Slaanesh.

Plus, it's not like the Craftworld Eldar are free from Slaanesh either. Why do you think they're so quick to get spirit stones? And if they die without one, they're just as empowered to Slaanesh.

The think about Craftworlders is that their culture is every bit as bound to Slaanesh as the Dark Eldar are. That's part of the nuance of their fluff.

Slaanesh is the lord of decadence, embodied by the Dark Eldar.

Slaanesh is also the lord of perfection.

The Craftworld Eldar spend every single day of their lives training at one particular facet until they have mastered it, at which point they move on to the next thing. That's how the Path system works.

That would empower Slaanesh every bit as much as the Dark Eldar's debauchery. Slaanesh is an embodiment of the Eldar, and the vice versa.

In fact, it could be that the only reason Slaanesh leaves the Eldar/Dark Eldar alone at all is because their actions are feeding her...

The Path system is explicitly described as being contrary to the natural Eldar inclination and therefore also Slaanesh. The natural inclination of the Eldar is to do whatever they want whenever they feel like it, explaining the capriciousness of Corsairs who can be generous or cruel as the whim takes them. The Path system forces them to focus on one aspect of life at a time while abstaining from the rest. The act of abstaining is foreign to Slaanesh.

Iracundus wrote:
The Path system is explicitly described as being contrary to the natural Eldar inclination and therefore also Slaanesh. The natural inclination of the Eldar is to do whatever they want whenever they feel like it, explaining the capriciousness of Corsairs who can be generous or cruel as the whim takes them. The Path system forces them to focus on one aspect of life at a time while abstaining from the rest. The act of abstaining is foreign to Slaanesh.

You say that, but that sounds to me like an arrogant justification that the Eldar would believe, naively thinking that they had tricked the Great Enemy...

Slaanesh's direction recently has been pretty much debauchery and not much else, but 'God of Perfection' sounds like something the Craftworlders are unwittingly feeding with their every action.

You won't find that written anywhere, but following through the logic it's a definite (and very nuanced) possibility.

The Craftworld Eldar do not have any real problems with the Dark Eldar or any other group of Eldar. They themselves lead an ascetic lifestyle, but they do not force that lifestyle on anyone. It is a choice that they make for themselves, they do not neccessarily want all other Eldar to live the same way. The Craftworld Eldar are fine with other Eldar leading different lifestyles, be they Dark, Exodite, Harlequin, Corsair etc.
Also, all Eldar have a common enemy in Slaanesh. The Dark Eldar hate Slaanesh just as much, if not more, than the Craftworld Eldar.


The Dark Eldar are not exactly like the Eldar before the fall. Both Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar societies have evolved out of the neccesity to find a way to keep Slaanesh at bay. Both have found a way to do this. Both embody different aspects of the pre-fall Eldar, but ultimately still are subcultures of one larger Eldar culture. They have many differences, but they have even more in common.
In fact, Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar are so similar, non-Eldar usually find it extremely hard to tell the difference.

Slaneesh is Famine from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Extreme hunger (for everything). Not food, but sensations and emotions. Not just debauchery, but wanton desire.

Craftworlders conqueror their various hungers with rigid discipline and narrow paths in life. They subdue Slaneesh. Dark Eldar do the opposite. They indulge their desires. They satiate Slaneesh. These are not antithetical, they can coexist because they do not take from each other.

The Imperium is order and discipline. Chaos is disorder and destruction. One denies Chaos, the other IS Chaos. They cannot coexist, they either conquor, or destroy the other.

 Darasaar_Of_Saim-Hann wrote:
In the rules book of 40k 7E there is a section talking about which allies like which, and I saw the Dark Eldar and the Eldar have friendly relations. I thought this was weird, because the Dark Eldar is exactly what the Eldar were like before the fall and the birth of Slaanesh. The Eldar seek to rebuild the Eldar without falling to the hedonistic tendencies of the Dark Eldar. The Eldar, if anything, would be disgusted by the Dark Eldar, and probably attempt to retake Commorragh. What do you think?

It's important to remember that "Dark" Eldar are about as close as it gets to prefall eldar. Exodities, Craftworld Eldar, and Harlequins are all rather recent types of Eldar. Therefore you would think that while craftworld eldar might hate Dark Eldar, they would hate them like modern europeans hate crusaders and conquistadors. They did such horrible things in centuries past, but we kind of evolved from them. The difference is that they still do such horrible things. Perhaps it would be like a religious cult in midwestern american and how they view the rest of decadent american society. They might hate society, but they dont want to kill everyone, they want to convert them.

Also Dark Eldar are still the dominant kind of eldar. There are more Dark eldar than all other types of eldar, and the dark variety have control of the webway. Craftworld eldar run around on massive ships that are the size of small planets. Commorragh is orders of magnitude larger than even the largest planet. It contains stars, not just a single sun, but 4 different suns. It has extra dimensions folded in on themselves. It's like a dysonsphere or dysonspheres. All of the craftwords combined could not hope to storm Commorragh, even if vect was off doing some treaturous plot.
Similar to the religious cult analogy, perhaps the cult would like to take over the military and government, but simply lack the resources.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Path system is explicitly described as being contrary to the natural Eldar inclination and therefore also Slaanesh. The natural inclination of the Eldar is to do whatever they want whenever they feel like it, explaining the capriciousness of Corsairs who can be generous or cruel as the whim takes them. The Path system forces them to focus on one aspect of life at a time while abstaining from the rest. The act of abstaining is foreign to Slaanesh.

You say that, but that sounds to me like an arrogant justification that the Eldar would believe, naively thinking that they had tricked the Great Enemy...

Slaanesh's direction recently has been pretty much debauchery and not much else, but 'God of Perfection' sounds like something the Craftworlders are unwittingly feeding with their every action.

You won't find that written anywhere, but following through the logic it's a definite (and very nuanced) possibility.

I thought that the point of the 'path' was to prevent craftworld eldar from reaching perfection in anything. As soon as they reach a mastery level of sufficient scope they move on to something else. The idea is to avoid becoming Lelith Hesperex, Fulgrim or Kaldor Draigo. After a certain level of mastery, further practice towards perfection is just self indulgent. Self indulgence is the problem.

Eldar take paths in part to avoid distraction, and to maintain focus. If they stay on one to long they risk being locked into it or "consumed" by it, this is where exarchs come from.

Its the dark eldar themselves who might be the issue for they really do not like psykers.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Its the dark eldar themselves who might be the issue for they really do not like psykers.

Well they dislike for psykers it's born more from necessity than from true distaste.

Psykers in the Webway are much more dangerous and can attract Demons much more easily so Vect banned them and all DE just accepted it as a lesser evil. Should they find a way to use their psyker gifts and remain safe from Slaanesh in commorragh lots of individuals will dabble on it to absurd levels just for fun.


It's worth to notice that for all Eldars their Souls>everything else, they can accept or ignore some decadence on their bodies but it's their souls they care above anything else. They can kill each other and most of the times life goes on, but desecrating each other souls it's something they won't do without a good good reason.

P.S: there is a short story where the Dark Eldar accept to *take care* of a human governor due him killing a Farseer and using his soulstones as jewels, the history end with an Eldar commenting last he heard the human was alive after 500+ year still paying for it in the Haemonculus hands.