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Are there any examples of Dark Eldar that turned away from the Com and became a recluse or whatnot, leaving the whole torture, kidnapping, and murder thing behind?

Yvraine and some of the Dark Eldar in the Ynnari are an example. They don't torture people to prevent Slaanesh from eating them since their souls are protected by the Ynnead. Some of the Dark Eldar still torture their captives for fun, if nothing else.

That's not exactly good....

Path of the Warrior has a Dark Eldar turn into a Scorpion.

We're all good. If you have heard different its just the lies and propaganda of your uncaring and brutal bureaucracy.

They need you chained to their yoke grinding out our soul in endless pointless repetitive toil. Joy is forbidden to you, only toil and slavery to the 'High Lords' with their agendas, plots, and games, dancing around that corpse in the chair. Wasting a hundred worlds, 10 billion lives of the throw of the dice.

We offer escape from all that, come away to the hidden city. We can help you reach your full potential. Hear and even play unearthly music so beautiful it will pierce your soul. Thrill at such feats of daring in the arena it will stop your heart. Serve such beauty and grace that you will weep.

Or stay here and grind out one 14 hour day after the next for a boss who's only amusement is petty viciousness and drunken anger. There is no escaping the brutality of it.

Except with us, come away to the hidden city, escape your dull grinding drudgery and experience pleasures undreamed of.

usmcmidn wrote:
Are there any examples of Dark Eldar that turned away from the Com and became a recluse or whatnot, leaving the whole torture, kidnapping, and murder thing behind?

Considering the fact that the Dark Eldar rely on torture and being sadistic to keep their souls from Slaanesh's hunger, it's pretty far fetched to believe they would give that all up, it's basically suicide.

If only they saw things the way the craftworlds do.

It's rare but occasionally some one will leave and try to join a Craftworld but the process of bonding with a Soulstone is increadibly difficult at that point. Generally speaking, it's just much easier to stay as one of the Drukhari than change to the Craftworlds way of life.

There are aome cultural echanges between the craftworlds.

Become a craftworld buddist, focusing on one task at a time. Han your sould bound to the infinety circuit. And possible the bring on the new god.

Become a wildlife hippie budist, have your soul bond withe the world soul. Possibly bring on the new god.

Become religius and study the performance arts. Have your soul safe by the laughing god, somehow.

Become a pirate! I am a bit unsure how they ceep her at bay, but the craftworld method or the dark eldar method.

Give inn to all impulses and travel to Khomoraugh. Hope you drain more souls then she who thirst drains yours. Prepare for a very paranoid lifestyle with backstabs and adictions. Live life 500% the way only an Eldar psyke can.

Worship the Ynari. I do not know what this entails. The good is not fully birthed yet. (But seems to be on the way up instead of fowm like Khaine.)

All of these options are available to you. I suppose becoming the young king or an Excharch pressents some other options as well. Perhaps even offer up yourself to a phoenix lord by taking on the mantle.

Note that most of these options are bad once you go long term enough. Infinety circles can get destroyed, eaten by daemons or tyranids. Sooner or later slanesh gets you. Unless you are exceededly bitter and want to fight her. Both Eldrad and Vect tend to think about the late/endgame. The Ynari probably also have an agenda.

Corsairs tend to be Path of the Outcast Craftworlders. Don't they continue to use soulstones? DE can get by on piracy, but only if they get enough torture/etc in to feed Slanesh.

A Dark Eldar can't just go hide, because all Eldar are consumed quickly (from an Eldar perspective) if they are not protected from Slanesh. DE gain this protection by inflicting pain on others - so to stop doing that, they'll need to find another source. Niiai listed them above.

Yeah, anyone who comes from a Craftworld keeps their spirit stone except Harlequins.

I am not shure I would want a S stone in Khomorag. They do nasty stuff with them.

Anyway, I get puzzled by the headline "good". Dark Eldars are the worstvof the worst. But regular eldar are really bad as well. Their psykie is not safe for other races. Even with the path system they summon the avatar and the whole craft world gets their warface on like it was an instruction for the Borg. They are certanly not nice.

 Niiai wrote:
I am not shure I would want a S stone in Khomorag. They do nasty stuff with them.

Anyway, I get puzzled by the headline "good". Dark Eldars are the worstvof the worst. But regular eldar are really bad as well. Their psykie is not safe for other races. Even with the path system they summon the avatar and the whole craft world gets their warface on like it was an instruction for the Borg. They are certanly not nice.

That's a bit of an exaggeration. They get really angry but that's it and technically nobody summons the Avatar. It wakes itself up. Must be pretty awful knowing that at any moment your literal god of war who tried to exterminate your race could wake up.

He doesn't "wake himself up" randomly. There's a ritual. Some lucky soul (I believe it's considered an honor) is selected as the Young King or whatever, and gets sent into the chamber the Craftworld keeps their fragment of Khaine in. It spends 3 days or something like that killing him, with the cries of the Young King psyking up the Craftworlders. So the Craftworlders choose when to wake the Red Handed God, the God of murder. And as the cries of the Young King echo, the entire Craftworld goes all bloodlusty. After 3 days of that, the Avatar of Khaine emerges. Until he gets punched in the face by the Marine hero Du Jour, and "dies" again, of course.

Side note: Something always felt chilling about hearing this in DoW I, even though I knew nothing of the fluff:

"I..... Am Khaela Mensha Khaiiinee. ..."

Bharring wrote:
He doesn't "wake himself up" randomly. There's a ritual. Some lucky soul (I believe it's considered an honor) is selected as the Young King or whatever, and gets sent into the chamber the Craftworld keeps their fragment of Khaine in. It spends 3 days or something like that killing him, with the cries of the Young King psyking up the Craftworlders. So the Craftworlders choose when to wake the Red Handed God, the God of murder. And as the cries of the Young King echo, the entire Craftworld goes all bloodlusty. After 3 days of that, the Avatar of Khaine emerges. Until he gets punched in the face by the Marine hero Du Jour, and "dies" again, of course.

Side note: Something always felt chilling about hearing this in DoW I, even though I knew nothing of the fluff:

"I..... Am Khaela Mensha Khaiiinee. ..."

Actually it's a bit of both, when it feels that war is at hand the Avatar will start to wake up on it's own but to fully awake and join in the fight it needs the sacrifice of the Young King, which is typically an Exarch.

Bharring wrote:
He doesn't "wake himself up" randomly. There's a ritual. Some lucky soul (I believe it's considered an honor) is selected as the Young King or whatever, and gets sent into the chamber the Craftworld keeps their fragment of Khaine in. It spends 3 days or something like that killing him, with the cries of the Young King psyking up the Craftworlders. So the Craftworlders choose when to wake the Red Handed God, the God of murder. And as the cries of the Young King echo, the entire Craftworld goes all bloodlusty. After 3 days of that, the Avatar of Khaine emerges. Until he gets punched in the face by the Marine hero Du Jour, and "dies" again, of course.

Side note: Something always felt chilling about hearing this in DoW I, even though I knew nothing of the fluff:

"I..... Am Khaela Mensha Khaiiinee. ..."

He wakes up a bit as battle approaches but the Young King is sacrificed to do it properly. I guess it's an honour because it's one of the few ways Exarchs can actually die properly.

That made me love the Avatar. I think there was another version where it said "I am Khaela Mensha Khaine......and I have come to destroy you."

The full waking of the Avatar requires sacrifice in the form of the Young King. Now there has been conflict within the GW background about whether the sacrifice is Exarch or Aspect Warrior. Gav Thorpe's writings portray Exarch. However the 2nd edition Codex states Aspect Warrior. My personal view is that Aspect Warrior is a better fit...why? See below:

The entire ritual of the Young King sacrifice is a symbolic re-enactment of the battle between Eldanesh, mythological Adam-like figure for the Eldar, and Khaine. Gav Thorpe's Path of the Warrior novel states that Khaine struck Eldanesh down after Eldanesh refused to swear fealty to Khaine in return for bloody supremacy over mortal life. Eldanesh's blood was caught in 7 cups by his followers and kept away from Khaine, and the Cup of Criel in the Avatar waking ritual symbolizes this.

Since the Avatar is basically a fragment of Khaine (i.e. a daemon), possessing an iron statue, it requires something to energize it just as daemons of other gods require warp energy either in the form of souls or Chaos rituals/sacrifices in order to power them. A symbolic re-enactment of one of the most significant Eldar mythological moments fits such criteria. However since Eldanesh was struck down for refusing to give himself (and the rest of the Eldar) up to Khaine, the sacrifice of an Aspect Warrior is more appropriate since an Aspect Warrior is not trapped on the Path of the Warrior (i.e. not lost to Khaine). An Exarch is and thus IMO an Exarch as sacrifice does not mesh with the symbolic significance of Eldanesh as the Young King.

You could argue that the ritual isn't about reenacting Eldanesh dying but instead it's an act of sacrifice by a priest for their god. Exarch's have become trapped because they have too much anger or bloodlust or similar issues and become trapped on one of Khaine's paths. Another way of viewing that is that they fell to Khaine much like falling Chaos so in the same way Chaos cultists sacrifice innocents for their gods Khaines priests sacrifice themselves.

pm713 wrote:
You could argue that the ritual isn't about reenacting Eldanesh dying but instead it's an act of sacrifice by a priest for their god. Exarch's have become trapped because they have too much anger or bloodlust or similar issues and become trapped on one of Khaine's paths. Another way of viewing that is that they fell to Khaine much like falling Chaos so in the same way Chaos cultists sacrifice innocents for their gods Khaines priests sacrifice themselves.

Except the ritual is about Eldanesh, as the title of Young King is explicitly given in the Eldar novels as Eldanesh's old title (Path of the Warrior, p. 331). Similarly the Cup of Criel is specifically written as being in reference to the cups of blood catching Eldanesh's blood (Path of the Warrior, p. 333). These are not merely my own personal interpretations.

The sacrifice fills the role of Eldanesh and the other key items again all relate to Eldanesh. Eldanesh went to battle Khaine while wielding Anaris, a sword originally meant to be among the 100 Swords of Vaul. The Young King holds the Avatar's own weapon just as Eldanesh wielded one of Khaine's weapons. So we have the sacrifice having Eldanesh's old title, wielding the war god's own weapon as Eldanesh did, and carrying a cup symbolic of Eldanesh's bleeding. The ceremony ends essentially with the blood of the Young King dripping off the Avatar's hand, like how Khaine's hand dripped with Eldanesh's blood. Seriously, with all these links how can it be viewed as anything other than a symbolic re-enactment?

It also only makes sense for that sacrifice to internally fill that role, beyond just carrying the outward implements. Eldanesh specifically rejected an existence given over to Khaine. An "innocent" (i.e. one who is not already given over fully to Khaine) therefore fits that role better than one that is already fully trapped by Khaine.

I'm not sure that there's enough fluff to suggest it needs to be an Aspect Warrior. But you make a good point about an Exarch.

Another reason it can't be an Exarch is because the Young King is dressed in a specific fashion. An Exarch is bound to it's armor. Even if it took it off, then it's "body" were "killed", it's spirit is still part of the Exarch - in the armor.

When that armor is donned by the next poor soul who got Lost on the Path, their soul merges with that of the Exarch - which is an amalgamation of all former Aspect Warriors who became that Exarch. So Khaine killing their body isn't nearly the same sacrifice as a non-Exarch. (Side note - Phoenix Lords behave similarly, but their personalities have so many souls in them, that each additional wearer is lost in the noise - making no notable impact on the psyche of the Phoenix Lord.)

Symbolic is a bit wishy washy. Symbolic means non-literal. And that is true. But the young king gets sacreficed. I do not know what happens to the soul, the avatar never caries out a soulstone, so I always asumed he/she was consumed.

I always figured the soul of the Young King was absorbed by what’s left of Khaine and added to itself and, by this means, as well as personally murdering a few hundred enemies per awakening, Khaine is trying to reconstitute himself. He might even come out of it stronger overall, should he succeed, as there is no implied cost in the iron body being destroyed, save that it needs to regrow, so he’d be all the bits he used to be, plus a few thousand extra mortal souls.

The only question that leaves is how much, if any, of the personality and will of the various Young Kings survives?

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The only question that leaves is how much, if any, of the personality and will of the various Young Kings survives?

I'd guess the soul is what actually directs the Avatar against the present enemy of the Craftworld through it's knowledge of why the Avatar was awakened. Whatever happens to it after the Avatar once again ceases activity is another matter entirely - maybe Khaine collects it and keeps it safe?

All sources on Khains points to him being a really bad entety. Keeping a soul safe is not something that would come natural for him. Destroying more so.

Khaine does not have the best view of Eldars in general.

Eh. I bet his opinion of Slaanesh is worse.

I recommend reading the dark eldar trilogy, the incubi character portrayed being honorable.

Khaine is portrayed as the God of Murder, and is the enemy of the "mother of the Eldar" and the Maker and the Hunter - but he's still portrayed as loyal to Asuryan.

I took it as a part of Eldar culture that one of their Gods, a member of the pantheon they serve, really cuts both ways. Slays enemies and friends. But that's what war does. I thought they still revered him (not just feared him).

I agree that it'd make a lot more sense for him to *destroy* the soul than to protect it.

Odd that their God of War shows so few signs of protection or defense. Probably because they never needed any.

We know very little of the eldar origins. Weather they where artificialy made by the old once or just altered, either in an evolelucionistic sence or just culturarly and technological.

We do not know if the first eldar gods where old ones, eldar, fiction or actual goods that later pased into a cultural framework. We do know that after a while they did manifest in some form as what can be described as goods (read daemons.)

Thr chaos dimension might also have been different at this point as well. At some point all the fighting in the glaxy messed up and we got the chaos forces we know today. (This might be up to some debate as time to the extension we understand it today does not behave in the same way in that dimension.)

Then at some point the eldar psykie / depravaties becomes so great it manifests slanesh. She then goes onto killing the other gods, either metaphorically, just converts the energy from old goda to new, or just literarly. 3 gods survive. The one in the nurgle garden, khaine (the one with most physical evidence this happened) and the laughing good (with anecdotal evidence). And later they have started manifeating avatara of a god yet to come.

But what is a good eldar? We are talking a race that are so pyscic potent they manifest gods. A race that is so deprived they must all strugle not to do hedonistic and masocistic acts on a day to day basis. Who evolved from just manifesting goda to manifesting one that eats them. The eldar as a species is just wrong. I would not call them good in any sence of the word.

Eldar don't need to constantly fight to avoid hedonism any more than we do. They just take extreme measures to avoid it. Humans also manifest a load of gods. None of that makes Eldar inherently bad. In the scheme of 40k they are decent people.

I think Khaine can exist without the sacrifice. The sacrifice just speeds things up and puts some Eldar into the mix so to speak. The bit of Eldar inside the Avatar ensures that after slaying the Craftworlds enemies he goes back to sleep rather than starting to fight the Eldar.
Khaine is the god of war but the ELDAR god of war. So he'll fight the non Eldar in defence of the Eldar but he'll be okay killing Eldar too is how I see it.