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Jumping on the Eldar train with this new codex, unhealthily indulging in a lot of models that have been on my bucket list for a long time now. While I'll totally be playing not-Alaitoc (because seriously, who the hell writes these faction traits?), I'd like to fluff up my own craftworld, and one thing that I want to be important to mine is its use of its Avatar.

With that in mind, is it ever said how long an Avatar remains active once an Exarch has been sacrificed to it? Does it remain for just one battle? Or is it a campaign-long sort of thing? Can an Avatar stick around for ages so long as there's something to be pissed at, or is it a definite time limit? If a craftworld is destroyed while its Avatar is active, does the avatar just eventually peter out, never to be revived? Or can it still be revived without access to its Infinity Circuit? Can he just pop the awkwardly shaped helmet off a dude and have an Exarch flavoured energy drink as the situation demands?

Point is, I really like the avatar, it's pretty legit, and I don't want it to quit.

It lasts until the nearest space marine, Tyranid, or sickly orphan finally strangles it. 2 hours, tops.


In a more serious note, the Avatar spends seemingly days or weeks in the process of awakening. In the Path novels, the Avatar is active in at least two different battles that are a matter of months apart. The first battle wasn't even a direct threat to the Craftworld or any of its inhabitants. If he needs to eat an exarch every time he fights, the Aspect shrines are going to start looking like ghost towns.

I'm not aware of any actual indication of the timespan that an Avatar is awake after a sacrifice, only that it's assumed that it must be limited otherwise they'd only really need to awaken them once. Options I can see are:

1. Is constantly awake until it's killed
(not a fan of this one)

2. Lasts as long as the battle it's awakened for
(meaning the Avatar in the Path novels required multiple sacrifices)

3. Lasts as long as the general anger and hatred aboard a craftworld is powerful enough to sustain it
(this one's a cornerstone of my craftworld's fluff, where their avatar is forever smoldering upon his iron throne because the loss sustained in their Iyanden-scale extinction event has fostered so much anger and resentment in their hearts)

4. Lasts as long as the sacrificed soul within it can stand up to the infinite burning hatred of a fractured warp-God of War and Murder before being agonisingly burnt into the soul-equivalent of a burnt out husk
(my favourite due to sheer grimdarkness)

5. 158 hours, give or take a little for ambient temperature, fluid dynamics and ropey maths
(the amount of time it would take for a Forgeworld-sized Avatar made of pure iron to cool from 1 degree below evaporation to solidifying*)

*Based on some pretty ropey maths, but should give an indication. Figures below:

Boiling point of iron: 2863 deg C
Melting point of iron: 1538 deg C
Mass of a cast-iron life-size Avatar extrapolated from mass of a 6ft human and the size of an Avatar in 28mm scale: 2882560kg (2882 tons)
Joules of energy required to heat Avatar from melting to just under boiling point: 1716132096000 joules
Surface area of Avatar: 7.6m squared
Estimated thermal heat conductivity of pure iron at 2200 degrees (average of the heat differential between boiling and melting iron, extrapolated from existing measured lower values. Probably doesn't work that way, but hey ho): 15 watts per metre per deg C
Ambient temperature: 20 deg C
Heat conduction of an Avatar: 3018720 watts

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

3. Lasts as long as the general anger and hatred aboard a craftworld is powerful enough to sustain it
(this one's a cornerstone of my craftworld's fluff, where their avatar is forever smoldering upon his iron throne because the loss sustained in their Iyanden-scale extinction event has fostered so much anger and resentment in their hearts)

This is my favoured option although that is purely my personal head-canon.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I'm not aware of any actual indication of the timespan that an Avatar is awake after a sacrifice, only that it's assumed that it must be limited otherwise they'd only really need to awaken them once. Options I can see are:

1. Is constantly awake until it's killed
(not a fan of this one)

2. Lasts as long as the battle it's awakened for
(meaning the Avatar in the Path novels required multiple sacrifices)

3. Lasts as long as the general anger and hatred aboard a craftworld is powerful enough to sustain it
(this one's a cornerstone of my craftworld's fluff, where their avatar is forever smoldering upon his iron throne because the loss sustained in their Iyanden-scale extinction event has fostered so much anger and resentment in their hearts)

4. Lasts as long as the sacrificed soul within it can stand up to the infinite burning hatred of a fractured warp-God of War and Murder before being agonisingly burnt into the soul-equivalent of a burnt out husk
(my favourite due to sheer grimdarkness)

5. 158 hours, give or take a little for ambient temperature, fluid dynamics and ropey maths
(the amount of time it would take for a Forgeworld-sized Avatar made of pure iron to cool from 1 degree below evaporation to solidifying*)

*Based on some pretty ropey maths, but should give an indication. Figures below:

Boiling point of iron: 2863 deg C
Melting point of iron: 1538 deg C
Mass of a cast-iron life-size Avatar extrapolated from mass of a 6ft human and the size of an Avatar in 28mm scale: 2882560kg (2882 tons)
Joules of energy required to heat Avatar from melting to just under boiling point: 1716132096000 joules
Surface area of Avatar: 7.6m squared
Estimated thermal heat conductivity of pure iron at 2200 degrees (average of the heat differential between boiling and melting iron, extrapolated from existing measured lower values. Probably doesn't work that way, but hey ho): 15 watts per metre per deg C
Ambient temperature: 20 deg C
Heat conduction of an Avatar: 3018720 watts

Really like your ideas 3 and 4, but now I do not know which one to choose to make headcanon
Also like the work you put in idea 5. But it is way too sciency for 40k.

Haha yeah I started with just the idea of picking a random arbitrary number, but then thought 'nah hold on, I can actually work this out...'

As for 3 and 4 I'm tied between them two. 3's a cornerstone of my craftworld's fluff, but 4's just such a grimdark idea it's too good to let go.

I vote a combination of the two...

From the Path novels there's a really interesting tidbit which is that when an Avatar is waking within a craftworld, all of the eldar within get increasingly angry and short-tempered. Whether that's a cause of the Avatar's awakening or an effect is left ambiguous (probably both).

So, how about:

'As long as the soul within can withstand the burning hate of an Avatar, it generates enough anger within the Craftworld population to maintain it. Sometimes, if the anger goes unquenched a Craftworld can sustain its Avatar long after the sacrificial soul has been burnt to a cinder'

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Haha yeah I started with just the idea of picking a random arbitrary number, but then thought 'nah hold on, I can actually work this out...'

As for 3 and 4 I'm tied between them two. 3's a cornerstone of my craftworld's fluff, but 4's just such a grimdark idea it's too good to let go.

I vote a combination of the two...

From the Path novels there's a really interesting tidbit which is that when an Avatar is waking within a craftworld, all of the eldar within get increasingly angry and short-tempered. Whether that's a cause of the Avatar's awakening or an effect is left ambiguous (probably both).

So, how about:

'As long as the soul within can withstand the burning hate of an Avatar, it generates enough anger within the Craftworld population to maintain it. Sometimes, if the anger goes unquenched a Craftworld can sustain its Avatar long after the sacrificial soul has been burnt to a cinder'

Now this seems best answer.
There soul a burnt cinder but kept burning by the hate of others. Grim dark indeed.

What I want to know is how in all of the galaxy could a primarch headlock one to death?

Bad writing.

One of the pre-Fall Eldar in Asurmen makes an offhand remark to the effect that the Eldar gods were already long dead, worship was nonexistent and shrines were only maintained out of a sense of duty to the past. Perhaps Khaine's long spiritual malnourishment and scarring from his battle with Slaanesh left him in a sorry state. His avatars are implied to be some kind of necrodermis that infused him after his fight with Kaelis Ra--he's pretty much a glorified wraithlord with an attitude problem.

 Togusa wrote:
What I want to know is how in all of the galaxy could a primarch headlock one to death?

Fulgrim crushes it's neck. It's not that dissimilar to decapitation (just not completely severing the neck). Primarchs are at least at Greater Daemon levels of power (complete with it being inconsistent).

Also remember, the Avatar essentially awakens itself - that thrumming/pulsing which is an indication to the Craftworld itself that something bad is about to happen. I'd suspect the Avatar has a similar knowledge of when the threat has receded enough to return. I assume just being awakened etc. must be a taxing effort on behalf of the Avatar or the sacrificed body. The Avatar is essentially a Daemon, correct? Meaning - like a daemon it would struggle to maintain itself in the mortal world for too long? Maybe tie some of that in?

It would just be nice if for once the in-game unit matched the fluff - considering it gets leveled pretty quickly in most games.

Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

Did the fluff change? Historically it was not an exarch that was sacrificed, but a youth.

 Frazzled wrote:
Did the fluff change? Historically it was not an exarch that was sacrificed, but a youth.

Everything I've ever heard is an Exarch and I've heard nothing even hinting at a youth...

pm713 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Did the fluff change? Historically it was not an exarch that was sacrificed, but a youth.

Everything I've ever heard is an Exarch and I've heard nothing even hinting at a youth...

Maybe he confused it with that exarch is called YOUNG king? Which is basically a title for him. Not related to age. Probably he's not rookie exarch as exarch needs sufficient will and courage plus thirst for victory.

The Eldar background has oscillated between the sacrifice being an Exarch or an Aspect Warrior for multiple editions, as different authors tug different ways. Gav Thorpe prefers an Exarch. The latest Craftworlds Codex has it as an Aspect Warrior.

I prefer Aspect Warrior for several reasons. Given the frequency of the Eldar going to war, I find it more believable that a common Aspect Warrior is sacrificed rather than the far harder to replace Exarchs. The other key reasons revolve more around theme. The entire sacrifice of the Young King is a symbolic re-enactment of Khaine's original victory over the original Young King, Eldanesh, the Adam-like figure of the Eldar. Khaine had offered Eldanesh and the Eldar power and dominion over others, as well as Khaine burying his enmity towards the Eldar, if Eldanesh and the Eldar would swear loyalty to him. Eldanesh refused, provoking Khaine to strike him down.

The symbolic re-enactment of that original myth/history (along with the sacrifice of a soul) may be what stirs the Avatars, fragments of Khaine, into life as possibly they remember at some level. The sacrifice of the Young King being an Aspect Warrior is also more significant than if it were an Exarch because an Exarch by being trapped on the Path of the Warrior is already wholly given over to Khaine, whereas an Aspect Warrior is a sacrifice of a soul that is not yet bound and which would otherwise have a future in other pursuits. Therefore it is a sacrifice of innocence or of the potential for peaceful pursuits/growth in favor of immediate power and ability to wage war and shed blood. That is in a way symbolic of what the Craftworld Eldar have had to do ever since the Fall.

tneva82 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Did the fluff change? Historically it was not an exarch that was sacrificed, but a youth.

Everything I've ever heard is an Exarch and I've heard nothing even hinting at a youth...

Maybe he confused it with that exarch is called YOUNG king? Which is basically a title for him. Not related to age. Probably he's not rookie exarch as exarch needs sufficient will and courage plus thirst for victory.

There aren't really any rookie Exarchs though are there? Seeing as they're all just an ancient Eldar with different souls inside. How many of those are consumed by the Avatar anyway?

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

That is basically what happens in "Aurellian". Lorgar puts it out of its misery.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

LOL. I have to exalt you for that.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

Ouch. Imagine the surprise of anyone who happens to land there. Or worse yet, lands undetected by the Avatar, builds a thriving mining colony and then digs too deep and breaks into the gaming room...

Spetulhu wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

Ouch. Imagine the surprise of anyone who happens to land there. Or worse yet, lands undetected by the Avatar, builds a thriving mining colony and then digs too deep and breaks into the gaming room...

I have a mental image of an Avatar cheering, saying thank you and butchering a colony.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

This leads to another question: can Avatars of Khaine enter the webway by themselves?

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

This leads to another question: can Avatars of Khaine enter the webway by themselves?

One does so in Shadowpoint. It seems to know the gates pretty well so when one section is blocked it just finds another gate.

pm713 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Did the fluff change? Historically it was not an exarch that was sacrificed, but a youth.

Everything I've ever heard is an Exarch and I've heard nothing even hinting at a youth...

2nd Edition fluff, hence my query. Now I may be incorrect but there was nothing about a Young King that I can remember.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an Avatar that was the last Eldar unit alive that successfully drove its enemies to defeat that has spent the last thousand years playing angry Solitaire because it wasn't destroyed but can't get to another world to kill more stuff.

This leads to another question: can Avatars of Khaine enter the webway by themselves?

I believe in the novel Shadowpoint an avatar used a webway leading to some adventures along the way (Harlies encountering it and bowing, it leaving one gate and wiping out a pack of orks as it traveled to another portal). EDIT: someone noted first-Zoinked!
note: if you haven't Shadowpoint is a fun read with a nice space battle plus Eldar vs. Dark Eldar.

The Young King is just the title for the lucky (?) Exarch who gets nominated for dying.

From what I understood, in the Rogue Trader fluff, the Avatar was literally consuming itself in flames. It 'dies' when there's no more mass to consume. Theoretically, that could be years, the reason it dies sooner is damage from battle removes raw materials to sustain itself.

I would think it just carries on till taken down, eventually turning upon the craftworld if it survives whatever battle they were fighting almost like the time when khaine killed a ton of elder..

 john27 wrote:
I would think it just carries on till taken down, eventually turning upon the craftworld if it survives whatever battle they were fighting almost like the time when khaine killed a ton of elder..

Ooh I like this idea if the Avatar doesn't get destroyed it just keep killing, regardless of who it is.

Doesn't quite gel with the fluff of the Avatar in the Jain Zar novel, but I'm usually up for a bit of creative interpretation

Fits nicely in that Khaine is only really God of War second. First and foremost, he's God of Murder...

I like the idea of an entire craftworld was lost because of a brutal fight, when after the battle the avatar kills the remaining eldar...