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Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut




Were soulstones part of the pre-Fall era tech or were they created after the awakening of Slaanesh? I was looking at Craftworlds being used as vessels to escape during pre-Fall and they have Infinity Circuits built into them, so pre-Fall? If so, then do the Drukhari have access to them or at least the knowledge of creating them? I mean, I can understand that they have other methods to circumvent being devoured by Slaanesh, but isn't having more contingency plans better?
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







Soul stones occur only in the Crone worlds. I think they are supposed to be the crystallised remains of Elear caught by the fall. Alternatively they are some kind of bleed through of Isha’s influence into the mortal realm. Either way they were created by the fall. The eldar make raids back into the eye to find new stones. It’s pretty dangerous.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/14 18:36:18


Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





The last explanation I read was that dark eldar can not use soul stones after they lost their psychic potential.
   
Made in gb
Slaanesh Chosen Marine Riding a Fiend





Port Carmine

There might be contradictory fluff, but as said by Flinty, Soul Stones are the remains of the Aeldari drained by Slaanesh during The Fall, and are only found on the Crone Worlds

Drukhari could use them, but they are scarce (they can't be created), and very hazardous to recover.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/14 21:40:10


VAIROSEAN LIVES! 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






On this one, I’ll need to delve into my Old Books.

One thing I can say for certain is that there are Way Stones and Soul Stones.

It’s Way Stones that every Craftworld (and possibly Exodite, again I’ll need to refresh my memory) Eldar wears as a matter of habit.

Way Stones are a fairly temporary measure, something to capture the soul at the moment of death, but not a permanent storage.

Once gathered, the contents of Way Stones are then transferred into the (I assume, again need to read up) more complex and certainly more permanent Soul Stones.

Now in think about it, I’m fairly certain Way Stones are melded into the Infinity Circuit, releasing their contents into a sort of afterlife about as safe as safe can be from Slaanesh.

It’s only when a Wraith Construct needs a pilot that a Soulstone is then extruded from the Infinity Circuit.

I’ve a feeling a lot of this was first properly set down in the 2nd Ed Eldar codex, which I don’t currently own. But I’ll delve into what I’ve got and try to offer citation when I remember

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Ummmmm akshu-hally...

So there's a bit of contradictory fluff around spirit stones. Eldar myth says they're "tears of Isha" that fall through to the material world (or at least the crone worlds) to let Isha's children communicate with her. Other fluff (mostly novels) implies that they're the remnants of eldar souls from the fall.

No one really "crafts" the stones; they're harvested from crone worlds. That said, drukhari don't like wearing them because their fellow drukhari are dicks who are likely to spend the rest of eternity tormenting their trapped souls. They see spirit stones as similar to djinn blades and soul traps: something you do to your enemies and never a fate you succumb to yourself.

Way stones are just spirit stones without a soul in them. Technically, the gems you see on eldar models' chests are (mostly) waystones waiting to catch their souls when they die. It's the difference between a full and empty USB drive. I believe there *is* fluff about merging a spirit stone into the infinity circuit, but there's also definitely old fluff where that isn't the case. The 2nd edition eldar codex talks about spirits called banshees (the namesake of the howling banshee aspect warriors) who use their screams to shove eldar souls into the warp at the time their souls are being uploaded from the spirit stone to the infinity circuit.

Whether or not spirit stones were a thing pre-fall is a bit unclear. We occassionally see presumably pre-fall eldar relics and ruins that utilize what appear to be spirit stones (or something very similar), but also the Phoenix Lord novels make it seem like spirit stones and the popularization of infinity circuits were a post-fall phenomenon carried to the craftworlds by Asurmen and pals.

My headcanon is that shiny rocks were commonly used prefall as a tool/psychic interface. Maybe they could even hold the space magic equivalent of an AI. (I think there's a brief mention of a caffeteria drone in the Asurmen novel). But putting *people* into them was considered taboo. Given that craftworlders seem to need to attune themselves to a waystone for them to work, I suspect intentionallly trapping someone's soul in one is tough to pull off without their cooperation. Over time, drukhari retained some of the psycho-reactive tech (as discussed in the Jain Zar novel), but their psychic abilities have become too vestigial to utilize the same kind of psychic controls the craftworlders use.

EDIT: Oh, and here's a cool tidbit: On Iyanden, there are spooky wraith trees that have grown up in abandoned parts of the craftworld. They're grown from the spirit stones of dead eldar that people were too slow to recover. So while we have plenty of instances of spirit stones being used as wargear, it seems like it is important that they not be left to stew in their own death-related trauma for too long.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/15 00:57:55



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




I do have the 2nd edition Eldar Codex and have used it for reference for this post.

Spirit stones and Waystones are now used somewhat interchangeably now by GW, whereas originally there was a differentiation with Waystones being a short term holding device.

Spirit stones are formed from psycho-active crystal that occurs around areas of warp/realspace overlap, such as the Eye of Terror. So that suggests the Crone Worlds would not be the only source. However GW in its more recent flanderization or attempt to be grimdark seems to have more recently shown spiritstone recovery as occurring only on the Crone Worlds and the stones being formed from the trapped souls of Eldar at the time of the Fall. Specifically in the Path of the Outcast novel, the characters see the ghosts/souls of the Eldar at the time of the Fall enacting their last moments, and then the souls transform to the stones. The characters snatch up as many as they can before the stones dematerialize again (to then repeat the cycle again though not clear how long each cycle is).

This can be then how one squares with the whole "Tears of Isha" myth. Any original pre-fall stones, aka Tears of Isha, were formed from warp/realspace overlap. It's just that now the biggest such instance is the Eye of Terror and the Crone Worlds so that is now the biggest source of stones for the Craftworlds.

Dark Eldar can enter spirit stones but they don't like it as it is the equivalent of being in a solitary confinement prison (since they also don't have any Infinity Circuits to upload the captured soul to), so they don't use them. However Dark Eldar in certain circumstances in novels have been captured in their dying moments by spirit stones. In the Eldar Path novels, there is a Dark Eldar character that permanently switches to Craftworld society and successfully bonds with a spirit stone after a bit of a mental struggle (this is featured in a short story by Gav Thorpe).

The Iyanden Supplement details that it was Iyanden that first pioneered the Infinity Circuit in its current form as a permanent refuge for the dead. Iyanden now has areas of runaway wraithbone growth from when it suddenly lost 4/5 of its population against Hive Fleet Kraken. Normally the Bonesingers are meant to keep things under control but they were overwhelmed by the scale of the effort and have now ceded over these overgrown areas to the dead. Although not necessarily actively malevolent to living Eldar, these ghost halls are unsettling and can induce madness in those that cannot handle it. Think of a haunted house.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





In one of the recent Fabius bile books they summon a keeper of secrets on a craft world they attack. The keeer of secrets goes around picking up souls tones and breaking them open and drinking their souls.

I thought that souls stones were a device created to store the soul at pint of death to stop it going into the warp and being eaten by slaneesh. Eldar souls then just stay in the stone but can interact with each other in the infinity circuit, like an after lift eldar, and then the souls stones can be put into robot and the soul can drive them.

Almost certain a lot but f this is head fluff though as I’ve never been an authority on eldar
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





mrFickle wrote:
In one of the recent Fabius bile books they summon a keeper of secrets on a craft world they attack. The keeer of secrets goes around picking up souls tones and breaking them open and drinking their souls.

I thought that souls stones were a device created to store the soul at pint of death to stop it going into the warp and being eaten by slaneesh. Eldar souls then just stay in the stone but can interact with each other in the infinity circuit, like an after lift eldar, and then the souls stones can be put into robot and the soul can drive them.

Almost certain a lot but f this is head fluff though as I’ve never been an authority on eldar


The impression I get is that spirit stones that are used in tech are basically the combination battery/computer processor for that piece of tech. So if the KoS is going around plucking stones from the scenery and finding they have souls in them, maybe those stones contained spirits that were being temporarily held in place to accomplish a specific task. Souls within the infinity circuit tend to have trouble focusing. Maybe isolating them (taking them away from the "noise of the crowd" as it were) helps to keep them from falling back into their spirit fugue state.

What book was that, btw? I enjoyed Manflayer, but i don't recall the scene you're describing. Primogenitor maybe?


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in gb
Walking Dead Wraithlord






The way I understood it, soul stones are pre-fall eldar psymantic material which they can no longer reporduce and can only harvest. Its found in crone worlds, or worlds that were inhabited by eldar at the time of the fall. When an entire population of a world went and got wooshed and gobbled up by slanesh & its psychic scream.

They left behind a "dead world" where those that were near these stones left an echo of their souls.

Current Eldar use this technology to store their souls at the moment of their death and subsequently have their spirirt pass into the infinity circuit of their respective craftworld which allows them to "sleep" for ever or until they are needed to rise up in defence and pilot wraith constructs.

What i'd wana know is; is being wraithlorded permanent?

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/772746.page#10378083 - My progress/failblog painting blog thingy

Eldar- 4436 pts


AngryAngel80 wrote:
I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "


 Eonfuzz wrote:


I would much rather everyone have a half ass than no ass.


"A warrior does not seek fame and honour. They come to him as he humbly follows his path"  
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Argive wrote:

What i'd wana know is; is being wraithlorded permanent?


No it is not.

In the novel Vaeldor, Iyanna's accompanying Wraithlord (which unusually had the stones of a Fire Dragon Exarch, after the shrine and armor had been destroyed) could give up its stones when the Fire Dragon shrine was rebuilt and new Exarch armor made.
   
Made in es
Swift Swooping Hawk





 Argive wrote:
The way I understood it, soul stones are pre-fall eldar psymantic material which they can no longer reporduce and can only harvest. Its found in crone worlds, or worlds that were inhabited by eldar at the time of the fall. When an entire population of a world went and got wooshed and gobbled up by slanesh & its psychic scream.

They left behind a "dead world" where those that were near these stones left an echo of their souls.

Current Eldar use this technology to store their souls at the moment of their death and subsequently have their spirirt pass into the infinity circuit of their respective craftworld which allows them to "sleep" for ever or until they are needed to rise up in defence and pilot wraith constructs.

What i'd wana know is; is being wraithlorded permanent?


If i remember properly in the Asurmen novel they mention the Eldar empire had Soulstones or more properly named Waystones before the fall those were fairly rare and mostly used for long distance psychic comunication across the space.

This will fit with the Isha ways of communicating with their childs mythos, and after the Fall the Eldar learned how to use those (after gathering them in larger numbers from Crone Worlds) as a failsafe mechanism to avoid being devoured by Slaanesh.
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut



UK

mrFickle wrote:
In one of the recent Fabius bile books they summon a keeper of secrets on a craft world they attack. The keeer of secrets goes around picking up souls tones and breaking them open and drinking their souls.

A callback (intended or otherwise) to an older piece, might have been in Codex Titanicus, or possibly just a Dwarf article, can't recall now, where a KoS kills a Banshee and is then described plucking her soulstone from her body and popping it in its mouth "like a delicious sweetmeat". Following a moment of stunned horror the Craftworld force took it as well as you'd expect

Ended as a reprise a few pages later with the named seer looking on the corpses stacked in pyres, remembering how the girl would dance at festivals and now never would again, and refused to take off his mask (in more ways than one) until a Phantom (hence why I think it may have been C:T) 'lovingly' ignited the fires with a crack of its pulse laser. It's stuck with me ever since, as you can obviously tell!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/17 11:48:14


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Pilum wrote:
mrFickle wrote:
In one of the recent Fabius bile books they summon a keeper of secrets on a craft world they attack. The keeer of secrets goes around picking up souls tones and breaking them open and drinking their souls.

A callback (intended or otherwise) to an older piece, might have been in Codex Titanicus, or possibly just a Dwarf article, can't recall now, where a KoS kills a Banshee and is then described plucking her soulstone from her body and popping it in its mouth "like a delicious sweetmeat". Following a moment of stunned horror the Craftworld force took it as well as you'd expect

Ended as a reprise a few pages later with the named seer looking on the corpses stacked in pyres, remembering how the girl would dance at festivals and now never would again, and refused to take off his mask (in more ways than one) until a Phantom (hence why I think it may have been C:T) 'lovingly' ignited the fires with a crack of its pulse laser. It's stuck with me ever since, as you can obviously tell!


WD127

reproduced here:
https://members.tripod.com/Craft_Worlds/Warlocks_Journey.htm

The Craftworld in question is Iyanden as it makes reference to Farseer Kelmon. The same Warlock character Karhedron also features in the internal fiction of the 2nd edition Eldar Codex.
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






I really wish RT had offered an Eldar book or books to match the Orky and Chaos ones (Chaos ones provided a lot of info on The Emperor, too)

   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut



UK



And here I said a Dwarf article, it's THE Dwarf article as far as the elves is concerned! How could I misplace it?
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




I think the was some 3rd or 4th edition lore about soulstones being the crystallised hearts of elder and they are filled with the Eldars regret and hidden passion explaining why Slaaanesh wants them.

They might also being some ancient lore about Orks being connected to them explaining why they are soulstones on the Ork Weirdboy model, I dunno.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/18 16:15:50


 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Because soulstones are shiny and have voices the Weirdboy can hear. It looks and sounds magic so it helps with magic powers, see.
   
Made in au
Anti-Armour Swiss Guard






Newcastle, OZ

I personally prefer the story of the human planetary governor who had Eldar dignitaries killed, and then wore their stones as jewellery.

The Harlequins paid him a visit, recovered the stones and gave him to the dark kin to play with. Told as a historical piece (implying it had been several extended human lifetimes since).
"They say he still screams to this day ..."

I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.

That is not dead which can eternal lie ...

... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
 
   
Made in es
Swift Swooping Hawk





 chromedog wrote:
I personally prefer the story of the human planetary governor who had Eldar dignitaries killed, and then wore their stones as jewellery.

The Harlequins paid him a visit, recovered the stones and gave him to the dark kin to play with. Told as a historical piece (implying it had been several extended human lifetimes since).
"They say he still screams to this day ..."


Yeah love that one, it's being told as an Eldar teachs the history to some youngsters how they burned the planet down (not the Harlequins they just delivered the stones to Commorragh) and it's not implied, the story does mention the Governor being alive far more than 500 hundred years under the Dark Kin care.

It's quite an interesting bit of lore that even Dark Eldar get angry with Humans using Eldar souls as decorations even if those are just Craftworlders.
   
 
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