I was of Telennar long ago, I have been a Corsair, and a Harlequin, I even lived for a time in Commorragh - now I am a seer for the Altansar - who speak only in whispers: and who know the warp better even than I do. I face no such fear of excommunication as I would amongst the insular worlds, and even if I did - I would tread once more upon the path of the outcast.

We can and we will cure the Prince of Pleasure, for he was created by us - and she will be recreated by us.

Ynnead is stronger than just Asuryan, as I mentioned - Ynnead will be an amalgamation of the powers of almost all our gods - for they each reside - in some small part - in the hearts of all Eldar. Khaela lives within us - that is why almost any Eldar may become an Avatar when in dire times, and Asuryan as you say chose to enter us, Morai-heg still grants us her foresight even in death, and Lileath her dreams. Vaul was our mentor in craft, and we are superlative at it amongst the stars - we study his works - for we still carry the weapons forged by a god: his pursuit of perfection is like bushido to us, it is the way of our paths.

It is even, as I said - Slaanesh herself - for she houses part of the beautiful love and lust and pleasure and excess that our people were permitted to once revel in: that we must now de-emphasize for it alone became sentient amongst all our many virtues. But Slaanesh is not like the rest of our gods, for they all pre-dated the Eldar, Slaanesh is our peril and our creation.

When Ynnead manifests, she will be not be just our revelry - but our discipline - our skill, our mastery, our dreams, our leadership: for the paths teach us to embody, in some infinitesimal part - our other gods. What emerges will not simply be our excess - existing in isolation (Slaanesh) - but all of our collective consciousness. All that we have learned through quadrillions of Eldar years contained within the infinity circuits. Ynnead will consume Slaanesh, and gain all the souls that Slaanesh keeps - and we will be merged once more with our pleasure, too.

This galaxy is but a pawn to our grand design. Even Isha, Nurgle, Cegorach, and Slaanesh - are but pieces on the road to Ynnead. Ynnead is the culmination of all Eldar achievement ever - she will be greater than any god or galaxy. She will be all of us at once, in all ways, and forever. To rule a galaxy is a trivial thing, in comparison to ascension beyond existence.

I'm quite sure he is something, perhaps in addition to being Ronahn - for what is Ronahn but a name - a masque

We know that the Rhana Dandra will occur. Our seers see it as a swirling vortex - beyond which they cannot see: there is no way around it. Some see that we will cause it ourselves, too. Others think that we can survive it. We know that it is inevitable, what we do not know is when, or why, or exactly how terrible it will be.

If Ynnead is the recreation of Slaanesh, fused with all that we have learned since Her birth via the paths - then Ynnead is also a hermaphrodite - and his gender is as mercurial as Her will. The truth is that we do not know how Ynnead will choose to be, nor if she will take a gendered form at all - he may not see the need to identify: for if we should succeed in birthing Ynnead, and if Ynnead should succeed in consuming Slaanesh, then he will be of a power beyond all equals. What purpose would a gender serve, when you are beyond any mate? All are possible outcomes still - for the path has not yet narrowed.

@Yvaelle ;
Do you have any basis in the 'normal' background for your .. interpretations?

The Eldar background:
most of the Gods were eaten, and destroyed.
Slaanesh blocks the rebirth of eldar.

Ynnead, the god of the death, would re-open the rebirthing, allowing perhaps even the gods to be reborn anew.

You state that Ynnead would be the recreation of Slaanesh, and hermaphrodite..
Slaanesh may well have been created by the eldar; however She who Thirsts is not only an eldar god; unlike the eldar gods Slaanesh resides in the warp; also where-as at birth Slaanesh may have been 100% fuelled by eldar (god) souls, this is no longer the case:
Craftworld eldar and exodites use spirit stones or world spirits to prevent their souls being eaten by Slaanesh. The Harlequins rely on Cegorach.
That leaves the dark eldar..
Meanwhile however, Slaanesh also feeds on humans, and on other, smaller species' emotions and souls.



The way I see things happening: (and I have no strong basis in the background for this)
Eldar gods consumed by Slaanesh= gone.
Ynnead is born, rebirthing Khaine, as an Eldar god, and Isha, again as an eldar god.
This results in 4 eldar gods being alive: Khaine, Ynnead, Isha and Cegorach.
Eldar with intact souls (= not devoured by Slaanesh; so mostly in the infinity circuits) are reborn.
Slaanesh is denied Eldar souls through Ynnead, weakening him/her. Then I would say, destroyed by Khaine+Ynnead.
Now,
I could see new eldar gods being born, through Ynnead, but not "Asuryan's back, no problem"
Another option: the 4 remaining eldar gods breed.

However, note that we now have 4 Eldar gods, much like we have 4 Chaos gods.
We already have followers of Khaine (aspect warriors, Exarchs, Phoenix lords,.. follow Khaine)
and followers of Cegorach: the Harlequins, pretty much.
With Slaanesh destroyed, a new balance is achieved, where some eldar worship Ynnead, some Isha, some worship all 4 gods. The worship influences the power level of the eldar gods.
Because Slaanesh is destroyed, some eldar will abandon the "path" lifestyle, and the Dark Eldar will change pretty drastically too. The psychic energy of their emotions, over the entire eldar race, steers the birth of new eldar gods. This process is tempered by the horror of the fall, and Ynnead, preventing a new EYE-accident.

What specifically do you take issue with, because a) most of the rest of your post restates things I've said, and b) the specifics of Ynnead and the Eldar end-game are yet unwritten, therefore open to the interpretation of seers like myself

It's unclear in w40k whether a god can truly kill another god. Slaanesh consumed them, whether that means they actually ceased to exist in all forms is open to interpretation. The Lore is careful to say that Ynnead will defeat Slaanesh, never "destroy". It may also be a metaphorical consumption, rather than a violent physical act of god-cannibalism: which may make more sense for non-corporeal beings. Slaanesh's will being so powerful that it overshadows the other gods, that it blots out their relationship to the Eldar, or that it denies them their agency to act as gods - but to claim they were outright destroyed is unsubstantiated to my knowledge.

Slaanesh similarly consumes the souls of all Eldar, and grows in power for each soul consumed. Given that Slaanesh was born of the psychic will of our people, and grows by gaining more of the psychic will of the Eldar, it is my assertion that he is the psychic legacy of our people, that our people in some sense become Slaanesh: we are absorbed into Her will - just as we are absorbed into an (albeit artificial) Infinity Circuit.

Further, the Eldar talk of Slaanesh as being not just a death, but a grizzly - hellish experience of eternal torture and depravity. The Eldar do not fear dying when they need to die, but they do fear losing their soulstones - they fear joining Slaanesh - that implies that Eldar sentience is retained after consumption by Slaanesh. That supports both my above assertions - that Slaanesh contains within her the psychic sentience of all consumed Eldar, and therefore perhaps also the consumed gods of the old Eldar pantheon.

The Eldar believe Ynnead will allow them to ascend into something greater:

"They believe that when the Infinity Circuits hold all the spirits of their race, all of the Craftworlds will unite into one Infinity Circuit, and the collective spirits of the Eldar will join to form a new Power in the Warp that will battle and subdue Slaanesh, so that Eldar spirits may once more be able to merge with it and form a single, balanced entity. By doing so, if such a thing is possible, they hope that this will allow the Eldar race to be reborn into a better form." - Ynnead

Ynnead therefore does not simply mean an end to Slaanesh's tyranny, but an ascension for the Eldar beyond mortality.

She is a god born entirely from the Eldar will - not older than the galaxy - not born of Chaos like Khorne or Nurgle - a god born of mortal people (the Eldar, specifically). In this way, Slaanesh is unique amongst all other gods in w40k: until Ynnead is born by the exact same means - then there will be two. She is not like the other Chaos gods, not like the C'tan, not like the Ork gods, nor like the Eldar pantheon.

When She was born, She fed upon 10,000 Eldar worlds at the height of our Empire - each more glorious than any world left in this dismal galaxy. All the souls since, by comparison, are hardly sustaining her - She wants more Eldar.

Thus we deny her ourselves, but do not teach the Mon'keigh to wear soulstones as we do - for we could feed a trillion hu-mans to the Ruinous Powers and she would be no more or less powerful than she is now. Humans are like celery to her, they cost more calories to consume than they provide. We're candy. If eating humans could empower Slaanesh, we'd care enough to help them deny our enemy - but they afford her nothing - so we can't be bothered.

Your supposition, just to be clear, as mentioned it's intentionally ambiguous in the lore.

Khaine and Isha aren't dead. Isha is chilling with Nurgle for protection from Slaanesh, because those two are friends - Isha makes things, Nurgle wrecks them - they play Civilization together

Khaine lives on within the Eldar: shattered, but not gone.

And Slaanesh, she's still part of the modern pantheon even if we don't like her - also apart from Ynnead - they're all already alive again.

Not simply reborn as Eldar, ascended into something beyond mortality.

The denial of souls to Slaanesh, by giving them to Ynnead is one of my assertions - I think it's a fair one - but just to be clear you're agreeing with me. I'm not sure any god can be truly destroyed, though.

Not how I meant it, the old pantheon is embodied in the Eldar's actions - the paths of war teach us of Khaine, and Khaine resides within us: but he is relatively unique. Our craftworlds are temples to Isha, garden planets of the greatest beauty we can conceive to craft: but our skill at gardening doesn't actually make us Isha. Our dedication to the mastery of crafts is our devotion to Vaul - we emulate his works - but that doesn't mean he's physically within us. We attempt to scry the future, to emulate Morai-heg, but this does not make us her: she too is within Slaanesh, or dead.

So it's nothing so simple as, "and thenYnnead stabbed Slaanesh to death, and then Asuryan leapt out of her stomach" - either Asuryan lurks as some small part of the Eldar, or lurks as some small part of Slaanesh, or simply our post-Fall commitment to vision and leadership represents the memory of Asuryan: enacted within our carefully crafted will and determination of our people after The Fall.

I suggest they are reflected in our actions, and thus our will and psychic mindset even in death, but not necessarily physically within us. Our maturity as a people now reflects all the virtues of each god in our pantheon - and this is how we craft Ynnead. Not simply through the excess and vanity of our Empire, which spawned Slaanesh.

Most pantheons have children and demi-gods - that w40k doesn't I think means that our gods don't really work this way. They don't simply have sexytime to make new-god-babies, or else in all existence - some of them would have done it already.

All Eldar worship all our gods, it isn't a pick-and-choose scenario. Some paths may emphasize one god's associations over another - Gea as The Path of Service - for example, or The Paths of War for Khaine - but I don't think the parallel to Chaos worship / Chaos Undivided is appropriate.

If I'm right, the Eldar won't be Eldar anymore once Ynnead is born and we ascend: therefore we may not need the paths at all - for we may live as the gods themselves do. Extra-dimensional immortals - or even as a singular collective consciousness: Ynnead.

Which assumes we go about being mortals after Ynnead, but again:

"By doing so, if such a thing is possible, they hope that this will allow the Eldar race to be reborn into a better form. "

Canon, as much as we have it, is that we're anticipating not simply continued mortal existence - but something better.

We're going quite off-topic from Wraith's talking, but at least it relates to the eldar background and it is interesting!

I suppose I have a different vision of the ascension.. I saw that part as eldar myth, and that it would be a metaphor for the eldar becoming an empire once again, better than before. (and some new gods around).

Thanks for the reply, I can't comment on everything, but here goes some .. questions and different opinions I suppose.

1) In the "eldar transcend" scenario: in your opinion, what happens to Khaine, and Isha? These are a bit polar opposites: Khaine now exists as shards in the material world, Isha lingers on in the warp. Bonus question: what happens to Cegorach? The only Eldar god still in original form (*debatable)?
(*: Asuryan seperated the mortals and the gods. In doing so, did Cegorach change form somehow; becoming a warp-entity? Is this seperation still "active" after Asuryan's demise (Khaine was cast into the mortal realm, shattered..), Cegorach hides in the webway.. Eldar use the webway..
The supposed seperation can't have been so perfect; Isha's tears bypassed it, and Eldanesh fought Khaine, with a sword..)


2) Slaanesh unique: to be honest, I'm not so sure She is so different from the other gods. They all feed on the emotions of psychic races. Chaos is pretty heavily effected by the emotions of the psychic races, and I think could be argued to be the emotions of psychic races. Slaanesh got a boost-start from the Eldar. Regardless of the unique origin, I'm rather convinced now Slaanesh feeds on human souls much like Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch do, or indeed on other races. Perhaps Slaanesh has the highest preference for Eldar souls, but I'd imagine Tzeentch being pretty interested in some Eldar worship too, Nurgle took in Isha, etc.
Slaanesh is also the most torturous to the eldar, but Chaos as a whole is an enemy to the Eldar, including Nurgle, Khorne & Tzeentch. (Ahriman trying to enter the Black Library,..)


3) WH40K Eldar gods not having children etc.
Is Lileath not the daughter of Isha?
Are the Eldar not the children of Isha and Kornuous?
(see Lexicanum)

In eldar myth, the first eldar were the brothers Eldanesh and Ulthanash.. not a very good starting point to begin a new race..

In all of the above, it is rather taken from the eldar myths; they could be metaphors, etc.
However, it is known there were Old Ones, it is known there was a war against the necrontyr, (war in heaven nr?)
but we also know there are Avatars of Khaine. Thus Khaine existed. Thus the other gods exist. Thus Cegorach still exists. And the eldar myths could well be true.


Ynnead being born could get pretty interesting:
if Ynnead reclaims the vast psychic mass that is the eldar souls that created Slaanesh, does Slaanesh deflate to being only sustained by human souls, and does the Eye of Terror close? That could be.. pretty inconvenient for a few legions...

Never let a topic get in the way of an interesting discussion

That's certainly one way to interpret it - though my Eldar pride says that given we are already the most glorious, most artful, most intelligent, most beautiful, and most long-lived race in the galaxy - we have nowhere to go upward except God-hood: we've hit the glass ceiling of mortality

Given Khaine is shattered amongst the mortal Eldar, the act of combining all the galaxies Eldar souls at the Rhana Dandra - to birth Ynnead - will intentionally reunite the shards of Khaine. Whether he too merges with Ynnead, or whether he is reborn as a fully functional and separate god, or whether the sentience we call Ynnead is simply the psychic presence of Khaine reassembling as the Eldar collective psyche coalesces - remains open to interpretation: all paths are yet possible outcomes.

In that they are ephemeral psychic vampires - all gods are similar - but no other god was born of mortals: in that aspect Slaanesh is unique. The significance is debatable, but I find it fascinating that the Eldar alone have birthed a god.

We don't seem to care too much about the other Chaos gods - we thwart their plans and kill their minions of course - but our attention seems ever-focused on Slaanesh, and our plan for the galactic end-game.

I never interpreted Lileath as being a literal daughter, but that's a good point.

I usually refer to the story that the Eldar were crafted by the Old Ones. Given Eldanesh and Ulthanash were test tube babies - they were likely just the first batch.

The Harlequins occasionally hint that Cegorach is known to sometimes take the form of the Eldar and travel amongst all the Eldar (including the Dark Eldar). He's a very interactive god - definitely real - not a metaphor. Not a lot of metaphorical gods in w40k given the C'tan are real entities, and the Chaos Gods have a very active and real presence. Plus we occasionally manifest into a god of War (Khaine): so... that happens

I think Slaanesh deflates yes.

Meh, Mon'keigh are made for dying - we're helping them master their Path (The Path of Dying)

I feel like Cegorach's role is to guide the Eldar to Ynnead.

The Harlequins insight macabre massacre and dread where ever they go causing fear and making more enemies for the Eldar. In turn the Eldar must adhere to The Path all the more strictly whilst placing themselves closer to the edge of extinction, just to survive the climate of terror Cegorach's followers create. The Eldar keeping to The Path (in all it's forms) and dying are what will produce the (Warp) entity Ynnead.

Slaanesh birthed from the darker side of the Eldar's nature will feel Ynnead's birth and She will desire It more than anything He's ever felt before. Not only is Ynnead pure - in all senses of the word -Eldar spirit but also the missing half of Slaanesh. She Who Thirsts, thirsts for the things we all do. Wholeness. Love. Completion. Ynnead will see it's missing half in Slaanesh too and two halves make a whole...

Cegorach's final joke is said to be to trick Slaanesh into saving the Eldar. In practical terms Cegorach is helping birth Ynnead so Slaanesh can fall in love with It. Their coupling will reunite the dark and light aspects of the Eldar race... Creating? Who knows? An Eldar rebirth? A new pantheon of Gods to teach a younger race the folly of the Eldar so lesson of The Fall will be learnt, never to be repeated? Or maybe just bring a final, eternal peace to a dying race?

Maybe Cegorach and I share the same sense of humour cos I find the idea of Slaanesh in love pretty funny.

Really I wasn't certain we knew what the trickster's final jest would be. That would certainly be an interesting joke, but I don't think it'll end up quite the funny sort of thing if that is his goal. Though following AoS... well... it's actually plausible.

In any case, the best hint I've ever found of what's to come is apparently from the Harlequin Codex detailing how Cegorach was going to go over the Seers' heads and have a good laugh.

I must admit it was reading that passage previously that inspired my thinking.

Sorry, I fail to see how this says "Cegorach will go over the Seers' heads". The Seers have nothing to do with it (apart from being pawns, just like everyone else). As a God (plus being a trickster God) Cegorach's actions will automatically be hard for any non-follower to fathom. The Seers can only see what the possible threads of the future are. Stronger threads will be more prominent, therefore they mostly see Chaos winning and this birthing Ynnead. The Harlequins themselves had no idea until Cegorach told them through the book.

Anyway, none of this has any baring on whether Wraith constructs can talk!
Let's take this convo somewhere else; http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/thr...what-will-be-the-eldar-gods-discussion.48697/