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.

Do eldar breed? Do they still make babies and if so it is anything like how humans do it? I'm curious, I've heard the dark eldar don't/can't reproduce, but the way things get retconned who knows? If eldar breed maybe thye do it in some way that's totally unlike humans, maybe using something like 'kryptonian gestation matrices" in superman.

I'm just curious. I've heard that slaanesh tried to take every signle eldar sould and newly made ones are extremely vulnerable, so hey have trouble reproducing at maintenance rate. Also i imagine if they've been around for 65 million years they needed to control their population growth to keep from literally drowning the galaxy in eldar.

Anyone know the fluff on this i'd appreciate hearing it, i don't follow the eldar too much. Not at all interested in an eldar army and can't say i'm fond of them. too arrogant.

Yes they do.

A large part of the Eldar plotline in the Forge of Mars series is related to a Farseer's (potential) children.

Dark Eldar have Trueborns, which are made the old fashioned way, and then a bunch of clones.

Yes all Aeldari can, and nothing has been retconned.

Asuryani control their population because they lack suffient Spirit Stones to protect all their potential offspring.

Drukhari breed normally, and make heavy use of cloning, as Spirit Stones are not an issue for them.

Just to add to what others have said, the Craftworld Eldar substantially limit breeding due to the lack of soulstones. If they don't have enough soul stones, they are damning whoever dies without one to an eternity of torture by Slaanesh. Dark Eldar can reproduce at will because they extend their lives in perpetuity by feeding off the pain and suffering of those that they torture. Most Dark Eldar are reproduced via cloning though because Dark Eldar do not play nice, procreating naturally exposes one to the risk of assassination, especially since there is kind of a cast system or an extreme concept of nobility. One only procreates with someone of their own rank. However, it is precisely those individuals that are most likely to assassinate you.

I’m pretty sure that it’s not just by choice as well. I’ve read in a number of sources (codices and novels) that it is difficult for Eldar to get pregnant which is why they do not generate a large number of offspring for their extended lifespan.

In 1rst edition/rogue trader (?) there was an half Eldar half human space marine. I do belive that has been changed as the two races can no longer breed.

Dark Eldar used to have a unit called true born, referring to their origin.

Yes they breed, and Eldar procreation happens in several installations, so to speak. An Eldar can have several differrent fathers. Check out Xenology.

 Niiai wrote:

Dark Eldar used to have a unit called true born, referring to their origin.

Which they lost, of course, since options = bad.

Hybrid human-eldar children I think are still part of the lore, just not something that has really raised its head in recent years with a notable example so its drifted to the side. Considering the xenophobic nature of the Imperium in general its clearly exceptionally rare for eldar to just work with humans let alone build a relationship.


As for breeding, Eldar certainly mate and breed just like humans. That said like many "elves" they are long lived and breed very slowly. Investing heavily into each individual child they have. As noted above, they also further limit their numbers to soulstones so that they can support their populations.


Interestingly even though Dark Eldar seem to breed more freely, their numbers have always appeared smaller than Craftworld+Exodites etc.. Which suggests that many of those clones and pureborn don't survive.



Basically the two ends of the Eldar people seem to approach breeding from the two extremes. One invests heavily into a single child to ensure its survival; the other invests into multiple offspring with the hope some will survive.

 Overread wrote:

Interestingly even though Dark Eldar seem to breed more freely, their numbers have always appeared smaller than Craftworld+Exodites etc.. Which suggests that many of those clones and pureborn don't survive.

Their society is, both euphemistically and literally, pretty damn cutthroat.

 Overread wrote:


Interestingly even though Dark Eldar seem to breed more freely, their numbers have always appeared smaller than Craftworld+Exodites etc.. Which suggests that many of those clones and pureborn don't survive.

My recollection is quite the opposite; the Drukhari outnumber all of the other Aeldari branches combined, and consitute the majority of the race.

There is nothing about the Drukhari clones which would lead them to have a shorter lifespan, of course other than their incredibly violent lifestyle.

Hecaton wrote:

 Niiai wrote:

Dark Eldar used to have a unit called true born, referring to their origin.

Which they lost, of course, since options = bad.

It not because of that. Is is because of the Chapter House lawsuit (may they rest in piece.) It is a source of much bad, including all the stupid rebranded names and lots of lost unit entries.

I’m sure there’s also something about the Eldar procreation process being far more involved than that of humans.

I’m sure I don’t need to educate anyone here about the Birds and the Bees, so I’ll take it as read you know babies don’t come from Storks or Cabbage Patches.

I’m not sure where it’s stated, but the Eldar require multiple stages to procreate successfully? It might be in Xenology, which is of dubious canon, given its an Imperium centric work, rather than confirmed information.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m sure there’s also something about the Eldar procreation process being far more involved than that of humans.

I’m sure I don’t need to educate anyone here about the Birds and the Bees, so I’ll take it as read you know babies don’t come from Storks or Cabbage Patches.

I’m not sure where it’s stated, but the Eldar require multiple stages to procreate successfully? It might be in Xenology, which is of dubious canon, given its an Imperium centric work, rather than confirmed information.

And given propaganda the Imperium might well not want anyone knowing that Eldar are potentially a compatible race. It raises too many questions that are not healthy to maintain a highly xenophobic attitude.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Do eldar breed? Do they still make babies and if so it is anything like how humans do it? I'm curious, I've heard the dark eldar don't/can't reproduce, but the way things get retconned who knows? If eldar breed maybe thye do it in some way that's totally unlike humans, maybe using something like 'kryptonian gestation matrices" in superman.

I'm just curious. I've heard that slaanesh tried to take every signle eldar sould and newly made ones are extremely vulnerable, so hey have trouble reproducing at maintenance rate. Also i imagine if they've been around for 65 million years they needed to control their population growth to keep from literally drowning the galaxy in eldar.

Anyone know the fluff on this i'd appreciate hearing it, i don't follow the eldar too much. Not at all interested in an eldar army and can't say i'm fond of them. too arrogant.

I think it is very easy answer to those questions using the logic: we know there are eldar characters of both the sexes and we know their females have the breasts; look the Howling Banshee models. So, because the subdivision in sexes is consequential to the sexual reproduction and because the female eldar models have breasts, which is consequential to the breastfeeding, not only we know they must breed, but we also know they are placental mammals like us: the monotremes don't have proper breasts and the breasts of the marsupials are hided in their pouch.
Maybe we don't know the details of their reproductive behavior, but I think it is better if we don't know: every time the GW tried to be exhaustive about the W40k lore, always wrote an immense pile of absurdities; at least in my opinion.

Well, I'm glad to see so many helpful, useful answers and no dumb wasteposts. I was curious about the eldar issue.

As to eldar human hybrids yes I remember the infamous "They made me go on an ambull hunt" bit, I'm sure an eldar human hybrid would be a major heresy today on both sides, and as a marine of all things..!!!

(Still i miss the days when 40k was meant to be fun for gamers and not a shopvac stuck in their wallets forever...)

I could almost image a desperate eldar considering eldar human hybrids to save the eldar culture as humans certainly do have a tenacity and endurance eldar lack, plus a human eldar hybrid might be more able to resist you know who. Unfortunately an eldar farseer would foresee him coming to that conclusion and kill him before he did it.

As to eldar having breasts, and therefore being placental mammals, heh heh, that reminded me of some background on the movie "Avatar".

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-cameron-explains-wh_n_475156

ANyway thanks for the honest replies, I appreciate a good snark free thread once in a while.

 Matt Swain wrote:
[…]
As to eldar having breasts, and therefore being placental mammals
[…]

Oh, sure, take a setting with the Old Ones in it and don't use it as the convenient explanation for parallel development of features in different races. Just don't ask why some committee of Old One race engineers had a thing for putting chest growths on species.

I mean, convergent evolution means multiple species on earth ended up looking like dolphins or crabs or whatever. It only makes sense that multiple species in the galaxy can evolve to have the same morphology.

It's science, man.

 Saber wrote:
I mean, convergent evolution means multiple species on earth ended up looking like dolphins or crabs or whatever. It only makes sense that multiple species in the galaxy can evolve to have the same morphology.

It's science, man.

A little OT but I've always thought it would be funny if we did come across aliens and they were just humans due to convergent evolution. All those whacky alien races that sci do writers have thought up over the years but actually it's just some boring human weirdos instead.

I presume it's been quietly tidied out of canon, but the old Ultramarines' Chief-Librarian Illiyan Nastase was half-Eldar, and the artwork even gave him pointy ears.

I said this in the head cannon thread, but it's my belief that the old ones (Slann?) initiated humanity after their fails with the eldar and the orks.

I believe about 65 million years ago they smacked earth with the dinosaur killed to reset it's ecosystem and seeded it with a genetic pattern meant to produce an intelligent (well, in some cases) species that was initiated by them but allowed to evolve naturally.

The OOs apparently crafted the eldar and orks in detail and very specifically. maybe they decided to take a similar template, an upright biped with 5 digits and just initialize a ecosystem meant to produce an intelligent, (sometimes) technological species but let it evolve 'in the wild', so to speak, as opposed to the hothouse way the orks and eldar were produced. Maybe the emprah was encoded into this pattern.

That explains the similarity between human and eldar, and even to the orks in terms of general body layout.

Orks have a very different reproductive system obviously. Eldar apparently have something similar to humans.

Also maybe it explains why eldar and orks left earth alone in the 65 million years between the beginning of the OOs initialization of earth's ecosystem and humanity developing space travel to a real degree. Some sort of deep instruction left by the OOs.

That's just my head canon but it does cover why eldar are sexually similar to humans.

Plus you can see elements of eldar and ork in humanity at times. Some humans are almost as sophisticated, intelligent, vain and pretentious as the eldar, some are almost as tenacious, direct, savage and brutal as the orks. Obviously both races are meant to be relatable to humans as written, i'm talking about in universe explanations.

And yes, the slann may have know it would take tens of millions of years for their plan to reach fruition, maybe it means they intended to return, say, in 10e wh40k.

Eldar bump uglies to breed like humans - except, unlike humans, it takes multiple sessions to get the motor running - so to speak.

But an Eldar also has more control over their pregnancy than a human does (they can slow it down, or put it on hold. Just like in the right circumstances, they can direct their own healing from injury.

Eldar are not, however, the product of any kind of "convergent evolution". They were DESIGNED the way they are. Humanity is the result of chaotic "evolution", and this is part of the reason for the disdain eldar have for the ignorant mon-keigh species.

 chromedog wrote:
Eldar bump uglies to breed like humans - except, unlike humans, it takes multiple sessions to get the motor running - so to speak.

But an Eldar also has more control over their pregnancy than a human does (they can slow it down, or put it on hold. Just like in the right circumstances, they can direct their own healing from injury.

Eldar are not, however, the product of any kind of "convergent evolution". They were DESIGNED the way they are. Humanity is the result of chaotic "evolution", and this is part of the reason for the disdain eldar have for the ignorant mon-keigh species.

Again, by my head cannon, maybe humans were initiated by the old ones, possibly using things learned from the eldar and orks, but once the biosphere was rebooted after the dinosaur killer they were allowed to evolve in a semi natural fashion, possibly the slann decided to see if evolution could improve on their fixed designs. Maybe the emprah was factored into the design.

I like to believe that, due to their inability to distinguish between history and myth, the eldar are actually completely wrong about almost everything to do with their own past. And given that almost everything humans in 40K think they know about the Old Ones and the War in Heaven comes from the eldar...

 harlokin wrote:

 Overread wrote:


Interestingly even though Dark Eldar seem to breed more freely, their numbers have always appeared smaller than Craftworld+Exodites etc.. Which suggests that many of those clones and pureborn don't survive.

My recollection is quite the opposite; the Drukhari outnumber all of the other Aeldari branches combined, and consitute the majority of the race.

There is nothing about the Drukhari clones which would lead them to have a shorter lifespan, of course other than their incredibly violent lifestyle.

Is there any mention of this in a book by chance? I would love for this to be the case as it would sort of show that there are a lot more Eldar than normally thought. Lots of Eldar but just too fragmented to matter. Plus it might make some sense as to how the Tau are able to survive...since their combined population is larger than some craftworlds and they seem to be surviving just fine.

-STS

slade the sniper wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Overread wrote:


Interestingly even though Dark Eldar seem to breed more freely, their numbers have always appeared smaller than Craftworld+Exodites etc.. Which suggests that many of those clones and pureborn don't survive.

My recollection is quite the opposite; the Drukhari outnumber all of the other Aeldari branches combined, and consitute the majority of the race.

There is nothing about the Drukhari clones which would lead them to have a shorter lifespan, of course other than their incredibly violent lifestyle.

Is there any mention of this in a book by chance? I would love for this to be the case as it would sort of show that there are a lot more Eldar than normally thought. Lots of Eldar but just too fragmented to matter. Plus it might make some sense as to how the Tau are able to survive...since their combined population is larger than some craftworlds and they seem to be surviving just fine.

-STS

Sorry mate, I simply do not remember.

I think it was from a codex, and/or commentary from a GW interview, not something like Path of the Archon.

'Facts' like that also tend to change from book to book, and GW can always fall back on the lazy counter about "there is no canon.

I second the vague memory of Dark Eldar being the most prolific of the Eldar. I believe it was stated in the same way that everything is in 40k, they left it ambiguous, mentioning it as a way of explaining the scale of the Dark City. Something along the lines of the Dark City is not bound by normal physics, it has the potential to expand infinitely and may contain more eldar than their craftworld kin. But, I too have no idea where that came from, it might be one of those little comments in the marginalia of the old codex.

I definitely feel that the implication is that most, if not all, of the bipedal warp sensitive races were seeded by the old ones. They used the ones that worked well and ignored the rest. Eldar work like warp weapons with legs, krorks were an unstoppable horde that needed little to no logistical support.

Humans were a bit nothing and took a long time to evolve so we’re ignored. That’s my head cannon.

 harlokin wrote:

slade the sniper wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Overread wrote:


Interestingly even though Dark Eldar seem to breed more freely, their numbers have always appeared smaller than Craftworld+Exodites etc.. Which suggests that many of those clones and pureborn don't survive.

My recollection is quite the opposite; the Drukhari outnumber all of the other Aeldari branches combined, and consitute the majority of the race.

There is nothing about the Drukhari clones which would lead them to have a shorter lifespan, of course other than their incredibly violent lifestyle.

Is there any mention of this in a book by chance? I would love for this to be the case as it would sort of show that there are a lot more Eldar than normally thought. Lots of Eldar but just too fragmented to matter. Plus it might make some sense as to how the Tau are able to survive...since their combined population is larger than some craftworlds and they seem to be surviving just fine.

-STS

Sorry mate, I simply do not remember.

I think it was from a codex, and/or commentary from a GW interview, not something like Path of the Archon.

'Facts' like that also tend to change from book to book, and GW can always fall back on the lazy counter about "there is no canon.

Commentary from Phil Kelly IIRC, in the many interviews at the time of the major 5th Ed revamp.